…as if any more were necessary:
Patriotism for Dummies. Mindless nationalism for the rest of us!
Further evidence that I’m goingto hell…
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Tag Archives: politics
And ganked from Sinboy’s journal…
Republican senator calls for nuking Syria in church, everyone laughs and claps.
Where do these people come from? I don’t know what’s more insane–the fact that there are still people who think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or the fact that there are legislators who think those weapons were secretly buried in Syria, or the fact that in this day and age a man can go to church and call for an unprovoked nuclear attack on another country and get cheered for it.
Guys, not to be the bearer of bad tidings, but:
Randomness at a grocery store, and the suckitude of life
At the grocery store this evening, between the frozen aisle and the canned goods, two women bumped into each other and started talking about a mutual acquaintance. “Has So-and so gotten married yet?” “No, she’s still not married.” “Really? That’s too bad.” “Yeah, i don’t know what it is. She has to find a husband some time.” “Maybe she’s just too picky.”
Dear God, I didn’t know there was anyone left like that in the world–not for real. Seriously. I thought that was something you’d only find on bad TV sitcoms. This is 2004, not 1904, right? Women do have value that doesn’t derive from their husbands, right?
Later, at the checkout line, the cashier looks at me and says “You know what’s interesting? All these countries that don’t like the USA, and say bad things about America, when something happens to them, who do they turn to? We give everyone in the world handouts and they still don’t like us. Like Russia. And why doesn’t Canada have its own army?”
The Universe of Suck Department: This weekend, Shelly and I were supposed to go to Atlanta with nihilus and phyrra so we could look at apartments, then from there up to Nashville to pick up their car. And as it turns out, next weekend I’ll be in Miami Beach with a client instead. Suck, suck, suck.
Debris from a divided nation
Noted without comment.
Some thoughts on the political process
I have a lot of things to post about our recent trip to Key West, and (as usual) lots of bandwidth-devouring, not-safe-for-work photos to go with. This isn’t that post, however.
On the way to Key West, i saw a truck with a patriotic bumper sticker–the one that has a picture of the American flag and the slogan “These Colors Don’t Run.” The sticker was printed with cheap inks, which had faded almost to nonexistance inthe sun–the red stripes on the flag were sunbleached to pale yellow, the slogan was barely readable. How appropriate, I thought.
Right now, America is the world’s sole superpower. Right now, we can do pretty much as we please on the world stage; right now, there is nobody who can out-muscle us. problem is, right now we’re facing an adversary who isn’t competing with us on our own territory. The Cold War, that bitter war of attrition with the Soviet Union, was largely about who could out-muscle the other, an arm wrestling match fought with nuclear weapons and with conventional weapons in thousands of indirect ways all over the globe. The Taliban in Afghanistan was an American creation; we found, trained, armed, paid, and equipped the most virulent, anti-Western, reactionary, xenophobic bunch of fanatic whackos we could find and set them loose against the Russians, hoping to bog the old USSR down in an unwinnable quagmire in Afghanistan. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
So the Soviet Union is no more, and we’re the supreme military power in the world. These colors don’t run; that’s not what happens to solitary superpowers. These colors, instead, gradually fade away.
Being a solitary superpower is not a sustainable proposition. Ask the Persians, or the Romans, or the British. Indeed, we find throughout history that Afghanistan and Iraq are the places where world superpowers go to die.
During the fading days of the British empire, the British found themselves up to their hips in the quagmire of Afghanistan, spending what was left of its resources in a feeble and ultimately fruitless effort to bring order to that part of the world. Meanwhile, across the ocean, America was quietly and steadily building its own political, economic, technical, and military might. By the time the British realized what was happening, they’d been consumed in Afghanistan just as the Soviets would later be, and in Iraq, and they looked around and realized that the world had passed them by…the British Empire had faded, quite without anyone realizing it, and the nation that was once the reigning superpower was suddenly an also-ran.
So. Fast forward to today, and we have…a world superpower slowly being consumed in Afghanistan and Iraq, while across the ocean, another country, this time China, is quietly and steadily building its own political, economic, technical, and military might. The Chinese economy, which depends far less on the rest of the world than ours, is slowly becoming a mammoth juggernaut; the Chinese now publish more research papers every year than we Americans do; the Chinese are developing their own ambitious manned space program; the Chinese government is investing heavily in manufacturing, R&D, and technical firms abroad… Haven’t we seen this script before?
Afghanistan and Iraq is where world superpowers go to die. You’d think someone would have noticed by now.
I voted today. I doubt anybody will be surprised at the way I voted. Had a dead mackerel been running against Bush, I would’ve voted for the fish. “Vote smelly fish for a stronger America!” “The fish–it can’t do a worse job, right?” I did, however, jump outside the Democrat/Libertarian paradigm in my local elections, where I actually feel those votes might be of some use.
On a completely unrelated subject, I got my Alcor paperwork yesterday. Once I have it filled out and notarized, I’m in. I have to find some witnesses who’ll sign it as well; coordinating the witnesses and the notary, and a bit of luck, is all that stands between me and having a life that’s long enough to have some prayer of seeing a time, far far in the future, when human beings the world over will actually learn something from history. But then, I’m an optimist. I know that because OK Cupid says so.
War, war, waaaaar in Iraq…and daddy wants a new computer!
So far, the United States has spent a grand total of approximately $139,744,240,000 on the war in Iraq, not counting indirect costs or human lives.
*blink*
That’s roughly $474 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. You know, I could kind of use that money right now.
Or, put another way, that is:
– Enough money to build 69 space stations, with sufficient money left over to double the size of the Space Shuttle fleet;
– Enough money to give full college scholarships to 3,493,606 college students;
– Enough money to multiply the Federally-funded programs on AIDS and cancer research by 46 times, with enough left over to double the amount of health insurance subsidies available to low-income citizens;
– Enough to multiply Federal law enforcement and anti-terrorism budgets by a factor of five, with enough left over to double the number of guaranteed student loans;
– Enough money to increase the budget for national parks and wildlife preserves by two hundred and sixteen times;
– Enough money to rebuild every single interstate and US highway in the entire country, with enough left over to pay the salaries of 305,690 new police officers (at salaries two percent higher than the national average);
– Enough money to give every single schoolteacher in the country a $22,000 a year raise;
– Enough money to multiply the total national budget for education by two times, with enough money left over to double the budget for the EPA and double the budget for the National Science Foundation and pay for another Space Shuttle and triple the senior citizen prescription drug benefit;
– Enough money to clean up every single Superfund environmental site, with enough left over to double the Veteran’s Administration fund and wire every public school and library to the Internet.
I wonder if the war on Iraq represents the best value for that money.
So. About the weekend.
Saturday
Shelly and I went to the beach, and ended up staying until very late at night. On the way there, we sat in traffic for over an hour, as there’s only one bridge out to Clearwater beach from the mainland, and it was closed. There was a detour, which was closed as well. So we amused ourselves by inventing stories about the people–three men and a woman–in the car in front of us. I shan’t disturb you with the details, as they would…disturb you.
We’d planned to take a kite to the beach and fly it with the digital camera attached, so we could get some aerial photos. This plan was thwarted by the twin facts that (a) my heavy-lift kite is still in Boston (sob!) and (b) there wasn’t a breath of wind.
Once at the beach, we met this guy:
He looks fearsome until you realize that he’s, like, a quarter of an inch stem to stern.
Later, we had dinner on the beach, and I had my first exposure to raw fish (ahi tuna), which was nothing like I expected.
Sunday
Sunday, we went to a gun show with three-quarters of the Smooshlings. It was simultaneously interesting, creepy, and slightly horrifying.
Interesting: A dealer selling cannon. Real, working cannon–a six-pounder modeled after the bronze cannon Napolean used, a small bombard cannon that fired tennis balls filled with concrete, even a hand cannon that fired .45-caliber lead balls. Want want want the six-pounder and the bombard. Also a very nice H&K 9mm I’d love to take home with me, but not for $899 (ack!). A bookseller: the complete guide to manufacturing drugs right next to the complete guide to Ty’s Beanie Babies.
Creepy: Pro-Bush and pro-NRA propaganda plastered over every available surface. A booth selling bumper stickers reading “Loud Wives Lose Lives” and “Equal Rights for Southern Whites”. Posters and T-shirts proclaiming the right to “bare arms.”
Slightly horrifying: The booth selling Nazi memorabilia. An SS officer’s uniform, an autographed picture of Adolph Hitler, helmets and swords with swastikas on them.
We bailed for about an hour and went to the antique car show going on about a hundred yards down the road. Found a Ford Model T that had been retrofitted with a fully blown big-block V8 engine for sale for only $32,000. Just the thing for towing that Napoleanic six-pounder. Later, we went to dinner with the Smooshlings and other friends, and got to hear a tale of ketchup. (Ask datan0de about that one…)
And then, of course, the laptop failed, which was something of a down ending for the weekend. That’s what life is–a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets…but I digress.
The laptop is still backing up as I type this. Will be done soon. Sentence fragments. Good device. Will be used more later.
Some Thoughts on Republicans, Libertarians, and the American Political Process
First, the bad news.
On November 3, 2004, the winning President-elect will not be a Libertarian or a Green Party member. He will be a Republican or a Democrat.
Sorry, folks. It’s true. Deep in your hearts, you know it’s true.
Now, the worse news.
Voting for a third-party candidate won’t change that.
No, I’m not going to tell you that if you vote Libertarian or Green or whatever, you’re throwing your vote away. On the contrary. A third-party vote is extremely effective. If you vote Libertarian, or whatever, you’re voting for George W. Bush. It’s quite likely that it will be the Libertarian and Green votes that put Dubya in the White House.
The Republicans know something that the rest of us don’t; they know how to operate effectively. It’s why the Republicans are spending a lot of money and a lot of time making damn sure that Ralph Nader and other “alternative” candidates make it on the ballots in certain key states. It’s pretty simple, really; if you can buy, trick, or cajole one percent of the enemy’s voters into opting out of an election that hangs on half a percent of the vite, you win.
So, the Republicans are financing Nader. They’re saying “There, there, you tree-hugging faggot-loving liberal, you go pretend to vote while we get on with the business of winning the election. That’s right, you Godless Arab-loving little pervert, you teach us a lesson. You show us where it’s at and send a message to us about how you feel about politics…by letting us win. Good little liberal.” In secret, of course, they’re laughing all the way to the White House.
Six of one ain’t half a dozen of the other.
In the 2000 election, I watched a speech by Ralph Nader in which he made the claim that it matters little if the Republicans or the Democrats win; they were, he claimed, exactly the same–the “Republicrat Party”–and one was as good as the other. In that moment, I knew I would never vote for him, because in his bid to win the Presidential election, he had sacrificed his own greatest asset–his intellectual integrity.
A lie repeated often enough will be believed, no matter how outlandish it may be. Witness, for example, the mind-boggling number of people who believe that the “borrow and spend” Republicans are more fiscally responsible than Democrats.
The notion that the Democratic and Republican parties are the same is even more absurd. The last Democrat left office with a budget surplus, and had begun paying down the national debt; now, less than four years later, the Republicans have turned that budget surplus into the greatest budget deficit the nation has ever seen, in its entire history, ever. Federal standards on drinking water safety have gone down, logging and mining on Federal land has gone up, all under Republican watch…yeah, Ralph, they’re all the same, and you really showed us what for, didn’t ya? A Fundamentalist Christian who believes in anointing himself with oil, writes articles for white-supremacist magazines, and who thinks calico cats are demons sent out of Hell by Satan–I swear I am not making this up–holds the position of Attorney General of the United States. Think Gore’s Attorney General would look like that? Don’t bet on it.
The curse of the two-party system
Okay, time for another truth: The two-party political system sucks. It leaves little room for serious debate and no room for dissenting viewpoints; for people, like me, who live well outside the center of the bell curve, the two-party system works very poorly indeed.
But there’s another truth lying half-submerged beneath that truth: Right now, in October 2004, we have a two-party system, and it’s too late to change that before the general election next month. In twenty-four days’ time, the President-elect will be a Democrat or a Republican. Period. Deal with it.
The secret to weilding power–the secret to changing the world around you–is to understand the difference between action that is effective and action that is not. If you want to change the world, you must first understand what it would take to make that change. What would it take to create a three-party system? Voting Libertarian or Green ain’t it. The Republicans know that; that’s why they’re making sure Nader is on the ballot! The only way to create a viable three-party system is to get a viable candidate before the general election begins. A third-party candidate who doesn’t have a wide and deep voter base before the Republican and Democratic primaries doesn’t have a shot; it’s that simple. If he’s not already a contender before the run-up to the general election, this election is already over for him; the most effective course of action is to start planning for the next.
Realism is not defeatism
“But if everyone who wanted a three-party system would all vote Libertarian in the election, things would change!”
Bullshit.
In fact, that doesn’t do the idea justice. Let me rephrase. Pure, rich, deep bullshit, shit from the very finest of Texas bulls hand-fed with the choicest of grains to ensure the most fragrant aroma and most jucy texture. Bullshit of the kind to make a grown man weep and children tremble. Bullshit of such magnificence as to make the strongest ofmen say, “Ayup, that’s bullshit, and I ain’t never seen its like afore.”
Bullshit. If everyone who wanted a three-party system voted Libertarian in the upcoming election, the Libertarian candidate might be thrilled and delighted to see that he’d bested all previous records and won a stunning four percent of the vote.
Now, I’m not saying there are not a whole lot of Americans who are dissatisfied with the two-party system as usual. There are. Just go to a Fundamentalist revival some time, and you’ll see that anger and disenchantment with two-party politics runs deep; there are many patriotic Americans who believe in their deepest of hearts that two party-politics means one party too many. Witness, for example, the Texas politicians warning their constituency in the direst of voices that if the Democrats win, “Bibles will be banned” and “men will no longer be permitted to marry women.” (Again, I swear I am not making this up.)
The fact of the matter is, most people don’t think about politics that much. They go to the polls (or, more often, stay away from the polls) every four years, hoping the guy with the best haircut wins. Anyone who’s waiting for the sudden backlash against politics as usual to usher the Libertarian into the White House on a sudden and unexpected wave of popular support had best not hold his breath.
You want to vote your conscience? You want to cast your vote for the person who best matches your ideas? Fine, but do so with your eyes open; we are all, at the end of the day, responsible even for the unintended consequences of our decisions. There’s a reason the Republicans are putting political opponents on the ballot: if you’re voting for a third-party candidate, you are part of the Republican strategy for winning this election. Cast your vote, but know what you’re voting for: four more years of the same.
And now, for some good news
A three-party system is possible.
It’s not going to happen this November; political and social change doesn’t happen that way. The curse of every revolutionary who has ever lived is that most of the time, most of the people simply don’t care.
But it can happen nevertheless.
There’s a catch: It takes more than going to the polls once every four years and voting Libertarian. It takes actual long-term, dedicated work. And it isn’t going to happen from the top down; sorry, that ain’t how it works. It has to happen from the bottom up.
You want to vote Libertarian, and have your vote mean something more than Bush in the White House? Vote Libertarian in the place where you can do the most good: in your local elections. Work from the ground up. Support third-party candidates close to home, where your vote carries more weight and you’re able to cast your vote without being manipulated by the Republican machine. Work at home. Create an environment where people say “Hey, if the Libertarians (or Greens or whoever) are doing right for me in City Hall, maybe they’ll do right for me in state politics, too.” You don’t walk from one coast to the other in a single step; you walk from one coast to the other by putting one foot in front of the other a whole bunch of times.
If a third party wants to field a candidate with a realistic chance of winning the Presidency, that third party is doomed from the start if it doesn’t have at least a billion dollars behind it. It’s no accident that Ross Perot came closer than anyone before him–and even he didn’t get double-digit support. But on a state and local level, a tenth that much money and a tenth that much work is going to get a whole lot of people who aren’t Democrats or Republicans into a whole lot of places.
It’s all about using power effectively–and that’s a lesson we can learn from the people who already know it.
Fun Links o’ the Day, and ups and downs
Ganked from ladytabitha:
Search 4 billion digits of Pi looking for your phone number. The odds of finding any arbitrary seven-digit sequence buried somewhere in Pi are almost 100%. Wasn’t there a science-fiction story about God hiding a secret message somewhere inside of Pi?
Ganked from mobiusmuse:
Given its record of abject miserable failure, how can the Republican Party possibly persuade people to vote Republican? This hilarious movie, taken directly from the speeches of top Republican leaders themselves, spells it out pretty nicely.
Plusses and minuses:
+ Going to FantasyFest in Key West over Halloween!
+ Necronomicon starts next weekend!
– Shelly has a cold… 🙁
+ Tampa Fetish Party the weekend after Necro
– Shelly will not be going to San Francisco with me in January; school starts the same week as MacWorld.
+ I’ve got a quote for Alcor life insurance, and should have the insurance in four to five weeks, which means I’m well on-track to have my Alcor bracelet by year’s end. Yay!
+ Alcor will be offering whole-body vitrification soon!
+ We’ve drafted datan0de and merovingian to help develop the characters and art for the post-apocalyptic Flash cartoon that will (soon? eventually?) be hosted at Doomsday Sex.
From another forum: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN
Joe gets up at 6 am and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance — now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body an d how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It’s noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.
Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”