Monthly Archives: January 2012

I wrote a blog last week about what I feel is a massive con in the theory of Trickle Down Economics.  Because that’s what I feel it is, a giant con.  It was concocted by those with money and power to manipulate a society into believing salvation lies by giving them more while they’ll feed us their scraps.

Notice I didn’t say they told them to pass jobs bills.  They simply said they need to say jobs more often.  A good psychological tactic to manipulate the public by using a trigger word in “jobs” while doing nothing feasible  to create them.  Then again Republican voters are a well-controlled bunch; it was solid plan.  Keep in mind that by well-controlled I mean most refuse to trust any news source except hand-picked conservative media outlets.  They insist Fox News is “Fair and Balanced” yet if you point out the easy to prove fact that Fox features nearly 100% former GOP politicians or media personalities it doesn’t sink in that makes it an impossibility to be anything close to fair and balanced.

Evidence shows the gap between the wealthy and the middle class has grown more in the last 30 years than at any point previously.  In fact the last decade as the wealthy enjoyed the lowest taxes in history the gap between top 1% and the rest of us widened at a faster pace than any other time before.  I don’t have to remind you this all happened while our country fell to economic hole not seen since the Great Depression.

But wait, I thought the more the Top 1% has the better off we’ll all be?  That’s what the con tells us right?  So Republicans, what’s the deal?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

237 years later we’re still fighting to ensure that statement rings true for all Americans.

Be it the Civil War, voting rights, women’s rights, Civil Rights as well as a host of other injustices, our country has seemingly always had to fight the issue of inequality facing many in our country.

Today it’s the struggles of the lesbian and gay community and their God given right to freedom.

That’s right, I said God given right.  As a Christian I believe God is indiscriminate in our creation.  Each and every one of us (by the Christian belief) was created by Him.  Homosexuality is no more a choice than heterosexuality.  How many people have you met say they struggled with their heterosexuality?  When someone tells you homosexuality is a choice, ask them if their heterosexuality was as well?  At what point did they find the same-sex desirable but their moral obligation to God pushed them towards a heterosexual lifestyle?

What we face today is an escalating battle for the rights of all Americans, regardless of their sexual preference.  Because at the end of the day, is it really any of our damn business?

Why such hate?  It makes absolutely no sense.  I understand why some may disagree with the lifestyle, and that’s your right to do so in a free country.  However, that does not give you the right to tell anyone what they can or can not do as American citizens.

Until 2011 gay soldiers had to hide their sexuality if they wanted to serve in the military. What a damn disgrace.  For what legal means should they ever have had to hide who they are?  An American citizen denied the right to defend, and possibly die, for their country based on an ignorant view on their sexual orientation that has nothing to do with their ability to serve their country with honor.

I’ll take an honorable gay soldier representing my country over some fake, judgmental ”Christian” any day.

Ask yourself if someone disagrees with a much more accepted issue, say tattoos, should they then be illegal?  Well according to the Bible:

“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord.”

I met a Christian male who had “God hates fags” tattooed on his arm.  I quickly informed him the Bible clearly states we’re not supposed to have tattoos, but of course he didn’t care.  His slight against God’s word (according to the Bible) was perfectly acceptable to him because he didn’t feel they were wrong.

So what is it about homosexuality that creates this blatant hate and irrationality?  To even say it’s illogical constitutes a vast understatement.

If you want to say it destroys the sanctity of marriage and family values, well divorce does that in droves everyday.  Divorce is by far largest catalyst that violates the Christian vow of marriage, yet there aren’t millions of  Americans supporting a Constitutional Amendment banning its practice.

So what’s really behind this open hatred towards the lesbian and gay community?  Is it fear? Is it ignorance?  Is it our own insecurities?  I think for some it’s all of the above.  We have a natural tendency to fear what we don’t know or understand.   We often project our own insecurities about ourselves, and our lives, onto others as to make ourselves better about the issues we face in our own personal lives.  Humans have a habit of resisting change and circumstances that diverge from their own personal experience.

Doubt me?

Look at race as a prime example.  There was a time where black people, for nothing more than the color of their skin, were seen as animals.  Second class citizens.  But why?  They’re exactly like every other human being, just a different skin color.  Yet white people viewed them as a lower class of person that couldn’t function at the same level as a white individual.

The reality was simply they were different.  White people didn’t understand their cultures or customs and instantly degraded them to a subsection of human existence.   It was irrational and hypocritical that at the time we were declaring our freedom and liberty for all, we then excluded black individuals from being a part of the independence from tyranny.

It was ignorance and hypocrisy defined.

I think many just fear the idea of changing what constitutes a marriage or family.  It’s traditionally always been a man and a woman, vows before God, a couple of kids, a house and a yard.  That’s what a “traditional family’ is, right?  But what about the couples who choose not to get married yet do all of those?  Are they not redefining what constitutes a “family”?  Should we pass a Constitutional Amendment declaring a man and woman can not live together, or have children, unless they are married?

Hell, Republicans had a leading candidate during their primaries (Gingrich) that had cheated on not one–but two wives.  Talk about a slap in the face to the “sanctity of marriage”.

Here’s a rule for the party of “Christian values”:

You can’t be the party for Christian values, and telling homosexuals they have no right to marry, when your party has supported a man who ruined two marriages because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

So obviously it can’t be the morality thing otherwise Newt Gingrich wouldn’t even be in the discussion for the GOP nomination in 2012, let alone a leading candidate at one point.  So what is it?

Are people afraid the more homosexuality becomes acceptable, the more people will then turn to homosexuality?  I could see that as a plausible reason.  The numbers are clearly there.  The more homosexuality becomes acceptable, the more individuals you see openly gay. Makes sense.  Except you would have to ignore the fact these people have always been gay, it’s just now they feel comfortable about being open with their sexuality.

And don’t ignore the very obvious fact as to why there seem to be more homosexuals today than in the past….our population as a whole has grown!  Of course there’s going to seem like more homosexuals today than 40 or 50 years ago.  Guess what?  There are more whites, blacks, Latino’s, Chinese, Christians and Muslims as well.  The more people who are born on this planet, the more of each segment of that population you’re going to have.

The reality though for those against gay marriage is legally and Constitutionally you don’t have an argument.

What’s your legal stance?  Your entire judgement against gay marriage lies in a Christian value not even all Christians support.  You push your religious ideology onto a country that explicitly says there will be a separation of church and state.

Let me state another simple fact…homosexuality is not a crime.

You may disagree with it, but guess what?  You disagreeing with something does not mean that it should be illegal.  If that were the case, almost everything in our society would be illegal.

Drinking, smoking, dancing, loud music, fried foods, candy, short skirts, meat, dairy–you get the picture.

Simply disagreeing with something because of a personal belief does not mean that it’s wrong.  It just means that you feel it is wrong.  And it’s hypocritical to claim a devout Christian set of values in your life while the harboring of hate and ignorance towards the homosexual community is a direct contradiction of everything for which Jesus stood.

If you’re only argument against gay marriage is that it’s morally wrong, destroying the sanctity of marriage and family values, well I hate to break it to you–it’s too late.  Traditional marriages have been doing that for years with divorce, domestic violence, infidelity and countless other violations of marriage vows millions of couples swore to uphold.

So what does it really come down to?  I just chalk it up to ignorance and hypocrisy.  The human phenomenon of excusing their own indiscretions in life, while condemning another person’s.  They’ll claim a stance for strong Christian values that are against homosexuality, yet by their simple minded judgment about homosexuality, go against the word of Christ.  Words that included a speech about not passing judgments upon others, unless others have no reason to judge you.  In doing this they themselves become a walking contradiction of their own value system.

So, I say to those who oppose homosexuality and gay marriage, it’s your free right.  However, if you oppose gay marriage, yet cherish Christianity and our Constitution, I suggest you learn the values of both before you pass your judgments onto anyone. Because in your small minded approach to both, you prove undoubtedly you don’t understand the concepts of either.

Now, I know Republicans would strongly disagree with the title of this blog.  Then again, Republicans and “think” don’t often go hand in hand.

Here is a quick explanation to what Trickle Down Economics actually is for someone who may not know:

Trickle Down Economics is the belief that as the wealthy or big corporations increase profits or are taxed less, they will then “trickle” those excess profits down to the rest of us in the way of more jobs, increased pay, and better benefits.

Sounds great right?  In theory, yes it does.

However, it doesn’t take into account the one flaw we’ve faced since the dawn of humanity- basic human nature.  Human nature is often very greedy, and those who seem have the most tend to be the greediest.

The saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely” in reality means power of any kind often corrupts.  With our society placing so much emphasis on money it has made having money power.  Trickle Down Economics takes the health of a nation into the hands of the rich and powerful.

Who stands to gain by building an entire party around a philosophy such as this?  It doesn’t take rocket science to figure that out- the rich and powerful.  Who has continued to have a bigger role in politics such as the Citizens United ruling that allows big corporations the freedom to give whatever money they desire towards a political purpose?  You guessed it, big business and the wealthy.

Almost all information you can find on the web over the last 30+ years shows that middle class pay has been fairly stagnant. The 1%’s income in this country has skyrocketed and never more so than in the last decade.  Yet even with that information, you have millions of Americans in this country blindly accepting this theory of economics next to the Bible as far as “must have” faith and ideology.

A magnificent con.

The rich and powerful have convinced millions to vote against their own interest.  Right now instead of raising taxes slightly on people who make millions, an entire political party has focused on cutting programs that mostly help lower and middle class Americans.  They’ve screamed class warfare, yet have not allowed a single deficit reduction solution that includes a single sacrifice from the Top 1%, not even eliminating a tax break for people who buy corporate jets.

It seems insane to think a middle class American would fight to protect the tax rate of someone who makes 100x what they make, all while advocating the slashing of programs they themselves benefit from.

And the worst things get, the more tax breaks and tax cuts they want because they have a perfect talking point that makes absolute sense:

“Well, how will raising our taxes create jobs?  We need lower taxes so we can create jobs and boost the economy!”

They’re right, raising taxes won’t help create jobs, but lowering them didn’t help either.  At least with increased tax revenue we wouldn’t need such drastic cuts to public jobs like Republicans have done for the last year, cutting around 300,000-600,000 in 2011.

Imagine hypothetically if our deficit was zero but our tax increase was at the level Obama has suggested.  By Boehner’s own words this would generate $1 trillion dollars in tax revenue.  How many public jobs could we create with $1 trillion dollars?   How many programs could we fund that would help Americans?  How many roads could we repair?  National Parks kept up?  Public transportation projects built?  You get the idea.

They ignore the fact that we had historic economic growth and all-time low unemployment rates under President Clinton with higher taxes.   They’ve also ignored the fact that we faced the worst economic crash in 80 years and shed millions of jobs while we had the lowest tax rates in our countries history.  These are two simple realities that easily prove the falsity of the Republican rhetoric that “tax cuts are vital for job creation”.

Ask yourself these questions: Over the last 30 years are most jobs gaining or losing benefits?  Are people gaining or losing their pensions?  Working less or more?  Health care plans getting better or worse? Keep in mind when you answer these that over the last 30 years executive pay and benefits have hit historic highs and corporate profits have skyrocketed.

It’s a great scam because the terminology in both its application and rebuttal to opposition it makes great talking points:

“The more profits we get to keep the more jobs we can create.” 

“How will raising our taxes help us create jobs?”

Both are right, however reality has proven that neither actually produces jobs either.  So the argument is really about more tax revenue with no job creation, or less tax revenue with the same lack of job creation.  Logic says a country should take the tax revenue if the tax breaks didn’t actually create jobs, and they haven’t.

What Republicans have done though is taken this ideology of greed, manipulated the American people by masking it in a cloak of Christian values and then successfully deceived a large portion of the American population to vote against their own best interest.  The astonishing part is that it has actually worked!

It’s one of the greatest cons in human history.  They’ve co-opted the Christian faith and twisted it into a hateful, judgmental, ignorant group of cult like followers to support an agenda of greed.  They’ve built their economic base upon the idea that our best interest and economic salvation are found by giving those with the most wealth and power even more of both.

Just sit and think about that for a second…

What a great con.

What would Republicans think of Jesus today?  Assuming they wouldn’t know it was Jesus if they saw him what would their judgments sound like?

Just think about it for a moment.

Don’t jump to a conclusion based on your political views as a Republican or Democrat, but seriously consider this situation:

A big evangelical Tea Party Republican rally is being held.  At this rally they’ve talked about God and taxes.  Their hatred of Obama.  Their hatred of illegal immigrants.  They’re hatred of Muslims.  They’ve come out and condemned those who have abortions as sinners that will surely burn in hell.  They’ve called homosexuals a disease that need to be cured.  They’ve cheered a high execution number, booed a gay soldier, and cheered letting a man without insurance die.

They talk about taxes being too high and the blanket statements about lazy Americans that use government programs instead of getting out and working on their own.  They say it’s unfair to tax those with higher incomes more when poor people pay next to nothing and should pay their share first.  They support tax breaks for people who make millions while supporting cuts to programs that help the poor and needy.

They come out and call teachers lazy and overpaid.

When universal Health Care is brought up it’s loudly booed with a yell of “socialist!”, “get your own health care!”, “it’s not my job to pay for your medical care!”.

In the middle of all this a scruffy man around 30 years of age walks forward and asks to speak.  He’s dressed in plain clothes,  has long hair, a beard and olive skin.

Would they let him?  What would their first thought be?

“We can’t let this long-haired hippie speak”

“Is this one of these lazy, radical Occupy people?”

But they let him speak.  And he stands there and asks,”Who here is a sinner?”, to which almost every person there raises a hand.

He then asks if people know what their sin is, to which there’s a slightly less enthusiastic response.   Most people knowing they’re sinners struggle figuring out which sins in which they’re actually guilty but some area aware of their sin:

“Lust” one person shouts.

“Envy” comes from another.

He then asks them,”If you all admit to being sinners, and recognize your flaws then why do you have such hate in your heart for others who sin?”, which instantly triggers boo’s from the crowd.

He says, “You cheer the death of a man you never met.  You applaud the multiple deaths of people you know nothing about.  You boo a man fighting for your country.  You scorn someone who makes a decision you disagree with.  You hate those who are different from yourself.  You judge those who need help without knowing why they need it.”

He then asks, “Why?  Should someone hate and judge you for the sins in which you’re guilty?”  By this point the entire crowd is booing.

Shouts begin to be heard above the boo’s:

“Get off the stage you damn hippie!”

“You fucking liberal!”

“Socialist!”

“Tree huger!”

He then asks, “If you yourself admit to being a sinner why is it you hate others you feel commit sin?  We should not judge others unless we ourselves can not be judged.  We need to love everyone.  Help as many as we can while living for others not just ourselves.  Let go of your hate and fill your heart with love.  Embrace those different from yourself.  Love all strangers as if they were your family, not just at church but everywhere, everyday….”

At this point he’s pushed off stage to a constant  stream of boo’s.  Shouts from the crowd.  They mock him as he is forcibly guided towards the exit doors.

Sound far-fetched?  I don’t think it is.

I’m not saying all Republicans would respond this way and there’s no way for me to ever prove this is how some would react.  However with a high level of certainty, by what I’ve witnessed, I’m pretty accurate in my assessment of how one of these evangelical Tea Party rallies would treat someone who spoke of what Jesus spoke and looked how Jesus looked.

If Jesus was about nothing else his one main point was to love  and help your fellow man.  He actually spoke out against religions that on their lips spoke about God yet in their hearts knew nothing of Him.  His life was lived helping the sick, the poor, the needy and while many on the far right say they strive to live a life closer to Jesus their hate, fear and judgments exposes their insecurities and holes in their faith.

And that’s what faith is, security.  It’s the feeling that good or bad you have faith that Jesus and God have a plan and it’s for you to find the path to fulfill it.

Their lack of faith breeds insecurity.  Those who push their views upon others only prove they have no understanding of their own faith.  They hate others who are different and judge those they disagree with because they lack the faith within themselves to see Gods work.

I don’t mean this that if you have no faith you’re insecure.  I mean it in that if you claim to be a Christian, the security in your faith should show you that it isn’t your place to force your views on someone who does not seek them.

It isn’t about what I think, or you think or they think.  Any judgment about what any of us do isn’t about what any other human thinks of us.  If we are sinners so be it.  That isn’t for you, I or anyone else to decide.  God determines what kind of people we are, not active church attendance on Sunday.

You can spend 24/7, 365 days a year in a church but if you walk out with hate, fear or judgement in your heart what was the point of being there?

Anyone can go to school, that doesn’t make them educated.

Anyone can go to a military base, that doesn’t make them a soldier.

Anyone can go to a church, that doesn’t make you a Christian.

When you leave church bringing  hate, fear, and judgment out with you whatever they’re preaching in that building sure as hell isn’t Christianity.

Church is just a building.  Your actions outside of it is what makes a person Christian.

This honestly has to be the worst set of hopeful Presidential candidates a party has produced in modern history.  That includes when Howard Dean was a Democratic front runner in 2004 for a short time.  What you have is a split in the Republican vote between the people who are voting on the side of electability versus the people voting for anyone but Romney.

The GOP primary has essentially gone like this:

Romney: All along has only been the only “electable” candidate of the group.  By electable I don’t mean he can beat Obama, just stands the best chance at competing against Obama.

The Field: Anyone but Romney.  This has gone (in order)

1) Bachman: Perry took all her Tea Party momentum and she was never a factor to begin with, especially after he entered the race.  Republicans are the party of white Christian men, she was only 2/3′s of that.

2) Perry: Showed why he refused to debate Bill White during the 2010 Texas governor race.  The more he spoke the lower his numbers went.  When you make Bush look like a polished speaker and Rhodes scholar you’re not just bad, you’re Netflix trying to spin off it’s DVD rentals to a company named “Qwikster” level bad.

3) Cain: Appealed to the Republican love of “simple things” with his 9-9-9 plan.  Gained some steam but I don’t think anyone realistically thought Republicans were going to really support a black male for President.  Then came the sexual allegations.  From harassment to an affair (or not an affair but a 13+ year friendship with a woman his wife knew nothing about, that phone records show he had called at odd hours of the night and early morning, sounds innocent to me) the wheels came off and he quickly was out of the running.

4) Gingrich: This one actually surprised me.  I left him for dead back in the Summer yet there he was.  I’ll give him this, he speaks his mind and doesn’t back down from most of what he says.  But anyone with logic knew eventually his infidelity was going to catch up to him, and come on, it’s Newt Gingrich.  My theory was after they flirted with a whacky black guy they rushed back to “what they knew” aka, older rich white guy.

5) Paul:  Never really lead in many polls, but gained a ton of momentum after Gingrich fell from grace, and they were only left with 3 possible “new” front runners (Paul, Santorum, Huntsman), so he had a 1 in 3 chance of being the next guy.  His talking points to some sound appealing, but in applicable reality are disastrous.  Being that many people gather information on their politics from talking points or headlines I can see why on some level he maybe appealing, especially in weaker economic times.

6) Santorum: Technically not a front runner, but went from single digit polling to essentially tied with Romney in Iowa.  You know you’re scrapping the bottom of the barrel for someone when this guy is even in the Top 5 in votes, let alone a possible front runner.  The guy who signed a pledge to ban pornography, think states should be allowed to ban birth control, doesn’t believe in abortions for any reason (even rape), would try and annul every legally performed same sex marriage, believes homosexuals in the military weaken our military, I could really go on and on.  He is currently tied for the lead with Romney.

Wait till Romney’s big money backers turn on him, he’ll fall from grace as quick as the rest.  But the laughable part of all of this is just how badly a majority of Republican voters want anyone but Romney.  Has there ever been a primary on either side of the political spectrum where nearly every single candidate has at one time or another been a front runner?  It reminds me of the saying about quarterbacks in football, “When you have 2 starting quarterbacks you really don’t have a starting quarterback.”

Republicans don’t have a “starting quarterback”.  What they have is a field of radicals the Tea Party created that stand no chance of going one on one with Obama.  Huntsman which doesn’t appeal to the radicals in the Tea Party (and don’t forget is Mormon as well, a big no-no for Christian fundamentalist).  Then there’s Romney the only guy that polls well against Obama consistently.

As I wrote in a earlier blog (Why Obama Will Win) this is all before Obama uses his resources to lay into one of these guys.  So far Obama has absorbed 3 years of slander, an entire party with a sole purpose of obstructing anything they could to stall any possible progress under his administration, and a major “news” network (Fox News) essentially spending 80% of their broadcasts pushing any kind of radical one liners they can come up with to make people fear anything and everything Obama.  But you know what?  Without trying, without really gearing up the campaign, he still leads every single one of these guys, even on Fox News polls.

Now, not all Democrats are happy with Obama, and I get it.  I’ve said before I think a lot of that comes from people who had unrealistic expectations for him going in and he simply didn’t have the power to actually meet every single one of his promises.  But he’s done more with less help than probably any President in history.  Many Democrats fail to grasp the realities of exactly what he was facing.

What should he have done?

He was facing a Republican controlled House that was essentially a suicide bomber.  Meaning they would destroy themselves (and our country) to take down Obama, rather than act rationally.  They would have shut down the government and defaulted on our debts in order to make Obama look bad, because guess what?  The average American voter will blame the man in the White House, not the party of a certain chamber of Congress.

Look at how Democrats reflect on Clinton and his balanced budget.  They forget he had a Republican Congress that had to pass all that legislation in order to balance the budget, still he gets the credit.  Obama would have suffered the brunt of the blame even though it was the Republicans in the House, as the payroll tax debacle shows, that simply wanted nothing more than to hinder any economic recovery in order to make Obama a one term President.

What it’s produced though is not one realistic Congressional Republican who can run for President.  Congress at historic lows for approval and is probably the most toxic Congress we’ll ever see.  So no established Republican Congressional politician was going to run this election.  So they’re left with what you see now.  A group of former politicians, a businessman, 2 former Mormon governors and a current governor fighting for the nomination.

Now I’m not going to claim to know every parties field of potential candidates for every Presidential election, but I’ll say without much hesitation that this GOP field has to be one of the worst gathering of candidates we’ve seen in modern politics.

Lets break down Romney really quick in a way many might not think of:

McCain ran against Bush and Bush essentially destroyed him.

Romney and McCain go head to head in 2008 for the GOP bid, and the guy nobody really wanted in 2000 beats Romney.  In fact when he dropped out, McCain (the guy Bush easily defeated), led him in delegates by 2 to 1.

So right now in the epic failure that was President Bush, who Republicans believed to be better than McCain, produces in 2008 Republicans feeling McCain was far better than Romney, NOW Romney is the leading guy.

In the transitive order of things Bush > McCain > Romney.  Now Romney is the leading Republican candidate for President?  See how low they’re digging for someone?  Isn’t as if Romney has done anything different since 2008.  Hasn’t become a more seasoned politician or businessman.  He’s the same guy he was in 2008.

Right now it’s a GOP primary for electability versus anyone but Romney.

And like I said before, just wait till Obama stops stretching and actually gets in the game.