Today, the United States military, through the now familiar vehicle of an armed observation drone, fired a missile at an American citizen and blew his ass to Hell. This was done without benefit of a trial, or any other "due process" the Constitution guarantees. I expect most of the readers here to be thinking I'm against this, that due process is the right of every American citizen and that the Obama Administration should be held accountable for war crimes.
Bullshit. Let the fucker burn in Hell. I'm GLAD they did it.
A little background is in order here.
The name of the maggot who was offed with extreme prejudice was Anwar al-Awlaki. He was born in New Mexico. He gave lectures at the same mosques attended by four of the 9/11 hijackers (at the same time they were there). He has inspired the attempt to bring down an air-liner with the now infamous "underwear bomber" (This is according to the underwear bomber himself). He forwarded the plot to send explosives-laden printer toner cartridges through various postal carriers to wreck havoc wherever they happened to be when they exploded (This is according to documents recovered in Yemen last year). And he was the inspiration for the traitor who committed mass murder of American servicemen at Fort Hood (This according to the traitor who did the crime).
He has steadfastly urged his "followers" to commit murder in the name of Islam, with a special emphasis to murdering Americans where ever they can be found. He declared war on the United States and, today, he became an extremely justified casualty of war.
I don't give a rat's ass if he was an "American citizen" or not.
No one, anywhere, has expressed remorse over Osama Bin Laudin's death. Bin Laudin was the leader of Al Qaida, the terrorist network responsible for the 9/11 attacks in New York, the Pentagon and another airliner that plunged to a fiery end in Pennsylvania when the passengers fought back. Bin Laudin didn't kill anyone, personally. He was never tired in an American court. He had no "due process". But an anonymous SEAL team hero put a bullet through his turban and offed the most evil person to ever walk the planet. Even most Muslims are glad he's dead.
My personal scale of right and wrong reserves a special place of animosity for people who sit behind the scenes and urge other people to go out and kill, or die, for a repressive, misogynistic, obsolete mythology unable to cope with the changes in the world today (Or any other cause that advocates violence in order to restrict freedom and liberty, for that matter). If they were on the front lines, risking death or doing as they urged, that at least earns them some points for putting their lives where their words are (not much, of course, but some). But hiding behind a microphone, in secret, by surprise and against civilians who have nothing more to do with the "conflict" than nationality... No. There's a special, very painful place in the afterlife for them. And if there's no Afterlife, then at least the stain of their existence on the honor of Mankind can start to be erased with their passing.
Anwar al-Awlaki (may his name be cursed by Allah and His Prophet) was EXACTLY the same as Bin Laudin. He hid behind the scenes and urged other people to kill Americans in the name of HIS religion. Bin Laudin was a Saudi Arabian, born into luxury who decided America was decadent and deserved destruction in the promotion of Islam. In some ways, that's understandable. He never lived in the US. He didn't know what the US was (supposedly) about. But the maggot al-Awlaki was an American. He was born in New Mexico. He KNEW what America was all about. And yet he decided repression, murder and violence was better than freedom, liberty and the rights he enjoyed as a citizen of the United States.
Fuck him.
ANYONE, citizen or not, who urges the murder of their fellow civilians has vacated their right to be a citizen. They have vacated their right to speak their mind. They have vacated their right to even breathe the same air as their fellow citizens. By their actions, they have vacated - no, not vacated. They have refused - the right to "due process".
In my opinion, a hellfire missile up their asses IS "due process".
I do not often advocate for the death of anyone. But like I said, some people deserve to die. Once they reach that level of animosity on my personal scale of right and wrong, I couldn't give a shit if they were citizens, my own brother or the whack-job, raving nutcase terrorist they are. Some people SHOULD die. Not because of what they've done themselves. But for the violence, death and terror they inspire others to commit.
So for those of you who think I'm a liberal, fuck you. I'm an American who loves my country.
For those of you reading only this and think I'm a conservative, fuck you, I'm an American who loves my country.
And this American who loves his country is a moderate. Moderates have points of view that align with the left or the right at times. Try to remember, we don't HAVE to be polarized as a people. Only the politicians, who live to get elected, have to appeal to a particular bias. The rest of us are free to be ourselves - and it would be nice if all of you reading this voted for a moderate.
For this blog post, you get to see my conservative side, my Pro-American side, my love of country and the ideals for which it stands side. It's also my "yeah, go ahead and kill the fucker" side most people would associate with conservatives. I do have that side. Everyone does to some extent. I just try to reserve it for the most deserving of those who should be poster children for retroactive birth control, rather than some average fellow citizen whose politics differ from mine (which is what some other conservatives often do).
Some of my views defy categorization altogether. But regardless of our political differences, our religious differences and even our social differences, in my mind, if you don't put the good of the country ahead of all, then you don't deserve to live here, let alone be a citizen of my country.
Sometimes I'm a flaming asshole. But I'm a proud AMERICAN flaming asshole. Fuck with my country, you will die.
It's times like this that I wish I believed in the Christian Hell and I hope Anwar al-Awlaki is burning there. At the very least, I'm glad he's resting in pieces. Those who think the rule of law has been broken, the Constitution violated and the government on some slippery slope of offing American citizens on a whim anywhere in the world, I simply say that if Anwar al-Awlaki had his way, there would only be Sharia Law and a hell of a lot more people would be killed for a lot less reason and with a lot less "due process" than waging war against the United States. The ONLY "mistake" I can think of is that the United States didn't strip this filth of his citizenship BEFORE the missiles flew. If they had, Anwar al-Awlaki would have had no more legal standing in the U.S. than Osama Bin Laudin.
Maybe the U.S. government will remember that for the next time it happens - assuming it ever happens again. It's a minor formality - proving treason and pronouncing a death sentence - but it's "due process". I expect that will shut up the bleeding hearts who think the government is out to get everyone who criticizes it.
Some people deserve to die. Bin Laudin is dead. Anwar al-Awlaki was next in line. I hope #3 on the list is shitting little green kittens and is constantly looking over his shoulder right about now. Maybe if we kill enough of the ones urging others to go out and kill people over religion, politics or ideology, they'll stop trying to urge others to go out and kill people over religion, politics and ideology. But even if not, there's one less maniac in the world tonight and I'm good with that.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Of Open and Closed Minds
In an article I read in the National Review Online, the author, Jay Nordlinger, quoted a Match.com engineer who said that conservatives were far more likely to be open and tolerant than liberals when it came to the search for love.
Now, in the face of this it seems ludicrous. After all, conservatives kill liberals over political or religious differences far more often than the other way around. These are not the actions of a tolerant-minded people.
But let's examine the special circumstances here. A person who is open minded (which describes a liberal more than a conservative) is far more likely to look for someone who is open-minded as a life partner, or even someone to hang out with. Liberals do not like conflict and arguments. Someone who is open minded is far more likely to be able to see both sides of an issue and discuss them rationally than someone who sees the world though a closed, unyielding mind.
Closed-minded people, on the other hand, don't want to deal with other close-minded people unless they're EXACTLY like they are. Those are extremely hard to find. Instead, they usually end up looking for open-minded people who can put up with them, because odds are much higher that there are more open-minded people who can put up with them than there are closed-minded people exactly like them.
So the assertion is likely true, within its own context: WHEN LOOKING FOR LOVE, conservatives are probably more tolerant of who they date than liberals.
But that doesn't make them more tolerant as a people.
If you click on the link, read the comments posted by die-hard conservatives. They are not the words of a tolerant people.
I don't know if the thrust of the article was to paint conservatives in a different (and by extension, not necessarily true) light, whether it was tongue in cheek or just reporting an odd fact. Whatever the case, the conservatives had a field-day ragging on the liberals and, by doing so, proved the author's implication - that conservatives are more tolerant than liberals overall - was utterly untrue.
Never before have I seen an author so completely undone by the "applause" of the crowd.
I can only hope that he was being ironic.
Now, in the face of this it seems ludicrous. After all, conservatives kill liberals over political or religious differences far more often than the other way around. These are not the actions of a tolerant-minded people.
But let's examine the special circumstances here. A person who is open minded (which describes a liberal more than a conservative) is far more likely to look for someone who is open-minded as a life partner, or even someone to hang out with. Liberals do not like conflict and arguments. Someone who is open minded is far more likely to be able to see both sides of an issue and discuss them rationally than someone who sees the world though a closed, unyielding mind.
Closed-minded people, on the other hand, don't want to deal with other close-minded people unless they're EXACTLY like they are. Those are extremely hard to find. Instead, they usually end up looking for open-minded people who can put up with them, because odds are much higher that there are more open-minded people who can put up with them than there are closed-minded people exactly like them.
So the assertion is likely true, within its own context: WHEN LOOKING FOR LOVE, conservatives are probably more tolerant of who they date than liberals.
But that doesn't make them more tolerant as a people.
If you click on the link, read the comments posted by die-hard conservatives. They are not the words of a tolerant people.
I don't know if the thrust of the article was to paint conservatives in a different (and by extension, not necessarily true) light, whether it was tongue in cheek or just reporting an odd fact. Whatever the case, the conservatives had a field-day ragging on the liberals and, by doing so, proved the author's implication - that conservatives are more tolerant than liberals overall - was utterly untrue.
Never before have I seen an author so completely undone by the "applause" of the crowd.
I can only hope that he was being ironic.
The Zombies Are Here!!!
Last night, I had a Zombie dream.
Now, to be perfectly honest, though I have a vivid imagination and have dreamt of many things, I have to admit Zombies was not what I would have expected me to dream about. Zombie movies have never been a favorite genre for me and way too much has been written about why people like them. The last thing I would have expected me to dream about was Zombies. I've never done it before, and haven't watched a Zombie movie in many a month. None the less, last night, I dreamt about Zombies.
I'm not sure it was the classic Zombie movie, but it had elements of it. Zombieland is a Zombie movie I actually enjoyed because it was so tongue-in-cheek (and in seat, and on floor and flying through the air and... well, you get the picture), but it had elements my (apparently deranged) mind threw into my dream. That is to say, it didn't focus so much on the beginning of the disaster as the point of view of someone just trying to make it through the day.
It all started out normal enough (as all Zombie movies do). It was from the perspective of a "regular guy" (yours truly) who was just going about his life. Only, occasionally, someone would pop up as a Zombie.
Mostly, they were ignored.
They'd be in theaters, in the supermarkets and malls, going about their business as well. But they were Zombies and everyone knew it. Gradually, though, more and more of them appeared. They still went about their business, but they were a touch more hostile than all the other "normal" people out there. If you pointed out to one they were a Zombie, they'd actually attack you.
Eventually, of course, there were Zombies everywhere. They weren't interested in eating your brains so much as they were interested in turning you into another zombie, or killing you if you resisted. Not typical Zombie behavior I grant you, but it was pretty typical of the mentality (if not NECESSARILY the actions) of some folks today.
It took a while for me to remember, but the Zombies in my dream were Red, White and Blue and looked like they lived mostly in trailers before they went on their world-wide rampage of "Join us or die!!!".
Is anyone out there beginning to draw the same parallels I did?
Let's look at politics today: A bunch of people who can't think being led by party platforms which have no chance of becoming reality, each using the platforms of the other party as the boogie man's whip to keep their followers blindly in line. Anyone who raises a voice against these blindly shuffling, Red, White and Blue zombies of either party are shouted down, attacked (and in some cases killed) or vilified as someone who must be converted to their point of view or "die" (metaphorically at the least, literally at the most).
Now, I tend to equate violent zombies with the right wing (mostly because a conservative is more tolerant of violence, and tends to use violence and violent imagery as their "weapons" of choice in convincing others to go along with them, but I digress), but in this case, both parties can be called Zombies. Right wingers believe in their political nonsense because politicians tell them what they must believe. Left wingers believe in their nonsense, partly as an anti-reaction to the Right-wingers platform, but also because they believe what their politicians tell them.
The politicians are the APPARENT zombie masters. Of course, the politicians are themselves zombies of the Corporate World (and if you don't believe the corporations run the world, you should read up about what the British trader said on the BBC the other day about how Goldman Sachs runs the world and not governments ), which makes the Corporate World and bankers the true Zombie Masters. I expect he'll meet a bad end in the near future. Defamation or death is what I expect to see happen. He was telling the TRUTH, after all, and the Corporate World doesn't want anyone to know the truth.
But the bottom line isn't so much who controls the zombies. It's that the zombies really made themselves by refusing to think for themselves. I've written about the dearth of people thinking for themselves before, but perhaps haven't mentioned HOW they fuck this up so badly.
Most people believe they are thoughtful and hold opinions that are well considered. They think they listen to what other people say and decide for themselves whether to believe in it or not. Of course, this isn't what's really happening, but they think it does. They then become entrenched in these beliefs and will often react belligerently when those beliefs are challenged - ESPECIALLY when those awful, inconvenient "facts" are used against them.
That is NOT being thoughtful nor creating well considered opinions.
The truth is, in politics, OPINIONS SHOULD NEVER BE SET IN STONE. EVER!
Life isn't static. It's always changing. Societies grow. New technologies create new ways of looking at things. Knowledge and discoveries open new vistas and new horizons. And because of this, what was true about things yesterday may not be true about them tomorrow. Going back to my favorite whipping boy, politics and the right wing, I can say with utter certainty that today's right wing was NOT what it was twenty years ago. Today, it's militantly opposed to compromise that would benefit the people and the country. Even if you go more than half-way to their position, they will not accept that, and demand they get everything their way or nothing gets done. They aren't called the Party of NO! these days just because they're against drugs, sex - outside of a marriage between a man and a woman, of course - and abortion.
Since the right wing refuses to budge, the left wing has started doing the same thing and nothing is getting done.
People aren't thinking. They're reacting.
If the reactions were beneficial, that would be fine, but the reactions are to only entrench one's opinions more solidly in an unyielding matrix of political ideology.
Way back when, I had a friend who recited T. A. R. as a way to go through life. It turned out he was looney as a Wanner Brother's cartoon, but this advise always struck me as one of his more lucid moments.
T. A. R. Think. Act. React.
Notice the first word. Think. Always think first. You think about your action AND your reaction. When I was in college, I did a speech on this using the acronym SCAB Act. - Stop and Consider Actions Before you Act. I said that if you remember SCAB, you might avoid a few of your own. I thought it was catchy.
The point is THINK FIRST! ALWAYS think first. But here's a few more hints about how to do it since, apparently, people are so out of practice in doing it for themselves.
The first thing you do is stifle the emotional reaction. Being emotional is a reaction. It's not thinking. You can use the energy to do something constructive like mow the lawn, build a sky-scraper or something equally affirming, but the last thing you want to do is use that emotional reaction to respond.
Next, consider what you heard/saw/experienced. People often go with a first impression of what was put before them without actually absorbing it. They have prejudices, preconceptions and perspectives that may interfere with what was actually intended to be put across. Flying off the handle by jumping to an erroneous conclusion is a great way to end up with foot-in-mouth disease.
Once you've accurately absorbed what you experienced, next consider WHY. Now, granted, there isn't always a why. But if it's an argument, and someone is trying to convince you of something, or is getting angry at you over something, consider the whys. Whys are the underlying motivations for what you have absorbed. When considering the whys, try not to let your prejudices, opinions and other set-in-stone aspects of your personality/life get in the way of arriving at a conclusion. This may not be possible for some people to do, but none the less, it's a step that shouldn't be skipped.
Finally, respond. Do it calmly, rationally and with a factual basis to support and justify your response. Because sure as hell, when you respond in such a manner, the other person will probably fly off the handle and your point looks far more reasonable and rational than theirs.
Thinking, as I pointed out 20 or 30 years ago, should be an Olympic sport. It requires CONSTANT practice and it's obvious some do it a lot better than others. But it's an activity that everyone should be doing whether they're good at it or not. An open mind, some has said, can't hold onto anything. But a closed mind can't get anything into it. What we need are minds that allow things in, and can arrange them neatly according to our own experience and reasoning.
No one is going to be perfect at this - especially those whose opinions tend to be handed to them on silver platters and catered to by those wishing to manipulate them. So to finish it all off, when it comes to thinking, assume no one is telling you the truth.
In politics, this is ESPECIALLY true. There is so much spin going on to sway and convince that no one really knows what the truth there is anymore on either side of the political spectrum. If you assume everyone in politics is hiding something, spinning the truth, trying to get their own way at the expense of everything else (a not unreasonable starting point given the way Washington hasn't worked in the last two or three years), think before you react, try to discern all of the whys and, above all, search for the truth on your own using sources that are NOT part of the world where the spin is coming from, then you are well on your way to creating well considered, thoughtful opinions which can change as the circumstances and world changes.
Zombies can't think. And even if you paint them all red, white and blue, they're a hazard to life because they want you to be just like them. The horror in my dream had more to do with becoming a mindless automaton unable to think or mentally do for myself than any possible physical mutilation of body that becoming a zombie might bring. (I don't look good in red or white, but blue is okay).
In my dream, feeling cornered, I stopped running from the Zombies and started attacking them instead. I was using my fists - but in reality I was using my mind. I could think. They couldn't. In the end, I was the one left standing amid a lot of broken Zombies and the world was once again safe to be in.
We need more thinkers and fewer zombies if THIS world is to be safe again.
Now, to be perfectly honest, though I have a vivid imagination and have dreamt of many things, I have to admit Zombies was not what I would have expected me to dream about. Zombie movies have never been a favorite genre for me and way too much has been written about why people like them. The last thing I would have expected me to dream about was Zombies. I've never done it before, and haven't watched a Zombie movie in many a month. None the less, last night, I dreamt about Zombies.
I'm not sure it was the classic Zombie movie, but it had elements of it. Zombieland is a Zombie movie I actually enjoyed because it was so tongue-in-cheek (and in seat, and on floor and flying through the air and... well, you get the picture), but it had elements my (apparently deranged) mind threw into my dream. That is to say, it didn't focus so much on the beginning of the disaster as the point of view of someone just trying to make it through the day.
It all started out normal enough (as all Zombie movies do). It was from the perspective of a "regular guy" (yours truly) who was just going about his life. Only, occasionally, someone would pop up as a Zombie.
Mostly, they were ignored.
They'd be in theaters, in the supermarkets and malls, going about their business as well. But they were Zombies and everyone knew it. Gradually, though, more and more of them appeared. They still went about their business, but they were a touch more hostile than all the other "normal" people out there. If you pointed out to one they were a Zombie, they'd actually attack you.
Eventually, of course, there were Zombies everywhere. They weren't interested in eating your brains so much as they were interested in turning you into another zombie, or killing you if you resisted. Not typical Zombie behavior I grant you, but it was pretty typical of the mentality (if not NECESSARILY the actions) of some folks today.
It took a while for me to remember, but the Zombies in my dream were Red, White and Blue and looked like they lived mostly in trailers before they went on their world-wide rampage of "Join us or die!!!".
Is anyone out there beginning to draw the same parallels I did?
Let's look at politics today: A bunch of people who can't think being led by party platforms which have no chance of becoming reality, each using the platforms of the other party as the boogie man's whip to keep their followers blindly in line. Anyone who raises a voice against these blindly shuffling, Red, White and Blue zombies of either party are shouted down, attacked (and in some cases killed) or vilified as someone who must be converted to their point of view or "die" (metaphorically at the least, literally at the most).
Now, I tend to equate violent zombies with the right wing (mostly because a conservative is more tolerant of violence, and tends to use violence and violent imagery as their "weapons" of choice in convincing others to go along with them, but I digress), but in this case, both parties can be called Zombies. Right wingers believe in their political nonsense because politicians tell them what they must believe. Left wingers believe in their nonsense, partly as an anti-reaction to the Right-wingers platform, but also because they believe what their politicians tell them.
The politicians are the APPARENT zombie masters. Of course, the politicians are themselves zombies of the Corporate World (and if you don't believe the corporations run the world, you should read up about what the British trader said on the BBC the other day about how Goldman Sachs runs the world and not governments ), which makes the Corporate World and bankers the true Zombie Masters. I expect he'll meet a bad end in the near future. Defamation or death is what I expect to see happen. He was telling the TRUTH, after all, and the Corporate World doesn't want anyone to know the truth.
But the bottom line isn't so much who controls the zombies. It's that the zombies really made themselves by refusing to think for themselves. I've written about the dearth of people thinking for themselves before, but perhaps haven't mentioned HOW they fuck this up so badly.
Most people believe they are thoughtful and hold opinions that are well considered. They think they listen to what other people say and decide for themselves whether to believe in it or not. Of course, this isn't what's really happening, but they think it does. They then become entrenched in these beliefs and will often react belligerently when those beliefs are challenged - ESPECIALLY when those awful, inconvenient "facts" are used against them.
That is NOT being thoughtful nor creating well considered opinions.
The truth is, in politics, OPINIONS SHOULD NEVER BE SET IN STONE. EVER!
Life isn't static. It's always changing. Societies grow. New technologies create new ways of looking at things. Knowledge and discoveries open new vistas and new horizons. And because of this, what was true about things yesterday may not be true about them tomorrow. Going back to my favorite whipping boy, politics and the right wing, I can say with utter certainty that today's right wing was NOT what it was twenty years ago. Today, it's militantly opposed to compromise that would benefit the people and the country. Even if you go more than half-way to their position, they will not accept that, and demand they get everything their way or nothing gets done. They aren't called the Party of NO! these days just because they're against drugs, sex - outside of a marriage between a man and a woman, of course - and abortion.
Since the right wing refuses to budge, the left wing has started doing the same thing and nothing is getting done.
People aren't thinking. They're reacting.
If the reactions were beneficial, that would be fine, but the reactions are to only entrench one's opinions more solidly in an unyielding matrix of political ideology.
Way back when, I had a friend who recited T. A. R. as a way to go through life. It turned out he was looney as a Wanner Brother's cartoon, but this advise always struck me as one of his more lucid moments.
T. A. R. Think. Act. React.
Notice the first word. Think. Always think first. You think about your action AND your reaction. When I was in college, I did a speech on this using the acronym SCAB Act. - Stop and Consider Actions Before you Act. I said that if you remember SCAB, you might avoid a few of your own. I thought it was catchy.
The point is THINK FIRST! ALWAYS think first. But here's a few more hints about how to do it since, apparently, people are so out of practice in doing it for themselves.
The first thing you do is stifle the emotional reaction. Being emotional is a reaction. It's not thinking. You can use the energy to do something constructive like mow the lawn, build a sky-scraper or something equally affirming, but the last thing you want to do is use that emotional reaction to respond.
Next, consider what you heard/saw/experienced. People often go with a first impression of what was put before them without actually absorbing it. They have prejudices, preconceptions and perspectives that may interfere with what was actually intended to be put across. Flying off the handle by jumping to an erroneous conclusion is a great way to end up with foot-in-mouth disease.
Once you've accurately absorbed what you experienced, next consider WHY. Now, granted, there isn't always a why. But if it's an argument, and someone is trying to convince you of something, or is getting angry at you over something, consider the whys. Whys are the underlying motivations for what you have absorbed. When considering the whys, try not to let your prejudices, opinions and other set-in-stone aspects of your personality/life get in the way of arriving at a conclusion. This may not be possible for some people to do, but none the less, it's a step that shouldn't be skipped.
Finally, respond. Do it calmly, rationally and with a factual basis to support and justify your response. Because sure as hell, when you respond in such a manner, the other person will probably fly off the handle and your point looks far more reasonable and rational than theirs.
Thinking, as I pointed out 20 or 30 years ago, should be an Olympic sport. It requires CONSTANT practice and it's obvious some do it a lot better than others. But it's an activity that everyone should be doing whether they're good at it or not. An open mind, some has said, can't hold onto anything. But a closed mind can't get anything into it. What we need are minds that allow things in, and can arrange them neatly according to our own experience and reasoning.
No one is going to be perfect at this - especially those whose opinions tend to be handed to them on silver platters and catered to by those wishing to manipulate them. So to finish it all off, when it comes to thinking, assume no one is telling you the truth.
In politics, this is ESPECIALLY true. There is so much spin going on to sway and convince that no one really knows what the truth there is anymore on either side of the political spectrum. If you assume everyone in politics is hiding something, spinning the truth, trying to get their own way at the expense of everything else (a not unreasonable starting point given the way Washington hasn't worked in the last two or three years), think before you react, try to discern all of the whys and, above all, search for the truth on your own using sources that are NOT part of the world where the spin is coming from, then you are well on your way to creating well considered, thoughtful opinions which can change as the circumstances and world changes.
Zombies can't think. And even if you paint them all red, white and blue, they're a hazard to life because they want you to be just like them. The horror in my dream had more to do with becoming a mindless automaton unable to think or mentally do for myself than any possible physical mutilation of body that becoming a zombie might bring. (I don't look good in red or white, but blue is okay).
In my dream, feeling cornered, I stopped running from the Zombies and started attacking them instead. I was using my fists - but in reality I was using my mind. I could think. They couldn't. In the end, I was the one left standing amid a lot of broken Zombies and the world was once again safe to be in.
We need more thinkers and fewer zombies if THIS world is to be safe again.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
U.S. Founded as a Christian Nation? Yeah... Right...
The Right Wing (Or the Evil Empire, take your pick in my book) has asserted, often loudly and with great reverence, that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation!
Not hardly...
It's Final Jeopardy and the category is: US Myths and Fallacies
The answer is, "All of them." You have thirty seconds. Please put your answer in the form of a question.
(30 seconds later)
Right wing, contestant number one, you have thirty trillion dollars and own 85% of the wealth of the United States. What was your answer?
Uh, I said, "How many of the Founding Fathers were Christians?"
Oh, I'm sorry, Right Wing. That is an incorrect answer. The Correct answer is "Which of the Founding Fathers were businessmen?"
That's right, boys and girls and all the ships at sea, our Founding Fathers were Businessmen first, liberals (yes, really, liberals, interested in freedom, democracy and wary of large tyrannical powers that sought to limit personal freedom and choice) and, mostly not too fond of religions.
Now, it must be pointed out that they were against ORGANIZED RELIGIONS. This is an important distinction. They believed in faith, but they adamantly refused to allow a personal faith to interfere in the business of creating a government. They went so far as to put that into the FIRST AMENDMENT in the bill of rights.
You see, organized religions have this habit of screwing up governments. As observed by Thomas Jefferson (you know, the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Third President of the United States? Banged his own slave girl and fathered children with her? THAT Thomas Jefferson?) in a letter to German Baron von Humboldt in 1813:
Now, least you think that perhaps he was talking about corrput politicians and priests and not about religions in general or Christianity in particular, he went on to say at another time:
But let us go further and examine the right-wing notion that they were trying to do just that: create a Christian Nation.
They were crafting a nation. They only needed a 2/3 majority to get the work done. And all of the 13 original states had to sign onto the newly drafted Constitution. If we were a nation of people wanting it to be a Christian nation, why didn't they put it in the Constitution? Why, instead, did they specifically and categorically deny the right of the government to dictate what religion a person had. Not only that, but why did they put that prohibition against the government into the very FIRST amendment which became our Bill of Rights? Going one step further to pound this home, why did they make that the FIRST PROVISION OF THAT AMENDMENT IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS? If these were all good and godly men foaming at the mount to create the first truly Christian Nation, why did they go so far out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot on the journey to that religious destiny?
Well, the easy answer is because they weren't that interested in God. In fact, they were so not interested in God, that the word God doesn't appear in the Constitution. Nowhere. Not a peep. In fact, "deity", "Creator" or any reference to anything even remotely of a religious, let alone "christian" nature is glaringly absent from the Constitution - aside from the prohibition on the part of government to create laws based on one.
You think, maybe, they were sending a message?
To refresh your memory:
This isn't exactly what I would call "Christian Nation building" here.
The truth of the matter is that the founding fathers saw what the Church of England had done to the people in England (and elsewhere where other religions governed or had a strong hand in the running of a government). They knew that allowing any religion, regardless of who believed in it, or how many, to be able to take power in the government would be a disaster for the free, open society they envisioned.
So why were they so into a free and open society? Aside from a large dose of off-shore repression England engaged in before the Revolutionary war (and for a period of time thereafter, in fact), the founding fathers were BUSINESSMEN. Almost all of them were rich land-owners. Almost all of them were extremely well educated. Almost all of them owned businesses or were heavily invested in them.
In ANY society run by dogma, the clerics only need to decide something is subversive or immoral, then pass a law to outlaw it or restrict it. In a free and open society, people can smoke, drink and fool around howsoever they please. They can indulge in the vices the church often railed against: Smoking, drinking and fooling around. Many of the founding fathers owned (or were invested in) distilleries. Others owned tobacco plantations. Almost all of them owned slaves (something ELSE the churches hated and wanted abolished).
The founding fathers were creating a businessman's paradise, folks, NOT a nation of Christians. The LAST damned thing they wanted was some stupid church to get its meat hooks into the government to shut down their distilleries, make them stop harvesting tobacco (and hemp, by the way), or, heaven forbid, take away their slaves. Profits would plummet.
A cadre of "Christian Nation Builders" they were not.
So the next time you hear a right-winger talk about our found fathers as Christians interested in a Christian nation, you can do what I do: Laugh, point and call them ignoramuses who don't know anything about the nation they want to run into the ground.
Tell them I sent you...
Not hardly...
It's Final Jeopardy and the category is: US Myths and Fallacies
The answer is, "All of them." You have thirty seconds. Please put your answer in the form of a question.
(30 seconds later)
Right wing, contestant number one, you have thirty trillion dollars and own 85% of the wealth of the United States. What was your answer?
Uh, I said, "How many of the Founding Fathers were Christians?"
Oh, I'm sorry, Right Wing. That is an incorrect answer. The Correct answer is "Which of the Founding Fathers were businessmen?"
That's right, boys and girls and all the ships at sea, our Founding Fathers were Businessmen first, liberals (yes, really, liberals, interested in freedom, democracy and wary of large tyrannical powers that sought to limit personal freedom and choice) and, mostly not too fond of religions.
Now, it must be pointed out that they were against ORGANIZED RELIGIONS. This is an important distinction. They believed in faith, but they adamantly refused to allow a personal faith to interfere in the business of creating a government. They went so far as to put that into the FIRST AMENDMENT in the bill of rights.
You see, organized religions have this habit of screwing up governments. As observed by Thomas Jefferson (you know, the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Third President of the United States? Banged his own slave girl and fathered children with her? THAT Thomas Jefferson?) in a letter to German Baron von Humboldt in 1813:
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."Now, let's fast-forward to today. Our right-wingers have availed themselves of the lowest grade of ignorance to manipulate the poor, southerner/mid-westerner for their own purposes.
Now, least you think that perhaps he was talking about corrput politicians and priests and not about religions in general or Christianity in particular, he went on to say at another time:
The score is Reason 2, Religions 0. And proof that not all of the founding fathers were interested in making a "christian nation."
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
But let us go further and examine the right-wing notion that they were trying to do just that: create a Christian Nation.
They were crafting a nation. They only needed a 2/3 majority to get the work done. And all of the 13 original states had to sign onto the newly drafted Constitution. If we were a nation of people wanting it to be a Christian nation, why didn't they put it in the Constitution? Why, instead, did they specifically and categorically deny the right of the government to dictate what religion a person had. Not only that, but why did they put that prohibition against the government into the very FIRST amendment which became our Bill of Rights? Going one step further to pound this home, why did they make that the FIRST PROVISION OF THAT AMENDMENT IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS? If these were all good and godly men foaming at the mount to create the first truly Christian Nation, why did they go so far out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot on the journey to that religious destiny?
Well, the easy answer is because they weren't that interested in God. In fact, they were so not interested in God, that the word God doesn't appear in the Constitution. Nowhere. Not a peep. In fact, "deity", "Creator" or any reference to anything even remotely of a religious, let alone "christian" nature is glaringly absent from the Constitution - aside from the prohibition on the part of government to create laws based on one.
You think, maybe, they were sending a message?
To refresh your memory:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.Not only did our founding fathers tell the government you can't establish a religion, but it went on to say that you can't pass laws that tell others how to live based on a particular religion or faith since they may have a different faith and that law may interfere in the free exercise of it.
This isn't exactly what I would call "Christian Nation building" here.
The truth of the matter is that the founding fathers saw what the Church of England had done to the people in England (and elsewhere where other religions governed or had a strong hand in the running of a government). They knew that allowing any religion, regardless of who believed in it, or how many, to be able to take power in the government would be a disaster for the free, open society they envisioned.
So why were they so into a free and open society? Aside from a large dose of off-shore repression England engaged in before the Revolutionary war (and for a period of time thereafter, in fact), the founding fathers were BUSINESSMEN. Almost all of them were rich land-owners. Almost all of them were extremely well educated. Almost all of them owned businesses or were heavily invested in them.
In ANY society run by dogma, the clerics only need to decide something is subversive or immoral, then pass a law to outlaw it or restrict it. In a free and open society, people can smoke, drink and fool around howsoever they please. They can indulge in the vices the church often railed against: Smoking, drinking and fooling around. Many of the founding fathers owned (or were invested in) distilleries. Others owned tobacco plantations. Almost all of them owned slaves (something ELSE the churches hated and wanted abolished).
The founding fathers were creating a businessman's paradise, folks, NOT a nation of Christians. The LAST damned thing they wanted was some stupid church to get its meat hooks into the government to shut down their distilleries, make them stop harvesting tobacco (and hemp, by the way), or, heaven forbid, take away their slaves. Profits would plummet.
A cadre of "Christian Nation Builders" they were not.
So the next time you hear a right-winger talk about our found fathers as Christians interested in a Christian nation, you can do what I do: Laugh, point and call them ignoramuses who don't know anything about the nation they want to run into the ground.
Tell them I sent you...
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Which Do You Hear, the Messenger, or the Message?
One of the things about human nature I've noticed is how often people will hear a messenger, but not the message. That is to say, what is being said seems less important to the listener than who is saying it or how it's said (or both).
When evaluating information coming to us, there are preconceptions people place on those providing the information. This prejudges the information, deeming what is being said to be valid or invalid simply because of who is speaking. Even the manner of delivery will have an impact on whether anyone bothers to listen to what's being said.
This proclivity becomes especially pronounced in politics. If the person saying things (regardless of the "things" being said) has a bad "presence", poor speaking voice, odd appearance or a history of saying/doing really odd things, the listeners will not hear what's being said. They'll focus on the oddities, the things that bother them, rather than on the words coming out of the speaker's mouth.
This is, of course, a two-edged sword. A "bad" politician will be unable to sway a crowd with presence/appearance/voice alone. But a "good" politician won't have to say anything memorable, relevant or factual provided s/he says it in a manner that is presentable, visually appealing and appeals to the aural needs of the crowd.
A few years ago in the late fall, during a commemoration of fallen war dead, a tall, awkward-looking, soft-voiced man stood up and spoke for a few minutes. He followed several speakers who orated with great passion and at length, to the delight of the crowd. There were several reporters covering the event. Barely anyone noticed what was being said by this tall, awkward-looking man and only one reporter out of dozens jotted down the speech for posterity. It was a remarkably short speech.
The presentation of the speech was poor. Barely anyone noticed when it was being delivered. Few paused in their writing from the previous speaker's orations and several never heard it at all. But it became one of the most moving speeches in human history - only AFTER it was published where no one had to listen to the speaker or be distracted by the now utterly lost and irrelevant but well spoken orations of the others at that event.
The speech started out, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."
In this case, what was being said was FAR AND AWAY better than how it was said, or even who said it.
Sadly, in today's world, we are caught in a reality of sound bites. The three minutes it takes to recite the Gettysburg Address is too long for the attention span of news organizations who seem to think that quick, out-of-context or viciously short barbs and quips are actually relevant provided the right people say them. We are becoming less concerned about what people say, than how they say it or even who is saying it.
Politicians are great at rhetoric. All you need do to to get people cheering is to stand up on a stage, toss a bit of confetti in the air, drop some appropriately colored balloons and shout, "God Bless America!" in a well practiced, booming voice. But the "science" behind his goes a few steps further, and was touched upon in my "Rednecks" post.
Politicians never say insightful things today like Lincoln did 146 years ago. Today, politicians are strictly out to get elected. Lincoln was speaking to the future beyond the next election. In order to get elected, politicians now have talking points and each time, those points are changed slightly to accommodate the prejudices, sensibilities and expectations of the crowd. All of these talking points can be summed up with the phrase, "I believe in what you believe in, so vote for me."
It doesn't mean the politician is telling the truth.
At a Democratic rally, you'll hear politicians talking about protecting the environment, reducing military spending, increasing aid to the needy. At Republican rallies, you hear them talking about banning gay marriage and abortions, building a strong America with a strong military and bringing prayer back to schools. Both sides talk about fiscal responsibility (Yes, the liberals actually do that because to do otherwise would be to play to the stereotype). Both sides talk about doing the "will of the people" because "it's what Americans want!"
So you elect your liar of choice and what happens? Pretty much nothing. Neither side is willing to let the other side "win". One side's America isn't the other side's America. WHAT they said means nothing. It was all in the delivery. Next time you go to a political rally, LISTEN TO THE WORDS. The actual amount of meat (or meaning) in them wouldn't feed a hummingbird. Look at the crowd and judge for yourself if those words are just what they want to hear, or actually go beyond the moment (or at least beyond the coming election).
I don't expect politicians to be Mark Twain, Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln in what they say. Great oratory isn't written by the orators these days. Often times, great oratory isn't even written by anyone. It's all sound bites of quick, compact messages designed to influence you and convince you to vote for that guy (or gal). They don't move you so much as stick to you so that when you're in the voting booth, you vote for them in the hopes those sticky, icky bits of bites will FINALLY wash off.
And be forgotten.
With all the rhetoric out there in politics today, it's easy to get caught up in the stickiness of it all. But keep in mind, that stickiness is deliberate. They don't want you to remember what they said (god forbid they be held accountable for all of those promises!). They want to sell that feeling you had when you were cheering them (even if you weren't quite sure why you were doing that) long enough for you to go to the polls and vote for them.
At Gettysburg in 1863, when Lincoln finished his speech, there was a smattering of applause from the gathered dignitaries and reporters. That reception of his few minutes of speaking was almost silent compared to the cheers and applause which had punctuated the conclusions of the previous speaker's remarks. Lincoln thought what he had said was not liked or, worse, somehow insulting. The war between the states was a time of great passion, great emotion and great suffering. Our nation had been torn asunder by innate differences in how we viewed our fellow man and was poorly stitched back together by the imprecise, violent surgery of war without the benefit of anesthesia.
Over the years, that short speech, delivered so poorly by a man who would be assassinated fifteen months later because of the delusions of those who refused to accept the changes which had been wrought on the nation, has since resonated throughout American history. In the Boston Globe, on June 1st, 1865, a reporter wrote,
Think about THAT the next time someone is speaking to you from a podium and inflames your passions about the things you think you believe in. Are those issues you're cheering about really that important? Or are you just so lost in the moment, you don't think about the future? Or, worse, do you even know why, or what, you're cheering?
The future is out there, and it's coming at us faster than you think. Next time you see a politician, LISTEN to what is being said. If you come away hungry, they're not saying enough. And if they're not saying enough now, there won't be enough from him when the future arrives.
When evaluating information coming to us, there are preconceptions people place on those providing the information. This prejudges the information, deeming what is being said to be valid or invalid simply because of who is speaking. Even the manner of delivery will have an impact on whether anyone bothers to listen to what's being said.
This proclivity becomes especially pronounced in politics. If the person saying things (regardless of the "things" being said) has a bad "presence", poor speaking voice, odd appearance or a history of saying/doing really odd things, the listeners will not hear what's being said. They'll focus on the oddities, the things that bother them, rather than on the words coming out of the speaker's mouth.
This is, of course, a two-edged sword. A "bad" politician will be unable to sway a crowd with presence/appearance/voice alone. But a "good" politician won't have to say anything memorable, relevant or factual provided s/he says it in a manner that is presentable, visually appealing and appeals to the aural needs of the crowd.
A few years ago in the late fall, during a commemoration of fallen war dead, a tall, awkward-looking, soft-voiced man stood up and spoke for a few minutes. He followed several speakers who orated with great passion and at length, to the delight of the crowd. There were several reporters covering the event. Barely anyone noticed what was being said by this tall, awkward-looking man and only one reporter out of dozens jotted down the speech for posterity. It was a remarkably short speech.
The presentation of the speech was poor. Barely anyone noticed when it was being delivered. Few paused in their writing from the previous speaker's orations and several never heard it at all. But it became one of the most moving speeches in human history - only AFTER it was published where no one had to listen to the speaker or be distracted by the now utterly lost and irrelevant but well spoken orations of the others at that event.
The speech started out, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."
In this case, what was being said was FAR AND AWAY better than how it was said, or even who said it.
Sadly, in today's world, we are caught in a reality of sound bites. The three minutes it takes to recite the Gettysburg Address is too long for the attention span of news organizations who seem to think that quick, out-of-context or viciously short barbs and quips are actually relevant provided the right people say them. We are becoming less concerned about what people say, than how they say it or even who is saying it.
Politicians are great at rhetoric. All you need do to to get people cheering is to stand up on a stage, toss a bit of confetti in the air, drop some appropriately colored balloons and shout, "God Bless America!" in a well practiced, booming voice. But the "science" behind his goes a few steps further, and was touched upon in my "Rednecks" post.
Politicians never say insightful things today like Lincoln did 146 years ago. Today, politicians are strictly out to get elected. Lincoln was speaking to the future beyond the next election. In order to get elected, politicians now have talking points and each time, those points are changed slightly to accommodate the prejudices, sensibilities and expectations of the crowd. All of these talking points can be summed up with the phrase, "I believe in what you believe in, so vote for me."
It doesn't mean the politician is telling the truth.
At a Democratic rally, you'll hear politicians talking about protecting the environment, reducing military spending, increasing aid to the needy. At Republican rallies, you hear them talking about banning gay marriage and abortions, building a strong America with a strong military and bringing prayer back to schools. Both sides talk about fiscal responsibility (Yes, the liberals actually do that because to do otherwise would be to play to the stereotype). Both sides talk about doing the "will of the people" because "it's what Americans want!"
So you elect your liar of choice and what happens? Pretty much nothing. Neither side is willing to let the other side "win". One side's America isn't the other side's America. WHAT they said means nothing. It was all in the delivery. Next time you go to a political rally, LISTEN TO THE WORDS. The actual amount of meat (or meaning) in them wouldn't feed a hummingbird. Look at the crowd and judge for yourself if those words are just what they want to hear, or actually go beyond the moment (or at least beyond the coming election).
I don't expect politicians to be Mark Twain, Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln in what they say. Great oratory isn't written by the orators these days. Often times, great oratory isn't even written by anyone. It's all sound bites of quick, compact messages designed to influence you and convince you to vote for that guy (or gal). They don't move you so much as stick to you so that when you're in the voting booth, you vote for them in the hopes those sticky, icky bits of bites will FINALLY wash off.
And be forgotten.
With all the rhetoric out there in politics today, it's easy to get caught up in the stickiness of it all. But keep in mind, that stickiness is deliberate. They don't want you to remember what they said (god forbid they be held accountable for all of those promises!). They want to sell that feeling you had when you were cheering them (even if you weren't quite sure why you were doing that) long enough for you to go to the polls and vote for them.
At Gettysburg in 1863, when Lincoln finished his speech, there was a smattering of applause from the gathered dignitaries and reporters. That reception of his few minutes of speaking was almost silent compared to the cheers and applause which had punctuated the conclusions of the previous speaker's remarks. Lincoln thought what he had said was not liked or, worse, somehow insulting. The war between the states was a time of great passion, great emotion and great suffering. Our nation had been torn asunder by innate differences in how we viewed our fellow man and was poorly stitched back together by the imprecise, violent surgery of war without the benefit of anesthesia.
Over the years, that short speech, delivered so poorly by a man who would be assassinated fifteen months later because of the delusions of those who refused to accept the changes which had been wrought on the nation, has since resonated throughout American history. In the Boston Globe, on June 1st, 1865, a reporter wrote,
"Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."No one remembers what the other speakers said. It was a bunch of bombast, pomp and circumstances. To quote another man who was good with a phrase,
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Think about THAT the next time someone is speaking to you from a podium and inflames your passions about the things you think you believe in. Are those issues you're cheering about really that important? Or are you just so lost in the moment, you don't think about the future? Or, worse, do you even know why, or what, you're cheering?
The future is out there, and it's coming at us faster than you think. Next time you see a politician, LISTEN to what is being said. If you come away hungry, they're not saying enough. And if they're not saying enough now, there won't be enough from him when the future arrives.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Why Taxing the Rich Will Save the US Economy
I'm not in favor of tax and spend politics. I'm not in favor of increasing taxes just to spend it on social programs. But one can just revamp the taxes without increasing tax revenue and still get the economy going. The Government playing Robin Hood may not be such a bad idea, but it's not exactly giving money to the poor. It's more like making the rich pay their fair share while the the poor are pretty much left to their own devices.
(If you think being poor is simple, go to Spent and play a game or ten. Bet you starve.)
"Tax and spend" is a phrase used by conservatives to imply that the government increases taxes to create social programs to give extra money to the poor without any expectations. Often times, it means spending more than is taxed. And that is the context in which I'm against Tax and Spend. I want some value for my tax dollars being increased. But in this case, I don't want any increases unless they are specifically budgeted for deficit reduction. Rather, I'm looking at a shifting of the tax burden away from the poor and middle class and onto those who can most afford it: the wealthy. A shift of the tax burden will reduce the deficit (by stimulating the economy) without increasing tax revenue or adding to the deficit and without increasing or creating new "welfare" programs.
As I have mentioned, in the last 20 years or so (ever since 1990), we have seen the biggest a shift of revenue from the poor to the rich in global history. This gap between the Haves and the Have Nots was mentioned here earlier this month.
The idea has been floated that we should start taxing the rich more than we have and I agree - to a point. Tax the rich, yes, but no more than we actually need given necessary cost-cutting and fiscal responsibility. Then cut the taxes on the rest of us. We don't NEED to generate more tax revenue. We heed to shift the tax burden from the middle class and poor to the rich. Just doing that will stimulate the economy and make things better for EVERYONE.
Now, before we go much further, I have to explain how an economy works. You don't need to take notes and keep in mind, this is a thumb-nail version of the thing.
In the beginning there was barter. People would trade goods and services for goods or services. But there was an inherent inequity in barter in that some goods given seemed to be more valuable than what was received. So the concept of money was created. In essence, money placed a quantitative number to the value of things - be they goods or services. It worked so well, that money became what we use to trade for goods and services today.
But money has a problem. In ourt modern society, those who don't have money must acquire it in order to acquire the goods and services they need to live. They do this by trading their labor or talents in exchange for money. We call this work. A person who has the need of their labors (usually someone who is engaged in the manufacturing and sale of goods and/or services) hires people to trade their labors for his money.
All is well and good.
But some people have more money than they can spend in one spree. For a very long time, they kept this money (and other valuables) in their homes, but this became impractical. So banks were created. Banks operate as repositories of your money, who then use that money to sponsor other ventures with the expectation of being paid back with "interest", which creates an income for the bank so they can operate without paying themselves with the money of the depositors.
Again, all is well and good.
In an ideal economy, people labor for wages they spend on goods and services, the surplus of which they deposit in banks which use that money to loan to people or businesses who pay them back more than they were loaned in order to acquire goods needed in their lives, the excess of which is used to pay for the operation of the banks and offer a small incentive to the depositors for the privilege of using their money in the first place. As long as people are working, getting wages, spending wages and depositing excess wages in banks, things get better for everyone.
But then we have human nature to deal with and the major one here is greed. The greed is everywhere. The depositor who deposits their money wants the little extra the banks offer. The banks want more depositors because if they can make more loans, they make more money when people pay the loans back (Emphasis added for later effect). People getting loans want to get the loans, so can lie or fake the information necessary to get the loans if they're greedy, or find a banker who will give them a loan even if it can't be paid back because the bank looks at its income not so much as what is coming in NOW, but what WILL come in later. And the business owners are greedy realizing that if they can make their minions do more work for less wages, the business owner can make more money.
All of this has happened already. Hence why the world is screwed up. Going back to our model, the banks gave away loans to people who shouldn't have gotten them, meaning they have no income and no money to lend, and no money to give back to the depositors. (The FDIC isn't there for nothing, you know, but it, too, is running out of money). With no money coming in for businesses, they can't expand their operations or, occasionally pay their workers. So they lay the workers off. Fewer workers means less wages for the labors being traded, which means fewer people buying goods or services which means less business which means more workers are laid off.
But the bankers got paid. The business owners got paid. The poor don't. The middle class struggles.
From our (overly simplistic, but still relevant) economic model, we see where the money went: To business owners and bankers. In our society today, we call them "the wealthy".
Now, taxes were never mentioned in our economic model, but let's toss them in now and see how it all works out.
The government is in charge of maintaining the military, the roads, sewers, bridges and other public works we rely on to go about our daily lives. It also provides a safety net for those who for whatever reason can't exchange their labors for wages. It is financed by a tax on the wages of the people who live in that country. Now, a little about the people who live in the country. We'll split them up into three groups: The Wealthy (top 20% who hold the money), the Middle Class - the 60% of people who have been hired by the wealthy to labor to produce goods and services for the wealthy - and the 20% Poor (which are those who usually work, but at jobs which do not pay much, or those who can't work for whatever reason.)
The top 20% of the wealthy control 85% of the TOTAL WEALTH. If the total wealth of the economy was a million coins and the total population was 1000, the 200 wealthiest would have 850,000 to split between them, 600 would have 149,000 and the bottom 200 would have 1000.
The Wealthy have 4250 coins each.
The Middle Class have 248 coins each.
The Poor have 50 coins each.
Okay, let's move back to our model and see how this works. In a good economy, people trade labor for wages because the business owners has a demand for their goods/services. The greater the demand, the more laborers are needed. If the demand falls, so, too, does the need for laborers, which in turn means fewer people getting wages which means less spending for goods/services. The flow of money through demand is what keeps the economy working. If the money stops flowing, usually through a lack of demand (cause in this case by low wages), the economy falters and fails.
There are only 200 rich. They have a lot of money, but how many goods or services can they buy? 200. Their spending power is gigantic, but the demand they generate is small. The Middle Class and Poor are gigantic in potential demand, but compared to the rich, on an individual basis, their spending power is poor. If they don't have the money, they can't spend it on the goods and services their demand may potentially be.
Back to taxes. The Wealthy pay a lot of taxes, but they also control most of the wealth of the nation. In our model, even if they pay the 33% they pay today, the amount they have left over is still an order or two of magnitude greater than it is for the Middle Class, who control nearly a magnitude of order more than the poor. And that money IS NOT FLOWING as it should in a healthy, working economy. Rather than using their wealth to reinvest into the economy by creating new jobs, investing in new industries and making new opportunities, they're holding on to it.
Greed.
The Middle Class and Poor are spending almost all of their money on the necessities of living. They can't get enough well paying jobs to be able to pump more into the economy.
So the shifting of wealth from the wealthy to the less wealthy is in order. Since the wealthy aren't doing that on their own, the government has to do it.
Now, I understand the wealthy pay a lot in taxes, but historically, they pay barely a third of what they used to have to pay. They control 85% of the wealth. They should be paying 85% of the taxes. They aren't.
Let's look at what the taxes does to the coins people have:
33% of 4250 = 1403 leaving 2847
15% of 248 = 37 leaving 211
10% of 50 =5 leaving 45.
Clearly, the rich remain substantially wealthier than the middle class. That 33% in taxes represents 35% of the total taxes collected today. The 15% in taxes represents 60% of the taxes collected. The 10% the Poor pays represents 5% of the taxes collected.
The rich still have 10 times the wealth of the middle class.
But let's remember what the middle class does: Spend. A little goes a long way. 60% of the taxes means there are a hell of a lot of middle class. A small increase in what each of them has translates to a gigantic spending potential. By shifting the tax burden 10% so the rich pay 45% of the taxes, the middle class 55% and the poor 0%, then 10% of the TOTAL INCOME TAX REVENUE is shifted to a large number of people who are willing to spend it, all this without in any way, shape or form decreasing the quality of life among the wealthy. Given that the wealthy control 85% of the wealth, this shift isn't what one would call onerous.
In 2009, the US collected 2.4 TRILLION dollars in tax revenue. 10% of that is 240 BILLION dollars. Imagine that 240 billion dollars, every year, being pumped into the economy in the form of spending or even savings (which helps generate revenue banks can use to make loans which stimulates business, investment and hiring) without adding to the deficit. The "Economic Incentive Plan" we got from the government was a one time tax bonus intended to have people go out and spend it to stimulate the economy. It didn't help much because the public perception was it's one-time only, the economy sucks, let's NOT spend it.
A major tax cut for the 80% of Americans who actually do the largest amount of spending would be seen as a positive step toward helping them. Doing that without actually increasing the deficit, nor adversely impacting those who will be shouldering a fairer share of the tax burden will be even better.
As has been mentioned, the gap between the rich and the poor and Middle Class has never been larger. A shift of wealth is in order. It will take the money from where it's been (stagnating while only enriching the rich) to stimulating the economy.
The infusion of cash into the middle class would most definitely create more spending power and more willingness to spend it. This would fuel demand for goods and services, which in turn fuels demand for workers, which in turn puts more money into the economy.
This is a redistribution of the tax burden. Taking it one step further, increasing the taxes on the rich to actually generate extra tax revenue could ALSO be done. This extra revenue could be used to reduce the national deficit as well as help fund emergency social programs like FEMA or even bolster Social Security. But what would be best is using the money to stimulate business by investing it in the things government is supposed to take care of: Infrastructure. Just creating those jobs to repair/maintain/build the vital infrastructure the nation needs to keep moving would put more money into the economy and improve the quality of life for everyone. Putting more people to work generates more jobs which generates wages which can be taxed increasing the amount of taxes being taken in which can be used to reduce the deficit and further stimulate the economy.
But it all starts with shifting some of the wealth away from the few wealthy to the many of the rest who are willing to spend it. That can only be done through re-balancing the tax structure to place far more of the total burden onto those who can most afford it and away from those who can least afford it.
While some in Congress (who, by the way, are among the "wealthy"), call this idea "Class Warfare", the fact is the wealthy will benefit from a shift in the tax burden just as much as the rest of us over the long term. They're just too greedy to see it.
(If you think being poor is simple, go to Spent and play a game or ten. Bet you starve.)
"Tax and spend" is a phrase used by conservatives to imply that the government increases taxes to create social programs to give extra money to the poor without any expectations. Often times, it means spending more than is taxed. And that is the context in which I'm against Tax and Spend. I want some value for my tax dollars being increased. But in this case, I don't want any increases unless they are specifically budgeted for deficit reduction. Rather, I'm looking at a shifting of the tax burden away from the poor and middle class and onto those who can most afford it: the wealthy. A shift of the tax burden will reduce the deficit (by stimulating the economy) without increasing tax revenue or adding to the deficit and without increasing or creating new "welfare" programs.
As I have mentioned, in the last 20 years or so (ever since 1990), we have seen the biggest a shift of revenue from the poor to the rich in global history. This gap between the Haves and the Have Nots was mentioned here earlier this month.
The idea has been floated that we should start taxing the rich more than we have and I agree - to a point. Tax the rich, yes, but no more than we actually need given necessary cost-cutting and fiscal responsibility. Then cut the taxes on the rest of us. We don't NEED to generate more tax revenue. We heed to shift the tax burden from the middle class and poor to the rich. Just doing that will stimulate the economy and make things better for EVERYONE.
Now, before we go much further, I have to explain how an economy works. You don't need to take notes and keep in mind, this is a thumb-nail version of the thing.
In the beginning there was barter. People would trade goods and services for goods or services. But there was an inherent inequity in barter in that some goods given seemed to be more valuable than what was received. So the concept of money was created. In essence, money placed a quantitative number to the value of things - be they goods or services. It worked so well, that money became what we use to trade for goods and services today.
But money has a problem. In ourt modern society, those who don't have money must acquire it in order to acquire the goods and services they need to live. They do this by trading their labor or talents in exchange for money. We call this work. A person who has the need of their labors (usually someone who is engaged in the manufacturing and sale of goods and/or services) hires people to trade their labors for his money.
All is well and good.
But some people have more money than they can spend in one spree. For a very long time, they kept this money (and other valuables) in their homes, but this became impractical. So banks were created. Banks operate as repositories of your money, who then use that money to sponsor other ventures with the expectation of being paid back with "interest", which creates an income for the bank so they can operate without paying themselves with the money of the depositors.
Again, all is well and good.
In an ideal economy, people labor for wages they spend on goods and services, the surplus of which they deposit in banks which use that money to loan to people or businesses who pay them back more than they were loaned in order to acquire goods needed in their lives, the excess of which is used to pay for the operation of the banks and offer a small incentive to the depositors for the privilege of using their money in the first place. As long as people are working, getting wages, spending wages and depositing excess wages in banks, things get better for everyone.
But then we have human nature to deal with and the major one here is greed. The greed is everywhere. The depositor who deposits their money wants the little extra the banks offer. The banks want more depositors because if they can make more loans, they make more money when people pay the loans back (Emphasis added for later effect). People getting loans want to get the loans, so can lie or fake the information necessary to get the loans if they're greedy, or find a banker who will give them a loan even if it can't be paid back because the bank looks at its income not so much as what is coming in NOW, but what WILL come in later. And the business owners are greedy realizing that if they can make their minions do more work for less wages, the business owner can make more money.
All of this has happened already. Hence why the world is screwed up. Going back to our model, the banks gave away loans to people who shouldn't have gotten them, meaning they have no income and no money to lend, and no money to give back to the depositors. (The FDIC isn't there for nothing, you know, but it, too, is running out of money). With no money coming in for businesses, they can't expand their operations or, occasionally pay their workers. So they lay the workers off. Fewer workers means less wages for the labors being traded, which means fewer people buying goods or services which means less business which means more workers are laid off.
But the bankers got paid. The business owners got paid. The poor don't. The middle class struggles.
From our (overly simplistic, but still relevant) economic model, we see where the money went: To business owners and bankers. In our society today, we call them "the wealthy".
Now, taxes were never mentioned in our economic model, but let's toss them in now and see how it all works out.
The government is in charge of maintaining the military, the roads, sewers, bridges and other public works we rely on to go about our daily lives. It also provides a safety net for those who for whatever reason can't exchange their labors for wages. It is financed by a tax on the wages of the people who live in that country. Now, a little about the people who live in the country. We'll split them up into three groups: The Wealthy (top 20% who hold the money), the Middle Class - the 60% of people who have been hired by the wealthy to labor to produce goods and services for the wealthy - and the 20% Poor (which are those who usually work, but at jobs which do not pay much, or those who can't work for whatever reason.)
The top 20% of the wealthy control 85% of the TOTAL WEALTH. If the total wealth of the economy was a million coins and the total population was 1000, the 200 wealthiest would have 850,000 to split between them, 600 would have 149,000 and the bottom 200 would have 1000.
The Wealthy have 4250 coins each.
The Middle Class have 248 coins each.
The Poor have 50 coins each.
Okay, let's move back to our model and see how this works. In a good economy, people trade labor for wages because the business owners has a demand for their goods/services. The greater the demand, the more laborers are needed. If the demand falls, so, too, does the need for laborers, which in turn means fewer people getting wages which means less spending for goods/services. The flow of money through demand is what keeps the economy working. If the money stops flowing, usually through a lack of demand (cause in this case by low wages), the economy falters and fails.
There are only 200 rich. They have a lot of money, but how many goods or services can they buy? 200. Their spending power is gigantic, but the demand they generate is small. The Middle Class and Poor are gigantic in potential demand, but compared to the rich, on an individual basis, their spending power is poor. If they don't have the money, they can't spend it on the goods and services their demand may potentially be.
Back to taxes. The Wealthy pay a lot of taxes, but they also control most of the wealth of the nation. In our model, even if they pay the 33% they pay today, the amount they have left over is still an order or two of magnitude greater than it is for the Middle Class, who control nearly a magnitude of order more than the poor. And that money IS NOT FLOWING as it should in a healthy, working economy. Rather than using their wealth to reinvest into the economy by creating new jobs, investing in new industries and making new opportunities, they're holding on to it.
Greed.
The Middle Class and Poor are spending almost all of their money on the necessities of living. They can't get enough well paying jobs to be able to pump more into the economy.
So the shifting of wealth from the wealthy to the less wealthy is in order. Since the wealthy aren't doing that on their own, the government has to do it.
Now, I understand the wealthy pay a lot in taxes, but historically, they pay barely a third of what they used to have to pay. They control 85% of the wealth. They should be paying 85% of the taxes. They aren't.
Let's look at what the taxes does to the coins people have:
33% of 4250 = 1403 leaving 2847
15% of 248 = 37 leaving 211
10% of 50 =5 leaving 45.
Clearly, the rich remain substantially wealthier than the middle class. That 33% in taxes represents 35% of the total taxes collected today. The 15% in taxes represents 60% of the taxes collected. The 10% the Poor pays represents 5% of the taxes collected.
The rich still have 10 times the wealth of the middle class.
But let's remember what the middle class does: Spend. A little goes a long way. 60% of the taxes means there are a hell of a lot of middle class. A small increase in what each of them has translates to a gigantic spending potential. By shifting the tax burden 10% so the rich pay 45% of the taxes, the middle class 55% and the poor 0%, then 10% of the TOTAL INCOME TAX REVENUE is shifted to a large number of people who are willing to spend it, all this without in any way, shape or form decreasing the quality of life among the wealthy. Given that the wealthy control 85% of the wealth, this shift isn't what one would call onerous.
In 2009, the US collected 2.4 TRILLION dollars in tax revenue. 10% of that is 240 BILLION dollars. Imagine that 240 billion dollars, every year, being pumped into the economy in the form of spending or even savings (which helps generate revenue banks can use to make loans which stimulates business, investment and hiring) without adding to the deficit. The "Economic Incentive Plan" we got from the government was a one time tax bonus intended to have people go out and spend it to stimulate the economy. It didn't help much because the public perception was it's one-time only, the economy sucks, let's NOT spend it.
A major tax cut for the 80% of Americans who actually do the largest amount of spending would be seen as a positive step toward helping them. Doing that without actually increasing the deficit, nor adversely impacting those who will be shouldering a fairer share of the tax burden will be even better.
As has been mentioned, the gap between the rich and the poor and Middle Class has never been larger. A shift of wealth is in order. It will take the money from where it's been (stagnating while only enriching the rich) to stimulating the economy.
The infusion of cash into the middle class would most definitely create more spending power and more willingness to spend it. This would fuel demand for goods and services, which in turn fuels demand for workers, which in turn puts more money into the economy.
This is a redistribution of the tax burden. Taking it one step further, increasing the taxes on the rich to actually generate extra tax revenue could ALSO be done. This extra revenue could be used to reduce the national deficit as well as help fund emergency social programs like FEMA or even bolster Social Security. But what would be best is using the money to stimulate business by investing it in the things government is supposed to take care of: Infrastructure. Just creating those jobs to repair/maintain/build the vital infrastructure the nation needs to keep moving would put more money into the economy and improve the quality of life for everyone. Putting more people to work generates more jobs which generates wages which can be taxed increasing the amount of taxes being taken in which can be used to reduce the deficit and further stimulate the economy.
But it all starts with shifting some of the wealth away from the few wealthy to the many of the rest who are willing to spend it. That can only be done through re-balancing the tax structure to place far more of the total burden onto those who can most afford it and away from those who can least afford it.
While some in Congress (who, by the way, are among the "wealthy"), call this idea "Class Warfare", the fact is the wealthy will benefit from a shift in the tax burden just as much as the rest of us over the long term. They're just too greedy to see it.
Willful Ignorance: The New Lead-Lined Piping
It's been postulated that the fall of the Roman Empire was due, in part, to the mental decline of the people caused by the willful consumption of lead and the resulting long-term lead poisoning.
Their plumbing was usually lead-lined, their drinking and eating utensils were often coated in lead and even their spices contained lead. Long-term exposure to lead leads to a lot of ugly things:
Now, whether it actually WAS the lead or not isn't the point. The point is lead COULD HAVE BEEN the cause of the kind of behaviors, issues and troubles the Romans experienced as their empire crumbled from within and this is where Willful Ignorance comes in. Today, I believe this is what will cause the destruction of the United States (and probably the rest of the world) as we know it. Maybe destruction is too harsh of a word. Perhaps transformation is better, though I don't think it will be a peaceful one.
Willful Ignorance is pretty much what it sounds like: The conscious choice to refuse to learn about or believe in anything that does not comply with religious, political or ideological dogma. It's a choice made by a person to be ignorant. Defining ignorance, it means a lack of knowledge despite the opportunity to learn what could have been taught.
A naive person isn't ignorant. They never had the opportunity to learn. A naive person becomes ignorant by not seizing or taking advantage of the opportunity to learn when it becomes available. A knowledgeable person becomes willfully ignorant when they refuse to believe what is being taught and refuse to find conclusive evidence to support that belief.
So why would someone want to avoid knowledge? Well, denial isn't only a river in Egypt. It's a constant companion with the human race. And denial is often easier to accept than the truth of a thing. Denial can be beneficial, but most of the time it's a roadblock to a full and meaningful life. But it's WHY someone denies something that makes the difference between a simple mental step on the road to acceptance and what I'm talking about here. If someone denies it due to religion, politics or ideology, instead of, for example, a psychological inability to process the information, its willful ignorance.
Willful ignorance goes a step further than denial. Denial usually takes the "avoidance" road - they don't want to discuss it, act like it never happened, refuse to think about it. Willful Ignorance attacks it, actively encourages others to attack or deny it, will seize upon the thinnest shred of fluff and blow it out of proportion in regard to its true relevance to "prove" their point and will become hostile toward those who don't agree with them.
Sounds a lot like lead poisoning, doesn't it? Irritability, lowered IQ, behavior problems...
I wrote about global warming not long ago, which probably exemplifies the issue of willful ignorance the best, but it's not the only place this willful ignorance can be found. It's everywhere. In schools where administrators and school boards try to thrown in pseudoscience and mythology as part of a science curricula. Science class is supposed to teach, in part, logic and critical thinking. Adding garbage to that process handicaps people in their educational processes. I don't mind magical thinking in a class like philosophy, writing, fantasy or art, but it doesn't belong in science classes.
In business, allegedly knowledgeable people engage in undermining the science of climatology strictly to earn a profit. It SEEMS like they're so focused on the next quarterly forecast, they can't see more than three months ahead. They seem utterly blind to the consequences of their businesses practices. (And if you think I'm just talking about the oil companies and global warming, then I'll have to ask what rock you were under when the entire global economy melted down due to the mixing of sub-prime mortgages into investment packages which were sold to investors and investment firms who lost pretty much everything when the housing market collapsed leading to the Great Recession - which is still on-going.)
In politics, ideology has become so entrenched, that the business of running the government is now at a standstill while politicians pose and preen for their supporters. The partisanship is so deep, the United States credit rating was LOWERED mostly due to the inability of the politicians to actually work together. Willful ignorance is making politicians play a high-stakes game of chicken and it's OUR livelihoods at stake - not theirs. (I don't expect any politician will ever miss a meal because they can't afford it or worry about whether they'll have a roof over their heads ever in their entire lives.)
When so many people are so willing to be blinded to what is out there, the ONLY way back is through radical change. Something has to cut through their determination to remain ignorant. It has to undermine their religious, political or ideological prejudices to the degree that they stop defending them and start listening with real interest. But given that man is an irrational creature, this can't be done, in my humble opinion, without violence. The really sad part is that this willful ignorance will most definitely lead to violence. It already has in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Ignorance always leads to violence. And the belligerence of the willfully ignorant, who defend their ignorance angrily and violently, is why I don't think the transition from willfully ignorant to knowledgeable will be a peaceful one.
Like lead-lined pipes may have brought about the fall of the Roman Empire, willful ignorance will bring down civilization as we know it. A lot of people are going to get hurt. The terrifying part is that so many people are so willing to embrace the ignorance, they may win out in the end. I've always thought mankind has the potential to be great. I still do. But I've come to the conclusion, based on this mass embracing and active defense of ignorance, that while mankind has the potential to be great, he doesn't have the strength of will. Ignorance is too easy, and too volatile, to guarantee survival, let alone greatness. It would appear that mankind's potential to willfully embrace ignorance is greater than his willingness to embrace his potential greatness.
Without something that can reach the willfully ignorant and turn them back toward the path to greatness, I don't think mankind will survive long enough to reach his potential. What's really got me down about it is that the Romans didn't know any better than to eat lead despite the constant health issues that arose from it. Today we've seen the consequences of willful ignorance over and over and over again and have not learned enough to see where it will lead. So like the Roman Empire before, I believe we are heading for a collapse brought about by our own willingness to embrace and defend our ignorance.
Their plumbing was usually lead-lined, their drinking and eating utensils were often coated in lead and even their spices contained lead. Long-term exposure to lead leads to a lot of ugly things:
- Abdominal pain and cramping (usually the first sign of a high, toxic dose of lead poison)
- Aggressive behavior
- Anemia
- Constipation
- Difficulty sleeping
- Headaches
- Irritability
- Loss of previous developmental skills (in young children)
- Low appetite and energy
- Reduced sensations
- Behavior or attention problems
- Failure at school
- Hearing problems
- Kidney damage
- Reduced IQ
- Slowed body growth
Now, whether it actually WAS the lead or not isn't the point. The point is lead COULD HAVE BEEN the cause of the kind of behaviors, issues and troubles the Romans experienced as their empire crumbled from within and this is where Willful Ignorance comes in. Today, I believe this is what will cause the destruction of the United States (and probably the rest of the world) as we know it. Maybe destruction is too harsh of a word. Perhaps transformation is better, though I don't think it will be a peaceful one.
Willful Ignorance is pretty much what it sounds like: The conscious choice to refuse to learn about or believe in anything that does not comply with religious, political or ideological dogma. It's a choice made by a person to be ignorant. Defining ignorance, it means a lack of knowledge despite the opportunity to learn what could have been taught.
A naive person isn't ignorant. They never had the opportunity to learn. A naive person becomes ignorant by not seizing or taking advantage of the opportunity to learn when it becomes available. A knowledgeable person becomes willfully ignorant when they refuse to believe what is being taught and refuse to find conclusive evidence to support that belief.
So why would someone want to avoid knowledge? Well, denial isn't only a river in Egypt. It's a constant companion with the human race. And denial is often easier to accept than the truth of a thing. Denial can be beneficial, but most of the time it's a roadblock to a full and meaningful life. But it's WHY someone denies something that makes the difference between a simple mental step on the road to acceptance and what I'm talking about here. If someone denies it due to religion, politics or ideology, instead of, for example, a psychological inability to process the information, its willful ignorance.
Willful ignorance goes a step further than denial. Denial usually takes the "avoidance" road - they don't want to discuss it, act like it never happened, refuse to think about it. Willful Ignorance attacks it, actively encourages others to attack or deny it, will seize upon the thinnest shred of fluff and blow it out of proportion in regard to its true relevance to "prove" their point and will become hostile toward those who don't agree with them.
Sounds a lot like lead poisoning, doesn't it? Irritability, lowered IQ, behavior problems...
I wrote about global warming not long ago, which probably exemplifies the issue of willful ignorance the best, but it's not the only place this willful ignorance can be found. It's everywhere. In schools where administrators and school boards try to thrown in pseudoscience and mythology as part of a science curricula. Science class is supposed to teach, in part, logic and critical thinking. Adding garbage to that process handicaps people in their educational processes. I don't mind magical thinking in a class like philosophy, writing, fantasy or art, but it doesn't belong in science classes.
In business, allegedly knowledgeable people engage in undermining the science of climatology strictly to earn a profit. It SEEMS like they're so focused on the next quarterly forecast, they can't see more than three months ahead. They seem utterly blind to the consequences of their businesses practices. (And if you think I'm just talking about the oil companies and global warming, then I'll have to ask what rock you were under when the entire global economy melted down due to the mixing of sub-prime mortgages into investment packages which were sold to investors and investment firms who lost pretty much everything when the housing market collapsed leading to the Great Recession - which is still on-going.)
In politics, ideology has become so entrenched, that the business of running the government is now at a standstill while politicians pose and preen for their supporters. The partisanship is so deep, the United States credit rating was LOWERED mostly due to the inability of the politicians to actually work together. Willful ignorance is making politicians play a high-stakes game of chicken and it's OUR livelihoods at stake - not theirs. (I don't expect any politician will ever miss a meal because they can't afford it or worry about whether they'll have a roof over their heads ever in their entire lives.)
When so many people are so willing to be blinded to what is out there, the ONLY way back is through radical change. Something has to cut through their determination to remain ignorant. It has to undermine their religious, political or ideological prejudices to the degree that they stop defending them and start listening with real interest. But given that man is an irrational creature, this can't be done, in my humble opinion, without violence. The really sad part is that this willful ignorance will most definitely lead to violence. It already has in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Ignorance always leads to violence. And the belligerence of the willfully ignorant, who defend their ignorance angrily and violently, is why I don't think the transition from willfully ignorant to knowledgeable will be a peaceful one.
Like lead-lined pipes may have brought about the fall of the Roman Empire, willful ignorance will bring down civilization as we know it. A lot of people are going to get hurt. The terrifying part is that so many people are so willing to embrace the ignorance, they may win out in the end. I've always thought mankind has the potential to be great. I still do. But I've come to the conclusion, based on this mass embracing and active defense of ignorance, that while mankind has the potential to be great, he doesn't have the strength of will. Ignorance is too easy, and too volatile, to guarantee survival, let alone greatness. It would appear that mankind's potential to willfully embrace ignorance is greater than his willingness to embrace his potential greatness.
Without something that can reach the willfully ignorant and turn them back toward the path to greatness, I don't think mankind will survive long enough to reach his potential. What's really got me down about it is that the Romans didn't know any better than to eat lead despite the constant health issues that arose from it. Today we've seen the consequences of willful ignorance over and over and over again and have not learned enough to see where it will lead. So like the Roman Empire before, I believe we are heading for a collapse brought about by our own willingness to embrace and defend our ignorance.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Why Rednecks Are So Stupid
I can't help but wonder why the average "conservative" supporter is so adamant about voting against their own best interests so constantly. I mean, from a bottom line point of view, every time they vote for a conservative, their lives get worse.
Conservatives believe in "fiscal responsibility", but exactly what does that mean? Not spending more than you make? No, that's not true because when it comes to military spending, conservatives are more than willing to print a bunch more dead presidents to finance a war. The same goes for subsidies of industries and businesses (what we also refer to as "corporate welfare"). This has come at the expense of the average taxpayer - and more so from those who traditionally support GOP policies. Far more of the budget is spent on military spending (including veterans benefits, research and whatnot) than on any three "welfare" programs, but the way "rednecks" talk about it, all the government wants to do is tax and spend on "socialism".
Given all the things the right-wing does (outside of advancing repressive social programs), it's patently obvious that they are catering to the rich at the expense of the poor, but the poor vote for them anyhow.
Case in point: GWB's proposal to privatize Social Security.
I don't think anything gives the rich a hard-on more than thinking about all those tax dollars being invested in their companies instead of the insurance policy that is Social Security. But let's face it, had GWB's plan been implemented, most people's retirements would have been wiped out due to the proliferation of subprime mortgages in investment packages, causing those packages to tank.
The rich, of course, were never hurt by this. They only got richer.
Another case in point: The number of government subsidies going to Big Oil. These are supposedly to offset the costs of finding and developing new reserves of oil. But when a company is making hundreds of billions of dollars in PROFITS (not just revenue, but extra cash that hasn't been spent that year), investors and executives get paid off, but the tax payers get left holding the high gas prices and bill to subsidize the oil company's search for more of what made them rich to begin with.
Taxpayer money going to increase oil company profits while the average American gets financially hammered at the pumps.
Another case in point: The GOP's adamant refusal to extend gas mileage requirements on new vehicles. Way back when, the Auto Industry predicted bankruptcies and millions out of work - over seat belts. The same was predicted over air bags. The same was predicted for improved auto safety standards. None of these predictions materialized due to those improvements. But again, they're bleating to the GOP about improved gas standards cutting into profits and the government backtracked.
FYI: Improved gas mileage saves you money, and cuts down on the amount of gas sold, which means smaller profits for Big Oil, but more green in your pocket, and possibly, in your back yard, too.
EVERYTHING the GOP and political conservatives have done has benefited big business at the expense of the people. Even creating jobs hasn't been terribly beneficial because the GOP's job creation method has always been to start a war (In fairness, Johnson continued the Vietnam war to finance his Great Society, but he was from Texas, so he was a conservative liberal - if there is such a thing these days).
And despite all the evidence that the conservatives favor the good of business and the enrichment of the wealthy over the good of the people, the most desperate and least wealthy of the people in the country still vote for them.
I believe it has to do with a carefully crafted campaign to misdirect them into this behavior. And with this "class" of people, it's a fairly simple thing to do.
Now before I get anyone's patched long johns in a twist, I'm using the Jeff Foxworthy definition of a Redneck: A person with a glorious lack of sophistication. They are not bright, but they are steady. They aren't quick, but they are stubborn and reliable. They aren't well educated, but they make their own way. They come from a culture where a man's word is his bond and a handshake is as good as gold. There is much to admire from this culture. In many ways, it's the backbone of the country. They are the "salt of the earth" types, who are, sadly, easily misled due to that lack of sophistication.
This lack of sophistication translates into a very narrowly focused understanding of the world. They want things simple, traditional and the way "god intended things to be". This, in and of itself, is fine and dandy. But with a simple point of view of things, they are very easily manipulated.
A typical conservative candidate is against abortion, pro guns, against "gay marriage", is all for a strong military, against "socialism" or "welfare", in favor of low taxes and less government in your life. Some go further, but we're going to use a "middle of the road" conservative as an example.
The typical redneck believes in all of these. Some because it's part of his culture. Some because it's part of his religion. But the typical redneck doesn't want anything to do with helping the rich get richer unless the rich are working hard for the money and earn it the old-fashioned way. This is where conservatives are very quite about what they do when they're in power. And this is why conservatives are in power at all: Money.
The conservative fiscal policy makes the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. And it's a policy which perpetuates itself. For example, a strong military is a conservative cornerstone. But if there aren't a lot of poor, uneducated Americans willing to die for their country, there can't be those wars the military is being strong for.
So it becomes necessary to ensure a continuing supply of people so poor, their only way out of grinding poverty is the military. To do this the tax burden is shifted from those who can afford it (the wealthy) to those who can least afford it (the poor). Further, the tax dollars, rather than being used to help the poor with education or vocational training to find better jobs, are given to businesses which are already making substantial profits. This is allegedly done to stimulate job growth, but in effect only stimulates the bank accounts of the rich and the company's investors. No number of tax incentives or subsidies has stimulated a significant number of jobs. Even today, this variation on the thoroughly discredited "trickle down" hypothesis of economics is still believed by fairly bright people to work.
It doesn't. It never has. It never will.
The ways the GOP have shifted the wealth from the poor to the rich are insidious, varied and effective. They have effectively created a "pro business" mentality among their followers which worships the notion of the "Free Market" (Something I had a few words to say about not long ago). But this is a vital part of the strategy they've used. In a "Free Market" the theory is that anyone, through hard work alone, can become a rich person. This is the dream of most of our oppressed "rednecks". They believe that through hard work, a person will "make it". The day they "make it" is always next year, though. The whole system is stacked against them. The illusion keeps them going, but the reality is, none of them are going to get there.
Consider this: To be good in business you need native smarts or an education. Most people lack native smarts, so they need an education. This is the first step.
To get a good education, the average person needs good schools, good fortune and a lot of help from higher up on the food chain. Granted, there are success stories about ordinary people having a great idea nad getting rich because of it, but they're about as frequent as hen's teeth. For every success story, you have tens of millions of people left behind. The sad fact is, most Americans will barely scrape by their entire lives and few will ever elevate themselves beyond what they grew up with - if even that.
The GOP has systematically destroyed the education system, creating one so expensive and impractical, we are graduating fewer people who can actually think from high school than ever before. The GOP has used the mythology of creation as a corner stone in the dumbing-down of America. We used to graduate more Doctors and Engineers than we needed. Today, we have to import them. Why? Because the lessons science teaches - critical thinking, logical progression and rational thought - are being undermined by conservatives pushing for a religious agenda in our nation's schools. Texas tends to push harder than the rest because if the Texas school system (one of the largest in the nation) adopts a particular policy regarding the sciences (or any subject for that matter), text book publishers tend to only publish that one policy, leaving the other states to deal with the aftermath. Texas is a conservative state, its policy makers brainwashed by the powerful who cater to religious notions (because it serves their purposes of having a large number of expendable minions to serve and service the rich) in order to forward the goals of their masters, the wealthy.
But in even more direct ways, the conservatives have undermined education. They have cut funding, raised tuition, and created a public school system that is perpetually underfunded, understaffed, overworked and focused on bogus issues like "no child left behind" (an impractical, unfunded and useless policy which focuses on passing tests rather than learning a subject). The scholastic emphasis is misplaced resulting in graduates who can't grasp subject matter and focus on tests. And the atmosphere in schools has never tended to encourage thinkers in the first place.
Cut off the head and the body will die. The rich can always afford to educate themselves at private schools. The rest of us... Not so much. The brain drain has created a dumber, less capable, less insightful America who needs to bring in educated foreign workers to help raise the bar in innovation, industry and manufacturing.
But it doesn't stop there. Aside from destroying most American's ability to educate themselves (and earn a more respectable income) through dismantling the education system and making what is left almost prohibitively expensive, the GOP and their rich puppet masters have managed to be more direct in reducing the average American's options by taking money from them directly. Policies that favor businesses have been a staple of the GOP diet for decades. But only now are those policies paying off in the form of higher prices, lower wages and other impacts that cost Americans more than they realize.
Oil futures were (and still are) manipulated by the rich to ensure the price stays high. This means more money out of our pockets just to get to where we have to go. And that price has been inching higher over the last ten years - 300% higher from about $1.50 to (at times) nearly $5.00/gallon. It's expected to go higher than that. People in Europe pay more, but much of that is taxes.
Union busting has been embarked on in a big way these days, reducing the wages of workers. It also reduces their benefits, which leads them to a decreased financial ability to practice preventative health maintenance resulting in higher health care costs and increased poverty because of it.
Relaxed regulations for Big Pharma (and anything else "big" for that matter) result in skyrocketing prices for medications which, several years years later when the patents finally wear off, can be had for pennies. Pharma says they have to recoup their losses on research. Well, GOP leaders made sure the FDA streamlined approval of these drugs - many of which have been found to be hazardous to human health and life. Further, they allowed advertising of these hideously expensive drugs, and allowed big Pharma to bribe doctors into prescribing them unnecessarily. All of this reduces the money the average American needs in order to get the education, material and means necessary to better themselves.
Subsidies for companies engaged in "alternative fuel", which is neither "Green" or particularly efficient (ethanol) have cost the taxpayers billions, but what is worse is the impact switching from food to fuel production in agriculture had on food prices globally. The price of edible corn went up 400% in one year. This cascaded throughout the agriculture world, resulting in higher demand (and prices) for other foodstuffs like rice and wheat. The cost of bread alone went up 200%. And despite vast profits for big Agra, they still were subsidized with taxpayer money for doing this. We all paid more for our food, leaving us with less for other things.
Nickle, diming and dollaring us to death, our money went from our pockets, to the rich, in a barely noticed, but highly effective stream of shifting revenue unparalleled in world history.
But it's the poor who suffer the most from this - and rednecks aren't known as the most well-0ff class of people on the face of the planet.
Which means these poor sods, the redneck, is still stuck with the Army or poverty.
So why do these people continue to vote against their own best interests?
Because the conservatives have poisoned the well.
Simple people don't like anything different than themselves. They are often racist, intolerant, blindly faithful to family traditions and religions and are pretty much incapable of breaking out of that mold. But within this predisposition lies the handle one can grasp to manipulate them.
In manipulating a simple-minded culture, one must first create a scapegoat. In this case it's "liberals". Liberals have to be "the enemy". They are vilified, demonized and finally cast into a political purgatory no self-respecting redneck would ever want to visit. They are stereotyped as elitist intellectuals who don't know any better (at best). This creating the scapegoat is exactly the same thing Nazi Germany did to the Jews. Much of the impact of that scapegoating they did in the 1930's and 1940's remains today.
As long as there is an "enemy" upon which to focus their hate, these folks can be relentless. Not once will they stop to question things if they can be made to believe something is a certain way.
Next, one must cater to their culture by supporting those "traditionalist" beliefs in a socially proactive way. Promoting the banning of abortions, demanding a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, demanding that public buildings be used for religious purposes.
It's all a bunch of horseshit.
This is the distraction they use. The handle they have on the average "redneck". The smoke and mirrors the politicians pull on their followers. If they're asked a question about their support of a particular bill that gave billions of taxpayer dollars to Chevron, the crafty conservative politician will say, "I supported the rights of a baby by blocking Planned Parenthood funding when I was a state representative!". Or he could respond with, "I voted to increase military funding and saved 500 jobs!" Anything but a straight and honest answer to the question.
This is how they use their voters. They find some stupid, utterly meaningless social issue and blow it up out of proportion. "Gay marriage undermines the sanctity of marriage!" I don't know of a single straight marriage ruined or made weaker because a bunch of homosexuals want to have the same civil rights as them. There never has been. There never will be. It's a horseshit issue. The same for abortion. If you don't like abortion, don't get one. Beyond that, it's a horseshit issue. All of the conservative social agenda is for is to garner support among a people who love traditional values, and practice them. Making them a party platform is blatantly catering to them to get their vote. But with that vote comes the authority to strip them of their wealth and give it to the wealthy.
The wealthiest 20% of Americans control 85% of the country's wealth, earn 85% of the income and only pay 35% of the total taxes. The rest of us (80% of Americans) split the remaining 15% of the wealth and income available, but pay 65% of the taxes that are needed to run the country.
Now, I don't know about you, but to me, that doesn't seem like a fair and reasonable disposition of the tax burden in the country. The bottom 15% paying 65% of what it takes to run the country? And here's the kicker: The poorest 20% of Americans control 0.1% of the wealth and income and pay about 15% of the taxes.
All thanks to the misdirection and horseshit smoke and mirrors tactics the conservatives have played on them all these years. These poor slobs actually think these social programs are going to ever be put into effect despite their blatantly unconstitutional natures just because some candidate in the back pocket of some big corporation or conglomerate says they're going to do it. They say these things (and occasionally try to implement them) simply because to do otherwise would eventually be noticed and remarked upon by the rednecks who elected them.
Rednecks may be unsophisticated, but if you hit them over the head enough times with something, eventually you get their attention.
Unfortunately for the country, the damage has been done insofar as trying to bring these folks back into the political fold goes. In creating their horseshit smoke and mirrors tactics, the conservatives have managed to turn what are supposed to be (and were in the past) political issues into a religion. The faithful shall forever be voting more and more radically conservative while the rest of the "libturd", "libtard" heathens rot in their socialist hell. Or something like that. I was never very good at creating words to insult other people with. I figure the words we all already know are good enough for that.
The rednecks can now be called rednecks because they have served themselves up to be beheaded on the altar of corporate greed and the pursuit of political power, willingly sacrificing themselves on the battlefields chosen by the rich and powerful strictly to preserve the wealth and power of the rich and powerful having been tricked into believing it will make any difference or help the average American back home.
And despite mounting evidence of the detrimental nature of their relationship with and support of conservatives, there is no sign that they're going to wake up from their enchantment anytime soon. They are being beaten over the heads repeatedly, spilling their blood endlessly, almost never able to live better than their parents, believe the conservatives who say it's all the Liberals fault and keep voting for more of the same from their elected officials. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. In politics, it doesn't ever change if you vote for the same platforms over and over and over again. And yet, they expect things to get better for them each time.
And that's why Rednecks are so stupid.
Wake up, people. See what's happening. Whether intentional (which I think it is) or not, it is what is happening NOW. Conspiracy theories aside, this is what's going on and the GOP and conservative movements are all behind it. Cause and effect, whether intended or not, the GOP and conservatives are keeping you down and doing everything to keep you there. I'm not saying you need to vote for a bunch of incompetent liberals, but for your sake and the sake of this great nation, don't vote for conservatives who always say what you want to hear. The essence of politics is compromise. Absolutism is destroying us.
And you're helping them do it.
Conservatives believe in "fiscal responsibility", but exactly what does that mean? Not spending more than you make? No, that's not true because when it comes to military spending, conservatives are more than willing to print a bunch more dead presidents to finance a war. The same goes for subsidies of industries and businesses (what we also refer to as "corporate welfare"). This has come at the expense of the average taxpayer - and more so from those who traditionally support GOP policies. Far more of the budget is spent on military spending (including veterans benefits, research and whatnot) than on any three "welfare" programs, but the way "rednecks" talk about it, all the government wants to do is tax and spend on "socialism".
Given all the things the right-wing does (outside of advancing repressive social programs), it's patently obvious that they are catering to the rich at the expense of the poor, but the poor vote for them anyhow.
Case in point: GWB's proposal to privatize Social Security.
I don't think anything gives the rich a hard-on more than thinking about all those tax dollars being invested in their companies instead of the insurance policy that is Social Security. But let's face it, had GWB's plan been implemented, most people's retirements would have been wiped out due to the proliferation of subprime mortgages in investment packages, causing those packages to tank.
The rich, of course, were never hurt by this. They only got richer.
Another case in point: The number of government subsidies going to Big Oil. These are supposedly to offset the costs of finding and developing new reserves of oil. But when a company is making hundreds of billions of dollars in PROFITS (not just revenue, but extra cash that hasn't been spent that year), investors and executives get paid off, but the tax payers get left holding the high gas prices and bill to subsidize the oil company's search for more of what made them rich to begin with.
Taxpayer money going to increase oil company profits while the average American gets financially hammered at the pumps.
Another case in point: The GOP's adamant refusal to extend gas mileage requirements on new vehicles. Way back when, the Auto Industry predicted bankruptcies and millions out of work - over seat belts. The same was predicted over air bags. The same was predicted for improved auto safety standards. None of these predictions materialized due to those improvements. But again, they're bleating to the GOP about improved gas standards cutting into profits and the government backtracked.
FYI: Improved gas mileage saves you money, and cuts down on the amount of gas sold, which means smaller profits for Big Oil, but more green in your pocket, and possibly, in your back yard, too.
EVERYTHING the GOP and political conservatives have done has benefited big business at the expense of the people. Even creating jobs hasn't been terribly beneficial because the GOP's job creation method has always been to start a war (In fairness, Johnson continued the Vietnam war to finance his Great Society, but he was from Texas, so he was a conservative liberal - if there is such a thing these days).
And despite all the evidence that the conservatives favor the good of business and the enrichment of the wealthy over the good of the people, the most desperate and least wealthy of the people in the country still vote for them.
I believe it has to do with a carefully crafted campaign to misdirect them into this behavior. And with this "class" of people, it's a fairly simple thing to do.
Now before I get anyone's patched long johns in a twist, I'm using the Jeff Foxworthy definition of a Redneck: A person with a glorious lack of sophistication. They are not bright, but they are steady. They aren't quick, but they are stubborn and reliable. They aren't well educated, but they make their own way. They come from a culture where a man's word is his bond and a handshake is as good as gold. There is much to admire from this culture. In many ways, it's the backbone of the country. They are the "salt of the earth" types, who are, sadly, easily misled due to that lack of sophistication.
This lack of sophistication translates into a very narrowly focused understanding of the world. They want things simple, traditional and the way "god intended things to be". This, in and of itself, is fine and dandy. But with a simple point of view of things, they are very easily manipulated.
A typical conservative candidate is against abortion, pro guns, against "gay marriage", is all for a strong military, against "socialism" or "welfare", in favor of low taxes and less government in your life. Some go further, but we're going to use a "middle of the road" conservative as an example.
The typical redneck believes in all of these. Some because it's part of his culture. Some because it's part of his religion. But the typical redneck doesn't want anything to do with helping the rich get richer unless the rich are working hard for the money and earn it the old-fashioned way. This is where conservatives are very quite about what they do when they're in power. And this is why conservatives are in power at all: Money.
The conservative fiscal policy makes the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. And it's a policy which perpetuates itself. For example, a strong military is a conservative cornerstone. But if there aren't a lot of poor, uneducated Americans willing to die for their country, there can't be those wars the military is being strong for.
So it becomes necessary to ensure a continuing supply of people so poor, their only way out of grinding poverty is the military. To do this the tax burden is shifted from those who can afford it (the wealthy) to those who can least afford it (the poor). Further, the tax dollars, rather than being used to help the poor with education or vocational training to find better jobs, are given to businesses which are already making substantial profits. This is allegedly done to stimulate job growth, but in effect only stimulates the bank accounts of the rich and the company's investors. No number of tax incentives or subsidies has stimulated a significant number of jobs. Even today, this variation on the thoroughly discredited "trickle down" hypothesis of economics is still believed by fairly bright people to work.
It doesn't. It never has. It never will.
The ways the GOP have shifted the wealth from the poor to the rich are insidious, varied and effective. They have effectively created a "pro business" mentality among their followers which worships the notion of the "Free Market" (Something I had a few words to say about not long ago). But this is a vital part of the strategy they've used. In a "Free Market" the theory is that anyone, through hard work alone, can become a rich person. This is the dream of most of our oppressed "rednecks". They believe that through hard work, a person will "make it". The day they "make it" is always next year, though. The whole system is stacked against them. The illusion keeps them going, but the reality is, none of them are going to get there.
Consider this: To be good in business you need native smarts or an education. Most people lack native smarts, so they need an education. This is the first step.
To get a good education, the average person needs good schools, good fortune and a lot of help from higher up on the food chain. Granted, there are success stories about ordinary people having a great idea nad getting rich because of it, but they're about as frequent as hen's teeth. For every success story, you have tens of millions of people left behind. The sad fact is, most Americans will barely scrape by their entire lives and few will ever elevate themselves beyond what they grew up with - if even that.
The GOP has systematically destroyed the education system, creating one so expensive and impractical, we are graduating fewer people who can actually think from high school than ever before. The GOP has used the mythology of creation as a corner stone in the dumbing-down of America. We used to graduate more Doctors and Engineers than we needed. Today, we have to import them. Why? Because the lessons science teaches - critical thinking, logical progression and rational thought - are being undermined by conservatives pushing for a religious agenda in our nation's schools. Texas tends to push harder than the rest because if the Texas school system (one of the largest in the nation) adopts a particular policy regarding the sciences (or any subject for that matter), text book publishers tend to only publish that one policy, leaving the other states to deal with the aftermath. Texas is a conservative state, its policy makers brainwashed by the powerful who cater to religious notions (because it serves their purposes of having a large number of expendable minions to serve and service the rich) in order to forward the goals of their masters, the wealthy.
But in even more direct ways, the conservatives have undermined education. They have cut funding, raised tuition, and created a public school system that is perpetually underfunded, understaffed, overworked and focused on bogus issues like "no child left behind" (an impractical, unfunded and useless policy which focuses on passing tests rather than learning a subject). The scholastic emphasis is misplaced resulting in graduates who can't grasp subject matter and focus on tests. And the atmosphere in schools has never tended to encourage thinkers in the first place.
Cut off the head and the body will die. The rich can always afford to educate themselves at private schools. The rest of us... Not so much. The brain drain has created a dumber, less capable, less insightful America who needs to bring in educated foreign workers to help raise the bar in innovation, industry and manufacturing.
But it doesn't stop there. Aside from destroying most American's ability to educate themselves (and earn a more respectable income) through dismantling the education system and making what is left almost prohibitively expensive, the GOP and their rich puppet masters have managed to be more direct in reducing the average American's options by taking money from them directly. Policies that favor businesses have been a staple of the GOP diet for decades. But only now are those policies paying off in the form of higher prices, lower wages and other impacts that cost Americans more than they realize.
Oil futures were (and still are) manipulated by the rich to ensure the price stays high. This means more money out of our pockets just to get to where we have to go. And that price has been inching higher over the last ten years - 300% higher from about $1.50 to (at times) nearly $5.00/gallon. It's expected to go higher than that. People in Europe pay more, but much of that is taxes.
Union busting has been embarked on in a big way these days, reducing the wages of workers. It also reduces their benefits, which leads them to a decreased financial ability to practice preventative health maintenance resulting in higher health care costs and increased poverty because of it.
Relaxed regulations for Big Pharma (and anything else "big" for that matter) result in skyrocketing prices for medications which, several years years later when the patents finally wear off, can be had for pennies. Pharma says they have to recoup their losses on research. Well, GOP leaders made sure the FDA streamlined approval of these drugs - many of which have been found to be hazardous to human health and life. Further, they allowed advertising of these hideously expensive drugs, and allowed big Pharma to bribe doctors into prescribing them unnecessarily. All of this reduces the money the average American needs in order to get the education, material and means necessary to better themselves.
Subsidies for companies engaged in "alternative fuel", which is neither "Green" or particularly efficient (ethanol) have cost the taxpayers billions, but what is worse is the impact switching from food to fuel production in agriculture had on food prices globally. The price of edible corn went up 400% in one year. This cascaded throughout the agriculture world, resulting in higher demand (and prices) for other foodstuffs like rice and wheat. The cost of bread alone went up 200%. And despite vast profits for big Agra, they still were subsidized with taxpayer money for doing this. We all paid more for our food, leaving us with less for other things.
Nickle, diming and dollaring us to death, our money went from our pockets, to the rich, in a barely noticed, but highly effective stream of shifting revenue unparalleled in world history.
But it's the poor who suffer the most from this - and rednecks aren't known as the most well-0ff class of people on the face of the planet.
Which means these poor sods, the redneck, is still stuck with the Army or poverty.
So why do these people continue to vote against their own best interests?
Because the conservatives have poisoned the well.
Simple people don't like anything different than themselves. They are often racist, intolerant, blindly faithful to family traditions and religions and are pretty much incapable of breaking out of that mold. But within this predisposition lies the handle one can grasp to manipulate them.
In manipulating a simple-minded culture, one must first create a scapegoat. In this case it's "liberals". Liberals have to be "the enemy". They are vilified, demonized and finally cast into a political purgatory no self-respecting redneck would ever want to visit. They are stereotyped as elitist intellectuals who don't know any better (at best). This creating the scapegoat is exactly the same thing Nazi Germany did to the Jews. Much of the impact of that scapegoating they did in the 1930's and 1940's remains today.
As long as there is an "enemy" upon which to focus their hate, these folks can be relentless. Not once will they stop to question things if they can be made to believe something is a certain way.
Next, one must cater to their culture by supporting those "traditionalist" beliefs in a socially proactive way. Promoting the banning of abortions, demanding a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, demanding that public buildings be used for religious purposes.
It's all a bunch of horseshit.
This is the distraction they use. The handle they have on the average "redneck". The smoke and mirrors the politicians pull on their followers. If they're asked a question about their support of a particular bill that gave billions of taxpayer dollars to Chevron, the crafty conservative politician will say, "I supported the rights of a baby by blocking Planned Parenthood funding when I was a state representative!". Or he could respond with, "I voted to increase military funding and saved 500 jobs!" Anything but a straight and honest answer to the question.
This is how they use their voters. They find some stupid, utterly meaningless social issue and blow it up out of proportion. "Gay marriage undermines the sanctity of marriage!" I don't know of a single straight marriage ruined or made weaker because a bunch of homosexuals want to have the same civil rights as them. There never has been. There never will be. It's a horseshit issue. The same for abortion. If you don't like abortion, don't get one. Beyond that, it's a horseshit issue. All of the conservative social agenda is for is to garner support among a people who love traditional values, and practice them. Making them a party platform is blatantly catering to them to get their vote. But with that vote comes the authority to strip them of their wealth and give it to the wealthy.
The wealthiest 20% of Americans control 85% of the country's wealth, earn 85% of the income and only pay 35% of the total taxes. The rest of us (80% of Americans) split the remaining 15% of the wealth and income available, but pay 65% of the taxes that are needed to run the country.
Now, I don't know about you, but to me, that doesn't seem like a fair and reasonable disposition of the tax burden in the country. The bottom 15% paying 65% of what it takes to run the country? And here's the kicker: The poorest 20% of Americans control 0.1% of the wealth and income and pay about 15% of the taxes.
All thanks to the misdirection and horseshit smoke and mirrors tactics the conservatives have played on them all these years. These poor slobs actually think these social programs are going to ever be put into effect despite their blatantly unconstitutional natures just because some candidate in the back pocket of some big corporation or conglomerate says they're going to do it. They say these things (and occasionally try to implement them) simply because to do otherwise would eventually be noticed and remarked upon by the rednecks who elected them.
Rednecks may be unsophisticated, but if you hit them over the head enough times with something, eventually you get their attention.
Unfortunately for the country, the damage has been done insofar as trying to bring these folks back into the political fold goes. In creating their horseshit smoke and mirrors tactics, the conservatives have managed to turn what are supposed to be (and were in the past) political issues into a religion. The faithful shall forever be voting more and more radically conservative while the rest of the "libturd", "libtard" heathens rot in their socialist hell. Or something like that. I was never very good at creating words to insult other people with. I figure the words we all already know are good enough for that.
The rednecks can now be called rednecks because they have served themselves up to be beheaded on the altar of corporate greed and the pursuit of political power, willingly sacrificing themselves on the battlefields chosen by the rich and powerful strictly to preserve the wealth and power of the rich and powerful having been tricked into believing it will make any difference or help the average American back home.
And despite mounting evidence of the detrimental nature of their relationship with and support of conservatives, there is no sign that they're going to wake up from their enchantment anytime soon. They are being beaten over the heads repeatedly, spilling their blood endlessly, almost never able to live better than their parents, believe the conservatives who say it's all the Liberals fault and keep voting for more of the same from their elected officials. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. In politics, it doesn't ever change if you vote for the same platforms over and over and over again. And yet, they expect things to get better for them each time.
And that's why Rednecks are so stupid.
Wake up, people. See what's happening. Whether intentional (which I think it is) or not, it is what is happening NOW. Conspiracy theories aside, this is what's going on and the GOP and conservative movements are all behind it. Cause and effect, whether intended or not, the GOP and conservatives are keeping you down and doing everything to keep you there. I'm not saying you need to vote for a bunch of incompetent liberals, but for your sake and the sake of this great nation, don't vote for conservatives who always say what you want to hear. The essence of politics is compromise. Absolutism is destroying us.
And you're helping them do it.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
The Second American Revolution: A premortem
Disclaimer: This is a "premortem" on the Old Republic. It was written before the Second American Revolution (Or AmRev II, as it will become known) actually happened. Call it unusually prescient, but it highlights what will eventually become common knowledge in the aftermath of the coming Second American Revolution. Tenses are going to be fucked up. Deal with it.
The United States of America was created during what can be described as "class warfare" between the Haves in England and the Have Nots in the Colonies. Yes, there was a lot of talk about taxation without representation, freedom, self determination and what not, but basically, England was trying to finance its war with France by raping the American colonies of its wealth, transferring it to the Old Country to indulge a mad king's desire to expand his Empire.
Fast-forward 245 years.
In 2011, it became fairly well known that the gap between the haves and have nots in America had widened to the largest gap in history. The wealthiest 20% of Americans controlled 85% of the country's wealth, leaving the other 80% to divide 15% of the wealth of the nation amongst themselves. What was worse, is that those 85%'ers only paid 35% of the taxes, leaving the 15%'ers with a 65% tax burden. Further, corporate tax incentives, subsidies, deregulation and other conservative policies pursuing the fallacy of a "free market" oversaw more transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in 20 years than had ever happened in the history of the world.
Given this state, other things happened which finally pissed off the citizens of the country enough to incite revolt.
The first was the fact that the rich controlled Congress, the Judiciary and the Presidency. Despite popular demands for the removal of corporate and special interest group money, the right wing stacked the courts with the rich elite who sided with (naturally) the rich elite, who declared that special interest groups couldn't be curtailed in the amount of money they could spend to buy politicians. Let's face it, regardless of the protestations of innocence from the politicians who were rounded up and shot, no one honestly believed that someone could receive a large campaign donation from a corporation or special interest and still remain impartial enough to vote against the interests of that donor if doing so was in the better interests of the country. With unfettered access to special interest group money, congress was 60% millionaires and the rest certainly not hurting in any way shape or form. In short, our entire government was no longer representative of the people demographically, philosophically, socially or financially.
When one looked at tho controlled business and industry in 2011 versus 1775, it gets worse for the citizens of the United States of America.
By 2011, businesses were raking in money, but the common man wasn't. "Small business" was still very common - businesses making very little money, but able to make it in the world. The large corporations, however, gained a competitive edge over these small businesses and for the most part ended up with an overwhelming percentage of the business to be had. Regulations and other conservative policies made it far easier to create a tax loophole for a large corporation (who gave generously to the representatives voting for it) than tax breaks for small businesses. Unfair competition was rampant, despite strong lip service to the contrary on the part of business executives and politicians. While there would always be a need for "small businesses", they failed over 90% of the time in the first year.
Back in 1775, most American businesses were "small businesses". But they had the financial clout to help finance revolt and revolution. The haves didn't have 85% of the wealth of the nation. And the population didn't like being fleeced.
But by 2011, mass communications allowed the ruling elite to distort and misrepresent the truth. They started with propagandist radio, telling the masses what they were intended to think without mentioning that it was an opinion. Presented as "news" these "reports" were so biased that if they were allowed to be broadcast without the proper disclaimers today, the producers would be tried for sedition, if not executed for treason.
But these broadcasts were all done at the behest of large corporations headed by the rich elite. In short, they could control the information the masses received and when that information was slanted to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, it was assumed by the rich elite no one would be the wiser.
The most insidious aspect of this was the attempt on the part of the ruling elite to divide the population. They did this by catering to the prejudices of the poorest. These deluded folk, who made up much of the fighting units for the rich elite until the deprogramming process was started about a third into the fighting, were led to believe that the rich, ruling elite actually had their best interests at heart. They actually thought that deregulation, less oversight of companies practices and fewer taxes on the wealthy were in their own best interests.
This brainwashing program was accomplished through overt appeals to a malignant form of nationalism which resulted in their politics being adhered to much like a religion. They became absolutists in policy: Dogmatic, unyielding, uncompromising. Obviously, in politics - which can be defined as the art of compromise - this situation led to the stagnation of American politics that marked the early parts of the 2010's. Nothing got done.
This is also why the revolution could happen - nothing got done to stop it or alleviate the situation so that the then status quo could be maintained. In short, it eventually backfired on them. But while it was in effect, the poor got poorer and the hands of the very people they voted for, and the poor thought it was the other guy's fault.
This created a ruling elite which rivaled England in the late 18th Century, along with a working class which was as equally oppressed by the ruling elite as the colonists in the Americas. Worse, the many who were oppressed had few resources to discern the truth of their predicament.
But that very phenomenon of mass communications which was usually controlled by the rich elite helped spark AmRev II. Basically, the rich elite couldn't be everywhere all the time. They could try to spin the growing dissension into something that benefited them, but in the end that failed.
The spark for AMRev II began when Warren Buffet - himself one of the "ruling elite" - called for more taxes on the wealthy. A discerning individual he knew the process of social pressure and recognized that the media could not control thought, try as it might. He knew that growing dissension among the 80% of Americans who were "have nots" would create gigantic social unrest. This declaration was pretty much shouted down by his more conservative peers, but the idea was sown. At the time, the growing US deficit and the lack of jobs had created an economy in which everyone was wathcing their money carefully, and the disparity between the rich and poor became more apparent. When then President Obama called for more taxes on the wealthy, the reaction from conservative (and generally rich) politicians was "It's class warfare!" without mentioning that the rich were grossly under-taxed.
An unfortunate choice of words, as it happened.
Their defeat of the increased taxes created a groundswell of protest. The little-noticed Wall Street "sit-in" became much more noticed. Republicans called for their forceful removal. And history has shown that when police actually fired on a protestor (whether it was by accident or not is still debated), history repeated itself with the "shot heard around the financial markets".
The descent into armed revolution happened with surprising swiftness after that. The three people shot were elevated to the status of martyrs and the rallying cry, "Remember Wall Street" helped drive a desperate population with nearly 9% unemployment to rise up and tear down the bastions of the rich.
Some called it the second civil war, but it wasn't a war so much between states or political philosophies as it was one between classes. Unfettered capitalism, aided and abetted by paid-for politicians enriching the wealthiest at the expense of the poor. It was a revolution against greed and self-indulgence. We still have a population who differs in political goals, but they're more a matter of policy than philosophy today and utterly lacks the violent rhetoric and vehemence back before AmRev II.
Unfortunately, enlightenment came at a high price.
Once the Americans revolted and started armed fighting, fighting broke out all over the Western world. Some claim that it was all part of the Arab Spring of 2011. Perhaps it was. People all over the world rose up to throw off dictators and oppressors that year and in the next few years. 100 million died in the bombings and fighting. But the bastions of the rich were torn down. Whole economic models were revamped. Democracies were revised so that no single philosophy can gain dominance over another. The standard of living for the "haves" has dropped while it has risen considerably for the "Have nots". Classes are closer these days than at any time in history. Wealth is no longer determined by things or money. People are considered wealthy if they work hard and are happy doing what they do.
Averting global destruction was a sudden, painful process, but in the end, it will have been worth it.
The United States of America was created during what can be described as "class warfare" between the Haves in England and the Have Nots in the Colonies. Yes, there was a lot of talk about taxation without representation, freedom, self determination and what not, but basically, England was trying to finance its war with France by raping the American colonies of its wealth, transferring it to the Old Country to indulge a mad king's desire to expand his Empire.
Fast-forward 245 years.
In 2011, it became fairly well known that the gap between the haves and have nots in America had widened to the largest gap in history. The wealthiest 20% of Americans controlled 85% of the country's wealth, leaving the other 80% to divide 15% of the wealth of the nation amongst themselves. What was worse, is that those 85%'ers only paid 35% of the taxes, leaving the 15%'ers with a 65% tax burden. Further, corporate tax incentives, subsidies, deregulation and other conservative policies pursuing the fallacy of a "free market" oversaw more transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in 20 years than had ever happened in the history of the world.
Given this state, other things happened which finally pissed off the citizens of the country enough to incite revolt.
The first was the fact that the rich controlled Congress, the Judiciary and the Presidency. Despite popular demands for the removal of corporate and special interest group money, the right wing stacked the courts with the rich elite who sided with (naturally) the rich elite, who declared that special interest groups couldn't be curtailed in the amount of money they could spend to buy politicians. Let's face it, regardless of the protestations of innocence from the politicians who were rounded up and shot, no one honestly believed that someone could receive a large campaign donation from a corporation or special interest and still remain impartial enough to vote against the interests of that donor if doing so was in the better interests of the country. With unfettered access to special interest group money, congress was 60% millionaires and the rest certainly not hurting in any way shape or form. In short, our entire government was no longer representative of the people demographically, philosophically, socially or financially.
When one looked at tho controlled business and industry in 2011 versus 1775, it gets worse for the citizens of the United States of America.
By 2011, businesses were raking in money, but the common man wasn't. "Small business" was still very common - businesses making very little money, but able to make it in the world. The large corporations, however, gained a competitive edge over these small businesses and for the most part ended up with an overwhelming percentage of the business to be had. Regulations and other conservative policies made it far easier to create a tax loophole for a large corporation (who gave generously to the representatives voting for it) than tax breaks for small businesses. Unfair competition was rampant, despite strong lip service to the contrary on the part of business executives and politicians. While there would always be a need for "small businesses", they failed over 90% of the time in the first year.
Back in 1775, most American businesses were "small businesses". But they had the financial clout to help finance revolt and revolution. The haves didn't have 85% of the wealth of the nation. And the population didn't like being fleeced.
But by 2011, mass communications allowed the ruling elite to distort and misrepresent the truth. They started with propagandist radio, telling the masses what they were intended to think without mentioning that it was an opinion. Presented as "news" these "reports" were so biased that if they were allowed to be broadcast without the proper disclaimers today, the producers would be tried for sedition, if not executed for treason.
But these broadcasts were all done at the behest of large corporations headed by the rich elite. In short, they could control the information the masses received and when that information was slanted to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, it was assumed by the rich elite no one would be the wiser.
The most insidious aspect of this was the attempt on the part of the ruling elite to divide the population. They did this by catering to the prejudices of the poorest. These deluded folk, who made up much of the fighting units for the rich elite until the deprogramming process was started about a third into the fighting, were led to believe that the rich, ruling elite actually had their best interests at heart. They actually thought that deregulation, less oversight of companies practices and fewer taxes on the wealthy were in their own best interests.
This brainwashing program was accomplished through overt appeals to a malignant form of nationalism which resulted in their politics being adhered to much like a religion. They became absolutists in policy: Dogmatic, unyielding, uncompromising. Obviously, in politics - which can be defined as the art of compromise - this situation led to the stagnation of American politics that marked the early parts of the 2010's. Nothing got done.
This is also why the revolution could happen - nothing got done to stop it or alleviate the situation so that the then status quo could be maintained. In short, it eventually backfired on them. But while it was in effect, the poor got poorer and the hands of the very people they voted for, and the poor thought it was the other guy's fault.
This created a ruling elite which rivaled England in the late 18th Century, along with a working class which was as equally oppressed by the ruling elite as the colonists in the Americas. Worse, the many who were oppressed had few resources to discern the truth of their predicament.
But that very phenomenon of mass communications which was usually controlled by the rich elite helped spark AmRev II. Basically, the rich elite couldn't be everywhere all the time. They could try to spin the growing dissension into something that benefited them, but in the end that failed.
The spark for AMRev II began when Warren Buffet - himself one of the "ruling elite" - called for more taxes on the wealthy. A discerning individual he knew the process of social pressure and recognized that the media could not control thought, try as it might. He knew that growing dissension among the 80% of Americans who were "have nots" would create gigantic social unrest. This declaration was pretty much shouted down by his more conservative peers, but the idea was sown. At the time, the growing US deficit and the lack of jobs had created an economy in which everyone was wathcing their money carefully, and the disparity between the rich and poor became more apparent. When then President Obama called for more taxes on the wealthy, the reaction from conservative (and generally rich) politicians was "It's class warfare!" without mentioning that the rich were grossly under-taxed.
An unfortunate choice of words, as it happened.
Their defeat of the increased taxes created a groundswell of protest. The little-noticed Wall Street "sit-in" became much more noticed. Republicans called for their forceful removal. And history has shown that when police actually fired on a protestor (whether it was by accident or not is still debated), history repeated itself with the "shot heard around the financial markets".
The descent into armed revolution happened with surprising swiftness after that. The three people shot were elevated to the status of martyrs and the rallying cry, "Remember Wall Street" helped drive a desperate population with nearly 9% unemployment to rise up and tear down the bastions of the rich.
Some called it the second civil war, but it wasn't a war so much between states or political philosophies as it was one between classes. Unfettered capitalism, aided and abetted by paid-for politicians enriching the wealthiest at the expense of the poor. It was a revolution against greed and self-indulgence. We still have a population who differs in political goals, but they're more a matter of policy than philosophy today and utterly lacks the violent rhetoric and vehemence back before AmRev II.
Unfortunately, enlightenment came at a high price.
Once the Americans revolted and started armed fighting, fighting broke out all over the Western world. Some claim that it was all part of the Arab Spring of 2011. Perhaps it was. People all over the world rose up to throw off dictators and oppressors that year and in the next few years. 100 million died in the bombings and fighting. But the bastions of the rich were torn down. Whole economic models were revamped. Democracies were revised so that no single philosophy can gain dominance over another. The standard of living for the "haves" has dropped while it has risen considerably for the "Have nots". Classes are closer these days than at any time in history. Wealth is no longer determined by things or money. People are considered wealthy if they work hard and are happy doing what they do.
Averting global destruction was a sudden, painful process, but in the end, it will have been worth it.
Friday, September 16, 2011
The Karma of Democracy
To begin with, I am in favor of democracy - in moderation. But I'm NOT in favor of the way we elect our politicians and approve (or disapprove) new laws or propositions. To be more specific, I'm not in favor of the "anyone over the age of 18 can vote and the majority wins" form of democracy (and I loathe and despise the Electoral College).
As a disclosure on this, I don't vote anymore. Nor am I registered any longer. I actually took the step of removing myself from the voter registration lists. My political affiliations went from Republican to Independent. When I was a registered Independent, it was the worst of both worlds. I got bombarded by all parties, but couldn't vote in any primary elections for any viable candidates. But it got worse and now no one represents the "middle of the road" points of view I tend to have. Since there are no candidates I respect, let alone want to vote for, I refuse to participate in what I see as a flawed system. Referendums are backed by special interests and it won't matter what my vote is if I don't vote for the side which spent the most on promoting it. The side spending the most money for or against a proposition wins 95% of the time. Go look up the facts on that for yourself.
I'm not sure where this puts me on the political/ideological spectrum, but the notion that a population can pass a law based on a popular vote is fine in theory, but it utterly falls apart in practice. There are several reasons why this theoretically good, but realistically flawed ideal doesn't really work. Many of them interrelate, but they can be separated.
The first reason is participation. In no election in US history has voter turnout been 100%. I'm not sure there's ever been a 90% voter turnout in the history of the world, let alone 100%. This means there are people who register, but don't vote. I don't get that. If you're not going to vote, why register? I know people die or move and whatnot, but still, the best voter turnout in the last 50 years was 63.1% of the voting age population in 1960 (before 18 year olds could vote). It's been as low as 49% for a presidential election (in 1996). But not everyone always participates, so the elections we have aren't truly representative of the will of the people.
The second reason is ability. I fail to see how a 60- year old functional moron (say with an IQ of about 60) can make a better political decision than a 180 IQ child of 12. Experience counts, but frankly, you have to be bright enough to process the dredge and garbage the politicians put out these days (not to mention the proliferation of shitty-smelling smoke screens from secretly funded special interest groups and PAC's). A moron can't. A genius probably can. Toss in the fact that people are often voting on a number of things in each election and you compound the problem. Those less able (or less interested) will not take the responsibility to educate themselves on all of their choices to make an INFORMED vote. Some folks utterly lack the ability to do that on all things they're voting about.
The third reason is human nature. Let's face it, Ray Bradbury was right when he said that Democracy can't work in a society that doesn't have the self discipline to NOT vote for bread and circuses for themselves (implying that they will vote to give themselves all sorts of wonderful things, but never vote for the means necessary to do it). This mostly has to do with propositions and referendums (see the last reason), but people, if given a choice between something that will feel good now, but hurt like hell later and something that will hurt a bit now, but feel a hell of a lot better later, will choose to feel good now and somehow think later will never come. Welfare, social security, Unemployment, Unnecessary declarations of war... Those are all things that feel good (or righteous) now, but really screw things up later.
The fourth reason it's going to fail, oddly, is communications. Today, we have a lot of ways to communicate. What we lack is a lot of ways to verify what those communications are telling us. Far more information is being thrown at people than most people can even hope to process, let alone make sure it's true, real and accurate. The proliferation of misinformation in the web and in our lives makes knowing what's real and what's not next to impossible. The rant I did last year about blogs, and about how blogs have destroyed impartiality in the news exacerbates this issue. Add to this the fact that politics has become a religion to people these days means that not only is the information biased, but there's not enough time in the day to verify the veracity of what is being said.
The last reason is function. Our political system is broken. It's broken because the rich have taken control. Left or right, they throw all sorts of BS at us to distract us from the fact the rich only want to get richer and damn anyone who gets in their way. (Sadly, yes, I believe this. The wealthiest 20% of the population control 85% of the country's wealth, the poorest 20% control 0.1% of the country's wealth, leaving the middle 60% a paltry 14.9% of the total wealth to deal with. Don't take my word for that. Go look it up for yourselves.) The wealthy select the candidates they want (it's mostly for the dog and pony show they sponsor we call Congress and the Presidency) and it doesn't much matter who gets in - the BS will continue unabated.
In some way, change some names and descriptions, this describes all democracies that allow "the average man" to vote. In good times, Democracies lay the groundwork for their own destruction when the bad times come (or at least the foundation for making the bad times a hell of a lot worse than they had to be). In bad times, extremism causes them to fall apart. Case in point, the formation of the terrorist group "The Tea Party" and it's acceptance as a "legitimate political movement" by the powers that be. (More about this extremist group in another blog).
The point is, while you have unfettered ability for any idiot on the street to vote, the whole system will eventually fall apart.
If each of the reasons democracy as we know it doesn't work were properly addressed, democracy COULD be made to work. And as a template, I look at Jury Duty - at least in concept if not actual form. With Jury Duty, a group of "peers" is taken from the voter registration rosters and are asked to be society's judge of the guilt or innocence of an individual accused of a crime based solely on the evidence presented in court. They vote to convict or acquit. Why not apply this basic idea - taking a pool of people to make our political decisions - to a greater extreme?
Looking at the major factors influencing the inevitable demise of democracy (at least in my humble opinion), one has to deal with them individually but with one means in order to create a democratic process which is fair, stable and unbreakable.
The first thing one must look at is participation. Why do people NOT vote, though they went through the trouble of registering? Because they can. It's that simple. So change that and make voting mandatory. The whole idea of jury duty says that if you are picked to vote, you MUST vote. Only incapacitating illness, or death, can get someone out of it. Make the penalty for failing to vote harsh enough to cause the individual moderately severe inconvenience. Make the rewards of voting better through social recognition and appreciation - a tax break or something tangible. But make it known that failing to abide by the voting laws will result in punishment.
This takes care of the participation part, but there are other things to add to this concept to make it work. Obviously we can't do this for everyone in the country. It's impractical to include everyone all the time. So, like Jury Duty, only a select few are picked. Enough to get a demographically representative cross-section of the population - based on the most recent census - which would be affected by the vote, but a much smaller, more manageable number. It won't matter if they WANT to vote or not. All must do it.
Now that we have taken care of the participation issue, we need to address ability. Some people are stupid. Some aren't. But the issue boils down to comprehension of the issues. Therefore, like in jury duty, a person chosen to participate in a vote MUST KNOW WHAT THEY ARE VOTING ON. They must be aware of the issues, the positions, all of the things that are in the voters' guide which are sent to registered voters before the vote is due to give them some idea of what is involved.
But again, we have an issue with ability, and in some elections, where you can be voting on dozens of things from the local dog catcher to the President of the United States, it can be overwhelming to a lot of people (usually about half of the population). So let's simplify it: no one will have to know about or vote on more than two issues in any one election. This keeps it simple for the stupid. And there WILL be a test to prove the voter has read the material and understands both sides of the issues. Once they pass the test, they're sent the voting forms or location to vote. The test can be done by mail or by secure website. If someone is too stupid to pass the test, they are stricken from the voting roles and will never be bothered again.
Now, by creating a demographically balanced, mandatory, focused voter base, it's next to impossible for people to be manipulated into voting for bread and circuses. They can't just vote for what appeals to them based on misinformation. They can still vote according to what they believe, but it will be an informed vote rather than one based entirely on bias. Not perfect to avoid the bread and circuses BS, but it is more effective than letting special interest groups sway large forces of like-minded politically active individuals into hijacking an election and unbalancing the democratic processes we have in the country.
This also helps reduce the misinformation out there. With only one or two issues to focus on, a voter won't be as distracted as one exposed to hundreds of other points of view on other issues.
Finally, these voters will be anonymous. They will be selected and identified by number. Each election, different voters will be selected. No one will know which voters are to vote on which issue. They won't know what markets to target, what mailboxes to fill, what people to try to manipulate. This makes it very difficult for the rich elite to manipulate legions of like-minded zombies into doing their bidding. And like a jury, it will be illegal to attempt to directly influence a voters' vote.
This will undermine the rich's ability to unduly influence the outcome of an election.
Of course, the weak points in this system are obvious. Who makes up the voter guides? How are the voters selected? Who guards the guardians? Again, I'd do this by jury duty. A Grand Jury style of selection. One per candidate/issue. A committee of 13 (no ties allowed) will come up with the voter guide based on the interest groups who submit their positions. Another committee will review the list of voters (no personally identifying information) - just to ensure it matches the demographics of the region which will be affected by the vote. They will review the census data and the selected voter's demographics and vote to approve the selection. This spreads out the risk of tampering with the system. It can still happen, but those responsible for the vote carry the legal liability of tampering. If they were found to have acted in a particular way due to outside influences, they will be charged with a state or federal crime - depending on the level of vote over which they had control.
This system is more balanced, less able to be tampered with, gives everyone an opportunity to be chosen to vote, demands that they vote if chosen, requires them to understand what they're voting about, reduces the influence of money on the vote and creates accountability to ensure a fair voting process. It also has the advantage of not being overly burdensome to people to "get out and vote". Voting can be done by mail. It will reduce the cost of setting up voting centers or holding votes in the first place, and reduce the financial overhead for strained districts.
Of course, there would be details to be worked out about implementation, not to mention re-writing the constitutions of every state in the union, but let's face it, Democracy in the United States is broken. I said it 7 years ago, and I say it again: The US is headed for a second civil war and most of the world will be involved. It will be fought by people who are tired of being manipulated by the powerful few. Maybe this idea, or one like it, will be picked up in the aftermath and put into effect to avoid the kind of manipulation of the democratic process we see today.
The only really sad part about that is how many people will die because the few want to control the many who don't want to be controlled. If our founding fathers could have anticipated the graft and greed humans would eventually come to regard as "normal", maybe they would have had more foresight in drafting the constitution. But then, the only thing they had was honor and a sense of personal responsibility. Both qualities which have been lost in the decades since their time. If people acted with honor and responsibility today, democracy would have stood a chance.
As a disclosure on this, I don't vote anymore. Nor am I registered any longer. I actually took the step of removing myself from the voter registration lists. My political affiliations went from Republican to Independent. When I was a registered Independent, it was the worst of both worlds. I got bombarded by all parties, but couldn't vote in any primary elections for any viable candidates. But it got worse and now no one represents the "middle of the road" points of view I tend to have. Since there are no candidates I respect, let alone want to vote for, I refuse to participate in what I see as a flawed system. Referendums are backed by special interests and it won't matter what my vote is if I don't vote for the side which spent the most on promoting it. The side spending the most money for or against a proposition wins 95% of the time. Go look up the facts on that for yourself.
I'm not sure where this puts me on the political/ideological spectrum, but the notion that a population can pass a law based on a popular vote is fine in theory, but it utterly falls apart in practice. There are several reasons why this theoretically good, but realistically flawed ideal doesn't really work. Many of them interrelate, but they can be separated.
The first reason is participation. In no election in US history has voter turnout been 100%. I'm not sure there's ever been a 90% voter turnout in the history of the world, let alone 100%. This means there are people who register, but don't vote. I don't get that. If you're not going to vote, why register? I know people die or move and whatnot, but still, the best voter turnout in the last 50 years was 63.1% of the voting age population in 1960 (before 18 year olds could vote). It's been as low as 49% for a presidential election (in 1996). But not everyone always participates, so the elections we have aren't truly representative of the will of the people.
The second reason is ability. I fail to see how a 60- year old functional moron (say with an IQ of about 60) can make a better political decision than a 180 IQ child of 12. Experience counts, but frankly, you have to be bright enough to process the dredge and garbage the politicians put out these days (not to mention the proliferation of shitty-smelling smoke screens from secretly funded special interest groups and PAC's). A moron can't. A genius probably can. Toss in the fact that people are often voting on a number of things in each election and you compound the problem. Those less able (or less interested) will not take the responsibility to educate themselves on all of their choices to make an INFORMED vote. Some folks utterly lack the ability to do that on all things they're voting about.
The third reason is human nature. Let's face it, Ray Bradbury was right when he said that Democracy can't work in a society that doesn't have the self discipline to NOT vote for bread and circuses for themselves (implying that they will vote to give themselves all sorts of wonderful things, but never vote for the means necessary to do it). This mostly has to do with propositions and referendums (see the last reason), but people, if given a choice between something that will feel good now, but hurt like hell later and something that will hurt a bit now, but feel a hell of a lot better later, will choose to feel good now and somehow think later will never come. Welfare, social security, Unemployment, Unnecessary declarations of war... Those are all things that feel good (or righteous) now, but really screw things up later.
The fourth reason it's going to fail, oddly, is communications. Today, we have a lot of ways to communicate. What we lack is a lot of ways to verify what those communications are telling us. Far more information is being thrown at people than most people can even hope to process, let alone make sure it's true, real and accurate. The proliferation of misinformation in the web and in our lives makes knowing what's real and what's not next to impossible. The rant I did last year about blogs, and about how blogs have destroyed impartiality in the news exacerbates this issue. Add to this the fact that politics has become a religion to people these days means that not only is the information biased, but there's not enough time in the day to verify the veracity of what is being said.
The last reason is function. Our political system is broken. It's broken because the rich have taken control. Left or right, they throw all sorts of BS at us to distract us from the fact the rich only want to get richer and damn anyone who gets in their way. (Sadly, yes, I believe this. The wealthiest 20% of the population control 85% of the country's wealth, the poorest 20% control 0.1% of the country's wealth, leaving the middle 60% a paltry 14.9% of the total wealth to deal with. Don't take my word for that. Go look it up for yourselves.) The wealthy select the candidates they want (it's mostly for the dog and pony show they sponsor we call Congress and the Presidency) and it doesn't much matter who gets in - the BS will continue unabated.
In some way, change some names and descriptions, this describes all democracies that allow "the average man" to vote. In good times, Democracies lay the groundwork for their own destruction when the bad times come (or at least the foundation for making the bad times a hell of a lot worse than they had to be). In bad times, extremism causes them to fall apart. Case in point, the formation of the terrorist group "The Tea Party" and it's acceptance as a "legitimate political movement" by the powers that be. (More about this extremist group in another blog).
The point is, while you have unfettered ability for any idiot on the street to vote, the whole system will eventually fall apart.
If each of the reasons democracy as we know it doesn't work were properly addressed, democracy COULD be made to work. And as a template, I look at Jury Duty - at least in concept if not actual form. With Jury Duty, a group of "peers" is taken from the voter registration rosters and are asked to be society's judge of the guilt or innocence of an individual accused of a crime based solely on the evidence presented in court. They vote to convict or acquit. Why not apply this basic idea - taking a pool of people to make our political decisions - to a greater extreme?
Looking at the major factors influencing the inevitable demise of democracy (at least in my humble opinion), one has to deal with them individually but with one means in order to create a democratic process which is fair, stable and unbreakable.
The first thing one must look at is participation. Why do people NOT vote, though they went through the trouble of registering? Because they can. It's that simple. So change that and make voting mandatory. The whole idea of jury duty says that if you are picked to vote, you MUST vote. Only incapacitating illness, or death, can get someone out of it. Make the penalty for failing to vote harsh enough to cause the individual moderately severe inconvenience. Make the rewards of voting better through social recognition and appreciation - a tax break or something tangible. But make it known that failing to abide by the voting laws will result in punishment.
This takes care of the participation part, but there are other things to add to this concept to make it work. Obviously we can't do this for everyone in the country. It's impractical to include everyone all the time. So, like Jury Duty, only a select few are picked. Enough to get a demographically representative cross-section of the population - based on the most recent census - which would be affected by the vote, but a much smaller, more manageable number. It won't matter if they WANT to vote or not. All must do it.
Now that we have taken care of the participation issue, we need to address ability. Some people are stupid. Some aren't. But the issue boils down to comprehension of the issues. Therefore, like in jury duty, a person chosen to participate in a vote MUST KNOW WHAT THEY ARE VOTING ON. They must be aware of the issues, the positions, all of the things that are in the voters' guide which are sent to registered voters before the vote is due to give them some idea of what is involved.
But again, we have an issue with ability, and in some elections, where you can be voting on dozens of things from the local dog catcher to the President of the United States, it can be overwhelming to a lot of people (usually about half of the population). So let's simplify it: no one will have to know about or vote on more than two issues in any one election. This keeps it simple for the stupid. And there WILL be a test to prove the voter has read the material and understands both sides of the issues. Once they pass the test, they're sent the voting forms or location to vote. The test can be done by mail or by secure website. If someone is too stupid to pass the test, they are stricken from the voting roles and will never be bothered again.
Now, by creating a demographically balanced, mandatory, focused voter base, it's next to impossible for people to be manipulated into voting for bread and circuses. They can't just vote for what appeals to them based on misinformation. They can still vote according to what they believe, but it will be an informed vote rather than one based entirely on bias. Not perfect to avoid the bread and circuses BS, but it is more effective than letting special interest groups sway large forces of like-minded politically active individuals into hijacking an election and unbalancing the democratic processes we have in the country.
This also helps reduce the misinformation out there. With only one or two issues to focus on, a voter won't be as distracted as one exposed to hundreds of other points of view on other issues.
Finally, these voters will be anonymous. They will be selected and identified by number. Each election, different voters will be selected. No one will know which voters are to vote on which issue. They won't know what markets to target, what mailboxes to fill, what people to try to manipulate. This makes it very difficult for the rich elite to manipulate legions of like-minded zombies into doing their bidding. And like a jury, it will be illegal to attempt to directly influence a voters' vote.
This will undermine the rich's ability to unduly influence the outcome of an election.
Of course, the weak points in this system are obvious. Who makes up the voter guides? How are the voters selected? Who guards the guardians? Again, I'd do this by jury duty. A Grand Jury style of selection. One per candidate/issue. A committee of 13 (no ties allowed) will come up with the voter guide based on the interest groups who submit their positions. Another committee will review the list of voters (no personally identifying information) - just to ensure it matches the demographics of the region which will be affected by the vote. They will review the census data and the selected voter's demographics and vote to approve the selection. This spreads out the risk of tampering with the system. It can still happen, but those responsible for the vote carry the legal liability of tampering. If they were found to have acted in a particular way due to outside influences, they will be charged with a state or federal crime - depending on the level of vote over which they had control.
This system is more balanced, less able to be tampered with, gives everyone an opportunity to be chosen to vote, demands that they vote if chosen, requires them to understand what they're voting about, reduces the influence of money on the vote and creates accountability to ensure a fair voting process. It also has the advantage of not being overly burdensome to people to "get out and vote". Voting can be done by mail. It will reduce the cost of setting up voting centers or holding votes in the first place, and reduce the financial overhead for strained districts.
Of course, there would be details to be worked out about implementation, not to mention re-writing the constitutions of every state in the union, but let's face it, Democracy in the United States is broken. I said it 7 years ago, and I say it again: The US is headed for a second civil war and most of the world will be involved. It will be fought by people who are tired of being manipulated by the powerful few. Maybe this idea, or one like it, will be picked up in the aftermath and put into effect to avoid the kind of manipulation of the democratic process we see today.
The only really sad part about that is how many people will die because the few want to control the many who don't want to be controlled. If our founding fathers could have anticipated the graft and greed humans would eventually come to regard as "normal", maybe they would have had more foresight in drafting the constitution. But then, the only thing they had was honor and a sense of personal responsibility. Both qualities which have been lost in the decades since their time. If people acted with honor and responsibility today, democracy would have stood a chance.
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