Wow.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

These were the basis on which we debated for the past week, more particularly, Floyd M. Ridick Model Senate in Stetson University, Deland, Florida. It was an eye-opening experience as we had Florida senator, Bill Nelson, former soldier and astronaut, give a talk; as well as a congressional historian analyze the Congress as well as Obama's Administration Policy. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, I have to admit. Among them, there were a few reasons.

One, I realized that I don't want to do political science. Stetson University is a premier private liberal arts school (Google the definition up), and they specialize in Law as well as Political Science. So all the kids around us actually studied poli-sci as their major, and we (Embry-Riddle KIDS) were a bunch of engineers and pilots tagging along to screw things around a little. But anyways, I realized how poli-sci is about systems and policy and almost absoluteness in the sense of political systems. It kind of reviewed law and legislation and also policies, which was not exactly what I wanted to do – academic research of what had been done and what could be done in the future by politicians. I also realized that the US poli-sci kind of segregates politics and policy from economics, which is not how the real world work.

Typically, modern poli-sci does not look at economic and social impacts of policy and systems, as economics deal with the economic models and their impact while social sciences deal with the social aspects of a policy. As to why I said poli-sci is not exactly what I want is because my ultimate goal is to govern with servant leadership and public service, or in more straightforward terms, run for office in Malaysian politics. See, the real world does not give you the luxury of putting economics aside and only focus on policy. The thing is, people are pretty impatient. If you run for politics with a failed economics plan, you can bet your time will be up really soon. That's why Mahathir could stay in absolute power for so long, because he knew how to build up the Malaysian economy, both by heavy industry (automobile, something to be really proud of as we are the only nation in South East Asia with a national carmaker(!!!) and oil refining) as well as light manufacturing (computer components etc). The other reason is that politicians stand out when they do not do what other politicians do. See the thing about politics is that you can stay in office as long as you want provided your constituents still vote you in (only exception being the Presidency), but it will be a long long period (and some even serve till death) which could make things mundane. In fact, when you stay in office too long, you lack new ideas and even lose touch with reality (unless you strive hard not to, like Kit Siang), and since standing out needs new ideas, go in, rise tall and come out should be the game plan.

The other thing I realized was that America, much like Malaysia has its own set of problems too which are of the same intensity if not greater. In fact, one thing prevalent here in America is the fact that life is so much more complicated than back home, starting from credit card debt, mortgage options for house purchase, health care and insurance as well as the media, just to name a few. Hence, the problems too, are more complicated than ours. For example, health care here is very advanced, as in if one doctor says "That's it, you only have six months to live", there should be no despair. Should one choose to fight to the end, there will be legitimate doctors (not spinmasters who wanna make a quick buck conning you!) who are testing new drugs or new methods and you could possibly be their white lab mouse! The point here is that should one opinion be something that you do not agree or are not satisfied with, there are so many other doctors out there who will give you a second and even third opinion and possibly treatment.

The only cost is cost, literally. Healthcare here is so damn expensive! I went to a general practitioner for general issues, and I was recommended to a dermatologist and then lab work had to be done! To date, I am not convinced that I am totally cured, but the bill has already sprawled to $ 550! Two visits and a lab report, half a thousand dollars gone! Add this personal experience to articles and news reports you see on legitimate sources like Time magazine and CNN about how lack of or insufficient insurance could seriously dent a patient's finance and possibly retirement funds or even lead to bankruptcy, and you have a very good picture of how screwed up healthcare is. In fact, just FYI, a huge amount of people in America do not have insurance coverage, I do not know the exact figure but I know it's significant enough a number that it was one of the topics of the presidential debates!

Now if the whole system is so inefficient and expensive, why didn't anyone do anyone to reform it? People did, and this was BIG names, and people failed. Hillary Clinton tried to reform healthcare as Senator back when Bill Clinton, her hubby, was president, but it failed and it almost killed her political career! Now what are the opposing forces, and how do they gain legitimacy for doing resisting change that seems so necessary and a no-brainer? Healthcare in America is privatized, which means that drug, medical equipment and insurance corporations stand to benefit from the complicated and expensive system, so if the cow is such a fat one which not only produces milk but also cash, why change it to be leaner? Hence, when Congress( parliamentary concept) or Senate (the next rung in the chain of command ladder before the legislation goes to the President for approval or veto) tries to introduce change to the system, these big and rich corporations hire lobbyists to speak out for them in these Houses and resist reform. So far the lobbyists have been doing a great job with tools such as gifts (big one mind you!) and monetary donations for election campaigns (every four years), seeing how screwed up this system is! And then again these lobbyists and their antics are not really legislated by strict law or tight rules (at least not last time I checked) so there leaves a lot of space for corruption, another problem that is prevalent here.

The other issue is a politician's political career, which is not so different from any other politician's in the world. Politicians here are very much into ideological warfare, their stand on topics like abortion, gun rights, the two wars, health care etc are very well defined, and they also have various ideological categorization, like liberal, ultra-liberal and conservative and populist etc. However, a few things could be potentially complicating towards one's career, labels like fascist, communist and socialist. And one thing that the opposition is very likely to call you is socialist should you attempt to change the system too aggressively. Now how that kind of makes sense is that this not only land of the free, but also land of the rich – capitalism. So people believe that the people are the government and have an inherent distrust towards politicians and believe that the dollar should speak out louder than anything else. But when you do not have the dollars, what happens? The government should take care of you, duh! So how this works out is that when you expect the government to take care of you and not you take care of yourself, that becomes kind of socialism. Now the slippery slope is that if governments aren't here for the people's good, what the hell are they here for? Then again, the people are the government so if they can't take care of themselves, how can the government take care of them? And the argument goes on and on. So basically, I realized that being number one (even in the world) does not take away your problems, if anything, that status increases your problems and the complexity of them!

What is worth rejoicing is also the fact that I found out about a coveted internship position with, whom else but, Senator Bill Nelson from Florida! Well, once again the interesting thing here is who you know, not what you know! Dorn, my professor, happens to have his students working there so getting an intern is not too hard! Now the key was his observation of my talent for political topics and my knowledge too. On the first day, there was a curious wondering of how well I would fare in American politics debate, but by the second day, that curiosity was taken care of by assurance; assurance that I knew my stuff and even if I did not I could make up a fair amount of believable shit! Hence, in came the personal coaching on topics like the Cuban-American "affair" and the "Mexican Question". And then, there was the offer that should I like to, he could assist in my applying for an internship with Senator Nelson. And for these two reasons, I have to express my gratitude, THANK YOU! (He does a lot of research you know, so this article could possibly be read by him, hence must proceed with caution! : ) )

The other significant discoveries that I made over the weekend was also ideological warfare. One very touchy issue is abortion, either pro-choice(pro-abortion or baby killer, your pick of names) or pro-life(anti-abortion or fantasy lander). Even this issue is not so clear cut, as we have partial birth abortion, in which trimester abortion should be allowed, abortion for rape and incest and the likes. But one thing that's for sure is that it sure is easier to work with someone if their ideology is similar to yours. For example, I had a bill that was for resuming funding for NGOs that supported programs using contraception and even abortion, mainly for population control and STD control(got AIDS), like the UN and Red Cross. Their funding by the US Federal Government was cut by the Bush administration (he was notorious for his abortion ideals too, cutting funding for embryonic stem cell research). This bill was passed strictly on abortion grounds, even though we mentioned what great jobs these NGOs were doing, and that contraception and abortion was only one small part of their programs! It was like people were isolating the NGO's flaws and playing down or even missing the great good that they do, like debt cancellation, humanitarian aid, and saving lives literally! Mind you, it was very very easy to just slip into that ideological warfare and focus on what we have in difference as politicians and forget what we had in similarity as Americans (I was playing an American Senator) and as humans! So even if the intention of an action was good, people could just easily disagree on "fundamental" principals and forget about going into the details of these actions! Magnify these types of petty but fundamental arguments and you have strict division based on differences and filibusters but not bipartisanship to get shit done! Truly it was disagreeing by being disagreeable! But then again, if you don't fight for what you think is right, what do you fight for?

One last food for thought was thrown out by Senator Nelson, one of servanthood leadership; one of running for office being one of the many public services one can do for one's country. I could be an active critic of the state, or I could be a volunteer or I could just be a good citizen and these would be equally good public service too! Think of what one drug addict could do to his family and friends and potential victims when he runs out of money or when he goes into another seizure and you see why being a good citizen is good public service. And what evolved in my thoughts along the way was that yes, you have to keep contributing to society at all levels, which means start contributing today, and not contribute only when you have the time and power. This is because you will have even less time in office and you won't have the strong ethic of serving the public if this hasn't been what you have been doing all along!

This was a very powerful weekend, not to mention a fun one (think 70% female population, as opposed to Riddle's 20%)! I learnt a lot, had a lot of thoughts to process and also had the golden opportunity to see democracy in action. Indeed, voicing my opinion and not having to worry about being penalized by forces that I voted in is indeed liberating! Now that kind of reminds me why I'm here to begin with! : ) To learn from the best and bring it back to my motherland! MALAYSIA BOLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!