Plutarch's Lives in America

Plutarch, an ancient Greek historian, wrote at the beginning of the 2nd Century about Rome and he quotes Tiberius Gracchus, as saying the following: 

"The wild beasts that roam over Italy, have their dens and holes to lurk in, but the men who fight and die for our country enjoy the common air and light and nothing else. It is their lot to wander with their wives and children, houseless and homeless, over the face of the earth. And when our generals appeal to their soldiers before a 

battle to defend their ancestors' tombs and their temples against the enemy, their words are a lie and a mockery, for not a man in their audience possesses a family altar; not one out of all those Romans owns an ancestral tomb. The truth is that they fight and die to protect the wealth and luxury of others. They are called the masters of the world, but they do not possess a single clod of earth which is truly their own." 

So history continues to repeat itself and while a direct comparison can be made today with the veterans of America who make up 1/3 of the male homeless, we can also draw a similar comparison to ALL of the people of America and indeed the world. Who continue to struggle and suffer while those who possess the wealth and luxury do not.

We who cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We clean your floors and windows. We build your cars, computers, roads, and buildings. We file your papers, we mow your yards, we teach your children.

We guard your sleep...

Romney's 47%

First of all the number 47% is bullshit, It might be close to the number of people who don't pay income tax, but that's because they work at those jobs in fast food that everyone seems to think pay well enough to live on. They might work at Wal-Mart, CVS, the local Flower shop, or any number of places that only pay minimum wage. They still work 30+ hours a week and the government subsidizes them so that their kids have a roof over their head and food in their bellies. The alternative is to let them starve and/or litter the cities with their bodies.

*18% of Americans pay no income or payroll taxes at all, they do pay sales tax. 1/2 of those 18% are senior citizens who paid into Social Security for all of their adult working lives* 

23% of American families with 4 members and less make less than 27K, 79% of families make less than 50k, and there are even some families that make over 100,000 a year that still don't pay taxes. Those first two categories are families where at least one member earns money, most often cases it's two. 

They are being paid shit by corporations that have lobbied and bribed their friendly neighborhood politician for more "business friendly" regulations. These corporations don't provide benefits to their workers, they don't hire full time employees, the only reason they pay minimum wage is because they are required to by law. In many cases "business friendly" means the companies contract out their jobs to China who employs workers at 31 cents an hour. America can't compete with that because of what Cons like to label as "over-regulation" or they have to contend with the evils of unionized workers. Never mind that it was those regulations and the unions that fought for them that moved our children out of factories, gave us the 40 hour work week, forced the corporations to provide benefits for full time workers, regulated equal pay between men and women and a whole slew of other things that people now take for granted in America, but are virtually non existent elsewhere.

So both sides have a pretty strong argument. Conservatives are right when they say that eventually the money is going to run out and then we won't be able to provide that aid to the lesser fortunate in our country at all. 

In my opinion the solution is to let these developing countries have the piss poor paying manufacturing jobs where some 22 year old Chinese girl puts together some piece of an iPad 5000 times a day for pennies on the dollar. America needs to invest in it's people. Our public schools need massive reform, we are still using an outdated system that was developed to train workers not to think, but to memorize instruction for factory workers during the industrial age. Even our higher education degrees are behind the power curve.  Does it really matter if your Doctor can piece together a Freudian analysis of Shakespeare?

We need to innovate, we need to fund more R&D, we need to look 50 and 100 years down the road, instead of just to the next election cycle. Obama made a bad call taking money from NASA in my opinion, whose research has led to everything from cell phones to aluminum foil and office supplies.

Obama made some seemingly biased calls in Solyndra and the other companies, but the idea is sound. New technology and most especially energy is what is going to lead to a new revolution in our world. If you look at every great boom our species has ever gone through it was due solely to technology and surplus of energy. Agriculture, Fossil Fuels/Combustion Engine, Microchip/Computers.

Romney's economic plan, from what I can piece together, involves liberating corporations to pay their workers less, dump more shit into the only planet we have to live on, lessen the "tax burden" on those who can already afford a second and third vacation home, and basically perform a no lube anal raping on anyone who was unfortunate enough to have some misfortune in their life.

My sister and I were discussing welfare the other day and she laid this gem on me. Which I think sums up the situation nicely:

"Everyone notices the woman with the coach bag and the iPhone using her welfare card. You're looking for her, but you don't look twice at the woman with the clean but over-washed clothing and her kids in clothes two sizes too big using hers to get milk and bread. She is invisible. We don't WANT to see her because that makes us feel greedy and self indulgent and that is because we are."

Louis C.K. also put it aptly by saying that by driving his Infinity he's killing people. He could easily trade it in for a different vehicle, get the $20,000 in cash and use that to feed hundreds of people from dying of starvation.

It's my opinion that the vast majority of people on welfare are like the latter mentioned in my sisters quote. People use financial assistance when times are hard, times are hard because the economy is bad. If you don't need assistance you don't get it. It's that simple. It is also my opinion that the mustachio twirling fat-cats who fund our politicians campaigns actively influence policy that keeps themselves getting richer and restricts opportunities for those with less. 

I don't particularly like Bill Maher as an individual, I think he's kind of a cocky asshole, but every once in a while he will say something that rings with potential. He was quoted as saying "Hard work doesn't make people successful, if that was true this country would be run by Mexicans with leaf blowers". It's opportunity that makes people successful and what we have going on right now is a nominee who is part of a system that is actively trying to reduce opportunities for people. 

I shared my sisters quote because I believe that the republican party contains within it's upper echelons people who hype up the myth of the welfare queen for their own nefarious benefit. The myth that people make money off welfare and refuse to work therefor becoming leeches on the rest of society. I don't deny that such people are out there, but according to the link below and research provided there 93% of welfare fraud is committed by vendors, not the individuals receiving the benefits.

I'm not opposed to reforming welfare, I think we all need to tighten the belt a little bit for the benefit of our children in the generations to come, I also think that with all the wealth in this country being funneled directly towards the top more of it needs to be coming back down through taxes and social programs that provide opportunity.

This is why I'm voting for President Obama, not because I think Democrats are better than Republicans, but because I think Obama is better than Romney. I think Romney would walk past the homeless man on the street with a grimace, hoping he doesn't get something on his shoes. I think Obama would stop and help him up. I think we all need to stop and help him up, not call him lazy for not having a job.

I could get into an entire list of things that I disagree with President Obama about as well, but that's not the point of this wall of text here.

The Not-So Ambiguously Rich Duo

Ok, listen up folks. I’m gonna yell at you for a minute about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

When will you open your eyes to the fact that this duo doesn't represent you.  It doesn't represent the ideals that we expect from our friends and families, so WHY would you tolerate it from our politicians and government.  THESE GUYS ARE THE PROBLEM!!

We all complain about the corruption in government, about the flip flopping nature of these asshats whom we continuously elect and let get away with it.

WHY would you vote for someone who is his own best debater?  Seriously, pick a stance on ANY ISSUE and you can find data and likely personal testimony from this team to support it.  This is not a good thing folks. We want people, we NEED people who have a stance and will stick to it. It’s called integrity and I don’t know where the fuck Americas went.  You don’t tell people what they want to hear just to get into an elected office.  You educate yourself on a stance you defend it, explain it, and promote it to people who disagree with you.

Sell Social Security to wall street?  The same wall street that was just BAILED OUT?!?  Are you EFFING kidding me?  No.  No abortions at all? Incest? doesn't matter.  Rape? doesn't matter. Listen up jackhole.  NO ONE WANTS AN ABORTION.  No one likes the idea of it.  It isn't something that is undertaken lightly and this is not a slippery slope that leads to people screwing in the streets and popping morning after pills like candy corn. This is a serious, dramatic, life changing decision that is made by scared and very often underprivileged and underage women and by legislating away the option you are putting peoples lives at risk.

Romney and Ryan want to claim they are all about SMALL GOVERNMENT but you can't claim to be about small government and then try and legislate something as intimately personal as abortion and contraception.  I understand if you disagree with it.  I personally would never want anyone I love to have an abortion, I would tell them it's not the right path, but I WOULD NEVER FORCE THEM to make that decision.

I can not stand the fact that we are currently having a serious debate about where we want to head as a nation and that these two jokers are the best that we can pull out of our collective asses to compete with President Obama!

EVERYONE agrees that we need to pull the nation out of debt, but you don't let your children starve to pay off the bills.  YOU STOP BUYING EXTRAVAGANT SHIT!

EVERYONE agrees that social programs need to be regulated to avoid abuse.  That doesn't mean you do away with them.

This is about where we want our nation to be in the future.  This is about how we treat our neighbors, our friends, and our family.This is about opportunity for the fading middle class and working poor in this country.

If you don’t like the idea of a gay man getting married.  Don’t marry him.  What he does behind closed doors with consenting adults is his own fucking business and not any of yours or your governments.

It’s about liberty and personal freedom.  

It’s not about Republican or Democrats or Libertarians or Socialist.  There is no one solid stance that EVERY one of those demographics agree on. This is about the QUALITY of the individual in office, be that person man, woman, black, white or purple.  Mitt Romney has continuously displayed the qualities of slimy used car dealer.  (No offense to slimy used car dealers meant) He has no backbone, he is not a fiscal conservative, his very patriotism is in question. He will say whatever he and his HANDLERS think will get him the most votes. He’s a huckster and a shyster.

OBAMA 2012!

Secularist Government

Government Secularism a Must!

On September 12, 1960 Senator John F. Kennedy addressed the Greater Houston Ministerial Association and spoke to the attendees about a matter which had taken over the course of his campaign to become the 35th President of the United States.  As a Roman Catholic minority he was facing a major hurdle in getting elected because of his religious affiliation.  During his speech he made it clear that his belief was for an America “where the separation of church and state is absolute.”  

It is with this same mindset that we should analyze the effects of religious doctrine on our past and view our current political situation. We are not a nation of Catholics or Protestants, nor are we a Muslim country, which have existed in the past and currently exist elsewhere in the world.  America is all faiths and none and our Government of, by, and for the people should be representative of that fact.  As our 44th President said: “...If I seek to pass a law banning the practice [of abortion] I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will.”  An argument must be made that can be related to all people, regardless of religious beliefs.  Looking back into our history we can see many examples of the bleeding of religious doctrine, thoughts, and ideals negatively impacts a nation’s ability to foster equality.

There is no doubt that at one time in human history slavery was commonplace.  Owning, punishing, even killing a slave was not considered immoral behavior.  Today, I very much doubt that you could find a single person who would publicly state that slavery of any form should be tolerated.  Have you ever stopped and wondered why that is? How does something go from being tolerated and accepted to abhorred within a relatively short amount of time.  In America, it happened about one hundred and fifty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively the killing stroke that tore down the wall that religious ignorance had built up.  At least in regards to slavery.  During the days of the Old Testament slavery was commonplace, it was not considered evil by most people, it was a normal.  Some might have even argued it was a necessary component of human nature.  There is even a passage in the book of exodus in the Old Testament that explains in detail how to compensate a fellow slave owner for their damaged “property” (Exodus 21:32).  I make reference to these passages only to show that the practice was commonplace and considered normal, not immoral and was approved by this faith.  The Encyclopedia Britannica claims evidence for slavery takes us as far back as 1800 BCE, almost 4000 years ago. Which means for the majority of our recorded history, and likely all history, slavery was normal.  Today though, in America, we know better.

In the last fifty years America has made great leaps towards our founding father’s ideals that all men are equal. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. aided our nation greatly by standing up to the laws of his day and challenging their morality.  He asserted that men should not be judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character.  He took a stand against the remnants of religious doctrine which believed that there exists, in our world, human beings that are not deserving of equality, that somehow they are inferior.  A modern day equivalent can be drawn when we compare gay rights, because the only argument against allowing a same sex couple to marry is a religious one.  It should therefore be obvious to everyone that this is a blatant example of one group’s beliefs infringing on another’s rights.  In America, you have the right to believe whatever you want.  You do not have the right to force those beliefs on another and “congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.”  If those who are against gay marriage would continue to support their claim, they must do so in a way that translates to people of all faiths and none and every court justice who refuses to conduct a marriage based on solely religious reasons should be disbarred for refusal to uphold the 1^st amendment of the constitution.  Our public officials are required to swear or affirm an oath of office, and while they may choose to make this oath upon a bible, they are swearing to uphold the constitution, not the bible.  John Quincy Adams swore his presidential oath on a book of law.

Customs, morality, and traditions are not static.  They ebb and flow from one society to the next as they change, grow, and we learn more about each other. We must have, and indeed do have, in place a system that takes into account all religious perspective while being itself none.  At their most basic levels, religions cannot compromise.  There can be no middle ground between whether or not Jesus was a prophet or the son of a god, it is this very polarized idea which keeps religions apart.  You are either with them or against them and this is why politicians must be objective, should be able to compromise.  Recently, in a win for continued separation, a district court judge ruled in favor of Jessica Ahlquist in Ahlquist vs. Cranston.  The judge ruled that a public school prayer banner was in violation of the establishment clause.  The ruling does not restrict any individual from practicing whatever faith they choose, but it does restrict a public school that uses public funds from endorsing or promoting a specific religious belief.

Many who do not support the separation of church and state will claim that removing God from the equation has had disastrous effects on the rate of crime, teenage pregnancy and test scores.  They claim religion, and its morality, is a necessity to fight these rising statistics.  The claim here is that when religious teachings are absent bad things happen, but according to a 2008 American Religious Identification Survey greater than 75% of Americans self-identify as Christian. Further it implies religion and God is the sole source for morality, which contradicts a Federal Bureau of Prisons survey in which inmates were asked about their religious affiliation.  The overwhelming majority was Catholic and Protestant (together totaling roughly 75%), while only 0.21% claimed they were atheists.  So from those statistics we can infer that when morality is derived from a wish to not be punished for eternity as opposed to more humanist and secular reasons it is not as effective after all.

I propose all our laws should be reevaluated based on a secularist attitude and the separation of church and state, a term coined in Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danburry Baptist Association in 1802.  I see no justifiable reason two consenting adults cannot be married to whomever they choose, no logical argument for skin color being a basis for segregation, gender being a limiting factor for rights, or ancestry any foundation for slavery.  I see no justifiable purpose for the laws which restrict the sale of alcohol on Sunday before noon!

A Father's Advice

Found this beautiful gem of wisdom on the internets!  It was originally a facebook post from a father (Redditor: LiquidEyes) to a daughter.  The daughter was considering getting a tattoo and a strictly religious  friend of hers quoted Leviticus 19:28, which says basically, don't cut or mark your skin.  This is his response to both of them:

The observable universe, that's what we see when we look up at the night sky, is 98 billion light years across. The actual size of the universe is somewhat larger but the most distant light is yet to reach us. This means that if you were a photon of light emitted from the most distant star we can observe, it would take you 13.7 billion years, traveling at the speed of light, to reach here.
 
We know this because we know the speed of light, if we didn't things like mobile phones, the internet, your microwave oven, GPS systems, Wi-Fi and many, many more technological marvels that we take for granted, wouldn't work.
This means that the universe, that big old thing all around us, is unimaginably big, bigger than big, it is phenomenally, astronomically gargantuan beyond imagination.
 
Asides from the many issues this simple fact presents to those of a theological inclination, one being that a 6,000 year old earth in a 6,000 year old universe wouldn't have any stars shining in its night sky because the distance of the majority of the stars in the sky from us, doesn't allow enough time for their light to reach earth over 6,000 years, do you honestly believe an entity wielding the power to construct an object as majestic, mystifying and awe inspiring as the the universe would be truly concerned about pigments in skin?
 
You've yet to realize this, but you're both neck deep immersed in one of the biggest mind scams our race has ever conceived. Release your minds, rejoice in the majesty of your unique and special lives, follow your own hearts, laugh, cry, love and explore the infinite beauty of your fleetingly short existence, and even shorter childhoods, unencumbered. You are 21st century humans living in a modern, technological world and a 2,000 year old doctrine, written by people who had no concept of what it would be like to live in our world today, cannot and should not form the basis of how you decide to shape your experience of the short time you have here on earth. Make your own rules, live your own lives. Peace.

The only thing I would add to this is that except for the extremely fundamentally religious out there, I don't think the 6000 year chronological timeline set up by Archbishop Usher in the 17th century is used by many churches.  The intent of the message is still the same.  Morality is subjective and can not exist without deviance.  Deviance is subjective and changes over time.  An act by itself is not deviant, no matter how horrible you may think it is.  What makes it deviant is the societal response towards that act.  Don't believe me?  Consider: Rock n' Roll, Hip Hop,  Bikinis, Thongs, Shaved Faces, Smoking Pot, Drinking Alcohol, Slavery, Polygamy, any many many others.  All of these things were either considered deviant and now aren't, or were not and now are.

I still think that religions can offer some wisdom and guidance, but only if it is cherry picked, as has been the case.  People will extol upon the virtues of their holy books, but fail to recognize that much of it no longer applies to modern day living and much of it is downright wrong!  

Is there a non-religious argument against gay marriage?

So I have kind of been on a religious tangent over the last week or so, I recently found /r/atheism on www.reddit.com and I've just been pouring over the posts, watching astrophysicist lectures on youtube, and going over the bible.  I literally spent two hours the other night watching two lectures/Q&A things done by Neil Degrasse Tyson.  I took an intro course in anthropology last semester and it has basically reinforced a lot of the things I've been thinking/feeling for YEARS.  If you are my friend on facebook, you might also be aware that I spent 1/2 a day debating god and the purpose/usefulness of religion.  Although the people I was debating with were more or less in agreement with me, so that took all the fun out of it.  I was disappointed that some of my more religiously inclined friends/family didn't get involved and I'm curious why.  I thought my friend count might go down after it, but surprisingly I didn't lose a single one.

My original post was this:

It seems more likely to me that religion has evolved alongside man as an explanation to the unknowable. 

We KNOW that anatomically modern humans existed 160,000 years ago. They LOOKED LIKE US. Not hairy cavemen monkey things. 

We KNOW behaviorally modern humans created art, tools, dyed their clothing, traveled vast distances to barter and trade 40,000 years ago. We can presume.. they looked up at the moon, sun, and stars and asked what they were.

It seems more likely to me that those same humans passed down by oral tradition which stemmed from their unknowable, we did this for at least 35,000 years and then we started writing it down. As we have become more aware of our surroundings both microscopic and cosmic our religions have changed and evolved and have given way before the known.

Religion seems to me, to be a philosophy of willful ignorance. "That is to far beyond my ability to comprehend, so it must be God and I will not try to understand"

Once upon a time we attributed the rise of storms and earthquakes to vengeful spirits and jealous gods. Today we know what causes them and as such they no longer reside it the realm of the divine.

I feel that if ALL people could grasp the relatively monumental (compared to our lives, and even recorded history) amount of time human beings existed before EVERY RELIGION THAT EXISTS TODAY came about, we could move past this debate over whether or not a Monotheistic god exists and try to answer some of the REAL questions that matter in our universe.

And now to the real reason I am here today.  Last week a California court over turned a gay marriage ban.  My question is:

Is there an argument against gay marriage that does not stem from religion?

Why can't a gay/lesbian couple get married?  I know Christians who are in favor of equal rights for everyone, but I also know some who are adamantly anti-gay and honestly, I used to be as well.  Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are all against gay marriage.

I remember as a child, of maybe 13 or so, I was at Disney World and had been standing in line for what felt like an eternity to ride Space Mountain.  The two dudes in front of me started making out.  I felt disgusted.  I thought it was wrong, I had been indoctrinated to think that and so I gave up my spot in line and left.  In the almost 2 decades that have past since then I've come to realize how dense I was then.  I've had some very close, and very gay friends.  I've served in Iraq with gay soldiers.  I don't understand how the government can continue to oppress any group of people who are in pursuit of their happiness which does not infringe on any one else's rights.  It seems absolutely ridiculous to me today.

I would be tremendously glad if any of you reading this could respond with your ideas, oppositions, comments, or whatever!

WTF?! January is over?

Ok, where the hell did you go January?  I didn't get any snow, it barely dipped below freezing for a night... and it's been back to shorts and flip flops.

I haven't blogged in one month, but it's been a busy month.  Spring semester started and I'm taking all new classes.  Sociology, Computer Application, English Comp 2, and .... /shudder College Algebra.  So far I'm doing ok.  The two online classes (Sociology and Computer Apps) are WAY TO EASY to procrastinate and I am by nature a procrastinator.  Dangerous stuffs it is.

I feel like I've been neglecting twitter too, but I think I got that issue resolved tonight.  I was having issues connecting my facebook and my twitter accounts and I am WAY to lazy or just not inspired enough (Lazy!) to post the same shit to both social networking sites.  Hopefully this way I can keep in touch with the few friends who seemingly ONLY use Twitter (Yes, I am talking about you two!) AND the plethora of folks who I only keep in touch with on facebook.

I also stumbled across 9gag.com this month...  Translation: The black hole that is 9gag has started sucking me in.  It's hilarious.  Mostly.

I also decided to build a MAME Arcade Cabinet. ( I don't know why! Shut up and quit interrupting me)  MAME stands for Multi Arcade Machine Emulator and basically it simulates thousands of classic arcade games which you can then play on your computer.  I found out there was this whole community of people who refurbish old arcade cabinets and/or build their own and I was totally hooked on the idea.  So I bought a control panel, a coin door, some lumber, and recruited my handy man father to help me build the thing.  I painstakingly drafted blueprints for the thing, then left those at home when I started making cuts and screwing shit together.  I've posted a few pics on facebook, but I'll put up the full walkthrough here when we are done.  It should turn out pretty nice, even if all the original plans did go out the window.

Check out the links below if your interested in MAME and I'll see you later.  It's past my bedtime.

http://www.arcadecab.com/
http://mamedev.org/
http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp