HHRay and I got into a debate today. We talked about demerit points and fines for getting caught for irresponsible driving of some sort – drunk driving, speeding, etc etc. Something you’re not allowed to do on the road. We started talking about fines and how they impact wealthy and poor people. Say the set fine for some kind of misbehavior is $500. And every person they stop for that misbehavior has to pay $500. Well, some poor person will pay that $500 and not be able to pay his rent next week. A millionaire pays $500 and commits the same thing the next day because $500 out of his pocket, to him, is nothing. So poor people are impacted greatly by that fine and rich people don’t think twice about it. How is that helping? It’s just telling us that rich people can get away with more than poor people can.

I suggested that maybe there should be a fine based on a percentage instead of a static amount of dollars. For example, say the amount the person would have to pay might be 0.08% of his annual income or something (this is just a random figure, used as an example only). This way, the amount of money which people of all types of income will pay would have the same impact instead of seeming like a mountain to one person and a molehill to another. It’ll be fair.

Why wouldn’t this work? HHRay said that rich people would never allow this to happen, that it would be unfair to them. But come on, don’t you think that the way things are set out now is unfair to poor people? My suggested payment amount modification would put everyone on the same level – nobody will have to pay more than they can afford while their rich neighbor pays the same amount and doesn’t even get a dent in his wallet. Yes, wealthy people would have to adjust, but they’d be adjusting to a more fair system than the one that we have now.

Everybody’s debating about The Golden Compass. Christians have been attempting to halt the release and convince people to refuse to see the movie, raising their holy voices and screaming at anything they think might listen that the movie is outrageous, anti-Christian, blasphemous, and so on and so forth.

“Clergymen who kidnap children. Witches who aren’t wicked. Even a pair of sexually ambiguous angels. If you thought Harry Potter was blasphemous, wait till you get a look at [this] trilogy,” wrote one film critic last week.

Oh my GOD :o Witches who aren’t wicked?! Why, this is the ultimate of evils!!! Those darn nice witches.

So fucking what? Did atheists pipe up and make a fuss when Narnia, which is so OBVIOUSLY Christian-promoting, came out? Heck no! So for the Christians who are too idiotic to realize that not everyone believes in their god or wants to or has to, for that matter, shut up and let us have our fun. You can do whatever you want with your viewing habits, but don’t push them on the rest of the public. Yeah we’ll go and see the movie if we damn feel like it, and then go and read the books while we’re at it.

This makes me want to do something great.

Just a second ago, I watched one of the most inspirational music videos I’ve ever encountered (accompanying Linkin Park’s What I’ve Done on the list).

If Everyone Cared by Nickelback. Before I saw the video, I’ve always thought that it was about a couple, blah, blah, blah, cliché, etc.

After seeing the video, I’ve realized that it’s about so much more than that. Our world is full of crap: poverty, racism, discrimination, dictatorship, pollution, ignorance, bullying, and so much more. Can you honestly sit in your chair right now and say that you’re doing anything at all to help? Sure, routine things count, but just recycling your garbage isn’t enough (and according to Penn & Teller, absolutely pointless). I bet we recycle more for peace of mind for ourselves rather than to better our planet. We’re like Australians, who HAVE to be known as the nicest country and help because of their need to salvage some sort of praise and recognition for it.

It’s the people who go out of their way to do something great that should be acknowledged. Throwing a piece of paper in the ‘paper’ pile isn’t noteworthy. Refusing to give up your seat on a bus for a white person just because they are white is. Sure, Rosa Parks probably did not know that her simple act of defiance would change history, but that’s ok. She did what was in her power to defend her then nonexistent rights, rights that every human being, black or white or purple or straight or gay, should have.

So maybe instead of contenting ourselves with recycling plastic every once in a while, we should aim for something greater than that. It doesn’t have to be extraordinary. You don’t have to start a movement, not everyone is a leader. But come on, when you see a child being bullied by older kids, what’s stopping you from pausing your oh so busy work schedule for a few minutes and sticking up for him or her?

If you’re one of those who think that discrimination, animal abuse, and other such things are OK, if you can look at videos of animals being abused in slaughter houses and not feel a thing, you have no compassion. You may be smart. You may have read every nonfiction book out there, took every maths, science, and English class there is, but you have no heart. And no amount of studying or debate can ever change that.

As for me, I’ve had an idea as to what I can do to attempt to make the world a tiny bit better. More info on that in the future.