Beer is Good but the World is Barreling to Hell.
I should stay away from the news.
People who don't seem to know much better often accuse me of being a liberal because I don't believe in unending wars, inadequate education spending, fake science, or the addition of ketchup the food group "vegetables." Given my personal penchant for communicating through cryptography, I should elaborate: 1984, by George Orwell uses unending wars of indeterminate origin as a means of instilling nationalism in the masses. College is too damn expensive for normal people and teachers are generally paid less than garbage collectors (Both fine services but...). The current Bush, sorry, is demonstrably ignoring every branch of modern science from evolution to climate change and actively counters independent "real" scientists with stooges. Finally, sorry again, but Ronald Reagan is THE person who declared ketchup a vegetable in school lunches in order to justify budget cuts. Try eating 5 half cup servings of that a day and tell it works out for you. Tim - please do not respond. I think it would be better stated that I am not a conservative. In fact I keep a gun in the night table to protect myself from those very people.I can't seem to shake this idea I have that the far right is evil. Okay, not evil per se, just led to committing acts of it through ignorance. Not to say that the far left hasn't been taking crazy pills as therapy for their own pet issues. Still, most crazy people are harmless and generally brought into check by rationalism.
This brings me to Ron Paul - he probably is crazy and ought to be president for at least a couple of years. Most people don't dig this deeply into it but Libertarianism has its own fringe. The ultimate goal, as stated in their own publications, is to build a floating island-state in international waters and call it "Oceana." On said island, there would be no laws regulating anything except hurting other people. No real subtext on what "hurting other people" entails. Even my personal opinion on that one can fluctuate from day to day.So I'm reading the news and everything seems to be marinating in feces these days. We're at war with resources strained enough to let 37 year olds enlist, even if they have a criminal record but no gays or bed-wetters, China is systematically poisoning themselves and the rest of the world into a lead-induced retardation of date-raped exhilaration. Ahmadinajad, while admittedly the most attractive and presentable of the Iranian Shah's line of whipping boys is plucked-ape crazy and building an atomic supply chain. Venezuela found oil and US dollars are worth slightly more than used Scott's toilet tissues on the world market. Let me use the G-Dub paraphrase; "we have a strong dollar policy and the war is going fine. China should do better."
Foxtrot unicorn charlie kilo all. That's my response to it. Pity I have to euphemize the swearing but at least one of the people known to me, in one of these two countries, thinks people who swear will go to hell. I know because he told me so.
Ooh, I almost forgot, shooting and tagging illegal immigrants with time-release poison darts whose side effects include wanting to learn English as they climb the 12 foot high, 2000 mile long electric lego fence is cheaper and easier than putting the business owners who hire them out of business and in jail.
Modern conservatism is based in greed and selfishness, pure and simple. They vote that way because they are led by the nose to believe they will be paying lower taxes. I fail to see the lower taxes materializing. Point them out to me. Show me your personal savings in writing. I'm paying taxes for other people's kids to go to school, soldiers to serve, police to patrol, roads, health insurance and retirement for old people I don't know, GPS signals, nuclear weapons maintenance, a subsidy to completetely make up the price difference between fuel-grade ethanol and imported corn (did you know that?), and government cheese. Most of those things I can see some value in and would even go on to say that continuing to pay social security tax after I hit the cap is not so terribly bad. We could even call it a progressive tax instead of what it is today. Regressive taxes get easier to pay as you make more money. Should you pay less for your government pension because you earn more?
Seems I have finished my beer.
Comments
Very well said John! I hope that you guzzled more than one beer during that time.
Another item to add to your list are a few islands in the south pacific which are planning their evacuation and relocation to higher ground. For some odd reason, the sea is rising all around them and they can't maintain their homes anymore. I am sure Mr Bush would say....ah, its not global warming....the island is probably sinking!
John...just want to let you know how thankful I am that you are such a part of my life! I cherish our friendship!
Posted by: dave ridings | 21.11.07 14:45
You don't need another beer- You need a valium :)
Posted by: Jodie | 21.11.07 19:48