The Answers

Well, if you have ready my previous two posts, you might have noticed I have become a little lack-luster on the whole America thing. All I can say is that I like answers. I have always believed that there are no problems that do not have a solution. That sometimes those solutions might not be what we want them to be, or they might be harder to find than others... but in the end, there is a solution. My problem is that my recent discoveries of this 'great nation' seem to lead me to a place I don't see a lot of answers or solutions. I can only see the problems, which leads me to a very negitive place... something not good for a person who tends to think positive about things.

I think my biggest problem is that I believe in simplicity. Experience and research have taught me that, more often than not, the simple solution often lies within the simplicity of the problem. Even the complex problems tend not to be that complex once broken down to the core of the situation. When you start to rule out the negligible factors, and truly examine what is happening, often the situation is far simpler and thus a simple solution will result in a trickle down effect and resolve the greater complex problem. But now I don't see the problems we face as being able to be simplified. Or at least a simplified answer will be able to trickle down through the complexity. However, I do take some comfort in the fact that if I feel this frustrated, I might actually have some understanding of what the framers were experiencing when they came up with our constitution.

I keep trying ot look at the whoel picture, but focus on the key details... such that man is flawed. I think that beyond any other detail this is the primary issue that must be addressed in any form of society. But how does one create a society that does not find a way to constrain the flawed individual, but rather create a society that insures the flawed individual constrains him/her self? And, at the same time, provides the society a freedom to do what they want. This very concept probes into something so simple, yet more complex than anything I have ever considered before. And it is the lack of understanding that frustrates me, as I am not certain that there is an answer to these questions.

What is freedom?
Freedom is the ability for any and all members of society to do, say and be anything that want to be at any time they want to do, say or want to be it. It is a society of no constraints. As such, it allows those members of society that may be more flawed than others to think that they like another member's wife and think that sleeping with her because he wants to is acceptible. While this act would be covered under freedom... it fails at a moral conduct level, and would most definately cause a failure in such a society. So thus, a totally free society is not possible.

To most of us, we have this little voice inside ourselves that provides us with a natural form of constrain. It tells us that taking something that doesn't belong to us, and thus it is a wrong behavior. But what about the individual that does not have that little voice... or at least one that does not listen to it? Is he any less important of a member of society only because he thinks differently? And if so, at what point did he become a lesser member? The point at which he thought of taking something? The point at which he actually took the item? At what point do we draw the line in the sand and say, "This side is fine, but that side is not." And who gets to decide where that line belongs? By stating that there is a line at which too much is too much, we create a barrier from total freedom that effeects all members of society equally... and we create a possition of power over all other members of the society... a power that can be abused at any time to the advantage of those that chose to use it on their behalf. Thus, by creating 'laws' we destroy freedom. Yet, without laws, we get chaos.

And what if we enact laws to govern our society? We accept the limited freedom in exchange for the protection from those that think differently. We give the power to those that will enforce these laws and maintain them to continually adapt the laws as needed to the changing society. But what of those that don't agree with the changes? What if 40% of the society opposes the possible changes, but 60% are in favor... thus changing the laws? You now have 40% of the society obligated to follow laws they did not want, because 60% did. And what if those voting only represented 20% of the society at large? You would now have 12% of the population dictating the remaining 88% of the society as to how they must lead their lives. No... this just does not work. No 'free society' could ever survive an environment such as this.

The problem lies in this simplistic riddle:
A society can neither be completely free, nor can it survive the constraints placed upon it by a portion of its own populus. In other words... no society can survive. Why does this logically compute, but yet it simply isn't believable?

***sigh***

My head hurts... going to stop thinking for a while. Or at least redirrect my thoughts to something simpler... like my Statics Exam coming up.

At a loss for words...

Hello all. No, I didn't forget to post, nor have I been to busy. Have been feeling a little blue and at a loss for words these days. My recent discover of the death of my country has come as a little overwhelming thought for me, and I am still trying to get a grasp mentally on what i do from here. I thought there were answers and now know there are none. At least none that seem feasible in any sense to me.

I am brewing a few posts in my mind, but haven't really formulated exactly what I am going to saw. It seems not even my Asianology 101 was enough to even encourage a post.

I will say this. America is most definitely dead. And more and more people are aware of it that ever before, even if it is on a subconscious level. My wife and I attended a university hockey game tonight, and I couldn't help but notice that during the national anthem... almost no one was placing their hand over their heart. I gave up this practice many years back as I have not felt honor for my country for some time (no offense to those that served, I revere you more than those that sent you off on your various tasks). It was to the point that not one player nor their coaches showed this simple gesture... none of the officials for the game that should be setting the example at the very least... and maybe (and I do mean, maybe) 1 out of ever 40 people in the stands did this. That is less than 2.5% of the people in the stadium that found it fitting to pay tribute to the flag. America is most definitely dead, and more and more are figuring it out. And the best I can guess is that, like myself, that don't know what else to do other than keep on keeping on.

Until I think of something grander to post..................

The Death of America: aka Response to Marky Boy

While reading a recent post by Markadelphia at his blog 'Notes From The Front', I felt I needed to respond. Unfortunately, as I began to type my response, it quickly became obvious it should be it's own post rather than a comment. The article was titled "Reaching Out", and here is my response:

Marky Boy... the answer is you don't. There is no need. Your side has already won. Well, actually... we all have lost. I read a recent post elsewhere that discusses how the United Kingdoms reached the political state it has, as well as what is currently happening hear in the US. You see, all this hurling of who is right and wrong is quite meaningless. Many years ago, shortly after this country was first formed, there was an infiltration that began to take place. That infiltration has continued to this day on two fronts.

First, there was an infiltration into the government by those that wanted the power. But one person could not do it alone, as the constitution stood in their way. So over the years more and more individuals were recruited with a similar mind of the government taking the power from the people. Once there were enough of these individuals, they began to modify our constitution to take power away from the people and put it into their own hands... often under the guise of "helping" the people. This was easy since, as the country grew, so did the complexities of the problems that had to be addressed. All that had to be done was for those in government to step forward and tell the people, "We can fix this, we just need you to give us the power to fix it." Unfortunately the people did. Over and over and over again. And all for the promise of getting a better America if they did.

Second, once the power had been taken from the people by the government, then those with the power began to squabble over how best to rule. While those in power began to debate amongst themselves as how to guide the country as they saw fit, all those in power still managed to agree on one commonality... that they needed to keep the power to themselves.

If you don't believe these statements all it should take to convince you is to watch the ridiculous behaviors that come from both sides of those that run our country. These people that run our government get into arguments over whether there should be a Michael Jackson day or not... in the middle of trying to resolve how best to create a Health Care Bill very few of the actual citizens supported or wanted. These people no longer care about you, the citizen... they only care about doing things that make you think they care and keep them in power or meet the utopia of their own design. In they end... as long as they are in government they can do what they want when ever they want. One more clue as to the division between them and the common folk... they made sure that when they took the power they put in clauses that made them excluded from the effects of the laws they passed. I am willing to bet that if our federal government would be saddled with the same coverage the current Health Care Bill provides, the amount of individuals willing to vote it into being would drop significantly. As for which side they are on... it is all a mask. They are on neither side. It is all the costume they wear to appeal to the public that will put them in power. If the state is red, they dawn the red cape and profess to be a conservative... and likewise for a blue state. They make promises they may or may not ever fulfill, so long as they gain that groups support to give them the power.

In all honesty, at this point I am not even sure the United States should be united. Our country as a whole is divided by so many issues it isn't even funny. Look at the past 20 years of elections... the majority of major elections have all been within a 10% difference between the two major parties. Almost every major issue is torn 50% - 50% between those for and those against. What does this mean? It means that at any given election half the people loose the representation they had wanted. It means that 50% of the country is now being ruled by the other half, which leave half the country unhappy with those that won. In the end, as said before... no one wins, as most the promises made to the winning half will never be fulfilled anyway.

Perhaps we were never meant to get to where we now find ourselves. Perhaps the civil war ended incorrectly. The original concept of the founding fathers was for federal government to handle matters that crossed state boundaries, and for state government to handle individual state matters. And likewise the state would handle multi-city issues while the city governments would handle the truly local issues at hand. The idea being that this would provide the most local representation of the people in any one area. So the people living in a town in Virginia wouldn't have to follow the same law as someone in New York, as the situations were substantially different between the two locations. The civil war was a reaction by those living in the South to the federal government of the North dictating what they had to do and interfering in their way of life based on Northern conditions. Even then, the power had already been taken out of the peoples hands so much that they had determined it was necessary to violently revolt as there was no longer any means to achieve revolt within the confines of the government.

As we all know, the South lost and we remained a United States. A broken and divided United States. Proven time and again by those in one area reacting out against laws that made no sense to them by those that didn't even know the first thing of their local situation. And all under the guise of 'making things better for us all'.

Frankly, I am tired of the federal government 'making things better' for me. Part of the genius of the original constitution was that it put matters into your own hands. The hands of the individual citizens. It gave you freedom. Freedom to succeed and freedom to fail. It was up to us to decide. The answer is that we have failed. We gave our freedom away to our federal government, and now we simply elect those that we feel will placate to our illusions of freedom the most and denounce those that we feel represent the opposite of what we desire.

Can we the citizens get the power back? Yes and no... it all depends on what lengths we are willing to go. Can we get the power back by the same means as which we lost it? Unlikely, as those that would seek the positions of power that could give it back to the people would most likely succumb to the very power they were there to release. This leaves only the violent forms of revolution. Only a mass of citizens demanding the rights stripped of them at gun point will get them back at the tip of their own guns. This uprising will require a force that can exceed and topple that of police forces and military... a very unlikely quest. In the end, there are just far too many citizens that much rather settle for the scraps of freedom the government gives than fight for the freedom the constitution originally provided them.

What does this mean for you and me Marky Boy? It means that our debates and differences fall on deaf ears and achieves nothing more than making us feel better that we said our piece. In doing so, we can either choose to provoke or discuss in proper debate, but we must acknowledge that in the end it is all meaningless and will achieve nothing. Why is it meaningless? Because we do not have the power. Even if we were able to convert every reader to our side of the argument, how many do you think we will be able to convince to lay down their lives in hopes of regaining something so few even realize they have lost? As stated, most would rather settle for scraps... as the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

But, should either of us be able to achieve in convert all others to our personal views... to the point they would go to war against their very government that rules them... only then would we achieve the ability to divide the country amongst those that wanted one thing and those that wanted something else. Then we would be truly free. Only then would we return to a society once promised by our constitution. Freedom to succeed or fail in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Proud To Be An American

Well... I think I have seen it all now. From the infamous '2 girls, 1 cup' to the even more infamous '1 man, 1 jar'.... or even the dreaded Goatse; nothing prepared me for the horror I am now about to share with you. Be afraid.... be very afraid!!!




Yes this is actually real! You can order yours now at http://www.chiaobama.com/ for $19.95 + S&H.

As for the other videos and images, I wont even give you links. If you want to see them that badly, you will have to google them yourselves.... perverts!

Comics vs Government

If you were not already aware, I am a huge fan of the thrice weekly online comic Vexxarr. For those not familiar with the cartoon, Vexxarr is a mis-guided alien from the Bleen race. The Bleen are galactic conquerors, and had sent Vexxarr to Earth to conquer the humans... only, he failed miserably. Not only did he fail to conquer, he also surrendered all his technologies to the humans and was then released. Due to his massive failure, the Bleen have chosen to hunt him down and kill him. Vexxarr was originally accompanied by Minion Bot, a robotic assistant (I use that term loosely) and his ship's AI system Carl. Once released from the humans, Vexxarr finds himself running and hiding from the Bleen in various locations. Along his way he picks up several other counterparts... Sploorfix (the purple 3-eyed creature) and SID (the blue one) [both pictured below]. Sploorfix and SID are discussing Vexxarr's latest plan to attack the Bleen in a round about way by impersonating a rival species and thus creating a war between the two races. By doing so, he figures the majority of the Bleen will be killed and during which time he will be able to escape to somewhere well off the radar of the Bleen. Sploorfix was initially opposed to the idea, as it meant starting a war in which millions of innocents will be killed. Being of a kind-hearted species, Sploorfix would rather talk first and possibly be killed rather than wage violence against anyone, even if deserving or in self defense. However, while facing utter frustration of the situation Sploorfix turns to his blog and begins to vent.... to the point he comes to the initial conclusion that "I want to just kill them all" (the proverbial light bulb above his eye stalks begins to glow). Now understanding the situation, Sploorfix is forced to console himself that there is no good decision... but rather only the best of many bad choices available. A lesser of two evils as it were. He discusses with SID about the realization below. I couldn't help but equate this conversation to other conversations I have heard about our own US government and what may have already happen to the citizens of the US.



If you want to check out Vexxarr for all the veiled comedy you can handle, or check out Hunter Cressall's site to see more of what the man behind the cartoon does. If you have time, check out the Vexxarr archives. I have actually gone to the beginning (originally began in B&W, shortly later became color) and worked to present and I must say... absolutely fantastic! Brava Hunter Cressall, Brava!

Markadelphia and the Misfit Toys…

Since I began blogging you have no doubt noticed I continually reference my friend Kevin. I give him the second most credit in my conversion to conservatism (the first goes to my lovely HOA).

Kevin has told me so many stories of a particular individual that continues to follow his blog and, fortunately for Kevin and his readers, suffers from one of the worst cases of foot-in-mouth disease I have ever seen. This brave soul goes by the name Markadelphia and has his own blog 'Notes From the Front'.

In one of Kevin’s more recent posts, he brings up the subject of debate (all be it in the format of humor and a cartoon strip) that was titled ‘I WANT to Debate, But They Keep Running Away!’

As I began to scroll through the various comments, I came upon one by Kevin’s favorite nemesis… Markadelphia. Mark seems to think he knows why Kevin has issues in getting anyone to debate him…

Could it be that the reason why people don't often debate you, Kevin, is that they see there is no point? It's obvious to me that your mind is set on several concepts and simply won't let go. You have created a comfortable, pocket culture here in which this...

"Oh. You mean I might change their minds."

is eternally supported. People see this and realize that there is pretty much no point in debating you on most topics. In other words, you are simply not a very reasonable person when it comes to an issue like health care, for example. ANY government run system is bad. ANY information you put on this blog will be in support of this opinion. NO positive information regarding government run health care is allowed. You pretend it doesn't exist. If ANYONE disagrees with this they are a moron, fool, useful idiot blah blah blah and (hilariously) not grounded in the scientific methods and facts.

Yet you ignore this method and these facts in areas like health care, climate change, education, and fundamental international diplomacy. The people you invite to debate see this and realize it is a futile endeavor.

Personally, after reading this I now fully understand why Kevin loves to toy with Mark, and why Kevin’s readers also love to see Mark appear from time to time…. Much like watching a video of midget porn, it is pure comedy.

I think the underlying flaw to Mark’s logic is that he assumes that government is good. That if government was left to its own devices it would be OK, but with a little guidance it could be something really great. So… when government says they are going to fix health care, Mark thinks that this is good. And that if the right people put in their two cents worth and legislation is done well; it could be the greatest thing to happen for the American people.

The problem with this is that government (and not just our government, but all government) is bad. It is a necessary evil to a modern society, and the goal is to allow it to only be big enough to do the things that must be done and no more. The moment we let it into other things the price tag goes up and the quality goes down.

So when Mark talks about government ran health care as a good thing as it is the government that will be making it work, and that with the right nudging it can be something great… well, I kind of equate that to walking into a gay bar backwards and my naked ass in the air; and that, with a little nudging in the right direction, someone might offer a bottle of lubricant for the evening.

If Markadelphia wants to challenge Kevin’s debating abilities, I suggest he learn a little history of how ‘great’ our government has been to it’s citizens first. There have been rare occasions in which lubricant was offered, but vary few times it was ever actually used.

Just my opinion…

Boo Freaking Boo....

Nothing says embarrassment like public embarrassment! So based on that mentality, I shall show you my award winning Halloween costume from this year. I say award winning, but in all reality it only took first place at a private party hosted by friends and family as an excuse to get together for a few beers, some good food and to see which one of us can come up with the wildest costume. Everyone gets to vote for two of their favorite costumes at the party and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners get a door prize. This is the second year I have won this contest and the gauntlet has already been thrown down for next year. After you see these photos, you will realize the challenge in that last statement. Enjoy the pics, try not to loose your lunch.

Take that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson!