Nice Neat Lines

It’s often been said jokingly (and sometimes not so jokingly) that man creates “God” in his own image, rather than the other way around.

I actually happen to be a firm believer in that concept.

And you know what? I honestly don’t think “God” has a problem with that. In fact, I think “God” has actually come to expect it. After all, we do that with practically everyone who has even the slightest of contacts to our lives. Parents, teachers, friends, celebrities, politicians, employers, the kid who takes our sandwich orders in our favorite restaurant… We have an “image” of each and every one of these people that probably nobody else has, at least not so precisely. Really, why should “God” be any different? He (she..they..it..whatever) probably even gets a kick out of it. Not unlike a parent would get a kick out of looking at a painting or drawing of them that their five year old child came up with after their teacher assigned them to do so.

What gets us in trouble is when one particular person’s image of “God” is so precise in their own mind that they insist that everyone ELSE must adhere to that same image. It is not only potentially dangerous, it is practically impossible. It has been tried.. and failed at.. repeatedly. More often than not with the most damaging of results.

Christianity is a prime example. Certainly not the ONLY example, but probably the one most familiar to anyone who might happen to be reading this. In spite of the exhaustive efforts of emperors, priests, kings, and politicians, consensus has been, to put it extremely mildly, elusive. Denominations within the Christian faith number into the dozens, at least. The same can also be said of Islam, Judaism, and the various beliefs among the ones referred to as Pagan is staggering.

Religion (and by extension, spirituality) is a difficult topic to write about. It is even more difficult to simplify. Many have tried, and most have failed miserably. Even by those who have spent their lifetimes studying it. One conclusion that is all but undeniable is that religion was never meant to be a “group” project. It is an individual journey and in practically every case an unending one. Even among people within the same congregation, each and every one has at least a slightly different “version” of the Divine. We can cross paths with those who may hold similar viewpoints or even foundations, but no two are exactly the same. A “one-size-fits-all” approach to religion always.. ALWAYS!.. results in much more condemnation than it does consensus.

Another undeniable conclusion is, despite the ramblings of many atheists, a “connection” to the Divine is universal and timeless. All throughout the history of humankind, both documented and discovered, one constant has always been a religious belief of some sort. It’s “wired” into us to want it, the desire to know, understand, and connect to a divine force, a “creator”, or at least a guide of some sort that gives us meaning and purpose.

And I seriously don’t believe that “Divine source” really gives much of a shit what “form” we choose to give it.

Looking East – (part 2)

To say it’s gotten beyond ludicrous would be the epitome of understatements.

You know, I was perfectly willing to accept the possibility of widespread voter fraud, as the Trump enthusiasts kept adamantly proclaiming. Certainly it should be investigated. It has. Ridiculously so, in fact. Lawsuit after lawsuit has been presented to the courts, and practically every one has been thrown out, dismissed, or debunked. The Trump enthusiasts have failed to make their case. They have failed to provide the hard evidence. Yet still they persist. They still try to convince the courts, and the American people, that two plus two equals five.

There…are…FOUR!!…lights!

Captain Jean Luc Picard (Chain of Command, Part 2)

My last posting here focused on the office of US President having too much power. There is certainly more “proof” of that than there is about any sort of widespread voter fraud. Three weeks later, and the “evidence” just keeps piling up. And what’s even more ludicrous is the “evidence” keeps coming from both “sides”.

From the “right”, not only do you have the asinine ridiculousness of unending and baseless lawsuits, you also have a faction of people out there actually threatening the people who are recounting the votes, and the people certifying the election results. You have self-proclaimed militia members planning the kidnapping, bodily harm, and even possible executions of governors and other public officials. All because ONE MAN lost a fucking presidential election!!

And then there’s the man who is trying so desperately to hold onto that position of US President.. Having failed to adequately prove his voter fraud cases in the courts, he is now calling in members of state legislatures.. STATE LEGISLATURES!!.. not FEDERAL legislatures, which are the only legislators he SHOULD be directly dealing with!!.. trying to convince them to subvert the will of their constituents by sending in electors who will vote for HIM! Constitutionally, state legislators are allowed to do that. Morally, they have stated fervently that they have no intention of doing so. That “morality”, however, may soon put them in the crosshairs of the Trump militia.

If that is not ENOUGH “evidence” that the US Presidency is currently too powerful, let’s look at the “other” side..

On the “left”, we actually have thousands, if not even millions, of people dancing in the streets.. yes, DANCING IN THE FUCKING STREETS!!.. simply because ONE MAN won the presidency! (Or maybe more specifically because on man lost the presidency.) Not only here, but in various other parts of the world as well! Can you imagine that? People in Germany were dancing in the streets because of the results of an election in the US!

Four years ago my ex-wife was so distraught over Trump winning the presidency that she actually said, “I feel like I am being betrayed by my own country.” All because ONE MAN won the US Presidency! And she was not alone. The feeling of hopelessness and despair emanating from over half the nation was so powerful and overwhelming that one didn’t need to be empathic to feel it.

We are all having the wrong conversations. We are all presenting the wrong arguments. Instead of inundating the courts with lawsuits claiming unsubstantiated voter fraud, what we SHOULD be presenting to the courts, and the public in general, is the question, “Is the office of US President too powerful?”

Unlike the claims of widespread voter fraud, the evidence for THAT is overwhelming.

Looking East

“Where the search for the truth is conducted with a wink and a nod..

..And where power and position are equated with the grace of God”

If there’s one lesson we all should have taken from this last election, it’s that the Federal government ..ESPECIALLY the office of President!!.. has wayyyy too much fucking power!

If the selection of a president is such a “life or death” situation, then this country has a much bigger problem than who in particular happens to be occupying the White House. The federal government was never designed to wield that much power, and ESPECIALLY so for the office of President! That’s what the Constitution was designed for, to severely limit the power of the government. The people seem to have forgotten that, if they were ever even taught that in the first place. And the people we send to Washington are certainly not going to go out of their way to remind us of that.

To be quite honest, I’ve enjoyed the shit out of watching Trump squirm so much this week. It was all but completely predictable that that’s exactly what he would do if he were about to lose, and he didn’t disappoint. It would all be so comically entertaining were it not for the fact that his followers would follow suit and cause as much destruction as they are all but sure to do within the next few weeks.

The “establishment” Republicans are not going to be much help to him. They are all pretty much abandoning his ship. I’ve suspected for weeks that they would end up doing this. As many of Trump’s followers have probably forgotten, when this whole debacle started, not a one of those “establishment” Republicans wanted Trump to get the nomination. In fact, many of them said a lot of unkind things about him. But, once it was apparent that Trump would indeed get the nomination, the “establishment” Republicans quickly discovered what many already close to Trump knew for years, if you stroke his ego hard enough you can pretty much get anything you wanted out of him. And so they did. In the last four years they got him to pack the federal appellate courts with “conservative” judges (whether they were adequately qualified or not), including an unprecedented three judges to the Supreme Court, giving it a 6 to 3 “conservative” majority. They got what they wanted out of him. Now they’re going to just let him flap in the breeze. Of course the Trump faithful are not going to go after these “true” traitors to their messiah. No, they’re going to continue to keep their cross-hairs completely focused on the demon-possessed “socialist” Democrats.

On the other side of the coin, it’s concerning also watching the Democrats gleefully celebrating, often arrogantly so, the scales tipping ever so gradually toward a Trump defeat. That celebration will be quickly short-lived however, I’m afraid. Hate to break this to you, Democrats, but a Biden-Harris victory is NOT going to end up “saving” you. For eight years, the Obama-Biden regime had ample chances to at least chip away, if not outright eliminate, the scurrilous Patriot Act. They didn’t. Even the parts of the act that were due to expire they extended, and they used the power in that act to drop more bombs than Bush-Cheney even did. As a result, the American “empire” grew even larger, and the threat of terrorism grew even greater. (Or at least that’s what they kept telling us anyway.)

One of the first things Biden should do once he’s in office is to outright pardon all the people put in prison due to all the “tough on crime” bills he either endorsed or outright wrote himself, and which Harris used to prosecute untold numbers of non-violent drug offenders. He won’t. Not to mention the fact that the U.S. Senate still has a Republican majority, including Mitch McConnell, which means the obstruction will continue exactly where it left off when Obama was in office, and nothing will get done. Personally, as a libertarian, I find this a good thing, as the less the Federal government does the better, but a lot of time and money is going to be wasted on endless and pointless battles.

In other words, dear Democrats, unicorns are not going to be suddenly shitting rainbows just because Biden won the presidency. The one (and ONLY!) good thing I saw as a result of Trump getting the presidency was that it was proof positive that a great number of people were tired of “establishment” politicians. But the “establishment” Democrats refused to learn that lesson, and somehow the “establishment” Republicans figured out a way to use that to their advantage. Now that Biden has all but been assured of a victory, it will all just go back to “business as usual”, at least for the next few years.

When you get right down to it, choosing “the lesser of two evils” is more complicated than even most people realize.

“These times are famine for the soul

while for the senses it’s a feast”

Blank ballots

Okay, here’s my proposal..

And it is an absolutely dead serious proposal, one worthy of at least serious, intense discussion and debate. It’s so simple, it might even work.

What our election process needs.. aside from getting money COMPLETELY out of politics!.. is what I am dubbing as the “blank ballot”.

This would be a ballot that includes only the offices up for election, along with a blank line beside each position. NO NAMES ALLOWED!! No party affiliations allowed! No more multiple-choice options. No more straight-party-ticket option. Each and every office up for election HAS to be a write-in!

Each and every one!

• President/Vice President
• Governor
• Senator, state and federal
• Congressperson, state and federal
• Mayor
• City councilman
• Sheriff
• Dog catcher

I challenge anyone to argue against the validity of this idea. Entertain me.

Is it illegal? Show me where. Is it against the “rules”? Well, there are certainly a number of rules about WHO is able to be listed on a ballot, but I am totally unaware of any rule that says names HAVE to be listed on a ballot AT ALL.

Is it complicated? I’m sure many would make it so. Certainly the DNC and RNC would reject this outright. After all, they’re the ones who are “in charge”, they’re the ones who MAKE the rules on who gets on the ballots and who does not. These “rules”, however, have no basis is law, at least on a national level. Ultimately, states decide on their own what goes into an election ballot and what does not. It’s one of the few areas where states have retained their own sovereignty. The beauty of that is, this is a notion that doesn’t have to be fought for on a national level, just a state level. And state laws are much easier to change and implement than national laws. (Well.. in most cases anyway.)

Would it make it more complicated to vote? Absolutely. Not more complicated it the area of being ABLE to vote, as it wouldn’t change in the slightest who would be able to vote and who wouldn’t, but it certainly would make it more complicated in making the decision on WHO to vote for. But if voting is really all that important as the pundits keeps telling us it is, isn’t the extra effort in making that decision warranted?

I can almost hear some of the arguments now: “Well, how am I supposed to know WHO to vote for if the ballot doesn’t tell me what my choices are??” Well, here’s a novel idea.. Fucking educate yourself before you actually walk into the damn voting booth! If you walk into a voting booth with no information on who stands for what on any of the issues, or base your decision solely on which name “looks” the best, or which name you recognize from the most yard signs, or worse yet, solely on which name has an “R” or a “D” in front of it, you are probably too ignorant to be voting in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I believe EVERYONE who is entitled to vote should be able to, no matter how ignorant you are, and I’m certainly not advocating for disqualifying the ignorant people from voting. But should we really be making it easier for them to? The democrats and republicans certainly seem to think so. That’s why they like giving you the “multiple-choice” option. Pick your “team” and raise your pom-poms. Rah rah rah. Fuck the issues, they don’t matter. Walk in, check a box, collect your sticker. Easy peasy.

Now, I understand where this notion would make more sense on deciding who to vote for on the national and (in most cases) the state levels, as they are the levels that usually get the most press and the most attention. But what about on the local levels? In most cases, most people wouldn’t know the person running for their local county supervisor from the kid who bags their groceries. In that case, you have two options: Either educate yourself on the people running for those local positions, or just leave that selection blank. There is NO rule that says you HAVE to vote for every position on the ballot! Your vote for President will not be invalidated just because you opted not to vote for dog catcher. As far as that goes, if you actually know his name and he’s over 18, you actually could vote for the kid who bags your groceries. Hell, he might end up doing a better job.

Another argument I can hear already is, “Well, if we’re allowed to just write in anyone we want, then HOW is a person supposed to win an election if they don’t get a majority of the votes?” News flash: You don’t NEED a MAJORITY of the votes in order to win an election! The person who wins an election is the one who gets the MOST votes, not the one who wins a MAJORITY of the votes! Jesse Ventura won the governor’s race in Minnesota by getting MORE votes than the two candidates running against him in a 3-way split. NOT because he won the “majority” of the votes.

I really hate the “majority rules” crowd. In most cases, the “majority” sucks. At one point in history, the “majority” believed the world was flat. In a vast swath of history, the “majority” considered slavery a perfectly acceptable institution. Until fairly recently, the “majority” thought that women shouldn’t even own property, or even have their own bank accounts. Just because the “majority” may think something is right, doesn’t necessarily make it so. In fact, the founding fathers of this nation even considered the “majority” to be at least potentially dangerous, citing the “tyranny of the majority” could be just as potentially dangerous as any dictator. That’s why they decided to form this nation as a Constitutional Republic and not a pure “democracy”, in spite of what all the politicians and so-called “patriots” like to continually shove in our faces.

Speaking of the Constitution, the next question on the issue of the “blank ballot” would be, “Is it unconstitutional?” It would take some pretty slick lawyering to make that sort of determination, but considering the current state of our Supreme Court, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me. But, like I mentioned before, what does or does not go onto a ballot is mainly a state-level determination. The only issue I can see in that area is the Constitutional requirements for running for president. And the only requirements for THAT office is the person must be over 45, they must be a natural-born citizen, and they can’t be elected more that twice. A blank ballot would change none of those restrictions. Yes, there is a chance that a write-in candidate could win the nomination that wouldn’t be qualified, but technically there is nothing that is preventing that from happening right now. There is still a write-in option available right now on EVERY ballot for every office listed on the ballot. If that should happen, then the nominee could simply be determined unqualified, and the person with the next highest number of votes would get the nomination.

Other than that, there are NO constitutional restrictions on who can run for what, other than the person needs to be a resident of the area they are representing. Therefore, there is no Constitutional reason why a “blank ballot” idea wouldn’t work.

Is this a “radical” idea? Oh, absolutely. But at this point, “radical” ideas need to be considered. Aside from money being so rampant in politics right now, one of the main reasons there is so much corruption in government is not so much due to an ignorant populace, but a populace that just doesn’t pay very much attention. We’ve made it too easy to just walk into a booth, usually armed with little more than 30 second sound bites and yard signs, check a box, then walk out and ignore the whole process until the next multiple-choice option rolls around.

The founding fathers understood the importance of a well-educated populace in the governmental process. As the old saying goes, “the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance”. A blank ballot would require people to make themselves more educated, and at least indirectly make them more vigilant. If voting is as important as they say, shouldn’t it require a little more effort? It would make more sense than requiring voter I.D.

Would this make some people more apt to just not vote at all? Probably. But we already have a case where almost a third of the electorate doesn’t vote anyway. And THAT is in major presidential elections! In mid-term and off years, the percentage is vastly higher.  In spite of those screaming about how “unfair” the electoral college is, NO candidate is winning elections, presidential or otherwise, with the “majority” of votes! The “majority” is not bothering to vote at all. How is that for an endorsement? No matter how much their favorite candidate “wins” by, they’re still being beaten out by “None of the Above”. Perhaps, inevitably, it’s more important that “educated” people vote than it is to have the “majority” of people vote. Our current “multiple-choice” system certainly doesn’t encourage either one.

At the very least, the “blank ballot” idea would certainly solve more problems than it might create.

Change my mind.

Golden rules

As I spend my days filling my head with more and more information to the point that at times it feels like my head is going to explode, I frequently find myself amazed. I realize I’m not the smartest person, and I consider the notion many times that perhaps my way of thinking is just too simplistic. Considering the notion however that most of us.. at best.. usually get somewhere between 80-90 trips around that great big bright ball we see in the sky on a daily basis, I find myself absolutely flabbergasted at how most people choose to spend those trips.

Granted, there are so many possibilities. In fact, some may say that the possibilities are endless. How does one possibly choose the best routes to take, the best decisions to make, the best things to actually focus on? Perhaps there are no “best” decisions. But there is certainly no shortage of recommendations, or people more than willing to tell you how is the best way to live your life. There are some who even make a fucking career out of it.

The main purpose of this blog, or at least my main objective, is to challenge beliefs. Even at times my own. Unlike most people, I don’t mind having my beliefs challenged. Perhaps at times in the process of that objective, I may find myself just as guilty as the next person of telling people how to live their lives. Or what they should believe. Perhaps some day I might write an entire post just on that possibility alone.

I love the concept that the Christians refer to as “the Golden Rule”: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. A rule I notice that a great many Christians have a tendency to follow rather haphazardly. That’s okay though, I’m sure I don’t follow it as often as I should myself at times. Unlike many Christians, however, I do try to genuinely reflect on my actions whenever it’s pointed out to me, or if I happen to come to that conclusion on my own. It is my belief that the majority of those who call themselves Christians do as well.

I’m pretty sure that the man referred to as Jesus was not the first one to hand down that rule. I know for sure that Christians do not have a monopoly on it. Most religions and philosophies contain some version of it. Wiccans refer to it as a “Creed”, an ye harm none, do as ye will. Libertarianism (at least in its purest form) holds to the concept that each individual is sovereign, free to do whatever he or she pleases as long as it is not infringing on anyone else’s sovereignty.

Many people, especially Christians it seems, seem to look at this rule as something that needs to be “taught”. I don’t believe it needs to be “taught” so much as it just needs to be “realized”. Claiming that morality comes from some particular book is somewhat of a fallacy. Morality is something that is embedded deep down in someone’s soul. If that sense of morality is not embedded in someone, a thousand books explaining morality is going to be totally worthless. In fact, I think that Jesus himself fostered that concept when he proclaimed, “I will write my laws on their hearts”.

I know, considering the concept of the “Golden Rule” is difficult to focus on when there’s so much bullshit going on. People shouting at each other, flooding the streets demanding their “rights” even when they infringe on the rights of others (INCLUDING the very basic right of fucking staying alive or not getting sick!), fighting over which religion is better, which philosophy is better, which political party is better, which economic system is better, which country is better, even to the point where we think the “other guy” should be silenced, jailed, or even bombed. It’s so easy in the midst of all that to have a tendency to say, “Why should *I* follow the golden rule when there’s so many assholes out there doing what they’re doing?!”

Well.. deep down you know why.

Many Christians, including a few I know personally, seem to think the answer is to “put ‘God’ back in our schools, to put ‘God’ back in the public square”. Well, to me that just seems to be a rather silly argument. In the first place, “God” was never taken out of the schools, or the public square. The fact that you’re even able to express that view is proof of that. No one is putting you in jail for expressing that view. In the second place, how did that protect the untold number of kids who were raped or assaulted in “God’s” own house, where “God” was most prevalent? If atrocities like that were not only allowed to happen, but actually flourish, within the churches themselves, how do you even start to justify the argument that putting “God” back in the schools would even start to solve our current moral dilemmas?

Perhaps instead of plastering the Ten Commandments all over the halls of our schoolhouses and courtrooms, maybe we should consider the notion of putting up plaques containing each religion’s rendition of the “Golden Rule”. It would make a whole lot more sense, as it would reduce the concept of morality down into simple “sound bites”, which people seem to respond to much better these days than long-winded but more factual lists or pieces of research. Attention spans aren’t that long these days, ya know.

Plus, since something like that would encompass ALL religions (or most of them anyway), it would be a nice little “back door” around that pesky little “wall of separation” that most Christians seem to hate so much.

 

Time to get out the soapbox

I’ve been spending a lot of time on social media the last few weeks. Not just scrolling and observing, but actually participating quite a bit. Some of what I’ve come across has been very inspirational, but a lot of it has been extremely aggravating. It’s not even so much all the addle-minded Trump supporters who for some unfathomable reason insist on treating this walking disaster like some kind of fucking messiah. What’s really hair-pulling at times is seeing all of these otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people spending so much time and effort banging the wrong drums and pointing their cannons at the wrong “enemy”.

There are a couple of major fallacies that keep floating around out there again and again, which needs to be addressed. Now, I don’t claim to be a political “expert” by any means, but I am a keen observer of political issues, and as Jefferson mentioned in his Declaration of Independence, there are some truths out there that are simply “self-evident”. Perhaps it takes someone who is not a political “expert” to point them out.

A few moments ago on a Facebook post, someone once again for the umpteenth-thousandth time responded to the issue at hand with ANOTHER speech on the urgent “need” for term limits. At that point I just had to close the app and step outside for a smoke. I know I probably shouldn’t be by now, but I am still aggravatingly AMAZED at how ingrained that particular mindset is!

Let me state this emphatically so hopefully the folks in the back of the room can hear:

TERM LIMITS ARE NOT THE ANSWER!! We already HAVE term limits, they’re fucking called “ELECTIONS”!

The fallacy behind this argument for term limits is two-fold: First of all, it limits my right to vote for who I want to vote for. (In case you haven’t figured it out, it limits who YOU’RE allowed to vote for also.)  If, at the end of four years, eight years, twelve years, or whatever the “limit” is, if I feel that a senator or representative is deserving of more time to represent me, I am no longer allowed to give that representative more time to do so! If at any point I feel that that representative is a piece of shit that is no longer serving my interests, I can automatically “limit” his or her term of service by voting him or her out in the next election. Advocating for codified “term limits” is basically telling the government, “we need you to ‘save’ us from ourselves”. And do we REALLY want to give the government even MORE power to do that? In the end, “term limits” takes away more freedoms than it actually gives. Actually, it really doesn’t give any more freedoms at all.

Second of all, I understand the frustration behind the concept of “career politicians”.. but do you REALLY think “term limits” are going to eliminate the reason we have “career politicians” in the first place? In spite of how it is SUPPOSED to work, politicians these days do not serve the interests of the public, they serve the interests of those who fill their campaign piggy banks with money and influence. Perhaps you’re smart enough to have already figured that out. It’s certainly not a very well kept secret. What IS usually secret, or at least not well advertised or paid attention to, is who or how much. As I said before, I am not a political “expert”, but please explain to me how “term limits” are going to eliminate that issue? At best, the people who REALLY hold the “power” will use a politician for as long as their time limit allows, pay them a hefty little bonus at the end of their time limit, then move on to another obedient little lap dog who will continue business as usual. In this instance, term limits is a dog with no fucking teeth.

Another fallacy I keep running into is the ever-increasing noise about eliminating the Electoral College. This one actually scares the shit out of me. And it’s one where the ignorance of the general population is so loud it’s deafening.

In case you slept through every civics and government class is high school, the Electoral College was put in place for a reason. Lots of reasons actually, but not the least of which was to give each state in the union a certain level of sovereignty. The purpose of the office of President is to represent the STATES, not the people directly. That is why STATES vote for President, not individuals. If we eliminate the Electoral College, we’d just as well go and erase all the state lines on the map, because they would be rendered meaningless. The office of Governor would be rendered all but useless, or at least watered down beyond recognition. Yes, you can argue that the Electoral College gives some states more of a “voice” than other states due to overall population, but that’s what it was designed to do. If you don’t understand the reason behind that, maybe you should take high school civics class again. If you honestly believe the Electoral College is “outdated”, then maybe you should consider just advocating for changing the name of our country. Right now, the only thing keeping us the United STATES of America is the Electoral College. And worst of all, in the end, eliminating the Electoral College will not solve our political dilemma. All it would do is just give more power to the centralized government and make the states all but worthless entities. We’ve been barreling down that road fast enough the last couple of centuries the way it is.

In the end, advocating for either one of these “solutions” won’t end up doing a damn thing to fix our current political dilemma. They are not the basis of our problems. In fact, they wouldn’t even serve as a “band-aid” to the wounds that are currently bleeding us dry. The “source” of most of our problems basically comes down to one main factor:

Money in politics.

Maybe this isn’t much of a “secret”, but it’s something that most people seem to have a tendency to ignore. Or at the very least, one that most people only give “lip service” to. It is such an ingrained and pervasive problem, that maybe it’s just easier for people to focus on these “solutions” that won’t do any good, but are relatively much easier to attain. Solutions that will actually do the most good are excruciatingly more difficult to attain. Some might even say next to impossible. Our current crop of politicians, on either side of the aisle, certainly aren’t going to advocate for them.

The line from Shakespeare’s Henry VI proclaiming “kill all the lawyers” should probably be amended today to read “kill all the lobbyists”. Or at least eliminate them. Every time I think about it I’m just amazed as fuck that lobbyists are even allowed to exist in the halls or our governmental bodies. The main reason our politicians don’t represent our interests is the voices of the lobbyists are much louder than the voices of their constituents. How many voices does it take to drown out hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions? And why are the people so willing to just sit back and accept that it now takes upwards of close to a million dollars or more to buy one fucking senate seat? And let’s not even TALK about presidential campaigns!!

The other thing that needs to happen is overturning the Citizens United ruling. Corporations are not people, and money is not speech. That should be obvious to anyone with even a 5th grade fucking education, but that’s an indication of how corrupted our Supreme Court has gotten. The legal acrobatics they performed to even come up with such a determination for their corporate masters is beyond astonishing. But it’s highly improbable that they’ll overturn their own ruling anytime soon, so the only option there is the monumental task of passing a Constitutional amendment to overturn it.

So, there’s a couple of “targets” people should start aiming their cannons at. Until money is taken OUT of our political process, very few other solutions are going to do any good. As long as politics is profitable, people are going to lose every fucking time.

And the best part is, take money out of politics, then term limits and eliminating the Electoral College won’t even be necessary.

Best Of Both Worlds, Worst Of Both People

As I may have mentioned before, I consider myself a libertarian. In that aspect, I refer much more to the general philosophy rather than the political party, although I am officially registered as a Libertarian as my party affiliation.

I first became introduced to the concept of libertarianism when I happened to stumble across a book by Peter McWilliams entitled, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do”. To this day it remains one of the most educationally insightful books I’ve ever come across. It was written in 1996, although I didn’t come across it until shortly after the turn of the millennium. (Ironically, it was just mere months before the 9-11 incident.) This book broadened my mind in ways I probably can’t even describe. Being somewhat of a history buff, the historical references were a delightful bonus.

Since then I’ve paid close attention to the strides that the Libertarian party has made in the political landscape, silently cheering (or sometimes not so silently) at every small advancement they made, although at an achingly slow snail’s pace.

As the Libertarian party has gained more headway and more validation, one of the strange things I’ve started to notice of late is that Libertarians often end up arguing as much, or even more, among themselves as they do with either the Democratic and Republican parties. Considering the overall state of the political climate these days, I suppose that shouldn’t be too surprising, but I am taken aback quite often with how prevalent it is, and what sort of turns it takes. It’s not all that surprising for me to be labeled a liberal by conservative groups or a conservative by liberal groups, but it’s among the libertarian groups that I frequent that I just as often get accused of being both, often almost at the same time. Libertarianism, to me, seemed like such a simple concept. Liberal have some very good ideas. Conservatives also have some very good ideas. Both sides have “bad” ideas as well, some I would even consider horrendously dangerous. I didn’t really see libertarianism so much as “bridging the gap” between the two ideologies, but it seemed to take the best of both ideologies and converge it into one simple concept: You’re free to do as you please as long as you’re not trampling on the freedom or well-being of another. It’s amazing how people can take such a simple concept and complicate the ever loving shit out of it. Especially by the very people that claim to follow that philosophy.

I’ve often said that the best way to fuck up a philosophy or concept is to “legitimize” it. There are numerous examples of that among the religious and political landscapes. I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising to see it happening with libertarianism as it gains more and more validation. It is, however, more than a little sad to see “Libertarian” become just another label that people slap on a particular group in order to just easily ‘dismiss’ them. I suppose it doesn’t help also that certain people seem to claim the term “libertarian” who are.. shall we say.. more than a little “wacko”. In spite of all that, “libertarian” was one of the extremely few labels I didn’t mind associating myself with.

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what libertarianism actually is. Some people even equate it to anarchy. It’s not. Limited government does not translate into NO government.But some people are just so accustomed to government being so blatantly intrusive that taking government out of so many areas is almost completely foreign to them.

Some libertarians like to refer to government as a “necessary evil”.I prefer to look at government as fire. It’s great for warming your house or cooking your food, but unwatched and unattended, that fire is also more than capable of burning your house down or boiling your soup to a crusty caked on mess. You wouldn’t start a fire in the fireplace and then just walk away saying’ “I trust that fire not to rage out of control and leave me homeless.” But that’s what most people seem to do when it comes to government. We elect our representatives and then walk away, trusting them to do the “right thing” while we go on with our lives and concentrate on other areas. A government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” requires the PEOPLE to “watch the fire” as it burns and see that it doesn’t rage out of control. That is the “personal responsibility” part of the libertarian philosophy. Republicans are the ones who like to spout off so much about “personal responsibility”, but they are often among the worst culprits in trusting our government, especially when it’s their party that’s in power.

Another big problem with the Libertarian party right now, I suppose, is there are a lot of “converts” coming in from both the Democratic and Republican sides, and they’re bringing with them a lot of their old prejudices and old mindsets, including the tendency to “demonize”. Many of them have been doing that for so long it’s almost become an unnoticeable habit. Also there are a lot of “old school” libertarians (like me) who are at least somewhat afraid that these new “converts” might try to sway the party too far to the left or right in order to too much mirror the party they just abandoned. A very legitimate concern in my eyes, but the answer is NOT to “demonize” or ridicule those new converts in kind, or we might just send them right back to the same same parties they just “escaped” from. If the Libertarian party wants to continue growing, we need to fight that tendency to “demonize” and work more toward dialogue. Stick to our principles, but educate rather than berate.

The best way to grow any political organization or ideology is to find common ground. Right now there is EXTREMELY little common ground between the Democratic and Republican parties. In fact, the polarization is quickly reaching critical mass. The Libertarian party, on the other hand, has what could almost be considered acres of common ground with both sides. Add to that the fact that, even though most of us libertarians may disagree with many of these people’s philosophies, political figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and even Donald Trump have made so much headway proves how much people are so tired of the status quo and “politics as usual”. That in itself presents a TREMENDOUS opportunity for libertarians to take advantage of! But we’re NOT going to do that by “demonizing” or ridiculing these people.

If the Libertarian party really wants to advance, we HAVE to start giving people something to vote “FOR”, and not just something to vote “against”!

People know where to get plenty of that already.

Matters Of Faith

Sooo…… Let’s talk a little bit about religion.

I know.. It’s difficult to talk just a “little bit” about religion. After all, it is so pervasive. Kind of like a balloon filled with water, just waiting to burst at the seams.

I’m certainly not against religion. After all, I do hold an ordination certificate as an esoteric minister. Does that make me an “expert”? Oh, hell no!! There’s a lot about religion that I don’t know. And to me, that’s sort of the fun about it. If I was actually “God” (whatever he,she or it actually is), I think I would be bored to pieces. So much so that I might even have a tendency to throw a whole bunch of conflicting shit down at people, just to sit back and watch their reactions in order to try and amuse myself. 🙂

I’m certainly not a religious scholar by any means. I am very much a student of religious philosophies, Christianity in particular simply because it is clearly the most invasive religious philosophy in this country. I find myself amazed, however, just how many “Christians” don’t seem to know their own history. Or how that history stacks up against history as a whole. As time goes on, that’s an area I’d like to give more focus on as this blog progresses.

As I sit here writing, it’s actually difficult to focus on just one “aspect” of religion, or even just one aspect of Christianity. There are so many facets to it. Which is probably why there is so much disagreement on it. Whenever someone vehemently wants to claim that this is a “Christian nation”, I’m immediately torn between being sent into a panic and wanting to laugh myself silly. It is both humorous and horrific at the same time.

My first question is, “Why do we even want to be?” Like those who follow most religious beliefs, Christians can’t even decide among themselves what “Christianity” actually is, let alone wanting to make it a “core” belief for the whole world, or even one nation. Which “version” of Christianity to we want to claim ourselves to be? The Catholic version? The Presbyterian version? The Baptist? The Pentecostal? I could go on…

Some say our laws should be based on “biblical” laws. (Some even say they already are.) Which “version” of the bible? Which translation? Which interpretation? The Catholic bible even contains some books which most Protestant bibles don’t.  There were dozens, if not hundreds of scriptural texts floating around about 1600 years ago that never even made it into the “official” bible. And the ones that did make it in don’t always fully agree with each other.

You see the ‘problem’ here…

Don’t get me wrong, I think a lot of wisdom can be found in the bible. I also think a lot of wisdom can be found in the sacred texts of a lot of religions. But to base the laws of an entire society on any one of them? How much history are you actually capable of ignoring to even begin to conclude that that’s even a halfway sensible idea? Or hell, you don’t even need to really delve into history all that much to see it. Look at any nation in the here and now and see what damage and atrocity basing laws on holy texts is capable of.

Still, there are some who say, “But MY religion is DIFFERENT! IT wouldn’t do that!”

Newsflash: IT ALREADY HAS!!!!!!

Do you REALLY want to go back to basing our society and our laws on the same religion that insisted on incarcerating a man like Galileo for heresy for daring to state that the earth revolved around the sun? Let’s not even get into events like the Spanish Inquisition. The Salem witch trials. Or the various kings throughout history who forced their subjects to either convert or get their heads chopped off. Those were all “Christian” nations. Or at least Christian societies.

That being said, I have nothing against Christianity in and of itself. Or any religious belief for that matter. Like most things, religion is basically a tool. I have seen people take their religious faith and do awesomely amazing things with it as their base and inspiration. I have also seen people use it as an instrument to perform the most heinous atrocities imaginable. Like the hammer, it can be used to build houses or smash someone’s skull in.

Our “Declaration of Independence” started out by focusing on “self-evident” truths. Let this be one of them: This country is NOT a “Christian nation”. The evidence to support that is extraordinarily broad. Nor should we want to be. The historical evidence of that is compelling, one might also claim it is inconclusive. Yes, we are a nation with many Christians in it, perhaps even the majority. But that’s as far as it goes. Just because a lawn mower is sitting in a garage, it doesn’t make it a car.

There are of course those who will continue to insist that we are. Then again there are a handful of people who still insist that the world is flat. And that the sun revolves around it.

Luckily we no longer throw people in prison for saying otherwise. Let’s keep it that way…

By Any Other Name…

Sooo, I’ve been immersing myself in the comments sections of Facebook posts the last few days.. And by “immersing”, I don’t just mean scrolling through the comments, constantly shaking my head, but actually participating.

Now, I realize that by its very format, Facebook is hardly the ideal venue to try and engage in halfway intelligent and civil discourse. Granted, it’s immensely better than Twitter with its “140 character” rule, but Facebook is still notorious for its “drive-by” commenters. Why put thought into a response when a quick little epithet will do, right?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not above a little name-calling on occasion. A well-placed “dip-shit”, or “dick-wad”, or “twat-waffle” just somehow seems to fit into a response for some reason. Sort of like a quick little verbal “exclamation point”. (I’ve never personally used the term “twat-waffle”, but it just seems like a fun little epithet to say.)

In one of the comments discussions I recently participated in, I defended a woman who ended up being called a “moron” for the views she was expressing. Not because I agreed with her views. I didn’t. She was trying to defend some of Trumps recent actions, which, like most of his actions, were just not logically defensible. But she certainly did not deserve to be called a “moron”, and I could tell she was about to devalue the entire interaction by responding with more of the same. In truth, the only major issue I have with the term “moron” is it lacks imagination. If you’re going to insult someone, at least try to be creative about it.

There are, however, certain words and phrases that I do take extreme offense to. If someone interjects into the conversation words such as “Trumptard”, “Obummer”, “Hitlery”, “libtard”, “repubtard”, or any variations of such, the conversation is over. There is no point in going on. And let me just say outright that whoever it was who coined the term, “snowflake” should be thrown on a plane, stripped naked and thrown out right into the middle of the arctic circle! The arrogance behind that term almost borders on obscene.

Now one may wonder why I would have no objection with a term like “dick-wad”, but “Trumptard” wrankles my feathers. Quite simply, the latter puts one in a “box”. The former does not. One can be a conservative and still be a dick-wad. One can be a liberal and still be a dumbfuck. One can be a Muslim and still be a dipshit. One can be a Christian and still be a twat-waffle. So hey, let the epithets fly like a swarm of bees. Ideas can still be discussed and considered among a slew of insults. “Labels”, however, are just a waste of time. Labeling someone a “Trumptard” or a “libtard” or a “snowflake” in order to just dismiss them entirely is not only narrow-minded, it is intellectually lazy to the extreme. Conservatives have some good ideas. Liberals have some good ideas. It does EVERYONE a disservice if you flat out reject EVERY point a person makes by just slapping a “libtard” label on him.

At this point, I want to interject that I actually started this post a week ago, but other issues came up and I was unable to finish. It’s almost a bit ironic some of the events that happened during the week while this post was sitting waiting to be finished. A handful of journalists lost their lives in a shooting. Insults, even offensive ones, did not kill these journalists. Labels, however, at least in part contributed to it. Labels have consequences, and at this point it’s reached extreme levels.

Quite frankly, I think we could use a whole lot more “dipshits” and “dumbfucks” and a WHOLE lot less terms like “fake news” and “the press is the enemy if the people” bullshit. It may be more ‘offensive’, but a whole lot less dangerous.

Just shut up and sing, Willie!!

Facebook is a very interesting place at times. Well, okay, most of the time. Or maybe I just tend to hang out at the more “interesting” places. Sometimes the cognitive dissonance is so thick I have trouble seeing my hand well enough to scroll through the screen on my smartphone.

Case in point: Willie Nelson’s Facebook page posted an article recently which quotes the country music great saying how atrocious it is concerning what’s happening on our southwest border. You know, kids being stolen from their parents and all. Now, a good majority of Willie’s fans are southern redneck right-wingers, so they’re a bit more slow to rip into him than they are to other entertainers, but rip into him they do. And sometimes in the most entertaining of ways:

So sad you decided to bring ‘your politics’ in here. I am no longer following, Willie. Why is it entertainer’s don’t get that most of us, while loving your music, don’t want to hear your politics.

Umm… HELLO!!! Apparently you have the gift of “loving” Willie’s music without actually “listening” to it. Many of Willie’s songs throughout his career have been rife with political commentary. In fact that’s true of most singers and entertainers. Artistry in general is usually dripping with political and social overtones. So it’s nothing but sheer idiocy when someone insists that an entertainer just “entertain”, and leave their political views out of it.

Of course, that’s only if they happen to disagree with the views entertainers are expressing. Robert DeNiro is the latest to come under attack of course. Along with Jim Carey, Rob Reiner, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, and a myriad of others both lately and in past instances. How funny it is that whenever it’s a “left-leaning” point of view, or heaven forbid anyone DARES say something negative about their newfound right-wing “messiah”, well, it’s so easy to just dismiss them as the “Hollywood elite” who couldn’t possibly understand or have any connection to the “common” people.

They seem to have no problem whatsoever though with Charlton Heston standing up on stage at the Republican National Convention defiantly proclaiming they can take his gun when they can “pry it from my cold dead hand”. Or when Clint Eastwood gets up on stage and has “imaginary” conversations with Barrack Obama. Or when Bruce Willis, during the campaign between Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr, sheepishly mentions he asked his wife the other day, “Honey.. Which one of theses guys would you trust with the kids?” Let’s not forget that in 1980 the right wing put an actor in the white house. And not to mention we currently have a fucking reality TV star as our commander in chief!!

Disagreeing with someone’s political view is one thing. Dismissing that view because someone is just a member of the “Hollywood elite” who should just entertain and shut up about politics is preposterously hypocritical. Or else they’re smoking something Willie hasn’t even heard of yet.

Another page I follow on Facebook is a page called “Thomas Jefferson”. (Not the real one, of course.) When I first started following it, it was a very libertarian-based outlet, which usually contained some very straight-shooting information about how the founding fathers would view current happenings. Lately however it’s just morphed into just more right-wing hypocrisy. Recently one of the moderators posted a video that’s been making the rounds on the internet prominently displaying a joint statement made by all the news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group. The original poster went into a frenzied hissy fit, mistakenly assuming that this was a bunch of LIBERAL news stations all spouting the exact same script. A great many commenters of that post followed suit. Sinclair Broadcasting is a conservative media group that fervently supports Donald Trump.

Eventually it was delicately explained to the OP that this was actually a conservative news group that mandated the joint statement by all of their stations, but it’s okay because.. well.. it’s a conservative news group that’s doing it! And her source for this obvious conclusion? An article by Rush Limbaugh.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of hypocrisy to be found from the left-wing. I even touched on just a bit of that in my last post. But the right-wing Republicans have turned it into a fucking art form.

Maybe Willie could write a song about it.