January 6, 2012

Look at this insanity: Libertarianism, from A to Z (Bribery)

This kind of thing is rampant in Libertarianism (ie, Orwellian psycho-capitalism). Wall Street is so powerful because it has bribed our politicians, candidates like Ron Paul and other ideologues are not against bribery, in principle. They only say that they are against corruption because they truly believe that bribes and corruption would be less common if regulations were nonexistent. I would've posted more from that excerpt, but I didn't want to make you all read a swath of Libertarian nonsense, but if you click the link (and scroll down to the bottom of the page) you can read the full excerpt.

It is deeply rooted in Libertarian ideology, and we must resist it.

January 3, 2012

Oh, I do think it was very calculating. I think it was brilliant. It was the greatest...

...consumer ad campaign of all time. And I warned people about it. Hell, the funniest part was that I was at Mile High Stadium, waited 5 hours, the entire event was like the Superbowl, the World Series, it was epic. Then I fully realized to the extent he'd taken the consumerization of the politics (I hadn't been active politically since the Dean scream, no I didn't vote in 2004, too disheartened, in a red state, didn't matter). And he'll do it again. And he'll win. No worries on that count. No other candidate could ever begin to take advantage of this campaigning style, hell, some might even be ideologically opposed to it since it involves data mining and branding and copy testing.

That does not mean that you were unable to actually see the contents of the message. The contents of the message were wide open, for everyone to see. It's kinda like, in a way, those ads for various medicines. Show an ad for some heart medicine and then a whole bunch of side effects are listed at the end. The problem is that people were too fixated on getting rid of Bush to care much about the side effects. It's as if all of Obama's supports pressed the mute button just as the "side effects" were announced. Just as Obama said he'd escalate in Afghanistan, just as Obama said he'd go after the Taliban, just as Obama criticized bureaucracy, just as Obama said he'd cut the deficit, just as Obama said he'd drill for oil, and so on and so forth.

To call me an Obama supporter is somewhat of a misnomer (though not entirely untrue), I don't support any politicians to any significant degree. Here in Colorado I fought to keep the state blue because the Republicans were promising to expand the military bases, which had a very strong grassroots movement opposed to it. If I and other Coloradian liberals sat home that likely would've happened. Yeah, we stopped it, and we stopped the US from tripling its military training grounds. Who knows what state they're going to try it in next. We must stop it, we have to.

For me, it is a lesser of two evils, because as a privileged straight white male it doesn't affect me. I don't get WIC, need heating assistance, need Pell Grants, I don't need any of that. I can, if I wanted to, sit home on election day and the outcome, regardless, is going to be beneficial to me. If a Republican gets elected my taxes go down, the police forces go up, and welfare cases go to jail if not murdered in the streets. If a Democrat gets elected my taxes go up, but only marginally, and I get health care and such.

But for others? I've come to fully recognize that it isn't a lesser of two evils for them. I believe you're an expat, which is fine, and I do appreciate expats (particularly voting expats). Surely, you, of all people, know that the outcome won't affect you as much as it will affect a poor black single mother who is getting WIC, heating assistance, food stamps, and whose child is getting educated in public education, right? The Republicans will take it all away from her and send her to despotism.

I'll support Obama, but I won't be ashamed for it, because I never cheered him, and I saw through the campaign rhetoric, and I tried to tell others about how he really was (that he wasn't much better than Hillary, and given that Hillary was his SoC, it is clear that absolutely nothing would have been different had she been chosen, except she would've been a more hard line partisan than he).

Best of luck.

January 2, 2012

Steve Kangas: Liberal FAQ (and Libertarianism Fallicies FAQs)

His Wikipedia page

The Liberal FAQ

I learned about Steve a few weeks after he died, when USENET was exploding with the knowledge of his death, and there was a long discussion over whether it was a "suicide." I still believe, and it's one of the few actual conspiracies I believe, that it was a setup job.

While I since went left of that position, Steve's FAQ has helped guide me as far as actual, real, politics are concerned. Ideologically I can be really weird and people mock me for it (if not downright insult me, because my positions are all over the place). But Steve's work has helped ground me over the years as I refer back to it and consider various positions on certain things, particularly when it comes to conservative talking points. Later I came across Mike Huban's page on Libertarianism, specifically against Libertarianism. It's also been a useful guide.

Ideologically I'm sure we're all quite different (and I don't use "ideology" negatively here), I saw a recent post on here about our respective Political Compass and it's shown me that we are indeed quite a diverse crowd (though all pretty much left of center!). I hope these sources help you out as this coming election years pushes us to have to combat these ideologically corrupt miscreants who either try to take over progressive ideas, or who outright combat progressive ideas. I was going to make this post closer to the anniversary of his death, but the Libertarian stuff that's been floating around here lately has really pushed me to make it early. Please bookmark, and it'll be in my journal if you need these links in the future!



RIP Steve. Thanks for helping be 'normal.'