Political rant

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a good friend about politcal involvement that I thought I would share:

"I certainly grant that potential war with Iran is a big issue (and should be avoided at all costs), and I of course wish that the democrats in office had found a way to impeach Bush. I long ago granted that these politicians are not perfect, and wish with all my heart that we could have people in office that were perfect on EVERY issue. But that, is simply not the way of the world. I would suggest, however, that there is still an enormous party divide. There may not be an apparent divide if one only considers the several issues that the two parties seem to either agree on, or disagree too weakly to stop, but I do not think that this is accurate. There are HUGE differences on: prayer in schools, teaching of creationism, gay rights, affirmative action, welfare programs, healthcare reform, social security reform, economic policy, free trade, globalization vs. isolationism, abortion rights, defense spending, taxes on the wealthy, alternative fuels besides bio-fuel, censorship, campaign contributions, immigration, education funding, highway funding, stem cell research, capital punishment, gun control, anti-crime measures, human rights, wiretapping, space weapons, supreme court justices, space exploration, climate change, pollution control, anti-landmine treaties, nuclear waste disposal  and 50 more things I could list if I had the time. But beyond these, the BIG differences that I care about most are the principles that underlie these positions, and at least for me, the principles of the democratic party sit far better with my values and hopes for the future.

Granted the Democrats have not made the sweeping changes and fixes that I would like to see, but after spending years as a political science major, I forgive them some of these lack of results. The political system is incredibly complicated, and the Democrats effectively fight with one hand tied behind their back because their principles do not allow them to shortcut the process and fight  as dirty as their opponents. Bush made a truly incredible number of very big changes in his time by using very questionable-at-best practices (with which I know you are familiar and similarly outraged). The democrats can either slowly, quietly, and peacefully try to undo these mistakes as best they can, or they can employ the same practices as the republicans used in their blitzkrieg. (Anyone that thinks this later to be a good option, however, I would suggest should watch Star Wars again, and listen for the lines about what leads to the dark side, or reach Nietzsche about how fighting monsters in monstrous ways  leads to becoming a monster oneself…)

I too am frustrated with the system as it stands, and I respect you greatly your views on the issue. But I think there is no silver bullet possible that will fix everything, and so we have to carefully and considerately endorse the lesser of the two available evils, in the hope that a little gradual change in the right direction can eventually open the door for  yet a little more positive change, and so forth. This takes a grudging acceptance of the sucky, but presently unavoidable, nature of the situation, as well as patience, foresight, and strategic planning. Many calculus functions demonstrate the cumulative power of little  changes which build on each other, and this is the only way to bring change in a system as large (and admittedly screwed up) as ours. I think though that if we want even these little changes to have any chance of coming about, we will need to carefully research, evaluate, and consider which of the limited options available is the better of the two, and then through our FULL support behind them publicly, and do our best in whatever small ways we can to see them brought about in reality."

7:10 PM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Head-a-achin’
Current mood: stressed
Category: School, College, Greek

Damn... still workining on term papers- three weeks after the semester ended. While I love the subject matter (hyper-dimensional state space semantics and recurrent neural networks, just in case you're wondering...), I am getting mighty sick of having no free time with which to relax, catch my breath, and let my brain recharge a bit.

And, with some exciting news I just got from school, it looks like next year is going to be even busier (can you say "PhD program"?!?!?!?!?!?!?!)

Anyway, back to work with me... Hope all are well, and sorry I've been difficult to get a hold of...

Currently reading : Neurophilosophy at Work By Paul Churchland

10:24 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

"Hell no" to Ron Paul
Category: News and Politics

The following is a response to a friend's mass email calling for votes for Ron Paul:
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Disclaimer: The following are my personal positions, take them or ignore them as you will.

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Uh… Have you actually looked into Ron Paul's voting record? (http://www.ontheissues.org/TX/Ron_Paul.htm )Aside from the few issues that he advertises his position very loudly on (which I will admit, of *this* small set of issues, I do generally agree with him, e.g. stopping the war, patriot act, etc), but he is actually one of, if not THE MOST conservative candidate running (he counts himself a libertarian, after all, which is the most conservative party in American politics [despite the name]).

From everything that I have seen, the libertarian party utilizes dis-information to paint a very different picture of themselves, especially targeting young people with slogans built around "freedom", small government, low taxes, and "privacy and personal liberty".  With this package, however, comes dedication to the free market at the expense of the environment, a disinterest in funding and improving education,  discrimination against homosexuals, bans on  abortion, bans on stem cell research for religious reasons, heavy commitment to religion ("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."- Dr. Ron Paul- The War on Religion), a provincial denial of global involvement and an attempt to return America back to the isolated "golden age" of the past, incredibly biased economic policy that is philosophically designed to help the rich and screw the poor, a fanatical avoidance of any gun control, avoidance of any social healthcare,  and a ton of other incredibly conservative, anti-progress, anti-compassion views that he is smart enough not to advertise. Please don't be taken in by his and his party's false advertising. I recognize that he talks a good talk, and has, on a few (but seemingly important) issues, walked a good walk, but any candidate is a collection of ALL of their beliefs, and Ron Paul's positions on 80% of the issues are pretty much the most conservative and (in my mind, anyway,) the very worst possible.

Our current president got elected on a fairly similar campaign approach to that currently being used by Ron Paul, placing a convincing emphasis on "character" rather than reasons. People say that Ron Paul practically glows with honesty, steadfastness, determination, courage to dissent, etc. But it is not just the character of the person. We need to pick a president whose image of the future is the future of civilization that we would like to see come to pass, and Ron Paul aims to return us to the past. Our world has already gone through that time period, and it was a far cry from the utopia that the conservative make it out to be.

I don't agree that party lines are just a "dualistic illusion… there to distract you". While I will say louder than anyone what a shame it is that we only have, in reality, a two-party system, and that our government would be much benefited by a wider spectrum of debate, the party lines exist as a grouping by the majority of a person's views. Ron Paul is not part of the Republican party by coincidence- he has the majority of his aims in common with them. He has a very similar image of what our country ought to look like, and it is an image that I find utterly terrifying. (Filled with selfishness, guns, fences, religion, and discrimination against the weak who have not sufficiently "liberated" themselves.)

One quick clarification though, I certainly do not "endorse" the concept bi-partisan politics (as I mentioned, "I will say louder than anyone what a shame it is that we only have, in reality, a two-party system, and that our government would be much benefited by a wider spectrum of debate"), I recognize the reality of our system, which is unfortunately, bi-partisan. As I mentioned in the email, my hope is that a progression towards the Left-end of the spectrum would help change the system such that wider debate would occur. Up until then, though, the system operates around a bi-partisan framework, and those that resist it through away their votes. (For example, one of the things that most disturbs me about Ron Paul is how he is managing to cross party boundaries and sway many otherwise liberal, democratic voters. What most of these voters don't realize though, is that this ends up helping ALL republicans, not just Ron Paul, and hurting ALL democrats. The (perhaps sad) reality of our political landscape is that we no longer elect a man or a woman, we elect a platform. Even if Ron Paul were Gandhi himself, all he would do is go to meetings and make speeches- the people appointed to fill the posts of his cabinet that *actually* make the policy decisions, etc will not be him, they will be the career staffers that have trained under Gingrich, Thurman, Bush, Karl Rove, etc. Even more distressing is that, given the make-up of the supreme court right now, appointing another republican/libertarian president will likely lock in the court's republican domination of the legal system for the next 20 YEARS, this is not something that can be undone. The court is the key to the whole system, IMHO, and Ron Paul would spell doom for a liberal court.)

Personally, I would love to see Kucinich able to win, but that is utterly impossible, I fear. Instead, I feel that my best course of action, and the best course for the country, is to vote towards the left at every chance that we get (in this election, namely Hillary or Barack), and hope that in another 10-15 years, as a result, our country has steered enough in that direction that people can actually hold positions like Kucinich's and have their positions thought about, considered, and possibly elected.

Bush has already taken our country on a hard-line tack to the Right-side of the political spectrum, and if you like this direction, then Ron Paul is a fantastic sequel to Bush. He will probably undue a few of the dumbest things that Bush did, but then generally continue on the same course. Otherwise, lets stop voting with our "gut", vote with our minds, rationality, and intelligence, and vote for a different *direction*- namely Democrat.

Thanks for reading, and considering...

8:48 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

August off - for all...

In honor of my Birthday, I previously declared the entire month of August to be a holiday for all of the goodly races of planet Earth. (Note that if your species was not among those that got the month off, you really ought to think about what that means...)    

;-)

1:25 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

And today's word is....

Today's "newly invented word of the day", inspired by a discussion with one of my neighbors:

Ignowledge: (ig-kno-ledg); Noun- Knowledge of a subject to such a limited degree that it serves no purpose but to make ones ignorance all the more dangerous.


I hope to see this in common usage soon...

6:55 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

An impossible God by definition
Category: Religion and Philosophy

The concept of God is inconsistent- God, by definition, is omniscient, and thus will have both full knowledge concerning "things", but also concerning this knowledge itself. God is also, by definition, omnipotent, and thus will have the power to do anything. God, as all-encompassing, contains within her everything that is.

Herein lies the contradiction- for if god is contains everything, then there is nothing outside of God against which to establish the knowledge of the objective validity of God's thoughts. In other words, God lacks  the power to determine consistency between God's internal knowledge and an external reality, and is thus unable to establish the veracity of God's own knowledge, by definition.

From a slightly different perspective, this can be restated as the problem that God, who is by definition without limit, is consequently limited solely to that contained internally. Thus god is limitless and limited, all-knowing and lacking knowledge, all-powerful but insufficiently powerful. From this, it is shown that the very conception and definition of God is internally contradictory, and thus impossible. QED.

7:32 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

World conquest, er, uh, visits

Wow, apparently I still have a lot to go!!!

6:50 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Species-sum
Current mood: pensive
Category: Life

Wow. I am incredibly struck by just how huge the gap is between the knowledge that humanity as a species has gained/developed and the knowledge that the average human expends the effort to attain.

It is astounding what a small percentage of the stuff that is available for us to learn is generally viewed as required for (or for most people, even relevant to) day-to-day life. Most people never bother learning things outside of things like how to tie their shoes, send basic email, and a few things related to their professions. But their are more f*cking petabytes of brilliant writing, research, thought-experiments, etc. out their that our ancestors painstakingly thought up, built, or otherwise created than it is possible to get through in a hundred years time, and what do must of us do with it? Ignore all of it, that's what. People would rather watch an episode of Survivor than consider what Kant discovered about the possibility of the realities of (any) objects in the universe.

What is it that seperates those of our species with no will towards progress from those (admittedly hopelessly) obsessed with it?

Can I have your life-time if you're not going to use it???

3:43 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Domain re-theft!
Current mood: happy

Yayyyy!!! I successfully recaptured my ethics consulting company's original domain http://www.pssonline.net from the sleaze-bags that stole it (long story involving german domain-squatters who tried to ransom it back...)!!!

1:37 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Take back our country- Vote, Damn it!!!!

If you still want to have ANY rights left, get out there and VOTE DEMOCRAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Time is running out to save our world...

Also, along these lines, an amusing little blurb from a good friend of mine (whose name is being withheld to protect her from the Neo-Con S.S.):

"And remember, all the Republicans that oppose gay marriage are actually closeted homos (Foley and that Evanglical church leader [Haggard]). Maybe if Referendum I [Colorado proposal to allow domestic partners to recieve many of the same rights as married couples] passes they will feel better about being gay and instead of paying male prostitues and preying on young boys, they will have open and healthy gay relationships and maybe even find love."

1:19 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment