I’m thinking about my country and government – especially our current government – and there are some things we disagree on. It’s kind of a weird position. I like our system of government (though I would like to see how things would work if we swung a little closer to a true democracy rather then a republic) because I think it’s more realistic then Marx’ socialism or a totalitarian structure – and I don’t want to deal with survival in anarchy.

That is to say, I really like the United States, but we’ve got a long way to go before we’re perfect.

Lately I’ve been thinking about civil disobedience. I’m sort of chafing under all of the rules and regulations, because there are a bunch of issues that bother me. Off the top of my head: separation of church and state, copyright infringement, illegal substances, xenophobia… and I think that these are social issues, not government issues, but they’ve somehow become (or in some cases, are in the process of becoming) a part of our laws.

So when I see a sign that says “no minors allowed” I ignore it. If I want to listen to music or watch a movie I download it. I don’t have much interest in most illegal substances, although given the chance to do something hallucinogenic I wouldn’t say no. I don’t really care one way or another whether our pledge of allegiance contains the phrase ‘under god’, but then again I feel uncomfortable about lots of ritual activities.

It’s sort of a self perpetuating cycle – each rule I break further confirms my belief that the rule was meaningless.

I’m probably going to get in trouble for this sort of attitude eventually, which is why it’s something that I need to think about. Sometimes when I’m second-guessing my own motives I wonder if my problems are trivial. However, it makes more sense to think of these problems as a symptom of a much bigger social attitude – conservative reasoning. Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on the bus – and where you sit on the bus seems like such a trivial thing to get upset over. She did it because of the reasoning behind it. I want to go get lunch at a bar with my friends at work, but it’s three weeks before my twenty-first birthday – and just waiting a few weeks seems like a trivial thing to get upset over. But I’m doing it because arbitrary age laws are flagrantly discriminatory towards members of a minority group which has almost no course for redress.

I want to have more time – but thanks to mortality, I’ve only got so much to spend on things. I want to live a simple immaterial life, I want to buy every new video game console that comes out, I want to be a social activist, I want to just live on my own little island somewhere and not be bothered – but I don’t have enough time to that, since I’m busy going to class and working part time. I’m excited for the future, which I expect to be lots of fun, but for now I’m stuck with civil disobedience, and a sort of general dissatisfaction with the world around me. How depressing.