(slightly) unkommon

For whatever reason I stumbled onto MySpace today, and came across my old profile. Because the “About Me” is so dreadful in hindsight, I feel it’s good to share! You know the adage, laugh with me, at young me.

(Unbolded text is the original language, bolded is what I actually meant at the time)

Hey all who visit my page,
Welcome to my domain.

I’m Montana Leet, and my profile has gone through quite a few updates. The term “eclectic” has often been used to describe me, and I’ve had difficulty making a “focused” profile. So here is my attempt, I hope you like (or appreciate) it.
I haven’t mastered conciseness yet. Sorry.

Here’s a quote from me: “The United States Of America, although the greatest country on Earth, is filled with persons that strongly believe that to make a difference one must be an adult, and are fully prepared to disregard any youth trying to make a difference … The world needs change, and it’s youth, it’s us, every one of us in this room, that can provide that change.”
By the way, vote for me for State Senate in 2012.

I’m a youth rights activist. I’ve had experience working with kids and young adults that genuinely want to make a difference in society. These people that live side-by-side with adults, deserve the right to make that difference. Oppression spans from gender to sexuality, race to religion, and social class to age. Ageism though, has always and still doesn’t hold a candle of concern in comparison to the other forms of oppression. Women are on the fast track to equal rights. GLBTQ groups are making headway. We’ve elected a half black president. Every day church separates further from state. There are countless programs, both federal and state, designed to assist lower income people. But young adults don’t have an ounce of representation.
If I don’t make the “half” distinction I might lose some votes!

Right now about 9% of young adults are eligible to vote. That’s almost 1 in 10 people, but nobody cares. Middle aged politicians are deciding how we should be educated even though they haven’t been enrolled in public school in decades. Remember No Child Left Behind? Well if you’re a parent you should, because it certainly left your kid(s) behind. No one I know my age was excited about that one.
Old white men kind of suck.

So let’s get real. If kids as young as 16 could vote, young adults would top that 10%. In fact, upon doing research we’d get 13% of the vote. It doesn’t seem like much, but to pass the 1 in 10 mark would be a phenomenal thing in the political realm. Politicians would have to look at us and think “Gee, I need this demographic to win, so my platform needs to adhere to this group as well.” Now sit on this, most people 24 and under are lower class. So by achieving recognition, the lower class as a whole would have to have more focus put on it. Still with me? Agreeing with me? Good.
Kids are a force to be reckoned with, mmhmm.

I think it’s time for me to go down a partial list of the proposals I put forward regarding education:
Because I want to seem important for my run in 3 years, here’s my platform:
Education is near the top of a lot of “most important topics” lists, so here’s my planned reforms:

i. In middle and high schools, typically teachers teach one subject. So why do they have teaching degrees!? The reason education received at community colleges is much better is because the teachers have degrees for the subjects they teach. A person with a doctorate in Political Science isn’t qualified to teach a Civics and Government course in any high school for a day as a substitute. That’s wrong. I propose requiring teachers have a MA or higher degree in the fields they wish to teach in middle or high schools. Everyone else with a teachers degree that want to teach should stick to teaching K-6.
Mr. Paine (My Political Science instructor), I really want your support.

ii. Require Civics and Governments courses for kids in high school to take. Those courses should not be electives.
Everyone should learn about politics, because, well, it’s important!

iii. For every election season (separating Primary and General), allow anyone 17 and under to take a test which, if passed, grants them the right to vote. The test would be taken at local DMV offices for a $10 fee, and would be based off of a voting information guide, which will be supplied by schools, or kids could request the guide to be sent via mail if their school doesn’t have its act together (or the kid is a 10 year old whiz that wants to vote–elementary schools wouldn’t be required to supply voting information).
Me and my committee of me, myself, and I have come up with a plan to raise an undetermined amount of revenue for our state, by getting an unknown amount of kids to vote.

iv. Abolish military recruiters in high schools. I am sick of those punks taking advantage of youth. Replace them with voting information booths, such as can be found at community colleges.
War: Bad. Voting: Good.

So there you have a very brief view of reforms I’d like to see happen on the education front. Every one of the four listed has paragraphs more to it, and there are tons of other reforms I propose including (but not limited to) education for the mentally ill, pushing charter schools, ending location discrimination, the works. Now I’d like to discuss my opinion two current hot(ish) topics… The ones that have a place in my heart.
Wait. I’m not done:

i. Healthcare. Public option now, I mean, seriously… I care more about accountability for the HMOs than anything, and a public option is the only way to force corporations such as Kaiser Permanente to treat patients as patients should be treated. I almost was murdered by my physician. I was literally on my deathbed, and if I didn’t stop taking the meeds they gave me halfway through the bottle, I wouldn’t be here today. With that in mind, I have said many many times that I would die for a public healthcare option. If the only way to pass that legislation was for me to be hanged, I would say my goodbyes and not hesitate. I know that will never be the case, but I’d rather die for the cause than because of lack of the cause.
I will take a noose for you, man.

ii. Abortion rights. Every female should have the right to an abortion(s). Without question. I can speak about this for days (infact I have before), so if you come to me and ask me “why?”, I will be happy to send you my big list of reasons.
In short: Fetuses are parasites.

Hopefully you now have an idea of my politics, and the three things I care about most. Education and healthcare are obviously the big ones, but regarding abortion… I really don’t know why I get into so many fist fights about it. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, especially for me as a male, but there’s just something about it that makes me really loathe the traditional anti-choice viewpoint. I would love to be an elected official someday, but in life, things and wants and needs change. It’s the inevitable, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
My opinions are important and, by the way, vote for me!

Another career path I’d like to get into is independent Horror filmmaker. I’ve been writing a few screenplays in my spare time, and I’ve received praise for my pitches. So we’ll see what happens on that front. I’ve been in college since I was 15 and am a Political Science major and Film minor, which lines up with the career paths I’ve chosen. My e-mail address is [redacted], I love to receive e-mails, so send me some! And if you really need to reach me immediately, my phone number is [redacted]. No txt messages please!
Hey, I just bored you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe?

Regards,
- Montana
Whew, done typing. Finally.