The Super Blog

It is sad that I appear to be nearly alone in my particular set of beliefs. My beliefs can sort of be split between differing kinds of freedom, and for some reason people generally only adhere to 0 or 1 of my categories of freedom. I feel like what I believe in is Libertarian, but I have a lot of problems with many that call themselves by that name.

First, there is social freedom, which I say means people can do what they want as long as they don’t hurt you. Most Republican, neo-con, or Christian types will vehemently deny much of that kind of freedom. The Dems tend to be ok on this issue, but in actuality, gun ownership should fall in this category, so that takes away half of this plus. Republicans haven’t repealed any real restrictions on gun ownership, though they did allow the cosmetics ban to expire. I don’t feel that is enough to earn them a half point. Dems .5, Repubs 0.

There is freedom from financial and tax tyranny. The Democrats don’t hide that they want to take your money and give it someone else. However, the Republicans are even bigger spenders, they just lie and say they are not. Republicans have managed to reduce taxes while reducing spending power more than the tax breaks helped. Dems 0, Repubs 0.

The third form of freedom is freedom of intellect. If you say “It’s only a theory” when talking about evolution, then you are an intellectual theocrat, and are against that freedom. This is basically the freedom to be correct in scientific assertions. Democrats are good on this one. Republicans actually try to lie and change what is taught in order to fit their retarded religious beliefs. That’s 0 points for Repubs and 1 point for Dems. Dems 1, Repubs 0.

Well, I am a pro-gun, low taxes, socially progressive atheist, and most of the danger of the current administration is given power through the ease of misleading the gullible and credulous Christians in the US. The faithful tend to be the pro-gun people, but they give rise to a large part of the problem by giving power to the very tyrants they say they needs their guns to fight against.

There is a presidential election this year. I need to vote. Unfortunately, there are not any good candidates. If you advocate for Ron Paul, you advocate for Theocracy, so let’s go ahead and end that train of thought now. The other possibles such as Gravel are gone, though I’m fairly sure he would be wrong on guns. The Dems are 1.5 of 3 on my freedom scale, and the Repubs are 0 of 3 on that scale, so I must vote for a Democrat. I think that I hope Obama is the winner. At least if he wins there may be some optimism flowing about. He is also significantly smarter than Bush. The best things I’ve heard so far from him are the law he got passed in Illinois that required video taping of police interrogations and a news article I saw with him supporting religious freedom.

But really, what I want to see, is a pro-gun, intellectual, social progressive that wants to lower taxes and spending. Where are they?

*Updated: Feb. 20, 2008

As of Today, Obama has won 25 contests. Clinton has won 12. Michigan and Florida are not counted. Democrats Abroad has not reported that I can find.

Primaries and Caucuses where Obama won at least 60% of the vote (15):

Alaska 75%
Colorado 67%
DC 75%
Georgia 67%
Hawaii 76%
Idaho 79%
Illinois 67%
Kansas 74%
Maryland 60%
Minnesota 67%
Nebraska 68%
North Dakota 61%
US Virgin Islands 92%
Virginia 64%
Washington 68%

Primaries and Caucuses where Clinton won at least 60% of the vote (1):

Arkansas 70%

I have, for a while, been thinking about what I consider to be the American way, and that is why I am putting this out there.

First, let’s define the Republican ideal as socially and fiscally conservative.
Second, let’s use a simple definition of what it means when something is American: free, tolerant, and winning. That is what I feel to be the American attitude.

I think that most people, even people that are willing to vote for someone like George Bush, would tend to agree with those statements. However, if they are willing to agree with those statements, or even only parts of those statements, how can they justify voting for recent Republicans?

Free:
After the George Bush reign, we are much less free than we were prior to his appointment. We now have to deal with the Department of Homeland Security (even the name seems to denote fascism). We have to deal with unwarranted eavesdropping of our communications. We have to deal with possibly never being given a trial, or being held for years without even being charged with a crime.

Tolerant:
The United States has never completely been a country of tolerance, though there have always been strong proponents of civil rights. Originally, slave owning was common, but now it is not allowed. Even after the abolishment of slavery, woman and slaves could not vote. Now they can, though gerrymandering from all sides has somewhat damaged things. Apartheid followed slavery. That was ended, and now it is less common to find real discrimination based on gender and race. But what about sexual orientation? Gay or lesbian people are still discriminated against by law.

Winning:
Nationalists (people that would call themselves patriots who basically parrot party lines, and are not really patriots) pride themselves on saying that the US is the best at everything. They say we’ve never lost a war, that we’re the freest country in the world. That our system of government is the best. That we’re the most tolerant. That we have the best technology. Pretty much they claim that whatever we do is the best. Why do they think or believe those things? We are losing the war in Iraq, we are losing our freedoms, and we are spending so much money that younger generations and their children may be unable to repay it. Social conservatives seem to deny the validity of all science. (Denial of the facts and theories of evolution makes you a delusional science denier, not unlike a Holocaust denier.)

So, why be socially conservative? What good does it do for anyone, anywhere? Social conservatism is basically forcing your religion down the throat of someone else. That is absolutely not an American thing to do, though it is something Americans do. Social conservatives have been behind women’s suffrage denials, behind apartheid, behind gay marriage bans, and generally against equal protection under the law based on race, gender, or sexuality. So, let’s say that you are a social conservative. How have any of those denials of equality been beneficial to anyone? I guess that is my problem. I can not see how any of those bigoted stances help anyone, anywhere. (definition: A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own.) If you want to discriminate in that way in your personal life at home, that is up to you, but how is legally enforcing bigoted stances beneficial to you or anyone else?

Also, if you are a social conservative, why would you vote for someone that is a liar, or someone that has used cocaine and gone AWOL from his national guard post? How many Republicans have been in gay sex scandals? If you let people just live their lives while you lived yours, wouldn’t everyone be better off?

Getting away from ideology, let’s look at the conservative spending and taxing idea. If you are for that, why would you vote republican? Republicans have run significantly larger deficits than Democrats. While part of the reason may be that they lowered taxes, basically they borrowed money and ran up debt that will need to be repaid. I guess that the only fiscal conservatives that can still theoretically benefit from Republicanism are retired people that will live less than 20 more years. Lifespans longer than that will be dealt significant suffering by the out of control spending of the Republicans, and some of those financial indiscretions are already hitting us, with results like the housing bust and our current recession. Those things are partially caused by indiscriminate deregulation of industries that need regulation to survive. Indiscriminate deregulation is another fun Republican attribute.

Republicans seem to use the idea that gay marriage somehow violates the sanctity of marriage, or some nebulous traditional marriage. Everyone else’s marriage violates those traditions too, unless you mean traditions going back about 30 years. Marriage has not traditionally been about love or even choice. Marriage with people under the age of 16 was common. Arranged marriage was common, and still is in some parts of the world, mostly due to religious influence on government. Some historical societies encouraged adult males to have sexual relationships with prepubescent boys, and the Catholic church still does. I guess if the religious right had their way, my marriage would also be invalid. I am married to a woman of Asian descent, and I am a white male. I guess what they really mean by traditional marriage is that only white people should be allowed to marry.

I want a society filled with tolerance, and as long as the Republicans have anything to say about that, it will not come to pass. That is why I encourage everyone I know to vote against Republicans. Specifically for 2008, I think Barack Obama is the best hope we have for improving our society.

Obama wins Virginia, DC, and Maryland by significant margins. After the strong wins posted by Barack Obama in the last 5 delegate selections, this continued dominance bodes well for Obama. It looks like Obama will be ahead even accounting for superdelegate endorsements. Since Obama appears to be the most progressive of the delegates, I think it is a good thing that he may be pulling ahead. 58% of the white men that voted Democrat in VA pulled for Obama, and overall he was 52% of the white vote. It is the first time he has won a majority of the white voters, and I think that is excellent sign. It seems the voters may finally be looking past the race/gender issue and looking at the actual issues, and Obama is basically the best on these issues all around.

In GOP news, I’m a little bit sad that Huckabee fared so poorly yesterday. I was hoping that he would pull out a win in Virginia, because as long as he in the race, McCain is going to have to waste money on shooing the fly instead of dealing with the Democrat competitor.

Also, in his victory speech, Obama didn’t talk much, or maybe not at all, about Clinton, instead choosing to focus on how he is going to beat McCain. He seems to be very proficient at denigrating with complements. Lets hope that plays out in the general election, because if McCain wins the presidency, I think we are toast.

Here is a Q&A session on Boston.com with candidate Obama.

MSNBC’s Leader Board
CNN’s Election Center
Real Clear Politics Democratic Delegate Count
Real Clear Politics Republican Delegate Count

The house passed a version of the stimulus package sent back in a slightly revised form by the Senate. The bill will raise the American national debt by an additional $168 billion. (10^9). Here is CNN’s writeup.

The plan will provide tax rebates of up to $600 for individuals and up to $1,200 for couples filing jointly, with an additional payment for families of $300 a child, and a minimum payment of $300 for individuals who pay less than that in income taxes.

Payments will be reduced for individuals with adjusted gross incomes above $75,000 and couples with incomes above $150,000, with the wealthiest taxpayers receiving nothing. The Treasury Department said checks would be distributed beginning in early May, after the crush of the tax filing season.

The rebates and the business incentives, including a doubling to $250,000 from $125,000 in the amount of expenses businesses can immediately write off, are intended to jolt the slowing economy with new spending.

I do not think that this a good idea, but I am not going to decline the check if I get it. I think that raising the debt even more is not an appropriate answer to our economic woes. I know it is complicated. Trying to take advantage of complicated and convoluted processes is what got the banks in this mess as it is. If you aren’t aware, the United States economy is doing a little woefully after a large swath of badly sold mortgages began going late and being foreclosed on. Part of the reason for the mess is called a CDO. Here is a story about Merrill Lynch on CNN that does a fair job explaining what those are. Anyone hoping to defeat pretenses about the viability of fully free markets need only look at the current mess, the growing disparity between rich and poor, and how much money has been sent to other countries to the detriment of most Americans. The worst part of all of this is that there are enough resources for just about everyone to live comfortably, but a few ultra rich, the top .25%, hoard enough money that it could provide for most or all of the bottom 20% that can’t afford to lead a reasonable life.

After more districts have been forecast and due to complicated methods of apportioning delegates, MSNBC’s leader board now has Obama in the lead by an insignificant number, 861 to 855. McCain is still trouncing the other Republican candidates. MSNBC’s numbers are the estimates of voted upon delegates, and are not including superdelegates.

CNN’s Election Center is currently giving different estimates of delegate counts. The Republican situation looks much the same, and the voter delegates are Clinton’s 840 to Obama’s 831. With supers, it is 1033 for Clinton to 937 for Obama.

Finally, ABC news has delegate counts that appear to include estimated voter chosen delegates along with pledged superdelegates. Clinton has 1038 to Obama’s 941, and McCain is still listed as far in the lead.

Mitt Romney has dropped out now, but the delegate counts above have not yet been updated. I do not know how this will affect the delegates, really. I’m fairly certain that McCain will still come out on top, but it is possible that the Romney voters may significantly move in the direction of Huckabee. Many of the upcoming states with primaries are at least somewhat moderate, so I still don’t think McCain has too much to worry about. Ron Paul has been soundly trounced, and it’s time for people to move on. People that think Ron Paul stands for freedom (a mistaken opinion) should move to Obama, and people that like the theocratic stance will probably move to Huckabee.

I found another page with a good, hopefully accurate, listing of current delegate counts.
Clinton with 866 voter delegates and Obama with 877. Hillary is ahead including superdelegates, 1077 to 1005.

*Updated: 08 Feb 2008 10:33ET

Two new studies have concluded what I believed to be the case all along. Biofuels release more greenhouse gases than standard fuels. The reason being is that there are environmental costs of requiring new fields to replace the food production that was displaced by earmarking a crop for ethanol production. These extra carbon figures have not, in the past, been properly correlated with biofuels. If you’re driving an E-85 Tahoe, you’re causing even more damage than if you just went with the Gas version. Murphy’s at the Walmart in my town has 10% ethanol in the gas. That means it is more polluting than standard gas.

Personally, I think the answer to the greenhouse problem lies more along the lines of our power generation than with our cars anyway. Switching our coal plants to nuclear may be the best answer of them all. Some, like this, think that coal and nuclear are equally bad, but most are not so disingenuous. Once people get past the activism and false propaganda floating around about how difficult and dangerous nuclear is, they tend to switch sides. Coal burned for energy production is the single largest contributor in the US, and China’s use of coal has pushed it ahead of the United States in greenhouse emissions.

Pretty graphs to follow! Source.

The first graph is general sources of greenhouse gases produced by the US.

This graph is a breakdown of the biggest line, the one that was truncated, from the above graph.

Once again, in my opinion, the two biggest bars from this second graph can be handled. I think the way to do so is to significantly reduce our reliance on coal for electricity by switching to nuclear generation at central locations, and requiring new and remodeled buildings to include some self energy production, primarily solar. The best ways to reduce the transportation usage, is to require cleaner, more economical diesels for transport trucks and to require smaller vehicles with higher fuel economy for regular transportation. It is difficult and expensive to retrofit effective mass transportation onto cities, but more people driving fewer vehicles would help a lot.

People who, like in the link above about neither coal nor power, advocate against all forms of electrical generation, really just hate all humans and want to move us pre-industrial revolution while killing most humans on earth. They are not so much into saving the planet, but rather, killing the humans.

I called Ron Paul a theocrat on a political quiz, and someone called my bluff. Let’s see if I am convincing, or if I am mistaken.

There is a missive on house.gov by Ron Paul, entitled “Christmas in Secular America“. There is a choice quote or two here.

“The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.”

Well, hallelujah. First, he says the constitution is “replete with references to God”. Guess he never read it. The closest it comes to a reference to a god is this: “in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven”.

“[O]ur Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs.”

Patently false. There were arguments, but with many of the pre-United States colonizers having come here to avoid religious persecution, they were inclined to desire to keep religion out of their new governments. In fact, the phrase “building a wall of separation between church and state” was coined by Thomas Jefferson in a January 1, 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. When the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and contributor to the constitution has that to say, you start to see how unfounded the opinions wielded by Paul are.

Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view.

That is a seriously stinted view of someone aiming for President, though it is probably shared by GW Bush and Mike Huckabee.
He also apparently does not realize that the Christians stole Christmas from many other religious groups. It is a pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice. If Christmas is taken from the Christians, then it only serves them right.

note: Thomas Jefferson is also one of my favorite sources of Atheistic quotations.

Apparently I’m not the only one who has noticed that Ron Paul is a theocrat. The Lew Rockwell link on there is a renaming of the Christmas in Secular America article.

Dr. Paul also sponsored or proposed amendments to the constitution that would basically short circuit the first amendment.

Paul sponsored a resolution for a School Prayer Amendment:

H.J.RES.52 (2001), H.J.RES.66 (1999), S.J.RES. 1, H.J.RES.12, H. J. RES. 108, & H. J. RES. 55:

Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any State to participate in prayer . Neither the United States nor any State shall compose the words of any prayer to be said in public schools.

H. J. RES. 78 (1997):

To secure the people’s right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience: Neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion, but the people’s right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion.

* Proposed Legislation:H.J.RES.52, School Prayer Amendment, 6/13/2001 (Murtha)
* H.J.RES.12, School Prayer Amendment, 2/7/2001 (Emerson)
* S.J.RES.1, School Prayer Amendment, 1/22/2001 (Thurmond)
* H.J.RES.108, Voluntary School Prayer Amendment, 9/21/2000 (Graham)
* H.J.RES.55, Voluntary School Prayer Amendment, 2/13/1997 (Stearnes, Hall, Watts)
* H.J.RES.78, Amendment Restoring Religious Freedom, 5/8/1997 (Istook, et. al.)

Also, Ron Paul is an evolution denier. Check the video. I realize that not everyone that denies the validity of the theory of evolution is a religious nutter, but it seems that the vast majority are. A denial of this theory means that your opinion is that most science is a farce. I don’t want someone like that making decisions.

More fun quotes can be found here.

To the secularists, this was John Paul II’s unforgivable sin– he placed service to God above service to the state. Most politicians view the state, not God, as the supreme ruler on earth. They simply cannot abide a theology that does not comport with their vision of unlimited state power. This is precisely why both conservatives and liberals savaged John Paul II when his theological pronouncements did not fit their goals. But perhaps their goals simply were not godly.

But really, when looking at these things, consider my position. I do not know what you believe, but the Christian faith is easily disproved if the source of proof is the Holy Bible. [Was Jesus born when Herod the Great was king (before 4 BCE) or when Quirinius (also Cyrenius) was governor of Syria (after 6 CE)?] So, for someone like me that does not believe in God, and does not find the pursuit of religion to be noble, but rather as a threat to my way of life, how should I perceive the way he feels mythology and government should intertwine? I’ll tell you: He is a theocrat and would be an enemy.

The votes are in and now it’s time to figure out if we have any winners.

On the Republican side, McCain appears to have pulled into the lead and is currently estimated by CBS to have about 599 of the 1191 delegates needed to win the RNC nomination. That number may change. In a surprising twist, Huckabee is currently projected to have a slightly higher delegate count than Romney. 159 vs. 152.

For the Democrats, nothing has been decided between the two current front runners. They are basically in a dead heat. CBS is predicting 689 delegates voted, 900 total, for Hillary, and 696 voted, 824 total, for Obama.

Remember that all of the delegates for the Democratic National Convention are proportionally decided, so not all delegates will go to the winner. That rule is primarily to make sure the voting actually elects a winner. Obama has won soundly in Georgia, but the delegate split depends on proportions in different districts. The Republican delegates, however, are often decided in pseudo-winner take all states. In Georgia, Mike Huckabee the theocrat won with a mere 34% of the vote and he will get most of the the delegates.

A large number, 43%, of white voters in Georgia that voted in the Democratic primary have chosen to vote for Obama. I think that this is a good thing. I am one of them. He won significantly in the under 44 set. He also won overwhelmingly with black voters. I hope that his run continues throughout the night. To me, he is the best chance we have for a sane and progressive president. His victory here with young voters gives me some hope that the future will not be as bleak as it could be. When the older voters that vote for the establishment are fewer, maybe there will be more hope for America to become freer and more progressive.

I just saw a commercial that states McCain called for “the surge strategy in Iraq that is working”. I’m not sure where they get their information, but unless what I know is seriously wrong, that is a flat out lie.

In other news, the spat between McCain and Romney is making me laugh on the inside. McCain didn’t win in West Virginia, and Romney came in with a plurality vote on the first go round, but Huckabee ended up winning on the recast. Romney is accusing McCain and Huckabee of colluding to defeat him. I guess that it is a good thing, because McCain is the best of the worst on the side of the neoconservatives, and he is only marginally worse, in my opinion, than Hillary. I am glad that the “conservatives” are having a hard time deciding which form of terrible they want to force on us next time.