My Vision for America

I submitted this to change.gov under the "your Vision for America" section.




There is a map that one can look at that highlights all the countries that currently support or carry out the death penalty in yellow or red. One look at this map and you'll wonder very quickly how it is possible that America can get away with considering itself as the most advanced nation in the world. Among the countries highlighted in red or yellow are China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Laos, Sudan, Republican of Congo, Russia, and Kazakhstan. There is often rhetoric from the presidential administrations of the past and present about the countries I listed above that leads one to believe that these countries are corrupt, badly run, or adversarial. However, it is impossible to ignore that the United States is highlighted as red as well. Countries highlighted in blue have abolished the death penalty all together. Canada, France, England, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Finland, Estonia and Germany are some of the countries that are highlighted as blue.

There isn't much of a need to dance around the obvious; the United States is trailing behind in social progress. Our intolerance to homosexuality, to Islam, and to minorities coupled with our disinterest in education and civil liberties, among other things, is what keeps us from being the beacon on the hill, the leader of the free world, the righteous example of progress and advancement. But we will never be heralded as the greatest nation on Earth if we cannot think critically about our current practices and how out of touch with reality they are.

The death penalty is hardly a penalty at all. How can death be punitive? Who are we to decide who lives or dies? Is it not inherently immoral to claim such high morality? If a man murders another man, is it not hypocritical to murder the murderer? Is it not disturbing that we calmly and calculatedly execute individuals in a fashion no more humane than the crime that that prisoner may have committed?

Most would agree that there is no greater evil than to rape and/or destroy another human life. Such a crime would certainly cause great pain to a family member of the victim. That family member would feel that it be very important that the person responsible be killed to balance out the anger and pain. There is a word for that action, and it is called revenge. That sense of vengeance is emotionally driven (understandably so), and therefor cannot be acted upon impartially. It would therefor seem odd that a governing body would enact that revenge on the behalf of a bereaved party instead of acting on behalf of the people.

For most proponents of the death penalty, the morality argument isn't enough to convince them that it doesn't have a place in modern times, or they simply see it differently. Some Americans view it as a fundamental of a civilized society. However deranged and evil a criminal on death row is, stooping to their level of violent behavior is acceptable by our current administration.

If this is not convincing, there are other interesting facts about the death penalty in America that should, at the very least, make a convincing argument against its perceived "necessity" in the United States.

Capital punishment is a more expensive endeavor than life in prison. Studies conducted on the subject indicate that it costs about $2 million per execution over the costs of a system which imposes life sentences for the same crimes. The death penalty literally costs tax payers more money.

Statics show that through February 2006, 34% of those who have been executed were black, while 58% were white. Since blacks constitute roughly 12% of the U.S. population, their execution rate is much higher than that of whites. If one were to look at the race of the victims of criminals sentenced to die, you'd see that the death penalty was imposed more often when the victim was white. You are much more likely to be sentenced to die if your victim is white.

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, on January 21st, 2000 said, "I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point". According to Amnesty International, the murder rate in Canada has dropped 27% since the death penalty was abolished in that country in 1976. According to Raymond Bonner and Ford Fessenden writing for the New York Times, September 22nd, 2000, homicide rates in states that have used capital punishment have been 48% to 101% higher than those that haven't used it. According to Michael L. Radelet and Ronald L. Akers of Northern Illinois University, 84% of current and former presidents of the country's top academic criminology societies reject the notion that research shows any deterrent effect from the death penalty.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, over 120 people on death row were re-tried and acquitted of all charges after a higher court threw out the conviction. This means that for every 8 executions carried out, 1 was deemed innocent and released.

The Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded, however, almost all states still execute the mentally ill.

In 1995 the Peter Hart Research Poll conducted a survey of police chiefs around the country where officers named such measures as reducing drug abuse, a better economy, and controlling guns as more important than the death penalty in reducing violent crime. Willie L. Williams, Police Cheif, Los Angeles, CA said, "I am not convinced that capital punishment, in and of itself, is a deterrent to crime because most people do not think about the death penalty before they commit a violent or capital crime." Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney of Manhattan once said, "Take it from someone who has spent a career in federal and state law enforcement, enacting the death penalty...would be a grave mistake. Prosecutors must reveal the dirty little secret they too often share only among themselves: The death penalty actually hinders the fight against crime."

On Novemeber 12th, the maryland Commission on Capital Punishment voted to recommend the abolition of the death penalty in the state. The Commission cited the possibility that an innocent person could be mistakenly executed, as well as geographical and racial disparities in how it is used.

It would seem counter to progress to continue executing prisoners for heinous crimes. The rest of the developed world has somehow come to terms with the idea that the death penalty doesn't fit with their objectives as a nation. It would seem prudent that the United States follow suit. In this matter, we are not leading the way, we are trailing far far behind. This however, cannot be the reason we abolish capital punishment as a nation. We must do it because it is morally questionable, unconstitutional, and unfairly applied. There are no benefits to the death penalty, it has no reason to exist. Our efforts are better served improving education and opportunity rather than enacting revenge.

My vision for America includes many things, such as freedom of choice, privacy, higher rewards for public servants and teachers, less of a gap between the rich and the middle and lower class, and three equal branches of government. But one very important obstacle for us is the lack of a ban on capital punishment. As long as states can murder individuals legally, we will never progress and we will never be the shining example of freedom and liberty that we so clearly want to be.

The Prophetic Physician

Uncritical faith is rampant, especially in this country. America tries to focus its energy on affording individuals the freedom to pursue whatever endeavor they wish (unless its a gay endeavor). This means that people can claim just about anything they want and expect no obstacles blocking that claim from generating money.

A perfect example is Bishop Womack.

Dr. Shammah Womack-El is a world class Naturopathic Holistic Scientist and Master Herbalist of Drugless Medicine, which he calls God’s Natural Pharmacy. He believes that God has a cure and a remedy in the earth for all dis-eases. Dr. Womack-El can help you with supervision to rejuvenate your life and detoxify your body tissues for improved health and longevity.

Most doctors spend time trying to suppress symptoms instead of treating root causes of problems. At the Chapel of Miracles my approach is just the opposite, my holistic team and I offer our clients a serene, supportive and skillful environment, where advanced natural techniques support healing and HIGH LEVEL HEALTH, rather than settling for the shortsighted goal of mere symptom suppression.

Poor saps come to people like this expecting miracles and willing to pay through the teeth for it. Womack need not supply his customers with evidence or logic because most Americans have lost the ability to care. What this means is hard working Americans lose their money to schemes and tricks and never become the wiser. The imagination is a powerful thing, and it is easily manipulated.

However confused you are, whether it is believing in magical Jews walking on water or that the cure for MS and ALS can be found in plants growing in Asia BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD YOU SO, you will always be able to ask questions and form logical opinions. This ability is present in all humans of sound mind, yet so few use it.

If one were to look at Womack’s page carefully, one could see logical flaws right off the bat. For example:

Thousands have reversed chronic and degenerative diseases through our all naturopathic healing approach.

A sentence like that convinces almost all average thinkers of just about anything. But it is a logical fallacy. It even has a name, its called the bandwagon fallacy. Just because x number of people believe that y is true doesn’t make y true.

Another slightly more complex logical flaw in Womack’s ‘argument’:

There is a remedy in the earth for every dis-ease.

If this were true, why would we still have diseases? Earth is also the source of a lot of death. Consider arsenic, a natural but extremely fatal element found on Earth. How about Earthquakes? Volcanoes? Tornadoes?

People are all too often fooled by the word “natural”. Just because something is natural doesn’t mean it is healthy. There are many natural mushrooms that are poisonous.

The most hilarious has to be:

Also, see our products for holistic living, such as our Supernatural Manna, which works your body out without you going to the gym. I call it “THE GYM IN A BOTTLE”, which shapes your body into a healthy, fat-burning machine. It’s a Magic Green Superfood that works you out and into shape.

Isn’t it amazing that people will just believe something like that? Without evidence, without proper support or logical reasoning? This is absolutely rampant in this country. And it is this uncritical thinking which can lead to wars, injustice, crimes, violence… Imagine believing someone is a terrorist because someone told you to. Without evidence or logical reasoning you continue believing this person to be a terrorist and treat him as such. This happens all the time.

Womack is an extreme example of someone taking advantage of REALLY stupid people. Like everything in life there are varying degrees of mysticism and superstition. But if you can remain critical and skeptical of any claims without proper peer reviewed evidence, than you can spot these shams very easily. In fact, purchase my new magical book for only $4509.78 where I teach you how to channel spiritual energy from the 98th dimension to see schemes and scams easily! Learn it in just minutes a day!

P.S. - If you were to look closely at this website you can find MANY spelling and grammar errors.

Enjoy.

To Quote the Pope

Stem cell research is bad? A mass of cells is a life? Does that mean I shouldn’t flush the toilet every time I use it? What about that massive booger I just fished out of my nose?

I direct the pope to my most recent post about stem cell research, and how negative religious views of science can hinder progress in our world.

Do people really believe that this man has magic powers? That he communicates with inter-dimensional omnipotent creators?

I have to laugh at the blatant shamanism at work here. Inherent in being religious is the lack of the ability to be critical. If you aren’t critical than anything can be anything, and an old man can be considered pious.

I don’t hate the pope! Some people really need a leader to guide their moral principles. I always applaud a leader who advocates peace and non-violence. But I always have to question the intelligence of a person who believes that a Jew literally walked on a water and resurrected himself, and that an Abrahamic God created our universe.

So many people are convinced of so many silly things. Look at scientologists and mormons! Where was their critical thinking skills? I can understand that 150 years ago our scientific instruments were not sharp nor robustly conclusive, but in a day and age where we can count electrons on an single atom… do we really need to continue to believe in magic and mystics?

The pope came here because he knows that there are many people left in this nation who lack critical thinking skills, and he can use that to his advantage. Bush sure did. Believing things without question is a weakness, and it is that which makes America so fragile. I was able to bring a set of screw drivers, needle nose pliers, wire cutters and a hammer onto a domestic airplane flight, but they would be DAMNED if they let me keep my tooth paste! Ignorance comes from remaining silent when you should ask questions, and that is what most leaders in America are counting on.

Think of how many times you have been taken advantage of because you didn’t know something.

Does the pope take advantage of you? Anyone who uses your uncritical faith in something to further an agenda or get votes is taking advantage of you.

Embryos are not human. People suffering from ALS are human. Life does not begin at conception, a man never walked on water, our universe was not created by a deity that listens to prayers and came to Moses in the form of a burning bush. I know these things because I have critical thinking skills and I know that there isn’t any evidence to support them. I have the advantage because I am knowledgeable, and if I wanted, I could use that against others for my own gain. But unlike Bush, or perhaps the pope, I’d rather direct people to research and evidence that bring reality to light and make life better for everyone on this planet. The Vatican may know the truth about Christianity, they may know that Jesus most likely never existed and that the Exodus is a myth. But why on Earth would they let on to something like that? They would lose their control over all the believers.

A world full of people believing in a shaman and his powers is not somewhere we should be right now.

Enjoy.

Where is your evidence?

Dick Brooks wrote a delightful post where he shows us how easily people can be swayed by big business and deceit into thinking global warming is not a human problem. I feel sorry for individuals who can’t think critically, but I am annoyed by individuals who put arguments forth with no evidence. I asked Dick for evidence in a comment, he chose not to post the comment (not sure why).

So I ask him here; where is your evidence?

Too often people forget the basics of critical thought and get swayed too easily by popular opinion or biased media. I am not saying that you have to be ultra skeptical of reality, but don’t just believe everything you hear. 3rd graders believe everything they here, but so does most adult American conservatives.

The silent memo that sheds light on truth

Its no secret that our administration has been part of some of the most heinous acts of inhumanity and insurrection our country has ever known. From lying to its supporters to slaughtering innocent civilians, the Bush corporation has tainted our existence with evil, brought this country down to levels so low that I’m surprised we aren’t reclassified as a developing nation.

What concerns me is that the darkness that is neo-conservatism has infected the media so severely that I feel like its no longer an independent entity. Naturally, information being openly shared is a more progressive or liberal idea. A lot of what conservative administrations do is limit or block information to benefit them, and in order to keep Americans in the dark, this is a necessity. Its a cycle. Conservative administrations’ primary goal is more money for the elite wealthy class, they do this by any means necessary which often means human rights violations (including slaughter and murder), which requires misinformation, censored information, and/or deceit, which leads to media being controlled by the government which leads to more conservative governments.

Depressing I know.

What if they disclosed a torture memo and nobody cared? This week, an81-page memo, authored by John C. Yoo, who was a deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice at the time of its creation, was declassified and made public. The memo, which, among other things, was used as the rationale for authorizing the torture of government detainees, has long been held to be a savage reimagining of the structure of the Executive Branch and its authority, hostile to the traditional checks and balances that circumscribe the President’s authority.

The memo is one of the most unpatriotic things America has ever produced. But what is interesting is that the mainstream media ignored it… or asked to or required to ignore it. One of the major points I am making is that we are not moving forwards as a country. You cannot be a superior country if you still have the death penalty, torture prisoners, deny habeas corpus to some and not others, instigate military actions in other countries, interfere with the happiness of citizens, sacrifice liberty for a false sense of security, use fear to rally support for war, and all the while make a shit load of money off of it.

John Yoo’s Memorandum, as intended, directly led to — caused — a whole series of war crimes at both Guantanamo and in Iraq. The reason such a relatively low-level DOJ official was able to issue such influential and extraordinary opinions was because he was working directly with, and at the behest of, the two most important legal officials in the administration: George Bush’s White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and Dick Cheney’s counsel (and current Chief of Staff) David Addington. Together, they deliberately created and authorized a regime of torture and other brutal interrogation methods that are, by all measures, very serious war crimes…This incident provides yet more proof of how rancid and corrupt is the premise that as long as political appointees at the DOJ approve of certain conduct, then that conduct must be shielded from criminal prosecution. That’s the premise that is being applied over and over to remove government lawbreaking from the reach of the law.

The memo basically says that the president can authorize any action during “wartime” which is also something he can declare. Congress can’t stop him, treaties can be violated, and he cannot be interfered with by any court in the United States. It is as if he can declare martial law over the world. The memo sets the scope for his power to being without limits.

These people need to be tried in international criminal courts for war crimes committed against humanity.

An Example

China has a problem. They have a government that not only censors free speech, but has serious human rights issues. Why don’t we invade and occupy?

It surprises me that people still incorrectly believe that America ever had an interest in human rights or freedom abroad when it pursued military action. Plenty of people still think soldiers in Iraq are “fighting for my freedom”. Nothing infuriates me more than such stupidity spewing from someone defending our military actions in the middle east. American history is wrought with violent invasions into countries for ‘ideological purposes’. In fact, the formula is very simple. First, we are deceived. The president will knowingly invent some instance that makes it look as if the U.S. has been attacked or threatened so that he can garner public support for any military action. Then, we invade and kill. Schools and towns are bombed while Americans are told that we’re only aiming at military targets. The invading nation is forced to defend itself, while Americans are told that terrorists are attacking our ‘peaceful’ men and women trying to keep ‘peace’. Its odd that all the countries we have invaded had some HUGE economic potential within their borders. The Panama Canal, oil, ports, or a chance to attack threatening ideology.

Well… here is your chance.

Beijing - Amid protests around the world about China’s handling of the Tibet unrest, Beijing on Monday blasted the European Union for interference at the same time that China made a show of business as usual in staging the launch of the Olympic torch relay.

EU foreign ministers had issued a statement on Saturday after their meeting in Brdo, Slovenia, saying the body ‘calls for an end to violence and asks that arrested persons be treated in conformity with international standards.’

In a further development, China’s state-run media ran reports Monday supposedly proving that Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama had orchestrated the recent wave of unrest.

It is no secret that China kills prisoners without fair trials, uses extreme violent measures to quell political dissent, and neglects the needs of its citizens. Where is Bush’s demands for “the freedom of the Chinese people”? Give me a good reason why we haven’t invaded?

Enjoy.

How do certain people sleep at night?

Yesterday my friends were interested in watching some kind of sporting event on my awesome HD television. The event was baseball. I can’t get into sports, I’ve tried, I just would much rather play them myself than watch other people play them… especially baseball.

At some point in the second or maybe third inning, President George Bush made his way up to the announcer’s booth and sat in for a few innings. He was awkward at first, making some very basic and unsophisticated comments, and then… nothing changed. This man was bribed into Harvard, staged a cue against the most powerful country in the world and won, then became directly responsible for some of the most horrific war crimes in history. And there he is, sitting there trying to chat about baseball. It just didn’t seem right. How does this man sleep at night when he knows that he is DIRECTLY responsible for the horrific death of thousands of innocent children in the interest of big business? Further more, how does he chat about baseball?

I know he owned the Rangers (in fact I hear he was histories worse team owner as well), and I know he supposed to be some kind of down home country American Joe…but I just couldn’t be comfortable with his presence at this baseball game. I don’t think I can ever be comfortable looking at that man in any other capacity than a war criminal. Would you feel comfortable hanging out with Hitler at the Olympics? What do you see when you look at these men? Don’t you wonder what bad chemistry is frothing about in their brains?

We come to the philosophical quandary of the nature of man, and the demand that everyone be reasonable. But there are always the few who’s mind and actions cannot be reconciled with the average flow of humanity. Some people are exceptionally selfless, devoting their lives to humanity, and then there are others who optimize greed. Bush is unlike Hitler in this aspect. Bush, his cronies, and just about every president in history, has pursued the deaths of innocents for money, big business, contracts, favors to corporations who lobbies well or who contributed to a campaign. So how do we treat these people? Guilty of murder, literally. As in, would be convicted of the felony in a court of law. (Thats probably why the U.S. refuses to be a part of the world criminal court, they know their leaders would be indicted!)

Enjoy.

The fear still persists

it isn’t much of a secret that Bush perpetrated a “war” in Iraq for money. He used 9/11 to keep America afraid of terrorism, riding the momentum to sacrifice liberty for perceived security. Americans have been fooled before, remember Vietnam? The same thing happened. We were lied to, purposefully deceived so that the president could have popular support for a war.

In 2008, the lasting effects of Bush’s war on liberty and freedom is still felt.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. “My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.”

What has always surprised me is the sheer inconsistency the TSA has been guilty of. I’ve passed through security with screw drivers, hammers, and pliers in my carryon before, but they would be DAMNED if they let me bring my bottle of water with me.

And America eats it up. At least, they used to. This woman was laughed at by male officers, forced to painfully remove the bars with pliers, meanwhile having her belly button piercing completely ignored.

This is a minor, minor, minor violation of civil liberties in the name of oil money for big corporations. On the other end of the spectrum, we have innocent women and children being blown up and killed my American armed forces in Iraq.

When does it end? When conservatism, greed, and the right wing exist only in the past? We should only be so lucky.

Political Intrigue

As in… there isn’t any anymore. I’m already tired of Clinton and Obama. I’m less tired of Obama than Clinton, I think Obama is better for us than Clinton, but they’re both flawed and everyday I lose faith that anything will be that different after this election.

Obviously, we want social conservatism out of America since its caused us so much trouble in the recent years of the Bush administration, and people clearly benefit from a more socially progressive government.

Recently I’ve read the book “A People’s History of the U.S.” by Howard Zinn, and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t shaped my recent feelings on government and the United States. I’ve learned that this country’s government is nothing but a history of elitism and evil. Even Bill Cinton was guilty of it, although much less so than Bush and Reagan. These presidents supported and funded terrorist organizations, instigated violence in third world countries, commenced military action in countries where it wanted an economic footing, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

That is what gets me the most of course; the deaths of innocent civilians. America has been responsible for too much innocent bloodshed all in the name of big business.

The presidency to me seems more like an economic opportunity for the wealthy. Is it a coincidence that the rich elite get richer by the passing of legislation, tax relief, and military contracts by presidents? Less than 1% of the population own 40% of the wealth.

Now the question remains, will Obama or Clinton be any different? Obama might, Hillary will not, but not enough to make a real difference I believe. Obama’s policies and popularity is marked with the same vague politico as any president’s campaign. Flip flopping, minor scandals of perceived immorality (I think that pastor was absolutely right about America by the way), and the questions of experience and blah blah blah.

None of it really matters, at least, I’m not convinced it does. Injustices will continue in the name of America & co. because of its very corrupt ultra-capitalist nature. Our history of inciting violence and murder against ideological differences, and then lying about it is too fresh, too recent to mean any major change is coming down the pipe. We still have a vast majority of citizens believing in magical floating deities and preset destinies, and that there is some kind of correct way of uncritical faith and an incorrect way of uncritical faith. We still have greed and corruption stapled into the American flag as if it was supposed to be there. Money and more money, can never have enough money. Lies will be perpetrated by the ultra rich and those in control to convince you otherwise. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and plans on using it, the people of Iraq want freedom from an evil dictator so in we go.

Whats that? You say people in Uganda want freedom from ethnic cleansing and violence?

Well, we can’t spare the resources right now to invade and occupy that country and fight for their freedom. Only Iraq, sorry.

Why you ask?

Economic and investment interests. Its too complicated for you to understand.

I know I’m going off in an unorganized manner, and I know you haven’t heard from me in several months now, so please accept my sincerest apologize with regards to that matter.

So I’m voting for Obama because I think somewhere deep in his heart is a wish that things could be different in America. His background is diverse and he’s probably been taunted and teased for being different growing up, so he may or may not have that tiny spark inside him that could bring about some good social change. The sophomoric Americans who really think a great Abrahamic deity blessed America and not our ‘enemy’ is too common a person, and until this changes we may never have the social progress our cultural superior neighbors up north have, or our cousins in Europe have.

Enjoy.

America the Greek

In the ancient Greek times, familial ties were everything. If your father was a traitor, then you by definition were also a traitor, and so were your kids and their kids and so on. You couldn’t escape it. You could be a wonderful human being, a saint among men, and still be seen as a “son of a traitor”.

This is what we would call an archaic practice. It makes no common sense and really inhibits the progress of human kind in its own small way.

But it seems that America, the land of regressing hundreds of years into the past in a mere instant, has done just that.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president Sunday but stirred a continuing controversy by noting her chief rival’s name is “Barack Hussein Obama” and that Obama had Muslim ancestors.

And while Kerrey’s comments were ostensibly made as a compliment to Obama, they resurrected a troublesome issue for the first-term junior senator from Illinois.

Obama’s attendance Sunday at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Mason City, Iowa, was as much an observation of faith as it was a rejoinder to baseless e-mailed rumors that he is a Muslim and poses a threat to the security of the United States.

What is even more ridiculous is that he has to assure people that he is a Christian, because otherwise he would be an infidel and an enemy to the holy state of America. Our country is so far behind in so many ways. The whole notion that a person’s religion should have some kind of influence on any public matters is beyond stupid and belongs in the middle ages.

No matter how bad the crazy middle state Christian right-wing conservatives want it, we are not and never will be a holy country. If these same people had any sense or maybe some good education that included history, they would see that such a thing leads only to violence, corruption and eventually collapse. We cannot be a great nation if we collapse. Are we going the way of Rome? We very well could be.

What happens when a country’s majority of his inhabitants believe that they are closer to a deity and are correct in worshiping him, and that another country is wrong and blasphemous; and that same other country simultaneously believes the opposite? Each side thinks God is on their side, and that the eradication of the other religion is righteous and highly moral. This results in violence, war, and death. This is why religious beliefs are so dangerous. Christians have been fighting Muslims for thousands of years because of this, and continue to do so today. It is disgusting that some humans remain so unenlightened.

It REALLY should not matter that Obama is a Christian or has Muslim parents or whatever, it really shouldn’t, but I know and you know that, sadly, it does. Obama could be the most faithful Christian in the land, but because his grandparents were or are Muslim, he is condemned to live his life as a ‘traitor’. I am sorry, but those who do this have no place in modern times or in this country. I can’t think of anything more unpatriotic than to be a Christian-conservative hell bent on their Jihad against Muslims, and on occasion, Jews.

Again, this is why uncritical beliefs are so dangerous. Keep in mind that billions have died because of tenants that are supported by NO EVIDENCE. These people question nothing, and can (and have) been brainwashed into believing anything, because they do not demand evidence or a reasonable explanation. Jews are an inferior race? Okay, lets kill them. Islam and Muslims are infidels and must be eliminated? Alright, lets invade their land and kill the non-believers… I mean shit, its in the bible!

Obama staffers and volunteers say they periodically encounter voters who say they cannot support Obama because they’ve heard he is Muslim, a claim that has been making its way through Internet sites and blogs since he announced his candidacy for president.

The issue gained prominence earlier this month when Clinton’s campaign forced the resignation of two Iowa volunteer coordinators who had forwarded e-mails that falsely tried to tie him to Islamic jihadists.

On a side note, it is common for the conservatives on this site to dodge issues and invent arguments. I know that these people will try and argue that Obama has said that he doesn’t think politics and religion should be totally separate, but I will head these people off at the pass. I know that Obama has said that, and you know what? I don’t agree with it. I think it makes him less of a good candidate in MY EYES. Of course, those who are religious but not as conservative will like that… in fact, conservatives who are sick of too much of their own medicine will like that as well. I do not like it. But if you are going to argue my points in this post, focus on my actual points, not on Obama. I know this will be tough for some of you who are so entrenched in faith without evidence that the whole act of arguing is beyond you, but try.

Enjoy.

Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!

Can anyone tell me what Newton’s third law of motion is? I’ll give you a hint, it has something to do with “equal” and “opposite”. Thats right! For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In physics, that means that every force you apply to another mass is met with equal and opposite force. For example, gravity is a vector force pointing downwards towards the Earth. You standing on the Earth represents a downward force onto the Earth’s surface, but you know what keeps you from sinking right through the surface? The fact that the surface is pushing back on you with equal and opposite force. If you increase your weight, the surface increases its push back. So the harder you push, the harder it pushes back.

I’m not trying to be deep or philosophical here, but I see the same trend in a more ephemeral sense… with religion.

In America, we are supposed to enjoy freedom from religion, meaning, the state and the government is supposed to refrain from picking an official religion to side with. Why is this important? Because 250 years ago there were many difference religions that people believed, and among those religions were many sects that often contradicted each other. If the government had picked one sect of one religion, they would have alienated everyone else. The whole point of America was supposed to be the opposite of that. It was and still is supposed to be a place where you go to be free of any kind of state sponsored religion.

Now, Oatney recently wrote a post that condemned those who have problems with public displays of Christianity. This shows us that Oatney is unpatriotic, in the sense that he doesn’t agree with the original purpose of this country.

If you happen to be one of those religious people who feel that A) Your religion is really the correct one B) Public displays isn’t forcing religion onto anybody; then you should know that A) You’re wrong and B) you’re wrong.

To think your religion is the only correct one, and the billions of other religious people out there are just simply wrong is arrogant and weak. People in history took that position when they felt the need to oppress and conquer, often over compensating for some inadequacy issues. Secondly, public displays are forcing religion because tax payer’s money goes into it. Lets say you’re Jewish, and you live in an apartment complex where the manager used rent money to upkeep the place, including putting a nativity scene in the lobby. This is forcing the acceptance of Jesus unto those who do not recognize him as the Messiah. When one does this, its hard not to get the impression that the oppressor needs to validity their religion by forcing it onto others.

Pghremodeler in response to Oatney’s post on this subject said:

Where did you get the idea that spending tax dollars to advance the views of one religion over another is a good idea? You must worship a weak and stupid god. I wish you xtians would learn to embrace God

By the way your definition of conservatism is just sick and twisted.

Oatney appeared to be waging a religious holy war against those who were not of his religion. It reminds me of the old testament where the Israelites are commanded to slay the non-believers. This is obviously archaic but also extremely unsophisticated. Oatney shows us that he isn’t capable of critical thought nor is he capable of putting himself in other people’s shoes (a problem all conservatives seem to have). Oatney didn’t even consider how he would feel if public displays of Menorahs and other Hanukah symbolism were the norm. Would he get all uppity about the war on Hanukah? No, because he isn’t Jewish.

Arguments like Oatneys always come off very weak and rather pathetic. When someone can’t think or see beyond their small xenophobic views, that person is lost to the past, and we must ignore or move past them.

Enjoy.

On the paht to glory

America is good, but it is not great. With the exception of Canada and a few European countries, America remains one of the more free places in the world. Progressive movements and civil liberties bring us closer to glory, they bring us closer to being a great country.

The more liberal a country becomes, the closer to freedom it gets. Even conservatives get their way. The wonderful thing about the progressive liberal ideology is that it doesn’t RESTRICT things like the right-wing conservative ideology, it simply opens doors. In a liberal country, one can be conservative. In a conservative country, one cannot be liberal. Liberals find that there is nothing more important that the ability to share one’s opinion and to make choices for one’s self. The conservative are not so much for this.

One of the things America suffers from is mass stupidity. People are generally very poorly educated here, and as a result don’t ever learn to question things. The reason I am writing this is about one of those things.

The death penalty remains one of those stupid things. We are the only non-developing nation that still adheres to this barbaric ritual. I have written about his before, and provided the evidence that leads us to the conclusion that the death penalty has no benefit on society. It is not economically beneficial, it does not deter crime, and it doesn’t fit any moral standards that we set up elsewhere. Especially with the religious who would rather save the potential life of a group of cells than save a man dying of ALS.

But we are on the path to glory.

New Jersey has become the first US state to formally abolish the death penalty. The Democrat-controlled state assembly in Trenton voted 44-36 to scrap capital punishment, and replace it with life in prison without hope of parole. The speaker of the House, Democrat Joseph Roberts Jnr, said it was time for a change:”Today, I believe, sends a signal to all of America. We are telling states you can indeed repeal the death penalty.”

Who would have thought New Jersey would be a leader on the path to glory. The day when every state has abolished the death penalty is the day we achieve a higher rank amongst the great nations of this world. Our goal should not be the most powerful nation, or the most frightening, or the most influential, but to be the most free and the most happy. This can only occur from riding ourselves of laws or tenets that are based upon ideas without evidence, and if we can rid ourselves of blatant contradiction of morality and racism.

Thirteen other American states refuse to enforce the death penalty, but New Jersey is the first to ban it since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

I’m not going to explain again what the problems are with the death penalty, you may read my older posts on the subject for more information, evidence, and logical reasoning. To this day, no one has been able to challenge the arguments I put forth in those posts. To simply put it, once you look at the evidence and consider the morality behind it, the death penalty has no place in a modern society. It sticks out like a sore thumb. We have the ability to decode massive amounts of data from machines floating in space, but we can’t get rid of a ritual that is older than human history itself?

Enjoy.

Ignorance with Wings Part 4 ::embryonic stem cells::

Embryonic stem cells:

ES cells are pluripotent. This means they are able to differentiate into all derivatives of the three primary germ layers: ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. These include each of the more than 220 cell types in the adult body. Pluripotency distinguishes ES cells from multipotent progenitor cells found in the adult; these only form a limited number of cell types.

I’m sure you know what this means. ES cells have a wondrous potential to treat or even cure some very debilitating, paralyzing, or fatal diseases and conditions. At this moment, there are millions of men, women and children who are alive and breathing that suffer from one of a number of these diseases. Their lives are torturous, painful, and barely worth living. It seems rather ridiculous then that we don’t fund or expand our research with embryonic stem cells. It fact, it is extremely ridiculous.

The uncritical religious, who’s decisions and beliefs require faith (a principle that has no evidence to back it up) to exist, do everything they can to stop embryonic stem cell research. Why, you ask? The reason is surprisingly absurd.

The religious think that life begins at some point before the embryo, and that destroying an embryo for the stem cells is killing a life. These very same people will turn around and fully support the death penalty keep in mind! For some reason, they are obsessed with controlling people and their choices, and therefor wish to remain on the side of the argument that lacks reason and evidence.

Let us consider some facts, shall we?

1) Embryos consist of 50 to 150 cells IN TOTAL. They are nothing but a collection of microscopic cells that you could count with your eye. At this stage, the embryo is known as a blastocyte, which forms 4 to 5 days after fertilization. In fact, some scientists don’t consider a blastocyte and embryo. You have to understand that there is NO human qualities in a blastocyte. It is literally a simple collection of cells that can be counted by the human eye. 2) Embryos abort naturally ALL THE TIME. In fact, more than half of all embryos die naturally. Embryo destruction is actually the norm, rather than the exception. So that puts an enormous hole in the religious or faith-based idea that embryos are lives that should not be knowingly killed. 220 million embryos die a year naturally, that is more than any other cause of death that we know of. Keep in mind that; Cancer, in all its forms, kills 7.6 million people per year, In six years, the Second World War killed around 60 million people…

We don’t defend an embryo’s right to free speech, because it cannot speak, in fact, it cannot do anything. It has no neurological system, no consciousness, no thoughts, no mind, no brain… no nothing. Yet some would ascribe more rights to it than a black man on death row. This is the ultimate contradiction of the religious right in the United States. Infuriatingly stupid, isn’t it?

There are certain moral questions that are common, that test one’s true morals. For example, consider the train that is flying out of control at break neck speeds. If it continues on its current track, it will fly off of a cliff a la Back to the Future Part III and kill everyone on board; men, women, children… embryos. But you are standing at a switch on the track, and you can switch the track to safely divert the train away from the cliff, however, there is a man tied to the diverted track. If you flip the switch, you kill the one man tied to the track but save the hundreds of passengers on board.

This is not meant to be an easy decision, but no one would call you immoral if you were to flip the switch.

The point is, we have millions of people today who are alive, breathing, have nervous systems, thoughts, dreams, the right to free speech and so on, who suffer and are at risk of death. Trying to save the life of a group of cells over these living breathing human beings is like not switching the track to save the one man tied to the diverted track. In fact, it is much worse. It is as if instead of another man tied to the track, it was a cockroach, and you saved the roach at the expense of everyone on the train.

So how come we don’t consider all 220 million naturally destroyed embryos loss of human life? Because it isn’t loss of human life. You cannot die if you were never born.

If Christians really cared about the lives of children, we’d see a stronger push for decreasing infant mortality in developing worlds. But we don’t see that. We see anti-homosexual bills, sodomy laws, and fighting Islam.

Obviously the potential for life is not the same as life itself, because then every time we wore a condom, every time we used spermacide, every time we went to the sperm bank, every time we masturbated, we would be killing hundreds of millions of people. Does this sound right to you? No. Of course not. An embryo is not a life, a zygote is not a life, a fetus is not a life. Potential life is not life, hence the word “potential”. You don’t put people in jail before they commit the crime.

But MisterE, why not cut the controversy and just stick with adult stem cells? Well, adult stem cells may not have the potential the embryonic stem cells have. We of course need to do more research on this, but science is under the impression at the moment that adult stem cells are unlikely to be nearly as useful as embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are obtained from human embryos. They have the capacity to turn into any cell type in the body. Adult stem cells have been found in some mature human tissues, including the brain and bone marrow. There is a scientific debate over whether their ability to become specialized is limited to their tissue of origin, or whether they can turn into other types of tissue.

Adult stem cells have proven their value to medicine. For example, bone marrow transplants are routinely used to treat some cancers and blood diseases. But it’s unlikely that bone marrow stem cells can replace all of the different types of cells that are damaged by disease. Embryonic stem cells are the only ones that are likely to do that.

You have to understand that science does not recognize most, if any religious tenants as fact. But science is where we get our medicine, our help, our computers and advancements and so on… so its obviously the area of reality that we can be sure is real. We have no scientific definition for a human life, and obviously, it has to start somewhere. Since ethereal ideas such as spirits and life creation by a deity are extremely unlikely, we avoid them as explanations. To define a human life, we can only turn to science for the answer, and if science doesn’t have an answer then there may be no answer.

If you look at it purely from a scientific and natural perspective, we are mammals. We are simply organisms that live on this planet that have evolved some very fancy brains. However, a mammal can only live when separated from its chromosomal donor, physiologically. As long as it is a part of the mother, it cannot survive as its own entity, and perhaps remains simply a part of the mother. A human fetus doesn’t develop a nervous system and a brain-stem until very late in the game, and even then it is uncertain whether or not they can comprehend or understand pain, for they are not yet alive. They are being made, like bread in an oven. The question can then become: “Does life start when consciousness starts”? Again, science does not yet have a theory that tells us the precise moment consciousness begins. It is entirely feasible that someday we may find that moment, for it is becoming increasingly clear that consciousness is merely the result of incomprehensible numbers of neural connections in our brains. Without neural connections like that, are we conscious? Are apes conscious? Are cockroaches conscious?

These are all very interesting questions that science may or may not some day answer (and will adhere to script scientific scrutiny so it can be considered fact, unlike religious tenants that can withstand no scrutiny and have no supporting evidence). In the meantime, we are sure (to a statistically significant degree) that an embryo cannot feel pain, is not a human life, and should not be considered so over the well beings and mortality of those we KNOW to be alive.

Enjoy.

Ignorance with Wings Part 3 ::intelligent design::

It is no joking matter that many people, nay, most people in the middle and southern states of this country actually believe that man was designed by some grand architect in the sky, and that evolution is nonsense.

The problem with their beliefs is that there is no evidence backing up their claims. Not one single shred, in fact, ignoring the theory of evolution, there is so much evidence AGAINST intelligent design that its a miracle it still is considered ’seriously’ by some. You’d really have to be quite blind to the world to dismiss evolution for a magical explanation.

But the fact remains, evolution is the single most likely theory in science. We are more sure evolution occurred than we are that cells divide the way we think they do, that gravity exists, and that the big bang occurred. Mind you, this is no small feat. The theories of gravity, cells, and the big bang have HUGE amounts of evidence, observation, independent confirmation, and reliable analyzed data behind it. HUGE.

I’m not going to make this a long post simply because I would be repeating myself over and over. But I will repeat some basic things. 1)Geologic record mixed with carbon dating confirms evolution 2)Scientific observation of species at present confirms evolution 3)Mutation of viruses such as Avian Flu or SARS confirms evolution etc…

Most confused people tend to think micro-evolution occurs without macro-evolution. These people haven’t thought it through enough, and probably dismiss logic regularly. Macro-evolution, very simply put, is micro-evolution over a period of massive amounts of years. What frustrates the creationist is that understanding evolution requires the acceptance of change over time. Very little, with the exception of bacteria, occurs over night in the context of speciation. However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Most creationists are so far removed from reality that science means very little to them. This is why I.D. and creation are considered myths, because 1)No evidence supports them 2)The people that insist on their veracity have extremely low standards and scrutinizing abilities

Now, one should note, claiming that something is wrong simply because the person who claims it to be right is an idiot, doesn’t make that claim wrong. But what does make it wrong is ENDLESS evidence against it. Creation is so implausible that it is sometimes infuriating that people still believe it. Some would simply have to accept the fact that many people still have below average intellectual capabilities.

You see, every branch of science has evidence and proof that all point to evolution being true. Independent sets of data from geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, herpetology, entomology, biogeography, comparative anatomy, physiology, genetics, physics, biology, microbiology, epidemeology, and so on, all support, nay require, the theory of evolution to be true.

How can you ignore the fossils for Christ’s sake? Most creationists are unaware of how extremely unlikely fossilization is. In order for a specimen to be fossilized, very specific and rare circumstances must converge on a single unlikely point in time. Yet we have millions upon millions of fossils dating back billions of years. Life and speculation was so common and affluent on this planet for billions of years that the laws of probability require there to be fossilized remains. We have evidence, that we can see and touch, that we descended from a common ancestor. Yet, the creationists resist.

I’ve heard everything from arguments like “How could Earth be so perfectly suited to man” to “Why don’t we see dogs turning into bees in the lab”? These are some VERY stupid arguments to be made, and barely ever deserve a response, for the person asking them is merely demonstrating how little they understand science and reality. Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote “Critics [of evolution] exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have never determined a scientific fact in their lives by induction from experiment or observation, prate learnedly about Mr. Darwin’s method, which is not inductive enough, not Baconian enough, forsooth for them.”

Basically, criticizing science without knowing science is ridiculous, yet it is what the creationists and I.D. proponents do all the time. Science is undeniable, unbiased, and not subject for argument. That is the whole point of it. Science is the search for truth, and truth can only be found when large amounts of people agree that something is true with a %99.9 certainty. This can only be achieved if your sample size is large enough, your data is wide enough, and your analyzing is done independently by many different people.

This is how we arrive upon a scientific THEORY. Theories are as close to laws, fact, or truth as you will ever get. Creationism is so far behind that, so immeasurably low on the level of scrutiny that it hardly belongs in the thoughts of intelligent men and women. In fact, it doesn’t.

You see, not only do we have NO reason to believe that creation occurred, we have mountains of evidence to suggest that something else occurred. Its a double-team!

Enjoy heathens.

Ignorance with Wings PART 2 ::sex::

If you’ve ever had sex, then you know it can be one of the greatest experiences on Earth; better than chocolate, videogames, and even certain episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation (I know… ridiculous). I know since I became sexually active in High School, I’ve had a wonderful time, and I feel that I’ve grown from it (no pun intended).

Unfortunately, I wish I could maintain a light-hearted air about sex with this post, but I cannot. For there are atrocities of sex perpetrated by the uncritical and faithfully religious, covering a broad spectrum from condemning pre-martial sex to stoning your daughter because she was raped.

Abrahamic religion has been against sex (and therefor against human life) for its entire history from what we can tell. Influencing generation after generation of lemmings to fear it and abstain from its wonders. Like drugs, a righteous orgasm can be and has been described as a spiritual experience, and it is for that reason that the religious condemn it. How dare you know pleasures greater than accepting Jesus into your heart. Those who control others know that accepting Jesus into your heart amounts to no amount of pleasure when compared to fornicating with two hotties in your college dorm room. They know that if they don’t condemn it forcefully, they will lose converts and lose their control over them. But why? Why do millions of people remain so confused and tortured by their uncritical faith-based lives? Because they know no other.

Let us explore how this is dangerous. Why don’t we start with the tamer side of things. In America, we have a serious lack of critical thinking. Most people here believe in things without evidence, without rationality, and without logic. This is very dangerous for a number of reasons, but when you focus on sex, you can see how dangerous faith really is. You see, faith is simply a word used by those who can’t rationally explain their feelings or judgments. When evidence and logic are absent, one has to either admit they are probably wrong or play the faith card, which gives them the license to believe whatever they want without evidence. When it comes to sex, these people believe that doing it before you are married is somehow bad or harmful. In additional, these very same people believe that certain forms of sex are just plain wrong, i.e. anal sex, oral sex, group sex, etc…

Smarter people ignore such tenants on the grounds that there is no evidence to these claims. Smarter people know that faith is crap in this situation, at least. To date there have been NO studies that suggest that anal sex is bad, wrong, or harmful to anyone. The same holds true for pre-marital sex, oral sex, kinky sex, BDSM, group sex or masturbation. So the question remains, why ban, shun, or insist on denying these pleasures to people who wish to seek them? The answer is that there is no good reason, so one must play the faith card. One will quote from an antiquated text that is poorly translated and contradictory, one will invent some kind of wishy-washy moral rule or law that they insist is omnipresent but is really just a bunch of bullshit, and one will simply invoke the irrational faith-based religion that they subscribe to.

Let me make it clear that I am NOT SAYING THAT every example of the usage or invoking of faith is dangerous or harmful, I’m simply focusing on sex for now.

Let us do what the religious hate most and look at facts: 1)Human beings are sexual 2)The human brain derives enormous amounts of pleasure from sexual contact 3)Sexual attraction is different for every person 4)Marriage is a human-created entity (Apes don’t get married) 5)Without sex, nobody would be here 6)Sex is beneficial to your health, if safe

I can hear the straw-man and red herring arguments blasting from the religious already: “But STDs kill people, and women shouldn’t have sex with more than one man in their life, and teens having sex is bad, and…” yada yada yada.

The reason why teen pregnancy and STDs remain prevalent is because of lack of education regarding sex. We have found that the more educated about sex people are, the lower the incident of abortion and STDs. It makes sense. If you are taught very frankly about sex, about how to have it safely, you will be less likely to spread STDs, more likely to control urges and hormones, and more likely to be safe and careful. This is true with anything in life. The more you know about something, the less mistakes you make!

Therefor, the problems we face are actually CAUSED by the religious who cite them so frequently when arguing against sex. They create the taboo and the abstinence only education, which in turn creates uneducated kids, which in turn creates abortions, teen pregnancies, and the spread of STDs, which in turn pisses off more religious people who in turn create MORE taboo and MORE pushes for abstinence only education.

Let us also not kid ourselves. Anti-sodomy laws are in place expressly for the purposes of making homosexuality illegal. Now, we know that NO ONE obeys these laws because they aren’t respectable laws. They are a travesty and direct threat to the very idea of a free country. But we know that Christians use faith to explain away their discomfort with homosexuals. Their uneducated and irrational fears include a fear of conversion by gays (they recruit straights to become gay) and not having children. Aside from the FACT that many straight couples either choose not to or can’t have children, the idea that homosexuality is wrong because they can’t produce children is seriously lacking in any merit. Similarly, the idea that gays recruit others to be gay is even more ridiculous. Intelligent people actually laugh at the less reasoned, under-educated religious who think this.

This is bad, wrong, and has got to stop. When we now turn to the more severe side of things, we see this very same dogmatic approach to sex by the uncritical and the religious and the results are much worse. People are dying by the hundreds of thousands. Small girls are being stoned to death by family, men in Africa are being restricted from access to condoms, women in the middle east are being treated like breeding machines instead of human beings, and teenage girls are having their genitals mutilated. Does ANY of this sound good, beneficial towards society or bettering of humankind? Fuck no!

President Bush cut off funding to any overseas family-planning group that provides INFORMATION on abortion. His actions, according to the New York Times “has effectively stopped condom provision to 16 countries and reduced it in 13 others, including some with the world’s highest rates of AIDS infection.” One third of the U.S. government’s AIDS prevention fund was wasted and squandered on abstinence-only education … as a result millions of people will die. If you have any sensibility in you, any interest in human kind, any kind or caring feelings; this should make you furious. Here we have tenants and claims WITH NO EVIDENCE ruining the world… literally. Christianity continues to kill people, just like Islam does with the promise of 49 virgins in heaven after slaying the non-believers. Go to the website I linked above and see what the effects have been. Maybe, if you supported this before or continue to support this now, after reading FACTS and EVIDENCE, you’ll change your mind. If not, then you need serious help.

In Islam, an adulterous wife or a raped girl are to be punished by death. This is another terrible consequence of the religious fear of sex. Sex has become so shunned and terrible that its a wonder any human beings remain. It doesn’t matter if you are Christian and condemn the act of stoning your 15 year old daughter for being raped, the point is that the same uncritical faith or untested ‘theories’ about reality that include how to treat sex is at play.

In Africa, Christians incorrectly believe that abstinence-only education will work in the prevention of AIDS. Christians prove their inability to regard evidence by ignoring the fact that this increases the prevelance of AIDS. Maybe they know this and they don’t care, maybe they want black men to die of AIDS, I can’t say WITHOUT EVIDENCE.

People will always have sex, no matter what. It is a biological function, a basic human need, and something that is stupid to ignore. For ignoring our sexual urges is ignoring the very thing that makes us human. In general, humans will not abstain from sex, no matter how many nights you stay up thinking about other people’s private lives, so the best and logical thing to do would be to work with the flow, not against it. We improve sexual education, improve condom distribution, increase funding for family planning, abolish abstinence-only education, have all contraception covered on medical insurance (including birth control and the morning after pill), and rid ourselves of irrational faith and belief without evidence.

Enjoy.

Ignorance with Wings PART 1 ::drugs::

The time has come to outline the dangers and regression that theology presents to us, has presented to us, and will continue to present to us lest we get wiser.

Part one of this glorious series is about drugs, moreover, substances that are illegal. Marijuana is a leaf that grows naturally from the ground, and has properties that are both spiritual and medicinal. Theology and religion have infested the laws of the United States since the beginning. Some would argue that it is impossible to separate ‘morally right’ from Christianity… but those people would be wrong.

Marijuana is illegal, and in fact, in some states a felony. It would be nice to think that the reason the federal government keeps pot growers in jail for their entire lives is for the greater good, to save people from harm or danger. But the fact that cigarettes and alcohol are legal proves that that isn’t so. To date, marijuana has been known to cause zero deaths, while alcohol has NO approved medicinal use, has an easily achievable lethal dose, causes thousands of automobile related deaths alone, and can cause massive liver and heart failures. Alcohol is responsible for 100,000 deaths a year, and cigarettes are responsible for even more. In fact, it is more dangerous to drive a car, fly in an airplane, or be a park ranger than it is to use marijuana.

So why the law? Because it is a sin. Believe it or not, religious people stay awake at night concerning themselves with what you do in your own home. Its about sin! We punish sinners. There are simply certain forms of pleasures that Americans are not allowed to pursue because less than intelligent people believe them to be sinful. You see, God is all knowing and all seeing, so your privacy is just a false sense of security. The religious believe this, so they don’t feel that you deserve to be responsible for yourself. It is sheer madness! Anti-sodomy laws, anti-oral sex laws… all still valid in many states.

It doesn’t matter what logical science says about these things. Pre-marital sex has no known negative effect on humans or societies, yet some wish to concern themselves with the ’sin’ of others. Often, the harder you push, the more someone will push you back, its a basic law of Newtonian physics. The more you tell kids that sex is wrong unless ordained by a flying omnipotent being, the more they’ll want to do it, the more they will do it, and the more unwanted pregnancies due to improper education there will be. But that is for another part to this series.

More people are imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses in the United States than are incarcerated, for any reason, in all of Western Europe (which has a larger population than the U.S.). We spend $20 billion dollars a year on this. (ONDCP Drug Data Summary March 2003). Does this seem worth it? Aren’t there Islamic extremists planning our demise because of our heathen religious beliefs? None of this makes sense really. But that is theology: non-sensible, illogical, emotional thinking. The real problem is pleasure. We all know that Christians don’t get along with pleasure very well. The fact that these drugs cause more pleasure per gram of drug than say alcohol or cigarettes is why they remain illegal. As Sam Harris put it in his book The End of Faith, “When one looks at our drug laws-indeed, at our vice laws altogether-the only organizing principle that appears to make sense of them is that anything which might radically eclipse prayer or procreative sexuality as a source of pleasure has been outlawed. In particular, any drug…to which spiritual or religious significant has been ascribed by its users has been prohibited. Concerns about the health of our citizens, or about their productivity, are red herrings in this debate, as the legality of alcohol and cigarettes attests”.

Enjoy.

River Blindness, young activists to make documentary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:
Aaron Edell
37 Million and Counting
(415) 596-6063
info@37millionandcounting.com
www.37millionandcounting.com

Young Activists Plan to Film a Documentary in Tanzania to Combat a Neglected Tropical Disease

NEW YORK, NY, April 18, 2007 – A small team has begun pre-production and fundraising for a documentary film on the subject of African river blindness, the world’s second leading infectious cause of blindness. They plan to travel to Tanzania this summer to discover why the distribution of a free treatment is still leaving 37 million people infected.

Merck & Co. created the Mectizan donation program in 1988, which distributes a treatment for African river blindness (Onchocerciasis) to anyone who needs it, anywhere, for free. Yet, in Africa, tens of millions of people still suffer from the debilitating disease.

The parasitic worm enters the skin via a bite from a blackfly, where it matures and breeds to number in the tens of thousands. While the worms remain underneath the skin, intense itching, swelling and inflammation occurs. Over a period of several years, the worms travel to the eye where they swim around in the cornea, causing scarring and damage, eventually leading to blindness.

Infected people can be treated once a year by taking the drug ivermectin (Mectizan) , which not only eradicates itching, but keeps the adult worms from producing offspring, preventing both morbidity and transmission.

“There are so many ways to combat this terrible disease, yet so many people still get infected every year, we want to find out why that is” states Aaron Edell, award winning documentary film maker. “HIV/AIDS and Malaria has garnered all the public attention, putting this infectious disease on the ‘Neglected Tropical Diseases’ list, which is something we want to change.”

Edell has partnered with his fiancé Aimée Peck, who is a first year medical student at Dartmouth Medical School, his father Dr. Dean Edell who is an accomplished radio and television personality who reports on health and medicine, and Dr. Rosalind Stevens who is a member of Orbis International and a Cyber-Sight advisory board member.

More information can be found on their website at http://www.37millionandcounting.com

Green is patriotic

I saw a very interesting interview on CNN with a New York Times columnist who recently wrote the article "Green: The New Red White and Blue".



He made some very interesting points that I want to reiterate. First off is that the republican or right wing ideology labels anyone interested in conservation as a liberal, a sissy, tree-hugger, or a girly-man. But most importantly, that somehow it is unpatriotic.



Thomas Friedman points out that that is utter nonsense. In fact, its stupid.

What's so disturbing about President Bush and Dick Cheney is that they talk tough about the necessity of invading Iraq, torturing terror suspects and engaging in domestic spying - all to defend our way of life and promote democracy around the globe.



But when it comes to what is actually the most important issue in U.S. foreign and domestic policy today - making ourselves energy efficient and independent, and environmentally green - they ridicule it as something only liberals, tree-huggers and sissies believe is possible or necessary.



Sorry, but being green, focusing the nation on greater energy efficiency and conservation, is not some girlie-man issue. It is actually the most tough-minded, geostrategic, pro-growth and patriotic thing we can do. Living green is not for sissies. Sticking with oil, and basically saying that a country that can double the speed of microchips every 18 months is somehow incapable of innovating its way to energy independence - that is for sissies, defeatists and people who are ready to see American values eroded at home and abroad.

Amen. There really is nothing more patriotic than trying to save your own damn country. Conservatives are against progression, wanting to keep things the way they are. But this country will not be the way it is if we continue to cut down forests and ignore global warming.



We have to make a major move towards new energy conservation. There are some fabulous ideas out there in popular magazines like Scientific American about a greener future. They outlay in detail a plan to have hydrogen be our new gasoline for cars. Implementing a pipe and delivery system to stations around the country. It really is the future.



Maybe being that thoughtful and that concerned about our countries future is a liberal thing. In fact, it most certainly is, it always has been. It requires the ability to step outside of your self and put yourself into the shoes of others... in this case, our grand children, who will grow up either in a beautiful, energy efficient climate, or a industrial apocalypse.



"The Power is Yours"

- Captain Planet

Abortion: Government regulates medicine

Nobody likes abortion. Women don't run around all excited to have abortions. Its a terrible thing that sometimes has to be done, just like giving yourself an enema.



But it isn't up to the government to make these decisions for women, its up to the woman. Conservatives think they have a right to limits the ability to choose, but they don't. The only people they have a right to choose for is themselves, and if they happen to be a man, then there is no choice to make. Its a woman's choice.



But this has more implications than just restriction on humans. Abortion laws intrude into medicine and a doctor's ability to take care of his/her patients.

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act was an intrusion by government into the practice of medicine, said doctors writing for the New England Journal of Medicine.



``Both health care providers and patients should be alarmed by the current degree of intrusion by our government into the practice of medicine and even more so by the apparent trajectory that it seems poised to follow in the near future,'' [Michael] Greene [professor of reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School] wrote in an article that was released by the journal.

These decisions should not be made by justices sitting in a nice clean room for EVERY single woman in this country. These decisions need to be made by the patients themselves. There are ALWAYS circumstances that can never be predicted, and it is counter-productive to limit people's rights in a country that is used to being free.



I honestly thought this was America: the land of the free. But it really isn't anymore since the conservatives took majority. Now that we're slowly shifting to the safer left wing, we can expect ridiculous human rights violations like this federal ban to go back to where it belongs: the dark ages.

 

While doctors want oversight and discussion of health and social matters, the conversations should take place between people who are acting in the best interest of a specific patient, wrote Jeffrey M. Drazen, the editor-in-chief of the journal.

``Government regulation has no place in this process,'' Drazen wrote. ``With this decision the Supreme Court has sanctioned the intrusion of legislation into the day-to-day practice of medicine.''

 

The new ruling concludes that excluding health considerations doesn't cause women an undue burden, the doctors said.

``And thus the balance of interests shifts, with women's health no longer paramount but rather societal mortality and the state's interest in life even before the point of viability outside the womb,'' R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison wrote.

It is not the position of older white men to decide the fate of women everywhere. It is appropriate, and its a violation of human rights as I said before. We are to expect more respect from our supreme court justices than we are getting right now, and the same holds true for any conservative representative who is anti-choice. The fetus is not a life, but even if you mistakenly believe it is, thats fine, no one will really fault you for that. The problem is that you expect everyone to just believe what you believe, and further more, warp their lives to match what YOU believe to be right. And that my friends, is sinful and wrong.

 

Enjoy.

The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule is supposed to be a Christian tenet. Love thy enemy and believe in redemption.



I should leave it at that. The simplicity of that statement illuminates a myriad of problems that our world faces. In fact, it could represent the death and destruction of millions of people.



If Christians indeed followed their own faith, support for war, nuclear arms, invasions and occupations wouldn't exist. Christianity doesn't say "Vaporize your enemies children". It says love your enemy.



This isn't just a Christian tenet but a Jewish one, and a Buddhist one.



So why do conservatives think they are Christian when they run around 'hating' their enemy. Who is their enemy? Muslims? Liberals?



I think it is more than that. Christians make enemies of everyone who don't agree with them, even other Christians. But if you could truly love your enemy, then why the need for guns and wars?



I invite those who claim to be Christians to actually become Christians.



Religion can have important roles in society, it can provide hope in times of duress, it can provide a reason to get up in the morning... but it isn't used for that.



The real danger is that Christians in power think that they will be saved. If that they adhere to what they think are Christian traditions, they will ascend to heaven to be with Jesus... so who cares about a nuclear holocaust? Who cares what happens on Earth? Those who believe will be saved, and those who don't will go to hell.



This is an extraordinarily dangerous myth, especially if it is believed by someone in power. A conservative Christian has no one in mind but him or herself and his or her friends. They barely see non-Christians as humans.



This type of Christianity is nothing of the sort, in fact, I think it needs a new name. Those who ignore the Golden Rule and hate their enemies. Who are these people? Conservative Christians, but they tarnish their own name.



Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian, but he sought peace not violence, which is what Jesus would have done. Jesus wouldn't support the invasion and occupation of Iraq, would he?



So, can we just interpret what we want how we want it to best suit our core values? If you think that women should not have control over their bodies, that gays are sick, and that everyone should own a gun, then you will manipulate the bible or whatever religion you claim to belong to to meet your needs. Its called biblical quarterbacking and every conservative Christian is guilty of it.



Enjoy.

An addendum to evolution

After writing my post about evolution yesterday, I thought of some more things I wanted to say, or rather, one more thing I wanted to focus on. It would seem that the main point of my post was lost among the creationists on this site.



The main point being that you cannot logically think evolution is false and that computers are not false at the same time. Meaning, the benefits of science that creationists enjoy like architecture, gravity, computers, their motor vehicles were all created using the same level of understanding as we have of evolution.



So far, creationists have conveniently ignored this fact. Consider the thoughts of Bob Riggins:

Fundamentalism-creationism is endemic around here (Southern Texas), and somehow that noisy minority has convinced the indifferent majority that to be a Christian of any sort, one must reject evolution. Ironically, even many of my Catholic students think their church is "against evolution" (it isn't). Somehow Protestant fundamentalism has "converted" them, at least on this article of faith, without their even realizing it.



Perhaps it's also because, as an English teacher in a science-oriented magnet school, I often include science fiction novels and, at least once a year, a science nonfiction book as assigned readings. Inevitably, there will be something (probably a lot of things) in those books that rub the creationists the wrong way, since to maintain their structure of beliefs they have had to reject the facts established in practically all areas of science, from astronomy through nuclear physics to geology and biochemistry.

This is true, not understanding evolution means you don't understand any science, even the science the governs your everyday life. To not only reject the incredibly amazing, unbiased, hard work put forth by thousands upon thousand of scientists for hundreds of years to bring you the conveniences you have today, but to reject the most basic principles of our world that are so concretely understood is absurd.



You can't have it both ways. Either you understand evolution, and you, by proxy, understand that your computer runs on science, or you don't get it and in order to avoid being a walking contradiction you go live in the woods.



People "believe" in creation, but people "know" evolution.

The phrase believe in common parlance seems to mean to take something literally for which there is little or no objective evidence. You must believe in the Easter Bunny, because you've never seen the real one yourself, there's nothing he has done that couldn't be simply explained by ordinary phenomena (parental trickery), and there's no objective, physical, replicable (in other words, scientific) evidence that he's real. If you had those last things, then you wouldn't have to believe in the Easter Bunny, you would know he was real.

Its true, you believe in creation, something for which there is no objective evidence, or you understand evolution, of which there are mountains of objective evidence.

It's often said that because evolution happened in the past, and we didn't see it happen, there is no direct evidence for it. That, of course, is nonsense. It's rather like a detective coming on the scene of a crime, obviously after the crime has been committed, and working out what must have happened by looking at the clues that remain. In the story of evolution, the clues are a billionfold.



There are clues from the distribution of DNA codes throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, of protein sequences, of morphological characters that have been analyzed in great detail. Everything fits with the idea that we have here a simple branching tree. The distribution of species on islands and continents throughout the world is exactly what you'd expect if evolution was a fact. The distribution of fossils in space and in time are exactly what you would expect if evolution were a fact. There are millions of facts all pointing in the same direction and no facts pointing in the wrong direction.

What is great about pure science is that it is completely unbiased and objective. Sure scientists can be biased, but science itself, cannot be. That is because science doesn't rest on the shoulders of man, like religion does. Christianity would not be understood if not for the bible, a fictional book written 1700 or 1800 years ago by a group of people, nor would it be understood if there weren't preachers telling people what to believe.



Science, fortunately, does not rely on such a shaky ground. Science exists without man, and it is observable, testable, and predictable by anyone. You drop a pen on the floor, count how long it takes to fall, and measure the distance of it falling, and you've done a scientific experiment on gravity!



Okay, if at this point you don't get it, then it may be too late for you, but certainly I will try and better explain this if need be.



Enjoy.

What the color black, cold temperatures, liberalism, and atheism all have in common

I was inspired by something Nick said with regard to a posting style Donovan likes to take to write about opposites, and of course, with regards to politics.



The argument I always get into with Donovan is about science not being a religion. (I just spent 30 minutes trying to find the one post where we went back and forth about it, but I couldn't find it) Donovan keeps arguing that it is, or more over, that everything is everything, and I always stick to my guns by saying that religion is religion, and science is science, no similarities, not two apples, but an apple and an orange.



Atheism is like the color black, cold temperatures and liberalism. And I bet you are dying to know what the ass I mean by saying that.



Black isn't a color, in fact, black represents the absence of color. So, you could say that black is a color, but you would be wrong. It doesn't exhibit any qualities of a color because it is in fact not a color, its achromatic. Black is without restriction, it can be anything, because it can't be compared to colors.



A cold temperature is similar. Coldness doesn't actually exist, cold is the absence of heat. The warmer something is, the more heat it has, the colder something is, the less heat it has. You can't really compare cold to hot because coldness isn't a temperature. Temperature is only a measurement of how much heat something has. Now, we're getting into syntax here, and I don't want to do that. These are just things to think about.



I see liberalism as something similar to the above phenomena. Liberalism is the lack of restriction, rules, oppression, and hate. Sometimes it doesn't completely lack all of these things, but it is the void that a lack of these things is. When you feel like people should be free from persecution by religion, by the government, and by people because they were born black, or are gay, you're feeling liberal feelings. This feeling is a lack of things, and in some cases, the gain of other things (doesn't compare exactly with black or coldness). But generally, you could consider conservatism to be full of things. Rules and restrictions mostly. Conservatism isn't liberal, meaning, it isn't free, its full of persecution, forcing morals, religion, hate, discrimination and so on, when you start to take these things away, you're left with liberalism, which is open, free, and accepting. You can do what you want with that liberalism, use it to do good, or to be amoral or whatever.



Atheism is similar. You are left with a void of religion, restriction, and beliefs in super natural things. What is left is the truth, which is science.



Science is not atheism, nor is science religion, nor is black a color. They are different things, some true, some not, but not polar opposites nor comparable.



Enjoy.

Questioning art and how the artist paints with his penis

I'm a big fan of art, all kinds, from film and video to sculptures and music. What can I say, I'm liberal. Some people do some odd things when it comes to art, and others are considered more conventional.



However, sometimes your expression is your expression, and not everyone agrees on what is appropriate and what is inappropriate.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Stephen Murmer's secret career as an artist has caught up with him.



Murmer, a popular high school art teacher, was suspended after objections were raised about his private abstract artwork, much of which includes smearing his posterior and genitals with paint and pressing them against canvas.



Murmer went to great lengths to keep his work life separate from his activities as an artist, said ACLU executive director Kent Willis. As an artist, he goes by the name "Stan Murmur," and appears in disguise in photographs and videos promoting his art.

I'm not sure what this Murmer guy did wrong. So what if his art involves the human body, people need to wake up and realize that the human body happens to be a beautiful thing, not this terrible dirty secret that must be kept away from people like the conservatives want you to think.



Again, I don't see the problem here. An artist can't teach kids because he is an artist? I don't care if he uses his schlong to paint, and neither should anyone else. Teachers are humans beings, in fact, a lot of them are extraordinary people who go their whole lives being under appreciated.



I don't think this should be an issue. He hasn't harmed anyone, hasn't done anything to hint that he might harm anyone, and he tried very hard to keep his personal life and his teaching career separate. Obviously, he doesn't want one to have anything to do with the other.



Enjoy.

Why you just can't explain god with reason, logic, nor science

Feeling particularly adventurous today, I decided to type the phrase "evidence of god" into the google search bar. The first thing I came across dramatically peaked my interest. It was described as proof of the existence of god using science, logic and reason. I thought "Well hell, this aught to be good".



I was sorely disappointed. I will not list some of the arguments that this paper presents, and then explain why its stupid.

All of these galaxies are moving relative to each other. Their movement has a very distinct pattern which causes the distance between the galaxies to get greater with every passing day. If we had three galaxies located at positions A, B. and C [in a triangle]... tomorrow they will be further apart. The triangle they form will be bigger. The day after tomorrow the triangle will be bigger yet. We live in an expanding universe that gets bigger and bigger and bigger with every passing day.



Now let us suppose that we made time run backwards! If we are located at a certain distance today, then yesterday we were closer together. The day before that, we were still closer. Ultimately, where must all the galaxies have been? At a point! At the beginning! At what scientists call a singularity!

And thats argument number one. The conclusion? That science calls the moment before the big bang a singularity. I laughed briefly when I continued to read to find that that was the end of the first piece of evidence.



It is true that the universe is expanding, and it is true that if you reverse time, you end up with a singularity. Science has done endless tests, assessments, and calculations for over 40 years on the theory of the big bang. We've concluded that this is what happened, and we accept that for too many reasons to list. We have palpable, tangible evidence of the big bang, and it answers our question. But I don't think the big bang is seriously being questioned by theists, its how did the big bang start? A quantum singularity is a point of existence that we cannot measure the dimensions or contents of. A black hole is a singularity because we will never be able to measure what is inside, even though we have a pretty good idea. This is explainable and testable, and even proven. So how is that evidence for God? Who knows, these theists tend to grab at straws.



Here is some more ridiculousness.

Throughout the cosmos there are 25 quintillion stars, each converting hydrogen into helium, thereby reducing the total amount of hydrogen in the cosmos. Just think about it! If everywhere in the cosmos hydrogen is being consumed and if the process has been going on forever, how much hydrogen should be left?

Yup, thats it, argument number 2. Appalling isn't it? Especially after the author just stated that we came from a singularity. So argument 1 and 2 directly contradict themselves (all too common in religion). Obviously, we emerged from a singularity whereby all matter was energy so dense that the universe was compacted into a single dimensional object or something along those lines, so thats where the hydrogen is. Duh.

 

A third scientific proof that the atheist is wrong is seen in the second law of thermodynamics. In any closed system, things tend to become disordered. If an automobile is driven for years and years without repair, for example, it will become so disordered that it would not run any more. Getting old is simple conformity to the second law of thermodynamics. In space, things also get old. Astronomers refer to the aging process as heat death. If the cosmos is "everything that ever was or is or ever will be," as Dr. Carl Sagan is so fond of saying, nothing could be added to it to improve its order or repair it. Even a universe that expands and collapses and expands again forever would die because it would lose light and heat each time it expanded and rebounded.

The atheist's assertion that matter/energy is eternal is scientifically wrong. The biblical assertion that there was a beginning is scientifically correct.

This caused me to laugh so hard I had to get some water. This is why we so desperately need to be teaching science in schools. If you're going to argue against something, you ought to know something about it. Entropy is measured in closed systems, and the second law accounts for that. The reality is that heat is released into the outside system, and the if you consider the universe as an outside system, then your heat is accounted for. Everything evens out, because every force has an opposite and equal force acting upon it. When you push a wall, you're adding force to it, but the wall is pushing back equally.





The second law states that temperature differences between systems in contact with each other even out. Work can be obtained from these differences, but that loss of heat occurs, in the form of entropy, when work is done. Differences in pressure, density, and temperature all tend to equalize if given the opportunity. This means that an isolated system will eventually come to have a uniform temperature. And thats all. A universe that collapses, and becomes a singularity sucks all of its heat, pressure, and temperature back into itself, hence the definition of a singularity. This third argument makes as much sense as a bicycle with no seat!





I've written an e-mail to this author with a link to this post, and a note instructing him that he seek mental help.

Can't think of a situation in which I would support death

I've been racking my brain for the past couple of days, trying to figure out if there is indeed a situation in which I would support the death penalty. Conclusion? I don't think so.



Sometimes, to put a different spin on a topic in my mind, I like to use simple models. For example, take a small village in the middle of nowhere. Its modern, and VERY theoretical. Lets say there are 1000 people in this weird village, and all are human beings no different than you or I. One kills another and is caught. The murderer clearly has some bad wiring in the noggin, and this is not strange to the people.



They decide to execute him because the family of the victim wants it to be so. So the village sets it up. Oh, but wait, the family of the murderer claims that he needs help, not death. So how do the villagers collectively decide who lives and who dies? What if they caught the wrong guy? How would murdering him over putting him in jail benefit the village?



Who are we to decide the lives of others, regardless of what they have done with themselves? It is a proven fact that in the U.S. today, the death penalty does not deter crime, nor is it cheaper than life in prison.

The best studies on the cost of the death penalty indicate that it costs about $2 million per execution over the costs of a system which imposes life sentences for the same crimes.



Although the costs of incarceration are expensive (about $25,000 per year per inmate), that amounts to $750,000 to $1,000,000 depending on whether a person lives 30 or 40 years after his or her sentencing. The death penalty, on the other hand, costs an additional $2 million per execution.



According to a Peter Hart Research Poll conducted in 1995 of police chiefs around the country, the officers named such measures as reducing drug abuse, a better economy, and controlling guns as more important than the death penalty in reducing violent crime.



Research reported in Homicide Studies, Vol. 1, No.2, May 1997, indicates that executions may actually increase the number of murders, rather than deter murders. Prof. Ernie Thomson at Arizona State University reported a brutalizing effect from an execution in Arizona, consistent with the results of a similar study in Oklahoma.

Now, I know I've posted about this 8 hundred billion times before, and I think I've made my point, so I'm not going to dwell.



I just wanted to state that I cannot think of a situation in which I would support the death penalty. Even for someone like Saddam. The problem is, that the death penalty is a barbaric, violent act, and solves nothing. Killing somebody for killing because it is illegal is extremely hypocritical.



People need to live with their guilt and pain in order for the effect of a punitive action to be worth anything. Whether or not a person is rehabilitated isn't the point. Someone like Hussein is beyond that sort of thing, but it isn't to say that spending a life in prison may turn someone like him into someone else. There have been cases of people becoming almost Buddha like on death row, denouncing violence and writing books about peace. Yet, we still kill these people.



Not only does the U.S. have the death penalty, but it goes about it in such a stupid way. Making people sit on death row for years upon years... so long the point is forgotten, and the criminal changed. We spend more money on it than we would on a life sentence... ridiculous! Further more, I would think that the religious zealots out there, if true to their religion, wouldn't want the death penalty. Vengeance is a sin!!! Wasn't Jesus forgiving, not condemning!? Further more, isn't it god's job to decide who lives and who dies? Since when are we god? And finally, are we not to give people the chance to repent?



No, there is no situation in which the death penalty makes any sense or serves any purpose other than vengeance. In place of it, I suggest life in prison. Do not idiotically mistake me, I don't condone lawlessness (as some lesser humans have suggested here in WIS), but I also don't condone violence, especially to counter act violence, which makes no sense.



Enjoy.

Disfavored classes being denied equality and liberty

Someone once said to me that all civil liberty movements take time. Consider the blacks in America. Originally they had the classification of slaves... SLAVES FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! They fought, and they fought hard for their right to be treated equally by the government, and eventually, they won the right to be free men and women, to vote, to marry outside their race, and to be considered equal in the eyes of the law.



Take women, also started as slaves in this country. Couldn't own land, couldn't vote, couldn't work, originally considered the property of men... thats all changed because they fought for their rights to be treated equally by our government.



In both these instances, a lot of time was needed to accomplish their goals of being equals. A lot of struggling, harsh words, fighting, opposition... but eventual success.



It is clear that homosexuals are next on the list of disfavored classes to win their freedom. It will take time, like all civil liberty movements. Homosexuals face terrible opposition from awful people who think that being gay is a choice, or that homosexual sex is a sin. This kind of idiotic, uneducated bullshit is exactly what disfavored classes of the past have faced.



Consider the morons in Germany who thought there was a science to the proportions of your head being related to your Jewness...



This kind of stupidity regarding homosexuals is alive and well today. I'm not kidding, it really is!



But that is the struggle.

The divisive national debate over same-sex marriage reached Maryland's highest court yesterday with pointed arguments confronting questions of civil rights and who is entitled to the legal rights and emotional benefits of marriage.



Attorneys for 19 gay and lesbian plaintiffs framed their argument before the Court of Appeals in classic civil-rights terms, saying Maryland's 33-year-old statute defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman infringes upon their clients' constitutional rights.



"Despite the fact that plaintiffs have formed committed relationships ... the state excludes them and their children from the numerous important protections that come from marriage, solely because the person whom they love is of the same sex," said Kenneth Choe, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, during arguments. "The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage violates the most fundamental guarantees of equality and liberty for all Marylanders."

Its true, these citizens are being denied equal treatment by their government because of the way they were born, creating a second class citizen, which is unconstitutional. It is still absurd to me that people fight so hard to oppress a group of people. Its sick almost. These bigots take it so seriously as well.



No homophobic blogger on this site has even been able to answer the simple question "What is so threatening to you about homosexuality?"



I still await that response. I fear I may never get it, because either the homophobe doesn't want to be truthful with his answer, or he doesn't know the answer. Either way, there is no evidence to suggest that one homosexual couple is dangerous or harmful to society in anyway. Especially if you compare a homosexual couple to a heterosexual couple. There is literally no difference except for the sex of the partners. They both contribute to society in the same way, and have the same capabilities of doing so.



Yet, the uneducated and bigoted views still persist. But the people don't want their freedom to be taken away from them, and intelligent people don't want others to have their freedom taken away from them.



Even the idea of religion being a factor is in question, now the homophobes really have no excuse:

"We came to show our support for the plaintiffs in their efforts to secure equal access to civil marriage," said the Rev. Don Stroud, who does outreach to gays and lesbians with a consortium of Baltimore Presbyterian churches. "We as people of faith know it's very important to affirm the dignity and worth of all people, and at this point in time gay and lesbian couples in the state."



In arguments, [Assistant Attorney General Robert A.] Zarnoch said that other states have found no "fundamental right" to same-sex marriage, while Choe implored the court to choose a path that might be considered unpopular.



"Throughout our nation's history, courts have, time and again, fulfilled their role and duty to address the real harm that arises when disfavored classes are denied equality and liberty," Choe said. "It is easy to forget that courts have also done so in the face of opposition from the politically powerful and the opposition of other courts."

Zarnoch said something surprisingly wrong. No one has a fundamental right to marriage. In fact, this isn't about people's right to get married, this is about equality. Of one group is allowed by its government to do something, and the other is not because they are born differently, that is a breech of the constitution. People's access to the internet is not a right, nor is their access to the interstate system. Both things are controlled by the government and are given as a privilege to the citizens... so if the government didn't allow gays to use the internet or the interstate system, what would you say?



Stop wasting energy on denying people their rights. Gay marriage doesn't affect you and soil your relationship. Stop being childish, step up, and be brave, brave enough to fight for the rights of others. For that is patriotism.



Enjoy.