Politician Hate

Hey everybody. Just got back from Mexico. sorry about not posting anything but wi-fi is ridiculously expensive in those resorts. Anyway, I'm back and I'll be churning out some great new blogs for you this week. For instance, I recently finished Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" so I shall be writing a blog or two on it and its comparisons to other Orwellian dystopia futures. I will include "1984", "V for Vendetta" (movie only), "Equilibrium" (underrated movie starring Christian Bale), and perhaps a few others. If you'd suggest a few to me I'd greatly appreciate it.

In the meantime, have some politician hate pictures.

Yes, they're all copied straight from pundit kitchen. But they seem like the sort of thing you guys would appreciate. Cheers!

Political Wallpapers

Some of these aren't strictly political, but I'm sure you see the relevance regardless.

I'll be on vacation for the next week, so I won't be posting as much. But don't forget to check back for updates!

Left and Right

Left:

• Urban
• Peaceful
• Equality for everybody > individual freedoms
• Focus on laborers rather than employers
• Less emphasis on organized religion, more on Scientific progress
• Homeless and Criminals are downtrodden victims of society
• Multicultural

Right:

• Theistic, Organized Religion important for everyday life
• Homeless and Criminals have no work ethic, chose their path
• Equality
• Generally more popular in Rural areas
• An Employer is more important ultimately than an Employee
• Multiculturalism is betrayal of the homeland
• Emphasis on the Necessity of war

Note that these may focus on American Left/Right wing politics, but they also apply worldwide.

I'm personally mostly on the left side of the spectrum, but almost nobody fully agrees with everything their side stands for. I certainly don't.

In The Words of a very smart Man

I see in us the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see in us all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual War...our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

On Politics Today

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

-Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower,

in a letter to his brother Edgar on November 8, 1954

Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war ?

-President Richard Nixon,

Real Peace 1983

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed; those who are cold and are not clothed ?

-President Eisenhower,

The Chance For Peace, April 1963

Japan was already defeated ... dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.

-General and Future President Eisenhower

To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero ... assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability.

-George Bush Sr,

A World Transformed, 1998

This, I believe, serves to demonstrate how politically far right the United States has been getting pulled over the last couple of years.

Legalize it!

Now I've never smoked marijuana, but even I can understand the importance of letting the individual make their own choices regarding what they choose to put in their body. I personally believe that the governments of the world should take a lesson from the Netherlands and allow those who wish it to purchase and consume the drug within designated public areas as well as their private properties.

The very least that could be done is legalize it for medical reasons. Remember the Hippocratic oath? First do no harm. Doctors would make sure that whenever marijuana is prescribed, it would be done so for legitimate reasons. Abuse, which is technically impossible, of the drug would be next to nonexistent.

But there's also the option of allowing public consumption altogether, in a similar manner to how cigarettes are handled today. The facts show that marijuana use does not significantly affect motor skills associated with the average workplace or those with driving. Ultimately it would be safer than both cigarettes and alcohol.

Marijuana use and possession are often referred to as "victimless crimes"

So legalize it today!

Would You?

Scenario: Scientists have recently developed a brain implant that allows the user to be connected mentally and emotionally with everyone who possesses such an implant, creating a virtual "Hive Mind" reminiscent of the Borg collective from the Star Trek Series.

Would you participate?

Consider the implications: nobody would know exactly what the psychological implications would be. There is a very strong possibility that the individual would completely lose their identity. Emotions and intentions are communicated every day through conversation. But the fact remains that language is a relatively inefficient way to communicate information. By contrast, the theoretical microchip implant would be able to let others know exactly what you mean exactly how you mean it.

Privacy would also become a thing of the past. Every deep dark thought or intention would be exposed for everyone for all the participants to experience and judge. Would this be an acceptable tradeoff?

So the question remains: Would you do it?

True Democracy

It was once said that Democracy at it purest form is nothing more than conversation. Whoever said this had obviously never seen the internet.

Democracy thrives when free speech and discourse are not only permitted but actually encouraged. The individual invents a political hypothesis which they then spread to the rest of the populace. The people then dissect the hypothesis, picking out every minor flaw and splitting every lat hair, but this only causes the hypothesis to grow stronger over time. Perhaps it picks up some influence from different political beliefs which may include everything from capitalism to communism. Eventually the hypothesis has grown into something realistic, something that the people would be willing to put into practice. The democratic system facilitates this rather nicely. If the idea winds up benefiting the community overall it will most likely be kept around. If not than the democratic system will ensure that it does not remain in practice for much longer.

The key to this is the free exchange of ideas. The open marketplace of hypotheses. Without a system in place in which the individual can be exposed to new ideas and new criticisms, the state system will become stagnant. Change would be incredibly difficult to facilitate. People would be locked in partisan bickering. There would be no "right" and "wrong" but only "loud" and "louder". This is a form of authoritarianism in which nobody is in charge. It is essentially an anarchic authoritarian dystopia.

Fortunately for modern times, the internet exists as a source of rational discourse between like minded individuals. This serves to belay the absurd amount of closed-mindedness that the mainstream political media is pushing onto the citizens. One can speculate all sorts of irrational theories that the internet serves as the collective subconscious of very human that uses it, or that it was created not of technology and business but out of necessity to the human race. The only theory that can be supported with evidence at this particular point in time is that the internet is completely essential to the evolution of humanity.

The worst thing that could happen is for authoritarianism to gain hold of this particular free marketplace of ideas. Be they corporations such as Google and your internet service providers, or governments such as China and the United States, no version of control must be placed over this as-of-yet still free domain. This is the place where bad ideas come to die, and where the good ideas may yet survive despite layers upon layers of propaganda.

"VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI"

Thanks to All!

I just wanted to take the time to thank all of my (currently) 103 followers! I never knew that posting my link of my twitter page would cause this much traffic to come to my blog.

As a celebration, I would like to suggest a few awesome blogs to my followers:

http://foshomaxwell.blogspot.com/ (100th follower)

http://thestrangertimes.blogspot.com/ (The Stranger Times-1st Follower)

http://tradesforveterans.blogspot.com/ (Trades For Veterans-Great Blog)

http://adriensaxioms.blogspot.com/ (Adrien's Axiom's)

http://stoneycase.blogspot.com/ (Stoneycase-Great Tech Blog)

http://mightysoup.blogspot.com/ (Atheist Daily-My Other Blog)

Simply click on the names to check these guys out. And make sure you do so, these blogs have some pretty sweet content.

More content tomorrow, so follow me now for more! Maybe I'll wind up recommending you in the future.

The Petition Site

Thepetitionsite.com is a non-partisan website where individuals can push the world in the direction they want it to go. Visit today and let your individual voice be heard among millions of others who care about the same issues you do.

And I can't stress enough the fact that these petitions are non partisan. Once there, you can sign every petition imaginable, from urging your country's leader to take a particular stance on a particular issue to pushing a corporation to halt some potentially damaging practices.

I personally visit at least once a day. My favorite sections are the Human Rights and the Environmental Awareness ones. So if you have a few extra minutes to spend, why not use them to change the world for the better? Visit thepetitionsite.com today.

More Political Spectrum

I say we all just pack up and move to Amsterdam.

I was a little surprised at the placement of Germany. I think it has something to do with the EU. If anyone has any more requests I'll upload them here.

And for your time, here's an amusing alternative political stance:

Global Politics

This is just a general overview of how the Global Political spectrum looks today.

Ironic, isn't it?

China and Russia are black dots for no particular reason. If there's a country you'd like me to graph, let me know in the comments.

How do you think of yourself? Right/left and up/down? If you would like to take the test, visit politicalcompass.org

Also, how does one reconcile the reality of this graph? It may perhaps be possible that we are living in an Orwellian dystopia and be unaware of it. Obviously supporting third party candidates is not going to get us anywhere. What do?

Guy Fawkes

Traditionally, November 5th is designated Guy Fawkes day in honor of the man spearheading a plot to use copious amounts of gunpowder to blow up England's parliament building. He is usually viewed as a social anarchist intent on giving control of England back to the English people rather than the corrupt and greedy parliament. Such was the inspiration behind the 2006 movie "V for Vendetta" in which a masked superhero singlehandedly launches an uprising of people against an authoritarian regime that is in place in futuristic England dystopia.

But who was the man behind the hype? Well as a child he was raised in York by a single catholic Spaniard mother. He grew to embrace these qualities as an adult, even going so far as to fight for catholic Spain against the Dutch in the Eighty Years War. Later, Fawkes became involved with a group of English catholics who were displeased with how protestant their homeland was.

This gathering of like minded individuals went on to be the thirteen conspirators in the historic Gunpowder Plot.

These thirteen men met several times and they all agreed to participate in one way or another in the destruction of Parliament. Their one mistake came when one of them attempted to contact friends overseas for assistance. This backfired, and instead of providing assistance the contact ended up notifying the authorities of the impending attack. Fawkes was the unfortunate one designated to light off the gunpowder placed under Parliament, so he was naturally the first one caught and the scapegoat for the outrage of the people. Mr. Fawkes was hanged and then Drawn and Quartered after a lengthy torture as compensation for his crimes against England.

He is remembered today as a hero, but many ironies surround the historical interpretation of his most famous attempt. Perhaps the "V for Vendetta" was farthest off because Mr. Fawkes was by no means an anarchist. Quite the opposite in fact. The entire purpose of the Gunpowder Plot was to destroy the Protestant Parliament in order to install a Catholic theocracy in its place. It is for this reason that people today in England celebrate November fifth by burning Fawkes in effigy while lighting off firecrackers and fireworks.

No matter his motivation, Guido "Guy" Fawkes will remain immortal through the following rhyme:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

And what should we do with him? Burn him!

New Chapter: Global Issues

In an ironic attempt to demonstrate why American Democracy is the best in the the world, I will now follow my followers' wishes and begin making blogs pertaining to global issues.

Look forward to blogs about Environmental Issues, Animal Welfare (including vegetarianism), and Global Politics.

Later today I will begin with a blog on the man who became (in)famous enough to get the fifth of November as a holiday, Guy Fawkes. Follow now for more!

Election Results Part 2

Now that all the ballots are finally in (except Alaska), I feel I can do a much more thorough interpretation of what this means for America's political future. Though rest assured, this will be my last post on the midterm election.

Two of my favorite senators lost last night: Russ Feingold from Wisconsin and Alan Grayson from Florida. These were two truly progressive senators who avoided the corruption that has so plagued our nation. They did not deserve to be voted out. This actually affected me more than losing the house of representatives.

Many pundits are comparing the loss in congress to the same thing that happened during Clinton's presidency and saying that this signifies that Obama will also be a two-term president who winds up popular towards the end. These are complete guesses. There is nothing to suggest that Obama's presidency will even remotely resemble Clinton's. As it is, Obama is likely to get voted out unless he passes some really comprehensive legislation soon.

I know a lot of my followers are from overseas, so I was considering switching from American politics to more global issues. Perhaps I'll do a couple of blogs on anti-religion. I'll put up a poll later to see what my followers would like.

Election Results

So Republicans took back the house. Honestly I'm not all that upset. This has been predicted to happen for years now. Next I predict that the republicans will continue to gain popularity and support until the next election in 2 years.

Honestly I empathize with the Tea Party. Frustration over the stagnant economy has been hard on everybody. I merely disagree with them on how they choose to express that frustration politically.

On another note, Prop 19 failed to pass yesterday in California. For some reason. Now drug related violence will continue to happen across the border and a harmless substance will continue to remain illegal. I don't even smoke the stuff; I just think it should be up to the individual whether to do so or not.

Election Predictions

Going by funding for individual campaigns, polling, and voter history, I have determined what I believe will be the outcome of today's midterm elections.

The Republicans will pick up exactly:

50 Seats in the House

8 Seats in the Senate

and 9 Governorships.

The democrats will indeed get "trounced", but this was predicted for about 2 years now. It is a swing year and support is shifting to republicans once again. I personally think the democrats will survive this election.

We shall see.

Hypocrites on Both Sides

I've noticed that sometime between the Rallies to Restore Honor and Sanity, conservatives and liberals have traded places. One side is always attacking the other on how their rally was nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on those on the other side of the political spectrum. And meanwhile, the side that held the rally is defending theirs as being non-partisan but instead done only for the good of America as a whole.

Who do we believe? Obviously I believe Jon Stewart's rally was better for reasons I already mentioned, but how does the average independent know who to believe? They don't. Both sides remain in their corners flinging poo at one another, which is something that both rallies urged us not to do.

In other words: Efforts to curb the political mudslinging have resulted in even more mudslinging.