Post-election madness

Let's see, the election. Anyone here win money on how disappointed I am in the American electorate and the California electorate? Let's start at the top, shall we?
Barack Obama…. Give me a break, really. The electorate, by a margin of 6 million sheeple, voted for a man who has never accomplished a single thing, good or bad, in federal government aside from being the only black senator. Since when was this a full qualification to be president? The only qualification that Obama met to be president was that he is, supposedly, an American Citizen. I say supposedly because there is currently a lawsuit in Baltimore by a private investigator who, working with a retired Israeli intelligence officer, uncovered evidence that Mr. Obama's birth certificate that he presented as proof of his citizenship was actually the photo-shopped copy of his sister. Go figure that our "Messiah" is starting off with the lies before he even ran for office.

Really, what has his majesty accomplished in his tenor as Senator, or member of the Illinois legislature? Nothing of any significant merit, that's what, and yet, he was chosen over a man who has more integrity than an army of Data's. He has no military experience, yet he's going to be our Commander-in-Chief during a war. He has to history of being involved in the creation of any major legislation in either of his legislative positions aside from voting "present" about 90 percent of the time, and he's going to be our nation's chief legislator. He has no experience in a courtroom, and yet he is going to have control over the inevitable Supreme Court nominations in the next four years. He has absolutely no international experience, never traveled outside our borders as a representative of the US, and yet he is going to be our nations chief ambassador. He has no experience in domestic affairs, and yet he is going to be our nations chief policeman. Shall I go on? No? Okay then.

I am not surprised, though. He is one of the most eloquent, influential speakers I have ever heard. Yet his manner and method of speaking is eerily familiar to me. Where have I heard his mannerisms before, the slow start, the building up of emotion and getting the crowd to sit on the edge of their seats, with baited breath, waiting for the next word? Oh, yes, Nuremberg, 1936. That's where, and a little known dictator named Hitler. Very little substance and a lot of emotion, that's what Obama spouts. Want some examples of what you people are in for in the next few years due to the election? Here ya go!

1. Creation of a national energy commission. This commission will have the full presidential authority to oversee America's energy policy, on both a national level and a more local, individual level. It will have the authority to levy fines, force changes to local ordinances, and require new technologies to protect the environment. This means, if the commission feels you, as an individual, are using too much power at home, or too much gas driving, they will have the authority to fine you, forcibly change your lifestyle, or imprison you until you meet their environmentalist concepts. Sound hunky dory? Well, that is just one step of eroding the personal liberty you hold so dear. This means the implementation of the fuel monitoring concept tossed around here in California where cars were going to be required to have computers built into them which monitored how much you drove, and taxed you accordingly at the end of each month. Worst case scenario? Restricted travel, travel documentation, gas rationing, energy rationing, etc, etc, etc, all to help the little green plant friends of Al Gore, the likely commissioner in chief. This sounds like the old Soviet Union to me. But you go ahead and tell yourself that you are saving the environment.
2. The American Gestapo. That's right, a secret police. Obama revealed himself to be a little too Marxist at Colorado Springs in June. He said he wants a civilian "national security organization" that is responsible only to the president, has absolute authority over domestic security, and is as powerful, well trained and as funded as the military. Now the US military has an annual budget of around $500 billion dollars, and has approximately 2 million persons in uniform. This means a police force, responsible only to the president, with a $500 billion dollar budget, is 2 million people strong, and exists for the simple purpose of enforcing the president's policies. What policies are these? Well, he doesn't answer those questions. Could he mean fight terrorism, both international and domestic? Could he mean rolling the intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement agencies together? Does he mean a force that would fight domestic dissent? We don't know. Just like Hitler never really told the German people what the purpose of the SD and SS were, Obama won't explain his remarks, simply saying that he is quoted out of context here. Seems pretty clear to me. A private military force, with no congressional oversight, enforcing the policy of the Oval Office? Great. We've never had a secret police in America, even when we were British subjects. Even at its worst, the FBI under Hoover simply monitored dissenters, but never had the authority to do anything to them. But Obama wants to change all that. Even Lincoln simply arrested people and threw them in jail after suspending habeas corpus, but he never had a Gestapo to do his dirty work.
3. Surrender in Iraq. Call it what you want, but Obama has promised to remove American military forces from Iraq within 16 months after he gets elected. Call it a withdrawal, a restructuring, transfer of power, it is one thing, and one thing alone, a surrender to enemy forces before full victory is achieved. This is something we can't really afford. We've already proven that if you make a conflict with the US too bloody, like Vietnam, the American people just can't stomach it. And no war in history has been as closely followed as Iraq. We could practically watch the actual battles going on in real time while eating popcorn and drinking coke, second guessing each squad leader like it was one giant game of Call of Duty and had no real meaning, we just change the channel when it gets ugly. But ask the poor grunt on the ground in the "sandbox" and see what they say. "Leave us here, let us finish our job, and don't make this conflict we've fought for be for nothing." Yet that is exactly what will happen under Obama's watch. Oh well, just don't come bitching to those of us who supported our efforts there when we have to go back in and clean the rats out, or when your kids have to go back in there and bleed for land we already took. In fact, just shut the hell up when that happens, and it will. We screwed the pooch there in 1992, and we had to go back in 2003, maybe in 13 years we'll be back again to kick Iran out, and they'll have nukes by then. Which leads me to…
4. A nuclear Iran. With our scrotum-less international policies which Mr. Obama wants to follow, Iran will develop nuclear arms just like North Korea did a few years ago. But unlike North Korea, there are plenty of targets that Iran would love to fling a nuke at, and they don't mind, i.e. the leadership, getting blasted in return. The Iranian government is responsible for some of the worst war crimes in the last fifty years, yet we don't call them to task on it, they have supported Hamas and Hezbollah, the Chechens, and terror attacks in China, they've funded attacks on American embassies, military complexes in Saudi Arabia, suicide bombings in Israel, and across Europe. Their leadership denies the Holocaust happened, and have made it their government policy to "wipe Israel from the map, and exterminate the Zionists." Sounds like a great bunch of guys. These are the brainiacs who called the Soviet Union the Lesser Satan, and reserved the title Great Satan for you and me. They don't care about toppling our government or instituting Islamic law here, they just want to KILL and kill lots of people, to bring about their apocalypse, which in turn will bring the Mahdi to save and unify all Muslims and conquer all non-Muslims, which can only happen when Islam faces extinction, or so says the Koran. Mr. Obama wants to meet with these guys with no pre-conditions, no stipulations, and no expectations. So to him, the idea of permanently preventing them from getting nukes is simply one of many options. Yet Israel has already said they will nuke Iran until they can be seen glowing from the moon on a clear night if they think Iran is about to develop nukes, but Mr. Obama doesn't want to offend the madmen in Tehran. Geez.
5. An increasingly hostile Russia. That's right; the bad old days of the Cold War are almost back among us. Personally, I'm rather glad about this one. It was an extremely powerful Soviet Union, and an equally powerful United States, which polarized the world between the two, forcing even nutjobs like Iran and North Korea to line up and obey their freakin orders lest WWIII happen. And we've screwed Russia sore in the last decade. First, we promise billions in financial aid to rebuild after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and don't deliver a dime. Then we sign an agreement limiting NATO to it's original, pre-1991 size, and swear we won't ever admit any former Warsaw Pact members in, and we broke that one, letting in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and we're negotiating with the Ukraine and Georgia right now. If Ukraine joins, that would put NATO forces within 500 miles of Moscow, less than a third the distance Hitler had to travel in 1941. And Russia is invaded by foreign powers roughly every thirty to seventy years, for the last two millennia, so you can understand why they are a little scared to have a military organization founded to defeat them that close to their capital, and in the heart of traditionally Russian lands. They've already moved nuclear capable bombers to Venezuela, and have said they plan on moving their Black Sea fleet to there as well, and have reactivated three of their ICBM regiments, all armed with nuclear missiles capable of hitting any target in the world. They've also announced their intention to attack and neutralize our missile systems in Poland, and are moving advanced missiles into Kaliningrad, on the Polish border to do just that. So Obama is going to have to deal with all that, and the likely change to the Russian constitution allowing Putin to return to the Presidents office in 2011, a man who could run rings around Obama politically, militarily and intellectually any day of the week, six sheets to the wind, and with half his brain surgically removed by a myopic rhesus monkey. How great is that?

Well, that's just a taste of the things to come from the Oval Office and the world. Next, my wrath turns on the California voters. I must give credit where credit is due; the people did show some wisdom in passing the parental notification law. It is absolutely ridiculous that a teenager who cannot even receive an Advil at school without the nurse calling mom and dad can leave school grounds, even be driven by the same nurse, to a Planned Parenthood office and have an abortion without the parents being notified. This is not a moral question people, this is a legal one, and that kid isn't of majority, so they can't legally make those kinds of decisions yet. The parents have to be in on it on every other matter, this is no different.

But the voters made a HUGE mistake with Prop 8. First off, it was unconstitutional, and violated the 14^th amendment, but you can read my last blog for that argument. Now, the US Supreme Court has said it will hear the case, and they can really only decide two ways. Either Same Sex Civil Unions are a matter of States Rights, and thus Same Sex Civil Unions must be illegal in Massachusetts and Connecticut because the voters banned them there until the courts legalized it, and the ban will stay in place in the majority of states, or Same Sex Civil Unions are a guaranteed federal right recognized under the 14^th amendment, and they become the law of the entire country, instantly. Great job, Focus on the Family and you Mormons, you just gave the Same Sex crowd exactly what they wanted, their day in court, which they've won every challenge so far, and will make Same Sex Civil Unions the law of the entire country, even the areas that supposedly banned it. Awesome planning there! Because the Supreme Court will have to rule in favor of Civil Unions, because the precedent exists in every other instance of the right going to court and the 14^th amendment is as clear as the vacuum of space. Wonderful job. *sarcastic clapping* Not to mention, your little homophobic, near-sighted crusade will cost the taxpayers millions we can't afford. AND you just helped solidify the idea of the supremacy of the Federal government and the impotence of the States. Nice job. I have a suggestion. Next time you try and legislate morality, take these simple steps. One, nod serenely and with awe as you pastor talks about how evil homosexuality is. Two, go home. Three, shut up and don't try to enforce that belief on people who don't believe in it. You can have as many anti-gay pride parades as you want. You can produce as many claymation shows on TBN as you can get funding for showing all homosexuals to be deviant child molesting freaks as you want. You can preach the evils of man on man, or woman on woman sex as you want at any church, street corner, public place as you can get listeners at. But when it comes to using the coercive power of a secular government to enforce your moral beliefs on a non-believing demographic, you have stepped outside your rights, and have no authority. Just as man cannot pass a law forcing other men to be free, man cannot pass a law that takes away the freedoms of others for activities which cannot and should not be criminal.

Well, this blog has gone on long enough. Hope you enjoyed this months rant!

The Law

Do any of you know how often I have heard the old adage, "the purpose of government is to prevent evil"? And every time I hear it, I want to take a pipe wrench and bash in the head of the person who said it for the good of all mankind. To prevent evil? WTF? It is obvious to me when I hear that adage that the person who says it has no idea what they are talking about. First off, if the purpose of government is to prevent evil, why is government considered a necessary evil? In the Old Testament, when God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt by way of a forty year hike in the Saudi sun, the first form of government that was instituted was called the Judges. This government was unique in the history of government in that each person did what was right in their eyes, lived their own life, didn't have any real loyalty to any higher authority except for God, and every once in a while, when it was needed, a Judge would arise from the masses, unite the people against some threat, and teach the people of Abraham some valuable moral lesson, like "don't feed your children to Moloch". So in essence, there was no government instituted by God. He doesn't like them.
Next, sometime around 900 B.C.E., the Hebrews noticed that all the nations around them had kings, and this got them roiled up. Apparently, the Hebrews of old were a covetous bunch of ninnies who always wanted what everyone else had, regardless of how bad it was. "Hey, that Syrian has a spike in his scrotum! I want a spike in my scrotum! Why can't I have a spike in my scrotum?!" So after much complaining and bitching by the proverbial Jewish mothers-in-law, God relented, and allowed His people to have a King. And what a winner he was. Saul, who was chosen because he was, and I'm not kidding here, tallest, became the first king of Israel. This king eventually sired several decent children, basically adopted David, his successor, and became a raging, alcoholic, demon possessed, murderous, warmongering tyrant. David, his successor, was a lion killing, sheep guarding, giant slaying lay about, who, once he had won the civil war against Saul, stayed home in Jerusalem in his new palace, where he spied a naked young lady on a roof top, had her brought to him, murdered her husband so he could marry her, and finally plunged his nation into another civil war over child support. His son, Solomon, didn't do much better. Even though he was supposedly the smartest and wisest man in history, he married nearly 2,000 women, all for the sake of treaties, fell in with some crazy occultist religious practices, bankrupted his nation building the most opulent temple the world has ever seen, and eventually sired a bunch of whelps who again, fought a civil war over the nation when dad died, and finally manage to split the nation in two. This incestuous bickering and infighting continues until the mid 600's, when both nations are finally brought back together...under the rule of a foreign empire.
So...Still think government is a good thing? Seems the Hebrews were doing a great job before they got a king, then everything went to hell in a hand basket. I mean, they lasted something like 400 years without a king, and only three generations before they imploded with a king. Not a good track record, right? So, where do we get this idea that government exists to keep evil at bay?
The Theology of Power.
Modern Christians have come to accept that it is only through the application of power and coercion, the power of government to use deadly force to attain its ends, that the "word of the Lord" will become absolute in a nation. Left to its own power, the power of religion generally doesn't go much past the individual, but lets face it, that's not going to be good enough for our Christians, is it? So long jealous of the power of the Catholic Church, an organization to whom nations bend knee, Protestant Churches have invented this concept that Government exists to stop corruption and evil to further their own power and ability to coerce their fellow man to follow their morality. Don't have a problem with drinking in moderation? Well, tough luck! The teetollars are in charge and its prohibition time! Don't actually believe in the wacky religion? Too bad, the thought police are here, and you better conform!
This all started with the idea that our nation was a "Christian" nation when it was founded, and has slipped into apostasy since. That is the biggest bunch of horse manure I've ever had the ill fortune to step in. First off, our Grand Republic was not founded as a Theocracy; it was originally a loose Confederacy of States. When that didn't work out too well, we wrote this thing called the Constitution, a marvelous document which created a Constitutional Republic, a nation ruled by law, not by religion, creed, or even the majority. No law is superior to the Constitution, not in a public setting, and that is one thing the Christians don't seem to want to remember. Our Constitution prohibits religious tests for any position of authority in any local, be it local, county, state or federal. Yet Christians will rant and rave about there not being a "Separation of Church and State" yet what they really mean is that the State should have no authority to over-rule a church, yet the State should be subject to the whims of the Church. Interesting, huh?
In reality, there is a Separation of Church and State. As Jefferson wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, "there exists a wall separating the Church and the State." One which precludes one or the other from being superior to, or over-ruling the other in their prospective arenas of authority. While every American has absolute autonomy of choice when it comes to religion and its free practice, the State must be absolutely autonomous from any church, and rule according to the dictates of the law, our Constitution, the absolute power of the land.

The true purpose of Government is three-fold. First, Government exists for the simple reason to protect the lives of its individual subjects, citizens, whatever those under its jurisdiction are called. This protection extends to domestic threats and to international threats. It is the purpose of government to make sure your neighbor doesn't kill you and that some schmuck terrorist doesn't kill you as well. The second purpose of government is to protect the freedoms and liberty of its subjects. This protection also extends to domestic and international threats, to ensure that you are not enslaved by your neighbor or the bully down in Columbia. The final purpose of government is to protect the property rights of the individual, to make sure that someone doesn't just arbitrarily steal something that belongs to another person. These are the three reasons that governments were instituted, according to the fine thinking of men like Montesque, Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson.
This brings us to a central issue at debate in the current California primary, taking place on November 4th. Proposition 8 is a state constitutional amendment which will ban the ability of same sex persons from having civil unions. Notice I used legalize there, and not the more politically charged "marriage" that both sides have been bandying about? Currently, thanks to the "wisdom" of our state Supreme Court, same sex couples are allowed to have civil unions, as protected under the law of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Anyone notice that last part? "Nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Now, that may seem pretty straight forward, "Hey, that just means that anyone under the jurisdiction of the Constitution has to be protected, right?" Wrong. That means, according to our Federal Supreme Court, that all persons under the jurisdiction of the Constitution must have equal rights, equal representation, etc, meaning you can't have a law that says "White people can do this, black people can't, and Indians, well, forget about even trying." All laws must be equal and allow equal representation, or they are unconstitutional. Now, where does this impact Proposition 8? Well, if our laws state that any individual may marry any person they wish, and they do, people, then we cannot have a law that says only straight people can be married. It's as simple as that. See, this entire farce of "Marriage is between a man and a woman" thing is, in its simplest, unconstitutional! If a same sex couple desires to be recognized by the state as having a civil union, they are guaranteed that right by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Next, of course marriage is between a man and a woman, you ignoramuses! Marriage is a religious ceremony, not a civil or state ceremony! Marriage is what a priest or pastor or imam or Buddha or whatever can perform, and guess what, the state doesn't have the authority to perform those! The state does have the authority over "civil unions" which is exactly what we are dealing with here. A civil union is, in fact, the State recognizing that these two, three, four, fifteen or whatever amount, people are recognized as a single entity by the State, thus the "Union" part, and that the authority to recognize these people as such rests in the law, thus the "Civil" part. What Proposition 8 is trying to do is to eliminate the ability of the State to issue "civil unions" to same sex couples, a direct violation of the fourteenth amendment, and outright discrimination. This is, in fact, relegating same sex couples to the position of second class citizens, and denying them the basic rights of all other citizens. This should not be allowed.

My wife tried the argument with me, "What do you mean they are denied equal rights? A lesbian woman has the same right I do, to marry any man she wants." Now, I know Linds, and I know she was just trying to work the argument here, play a little devils advocate, but there are real people out there, real political stumpers for Prop 8 and the Christian Right who will say that exact thing, that no one is being denied rights because they have the same right I do, to have a straight, "normal" relationship and get married to whatever person of the opposite sex they want.

C'mon, do I even have to try?
That is like saying that I do not have the right to follow my moral upbringing, my beliefs, and choose the belief system, i.e. religion, I want because I have the right to chose the same religion every one else is a part of. Like saying I can't be a Christian because everyone else is Buddhist, and that I shouldn't complain about not having my guaranteed right to equal representation and the right to pursue my own definition of happiness because I have the right to the same miserable happiness everyone else "enjoys". Or like having a law that says anyone can own whatever kind of car they want, and are protected by the ultimate law of the land to that right, but saying I'm only allowed to have a minivan because everyone else has minivans, and that minivans are the approved car for people to drive, even though there are other kinds of cars, I have to own a minivan.

Ok, I know those are bad examples, but, c'mon, that is a bad argument, ok?

To deny any individual any right that is a basic human right based upon a personal religious tenant or moral belief is wrong. It is wrong for Christians to impose their moral belief of people who, and let me state this clearly, do not share their belief system. Just like it is wrong for the Islamofascists to enforce Sharia law upon non-Muslims, it is wrong for Christians to try to enforce their position upon someone who doesn't agree with it. And this is coming from a Christian, mind you.

So, what did we learn today? First, that the purpose of Government is not to prevent evil, it IS evil. Second, Government exists for three purposes alone, to protect the lives, liberty and property of those under its jurisdiction. Third, our fourteenth amendment guarantees equal protection under the law to al people under the jurisdiction of the Constitution, meaning that no law can be unequally representative, and that no right can be unequally apportioned out to individuals. Fourth, that Christians are trying very hard to rob same sex couples of a constitutionally guaranteed right because their lifestyle offends them, not because of any threat to the republic. And Lastly, fifth, we live in a nation of law, and of equality, that guarantees Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness to all our citizens, as well as the equal chance to seek out that Pursuit of Happiness wherever we want, using the Liberty we are guaranteed, to do whatever we want with our Lives, all under the jurisdiction of our Constitution.

So go out and do the right thing on November 4^th, if you live in California.

Vote NO on Proposition 8.