Duality

The fact that religion is innately political does not justify politics being innately religious.

One is a system for governance, designed with a specific agenda. Whether it's the betterment of the populace, or the advancement of the regime's ideals is almost wholly dependant upon which version you favor, and even that is a matter of where you were born and how you were raised. The other is religion, which is simply a matter of what your favorite superstitions are, and how you can best apply them for personal gain.

Both can be detrimental.

Both.

To rule iron-fisted, with fundamental adherence to one or more ancient documents (regardless of their source) impedes progress more than any other thing. Differences of opinion can be debated, discussed, or even summarily quashed, depending on your preferred methods (still talking about both). The election of leaders is always more a matter of who has fondled whose junk with more supplication and grace (yes, still both) than objectively deciding who is most qualified to lead. Add to that the inherent bestowing of favors, pardons, and dispensations on the ruling faction's pets, and the outcry of oppression from the losing party's members, and there is a nearly blinding symmetry.

Here is where some of we Americans are different (if you can see us through the embarrassing hordes): We have a code, a living document for governance, called the Constitution. Not only does it lay out ideals toward which the country should aspire, it provides for adjustment and adaptation to progress.

Progress, I have every intention of reminding you, is not defined as staunch and stubborn clinging to old ways. If it were, we'd be sacrificing virgins to Hermes in hopes of getting out of debt.

The only way forward is to drop one of these systems, and the best way forward is to drop the one that favors blind obedience more than reason and logic.

If, however, anyone can point out a single reference to God in the Constitution of the United States of America... just one... I will gladly move on to other things, and never speak of this again.

On that, you have my word.

The Agreeable Mr. Romney

We've now seen four debates. At least, those of us who watched them have. We've also seen four completely different debates between what appears to be at least eight different presidential candidates.

• There's the ultra-conservative teabagger Mitt Romney who's been running the campaign ads against the incumbent Obama, who's been more or less reactionary in those ads.
• The animated, no-doze popping Mitt Romney we saw at the first presidential debate up against the subdued "I wish I was celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary instead of arguing with this asshole" Obama in Denver.
• The foot-stamping, arm-crossing, spoiled brat Romney debating the Obama that someone must've finally woken up in the second debate in Rhode Island after the VP debate between Joe "Get the fuck off my lawn" Biden and Paul "I didn't know we were moderate now" Ryan (and I include these because, let's face it, it's their first debate before they both set their sights on the 2016 bid).
• Now we have Mitt "I agree with you there" Romney up against Barack "you didn't a few weeks ago" Obama for the third and final debate in Boca Raton... a city known for its old, retired jewish population. Note that, because it's important later.

Mitt the Twit agreed with the president... a lot... about seven separate times, and that's not including the secondary agreements he acknowledged in the course of the major agreements. In other words, Romney's foreign policy is exactly like the president's, but with more of a "CRIPPLE! KILL! ROMNEY SMASH!" feel to it.

A mere four minutes into the debate, Mitt "we need to make Iran go boom, but that's not all" Romney jumped Obama's Bin Laden card, and Obama was glad he agreed. About 12 minutes in, Romney tried a passive-aggressive somewhat condescending route by agreeing with something he thought Obama said about some stuff, and the POTUS attempted to set him straight on what he actually said. Candy Crowley wasn't there to back up the facts like last time, so this went largely unnoticed, and was such a mish mosh of rhetoric that I completely forgot what the question actually was. This raised the question, "Who's who?" We have Our moderate yes man (as opposed to the cuddly robotic suit we've all come to know and loathe), Romney citing Bin Laden's death 4 minutes in,  and 13 minutes in, Obama lays out five points. Around 24 minutes in, Mitt "China isn't playing fair" Romney agrees with the President on Egypt, and again less than a minute later, but about a half hour into the debate, Mitt the Twit was back to the five point plan.

This is one of the highlights for me, at about 36 minutes. Obama finally calls Romney on the assertion that he brought Massachusetts up to it's current rank in education by pointing out that the state attained that rank some ten years before he took office. I've been wondering throughout this whole debate series when someone was going to call him on this shit. I suppose it's a good tactic to wait until the last debate, since this is the one most people will actually tune in to.

Mitt has laid out his entire first day in office already. Apparently, he's got a plan to save the civilized world on day one. he can't tell us that plan, because it's just so good, and he doesn't want anyone to steal it. Again, a magician never reveals his secrets. So amongst all the agreeing with the president, Mittens is also going to get rid of Obamacare on day one, because we all know that's the single most important thing leading this nation down the path of becoming a third world country. He's also going to declare China a "currency manipulator" on day one, because they keep holding down the value of their currency, and let's face it, they just aren't playing nicely. I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with Romney's Chinese investments (that must just be an odd coincidence, like the whole Bush / Middle East oil thing... just... you know... serendipitous). He'll also give control of medicaid over to the states to run on day one, because we all know how well the states do when it comes to caring for their populations in a nationally cohesive way. in short, he's going to start shirking his responsibilities right away. No sense in wasting time, right?

After all this hullabaloo, a little over a half hour into the debate, Obama went into flat-out condescending mode. He poignantly asserted that he didn't think Mitt knows how the military works, and why should he? He's a rich white guy applying for the job of sending YOUR kids overseas to fight, not his own! Barack "I can't believe I've got to hold this guy's hand and walk him through this" Obama informed the newly moderate Romney that "we have fewer horses and bayonets, we have these things called aircraft carriers that planes can land on. We have these ships that can go underwater called nuclear submarines."

He schooled him.

He sank Mitt's battleship.

Romney asserted that the POTUS went on an "apology tour." Well, what do you expect after the eight year clusterfuck in the previous administration? If we're going to maintain our global position as a nation that deserves respect, we're going to have to acknowledge and address the various ways in which the last fucktard has flipped off all the other countries occupying this little rock called Earth. It wasn't an apology tour, the president was simply going around the world explaining that we don't really know who that last guy was, or how he managed to hack into our Facebook account, but we've got a sane person as a representative now, so let's let bygones be bygones.

Schieffer asked what I think is a rather important question later on in the exchange. "What if the prime minister of Israel called you right now and said 'our bombers are on the way [to Pakistan]?'"
Mitt "I think I have to poop" Romney's face contorted like someone just force fed him a handful of sour gumballs coated in dogshit. "Let's not deal with hypotheticals"... uh... let's get back to something else... I'm not going to answer that question. EVADE! EVADE! He very quickly turned it into an opportunity to address the two or three things on which he doesn't agree with Obama. The president addressed Romney's jabs, and offered a little clarity on clarity, but was pretty clearly unclear on the clarity of Romney's clarity. Also: I killed Bin Laden, and here's a little story about why.

Immediately afterward, Romney wants to fall back on his "moderate the moderator" strategy, insisting that Shieffer can't just let the president lay out a bunch of points like that (this, by the way, right after Obama addressed the half-dozen points Romney had just laid out).

On Afghanistan: Romney now agrees with the troop withdraw by the end of 2014. Apparently, he forgot to tell his running mate, because as you may remember, Biden and Ryan had a bit of a row about this a few weeks ago.

The debate on foreign policy seemed to be a lot more like a debate about Israel with bits of "Let me backpedal a bit here" and "also, on the issue of domestic policy" sprinkled in. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the concept of playing for your audience, and Boca raton definitely has an audience that is very interested, and personally invested in relations with Israel (put your pointing fingers and cries of anti-semitism away, it's an observation, not a judgement), but the debate was to be about foreign policy, not Israeli policy.

Overall, this last debate left me woefully unsatisfied. I have a litany of questions, some of them old, and still unanswered, like "why is it so fucking difficult for a college-educated white guy in his mid-thirties to get a job, when everyone seems to think that college-educated white guys in their mid-thirties always live the life of Reilly?" Others are new, like "Who the fuck is this guy debating the president? I thought Mitt Romney was the GOP candidate. Did he drop out? Where did he go? What the fuck is going on here? Why are we tickling Israel's asshole? Is anyone paying attention to North Korea?"

I was really hoping to see a more concise display of exactly what each candidate intends to do with regard to foreign policy and national security issues, which is what the debate was supposed to be about, but instead all I got out of it was:

• Israel is our buddy.
• China is a poopyhead.
• We stand with Israel.
• Syria needs bigger guns, but we shouldn't get involved... well maybe we'll get involved... it depends, but we need to make sure they're well-armed... or not... dunno...
• We're working with Israel.
• Iran is going nuclear unless we seriously fuck them up, but not militarily, because that's a last resort... unless we have to go in and kick some ass... which we should... I think.
• Israel is our ally.
• I agree with the president.
• Israel is our friend.
• I'm glad Mitt agrees with me.
• Israel good, Iran bad.
• Libya... um... A little help, Mr. Reagan? Oh, yeah, that's right...
• Let's all move to Israel, eat cake, and sing Kumbaya.

Right Wing Mythbuster.

 Isn't it funny how the people that believe this country was founded by people seeking religious freedom are the ones trying to cram Christianity down everyone's throat? Here are a few right-wing myths set beside the actual facts for your perusal:

 "Obama is a socialist nigger from Kenya!" 

 He's actually mixed race democrat from Hawaii, by way of Illinois (though why anyone would chose to move from Hawaii to Illinois is beyond me). Although his father was Kenyan, his mother was a stark white women, and natural born citizen of the United States, married to his father prior to his birth. Personally, I think a majority of the idiotic hate that Obama faces can more appropriately be tracked to the fact that his father married, and vigorously fucked a white woman. Something the tiny minds of the religious right just can't accept, but don't want to publicly say they can't accept.

 "If them fags are allowed to marry each other because of their choice of lifestyle, why can't I marry a horse?" 

 Because homosexuals don't have a choice in their orientation, they're born with it. Whom you love is not a matter of choice, it's a matter of heart, and no human being should be denied the right to marry another human being (assuming both humans are of equal maturity and intelligence, and of legal age to do so). You can't marry a horse because it wouldn't be a mutual decision, as marriage is, and marriage is an exclusively human rite. In addendum, animals are not granted rights under the Constitution of The United States as citizens. Although what you chose to do with your junk is your own business (and what anyone else chooses to do with their junk is their business, incidentally), your argument here, is asinine, banal, juvenile, ill-founded, and pedantic.

"Poor people are lazy, and just want me to hand them my money!"

 Most poor people are not lazy. most poor people are poor because they're shouldering more than their fair share of a burden that is the responsibility of the entire working nation. We poor people don't want YOUR money, we just want our own, and we're sick of donating a majority of the pittance we break our backs, bleed, sweat, and raise callouses on our fingers for to your lobbying efforts, political campaigns, bailouts, and tax relief.

"Non-christians are Satanic heathens!"

 Nope. Muslims, who practice the Islamic religion, worship an analogue of your god that they call Allah, Buddhists worship an analogue of your god (albeit much less self-centered and vengeful) that they call Buddha, and Atheists worship no god. Satanism is, by definition, a religion; one whose practitioners worship Satan.

"My kid should be allowed to pray in school! They're stomping on my religious freedom!" 

 Your kid IS allowed to pray in school. There is nothing barring your child, or any other, from praying while in school, or any other public place. There ARE, however, conventions set forth by our forefathers protecting the rights of EVERYONE. Not just your kid. Prayer IS allowed in public school, it just isn't, and shouldn't be mandatory. You'd be just as pissed off if public schools taught the Qu'ran, or (god forbid) the Torah, because what you actually mean is: "My kid isn't forced to pray in school." Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, and therefore, religion is not mandated in public schools. You can, however, take the money I'm saving you by paying your share of the taxes that go to those public schools, and put your child in a private, charter, or catholic school, where they have entire classes dedicated to non-standard, ELECTIVE subjects such as religion. Ironically, though, you're forcing your child to participate in a religion that may or may not fit with their beliefs.

[CENSORED]

Caveat Emptor

  No, seriously... what the fuck? How do people honestly still back right wing escaped lunatics like Mitt Romney, Newt Getrich, and yes, dare I say it, Ron Paul? I don't get it. Is it because the job market sucks? Do you really think these bajillionaires are going to help you? Have you seen their track records?  None of these people would spare a kind word to Red Skelton, let alone offer any substantial support to a REAL poor person. You know what they'll do? They might offer to pray for you, or suggest that you pray yourself.  The job market sucks EVERYWHERE! It's been sucking LONG before the current president, and it will continue to suck for a while. Am I saying you can't be critical? No. Not at all. You have the right to do so, no... you have an obligation to do so according to the U.S. Constitution (still one of my favorite pieces of literature). Am I saying you're better off fucking yourself with a concrete dildo wrapped in barbed wire and capsaicin than putting another republican in the office?

 Um... yes.

 Did you see what happened with the last one? You think maybe it's a good idea to recover a little, and maybe get this country on its feet before we test its strength with incompetent assholes again? I'd recommend it. 

 Look, here's the thing. No candidate regardless of the current political faction to which s/he claims allegiance is going to please the entirety of the voting age population, but there are some out there that are simply not a good fit if we, as Americans wish to progress and quell the hatred that far too many other countries (you do remember that there ARE other countries, right?) feel in the pit of their stomachs for us.We have an astronomical portion of our population in ill-health with little to no hope of recovery just on the basis of their income. They're too poor to be healthy. Do you understand how glaringly cro-magnon that is?! They don't have enough MONEY to get proper medical treatment! Meanwhile, the whole of Europe, and even that homogeneous, barely consequential little town called CANADA cock their collective heads to the side like a dog that thinks it hears a high pitched whine as if to say, "what the fuck?"

 Let's not go trying to throw out a guy who's trying to clean up the last guy's mess. That's not how you fix things. And let's not go screaming for his head, and whining because our incessant need for instant gratification demands we do so. There's a nifty little saying:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

 Ironically, it comes from the oft-made-fun-of French. Are you going to tell me that those swarthy, suave, cretins know more about social responsibility than we do?!

 Oh wait... it seems they do. 

 All I'm saying folks is this: Put the fucking torches and pitchforks down, okay? 

 I've been accused (if you can believe it) of having too much patience. One of my all time favorite people in the world continually calls me a Zen master (and frequently gets angry at me for not getting angry about petty things). You don't have to be a Zen master, or "have the patience of Job" to see that we're in a better situation in general now than we were four, eight, or even twelve years ago (Jesus Hernandez Cristobal, has it been that long already?!). Make your decision wisely. Do not put someone in office who will continue to whittle away your rights because it affects their bottom line too much.