Factions and Facts

Politicization of factual issues is making it so we cannot have a clear, honest debate in the slightest.

For instance: Oil. Should we keep digging up oil in every way we can, or should we pursue alternative energy sources? Well, to help combat global warming...

STOP! Already you're taking a liberal stance -- that GLOBAL WARMING EXISTS! Already the conservatives know to stop listening. (I'm generalizing here when I say "liberal" and "conservative", but for the exact same reason that this is a problem -- for many people this is a political issue, not a factual one).

Okay, so we just leave global warming out of the equation altogether. Well, oil is a valuable source of energy, and if we keep using it up in all its ways, we'll have enough time to manufacture more of it scientifically... so we need to engage in fracking, which involves basically blowing fissures into the earth to get more oil, which can cause ecological and environmental issues... STOP!

Worrying about environmental issues makes you a liberal. Damnit, stop doing that!

Er, okay. Well, we COULD pursue alternative forms of energy. Of course, it's more expensive now, but as it's invested in and adopted more widely, it would become cheaper and we'd develop better methods of doing so. But we'd need to invest -- STOP!

Now we come to another general conservative talk point. To invest in it, you'd have to do so with the free market, not with subsidies. If you needed to subsidize it, that means it would necessarily fail; the market is always right, and if it doesn't work in the market, it would fail. Okay, I mean, we subsidize oil as well, and oil relies on a lot of lobbyists to keep oil free in the government, but that's using hard-earned money from business...

You see where this all starts to fall apart as a debate? It's a huge tangle; you can't argue the general point without people rabidly attacking each other's throat about any particular point (and yes, I know, I admit my bias here, but it's a bias based on what I've seen and looked into regarding the subject... but yes, I do have a particular viewpoint).

There's no way a dialogue of this ONE subject can have any hope of getting resolved without extreme levels of partisanship... unless people were to take science seriously and take the effort to look into that science. But very few people are. Most go off what they know from the mainstream populace about it -- they "ditto" points made by others. "Green energy!" without looking into what green energy is, the cost-benefit analysis between the different forms of it, and other side issues to consider. But also "Oil! Oil!" Without looking into the issues with oil, and closing off their ears to the real environmental considerations of relying on it.

But that's also partly because science is hard, yo. We have lives, we have other things to do, we can't just keep reading about all these little things in the world... but if it matters to you, if you view it as important, SHOULDN'T you spend some time on the subject? And if you don't, should you really have a strong opinion on it?

This is the problem with political debates, and why so many are apathetic about it. It's just too much effort, and discussing it risks losing friendships, thanks to the first point.

There has to be a better way for us to organize ourselves, than into factions on factual issues.

The Future

I'll keep this one short.

My view is that humanity has to come together if we have any hope of getting into space. We can't think in short-term objectives, but long-term. We have to think of what we want to accomplish by 2050, or 2100, not by 2016 or 2025.
We cannot do that while we are so divided. Religion, nationalism, racism, all of it holds us back. What we have now is unsustainable.

We burn fossil fuels, and instead of looking for alternatives, we look for more fossil fuels to burn to keep the old system going, even limiting the uses of batteries in the process. Electronics and devices have "planned obsolescence" built into them, causing them to fail shortly after their warranty expires. We create more waste than ever before, and it's starting to pile up in our oceans. We have this idea that, if you just work hard enough, you'll succeed, but the gap between rich and poor is immense. We live in a period where we can change. We have the technology -- machines replacing human labor, energy for everyone, transportation worldwide. We HAVE the food resources to feed the world, but they aren't being properly distributed. One of my heroes, Norman Borlaug, helped feed 1 billion people -- ONE BILLION PEOPLE -- and very few people even know his name. Our priorities are in the shitter, and we need to focus on what we respect and what we do not.

The web of human influence -- ignorance and acceptance

Recently in an argument, I brought up (in a discussion about capitalism vs. socialism) the idea that there are many things that are accepted as necessary evils, or simply go ignored, even though real people suffer.  The reason why, is that others benefit from them, and this is merely accepted as a necessary evil, or something better not thought about.  To keep things cheap, for instance, we will benefit off the labor of child slaves in other countries, or sweatshop labor (outsourced to other countries), or any number of things that are simply accepted as a necessary evil by large corporations.  Now, I'm not a communist myself, and in fact consider it an extreme predictive philosophy that I don't think the world is "ready" to adopt (I think Star Trek tech is necessary to get to that point), but I do think that these are things that it's best not to put a complete blinder to, either.


As Thomas Paine said, "The long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it the superficial appearance of being right."  We should call out wrongs for being wrong, instead of finding some justification for it.


The idea generally is, if it's out of sight and doesn't affect you, why should you get involved in any meaningful way?  Many, if not most people, feel helpless in the world; politics, economy, ethnic strife, all are a much larger force than they could possibly influence, and indeed involve "necessary evils".  This mentality cannot be said to be completely wrong-headed, as it's a way to keep sane; you aren't going to be able to influence everyone, and you aren't going to be able to make huge changes without huge investments and huge risks.  But at the same time, if enough people put real suffering out of mind, they might as well be allowing that suffering.


As I once heard (paraphrased as I can't find the quote), "To keep neutral never helps the oppressed, it only helps the oppressor."  The oppressed are the ones that cannot defend themselves, so the oppressor is able to do as they will unless acted upon by another party, even if that party is simply majority opinion.


The world is a complex web that's weaved with many strands that go unseen or unlearned.  These strands come together to what we see, and cannot be unwoven without effort.  But, the first step is understanding and tracing their origins.  No one has an idea or a feeling for completely no reason.  Everything has a history, whether oppressed or oppressing or neutral.


If politics is kept as politics, then the only ones to influence it will be politicians.  If war is viewed as politics, then the only ones to influence it will be politicians.  If far-off oppression is viewed as "not my problem", it will only go to those that will view it as their problem... which generally won't be the politicians.


Now, why SHOULD you consider it as your problem?  The sad fact is, it is almost impossible to live in this world without influencing other people.  Even if all you do is eat and sleep, using no electronics or modern technology whatsoever, that food comes from somewhere, and if you like your pick of food, it generally isn't local.  You need space to sleep.  Even these two fundamental requirements for living have an affect -- and with our globalized society, any effect will go along the "web" of human interaction, and influence someone else.


Just sticking with food products, do you like chocolate?  Have you purchased chocolate?  The thing is, cocoa beans have a long investment time in their production, that is not offset by the current cost of chocolate... so to keep your chocolate affordable, child slavery and similar exploitation is required.  If the freedom of the cocoa farmers is respected, either they would stop growing cocoa altogether, or the price of cocoa would go up more than others would be willing to pay.  But child labor, sweatshop factories, and similar forms of labor that go to benefit those in developed countries, will go ignored, because it's a good thing to keep prices low, and many won't ask what goes into making them low in the first place.  Many point to the modern system as what makes people happy, but they will necessarily ignore whoever might be unhappy involved in the process, since they don't live next door.


Anyway you look at it, you have influence over others, and the ability to own and use certain items will not appear out of nowhere.  Someone makes the iphone you use.  Someone makes your computer.  Someone does maintenance on the ISP that keeps you connected to the internet.  Someone builds your car.  With globalization, a far-off event could influence prices on items you would otherwise consider innocuous; chocolate, bananas, diamonds, oil, all are influenced thanks to international politics and interplay.


In this complex web of human interactions, all of this lies, as well as more -- history, race relations, cultural ideas that existed or were thrust on others.  Exploitation, slavery, genocide, all of which happen for various reasons, ideologies, ethnic tensions, etc.  All of this combine together to make a world in which one group of people will be willing to kill another group of people -- Nazis killing Jews, Japanese killing Chinese, Hutu killing Tutsi, etc.  The problem is, dealing with these major influences by major nations has always been erratic and unpredictable.  It's widely considered a good thing that the Nazis were opposed and the remaining Jews freed from genocide.  At the same time, few were punished for the Rape of Nanking, even though that was a case of genocide, torture, and medical experimentation that went beyond inhumane.  As for the Rwandan genocide, a handful of Belgians are killed, and then there's immediate extraction, and 800,000 Rwandans get murdered horribly.  In Somalia, a handful of U.S. soldiers die, and the rest get extracted.  Why are these cases taken so differently?  The answer is complex, naturally, but ultimately it comes down to politics and economics.  Rwanda is not "interesting" politically or economically.  Somalia is not "interesting" politically or economically.  Thus, the slaughter of 800,000 people is not seen as important as the deaths of 10 men, because 10 happen to come from one particular culture and political border (European).


This kind of mindset is baffling if one looks at the world as one where we should work for justice for all, or to see others as people.  It isn't baffling if one is looking at the world as a politician that must consider his own nation first and foremost.


Thus, the politicization of morality and moral actions MUST be questioned.  Ignorance and acceptance of this form of thought must eventually die away.  Nations should not be considered more important than people, and suffering should never lie in the shadows, but be brought to light.


If your happiness is bought at the cost of another, and if that happiness would fade when you realize where it comes from, then you should question whether that happiness is a good thing.  If others suffer because you want to be neutral, then you have to ask why you say you're against suffering in other cases.

"A lie is a lie. Just because they dress it up and call it history doesn't make it the truth."

The title of this post is a very very good example of poor thinking -- in this case, the person in question was either denying the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the Colfax Massacre, United States v. Cruikshank, as well as the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, or he was simply denying that they had any historical validity, especially in the question of government power.

The person in question was an anarcho-capitalist sort of Libertarian, one that believes that there should be very little to no government power -- which I've always had as a problem with this sort of thinking.  To get this out of the way, one of my biggest problems with anarcho-capitalist grade Libertarianism is that they suggest that a body of people making a government is innately more evil and harmful than a body of people making a corporation -- and they suggest that self interest and greed, in the true Ayn Randian way, does far more good than a social construct that supports its own citizens. Oh, they also promote "freedom", but want to strip any ability to enforce that freedom.

But getting past all that, the categorical rejection of history that does not support your idea is naturally something to be worried about.  However, it's also a common meme -- "History is written by the winners, not the losers"... hence, History is always subject to propaganda, which is true.

However, you have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There's good history, and there's bad history.

Generally, historians have a few things to work on. Unlike archaeologists, who work almost entirely on artifacts, images, architecture, and (if they're lucky) inscriptions they can read, a historian has a vast amount more documents, recorded speeches, as well as all the rest -- inscriptions, architecture, images, art style (art history plays a big part in historical understanding, etc.). Linguistics and language are also tools, just as good as tracking the movements of people as material possessions. Now, both Archaeology and History need some interpretation; but the problem is, with the history of archaeology, it's more about analyzing the items and *then* coming to a conclusion (and then constantly adding to it as new data and artifacts become uncovered, so in, say, Mesoamerica, it's a constantly changing field), and History has an unfortunate history (heh) of being used for propaganda and to push ideals.


There's a big difference between going off these sources, and being told what to believe about these sources. This is why history generally is vastly dumbed down in high school, especially as they remove all the nasty parts of history that you'll have to learn in college.


In this way, there's a big problem with many history *teachers*, as they basically teach a dumbed-down version. The worst of it is history that's meant to make you feel patriotic -- that teaches you, for instance, that America won WWII entirely (and fails to mention its many allies), as a very basic example. I've heard the case in some Slavic countries where they teach that their own cultural group (Czech, Polish, Russian, whatever) were the "leading figures" of their time period that outshone all the other groups near them... while not understanding, for instance, that their cultural groups inter-mixed ideas and culture quite a bit (The Polish Hussar, for instance, was actually from Hungarian influence originally).


You can generally tell a good source vs. a bad source by how they cite their sources, as well as going to the original sources they're using and deciding based on that.


A big example here, actually, is how the Nazi party took a document called "Germania", by Tacitus. Now, the proper way to view such a document is by putting it in its historical context. It was a document written about the "German" peoples in the second century AD by a Roman that never even lived near it, who was using the "Germans" as a way to explore what it meant to be Roman.


Medieval historians picked up on this, and later the people that would make up the Nazi party. Both of these read into the source what they wanted to -- they didn't put the writer in the context of his time, and they used it to justify their own ideas of what "Germania" was all about -- medieval scholars in wanting to define the Holy Roman Empire (whose many fractured states stand, more or less, where Germany and some outlying countries stand today), and by the Nazis to justify a racial ideal, of the "brave, honest, noble" German. Both of these groups read what they want into the source, and when you understand more about Tacitus and the state of the Roman Empire at the time, you start to understand why and where the problems occur.


A good historian would take Tacitus, medieval historians, and the Nazi party in their own time periods, and analyze them in their own framework. To teach bad history, you ignore all that and basically teach a hashed down pseudo-analysis that takes your own assumptions, promotes a personal viewpoint, and then moves on.


(I just want to add that the previous example is actually given because I'm currently reading "A Most Dangerous Book", exploring this very issue -- http://www.amazon.com/Most-Dangerous-Book-Tacituss-Germania/dp/0393062651)


Overall, what I'm saying here, is that you can tell the good from the bad in those who can SHOW you where they got their information. A scientist can have you run an experiment yourself, or at least show you the data and how they came about it, whereas a historian can show you the first-hand sources, or let you analyze the first-hand and second-hand sources... but they often give you the "big picture" for levity, but can come up with examples with original sources as examples, or when asked where they got their data.


This is why, say, holocaust deniers are so ludicrous. There's few other conflicts with so many documents from so many sources than in WWII. There's no way you can legitimately deny the holocaust happened -- we have the documents from almost any faction involved, we have the concentration camps, we have images of the bodies, we can trace who a lot of those killed are. Holocaust deniers will assert you something and then show you a very very limited view of the data -- but very quick searches in very public archives (easily found on google, no less) can paint a very different picture.

Ultimately, you can't avoid having multiple people with multiple interpretations using more or less the same data... but generally, good historians will agree on many of the basics and disagree on more of the fiddly bits than have entirely radically different ideas of the past.  Exceptions generally involve what sources they're using, or how much they dug through said sources... or if they're pushing a particular propaganda.

Moral Relativism vs. Israel

So, I've seen lots of accusations of moral relativism lately. The latest I wandered onto was a years-old blog post here: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-npr-anti-semitic.html


I don't support Israel because I'm "misguided", I don't see the morally objective viewpoint, I'm blinded by moral relativism and can't see "the light", is what this blog post is saying.


Well, you know what? My moral compass DOES lead me to support an oppressed people, no matter who is doing the oppression, and no matter what god they subscribe to.


Really, this is so much evidence for what Carl Sagan said... my problem with this idea of God is that it's such a small-minded god, such a jealous god -- a ruler that rules by bullying, that plays favorites with his own "chosen people", and sets them out to kill, burn, and massacre all they can to gain land for themselves. This is the god that promotes stoning, killing, and division in his own name -- that can only compete with other religions by burning alive their worshippers, or otherwise killing them in some gruesome way.


Is this is the god of our universe? Its creator, its founder? The creator of billions of galaxies, wherein Earth is but a single mote in a sunbeam? How can such a powerful, creative force that has put into place all the laws that would lead into the orbiting of planets, the creation of stars, the many beautiful and elegant pieces of the universe, be only focused on a small group, of a small planet, in a small galaxy? How does this fall in line with how much of the universe lies outside of our grasp without technical aid -- a whole spectra of light, only a small portion of which we can see? Sound, of which only a certain amount we can hear? Chemicals, of which we need complex understanding and instrumentation to dissect?


Why create all this wonder, if he's just going to act like a petty dictator that cares about your personal life -- that cares about the threads in your clothing, what food you eat, who you have sex with in your own spare time? Why analyze the thread of every single person's life on this blue ball, punishing some in horrendous ways?


Even if this small-minded god could exist, never could I see him as the Creator of the universe, the Prime Mover, the First Cause. I don't even think there has to be such a thing in the first place, but if there was, this small-minded god couldn't even come close.


You know the problem with the idea of the Bible being the objective morality that we all should follow? It's that it doesn't stand up to reality. It doesn't even come close. It's a book written by a people that put in the morality and understandings of the universe at their time... and how small, how pathetic it compares to what we actually observe. How small it seems, how narrow-minded, how bigoted... and how arrogant.


How arrogant that some think that the universe watches them, cares about them, moves itself for them, and devotes itself to them -- or punishes them, dictates to them, cares about their little lives on their little planet.


Imagine, in your mind's eye, the vast cosmos. Here, let me help you:http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/NatSci102/images/hdfwf3.gif


Imagine all of this, and then imagine that you zoom in on any one of those galaxies, zoom in on any one of its solar systems, zoom in on one of its tiny planets -- would you consider them the all-important race of the cosmos? Much less a small smidgeon of that race, selected for their ethnicity?


This post might be considered anti-semitic. I prefer to think of it as pro-reality. I think it was great that we spent money, resources, and even human lives protecting the Jews and other ethnicities (gypsies, polish, etc.) from the Nazis -- said without sarcasm. That was a terrible time, and the US eventually did the right thing. But that doesn't mean that I should support the subjugation of another culture because of that horror.


Anyways, rant over. I had to get that out of my system.

Random Political Argument, or Why I Don't Think Obama Is Satan

So, I was randomly browsing through Deviantart, when I saw this image:   http://balddog4.deviantart.com/#/d4wlr19

His argument:

"What I meant is that if you don't have the education you really don't know what is good for the economy and what isn't. However, there are people who are blind to the truth, because they don't care. And that right there is what is frustrating. They are so wrap up in the lies that the media tell them, that they don't look around for the facts. They don't research these things."

So basically, his argument that you need education to know what is good for the economy and what isn't, and that those that don't hate Obama are "blind to the truth".

My argument:

"But the fact simply is that you're claiming that others that disagree with you about Obama must be ignorant while you hold onto the One Truth, which does sound incredibly insulting.

The facts don't make any of the other candidates look good. Maybe Ron Paul, because he seems the only politician in the race that was capable of saying, even when it wasn't popular, that bombing Iran was stupid instead of going with the "we should declare war!" line -- something that Obama is being criticized for not doing himself. Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich seem more jokes than real presidential candidates.

I haven't seen much involving the economy that hasn't been cherry picked; Obama isn't doing perfectly to suddenly change the economy, even though the economy has been slowly getting better. That's kind of to be expected. It would be nice if he could pull an FDR and throw out a ton of resolutions to solve the problem, but there are real restrictions to that with the Supreme Court and Congress throwing their lot into things, and now super PACs mean that more and more politics are going to be decided by corporate influence than even before (whether or not Obama ends up in the white house for re-election).

The fact is, we might get more done if the Republican Party was more willing to compromise, but they are growing more and more extremist. They are ousting their moderates or browbeating them into toeing the party line, they are stronger than ever before on neoconservative social issues, and can you really justify Grover Norquist's requirement of never raising taxes, ever? If you want a stupid economic policy, that's it; when you're in a time of plenty and without war, you lower taxes, but then you can't raise them if war falls on you or a major event occurs, which would cripple the country."

He returns:

"The Republican Party are willing to compromise. The reason they aren't is because the Democratic Party are trying to get things voted in that the people of the United States don't want. The Democrats are trying to put their agenda, which is full of Socialist and Communist ideals by the way, in power. They want to get rid of the second amendments which allows people to own fire arms, )if they get rid of this amendment I'm still going to own my own gun.) They want to change the Constitution which is what our nation is built apon. If they get rid of the Constitution then America is done for. They want Obamacare because, oh "Europe has the best medicare in the world." Nothing, in the Democrats agenda is good for America. That is all there is to it."

Basically:  "The Republican Party are willing to compromise, but they won't because the Democrats are Communists."  I mean, this is basically "They're willing to compromise, but they won't compromise because..."  This kind of logic is a little baffling.

But I fire back:

"So you know economics and I don't, but you're claiming that the Democrats are pushing "Communist ideals". Maybe you should look into what Communism is about.

The second amendment does not socialism or communism make. Furthermore, "the people of the United States" do not all agree like a great hive-mind about the second amendment or its limits. There is a lot of room for debate on the second amendment. I should also add that the second amendment does not an economy make.

You do realize that the Occupy movement is made up of "American people", right? Yes, they're Americans, whether you like it or not -- though I wouldn't say that all of them support Obama (but they certainly aren't for business or the rich, which Romney almost entirely represents in every way, shape, and form, and is the one that super PACs have put most of their support behind).

You know, I looked up "Obamacare" when it came up (being the ignorant person I was). I still can't see why there's such an uproar in calling him a communist or Hitler over it. It's not this major awe-inspiring fundamental change to healthcare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reforms certain aspects of private and public health insurance programs and industry, increases insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions, expands access of insurance, increases projected national medical spending and lowers projected Medicare spending. It's making amendments to how health care was previously handled, and speaking as someone who recently got into an accident and isn't broke because of health care, that isn't a bad thing.

(I also want to note that I lived in Germany for quite a bit of my life and fail to see the dystopian health care system there...)

You say nothing in the Democrats agenda is "good for America", and that I'm ignorant because I don't see things your way. But yet, the more I look into things, the more it seems like you have an oversimplified view of things, and focus quite a bit on fringe issues.

You also haven't explained why "never raise taxes, ever" is a good policy. Yet it's a BIG Republican policy! You claim that Republicans are able to compromise, but yet 41 out of 47 Senate Republicans and 238 out of 242 House Republicans signed Norquist's pledge, to "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and to oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates."

I don't see anything that even remotely looks like compromise there."

Finally, he explains his stance on Taxes, defending Grover Norquist's absolutist stance:

"Okay, the thing about the taxes is, that if the government raise taxes, the people get less and less money. If the people gets less and less money, they aren't going to buy things, they won't even go anywhere. If the people don't buy things then production stops. If production stops, then the economy fails. If the economy fails, then the government is screwed.

If the government lower taxes, then the people will have more money. If the people have more money, then everything I have just said about raising taxes is reversed. The production indistery productions skyrockets, the economy gets back on it's feet, and people will have jobs.

The problem with Obamacare is that it doesn't give the right that everyone gets treated. Let me give you an example. Say you need a heart implant and you make enough money just to get by and you've been waiting to get it. After so many months you've finally get a donor and you've been prep for surgy. It looks like you are going to live. But then a guy comes in and he is rich and he needs your heart transplant. Who are they going to give it too. Not you, because you don't contribute enough to society. Because unlike you the other guy owns a big corpration that brings in money. So your heart transplant goes to him and you are kicked out of the hospital and left to die.

You probably don't think that Obamacare is going to be like that. But the truth is that it's not about what the Obama medicare plan is or how it's going to work. If it's a socailist ideal, then that's what it will be like. Because Communism controlls everything. Communism controlls how you work, where you live and weither or not to give you medicare. That is what Obamacare is. It's all about controll."

Now this is where I get wordy, people, and THIS is what I think is so silly about all of this anti-tax rhetoric.  I make three different posts, so I'll keep them separate in three sets of quotation marks:

"That's an extremely oversimplified (and thus false) view of the economy. You aren't impressing me as having the sole knowledge of the economy by far.

Taxes are there to provide services -- to pay for police, for public education, fire services, and yes, the military (which takes a pretty good chunk of the budget), just for the top priorities. If there is a major event -- for instance, declaring a war and engaging in an occupation lasting several years -- money has to come from somewhere. Where do you think the money for bombing Iran will come from? Or sustaining forces in Afghanistan?

Generally, lowering taxes is a good popular move during a time of peace and plenty, but there comes a time when tax rates need to hike. Eisenhower, a Republican, knew that; tax rates under him were critically high. Even Reagan raised taxes. Lincoln would not have been able to wage the Civil War if he was not able to raise taxes at all.

The economy and the government are related, but one does not entirely control the other, nor does one entirely destroy the other. Except in the case of Communism, but we haven't even come close to that (no matter what you say).

If the tax rate were truly high enough, what you say would be theoretically true. But even Eisenhower taxed those making over $400,000 92-91% of their income! This does not cause a grinding halt to our economy at all.

Taxes do not break the economy in and of themselves, and refusing the ability to raise taxes will cripple a government from propertly functioning in times of crisis. You cannot engage in conflict and then simultaneously cut taxes, or you run into an even larger deficit (as we are).

Furthermore, this isn't even mentioning the power of government services. We require skilled labor to get anywhere, but skilled labor can only really be acquired through higher education (even trade schools and apprenticeships). Investing in the education of the populace helps that populace get jobs in the future, and helps their ability to apply themselves to the economy. While there are private schools, the vast majority of the populace will go to a public school or otherwise be subsidized in some way, whether by government or some form of tuition.

In fact, investments in better education have real, demonstrable results that can be seen in studies and research -- whereas we don't see this idea that "lower taxes cause instant economic boom". In fact, during this whole recession, do you know who pay the least amount of taxes? It's those that own the greatest amount of wealth; they keep far more money than they give back into the system. Yet we still suffered a recession, being the biggest elephant in the room with your argument.

Your bit on Obamacare doesn't seem to have anything to do with the proposals, the reforms, or anything. It also intermixes the concepts of Socialism and Communism, which are not the same thing -- and you still don't seem to understand what Communism is. You assert that this will be Communism, but you offer no validation of this claim. I am sorry, but I have yet to see ONE SINGLE PERSON validate their idea that Obama is a Communist or is pushing Communism. I'm a history major; I've read the words of Marx, and I know the differences between Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism (I've done quite a bit of research on China, its history and its present state), and I still don't see anything similar to that and anything Obama has done.

About the only two arguments have been "healthcare is communism" and "he gave bailouts". But in the case of healthcare we already had that (he's just expanding it) with medicare and medicaid. And the bailouts had nothing to do with Communism; he gave money to major corporations to keep them from going under, because of the dramatic results of what would happen if some of the top, most powerful, most influential, international corporations tanked -- you don't achieve Socialism OR Communism by supporting corporations from collapsing. While there is room to debate the wisdom of his decision, it's not a discussion of Communism vs. Capitalism.

Also, if he's such a Communist, why is he accepting millions and millions of dollars in Super PAC money? Sure, they aren't throwing as much money at him as they are Romney, but he's still got a damn decent chunk of change."

"And just to further the point about economics vs. ignorance: Robert Reich is an economist. This is something he's studied. He also completely disagrees with you. [link]

However, you can say that he might not necessarily be right. Hey, that might be true; there's lots of economists, and several of them disagree with each other. One can even say that economics isn't an exact science. But if you reject his ideas out of hand, you have to reconcile that with the claim that the people who support Obama must necessarily be ignorant of economics."

"Sorry, this will be my last post. I forgot to mention something else that I find very important in the discussion.

The Great Depression was a major event, and it wasn't caused by government taxes (though one could say it wasn't helped from protectionism and tariffs on trade goods that made foreign countries not want to deal with us, which IS an example of how government interference isn't always a good thing). It happened partly thanks to a barely regulated stock market, a system of "boom and busts", and a good series of events that would take a book to adequately summarize.

Yet the Presidents that handled it refused to give government aid to those that needed work. It was FDR that really pulled our asses out of the fire (and WWII didn't hurt, either), but it was through government interference. He also did a lot to try to prevent the ecological damage of the dust bowl, which was an immense and terrifying event. Yet his policies didn't destroy America, it helped it rise up again. He threw out hundreds and hundreds of proposals, so many that few history books really try to enumerate them, and tried to see which would "stick" and discarding that which didn't seem to be helping. It seemed to help."

I haven't gotten a response yet, and it's only been a few hours, so the discussion isn't quite finished.  I may post more of it up here, but I'm not sure if this is really going to lead anywhere.  But I've seen these viewpoints mirrored in several different locations on the net, not simply here.

Here's the really scary part though.  From here:  http://balddog4.deviantart.com/#/d4qz9ox

"Yep, and I for one will not stand by and let this country fall because of people who hate America. That's why when I'm 35 years old, I'm going to run for President."

If he ran for president in this election, and was pitted against Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich*... would you have noticed the difference?

*Existence of Ron Paul redacted as being irrelevant to politics

Fiction: Interesting Things Happen to Boring Characters

I was recently reading through writing.com, giving some reviews, when it really struck me that there was a real problem with fantasy and science fiction stories.  Basically, you have a protagonist that's a "fish out of water" for whatever reason.  In one particular story, a modern day protagonist gets sucked into a world of supernatural conspiracy against a vampiric evil overlord; he's a fish out of water, bringing the modern day world view into the world of fantasy, intrigue, and gunplay mixed with magic.  Can be interesting, right?  But he's not; he's a boring person.

Why's he boring?  Because he doesn't assert himself in the story.  He's a blank slate.  He makes a few wisecracks, then just accepts everything, wants to know what gun he'll be using, and overnight is being thrown in combat with little to no training.

Now, one can quickly simply dismiss this as a self-insertion; the writer imagines he wants to be put in an interesting situation, and then imagines himself quickly adapting and turning into a badass fighter capable of wisecracks and survival against impossible odds.  But as much as self-insertion is a possibility, I've seen this happen in stories, even popular stories, where the character does not seem as simplistic as a self-insert.

I think the problem also stems from the idea that in fantasy and science fiction, the setting is interesting.  Interesting things happen.  You have magical abilities!  Strange races!  An overwhelming evil presence!  A few people with special powers!  In science fiction, it's more fantastic machines!  Alien races!  New technology!  Future governments!  Weird societal laws!

But, while interesting, those things don't make a good story.  They are components to a story that can make it interesting, but they do not make the story.  In any story that involves characters, the characters should have a voice.  If you want to have a story that involves a fish out of water, that person should show he's a fish out of water.  They should be confounded, questioning, but also surprised, exasperated, and even opinionated.  They should comment, not be immediately accepting.  If you're going for a more comedic tone, they could be wry-witted; a modern-day protagonist being thrust into a strange world might use action and horror movie logic ("You go first!  The guy who goes first always buys it."  "No way I'm wearing a helmet!  Everyone that wears a helmet dies in the movies!")  Or you can go more for someone that's horrified at what other characters in the world have long since considered acceptable, whether for necessity or for cultural reasons.

If you tear a character from one set of beliefs, setting, or culture, and transplant them into a completely new setting, it needs to show.  Or else you have Interesting Things Happening to Boring People.  This means you have to work double hard at making the interesting things interesting, because that's the only thing carrying forward the story; who cares about boring people?