The Super Blog

Some jackass named James Hartline had a post up on his blog regarding Proposition 8 that I attempted to comment on. However, he’s too much of flaming gay bigot to let my comments through, so I figured I would post on my own unread blog what I was trying to say on his.

He is a bible thumping bible bigot that’s never read the bible. Also, he contends that Prop 8 in California is returning to “traditional marriage”. Well guess what boys and girls, a return to “traditional marriage” would break up my heterosexual marriage.

Traditional marriage, until recently, was pretty much marriage arranged by and paid for by the parents. The people getting married had no say in who they were going to marry. For the last few hundred years, land owners have been able to marry who they want, as long as they were the same race.

I am married to an Asian woman, which makes my marriage interracial. Interracial marriage was not allowed in every state in the United States until 1967 due to a Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia. The first state to allow interracial marriage was Ohio, according to a source I’ll link to in a moment.

In some countries, they still use “Honor Killing” as a method of discouraging interracial, or even inter-tribal(!) marriage! WTF is wrong with these idiots? I just don’t understand why they have so much hate, and why they let themselves be so fooled by a compilation of a few fictional books gathered by different groups of people and finally decided upon by non-believers several hundred years after their copy of Horus savior was supposedly taken to heaven. It’s even more astounding that they have to push the envelope on interpretation to even make it say that gays are bad! It’s actually in favor of gays treating each other right! See here:

Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Do you know what that is saying? The bible is a very misogynistic book. It is saying that if you are a man and you intend on getting it on with another man, you can’t treat him like a woman. He has value, but she is just property.

Here’s a page on when the bigots began to relent with respect to interracial marriage/miscegenation. It notes the propensity of racists to also be intolerant of gays.

Here is an LA Times story on Prop 8 that mentions the obvious. Eventually the bigots will be struck down. They will, however, cause as much grief as possible before that happens because that’s just what those worthless sub-people are here to do.

I understand that the bible bigots want to make the United States as intolerant of all as possible, which would make us a Christian version of Iran. Wouldn’t it just be easier if they went to Iran instead?

First, take a look at this page: http://reaganbushdebt.org/

The tax layout I support is one where there are no property or income taxes, and taxes are either excise or on sales. However, in my perfect world, spending would be such that it wouldn’t even register as government spending by today’s standards.

Lets have an analogy. The current level of federal (federal only, this does not include state debt!) debt is about $9.7 trillion. The federal tax revenues are about $2.7 trillion. The US government is outspending collections by about $2 billion per day, currently.

So, what’s the problem? Well the analogy is that the United States is like a person that makes $50,000 gross income per year having amassed $180,000 in debt while spending $40 more per day than they make. A wholly untenable position. In that condition, almost any person would go bankrupt in a relatively short amount of time.

It’s amazing that this level of debt has almost entirely been accumulated by the last three Republican presidents (important point, in my opinion).

It’s also amazing to me that both candidates are claiming they will reduce overall tax revenue. I do not see that as a tenable position. McCain will reduce taxes a little more than Obama overall, but McCain will probably spend more than Obama. McCain’s plan, therefore, will push us to real insolvency more quickly than Obama.

What will the consequences be once we reach insolvency? I don’t know. Russia is starting to act up, and China will probably be the country that takes our place as the primary super power. Iran and North Korea are very afraid of our indiscriminate war machine and are doing what they can to become threats in their own right. North Korea is probably further along than Iran.

At home, the consequences will probably be that the country will turn into an authoritarian poor country, which is where the Republicans are taking it anyway, as they have already successfully reduced the value of our currency in exchange by half and domestic prices are rising unabated. They will continue to erode the effective coverage of the constitution and eventually remove all individual rights from the populace, leaving a police/corporate state with a few ultra rich living well while the rest of the country languishes in poverty. Bush already said that the constitution is “just a goddamn piece of paper”, and McCain has now morphed his policies into exactly matching those of Bush. Given the tendency of Republicans to spend excessively while reducing tax intake and killing our reputation in the world, how can you vote for them?

So, I say “Vote Obama” to stave off federal insolvency a little longer.

Recently, quotes from John McCain have surfaced that leave us with little doubt that the United States was not of much importance to him. “I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of her company”, he said, after admitting that he gave up military information for preferential treatment in Vietnam. Check it out on YouTube.

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

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.