Boot-Straps? How about you try and pull yourself up by your A$$-$trap$!

regarding RNC: to those of you who wish everyone would start their lives within the worst possible conditions; —i.e. come from nothing-ers, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, did it on my own, no-one-helped-me-I-can-feel-a-storm-a-coming-cause-I-feel-it-in-my-bum-knee-that-I-hurt-as-a-highschool-armchair-quarterback, etc.)

You. First. motherfuckers.

give your shit away. try it your fucking self. see how easy it is for yourself to have no support structures. and every friend you though you had says "yeeeeeeeeeah, I wish I could but guess what?"

aint no-body on this side has a trust fund to loan you. suddenly you find yourself not invited to the olympic dancing horse champagne parties and the vodka pissing ice sculptures suddenly seem a little above the basic needs. then you need to find a job and your vast expertise in armchair-quarterback-sportscasting suddenly doesnt translate into a fungible skill. "Aghast!" you say in exasperation? "Well, I never..."

I say to you good day.

I SAID GOOD DAY!

Fight Ignorance `Till Youre Bloody and Broken

all traditions start out as a rule deemed as good by those with whom we place our trust. we used to trust shamans, priests or witch-doctors with our well being. when they said "dont eat pork or shell-fish" we didnt really ask why. but as it turns out, refrigeration and contamination were, as yet, unheard of. now we know HOW to handle meat properly. and we know WHY to handle meat properly. the superstition was a convenient placeholder for our behaviors until science and education caught up with the routines. we no longer need to fear the evils of unclean food. now we know why to adopt a behavior. unfortunately there are articles —such as this one— that do not link superstition to their intended effects. we are left with nonsensical advice, such as, "just let your freak-flag fly; superstition is okay". if we applied an actual and genuine interest in the world around us we would jump at each new discovery of the human condition. instead we get "Embrace the Supernatural". I contend that we abandon superstition wholesale. we should embrace discovery and science and reason at every opportunity. if you find that you need to convince yourself to get motivated, to do XYZ, then at least attempt to understand your own incentives and reactions. dont forgive yourself of that ignorance. fight ignorance. leave ignorance no solace or refuge.

Rant - 2012/02/20

they used to castrate boys just for entertainment value. sure; they probably said it made Cthulhu happy. and in all honesty maybe it did. but that still doesnt explain why they thought chopping little boys balls off might be a fair sacrifice. a sacrifice that only the boys would suffer.

granted; we arent chopping balls off these days, much. but the same kinds of people are still around. can you guess who they are?

Intelligent Design Designers

Intelligent Design used to be called Creationism.
they changed it because the previous named religious theme was struck down as a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. so they changed the name. when other ideologies attempt to rebrand (the non-christian ones) we can easily decry that its a method of spin, propaganda, in essence: deception.

its not very christian of you to try to deceive others.

Rant - 2012/02/08

lets get this straight.

giving time or wealth to a religion is not charity. when that religion uses that time or wealth to do good* in the world might be considered charity. but giving anything to a religion can not, in or of itself, be called charity.

* in case you were wondering: good can only be efforts that increase the true Quality of Life for the highest percentage of people for the longest period of time. anyone who thinks that means hoarding wealth for themselves is clearly not a good person.

numbers are static, unfeeling, unbiased, neutral... fuck no.

 a new thought about flat taxes.

a big fat glaring misconception about flat taxes is that its "fair". to be honest its hard to debate this logic if you have shit for brains. yet I, like my brethren, know we have far more to consider when discussing the intimate details that make up fair.
what is fair? is it an arbitrary number? is it a slice of pie? is it birth order? heredity? life chances? purchasing power? leverage? POWER? the answer is yes.
to a person with perhaps high intellect but limited wisdom will jump to numbers. numbers are static, unfeeling, unbiased, neutral. a flat tax, 15% maybe 25% and no deductions. it has a ring to it that would sound like what fair could sound like. ok 15%. 15% what? how about 15% dry cleaning for everybody in the world? yeah, thats pretty cool. I'd like to dress sharp. a car. wow! only 15%? thats fuckin cool. an apple... 15%? oh wait... now were not really making sense anymore. we are just throwing numbers at a dartboard and pretending that everything that lands is 15%. that is not how the world works. 15% of one thing to me is very likely a different 15% to you.

the prices we pay can vary. a wealthy person can afford to splurge on certified organic robin's eggs for breakfast. a non-wealthy person can afford chicken's eggs. but the only people to be able to afford either or both are the wealthy. that is not fair.

lets try another number. a traffic ticket of $300 to me is 0.85% of my annual pay. to a millionaire its 0.03%. by that factor alone it affects me orders of magnitude more than it affects a millionaire. that means a traffic ticket for a millionaire, to be fair, should be $8540. now I will ask you; does a millionaire actually get a traffic ticket at the rate of 0.85% or at 0.03%?

that was the easy one...

life.

lets say you need medication that costs $10,000 in order to live 1 year. apply that same factor of fair and you can see where I'm getting. a millionaire doesnt question living at an extra $10,000. my grandmother has to. 15% to a millionaire is NOT 15% to my grandmother. is it fair that one lives in terror and the other can ignore a fraction as inconsequential?
fuck no.

now we ask: can it, should it be more fair than a flat tax?

despite what they profess; conservatives ARE that wrong

recently I watched a fairly impressive TED Talk by Jonathan Haidt. it provided much needed insight to progressives. it made the declaration that humans commit only so much to the professed goals of trust, fairness and justice. if the progressive system were wholly committed to, we would experience vast twists in actions of truthfulness. the trust games presented in the talk show that if given the opportunity to punish were given, in addition to trust, the participants suddenly started "behaving themselves" even more than trust alone. it turned to describe that conservatives only wanted the world to be better so they desired to bypass the unreliability of trust or justice and jump right to the punishment. supposedly just to get people to BE nice through the introduction of fear.

but my arguments still stand. IT is not about making people behave. it is about Quality of Life. hands-fucking-down, Quality of Life WILL be better under progressive trust than it will be under conservative punishment —albeit sometimes we will lie to one another. it is still way-fucking-better than living in fear. what is a better argument to make.

the argument for conservative tradition / punishment: dont eat pork or shellfish for they are unclean and god(s) will punish you through disease and pain and death.

the argument for progressive knowledge: dont eat pork or shellfish that is undercooked. because sometimes they live with parasites that are incompatible with our own biology. still they are safe to eat when stored and cooked properly.

notice how one tries to scare you into behaving through fear and the other just tells you what the fuck is up? both aim towards the same goal of helping people live a higher Quality of Life but one aims for freedom from fear. THAT is why we cant get along. THAT is why we wont get along. THAT is why I can appreciate the good intentions of conservatives AND I despise the methods of conservatives. progressives have intentions for and employ methods of Quality of Life. conservatives have good intentions (for some) but employ fucking-hideous methods*.

* WTF?...
 - creating an unequal society against women to "protect" women from the wretchedness of man
 - enslaving "savage" man to save the "savage" from his own "savagery". making them BE better through service to a master which is somehow more "godly" 
 - punishing dissent to prevent dissent
 - killing doctors to prevent abortions
 - blowing up clinics to prevent abortions
 - forcing prayer in school to instill fear of a god to install control of all children
 - using capital punishment not to prevent crime but using the fear of execution to prevent crime
 - endless examples of fear and hatred disguised as for the better of society...