Thread:AllianceScoutAiothai/@comment-24660155-20191209044536

As many have likely noticed, I have returned to an active status following several months of inactivity on this account. I assure you all this abscence was in no way related to any sort of drama or personal grievance, but rather a simple desire to have a break. It occured to me that my July return following retirement from the staff was premature, and that I needed more time to focus on other elements of my life and to rest and rejuvenate myself mentally. This November, as I reached Thanksgiving break and was finally able to return home from my most stressful semester of university yet, I not only found myself missing this community beyond words, but realizing I had emerged from 11 months of 2019 with a familar yet fresh message in my head.

Despite my general popularity in high school, probably the most common criticism I did receive was my argumentative and robust nature. For the next several years following the end of my junior year, I dedicated myself to being more laid back and less persnickety. Though I was for the most part sucessful in implementing this philosophy in my personal life, I failed to do the same online. The great Leo Tolstoy once said "If you look for perfection, you'll never be content." I feel like this quote can also apply to discussion in internet political circles.

Let me be unoquivical: While most of the ideas I held at the beginning the year have seen little change as we approach the end of the year, the voracity and passion in which I argue some as opposed others is starkly different; the most notable contrast being in my defense of parental corporal punishment. Though I still see the right of a parent to phyiscally discipline their child to be unalienable, I no longer possess as much motivation as I once did to argue this point, and whileI fervently disagree, I do not believe all of those who hold a differing opinion to hold any less character than I.

That being said, many of you are in all likelihood understandably wondering in which specific issues I've dug my heels into and which hills I have chosen to die on so to speak. After careful self-examination, I have picked a "Big 5" of positions on which I shall not bend nor compromise which I have compiled below:

1. Transforming America's Immigration System with a Policy of Open Borders/Building Bridges Between Hispanics and non-Hispanics: Since I first joined the Wiki back in 2013, I made my strong, staunchly progressive views on the issue of immigration clear, and time has not seen those views waver or wane in the slightest. Particularly, the rise of Trump, an irredeemable, unrepetent fascist who belongs in the Hague for his domestic crimes against humanity and people of color, has given my resolve an unprecedented new wind. What many of you likely don't realize is my equally voracious desire to improve my own race's relations with non-Hispanics (Whites, Blacks, etc..) and to create a racially classless society, where all people as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once famously said, "...will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” I unapologetically oppose any form of Hispanic nationalism or any view that those who speak the Spanish tongue are in anyway superior to those who do not, while also of course embracing my heritage, and encouraging other Hispanics to do the same. To put it simply, those of you who have seen the film Black Panther can consider me much more a T'Challa rather than an Erik Killmonger.

2. Opposing any Form of Imperialism/Nationalism and Promoting Peace as Much as Possible: "Anti-war stance" has become something of a meme in our community, but a policy of non-interventionism is one that is a critical cornerstone of my ideology. Travesties such as Israel's genocide of the Arab population of Palestine and Trump's bloodthirsty slaughter of Yemeni children are in my mind among the greatest injustices of our time. As a libertarian, and more importanly as a Christian, I believe that war and violence should only occur in extreme, unavoidable circumstances and not to make companies like Lockheed-Martin and Haliburton biblically wealthy.

3. Standing for the Rights of Marginalized Groups Such as the LGBTQIA and Women: As stated before, I am a Christian. That does not however mean that I in any imaginable way support discrimination against a single letter of LGBTQIA. Putting aside my view that such activity is in no way "degeneracy" or "sinful", I think that God gave us all free will, and that even if an action is wrong in the eyes of God, no one should be forced to follow His will so long as they are not hurting another directly or indirectly. I am also proud to count myself as a male feminist, zelously supporting #MeToo and encouraging my fellow men to always believe women no matter the circumstance and to treat their signifcant other as if they were an angel.

4. Decriminalizing Drugs and Freeing/Expunging the Records of all Low-Level Drug Offenders: I am certainly not the first person to point out that America's current criminal "justice" system goes out of its way to target Hispanics and Blacks and proft off the suffering of communities of color. The main way police prey on POC like parasites is by using the laws prohibiting the possession and use of drugs from everything as minor as inhalents to meth. Despite the fact that Whites also do drugs, there is an arrest disparity, which is why "Blacks are more likely to commit crimes than Whites" and why America is the world's largest penal colony. Every years, thousands of lives are ruined with criminal records and prison time for what are unarguably victimless-crimes. Yet, what does this prevent? People still do drugs despite the possibility of punishment. In order to heal the racial divisions tearing this country apart that I mentioned earlier, and to truly strive torwards a just and moral society, all drugs must be decriminalized.

5. Ending the Surveillance State: One of the major positions that followed me in my transition from Rand Paulite to LibSoc was my resistance to America's now commonly-known surveillance state. There is truly no answer as to how spying on the phone calls and email boxes of regular people is going to keep this country safer and more secure. Though I understand the logic in seizing the communications of a suspected terrorist, it is vital that a warrent is first acquired and that reasonable suspicion is evident; there must be no indescriminate, mass-collection of records. Though President Obama is often criticized for the gross spying powers of his NSA and national security agenices, Trump unlike Obama has openly embraced a 1984-style system where whistleblowers are hung for "treason", while Obama at least commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence. Regardless of party line or elected officials, I will continue to call for a neutering of mafia-esque agencies such as the NSA, CIA and FBI and a severe limiting of their capabilities and authority.

Pragmatism is just as vital as principle. This is a lesson that as taken me a long time to learn, and even longer to truly understand. As we fight for what matters to us, we also have to pick and choose our battles. Though I am still steadfast in many other issues, I now see where to direct my passion and where to be willing to compromise.

Dios te bendiga,

AllianceScoutAiothai (talk) 04:45, December 9, 2019 (UTC)​​​​​​​ 