Extreme Partisans and the End of Democracy

Those who stick to their party's platform, regardless of whether individual components in said platform benefit their personal needs or seek to strip them of their rights, will be the death of this Republic. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are bottom-dwelling scum suckers. But what's worse than the politicians, are the people who follow blindly.

Two examples from both sides of the aisle

The Left Wing
Gun control. It doesn't work. The media perpetuates lies and misinformation. Chicago and DC have such strict gun control that it was determined to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and yet they also have terribly high rates of gun homicides. Why? Well, when you disarm the law-abiding citizens, the criminals and psychos still get guns because they don't care about laws, and they run around unopposed terrorizing a disarmed populace in their homes and on the streets.

They say we should look to other countries, such as European ones, for how we should do things here. Germany has had multiple school shootings, despite their strict gun control. Norway had one of the worst mass shootings in history, and they have strict gun control as well. These countries are also not democracies. In Germany you can go to prison for displaying Nazi iconography or even speaking about it. That's not freedom of expression. That's freedom of expression within the confines of what the government deems acceptable. And this is what they want here for us.

Some common lies perpetuated by the media is that no one needs a semi-automatic gun and that they are not used for hunting. The people who say that typically don't even know what a semi-automatic is. First of all, they are used for hog hunting, feral hogs being extremely dangerous, one does not want to be fiddling with a bolt while being charged by a boar. Secondly, the Second Amendment gave the people the right to resist tyranny, foreign or domestic. If you think that defending our homes and lives with guns is a lost cause, then how in the hell did some illiterate farmers defeat the most powerful empire on earth. Extreme left wing liberals trust their government and police more than they trust their fellow citizens. I think that's sad. I'm all for training of people who wants to keep and carry guns (in fact, I think every law-abiding American of sound-mind should be trained in the safety and use of guns). If I'm able to vote as a citizen, I have the right to own any damned gun I want.

The press also perpetuates the myth that sane, law-abiding citizens might "snap" suddenly, and if they have a gun then they'll go shoot up a place. First of all, sane people rarely snap. Sure it does happen that some might, but most people who "snap" were already unstable to begin with. And if they don't have a gun, and want to kill a bunch of people, then they'll find some other way to do it, and chances are, it will be way more deadly than if they had an AR-15. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people with a Uhaul, some fertilizer and common household chemicals. Are we going to outlaw rental trucks because we are afraid someone else might do that? Of course not, that's absurd. So is outlawing guns.

Another lie perpetuated is that if a gunman walks into a classroom and the teachers are armed, that it will be a bloodbath. Hello?! There's a gunman, and a bunch of unarmed people. What do you think that is already? Do you think the gunman is there to play ring-around-the-rosie with the kiddos? If a gunman walks into a classroom and the teacher is armed, your child has a better chance of walking out of there, rather than the alternative.

The Right Wing
Minimum wage: The Republicans will have you believe that we don't need a minimum wage. There are Republican party members that barely make wages above the poverty line that will fight tooth and nail to ensure that rich Corporations don't pay any taxes, despite the fact that they have no health care and their paycheck doesn't make ends meet. Why is this? Well, for one thing, they're afraid that the Democrats want a nanny state and are going to take away their Second Amendment rights. So they have to make a choice, and they choose to sacrifice what might be in their economic best interest for something that is more important to them.

The lesser of two evils, is still evil and right now, the only viable parties for election are both evil.

Disagree with any of these hard-core left or right wing people, and you will get yelled at, called names, and if you're on facebook probably unfriended. They don't want to hear that they are wrong, that there might be better alternatives to what they are proposing. That they have bought into lies. You can present evidence to the contrary, and they re-iterate what you've just proven is false. They think you are mad at them because you disagree with them, because they certainly are mad at you. What happened to rational discourse? What happened to not surrounding ourselves with people who think 100% in lock-step with us and ditching anyone who dares step out of the box of our belief system?

If we breed ideas based on the people with whom we associate, then associating only with people we already agree with will lead to ideas that are born of incest. Nature has proven that that leads to no good end.

You have the right to your own opinion, but you do not have the right to make up your own facts. I blame the mainstream media and the politicians for this one. They do that all the time, and so it has rubbed off on everyone who has weak critical thinking skills. They think that because they agree with something, or if it sounds like it might be good or plausible, then it must be valid. Lies and mis-truths are never valid.

I suggest that everyone reassess why they believe what they do on a daily basis. Get to know your neighbors, you're more likely to have interaction with them than some jackal that gets sent to DC to represent you. If you can't trust your fellow citizens, because you have this idea in your head, perpetuated by the twenty-four hour news cycle that everyone else is stupid/crazy/incompetent, then I ask you to tell me exactly what is democracy? Democracy is rule by the People. But the media and the politicians have turned the People into an entity that can't be trusted to make their own decisions, or to keep themselves safe by using common sense. Look at your appliances! You can't even open your top loading washing machine when it's on now, because you might hurt yourself. So much for dying anything! That's just one instance of this usurpation of our rights in the name of "safety" and most people have unthinkingly gone along with it.

Well, I have news for you. One day soon, you're going to wake up and realize that you live in a tyrannical police state. You're not going to know exactly when it started, because rights are never taken all at once. They are eroded away on a slow scale, so slow that most people don't even notice. And quite a few won't even notice when they are completely gone, because they are content to live with a jackboot on their neck in exchange for an illusion of safety.

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." --Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Kim Jong Il has died...

Farewell, so long, good riddance and don't come back anytime soon.

Via Gawker

The Corporatocracy: It's Official

In case you weren't paying attention, a few days ago the Supreme Court basically ruled that a Corporation has the same "rights" as you and me. If you had been reading the news, you'd probably have missed this, because no major news network bothered to actually report it. Surprise, surprise. Oh, sure, some had letters or editorial opinions about it, but it wasn't news worthy. We all surely knew that the Corporations were in charge. After all, they give to both parties, and every single official in Washington is indebted to them in some way. Sure, Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life, which is supposed to put them above fearing for their position, but they can still be impeached by congress. And since the Corporations have Congress in their pocket, if the Supreme Court doesn't go along and toe the line, they can and will be dissolved.

I decided that it would be fitting to rewrite the Declaration of Independence in favor of the Corporation, seeing as that is what we have become. Enjoy. Feel free to share, just link back here. I call it "The Corporate Declaration of Independence"

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for Corporations to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a Government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Corporations are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Business Models, Deregulation and the pursuit of Profits. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Corporations, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Corporation to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Bottom Line and Profits. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that Corporations are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of regulations and worker protections, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Oversight, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Corporations; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present United States Government For and By The People, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Oversight over these Corporations. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused their Assent to Deregulation, the most wholesome and necessary for Corporate Profits.
They have forbidden their Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till their Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they have utterly neglected to do our bidding.
They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of slave labor, unless those people would be given the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right unknown to them and formidable to a free people only.
They have called together legislative bodies at times unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from our Lawyers, for the sole purpose of fatiguing us into compliance with their measures.
They have dissolved Committees repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness their invasions on the rights of the Corporations.
They have refused for a long time, after such disolutions, to cause others to be appointed; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the Corporation remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of worker strikes from without, and bankruptcy from within.
They have endeavoured to prevent the Corporations of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, so that we might pay them slave wages.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing their Assent to Laws for establishing the Judicial Rights of Corporations.
They have made Corporations dependent on their Laws alone, for the tenure of their existence, and the amount and payment of their worker's salaries.
They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Regulators to harrass our Corporations, and make them comply with worker protection laws.
They have kept among us, in all times, Federal Regulators without the Consent of our exective boards.
They have affected to render the People independent of and superior to the Corporate power.
They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our business model, and unacknowledged by our lawyers; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of Federal Regulators among us:
For protecting them, by a Laws, from retaliation for any Fines which they should impose on the Corporations of these States:
For cutting off our free Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Off Shore Tax Shelters:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for using Child Labor and worker abuse:
For abolishing the free System of Monopolies in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein government Oversight, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute Oversight into these Corporations:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Corporations:
For suspending our own Executive Boards, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have abdicated Free Market Capitalism here, by declaring us out of their Protection and passing Laws of Oversight against us.
They have plundered our CEO's pay, ravaged our stock options, dissolved our Monopolies, and destroyed the lives of our Executives.
They are at this time transporting large Armies of Regulators to compleat the works of Bankruptcy, Regulation and Oversight, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Overseer of a Corporatocracy.
They have constrained our fellow Corporations, caught in Pyramid Schemes, to become the informants of their friends and Brethren, or to lose their Tax Exemptions by their Hands.
They have excited worker insurrections amongst us, and have endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our Enemies, the merciless Union Organizers, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished desire to protect workers of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define the leader of a Free People, is unfit to be the ruler of Corporations.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Worker brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our organization and the cost of doing business here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these Oversights, which, would inevitably interrupt our ability to use them as slave labor. They too have been deaf to the voice of business and of Profit. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in Hostile Takeovers, in Peace useful workers.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Corporations of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good Corporations of these States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Corporations are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Corporations; that they are Absolved from all Laws and Protections for their Workers, and that all political connection between them and the benefit of the Worker, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Corporate States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, run roughshod over Workers, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Corporations may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Business Models, our Lawyers and our sacred Profits.

Jefferson and the rest were great men, but they weren't capable of saving us from ourselves.

Republican Gomorrah

This is an amazing talk, it's a little long, an hour and ten minutes, but well worth watching the whole thing. I think I gotta read this book. It's about more than just the closet cases of the Republican Party.




There are parts that are hysterically funny, and other parts that are absolutely appalling. The right-wing neo-cons want nothing more or less than the utter destruction of our democracy. They want a theocracy, do not doubt this for a moment.

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. " --Justice William O. Douglas

The Party of "Waaaaah!"

The Republicans lately seem to act like a bunch of two year olds who missed nap time and can't shut-up long enough to let the adults have a conversation. They can't control themselves and they have no tact. And it isn't just your average un-educated American any more. No sirree, it's our elected officials who have no decorum. Joe Wilson, if Benjamin Franklin were alive, he'd probably smack you across the face with a white lace glove.

But I digress. What happened to statesmanship? To debate, not arguing and screaming? Oh, I know. A black man got elected, and all the good ol' boys nearly died of shock. The shock must have been so great, that it gave them Turrets, because they can't seem to control what they say any more.

We have some serious problems here, including poverty, a lack of health insurance for our poor, a lack of education (especially access to higher education), unemployment, etc. etc. etc., and all the Republican talking heads can do is scream about fantasy things like death panels and illegals getting health insurance. *rolls eyes* If they want to act like two year olds, and not let the adults have the important conversations over where we're going, then they need to be treated like two year olds. Put them in time-out, ignore them, and let them rave about their fantasy-land there and let the rest of us get on with the real work of reforming this inadequate system.