What's the Bigger Question

Asking What's the Bigger Question in about 250 Words

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If you’re perfect move on. I may not be much or be able to do much, but I won’t be silent as I seek What’s the Bigger Question.

  • Freedom of Religion

    There has been a lot of talk about allegiances and being American. That matters when choosing a candidate, but you don’t have to be Christian to be 100% aligned with the United States. For example, we have a bunch of folks in our country who are more aligned with Israel than they are with America, but they love our economic environment.

    To be fair, immigration induced the spectrum of religious beliefs onto our shores, which adds another complicated layer to the dynamics already in place. As it is, we are all different and are allowed to be so with our opinions and preferences, as long as the hurt stays within us.

    I’ve often viewed God as the persona greater than me. The persona that I need to be, and religion can be the pathway to that goal. Except religion can control you if you allow it, but it can also be refreshing to know that there is a community working toward the same outcome.

    Lately, we have favored certain religions instead of relying on our Constitution. If you are Christian, then you are top tier; second is Judaism, and at the bottom of the list is Islam.

    For some reason, we are demanding that people declare their allegiance to the country over their religion, as if that standard isn’t already implied. Ultimately, it’s against the law for religion to promote its laws over ours, even though religion tries its best to promote its agenda while not paying taxes. Frankly, if any religion wants to promote its ideals under the protection of the United States, then it should pay taxes. We have a ton of for-profit companies operating within our borders that sell products and aren’t tax-exempt.

  • Dallas (Plano) Stars Arena

    As citizens, we have taxes imposed upon us, and in return, we vote for those we entrust with that money to make good decisions on our behalf. Recently, we learned that the funds we thought were going toward education are actually funding a National Hockey League team’s arena.

    The North Stars moved from Minneapolis to Dallas in search of a bigger market. It was a money move that turned its back on its fanbase. Originally, they hoped to move to Los Angeles like the Lakers, but Anaheim was granted an expansion team, and the Kings already had a team in town.

    These aren’t the old days when athletes played for the game and not their contracts. No, those days are behind us, so is the insolvency of these Professional Teams with their television contracts. In fact, the Stars’ current non-American owner bought the team for around 250 million, and it is now worth over 2 billion American dollars. And how do the Stars show their gratitude? By moving to a suburb, but keeping the city designation of Dallas.

    Those in government who approved funding for the arena talk about earnings projections, but in our current financial environment, those projections are speculative and don’t reflect reality.

    There are already a ton of concert venues in town, and the arena is mainly for the Stars. Graduations happen in May, but it was a line item to justify diverting education funds. Truthfully, profits happen when a business gets someone else to pay the costs while boasting nonexistent trickle-down benefits for all.

    I suspect, if we dig deeper, we may find someone in government getting a kickback while taxpayers are left with the bill.

  • Capitalism vs. Socialism

    We confuse the two terms and use them as weapons.

    The baseline is that both systems require money, and in America, the government takes money through taxes, fees, fines, tolls, or whatever other mechanism is available. What happens with that huge sum of money collected from citizens is where the two ideologies take hold.

    American socialism argues that our taxpayer money goes to public services like better schools, first responders, defense, and infrastructure, among other pro-citizen services.

    American capitalism ideally operates separately from the government because businesses would prefer fewer regulations and more profits. At the core, capitalism produces the products Americans buy in the open market. The beauty of the system is that good products sell and bad products don’t. It is debatable whether cash cows stall innovation, since the money is too good to risk on what may benefit the consumer.

    Government can influence the products produced through regulation and subsidies. But the moment free tax money was offered to corporations was the moment they worked to get more of it. Thus, came the era of tax breaks, tax credits, bailouts, and whatever else they can directly transfer from the Treasury Department.

    True capitalism would not lean on the government, but American capitalism does everything it can to ensure Big Business influences Congress. It creates a conflict of interest and motivates those with influence and money to call any funding that isn’t going to Big Business socialism, when, in essence, that very behavior is a form of socialism for corporations.

    Ultimately, people’s money should go to the people, and corporate taxes should fund the infrastructure that helps them do business. What makes us different is that, as Americans, we can vote on the system.

  • Men: Sex, Responsibility, Frustration, and Options

    If we weren’t supposed to have sex, then we wouldn’t have been born with the parts. They are there for a reason and shouldn’t be ignored, but controlled. In the correct, consensual setting, exploring the boundaries of your bodies is acceptable. But without consent, sex is wrong, regardless of who you are.

    Just because men have these desires doesn’t mean they have to act on them against anybody else’s will.

    That statement is easier said than done when you’re younger, when it seems your body dictates your thoughts more than when you’re older, and the desire has changed or worn away. On top of that, we push down religion as if marriage is the solution to a problem that keeps reminding you every morning of a function most cannot escape. What religion and education don’t teach you is how to find ‘good relief before the grief.’

    Because we are biological beings, we are subject to bacteria, viruses, and anything else that can infect us or that we can infect others with. If COVID taught us anything, it showed us that we can spread a virus if a vulnerable person is within distance without ever touching each other.

    But what we have to consider is that our bodies are only weapons if we know we can hurt others and decide to do so anyway. Otherwise, our bodies are beautiful and welcome to be shared with others who consent. The truth is, there are many consensual partners if you don’t have the hang-ups. Part of the problem is, we don’t talk about our sexual frustrations until they lead to something awful. But I think it’s time we should.

  • U.S. Department of Homeland Security: ICE

    ICE is the reminder we need right before midterms to remind us of the cruelty promoted by this administration.

    We were told it would be the worst of the worst and that the deportations would be justified. However, that has not been the case, and the execution of both the operations and American citizens is alarming. Never mind the concentration camps that are built to house those they arrest, legally or illegally. But who’s to tell them what is right or wrong when the Deporter-in-Chief has an objective based mostly on skin color, not actual residency?

    Some might say his tactics are a deterrent for future immigrants who may think America is still open because of the poem on the Statue of Liberty asking for those who want to breathe free. Then again, it may depend on whether you’re one of the chosen ones, which isn’t everyone, and at the discretion of the Importer-in-Chief.

    What’s alarming is that ICE shows no impunity toward American Citizens, which means that if you aren’t a pearly white American of Protestant upbringing, your citizenship may be intact, but not your life. ICE will shoot indiscriminately without recourse, and that’s consistent with the Gestapo- an American Gestapo on a matter that isn’t considered to be that bad or violent.

    You see, committing violent crimes can send you to jail, but being illegal should merely get you deported, not death. ICE cannot be the executioner; that needs to remain with the judicial process. On the other hand, if a death sentence ought to be imposed, it ought to be for those who profit from the people they encourage to migrate illegally into our country, knowing their employment is at the company’s will.

  • United States House of Representatives

    When I think about how many people contribute to our government through endless forms of taxes, fees, fines, and other creative ways the government extorts money from us, I feel ashamed that the US Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency, with their staff, don’t work half as hard as most citizens. Instead, they take our collective funds and waste them as they see fit. It has become an art or a con.

    From the outside, a United States Representative makes over 174 thousand, gets great benefits, and keeps it for at least two years. That kind of income is unimaginable when compared to the actual work they do and the invoice they submit to the American taxpayer. It’s not as much as a CEO of a trillion-dollar corporation, but for those of us who struggle day to day, seeing our leaders make money for nothing at our expense is disheartening. Especially if they have an expense account for items we are forced to pay for, like gas and meals.

    The injustice is that they are our Representatives and we continue to pay taxes to fund their livelihood, while ours get compromised. At a basic level, this is gross taxation without representation, and the Representatives go about their lives unapologetically at our expense.

    It’s the best job in the country while they have it because they can be legislators when they want to, or not. Honestly, they don’t have to do a thing. If they like, they can just occupy space. Compromise is a lost cause if you think it will spare your seat. At the same time, they accumulate wealth through speaking, consulting, or whatever other congressional fees only available because we voted them in, easily turning any eager pioneer into a puppet.

    Well, until things change…Hopefully things will change…Or maybe things will remain the same, as always.

  • Environment Protection Agency

    Without government intervention, businesses will use our capitalist framework to do what they want, even more than they already do. In the United States, more than anywhere else in the world, businesses influence the government for their benefit, not the public’s. It’s classic profits over people.

    Recently, some news agencies are reporting that the current administration is looking to repeal carbon pollution standards for coal and gas power plants.

    This is alarming because, as a country that likes to brag about being the ultimate superpower, our backpedaling indicates how deep our hidden problems are. It almost feels like we are on the verge of losing our biggest resource, our clean air and water.

    Digging deeper, it isn’t hard for an ordinary citizen like me to see that we have done nothing to make energy demands more fuel-efficient or less reliant on fossil fuels that burn into the air, instead of renewables that draw from the sun and convert it into usable energy.

    What’s more alarming is that thousands of young adults graduate from esteemed universities, and we still haven’t had an invention that made hybrids more affordable or received a subsidy from the school, business, or government on the grounds of national security.

    Without confusing socialism with communal contribution for a better country, shouldn’t the taxes we pay go toward improving our lives, not just be swindled to the point that we are now in debt? Imagine if the trillions of dollars went to improving energy efficiency; then we wouldn’t need coal or gas power plants, and we wouldn’t need those restrictions at all. They would be a moot point.

    It feels like we are at a crossroads, but we are moving backward, despite all the smart people in the EPA and in our country.

  • NCAA Football Top 25 Vs Only Other Top 25 Teams

    I’ve always thought college football is a bit of a scam. Not that the athletes don’t work hard, or that the coaches aren’t good at what they do, but rather because there’s too much money in it for what we, as consumers, get. We deserve more and better.

    For example, when a top-ranked team plays an out-of-conference opponent from a smaller program, the game results in a blowout. Sure, the game can be close or end in an upset, but should those few occurrences overshadow the overabundance of lopsided contests? Do we enjoy cheering for the goliaths? Does it feed our passive-aggressive desire to become bullies, even if from the cheap seats?

    Or do we want more competitive contests that can improve ratings, drive interest, and solve other problems the NCAA has?

    One problem it will solve is portal transfers. With the best players wanting to play on the biggest stage, a premier league will provide that spotlight.

    A premier college football league will also provide a true national champion, and the playoffs will never be disputed again.

    Who gets into the league? Simple: the initial pool of 32, or whatever number, would be based on rankings. Then every year after, the worst 4 teams would drop, and the top 4 of the next tier would be promoted.

    Many might say this isn’t the way, but college football is semi-pro at worst. Athletes and coaches make millions as football further separates itself from academia. Not to say that scholarships aren’t important for new students, just that those are no longer relevant for football athletes. Other sports programs either survive on their own or quit being a burden on the university.

    As it still is, top-tier teams may also make enough money to fund scholarships, Title IX, and whatever else the university chooses to redirect from football, if it does, which honestly, it doesn’t pull as much funding as it could. Do we really need a coach who makes roughly a million dollars a game?

  • 9/11 Jumpers

    After 25 years, I’m still haunted by the jumpers.

    I try to put myself in their shoes and wonder if I could make the same decision. They had to balance the heat, the inferno, the hell over the skies, and the hope that their souls would be caught before their bodies hit the ground, because the impact would most definitely end their lives.

    Imagine hanging onto the building at the opening where a plane suddenly and forever changed your life. You have a view of the city that only you and your friends there have. You may even wave at the helicopters, pleading with them to send a rope and elevate you to the heavens. Or you look down and realize that it’s a long way down.

    At that moment, the bigger question demanded an answer before the fire could consume them. Then the answer came for some as they stepped off by themselves. Others held hands, clinging to someone they loved for the duration of the fall. Some possibly closed their eyes or looked at their fate with the courage most of us don’t have.

    Maybe some prayed, or chose to find peace with the fact that this would be their final act. At the same time, those of us on the other side of the country wished for a miracle.

    I recently heard a song by Bryan McPherson named ‘Jumper 9/11.’ It gives voice to those who jumped. If I’m around for the next 25 years, I’ll still be haunted by the images of the jumpers and play ‘Jumper 9/11’ on repeat throughout the day, like I did today.