Category Archives: Politics

So that’s done…

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I’m gonna be honest here, my friends. Well, I feel like I’m always honest here but that’s besides the point. Anyway…

The last four years have been rough. Living in a country that elected that vile excuse of a human being and everything that went along with it was a challenge. If it had been realistic to do so we would have left, and trust me when I say we had a lot of discussions around it (you might be surprised to learn that there aren’t a lot of countries that are really chomping at the bit to let Americans move there). I watched the new President give his inaugural address, and I realized as I was doing so that it was the first time I’ve willingly watched the President of my country speak since the last inauguration, when I sat there in open mouthed horror as Cheetolini extolled the kind of “virtues” that had not been publicly embraced to that extent in decades.

I’m really looking forward to going back to the President not being part of the daily discussion, and not cringing every time that person speaks.

But in the spirit of unity that President Biden is calling for, here’s a few things I’m going to commit to…

  • I won’t use President Biden’s name as a weapon. We have removed our yard sign, and I won’t be wearing my Biden/Harris mask any more.
  • I won’t begrudge the people who want to say that Biden is not “their” President, but I will not hesitate to remind them that he is the President.
  • I will continue to have open dialogue with people who disagree with me on the way the Government should run, but I reserve the right to continue lambasting Nazis, white supremacists, racists, and others who were emboldened by the 45 administration.
  • I’m also going to continue making fun of anyone who still thinks Q is a reliable source.

Gotta get back to work, but I wanted to get those thoughts out.

Facts and Figures

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I was inspired to write today after seeing the post below on the Facebook timeline of a relative of mine. I had to go specifically searching out said post because the relative put me on mute a few years ago after vague posting about me being too negative and hateful to follow any more, but because I actually love this person I do check in every once in a while. I would have posted as a comment there, but I have also been accused of only saying anything to them when they post something political. So it goes. Besides, I just spent a lot of time researching my response and I figured why not post it here where people beyond the cesspool of Facebook might find it.

So here is the content of the original copy/paste post…

I am making this post so it will show back up as a future memory on my timeline: Today is three days after the 2020 election. Gasoline is currently $1.80-2.10 per gallon. Interest rates are 2.65% for a 30 year mortgage. The stock market closed at 27,848, even though we have been fighting COVID for 9 months. Our GDP growth for the 3rd Qtr was 33%. We had the best economy ever until COVID and it is recovering well. We have not had any new wars or conflicts in the last 4 years. North Korea has been under control and has not been testing any missiles. Isis has not been heard from for over 3 years. The housing market is the strongest in over 20 years. Homes have appreciated at an unbelievable rate and sell within hours of going on the market, with multiple offers. I hope our new leadership can build on these things and can keep them going, but if I were a betting person I would bet that the only place we will see these results will be in this post

And here is my response…Sources are linked inline.

Based on data collected between 1993 and today, gasoline prices peaked in July of 2008 at $4.16 per gallon during the height of the economic recession. They bottomed out in January of 2009 at $1.73 per gallon during the first month of the Obama administration. The average price per gallon began to rise as the economy recovered and stayed over $3 a gallon until December of 2014, but it had been steadily dropping since June of that year. The average has fluctuated up and down between $2 and $3 a gallon ever since with a few exceptions, but the lowest it has been since the recession was in March of 2016. Prices have been trending higher since that time but dropped rapidly in 2020 $2.63 a gallon in January to $1.94 in May. This was due largely to the lack of demand because of the worldwide impact of COVID-19. As of November of 2020 the average price per gallon is $2.20.

Mortgage interest rates are historically low right now, but that is not necessarily a good thing. Those rates are based on the Federal Interest rate, which is almost zero at this point. There has been talk of that rate going negative, which in simplest terms means that the government would be paying entities to loan them money. The reason why the rate is so low is because the economic conditions in the country are tenuous at best. As of September of 2020, the unemployment rate was 7.9%, and that didn’t factor in the estimated 5 million people who are not currently looking for work due to the pandemic. This also does not factor in the nearly 2.3 million individuals in our prison system, with 56% of that population being Black or Hispanic. The housing and used car markets are indeed great right now – for people who can afford to take advantage of the fact that interest rates are terrible. Meanwhile, savings, certificate, and money market rates are hardly worth paying attention to. You haven’t even been able to buy paper savings bonds at banks since 2012, and even if you could the rate is just as bad on those as it is for any other type of traditional low-risk investments. The only way to significantly grow your money right now is to invest it in the stock market, which excludes approximately 48% of the population (and heavily favors white households with over $100k in annual income).

The GDP did grow by 33% in the third quarter of 2020. It also dropped by 31.4% in the second quarter and 5% in the first quarter. Before that, GDP has had statistically flat growth for the last 25 years, with the exception of the economic recession in 2008.

The stock market has been growing at a steady pace since the economic recession of 2008 but took a major hit in March of 2020. During the pandemic.

North Korea conducted missile tests in March of 2020, and during a parade in October unveiled what appeared to be an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

ISIS Claimed credit for an attack that killed 4 in Vienna on November 3rd of 2020, and has claimed credit for many attacks over the last three years.

There are several upshots to everything I’ve just written here…

  • The President of the United States, as an individual, as virtually no impact on the overall economy.
  • North Korea is still a threat to the United States. So is ISIS. But, according to the F. B.I., the biggest threat Americans currently face domestically comes in the form of antigovernmental, right-wing groups of white supremacists. These groups were emboldened due to the messages sent by the administration over the last four years, starting during his initial campaign and becoming official during his inauguration in which he took an “America First” stance. The America First party was founded in 1943 and was an isolationist, anti-Semitic, white supremacist movement.
  • Most importantly – It took me maybe an hour to fact check and write my rebuttal to this post, largely because I wanted to make sure I cited credible sources and had my figures right. I did not know many of the statistics above until I started my research. I didn’t know about recent North Korea or ISIS activity. Because I work in finance I was aware of the trends in the economy but I did not know any actual numbers. One of the amazing things about living in modern times is that we literally have the sum of all human knowledge to us available at our fingertips. Far too many of us do not use it. Read more. Research more. Find your own answers and do not let memes, headlines, and pundits dictate how you think. And whatever you do, stay the hell away from YouTube videos.

Guns and the Constitution. Because of course.

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I am not a Constitutional scholar. I am not a lawyer. I haven’t spent years of my life dedicated to the understanding of the ways our system of laws work. I’m just a guy who, in all honesty, had his interest in the Founding Fathers sparked because of Hamilton: An American Musical. Over the course of the last year I’ve read Ron Chernow’s books on Hamilton and Washington. I’ve read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and all the Amendments. I’ve read the Federalist papers.

At this moment, as we’re looking at another series of school shootings in our country, I’m particularly thinking about how everything I’ve read in the last year squares up with what our current situation is in this country.

Hamilton was opposed to a Bill of Rights for the Constitution, simply due to the fact that he was concerned it would set a precedent that would expand the powers of the Federal Government beyond what the Constitution intended. His reasoning was that, by declaring that the Government specifically could NOT pass legislation removing certain rights, the implication was that the Government HAD the power to pass laws not expressly forbidden by the amendments. The Government had, for example, no right to restrict the freedom of the press in the original document. It was, therefore, unnecessary for there to be an Amendment specifically stating that they could not do it. Fast Forward to now, and in order to prevent the Federal Government from passing a law restricting flag burning, for example, and you are forced to classify Flag Burning as “speech.”

Now take this data and turn it to guns. Here you have the opposite problem. Because the Bill of Rights specifically protects the right of the people to “keep and bear arms”, the Federal AND State Governments have found themselves in a situation where any attempt to pass reasonable gun legislation becomes a “Constitutional Crisis.” The truly amusing thing about all of this is that some people view the Second Amendment as proof the the Founders wanted everyone armed, when that is far from true. At the time the Constitution passed, all thirteen states had some sort of gun legislation in their Constitutions. Hamilton was terrified by the prospect of armed mobs. In many states, in order to own a gun you had to swear an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy.

And while I know this argument has been made, unsuccessfully, thousands of times…What the Founding Fathers viewed as “arms” back in the 1700’s and the weapons we have available to us today are so radically different as to be virtually unrecognizable in the same context. According to a completely random internet forum I just found using Google, a highly-skilled re-enactor can fire a flintlock rifle six times in one minute…while standing completely still…

Those are the “arms” the Second Amendment was written about.

Keep and bear those all you want, folks. That’s not at all what I’m worried about these days.

I don’t really have any sort of major point in writing this, or a solution, or…really anything. I’m numb, and I keep seeing people say that the solution is MORE guns and MORE metal detectors and MORE walls and fences and borders…and I just keep thinking…This is not the world we should want to live in. We shouldn’t need to be locked in amber to feel safe. I don’t want schools to be fortresses.

I want there to be less guns.

Much less.

Like…none.

But instead I’m thinking that I need to buy one.

So. There it is.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

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QTQE_rrBe_g

It’s 6 AM on the day before Dragon Con here in Atlanta. I had a crappy night of sleep due to some poor dining choices I made yesterday, and I haven’t even finished my first cup of coffee yet, so there’s a very real possibility that this post is going to get a little cranky.

But the subject makes me cranky, so it might have gone that way regardless.

After doing a major pruning of my friends list I started using Facebook again about a month ago. For the most part? It’s been a pretty pleasant experience. I no longer have to skim through pages of updates and posts that I really didn’t give a crap about to see updates from people who I actually want to stay connected to. That’s cool. Thing is, I still see some things that get my blood boiling. One of those things can be summed up in the use of the #AllLivesMatter hashtag (or the general attitude that is represented by that hashtag, even if it isn’t being used).

I want to say I get it, and that I understand the frustration, but I simply don’t. I can’t see how, with the massive amount of information we as a a people we have available to us in the information age, it’s not possible to see how there are major issues in our country regarding race that simply can’t be wiped away by insisting that people “stop playing the race card.”

What really bugs me about this is that more often than not this quiet racism is cloaked in comments about (primarily) African-American and Latino culture here in the country. “Those people” would do so much better in their lives if they would just “pull their pants up”, “learn how to speak properly”, and “stop acting like thugs.”

So, in other words, they should act more like a proper white person.

Ironically, these same people never seem to make those kind of comments about other whites unless said caucasian acts “ghetto”. I mean, while there are certainly exceptions to the rule you don’t often see your typical trailer park redneck contribute much to the betterment of society. See a picture of a white guy holding an assault rifle and standing in front of his pick up truck? Many likes! Yay, America! See a picture of a black guy holding the same rifle in front of his BMW? OMG THUGS!!

It’s gross.

I guess I’m speaking up about this now, and in a very public way, because I’ve had a bit of a personal epiphany. Not too long ago I had a relative refer to an African-American woman who was in an old velvet painting as a “jungle bunny.” He did this in my house, within earshot of children, and I said nothing. I’ve been disgusted with myself ever since. I’ve put up with this kind of thing from people I know for far too long, and I simply can’t ignore it any more. Which means I’m likely to continue having some very awkward conversations with people who I genuinely care for if I continue using Facebook.

Or I’m just going to unfriend them…or leave the service altogether.

I frankly don’t know.

What I do know is that I can no longer sit by while the pigs take over the farm.

It’s Not About Respect

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I recently asked a male relative of mine if he would send his nephews to a rape defense class. This was part of a larger discussion on rape culture, misogyny, and the general state of affairs in our society that have been brought into sharp focus due to the recent events in California. My relative replied to my question by stating that he would hope his nephews “would respect women.”

Now ignoring the fact that he dodged my very direct question almost completely, what he said was still somewhat interesting to me. In the next few days,  I saw similar comments from other men I knew along the same lines. More often than not, I see them offered up as part of a thinly veiled “Not All Men” defense. “I was raised to respect women,” the argument goes, “so clearly I am not part of this ‘rape culture’ you speak of.”

This defense is not only irrelevant and distracting, it’s also inherently flawed…and it proves exactly what it is trying to deny.

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Chick-Fil-A 101

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Yeah, that’s right. I’m back after a few months of silence to talk about the Chick-Fil-A boycott. Because, you know, bandwagons are fun to jump on.

Seriously, though. I’ve seen a few folks post some things over on Facebook (or, as I like to call it, “The place where I learn shit about people I like that I really wish I didn’t know”) that have kinda gotten under my skin. I’ve also received a very polite and insightful e-mail from my Conservative Vice-Presidential running mate, Craig, that brought up a few interesting points. With all that in mind, I decided that I wanted to put down a few of my thoughts regarding the controversy.

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So long, Rick…For now.

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So Rick Santorum has finally dropped out of the Republican race for President, leaving the path clear for Mitt Romney to accept the nomination and go up against President Obama in the Fall.

Oh, sure. There’s still candidates left in the race. Ron Paul is vowing to stick in there, and for some reason crazy-assed Newt Gingrich still seems to think there’s some kind of logical reason for him to put up a show of being a candidate. This is a guy whose campaign is bouncing checks in Utah, folks. The proverbial fat lady is screaming in his ear but for some reason he’s refusing to listen.

Wow. I just re-read my last paragraph. You know someone is off his rocker when, compared to folks like Ron Paul I consider him to be the crazy one (and before you start your shit with me, Paul supporters, understand that while I agree with a lot of what he has to say you gotta admit that he’s a bit on the insane side for continually throwing himself into the grinder by trying to get elected on a Republican ticket).

But this post isn’t about Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul. This post is about Rick Santorum. Frankly? The dude scared the shit out of me. The thought of living in a country with him as President was enough to make me seriously do some research into what it would take to move to another country. This is not an exaggeration. I looked things up.

Spoiler alert – It’s a real pain in the ass.

But with all of his insane religious viewpoints, his intolerance of homosexuality, his unrealistic view of the Middle East and why exactly some of the otherwise nice folks who live there would like to see us die in a fire, and his general lack of supporting pretty much anything that I hold to be precious as far as politics are concerned….

I’m going to miss him.

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An Appeal To Authority

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So I put my application letter to attend the Republican National Convention in the mail today. I thought you all might like to read it.

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To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to formally request access to the 2012 Republican National Convention as an Independent Blogger.

I have thought long and hard about how to present myself in this letter, trying to think of the “best” way to convince you that I’m not some kind of crazy hack that is attempting to get in to the convention as a joke. In doing so, I realized that if I had to trick you into believing that I was something I am not then I wasn’t being honest about who I was or why I wanted to attend the convention.

And that’s just not me.

So here’s my pitch, with no exaggerated claims or grandiose promises, and with all of the many reasons you can probably think of not to let me in stated right up front.

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Live Blog – 2012 State of the Union Address

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So I’ve been pretty critical of the Republicans during their 8 bajillion debates. I believe, however, that I’ve also been fair. I’ve certainly admitted when I agreed with them, even if the person who I was agreeing with was Rick Santorum. So tonight I’m turning my snark-o-tron on the guy I’m currently supporting in the 2012 election. I doubt I’m going to end up being nearly as harsh, but if he says things I think are full of crap I’ll admit it.

Let’s see how this goes…

[liveblog]

[sociable/]