Don't be intimidated from learning (#1916)

Learning is as natural for we humans as is breathing air. I know that letting others know we are not as smart as we would like them to think is always a great fear but living in a fear never outweighs learning. I accept that I was ignorant to so many things yet I acted like I wasn't. I would take other people's views and use them for my own. It wasn't until I began to understand that I was lying to others and myself by being so defensive about my lack of knowledge. So what did I do? In my late 30's I went back to school and added to my high school diploma. I got my associates degree and then my bachelor's. I even went on to post graduate work but have stalled. But the point is that I didn't give in to my fears and just keep being the phony intellect I wanted others to admire and respect. I did the work to actually become somewhat of an intellect and more than others admiring me and respecting me, I admire and respect myself. From that comes a confidence in not only the reasoning and analyzing of conclusions, but in my own sense of worth and purpose. I can now make advocacy for policies based upon my own research and experience without having to rely on others to speak my mind for me. The difference is like night and day for me. Instead of feeling like I was unworthy of being a human, I feel like a champion among humans. All because I didn't give into my fear of learning. I embraced it. I took my experience and applied it with logical and real outcomes so that I could get a comprehensive perspective about life and my role in it. We all need to have our learning caps on as much as possible otherwise the information before us moves on and we are left not knowing what just happened.

The Republican myth (#1915)

The experts at hiding the ball are at it again. This election cycle conservative Republicans are touting their opposition to several social issues that rankle and ire the electorate when they phrase them as an assault on American values. But while they are keeping our attention on the things that stir up animus, they are quietly trying to change how money is dispersed into our economy. That is there primary goal, to protect and enhance the riches and power of the wealthy while taking more and more from the working/middle/poor class. It is always about the money with Republicans, they live and die on their swords trying to prevent "others" from having what they have already gotten. I understand it. It is fear of losing what advantages bring them. I know fear, it is real and Republicans have it up to their ears. But what they need is for regular folks who have supported them in the past to continue to support them so they can achieve their goal of creating the greatest income inequality in the history of our planet. How they do it is by ignoring economics except to vilify everyone without as a "taker" and champion themselves as examples of ones who pulled themselves up by their own boot straps with no help form anyone. Although that sort of works for them, they need more confusion around other areas of life. So they attack minorities, gays, seniors, women and students as not being worthy of anything that would ease their lives. Republicans work hard to turn us against each other so that the real issues facing America get lost in the ongoing chaos. The name Republican has a history of accomplishments for our citizens but only when Republicans were Liberals or Progressives. Today's Republican party is conservative and I cannot remember one example of anything conservatives have done to move our country forward.

The logic of truth is under assault (#1914)

Never in my consciousness would I have thought there would be political and judicial figures who would discount the truth in order to maintain momentum to destroy the utility of truth. We have a conservative Republican party that has as it's foundation a strategy to destroy the ability of the American citizenry to disseminate information in a logical fashion. Logic is our best method for proving truths and falsities. Why does the Republican party wish to destroy the even flow of logical truths? The reason is that their policies don't rely on logic or truths. Instead they want to change the very dynamic of society and cannot tell the truth of it lest they be found out. They are taking democracy away from the people and instead want to give it to the wealthy. It is a fundamental difference in how our country was conceived. Republicans are hijacking our democratic republic and are trying to install an oligarchic one. The change is subtle but the progress they are making is real. They are passing laws that restrict democracy not enhance it. they are trying to nullify amendments to our constitution that promote equality. They are creating a permanent poor class of citizens while wiping out the remnants of our middle class. All the classic moves they are making are aimed at making the wealthy untouchable. Republicans have the idea that America was wrongly created by our constitution. Republicans believe in a survival of the fittest control and they think their wealth makes them the fittest. If the rest of us allow this to continue we will be the generation that handed over our democracy to the thieves in the Republican party who have but one master and that master is unfettered capitalism. Land of the free and home of the brave will no longer be appropriate, instead it will be the land of the thieves and home of the craven.

The stench of obstruction (#1913)

How can we possibly have opportunities for our visions and hopes if there are powerful individuals out there who want to keep monopolies so they can keep out dated power structures? The beauty of life is change and if those who don't want change are keeping change from happening, they are not only stealing the beauty from life but they are destroying the hopes and dreams of millions of us who need change to fulfill our destinies. I cannot live in a stagnant world where harm and injustice are the status quo. I need change as a defining paradigm within my natural evolution. Without change I have little hope to realize my potential, so when the current crop of power brokers spend all their time crushing change, then we have a problem. I am not one to sit by idly and let the greed and power of some ruin the outcome for most all of us because they essentially are afraid of losing some advantage of desire. Well, life is not about being afraid, life is about having the courage to live without doubt. If you are solidly founded in your principles of good and great, you won't have to look over your shoulder, instead you can help lift others from their stumbles. Keeping change from happening is not a virtue, instead it is a scourge. I am not here on Earth to obtain all that I want, I am here on Earth to live within what I need and then maybe even have something I want once in awhile. Why? Because so many don't already have what they need and for me to lavish on myself while others go without is truly not living in principles of good and great. I find that honor is a value I want for others to see in me and for that to happen I must think and act honorably, which means allowing for change to happen so that life can get better for all, not just for some.

My never ending battle against Republicans (#1912)

Another day another Republican attempt to dismantle democracy. My blog started out focusing on the inherent nature of the human species with me arguing that we have 3 natural instincts within us; compassion, curiosity and a survival instinct. The denial of any of any of these, individually, severally or wholly is how we get the lesser instincts that so permeate our current society. I have come from that argument to basing my blog on exposing Republican tactics and strategies that undermine and diminish our democratic principles. Over the last several years I have been leaning into the facts of Republicans and their vision to unsettle and slowly disintegrate our middle class here in America. The morphing of my posting's content to expose and rebut conservative Republicans for allowing their politicians to veer from democracy to a plutocratic/corpocracy is now the priority of this forum. From Republican attempts to destroy all efforts to improve health care for all American citizens to their suppression of voting rights to their unrelenting attacks on women, minorities, seniors and students to demean and deny them equal rights, I have come to fight back. My little simple blogging effort has now become my forum to express my utter contempt and absolute resolve to not only crush Republican vile arguments for lessening democracy but to bury the Republican vision of the survival of the fittest being legitimate as a philosophy for our collective futures. Our human race has evolved into an enlightened civilization and what Republicans would have us do is shut down individual rights within our society and make us dependent upon the whims of corporations and the wealthy for all that we would ever become. I will not sit or stand idly by while the fanatical egos of the wealthy try to wrest our great hard fought for democracy from us.

The cowardly arrogance of selfishness (#1911)

I got mine so to hell to with the rest of you! An all too often conservative Republican sentiment. If you don't have yours then you are either lazy or physically and or mentally lacking the necessary willpower. Either way you are less than. As if in Republican's minds we all have the same shot at the same results. The only sameness of the same results most of us have is that we will fail at whatever we truly hope to accomplish. Life is like a game of cards, and the deck has been stacked against most of us. The likelihood of one of us underprivileged getting a Royal Flush and winning some big hand is not much different that one of us hitting the big jackpot in the lottery. One in several tens of millions. Whereas privilege and advantage gives extra cards to those who are already connected. So goes though the argument by the Republicans though that if we do or don't succeed financially in life we get what we deserve. Advantages and privileges have been sewn into the fabric of our society through traditions and customs that most always seem to benefit those who already have a leg up in life. With the Republicans so focused on protecting inherent advantages and privileges that bolster them from having to start out life from an equal starting point as everyone else, the true cost to them of their limited success is inversely measured by the onerous difficulty they place on those who fail. Not a bad deal when you can gain without having to gamble much of a loss. It seems to work well within capitalistic circles, but in the the moral realm it sucks and is a blight on equality. Thus the cowardly arrogance of selfishness. The honor and dignity by which one lives their life is directly reflected in the amount of respect one is afforded throughout. If we cannot find our true worth by beginning as all begin then we are fools who are afraid of life instead of wondered by it.

Republican agenda, wealth for some, fighting and death for most (#1910)

Do you see how the Republican agenda leads to only one conclusion? They want the wealthy to get more wealthy while the rest of those who aren't wealthy are left to fight and die for what the wealthy allows for us. Once the wealthy have all the money they will next want all the land. That means wars and surely you must know that they will not fight the wars that will benefit them, we will. With few opportunities to live a life not filled with desperation, we will swarm to the military just as an option to get out of poverty. We won't have our government run by ourselves, the people, instead it will be run by the wealthiest souls who covet not only our obedience to them but they want us also to worship them as the narcissistic ego driven demigods they perceive themselves to be. The glorious ideals of equality, justice and honor will no longer be attributes of our society, instead it will be the laws of the jungle or of some warped interpretation of religion, whichever suits the new order rulers we will be subject to. Am I being brutish about what the Republican agenda is leading us to? I don't think so. If you logically conclude that tearing down the social safety net, eliminating laws that protect equality and voting rights while also downgrading to eliminating opportunities for education for all won't lead us to a world where the wealthy have all the advantages and privileges and the not wealthy are left to fend for ourselves, then my conclusion is not far fetched at all. If there is one thing I know about greed and power it is this, that everyone who is not wealthy is just an object for the wealthy to manipulate. Living in a world where Republicans control the levers of government is the final step to them disabling our democracy so that they never lose the levers of power again.

Veterans denied by Republicans (#1909)

The best case scenario is for Democrats to win the midterm elections and gain control of the House of Representatives. If that happens then Veterans will see a comprehensive benefits package pass into law. Because we Democrats understand the sacrifice soldiers make on our behalf and because of that we owe our veterans the health and welfare they deserve if they are fortunate enough to return to civilian life. We all constantly hear a majority of Republicans clamoring for America to get into more wars to protect vital interests of corporations but Republicans do not want our veterans to have health and welfare benefits when they get home. It fits with their ideology that they don't owe much to those who fight or work for their ability to prosper. Just like they don't want a social safety net for civilian workers, they don't want an effective safety net for returning veterans. I don't just say this out of thin air. The votes by Republican politicians over the last 5 years have given a true record of their disdain for the American working/middle/poor class and returning war veterans. Apparently Republicans think most won't notice their betrayal to our fighting forces because of the complexity of our law making process. But those of us who maintain a vigil on the workings of needed legislation that has been time and again defeated through Republican procedural processes are not to be fooled. I will continue to shout out the betrayal of Republican politicians and by extension their faithful voters and pundits who support their votes even when it harms and destroys the lives of our returning veterans. We are a democracy and as such we still have the right to vote and voting Republicans out of office everywhere is a message the Republicans will finally get.

The harsh brutish Republican vision (#1908)

The Republican party has outlived any sense of purpose it may have had toward an enlightened society when it opened up it's agenda for all to see. They are about suppressing social issues that don't align with the Christian Bible, they are against anything that isn't a survival of the fittest economic model, while keeping advantages in place for the wealthy. They are about destroying the quality of life protections we have for the health and welfare of our seniors, disabled and the young. They have instituted a out and out war against science specifically and education generally at all levels of public learning. They have decided that our government will not be a democratic one since they are attacking voting rights and and are intent on rolling back guaranteed rights established by our constitution. They were willing to let our government default on it's credit rating around the world all to deny Americans health care improvements. I can go on about how Republicans are trying to establish that the place for women is in the home and subject to men. I can also go on about how Republicans are making our country so dependent upon corporations that in the near future if Republicans get their way, we will be subject to rules and regulations coming from corporate control instead of democratic control. Republicans are telling us that Democrats are not to be allowed to lead our country despite the majority vote from previous elections. Republicans have decided that if they are not in power then nothing will get done as long as they control at least one of the three branches of government. The solution is simple, since Republicans have nothing to offer our country in the form of vision that includes equality and quality of life, they need to be defeated this November and put out of any leadership they currently hold.

Liberals always lead the way to prosperity (#1907)

Despite the rhetoric coming from Republicans and their pundits, Liberals have always been behind the advancement of a society that cares for itself. Conservatives on the other hand have always been the ones who care LESS about community and more about self aggrandizement at the expense of others. Conservatives see the world through the lens of we only live once so we should take all we legally/illegally can within and without boundaries because caring about others is weak. Our founding fathers were insightful enough to advance us toward progressive policies aimed at inclusion. Abraham Lincoln applied liberal policies in advancing our country from the scourge of slavery. Teddy Roosevelt was highly progressive in busting up big monopolies and preserving our natural habitat. FDR gave us Social Security. Lyndon Johnson brought us Medicare and the civil rights act that finally made it illegal for public discrimination. Barack Obama has now given us a chance for health care to expand to millions of souls who otherwise would still be living without the ability to be more healthy. Everything done in the name of community has been accomplished by liberals and progressives so when you hear Republican conservatives talk about how they are going to make our country stronger, just know that they are talking about more strength for the wealthy and not for the vast majority of us who are around the middle class. Think about the Republican presidents in our lifetime, Nixon caused us to fight a losing war in Vietnam and corrupted our political process with underhanded dealings. Ronald Reagan gave us trickle down economics which worked out great for the wealthy and has been destroying the middle class ever since and of course George Bush the younger. He led us into two wars and the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930's. So get out and vote in November for every Democrat on the ballot.

Voting maintains our liberty (#1906)

Many don't see the necessity to vote unless it is an election that they see directly affects their lives. It is the part about seeing that I want to discuss. Just because you don't see something as directly affecting your life that does'n't mean it isn't there. For young people, Republicans are trying to stop and even eliminate the minimum wage from increasing or even existing. For middle age workers, Republicans are trying to deny available jobs that our government historically created to jump start the economy and allow for more upward mobility of careers. For the seniors, Republicans are trying to eliminate Social Security and Medicare as retirement benefits earned over a lifetime of working. You may not feel these policies directly in your sphere of living but they will negatively effect the quality of your life. That you could have done something about it by just taking less than an hour out of your life to cast a vote against Republicans running for office everywhere they are on the ballot will come back to haunt you. If you don't take the time to see how Republicans are destroying the middle class, of which most all of us will spend the entirety of our lives, then you are not as smart or sophisticated as you think you are. The act of voting is the last political power most of us will ever have and by not exercising it we leave ourselves exposed to being ruled over by powerful Republican ideologues and their relentless push to make all of us captive to corporate interests without us having an advocate to fight for us. So when November comes around and you are still of the mindset that this election means little to nothing to you, what you are saying to the rest of us is that you don't care about us nor do you care about your own future. What will your children and grandchildren think when they learn of your cavalier disregard for their future?

Never sell your destiny short (#1905)

For the life of me I had no idea what my puny existence could ever mean to anything important in our world. I just assumed that I was just a mere speck who had to work at just being regular. For the sake of my own expectations, I knew I could do some good things in life but it seemed that reality wasn't going to let me have those opportunities. Just because things are possible, does not mean they are actually doable. Our society is so jam packed with people who are competing for the limited slots of influential positions in our society that can have an effect on life that many of us will always be left on the outside looking in and wondering what could have been. I had all but resigned myself to being less than my dreams and expectations demanded for myself. But a curious thing happened, I decided that my self worth was greater than my fears. I fought to educate myself and apply that new knowledge to my inherent good nature. Today I am a different man than who I was before embarking on a curious road toward discovery and for that alone I have achieved a level of my dreams and expectations I previously had little hope to attain. From there I have proceeded to occupy myself with the questions of the day to not only understand but to advocate for solutions to those very questions. I am in no position of influential authority nor am I considered a master in any field, yet my own sense of worth is high and where I cannot yell from the rooftops in the normal sense, I find ways to yell from the rooftops anyway. Nothing is a cookie cutter pattern for life. We take what we can do to make our own life better and then apply that to helping others do the same.

Lying can no longer be protected speech! (#1904)

We humans communicate mostly through speech and the written word. It is how we are able to co-exist as efficiently as we do. We rely on the veracity of our statements in order to be able to express our thoughts and actions as fact. When we are able to express ourselves with truth, then the logic of our thoughts and actions can be verifiable and then co-mingled with other similar thoughts and actions to build and create new and helpful insights. It is how our society has been able to advance into our futures within democratic ideals. We are at our best and most efficient when the validity of our language is commonly understood. Where the problem comes in is when the words of some things are not truths but instead lies or distortions. We protect the right of our citizens to tell the truth, except of course in the few instances where harm is an imminent outcome of a particular truth telling, such as in judicial proceedings, but here in America we also protect lying as a right guaranteed under the first amendment. How we came to allow such a farce to exist since the founding of our country is disconcerting. We have had adjustments to our first amendment right of free speech, such as no yelling fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire, so fixing or updating our constitutional rights when needed has precedent. By protecting the right to lie, our US Supreme Court Justices have given license to those petty individuals who have the power and wealth to subvert the truth, hence making our national discussions confusingly irrational and chaotic, with little to no natural advancement attainable. The time has come for a truth distinction in the first amendment and the end of lying as protected communication.

Cognitive dissonance and Republican voters (#1903)

So many of us wonder how it is that Republican middle/poor class voters can continue to support the Republican party when the policies of the Republican party harm them overall? It is a dilemma when trying to debate with them about why they are into self inflicting harm upon themselves. They don't ever seem to be able to accept that they are actually being harmed. Whether it is diversion of interests prioritized to make the point of their being harmed irrelevant or that they don't see themselves as included in the class that is affected by Republican harmful policies. What I think is that many of them cannot make the connection between what Republican politicians and their talking heads are saying and what the reality will be if they are elected. They have been inculcated to accept that Democrats are only for the lazy worthless in our society and they are not lazy and worthless. They have also let sink in that they are better as a race and gender than the minorities and women currently fighting for equality. What these Republican voters fail to understand is that their own choice to be biased is how they are hooked. First, the social contract has come into being because capitalism, by it's nature, is a zero sum game, for every winner there is at least one or more losers. Those losers are not lazy and worthless, they just didn't achieve their goals and thus are left with no promise of success. Many times the system is rigged to favor the elite in our society either through nepotism or shady trade-offs. Regardless of privilege and it's place in undermining merit, the ideal that those who fail are lazy and worthless is wrong-headed. Without our social safety net the result would be a society that doesn't care for it's citizens in a civilized and modern way, which would then make our society much closer to savagery, than to enlightened.

Clarence Thomas' conflict of interest (#1902)

Having a conflict of interest while having a say over policy and recusing oneself used to be a principled requirement, albeit a voluntary requirement. Elected officials would recuse themselves when their votes would either bring them personal wealth from a vote or cause them personal loss of wealth. It was a tradition within our society that was trying to maintain a sense of fairness. However, when we have a Supreme Court Justice like Clarence Thomas who has had numerous obvious conflicts of interests and yet continues to vote in every way that benefits him and his family, we are not honoring the tradition of recusal when appropriate, we are instead destroying the appearance of fairness. That Thomas has a lifetime appointment seems to lessen his concern that his actions will be sanctioned in some way that would force him to leave the Court. He knows that he doesn't have to honor the traditions and norms since there is no sovereign authority powerful enough to punish him for being less honorable that expected. His actions have had a warming effect on others who used to be concerned with the downside to a conflict of interest and has instead opened the floodgates for those who wish to adjudicate on subjects that profit them personally. The lack of ethics involved in using the public trust for one's own gain is more prevalent now that a Supreme Court Justice like Thomas has effectively displayed his own disdain for upholding ethics generally. What irks me most is that we cannot in any properly measured realistic way remove this man for his duplicitous actions when he is supposed to be a guiding beacon heralding democratic values. Others with less honorable traits are following his lead and for that he should be ashamed and resign of his own accord.

Improving society as a purpose (#1901)

Democrats have a goal with which to drive our futures toward. It requires that we all participate and we all are included. Republicans on the other hand have their goal of denying full participation and only including those who agree with them. Now considering these two different philosophies for governing, it makes me wonder why more folks are not coalescing around full participation and inclusion over limited participation and exclusion. Our natures are such that we care and wonder about life and existence as we know it so what other factors could be at play here? Transforming a society like ours, even though it was founded on principles of equality, justice and fairness, and it's application over time has fallen short of those ideals. We came into existence as a country, America, with a less than all inclusive equality and refining our society to overcome and correct those obstacles is a continuing ongoing struggle. We have made progress but the effort is incomplete. Now we have forces that are gathered to not only slow down progress but to also reverse gains made over the last two centuries. It is like a faction of the right wing philosophy of survival of the fittest cannot come to grips with enlightenment regardless of the evidence to it's truth. We are all humans and as such start out in life with that pedigree. Why we should ever want our equality to each other to be segregated by appearance or custom is regrettable. Our uniqueness as individuals is without question and anyone who would think that a privilege or advantage is honorable, based upon some self idea of deserve, is only displaying fear and should be called out for it. We only improve our society when we consider all of us, not just those who we think it applies toward.

Are we humans inherently good or bad? (#1900)

From the evidence here in America I would say that Republicans think we are inherently bad and Democrats think we are inherently good. There are plenty enough examples of crossovers in the political parties but generally this is what I find. Republicans see us as a species prone to being selfish and Democrats subscribe to the idea that we are more than that. The underlying process that brings the greed out in us here in America is that our economic system is based upon a survival of the fittest form of capitalism. Capitalism breeds a form of greed that is evolutionary within our souls. It forces we individuals to compete against one another for resources. Instead of letting our will have a go at experimenting with innovative thoughts, we assign our innovative thoughts to whether or not we can make profit from them. Surely profit is a motivator for only applying innovations that have utility, but profit has a down side as well. it forces us to do things that are outside our best natures. We come to find in the capitalistic system that failure is destructive. It can take our very souls from us when failure's imminence is realized. There are many reasons for failure and not all have to do with utility. Too many failures are the fault of older technologies suppressing newer ones because of that old friend/enemy called profit. What helps us progress forward is also what stalls that very same progress. I cannot advocate for the type of capitalism now here in America without being able to restructure it to include safeguards and protections from unlimited wealth and power accumulation. When we humans decide that we are inherently good and not inherently bad and start to build a society founded upon our good natural instinct is when we will finally settle the battle here in America about whether we will be an all inclusive democracy or an oligarchy/plutocracy bent toward greedy selfishness.

Opportunity for respect and dignity (#1899)

I often hear the right wing Republicans talk about how the character of the poor and disadvantaged is morally bankrupt and beyond repair. So instead of trying to help those, who they self-prescribe as wastrels, they demean and punish them for their lack of honor. That is their "take" on it. My "take" on it is quite the opposite. I don't see a morally bankrupt and irredeemable class of poor citizenry. What I see instead is a demoralized and beaten down poor class of citizenry who are not afforded the same opportunities their wealthy fellow citizens are afforded. If anything those who are morally bankrupt and are proving to be irredeemable are the class of folks who are wealthy and control the levers of economic power. It amazes me that the wealthy and the powerful want to blame those who have little control over the outcomes of their lives for the failure of the wealthy to improve the society that benefited the wealthy. Instead of the wealthy taking the reins of their success and funneling it back to the areas in our country that would most benefit from them having a real care about the citizens of our country, they instead continue to reap the benefit of their lofty positioning and allow for baser instincts to guide their path forward. The baser the better in their world since if you are not one of them then you are unworthy of having the same opportunities they were gifted with. Now not all the wealthy are greedy and selfish, however too many are and that is real. How can I convince the well off that what is right in the world comes from how our hearts and minds experience life. I know I have some better than average abilities and I regard that humbly and with a duty to return those abilities the best I can to the family of humanity as a offering of my gratitude. A personal respect and dignity for all of life.

The Republican religion (#1898)

Rape and incest have a home with the Republican religion, not their abolition, but their utility. It seems absurd that the Republican party on the one hand declares itself the family values party while on the other hand giving men dominion over women in such demeaning and humiliating ways. The Republican men, and the women who subjugate themselves to them, have devised a religion where the poor and the needy are NOT the focus, where instead the focus is on men who can dominate all the resources, including people as resources. The Republican Bible has at it's core the Ayn Randian philosophy of selfishness. This selfishness is to be honored above all other choices for living. It is what makes living within the bounds of the Republican religion so easy. The attraction is that those who are greedy and who want to be more than just mortal, can live like a god on Earth while feeling no conscious conflict. Their egos are given full reign over their doubts and in that they have achieved a state of nirvana. By allowing for rape and incest to be "necessary" Republicans have destroyed the idea of equality between the sexes and have given themselves an avenue to "take" what they desire for their own fleshly seductions. The Republican religion has effectively given men the sovereignty over women that they undoubtedly feel is their right. That the Republican women have abdicated their rights to their Republican men is distressing but revealing in that they have been stripped of their own decency and honor to the point where they can only see a world where the Republican men can use them for whatever purpose the Republican men desire. 

Pointing out the hypocrisy with sarcastic belittling (#1897)

When I make a heavy handed point about a political, economical or social issue and I am wrong, it is surely equivalent for someone or many to point out my mistake when it is obvious. If I have blustered about a policy I think is right but I cannot prove it and instead others have proven my point wrong and I still cannot let my point go, I am thus allowed to be ridiculed for not being open minded enough to admit my mistake. It is then that I have left myself open to be ridiculed and rightly so. It is incumbent upon those who have discounted or demolished my point to mock me with fervor if I don't accept the logic and common sense of being wrong. We cannot as a society let those "off the hook" who are blatant about denying truth and fact. We must belittle them as the social pariah they have become. Anything short of leaving them to bluster nonsense without some form of staunch ridicule then leaves us open to question by those who are not informed enough to know the difference. The nonsense that is being spewed into our social, political and economical landscape is a direct result of us allowing this nonsense to exist without properly crushing it as an option. So, although I rarely advocate belittling anyone as a general rule, those who are intent on disseminating falsehoods and out and out lies despite all evidence to the contrary deserve nothing less than a harsh ridiculing for their ulterior motives. We must fight fire with water until the flames are all but a distant wisp of smoke. Life is hard most of the time on all of us but if hurting someone's feelings is the least we do to create and preserve the dignity of our democracy, and it's principles of fairness, equality and justice in equal forms, then let the belittling begin with a controlled vengeance.

Only one set of laws (#1896)

Enough of this double standard application of our laws! Regardless of the offense, big or small, the same application of the law is to be absolute. There are always mitigating circumstances that must be considered but the process of the law must never change. We cannot arbitrarily apply the law based upon privilege or advantage. If we are not secure in our knowledge that we all live by the same rules how is it possible for us to have equality of opportunity? It isn't logically possible. Our democracy demands that we sustain our laws in an equal fashion or our democracy is no more. How important is our democracy then if we allow some privileges and advantages over others? Shall we just dismiss the idea of democracy and instead allow for those who can manipulate the law? As it stands now we the people still have the political power to stop the attacks on our democracy by voting for the candidates that best exemplify democratic values. No more should we vote based upon popularity or blind party affiliation. If we don't we will pay a price soon in our futures with, for example, the Republican party and it's push to legalize corporations as citizens and restrict voting in as many ways as they can. We must think and act now to protect our democracy above all things otherwise we will need to be protected from the forces that are mounting a challenge to our democracy and equality of opportunity. The examples of the infiltration and attack on our ability to act as individuals within a society is increasingly being challenged and the gauntlet has been thrown down at our feet. Shall we rise up and exercise our vote to protect the dearness of democracy or shall we hide our heads in the sand while some wealthy sovereign becomes our authoritarian master?

The wealthy need to reinvest in America (#1895)

As the wealthy in our country continue to reap the benefit of our society and NOT put back into it, a change in the quality of life for most Americans continues to get worse. Without reinvestment by those who have profited immensely through the American economic system, we erode in our ability to continue to offer opportunities to those who are next to capitalize on our great society and it's innovative nature. The greed of this current crop of wealthy capitalists and their inability to understand the mutually shared vision held by all Americans to improve their lives, while giving creative enterprise an avenue for success, is destroying the delicate symmetry our country is battling to maintain. This lack of vision by the wealthy will be their undoing as it takes all of us working together to make and keep our country the greatest society on Earth. We are not maintaining a rising from poverty society with our current lack of investment in our country and our citizens. When our workforce is being compensated to the tune of improving their lives then the wealthy are doing their part while still making profit for their effort. We are not about creating a wealth class that ignores the roots of that wealth, but that is what we are doing. There are conservative forces in politics that have mounted a challenge to democracy in the name of privilege and advantage which cuts the legs out from under the body of our great society. If we allow this to continue, America will no longer represent the will of the people but instead the will of the wealthy dictating to the people.

Focusing on the facts (#1894)

As we get closer to the next election in November more and more of us will be focusing a little closer on the facts of things. What we progressive Democrats need to do is highlight all the harmful and hurtful policies of our political opponents in a clear and concise way. We cannot count on others to do this for us so we must clarify our positions in contrast with the positions of our opponents. Remembering who voted on what bills is a good start and finding the roll call votes and familiarizing ourselves with them is essential. next we need to find the quotes of our opponents leaders and contrast them with quotes from our own leaders on the same subject. We must find charts and graphs from reputable sources that describe the effects of policies or the effects of policies not implemented. In general we must show why we advocate for our Democratic policies and the inherent positives of them. This is so important as we get another month closer to an election that will determine the effectiveness of our President for the next 2 years. There is never an election we can take for granted and with we Democrats, we have not always heeded that warning. The cycle must end since the differences between the vision of the Democrats and Republicans is so stark in the reality they present. Democrats want to preserve Democracy as a vessel for opportunity for all with equality and justice at it's heart; while Republicans have a vision of survival of the fittest mentality as the highest priority in a system that honors the wealthy and discounts everyone else. If we Democrats are not prepared to convince ourselves of our own purpose and direction then how are we to convince the yet uninformed? So let's focus on the facts of things and get our message out in the most clear and simple way.

My enduring struggle to defeat anti-democratic forces (#1893)

I don't expect anyone else to have the passion that I do in advocating for a more equal society, but I do expect all of you to have at least some passion for it. Keeping our democracy in the hands of ourselves and not the moneyed interests it is moving toward is my purpose. I would love to just live my life and enjoy my days doing ordinary things most all people do but instead I am left to fight against forces that would and are undermining our freedom and liberty to define our own society. Corporations and their allies, the Republican party, are reaching ever deeper into our politics and laws with powerful influence in order to grab the power we people have been gifted through the sacrifices our fore-parents earned for us. Corporations are not people, they don't feel the pain of loss or harm like a living soul. Corporations have one trick, one trick only, and that is to profit their owners. Whereas we people have many tricks, we care about life and we wonder about the future. We have emotions and our bottom line is not how much we can accumulate in material totals, but in the quality of life we offer to all of us. It is incredible to me that there are Americans who want to harm other Americans. For what? The shiny pieces of silver traitors receive for selling their souls? "My word is my bond" and that little statement is more valuable than all the material in the Universe to me. I am my own destiny as we all are and if we allow our democracy to be taken over by Republicans representing corporations, then we have fallen back from the deathly bloody sacrifice so many have made on our behalf. All the wars that have been fought by our fellow citizens in order to maintain democracy cannot be given away to devilish souls without us fighting like our honored and brave fore-parents to keep corporations from stealing our democracy.

We are like frogs in a pot of water slowly starting to boil (#1892)

The conservatives have been creeping their harsh policies into our society while we all just continue to go about our lives without paying much attention to the little losses to overall fairness and equal justice. It has been a very effective strategy for them because so many of us are not clear about how our politics work. First, many have a hard time believing that one of our two major political parties, ie. Republicans, don't have the majority of our citizens' best welfare at heart. Well, unfortunately, those many would be wrong on that point. The only welfare Republicans are concerned with looking out for are the wealthy. Now here is a corollary to that premise, many working and poor American citizens believe that they must protect the wealthy in that they think someday they will be part of that elite group. the odds of that happening are one in millions, so don't allow yourself to be fooled that you are just trying to protect your future advantages, which advantages by the way harm the working middle poor class. Secondly, many of us are so busy with our family and personal lives that we just abdicate our attention to politics hoping that someone else will do the heavy lifting in keeping our democracy open and strong. That is not working since the Republican conservative party sense an opening and are spending a tremendous amount of resources telling us wrong information so that through our abdication, we don't question their seemingly take on the health of our society. Let me be clear, conservative Republicans wish to dismantle our democracy and then hand over the function of it to powerful corporations and their ideologues who own them. This is not sci-fi, this is reality and when you do wake up to the facts of conservative politics you may find that those of us who continue to battle them cannot win without help. We need all American citizens to question the politics of the day and reasonably decide for themselves.

The conservatives and their dilemma with science (#1891)

Here in America we have a quasi political/religious public office seeking crowd who have tons of money to promote their policies on how our society must operate. it has less to do with being civil and more to do with being aggressive toward our own individualism. It breaks down community into areas of agreement that forward taking advantage of all things for selfish purposes as opposed to making life easier in general for all who live. They are authoritarian by nature so community has little to offer them unless it is an advantage they can utilize only for themselves. They base much of their belief on a survival of the fittest right to success that is simply meshed into a religious doctrine that I cannot make any logical sense of. They stand on the ground of religious dogma as long as that dogma submits to their higher priority of selfishness. It is ironic how they use religion to attempt to add justification and validity to their vision but when their vision is dissected down to it's functioning parts, it has nothing much to do with religion and more to do with an obsession of power and greed. I bring all this up so I can segueway to my main point. In order for these current crop of Conservative Republicans to carry their economics and social policies to the fore they have hung themselves on the cross of Christianity. In order for this to work, they must discount the logic of science, since science disproves many paradigms of biblical dogma. So what do conservatives do? They deny the laws of science in order to justify that the bible is infallible as to their strategies. So carbon dating is wrong, the laws of motion are wrong. Especially these two because they govern how we are able to place time relative to objects. If the Universe is only about 6-7 thousands years old then science and it's conclusion that the Universe is older than about 14 billion years must be denied.

The voting booth is all we have left (#1890)

Each and every one of we citizens here in America are down to our last option for effecting real change, that being the vote. We all must pick a political philosophy provided realistically by the two main parties. The Democrats and the Republicans have a strong foothold in party membership and one of them will win this ideological struggle we are currently in. Let me remind you that it is Republicans who are restricting the vote in ways that effect more and more average citizens through obtaining costly and often difficult to acquire documents in order to purchase the proper identification Republicans are stipulating is necessary for proving citizenship. It is Republicans who are cutting back on the convenience we have for voting by dropping voting districts in convenient places and making getting to the voting polls a more difficult journey. It is Republicans who are cutting back voting hours in the day of the voting to bottleneck and discourage voters who must now wait in long lines to exercise their right to vote. It is Republicans who are cutting back days that are conveniently available for citizens to vote in order to make voting more difficult for citizens with busy lives who are not always available to vote during the work weekday. it is Republicans who are mounting an army of observers who will be hovering over many citizen's shoulders to see if they can challenge them as to their right to vote. it is Republicans who are purging voting rolls in an attempt to glean out previous voters they find questionable and who all seem to be affiliated with the Democratic party. Democrats on the other hand want to expand voting hours and days and with outreach, to actually improve the franchise to vote and make it as easy as possible without making citizens have to pay a price for their right to vote. I am a Democrat and I will always vote against a Republican party bent to denying and destroying our last option for effecting real change.

Never thought Americans would try to destroy America? (#1889)

Do you feel safe from the idea that we would have Americans actively trying to destroy our democracy? Think again. We have a corrupted Republican political party that is trying to do that very thing. They are masking it in a survival of the fittest, which by the way is a "gospel of wealth" approach, not a democratic one person one vote concept we are struggling mightily to maintain. When the Republicans care more about restricting voting rights instead of enhancing them, I make my point When the Republicans pass laws that favor one class, the wealthy, over any other class, the middle and the poor, then they are, in practical terms ignoring democracy's tenets of equality, fairness and justice, I make my point. When Republicans pass laws that reduce women and minorities to a lesser than status of citizenship, like taking away from women their right to self-determination, and minorities their right to be properly educated, then I make my point. I could go on with examples but really, how many times do I have to make my point? Republicans are "hell bent" on trying to establish Christianity as our national religion regardless of our first amendment protecting us from the establishment of any religion. Republican politicians have decried that our laws need to be written in accordance with the Bible, whereas we who believe the Constitution is the basis for our laws are being drowned out as God deniers. Republicans have covered their political flank with the notion that science is wrong, especially carbon dating, since carbon dating disproves their notion that the Universe is only about 6000 years old, instead of the 13-14 billion years science tells us it is through the laws of physics. If you think conservatives who control the diabolical Republican party are here to protect your rights, then you are not aware that they are the ones who are actually taking your rights away.

Arguments based upon logic, not deception (#1888)

When we finally get a US Supreme court willing to put the first amendment on the right track in weeding out protections for deception, misinformation and lying, we can then begin to have national discussions about real arguments concerning policy. Until then we have too many wealthy interests who would rather confuse and obfuscate facts with half truths and out and out lies to keep our electorate in the dark about how our current policies are being manipulated. There is much to be gained financially by those greedy souls when they can keep people from knowing the truth of things in order for them to continue in some society harming, profit making venture. They have theirs and they could care less if you or I can even get a little bit of ours. Anyway, back to my point, until we can have a system for debating national policies that is free from dishonesty and chaos, we will not be able to effectively continue in our drive towards modernity. As it is now we are so confounded by misinformation that it seems that modernity is now a bad thing and regression to thoughtless obedience is now a good thing. This has all happened because our society has a disingenuous US Supreme court that does not see it's duty to make our union more perfect, instead a majority of them have placed their own philosophical ideology above visionary objectivity. This current court is incapable of leading our society into the future much less the present. In fact it seems it is only capable of leading us back to the past. Sadly we are stuck with these conservative ideologues until they retire or die in office. It is my hope that they will not do too much more harm to our progression while they are still in office. At any rate, our society is in need of a leader in the court who can, with gravitas, nullify our current first amendment protection of lies and deception. 

Great achievements in our lifetimes (#1887)

The success of our new health care law in it's first year of full actualization is happening before our very eyes and most Americans are happy with that. Many still don't understand the basics of it due to much intentional disinformation and obstruction by the Republican party who don't see the new health care law as important to the American people. While on the subject of Republicans, let's remember that none of the Republican Congresspersons nor Republican Senators at the time voted for the law although the law was patterned by Democrats to mostly match an existing, successful Republican health care law instituted in the state of Massachusetts several years earlier. Be that as it may, for now we are today celebrating the fact that over 20 million American citizens are enjoying health insurance for the first time or a better health care plan than they had prior to the law. The numbers will keep rising as time goes by and that is the beauty of the law. I don't want to get into the arguments that surround this law both for and against but what I want to do is just sit back for a few moments and bask in the warmth of it's potential. Health is so vital to so many working Americans and their families. It is actually vital and for so many decades, health care has been elusive for those of us who spent most of our earned capital on just providing for the basic necessities of life. Few moments in history allow us the privilege of experiencing the fruit of our labor on this large a scale. Our society will be better now that we are getting closer to a process that brings 10's of millions of citizens out of the dire strait of not having an affordable avenue to living in a more healthy way. Cheers for us! :)