Same-Sex Couples

I am uncomfortable when I see two guys making out. I have your attention now, don't I?

I don't consider myself homophobic or against homosexuality in any way. In fact, one of my favourite people happens to be gay. He even lived with me for a while. I'm totally cool with it, as long as I don't have to see it.

I have a theory about why it makes me uncomfortable. I actually enjoy watching attractive females taking part in public displays of affection, or just doing inappropriate things to seek attention. Yes, I am that guy. It isn't because of my feelings regarding homosexuality that I'm uncomfortable watching guys, it's simply that I'm not attracted to them, so it's weird. I'm attracted to women, so it's cool. I'm not attracted to men, so it's awkward. How about that?

Anyways, I am strongly in favour of same-sex couples. Congratulations on getting together with someone who makes you happy. If you want to marry them, power to ya! And the more gay guys, the better. Less competition for us not-as-sexy straight guys. I already won and found myself a beautiful wife, but I still cheer for my former team.

When it comes to same-sex marriage, I don't think it's the government's place to tell us who we can and cannot marry (as long as they're both human consenting adults mentally able to make the decision). I also don't believe that the government should tell marriage commissioners, religious or otherwise, who they have to marry and who they can't. I think the marriage commissioners have a moral responsibility to not marry anyone they don't think should be married. Whether that reason is that he doesn't like them, or if he doesn't think they're a good couple, or if he suspects abuse, a marriage commissioner should make that responsible call. If the couple seeking marriage disagrees with the commissioner, they should find a different one.

I found a video on YouTube about gay marriage that made me giggle. I couldn't embed it, but here is a link to it:

http://youtu.be/X-YCdcnf_P8

Labelling Sex Offenders

I had to write this in response to something Phillip DeFranco recently said on his YouTube channel. I'm a huge fan and I have a lot of respect for him, but I have to disagree with him on this.

Here is the video:

Phil's source: http://bit.ly/WVHeve

While I am a strong supporter of seeking justice and strong penalties, I do oppose the Sex Offender Registry. I also disagree with announcing the release of sex offenders via local media.

Especially in Canada, our Criminal Justice system is moving away from punishment and towards rehabilitation. I support this movement. I believe that justice is having an offender honestly seek forgiveness and make amends to his victims, and then reintegrate back into society to be a productive member. A more punitive system isn't so much justice as vengeance. Don't get me wrong, I believe vengeance has its place, but as a society, we haven't really figured out where that place is, yet.

If you keep to my theory of rehabilitation and reintegration, labeling and registering criminals is counter-productive. If someone is convicted of a crime and does his time, he should be able to reintegrate into society. He cannot reintegrate back into society if he is labelled as a rapist and shunned by society. If we aren't prepared for him to reintegrate fully into society, then we shouldn't be allowing him in society at all.

Of course, before you can even attempt reintegration, you must successfully rehabilitate. You can't reintegrate if you haven't rehabilitated. If the offender hasn't been completely and successfully rehabilitated, he should remain institutionalized and we shouldn't even try to reintegrate him. In fact, if he has been deemed incapable of rehabilitation, he should be put down like the dangerous animal he is.

In a Criminal Justice system of my design, you would have to meet certain criteria before being reintegrated into society.
1) Be deemed to have been successfully rehabilitated by a an unbiased panel of experts.
2) Have made amends directly to the victims of his crimes.
3) Have received sincere forgiveness from his victim(s).

I think as a society, we would ultimately benefit from this school of thought. How do you feel about it? Please feel free to comment.

Minimum Wage Increases

I think that increasing minimum wage in Alberta hurts the economy. I'm sure some people are going to work at setting me straight, so I'm looking forward to the education. The reason I dislike minimum wage increases is that there is no value in increasing it, as I am working on a concept called relative wage.

You absolute wage is how much you make. For instance, if you make $12/hr, you make $12/hr. Your relative wage is how much you make compared to minimum wage. Currently in Alberta, if you make $12/hr, you make $2.25 more than minimum wage ($9.75). Therefore, I will refer to your relative wage as $2.25/hr. I may later change my definition of relative wage to mean a ratio of minimum wage, but the difference will suffice for the point I'm trying to make.

When I first put both feet in the workforce, minimum wage was $5.90/hr. I remember starting at the River Roadhouse as a doorman at $7.00/hr. That was decent for me at 18 years old for what I was doing. I was listening to awesome live music, drinking free pop, eating discounted food, helping out the waitresses a bit, and dealing with the occasional drunk guy making a bad decision. Cool. Nowadays the absolute wage of $7.00/hr doesn't sound very good at all, but my relative wage was $1.10/hr. For the job I was doing, I found that to be just fine.

Now, back when the minimum wage was $5.90/hr, a $12.00/hr job was actually a relative wage of $6.10. Not bad, right? Now here's where my problem with minimum wage increases: $12.00/hr jobs are still $12.00/hr jobs in absolute terms, especially in tertiary industries. All we manage to do when we increase minimum wage is decrease the relative wage of everyone not on minimum wage. That job which paid a relative wage of $6.10/hr when I first started in the workforce is currently paying $2.25/hr.

Now, we can't blame greedy employers for this problem. At first, I wanted to. I have learned a lot about business over the past few years, and you simply can't blame owners. A line cook making $12/hr is going to keep making $12/hr so long as you're not willing to pay more than $10 for a burger and fries. I know several restaurateurs, and I can't think of a single one of them that would be opposed to paying their line cooks $25/hr, but nobody wants to pay $37 for a caesar salad, so it just isn't possible.

Now what about the people making minimum wage? How can they earn a comfortable living? They can make a comfortable living by bettering themselves. By learning, climbing the corporate ladder, working hard. Increasing minimum wage does them no favours because their relative wage stays exactly the same.

The problem employers face when minimum wage is increased is that it hurts the bottom line. Especially in the bar and restaurant industry, you can't increase your prices. Nobody wants to pay $5 for a beer, and nobody wants to pay $20 for a burger. You can't offset that cost. The entire industry is hurting right now. The bar I started working at when I was 18 used to be a huge party every weekend. 160-180 people at any given time after about 10:00 on Friday and Saturday. Now it's closed. While I'm sure it's not the only reason, I know the effect minimum wage has on the bottom line is a factor.

Write your MLA's. Ask for a freeze on minimum wage. It's the only way to protect your own relative wage.

Gun Control in Canada & the USA

Yep. I'm going there again.

After the horrific theatre shootings in Colorado, the gun control debate has been reopened, at least in the USA.

My views on gun control in Canada are public knowledge. Legislating against things that are already crimes makes about as much sense as telling a mountain it's not allowed to be where it is and expecting it to move. I like our licensing system for the ownership of firearms. It ensures that all licensed gun owners are educated about gun safety, and prevents the need for a prohibitively expensive registry because we already have a registry of licensed gun owners. It's a good system, as long as the logic-impaired in Ontario and Quebec don't fix what ain't broke.

Now American gun control is an entirely different story.

Our neighbours to the south (and northwest) have a constitutional right to bear arms. This makes gun control, education, and licensing much more difficult, if not impossible.

The USA has a choice to make, and only two options that I can see. Shit or get off the pot. Your two choices are thus: Give everyone access to this right and encourage them to exercise it at all times, or take it away and enact a system more like what we currently have in Canada.

Choice 2:

If the American government tries to repeal this right, they will have to deal with a great deal of resistance. As a Japanese admiral said circa WWII, there is a gun hiding behind every blade of grass. It is insanely difficult to take away a right once it is given. It's not a privilege like it is in Canada.

Choice 1:

Give everyone a gun. For his or her 18th birthday, every American citizen should be given a .22 calibre rifle by the government, and taught how to safely use it. With rights come responsibility. If it is everyone's right to own a firearm, then it is also their responsibility to know how to do it properly and ensure that everyone around them is safe from the misuse of a firearm. How much violent crime do you suppose there would be if everyone was packing? Who in their right mind would wave a gun around at a bank for  a robbery if they know that everyone in that bank also has a gun?

It may be too soon to comment, but how many shots would the psychopath had gotten off in that theatre if 80% of the people in that theatre were carrying weapons? As soon as the crowd realized this guy was firing live rounds, he would have become swiss cheese.

Now, I know both choices I've offered here are extreme and difficult, but it's true. Shit or get off the pot. If you continue to do it half-assed, you're going to continue to have the same problems.

Abolishing the Class System: Occupy Ty's Blog

I know it's damn near old news, but I think I want to write about the Occupy movement. I'm not going to get into much news or background, because that's what Google is for.

I honestly haven't been watching the Occupy movement very closely, but I have been doing some thinking on the topic. I thought the whole Occupy Wall Street thing was completely ridiculous and stupid, and that they were going about solving their problems the wrong way, and that got me thinking about what these protesters should have done...

Which was exactly the goal of the protest, so I guess it wasn't that stupid after all. Hopefully someone comes up with a solution, because I don't have one. I can only identify the problem and hope that someone smarter than me can fix it.

The main complaint is that 1% of the people control 99% of the wealth. I'm not sure where those statistics come from, but whatever. It is the perception that counts.

Fact is, as reported by Forbes Magazine (I just looked this up), Bill Gates is worth $56 Billion. That's just one example. There's all kinds of people worth stupid amounts of money like that. Those of us that make $30,000/yr and have a net worth of $4.75 have started really taking exception to that. The question I think the Occupy protesters have on their minds is "What the fuck do you need all that money for?"

Good question. I don't have that kind of money, so I can't answer it.

What do the protesters want done? I've heard the phrase "abolish the class system". Officially, the western world doesn't really have a class system, but realistically, it certainly does. Ever since we figured out how to use our thumbs to grip sticks to hit each other with, there has been an aristocracy. I don't see this ever changing.

The history of aristocracy in our society started with the guys that could fight best being in charge of the people who sewed leathers together. It evolved into nobility. Democracy made nobility obsolete. The aristocracy is now the major shareholders of large corporations.

The problem isn't the existence of an aristocracy, but the excessive power they seem to have over the common folk. Democratic governments cater to these large corporations to get their hands on some of the tax revenue to effectively run their respective countries. They have to, otherwise these corporations will take their business elsewhere and another government well get all the money (and power). The problem is the rich/poor gap. It's gotten so damned huge. Bill Gates's net worth: $56,000,000,000.00. Tyrel McLelland's net worth: ? (I'm not wearing pants right now, so I can't count the change in my pocket)

We cannot abolish the class system. Simply can't be done. It's been tried. There have been so many revolutions over the ages. The guys with sticks got beat down by the nerds who had enough of being hit with sticks and figured out how to tie rocks onto the ends of their sticks. The French got upset with their rich/poor gap and cut the heads off their nobility with a really neat invention called the Guillotine. Now, the common folk are at a similar point again, and the warning signs are all there. When Marie Antoinette had mobs camped outside her walls starving, she didn't recognize that there was actually a problem that needed fixing. She allegedly said "Qu’ils mangent de la brioche." or "let them eat cake". This ended up making her a lot shorter. I really hope the currently aristocracy sees the warning signs and comes up with a solution, or they may meet a similar fate, figuratively or literally. I have no idea. I hope it doesn't come to that, but I do think that the onus is likely on the corporations to come up with a solution before there is a major issue. Maybe spend some of that R&D money on solving this problem?


Now, I want to talk about the protesters for a minute. Search "occupy wall street - police" on YouTube. You will see the police trying to clear public and commercial areas of protesters who are passively (and sometimes actively) resisting. When the people don't cooperate, the police use varying levels of force to move them. Keep an open mind while watching this. Now read the comments below the video. Wow, eh? Police sure are evil bastards. In order to join the police, you must have a real hate on for your fellow man, right? 


The Mayor of New York ordered the police to distribute orders to the Occupy protesters in the park saying that for public safety and general cleanliness, everyone had to leave the park. After everything was cleaned up, they would be allowed to return. Seems fair to me, no?


Everyone has taken the stand of the government is trying to control what we do in our spare time on public land. Bullshit. The hygiene and attitude of the place was downright scary. It needed doing.


I'm not going to dwell on that part of the point. The main point is this park had been taken over by the protesters. It was not available for the enjoyment of the public anymore. If you weren't a protester, it was an unpleasant place to be. 


I watched other videos of people sitting in front of commercial buildings. I don't mean Wall Street Stock Exchange buildings, I mean little ma & pa shops downtown. With all the protesters camped out on the street in front of these businesses, these poor people had to close their stores and run like hell. There were no customers travelling the area, and who knows when protesters might turn violent and start looting and hurting people?


Thank God that the protesters didn't get violent. At least they haven't, yet. The police aren't the problem in this case! The police are still trying to do their jobs and maintain general law and order. Yes, the protesters have the right to be protesting. In fact, I encourage it. Everyone else's rights need to be remembered, too.


That's the Occupy movement in Ty's view. Feel free to comment.

Polygamy

I was kinda reaching for a topic to write about, and I think I've found one, with some help. I'm going to develop an opinion on polygamy.

I've often been heard saying that if you could remove the emotional element, it would be beneficial to a household to have two or three wives. I still believe this to be somewhat true. Of course, the obvious problem is that you cannot remove the emotional element. The wives will inevitably become jealous of each other, or all become angry with the husband and things will get ugly. The husband would also either develop some kind of superiority complex and start treating his wives like shit, or would become so overloaded trying to provide for his wives that he becomes depressed and takes his own life. I don't see how to make it work.

The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints church figured it out. Keeping in mind that I only have a very basic knowledge of this group based on news reports and Wikipedia, I have developed a loose opinion on this group. They appear to be the ugly retarded stepchild of the benevolent Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that grew up to be a serial rapist. The LDS church used to believe that in order to reach higher levels of salvation, a man had to have three or more wives. When the leaders of the Church saw that polygamy wasn't really working out, and women were getting mistreated, it became obvious to them that they were mistaken. This couldn't possibly be God's plan, otherwise so much evil wouldn't come of it. the LDS church banned polygamy and started excommunicating anyone still practicing it.

The FLDS group (I'm not even going to call them a church) didn't like this. They branched off and continued the practice of polygamy. The way they make it work is to have a very much patriarchal society, which means that women are second class citizens. I'd even take it so far to say they're more like property. From what I've researched, they don't even really believe in courting the opposite sex. The women are simply assigned to the men by the leadership of the group. The leaders are reputed to have several dozen wives each, with over sixty children in some cases.

Now, in these communities, several problems have taken route. Of course, in such a patriarchal society, the men have no respect for women (the women don't even respect themselves), and dominate them. Domination of this type often leads to rape, beatings, emotional abuse, etcetera. In fact, one of the main leaders of this group is currently serving a life sentence plus twenty years for aggravated sexual assault.

Another problem I can see developing is that there simply isn't enough women for the men to have so many wives. This will lead to adultery, hard feelings between the men, blame falling on the women, and eventually major feuds between families or even murder of the offending women and less often, their lovers.

This way of life seems very backward and downright evil to me. I like to think that western society has moved past the concept of slavery, treating women as second-class citizens, and arranged marriage. This bullshit needs to stop.

How do we stop it? There's a few options, but I'm not sure how to enact it. The government has stepped in a couple times (in most states and Canada, polygamy is unlawful) and raided polygamist communities, but what are you doing to do? Arrest an entire town? Where the hell do you put them? What do you do with the children? Putting hundreds of children into the foster system like that would be a major overload and do more harm than good.

I think the best option is education. I think if the men and women of these groups could see the evil taking place in their communities, they would likely do something about it. However, a system like this is based almost entirely on power. The men are powerful because they own women. The most powerful of the group own more women. Feeling powerful like that is a terrible seductress, so many of the men would likely just scoff at changing and continue living the way they are because they like it. Getting the information to the women would be very difficult, because they likely can't access much information without the permission of their men. Men won't allow it. The men have brainwashed the women and broken their spirit so they can't function properly as individuals.

What's the solution? I don't know. If it was easy, someone would have done it already. You can't help someone who doesn't want your help. If anyone out there has a solution, please make it public knowledge so we can help the people caught in this lifestyle but are actually good people. While helping these people is the priority, it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see the evil bastards involved in perpetuating this lifestyle punished.

And for me: instead of finding a second wife, I think I'll settle for a nanny that works for free and occasionally rubs my back.

Almost done being a DINK. Now life gets tough.

For the past several years, I have been classified as a DINK. This means "Dual Income, No Kids". This time is almost behind me. Now what?

I foresee that i'm going to be going through some real hard times in the future. Will it be worth it? Definitely. Will it be tough? Yes. I blame feminists.

1950-ish: imagine. Before the feminist movement gained real steam, the household was like this: Man goes to work, kids go to school, wife looks after the home and maybe works part time for some spending money or to pass the time. Kids come home from school, mom helps with homework, gets them all cleaned up and spends time teaching them some strong values. Man gets home from work and is greeted by his family. The kids regale him with stories of school while he takes off his coat and shoes and wife finishes making a healthy dinner. He is happy to enjoy the peace and quiet of home after a hard day at work. Everyone sits down together and eats their dinner with some friendly conversation and maybe a little lecturing or sermonizing from father. Kids go to bed and husband and wife spend some time alone together doing whatever it is they like to do: reading, playing cards, talking, etc. Husband and wife go to bed and do it all again in the morning.

2011-ish: live. The household is now like this: Man goes to work, kids go to school, wife goes to work. Kids finish school, but mom and dad aren't home, so they go stay with a family friend, or even complete stranger until wife gets done work. Wife picks kids up from other house to bring them home. Kids are rowdy and disrespectful of mom and treat her poorly because she hasn't had the time to spend with them to teach them to show the respect she deserves. Dad gets home from work, listening to the kids being rowdy and mom yelling at them to smarten up while he takes off his coat and shoes. He regrets coming home to all this anger and frustration, when he could have stayed at work and at least gotten paid for it. Mom is too tired from working all day to cook a decent healthy meal, so she microwaves a frozen lasagna for everyone to eat. Everyone sits and eats in the living room watching TV because they don't particularly want to talk to each other. Kids go to bed. Husband and wife have an argument about who works harder at providing for the family and how neither one of them particularly feels like doing more around the house because they're both so tired. They go to bed frustrated, and do it all again in the morning.

Is this an over-generalization? Yes. However, I don't think it's all that far off of our average household in this society. I think it's a tragedy.

The feminists had it in their head that women were second-class citizens and they needed to be able to work like men to be respected like men. While I will grant that they were treated as lesser, they never were actually lesser. To be equal is to be the same. To be equivalent is to be different, but of equal value. This is how we were meant to be. Men screwed up by treating women as second-class when we really depended on them as much as they depended on us.

We are hardwired so that men are the hunter-gatherers, or principle bread-winners in modern terms, and women looked after home and hearth. Now that women have entered the workforce in such strength, they no longer have the option of being homemakers. The family can not enjoy a comparable quality of life unless the woman also works full-time, so she must. Women have always been the more adaptable half of the species. Men have never been, nor will we ever be as able to take care of the family like women can, but women are certainly capable of winning bread to feed the family should the man fail.

How do we go back? I wish I knew the answer. It scares the bejeezus out of me knowing that my wife and I will both have to work part time and neither one of us will be able to focus on the raising of our child. My child will grow up eating preheated or fast food with his stressed-out parents, and I don't know how to fix the problem. (I'll also argue that this is why our society is obese)

How can I provide a decent quality of life for my young family without needing my wife to work full-time? I can't. As a society, we need to find a way to give women the option of going back to the home to look after their families. This doesn't make them slaves, or servants, or serfs, or anything lesser than a man. This means they are doing what is needed for their families so the children can grow up strong, healthy, educated, loved, respectful, and happy. Homemakers also provide a sanctuary for men to escape from their jobs and decrease the stress level before going back to work the next day.

I will doubtlessly vote for the first politician who comes forward and says he has a plan to bring homemakers back into society. We need them more now than ever.