What Makes America So Great?

You know, I never stop hearing from the conservatives in this country about how America is the greatest nation on the face of the planet.  I find this argument to be very interesting for a number of reasons.  It is just so weird how these people all seem so completely convinced that America is some kind of great archon in the industrialized world, and honestly, it seems kind of pathetic how we believe ourselves to be the greatest of all nations.

My first question to those who believe this country is so great is – how do you measure this greatness?  By what standard to you measure the greatness of a nation.   Is it by how well-off the citizenry are?  Well, let’s keep this to the industrialized world.  If we look at the not so industrialized world, that is depressing.  But yeah, given that we have massive unemployment here, and that doesn’t even include the 99ers who have just given up looking for a job because their community has no opportunities that their education can provide.  The middle class is rapidly disappearing, and the rich seem to not care.

Hey, while we’re talking about citizenry, how about health care?  The World Health Organization ranks us very low among the industrialized nations for quality of health care.  We spend the most on health care than any other nation in the industrialized world, which would be fine, if what we were getting back was of equal merit.  Instead, we have a patch-work health care system that keeps millions of people from getting the necessary procedures that they can get.  Then there is the fact that our nation’s health care system is the most inefficient when it comes to the bureaucracy.  Part of that is because we don’t have universal health care.

And while we’re talking about health care, how about the systems we have in place to protect the poor?  Our social safety net is a joke.  Those who need it are getting nothing, and those who are making six-figure salaries are getting it.  It is a joke how bad we take care of those on the bottom in this country.  And meanwhile, there are idiots like all the Republicans (including Ron Paul.  Seriously, he is just as much a Republican as the rest of them) talking about how we should abolish Social Security, talking about how there are all these lazy people who don’t deserve it.  Yes, because America is clearly a nation where effort gives you equal reward (cough*bullshit*cough).

So, while we’re on the subject of the poor, how about our prison system?  Well, here, we are so ahead of the curve!  We have more people in jail than any other nation in the industrialized world.  Of course, most of these are drug offenders and have done nothing wrong.  The system just says they they are wrong.  Never mind that somebody didn’t kill or steal from anybody, they are criminals!  Yes, that makes a whole lot of sense.  Let’s throw people in jail because we arbitrarily decide to make what they do a crime.

Next up, do we have the biggest array of artists in this country?  Do we have the largest amount of culturally relevant works coming out?  Well, if you look at anything that Michael Bay has made, it is easy to see how that is a lie.  America not only doesn’t have the biggest amount of artists, we don’t have a country that endorses artisans.  When we have people going out and telling art majors to drop it because there are no opportunities for them here.  We are already telling people like my best friend Emily that pursuing the dream of doing great artwork is not a worthwhile pursuit.  So that is out.

While we are looking at the future, how about science?  Is America leading the way in technological mastery and scientific development?  That is a flat-out no.  South Korea is a nation that is half the size of Georgia, and it has the greatest internet service in the world.  America absolutely refuses to start investing large-scale into alternative energy.  We have no high-speed transit system in this country.  The system that we do have right now is a joke.  Almost all the major scientific developments are now coming from other places.  The fact is that America is not some kind of major player here, either.

We also, in a lot of sects in America, actually condemn science.  The religious right is always attacking scientific institutions, like those doing stem cell research, because a microscopic bit of goo might turn into a future Republican.  We have a holy war against doing anything sane.  That brings us to how we are in secular systems.  America is having a civil war (metaphorically speaking) about the religious beliefs of this country.  We condemn the Islam faith, while Christianity really has no room to talk.  Between all the killings done by Christians in the past, and all the ones that are being done now in the name of religion, the Christian right really has no room to attack those who believe in Allah over their God.

This doesn’t look good for America being the greatest nation.  What about the education levels of our young people?  With student loans at colleges being completely beyond control, it is easy to see how education in this country is not the greatest.  High School dropout rates are insane.  At my college, UAA, only 1 in 4 students is able to stick it out until graduation.  Those who come to America to learn don’t stick around here to put their skills to work helping us.  They go back home and put their skills to work to get their nations ahead.

The fact is that America is not the greatest country in the world.  We are very quickly starting to lose our place in the world.  While the Republicans, Libertarians, and Tea Party dumbasses want to go back to some kind of golden age, the new golden age is quickly slipping away from us.  The fact is that we are losing our spot in the global market, and if we don’t do something to change things soon, there will be no place for us in the world of tomorrow.  I really hope that day doesn’t come to pass.

Until next time, a quote,

“Conservatives want live babies so they can turn them into dead soldiers!”  -George Carlin

Peace out,

Maverick

Truths that we have Obscured Behind Comfortable Euphemisms

It’s amazing how a single thought or a single line from a publication, a film, or a TV show can make you think that they touched on something so profound.  Sometimes, it is profound without them even knowing it.  Like reality just wanted to make itself heard.  And then other times, it is deliberately done by those who created the program or work because they wanted to draw issue to this topic, and by doing so, they bring a new face to something that we all need to think about.  For this post, the thing I am talking about is how fiction has brought up the issue of the fact that people want to hide their consciences’ from the fact that they are suggesting horrible things.

There was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “The Measure of a Man.”  It got me to thinking about this concept very specifically, because as a person, I am coming to believe that we are becoming very adept at making things easy to digest, so we don’t have to tackle any big moral or ethical issues in this country, and indeed on this entire planet.

I will give this scene of dialogue, because honestly, I don’t want this to be a single quote.  A single quote can’t say it all.  Here is some dialogue between Capt. Picard and the bartender, Guinan.  Here is what got me to this deep level of cultural introspection -

Guinan: And now he is about to be ruled the property of Starfleet.  That should increase his value.

Picard: In what way?

Guinan: Well, consider that in the history of many worlds, there have always been disposable creatures.  They do the dirty work.  They do the work that nobody else wants to do because it’s too difficult or too hazardous.  And an army of Data’s, all disposable, you don’t have to think about their welfare, you don’t think about how they feel.  Whole generations of disposable people.

Picard: You’re talking about slavery!

Guinan: I think that’s a little harsh.

Picard: I don’t think that’s a little harsh, I think that’s the truth.  But that’s a truth that we have obscured, put behind a comfortable, easy euphemism.  Property.  But that’s not the issue at all, is it?”

That dialogue is among the best scenes of dialogue that I have ever seen in television.  The scene that follows has one of the best monologues that I have seen in television.  The fact is that we all do things to keep our integrity whole, while putting into place another group that we have a disagreement with.  Or a group that we don’t want to think about.

During the Healthcare Reform debates, Fox News sent out memos telling their people to give the bill bad names, talking about how they were supposed to make it seem as ominous as possible, so it didn’t make it sound like they were advocating for denying people healthcare.  No, instead they could call it “government-run healthcare.”  The Libertarians sure got on that bandwagon.  Never mind that it wasn’t telling people that they couldn’t get other insurance.  There was a nifty quote by somebody that the public option wasn’t restricting businesses, it was just adding another player into the mix.  Very smart.

Never mind that there is no single good reason why we don’t have universal healthcare.  People will cite Canada and their problems pretty fast, but they don’t realize that, like evolution, government is about trial and error.  Yes, things don’t work sometimes, but then there are other times, like the NHS, where it works swimmingly.  But I am off-topic.

There was the article that was written in Rolling Stone magazine talking about the “The Kill Team.”  In that article, there was one testimony where a soldier said that they were told by their commanding officers not to think of the Afghanis as people.  “Haji,” was the usual term for them.  They were given a euphemism to make it seem like they were somewhat less human than the Americans who were there to kill them.  Is it any wonder that human life is regarded with such little value?  These people were being told to look down on those who they were killing as less than human.  And really, this concept goes all over the place.

Back to the episode of Star Trek that is linked above, the fact is that Guinan is right.  Throughout all cultures in this world, and probably other worlds, it has been pretty customary to have people who are usually given little to no compensation for their efforts to be doing the work of the people who do not wish to do that, who do not wish to involve themselves in.  Back then, it used to be with people who we would forcibly take out of their homes and would put to work for us.  They were also called “Property.”  It was taught to people that you didn’t think of your slaves as people.  They were just “Negroes.”  It is a part of American history that is a black mark.

But these days, we have our own version of it.  These days, we have things like how companies will use illegal immigrants to do the work that they don’t want to pay people a decent wage to do.  Honestly, I am starting to wonder if the corporate heads of this country have any souls at all.  They will throw away jobs left and right, and not care at all.  There was an article in The Huffington Post about this concept.  Workers in this country are starting to realize that tooth and claw and cutthroat business is the only way they will survive.  As work gets harder and harder to find, the social issues that divide people are starting to grow again.  Honestly, I wish the poor in this nation would rise up, and decide that they have had enough.

We are all accustomed to being told that something is this or that, and it makes us feel better.  Don’t like the Republicans?  You are “un-American.”  Don’t like Conservative of Libertarian values?  Then you must be a “socialist” or a “Marxist!”  Never mind that socialism is NOT a dirty word.

Really, it is part of our species that when we are faced with the tough issues, the really big challenges, we don’t want to stare directly at them.  It is part of the reason that people don’t like politics, it is part of the reason that the liberal community is the underdog in the modern political landscape.  Nobody wants to realize that universal healthcare is good.  Nobody wants people to know that liberals are just people who don’t agree.  Nobody wants to accept that helping others is the reason we are all here, not getting money, not making a new phone.  The hard issues are never the ones people want to see.  It is easier to just ignore, to just close our eyes, and to pretend it doesn’t exist.

I think I’ll end with Picard’s monologue from the episode above.  I really do think it is an amazing bit.  The euphemisms exist so people won’t care.  I desperately need to believe that the bulk of people do.  Maybe, that is too much to hope for.

Your honor, a courtroom is a crucible. In it we burn away irrelevancies until we are left with the pure product, the truth, for all time. Now sooner or later this man or others like him will succeed in replicating Commander Data. And the decision you reach here today will determine how we will regard this creation of our genius? It will reveal the kind of a people we are and what he is destined to be. It will reach far beyond this courtroom and this one android. It could significantly redefine the boundaries of personal liberty and freedom, expanding them for some, savagely curtailing them for others. Are you prepared to condemn him and all who come after him to servitude and slavery? Your honor, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits, waiting. You wanted a chance to make law, well, here it is, make it a good one.

Peace out,

Maverick

Modern America is All About Greed

Lately, I am starting to see a model that really just depresses me.  I admire the fuck out of George Carlin and how he was able to completely seperate himself from what this country has become.  He was able to laugh at the complete ruthlessness of the system and the people who live in it.  He was able to make a joke out of how horrible and how bitter this world has become.  When you look at how people are, how the world is, it is easy to see why people don’t get involved in politics.

The new prevailing theory among conservatives and, for the most part, Libertarians, is that people should be as greedy as they want to be, and screw everybody else.  I find this view morally and ethically repugnant.  Ayn Rand, while she had a few good ideas, had a whole philosophy that seems to have been based on greed.  And now we have an entire country that endorses this viewpoint.  It is tragic beyond all reason.  It really is.  Because, the way that I see it, helping other people and working together as a species to make the world a better place is the only reason that we are in this world at all.

I like the line that Keith Olbermann had -

Everyday since I started to think, I realized I knew a little less than I thought I did the day before about why we are all here.”

It’s a tragic statement that is true for me as well.  I sit back and I look at this world, and I look at how much we are consumed by the endless pursuit of money, and the endless pursuit to do better than the other people.  George Carlin had this bit about the Ten Commandments, and how the Commandment to not covet your neighbor’s goods is pure bullshit.  Coveting what your neighbor has is what drives this entire nation’s economy.  We are a nation that is built on the idea that we need more money, to have more and more and more.

When you think about how far we have come, how much we have done as a species, the fact that we are all so obsessed with little gree pieces of paper is actually quite amazing.  We are all so consumed by our need.  They say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but since it buys every single thing that is needed for happiness, I would say that it does!  I would say that it does more than buy happiness.  I think it buys existence at all.  You cannot exist in this world if it wasn’t for money.

Every time I hear some Libertarian retard or some conservative dumbass talk about how the poor are such leeches, I can’t even shake my head in shame anymore.  You see the rich, and how they are sucking the money away from everybody else.  Then you see the poor and how they will fight tooth and claw to defend these people.  I am beyond depressed about the modern situation in this country.  I have a friend who I care about more than most anybody.  She is in a really pretty pickle, because her family may lose their home.  A person I know heard that the parents either couldn’t work (as one of them can’t) or can hardly find work, and instantly wrote them off as people who didn’t try enough.  Stupidity, naivety, ignorance, and of a calibur that I haven’t seen in a long time.  Her hardcore Fox News loving racist husband I’m sure agrees whole-heartedly.

This nation has an illness, so does this entire planet.  I am with Carlin in believing there is no hope, and it is getting to the point that I don’t really care how it all turns out.  The day that the major corporations and banks like BP, Goldman Sachs, and the Catholic Church took over this country, it was all over.  The basic parts of human decency, like helping out your fellow man, they went out the window and were replaced by the endless consumerism that has made us all slaves to it.

I’m with TJ on this one -

So I ask all people of faith, if there is a God, how the fuck can you stomach him?  His universe is a shithole!”

Greed, crime, corruption, and the endless work of those in power (not the government.  Our faux government is just a bunch of patsies that our real owners, the corporate interests, can use to make whatever they want happen), and really being a bad person is just rampant in society.  It is so much easier to be evil than good.  Good requires rising above your natural instincts.  Good requires that you are able to set aside the personal feelings about things.  Good requires that you make sacrifice.  And the fact is that people in this country doesn’t want to make sacrifice.

The aforementioned person, she asked me, genuinely asked me, if I would want to give money to the poor if I had a lot of money.  If I was a multi-millionaire, would I want to give up that money?  The general visceral tone with which she had make me feel genuinely ill.  Like the idea of giving money and helping people is such a bad thing.  I am now convinced that I am a better person than she is.  I am convinced of this because I knew the answer in a heartbeat – yes.  Yes a thousand times!  I would give as much as I possible could!  I don’t need all that wealth!  I wouldn’t want it either!  I want to help people.  There was the single greatest speech in film from Charlie Chaplin, in the film “The Great Dictator.”  I think he said it best.  In fact, I will put the speech in its entirety on here, so you can know how I feel about the human race, and what I want for every, single, person -

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor.  That’s not my business.  I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.  I should like to help everyone, if possible!  Jew, gentile, black man, white.  We all want to help one-another.  Human beings are like that.  We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.  We don’t want to hate and despise one-another.  In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich!  And can provide for everyone.  The way of life can be free and beautiful.  But we have lost the way.  Greed has poisoned men’s souls.  Has barricaded the world with hate.  Has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.  We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.  Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want!  Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind.  We think too much and we feel too little.

More than machinery, we need humanity.  More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.  Without these qualities, life will be violent, and all will be lost.  The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together.  The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men.  Cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all!  Even now, my voice is reaching millions of people across the world.  Millions of despairing men, women, and little children.  Victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.  To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair!  The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed.  The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.  The hate of men will pass, and dictators die!  And the power they took from the people, willl be returned to the people.  And so long as men die, liberty shall never perish!

Soldiers, don’t give yourself to brutes!  Men who despise you, enslave you!  Who regiment your lives, tell you what to do and what to think and what to feel!  Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder!  Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men!  Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts!  You are not machines!  You are not cattle!  You are men!  You have the love of humanity in your hearts.  You don’t hate!  Only the unloved hate!  The unloved and the unnatural.  Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St. Luke it is written ‘the Kingdom of God is within man.  Not one man nor a group of men!’  But in all men!  You, you the people have the power!  The power to create machines.  The power to create happiness!  You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful!  To make this life a wonderful adventure!  Then in the name of democracy, let us use this power!  Let us unite!  Let us fight for a new world, a decent world!  That will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future, and old age a security!  By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power!  But they lie!  The do not fulfill that promise.  They never will!  Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!  Now let us fight to fulfill that promise!  Let us fight to free the world.  To do away with national barriers.  To do away with greed, hate and intolerance!  Let us fight for a world of reason!  A world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.  Soldiers, in the name of democracy, Let us all unite!”

That is my absolute truth.  That is what I believe.  That is my mantra, my existence, and the reason that I am a better person than the one I talked about, and all those who think like her.

Until next time, a quote,

“It seems as if we are taught as young children to share, and then, as soon as we let go of our parent’s hand, we are taught to stop sharing, or at least to stop prioritizing sharing.  To stop sharing unconditionally.”  -Keith Olbermann, Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Peace out,

Maverick

Why are the Poor Defending the Rich so Much?

This is a genuinely confusing concept that I am going to mirror on my professional blog too.

I don’t get this new paradigm of the poor, and those who are hopelessly poor, defending the rich with such steadfast devotion.  I was talking to a family member today about my views on politics.  I should have learned a long time ago not to do that.  I have an uncle who I don’t talk about religion with because of the fact that he is so hardcore about it.  With me, talking to conservatives is the exact same way.

There was a very brilliant cartoon done by Ted Rall.  It summed up what I had to deal with today almost perfectly.  It was called “The Tea Party Made Simple.“  These people will defend, almost to the death (metaphorically and ideologically speaking) that the rich need to be protected, like they are going to lose so much.  Really, the idea that the rich are so delicate and going to give up completely is so completely ridiculous.  It is built up on an idea that was completely disprove, and seen by the intellectual and philosophical community as a joke.

The bulk of the modern conservative economic model is much akin to the Libertarian economic model (or at least the predominate model that they and their Messiah, Ron Paul, follow).  It is based around the economic ideas of Ayn Rand.  Ayn Rand is a very interesting character to look at when it comes to economics.  The bulk of the philsophical community wrote off what she said (and quite rightly so) as morally repugnant garbage.  There was a professor who did a rather nice paper about this that was put on the website of a really great YouTube vlogger, Liberal Viewer.  It talks about how the model of selfishness that the conservatives seem to idolize, and the Libertarians worship as gospel, is a completely flawed and totally pointless model to live by.

Now, this family member lives by what seems to be Rand’s idea – that only those who produce matter, and that those who do not produce should be cast aside and forgotten.  That altruism and decency and going out of your way to help others is a worthless cause.  This is, in fact, morally repugnant.  I give credit  to Rand for being able to make this concept sound very good, but the fact is that when you get into the meat of her arguments, you find out that what she wants is nothing more than a selfish, be as greedy as you want and don’t give a crap about anybody else, model, and really, isn’t a philosophy at all.

But back to the argument with the family member, she believes a lot of the talking points of Rand.  I don’t want to call her a Randroid, because that seems a tad bit harsh, and I doubt she has ever studied these ideas in detail, but the talking points are the same – government bad, private business good.  Alan Greenspan was much the same.  It seems that the Libertarians, Tea Party, and Republicans learned absolutely nothing from this man admitting the idea of no regulation being the right one to be wrong.

There was an episode of “FRONTLINE” which talked about what happened to our economy in detail.  Here’s a link to it – http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/.  A woman named Brooksley Born saw what was coming.  The person I had this argument with, she believes it was a government mistake that happened.  I partially agree, but in a completely different way.  This episode showed that was happened was the government’s fault.  There was not enough regulation on Wall Street, and there needed to be.

Now, before the market collapsed, nobody would hear anything about regulation.  Things were doing awesome, absolutely awesome.  If you were told in 2005 that things were about to collapse from a shady practice by banks who were not being watched closely enough, you would have been laughed offstage.  That was the country that we lived in.  Wall Street was doing incredibly well.  Nobody could have seen the problem that was growing just under the skin.

Enter the world of Over-the-Counter Derivatives.  These were an almost unregulated area of the banking industry.  They are pretty much bets between companies and banks.  They are insurance policies on Wall Street which protect them from problems.  This is a $27 trillion market.  This was a metric ton of money, and the government knew almost nothing about them.  Even those on Wall Street were mostly in the dark.  And since it was completely in the dark, there was a huge market for fraud.  The banks that were involved in this knew that these were too complicated for the average person to understand, and that was how they took multiple companies to the cleaners.  The fact is that these OTCs, as they are called, were, and still are, nothing more than a complete scam.

So, here we are, with trillions of dollars, and nobody knows what is going on.  What happens if something goes wrong?  If something were to go wrong, the OTCs could bring down the entire market.  And that is EXACTLY what happened.  The game went wrong, and everything fell apart.  Greenspan on his dream team all were involved in keeping the truth secret, and after talking with a family member today, I am starting to think their efforts worked.

The Fox News narrative is that the government needs to step back, to stay out.  This is flawed.  This is deeply flawed.  And what’s more, they have an entire army of people who are willing to throw rationality and critical thinking out the window based on personal greed and a strange idea that the rich don’t have the money to lose.

I was asked, “If you made $5 million annually, would you want to give some of that up?  That you worked so hard to get?”  I find this question bizarre, ridiculous, and pathetically naive to the way things are.  The very number, $5 million.  To make that much money annually, it is almost too incredible to dream.  Would I give more of that up?  Would I want to be taxed?  HELL YES!  Are you kidding me?  She actually asked me that, thinking, I guess, that she had backed me into an ideological corner.  I am not a rich man.  Far from it.  I would say that I am more of the lower-middle class.  There is no more true middle class.  You are upper or lower.  If I could make that kind of money in a year, I would give so much of it in taxes, to help the poor, to help strengthen our nation’s safety net, that it isn’t a thought to me.  It’s done, and I wouldn’t look back.

This idea that the rich need to be catered to, and need their hands held is just so pathetic.  It is so worthless and really shows that the people who fight for this are nothing more than ignorant fools who just want to have an idea going on that really means nothing.  The wealth inequality in this country is absolutely insane!  How do these people justify this?  I wanted to get some understanding here, but really, her perspective makes no sense.  The cartoon I linked to above, I really think that it says everything perfectly.  These people are, I guess, being screwed out of the imaginary business that they have in their head.

So, should we raise taxes on the wealthy?  DUH!  No-brainer.  And that is because the conservatives in this country seem to have no brains.

Until next time, a quote,

“And that’s what everybody’s worried about.  You have one big institution that fails.  It can’t pay its obligations, and forces somebody else into a dangerous territory who can’t pay their obligations.  Pretty soon it’s a falling domino effect through the economy.”  -David Wessel, FRONTLINE

Peace out,

Maverick

Ron Paul is not a God, so SHUT UP!

I am more than a little pissed off right now.  I am pissed off mostly because of the fact that I got to see a very articulate and very good article written by a friend of mine trashed by a group of people who I no am beginning to think don’t think.  They don’t think at all.  These assholes don’t have two brain cells to rub together.  I am, of course, talking about Libertarians.  These people have proven, time and time again, that if you say anything bad, or anything that goes against their views, about their Messiah, Ron Paul, then you are going to have all kinds of vitriol and hatred thrown at you.

Here’s an blog posting from a very good friend of mine.  I grew up with the guy.  He wrote in his professional blog (he is a political commentator, and one of my favorites to read) about how Ron Paul is NOT the hero/savior/awesomeness/God/Jesus/whatever other deity you can think of.  And how was his statement met?  Hatred, vitriol, and scorning, while still raising up on the glorious pedestal into the sky their hero, Ron Paul.

So, what were my friends reasons for why Ron Paul is not a saint?  Well, he had some pretty good ones.  The first was the fact that Ron Paul is for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  So, basically, he believes that the government should be smaller, but large enough to force all women to carry a pregnancy to term?  It is just the first of a laundry list of stupidity to come from this guy.

See, Ron Paul believes that he is a scientist.  He’s a doctor, to be sure, but he is not a scientist.  One of the really great proofs of that is that he doesn’t believe in the theory of evolution.  It’s come straight from the horse’s mouth.  He claims to be a scientist, while not accepting the fact that evolution has a mountain of evidence, a mountain.  Here’s an article by Richard Dawkins which can nicely pwn Ron Paul.  I think a nice little bit that was on NPR (oh no, NPR!  The Libertarian’s worst nightmare!) which can also put his views on this subject in their place.  Really, there can be no denying that the theory of evolution is true.  So, this is another area where Paul’s supporters are completely out of their depth.

Then there is the fact that Ron Paul is against the seperation of church and state.  My friend had a great quote from the man himself, and a response (of sorts) by Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father.  Here is Ron Paul’s quote -

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion.”

And here is the response, or rather, disagreement, that Thomas Jefferson would have had -

 Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

But really, when you think critically about this issue, being against the seperation of church and state is a huge fallacy to having a small government.  If the government had a state-endorsed religion, that would mean taking away people’s LIBERTY or freedom to worship whatever god, gods, or whatever, that they please (I am an atheist, so I think it’s all bullshit, but we have the right to have it in this country).  Yeah, that’s really big for small government, right?

So, those are a couple of the examples of hypocrisy in what he says.  His supporters will clamor to his defense (as they did against my friend) that he is for cutting taxes, entirely.  Okay, let’s get something straight – Ron Paul’s economic ideas are childish and dumb.  We are too far in debt now for cuts alone to work.  This nation is too far in debt for us to be able to just cut spending.  We have to increase revenue.  Sorry, but that’s a fact.  Really, the fact that Paul endorses Alan Greenspan’s failed economic ideology, which was modeled after Ayn Rand’s way of doing things, is a sign that he is out of his depth.

Now, it should be noted that Paul does want to end the wars.  He very much wants to bring the troops home.  He seems very dedicated to this cause.  However, in being dedicated so much to this, people are losing sight of the other side of this character.  The side who wishes to destroy our infrastructure, take away women’s control over their bodies, and wants there to be no seperation of church and state.

And this is part of what’s pissing me off right now about the reaction my friend got.  There was nobody articulately defending anything.  They all just came on and did endless attacks, making lovely strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks.  It was just a bunch of ranting bullshit that really served no purpose other than to reinforce a view I already had the Libertarianism is just a me-me-me belief.  Don’t take my money, don’t give money to other people, don’t interfere in my life.

This is what gets on my nerves so damn much poeple like Ron Paul supporters – the fact that they just seem to have blinders on.  There was a posting on Reddit where a guy said that he was a pro-choice atheist, but then turns around and says that Ron Paul has a good perspective, that his is the right perspective.  And this is why I consider the followers of Ron Paul, and TJ Kincaid as well, more like members of a cult than a political party, and also why I think the party can’t be taken seriously.

These people follow this man and talk like his word is gospel the moment it leaves his lips.  There are some, a precious few, who question, and contend, and they are lambasted and ridiculed by the rest.  My friend’s posting was put on DailyPaul.com, and everybody jumped on the bandwagon the Ron Paul is some kind if victim/savior who is going to save America.  No!  Wrong!  He’s a guy.  He’s a guy with some alright ideas, and a guy with a lot of really fucking stupid ideas!  And if you want to accept his good ideas, then guess what, you Libertarians, you also have to accept his bad ideas!  Sorry, but that’s a fact!  If he is elected President, you will have to take responsibility for what this man espouses.  His religious views WILL affect his politics.  Sorry, but that is how it is.

Until next time, a quote,

“If you wanna vote for him, at least be honest about his fucking foibles!  Stop treating him like a god!  Stop sucking his fucking dick!”  -TJ Kincaid, CULT of Ron Paul

Peace out,

Maverick

America’s Government Sucks!

When you watch the news these days, and you see the endless stream of politcal theater that goes on, like the debt ceiling debates, then you start to wonder if maybe our government is not only incompetant, but maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t really give a shit.  It is not a nice thing to say.  Already there are sure to be those who come on and will defend to the bitter end how our government is working, even though it is horribly obvious that it doesn’t work.  It really doesn’t, you know.  It puts on a good show of working, of getting some worthwhile done, but in the end, it does nothing but pwn itself.

There was a great video by Grappling Ignorance about this.  He talked about how pot should be legalized, and the fact that it hasn’t been is just one of the many easy gimmes that the government has been given, and drops.  They aren’t even these days trying to make it look like they give a shit about the issues that matter.  Really, they don’t even make a really convincing show out of it.  The Tea Party is content to burn down the country’s economy for their stupid political ideology.  The Libertarians are thinking about making their own floating cities and leaving (YES!  Go away!).  The Conservatives want turn the Middle East into a giant bowl of glass.  And the Liberals, well, they’re content enough to not fight significantly hard for anything and call it success when not much happens.

Really, the fact that things like marijuana are not illegal is just so pathetic.  It could be taxed, regulated, sold at stores and carded, cops could be out on the street fighting real crime.  So much could go right.  And there isn’t a single person who has a single decent argument against making it legal.  Really, they don’t exist.  The “gateway drug” argument has been debunked multiple times.  The “safety of our children” argument has been done.  Those who argue that gangsters would grow in power have been debunked because the illegal market would be destroyed by the legal market.  Why bother getting it on the street when you can get it in the stores so much easier?

This issue would seem to be a free-throw for the government.  It would bring in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.  It would give cops the ability to be cops.  We could empty our prisons of people who are accused of nothing more than smoking a drug that makes them happy and hungry.  Really, there is no wrong that could happen.  In fact, environmentalists should be into this because we could stop cutting down trees for paper!  Imagine, pot might change the world!

And it goes to another free-throw idea that this government doesn’t acknowledge – universal healthcare.  Here’s a nift fact for you – America spends more money on healthcare than any other nation in the planet.  England has universal healthcare, and it’s cheap in comparison.  REALLY cheap.  Why doesn’t this country adopt it?  Well, there’s just too much money flowing into the pockets of the insurance companies.  There is too much money flowing into all of the corporations that are involved.  Not to mention the fact that America has a disease that we don’t want to admit – horrible bureaucracy.  America has the worst bureaucracy on Earth, France has the best.  Really, Europe just kicks America’s ass at everything.

This country and the endless string of bureaucratic bullshit was designed for one thing – making the lives of the rich easier.  TJ had this great quote -

I guess we can chalk this up to just another battlefront on America’s ongoing war against things that make any fucking sense!”

The bureaucratics nightmares, the incompetant celebrity jackass politicians, the fact that we have lawyers making decisions for how a medical system should run, the fact that we have the longest war ever going on in the Middle East that may NEVER end, all of these things are on a list of stupid bullshit that this country wears proudly on its sleeves.

And this is the reason it pisses me the fuck off how people are able to just ignore what goes on in this world and be happy about that.  People are proud that they ignore the news and what happens in the world and just choose to be ignorant.  People like that deserve no respect in my mind.  When things in this country are going to shit because of Tea Party indignation and the stupidity of a populace and those in government to realize that we are so far beyond the point where spending cuts alone can solve the problem, the fact that people choose to tune out annoys me.  When we have people across the world dying every single day in one of now FIVE pointless wars in a part of the world that nobody gives a shit about, not really, the fact that people are proud of ignorance bugs me.  When we have people who don’t get horrible medical problems looked at because the healthcare system in this country sucks all their money away, this shit pisses me off!

Shit like the two cancer patients video I linked to above shouldn’t happen in this country!  We shouldn’t have anybody who is unable to get good healthcare because they don’t have the money.  We have all the stupid dumbasses who follow the hypocritical idiot Ron Paul to the ends of the Earth, and will even go against their own intellects to follow that dumbass!  This nation is becoming part of a paradigm called Planet Stupid.  It is a cultural realization that all of the people in this country are universally dumb.  I’m dumb too.  I’ll admit it.  I’m with George Carlin.  Anybody who thinks there is a solution is too stupid to realize that they are too stupid to have it.

But the fact is that all sides of the debate are idiots.  I have a special place of loathing in my heart for the Libertarians because they either blind or hypocrites, but really, all sides are stupid.  And another thing that all the sides of this debate have in common – they are all just as locked in and blind to everything else.  Pragmatism is the only way, moderation.  Thinking, being open to being proven wrong, having good debates.  When you can do that, you are worth listening to.

And this government is going to suck because the people suck.  That’s the ultimate truth – the people all suck, so the system sucks.  Fuck us, America.  Fuck us all!

Until next time, a quote,

“Maybe this wouldn’t irk me so damn much if the Paulites didn’t imbue this man with Messiah-like properties…If you want to vote for him, at least be honest about his fucking foibles!  Stop treating him like a god!  Stop sucking his fucking dick!”  -TJ Kincaid, CULT of Ron Paul

Peace out,

Maverick

Appreciating Our Teachers

So, Teacher’s Appreciation Day has long since passed, but I recently got to thinking about it.  There was a video made by one of my favorite YouTubers, GrapplingIgnorance.  His real name is unknown.  He keeps his identity a secret.  You see, he is himself a teacher.  He had a YouTube account, some time ago.  But one of his students recognized him, and he had to delete the account, to protect his job.  God forbid an atheist should teach students.  They might, you know, learn something.  I know that in this country, knowledge is the enemy.  In any case, he had some pretty interesting thoughts about Teacher’s Appreciation Day and how we treat out teachers in this country.

Sausage biscuits from Burger King, bleeding grease through paper bags on the teacher’s lounge table.  A gesture from district for being one of the people who accepts minimal pay for maximum work, because we couldn’t do it without you, and this is how we thank the unexpendable.

The words are rather harsh, but you know what?  They are true.  They are absolutely true, and the fact that this goes contested is even worse.   The fact is that our teacher’s are treated like shit in this country.  The average turnover rate of teachers is awful.  Most of it is within their first five years.  After the first five years, most teachers give up on the profession.  It is so hopelessly pathetic, and the fact that it doesn’t bother people is even worse.  It really doesn’t.  Sure, there are people like me who have a very soft spot for public education, but the bulk of people, or rather, Americans, are happy to be ignorant.

This country’s education system is already behind.  The rest of the world is leaving American behind in our ignorant stew.  Part of me wonders if we will ever become Mike Judge’s Idiocrisy, being too stupid to understand that we are being used.  The Republicans scream about how bad the unions are, and all they really care about is the money.  They don’t even try to hide it well anymore that they don’t give a flying fuck about the common man.  There are people like Lee Doren who calls the teachers who protested in Wisconsin “thugs,” and says “They don’t care about the students, either.”

What would this country become, without public education?  Do any of you think that urban kids are going to be able to pay to get into private schools?  Well maybe the Libertarian idiots and the conservative money-grubbers want them to become slaves.  Most of the urban population are minorities, after all.  Maybe they want them to be idiots who take low-paying jobs and are little more than servants.

It is bad enough that we already have to stomach stupidity like No Child Left Behind, the worst thing to happen to our nation’s education system in a VERY long time.  It is bad enough that the people of this country are content to let our students be taught sub-standard tests, and nothing more.  This was shown in a very brilliant way in one of the best shows that has ever been created – The Wire.  In that show, Prez ended up working at a school.  But when the standardized tests came up, he asked a simple question, “how is this helping the kids?”

The fact is that it isn’t.  The results from these tests is depressing, but people don’t realize that they are taking the wrong message from it.  Don’t try to change the students.  Another great quote from The Wire was, “we’re just teaching them here so they can go back out there, to the street corners.”  And that is all we are doing.  We wonder why people in this country turn to crime.  A guy who sells crack can make three times the amount of money that a teacher will ever make.

We are paying trained gorillas to get paid a King’s Ransom to play with a ball.  I am sorry, sports fans, but that is bullshit!  It is bullshit that we love this stupidity so much!  These people are nothing more than trained monkeys that we all cheer at and boo, depending on who we like.  They are hopelessly overpaid, and what’s more, we know it, but we don’t care.  We also pay even more to people who just get up onto a screen and act badly.  How much as Megan Fox gotten paid for her terrible job?  How much was Shia LaBeouf paid for those god-awful Transformers movies?  And even the really good ones are completely overpaid.

Yet the people who are educating our future generations are forced to pick away at their student loans with the meager crumbs that society offers them.  They are driving cars that are often older than their students.  They are looked down upon by their students.  I cannot count the number of times that I was in school and heard the students talking about how pathetic the teachers are.  We mock them, we belittle them, and yet they are probably one of the most integral parts of society, the part that we need the most.  And we don’t treat them with the respect that they deserve.  But what’s more, we don’t treat the students with the respect that they deserve.

We don’t hold them up to high standards.  They are being taught by the media and reality TV that it is okay and admirable to be stupid.  My problems with the War on Drugs aside, our kids are thinking that it is better to be a drug dealer because they will make more money quicker.  Never mind that they will be in danger all the time, potentially ending up in prison, and then our penal system will get the chance to make them worse people.  There is a glorious lack of respect in this country for all the aspects, but don’t worry kids, Monday Night Football will be there when you want it.

GrapplingIgnorance had his own thoughts about how kids view teachers, and it depresses the shit out of me, because he is right -

Their role models are the drug dealers who break petty laws for premium profits, and the sports stars that are paid a king’s ransom to play a child’s game. Why should they look up to you, when you drive a car as old as they, and chip away at student loans with fragments of your meager pay?

And what do they get in return?  They get no respect, pitiful pay, and they are treated like they are special, but we all know how society feels about our teachers.

Society, I have something to say to you: fuck you!

Until next time, a quote,

“ The ignorant politicians who make the rules and break the unions think it’s all about the money. Had they been any farther from understanding your point, they would have been closer to it. You want to scream.”  -GrapplingIgnorance, Teacher Appreciation Day

Peace out,

Maverick