Should America have a secret police answerable only to the president?

Since it’s now apparently normal and OK for the president to have the power to execute American citizens with no judicial due process, congressional, or judicial oversight, why not a secret police force? If we’ve already established that it’s OK to execute citizens over seas, why not here inside the country? (The whitehouse has already acknowledged killing Americans overseas, but they won’t let on if they’re planning on using drones inside the country.) Why does it matter if the president uses a drone or a man with a gun? They both achieve the same effect. The executive branch, through Bush and now Obama, has already asserted it’s right to perform warrant-less wiretaps, searches and seizures, indefinite detention, and suspend habeus corpus. You just need to be labeled an enemy combatant or terrorist to lose all your rights. With the new ability to extrajudicial execute Americans, it would make a lot more sense for the president to form a special terror-fighting task force that combines all these powers. They would be able to spy on all Americans freely, arrest terrorists and dissidents, and imprison/execute offenders. Operating as an independent task-force answerable to only the executive branch would enable them to move quickly and decisively when protecting the state. We could call it something snazzy like the Security Task-force And Safety Initiative.

The passage of “Obamacare” highlights republican disconnect with reality.

Last week Obama’s healthcare reform legislation was upheld by the Supreme Court. CNN and Fox, showed just how little facts matter to them in their rush to be first to break the story by neglecting to read the whole document before declaring the legislation dead. Meanwhile, republicans showed just how little facts matter to them by promptly exploding upon hearing that the legislation passed.

Some republicans hilariously threatened to move to Canada as a result of this ruling. Little do they know, Canada has universal healthcare much stronger than anything passed in Obama’s legislation.

Romney promptly came out and denounced the legislation, vowing to repeal it on his first day in office.

Which is hilarious because in 2006 it was his idea:

In fact, the whole notion of an individual mandate, the government forcing you to buy something against your will, was originally the brain-child of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation.

You see, the anti-free market notion of being forced to buy health insurance was developed by conservatives. Obama’s legislation was crafted by the health insurance industry. It spoon feeds them 30 million new customers who are required by law to buy from them.  Back in 2009, when all this was starting, 77% of the country supported having a public (government) option to generate competition and help keep prices down. Competition would have been bad for health insurance industry profits, so they made sure to take that option off the table. Instead we got this watered down legislation. Yes, it’s better than nothing at all, assuming it lives to take full effect, but what we needed was real systemic reform and this is not it.

But you see, conservatives are masters of compartmentalization and ignoring cognitive dissonance brought on by hypocrisy. None of the above mentioned facts will have an effect on them. They will continue to scream about the evils of making sure everyone has access to health care, and how this whole thing is liberal big government taking over their lives. This just goes to further highlight what I’ve been saying is the rosetta stone to understanding conservatives:

Objective reality and facts don’t matter. Narrative does.

In other news, republicans ban scientists and city planners from discussing sea level rise.

Are colleges liberal indoctrination mills?

Last week republican presidential candidate Rich Santorum said Obama was a snob for wanting all Americans to have the opportunity to go to college and get an education. He said this to the cheers and applause of a crowd of happy idiots.

The fact that higher education is good is almost axiomatic. (Don’t worry, we’ll wait while our conservative readers take a moment to google that big word.)

Got it? Good. Moving on.

Why do republicans like Santorum despise higher education? Simple. They view colleges as indoctrination mills where faithful, pure, and impressionable young people go to be brainwashed by a bunch of godless Marxists.

I would say the problem is that they are unable to accept that reality has a liberal bias, but I think the issue is deeper than that.

I don’t think they understand the concept of reality in the first place.

Without understanding the concept of reality, any argument made to stress the importance of reality might as well be in an alien language. They simply aren’t capable of comprehending. This isn’t because they’re bad people, or that they’re inherently stupid, just that they’ve never been exposed to the concept and have consequentially built up their entire world view on a foundation of ignorance.

I think this lack of an understanding of reality is the driving factor behind not only their disdain for education, but their mistrust of science and fervent religiosity. (But I’ll get to that in a moment)

How to do you about explaining reality?

Well, right now you’re in reality, whether you know it or not. It is the same as a fish that might not realize it is in water, but nonetheless is swimming in it. This place you’re in, it has laws. We don’t know every law there is, but we’ve been steadily finding out. So far we know this about the laws: You can’t break them.

This is not like a law against speeding where you can break it, and then get a ticket. You are not physically able to break these laws.

This place you’re in, it does not care who you are, how much money you have, or how strongly you feel about something. It will act in accordance to its laws and if you refuse to play along, you do so at your own peril.

So how do we know how to act in this place that has its own laws and doesn’t care about us? We watch. We test something and see how it works. If it does work, it fits with reality, if it doesn’t, then we must abandon the idea because it doesn’t fit. This may be extremely uncomfortable because people often have a lot invested in an idea, only to find out that it doesn’t fit. (And then a lot of them try to ignore that it doesn’t fit, only to eventually be destroyed for not playing along)

The richest, most powerful man in the world can stand on a beach and command the tide not to come in, but reality doesn’t care. If he refuses to move, he will drown. (That’s called natural selection, but that’s a different topic)

Unfortunately, republicans grow up being told that the world they live in is a certain way, even though that’s not how the world really is. Again, it’s not because they’re evil, or stupid, they are simply misguided. The older people telling them how the world is were also misguided by their parents, and their parents before them. Nevertheless, the children are taught to respect authority and that not questioning (faith) is a virtue.

The big disconnect comes with the idea of testing your views against how reality works to see if they stand up. This notion of testing is the heart of the scientific method. This disconnect also explains why conservatives are hostile to science. They just don’t operate that way.

College is a testing ground. People go to college in order to test ideas and see how they work. It is safer to test ideas in college where people outside won’t be impacted if something doesn’t work. Would you want a bridge builder testing a new design on an actual bridge that your family had to drive across? No. You’d want them to test it elsewhere to make sure it works, THEN come build the bridge.

College is a free market of ideas. This is possibly the only place we can make an analogy that conservatives might understand. What is the free market? Companies that are able to adapt survive, companies that don’t, fail.  (Also a form of natural selection!)

In college, ideas that work succeed, ideas that don’t, fail. So with this in mind, lets look at colleges.

Yes, colleges tend to be more liberal. A conservative would look at that and think “well obviously that’s because all the teachers are Marxists.” The truth is, it is not that the professors are Marxists, it is that conservative ideas fail the test against reality. If they passed, if ideas like “less access to birth control=fewer pregnancies” held true with reality, then you’d see colleges backing that.

Colleges are instead a reflection of reality. If colleges look liberal, it’s because reality is liberal.

So what’s a conservative to do? Change and adaptation are antithetical to conservatism, so instead the buckle down and shove their fingers in their ears even harder. They denounce education, denounce learning, and try everything they can to undermine the threat to their understanding of the world. This usually is in the form of disuading people away from education, like Santorum just did, cutting funding to education, or even building up their own bubble.

It is possible for a child to go from home school, to a private evangelical college, to the job place without ever having to come in contact with a new idea. Naturally, the results are disastrous, but since they’ve been brought up to believe that the conservative  world view is unquestionably correct, the fault for failure must always rest with some foreign enemy or saboteur.

The real tragedy is that, with these people in control of the country, when they refuse to move for the tide, we all drown.

There is nothing Obama can do right…

In the eyes of republicans, there is NOTHING Obama can do right. They refuse to give him credit for anything, no matter how much they might like it. It’s like an abusive relationship and Obama’s a hurt dog that keeps coming back to its master, begging to please, only to get beaten senseless at every trick preformed perfectly for the master’s amusement. I’m starting to think the president is somehow is mentally unstable.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Hunting him was one of the primary reasons (at least, officially) for why we invaded Afghanistan a DECADE ago. We hunted him down and killed him under Obama’s administration. But instead of making this an American victory, some conservatives are hell bent on making this a republican victory. (After all republicans = America and thus anything not republican ≠ America)

Lately I’ve heard a lot of talk along the lines of “Well, Obama’s not really responsible for killing Osama bin Laden since he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger….”

You know what? If you follow that “logic” Osama bin Laden wasn’t really responsible for 9/11 because he didn’t fly the planes into the buildings… (But what am I say? Screw logic)

But now a lot of republicans are attacking Obama because apparently Osama was unarmed when we killed him. “How horrible was it that we killed an unarmed Osama bin Laden?!?!? The president is an evil evil man!”

I dare you, I fucking dare you to tell me republicans would be saying the same thing if Bush was the one who had an unarmed Osama bin Laden shot. There is no fucking way in hell republicans would be giving Bush shit for shooting Osama. They’d all be like “AMERICA!!!!! FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!111”

But no, the president is evil for killing the most evil man in the world simply because he puts a D by his name.

“You know, this really isn’t Obama’s victory because Bush was the one who started this whole thing. It’s really because of Bush’s policies that we’ve caught and killed Osama….”

I wish I was kidding, but that’s seriously what some of them are saying….

First off, Clinton (D) started the hunt for Obama before Bush ever took office, before 9/11. (But conviently ignore that unless you want to try and blame 9/11 on Clinton’s failed attempts to find Osama, at which point you’d also be ignoring the fact that the worst terrorist attack in US history happened on a republican’s watch)

Secondly, you’ll try to take credit for killing Osama because of policies enacted by Bush, but you won’t take credit for the economy crashing because of policies made by the exact same president?!?!?!

(Are you beginning to see how their minds work?)

Republicans do everything perfectly, democrats do everything horribly. Whenever something bad happens while a republican is in power, it’s the democrat’s fault. Whenever something good happens, it’s to the republican’s credit.

It’s the exact same “logic” they apply to god. God is on our side. Whenever something good happens, god did it. Whenever something bad happens, it’s because of our sinfulness and not following god. Everything happens for a reason. A tornado hits a house and kills an entire family except for one small child, “It was a miracle that the child lived! Isn’t god amazing?!” (Nevermind the fact that god allowed the tornado that just killed everyone else in the family) The game is rigged so god can never be put in a position of blame. Same is true for the republicans.

Not surprisingly, I’ve heard a lot of people attribute our killing Osama to god’s divine help. Yes laddies and gentlemen, the very same god who stood there and watched as 3,000 men,women, and children were butchered has finally decided to help us find and kill the man responsible after 10 years, $1,500,000,000,000, and 1,000,000 war dead. God works in mysterious ways eh?

Why does it matter where you were born?

Last week Obama caved to the pressure of a growing number of wingnut conspiracy theorists who firmly believed his pregnant mother flew from the US to Kenya to give birth to him, and then immediately to Hawaii (the farthest state from Kenya, seriously! Florida was only a couple thousand miles closer) in order that her child could one day be president of the United States.

The fact is, this whole “birther” movement isn’t about Obama’s birth certificate. It never has been. If you read between the lines you’ll see that all this talk about where he was born is just thinly veiled racism. “Obama is a nigger, and niggers aren’t Americans.” It’s sad, but not surprising, that such a large chunk of conservatives have subscribed to this view. They, and they alone, are the true Americans, surrounded in a land of savages and heathens who would destroy their America.

But the fact that Obama isn’t white, and thus will never be a “real” American, aside, why does it matter where you are born? I’ve never understood people’s preoccupation with this. I feel like it’s some pseudo-spiritual bullshit like the idea that the stars you were born under dictate your personality. (Horoscopes)

It does not matter where your mother squeezed you out of her vagina.

Back in World War Two, Nazi propaganda encouraged young couples to have sex in particular cemeteries. The idea was that if the woman conceived a child from the encounter, the spirits of the ancient German folk heroes buried there would enter the womb and thus be given a new body when born.

Believing that where you are born matters is no more bat-shit crazy than believing ancient ghosts will enter your baby if you fuck in a cemetery. The whole notion of “where you’re born matters” revolves around this idea that some “spirit” or quality of the place imprinting itself on you at birth.

I was born in Texas. Therefore I must be a real Texan right? Hell no. I was there for about a year, all of which I don’t remember. I don’t hunt, I don’t drive a truck, I’m not religious, I don’t have a cowboy hat or boots, I don’t have a Texas accent, I don’t like spicy food, and I’m not a republican. Nothing about me is Texan.

Land is land is land. There is no mystical qualities about one place that makes it different from another. The only difference is in weather and vegetation. Last time I checked, the 5 day forecast and what types of berries grow outside don’t effect a person’s personality.

What matters more than where you entered the world is where you spend time growing up. The culture you’re raised has a large impact on your personality and world view. Someone raised in Saudi Arabian culture is going to be molded by that culture. The physical land surrounding that culture doesn’t do the molding, the people living there do. Yes, geography impacts culture, but none the less, you’re not being raised by the rivers and the trees.

A perfect example would be the children of immigrants. They may be born in another country, but their parents are still the ones who raise them. Depending on how strict the parents are about keeping the traditions and culture from their homeland, the child may or may not grow up to resemble that culture.

So in essence, it doesn’t matter where you’re born. Obama could have been born in Japan, it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. He was raised in the US and thus he is American. Oh, and little know fact: John McCain was born in Panama, which is now not part of America.

It’s a great time to be a conservative

Last Wednesday at noon the republicans took control of the house with the vow to slash domestic funding and decrease the federal deficit.  They came in with a strong list of new rules. One of the biggest changes was “Slash as you go” instead of “Pay as you go.” This means that for every dollar in government spending you add, you must slash a dollar somewhere else. They also forbade anything that would add to the deficit.

But these are republicans, rules? principles? You’ve got to be kidding. Cue massive hypocrisy.

The biggest target in republican’s cross-hairs is the weak sauce healthcare reform. Unfortunately for them, the Congressional Budget Office (the non-partisan organization that crunches the numbers for everything the government does or is considering doing) came out and stated that repealing the health care reform would add $143 billion onto the deficit. That’s a mathematical fact provided by an independent accounting organization.

But then again these are conservatives. Reality and facts are what you want them to be.

The new speaker of the house, republican John Boehner simply replied “The CBO is entitled to their opinion.” The republicans tacitly admitted they knew the CBO was right because they then passed one of their first acts: giving themselves and exemption to their rule of “slash as you go” so they could kill healthcare and add $143 billion to the deficit. Bravo…. (Oh, and don’t forget, even when they kill healthcare, the republicans are planning on keeping their free healthcare that they get as US congressmen.)

But healthcare hypocrisy is not the only reason to celebrate! The republicans plan on gutting every protective legislative body they can. The FDA regulates businesses that make sure the food your family eats or the drugs you take aren’t poison? Kill it. The EPA regulates corporations that would dump toxic sludge in your neighborhood rivers? Kill it.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, they are going after protective legislation with a battle ax.  The goal is to put us back to the turn of the 20th century, where you were either dirt poor or one of those robber barons, where snake oil salesmen went from town to town bilking people of their money in return for poison, where tainted meat and vegetables made their way easily onto your dinner table, where environmental protection was only a dream. This is the goal.

Speaking of environmental protection, it’s official, there will be no improvement in the fight against global warming; the most dangerous and pressing issue facing us today. If we do nothing we may all die. We may very well push our planet out of the the knife edge thin “Goldilocks zone” where the conditions for life are just right, into a run away greenhouse effect that is currently cooking the planet Venus.

But that won’t happen. You know why? JESUS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, denying reality (be it scientific or what the CBO says the numbers are) is mandatory for membership in the republican club house. A shinning example is John Shimkus. Johhny boy is trying to become the chairman of the committee responsible for oversight on those groups that regulate pollution, toxic waste, and the greenhouse gases that are cooking our planet. But have no fear! Even though all the observable evidence tells us that we are racing for the cliff edge, nothing bad will happen. Jesus won’t let it. God made this earth for us and he wouldn’t make it so we could corrupt it…. (original sin? releasing evil into the world? No? Guess he’s not big on reading his own book, but then again republican and hypocrisy are synonymous)

But the party continues! Now that the republicans are in control of the house they are promising non-stop investigations and witch hunts, even against organizations that don’t exist anymore.

Yet do you want to know the #1 reason right now is an amazing time to be a conservative? The icing on the cake? The piñata of goodies?

Because Obama is your bitch and no matter how bad your policies fuck up the country and the future of the world, ultimately he is president and there is a “D” by his name.  Obama just hired William Daley to be his chief of staff, replacing Rahm Emanuel. (Rahm who said liberals, ie the people who voted for Obama and make up the democratic base, were “fucking retarded.”) If you think Rahm is right wing and pro-establishment, get a load of Daley! Daley’s a right wing corporatist who works for JP Morgan and who wants to kill the consumer protection agency! There is no fucking way Obama is a liberal or has any intention of fighting the status quo! He is the status quo.

So republicans are vicariously living through Obama while pushing through their “kill all government agencies that don’t help the rich get richer” policies that, if they fail or fuck everything up, they can easily lay at the feet of the democrats just in time for the 2012 elections when they can do it all over again for another four years… Goddamn it’s a good time to be conservative!

Obama is a republican

You’re only kidding yourself if you still believe Obama is a democrat; he’s come out and made it abundantly clear that he’s a republican. Here is a short list of reasons why:

Tax cuts and unemployed benefits: Obama has fully taken up the republican position that the richest people in the country should be even richer and that poor people can go to hell. For the longest time republicans have been threatening to filibuster everything unless they got the 2 year extension of Bush tax cuts, essentially holding unemployment benefits hostage. (They can afford to wait, rich people don’t worry about paying the heating bill and putting food on the table with winter coming) Well along comes Obama and, not only does he completely side with the republicans, he gives them more than they could ever dream of. Obama’s tax cuts go much deeper than Bush’s. On top of the normal income tax cuts for people making over $250,000, the estate tax is lowered to 35% from 55% (something republicans have been trying to get for decades!) Secondly, the rich get the majority of their money from investments, not from a job salary, and under these new tax cuts the taxes on the major sources of that income will be 15% (Capital gains, dividend taxes, etc) This means the tax rate on the rich’s main source of income will be drastically lower than the tax rate for normal people. In return for ALL this, Obama gets unemployment benefits extended for a measly 13 months, a little over HALF the amount of time the rich got on their tax cuts. The sick thing is that Obama could have easily gotten much more for the poor had he stood up and fought. (For every $1 government spends on unemployment, it gets $1.40 back in economic activity since poor people turn around and spend the money quickly to buy food and other necessities. Tax cuts for the rich, however, only return about $.40 since they are more likely to save and horde their money during bad economic times)

I really have to admire the republicans on this. Their strategy is brilliant! They get Obama to publicly side with their policies and increase the deficit to make the rich richer, then they will turn around and destroy Obama in 2012 by saying “Look! That damn democrat drastically increased government spending and the deficit!!!!” at which point Obama will crumple into tears “Bu..bu..but I thought you were my friends?” Meanwhile, they have Obama attacking the democrats and doing all the leg work for them!

On the Today Show, David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president said of the democrats “If they don’t vote for this proposal, it will be borderline immoral.”  The Huffington post reports the white house is now blaming the democrats, claiming THEY are holding employment benefits hostage in order to deny a small group of rich people a tax break.  This is a massive and brilliant flip. Even though the republicans have been blocking everything democrats want for the past 2 years, and have been threatening to filibuster everything if they didn’t get their tax cuts, it’s now suddenly the democrats’ fault because they’re not caving to republicans fast enough. Fucking brilliant! At the same time Larry Summers, Obama’s top economic advisor came out and threatened “if the democrats don’t pass this bill within the next couple of weeks, it will materially increase the risk that the economy will stall out and cause a double dip recession.” That’s right, if you don’t give tax cuts to the multi-millionaire bankers that orchestrated the economic crash, then you’re responsible for when they do it again.

This one topic alone is a dream come true for republicans. Karl Rove just came out in praise of Obama’s recognition that republican policies were right. Just the other night Bill O’Reilly praised Obama on his segment “Talking points” saying he did the right thing for the country by siding with “us.”

But enough about republican Obama on tax cuts, what about Social Security?

Yep, Obama just helped put another nail in the coffin of Social Security. Obama came up with the wonderful idea to cut payroll taxes (which is the lifeblood of Social Security) for 6.2% to 4.2% ($120Bn cut). Republicans LOVE it because it helps undermine Social Security. Republican Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee astutely pointed out “Once something like this goes into place, a year from now, when it expires, it’ll be portrayed as a tax increase.” This is also brilliant on the part of the republicans! Obama gives them a tax cut from the life blood of social security (something conservatives despise) and they will portray the tax rate returning to normal as an increase. People won’t like that, and they’ll be able to permanently starve Social Security of that money. Brilliant!

Lets move along the list shall we?

No public option in healthcare. Despite 77% of people supporting a public option that would have increased market competitiveness, Obama sided with the big insurance corporations who didn’t want competition. Instead he let the companies practically write the bill themselves, guaranteeing millions of new customers are forced to buy their product, easily making up the cost and then some for the little concessions they had to make like not dropping you if you got sick.

Federal Pay freeze: Republicans love it! What did Obama get in return for agreeing to it? Jack Shit. (It could easily have been a powerful bargaining chip and he just flat out gave it to them.)

An absolute and humiliating farce of financial reform.

No prosecution on republican war criminals who lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, no prosecution on torture and waterboarding (for which we executed Japanese officers after WWII), in fact Obama CONTINUES to use these illegal “tactics” to get unreliable information.

No end to the prison at Guantanamo Bay, no end to “indefinite detentions” where people disappear into a black bag and are never heard from again.

No end to the secret prisons around the globe.

An escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile 92% of Afghans have never heard of 9/11 and have no idea why we’re there. (They just attack us because we’re in their country.

Obama reversed his campaign promises and opened up new areas to off-shore drilling, despite the BP disaster.

Obama took a stance against LGBT rights. His administration even went so far as to appeal gay marriage rulings that were made in favor of LGBT rights.

Obama continued and expanded faith based initiatives, giving government money to religious organizations.

Obama just decided to delay EPA enforcement of pollution regulations.

I could go on, but doing this is getting depressing. I think you get the idea. There is no way in hell Obama is a liberal. He should just abandon all pretenses to being one and change the D by his name to an R. Perhaps then republicans will stop whipping him every time he does their bidding. Who knows, maybe he likes the punishment he recieves in the process of serving them. It’s too bad for him though, it looks like he’s ruined his chance of running as a republican in 2012 since so many of the republican base already are scared of him. (He’s doing what they want, but he’s still black, and that’s scary.) One thing is damn sure though: come 2012, throw his ass to the curb.

GOP leaders don’t care about USA

As much as these red blooded “Americans” like to beat their chest and scream of patriotism, the GOP leadership doesn’t give a shit about America. Actually, let me define my terms because according to them, they ARE America. By “America” I mean the 300 Million people living within the 50 states that make up the nation’s territory. To GOP leaders, “America” is themselves and the companies that own them. Think that’s an outlandish statement? Here’s the proof they don’t give a rat’s ass about the people that make up this country:

Currently America is in an extemely bad position. Unemployment is nearly at 10%, the education system is collapsing, prisons are overcrowded, our immigration system isn’t adequate, we’re fighting two wars, possibly a third and fourth in Korea and Iran, and we’re trillions of dollars in debt. These are just some of the massive problems facing congress. However, when the republicans took control of the House of Representatives was their top priority fixing any of these problems? NO.Instead top Republican Mitch McConnell came out and said: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

That’s right. “America can go fuck itself, we want political points.” You see, you’re naive if you think the game is about running the country in a way that best improves the lives of those who populate that country. No, that’s just the nice little lie, the scraps they toss from the table to appease us while they go about business as usual. “Yes, yes, daddy loves you, now go and be a good child and play outside.” As long as the politicians and the companies that own them get what they want and can retire to the Caribbean, that’s all that matters.

Obama, like a moron, spent the first two years of his presidency trying to compromise with people who viewed him as the anti-Christ. Now that the democrats no longer have the majority needed to pass any legislation that the voters asked for, the republicans have come out and publicly stated what has been their policy all along. No compromise. Right after the election another top republican, Mike Pence, echoed McConnell’s sentiment: “This election wasn’t so much about getting things done as it was about getting things undone.”

Earlier this week Obama had his first meeting with the republican leadership since they took power in the House. The meeting was called to find where they could compromise. This was actually the second time the meeting was called since the elections. The first time it was cancelled because the republican leadership told Obama to go to hell.  They got together this time to say a lot of pretty things, but with the underlying message of “go fuck yourself.” To make sure the blind, deaf, and dumb Obama got the message, the very next day the republicans sent a letter promising to filibuster EVERYTHING unless they got the tax cuts for their rich owners.

The absurdity of this “we’re going to deny everything no matter what it is just to stop the next 2 years from happening” view is starting to have it’s consequences.  Up for debate now is the New Start Treaty, a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia that would cut the number of nuclear weapons we both have. We already have enough nukes to sterilize the planet five times over, so cutting back has no downsides… except that Obama likes it. That’s right, for this sole reason the republicans are going to vote down the bill. Nevermind that it’s a win win situation, nevermind that it would help stabilize the planet; Obama wants it and that means no.

There is one republican who is fighting the madness: Dick Lugar. Dick’s served five terms in the senate and is an ardent conservative. With his track reccord, no one can question his conservative credentials. However, times are changing. Earlier this week Lugar came out and said that if the republican party has slipped so far to the right that they are going to veto this treaty, then they are “beyond redemption.”

Do you know how the other conservatives responded? They told him he was a dead man. They threatened him with a primary next election cycle. They’re going to replace him with someone who will tow the crazy line. They have gleefully vaulted off the cliff face into insanity and they don’t care if they take the country down with them.

Nobody fails at elections like democrats

As much as I really don’t want to write anything, I feel I must at least say something after the democrats just suffered the second worst defeat in their history.

The democrats don’t know how to run an election and they don’t know how to govern if by some fluke they do win. This became painfully evident after they won big time in 2008; riding on a wave of disillusionment and the public’s desperate (fool’s) hope that things might actually change. Like timid children afraid to go into the pool, they hesitated. Not trusting themselves, or the mandate the people gave them, they refused to go it alone, to stick their necks out and actually do something. Instead they compromised. Compromise, compromise, compromise. That was the strategy: compromise with the party of NO! (Which gives you runny, watered down versions of NO!)

The democrats got the shit kicked out of them by the republicans. Want to take a wild guess as to the democrats’ brilliant new strategy for winning back seats? Yep, you guessed it! COMPROMISE! (And if you honestly did think they had a new strategy, you’re delusional. Any scrap of tattered hope you have left should have been destroyed by these past 2 years) Harry Reid and Obama were quick to come out with their tales between their legs and grovel at the republican’s feet. It makes me want to vomit.

The infuriating thing is that attacking the republicans is SO EASY!

Unfortunately the majority of the American public doesn’t remember just how disastrous republican rule was because the democrats are to fucking spineless to run good attack ads. They sit there, twiddling their thumbs, all whilst letting the republicans frame the debate, define the terms, and them lead them to the slaughterhouse.

Obama got hammered on the economy. He let the republicans hammer him. He should have been out there, everyday, saying “Republicans left me a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit, republicans left me a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit, republicans left me a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit” until we heard it in our sleep. If someone is beating you to a pulp, you don’t stop them by saying “let’s compromise!”

The majority of the people in this country are democrats. If everyone voted in every election, the democrats would always win. However, the democrats haven’t given us anything to vote FOR. (And don’t say that gave us healthcare and financial reform. The healthcare companies practically wrote that legislation and now they have millions of new customers that have to give them money by law; same goes for the bullshit financial reform.) I firmly believe that this election was not a vote for the republicans, but a vote against the democrats. I think this is evident by the large numbers of liberals staying home. (Myself included) People don’t want appeasement, they want action.

The republicans might be the minority, but they’re a very well organized minority. I think it has something to do with their ideology and way of looking at the world. Conservatives tend to value order and cohesiveness more than liberals. (Hence why conservatives tend to be homogeneous and the liberals are heterogeneous) Republicans are better at falling in line and taking orders from the top, where as liberals are so diverse and independent, the often suffer from lack of focus. This tightly organized military mentality of conservatives allows them to organize effectively to win elections. Unfortunately I think the party of diversity, freedom, equality, and independence will always suffer from a lack of focus.

There is a silver lining here. Hopefully the majority of appeasement democrats got eliminated during the elections. Hopefully the remaining few will disobey the president and Harry Reid and fight. (I know I’m just kidding myself and that’s not what’s going to happen) In reality they will become even more timid and scared. Obama will rush to appease them, like he is doing currently, having just come out saying he would give in on tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans.

The democratic party in it’s current form needs to die. Hopefully this election was the first step in it’s death and rebirth as a new party. History shows that you can’t defeat a foe through appeasement. They only become emboldened and demand more. Come primary season it’s time to vote out the appeasers and vote in people who will actual start to beat the shit out of the republicans.

The Amazing Atheist also touched on this:

Why I’m not voting in November

Hear me out before you respond with how I’m neglecting my civic duty.

I am not going to vote this November. It will be the first time I have ever not voted. Contrary to how this  might sound, civic engagement is very important to me and I am not apathetic about this. In the last presidential election I drove my friend home, four hours away, just so he could vote. In essence, I care. This is exactly why I am not voting this November. How the hell does that make sense? I’ll explain:

I am furious with the democrats in this country. I am furious with Obama. No matter how loud you scream, they just don’t understand; it’s like they’re in a sound proof bubble. This is where the three major political parties in America fall on the spectrum:

As you can see, the democrats are a center right party. The Obama administration is currently fighting against all types of liberal causes. They’re fighting the legalization of marijuana in California, they’ve fought against gay marriage (likening it to pedophilia), they continue to torture and extradite prisoners, the list goes on. Most importantly, however, is the fact that the democrats as a whole never miss an opportunity to cave to the republicans. I cannot stress this enough! Despite controlling the congress and the white house, the democrats collapse at the mere thought that they might hurt the republicans’ feelings. Obama (who idealizes Reagan btw) is notorious for compromising to the republicans. He’s a fucking imbecile for doing so because the republicans, knowing he’ll compromise at any cost in a desperate and misguided attempt to appear “bi-partisan”, then ask for the most insane shit!

A perfect analogy is haggling with a merchant. He starts with asking for 20, you say 10, he offers 15, you accept. The merchant was never expecting to get 20, he really wanted 15, but he knows how to play the game and so he asks for higher than he wants, knowing he’ll lower it to 15 and you’ll feel like you’re getting a deal. The republicans are doing the same thing! They know how to play Obama and the democrats to get what they want! That’s why everything the democrats pass is extremely watered down, if not slanted in favor of the republicans.

The rest of the progressive base sees this and we’re furious. But pay attention because this is the worst of it: Instead of comprehending what we’re upset about, the democrats see everyone’s anger and think it is because they are not conservative enough! It just makes my head want to explode! “Golly gee wilikers! The people are mad! Maybe we’re not being like the republicans enough!” And so they move farther to the right.

There is no way to get them to move towards the left. They have conceded in their hearts that the republicans are right, that they are un-American frauds, that to be liberal is to be a dangerous radical. You can hammer on their bubble till every bone in your body breaks, but they will not hear you. Even worse, Obama is disappointed in the base for being disappointed in him. That’s right, the elected democrats are chastising the progressive base because the base is mad with them.

But here is the central reason why I am refusing to vote, and this is very important. I will not let myself be blackmailed. That is exactly what the democrats are doing; they are blackmailing their base. You would think that if you threatened not to vote for a party, that party would be concerned about the reasons why you are not going to vote, but no. Instead the democrats respond with threats of their own. That’s right: they are threatening their own base! “You don’t have a choice! If you don’t vote for us, the republicans will win!”

Newsflash: you are the republicans. Liberals are offered two types of shit. One is to vote for the republicrats and the other is to vote for the flaming radioactive shit that is the tea party. But the democrats are wrong. I DO have a choice. Casting my vote for a democrat, even if cast in fear of the tea party, is still an endorsement of the democrats. I refuse to endorse them.

So no, I will not be voting this November. In effect my refusal to vote is in a way voting. There will be those who will completely not understand my reasons, no matter how simply I try to explain them, they will continue to accuse me of being apathetic and unpatriotic. In reality I am refusing to vote for exactly the opposite reasons.

A very valid question to ask of me is how I expect to change things by doing nothing. I would argue that I am not “doing nothing;” I am doing quite the opposite. My silence is my action, and hopefully if enough liberals remain silent in the face of this blackmail, that silence will be deafening.

I want the tea party to win by a landslide. I want Obama to crash and burn. I want the entire house of cards to come crashing down. As horrible as it is, the only way to save the liberal cause is to let this virus run it’s course. Only when this country is turned into a conservative theocratic hell-hole will people rise up in a liberal backlash. It’s the only way to shatter the democrats’ bubble and get us out of the conservative doldrums.

*** Edit***

I’m starting to think that last paragraph is a bit extreme. I don’t actually want the tea party to win by a landslide, that would be my worst nightmare come true, I just don’t know what else would jolt people into electing real progressives who do something other than cave to the republicans.