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: