Suck it, skinheads

I wrote this before the trade policy inspired Obama-rant, but I still stand by it.

And by the rant that followed, that was posted one day ago.


I usually watch a little TV before work, as I don’t arrive till nearly 9:30, and a couple days ago I was watching this special on those sick Fs the Aryan Nations. They honestly think it is okay to kill children as long as they aren’t white. I don’t think any further argument need be made as to their level of sickness as a whole.

Tangent: watch Gangland, the best show ever. Each episode is a look at a certain gang, group of gangs, or famous gang members. Watch it, seriously. This show wasn’t Gangland, but it was a similar style and on right before it, though not a series.

Anyhow, back to business, you can’t watch these (will not use the word “people”) cretins for more than about 90 seconds before you start to hate them. Not just dislike, but hate them more than they hate minorities. Unbelievable. Well, the more of the show you watch, the more you start to get this smug little satisfaction that Obama is president. I was hoping it would be McCain, and I’m disappointed, but it has to be killing those punks. You’re thinking he’s not 100% African American by lineage, but I think that makes it even worse for them. Here he is, product of a black man and a white woman, leader of the land they’re trying to “cleanse”.

Look, I’m not an Obama supporter. I’m not much of a fan altogether, but my dislike arises mostly because I believe there should be zero tariffs or subsidies and a corporate tax of around 5%, and he REALLY disagrees. These differences aside, the thing I do like is that his being elected has to be the biggest Eff You the whole racial separatist movement has ever received.

Well, that or attractiveness of Halle Berry. I mean honestly, when one of the most beautiful women to ever live has the same parent mix as our president, that whole “purity” argument takes a pretty big hit. Not to pinch hit for the other team, but Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ain’t a bad looking cat either, and he’s half black half Samoan. Of course that brings me to my hypocritically racist argument of whining it’s not fair he gets that racial combo while I’m stuck with a bloodline that looks like a European-only orgy. Alas, I digress…

Free trade or bust

If Obama doesn’t back off the free trade infringements I’m gonna use my head to open beer bottles from now on. It will hurt less.

Look, I’m trying to work with the guy. I’m willing to be the team player, as the Governator suggests, but hopping on the isolationism wagon isn’t going to help anyone. Ever. Following the First World War, we learned that closed doors don’t prevent problems, they exacerbate them. We went the other way following WWII, and built two capitalist powerhouse allies from the Axis powers.

Now we’re talking about institutionalizing “buy American” clauses, which is one giant leap for setting up trade blocks. Thanks Mr. President. Could you please arrange for some resource wars while we’re at it? Subsidies and tariffs weren’t enough, now we’re eying the triple crown of bad economic plans.

Worse than the trillions at stake is the damage to the world in all the intangible ways. Free trade is the only force out there consistently working for world peace. Government giveaways fatten the pockets of whatever warlord gets there first. Peace marches change nothing other than to help those walking feel better about themselves. The United Nations alters lingo so it doesn’t have to get involved in genocides, contrary to the founding principal the organization was built upon, cowards hiding behind a legal definition.

Independent investment only goes where it can make a profit, thereby not being grabbed by the corrupt or wasted on unsustainable projects. It only goes where it has a chance to take root, grow, and blossom. You know, like subsidized sugar in Florida….

Bush is a freakin ninja

Perhaps we've been wrong all along. For eight years now we've assumed Dick Cheney was pulling the strings and Bush was the marionette. Perhaps things have changed in the last few years, and when he was elected Bush but a student, but now he is the master. Whichever it is, it's impossible to deny the ninja skills.



Regardless of where you stand on his politics, no normal president could have dodged a shoe like that. This needs further investigating.

Cultural Arrogance

I had a conversation/debate with a family friend the other night when the concept of cultural superiority came up. Now the politically correct answer is all cultures are equal, but we know this isn't true. I believe all people all created equal, but by this belief I must exclaim that not all cultures are so, as many groups do not recognize this right.

When I say our culture, I mean the greater American Culture, the macroculture of our nation, if you will. I never claimed our culture was the best, simply that it was superior to many. She disagreed, arguing no culture was superior to any other.

She then went on to argue that many women take great security in the burka, and that we have no place to assist a culture in getting rid of it. She then defended monarchies, and said we had no right to suggest democracy was superior. She stated a free press was not necessarily better than a government controlled one.

I am not kidding.

I said ours was superior; she said that was arrogant. I said fine, and superior. No, just arrogant.

I no longer respect the opinions of this individual. I mean it: her thoughts are trash to me, and I'll waste no time giving them time or energy. The First Amendment is the line in the sand. If we stand for, fight for, die for anything it should be the rights of speech, religion, and the press. We can debate much of the rest; bearing arms, wiretapping, torture, presumption of innocence, abortion, the death penalty; I can find arguments for both sides of any of these topics off the top of my head. Some things are simply facts, one-dimensional truths.

Our culture is better than one where a woman raped in a mall is the offender for being in public alone. Period. Voting for office is better than having someone born king or queen, lord until death. Period. Guaranteeing an individual the right to select their own faith, or none at all, is better than forcing a religion upon the masses on pain of death. How can a nation claim to have its population be of a certain religion if the people have only one choice? If all are a faith by force, then none are that faith by choice.

How naive can an individual be? Is this the level of idiocy people have devolved to? I don't even have to tell you to which party this person belonged. Other members of this group should be embarrassed, the same way I am by the bigots in my party.

I'm not saying American culture is better than French culture. Nor do I look down upon the Germans, the Italians, the Brits or any other group that stands for freedom and democracy. I don't know who has the best culture in the free world, if any one nation does. But I don't have to choose, because I have the choice to enjoy them all.

You see, what it comes down to is I hold these truths to be self-evident. I believe every human being is entitled to certain, inalienable rights. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. The right to be free from oppression. These are not just words. They are the heart and soul of what is right in this twisted, violent little world of ours. They are all we can agree on, what we must agree on.

Election 08: The Main Event

Let me tell you right out of the gate: I'm excited for this election. I'm a McCain fan. Big time. Absolutely love the guy, and I'll consider it an honor to vote for him. He is one of the three men on my short list for top choices for president, behind only Colin Powell and the governor of California. I know it's not possible-yet-but that could change. After all, he's Arnold, what's to stop him? Back to the topic at hand

Let's be honest though, this campaign isn't about John McCain. A qualified, old, white male veteran is hardly a novel concept for the highest office in the land. Hopefully McCain will win, but he might not. So, in the absolute worst possible situation (i.e. the other party wins) America gets it's first black president, which is also a good thing. I think we'll end up being okay either way.

I don't want Obama for president, but I have to hand it to him. Hillary had every advantage coming into this, and he took it straight to her. She had the money, the infrastructure, the connections. You name, she had it. And he beat her in delegates, states, and the popular vote. Every way you can look at keeping score, he took it to her.

I have a friend working on her campaign, and back in September she was telling me that only McCain would even have a shot against her. Talk about overlooking an opponent. Hillary Clinton came into this election clearly showing the inevitability card, and Obama showed her why they play the games in the first place. Hats off to Mr. Obama. He earned the Democratic nomination. Now it's time for the main event. The Viet Cong couldn't stop McCain, and they were allowed to torture him. We'll see what the kid can do.

Perspective

A friend of mine wrote on the Iraq War, and compared it to the great conflicts of the past. Honestly, I got angry. Here's a rebuke to those who think the world is in a bad place right now.

Around 20 million people died in the first World War, and 60 million in the second. With this war having cost us over 3,000 Americans and 150,000 Iraqis, totaled from both sides and civilians, we are looking at a lot of blood. But to compare this to wars of the past is just ignorant.

Our arrogance when viewing our times is just outrageous. Our sense of history is childish. We think we know war, and suffering, and that our world is so bad right now. And those who saw the horrors of the Third Reich and Stalin's KGB spin in their graves.

We have genocides right now, in Africa in particular. And this is terrible, and a cowardly UN labels them "ethnic cleansings" so it can defy one of its founding principles and not intervene. And this is shameful. But we do not know genocide, we don't understand Holocaust. 6 million dead Jews. No reason beside their religion. 11 million dead Russians, rotting for not standing by Stalin.

We have war right now, and all war is tragedy. But we do not know war. Nearly half of a generation of Europe's men were killed in The Great War. We lost over 10,000 men in one morning at D-Day in a conflict only one generation later. Our war in Iraq pales next to Vietnam, which in turn pales next to the World Wars.

We have rights being infringed upon in many parts of the world. China comes to mind. But those prisoners aren't seeing their wives raped and children murdered in front of them. The ash of their bodies isn't falling on an entire continent. There is no excuse for their mistreatment, but we are not witnessing one of history's grave moments.

We have racism in America, ubiquitous prejudice, I would argue. But we aren't seeing 6 year-olds knocked down by fire hoses. We have far to go, but we have come far, as well.

Some starve today, and there is no excuse for this, but Norman Borlaug and others revolutionized agriculture, and the man is credited with saving one billion lives. That's one with nine zeros, around three times the American population. The vast majority of poor Americans are overweight, as in the opposite of starving. This isn't the case everywhere, the but the world now has more overweight people than underweight ones. That is an accomplishment never reached before the last few years.

One of my dearest friends recently confessed to me how he felt that the world was so hopeless as of late, and it was all I could do to quietly give him a reality check. I wanted to yell. I've been blessed enough to tour Dachau with a man who was an inmate there. I've seen horror and loss in his eyes and words that I could never comprehend.

Do not dare to preach to me about the sorrows of today unless you know about yesterday. "We are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants," and we have paper cuts we compare to beheadings. To all those who see the problems in our world, please, continue to try and bring change. To those who believe our world today to be so bad, grow up. Read a book.