things my friends and i argue about

argh. i'm so seriously pissed off at my friends. they're all extremely conservative people so of course on a number of subjects we do not get along.

a friend of ours, akash, came over last night after he got off of work. his friend thurall, also came over. we started talking about hygiene and stuff. it was really light banter. then, we decided to head up north to eric's place, whom akash lives with...along with eric's brother sean. when we got there, sean's friend mike was there and we watched eric play wolfenstien briefly. eric has to wake up early for work so he went to bed around 10:30pm. i was sitting in the kitchen talking to akash and thurall. for some reason, we started talking about college scholarships.

i had mentioned how one of my old friends who is filipino got a hispanic scholarship because his name was perez. then that's when the whole thing exploded. we got into this huge argument. akash, sean, thurall, and mike against me. we were discussing about racial discrimination that occurs during college admittance.

there's this program in texas called the top 10% admittance rule. it allows whoever is in the top 10% of their highschool get into a state school automatically. this was enacted so that school's existing in the lower poverty level would have kids that get accepted into college. in this case, it is possible that a kid with a lower gpa and lower test score could get into a texas college while someone who is more "qualified" would get rejected.

i realize that this situation is not fair or perfect nor is it a good solution. but i don't believe the solution to the problem is to pull out these opportunities and just say "hey, you know what? i made it so fuck you. you can make it on your own too."

i think it's a selfish sort of idea that just because there are people who grow up in a situation which does not foster opportunities like our own, we say it's not our problem. i don't believe in welfare. i don't believe people should be equal. what i want is to lessen the disparity between the gap.

society's function with less tension, violence, and problems when there is a greater amount of working class people. where there is not such a wide gap between people who own 5 vacation houses and those who can't afford pencils for their children to go to school.

i don't want my friends to change their views. i'm not asking them to change their lifestyle. all i'm asking is for them to recognize that there is a disparity out there. that not everyone starts out at 0. to recognize that they were privileged enough to have a good start and that others never get to start. i just want them to stop saying things like "well their parents were illegal immigrants, they shouldn't even be here." or "just because their parents can't speak english and decide to have 8 children, that's not my problem. they brought it on themselves." or "if they really wanted to get a good job and leave the bad neighborhoods and move to the better part of town, they could. they're just too lazy."

i have problems with these generalizations because one, they're false and two, they're racists and ignorant. it's just another way for people to turn a blind eye.

just because i have socialist ideals does not mean i want to turn the country into some commy-ville. it doesn't mean i want everyone to be equal. i don't believe in a harmonious equality for mankind. i just have a problem with the great disparity between rich and poor. no one needs their own jet plane. but that's another story. i'm just tired of hearing people telling me to move to europe. that i don't belong in america. maybe i don't. sorry for stepping in your way. for causing you to have a moment to think about how you got where you are..and where others will never get to go.

i guess in the end, it doesn't really matter. i don't do much except for talk about it myself. i guess just knowing that there are very few people who recognize how lucky they are...is beyond annoying.

and don't even get me started on gay marriages. i believe what was said was "marriage is defined by the religious majority's definition, which is a bond between one man and one woman." after awhile, i got him to retract that statement. otherwise, we would have gotten into another serious argument. i mean, they kept talking about majority rule and how it'll be okay whenever everyone accepts it. i just kept saying, regardless of the law, regardless of popular opinion, it's a right. that right exists for any two people who want to commit themselves to one another. then we started talking about the defense of marriage act...and ugh. i don't even want to get into that. it makes me so angry thinking about it. how can they waste such time on ridiculous crap and wonder why good legislation never addresses education on a primary level.

well yesterday started out good. i'll put that in another post. i have to go cool of now that i've worked myself up again.