Legal Debate Thread

 This is an open thread for legal topics. Enjoy!

Open Debate Thread

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Things I Learned From Never Too Young to Die

Below is a list of things I learned from the spy thriller masterpiece Never Too Young to Die, starring John Stamos, Vanity, and Gene Simmons. Enjoy! 

1) Some cities have pipelines with highly radioactive waste in them.

2) Los Angeles has a pipeline that can easily send enough radioactive waste into their drinking supply to ruin it for ten thousand years.

3) If goldfish are exposed to radioactive waste, they mutate instead of dying.

4) You can divert nuclear waste into Los Angeles' drinking supply with a program on one floppy disk and nothing can prevent this from happening, unless you steal this all-important floppy disk.

5) Bad guys don't make back-up copies of their all-important floppy disks.

6) If you get a bad guy's all-important floppy disk, you should send it to your son, rather than destroying it.

7) Never destroy the bad guy's floppy disk. Nor should you ever consider switching it with an identical looking disk. That would make things too difficult for the bad guys because, again, they don't make back-up copies.

8) If you have the floppy disk and you want to lure the bad guy to you, you should use the people he thinks have the disk as bait, rather than just using the disk as bait.

9) Make sure to put the floppy disk in a very unsecure location close to where you believe the bad guy will be.

10) If you know someone on your side is a traitor, don't tell anyone else. It's probably not important.

11) Psychotic hermaphrodite gang leaders have lots of resources at their disposal, including endless weapons, vehicles, and post-apocalyptic goons.

12) Super-genius computer programmers enjoy working for psychotic hermaphrodites.

13) Spy agencies should never allow agents to wear sunglasses, so hermaphrodite traitor agents won't be able to conceal their heavy eye makeup.

14) Hermaphrodites are male and female, so they're better than the rest of us.

15) Hermaphrodites are only half man, making them less manly than John Stamos.

16) If you say the word "Stargrove" to a stranger behind their back, they will immediately recognize it as someone's name and ask you why you said that name.

17) Underground secret spy lairs should always glow bright red when the key to opening them is nearby, in case your son needs to find it after you're dead.

18) It's perfectly acceptable to keep top secret government files in your secret spy lair, even if it's easily found by accident.

19) It's not safe to leave your crate marked "Grenades" in your barn, under the flammables.

20) If killers want to torture you for information, they will knock you out, take you to your home, and leave you on the floor, untied. That way, when you wake up, there will only be two bad guys for you to fight.

21) Industrial-grade furnaces have intercom systems inside of them, just in case you decide to chat with whatever it is you're burning.

22) You can be almost burned alive in an industrial-grade furnace, yet still not get sweaty.

23) John Stamos can cry real tears.

24) Asian roommates are good for only two things: Impossible inventions and comic relief. 

25) If you use gum to stick a listening device to something, you should put the device in the gum before you chew it.

26) If you need to destroy a computer, be sure to close the case that it's in before you blow it up.

27) That scumbag is named Stargrove.

28) Hotshot gymnasts often practice by jumping up and down on trampolines while pointlessly waving their hands around.

29) Wrestlers think they're more manly than gymnasts.

30) Wrestlers are easily confused by the old "What's This On Your Shirt" Finger-in-Chin trick and will stop trying to bully you after you use it on them.

31) If bad guys know you're coming, it's best to attack them anyway, even if you're horribly outnumbered and wounded; because they'll be "overconfident."

32) Even if you're running late to your son's gymnastic meet, you still have time to do a little spywork.

33) If someone is using a bulletproof umbrella to block your bullets, you should stop shooting the umbrella, because it's bulletproof and you're not hurting them.

34) John Stamos really isn't into subtle flirtation. If you want to have sex with him, try going topless or showering naked with his garden hose. Otherwise, he just won't get it.

35) Apples are no substitute for sex.

36) If you're bored while waiting to be attacked by psychopathic killers, have sex.

37) John Stamos is so hot that even psychopathic killers fall for his flattery.

38) John Stamos can lift a much larger man with his legs while hanging from a railing.

39) In 1986, John Stamos was too young to die.

40) In 1986, Gene Simmons was not.

Things I Learned About Weed from David Brooks

Knows When To Put the Doobie Away

I was never a big fan of NY Times Columnist David Brooks. In fact, the man is a twat. But it’s just now come to my attention that David Brooks happens to be one of the nation’s foremost experts on marijuana and the effects of its usage on the human anatomy. How did he attain this expertise? Because he smoked weed for a bit in high school back in the late 70’s. That’s right. And he gave it up before he even graduated, so you know he’s an expert on the subject.

And we learn all about this in his cynically titled piece Weed: Been There. Done That. In it, he informs us that he's already done the whole weed thing, knows what it's all about, and is so over it. Because weed is just a phase you go through in adolescence, before you grow up and learn life's real pleasures. Like how Catcher in the Rye once meant a lot to you before you got older and now it seems simplistic and boring. These are all just rites of passage..

Weed's the same way, and anyone who disagrees and wants to smoke anyway should be arrested and have their life thrown away; just like we do with people who still read Catcher in the Rye. Why? Because giving up weed is part of the road to adulthood, and it's the government's duty to prevent you from taking any action that might hinder your personal growth. Because sending someone to jail and ruining their life is sooooo helpful to their personal development. Thanks Brooks, for looking out for us all like that.

And even once you’re a grownup with a successful business, you should still be subject with arrest and imprisonment for possessing weed, because….well because David Brooks doesn’t have an answer to this one since he didn’t smoke pot as a grownup. And since it never happened to him, it doesn’t need to be contemplated whatsoever.  He knows that smoking weed made a doofus like him act like a doofus in high school, and so it must be the same for everyone else even decades later.

And yes, out of all the people David Brooks has met over the years, either in his personal life, or as a writer for the New York Times, or on the various TV studios he's been to and others he has met; not a single one of the pot smokers opened up to Brooks that they smoke pot. And that can only be because they too have eschewed the stoner life when they were teens, or because Brooks is such a complete doofus square that not a man, woman, or child of them told him that they smoke dope.

And so he's fine with people having their lives ruined, because he doesn't have personal experience that allows him to understand what it's like. Because if we haven't experienced something, it must not be important.

David Brooks is Everyman

And sure, that sounds like total crap when you think about it, but that’s just because you’re not thinking of things the David Brooks way. Because everything Brooks says makes logical sense, once you accept certain preconditions that Brooks adopts as unerring truths.

The first precondition is that you must accept that the plural of anecdote is data, and that Brooks’ anecdotes are the best; as they’re universally applicable to everyone. That’s how he can extrapolate proper behaviors for hundreds of millions of people, based upon events that happened to him personally over thirty years ago; even if these events were vague non-events that even Brooks can’t properly identify and might never have happened. I mean, if David Brooks got stoned right before giving a class presentation back in 1977 and made a fool of himself, then surely the same fate awaits us all.

And that leads us to the most important precondition to understanding David Brooks: We all have the same value system as David Brooks. Our life goals are the same, are path to happiness is identical, and we all aspire to have the sort of life that David Brooks has. Because Brooks’ entire argument goes down in shit-stained flames if he’s wrong about this one.

And if someone could be genuinely happy as a stoned surfshop employee in Hawaii or live a full and complete life as a stoned musician, then David Brooks' argument is crap. But Brooks knows that that's not possible, because it's not the path he'd have chosen. And again, we all have his value system and share his life goals, and people who choose other lifestyles are behaving immorally.

One Morality

And honestly, that's not even a paraphrase. He actually mocks anyone who doesn't think some lifestyles are more moral than others. As if playing video games stoned on the couch all day is inherently evil.

“Many people these days shy away from talk about the moral status of drug use because that would imply that one sort of life you might choose is better than another sort of life.”

And the implication is clear: It's immoral to choose a lifestyle that David Brooks doesn't approve of. No longer is morality about how you treat others. In Brooks' world, morality is about choosing the lifestyle that best enables us to reach our full potential. And therefore it’s immoral to do anything whatsoever that might delay our path to maturity in any way; including smoking dope.

And sure, some might argue that we can't reach our full potential without weed, but such a thing can't possibly be the case since Brooks' short experience with weed taught him that it makes people stupid and has no useful purpose besides letting you bond with friends while enjoying yourself. And while that might sound like the same thing he said we could only do without weed, that can't be the case or Brooks would have contradicted his main point yet again.

So without further ado, here's the list. Enjoy!


Thirty Things I Learned About Weed From David Brooks

Alcohol and tobacco don’t exist.

Neither does jail. A full column about legalization, without any hint of jail, prison, arrests, police, or any of the other policies Brooks implicitly supports. Why? Because they don’t exist.

The point of smoking pot is to do stupid things.

People who are high can’t put together simple phrases while speaking in public.

If you smoke weed, you will do so right before giving a big presentation and feel like a total loser because you won't know what to say.

If you give a class presentation while high, you will stumble through it and embarrass yourself due entirely to the weed you smoked and not because you were totally fucking unprepared and you suck.

You will give up smoking dope if you see a smart friend of yours start smoking too much.

Something sad happens to people as they sink deeper into pothead life.

If you don't stop smoking pot, you will become a pothead.

People give up pot once they discover higher pleasures.

Smoking pot is repetitive.

Smoking pot doesn’t make you funnier.

Smoking pot doesn’t make you more creative.

Academic studies more or less confirm that weed doesn’t make you funnier or more creative. Because yeah, humor and creativity are things that can be objectively tested in an academic setting.

Smoking weed is not exactly something you are proud of yourself for and it's not something people admire in you, for reasons that even Brooks admits are vague.

The deeper sources of happiness usually involve a state of going somewhere, becoming better at something, learning more about something, overcoming difficulty and experiencing a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. But none of these things can happen if you smoke dope, because weed made David Brooks act like a doofus when he was a teenager.

Smoking pot prevents people from becoming integrated, coherent, and responsible. And that's because it prevents you from using reason, temperance, and self control; which we all know because again, it made Brooks act like a doofus when he was a teenager.

Everyone has the sense that the actions they take change them inside, making them a little more or a little less coherent. (Editors Note: We have no fucking idea what this means.)

The vast majority of people who try drugs, grow out of it and leave it behind. This is why we need to punish as many people as possible for smoking pot, because a small minority of them might continue to use it and thus stunt their personal growth.

Being stoned is not a particularly uplifting form of pleasure.

Smoking pot all the time won’t do much to enhance your deep center.

You’ll have a better shot at becoming a little more integrated and interesting if you smoke weed sporadically. (Seriously, he said this)

It's simple economics that if you drop the price of a product, more people will buy it.

Complex economics involving inelastic demand continue to elude David Brooks entirely.

Colorado and Washington are creating more pot users, because there are apparently people who aren't pot users, but would like to be if the price came down.

Laws mold culture. Like the way the War on Drugs molded drug culture. Oh wait... Or how anti-porn laws molded porn culture. Oh wait...

In healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favor temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship. And it achieves this subtle tipping towards self-governing citizenship with police raids, drug dogs, and prison time for those who prefer not to grow up. Very subtle.

If you're stoned, you can't appreciate life's highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature. Because potheads are infamous for hating nature and the arts in Brooks' reality.

Legal marijuana enhances individual freedom.

Legal marijuana nurtures a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be. Unless, of course, the sort of person we want to be is someone who can smoke pot without fear of being punished; in which case legal marijuana most definitely helps them be who they want to be. But of course, since we're all David Brook; such a person couldn't exist and doesn't need to be contemplated even hypothetically because all the grownups gave up weed before growing up.

And finally, alcohol and tobacco don't exist.

Giving the Game Away

But all joking aside, if one reads between the lines of Brooks’ column, you’ll find at its heart exactly what you’ll find in almost everything he writes: A liberal position being shoehorned into a conservative framework. And he gives the game away twice. Not only does he say that sporadic use of weed can be helpful, but he outright states:

“I don’t have any problem with somebody who gets high from time to time…”

And boom, that’s it. That’s the end of the discussion. His argument is that people should go to jail for using weed because it makes them lazy, but then outright says there isn't anything wrong with getting high. And that’s game over. In the third sentence of the tenth paragraph, he undermines his position entirely. I mean, as much as he had a position, of course; since none of it made sense.

And that leads us to what his piece was really about: David Brooks is against lazy people who smoke dope all the time, because he doesn't think they're living to their full potential. And well, he's got a point there. Smoking pot really *can* make people stupid and lazy if they do it all the time, and that's not a good thing. Who amongst us doesn't know someone who threw their life away getting stoned all the time?

And yet…is it really the government's business to force us to maximize our potential by denying us things that might distract us from that? And because pot *might* distract someone from their full potential, it makes sense to spend millions of dollars to ruin the lives of as many of these people as possible? What?! Should we go ahead and cap everyone in the knees to make sure they succeed in sports? How does locking someone in jail help anyone reach their potential?

But again...jail doesn't exist in David Brooks' universe. So he doesn't need to explain this idiocy at all. He's just trying to get teens to give up weed and join the real world. That's all. It's about whether or not we should encourage people to spend all their time getting high, or if the government should encourage us to engage in more mentally stimulating activities. I mean, it's not like he's advocating for anyone to go to prison or anything. Oh wait...

David Brooks Supports Legalization.

Because that’s the thing: Brooks didn’t write a piece that supports the criminalization of marijuana. He wrote a piece against people getting high all the time. And even then, he never even hinted as to why they should go to jail for this; since he didn’t discuss jail at all. He's just saying it's a bad idea and shouldn't be encouraged. But he never says they should go to jail for it. Why? Because I don't think he wants them to.

So basically, he’s once again talking gibberish, because he needs to take the conservative position, but it’s obvious that the liberal position is the correct one. So he’s playing a word game, where “legalization” means something ridiculous and he’s supporting the sensible position, where it’s perfectly ok to smoke pot as long as you stay productive, and nobody goes to jail for it. In other words, the exact opposite of the position he’s trying to defend.

Thanks for playing, David Brooks. Perhaps if you smoked a little doob you'd realize what nonsense you had just written.

Dude, ever notice how bong rhymes with wrong? Dude!

Creationist Heretics: Sixth Grade Smackdown Edition

Found this video over on Facebook.  A creationist getting a slight smackdown by a sixth grade atheists.  The sixth grader did well under the circumstances, I suppose.  Though I was less than fully impressed.  Because it was his fault that the creationist went on that long nonsense argument, because the kid missed the better part of the argument.  Here's what he did:


And yeah, I suppose the kid won the thing by default, as the guy didn't really say anything.  But he really missed the main point, which allowed the other guy to do his word salad monologue.  Because it was obvious he had nothing, but was doing whatever he could to not relinquish the floor and allow the kid to speak.

The creationist guy said that his proof that God exists is that he knows things. And since he knows things and you can only learn things from God, therefore there must have been a god that taught him these things. But...we *know* who taught him everything and it wasn't God. Everything that dude knows came from man. He didn't learn anything directly from God. God didn't teach him 2+2. Of course not. He learned that from a teacher, or his parents. A human taught him 2+2 and he knows it. He might even know the specific person that taught it to him.

In fact, this guy didn't even learn about his *god* from God. He learned about his god from man. His dad, most likely. And if his dad had been a Buddhist, this guy would be a Buddhist. And if his dad was Muslim, this guy would have been a Muslim. But...he was born to a Protestant creationist of some sort, and he learned about that from man. So even his own foundational principle is exposed to be false. Everything he's basing his argument on is an obvious lie. Whether or not a god exists, this guy's deepest knowledge source is a sham and he doesn't even know it.

And then, of course is the ultimate refutation of his beliefs: His own beliefs. Because the thing about Yahweh is that he wants you to believe in him. Sure, sometimes he'll show himself in burning bushes and other miracles, but usually it's all on belief. Trusting in him without evidence. Anyone can follow a deity that has proven supernatural powers. That's just stupid not to. But no, Yahweh doesn't want to make it easy. He wants to make this a little test. You have to accept him with no proof. No evidence. Just a feeling. A belief. That's how Yahweh likes it. And well, whatever. If I were the Creator, that's not how I'd go about things. But whatever. This is Yahweh's thing. He's a jealous deity and he wants you to love him unconditionally. It's just his thing.

And if that's the case, then this creationist dude is on a fools errand as he's trying to give proof of a being that doesn't allow itself to be proven. The reason he can't prove his god exists is because his god won't allow it. In fact, were he to actually prove the existence of his god, he'd have violated a basic tenet of his own religion; committing one of the gravest of heresies. And he's too fucking stupid to know it.

Greed is Good...Unless a Liberal Does It

I've got a new conservative friend on Facebook.  Decent guy so far, seems intelligent enough...for a conservative.  Hoping this might be the debate foe I've been looking for, as it's tiring to debate liberals and/or atheists over relatively minor points of conflict, but most conservatives are too unglued from reality to be of any use in a debate; so I rarely get to debate the big ideas.  Maybe it'll be different this time.

And we got off to a nice start tonight, when he posted a quote from a Thomas Sowell book, which Sowell recently tweeted:

“I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”
— Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) September 24, 2012

And conservatives love that line because it turns the tables on those pesky liberals and supposedly hoists them by their own petards.  After all, either no one is greedy or they too are greedy, as defined by Sowell.  And that sort of thing ranks right up there with accusing liberals of being racist, in that it uses a "vicious" liberal attack against the dirty buggers themselves; thus defanging the attackers.  Left out is the possibility that the "attack" is a fair description of anyone on their side.

And yes, this is basically an extension of the "I'm Rubber You're Glue" method of debate found on playgrounds across this fair land.  But when you're dealing with people whose way to "stand up for our country" is to use anti-Obama window displays showing Obama as a witch doctor...I guess the old rubber-glue strategy is a breath of fresh air.  (Because yeah, I remember all those images of Clinton as a witch doctor back when he tried reforming healthcare, so I'm sure there's no racial link here at all [/snark].)

Defining Greed

But more to the point...is Sowell's line correct?  Are liberals perhaps the greedy ones for wanting to take money from people who don't need it to give to people who do need it?  Uhm...no.  Definitely not.  And the problem is with his initial definition of "greed," as if it just refers to people who want to keep their money.

Because if greed is just about keeping money, then sure, he's got a point.  Either one person is keeping it or the other is keeping it, so how can you claim that only one of the two sides is greedy if they're both doing it?  And yet...when people call someone "greedy," is it merely because they want to keep their money?  No.  That's stupid.  And this isn't even a semantics game.  There is simply no definition of "greed" that refers to people merely wanting to keep their money, as that applies to just about everyone.

Here are a few definitions of greed, and please note the similarity:
"An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves..."
"excessive desire, as for wealth or power"
 "excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves"
"a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed"
"excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions."

And what's the connection with all these definitions?   Excessiveness.  It's not merely the desire to keep your money.  Greed is an "excessive desire" to keep more than is needed.  That's what it means.  And sure, it's a debatable point whether people should be required to share their wealth, or how to define "excessive" or "need."  But what's not debatable is the basic meaning of the word.

And in no case is Sowell's definition in any way accurate, but instead, was chosen because it helps setup the clever trap he was springing on liberals.  He didn't take the word "greed" and show how it applies to liberals.  He wanted it to apply to liberals, and formed a definition that would do that; even if it's not correct.  After all, who amongst us doesn't want to keep our money?  By that definition, we're not just "greedy" for wanting to tax the rich, but we're greedy in the first part, for wanting to keep our money.  And that's absurd and denies any meaning to the word at all.

Rewriting Sowell

And so to rewrite Sowell's quote with a proper usage of the word, we'd get:

"I have never understood why it is "greed" to desire an excessive amount of money, but not greed to want to take money from someone with an excessive amount and give it to someone who doesn't have enough money."

And written that way, it shows what a complete joke his quote was.  He wasn't hoisting liberals with their own argument.  He was playing a word game that falls apart if we use the word properly.  And if Sowell doesn't understand the difference between someone with an excessive desire to acquire money and someone wanting to help those who don't have enough...then he's an idiot.  But I don't think Sowell's an idiot.  I just think he was trying to be clever and failed.

But that's so often the case with conservatives.  They mean well.  They really do.  It's just that they're on the wrong side of the debate, but can't figure out why.  So they have to keep changing the rules in order to invent ways that they're right and we're wrong.  And their favorite technique is as I mentioned above: Simply accusing us of doing what we accuse them of doing, and thus negating our arguments...or so they imagine.

And so we end up with an up-is-down universe, in which it's racist for a white person to want to help a black person buy groceries and it's greedy to want to tax the rich a little more to help a poor person pay their rent.  Sure, none of this makes a lick of sense, but by the time you've explained it all, they've already had their laugh and moved on to the next point.  And that's all this is about anyway: Not winning debates, but making their side feel better about itself while simultaneously making the brains on our side explode.

And in that regard, well played, Sowell.  Well played.

Cognitive Dissonance: How to Piss Off Friends and Alienate People

I am not a pedant.  But people often mistake me for one, because I point out mistakes that they make which they consider to be minor errors that miss the point.  But as is usually the case (and by usually, I mean always), these "minor" errors aren't minor at all.  In fact, they undermine the whole point the person was making.  And the reason they think I'm being a jerk is because they just don't know what they're talking about, to the point that they have no idea the size of the mistake they're making.

And the problem is that the vast majority of people start from the position that they're right and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong.  And while they realize how stupid that is and refuse to admit that's what they're doing...that's obviously what they're doing.  And so when you point out a mistake they've made, they still like to imagine that their greater point was correct, because that was their baseline.  They know they're well intentioned.  They know they're smart.  And they're sure they've got a firm grasp of the basics, even if maybe they used a sloppy word here and there that a pedant like myself tries to nail them for.

And well, those are incredibly stupid assumptions to make.  Because there *is* no baseline assumption for being right, now matter how well intentioned you see yourself.  All that matters is what you're actually doing.  And so you might see yourself as a freedom fighter taking the good fight to bullies, but if your actions involve you bullying religious people with a blanket condemnation of them for their beliefs, well...maybe you're not as well intentioned as you imagine, no matter how many caveats you include involving the "decent" ones.

Seriously, if adjusting your target from "Muslims" to "blacks" makes you sound like a Klansman...maybe you need to rethink your position.

Pedantic Dissonance

And what these people are doing is experiencing cognitive dissonance.  They "know" that they're right, but don't see any mistakes in what I wrote, so it must be that I'm being pedantic by pointing out a minor error that doesn't conflict with their true position.  After all, how could they be wrong?  They paid lip service to the idea that they might be wrong, so that should cover all the bases, right?

And this all gets me to my original point: A friend on Facebook posted a meme titled Cognitive Dissonance, which gave a flawed explanation of what it is, and then gave numerous examples of it which didn't even fit the flawed explanation.  It describes Cognitive Dissonance as "the state of holding two or more conflicting beliefs simultaneously."  It then gave examples of Republican beliefs, some of which weren't conflicting at all.

Like people who oppose birth control and abortion.  Those aren't conflicting beliefs.  They're a bad idea, but they're not in conflict; not unless they also want people to have sex but not have babies.  But it's their position that sex should lead to babies, period; and that means they should oppose both birth control and abortion.  No conflict.

And the conflict arises when they try to explain their beliefs, as they'll say some gibberish about needing to punish people for bad behavior.  But first off, they oppose birth control and abortion for married couples too.  Is it sinful for married couples to have sex?  No? Then why do they need to be punished?  And the bigger issue is: Babies are a punishment?  What??

And anyone who's had this discussion knows where this goes: The person gets upset.  And maybe they'll refuse to admit that their policies involve married people, or they'll deny that they called babies a punishment, or maybe they'll just get angry and end the discussion; insisting that you're the one who doesn't get it.  And if you keep up this discussion long enough, you'll get all these reactions and more.  And don't be surprised when you're told you're going to Hell, because you had that one coming to you.

This, my friend, is cognitive dissonance.  It's not just that they hold conflicting beliefs.  It's what their brain does in order to handle the conflicts when they're forced to do so.  Holding the beliefs is easy.  Trying to deal with them is another story.

Defining Dissonance

At this point, I'll just repost what I wrote to him, to which I was ignored and can only assume the guy thought I was being pedantic yet again.  But this isn't a minor correction.  It's important for us to understand this concept, as it points us in the right direction on how to deal with such people.


Cognitive dissonance isn't just that someone holds conflicting beliefs. It's what they do in order to mesh these conflicting beliefs.

Often times, they simply compartmentalize their beliefs and will focus on just one of the beliefs at a time and simply refuse to mesh them together; and no matter how many times you try to explain to them that these ideas are conflicting, they'll still only talk about one at a time. And when they're forced to mesh them together, they get angry and lash out, because their brains can't make sense of the conflicting beliefs. Or they'll believe completely illogical things, inventing rationalizations in order to make sense of the ideas.

That's how they can talk about Chinese and Egyptian history going back 10,000 years, while also believing the earth is only 6,000 years old, because it's compartmentalized. And if you confront them with this in a way that forbids them from having a back door, they'll likely get mad at you. Not because they're necessarily angry people, but because they're experiencing cognitive dissonance and simply can't deal with these conflicting ideas. That's also how they can make sense of the Noah story, by dreaming up a giant boat that really *could* hold all those animals; not because it makes sense, but because their brain is forcing them to do something that can't be done.

And this all explains how Republicans act. Like their refusal to believe that Obama won in 2008 because they were confident he'd lose, so it *must* be that he's not a citizen, ACORN stole the election, and liberals felt guilty for blackness. They invent all these rationalizations, because the truth of what really happened hurts too much. Similarly, they *must* believe that the media has a liberal bias every time it conflicts with Fox News, that poll numbers are biased, and even the unemployment rate is fixed. Not because they have any proof, but because they can't deal with anything that conflicts with their beliefs, and this is how their brain deals with it.  Cognitive dissonance.

And that's why directly confronting these people is a fool's errand. As is insulting them or trying to rub their faces in their mistakes. Do that, and you'll *NEVER* get through to them. Their brains simply won't allow it. And it's not just something they suffer from. We *all* are guilty of this at one time or another. It's just human behavior. And the only solution for ourselves is to do our best to not make assumptions or believe in things that might conflict with reality.

Otherwise, we'll end up getting pissed off or inventing rationalizations to explain why our beliefs are correct, in spite of reality. Happens to everyone.

Don't Believe in Yourself

And that end part really needs to be taken to heart.  We *all* do this.  We've *all* felt that moment when our brains tell us that what we're saying doesn't mesh with reality, and we feel like jackasses for doing what we did.

But instead of blaming ourselves, explaining our errors, and admitting defeat; we either try to slink out of the discussion with as much of our dignity in tact as we can muster, or we lash out at our opponent and find some way that we hadn't made the mistake that our brain knows we made.  That's just how brains work.  Just like an optical illusion involves our brain trying to make sense of an image that is too tricky for our eyes, it also goes a little crazy in making sense of thoughts that really don't make sense.

This isn't just something Republicans suffer from.  This isn't about people who hold two beliefs, both of which we consider to be wrong.  This is what happens when we realize we made a mistake but are too arrogant to admit it.  And the more we try to stay inside our comfort zone and refuse to consider whether the "pedant" correcting us is right or wrong, the more we're suffering from the thing that we usually only see in the other guy.

And this all just goes back to what I was saying at the beginning: Don't assume that you know what you're talking about.  Doubt yourself.  Acknowledge your intellectual failings, not with a lip service excuse of "nobody's perfect" or "I'm not saying I'm 100% sure about this" or any of that nonsense.  You've got to acknowledge that you might be totally full of shit, particularly if you find it difficult to even explain your basic beliefs with any depth at all.

I mean, if the best you can do is to repeat your initial assertions...then you probably are full of shit and need to start over.  Admitting you've got a problem is the first step in solving it.  Just don't act like it's the only step, or you'll still have the problem.

Letting Them Save Face

But my point here isn't to pick on anyone, but to say the opposite: We've all been there.  We've all made mistakes.  And we know how much it hurts and how little contrition we are to show to those who slay us; particularly if they've been jerks about it the whole time.  And the more someone tries to rub our faces in our mistakes, the less likely we are to admit we made any mistakes.

And well...that's what everyone does.  And that's why insults, taunts, and face rubbings are the last thing you should do; at least if you want to get someone to see the light.  If all you're interested in is scoring points and feeling like a big man, go for it.  But if you're actually interested in convincing someone to agree with you, pinning them down and refusing them any back door to escape the debate with dignity is the last thing you should do.

And why?  Cognitive dissonance.  People like to think they're right, and therefore freak out when they suspect they're wrong.  And they either have to stop thinking they're right or refuse to admit they're wrong.  And if you're trying to convince them they're wrong, then you need to give them every opportunity in the world to correct their position.  Sure, it might not make you feel like a big man if you don't get that "check mate" at the end of the debate; but if that's what you're looking for, you've got issues of your own to deal with.

I've gotten a few people in my time to agree with my position, but *never* during the actual debate.  And afterwards when I see them repeating the things I had said, I don't bring it up at all; but smile to myself, knowing I had done a good job.  If that's not good enough for you, then you're in the wrong business.

Anti-Muslim Bigotry is Still Bigotry

Here in America, when rightwing nutjobs form a militia, we blame their ideology and say "What a bunch of rightwing nutjobs." And when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, we didn't say "Ooh, us white people are so dangerous." We said "Man, those rightwing nutjobs are dangerous." And when Tea Partiers talk about having to commit violence against the country and having a civil war because Obama made them buy good health insurance, we think "Wow those conservative nutjobs are crazy."

And we also have liberals who, while not violent as the aforementioned nutjobs are, also do extreme things that the rest of us don't approve of.  And so you had OWS Movement people breaking laws, trespassing, and doing other illegal activities that are denounced by the majority of people in the movement.  And you'll have liberals who don't even approve of what the OWS Movement as a whole is doing.  And you'll have Democrats who don't even approve of the liberals.

And people on the other side are always quick to condemn the entire movement based upon what the most extreme elements are doing.  Conservatives who will blast Obama because someone was assaulted at an OWS camp, for instance.  And the point is to lump all your enemies into as wide a group as possible, in order to make the entire group look bad.  But we, of course, push back against that and show all the variety of opinion on our side; just as conservatives do whenever one of their nutjobs goes crazy.

And while we lay some blame on the more fevered elements in their movement stirring the pot, like the Limbaughs and Glenn Beck and whatnot, we still separate them from the more moderate elements in their party. Like George Will, and other more reasonable conservatives. And we differentiate the rest of the country into identifiable groups, like moderates, and centrists, and liberals, and progressives.  And there are blue collar voters, rural voters, soccer moms, liberal elites, etc. And we all have our smaller subsets within these groups, and make a point of distinguishing very fine lines between them; acknowledging that there is a wide variety of people in this country.

But...when it comes to violent Muslims, many of us just say "Muslims".  As if there's just *ONE GROUP* of them, and they all believe the same thing. There aren't conservative Muslims or moderates or liberals. And there aren't Sunnis, Shiites, Sufis, and all their variant subsets. There are just "Muslims" and their religion is to blame for anything bad that any Muslim does. And when a few thousand Muslims riot, we find it perfectly ok to just say "Muslims" are rioting and to attribute the violence to Islam, even if it's only 0.006% of them who did anything wrong. That's the definition of bigotry.

And while it naturally bothers me when people on the right do this, I've been debating with too many people on the left regarding this exact point.  People who loudly denounce racist cartoons of all stripes, who think it's their duty as citizens to promote offensive cartoons about Islam; under the idea that they're "just cartoons" and the Muslims shouldn't be so sensitive.  People who would surely denounce racist attacks on "welfare queens" or anyone who suggested that all black people are violent because its endemic to their culture, yet think it's ok to say that same thing about Muslims.  After all, some Muslims claim that their religion commands them to kill the Infidel, so who are we to argue with their religion?

And I'm sorry, there's no excuse for bigotry.  None.  I don't care if there are violent Muslims in this world, that doesn't give anyone the right to denounce Muslims as a whole.  Because yeah, there are violent Muslims, just as there are violent white people and black people and Hispanic people and Asian people; but that's still no justification to smear all the rest of the people in those groups.  And if it bothers you to be called a bigot, maybe you shouldn't be one.

If you want to denounce extremism, please do so.  But don't blame it on Islam.  Blame it on the extremists.

Charles Krauthammer: Collapse of the Intellectual Conservative

I wrote some stuff here about how this was in response to a friend on Facebook referring to Charles Krauthammer as an intellectual, but this post got waaaay longer than I intended, so I cut out the backstory and am going straight into the main part, so you'll just have to imagine the parts you missed.  It was still interesting, but I figured you wouldn't likely finish this if it included the first eight paragraphs.

Charles Krauthammer: Intellectual Hack

But...Charles Krauthammer?  The man's a complete political hack, of the sort you read because you want something intelligent, but lack the depth of knowledge to realize he's completely lying to you.  But I'm sure that's what he gets off to.  He's the sophist who enjoys twisting reality in front of your face, purely for the thrill of deceiving you.  I'm sure he makes good money at it, but I betcha he'd do it for free, too.

(Edited out part with a link to this story; which involved Krauthammer's theory that the Obama campaign knew months before the convention that it'd thunderstorm during Obama's speech and were ok with that, but only decided to move it indoors because he couldn't fill the stadium.)

But I knew that this alone wouldn't be enough.  So I decided to do a search on Krauthammer, and found a piece he just wrote about Obama's middle-east policy.  And I thought it was very informative, with a real nuance for the issues at hand, and it made me think twice about my support for Barack Obama.

Just kidding.  It was a total smear piece from start to finish, and I'm not sure if there was any fact he included that wasn't used to distort the truth.  The whole thing can be summed up as: Obama is a failure in the middle-east because he was weak, naive, and incompetent.  Now...where else can I read that?  That's right, anywhere.

Seriously, that's been part of Romney's stump speech ever since he wrote a book about it.  And any website mentioning the middle-east these days is teeming with conservatives nutjobs saying the exact same thing.

From Political Smear to Intellectual Heft

But Kraut's a pro, so he can't just come out and repeat the same slogan that ObummerFail2012 is posting at RedState.  No, he's got to come up with something better.  Something...intellectual.  So instead, he focuses on a speech Obama made in 2009, in his column titled Collapse of Cairo Doctrine.

And the point of this attack was to highlight how silly Obama was for thinking he could fix the middle-east by admitting that we had made mistakes, saying we'd be leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, and other niceties to show that we're not enemies.  The fool!!  And again, this could come straight from a Romney speech.  It's all about how Obama apologized for America instead of cracking heads, and now the middle-east is blowing up because they don't respect us no more.

Because yeah, things were sooooo peaceful back when Bush was running things, and nobody was attacking our embassies or blowing up the UN Compound in Baghdad, killing seventeen people including the UN Envoy.  Nope, Bush talked strong and Arabs respected him for it.  And then Obama came along to apologize and ruined everything.

The Invention of the Cairo Doctrine

And again, this is all boilerplate rightwing attacks.  Where's the intellectualism?  It's not in his conclusions. It's in his style.  Here's how Kraut opens his attack:

In the week following Sept. 11, something big happened: the collapse of the Cairo Doctrine, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's foreign policy. It was to reset the very course of post-9/11 America, creating, after the (allegedly) brutal depredations of the Bush years, a profound rapprochement with the Islamic world. 

On June 4, 2009, in Cairo, Obama promised "a new beginning" offering Muslims "mutual respect," unsubtly implying previous disrespect. Curious, as over the previous 20 years, America had six times committed its military forces on behalf of oppressed Muslims, three times for reasons of pure humanitarianism (Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo), where no U.S. interests were at stake.

Now, you may be asking: What exactly *is* the Cairo Doctrine.  I mean, lots of people talked about the Bush Doctrine, Palin's ignorance notwithstanding.  It was an ever-evolving rule that justified whatever Bush needed to justify, usually through strength, tough talk, and violence.

But while a search on the "Cairo Doctrine" turns up 130,000 results; they're almost all to this very piece Krauthammer wrote; proclaiming its collapse.  Even trying to exclude Krauthammer and Collapse from the mix, I was still getting heavy results for Krauthammer's attack.  So more likely than not, the Cairo Doctrine is just something just Krauthammer invented.  He picked an important speech Obama gave three years ago, teased a strawman doctrine out of it to attribute to Obama, and then knocked it down.

Obama Doctrine: I'm Not Bush

And this wasn't the basis for Obama's middle-east policies, as Krauthammer claims.  This was a speech Obama gave to introduce himself to the middle-east, as a way of showing that we're not enemies and that what happened in the past will stay in the past. And the reason it may have sounded naive and respectful, is because that's the sort of speech it was meant to be.  Just read it yourself.

No real policy plans or a guiding principle to lead by.  It was just to say that Bush sucked and he wasn't Bush, so let's move on; though he never actually referenced Bush at all.  And if this "doctrine" failed, that'd just mean that they didn't buy it and we'd be back to where we were before he made the speech.  Which means, duh, back to where Bush left us.  And that's why Krauthammer has to rewrite history, to act as if things were all hunky dory before Obama came along, and they weren't attacking our embassies or killing our people.

So the doctrine that supposedly collapsed was one Krauthammer invented himself, yet the nutjobs on the right lapped it up completely, because Kraut sounded so damn smart when he said it.  Yet it was really just an intellectual package for the same "Obama's apologizing to our enemies" claptrap conservatives have been saying for years.

All About the Doctrines

But of course, Krauthammer can't just sit there and defend Bush's policies, as he knows everyone considers Bush to be a failure.  So instead, he rewrites Obama's speech to mean that he was apologizing for all of America's "supposed" wrongdoing, claiming that we can't have a "new beginning" unless we're rejecting everything that came previously.

And he points out how unfair it is for Obama to reject the policies we had before, citing three times we used troops for humanitarian issues.  I mean, hey, how can Obama say we're always the bad guys if we've done good things before.  But except, duh!  Those three missions were all from Clinton, and Republicans denounced them and insisted we shouldn't get involved in humanitarian missions.

In fact, here's a piece from the Krautmeister himself, where he denounced The Consequences Of Clinton's `Little Kosovo War' back in 1999. And ironically, here he is in 1999 denouncing The Clinton Doctrine.  And in both cases, we seem him denouncing the three humanitarian missions that he cites as proof that America ain't so mean after all.

And the funniest part is reading the conclusion of that second piece, where he writes:

The essence of foreign policy is deciding which son of a bitch to support and which to oppose--in 1941, Hitler or Stalin; in 1972, Brezhnev or Mao; in 1979, Somoza or Ortega. One has to choose. A blanket anti-son of a bitch policy, like a blanket anti-ethnic cleansing policy, is soothing, satisfying and empty. It is not a policy at all but righteous self-delusion.

Am I nuts, or would that have made a decent attack on the Bush Doctrine that Krauthammer supported?  I mean, just substitute "anti-ethnic cleansing" with "anti-terror" and you've just described the Bush Doctrine...or at least one of the Bush Doctrines, as again, it kept changing depending upon what Bush was trying to justify at the time.  And while that's the antithesis of what a doctrine is supposed to be, it really does fit Bush pretty well.

Speaking of Doctrines...

Here's what Krauthammer wrote about The Bush Doctrine in 2001, which at the time referred to us refusing to have arms treaties with Russia:

America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly, America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will.

Yeah.  I'm sure that turned out well.  And apparently, implacable demonstrations of will don't involve humanitarian missions, or else he wouldn't have denounced The Clinton Doctrine two years earlier.

And here he is ten years later, defending a different Bush Doctrine, where he argues that the pro-democracy movements in the middle-east show that they still don't hate Americans because of what Bush did; which means Bush's policies weren't so bad after all.  I mean, hey, if they're still willing to protest against the people oppressing them instead of us, Bush couldn't have messed up too much, right?  Right?

And what we have here is an argument that Bush invading Iraq in 2003 helped a revolution in 2011.  While Obama's speech in 2009 is to blame for the violence in 2012, but had no role in the good protests that happened in between.  And the proof that Obama didn't need to make that speech is from a war that Krauthammer denounced in 1999.  Right.

Seriously, I'm supposed to imagine this guy's an intellectual?  Maybe if you take each column in isolation and don't think about things too much, I could see how that makes sense.  But seeing as how each of these columns fit exactly with what the Republican Party was saying at the time, which involved supporting the Republican policy while denouncing the Democratic President; yet contain no other intellectual consistency...that's pretty much the definition of a partisan hack; no matter how you dress it up

Krauthammer may have made things sound smarter than the average wingnut, it was still just the same Republican tripe the rest of the party was serving.

What Happens to Republicans Next

Over on Facebook I posted to a friend about how the Republican Party is in it's final death throes, and she asked me what they'll be replaced with; suggesting that maybe a party will form on the left to replace the Republicans.  But that's just wishful thinking, as a split on the right isn't going to lead to a new party on the left.  Here's what I wrote.

I don't know.  Because I just don't see the Republican Party vanishing.  I think we'll always have them, and it just depends upon whether the crazies drive out the Establishment types or if the Establishment types can kick out the crazies.  I mean, the crazies *really* should have moved to the Constitution Party, which fits them better anyway.  But since they haven't already gone, they might just refuse to move on and will sink their talons into the Republican Party forever.

And in that case, the Establishment Republicans will have to form their own party from the middle.  But if they can successfully kick out the crazies, they'll still have their own party from the middle.  And in no case will this lead to the left being able to start anything, because this is all a split among rightwingers and doesn't affect us at all.

As for what happens with the left, the problem is that there are two types of people who are disgruntled on the left: People who are upset that our outcomes aren't as liberal as they'd like and those who truly want radical things, like the end of the banking industry and capitalism as a whole.  Because that's the thing, there really *are* people who hate capitalism on the left and those are some of Obama's firmest critics.  And while they keep their focus on the same stuff that any liberal might complain about, their true objective is something I can't agree with at all.  And I know this because I've debated such people and they insist that I'm a conservative shill because I support capitalism in any form.

And the truly radical will *NEVER* be satisfied, nor will they ever be part of any effective political party, because they're nutballs and the vast majority of Americans will reject this.  And frankly, I think they like it better this way, as they have no real practical solutions and are really just trying to show their ideological purity and will be dissatisfied with any real world solutions because it betrays their ideological leanings entirely.  This is why the OWS movement couldn't come up with practical solutions, because they weren't a proper political movement.  They were individuals who were upset in general, but their specific solutions weren't compatible and since these are people who reject compromise on principle; they've effectively removed themselves from politics entirely.  Politics requires compromise, period.

But what will happen with the others is that the reasonable ones on the leftier side will have even more sway over the Democratic Party and push it further to the left than it currently is, while the other ones will head for whatever group forms in the middle after the Republicans split; which very well could be the Republican Party.  And this would basically put things back to where they were before the Reagan Revolution upset everything and lurched the country to the right.

And all this is good and proper.  From the 30's-70's, we really *were* doing lots of bigtime liberal changes and maybe things went too far too fast.  And the 80's-90's was the backlash to that, giving America a breather from an unrelenting push for new liberal policies; some of which really weren't good ideas.  And had 9/11 not happened, the 00's should have been part of the move back towards sanity, though that obviously didn't happen.  Remember, Compassionate Conservativism was their antidote for hardcore conservatives, so they could push the Republican Party more liberal without angering the conservatives.  That obviously went out the window once they started dreaming of a Republican Dynasty after 9/11, which is why Republicans ended up further to the right than ever.

So long story short, you're still going to have fringe lefties who stay outside any group with real political power, because such people abhor politics and reject the very nature of democracy (though they adamantly deny this).  And the big difference is that the fringe righties will once again join them on the outskirts of either party, thus negating their ability to tip the scales towards the far right.  And we'll be back with two relatively liberal parties debating how liberal we should be.

And so in the grand scheme of things, what we saw was a huge push into liberalism leading into the 20th century and accelerating during the Great Depression and post-WWII period.  Then it stopped for a few decades as we took a break and started weeding out bad policies (as well as many good ones we needed).  And once the crazies on the right finally get marginalized, we'll go back on path towards more liberalism; which is what we've been seeing already.

This isn't obvious on the day-to-day interactions, but this is how history will remember all this.  No one will remember the specific compromises Obama made or minor strategic blunders.  What they'll remember is the end result, just as we ourselves gloss over all the in-fighting all previous generations endured before arriving at the outcomes we all know about.  History only looks like a smooth path in hindsight, but every generation assumes that their fighting is worse than it's ever been.  But that's just because things up close always look bigger than they do at a distance.

Mitt Romney Sucks

Over on Facebook someone posted a quote from someone saying that the only reason 90% of Republicans were going to vote for Romney was because he's not Obama.  Here was my reply, which I swear, was only meant to be a few lines.


That can't be right. It's got to be closer to 99.7%, with the other 0.3% preferring him because they feel they can relate to him.

I mean, seriously. The guy's got nothing to like policy-wise, even if you were looking for something to like. He doesn't have an economic policy or a foreign policy or an immigration policy or any other policy of any kind. He has vague statements that change from day-to-day and are often mutually incompatible even as he says them. The guy not only changes his positions daily, he doesn't even understand what a proper position is. He's such a shambles that his campaign has actually *admitted* that this is the strategy on a few occasions. Which not only means that they must be talking about this in private, but that he's such a terrible judge of character that he surrounds himself with such dumdums. Mr. Etch-a-Sketch indeed.

And the only reason he won the nomination is because, unlike his competitors, nobody actually thought he was crazy enough to believe what he was saying and assumed he was just playing a game on the rubes. So essentially, the only reason they hired him was because he was an empty suit who was all over the map and didn't have any core values to scare anyone away. Plus, he's relatively handsome, can sound intelligent in soundbites, doesn't have a racist past or southern accent, and most importantly, had Deathstar money to blast his competitors to smithereens. Which was fine, until he faced off against Obama, who also has Deathstar money, and he knows how to use it.

So none of this was unexpected. This was the plan. We're currently on the glide path to exactly where we were expected to be, and the only doubt at the time was how bad the economy would be at this point. But Romney's campaign's doing so terrible that even an under-performing job market isn't enough to help him.

But we already *knew* Romney's campaign sucked. After all, his toughest competitors were Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Fucking Gingrich. I mean, seriously. Herman Cain hasn't even held elected office and the other two got chased out of office. But of course, so did Romney. And why? Because he's absolutely terrible at politics. Simply dreadful. Hell, this guy's the guy nobody wanted back when nobody wanted McCain, and he hasn't gotten any better.  I don't know what George Romney ever taught his son, but it obviously wasn't politics or people skillz.

So back to the point, seeing as how this wasn't meant to be longer than a sentence or two when I started. Nobody wants Romney because he's Romney. They want him because he's the Republican, period. And they don't even want him that much. But I can imagine that there are a few super-millionaires and billionaires out there who truly would like someone they can relate to in the Oval Office. I doubt Bush did it for them. Probably because he had too much personality and the ultra-rich find that to be so gauche. An empty suit like Romney is definitely more their style.

Doesn't Look Like He's Held A Baby Before

Moral High Ground is Earned, Not Deserved

Keep reading on Facebook about how much more sophisticated we are than those lowbrow Muslims who can't take a joke and get all violent any time someone makes an intentionally offensive cartoon or movie which is only designed to incite violence.  And first off, having seen many of these cartoons and read descriptions of the movie, I find it a bit tough to claim any kind of cultural high ground by the folks trying to incite this violence.  I'm sorry, but a cartoon of Mohammed with a boner raping a young girl is *not* highbrow entertainment.

But the worst part is that these are designed to enrage people who want an excuse to be enraged, and is part of an endless cycle intended to end in violence by those on both sides.  And all this noise is just their way of dragging the rest of us in, to say "See look, these people are animals who hate us and we have no other choice."  And so they try to arrange things so we have no other choice than to fight each other, even though the extremists on both sides have far more in similar to each other than they do with the rest of us.  And that includes welling meaning people on Facebook who insist that we've gone through more of a "cultural evolution" than they have, because their extremists get angrier than ours do.

Here was my reply:


The people doing the violence are part of a political movement, not a religious movement. Religion is the excuse. The goal is political. And once again, the vast majority of Muslims aren't killing anyone, while the ones doing the killing would like nothing more than for us to overreact and do things that encourage the non-violent ones to get violent. Just like the anti-Muslim people here want them to overreact and do things that encourage non-violent Americans to get violent.

And our goal needs to be to stop the extremists on both sides from achieving their goal of all-out war. Sure, our guys are only hyping the anti-Muslim stuff that pisses off the violent Muslims and offends the non-violent as well. But when our end result is to rain missiles on their homes and kill innocent men, women, and children; I don't see how this makes us the good guys.

Because frankly, I don't give a damn why someone's trying to kill me, and while our cultural evolution might be more advanced, that didn't help us too much at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or the other places where we humiliated and tortured people. Anyone who gets their kicks at the idea of waterboarding doesn't seem so advanced to me. So how about we get off our high-horse and acknowledge that there's more to all this than intentionally rude cartoons and movies that are designed to incite violence.

Judging Obama

Amazing.  There are still progressives who denounce Obama for being center-right.  That's so 2010.  And it's all posited in a reality in which politics isn't real and Obama can do anything he wants, but doesn't.  Which is why these people prefer the Kabuki Theater Theory of Politics, in which politics is a big conspiracy and they're only pretending to fight each other; all evidence to the contrary.

For example, Obama promised in 2008 that he'd close Gitmo.  He didn't close Gitmo, therefore he's a liar.  Now first off, only a child would think a campaign promise is a guarantee.  I mean, how can a politician guarantee that they can pass something?  They can't.  What they're promising isn't that this WILL happen, but that they're going to push for it.  Sure, that's not what they say, but again, we're all grownups and are supposed to understand how this works.

Now, when a politician says something they have no plan to pass, or that they can't possibly pass because they're promising too much (eg, Romney's plan on everything), then they're lying.  But that's really no better than a politician who doesn't say they're planning something hugely controversial, and then spring it on voters after the election (eg, just about every Republican, including Scott Walker and Rick Scott).  And yet we're to believe that a politician who says they'll do something, and tries to do it but is stopped is a total ingrate unworthy of our support.

But again, grownups are supposed to know better, and if anything, maybe we should stop asking politicians to promise things they can't guarantee.  And I'd be fine with that, if only because I understand that that's how it works anyway.

Democracy as Shitfest

Long story short, this is what I responded to a friend's friend on Facebook.


The problem is that you can't judge Obama's political leanings by what he's done. We're gauging ourselves based upon a theoretical perfect-world scenario of what we'd do if we were king. Yet we don't allow Obama to use his perfect-world scenario, as his perfect-world scenario would have surely included universal healthcare, bigger stimulus, better jobs plans, a big cut in defense, and closing Gitmo. And I know that because he's a pragmatic man and those are the things that would help him best.

And we could also use Obama's public statements to judge him, which aren't going to be as good as his perfect-world scenario because they are tempered for political reasons; but which are still fairly liberal. Yet his critics deny him that, and insist that we judge him based upon what he accomplished. And that's fair enough, I suppose. But those things all include compromises that we don't need to make in our perfect-world scenario; and are therefore not compatible with how we judge ourselves. And rather than using his demands at the negotiating table to judge what he wanted, we're using the end result of the negotiations; which are weighed heavily for conservatives, for reasons that are mostly out of Obama's control. Does he *want* to negotiate with conservatives? No, he's forced to because this is a democracy and thems are the rules.

And this is like me judging your political beliefs by putting you in a room with two Republicans who both insist you're an evil fool; and you're not allowed to leave the room until you all come up with an agreement on what to do. Does that agreement represent you? No, it was a stupid compromise based upon a ridiculous situation. Same for Obama. He shouldn't have to be negotiating with these dangerous fools, but he is.

And so our standards shouldn't be what we would have done. It's what would have happened without Obama. And if it wasn't for Obama, we might be talking about what a letdown Hillary was or Howard Dean, or how bad President McCain is. Because that's the reality. This is a democracy and that means that your crazy uncle gets a say in how things happen. And that's for the best. While I wish our crazy uncles weren't so crazy, we're stuck dealing with them and trying to pass any policies that all sides can agree on. That's what democracy is: A shitfest where all the shit needs to be eaten, and we're all trying to eat as little as possible.

If anything, this just means we can't really know what Obama's political leanings are, because we'll never know if he's lying or not. But I'm fine with that too. Just as long as his critics on the left realize that too. They keep telling us what he really thinks since before he took office, and I've yet to understand what psychic they're listening to.

How to Get Rich: Learn to Schmooze

One of the big lies in the Republican version of capitalism is that it's all about hard work. Sure, they'll say, there are people who are rich and get richer. *BUT* what about all the guys who *weren't* rich and ended up rich. And hey, even Mitt Romney started with little and built up. And yeah, lazy people are NOT going to get ahead in the world, and there are many tales of rich lazy people who squandered their fortune.

But what's the key to getting ahead in the world? Who you know. Period. You can't make it without at least a little elbow grease and usually a lot. But who you know is far more important. And there's nothing particularly corrupt about that, either. That's why the OWS crowd doesn't quite have it right. It's not rigged against the Have Nots per se; it's just that the Have Nots don't know the right people. All they know is other Have Nots, and that ain't gonna do you much good when you're looking for investors.

It's not necessarily that we have a corrupt system, though there's surely some of that. It's just that personal connections are more important than hard work or money. And you know that to be true yourself, as you're far more likely to help a friend than a stranger. And so if you want to get ahead in the world and retire young, learn how to meet the right people and how to convince them that they want to give you their money. Rich people *want* to give money to the right people, but they can't do that unless you know them.

And if you just don't have those skills, that'd help explain why you're not getting ahead. The ability to schmooze rich people is a skill like any other. Some people have it. Some don't.  And I say that as someone who doesn't have that skill, but am certainly willing to learn.

Majoring in Student Loans

Over at TPM, someone posted a comment suggesting that part of the country's problem is when we lend out $200,000 to students who study "sociology or Medieval French Literature at private colleges."  Needless to say, he got pounded, by people who took it as an attack on flakey majors.  And the general theme was that we needed sociologists and French liturgists too.

And yeah, that was a bit of the guy's riff.  And to be honest, I feel that a bit too.  I mean, if someone takes sociology or French Literature and does something with it, fantastic.  But...the majority of people don't, and they're no better off than any other major they could have taken.  And since business majors can also take those classes while still getting a degree they can use, I've always been a bit confused as to why people go that route.

While some people really have a knack for it, I strongly suspect that many of them just did it because they needed a major and didn't know what else to do.  And I say that as someone who went to a few colleges, so let's not pretend that doesn't happen.  I mean, seriously.  There are far more sociology degrees than there are sociologists. and again, anyone can take those classes; including people who just want to audit the class without a grade.

And so I jumped in to defend the guy, pointing out that the $200,000 debt was the bigger focus, with the fruity majors being in there to showcase that such people can't afford that debt.  And then I had a guy try to jump on my ass, completely ignoring the debt issue, and insisting that I wanted to be the one to decide which studies to pursue, as well as insulting business majors; as if all we learn is how to kiss ass.  And...no.  Missed the point completely.  Here was my reply.

Yes, John. I will make that decision for people. That's what I said. Clearly you were a Reading Comprehension major, as you totally got my point. Sarcasm. 

Seriously though, people can study whatever the hell they want. They can study rat butts for all I care. The point is about the debt, not the study. If someone wants to take a few classes at a community college to study Medieval French Literature, more power to them. Or if Mitt Romney's sons want to pay big bucks to study rat butts for ten years at the Sorbonne, good for them. I'm sure it'll be better than listening to their old man rant about getting his ass whupped for the next ten years.  

But...when people are going into serious debt that gravely affects the rest of their lives, we've got a problem. Particularly when its for something that isn't going to give them a ticket to pay it off. I went into debt to get my accounting degree, and it was the best decision I ever made. Totally paid for itself, particularly as I went to a state school which taught me on the cheap. And now I'm self-employed and have small business owners thank me for helping them with their businesses, as I got a degree that made it so I don't have to kiss anyone's ass. 

And hey, that's not for everyone. We need people of all types. Yet when those people graduate, they're stuck with crushing debt that affects them for the rest of their lives, as well as the lives of their spouses. Not so bad when you're a doctor. Not so good when you got a degree that's mainly useful for teaching and you didn't want to go that route.  

And that's the thing, you don't have to get a four-year degree to study Philosophy. You can take a few classes, or study it on your own. Because those people are still taking many of the same classes I took, and yet they can't pay for their debt. Particularly not if they did it at a private school. And this a real problem.  

Sure, maybe Stephen didn't put things quite the right way, but he does have a point. College debt is a serious issue, and no, I don't think having the rest of us pay for someone to study linguistics is necessarily the way to go. Sure, we need linguists, but what about the people who aren't going to be linguists, but just took the major because they thought it was cool. And yeah, I'm thinking of a specific person I know, and they're not a linguist.

And as a final note, as I don't feel I ended that on my standard conclusive line: I honestly think students would be better served if we were upfront about what they were getting into.

To tell them, hey dude, just so you know, that Poli-Sci degree you're thinking about getting really might be for crap, and that's not just an insult the Business majors say.  And maybe you'll be a great campaign manager someday (or whatever it is people do with Poli-Sci degrees that isn't teaching Poli-Sci) and make a ton of money, or maybe you're about to saddle yourself with a mound of debt that will make your future wife hate you, once it becomes her debt too.  So you need to think long and hard about this: Are you getting into this because you understand what this degree means, or are you doing it because you think politics is cool and didn't want to get a major involving math?

Because again, if people understand all this stuff and they're cool with it, fine.  But I've already heard too many tales of grads who insist they had no idea what they were getting into, and now they're screwed.  And that's just not what college is supposed to be about, and while the ultimate blame goes towards an out-of-control education system; these stories are out there and there's really no excuse to see any more victims.

AP Fact Check: Bill Clinton & Democrats Suck

At some point, professional Fact Checkers need to realize that their job isn't to hunt out lies to debunk, whether they're real or not, but to just check the facts.  And if all the facts check out, it's ok to say that.  You can tell us that Obama was telling the truth about his numbers, or that Paul Ryan said something true when he referenced his wife's name (though we're still looking into that one).

You aren't required to tell us that all politicians are liars if you just found a speech that didn't have lies.  That's one reason so many people are cynical about politics, as the media loves to blame both sides; because it's far easier than telling folks the truth and face the wrath of Republicans who hate it.

Because no, spin is not the same as lying.  And if a politician tells us something that makes his side look better, but is basically true, then it's true; whether it made him look good or not.  As long as the basic context of the claim is true, we're all allowed to see our own side of it.  Because hey, maybe our spin is correct.  Maybe when both sides blame the other, it's possible that only one side is right and they're not both to blame.  And if the truth of a particular fact comes down to the opinions of the people involved...you're not checking facts, you're checking opinions.  And that's not what you were hired to do.

And yes, that's all to get us around to the AP's egregious "fact check" of Clinton's speech last night, where the best they could do was apparently to find four "facts" to check out of Clinton's forty-eight minute long speech; and the "truth" of one of these claims was simply that Bill had lied about something over a decade ago, which apparently undermines his ability to call anyone else a liar.  By that standard, Paul Ryan will never make it in the fact checking business.  Never.

Fact Checking Spin

And while that last "fact" check was the most ridiculous of the batch, the whole thing was pathetically weak, and without a doubt, completely exposed the writer's bias.  Sure, he couldn't find much of any "facts" to dispute, but god dammit, he knows they're there.  He can feel it.  He knows he was lied to, he just can't figure out how.  And rather than highlight any of the facts Clinton got right, we're stuck with garbage like this.

THE FACTS: From Clinton's speech, voters would have no idea that the inflexibility of both parties is to blame for much of the gridlock. Right from the beginning Obama brought in as his first chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, a man known for his getting his way, not for getting along.

What?!  The hiring of Rahm Emmanuel is evidence that Clinton was lying when he blamed Republicans for partisanship   Huh?

The next "example" showing that Clinton was wrong for blaming Republicans was because Congressional Republicans and some Congressional Democrats didn't like the "Grand Bargain" Obama and Republican leaders had been hashing out.  What is the proof that both sides were to blame for this?  I haven't a clue.  The checker never said.  He also never mentioned that Obama had given up far more than Republicans had, as we were giving up far more spending programs than they were giving up in tax increases; by a three-to-one margin.  So the deal itself was already loaded in Republican's favor, yet Democrats are somehow also to blame for not compromising enough.  Right.

And who was it that killed the Grand Bargain?  That'd be John Boehner and the Republicans, that's who.  And more importantly, why was the Grand Bargain being made in the first place?  Because Republicans unilaterally decided to play political football with our country's credit rating; threatening to throw us off the cliff if they didn't get what they wanted.  Period.  That was it.  They had voted repeatedly in the past to raise the debt ceiling, but this go round, they decided to play chicken with our nation's economy because they thought it'd benefit them.

Soooo...this was an issue where Republicans rejected a compromise that went heavily in their favor to solve a crisis that was entirely of their creation because they wanted to pressure Obama into giving them what they wanted.  Uh, yeah.  Let's blame both sides for that.

Must Blame Both Sides.  Must Blame Both Sides.

The Fact Checker also went on to mention the Simpsons-Bowles Plan, which Republicans rejected because it didn't go far enough in cutting government spending.  And since Obama didn't unilaterally decide to adopt the plan as his own, which of course would have made it his starting position in negotiations and which Republicans would be able to whittle down further in their favor; this is proof that Obama was also to blame.

After all, it was his commission and he ignored it; while Republicans including Paul Ryan rejected it completely.  And all for an issue that liberals didn't want in the first place, and which was much more weighted for Republicans than Democrats.  Yeah, sounds like both sides are to blame for that as well.

At this point I was going to go on and do the rest of the piece, but this took too long and I've got real work to do.  But you get the idea.  And the main problem here is that Clinton gave a substantive speech with lots of facts.  Yet if you read this piece, you'd never know it.  Because apparently, telling readers that Clinton got the facts right would be biased...or something.

And that's in accordance with the liberal bias we typically find in reality.  So instead the "fact check" focuses on spin that the writer didn't like.  Didn't find many facts to dispute, but he sure didn't like Clinton's tone.

My Atheist Funeral

As a followup to my last post, someone took my question about atheist weddings and flipped it around, asking about atheist funerals.  That person suggested they wouldn't be cool with a church funeral, but weren't sure what to do.  Here's what I wrote, and yes, if I die without making any other arrangements, this counts as my legally binding wishes.  Seriously.

Hmm, wow. The funeral. Hadn't thought of that one. I think I'd be ok with a church funeral, because most of my family are Christians and it'd make them feel better. And since I won't really be there anyway, I'm ok with that. After all, funerals are for the living, not the dead. 

Thus said, I've already made plans to be cremated and have my ashes scattered somewhere cool. The location isn't important, as again, I'm not going to be there. So it's really up to the person I've told to do this where they want to go; just as long as it's somewhere at least somewhat cool and not like an overpass or suburb. And the main reason I want my ashes scattered is because I see no point in keeping my remains around for someone else to keep track of or screw with; and really like the idea of all y'alls asses breathing me in without knowing it. Bwa ha ha! 

And the reason I want to be cremated is because it bothers me to think that my corpse would be rotting away in a god damn box underground. I mean, seriously. That's weird. Plus, on the off chance zombies are real, I don't want to be one. The last thing I need is for some corporation to figure out how to reanimate dead people and put them to work as zombie slaves. I've already spent enough time in Corporate America and don't need any more of that shit just because I'm dead.

And as a final note, I'm not much into death and am not particularly reverent towards life either.  So I want people to party at my funeral.  Not because they're happy I'm dead, of course.  And I'd certainly like some serious words to be spoken of me, just cuz.  But I don't want to go out with people making me out to be a saint, talking as if I was a ray of sunshine or anything, because that's crap.  I lived like a happy asshole and I want to be remembered that way.

And I want everyone at my funeral to have at least one alcoholic drink, toasting to my memory.  And that includes the alcoholics and other teetotalers.  You don't want to have one drink for me, you've got no business at my funeral.  And extra thanks goes to the people who get shitfaced.  You're my kind of people.