So Romney's 47% video situation is getting worse. He claimed that what he was saying was out of context and the whole video should be released. The whole video has since been released and it's so much worse than we thought. Not in an evil scheming sort of way, but in a 'this guy should NOT be president' sort of way. First off here's the full video.
Here's the part by itself that I'm going to talk about:
In my last post I talked about his famous 47% comments, but these comments aren't as well known as of yet. So what's the problem with this statement? Other than Romney and his recycled Bush foreign policy team beating off at the thought of invading Iran, he doesn't know what a dirty bomb is. Rachel Maddow talked about this last night, but I had a memory pop up about an economics class I had in college.
So first off, a dirty bomb is not a nuclear bomb. You don't need fissile material to make one. It's merely a normal bomb with radioactive material in it. The radius isn't that big and the amount of people who would die from one might be slightly lower than a normal bomb. This shows how little Mitt Romney knows about... well everything. This is a serious national security matter and directly affects how we deal with Iran's possible nuclear program and Romney's behind on the lingo... and is confused about what a nuclear Iran actually means.
So what does this have to do with my ITT Macro Economics Class? Well I have a conservative teacher that I sparred with from time to time. At the time I was working full time and going to school full time, something he would never know about. He started to talk about dirty bombs one day (I think he might have been confused about what one was also) and how there was no way we could stop one from getting into the U.S. and detonating. This was during the George W. Bush days. This was spinning excuses for W.'s shitty job already at this point (9/11 and Iraq anyone?). I guarantee if Obama were in office, he would have contributed it to weakness in Obama that made us look vulnerable and whatnot. This also reminds me of how conservatives are already making excuses for losing the 2012 election with 'We weren't conservative enough!!!", but that's a post for another day.
I found all of the specifics (yes on wikipedia, but if you want me to source those sources, I would be happy to) within minutes. I knew they were not the same thing, but I didn't know how bad a dirty bomb would be, which is not as bad as a conventional explosive. Maybe if Mitt took some Google/Bing time, he wouldn't put his expensive shoe covered foot in his mouth a little less often.
Just when Romney couldn't fuck things up more than he has.... here's this:
Wow... wow. He really thinks everyone who votes for the pres is a freeloader. He isn't backing down from these statements either. The most screwed up thing is that he's using a Fox News talking point, like he believes in it. That surprises me. He's talking to rich donors here, not the slack jawed tea bagging audience you see in videos meant to be public. This means he's not just spinning bullshit when he's talking, at times he believes what he says.
But let's scratch a little deeping about what he said. USA Today writes:
"According to the non-partisan Tax
Policy Center, about 46% of Americans paid no income tax in 2011. However,
nearly two-thirds of households that don't pay income tax pay payroll taxes. Of
the people who don't pay income or payroll taxes, more than half are elderly.
The center says more than one-third of those who don't pay income or payroll
taxes have incomes of less than $20,000."
So either the elderly, who are on Social Security, which they paid for, or the very poor, don't pay income taxes. This according to Romney is not taking responsibility. These people, much to Fox News' chagrin, pay a payroll tax, which is basically the same thing. When I was working (and in a week or so when I get the final word on my new job), I got paid hourly, which I'm sure Romney has never done in his life. My taxes were automatically pulled out for Medicare, Social Security, and other state and federal taxes.... this is called a Payroll Tax. It's basically the same thing as an Income Tax, except Income Taxes are paid after the fact. Mitt pays a proportionally lower tax rate than me, so how can I be freeloading off of this system?
The other half of the 'Romney is a douche in this video' equation, is that he is alluding to giving middle class and poor people higher taxes. This goes off of the whole Fox News narrative that the rich are burdened by their taxes. Number by number, their taxes are higher than mine, but proportionately, they are much lower. Besides, at the end of the day, if their taxes were the same as mine, they would still be rich as hell. Still not wanting for anything in the world, while I hold my breathe for a $16 per hour job to pay my school loans and maybe start a family next year. If you care that much about rich people and you are not rich, then you have really messed up priorities. Don't give me the whole, rich people have the spending power, crap. Corporations are sitting on $2 Trillion worth of cash and not hiring that many people with it. Trickle down economics didn't work, deal with it. If you are rich, then you are working for your self interests, but are a greedy waste of skin.
Hopefully this puts a nail in Romney's coffin. The Santorum 'Smart people won't vote for us,' thing was funny, but he's not running for jack shit, this could change the election. Also, the Santorum thing isn't taken out of context, he was talking about the media, etc, but that doesn't negate what he said and that he meant what that sounds like and evidentally... he's right.
In the end, it's funny that Romney really is as gullable as his base. It might be an ego stroking mechanism, but when he raises my taxes to make the rich richer, turns Medicare into a voucher program, destroys Social Security, and starts a couple more wars (Bush foreign policy advisors are Romney's), I won't care about his motives, just that we needed to vote for Obama more than ever.
I don't do this to be super partisan, but I don't see a lot of other assessments of why I would title this post as such, but it's the truth. Romney doesn't care. If he did, he would at least talk about keeping portions of The Affordable Health Care Act, but he won't. There has been no explanation for what they would replace it with.
The cold hard truth is, if Romney is elected, this little girl will die. If you vote for Romney, you will be an accomplice or at the very least, ignorant of the consequences of your vote. If you're reading this, you are no longer ignorant.
This election isn't about shoving the other side's face in defeat or victory. It has real consequences. I see responses to the first lady's speech.
Conservatives call her Moochelle, then claim it isn't to compare her to a cow, but to say she mooches off of tax payer money. Guess what chuckles, so would Ann Romney if you consider that mooching. I also don't buy that explanation, the bagger was lying. He also compared insulting The First Lady to someone on the Internet insulting Nikki Manaj for her Romney support... yeah, because that means the First Lady deserves it, right? I'm surprised that they haven't started dropping the n word outright on Fox News.
Anyway, you can see the racist vitriol in their words on youtube, or where ever you see this speech. I can't imagine how they'll respond to The POTUS' speech.
Paul Ryan lied a lot in his RNC speech.... a lot a lot. I thought I would lay out the lies. Some of these are my opinion, and some backed up by cold hard facts. I'll site the facts as I can, but the opinion, obviously can't be sourced. Originally I was going to look up lies on other site, but after I started to read the transcript, it wasn't hard to pick them out. So this is straight from the speech and I'm going through the transcript and looking up non partisan sources.
1. They’ve run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they’ve got left.
(Opinion)
He's talking about the Obama administration of course. Fear and division is what the GOP thrives off of. They didn't run out of ideas, there is a jobs bill the Obama team has drafted that the House strikes down and the Senate filibusters. Their moment came and went. You were the ones under 'He Who Didn't Speak At The RNC', who you've conveniently forgotten about and swept under the rug. You have 8 years with a surplus and after 9/11, the goodwill of the world to make things better. Instead you took that political capital and literal capital and squandered it.
You gave the literal capital to the rich and tried to privatize Social Security... by the way. If Dubya had succeeded in that endeavor and all of the Social Security accounts were in an IRA or some other private Merrill Lynch type account. The 2008 economic collapse would have destroyed the elderly in this country. The elderly are actually doing okay, more or less (see previous posts on my grandmother's death).
Then there's the political capital. The Democrats got behind you in a way your party would never think about doing in any situation. If Al Gore had been president, you would have attacked him right off. The country and the world was behind you and you wasted it by fucking around in Iraq. Getting people killed for your golden boy's daddy issues. Anyone who questioned you was unpatriotic and a traitor (at least online, publicly they used the term 'poor judgement').
2. With all their attack ads, the president is just throwing away money – and he’s pretty experienced at that.
That's why Clinton had over a $200 billion surplus (taking that much money per year vs. spending it) and Bush had a $1.2 trillion deficit (Spending vs. taking in). Obama's deficit will be at $1.33 trillion. The money that's tacked on in comparison: Bush vs. Clinton: $1.4 trillion VS Bush vs. Obama $130 billion, is nominal in comparison. The Bush White House didn't put the wars on the budget either, which is part of that figure. Obama was blocked when he tried to get rid of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which would have dealt with some of the debt. He was chided for getting out of Iraq, which will lower the debt as we send less resources there. Even if you don't buy any of those reasons as part of the problem, you have that stark contrast of 700% increase under Bush vs. 10% increase under Obama, yeah he sure can waste money compared to the other guy. Also, you know, having to save the economy didn't cost anything and the amount of money people aren't making as a result of that economy shouldn't factor into that calculation either.
3. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.
Everyone knows by now that this plant announces it's closing in the summer of 2008. If you didn't, there you go. It closed in December of 2008, but stayed open for a couple of months for the Isuzu section, but were planning on closing that down in either case. If you can stretch that Obama caused the closure of one section of the plant that was already going to be closed no matter what, especially in his first month, then sure... I guess.. if you're stupid.
4. Right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. Twenty-three million people, unemployed or underemployed. Nearly one in six Americans is living in poverty. Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life. Half of them can’t find the work they studied for, or any work at all. So here’s the question: Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?
I'm not even considering this an opinion. Neither Romney or Ryan will do anything to help these people. Their plan will cut the rich's taxes (which by the way hasn't worked in the last 12 years to stimulate job growth, this source is partisan, but the sources they sight are legit). The bottom 20% would see their taxes go up. This won't even come close to balancing the budget, but it's punishing those who have the least and giving those who have the most... more? Even under Obama's most intense tax policy, the rich WOULD STILL BE RICH! Frankly, if they keep fighting it and bitching, maybe we should give them a taste of the pre-Reagan tax rates of 90% on the richest. One can only hope. How is that going to help those under or unemployed? The underemployed issue can be attributed partially to places like retail stores that purposely give people part time positions to avoid giving them benefits. Would Romney try to fix that? No. Will Obama? Maybe. Romney doesn't care. His response on how to help college students?
My mother didn't have the money to help me and I'm in debt. The college I went to had crap programs, and that sucks for me, but regulations would stop bad colleges like ITT Tech from existing. I'll deal with it, but others should be protected. Also, a little tuition price regulation/subsidising wouldn't hurt. I don't have to worry about eating bad food, this is no different. I'm not looking for a handout either, just a little understanding. Someone who was born a multi-millionaire can never understand us.
5. The first troubling sign came with the stimulus. It was President Obama’s first and best shot at fixing the economy, at a time when he got everything he wanted under one-party rule. It cost $831 billion – the largest one-time expenditure ever by our federal government. It went to companies like Solyndra, with their gold-plated connections, subsidized jobs, and make-believe markets. The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal. What did the taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus? More debt. That money wasn’t just spent and wasted – it was borrowed, spent, and wasted.
The job losses the month Obama came into office were at about 740,000 (the figures are different depending on the time to look for the figures, they get revised with new data, but the original figures are at around 600,000). We had around 160,000 in gains last month. That's a 900,000 job per month turn around (1,000,000 if you take the best month of the administration). That by any account isn't a waste.
The red is Bush, the blue is Obama, you can figure the rest out. The stimulus almost automatically made things better. Once we were in gains, it would take a long time to pull ourselves out. Stimulus wasn't always a bad word, but since Obama became president, everything he does is horrible and must be made into a buzz word for the conservative base. Obama did say that the unemployment wouldn't go over 8%, this is in reference to his original plan, which was scaled back to get GOP/Blue Dog votes. You'd think in this type of situation, he wouldn't have to convince them to save the country, but I guess some things are more important to the Republicans:
That was in 2009. Also the Solyndra thing is nothing compared to how much oil company ween the GOP sticks in their mouth hourly. That's a topic for another day. The amount 'wasted' on Solyndra was a 1000th of the cost of the Iraq war.
6. Obamacare comes to more than two thousand pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees, and fines that have no place in a free country.
First off, I guess laws have no place in a free country? Secondly, it's the exact model that Romney put together in Massachussets.
Paul Ryan trashing Romneycare in 2010. At least he's consistent... sort of.
This is why the debates are going to be soooo.... awesome. I know Romney will lie, but Obama is going to have to keep going after him with facts and make him look like the liar he is.
7. You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn’t have enough money. They needed more. They needed hundreds of billions more. So, they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we’re going to stop it."
The other reason I'm looking forward to the debates is the Ryan budget. Ryan is talking about Obama killing Medicare? Ryan's 2010 Budget would destroy Medicare and turn it into a voucher system. There is no way if the Affordable Healthcare Act is repealed and pre-existing conditions will get you denied for private insurance again, that a 65 year old person will be able to get on a new plan. End of life care would be destroyed. Nursing homes run off of Medicaid in a lot of cases and Ryan wants to cut that dramatically. Obama's 'cuts' in Medicare are focused on fraud and closing the pharma donut hole. It will NOT affect benefits. Period. Paul Ryan is just flat out lying and projecting what he would do to Medicare onto Obama.
That's the whole speech for the most part. I didn't mean to make it that long, but goddamn this POS lies a lot. I only had one 'opinion' point, where I thought I would have a lot more without sourcing. Facts are easy to find if you want them. More updates on the DNC convention sometime this week.
So, first off, the RNC convention is what I thought it would be. A bunch of white blowhards, sucking off the rich and kicking the poor in the teeth. Chris Christy didn't talk about Romney until 3/4 of the way into his speech. No one was there to cheer on Romney, they were there to rip on the black guy in the White House and that's about it. There was Paul Ryan's speech that was supposed to be the policy guy's main huzzah, but there were few details and a lot of lying. There's also his logical fallacy of using the 'We Built This' as their motto for the convention. President Obama was talking about roads and bridges, and the GOP took him out of context and says the president means businesses, which also means the rich shouldn't pay taxes or something like that. If the GOP wanted to have an honest conversation about these things, basing the entire premise on a lie isn't a good start. Also Ryan says if your business failed, it's the government's fault in his speech... umm... so is it you built this or the government failed to build this? I'm confused, but I'm sorry, using logic, reason, and a period of time that goes back more than 48 hours... my bad.
Then there's Clint Eastwood... wow. I'm not going to go into how nutty the speech itself was. I will talk a little shit about Hot 96, which is a local radio station that plays pop music. They defended Eastwood by saying that he stuttered (his craziness in the speech was much more than a little stuttering), because.... he wasn't using a teleprompter. Really? REALLY? That's your nonsensical, intellectually devoid excuse for a reason behind this old man's apparent senility, not to mention his logical fallacies? Considering everyone else at this borderline KKK rally was using one. You have an articulate black man who is the president. He sounds far more intelligent than the last sad excuse for a human being you had in the White House, so you cut off that positive attribute by claiming it's only because he's reading his lines. I'm sorry, but at least he can read, unlike Dubya, not to mention Romney uses one, and so does the pretty boy Ryan. If it's something to rile up liberals, then whatever, but at least act like you have two braincells to rub together.
Secondly, I guess Eastwood didn't remember his Super Bowl commercial. The GOP went nuts and attacked him non stop for like a week or two, because he showed faith in America. The GOP wants the US to fail to make Obama look bad and they proved it in their reaction to Eastwood's commercial (not to mention the quote from Mitch Mcconnell). That's the side he's chosen. He's pro gay marriage and was attacked by these lunatics and this is the side he's chosen. I, like most people, enjoy a lot of movies he's been in and still will, but goddamn.
As far as the rest of the convention goes, well there's this:
This isn't that surprising. The GOP have been hyping up racism for a while, and quite a bit more since Obama's become president. This is the side they've chosen, that's part of their team. They could run away from it, but Romney made a birther joke recently, so they have no interest in not being racists or in the very least appealing to them. It's disgusting and even though the people were escorted out, I think Romney and co. probably had a chuckle on the camerawoman's behalf.
Also Ryan and Co. touched on 'Obamacare'... well it's the same as Romneycare, so I'm sure that type of criticism will work out great in the debates, which I'm soooooo looking forward to. Obama is going to destroy Romney... I know he'll lie and stand by those lies, but we'll see what happens when he's not surrounded by yes men and people that agree with his 'birthright'. Maybe we'll get another, 'Coorporations are people my friend,' or 'These locally baked cookies taste like shit (not exact quote)'. One can hope.
I don't know how anyone can look at this convention and say, "This is what I want to vote for." I just don't. Unless your brain is so clogged with Fox News shit, and that you think that the teleprompter and birther jokes are legit and/or funny, then I see why you would... because you're an idiot. Period. I could go on, but I don't think there's a lot more to say about it right now. I'll put up another blog in a couple of days.
On a personal note, I have found a job after looking for months. It will pay more than my previous one, but the physical work will be a lot harder. I'm okay with that, I'll keep writing in all of my blogs/freelance articles.
So, my grandmother, like most of my family, is a christian. She went to church a lot, etc, etc. My mom by extension also goes to church.
The preacher at the funeral started off talking about my grandmother, but then went into scripture nonstop. Then said if you're not a christian, then you're going to hell and my grandmother isn't. I almost walked out. I refused to shake the man's hand. I don't know what happens when we die, most likely with our brains shut down, we just don't exist. It sucks and I hope that's not the case, but it's the most likely one. That's the truth, and the truth matters more than my fear of death. That being said, it was insulting that he didn't even flinch when saying this crap. Not a question in his mind. I frankly just saw it as a ploy to increase his paycheck by scaring people into the pews. He needs that new car and how dare you suggest that churches pay taxes. Sorry, off topic.
First off, it was a funeral, not a sermon. It always seems that's what these things turn into. I was okay with people praying and verses being spoken, but having shit like that thrown into my face was disgusting. I guess he thought he was in safe hillbilly company. I guess he didn't think there were Jews or Muslims there either. He started talking about Scientology, like that was likely. I guess it was the safe route, because if he talked shit about 'God's people' he would be anti-Semitic. Nobody gives a crap about Scientology. One has to ask though, how is what they believe, less ridiculous than what you believe?
If it had been anything other than my grandmother's funeral, I would have gone into full debate mode, but I'm not a prick... not like this douchebag. He also said before he began his 30 minute, 'Your ghost is going to be tortured' rant, he said he wasn't there to be an evangelist. Well guess what. You lied.
This is just stuff that Atheists have to deal with. It sucks, but most of society wants us to die and have our ghosts tortured forever. Not only that, but apparently, we deserve it. I normally would have thrown down in a debate. How do you know that that's true? Oh your book says so? So how does a book written by bronze age goat herders apply to today and how is that more believable than Greek myths? How are you with slavery in the bible or killing disobedient children? Oh, I'm going to hell... that's nice, I win. Bitch.
First off, I haven't written anything in a while. My grandmother died last week. It was hard on my family and the amount of time at my disposal. Also, last week was my wife's birthday and last but not least; one of my friends was kicked out of his girlfriend's house, so he's living with me now. Busy, busy, busy.
The Romney/Ryan Kill Medicare Budget
So what do I have to say about the current state of things. Well Paul Ryan was announced as Romney's VP a little over a week ago. He might as well have been giving us a gift. The Romney/Ryan budget, is now really the Romney/Ryan Budget. They've been trying to swing things back and say The Affordable Healthcare Act is taking away from Medicare (it eliminates waste and fraud and therefore costs), but when you're trying to turn Medicare into a coupon program for private insurance, it's hard to make that argument. The other half of that equation is that they're peddling the whole 'Repeal and Replace Obamercares'. Well they haven't put anything forward, other than keeping the already activated provisions (keeping your kid on your plan until they're 26, etc), but who knows if they're lying about that. So that means the Romney/Ryan healthcare plan would simply be to repeal the AHCA. So combining these two things (Repeal and the Romney/Ryan kill Medicare budget) means that you could be denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions again. So how is a 65 (or older if the GOP gets their way) year old person supposed to get on a new healthcare plan without getting outright rejected? Not to mention that even if they do it'll cost them between $6,000 and $6,500 more a year according to all estimates.
My grandmother was in a nursing home for about 6 months before she died. She COULD NOT have afforded that without Medicare. COULD. NOT. She worked in nursing homes most of her life, ironically. She needed 24/7 around the clock care due to her brain tumor. Without Medicare in it's current form, she would have been in the street or dead years ago. Even if my mother or myself could have taken her in (I would obviously have done that if needed), I can't buy her the medical care she needs with no insurance. My mom couldn't have either. Neither of us have $6,000 to fill in the cracks if she couldn't get on private insurance. We are just one story. This is what the country would turn into with the Romney/Ryan kill Medicare budget. Period.
Another story is one of the roommate of my grandmother. She had to have a roommate for a little while. She was on her deathbed more or less. I checked her 'About Me' sheet that was posted on the wall. She had been a waitress all of her life. She couldn't have afforded her end of life care (Oh I'm sorry, DEATH PANELS!!!!!!!!!) without Medicare. The more strain on the children of the elderly, the fewer goods that are bought and the more the economy suffers.
The thing is that these things probably wouldn't take full effect until a Democrat won the White House again. All of the horrible things that would result from this would be blamed on him/her. The Bush Economic Crash is constantly thrown at Obama's feet. We were losing 600,000 jobs a month the month Obama was inaugurated. We gained 160,000 last month. I think a million job per month turn around is a hell of a feat. Things would be better without the Obstructionist House/the least popular Congress in US history. The stimulus should have been bigger, but hindsight is 20/20.
Rapebies and Todd Akin
So yeah... legitimate rape. If you don't know what I'm talking about then here...
The thing is that in 2006, I remember that conservatives were all like, "Oh were against abortion, except in cases of rape or incest or mother's life being in danger."
I responded with, "Well, I don't believe you. I think that's a convenient position, and eventually it will lead to all cases. Period."
"Up yours, lib."
Sure. Whatever. The position that Todd Akin has taken is the same as Paul Ryan and the GOP Platform that was confirmed last week. Rape and incest will no longer be GOP abortion ban exceptions. This is disastrous for the GOP. This will be the end of them. Period. They will lose women because of this. Ryan said in an interview that... well here.
The method of conception doesn't matter. By that logic, women's lives being in danger will be on the platform of no exceptions by the next presidential election. There will be no exceptions. Period. But let's just use the current platform as the reference. This is punishing rape victims. This leads back to religion hurting the country. When I was a christian in my youth, we watched a video with some scar faced, ugly bitch talking about how she was a rapeby (rape baby). She was glad her mother had her and getting an abortion is murder no matter what. Then she went on about how she's not getting laid... blah blah blah.
First off, I would rather not exist than have my mother be raped and go through with the pregnancy. I would think that a 'selfless christian' would feel the same way... I guess not. Also, I would die to keep my mother from being raped or anyone really. This is why you cannot call abortion, especially early term abortion murder, because by that logic, then rape isn't a good reason for one. But it isn't murder. If it is, then miscarriages are manslaughter. I guess if the mother's life is in danger, it would be killing in self defense?
It used to be late term abortions, then rape, incest, life of the mother exceptions and now life of the mother is the only exception. This is where liberals told you the GOP was going with their anti choice horse shit. Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.
RNC Convention
I don't have a ton to say about this. It's been delayed due to the hurricane.
I can laugh at how the family values conservatives multiply the strip club business. I can scoff at how they are having parties for the billionaires that give them money.
I can do a lot of things, but I'll wait until the convention is underway to really go for it. I wish they would celebrate the American middle class and not the billionaire that inherited money and a company from his daddy, or as I like to call it, The Romney Way.
They may kick Todd Akin out of the convention, but they are backing his policies. The reason people are pissed about this is, yes Akin is stupid for believing this shit, but who is the worst person of the group? The person who believes that rape victims can't get pregnant, but is too stupid to not know that is false? Or the person who knows they can get pregnant, but doesn't give a shit?
So there were Egyptian protests over Hillary Clinton's visit this week. At first one may think it has something to do with the US in the middle east generic protest, but then you see a sign with the word 'Monica' on it. Umm... Monica Lewinski? I know older US music and movies can be new in some parts of the world, but is our olds news new to them. Bill Clinton getting a BJ was a big deal when I was in Jr. High.... seriously. I'm not sure exactly what that was about until I saw Rachel Maddow's show from last night that explained some of the nuances of some of the other protests.
Apparently they were also under the impression that the US manipulated their election that resulted in the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate becoming president. This isn't due to evidence presented, it was from American Ring Wing nut jobs. Glenn Beck was sited as a source by one of the protesters (is he even alive still?). Michelle Bachman was another.
Really? So now the crazy sh*t that the right says in this country is brainwashing more than just the trailer park trash and shut in elderly. They are giving non facts to international citizens and now it's resulting in them losing their minds, just like in the US. Fox News was pretty much fapping it when they saw the Monica signs. Holy sh*t! People still care about that?.. We need to bring that up again. BJS!!!!!!
This is scary. I mean the fact that people in this country believe this crap is scary, but now we've got multi-national wing nuttery. I may start to follow this a little more carefully, but we need to shut these morons down. Facts are essential, but we need a little more passion on the left. It sucks we are truthful for the most part and the right knows their audience are really dense and set in their ways, but we have to try.
I was thinking about getting to this for a while. There aren't a huge amount of people who read this blog. Which is fine, I do this to vent and collect my thoughts on these subjects mostly. I didn't use my full name in the beginning for several reasons. Mostly I was talking about my employers and I didn't need to be fired for shit talking my bosses.
I still have a couple of reasons. My grandmother is currently dying. Coming out as an atheist to that section of my family would be devastating (I think anyway). As morbid as it sounds, I'm going to wait until a while after the funeral.
I have another reason to keep things about my identity on the DL, at least to a section of people. I may be working for my dad within the next few months. I finally started to recieve unemployment while looking for work, but my dad is starting a new section of his business that lines up with some of my education. I have a lot of student loans and I need something that pays at least $15 a hour to start making a dent in them. At $13 a hour, I found myself donating plasma and working as a bartender part time to keep up with my minimum payments. My AES loan has since doubled.
He's offering my what I need to do a job that is somewhat up my alley. He's offering the pay I need. He's also trying to get me to start a dart board company, which is odd, but I can't take the chance of losing my unemployment on a more than likely unsuccessful business venture.
I think one of the reasons he wants me to do this is his conservative ideology. He wasn't always a borderline tbagger, but he is now. He thinks corporations should pay no taxes and rich people are the best thing in the world. Right after I lost my job I had to hang out with one of his rich friends. The guy reminded me of Barry from Storage Wars. He was a pretentious douchbag who inherited his money from his dad. Or as dad called him a second generation businessman. Sure.
He wants me to pull myself up by my bootstraps. At this point I don't have straps, or boots. I owe people boots at the moment and I can't invest anything, because I have nothing. No matter how many times I explain it, he doesn't understand. My grandmother did okay, and he always had her to lean back on. My mom doesn't have any money and dad wouldn't loan me money for school books in college. I can't count on him for anything. Which is why I don't think he'll follow through on this job. I need it, so I'll humor him.
He also started to go on Facebook to start shit on liberal pages I'm a member of. He knows I lean liberal, but I don't know if he forgot or if he's just a complete POS. He was talking about running libs over in his Hummer. Yeah, he drives a Hummer. I'm not making this up.
He also whines about the Obama administration's policies. He says it's bad for businesses, which I've pointed out that corporations are making more money than ever right now. His business is doing so well he admittingly can't afford to fire some of the bad workers, because he needs every pair of hands he can get to push product out. That doesn't sound like things are so bad to me. Not to mention he dropped $35 grand on the equipment for the new dept he wants me to work in.
I'm grateful to him, but it doesn't mean I have to kiss his ass when it comes to things I disagree with him on. I push back from time to time, but he's mentally unstable at best. He loves Glenn Beck. It makes me sick. He won't find this blog and if he does, I'll talk to him about how I feel and my opinions, but he knows my opinions. It's not like a roll over all of the time.
He was a bad father when I was younger and I'm trying to spend as much time with him as I can before it's too late. He doesn't know me very well as an adult. Anyway, I'll be sure to start back up with more political and atheist commentary soon enough.
Yeah, so if you haven't noticed over to the right of this post, there are advertisements. This is part of AdSense and I have no control over the ads. So I noticed that there are Pro-Romney crap on my ads. I used his name a bunch, so I guess it just filled in the blank for my blog type and ads that would go well with that? So to counter that, I'll be putting up Pro Obama stuff up for every post from here on out. Starting with this one.
Also, when I typed in Obama into Google, the first thing that popped up was Obama Birth Certificate... really?
So are corporations purposely not spending the $3 trillion that they've hoarded since Obama saved the economy just to spite him? I'm not 100% sure, but seeing how much they whine about taxes and how they have this huge burden, it wouldn't surprise me. They're making the most profits in the history of making profits and they're screwing over America because their feelings were hurt? Yes, Obama rips on some of the rich. They deserve it. These are the rich people that have more money than I could ever dream of in their personal accounts, and bitch when their taxes go up 3%. They act like they deserve more respect than anyone and when they screw up, they aren't held accountable... ever.
My conservative father says that corporations have the spending power and shouldn't be taxed at all. Let's ignore the fact that he also said gas would be $6 a gallon right now and that he said that the world would fall apart and we'd have to shoot our way out (out of what?) in 6 to 8 months... that was in July of 2011. I love my dad, but he's just out of his mind on a lot of things and straight up wrong on others. I blame Fox News.
If these companies have all of the spending power, which I guess they do, why don't they use it? They're hoarding all this cash, cash that could be used to stimulate the economy even more and I'm supposed to be on board with just letting them keep it to do nothing with? How is this a good argument for lower taxation on the rich and corporations?
First off, a non conspiratorial reason that corporations aren't hiring people with their pile of money is that there isn't a demand for their products (this doesn't enter into the banks hoarding money equation). If we took half of that hoarded money and hired people to build roads and bridges, to teach children, and other public works, they would buy stuff. The increased business would lead to businesses being forced to hire people, and the extra capital would help the economy even more. Hell, if we took a third of the money... $1 trillion, that would get the economy on track. The first stimulus took us from losing 600,000 jobs to gaining 268,000 at the height of the recovery. Even the gaining less than 100,000 lately is better than losing that many. Of course my ConDad would say those numbers are lies, but how do you argue with non-facts?
Conservatives have a very hard argument to make. The messed up thing is, that if I were rich, I would proudly pay my taxes and not bitch... and still be rich.
I'd also like to point out that these rich people and CEOs are supposed to be the titans of industry. People we look up to. They hoard their money for petty reasons and could help improve the economy with simple decisions, but they won't. I think that's unpatriotic at best, and treasonous at worst.
So this is something that I've never understood. I'm a white atheist, so maybe I'm missing something, but the black religious community being against gay rights is one of the most bizarre things ever. Supposedly this was a deciding factor in the Prop 8 vote in California in 2008, but there's been evidence that only around 30% of religious black people voted for Prop 8, temporarily banning gay marriage in the state, so that may not hold water. There is a large movement in the black religious community against gay marriage, but since President Obama came out for marriage equality, the group seems to be getting smaller.
So... I'll give you the quote that bothers me the most: "This is supposed to be an organization for black people who were beaten, who were mistreated and who were enslaved," Owens told The Huffington Post. "You're advocating for something that's not normal, that's not natural. It's still out of line, it's against moral law."
First off, slavery is okay in the bible.
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who
live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners,
including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your
property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may
treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must
never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
There are guidelines on it and the bible was used as a justification for keeping slavery legal before the American Civil War. So if you want to use bronze age fairy tales as your measuring stick, you shouldn't be upset about slavery is you are upset about gay marriage.
Secondly if you take out the enslaved part of the quote, talking about people who were beaten and mistreated... hello?! That's gays. Blacks were treated like absolute shit, but gays have had it just as bad and maybe have it worse still. Interracial marriage and sex are legal and hell gave us the POTUS. That was illegal for a long time until Civil Rights organizations fought to make it legal. Now it's more or less acceptable in our society unless you're a knuckle dragging low life who's really concerned about the amount of serotonin in people's skin. Interracial marriage was also railed against from a biblical perspective, though even as an atheist who dislikes religion, these passages are iffy at best. It mostly has to due with Hebrews and tribal things. It's not as straight forward as the slavery passages.
So now you see a group of people who are fighting for their rights, like blacks did in the 60's, and they say, "Oh, it's not the same thing." Bullshit. It's the exact same thing and you are a hypocrite for not supporting the struggle for gay equality.
Also, if they are for biblical literacy, then they should not only be mad at the NAACP for supporting gay marriage, but they need to start campaigning for the deaths of homosexuals.
"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to
death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives."
(Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
I'm not advocating for these things obviously, but it shows how ridiculous and hypocritical their statements are. This problem within all communities is getting better. The president has a lot to do with that and in 20 years a lot of the homophobes will be dead or barely participating in society, but that's a long time to wait. When groups of people who had the same thing done to them claim that it's not the same thing, it just pisses me off. They could be allies for more liberal causes if they would just stop believing stupid things.
So Romney went to the NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization. He said he was the best president for the African American Community. Really? Shit's been hard for everyone since the GOP destroyed the economy, but returning to the policies that got us in this mess in the first place. Yeah, that's going to help the black community....
Anyway, that's not why I'm writing. The thing is that no one really believes Romney thinks he's going to pick up black votes here. No one. He also went as far to say he was going to repeal 'Obamacare'. I know virtually everyone is using this term now, on both sides of the aisle, even the president himself, which seems like a conservative victory by choosing the language used. Romney is a serious candidate (stifles laugh) for president using pundit insults toward the POTUS. This was one of the biggest achievements for the Obama Administration, which is a point of pride for the black community, so it's not surprising he was booed for this.
With everything above said, not calling it The Affordable Healthcare Act or at least Health Reform, even in the context of repealing it, is insulting the law. I dislike even people on the left calling it that, because is concedes the argument to conservatives. Rachel Maddow has done a pretty good job of calling it Health Reform, which is a pretty neutral term.
Romney pretty much condescending to the NAACP and getting booed will probably make the GOP whack off instantly. This is pretty much the plan though, he still has trouble with his base after all of his flip flopping on pretty much every subject.
I also urge everyone to use the term flip-flopping when referring to Romney. The disgusting shit that the GOP pulled in 2004 is reason enough. Kerry's 'flip-flopping' was based on a lie that the Bush Administration told him and the congress. Even with the lie being told, I don't agree with Kerry or Hilary's vote for the Iraq War, but with the lies exposed and the WMD's not there, changing his mind on the subject is more than understandable. 2004 was the first election I could vote in. I started to get into politics that year, but I didn't realize the vitriol thrown at Kerry until I saw Outfoxed and other retrospects on the election. The man was a war hero and they swift boated him into looking like a POS. Fox News was mostly responsible for this. I had a friend at the time that turned me onto that facts about Fox News, I didn't watch the channel at the time, so I didn't know all of the shit that went along with that propaganda outlet.
So back to Mitt, he'll play this game, but I'm pretty sure he'll lose unless something horrible happens. He seems to be on the defensive about the Bane stuff (thanks Newt), but anything can happen.
I don't have a lot to say about this. I'm not all that surprised and I'm glad he came out. He'll be happier. He'll still have a job at CNN and he'll still be rich. It's a little self centered, but I'll still be jobless and straight. He'll still have a dull show that has the GOP toute their crazy ideas about letting the middle class go f*ck themselves and the Democrats will have a common sense or middle of the road ideas. Then he'll wash his hands and say both sides are even. His 'keeping them honest' segment should be the whole show. Why else would you have a news show other than to keep people honest and to tell the truth? Maybe as an outed gay man and seeing how the right will attack him, he'll start reporting that one party has assorted interests, some corporate and some that really care about the little guy... and one party has lost it's mind and hates everything Obama does, even if it's something they supported in the 90's or mid 00's. But I doubt it.
So here's the Huffpost story . If this is true, it'll make the crackdowns under his administration more or less worth it. It sucks that all of those dispensaries were shut down, but if he's going to take federal action to make it less of an offense (or no offense at all?) to carry marijuana, then awesome.
I personally smoke on occassion, but haven't in a while. I live in Indiana and currently the laws are really harsh even for small amounts. It makes me nervous. Plus there's the fact that I'm jobless right now and I have to be clean to find a new job. And no, I wasn't laid off due to pot smoking. I hadn't smoked in a month when I got laid off. I was laid off supposedly due to volume/lack of work. So if you were to make that arguement, the lack of pot smoking got me laid off. All kidding aside, as soon as I get a new job or figure something out, I fully intend to smoke up. Only after work or on the weekends. I've never went to work high or smoked at work. I'm one of the responsible ones.
Hopefully the Obama admin news means something drastic will be done, but only time and a second Obama term will tell.
Well it finally happened, and in a manner that I didn't expect. The Affordable Health Care Act or Obamacare was upheld by the Supreme Court. This is huge and not the way we thought it would go down. If it was upheld, all bets were on Kennedy being the middle ground person to keep it intact, but it wasn't. Anthony Kennedy voted against it. John Roberts said it was constitutional and not abiding by the law is equivilent to a tax... more or less.
A lot of us liberals didn't like the conservative nature of the law in the first place, but it was a huge step in the right direction. More people will be covered and less people will go bankrupt and die. I can get on board with that. We wanted single payer or at least a public option, but those are still possible. The public option in itself is definately on the table as an addition to the current law.
First off, I'd like to give an up yours to all of the tbaggers. To all of the fake astroturfing douchers that shouted down representatives and senators with non facts and hatred. To everyone to threw bricks through the windows of Democratic headquarters. To everyone who was sooooo confident that it would be struck down. Up. Yours. You failed, forever. The court is never going to be more conservative than it is now. Obama is destroying Romney and only something huge could keep him from winning the election and this was it. This was what could have lost Obama the election and a Gdubya appointee called it constitutional. The Arizona law being struck down is more or less an Obama win (or at least a tie).
So I'll get a check for the healthcare I didn't use, more people will be covered, and the country will be better off for it. The debates are going to destroy Mr. Bane.
So, I hadn't been putting my name on here for several reasons, but one of them dried up today, so I thought I'd at least lay out my first name. It's Jake by the way. So as I stated before, part of my reason for wanting to be anonymous was because of where I worked. So I'm going to tell you all about it. I can't get in trouble in any case.
I worked for a company in Evansville, Indiana called Meetings and Events International. Now first off, I also worked at a place during the same time called Advance U. These are technically the same company, but for legal reasons, they pretend to be two companies. They didn't try very hard.
I'll get to that mess in a moment. So what did Meetings and Events actually do that was so bad? MEI was more or less an Abbott Labs employee. Abbott is a pharma company that makes Trilipix, Niaspan, and several other products. We had a couple more clients at one point, but Abbott was our main client for the last couple of years. Abbott would give MEI money, and MEI would pay doctors and other medical staff to endorse their products. They were essentially semi-legal money launderers.
The illegal part is that the company upstairs was called Advance U. I technically worked for both for a time, but I never really did Advance U's work. They didn't have a manager for us, so they gave us an Advance U manager. Advance U handled the travel arrangements for the speakers/doctors. Paying them for the meetings and handling their travel at the same time is illegal, so they pretended to be two companies. This was not the case at all. Theresa Hall, the CEO, ran all of it. All of it. They did MEI's work, MEI did Advance U's work. Our phone number reference sheet had Advance U people all over it. They were not in anyway, two companies.
What did I do? I merely made the invitations for the bribery meetings. I designed some, but mostly I just used templates that were already made and put new information on them. I didn't realize the level of coruption there until after a year of working there. I worked there for two and a half years. I needed the job, or if I lost it, I needed the unemployment. I have school loan payments out the ass and my wife and I moved back to Evansville from Owensboro, KY a little under a year ago. I should have had more integrity, but I looked for ways out. The way out turned out to be getting laid off.
So... what were my experiences there other than the inherently corrupt structure. Well there was Tim. Tim was Theresa's brother. Then there was Alice. Alice was their sister. Alice worked HR, but was promoted to president. Tim was just around, cutting invitations for a while until I ended that.
I'll start with Alice Gooley. Alice was 100% unqualified for her position. She didn't know how coordinating connected up to graphics or any of the other depts. She was just put there, because of her bloodline. She probably got paid six figures while I struggled in 2011. She scapegoated me for things that weren't my fault. I think that she wanted to fire me,but couldn't get anything real to fire me for, so she laid me off. She was such a coward that she didn't even do it herself. She has Jason, another manager, do it. Tiffany, my graphics manager... I'll get to her in a second, was sitting there not saying a word while Jason did the dirty work. I'm okay with Jason, but Tif... I'll get to her after Tim.
Tim Hall... Damn it I hate that man. Tim is insane. Literally. He talks to himself really loud. He vies for attention non stop. He punched printer, broke it, strapped it with a bungie cord, and never got in trouble. He supposedly harrassed the other employees, but they wouldn't come forward for fear of losing their job. This fear was justified. Tim one day came into work and told us, "I had a dream where I killed myself. If I did go through with it, I would kill everyone here that I could. I would slit their throats from ear to ear."
I told the only manager I could trust. We had a HR dept at that point. They took action, but Alice resisted. She eventually put him on leave and got him 'help'. They had him come back eventually. If I had done something like that I would have been fired. The HR dept was eliminated soon after.
I have several action figures on my desk. Super Saiyan Vegeta, Superboy Prime, and black costume Spider-Man. One day after this I came in. Kristen, who I'll also get to, had thrown Tim's giant name tag thing on top of the counter away. I didn't know or care about this, since I was under the impression he was gone for at least a while. He wrote, "Where's my nametag, Jake?" on a FedEx envelope and TIM on the counter with permanant marker. He also threw my figures in my trash can. There were okay, but the HR lady was scrubbing it up as I walked in. Alice said that Tim had admitted to the marker stuff, but denied the figures thing. She tried to get me to admit that they must had fallen into the trash, unrelated to Tim. I wouldn't admit it. She didn't like that.
Tiffany was a suburban overpriviledged lady/girl whatever that became my manager after sucking up to Tim and Alice for 4 months when I had been there for over a year. I also asked for a raise at my year's anniversary and was denied. At my two year, Alice didn't even respond. Tiffany was a bad manager. Didn't take responsibility for anything. She didn't give direction. She went weeks without talking to me and we were in the same office. She talked down to me and was four years younger than me. I was crushed when she was promoted. I thought about insulting her with words used only for women, but I'm not a sexist, I just like foul language. I don't want to come off that way. The person I respect the most at MEI was a woman and I'll miss her. She reminded me of a black version of my Grandmother who passed away 9 years ago.
In 2011, my school loans were too much. I had to donate plasma, work as a bartender (which I liked) and did a clinical study for Covance. This got me caught up or so I thought. My AES loan went up, so I had to start forbearing my loans again. It went up $110 just this year. I can defer them now that I'm unemployed. Tiffany didn't understand my financial plight. She lived with her mom and more than likely made double or more of what I made... which was $13 a hour. With school loans it was more like $9 or $10.
Kristen was there in Graphics from the beginning. She was a racist conservative. She hated Obama with the fury of that guy I met on Halo last week. She couldn't debate very well and shut up after a couple of facts were thrown her way. She was a horrible person and got paid a decent amount more than me.
I started my pay about what I got at Unifirst. I thought I would get yearly raises like every other place I'd ever worked and I was wrong. I needed a job in Evansville and I took this a fast as I could. I don't 100% regret it. I hated the place, but I'm in Eville now. People I know are closer. My sister who I had a falling out with are becoming close again.
I learned not to work for anything related to big pharma again. I learned that people who have been comfy and well off their whole lives, may not be bad, they can piss me off sometimes. I also learned that the meritocracy is a lie. It's who you know. That's it. Driftglass talks about this on TPL podcast, but it really hit home today. I may end up trying to legally hurt MEI after I start getting unemployment, but I doubt it will work. I have to look for a new job. Wish me luck.
Huff Post has a video of Gretchen Carlson of Fox News walking out of a segment due to sexist language. You can see the video here.
Gretchen, this is the side you've chosen. The right is full of sexists, racists, and homophobes. When their bile hits a little too close to home, you walk out. You can't really talk back too much, because they pull this shit all of the time. Now you know how minorities, gays, and liberals feel.
The back handed snide comments full of innuendo and dog whistles. You ignore it, until it's your group who they're attacking. Maybe, you'll wise up and join the sane people's side, but I doubt it. The money's too good and you'll apologize or go to some other t-bagger, neo con outlet. Have fun continuing to sell out your gender and the country.
If you personally know me, then you know I’m a gamer.You also know that I heart Halo.How do either of these things have to with
religion or politics?It comes up more
than you would think.
Typically I’m playing with one my friends, Travis.Travis likes to try to start shit with
people on Xbox Live.Sometimes he tries
to goad them into being a racist or a homophobe or he talks about how he voted
for Obama.Most of the time this
doesn’t do anything.We get mute banned
sometimes, so we don’t know if anyone can hear us.Lately we haven’t been, so Travis whips out his ‘I voted for
Obama’.
There was one guy on our team that went off.We messed with him a little at first,
because I typically don’t go on Halo for political debates.Then I got serious.I asked him why he hated the president so much?He says that he hasn’t created one job.I told him that he’s created upward of 4
million jobs.He denied it.I told him that we were losing 750,000 jobs
a month at the end of the Bush presidency and that at the height of the
stimulus we were gaining 260,000 jobs, but even last month of 69k was better
than losing ¾ of a million jobs a month.Obama has handed that.That
economy where it was spiraling off of the cliff getting ready to smash into a
thousand pieces when it hit the ground. That's what he was handed.
He said that was only one month (because I sited
December).I then went through the
months before, I have the months around that more or less memorized.He eventually went back to calling me a
Democrat and Liberal, like it was an insult.Travis asked him why he likes Mitt Romney?He said it was that he had better policies.I told him that he wanted to give rich
people more tax cuts when their taxes are really low already.He says that proportionally they are the
same.I told him the Mitt paid 13.5%
admittingly in a video interview.He
was silent… and then he started with the insults again.I eventually betrayed him to piss him off
and I got booted.Travis stayed on and
got insulted for another couple minutes, making no headway.
This is conservatism.This guy on XBL.He was the
foxbot that I rarely deal with in real life, other than my father, which is a
totally different post.He doesn’t know
facts.He gets confused when you give
him facts or he just gets mad and starts insulting you as a defense
mechanism.They take your disagreement
with them personally.Religion often times works
the same way.
There are quite a few of these guys/ladies on XBL.Well I personally haven’t run into a lady
like this, but I’m sure they’re out there.This instance, like the all of the other encounters on XBL, the
internet, and most of the real life situations, I’ve experienced, always
devolve into racism.Always, always,
always, the conservatives I talk to come out as either a blatant racist (like
in this case) or allude to their racism (like at work).
I think I personally have talked to one conservative that I
wasn’t 100% sure was a racist.Though
an instance when during the primaries in 2008 when he called Obama, Mufasa… so
maybe he was a racist.
So if you find yourself on XBL playing Halo or
whatever, put some tentacles out there and see if you can find a racist
t-bagger, because there are a lot of them out there.
This is the first blog I’ve done on these types of subjects. I have another blog under my real name, but it’s about nerd stuff, comics, horror, sci fi, etc. I may open this up to my real name, etc in a year or so. I have some personal stuff I have to flesh out before I can just put this out there as I am. This is also assuming anyone reads this and/or gives a crap about what I have to say.
I was raised in a couple of General Baptist churches in southern Indiana. Both were in or around a small town called Tennyson. Since my childhood this place has fallen into ruin. There’s a building that my dad used to work out of that’s either fallen over or was knocked over and no one has bothered to clean the fallen building mess. I hadn’t been there for years before I visited it earlier this year. It was heart breaking to see my home town turn into sh*t.
The churches I went to were two completely different animals. The one in town had a pastor that was an okay guy, but the congregation was pretty much insane. At ten I had an argument with my Sunday school teacher about whether dinosaurs existed. She was talking about the story… the fictional story about Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden. I asked out of curiosity, when did dinosaurs exist? She said that they didn’t. I laughed at her. She didn’t like that at all. She said that anyone who said that dinos existed were lying to me, at which point I laughed again. I then proceeded to outwit an adult about scientific data at ten years old. This seems to be the way I feel now when I debate a creationist or a fundamentalist. It almost doesn’t seem fair, because they are operating on an intellectual level that I could decimate them at when I was in elementary school. I loved dinosaurs and watched anything dino oriented when I was a kid (or now).
The other church had a bit of a jerk for a pastor, but I had friends in the congregation. This is where I spent my teen years. I may have actually became an atheist when I was in high school, but after not going to church after about a year and a half (due to what I suspect was the craziness that I encountered at the first church), my mother made me go back to church at 14. I went there for 5 more years. There are a lot of reasons why I started to enjoy the experience at the time, but I’ll get to those in another blog post. It will more than likely have to do with more moderate/liberal versions of christianity.
I ended up leaving at 19 due to a disagreement that my family had with the pastor. It had to do with the treatment of a family friend and things fell apart… so on and so forth. I spent the next five-ish years trying to stay a Christian, but my intellectual side kept picking away at my faith.
My wife had been an atheist forever basically. We didn’t talk about it and since I was barely religious at the point we met, it didn’t matter. One of my best friends at the time came out to me as an atheist, my wife (girlfriend at the time) said she was too. I had been on the fence for about a year at that point. I said I was a Christian, I thought about it, and said nevermind, I’m an agnostic. This was at the point that I didn’t realize that agnostic and atheist weren’t mutually exclusive things. This was the point I started watching Atheist Experience and watching Sam Harris videos, so on and so forth.
Five years later and now I’m coming to terms with the fact that more of us need to speak out. Within a year I have to come out, with part of my family, I don’t talk about it. I wouldn’t lie about it, it just doesn’t come up, or hasn’t at this point. My workplace, which I hate anyway… trying to fix that, is full of extremely religious people. I’m a little worried that it could get me fired, but I’m not so sure that would be a bad thing. I’ll get into the specifics of that at a later point also.
As far as the liberal part goes, since 2004 I’ve been a liberal. Since the Iraq war went to crap, and I was 19 at the time, I started paying attention to politics. I always had liberal leanings, but I never paid attention to politics until this point. I was 16 when Bush was elected the first time, and I was like, “Oh his dad did an okay job… blah blah… I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
I saw the way that they ripped Kerry up for being a war hero. I saw how they demonized better healthcare systems. I saw how they called anyone who questioned the war un-American. I hated them for that. When we discovered there were no WMDs, I lost it. I wouldn’t vote for another republican after that. I might vote for an independent under certain circumstances. I do have problems with the Democrats in some regards, but that’s another post.
The GOP has just gotten worse since then. They have lost their minds. They want to burn the government to the ground and live like a fictional cowboy. This is what they said they want. Maybe Mitt Romney doesn’t want to go that far, but he’ll set the fire and put it out when there are a few cinders left. Santorum or Ron Paul would just let the rest of the burnt reminisce disappear. Sometimes I can’t believe how far they want things to go, but as the debates showed us, the base will cheer poor people dying due to not having healthcare and boo a soldier just because he was gay.
That’s my intro, and I’ll be posting more info about myself as well as my opinions and facts about topics of the day.
