Answering Fan Mail

I received an email about ten minutes ago, snidely informing me that I had failed to deliver a blog post yesterday as I said I would the day before. This email raised some interesting questions for me.

1) Where did you get my email address?

2) You obviously have no life.

Okay, so the second one wasn't a question. It would seem that someone misunderstood what I meant by "tomorrow." What I clearly meant was "I have things to do on my weekends, and will post something else when I jolly well feel like it."

Welcome back to Thinking Out Loudest.

I've been tossing around a lot of smaller issues in my mind, and I'd like to put them here. The problem is, I have a constitutional problem with posting short blog entries, so I've let them slip through. To remedy this, I'm going to make a post conglomerating all of them in neat, bite-sized sections. They'll even have their own titles!

Buying Your Vote

I've heard a lot in the news lately about Super-PACs, and the buying of votes. If you ask a corporate honcho who's in charge of one what they represent to America, they'll tell you that PACs are simply the exercising of a right to have one's voice heard. If you ask a democrat on Reddit what they mean for America, you'll get a ten page manifesto on why we live in a horrible third-world plutocracy because of them, culminating in a Marxist view on how we can redistribute the wealth of our richest citizens to fix all of the world's problems and make it rain kittens.

But what do they actually mean for America? Instead of listening to other people, you should listen to a blogger who has very little that would actually make him credible in the debate.

One of the biggest concerns raised with PACs, or Political Action Committees, is that they distribute the voice of the people based on wealth, resulting in corporations (generally the largest concentrations of wealth you'll find) being disproportionately loud. Except that TV networks have always sold their advertising to the highest bidder, whether that be a corporation, a PAC, or that lunatic down the street you've always suspected was secretly wealthy.

Keep reading, I'll tie this together with a rant at the end.

The Modern Robin Hood is a Fat Nerd in his Parents' Basement

Is that title too harsh? I think that title may be too harsh.

I am not a democrat. Ignoring the fact that to associate myself with the rampant corruption large political parties tend to accumulate would shatter every moral fiber in me, I really strongly disagree with democrats on most economic issues. See, if you ask a democrat about taxes, they'll give you a fifty page manifesto saying that we're living in a third-world plutocracy, and the only way to fix it is to have a sliding tax bracket scale up to 75% for those who make over a million dollars. They will culminate in a Marxist view on how we can redistribute the wealth of our richest citizens to fix all of the world's problems and make it snow baby bunnies that poop civil rights.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I do tend to find myself in communities saturated with democrats. One of the most common complaints about society I hear from them is that "the wealthy need to give back to society." It's a noble enough sentiment--people should care enough about each other to help each other when they need it--but the ways they tend to demand it implemented are no less garish than Robin Hood's methods. As great as your 75% tax brackets may sound to you, it's hugely discouraging to a potential entrepreneur to be told that "If you work hard, one day you'll get to keep a quarter for every dollar you make."

The real problem with taxes isn't that they're not high enough. 

The rent, on the other hand, is most assuredly too damn high.

The problem is that they're not being paid. We've all heard about how little (15% little) Mitt Romney pays in taxes, compared to the nearly 30% he's supposed to be paying, and this isn't an altogether uncommon tune. See, upping the 30% tax bracket to 50, 60 or 75% would do a really good job of hitting those who are honest about their taxes, and would continue to let those who dodge them off easy. If deduction loopholes were closed, on the other hand, the Feds would still get their revenue gains while only punishing those who would pay dishonestly low amounts.

Again, this will be tied together in a moment.

Those Old Magazines in the Lobbies

The third huge issue that tends to get harped on around the internet is political lobbying. The basic idea of lobbying is that a corporation/civil rights group/cult-thinly-disguised-as-a-religion-ie-all-of-them (Actually that last one is a lie, it's illegal for cults [and religions, if you insist that there's a difference] to directly lobby) pays people to go whisper in the ears of congress-men and women, telling them to vote the way said group wants and possibly hinting that next season's campaign funding might depend on it.

If you can't tell, I am not a fan of lobbying. Unfortunately, both sides have good points. If you ask a lobbyist about their job, they'll tell you that they're simply exercising their 1st amendment right to petition, which I think we can all agree is an important right. Of course, if you ask a democrat, they'll give you a two-hundred page manifesto on how lobbying is thinly veiled bribery that's turned our country into a third-world plutocracy.  They will culminate in a Marxist view on how we can redistribute the wealth of our richest citizens to fix all of the world's problems and prevent earthquakes by the clever use of scientifically bred unicorns that leave flowers in their hoof-prints and sing songs about racial equality.

It's a tricky issue to be sure. There's no real way to outlaw the act of lobbying, because it IS protected by the first amendment, and we don't want to set any nasty precedents when it comes to that. As for the thinly-veiled bribery (which IS present), it's hard to catch lobbyists in this sort of behavior and even harder to draw a line as to where it begins.

Which leads me to my final point.

The Guilty Party: We've Sold the Museum to the Gift Shop

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the guilty party for everything I've mentioned above.

That's right, every single person highlighted in green. Except maybe Alaska. We need to cut them a break, it's COLD up there, and they already have to deal with Palin.

That's right, I'm blaming all of us. All of the US, that is. Here's why.

If you go to a shady part of town and buy a car stereo for half what it's worth, you are almost certainly guilty of buying stolen goods. However, you are not the first person the police are going to (or at least,  should) hunt down. You committed a crime, and you pretty much knew you were committing a crime, but this was only made possible by your enabler (the guy who sold you the stereo) committing a far more important crime--the actual theft of the stereo.

Similarly, a Political Action Committee is "buying" votes for their cause with their disproportionate amounts of the money in circulation. However, those votes aren't literally made of the money. Those votes are your neighbors' votes. Those votes are your mothers' votes. Those votes are your votes, the ones you allowed to be swayed by those mudslinging TV ads.

Just as important are the votes that you didn't cast. About half of us can be assed to show up to throw a piece of paper in the box when it's the president we're dealing with electing, but less that 40% of us show up for elections that are only house or senate. What the fuck, America? It's really easy to let corporations get their way when we can't even get a majority to show up, let alone agree on anything.

Same goes for the taxes. Yes, it's really cute when you file so many deductions the Feds end up paying you for your taxes, but it's causing the damn problem. And don't give me any crap about what a small percentage middle-class deductions make up. It doesn't change the fact that you're demanding the rich start being honest when you can't figure out how yourself. You may make up a smaller piece of the pie, but you're still lacing your piece with arsenic after sucking all of the apple out. The rich should quit filing ridiculous deductions, but so should you.

I (well, my family in general) have been guilty of this in the past too. My family has varied in income between the 60-70k bracket and the 0-10k bracket, and it seems like my parents always managed to find enough deductions to avoid actually sending a dime in. Cut it the hell out, or quit complaining when the rich do the exact same thing on their larger scale.

And the crowning jewel on this cake (Wow, that was a tasty AND shiny mixed metaphor) is our wonderful (read, pile of shit) government. I say now without blinking and without the slightest regret that every house representative and senator needs to be voted OUT of our government. The lobbyists buying votes may be bad, but they're not half as bad as the guys selling their votes. And even they're not too bad compared to the morons (that's us) who keep voting them right back in to continue their work.

So yeah, the corporations of America have a share of the blame. The same share I'll give to the politicians, the lobbyists, and every single citizen in our nation. Keep screaming for change, but we all have to push before this bandwagon is going anywhere. So stand up with me, please. Leave the basements and lecture halls, and help me push.

Or, if you like, complain that you don't have a choice in this nation. It's your attitude that's ensuring you never will.

By the way, stalking me to find my email address and pestering about my blog schedule? That's the wrong kind of pushing.

~GK

Irreligion in Politics

Welcome to the newest exciting installment of Thinking Out Loudest, which I only ever remember is the name of this blog when I'm linking someone to the URL.

I am an atheist. Pardon me while I go back to my previous posts to see how many of them I prefaced with those words.

Only one other. Good, it's not trite yet. Anyway.

I'm a member of a lot of communities online, many of which have an atheist or socially liberal leaning, possibly a side-effect of my being an atheist and social liberal. It's all good fun, we poke fun at Rick Santorum (Really, it's not hard), we laugh at the fundies (Fred Phelps is comedy gold), and good times are had by all. If you've been around any internet communities like these, you know what I'm talking about. And sure, you have to account for about 30% of posts there (optimistically) being trolls, but once you learn to ignore them the internet can actually be a wonderful place for intellectual discussion.

Pictured: Not a wonderful place for intellectual discussion.

But there's something that's always bothered me. It's present on Reddit, the comments on your local pot-smoking liberal news blog, and pretty much everwhere else.

An absolute hostility toward everything right-wing.

In truth, I can fully understand that when it comes to most social issues. When it comes to civil rights, Republicans are best ignored, or better yet chased out of the room with pitchforks. Republicans tend to be anti-separation of church and state, anti-gay, anti-abortion, etcetera, etcetera. None of this is news to anyone, and frankly I have no problem with those ideas being ripped on by the atheists I'm usually around. It's really hard to justify an abstinence education when you don't have a religious reason to think sex is evil.

But while protecting marriage by bashing gays seems to be the base of Republican politics nowadays, it's not the only thing they concern themselves with. The Republicans (And the others on the right, not to mention libertarians in the center) tend to take a very liberal view of the economy. (If you take offense to that use of the word "liberal," please look it up and then go take a long walk off a short pier.) And I take that point of view too. (I did find a good blog that combines atheism and a libertarian view of economics. But only one so far.)

Why is it that atheists have come to expect each other to subscribe to the same political views? It's reached a point of worrisome hostility toward any non-conformists on /r/Atheism (That's Reddit's atheism board if you didn't know) and reddit in general.

I'm not here to debate the merits of a liberal economic system. I happen to be a huge supporter of the free market, but I can accept alternate viewpoints. It just saddens me that attempting to oppose a big-government results in one being immediately lumped with the right-wingers who want to "Pray the Gay Away."

I'm not saying you should convert to my political ideology because you're an atheist, and frankly I'm not going to try very hard to convince you of it. But as a community, or perhaps as communities in general, could we stop equating it to social conservatism just because the Republicans espouse its merits? (To a vague extent anyway. The Republicans are very bad at actually implementing small government.) Even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes. And showing the levels of intolerance toward libertarians that I've seen on many boards is a good way to keep many atheists, who may be at a pivotal time coming to terms with their beliefs being shattered, from finding the camaraderie they need.

This is not the most collected post I've done, but it's being written at 2 AM, and half of the wordcount is in parenthetical statements anyway. I'll be back tomorrow with something more interesting.

Or a post about small, furry animals. Either way, something better.

~GK

Miscarriage of Justice - Now with Skittles

1000 points to everyone except Wayne and this blogger.

Welcome back to Thinking Out Loudest, where everything's made up and the pageviews don't matter.


First, on a lighter note than this post is about to be, I'm experimenting with the different fonts offered here to see what looks best in this format. I'll settle on one eventually. It won't be Papyrus, so no need to worry.


Now, on to business.


I have stayed completely out of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. I'm sure you've heard about it. If not, that rock must be pretty comfortable (And I might join you soon,) but here is the gist of it.


My first rant is about something that may seem trivial, but you'll understand its point in a few paragraphs. I scrolled through just over fifty pages of CNN archives just to get back to the beginning of the media hype. Fifty pages, and if you'll note the date on that article I linked to, you'll see that those fifty pages accounted for less than a month. Really? Two articles a day on this CNN? Is there really nothing else in the world to talk about?


One of the articles I found in that barrage of hype (which I'm not going to go back and look for, I think it was around page thirty or so) mentioned that it was whites and Republicans who reported being most tired of hearing about the case. Well, I'm no Republican. I am white, but consider myself to be as near to colorblind in dealings with other people as is possible. And I am sick of reading about this case. But CNN posted a lot of articles with that spin. If you don't support Trayvon Martin and hate George Zimmerman (his shooter, if you didn't read the article) with the white hot intensity of ten thousand supernovas, you are a racist.


It was already a racially charged case. A hispanic/white man shot a "suspicious" black man in a quiet suburb. It's going to receive accusations of racism whether any was present or not--another dumbass wonderful fact of life that makes me want to leave the planet for our useless, overblown, shitheaded wonderful news organizations.


And then the media--and I must emphasize that this was by no means just CNN, it was pretty much ALL of them--decided that what that fire needed was some good, healthy gasoline.


Most of the accusations of racism came from this clip. Well, that's not entirely true. MOST of them came from a previously released NBC-edited clip that conveniently left out the part where the dispatcher specifically asked about Martin's race, making Zimmerman sound like he was accusing the boy of being suspicious because of his race.


NBC apologized and yanked the clips, but it was too late. The American public has already reached a verdict your honor, George Zimmerman is guilty.


Now let me pause to say that I don't claim Zimmerman to be innocent here. I don't know whether he was actually acting in self-defense, and unless you, my beloved reader, are Zimmerman, Zimmerman's lawyer, one of the few witnesses or perhaps the police chief involved, you don't know either. And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop pretending you do.


But having absolved myself of actually taking sides, here are the facts as reported most recently by the local PD and those most closely linked to the case. Trayvon Martin was walking home from a convenience store (yes, he was carrying skittles and iced tea. For Pete's sake, it doesn't freakin' matter.) at around 2 AM. It was dark (tends to get that way at night, so I'm told) and rainy. Martin lived in a gated community that had recently had a rash of robberies, reportedly committed by a young black male. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, saw a young black male fitting the vague description of said robber walking around with seemingly no direction at 2 AM in the rain. I'd call 911 too, frankly. I would not assume this boy to be guilty, but there's no harm in letting someone know that it looks like someone is casing houses.


Zimmerman called 911, and had a lengthy discussion with the dispatcher about the appearance and demeanor of the boy. Apparently, during this time Martin had not yet found his way home. Zimmerman offered to follow the boy (taking his neighborhood watch thing WAY too seriously if you ask me), to which the dispatcher replied that no pursuit would be necessary.


An unknown amount of time later, Trayvon Martin was dead, killed by George Zimmerman's gun.


This is the information the police had when arriving on the scene. I won't say my portrayal completely lacks bias, but it's factual. Now if you ask me, the logical next move is to take George Zimmerman into custody pending an investigation as to what exactly happened. The police did not do this, which I question the logic of, but frankly as Zimmerman has not made a run for Mexico it's largely irrelevant.


Now, what the police discovered afterward was that there were five witnesses between the 911 call and the shooting, all of whom reported that Martin had turned on Zimmerman and attacked him. No one pretended to know why. It's possible that Martin believed he was being pursued by someone with ill intentions, which would seem the most reasonable reason to act as he did. Zimmerman shot him, as is wont to happen when a man with a gun is attacked by another man.


Now, I am going to use the kindest, most gentle words in my ample oratory repertoire.


Where in the fuck did this level of controversy come from? There is nothing to suggest racism in any account except the conveniently abridged or outright fabricated. If I saw a white girl doing the exact same thing Trayvon Martin was doing, I'd call the police. The same I'd do for an asian boy, a hispanic girl, a Martian immigrant or the President of Uzbekistan. He fit a description of a nighttime burglar in the area, and was wandering a neighborhood at 2 AM in the rain.


I am not saying that Martin was guilty of anything. I am saying that, up to the end 911 call, absolutely no one involved in this situation appears to have done anything wrong.


Here is my interpretation of what happened after the 911 call. Trayvon Martin saw the well-intentioned but possibly lacking-in-common-sense Zimmerman following him with a phone to his ear, and panicked. I would too, because I'd assume I was about to be on the wrong end of a mob hit or something. Rather than approach Zimmerman and ask what he was doing, Martin, in his panic, lashed out at him in perceived self-defense. Zimmerman then shot him in perceived self-defense.


I'm not a lawyer, but if that account was anything near accurate then I'm pretty sure no murder or even attempted murder was committed. If you ask me, the entire case was a tragic misunderstanding between two people who had, between them, no more ill intention toward society than you or me.


But the media doesn't see it that way. That story is sad, and tragic, and sells a day's worth of news. No, the media couldn't handle that. The media needs a meal ticket. So they doctor the recording, put a racist spin, call Zimmerman a murderer and ride a dying horse for a month.

So let me make this very clear. I refuse to villainize either Martin or Zimmerman, because the best I have in terms of information is my own speculative scenario, supported based on a good faith in humankind (don't laugh at me.) and some witness accounts. But there is a villain in this story. Several in fact. The cackling, moustache-twirling villains here are CNN, NBC, FOX, and whatever other acronyms you can come up with that represent those we trust to provide us with information on the surrounding world. So desperate for a sensational piece of meat to pay their salaries, they were willing to butcher a tragedy into a gross miscarriage of justice. They turned the story of a surely-remorseful killer in a misunderstanding into a tale of treachery and racism. This trial by media has ensured that the unfortunate circumstances of the Florida night had, at least socially, no real survivors.


-GK

Missing Christmas

I'm an atheist.


And now for the half of you remaining on this page, I'd like to get to where that applies to anything right now.


If you're an atheist, or agnostic, or even just news-literate, you've probably heard about the Reason Rally that met in DC beneath a rather foggy silhouette of the Washington Monument. I was unable to attend, as I was visiting family at the time and frankly did not have the $600-800 I would've needed for plane tickets and hotel accommodations. I'm really hoping to attend next year though.


This brought to mind a lot of things that have been churning within me for a while. I'm originally from a small town in Kansas--population of about 1000 if you include cats and dogs. This town was almost completely homogeneous in terms of race and religion, which led to an odd sort of tolerance toward the one or two minorities. There was a Jewish family there, if I'm not mistaken, and a Mormon family that everyone got along with pretty well. There was a single black family, and one family that had recently immigrated from Polynesia. Other than that, the population was consistently white and either protestant or catholic.


Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a horrible place to grow up, at least not for my early teenage years. The people were that sort of quaint, small-town friendly that said "I may not know everyone in town, but I'll treat everyone like I do." It was pleasant to walk down the streets and have people wave to you while mowing the lawn. Everyone waved to each other while driving. Norman Rockwell would've loved the place.


Then, somewhere around the time I turned 15, things changed. Well, that's probably not true. The truth is that nothing changed except me. I came out of church one day with my head buzzing. I'd started to think about everything the preacher had said, and things weren't adding up. It's the same story so many atheists tell. I gradually put aside faith in a god in favor of a firm belief in reason.


At that point, I had ceased to be a part of my little 1000-person community.


I never quite had the crap beaten out of me for daring to question these peoples' god, so I should feel lucky. I was never arrested on false charges by a corrupt sheriff. I can probably count the death threats I received and still not quite have to take off the second shoe. My coming out wasn't as rough as it could have been.


Nevertheless, the suddenly-less-than-friendly environment provoked me to leave very quickly. By 18 I was practically leaving smoke trails out of town toward college, and frankly the thought of looking back has never occurred to me.


A lot of atheists share similar tales. Unfortunately, many atheists have stories with a much harsher plot. I is not uncommon to hear of atheists who WERE assaulted, and it is with a disturbing frequency that atheists are persecuted by the authorities that are supposed to protect them.


But I'm not here to complain about being persecuted. Don't get me wrong, we ARE. Atheists are one of the few remaining groups it is socially acceptable to hate. Any time someone speaks up about this, they're called a whiner who doesn't understand what real persecution is.


But I'm STILL not here to do that, so I'm not going to draw myself into it.


No, my message here is for atheists, and for anyone who's ever questioned their religion. You don't have to be ashamed of not believing in the christian god, or any other religion for that matter. Atheism in America is rapidly expanding.


Brad Pitt (And Angelina Jolie), George Clooney ("I don't believe in Heaven and Hell," he says. "I don't know if I believe in God. All I know is that as an individual, I won't allow this life -- the only thing I know to exist -- to be wasted."), Natalie Portman, Jodie Foster, Hugh Laurie, Warren Buffet, and many, many others are all open atheists or agnostics.


This is not to say that because they are celebrities (or in Buffet's case, really rich) their opinions on religion are more important. But it made me feel better to realize how many people in the public spotlight are willing to admit their atheism--a topic that, a few years ago, might've ended one's career.

And then Reason Rally, which I missed, showed the kinds of numbers atheists can assemble in. I get conflicting counts--20,000 seems to be the most widely accepted number, but I've heard as high as 30,000. Either way, that is tens of thousands of atheists assembled in one place. It's only 10% of those who assembled with MLK for his March on Washington, but it's still a wonderfully high number for any rally, especially one for atheists.


And around the country, twenty million more are throwing off the shackles of a religious society. That's a number I can only hope will grow.


For one of the most hated minorities in the United States, a long battle remains. But I hope that with so many in the public eye joining us, and with rallies that draw these numbers, we are sending a message to those who still reject us. We are here. We are going nowhere. And we will receive the respect any human should expect.


My favorite quote from Reason Rally was the conclusion of Adam Savage's speech. 


"I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that someone is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought. Giving me the strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think, and they still love me, and I've concluded, after careful consideration, that this person keeping score is me."


PS: Fred Phelps's crew was there. Morons. I hope they all step on a LEGO.


~GK

Well Now

It would seem that there's a new blog on the internet.

And I think there might be a new weed in my front lawn, too. Not exactly an uncommon occurrence, but I'm hoping to make this an exceptionally uncommon blog. A "mission statement" seems cliched, but I think I'll have one anyway. In brief, I started this blog to provide a balanced perspective on the issues of today, yesterday, tomorrow and maybe, if I'm feeling really dangerous, the day AFTER tomorrow.

 "Balanced" doesn't mean  what you think it means, of course. I'm not neutral, and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking that a blog could manage to be neutral. No, I will of course be injecting my own views (which tend to lean libertarian-but-not-psychotic) into everything. What "balanced" means is that I will also feel the responsibility to acknowledge the merits of other ideas when they have their successes. If you're looking for another blog to show how Obama is the devil incarnate or how Reagan walked on water, you are in the wrong place. The right place for you would be the bottom of a well. (Reverse the positions above, and I will gladly reverse my well-sentence. You can go head-first down the well instead of feet-first.)

You will disagree with me at some point. Most of you will disagree with me most of the time. I have odd beliefs sometimes. But unlike some, who would say "I don't care what you believe," I do care what you believe, especially if it's patently ridiculous. Not because I'm actually going to start believing your way, (Although that is possible, I'm not THAT hard to sway.) but because I actually want to convince you. A novel concept, and one that probably has no merit on any large scale, but it seems worth a try.

I'm not going to set a schedule for updates. Bloggers who set schedules only do so in order to break them three days in. (Rather embarrassing if they only update once a week.) But I'll post whenever I get riled up about something in the news, which should keep a healthy supply of everything flowing in here.

So sit down and have a cup of coffee. Not on the house, you have to make it yourself. Welcome to Thinking Out Loudest.

~GK