Your Hot Cup of Rant

The perspective of the American public is generally screwed up when it comes to politics, and we can blame no one but the politicians who choose to let it be so, or rather, FORCE IT to be so.

In 2004, one of the major hot-button issues was (and to different extents, still is) the idea that two homosexuals, male or female, should not under any circumstances be allowed to have state-sanctioned unions that provide them the ability to share medical insurance and tax breaks. Now, to me, I completely understand the idea of why religious people are up in arms about gay marriage: because they’re bigots. Personally, the M word is a bullshit piece of terminology that, in effect, means “civil union”: it is a union between two people that is recognized by the government, period. As such, I wholly support civil unions but not “gay marriage” because

1.) I’m frankly tired of hearing bigots bitch,

2.) There is absolutely no possible argument you can lobby against a civil union that doesn’t amount to “I am a bigot”, and anyone who tries to make such an argument can safely be ignored because they are, in fact, crazy, and

3.) Marriage is a concept invented by religion and really, if you are gay and religious when every major religious leader has more or less said “God hates gays”, you should really re-evaluate your priorities.

I mean, if Adam Sandler can continue to have a career because of intellectually dishonest bullshit like “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”, you know there’s still a little bad blood about the whole thing.

The problem with this is simple: gays sharing tax write-offs are not going to bring down the quality of life in the United States, but being shot in the face while I’m ordering a large pie to go certainly might.

For those who don’t live around New Jersey, Sunday July 15th an off-duty police officer was shot while trying to resolve a domestic dispute. His shooter and the person he was trying to save then took off, only to be arrested several hours later in their home. The man, Billy Walter Heisler, is noted to have ties to the Bloods, a gang whose existence can politely be referred to as “franchised”: much like McDonalds, if you live in or near a city, there’s most likely something associated with this near you.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Bloods related activity has been documented in New Jersey, let alone the surrounding areas, which is more of a sad condemnation of the state of affairs than anything else. The Bloods have been active in New York (albeit as a splinter group from the primary West Coast organization) for over a decade now, but until recently other East Coast states had managed to resist the gang integrating into their communities. Sadly, this is no longer the case; both PA and NJ have reported a significant increase in gang activities in the past two years, largely due to the pervasive nature of such organizations and the fact that honestly, politicians have been more concerned with other things.

“People have to adjust their personal habits to abide by the law,” says Camden, NJ Senator John Adler, in regards to the public smoking ban passed in 2006. Adler also notes that, “It’s hard to quantify lives saved and illnesses avoided.”

Mind you, Adler wouldn’t be able to walk directly across the city he is the senator of without being assaulted and robbed, but apparently the most important thing he is concerned with is people not being able to smoke in public, as he’s sponsoring another bill to ban smoking in casinos, S-1089. Indeed, this is the third such bill he’s sponsored, along with the two initial “Clean Air” bills that enacted the smoking ban in NJ in the first place.

Now, the problem is not that Senator Adler is insanely fixated on banning smoking. It’s also not a problem that despite the fact that most states that have enacted such bans have seen little to no economic downturn from such bans, New Jersey is not following that trend. The problem, such as it is, is that you cannot smoke outdoors in Adler’s city without reasonable fear for your life, something the senator seems blissfully ignorant of. Is saving the lives of five people because of their reduced exposure to secondhand smoke worth the twenty people who are murdered in your city (the fifth most dangerous city in the US as of this year, ranking just below Compton) because they went outside to have a smoke at 1AM?

The largest issue presently facing present governor John Corzine (aside from dodging SUV’s) is the rather massive debt the state presently finds itself under due to the spending of his predecessors Christie Whitman (which is inclusive of, but not limited to, building a tunnel in Trenton, NJ for truck traffic that, due to the incompetence of the construction company, cannot be used for truck traffic, as they were apparently not aware that concrete contracts when it hardens) and Jim McGreevey (though in his defense, he didn’t so much increase the debt as do nothing to fix it, for obvious reasons). Corzine has made it his goal to fix the state budget come hell or high water, as well as to reduce property taxes in the state in any way possible, going so far as to outright refuse a salary as governor (as he’s filthy stinking rich himself). And he’s apparently doing a bang-up job of it; the sales taxes in NJ have been raised from 6% to 7%, and state workers in various divisions have been shifted from regular medical insurance to PPO insurance, so one would assume the state’s coffers must be overflowing.

I would say one would have to assume that, of course, because nothing noticeable has come of these changes as of yet.

The problem, of course, is that these sorts of changes (budget balancing, tax lowering, quality of life raising) take time to bear fruit, so the various politicians associated with the measures can claim the defense of “needing more time” and successfully get away with it. This is hardly anything new, whether it be in New Jersey or Texas or Florida or any other state. If he is successful, he will be highly respected for doing this thing, and if he fails, he can always point to the opposition he has faced in various branches of state government as a reason for his failure. If he succeeds, he’s the man; if he fails, it’s everyone else’s fault.

While this is certainly an important issue to tackle, as New Jersey has some of the highest property taxes in the country, his stance on gang violence is of greater concern at present, seeing as how a property tax has never shot an off-duty police officer. In fairness, Corzine has devoted a good amount of financial support to anti-gang initiatives, to the amount of $2 million in additional funds to law enforcement agencies, so there is an interest in such things. However, the importance of these activities is generally considered to be low in comparison to his desire to raise tolls on roads like the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway if not lease them to others outright, Corzine’s usage of E-mail to converse with a NJ union leader who also happens to be an ex-girlfriend, and his recovery from the hit-and-run incident that nearly killed him in April.

Far be it from me to be a prick, but I’m substantially less worried about paying a quarter more to use the NJ Turnpike than I am about being shot at Pizza Hut.

The importance of political issues should be in direct proportion to how they affect the lives of the people. A gay couple being given the same rights as a straight couple, a small increase in tolls on a toll road, and the ban of smoking in casinos are, at best, of minor importance to the people as a collective whole. The vocal minorities will come forth and protest or support these things, but the vast majority of the populace will shrug and go on about their business, because these things to not have a great impact on their lives. Gang violence, however, impacts everyone.

No one wants to live in a state where something as simple as deciding to wear that red basketball shirt on your daily jog results in a stay in the local ICU with a respirator and an IV drip.

No one wants to open the paper and find out that gangs are using the train they use every day to go to work as a convenient method of transporting drugs.

No one wants to find out that someone was shot in their supposedly “safe” neighborhood because he was wearing the wrong colors.

New Jersey is, by and large, no better or worse of a state than any other. It has its nice cities and its cities no one in their right mind would go into in daylight let alone after dark, same as any other state. The benefits of living in the state outweigh the negatives for those who live here, and if they don’t, people move out. No one is living in Jersey because they cannot afford to live anywhere else, because they secretly love The Boss and Bon Jovi, or because they really really love the local sports team. If you live in New Jersey, it’s because you’re generally okay with the state and the people in it to an extent where living anywhere else would either produce an equal or lesser degree of enjoyment in your life. Seaside is a great time if you like soft-serve ice cream and pizza, amusement parks are plentiful, the arts are well represented, and you can find a 7-11 or WaWa that’s open 24 hours with little difficulty.

But the positive aspects of such things are diminished significantly when one feels that ones life is threatened by the existence of organized gangs and their activities. We get it, gangs give you a feeling of unity and respect that you don’t get from society and the government, but this is largely because you have very little to contribute and were it not for open threats of violence, most people would honestly not have any opinion of your existence one way or the other. Gangs do not demand respect, they demand fear, and that’s hardly the same thing. You do not provide a positive function, you do not do anything the rest of the world would view as beneficial, and at best, you are a festering wound that should be excised, ideally soon.

It’s nice to know that the budget might be balanced again within my lifetime, but the knowledge that my lifetime might be significantly shorter than I had expected when I woke up this morning because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time does little to make that knowledge seem important. Just a consideration.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema. Perhaps we can start in Camden and Trenton.