The Irony of Celebrating a Nostalgic Past

The fourth of July is seen as this great holiday. Well, by some people. Some people use it to remind people of the "Good Old Days", those halcyon times when everybody was happy and lived in blissful peace and nobody ever hurt anybody ever, or took away another's free agency, and everybody could buy guns whenever they wanted to.

Other people (*coughtumblrcough*) ironically celebrate the idea of the fourth, using it as an excuse to post sarcastic pictures of bald eagles and American flags, with the all-caps protestations that we are, in fact, free dammit.

I am not guilty of this honestly sorRY CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY FREEDOM

But by celebrating this sometime-in-the-past state of freedom, as enshrined in the comic above, which I've seen in a few places today, I think we're forgetting something very important.

Freedom hasn't ever really, truly existed in America. Yeah, predominantly white, rich landowners rose up against an unjust tax over 200 years ago and threw off the shackles of one government that was, I will grant you, incredibly repressive in a few very important areas. Taxation without representation, tea in the harbor, blah blah blah, all that jazz. Poor and rich rose up together and fought a war, even though in the Continental Army was vastly over bloated with officers, mostly because rich people were the ones who wanted to fight, and the poorer side of the population (while enlisting in larger numbers initially), had to leave because--surprise, surprise--they couldn't support themselves when the government wouldn't pay them for the time they were spending.

Meanwhile, the Virginians we all know and love (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, yadi yad), while outwardly professing some kind of adherence to liberty and fraternity and equality, yay, were all slave holders. That means that they kept people in bondage against their wills, without ever returning anything but food and shelter. Technically, according to some viewpoints, probably okay--after all, why do you need anything but food and shelter in order to survive and, at least in part, live happily? That doesn't change the fact that the free agency of these individuals was being infringed upon. Strike one against the beautiful, utopian vision of ~freedom presented by nostalgic right-wingers.

Okay, so slavery sucked and it wasn't really our best moment. I think we can all agree on that. But let's fast forward. Surely after the Civil War there was ~freedom! Well sure, if you ignore the Jim Crow laws (both in the south and the north), and the crippling economic and political sanctions placed upon the south in the wake of that conflict. Not to mention the restriction of the vote from blacks, and the continuing fight for suffrage for women.

This fight for equal rights for all sorts of people still isn't over, meaning we still don't have true freedom. Blacks are still discriminated against, especially in the south. The poor are kept poor under an enormous pyramid of governmental power, through taxes and health insurance requirements and child support laws and a bevy of other idiocies. Ordinary people are being spied upon and--if things get too out of hand for the government's taste--they can even be assassinated by drone strikes. In order to take advantage of mass transportation within one's own country, one must submit to molestation. A woman in a hijab can't even walk outside her front door without being subjected to racist comments and the small-minded idiocy of her fellow Americans. Homosexuals can't get married. Doctors can't help their patients make the best choices for themselves.

We're not ~free. We've never been ~free. Oh sure, there's been a modicum of 'freedom' that's been offered to the American populace--so long as that populace has been white, male, and owned property. So yes, by all means, celebrate the fact that at least once upon a time, America had representation that actually meant something. Celebrate the fact that there is at least something left of the framework that could have gotten rid of these injustices centuries ago if rich, white men hadn't gotten in the way. But let's not look back at some idealized past that, in the end, didn't exist and yearn for a return to it.

I have no desire to lose my right to vote, thank you very much.

A Persistent Source of Annoyance

I'm sure I do far more complaining about the (very) conservative republicans who I'm surrounded by than is absolutely necessary. But quite a lot of it is true. And they do annoy me. And since this is my blog, I'm allowed to complain about them all I like, no matter how much this is going to come back to bite me in the rear at some point in the future.

With the election season really getting started now (you know, what with the GOP having finally chosen their death, Romney having officially made a complete fool of himself numerous times, and Obama being hailed as All Things Good by the left), it seems that the beautiful citizens of this great nation are falling all over themselves to proclaim which party hack it is they want to live in the White House for the next four years.

do we want this unprincipled corporatist hack

Everybody from a Walmart checker to the people in our local government get in on this ritual. No joke, I encountered a Walmart checker a couple days ago who, seeing my mom's Ron Paul shirt, asked who she was going to vote for now that Paul wasn't in the running (I give her props for actually knowing who's in the race. That takes work. Sort of). My mom's response, that she was going to vote for Gary Johnson, was greeted with a huffy, disbelieving stare, as if she'd just said that she was going to sacrifice her children on the altar of the liberal media.

I don't know. Maybe this lady thought that was what she said. In any case, she recycled the old lines--about how Romney was the "best choice" we had, how we "couldn't live through another four years of Obama", and how we "only have two choices anyway."

or this one oh gosh choices choices so difficult halp us world

So perhaps the last part's true. Maybe we really do only have two choices that have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting elected--and these two choices are so alike in all but a few aspects, that they might as well be one. Add to that the fact that only one of those two "choices" will, realistically, have anything close to a shot. Romney lacks the charisma and broad appeal that his opponent has in plenty. So in reality, the entire machine of American media and politics has presented me with one option, wearing two different faces, with only one face that will actually manage to "win".

And I really just don't like that much. Perhaps it's simply the overwhelmingly almost-anarchist part of myself. Perhaps it's simply that I'm a rebellious teenager and can't stand authority. Either way, I don't like being told how to vote.

Besides that, I don't think that our system is supposed to be a sort of one-size-fits-all, let's stick to the status quo kind of thing. Remember that whole freedom and justice and no-taxation-without-representation thing that people once fought a war over? Yeah, that. Perhaps you've read about it. I get this distinct feeling that those guys wouldn't have quite approved of the current idea of what a free election is supposed to be. I think they would vote for the person who most accurately reflected their own ideas, and to the dickens with whatever the rest of the world.

And so, as this gentleman stated, I am voting for Gary Johnson, and not because he will win. I am voting for him because he ought to win, and that's really all that matters.

Parties and Partisanship

Seriously. I am sick of the party thing. It's so incredibly stupid.

Yes, I know, I'm launching right into my rant. This is bound to be a rant, so bear with me.

There are two major parties in the United States of America- the Democrats, and the Republicans. Or, as I prefer to label them as, the Demoblicans and the Republicrats. I'm going to explain why I call them that, and why I think they deserve it.

For starters, let me make a comparison between our current culture of "he started it, she started it."

Think back to a playground. We have two little three-year olds. One three year old throws dirt in the other's face. Well, one bad turn deserves another, so the one who had dirt thrown in his face responds accordingly- by throwing dirt in the face of the kid who did it originally. They then delve into a round of "He started it, no he did, no HE did..." and the process continues until finally, both of them are taken away by their respective mothers.

What, might you ask, does this have to do with our partisan politics? Quite a lot, actually.

I have no idea who originally began the cycle, but I know that now, we can't get out of it. Or, at least, we've fooled ourselves into thinking we can't.

For one thing, each party blames the other for...well, everything since the Fall of Man. If something goes wrong in the economy, according to the Democrats, it's the Republican's fault, and according to the Republicans, it's the Democrat's fault.

Both say the other is messing the country over, and we are all going to explode/the jihadists will take over/Israel will kill us/Ann Coulter will go waaay over the top (again) if the other party gets in.

Is anyone besides me seeing that this is kind of...pointless? And stupid?

With Democrats, everything is President Bush's fault. In fact, I think some of them could actually, in all honesty, attempt to pin the Peloponnesian War on him. With Republicans, everything is President Obama's fault, or Frank's fault, or it's the fault of the first Democrat they see. Some of them try to pin every conceivable conflict/plague/depression/famine since the beginning of time on him.

So...what are we doing again?

Both parties say the other party is control of the media, brainwashing our children and corrupting them into either pro-homosexuality or pro-Creationism, depending on which side you're on.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Both sides try to make the other out to be some sort of monster. If they're Democrats, they're gay-loving, baby-killing, Israel-hating crazies. If they're Republicans, they're gay-bashing, black-hating, anti-woman, anti-rights crazies.

So, I think it's safe to say that both side has plenty of crazies!

Yet, if you really get down to it, the parties are really not that different. I mean, we have...the Democrats who love big business, stimulus, and money, all the while professing to be for the blue-collar worker, and claiming the other side has all the elites and money.

On the other side, we have the Republicans who love big business, stimulus, and money, all the while professing to be for the blue-collar worker, and claiming the other side has all the elites and money.

Yeah, not much difference that I can see.

So, now you know why I call them Demoblicans and Republicrats. Enjoy. ;)

Obama lied, Democracy died

Joseph Farah
Obama lied, democracy died
Posted: February 16, 20091:00 am Eastern
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88989
© 2009

The lies are piling up after only 30 days.

The campaign promises are being broken so fast, it is making the American people's heads spin.No one is capable of compiling them all.

And most of my colleagues in the media have no desire to do so.

But let's just take one big one that is likely to be broken tomorrow.

Late Friday, the Senate passed the $790 billion so-called "stimulus package," which discerning American citizens realize is nothing but the same old-fashioned, pork-laden, redistribution-of-wealth, spending bills for which the Democratic Party is infamous.

Let's go back in time, for those who care, to June 22, 2007. Obama was in Manchester, N.H., campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.

He said government would be different with an Obama administration."When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as the president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it," he said. His campaign called the idea the "sunshine before signing promise."

You can watch the video of that speech captured below – if you have the stomach.Guess what?

Tomorrow, exactly one business day after the approval of the bill, Obama has signaled he will sign it. (Remember, today is a national holiday – and Washington government offices will be as empty as the noggins of Obamaniacs.)

But that's not all.In that same speech, Obama promised there would be no more pork!He promised there would be "no more secrets."

Yet, as we all know, this 1,000-plus-page piece of legislation was passed without being read by a single member of Congress. It was posted online in a form that could not be keyword searched.So much for the promise of "transparency," too.

Not that I expected Obama to keep his word.

In fact, for my money, he's keeping far too many promises in far too little time. This administration is acting like it wants to bankrupt the country, convert it to an entirely socialist economy and end all meaningful debate about it before the year is out.

But, just for the record, he did lie – big time. And while no one has yet died as a result of his actions to date, they will.

They will die because of scarcity and rationing of medical care.

They will die because of unrestrained abortion and infanticide.

Eventually, I believe, they will die because of hunger and exposure brought on by a collapsed economy ravaged by command-and-control centralization.

But what has clearly died already – after just 30 days – is the very "democracy" Obama championed and pledged throughout his campaign.

This isn't "democracy," not that democracy should ever be the goal of any true American who reveres the Constitution. It's just the old-fashioned "dictatorship of the proletariat" – a Communist euphemism for a war on workers not directly in servitude to the state.

Let's examine some jaw-dropping numbers reported exclusively by WND:

* Before this bill is signed, actual federal obligations are already $65.5 trillion – exceeding the gross domestic product of the entire world.

* The Obama administration economic stimulus package is going to force the Treasury to borrow approximately $2.5 trillion in 2009 and another $4 trillion in 2010, with the result of increasing the current $10 trillion national debt by 65 percent in just two years. If the Obama administration increases the national debt by 65 percent every two years, the debt will be $16.5 trillion in 2010 and $27.225 trillion by 2012, the year of the next presidential election. Let's consider the real meaning of these numbers, courtesy of WND senior staff reporter Jerome Corsi, a trained economist:

* If you had gone into business on the day Jesus was born, and your business lost a million dollars a day, 365 days a year, it would take you until October 2737 to lose $1 trillion.

* $1 trillion dollars divided by 300 million Americans comes out to $3,333 per person.

* One trillion $1 bills stacked one on top of the other would reach nearly 68,000 miles into the sky, about a third of the way from the Earth to the moon.

* Earth's home galaxy, the Milky Way, is estimated to contain about 200 billion stars. So, if each star cost $1, $1 trillion would buy five Milky Way galaxies full of stars. But you don't need to know all that.

Just let the "experts" in Washington figure it all out for you – the ones who are not even reading the bills, the ones who lied to you last year when they campaigned for office, the ones who are hiding this information from you even today.

After all, as Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., explains: The American people don't care.