Weblog

I hail from the great state of Colorado. Although Colorado is without question the best place in the world (Okay, that's just Coloradian exceptionalism.), there happen to be a few flaws with the state as well. Any resident of Colorado can tell you about the oddities of the city of Boulder such as the tree-huggers and the penis sculptures in the public library. Another situation that I have to deal with in this state is one of the federal congressman, Tom Tancredo.

I wasn't to happy with Tancredo because of his policies on immigration. I've heard all of the arguments about immigration: immigration brings destruction of American culture, immigration brings destruction of the English language, immigration brings crime, immigration leads to unemployment of Americans (which confuses me because aren't people who legally immigrate to the United States Americans? So, I assume that the definition of American is a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant.), immigration leads to environmental destruction… It seems to me that all of these reasons deal with either American exceptionalism or racism.

Now, I have a whole new reason to hate Tancredo's policies. Going through my RSS feeds, I came across an article on CNN: “Congressman: Mecca a possible retaliation target”.¹ After reading about a local, Colorado congressman talking about nuking Mecca, I was a bit pissed off. In my opinion, it's talk like this that causes people to hate the United States.

Tancredo's reasoning for destroying Mecca is the thought of targeting what extremest, Islamic terrorists find precious. Of course, there is a flaw in his logic, but to call it a flaw is an understatement: not all Muslims are terrorists. After all, not all Whites are members of the Ku Klux Klan. So, the thought of destroying a city considered sacred to millions for the actions of Al-Qaeda is clearly… stupid. Plus, as it seems obvious to me, using nuclear weapons to destroy a city where people (who are not terrorists, by the way) live is also… stupid.

Now, the opinions of billions of people who actually don't live in the United States whose opinions matter just as much as the proportionally less than a billion people who do live in the United States will be affected by a single statement made by a single congressman. In my mind, there are three things that can be done:

1. Write to the Saudi Embassy in Washington about your opinions in the matter. I have just expressed on their contact form my thoughts on the subject.
2. Write Tancredo and tell him your thoughts on the issue or other issues.
3. Don't reelect Tancredo. If the fact that my not being over twenty-five years of age were irrelevant, I would seriously consider running against Tancredo in the next election. It's people like him that make people in other places hate America.

1. http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/18/congressman.muslims.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

First, before I go off on my rant, let me say something to one of my dear friends: Meghan, it's nothing personal, but this is still my view. Besides, I love you too much to fight over a nickel.

Now, let me go over the history of human, long-distance communication. In the beginning, if a message needed to be sent over long distances, Alice would write the message and give it to Bob who would deliver it to Carol. The telegraph made this idea more practical by enabling the message to be transmitted at the speed of light. As technology advanced, actual voice messages were able to be transmitted over long distances. The telephone further advanced into the mobile telephone which allows each person to easily have a means to be connected to the rest of the world.

It would seem that society has advanced beyond the need for plain-text messages with the availability of mobile telephony. However, one of the most popular features on mobile telephones is that of text messaging.

I have to wonder why anyone who has the means to easily talk to another person would instead pay additional money for a service that is slower on a traditional QWERTY keyboard much less a twelve-key pad. It makes perfect logical sense to not use text messaging in this case. However, it still seems to be an attractive means to communicate. I don't know why I feel this way. Is it just because it's new? Is it just because the industry makes it seem important by charging extra money for it? I could be, but I don't want to take the time to find out.