Happy Constitution Day if anyone in Uruguay reads this…

More relevant to the rest of us, today is Nelson Mandela's birthday.  I heard on the news today that his main regret is the amount of time he spent away from his family while in prison.

So, politically incorrect trivia question of the day: why did Nelson Mandela spend 27 years in prison in the first place?  The man on the street will usually tell you that it was for his anti-apartheid non-violent resistance, but the fact is that it was for sabotage and bombings while he was head of the militant wing of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress.  I was severely disappointing to me when I found this out in my Sophomore year of college, partly because I had thought of Mandela as a hero of non-violence, but mostly because of how badly the education system I had been raised in, which was a very, very good one, had not taught me this.  If my good educational experience can't teach me something simple like that Mandela turned his back on his former ideals of nonviolence what is the average educational experience teaching children?

In other news, I'm considering not voting this election- at least not for any candidates.  I realize that that would be a huge decision, which is why I'm going to take a long, thoughtful time to come to it.  My reasoning is twofold:

1: I don't like any of the candidates.  At all.  Not even the third party ones. Or the ones running by themselves.  I've got huge philosophical problems with all of them.  I can't really decide who the greater or lesser evil is, and I disagree with them all so radically that their differences don't seem significant to me.  I feel like voting for Cthulhu.

2: This article.  Yes, that's an article about Christian Anarchy.  In it, Jacques Ellul argues that since the electoral process is bad, broken and irrevocably corrupted, we should not participate in it, making it irrelevent and letting it die.  Elections are indirect action, asking polititians to change things for the better when they have neither desire or reason to do so.  In contrast, we should engage in direct action, giving those without desire to effect change a reason to do so- their own comfort.  It's a convincing argument, one that I want to accept, but I need to know more first, as well as do a lot more thinking.

A long time ago, I read on one of my friend's blogs that it was a good idea to sit down and write out a bunch of things you believe.  I think that's a pretty good idea, but, as this is the end of the semester, I'll more type a few as I think of them and post in multiple posts.  Yes, I realize I'm not backing much of this up.  This is a list of what I believe, not why you should believe it.  Feel free to comment.  After the semester, when I customarily get back into the blogosphere, I may answer your questions or comments.

1. "Don't be evil" is good policy for more than just Google.

2. Actions stem from states; that is, who I am determines what I will do, not the other way around.

3. America is simultaneously one of the most over-rated and under-rated countries in the world.

4. Nationalism is an unadulterated evil and should be expunged from every nation's culture as much as possible.

5. Ethnic groups have a right to self-determination and state-hood; therefore, I am in favor of a Kurdistan, a free Basque state, etc.

6. #4 does not contradict #5, because wanting a country of your own and thinking your country is somehow inherently better than other countries are two different things.

7. Life is more complex than many people think, and where many people see contradictions, there is really only complexity and nuance, not even paradox.

So, I Rick rolled my roommate today…









If you followed the link above, you've been Rick rolled too!  Here's the real link.