A Summer in Review

Two important things I learned:
    I'm not actually quite as stupid as I thought (though still considerably ignorant). Conversely, a lot of people aren't actually as smart as they think. Some are. But then, they're just arrogant.
   Things that are wrong are wrong. Things that sound right might be write, or rite, or wright instead.

Do I want to continue in the politics however? Ask me when it stops being all about politics.

On the bright side, listening to lobbyists can be entertaining. Sometimes, they even bring free food. However, if someone has their priorities in the wrong places, I'd rather tell them thanks and wave as they exit through the door than lie through my teeth. Civility should be possible among differing viewpoints without a plastered smile. Especially if one is just going to talk smack once the door closes anyways.

Although not incredibly intensive, reading constituent letters proved repeatedly enjoyable. Regularly, letters reminded me that  laws have a real impact. Oftentimes they showed me equally valid, opposing opinions. Occasionally (ok, ok, frequently) they made me laugh while I decided if I should shred or frame them.

Overall, participating in the firefighter's Fire Ops 101 proved the highlight (Pensions- sure! How about a raise? Trip to Hawaii? Free ice cream for life?). Perhaps it is time for a career-track change.

For future interns who might be shoved in the direction of this blog, I'd advise taking advantage of the wide variety of opportunities available, beyond just embarrassingly failing to start a chain saw and getting knocked back by the power of  a streaming fire hose. Take the legislative classes offered by the CAPITOL Institute. Attend hearings (interesting ones). Eat free ice cream at the occasional basement party. Investigate the intermittent mass of cardboard carrying, already-hoarse-but-still-chanting discontents. If I had to redo my summer, I know I might do more of that. I might also bring earplugs.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
-Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes, however, it takes time. Sometimes, it takes leverage: money, masses, a sense of security, or notoriety. Sometimes, it isn't the government that is reformed, but the laws, and in that exists a difference. And sometimes, its tyranny of the majority.

Who, anyways, defines a people? If my fellow intern and I, cloistered in the tucked-away breakroom-turned-workstation-with-food come to an agreement determined from whispered conversations and a mutual disdain for answering the phone decide that maybe the whole process is an absurd equation whose solution is an irrational number (oh, wait...) can we "shake off" (like a wet dog, doused in a bucket of collected polluted gutter run-off), the existing government? Or is that not insubordinate, rebellious, and (a regular favorite) unpatriotic? On some occasions a liberator, on others a rebel, and on most a bother. If we extend our definition of "a people" to include the older, paid versions of ourselves, hunched over keyboard and sneaking peeks at the Olympics airing in the background, while also serving the good people of AD15, are we then more legitimate of a people? Eventually, we shove this convoluted mess under the bed and go with a majority-rules modus operendi. Because everyone is a someone and they make up different groups of somethings and you'd end up with an anarchy, which is only actually respecting the desires of the anarchists, even though any people, anywhere, has a right to form a new government to suit themselves.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why we have a bill of rights. And the only reason this diatribe has any relation to my summer internship is that I have to deal with absurd constituent letters condemning "left-wing nut" politicians for disapproving of restorative therapy for homosexuals and supporting equal rights for marriage. After all, according to some in California, the people spoke with Prop 8, and their rights should be respected. Its a democracy. But majorities can be tyrannies, the former not precluding an ability to error nor mandating sanctity.

I should, however, add that minority opinions don't automatically come with any moral authority either. The rabble-rousing SEIU was responsible for a surge of aspirin consumption at the beginning of the month, but it garnered some sympathy for its fighting-the-good fight persona (and powerful lobbying sector), never mind that it had its own dirty laundry. I don't know that imperfection necessitates invalidity (Mary Hayashi certainly doesn't seem to think so) or even how accurate claims against the union are. I do know that the arrests of some of the protesters for disturbing the peace made me roll my eyes. We all "rise up" to "shake off" disatisfaction in different ways. Some, albeit, more appropriate than others. It is, according to Lincoln, a most sacred right of ours, after all. So when that same constituent calls for the umpteenth time to rail against this-or-that, I hold the receiver a few inches from my ear and attempt to listen patiently (or at least distinguish words from the rant), appreciative of the fact that our government acknowledges our freedom of speech on at least some level. It is that individual's right, and it comes before the government.

A more sacred "most sacred," to precede an government and to extend to every people, and every person. A bill of rights. Human rights. (Although, in the philosophy of ethics, cultural relativity exists as a notion that codes of morality are culturally defined. And who defines a culture, anyways)?

The government has to navigate all this, which is why its sometimes not surprising that they just choose to go with the sleek, new Porsche with a built-in 5-star GPS offered by the Automobile lobbyists (purely metaphorical, of course).