Utah State Legislature - Week 2

Image credit: Freeimages.com/Jean Scheijen

I was very tempted to skip a post this week because most of my thoughts regarding this internship are political in nature and thus off-limits. Plus, I’m already keeping track in a journal. (I’m horrible at consistent journal writing, so the internship requiring me to keep a journal helps.) However, I said that I was going to post every week, so I feel obligated to.

One apolitical part of my intern experience is taking public transportation. I’ve taken it before, but always as a novelty, never as a serious means of getting from place to place. It’s a relaxing, fascinating, and melancholy experience.

Utah State Legislature - Week 1

Image credit: Freeimages.com/Ryan Day

It would be cool if as legislative intern, I could fill my blog with my opinions on the issues based on my more-or-less insider information, but I can’t. As an intern, I work for the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, which is a nonpartisan organization that assists Utah state legislators in writing laws. So basically, as long as I’m an intern, I have no political opinion—all I do is support my assigned legislator.

However, that doesn’t mean that my blog has to be boring while I’m working on the Hill. (Not that it’s ever exciting because I rarely post.) Let me share a couple thoughts after my first week or so.

First, I’ve been very impressed with the legislators up here. From what I’ve seen, they care a lot about serving the people of Utah. They truly are public servants. Here’s a quote from our textbook, Utah Politics Under the Dome: Representation and the Utah Legislature by Adam R. Brown:

Why I'm Pro-Life

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I try to be open-minded and see issues from multiple points of view, and for the most part, I'd say I'm successful. One issue I have a hard time seeing one side of the issue is abortion. I understand pro-choice well enough to understand why some people could be pro-choice, but the fact that more Americans are pro-choice than pro-life is mind-boggling to me. It's incomprehensible because the moral and logical arguments for pro-life seem so much stronger than those for pro-choice.

First off, let me clarify my stance. I think it's okay for a woman to have an abortion in cases of rape/incest or when her life is in danger because those are cases when her choices have been limited, but when a woman chooses to have sex and her life isn't in danger, she shouldn't be able to choose to kill her unborn child. (I know other pro-lifers think that women should be able to have an abortion when the child's health is danger, but I'm not quite sure about the reasoning behind that one, so I'm leaving it out.) For the rest of this post, I'll be focusing on normal circumstances that aren't related to rape, incest, or life endangerment (see tables 2 and 3 on pages 113-114 for reasons why women get abortions).

Lack of Ambition

Image credit: Gavin Mills

Recently, I read the book Catch a Falling Star by Kim Culbertson. It was enjoyable, and the part that struck a chord with me was one of the conflicts that the main character Carter faces. She used to be a dancer, and we find out later in the book that the reason she stopped is because it stopped being fun for her.She felt so much pressure from others to excel, to accept a scholarship to a premier dancing school, and to seek a career as a dancer. After hearing about how competitive, rigorous, and stressful a professional dancer's life is, Carter decided that it wasn't for her and quit dancing altogether.

I can empathize with her. It seems like from the womb, there's so much pressure from home and school to "succeed," "reach for the stars," "get ahead," etc. What does success really mean? Is it the same for everyone? Why should we reach for the stars? What's wrong with the good ol' Earth? Who are we trying to get ahead of? Does this stuff really matter?

Impossible Dreams

Image credit: Cécile Graat

Last weekend, I watched the movie Frozen with my family to see what all the hype surrounding the film was about. Personally, I thought it was pretty good, but it didn’t live up to all the attention it’s been getting. I couldn’t help drawing comparisons to the movie Tangled, which I think is better overall. They’re both Disney CGI films with musical elements and goofy leading ladies. True, “Let It Go” from Frozen is a killer song, but as far as story and characters go, Tangled seems more solid.

Have Yourself a Material Little Christmas

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Odds are good that sometime this holiday season you’ll watch a Christmas movie in which the characters struggle to find “the true meaning of Christmas.” Of course, it’s unpopular for mainstream films to identify the real reason we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, so they spout off various “true meanings,” such as giving gifts or serving others, spending time with family and friends, or the idea that joy comes from people, not things. These are great aspects of the holiday, but they only represent how we celebrate Christ’s birth. One of my favorite themes in Christmas movies is anti-materialism , such as in A Charlie Brown Christmas. I’m embarrassed to say, however, that I was ignorant of the delicious irony of these films until recently. The creators of these movies are selling you something that tells you not to buy stuff. How can they pull this off? Because anti-materialism sells. Oh, man, this is the kind of irony that I just loooooove.

You might think that I’m bashing these movies, but I’m really not. Honestly, I’ll probably enjoy A Charlie Brown Christmas more now that I can appreciate the irony. You see, I’ve come to believe that there’s nothing wrong with buying things or with money. The problem comes when we “set [our] hearts upon riches and upon the vain things of the world” (Alma 4:8). I remember when I was younger, I used to think that the items I put on my Christmas list would change my life. One particular example I can think of is when I asked for a Game Boy Advance. I was so excited when I opened it up on Christmas morning, and I thought my life would be drastically improved, but as it turns out, my life was pretty much the same. Sure, it brought me some pleasure, but that was it. In time, I’ve come to view what I put on my Christmas list differently. I think the items will bring me some pleasure, entertainment, and possibly even enrichment, but overall, I’ve come to understand that joy in life comes from people, not things.

Obamacare, the Government Shutdown, and the Debt Crisis

Image credit: Randy mcwilson

Argh, I just have to write about the political situation in the United States right now. The health care exchange for Obamacare opened up a couple days ago despite Republicans' attempt to defund it, parts of the federal government are shut down, and, of course, the nation is still deeply in debt. What's frustrating me the most, however, is some of the discussions surrounding the issues.

One of my biggest pet peeves I've found is when people spread misinformation, whether intentionally or not, to further their argument. The big piece of information that is really bothering me right now is the idea that Congress is exempt from Obamacare. Conservatives against the law keep saying that's the case, but from what I understand, it's untrue. My understanding is that a provision created by a Republican senator forced Congress and its staff to obtain health care from the exchanges that Obamacare would create instead of being able to keep their current insurance, which most Americans from large companies would be able to do. I wish I could find the original article where I read about this, but this one will have to do. The original one said that the Republican Senator, Sen. Chuck Grassley, originally proposed the addition to the bill for partisan reasons. He thought that Democrats would oppose the provision, and then he would tell Americans that they wanted to be exempt from the law (which would've been utter nonsense). However, Democrats embraced Sen. Grassley's proposal, and now, in an ironic twist, Republicans are attacking the bill for an "exemption" that a Republican created!