Posts Tagged ‘conservative’

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Your Circle of Empathy

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

Your Circle of Empathy
by
David Schlecht

One finds countless excuses why conservatives are so different than the rest of America, excuses that range from authoritarian followers, to misplaced morals, to compartmentalized thinking, to downright sociopathy, to just plain ignorance. Many times you will see writers trying to fit all or even most of the symptoms into one shoe box or another. You will also see writers trying to put these in a less than honest light to help buffer some of the raw ugliness of their findings.

I’m going to present another perspective. This isn’t so much separate from all the rest but is rather a unified theory that includes many of the other findings and concepts.

Your Circle of Empathy

Humans have a natural inclination to feel and exhibit empathy. Your degree of empathy and the size of your circle of empathy is primarily dependent on one thing, your feeling of safety. There are other less influential factors, such as mental illness like sociopathy but this essay does not deal with those. But, it has been found that the vast majority of ruthless business owners are clinically psychopathic, finding gratification in stealing candy from babies. This is no exaggeration.

But, alas, that is a whole blog post all in itself.

Kinds of safety affect ones circle of empathy

There are many kinds of safety. Primarily, safety can be defined as freedom from want and fear. Are you afraid for your personal safety in your home and neighborhood? Are you afraid of the Mexicans invading America to steal our jobs? Are you afraid of the mooslems coming for ya? Are you afraid you won’t have enough food to feed the family tonight? Are you afraid you’re losing your home? Are you afraid that lump in your breast or throat is cancer and you don’t have decent insurance? Are you afraid you’ll be shot by a vigilante on your way home some night? Are you afraid Omaba’s commin’ for your guns?

There are countless types of fear and uncertainty that we face every day.

How Fear Reduces Our Empathy

When you have little fear and are adept at dealing with you fear, your capacity for empathy is naturally quite high, your circle of empathy contains the entire universe. You feel for the wildlife losing their habits to human encroachment, you feel for the oceans that are being poisoned and are dying around us. You feel for Mother Earth. You would probably even feel empathy for life on other worlds if they existed.

That is the natural state of human empathy.

Why do you suppose that is? Caring for the earth has allowed our small clans and societies to coexist in the world. If the cave men hadn’t survived by coexisting with the world, you and I would not be here today. Therefore, empathy is in our genes.

Now, let’s take away some of the safety. Let’s consider two small societies, living close together. When the food becomes scarce, the loving neighbors become competitors for the scarce food. They become “the other.”

If your town is hungry, you don’t have time to worry about the health of the rain forest. It’s time to slash and burn so you can feed your family. It doesn’t matter how many plants and animals have to die.

Your circle of empathy has just gotten much smaller. Even your next door neighbors are now looked at like possible competitors. In fact, when food becomes even more scarce, the loving community becomes bitter rivals. Now, it’s each family out for themselves.

Even more scarcity, more fear of hunger, and families start to split apart. Siblings are left to fend for themselves. One parent abandons the family, some times just to go out and die of hunger, leaving the food for the remainders. Sometimes parents will even abandon children when things get bad enough. This is a point where this theory ends. Some will sacrifice for the kids and many will not. The argument is, “They’ll all just die when we’re gone anyway, and we can always have more kids when things get better.”

Still some will stay together and die together and some will not. Seldom will both parents remain. We see this all the time in hunger stricken countries in Africa.

At this gruesome extreme of the safety scale, nothing is safe. The family dog starts to look like possible nutrition to keep the children alive. The size of our circle of empathy at this point includes just ourselves, and maybe our children.  That’s a pretty small circle compared to the first circle encompassing all the universe.

“Let Him Die”

How big is the circle of empathy of a person who yells, “let him die” when asked about medical care for a sick but uninsured neighbor? In this example, it wasn’t just a single person, but the entire Republican debaters and audience. Not a single person disagreed, though many were too embarrassed to admit out loud that they agreed.

Cultivating the Culture of Fear

There is no hiding the fact that the Republican party cultivates fear and capitalizes on the irrational voting behavior of their followers. The psychopathic millionaires and billionaires running the Republican party, you know, the ones without any empathy, reduce the empathy of their followers through fear and then add to that fear by reducing the safety of the American voters by destroying the things that make us safe, like industry regulations, water and food safety, drug safety, Social Security, Medicare, sitting idly by while religious fanatics attack America, taking us off to war on illegal wars.

If you don’t control your fear, the Republican party will control you.

 

 

 

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Posted in General, Politics | 2 Comments »

The Gift of the 99%

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

The Gift of the 99%
Matthew

There is no denying that Fox and the Republican party is dead set against the 99% Movement and #Occupy.  I hear many a Fox viewer repeating the talking point, “The 99% doesn’t represent me.”

I don’t expect the customers of the Conservative propaganda to spend much time thinking, but this comment shows much more than just lack of thinking, but actually shows downright brain washing. If you’re not a billionaire, you’re the 99% and, no matter how much you might hate it, you represent yourself, as do the rest of the 99% of us.

Now just think about this for a minute. Before the 99% woke up, America was discussing billionaire talking points day in and day out. All the news on all the so called Liberal Media were talking the billionaire talking points of austerity and, “Oh my gosh, I think I just wet myself again over the budget.”

Now that the 99% are finding our voice, the so called Liberal Media is now forced to talk about something more than billionaire talking points. We even accidentally hear in the so called Liberal media words like “unfair wealth distribution’, and “wealth redistribution to the top 1%”, and “welfare and tax cuts for the billionaires”.

As much as the Fox viewers might hate the thought, they are waking up from their Fox delusions and realizing that Fox and the Republican party are the mouthpiece for the billionaires. There’s no wonder they hate the 99%. No wonder they hate their viewers, who are waking up. No wonder that they hate having to talk about the unfair distribution of wealth in America.

Thank you #Occupy and the 99%. We are beginning to talk about the things that really matter to America because of you.

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Posted in Politics | 6 Comments »

Looking for a Leader

Friday, October 28th, 2011

Looking for a Leader
Dave Speck

There’s an old joke, “Republicans want a leader, Democrats want a meeting.”

Jokes are seldom funny unless there’s a grain of truth to them.

Stop. Before you read any further, answer the question, do you think the joke is true about your political party?

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s get to the point.

Go find yourself a copy of the US constitution and find who is supposed to be the leader of the people. It’s a short and easy read. The president? Congress? But if you don’t want to go check it out for yourself, I’ll give you a clue. There isn’t one!

The framers of our constitution and the forefathers of our country didn’t want there to be leaders. It is We the People who is supposed to lead the government.

And, what’s the best way to lead the government? Through meetings, negotiations, and compromise.

Got that? The Republicans make lousy American politicians because they try to be leaders. Take George W. Bush as an example. He acted like a leader. A lousy leader with all the wrong and stupid ideas but the Republicans loved him. Why would Americans love a leader who did the damage that Bush did to America? Because they have the mistaken belief that they need a leader. That’s what makes it so easy for a strong leader with destructive ideas to become the leader of the Republicans.

America doesn’t elect leaders. If you’re electing a leader, you’re doing the thing that our founding fathers didn’t want you to do. Don’t be a follower. Be a leader and tell your REPRESENTATIVES what to do.

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Posted in Politics, U. S. Constitution | Comments Off

The Epidemic of Conservative Violence

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

The Epidemic of Conservative Violence
Dave Speck

How much of the violence and terrorism in the US is attributed to Muslims and how much is Christians? You would probably be surprised to know that Muslim attacks only accounted for a small percentage of the attacks while the largest group of terrorists attacks on America came from Christians. Check out the FBI website for specifics.

The awful and senseless mass murder in Norway was followed just now by a fire bomb at a family planning center McKinney, Texas.

I’ve heard it over and over how it’s just the crazies and not every conservative. Well, I’m seriously doubting that anymore. I question if Conservatism isn’t really a sickness. It’s the closest thing you can be to suffering without the capacity of empathy without actually being clinically psychopathic.

How can anyone who cares about those around them agree with cutting or destroying Social Security and Medicare and other programs that are the difference between life and death for millions of Americans? Only someone without empathy could do this in order to save the billionaires from paying their fair share of taxes. It’s a sickness, plain and simple.

The line between being a voting psychopath and a clinical psychopath is so very thin.

I would like to see a serious study into this disease we call the Republican party and their Tea Baggers. It doesn’t just border on violence and hatred, it’s steeped in it.

The sad part is that many otherwise healthy people get suckered into voting for this party of sickies not knowing or refusing to believe just how bad it really is.

 

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Another Example of Right Wing Crazy

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Another Example of Right Wing Crazy
Dave Speck

Anders Behring Breivik was arrested for the murder and destruction he brought upon the innocent people of Norway. The crimes are abominable and he deserves any justice he received. But the bigger picture isn’t so much who or where but what.

This fanatic was spewing the same hate-filled nonsensical talking points that America’s right-wing crazies in the Republican party chant. It’s becoming a thinner and thinner line between the crazies who perpetrate the crimes and those in American politics who stoke up the fear and hatred.

Yes, here in America we’ve had our Timothy McVeigh and an assortment of other conservative right-wing fanatics. We’ve got preachers burning Korans, lunatics shooting up liberal organizations, right-wing nuts killing doctors, The list goes on and on.

Americans need to ask where all this hatred is coming from.

I can tell you where it’s coming from. It comes from our right-wing politicians. We all know that to be a fact. The right is full of the most vile and hate filled nuts that you can find anywhere.

Just think for a moment that a politician puts bulls-eyes on a map of Republican home states and used the language of reloading. If this was a Democrat, nobody would vote for him. He wouldn’t have a chance of getting elected.

Conversely, Republican voters vote for these monsters all the time. The party is sick with them.

This, my fellow Americans, is where all the sickness is coming from. You’re voting for it and making it mainstream. Now, I can hear it already, about how the Democrats do it too. But that’s just not true. Any investigation shows that it’s a right-wing disease and only the Republican can quit voting for the hatred.

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Posted in Politics, Religion | Comments Off

Balanced Budget Amendment

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Balanced Budget Amendment
Dave Speck

We’ve been hearing a lot of commotion lately by the Republicans about how we need a balanced budget.

At first blush, this might sound like a great idea. After all, don’t you and I have to balance our checkbook at the end of each month?

No, actually, we don’t. We can go out and borrow any time we feel like it.  In fact, if our federal government becomes hamstrung with a limitation like this, it would be the best thing for the billionaires and the worst thing for you and me. That’s why the Tea Baggers are all over this. Their billionaire leaders (behind the scenes) are telling them how important it is that the government can’t borrow money.

But, let’s look at what would have happened if our founding fathers were as stupid as a Tea Bagger. Without being able to spend more money than they had, we would never have been able to protect ourselves from attack as a young nation. In fact, we wouldn’t even be able to protect ourselves from Hitler during the second world war if we hadn’t been able to borrow money.

Imagine what we would have done during the Republican Great Depression of the 1930s. Without being able to borrow money to get our people back to work, this great country of the USA would have gone broke. We wouldn’t have been able to start up all the jobs programs that saved us from republican stupidity.

Here we are, a century later and the Republicans are trying to destroy our country again. When will America ever learn not to listen to the Republicans?

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Posted in Finance, Politics | Comments Off

Poverty or Prosperity

Monday, March 28th, 2011

Poverty or Prosperity
by
David Schlecht

Imagine for a moment, or maybe you don’t even need to imagine, that your employer decided that even though the business was doing good, it was time to cut your wages and improve profits. No better time to take advantage of the times than right now, when people are worried about their jobs.

So your wages have been cut and you can no longer afford to enjoy the lifestyle you’ve grown accustomed to. What do you do?

If you’re a typical American, you’ll look for better work. No one needs to put up with unethical employers. That’s right, you look to bring in more money. When would anyone say, “oh darned, I better sell my house and start living out of a cardboard box?”

No one would, except the mentally challenged.

So, when our country is dealing with insufficient funds, do we just say, “okay, it’s time to move into that third-world-country?” No! Only the mentally challenged would consider that as the first option.

So, why do we Americans ever listen to the Republican party saying that we have to start expecting less? We’ve been doing with less for over 30 years now and it’s time we started demanding more.

What happens to America if the fools get away with convincing us that we need to expect less from our country? America becomes less of a country. It’s the same thing that happens if you choose the cardboard home rather than a better job.

We can’t afford to listen to the Republican failed misconceptions any longer. If we want America to remain strong, if we want to remain a first-world country, we have to act today and say we don’t want the cardboard box.

Will we ever get back to prosperity if we keep expecting less?

Do you want to live in the best country in the world or the cheapest?

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Posted in Finance, Politics | 4 Comments »

Does Supply Drive an Economy or Does Demand?

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

Does Supply Drive an Economy or Does Demand?
by
David Schlecht

We’ve discussed supply side economics many times on this blog and there are countless websites that compare the two economic models, Keynes vs Friedman. But this time I’m going to add a bit of history to the discussion. After all, if we can’t learn from our mistakes, we’re doomed to repeat them, and repeating them we are.

Supply Side Economics

Probably the best way to describe Supply Side Economics is Voodoo economics. This is the idea that if you give money to the rich, they will hire people and pay a good wage and the heavens will open and the angles will sing and leprechauns will dance. It’s also referred to as trickle-down economics.

In other words, people will run out and buy just because the stores are full.

Keynesian Economics

This is the old model of economics where demand drives the economy. In other words, when people have money they will buy.

Now this is obviously just broad strokes and there is a whole lot more involved in each of these models of economics. You may find yourself interested enough to learn economics and get into the nuts and bolts of these, but this is as technical as I plan to get.

Alright, so here’s the little bit of history I promised you. Neither of these perspectives of economics is new. Since the beginning of economic times, the concept of supply and demand has been the fundamental core of the study of economics.

However, back in the early days of America, the concept of unfettered free trade was the approach the government took and this freed up the companies to be as greedy and they could. This allowed America to become quite wealthy, or at least our wealthy became wealthy.

Of all the leading countries, we were becoming the most wealthy. This seemed to convince many people that if a little free is good, oh my gosh, totally free trade must be the be-all end-all of wealthy. So, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, America decided to pull all the plugs and let the rich get as rich as they wanted.

So by the 1920s we saw the roaring 20s when the wealthy were insane with their greed and wealth. At lease back then, they were smart enough to protect our industries through tariffs.

Then, the big crash.

Following the Great Depression, many economist admitted that the whole idea of completely unregulated greed was bad for America. At this time, Keynes came back to the idea that maybe really, demand drives the economy. This wasn’t the first time economics thought of this, but it was back in vogue.

Then, about 50 years ago, Friedman brought back the greed and supply side economics.

So, fast-forward to today and we’re all the rage back into supply-side economics and unfettered free trade. Of course, we’re also seeing the return of the economics of the Great Depression.

When will we learn from history? When we start exposing the idiots who keep pushing failed economic policies on us. When we eject the same people who got us in the First Republican Great Depression. The Republicans.

Unfettered Free Trade doesn’t work. All it does is impoverish a nation and make a handful of greedy people insanely rich.

Free trade doesn’t work.

Supply Side Economics don’t work. It’s a myth.

Voodoo Economics always brings disaster. Read your history.

 

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Posted in Finance, Politics | 2 Comments »

Why is the Media Downplaying Madison?

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

Why is the Media Downplaying Madison?
by
Captain Jack

Why is the billion dollar corporate media downplaying the 100,000 person rally going on in Wisconsin? You would think they have a personal interest in keeping the middle class uninvolved. Maybe they’re afraid we’ll start demanding that they pay their fair share.

If this was a rally of Tea Baggers, there wouldn’t be any room in their programming to cover Japan but since it’s only the middle class…

Here is what it looks like from CNN’s coverage:

Why is CNN trying to downplay the WI rally?

Wisconsin Rally according to CNN

And this is what it actually looked like:

What the rally really looks like

The actual size of the march on Madison

Amazing!

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Posted in Finance, Politics | 3 Comments »

The Demise of the Republican Party

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

The Demise of the Republican Party
by
David Schlecht

A few years back I blogged about the dismal state of the Republican party and asked if Bush was driving the final nail in the conservative coffin.

Republicans Aren’t Conservatives

Today’s Republican party hardly represents the Conservative American. As we’ve seen, the Republican party platform has completely flipped on its head. This is from the 1956 Republican platform:

  • We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.
  • We favor a comprehensive study of the effect upon wildlife of the drainage of our wetlands.
  • We favor recognition, by the States, of wild-life and recreation management and conservation as a beneficial use of water.
  • We subscribe to the general objectives of groups seeking to guard the beauty of our land and to promote clean, attractive surroundings throughout America.
  • We recognize the need for maintaining isolated wilderness areas to provide opportunity for future generations to experience some of the wilderness living through which the traditional American spirit of hardihood was developed.
  • We will vigorously promote, as we have in the past, a non-political career service under the merit system which will attract and retain able servants of the people. Many gains in this field, notably pay increases and a host of new benefits, have been achieved in their behalf in less than four years.
  • We condemn illegal lobbying for any cause and improper use of money in political activities, including the use of funds collected by compulsion for political purposes contrary to the personal desires of the individual.

The Republican party claims to be “fiscally conservative” and even says they’re “fiscally responsible” yet the Republicans are responsible for 9 trillion dollars of our 13 trillion dollar national debt. So why isn’t this screamed from every news outlet? It’s disinformation in action.

I personally know many conservatives who have disowned the Republican party because the Republican party isn’t conservative or isn’t even the Republican party any more. Looking at the platform, above, one can see that the Republican party is not an American party anymore, but the anti-American party. Everything that this country needs, and needed back in 1956 are things the Republican party is against today.

Why Anyone Believes the Republican Party

But, the Republican party survives. You should be asking why. Why does anyone still endorse the Republican party? The answer is most unpleasant.

Back in the 1920s our country crumbled under the Republican Great Depression. There is no way to deny that the crash was caused by the Republican policies. Just read a history book. We had the same financial systems in place then that we had when Bush’s latest Republican Great Recession almost became the second Republican Great Depression. The only reason this one didn’t turn into a full-blown depression is that Americans threw out the Republicans in 2008.

Obama was able to implement a few of the economy-saving programs similar to what the Democrats implemented in the 1930s to get us out of the Great Depression, but this time the Republicans used the filibuster to block a lot of the necessary changes. What this means is that this recession is not going away. In fact, we may go headlong into the depression anyway since the Republicans got back in power in 2010.

But, why is the Republican party still supported by 20% of America?

Polluting our Information

One of the most unpatriotic things that political zealots do is pollute our information. Even back in the days when the Republicans were thrown out of office and the Democratic party was given the task of cleaning up after the Republican train crash, the Republicans were constantly saying the things the Democrats were doing were destroying America.

After many decades of Democratic rule after the Great Depression and many years of the country’s healthiest economy, the Republicans were still lying and saying the economy improved in spite of the Democratic policies, not because of them.

In those days, no one believed the Republican lies. The Republicans were not voted back into power for decades. But, the lies continued and now, in today’s history books you can find the Republican lies no one believed back in the 30s. Many history books repeat the lies that it wasn’t the Democratic policies that got us out of the Republican Great Depression but it was the war. Even a grade schooler should be able to see through those lies.

No one believed back then and no one should believe it today. But, the lies are marketed so well that many people are led into believing them, especially our school children.

We Need to Stop the Lies!

How could we have possibly gotten back into a Republican Great Depression in less than a century? How could we have let the Republicans institute the same failed policies that got us into the first depression? Well, we forgot the lesson of the first depression because people are constantly trying to market the lies to us.

America needs to respect the value of our information. We need to shut down lying news organizations that lie. We need to shut down conservative think tanks that lie. We need to respond with screaming headlines when we catch people biasing our information. We need to shut down the right-wing think thanks who are out there posting lies on the blogs and editing reference sites like Wikipedia. It’s a crime against society and we Americana need to put a stop to it.

When will we learn from our mistakes? Not until we can rely on our news and our history, and that means exposing and discrediting those intent on marketing the failed policies to us.

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Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »

Impeach Justice Clarance Thomas

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Impeach Justice Clarance Thomas
by
David Schlecht

If you’re waiting for President Obama or our congress or any other part of our government to clean up the abomination we call the Supreme Court, you’re uninformed. The government only does things when they get enough pressure to do so. The only time they will impeach tax felons or judicial hacks is when we the people get fed up and start demanding change.

About twenty-five percent of America are brain dead zombies believing Fox and Beck and the rest of those destroying America. Another twenty-five percent know something is wrong with the other side and try to serve as a counter balance to big businesses strangling our government. That’s about an even draw. So whenever our representatives hear anything from us Americans, all they hear is that we can’t make up our minds. According to them, America is split 50/50 on everything.

That’s because half of this country is too lazy to get involved. They’re waiting for someone else to get involved so they don’t have to. Am I talking about you?

Let’s talk about just how corrupt the Supreme Court of the US is.

We’ll start with the tax cheat, Clarance Thomas. Just the fact that his wife makes almost a million dollars a year (bribe money?) working for a think tank funded by multinational corporations and billionaires stinks of bias. Just this fact alone should make any judge resign. There’s no way you can be impartial when you’re owned. Just the fact that you pretend that you’re not biased by this shows your inability to decide anything that is important to our country.

It seems painfully obvious that anyone who is supposed to be able to adjudicate fairly should be completely free from biased involvements. But this case is exactly that. Even Congress has to ask him to recuse himself.

Clarance Thomas was appointed to the court by George H. W. Bush and he later appointed the son, George W. Bush as president in Bush v Gore. The decision was already made before the case was even heard by the justices and Thomas’ wife was soliciting resumes for Bush’s cabinet the night before the case.

But our representatives will only do something about these blatant crooks in our justice system when everyone gets out and starts demanding it. Get out and be heard. Call your representatives and the white house and demand this disease be removed from our Supreme Court.

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Posted in Politics | 6 Comments »

Republicans Redefine Rape

Monday, February 7th, 2011

As gross and disgusting as this attempt is, it should be screamed from the rooftops until everyone knows just how morally bankrupt the Republican party is.

Last week the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to restrict the definition of rape, and almost every single Republican voted for it.

Now, the definition of rape depends on how hard the victim fought. It’s not enough that a woman gets drugged and gang raped and mutilated and becomes pregnant. No, the Republicans want to do one better and say it’s not a rape since she didn’t fight back.

Handicapped women who can’t reasonably fight back are no longer raped. I guess the Republicans will call that just a little fling and if she gets pregnant, in the immortal words of Nevada’s Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, she gets to make “lemonade”.

So, your little girl gets abducted and is too frightened to fight back and the Republicans are saying, oh, that’s not really rape.

How can any woman with a fifth grade education or better ever even consider voting for these morally vacant Republicans?

What’s next, Republicans? Stoning the little girls for not fighting back hard enough?

I read post after post encouraging the Republican voter to take back their party. I can’t really believe they didn’t let their party get this far out of touch with reality by accident.

Hate America? Hate women? Vote Republican!

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Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »

Punishment for WikiLeaks

Saturday, December 11th, 2010

Punishment for WikiLeaks
by
David Schlecht

What happens in China when someone says something the government doesn’t like? What happens in China when a news outlet publishes something the government doesn’t like? They get sent to prison (or worse). What happens in America when WikiLeaks publishes something the government doesn’t like? Should we do what China does? If you’re a conservative, chances are you will say yes, we need to be as bad as China. (If you’re a conservative and you disagree, please let me know. Leave a comment.)

What do you think our forefathers would have said? I’ll tell you. They made it part of the US Constitution. The very first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …

That seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Our founding fathers knew how important it is to have a press that is free to expose wrongdoing and downright stupidity and ineptness in our government.

America needs WikiLeaks. Anyone who thinks they should be punished has no clue what our founding fathers intended when they created this country. They are against what America stands for.

Yes, the courts have, in my opinion, incorrectly and illegally weakened this amendment without changing the constitution. If they have their way, they will continue to weaken it further and further until we have no freedom of the press left. Without freedom of the press like WikiLeaks, our freedom is doomed. Stand up for freedom, stand up for America, stand up for freedom of the press, and stand up for WikiLeaks.

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Posted in Politics | 8 Comments »

List of facilities vital to US security

Monday, December 6th, 2010

List of facilities vital to US security
by
David Schlecht

WikiLeaks reports on a new list of facilities vital to US security. Guess where some of these facilities are. China!

You know? China? The only super power to threaten nuclear strike against America in the past 10 years.

Why would our representatives allow us to rely on a threatening adversary? Because some people who donate to (aka: control) our government can make money off it. And what is the “it” I refer to? It is “free markets” and “free trade” that have created this mess. American can’t even build a cruise missile without chips from China.

We have allowed our jobs to be shipped over seas and now don’t build anything we need here anymore.

Stop the free trade disaster.

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Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »

WikiLeaks and the Death of America’s News

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

WikiLeaks and the Death of America’s News
by
David Schlecht

What does the rise of the WikiLeaks tell us about America’s news industry?  It shows that our news is Dead on Arrival.

Industries and companies grow by filling a niche or a vacuum. The vacuum that WikiLeaks has grown to fill is what used to be our news. Many of our readers are too young to remember the days of Watergate, but it was the news industry that exposed it. Believe it or not, America’s news industry used to expose wrongdoing, especially in our government. Our founding fathers were so concerned about protecting the news that they subsidized it through special postal rates and subsidies to the print/paper industry.

Today, none of the news media will expose wrongdoing by the government or major corporations. Even our public news such as PBS and NPR, thanks to Conservative corruption, are reliant on donations (bribes) by government and big businesses so that even  they refuse to investigate. So, along comes WikiLeaks to fill the vacuum.

Why would more than a couple hundred misguided fools listen to or believe the right wing propaganda machine which is so reliably wrong? Why would people actually turn to comedians for their political news? It’s because we no longer have a news media; it’s all just multinational and billion dollar corporations spinning whatever best benefits them.

Without real news, America is no longer informed and parties like the Tea Baggers spring up to do the bidding of the billionaires. Why doesn’t the news industry report on that? You know why.

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Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »

TSA Whole Body Scanners

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

TSA Whole Body Scanners
by
David Schlecht

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the US constitution, here is the preamble, the single sentence which sets the purpose and tone of the entire document:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice [for wellbeing of the people], insure domestic Tranquility [for wellbeing of the people], provide for the common defence [wellbeing of we the people], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty [wellbeing] to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Note that the comments are mine. From this it is obvious what the founding fathers considered the purpose of government: it is a system by which we can and must provide for the wellbeing (welfare) of we the people. Any politician who says Welfare or Social Security are unconstitutional or Socialism are either sick in the head or are just outright liars. Hmm, what political party has created an entire industry exposing their lies?

What does the constitution say about the naked body scanners or punitive, invasive and insulting grope searches at the airports? Amendment 4:

Amendment 4 – Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Well, that seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? Random and required searches are unconstitutional.

It begs a question: Why are the American people of today so quick to give up the freedoms our forefathers fought and died for? Giving them up will require more people fighting and dying to get them back in the future if that will even be possible. We aren’t even demanding a vote to change the constitution. We’re just silently throwing the whole thing away.

It’s time we all got upset enough to draw a line in the sand and say, “this far and no further!”

Reading this morning’s NY Times (you know, that bastion of LIBERAL MEDIA) I see that objecting to the nude image scanners creates a target for terrorists. Are they really that stupid? Why didn’t the NY Times question the sanity of that comment from the TSA?

So, will America draw the line in the sand or just go quietly into the night? The point of no return is upon us. Never before in America’s history has the population been so uninvolved in preventing the destruction of our country, our rights, our constitution.

What legacy are we leaving for our children and grand children?

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For Want of a Nail

Friday, August 20th, 2010

For Want of a Nail
by
David Schlecht

For want of a nail the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe the horse was lost
For want of a horse the rider was lost
For want of a rider the  battle was lost
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost
All for the want of a nail.

Have you been to the DMV lately? How long did you spend there? Do you realize that for little more than a $1.25 annually in taxes you could have more offices and shorter waits? But, no, the conservatives have convinced us that we want lower and lower taxes.

So where does this mad race to the bottom end? When we have the cheapest government money can buy? Hello Somalia.

Are we getting to be such cheapskates that we don’t want to pay the price of a nail and will let the kingdom fall? We will gripe and complain about having to spend hours in line at the DMV but will complain even louder about having to pay an additional $1.25 to build more offices.

When will America wake up and realize the conservative ways are not in America’s best interests? Hacking away at our social safety net while giving the billionaires a free ride doesn’t help anyone but the rich. Stripping  our government oversight agencies are giving the billionaire foreign corporations a free ride while we Americans pay for their pollution and illnesses. We feel worse and worse about ourselves as we let the poor, elderly, and sick suffer.

But, still we let the media (representing the rich) get us riled up about considerably less important things like where they’re building a mosque or whether there’s an illegal alien having a baby while hundreds of millions of our jobs are shipped over seas. As long as we’re distracted the billionaires get richer and we get poorer.

When will it end? Will we let the kingdom fall for the want of a nail or will we wake up from this media-induced coma  and start refusing the failed conservative policies?

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What is Wrong With Nevada?

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

What is Wrong With Nevada?
by
David Schlecht

Nevada has been voting for republican governors for over a decade and during that decade Nevada has lost ground in so many ways it’s hard to keep count. But, let’s give it a try.

Nevada has become one of the lowest paid states in the union. Nevada has become one of the lowest in union membership. Nevada has become one of the least educated with the country’s worst schools and the highest dropout rates. Nevada has become the country’s leader in home foreclosures. Nevada has become the most unemployed and the longest unemployed. There are more things Nevada is leading on but this list should be long enough for anyone to realize we’re in trouble here in Nevada.

Nevada was not in this bad condition before the last 10 years of republican governors. All the ills defined above can be directly attributed to republican policies. The rest of the country has suffered from the past 30 years of failed conservative policies like free trade (brought to us in part by a democratic president, Clinton), smaller government, union busting, attacks on the minimum wage and other social safety nets like welfare and unemployment, higher taxes on the middle class and lower taxes on the rich. Nevada has been a proving ground for conservative policies for the past 10 years and look what has happened to Nevada.

You can be sure you’ll hear the same foolish argument by the conservatives about how it would all have worked perfectly if we had just pushed through these failed policies harder and faster. But, nobody is really believing this stuff anymore.

So why, then, is Nevada still voting for republican Governors? Isn’t it time we all came to our senses and said republican policies don’t work and ejected the republicans causing this disaster?

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Stop The Greed

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Stop The Greed

I got a plea from Senator John Cornyn today. Here’s what he has to say:

If the Democrats have their way, very soon our taxes will be going up.

They have been very busy in Washington spending your money on their radical liberal agenda. They have been financing these bloated government takeovers and spending programs by borrowing money from your children. We now have a more than $13 trillion national debt which is growing by an average of $6.534 billion per day. The American people have become outraged at this reckless and irresponsible path, and rather than dealing with their outrageous spending habits, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are going to try to pay for their agenda by taxing you.

In 2001 and 2003, Republicans passed into law the largest tax cut in American history, and lowered taxes for all Americans. But that tax relief is set to expire very soon, and the Democrats have no intention extending them. They want to raise your taxes in the middle of the biggest economic downturn in generations. And this isn’t just any tax hike, we are talking about a $3 trillion tax hike.

If you are single and make $30,000 a year, expect to see your taxes rise by $426. If you make $50,000, you will owe an additional $602. The expiration of this tax relief will mean less hiring by small business, a 50% cut in the child tax credit, a return of the marriage penalty and a 164% hike in the tax on dividends. What do you think this will mean for our economic recovery?

Don’t let them get away with it. Go to [some website], and sign our petition to tell the Democrats not to raise our taxes. Tell Congress you want them to extend the tax cuts before they expire at the end of this year.

Sincerely,

Senator John Cornyn
Chairman, NRSC

Honestly, John, don’t you feel any shame? Talk about greedy and shelfish. It’s about time you millionaires and billionaires started paying your fair share again. The American people WILL NOT ask Congress to extend your selfish tax cuts. America is paying the lowest taxes we have paid in centuries and our government is going broke while you millionaires and billionaires bring home more and more money. The disparity between the ultra rich and the rest of America is the worst it has been, ever! And, you want it to continue. You want more tax breaks for the rich while the country and the middle class disappear.

Honestly, John, isn’t it time you started paying your fair share? Isn’t it time we brought this country back to the prosperity we had before the conservatives like you started telling us that greed was good and that some day, even we may be millionaires if we just gave more money to the richest in America.

I’m sick of the lies and I’m sick of the greed and I’m sick of the rich taking advantage of us. Pay your taxes John and quit asking me to help you with your selfish quest to avoid paying your fair share. The rich are not paying their share and you want me to help continue the mistake? What do you take me and the rest of Americans for? Fools? No more!

Honestly, John. Should you really be in Congress? You don’t represent America. You should be ashamed!

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When Will They Ever Admit?

Monday, August 9th, 2010

When Will They Ever Admit?
by
Captain Jack

To anyone not totally mesmerized by the right-wing media, it is obvious that the conservative policies of smaller government (no regulations), welfare for the rich, and free trade are destroying America. How could anyone really argue otherwise?

The conservatives were arguing non-stop about how global warming was a myth made up by the liberal commie hippies.

Now, here we are at a point where it is plain as day the folly of the conservative policies, yet they continue to preach the failed policies and their fooled followers just continue to follow along, unthinking.

When will the liars or the uneducated conservative followers ever admit they are wrong? When? Exactly what will it take before they admit they’re wrong?

If my conservative friends are any example there is no fact that will ever convince them that they are wrong. They even admit that. So why do we continue to bother to try to help them understand the facts? It’s time we left them for brain dead and moved on with the solutions to the past 30 years of failed conservative policies. They will never be able to help.

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