I love the Onion. Why? Because it adds humor to what would otherwise be a horrifying news.
Like Hell I'm Going To Let Some Black President Help Me Pay For Dialysis
Freud would have a field day with the healthcare debate and all things related to defending or attacking Obama. Then again, he'd have a field day with his mom. Zing? But anyway, it's interesting to ponder how much racism indirectly fuels opposition. I say indirect because I doubt that any significant group is actually thinking "I must oppose him because he's black." But having a slight distrust of black people would lower the threshold at which people would accept attacks on him. On the other hand, how many people defend him, perhaps consciously, because he's black and are afraid to appear racist.
Then again, the entire concept of the subconscious as some sort of active driver of behavior is quite unscientific due to the inherent impossibility of directly measuring it.
If only Obama were white and then we could viciously attack him for purely partisan reasons rather than there being possibilities of racism. Then again: "Bush doesn't care about black people." *sigh*
Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be
It is unfortunate that what is the most important document in America is practically unknown to most people. Or perhaps worse than that. If they were purely ignorant, they might recognize and try to fix that. When they're misinformed, then they see nothing to fix.
While I recognize that the Onion is not factual news, they don't usually make things up entirely out of nowhere. Instead they bring together various tendencies and exaggerate them for comedic effect.
Afghan Presidential Election A Celebration Of All Forms Of Government
I take back what I said about the Onion exaggerating.
American Muslims To Fort Hood Shooter: 'Thanks A Lot, Asshole'
Until this, I couldn't really remember the last time I saw or heard Muslims being portrayed as the bad guys. Maybe some bits during the fighting in Pakistan and of course the ever-present Taliban. The Obama administration had been working to reduce words like jihad and that sort of religious language to reduce the impression that we are at war with Islam. I guess it was working, until this.
Maybe Muslims wouldn't get the false impression that we're their enemy if our douchebag talking heads could stop saying Muslims are our enemy.
To run with that, the coverage of the story annoyed me. The initial story was just the constant every minute crap about Terrible Things, Horror, Massacre, and Oh Noes! That's the total wrong way to portray this. It is an event. It is not a football game where we need a play by play. Bring it up a few times a day as more is known, but we benefit in no way from the heartbreaking painful story of a family member watching and worrying. That reduces it to a generic Bad Things Happened to People. But since no one is ever content to actually analyze and solve a problem, now the Right has turned it into an opportunity to point fingers while the Left gets hyper-defensive. Meanwhile moderates are yelled at to pick sides.
Maybe I should form the Moderate Party. We won't have a political stance. We won't support any agenda. Instead we will be neutral on all issues with one exception: We viciously attack biased media.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Desperate Illegitimacy
I want to start out with a few disclaimers. First off, I was raised a moderate Catholic. I am not practicing anymore, but I would be lying if I said it had no effect on my views. Second, I am basing this post on impressions, bits and pieces here and there, not a total picture. With that out of the way, on with the show.
As I see it, Catholicism is a moderate branch of Christianity. On average and in leadership, I mean. Individuals vary of course. It has its stance on birth control and abortion (against them). In this regard it appears somewhat similar to many of the Protestant branches, especially the fundementalists. Catholics hold rallies and protests and try to change those around them.
However I see a major difference: They're not so angry and hateful. If you're read some of the writings from the Vatican, they're not about people burning in Hell for homosexuality. They instead say that people are happier when they live in accordance with [their interpretation of] God's will. They want to help. In contrast so many fundemendalists appear to have no interest in their fellow humans. They threaten lives and disrupt funerals and attack the men and women who defend their right to spew their shit.
I wonder if it has to do with legitimacy. The Catholic Church claims continuity with the Jewish and early Christian faiths. In this regard it is legitimate. If it has been corrupt at times, it has reformed itself and never broken away. It has never given up.
In contrast the fundementalists come from a tradition of breaking away at the slightest disagreement. There is no coming together to resolve disputes, there is no mediation, just leave the moment you disagree. Sure, early groups were excommunicated, but even after that they splintered. As a result, they may feel (as I think many should) that they lack authority. After all, who can respect a group which cannot resolve its differences without taking its ball and going somewhere else? In addition to that, they are not part of continuity. As much as they might wish to be part of tradition, they can only honestly claim to be new and struggling to get back to the source.
They cannot claim moral authority (for they have none) and they have no tradition of discussion or mediation. As a result, they have nothing to rely on but their own anger and hatred. New information is not something which they can handle, so they react as they always have: fighting it, ignoring it, breaking away. And so we have those who cannot even comprehend evolution and in their attempts to shut it out, they close out all of science as well. They leave themselves ignorant, shunning all knowledge which might further demonstrate the shoddiness of their beliefs.
In contrast the Catholic Church has a tradition of taking on conflicting information. It is not perfect. Not at all. Ask Galileo. Okay fine, that wouldn't help much, but you get my point. It can handle the idea of evolution. It can handle science. It can handle climate change. It can handle these because it is sure of its authority and legitimacy, so it has nothing to fear.
Throughout this I have likely made Catholicism sound better than it is. That was not intentional, but perhaps inevitable. I regard it as a powerful social force which should be listened to, even if not agreed with. I want to be sure that people understand that I do not mean to attack Protestantism. While its origins may make it seem illegitimate, the early breaks were for pure reasons: the Church was incredibly corrupt. Ideally they'd have worked more for reform, but perhaps at the time they did not see it as possible or it would have been too slow. We can still see how long it has taken for the Church to revoke many of its corrupt practices and acknowledge them.
My criticism is directed instead at Christian fundementalists. These are a sort who believe they are the only ones reading the Bible correctly. They see no room for interpretation or doubt, regarding those as sins to be punished. They see no room for knowledge because it reveals their flawed nature. In reality they are not much different than the Islamic fundementalists who murdered thousands of Americans and have committed uncountable acts of violence against everyone who might possibly disagree with them.
P.S. In retrospect I realized that this is from an American perspective of American religious groups. I know that Europe has a much different history with the various forms of Christianity. What little validity my argument may have is limited to the US.
As I see it, Catholicism is a moderate branch of Christianity. On average and in leadership, I mean. Individuals vary of course. It has its stance on birth control and abortion (against them). In this regard it appears somewhat similar to many of the Protestant branches, especially the fundementalists. Catholics hold rallies and protests and try to change those around them.
However I see a major difference: They're not so angry and hateful. If you're read some of the writings from the Vatican, they're not about people burning in Hell for homosexuality. They instead say that people are happier when they live in accordance with [their interpretation of] God's will. They want to help. In contrast so many fundemendalists appear to have no interest in their fellow humans. They threaten lives and disrupt funerals and attack the men and women who defend their right to spew their shit.
I wonder if it has to do with legitimacy. The Catholic Church claims continuity with the Jewish and early Christian faiths. In this regard it is legitimate. If it has been corrupt at times, it has reformed itself and never broken away. It has never given up.
In contrast the fundementalists come from a tradition of breaking away at the slightest disagreement. There is no coming together to resolve disputes, there is no mediation, just leave the moment you disagree. Sure, early groups were excommunicated, but even after that they splintered. As a result, they may feel (as I think many should) that they lack authority. After all, who can respect a group which cannot resolve its differences without taking its ball and going somewhere else? In addition to that, they are not part of continuity. As much as they might wish to be part of tradition, they can only honestly claim to be new and struggling to get back to the source.
They cannot claim moral authority (for they have none) and they have no tradition of discussion or mediation. As a result, they have nothing to rely on but their own anger and hatred. New information is not something which they can handle, so they react as they always have: fighting it, ignoring it, breaking away. And so we have those who cannot even comprehend evolution and in their attempts to shut it out, they close out all of science as well. They leave themselves ignorant, shunning all knowledge which might further demonstrate the shoddiness of their beliefs.
In contrast the Catholic Church has a tradition of taking on conflicting information. It is not perfect. Not at all. Ask Galileo. Okay fine, that wouldn't help much, but you get my point. It can handle the idea of evolution. It can handle science. It can handle climate change. It can handle these because it is sure of its authority and legitimacy, so it has nothing to fear.
Throughout this I have likely made Catholicism sound better than it is. That was not intentional, but perhaps inevitable. I regard it as a powerful social force which should be listened to, even if not agreed with. I want to be sure that people understand that I do not mean to attack Protestantism. While its origins may make it seem illegitimate, the early breaks were for pure reasons: the Church was incredibly corrupt. Ideally they'd have worked more for reform, but perhaps at the time they did not see it as possible or it would have been too slow. We can still see how long it has taken for the Church to revoke many of its corrupt practices and acknowledge them.
My criticism is directed instead at Christian fundementalists. These are a sort who believe they are the only ones reading the Bible correctly. They see no room for interpretation or doubt, regarding those as sins to be punished. They see no room for knowledge because it reveals their flawed nature. In reality they are not much different than the Islamic fundementalists who murdered thousands of Americans and have committed uncountable acts of violence against everyone who might possibly disagree with them.
P.S. In retrospect I realized that this is from an American perspective of American religious groups. I know that Europe has a much different history with the various forms of Christianity. What little validity my argument may have is limited to the US.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Emotion and Reason are not exclusive
Too often I see people try to be rational, logical, use reason; they use all sorts of terms for it, by removing emotion. I understand the attempt; too often it appears that emotion ruins logic and leads to terrible decisions. But removing logic is not going to work.
The attempt to remove emotion from argument is itself emotional, or at least irrational; a backlash against a variable which is difficult to manage. It is the result of giving up, of surrendering to complexity and accepting partial solutions. It is deceiving oneself into thinking that a solution based on half the variables is correct when it cannot possibly correct since it is based on well, half the variables.
I must clarify: emotion should not dominate. It should only play it's proper role. That role is to assign values. Without emotion, what value is there in anything? At best we're left with base instinct for creating values. By pure, emotionless logic, there is no objective value in anything, there is only that which we assign to it and the value which we assign was at some point emotional.
Emotion should not be used as a substitute for logic or reason. To use a mathematical analogy; emotion is a value but it is not an equation or a solution.
Rational emotion is not an oxymoron.
The attempt to remove emotion from argument is itself emotional, or at least irrational; a backlash against a variable which is difficult to manage. It is the result of giving up, of surrendering to complexity and accepting partial solutions. It is deceiving oneself into thinking that a solution based on half the variables is correct when it cannot possibly correct since it is based on well, half the variables.
I must clarify: emotion should not dominate. It should only play it's proper role. That role is to assign values. Without emotion, what value is there in anything? At best we're left with base instinct for creating values. By pure, emotionless logic, there is no objective value in anything, there is only that which we assign to it and the value which we assign was at some point emotional.
Emotion should not be used as a substitute for logic or reason. To use a mathematical analogy; emotion is a value but it is not an equation or a solution.
Rational emotion is not an oxymoron.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Being better than them, How to
From The New York Times
Mr. Hoekstra said he feared that Mr. Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators would try to make the trial “a circus” and “use it as a platform to push their ideology.” Why, he asked, should Mr. Mohammed and the other suspects be given “the extraordinary protections that you and I have as American citizens?”
Why? Because this is what makes us better than the terrorists.
It is our protection of legal rights, our offering of fair trials, our sense of justice and fairness which makes us better than the terrorists.
It is this coddling, this being soft on terrorism, this excess kindness which gives us the moral authority to say that terrorists are wrong. If we stoop to their level even the slightest bit, we are surrendering to them. We won't say it, but when we become as indiscriminate, as unjust as them, we become them. We can wave flags and preach a different faith, but we won't be different enough just by that.
Being better than the terrorists isn't about having better technology or more money, it's about being morally superior. I don't mean by choosing the right old book to read from. I mean innately superior, the superiority that comes from a fair system of legal justice that does not rush to conclusions or harm the innocent. It is the superiority of just actions, of broadly applied just actions.
We cannot afford to set aside justice and fairness for even a moment, no matter how much people decry it as coddling. Let them throw away their values out of fear. Let them betray the moral superiority of America. Call them the cowards, and move on along the high road.
There is no dichotomy of freedom and security; instead it is freedom which brings security. I'll talk more about that in a later post.
Mr. Hoekstra said he feared that Mr. Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators would try to make the trial “a circus” and “use it as a platform to push their ideology.” Why, he asked, should Mr. Mohammed and the other suspects be given “the extraordinary protections that you and I have as American citizens?”
Why? Because this is what makes us better than the terrorists.
It is our protection of legal rights, our offering of fair trials, our sense of justice and fairness which makes us better than the terrorists.
It is this coddling, this being soft on terrorism, this excess kindness which gives us the moral authority to say that terrorists are wrong. If we stoop to their level even the slightest bit, we are surrendering to them. We won't say it, but when we become as indiscriminate, as unjust as them, we become them. We can wave flags and preach a different faith, but we won't be different enough just by that.
Being better than the terrorists isn't about having better technology or more money, it's about being morally superior. I don't mean by choosing the right old book to read from. I mean innately superior, the superiority that comes from a fair system of legal justice that does not rush to conclusions or harm the innocent. It is the superiority of just actions, of broadly applied just actions.
We cannot afford to set aside justice and fairness for even a moment, no matter how much people decry it as coddling. Let them throw away their values out of fear. Let them betray the moral superiority of America. Call them the cowards, and move on along the high road.
There is no dichotomy of freedom and security; instead it is freedom which brings security. I'll talk more about that in a later post.
Friday, November 13, 2009
How to destroy America
Step one: Destroy the Constitution bit by bit.
Step two: You're done.
For bonus points: Fuck over business as the same time.
I present to you the dishonorable and treasonous moron in judge's clothing: Judge Hubel
http://volokh.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Mosman.pdf
Here's the short version: You are not safe from warrant-less search and seizure of your private data if it us stored on a third-party server.
His justification: You're leaving it outside your house so protection no longer applies. The third party host can read it and give it out to advertisers, so you've thrown away the fourth amendment protection.
This is a direct attack on the freedom and privacy of every single American. Yes, all of us. Or 99%. Who has zero data stored in third-party locations? Pretty much no one, so we're all affected. In one poorly thought-out opinion, the judge took a huge step towards destroying freedom.
I've said it before that the Internet is the new free place; the most free place of all. By wiping out the fourth amendment almost across the board, this judge has ruined that.
"This feature of the Internet has profound implications for how the Fourth Amendment protects Internet communications-if it protects them at all."
This shouldn't even be a question. Unless we're talking about something like suspect terrorist plots or child porn, something of very clear security or legal concern, it's protected unless we run around the streets shouting it and handing out copies. The question shouldn't be if a freedom applies, but whether it doesn't apply. We have freedom first, then we lose it; we shouldn't need his permission to be free. Apparently we don't have his permission anyway.
Where is the line? When do we recognize that no one has removed any of our freedom except other Americans?
He is eager to destroy freedom rather than protect it. When someone eagerly and intentionally destroys freedom, he is attacking America. Ideally that would mean the legal system taking him down. It has repeatedly shown that it either cannot or will not take down those who corrupt American from within.
By so eagerly attacking freedom he has ceased to be a legitimate legal authority. He's no better than the Supreme Court which ruled that black men are property and should be shipped back when they seek freedom. If America had respected freedom then, it would have removed them from power for so aggressively attacking it. We should learn from the past. How long did it take to correct that wrong? It's time we stopped bowing down to illegitimate authorities.
Oh but let's finish on a high note: This isn't like the attacks on net neutrality that hurt people in favor of massive corporations. If it's any consolation, this ruling fucks over businesses just as much. Yep, this judge is fair it that he ruins two aspects of America: free people and free business, in one single move.
P.S. I wish I didn't self-censor so much. Am I a hypocrite? I say people should stand up in defiance of power and consequence when freedom is at stake. And yet here I sit doing next to nothing. I even rewrote much of this to take out the parts which are potentially illegal. I'm the worst patriot ever, too afraid to even say something. Perhaps freedom of speech is already dead because we kill it ourselves with every word we don't say because we're afraid.
Step two: You're done.
For bonus points: Fuck over business as the same time.
I present to you the dishonorable and treasonous moron in judge's clothing: Judge Hubel
http://volokh.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Mosman.pdf
Here's the short version: You are not safe from warrant-less search and seizure of your private data if it us stored on a third-party server.
His justification: You're leaving it outside your house so protection no longer applies. The third party host can read it and give it out to advertisers, so you've thrown away the fourth amendment protection.
This is a direct attack on the freedom and privacy of every single American. Yes, all of us. Or 99%. Who has zero data stored in third-party locations? Pretty much no one, so we're all affected. In one poorly thought-out opinion, the judge took a huge step towards destroying freedom.
I've said it before that the Internet is the new free place; the most free place of all. By wiping out the fourth amendment almost across the board, this judge has ruined that.
"This feature of the Internet has profound implications for how the Fourth Amendment protects Internet communications-if it protects them at all."
This shouldn't even be a question. Unless we're talking about something like suspect terrorist plots or child porn, something of very clear security or legal concern, it's protected unless we run around the streets shouting it and handing out copies. The question shouldn't be if a freedom applies, but whether it doesn't apply. We have freedom first, then we lose it; we shouldn't need his permission to be free. Apparently we don't have his permission anyway.
Where is the line? When do we recognize that no one has removed any of our freedom except other Americans?
He is eager to destroy freedom rather than protect it. When someone eagerly and intentionally destroys freedom, he is attacking America. Ideally that would mean the legal system taking him down. It has repeatedly shown that it either cannot or will not take down those who corrupt American from within.
By so eagerly attacking freedom he has ceased to be a legitimate legal authority. He's no better than the Supreme Court which ruled that black men are property and should be shipped back when they seek freedom. If America had respected freedom then, it would have removed them from power for so aggressively attacking it. We should learn from the past. How long did it take to correct that wrong? It's time we stopped bowing down to illegitimate authorities.
Oh but let's finish on a high note: This isn't like the attacks on net neutrality that hurt people in favor of massive corporations. If it's any consolation, this ruling fucks over businesses just as much. Yep, this judge is fair it that he ruins two aspects of America: free people and free business, in one single move.
P.S. I wish I didn't self-censor so much. Am I a hypocrite? I say people should stand up in defiance of power and consequence when freedom is at stake. And yet here I sit doing next to nothing. I even rewrote much of this to take out the parts which are potentially illegal. I'm the worst patriot ever, too afraid to even say something. Perhaps freedom of speech is already dead because we kill it ourselves with every word we don't say because we're afraid.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
How to be a worthless organization
Step one: Attack anyone is the same field.
Step two: Distort everything to suit your agenda.
Step three: You're done.
FOX gets bonus points for throwing in some religious sniping for good measure.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/10/coverage-fort-hood-shooting-press-dodges-religious-component/
Fine, I'll admit it, they're right: his faith probably did motivate his actions. However FOX doesn't say exactly that. Instead they talk about being a Muslim.
The man in question was not a Muslim at the time of the shooting. Muslims don't randomly kill what were effectively innocent people. What I mean is that he may have called himself a Muslim, but his shooting was not him following the teachings of Islam. His shooting was him being something else, something wrong.
So to bring up Islam would be the same as to point at the Westborro Baptists as examples of how Christianity is bad. They call themselves Christians, but their true selves, what motivates them, is being intolerant, small-minded, and all-in-all cruel.
They claim in the article, criticizing another news commenter: "I think he's knee-deep in political correctness, as so many people are, including now, as we know, the United States military. Political correctness is turning out to be the death of this country."
Right...
Lies, deception, and half-truths are what kill our country. It was a lie that sent our troops to Iraq. It was deception that corrupted that soldiers faith. It is half-truths that spur paranoia and bigotry.
In the interest of being fully truthful, I must accept that FOX is not worthless. To be worthless it would have to have no worth, no value; zero. It is not zero though. It is negative. FOX is a blight upon the world media.
America needs a real conservative news organization, not this shit. They should be ashamed of themselves, but what's the profit in that?
Step two: Distort everything to suit your agenda.
Step three: You're done.
FOX gets bonus points for throwing in some religious sniping for good measure.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/10/coverage-fort-hood-shooting-press-dodges-religious-component/
Fine, I'll admit it, they're right: his faith probably did motivate his actions. However FOX doesn't say exactly that. Instead they talk about being a Muslim.
The man in question was not a Muslim at the time of the shooting. Muslims don't randomly kill what were effectively innocent people. What I mean is that he may have called himself a Muslim, but his shooting was not him following the teachings of Islam. His shooting was him being something else, something wrong.
So to bring up Islam would be the same as to point at the Westborro Baptists as examples of how Christianity is bad. They call themselves Christians, but their true selves, what motivates them, is being intolerant, small-minded, and all-in-all cruel.
They claim in the article, criticizing another news commenter: "I think he's knee-deep in political correctness, as so many people are, including now, as we know, the United States military. Political correctness is turning out to be the death of this country."
Right...
Lies, deception, and half-truths are what kill our country. It was a lie that sent our troops to Iraq. It was deception that corrupted that soldiers faith. It is half-truths that spur paranoia and bigotry.
In the interest of being fully truthful, I must accept that FOX is not worthless. To be worthless it would have to have no worth, no value; zero. It is not zero though. It is negative. FOX is a blight upon the world media.
America needs a real conservative news organization, not this shit. They should be ashamed of themselves, but what's the profit in that?
Monday, November 9, 2009
If you say "tall poppy syndrome"
You need to stop whining. Oh boo hoo, society is putting pressure on you to conform. Other people are jealous; they don't want you to be better than them. So what? Stop crying about it.
If you're so god damn special, then just be special. You don't have to be special in spite of them. That's giving credit to the exact people who you are supposed to be defying.
I get it, it can be tough. There may be a million people all around you pulling you down. Is the solution to cry about it? No. That's what they would do, cry about things. Something gets in their way, they give up. If you want to be a 'tall poppy' then you have to stand up and not hunch down in their pity parties. Yes, you are a part of their pity party even if you won't admit it.
Sorry that I just sounded like a total asshole. It happens when I get annoyed. Oops.
If you're so god damn special, then just be special. You don't have to be special in spite of them. That's giving credit to the exact people who you are supposed to be defying.
I get it, it can be tough. There may be a million people all around you pulling you down. Is the solution to cry about it? No. That's what they would do, cry about things. Something gets in their way, they give up. If you want to be a 'tall poppy' then you have to stand up and not hunch down in their pity parties. Yes, you are a part of their pity party even if you won't admit it.
Sorry that I just sounded like a total asshole. It happens when I get annoyed. Oops.
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