One Tiny Step at a Time

Yesterday, North Carolina took a step back in time and decided to deny a group of people their civil rights.  Today, President Obama came out in favor of coming out - he formally supports gay marriage.

Yesterday's Washington Post: 






Today's:

How can these two completely divergent opinions coexist? In the same country, at the same time?  It is scary to think that we, as a county, have a contingent of people who are moving so far backwards when the younger generation is, overall, pretty accepting of differing beliefs, sexuality, etc.  Live and let live - if it's not hurting you, why do you care if other people do it?  I understand feeling uncomfortable about the thought of a man marrying another man - it's not "traditional" marriage.  But, if they love each other just like a man and a woman, why not get married?  As long as they're not trying to marry *you*, why do you feel it's your place to legislate their behavior?

This is something that continues to perplex me.  This class of politicians wants less government, less controls over their lives - their right to own guns, to have or not have insurance, to not pay taxes (and consequentially not receive the government services that those taxes fund...) - but they want extreme government intervention in women's reproductive rights, contraception, and homosexuality.  Why are these things the government's business, but taxes, social security, health care, etc. are not?  I would really love to see a logical, constitution-based argument for that.

The argument that controlling gun ownership and use is for public safety is sound, as is paying taxes to support government-provided services, such as highway maintenance.  If gay people get married, who is harmed?  Who is being protected by preventing their happiness, by treating them as second class citizens? It has been all over Facebook today, but I'll reiterate it here - what is being done in North Carolina and other places is an eerie reenactment of the 1960s civil rights era, something we learn about in school today and can't figure out why it took them so long to fix what was clearly an injustice, and why it required so much violence and hate.  Our children and our children's children will read about the homosexual/transexual/transgender civil rights era of the 2000s and 2010s, and most likely will ask us what was wrong with us, in our time, that we couldn't accept people for who they are.

Thoughts on North Korea

I read this article today in the BBC and was struck by the article's use of the term "concentration camp."  It seems that the number of news articles that allude to human rights abuses and atrocities in North Korea has increased lately, perhaps due to the country's recent leadership turnover and failed rocket launches.  Its continued talks with China and other international politics faux pas don't help.

In this article, a South Korean citizen and his family defected to North Korea for a job opportunity promised him by North Korean agents who convinced him to defect.  Almost immediately, he and his family regretted their decision, and they were installed in a guarded camp and forced to produce propaganda communications.  He was given the opportunity to go on a mission to Denmark, and was eventually able to escape. However, his family was left behind.  His wife and two daughters were put into a concentration camp.  He heard from them once, most likely as an attempt at manipulation, but he never saw them again and doesn't know if they are still alive.

Really?  There are still concentration camps, 65 years after the Holocaust? I felt so disgusted when I read this article - disgusted, appalled, and a little scared that these things still happen.  And, in North Korea, it can happen to anyone - anyone who displeases the government, anyone who is in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I read another article recently, this one in The Washington Post, about a man who was essentially born a slave in a North Korean labor camp.  This article likened the camps to Soviet gulags, and said that the man's parents were ordered to mate and have him.  His mother and brother were executed in front of him, and he had no reaction to this - because his only functions in life were to labor and work to avoid beatings.  He was able to escape, the only known person ever to do so.

How do these things still happen?  I know that attacking North Korea is in no one's best interests right now, and that that is not the way to deal with this.  I know that the US and other countries have sanctions on North Korea, and are refusing to provide aid because of their continued nuclear efforts, but clearly these actions are having no effect.  I don't know what the solution is, but the human rights situation is beyond anything that has been acceptable since the American Civil War.