Politics ...'Merica!?! ...God bless America...only?

• There are 2 continents called America (North and South), and there's even Central America. We live in the United States.

• There is nothing uniquely “american” about believing in a god from the Middle East who clearly chose the Jews as his people (most United Statesians are non-Jews and are only “saved” if you believe the later rantings of some guy named Paul).

• Copied from Morals section: As Sam Harris points out, the “red” states have much higher crime rates than the blue ones. This is precisely the opposite of what you'd expect IF religion had a positive effect on morality. However, the crime rates and discrimination are precisely what you would expect if you look at the violence and intolerance in the bible. Also, those states helped bring George W. into office. Need I say more?

• Republicans clearly declare themselves as advocates of the rich, yet it's often the poorest in this country who vote for them in droves. These people are the poorest and least educated, and they vote for a party that keeps them that way. Consolidation of wealth and the plight of the poor are 2 very important political, economic and social issues where a lot of our voters not only shoot themselves in the foot but try to perform a finishing move on themselves while they're at it. In spite of the fact that Jesus was clearly liberal, his religion causes people to vote the opposite way, often to their own detriment. Are they going for a strange form of martyrdom without the clear reward the Muslims are promised by their faith (at least they get some white raisins, if not virgins)?

• The founding fathers were clearly secular. Just read the quotes from Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others in my Quotes section. We had an opportunity here that many of the more reasonable people in the Muslim world (among other places) would envy. We're throwing it away when we try retrofit a secular government with religious add-ons that take us backwards.

• If this country was founded on Christian values, where are the bible verses in the constitution or bill of rights? If the bible verses were there, maybe Christians wouldn't try to force the 10 commandments into every courthouse.

• Posting the 10 commandments publicly is an act of intolerance. It says that Christianity is THE moral yardstick and that all others are wrong. The 10 commandments contain no powerful insights, and it's no surprise that the people posting them are morally misguided.

• Unless you're Native American, we're the invasive species in this country. In the same way, Christianity is an invasive species of religion that overtook other gentler religions in Europe and, by extension, in the U.S. We took our religion from Europe, and then Europe largely outgrew it – they are far more secular than we are now.

• The ideal set up in the U.S. was “government by the people, for the people”. Look at the power bases of the 2 main parties, and decide for yourself which one best matches up to the ideal. The Republicans have the ultra-rich (definitely the minority), corporations (non-human entities designed simply to make money) and the religious (sadly, they are the majority, but they have their own agenda and are trying to make this country into what everyone was fleeing when they came here). On the Democrat's side, we have the unions and liberals. I can't argue that unions have some counterproductive policies and have helped drive corporations overseas (corporations generally prefer child labor, sweatshops and a downtrodden labor force – because it's cheaper), but I argue that unions are completely necessary. They literally are the folks who gave us the weekend. Do an internet search about conditions in the U.S. before good labor laws were in place, and it's clear that corporations like their labor force as downtrodden and powerless as possible. (Anyone read The Jungle or The Grapes of Wrath?) Again, corporations simply aren't designed with morals in mind. Supposedly, the free market will take care of that... Corporations also like their customers uninformed as well when it comes to environmental issues, animal cruelty, etc. - again, because of expenses. Anyway, I digress. My point is, the people who comprise the unions are far closer to being “the people” that government is supposed to be “for”.

• Liberal: I've heard plenty of conservatives use this term with a sneer. Let's look at what the definition is instead of what it's been made out to be. Webster has “believing that government should be active in supporting social and political change” and “not opposed to new ideas or ways of behaving that are not traditional or widely accepted”. Webster also has an obsolete definition they list: “lacking moral restraint”, and I'd bet that matches the conservative idea of what a liberal is. Increasingly, it seems like the conservatives want to determine what's right and wrong for people (to legislate morality) while the liberals are looking for more freedom to let people do what they want as long as its not hurting anyone else (EXTREMELY consistent with what this country was founded upon). The tendency of the religious to care about things that are none of their business comes into play here, as well as a reliance on the bible as a moral standard. Please see my Religion and Morals section as well as the Bible Verses section for details on why the bible completely fails as a moral standard.

  • I want to restate my thoughts on the freedom bit. People initially came to this country for freedom of belief and of expression. There is a portion of the population – fundamentalist Christians – that want to make this country exactly what those people were fleeing. To see more, do a search for “American Taliban”. To see some idiotic statements from these people, see http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/American_Taliban. Again, in religion there's no objective way to delineate between extremist and non-extremist views. These beliefs are not founded on anything objective or verifiable.

• The previous points set the stage to say that someone must regulate corporations. The republicans do dirty work for corporations by removing ethical and environmental controls that are there to protect the bulk of the population (we, the people). Aside from that, don't we need government to build roads, keep the peace by enforcing laws of personal conduct (religion doesn't cut it), handle defense, look after the poor, etc? I contend we need better, more efficient government, not less of it – in most areas, at least. That's why I don't understand the view that government needs to be severely limited. When in power, the first thing republicans cut are the programs the help the least fortunate of us. Looking after the poor was originally the domain of the church, and then government took over a lot of that role – to take from those who can pay to help those who can't. Republicans turn this upside down. They give breaks to those most able to pay and remove support for the poor. Again, I contend the ideal is to make government more efficient and social programs less prone to scammers. The stories of scammers and abuse of public assistance is sickening, but does that really warrant removing that aid from those who really need it? Again, wealth is being concentrated, which means less for everyone else. Is it really that surprising we have poor people who need help? Removing aid to the poor is just another facet of wealth concentration. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater here when it comes to government. If we could get government efficiency up to 90%, would that overcome the objections? Granted, I don't know how you'd measure that 90% efficiency rate, but I'm sure we could come up with something. ...There's always going to be some waste and someone beating the system from time to time.

• While we're on this track, let's look at a term conservatives tend to vilify: socialism. Webster's definition is this: “a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies”. Roosevelt's New Deal was criticized for being socialist, but it was what the country needed at the time. Let me point out that republicans use that term because of its stigma, not because there's anything being legislated that's even similar to it. I think it's also confused with communism, where government ownership of industries is combined with a lack of individual property. Do you really think this country will really go that way? Scandinavia as a whole is more secular and more socialist than other countries. Notice these countries are among the most prosperous in the world, and they're not a threat to their neighbors (that's Fascism). Denmark takes pride in leaving nobody behind. Does that sound like a bad thing to you?

• The republican approach to protecting the rich from paying their fair share of taxes is extremely transparent. They are just pandering to the rich and powerful, and this should not be tolerated in a country where government is elected by the majority (who aren't rich). First off, concentration of wealth is a bad thing. Even for a country as rich as ours, there's a limit to the amount of wealth that's available. Once the wealth is concentrated, that money can walk very easily. The possessor of that wealth could do anything with it. They could sit on it or go live in Europe – essentially transferring that wealth to a foreign country. Are people really still believing in trickle-down economics as an excuse for this? Try this CNN link: http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/15/news/economy/trickle-down-theory-wrong-imf/.

• Anyone who legislates morality should be held to a higher standard. Any hypocrisy should be exposed for all to see. I don't trust politicians and think the vast majority sold their souls to the highest bidder many times over. Their efforts to hold everyone else to a higher standard is a joke. Often, those who can't do morality try to teach morality. Many former alter boys can testify to that.

• I've heard of a few conservative ideas that sound like conspiracy theories that star the liberals. Here's a more plausible conspiracy: The rich and powerful already run the country, but human nature doesn't ever reach a point where it says "I have enough wealth and power, so I'll stop now.". They manipulate the vote directly where possible (voting machines that offer no paper trail, anyone?), and they don't mind manipulating the rest of the U.S. population because they consider themselves elite, the only "Americans" who truly matter. From their high vantage point, the rich and powerful do another thing we humans are excellent at: dehumanize others who aren't like them. In this case, it's the rest of the U.S. population. They feel no loyalty to their fellow countrymen. The end game is to make more money and get more power. In a world of limited resources, they take that money wherever they can get it. The best way for them to make their money is via corporations. Moral concerns about workers, the environment and the health of consumers using their products just get in the way of making money, so they're opposed to any regulations in those areas. They buy up one or both parties in our 2-party system. While they buy their way to lower regulation and higher profits, they also buy their way to lower taxes. They have enough money to easily buy congress and judicial people to do their bidding, and the rewards at that economic level still outweigh the costs many times over. It's also easy to buy enough advertising to tip public opinion in their candidate's direction, and they have people who know just how to manipulate. The easiest button to press is that of religion. It's been used to impose a power structure onto people for millennia ("The king rules by divine right"). "How pious can we make our candidate look?" After all, if you take religion out of politics, the Republicans are left with the ultra-rich 1% and corporations. Without religion, the power grab becomes crystal clear. If in their right mind, the 99% would not vote for the 1%. The rich joke about deciding the next president for the country, and it becomes about farming the rest of the population (be good little consumers) and about opening up more markets with more consumers to farm. If they don't care about the rest of the population, why would they care about sending us to war for their own benefit? What's good for business is good for the ultra-rich. That's pretty much a 1-to-1 match. Look at how tobacco companies market their products, how much the apparel industry likes child labor and how much crap McDonald's and Taco Bell will feed us if we let them. The power industry would happily keep building dirty coal power plants in spite of known environmental and human impacts, and if the petroleum industry had their way, we'd have thoroughly poisoned ourselves with leaded gasoline (and therefore leaded air) by now. Anyway, the examples are many, and corporations (and the ultra-rich behind them) will take it as far as we let them. There's nothing wrong with making money (I'm rather fond of it myself), but in order for it to be done ethically, we, the U.S. population must become more aware of the power structure in play, take an active interest in politics and use the vote constructively. Government by the people, for the people is the only force I know of to keep the richest and most powerful from taking advantage of the rest of us. That precisely fits the definition of being liberal. 99% of us could sure use some liberalism. ...I must add that history is full of examples of governments that became corrupt and were crushed by rebellion. Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the vote to peacefully make it about us again, no blood required?

• The purpose of democracy is to give the little people (or at least the majority) a voice since the rich and powerful will always be heard. Republicans turn that power right back over to the rich and powerful.

• I've touched on global warming a few times here. There had been a "global warming hiatus", but that can be explained by faulty temperature measurements. The only people who deny the science are either incapable of understanding, not interested in understanding, or have a vested interest in squelching pollution rules so they can make more money. You have to at least concede that this is plausible and that less pollution would be a good thing.