Boys Wear Pants, Men Wear Trousers - Politics & Sociology

Back before I had a blog, I used to hard code all my posts in chronological order. This post was originally made on Sunday January 11, 2004:

It's official; according to a very recent Gallup Poll, Republicans are far more likely to consider themselves "happy" with their station in life than either Democrats or Independents. Perhaps there truly is bliss in ignorance, or do those on the right side of the political field understand something about good intentions being the paving stones on the road to hell?

I watched a great episode of the show Cold Case where a Russian immigrant was being questioned about a homicide and the detective told the guy that he was going away. The Russian guy looked at the detective in complete fear and said, "You are going to make me disappear? I will never get to see my son again." The detective played on this and the guy confessed to a murder that he didn't commit. Yes, it's fiction, but that is the terror that living in a totalitarian dictatorship subjects human beings to. And this is what every single fascist and socialist state ever built has resulted in--terrified human beings, pathetic wretches and this is precisely the world that Howard Dean and Hitlary Clinton are looking to build--absolute government control over the lives of its citizens. Sorry kids, but it's time to call a spade a spade and these socialist dictators in training who have lined up to be the next front runner in the Democratic Party are looking for that absolute power that corrupts absolutely. They are all looking for the ring of power, all their thoughts are bent on it, and most Republicans are looking for the same thing as well. Power should be something that any sane person takes upon their self as an absolute last resort, like Aragorn did, only out of necessity and while he accepted the hope that Elrond gave to man, he kept none for himself--this is why. Beware of anyone who wants your vote in order that they can look out for you. I will vote for the person who wants my vote to keep me from harming the life or property of others and in turn will keep others from harming my life or my property. Listen up kids, I'm giving you jewels for free here, but what I just said is the popcorn kernel to a free and just society--anything beyond that is tyranny. Once a government and its representatives go into the business of writing social wrongs and weighing laws to favor one group over another, the only difference between democracies and dictatorships is the degree to which the government terrorizes its citizens. Unfair taxes or bullets and razor blade electroshock torturing in the basement of some distant building where screams can't be heard outside are only two weapons that both sides wield in a tyranny.

You better recognize, improvise, adapt, and overcome.

A new beer is being launched in Germany that will help battle all the pesky voters who have effectively outlawed smoking in bars across the land.

This new brew contains 6.3% alcohol and roughly the same amount of nicotene in one whole pack of cigarettes.

That can't be healthy...

I say if these bar people are looking for the ultimate high, the ultimate release and the most painful death all the time isolating themselves in self-constructed mental and spiritual walls, let's make it easy for them. \

There should be a squad of gorgeous super models (male and female) who roam the world, going from bar to bar. They take the saddest sack of an individual, give them a nice morphine injection, jerk them off, pour lighter fluid on them and set them on fire. I figure if you streamline the process, you can take someone from the highest pleasure possible to the most horrible physical pain imagineable to a gratious death in about three minutes.

Think of all the child support administration we would be saving...

The UN is tried to take control of the Internet and they are going to continue sieging the fortress until they are destroyed or the walls crumble.

See, I don't know if you know it yet, but the Internet is the next Holy Land, much more so than any physical structure could ever be. This true for several reasons, among them:

The Internet allows communication to billions of individuals instantly--a power previously reserved only for od.
The Internet obliterates the obstacles of power which served as stalwarts of information flow to the frontline masses--this is a danger that many (especially in the UN and totalitarian regimes) desperately want to gain control of to shut off the valve.
The Internet allows for multiple viewpoints, multiple belief systems, and multiple realities to exist side by side in a collective reality that is far more diverse and accepting than many short-sighted, small-minded, and weak spirited humans in power today are capable of fathoming; therefore they fear it as a major threat that must be mitigated or removed completely.

These are three reasons off the top of my head, but if you can think of anything else, please share in the comments section.

It is of the utmost importance that the virtual Holy Land be preserved as an open arena of communication for all human beings to congregate and utilize to further the cause of human freedom and understanding--and this means you too, McCain-Feingold.

I'm shitting you not here, my friends--you can read it for yourself if you don't believe me.

Listen, I love 2Pac too. I have most of his albums and still feel that All Eyez on Me is one of the top five best rap albums ever made (see bottom of post for my top five).

But, c'mon. I believe Tupac and Biggie were murdered by an unscrupulous rap producer who had deep connections with corrupt police officers that executed a contract hit on both of them.

I believe that Tupac and Biggie were two of the most talented artists of my generation and I'm still pissed off that their genius was ground into the dust without a second thought.

But we could say the same thing about Jimi Hendrix, right? It sucks and it's shitty and it's unforgiveable on many levels. But I'm not seeing where this becomes a government matter that wastes the time of our collective legislative body.

Cynthia McKinney has to be the worst public servant in recent history. She has consistently followed special interest whims and radical conspiracy theory nonsense that wins her sensational press.

But after everything is said and done, the world already has the best that Tupac and Biggie Smalls had to offer us. They didn't bring peace or a sword--they brought bumping beats, filthy language, and left music that I can never play in front of my child without feeling embarassment and shame (but which stays on my iPod at all times, if you can dig what I'm saying).

Some things are better left alone and the voters in her district should have put Cynthia McKinney in that category.

I received this e-mail last week from a fellow high school alum and I finally found a nickle of time that I could spend on replying to it:

Haven't had a chance to read much of your site yet, but a couple things caught my eye and I have some thoughts for you to consider. There seemed to be a common theme of support for the Bush Tax cuts and support for Neal Boortz Fair Tax system.

I know you probably have way more to read now than you can keep up with, but if you are going to make commentary on federal budget items, you should make a better effort to educate yourself on the facts.

I highly recommend reading everything that comes out of the Congressional Budget Office

As well as another site that interprets that data (admittedly partisan) and puts clearer perspecitive on it.

Be sure to read the slide show, putting tax cuts into context.

The bottom line is this, I am all for returning money to people at the same weighted percentages as it is taken in, whenever there is actually money to give back. But having to borrow money year after year to put it in the pocket of your richest people is complete insanity. A good percentage of that borrowed money is from foreign governments. Now you tell me how the hell it makes sense to have to borrow money from China to fund a new tax cut that Bush wants for rich people.

As for the "Fair Tax" thing, that has so many holes and flawed assumptions in it, I can't even get into it here, but I encourage you to look for the opposing viewpoints and understand them. It's a ploy to take the current tax structure as it exists today and shift more burden away from the rich (as most Republican tax ideas are). A noble concept, except when you take into account the fact that there HAS to be a fixed amount of money coming into the system each year, if you are taking money out of what is being paid by the richest people, it has to be coming from somewhere else.

Of course with the fair tax idea, you have no where near any guarantee as to what your tax revenues will be for the year, it puts it all in the hands of the people instead of the law. What if we fall hundreds of billions of dollars short, I guess we are just supposed to borrow it? Hell, that's what we do today, so I guess everyone is already used to that no matter how wrong it is.

Anyway, read up for yourself and form your own opinion, but keep the perspective that having to borrow money to make up for policies in a tax system is WRONG. Deficits of this magnatude are BAD for the economy in the long term. The % of debt we have related to our GDP is rising every year, this is BAD. It's too bad that most of the US doesn't realize this, because it is a slow moving problem that is really going to bite us in the ass 10-20 years from now, and it's only getting worse every year because we continue these ridculously stupid tax cuts.

I don't think we have a disconnect here. I agree that the problem is totally with the spending on the part of Congress. Imagine if we held Congress to the ninth Amendment and didn't allow them to run buck wild with the public's check book.

But the present system of taxation is really nothing more than a system of wealth redistribution which started as a weapon of class warfare back in the early 1900s and has pretty much remained the same ever since then.

I believe that the Fair Tax proposal, despite all its theoretical flaws (we'll never know the execution flaws until it's executed), is the best model of taxation because it is dependent on the actual purchasing of goods and services (first time only, no used goods get taxed under this plan).

Those who think in terms of "rich" versus "poor" (when in reality many people considered rich now were poor once) should be more than pleased with a taxation system that not only leverages greater taxes against those who buy higher priced frivolous items (the wealthy), but also reimburses every family for the basic cost of the necesseties of life.

I don't think that traditional tax and spend Congress can ever reproach the Fair Tax proposal except by ignoring it. But I absolutely agree that the root cause of the problem in our country is the wild-haired congresspersons set loose in a free-for-all with the public debit card in their hands.

Related Posts (on one page):

Responding to Criticisms of the Fair Tax Bill and the Republican Tax Cuts
I Wrote My Congressman Today About the FairTax Book
The Future is Suddenly Upon You...The Death of the IRS and the Rebirth of America!

Sony has chosen to cease with the XCP antipiracy software on its CDs and has buckled because of the pressure induced upon it by the online community.

The story was broken on the Internet.

The story bubbled and popped on the Internet and the heat was turned way up on Sony, you guessed it, on the Internet.

Blogs around the world just hammered the mega corporation after it was leaked that this malicious software not only invaded the consumer's right to privacy but opened PCs up to hostile attacks, spyware, spamware, and ruthless viruses that could lock out the CD drive or lock up the machine altogether.

Perhaps if Sony and the other labels in the recording industry would spend more time on producing quality music that actually highlights the art in artist, they wouldn't have to worry about people stealing their music beacause they would gladly be paying to support the vision of the artist.

Remember how many people owned multiple copies of Thriller back in the early 80s? That's because people bought into the vision of Michael Jackson. Today, no one even wants to steal a new Michael Jackson CD, nor would many take one for free.

It isn't about music being a commodity. It's about creating a vision that heals the world in some fundamental way and then gathering an audience of individuals to support your vision.

But how can you explain human nature and the proper role of mythological art to a empty-souled corporation?

I recently saw an interview with Michael Moore (not my favorite person in the world) where he was talking about this very point. He basically asked the audience to think about why these big media corporations continue to support and distribute his work when the fundamental message he's purporting is a complete attack upon the foundation of their business models and the society in which they operate. His answer is because the corporation is concerned only with profit and greed (the common response from a liberal but one which bears weight in this argument).

We need individuals of substance at the helms of our corporations, government, and families again--this is the only thing which can save our species from total and utter destruction.

Each of us has a civic responsibility to step up and become these individuals of worth in the eyes of the face that looks back at us in the mirror every morning. And this is the only earthly country and culture I am interested in creating through my relationships with those around me and the people I come across online each day.

This type of world is the only one worth dying for and, more importantly, the only one worth living for.

According to this Capitol Hill Blue article:

the Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than 10,000 Americans it considers political enemies and uses those files to wage war on those who disagree with its policies.

The “enemies list” dates back to Bush’s days as governor of Texas and can be accessed by senior administration officials in an instant for use in campaigns to discredit those who speak out against administration policies or acts of the President.

The computerized files include intimate personal details on members of Congress; high-ranking local, state and federal officials; prominent media figures and ordinary citizens who may, at one time or another, have spoken out against the President or Administration.

The article goes on to connect Scooter Libby to the whole Joe Wilson affair through the use of this list.

Would it really surprise anyone if the administration kept a list like this? We know Nixon did it.

If you look at corporate America, there are things going onn there which are just as shady. If you've seen the movie The Corporation (affiliate link), you've seen the interview with the "secrets stealer." This guy sets up fake offices and fake headhunter businesess, puts phony ads in the paper and cold calls high level executives with big fake offers. Once he gets the guys into his fake office, he starts pumping them for proprietary information about their company and then reports the whole thing to their major compeititor.

Yes, people--the shit has gotten this bad out there.

Companies are forever trying to steal people away from competitors, vendors, subsidiaries, and sometimes even from within their own ranks.

Back in 2000, I remember thinking and even saying, how good it was that our President was a CEO type and would run the country like a business--cracking skulls and getting to the bottom line.

Unfortunately, the bottom line for a country is its ability to tax its citizens, spend their money, and make war on other countries--that is the business of democracy today (or at least what's called democracy).

Now, before you paint me a liberal naysayer, please know that I truly believe that the state of political and economic affairs in the world do not have to remain this way. It is the responsibility of each of us to sow democracy, freedom, and goodwill in the relationships we build and maintain with those around us each day.

Trust me, all it takes is ten connected people with access to the necessary resources to start a wave of revolutionary change in the hearts and minds of millions that will spread like a West Texas wildfire.

It begins with you and I and no "Enemies List," however long and intricately footnoted would ever be able to stop a Great Awakening of the magnitude of which I am speaking.

TAGS: Politics, President, Enemies, Scooter, Joe, Richard

Compare this news story:

The House voted 225-182 for a bill that would have excluded blogs, e-mails and other Internet communications from regulation by the Federal Election Commission (search). That was 47 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed under a procedure that limited debate time and allowed no amendments.

The vote in effect clears the way for the FEC to move ahead with court-mandated rule-making to govern political speech and campaign spending on the Internet.

To this one:

Chinese authorities have blocked a pro-democracy Web log after it was nominated for a freedom of expression award by a German radio station, a press freedom group said Thursday.

The freedom of expression must be protected, provided that it doesn't infringe upon the rights or property of other citizens. There is no such thing as protecting the integrity of the political process because there is no integrity left in our political process.

The waste of resources to adminstrate and regulate free expression online would be staggering and dwarf those needed in vital areas of domestic welfare (like the War on Terror, building up our civil defense measures, and establishing a healthcare system that actually works to provide access to quality care to the most people possible).

This is a large step down a very dark road for our country...

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