Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. -- Bernard M. Baruch
I’m So sick and tired of this idea that this country was founded on some Christian establishment or ideal. Its so far from wrong it astounds me. Up until the 1950’s, the national moto was E Pluribus Unum, (”from many, one”) , and In God We Trust was not added until an Act of Congress in 1956. I know our school systems are bad, but since I wasn’t there THAT long ago, I know they are not teaching this. So where does this non-sense come from? The Media? ie: Fox News? or what? It’s absurd and I can’t take it anymore. I will call anyone out on this anytime I hear it… and this reason alone, I will NOT vote for McCain.
I was browsing while watching the Lost recap this evening and found an excellent article written about the actual actions the two running Democrats have done in the Senate over the last year.
I can tell you I’m overjoyed at the news of this. It happened while I was getting my surgery and I can tell you its great news to my ears…. And If you disagree with me, you really should listen to the words he uses to the reasons hes dropping out. He says that if you vote for the Democrats your a terrorist… Jon Stewart explains exactly how I’m feeling…
I’m also glad Jon pointed out exactly how hypocritical Romney is, with this Religion thing. Our country was founded on the principals of religious freedom, because the founders disliked how the countries they were leaving were run by religion. They wanted to worship who and what they pleased. He also said to extended our freedoms, yet at the same time said he wanted to legislate to protect marriage, which would actually decrease freedom as it would be the first thing in our constitution forbidding something… Its beyond me how people can’t see the problems with all of this… I’m not saying you have to like it, I’m just saying *YOU DONT HAVE THE RIGHT* to forbid these actions and then maintain your own religious guilt trips.
I watch a lot of documentaries, and read new and such all the time… and the more I do… the more depressed I get. Truth be told, I don’t like religion for much the same reasons as it depresses me. No matter how hard I work at life, no matter how successful I become, it just seems that the man is holding me back. Health Insurance costs are rising 2 to 3 times the rate of inflation (which is also rising faster now than any other time in history), we have a war that seems to be never ending and the popular presidential candidates on both the republican and democratic sides don’t seem to care about stopping it(I’m for Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, which I know they’re polar opposites in every way, except they both want to reverse this war we are in, and I believe we could use anyone who would actually follow the constitution).
Anyway, I was just writing this down, because its what I’m feeling at the moment… More later…
Well, I’ve been saying it for a while, as I believe most of the Republicans follow the words of our current President and think the Constitution is just a piece of paper. Well, its not. Came across a blog entry entitled: Mitt Romney: It’s Not Religion, its His Politics. It gives some very good reasons for not voting for Romney as well as all but one of the current Republican candidates.
Why is it that people link video games to real world violence? Or music and movies for that matter? I don’t quite understand it. I’ve never been a stranger to these violent video games or movies, and I’m not out killing people. Nor do I have the desire to. In fact, if you’ve read my blog at all, you’d know I’m against the current Iraq war and typically war in general. I am also not alone in this form of thought, and yet we have an ultra concervative right wing that is on a mission for the “greater good” because they believe these things contribute the the decay of society or something like that. However, these beliefs are unfounded, and cannot be proven, and above all they inhibit the freedoms this country was founded on. It is our *RIGHT* to have freedom of speech and to do whatever, whenever we want to. The *ONLY* reason to ever stop a person from doing what they want is when what they want would interfere with someone elses rights. This is the reason Murder is bad. As I said previously however, there is no proof what so ever that these violent video games, or the violent music of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s? or was that era before that too? I know Elvis was thought to be evil at one time and he was in the 50’s right? Forgive me, because I’m only old enough to have my sheltered begining years in the 80’s and my teen years through the 90’s and I can’t tell you the exact order of anything before that. (What can I say, the “history” as its presented in our schools is mostly worthless) Anyway, I believe I’ll sum up my distaste for censorship with a couple of quotes from slashdot.
Great advertising..
(Score:5, Interesting)
by EveryNickIsTaken (1054794) on Tuesday June 19, @12:06PM (#19565967)
Manhunt 2, available soon in the US on the Wii…
GamePro gives it 8/10.
IGN rated 9.5/10.
British Board of Film Classification calls its ‘unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying.’ ‘There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game.’
The idea is dumb.
(Score:5, Insightful)
by Pojut (1027544) on Tuesday June 19, @12:09PM (#19565997)
The very idea of banning ANYTHING entertainment-related in a 1st world country/area is completely stupid.
Any newscast will be covering events at least as horrible if not worse than anythin you will find in a video game. The difference is, when you hear about someone getting brutally murdered on the news, a person actually died.
I’ve always felt those that say videogames/movies/whatever that are too violent are the sick ones, for they apparently cannot discern fantasy from reality.
Well if you didn’t catch the Republican National Debate (neither did I, I’ve been catching pieces of it on YouTube.) you really should read more about it. What was said and what not. And frankly I’m appauled at what all but one of them said. What has become of Republicans? They are war monger, torturous, hippocrits. That will almost in the same breath utter that they do these things for god and Jesus. I could be a bit rusty on what Jesus taught in the Bible, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t about torture and war mongering. And don’t even start trying to argue that if we don’t beat them there, they’ll come here. Because that is bull shit, and has absolutely no basis on a little thing call “facts”. These are sentiments argued by are fearless leader and his minions of soulless advisors, that are meant to cause nothing but Fear, Uncertanty and Doubt. One of which, by the way, is investing in the *decline of the dollar*(Yes, our Vice President Dick Cheney himself, do some googling you’ll find it).
Just when I’ve lost all faith in the Republican Party, a diamond in the rough appears. Senator Ron Paul (who also happens to be an MD). Look him up, do some googling on him, heck look on youtube and watch him in the Republican National Debate. Hes amazing! We need more statesmen like Ron Paul! This is why I signed the below petition, I hope you will too.
Hi,
I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:
“Stop Ignoring Ron Paul”
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/RonPaul08?e
I really think this is an important cause, and I’d like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It’s free and takes less than a minute of your time.
I regrettably didn’t make it down to the BYU Alternative Commencement Ceremony last Thursday. But thanks to Pete Ashdown for publishing it on his website. Also listed is a transcript of Pete’s speech that he gave, and I must say it was amazing. The whole ceremony was great. I do just want to put an awesome quote from Pete’s speech:
Today, insurgents, radicals, extremists, the ignorant and the insane have turned war into an entrepreneurial sport. We can no more fight teenagers using bombs and cell-phones with multibillion-dollar-aircraft-carriers and the latest jets than we can kill mosquitoes with a shotgun. If the Iraq war has taught me anything it is that our traditional methods of nation-state defense are currently useless against committed individuals. The inability to grasp this realization is what dates many politicians as dinosaurs in a modern world.
Pete also issued a challenge in his speech to Google “Iranian Blogs” as you may be surprised at what you find.
I’ve been doing some looking… and I find myself, surprised. They are just as Pete said. Go ahead and look for yourself, I even provided a link.
My brother came home last week from his LDS mission in South Africa, and he would continually remark that we(being people living in the US) don’t know how well we have it. Which to some degree I agree with him. However, not everyone in this country would agree. I’m not trying to downplay the situations that people live in in South Africa, or any other 3rd world country for that matter. I’m sure its not something I would like to live with either, and I am grateful for the thing with which I am privileged to. This however does not mean I should just take what I have and be “happy”. Wanting more, wanting things to be better is a very worthwhile cause. My brother had made the claim that I shouldn’t be so hard and critical of our government and our current leadership, because I don’t have to put bars on my windows and worry about someone shooting through my windows. I *very* much disagree. As I said, yes I understand that South Africa, in most parts, is very much a 3rd world country, and here I am “living the dream” in the U.S. of A.. The current self proclaimed leader in this world of ours. Heres where I’m comming from, comparing the US, to South Africa is like comparing apples and oranges, they are NOT the same thing. Because of the history surrounding each country and the forms of government in place and the like… the two countries are *VERY* different. In order to make any kind of fair comparisons, you need to look at countries where there are more things that are alike than are different. The so called “1st world countries”. This is how they gain these labels in the first place. And when ranking 1st world countries, guess where the US falls, in all the areas that should matter? Dead LAST. Sure, we still top the charts in military power and expertise, but this is also coming into question and China is the up and coming star in this arena. But we are still the only 1st world nation that does not give Health Care to every citizen of this country. Our public education system is failing miserably and lieing about it to cover up this fact. And something I’m more inclined to follow, we are also falling way behind in Broadband connections for our citizens as well. America isn’t much for being the land of the free like it used to be. No instead we want to keep people from entering this country, we want to hold people indefinitely and without charging them with any crime, and then torture them so we can charge them with a crime. We want to award multi-billion dollar government contracts to companies that our Vice President has a stock in. We want to have wiretaps and listen in on phone calls without warrants. All of this is *against our constitution*. The foundation of this country! And the american people just blindly accept this, because we feel we need protection… from what? Yes, 9/11 was a tragedy. It resulted from what I can tell, was our leadership asleep at the helm. Now, they’re asking us to give up our freedoms that this country was founded on, for some pseudo safety. Our elected officials are running away with billions and our freedoms, and all the American people seem to care about is who’s the real father of Anna Nicole’s baby! *WTF!*
