While It's Fun to Hate On Each Other...

“When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.” - Paper Towns


Question: What exactly is the point of having a debt ceiling in the first place if Congress can raise it whenever they want?


My dad and I were sitting on the balcony of our beach house this morning discussing, as I put it "Life, the Universe, and Everything." Of course, this included the current political situation.


My dad said that if there was a Republican candidate that represented his views, he would have no problem voting for him or her--and I agree. We don't identify ourselves as Democrats because we value being Democrats. We identify ourselves as Democrats because the party's platform is better aligned with our values and views than the Republican one.


This led my dad into a bit of a rant against religious people, which I cut off because using the term "religious people" is a gross over-generalization that makes me uncomfortable. He amended his rant to regard "religiously conservative people who don't think."


His mom, for instance, is my go-to person for proof that religion itself is not at all bad. She's one of the nicest, most all-loving people I know, and she sticks to her values like you wouldn't believe (in the event of a zombie apocalypse she would refuse to kill the zombies on principle-- yes, I asked). 


She takes her spirituality very seriously, but that doesn't mean she accepts everything blindly. She knows exactly what she thinks and where she disagrees with the doctrines, and most importantly, she knows why she thinks it.


If everyone thought about their beliefs, why they believe them; about their values, and why those things are important to them, then we wouldn't have to deal with all of this...stuff. Democrats and Republicans would still fight, of course-- we have differing values, after all--but compromise would be easier to reach.


Debt is one thing. Deficits happen, and they add up. But an uncontrolled debt is quite another, and dealing with that in an effective way should be our primary value-- not whether or not we're giving in to the opposing party.

On the other hand, we could just build a death star. The original's PR department has some good arguments. Plus, their version of the American flag is cooler.