DonCoquixote
DonCoquixote's JournalSanta Claus? He lives forever
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/santa-claus-he-lives-forever/1267561Yes, Virginia, I know you know this editorial. I know some of your cynical threads are at their PCS planning snarky, hateful parodies. However, this editorial does stand the test of time, because the thoughts expressed are still real, and appeal to the best in us.
Especially this part:
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal life with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Religion is something humans do
Because, unlike computers, we have to deal with things that do not make rational sense when we find them, and we cannot wait to have them analyzed before we deal with them. When you read people like Joseph Campbell (hero with a Thousand faces) or James Frazer (the Golden bough) you see that religions, despite the protests of their priests, resemble each other, and part of the reason is why that is our human experience is common. We all live, work , love, die and because not everything in life can be laid out on a table like a math problem, we use myth, story and art to deal with certain things. Granted, Social Sciences are taking over a lot of what used to be relegated to the shamans and vicars, but they are still in their infancy, as far as human history goes.
You could wipe out memory of every religion tomorrow, not one temple, mosque, church, left, and human being would make new religions because Myth is a human need. When you see Che Guevara on a T-Shirt, or hear Rush Limbaugh on the radio, you are seeing this same myth building process at work. Part of the problem comes in when we do not acknowledge that we are telling stories, because instead of us making a narrative, we become controlled by it.
Part of the problem we are dealing with in the 21st century is that we cannot admit that a lot of the "facts" we believe are myths we told ourselves, myths that might have been useful before, but are not now. You can look at anything from Gun Control, to Pollution, to economics, and part of the problem is there is a religion we made up around certain things, and that religion is what destroys any ability to think or act clear. Yes, Economics may have some facts in it, just as religion may have some history in it, but facts and history are by products, because the goal of any economic theory is to SELL A MYTH. Marx and Ayn Rand may have both insisted they were not trying to form a religion, but any conversation with a devout Marxist or Objectivist will clear that up.
Civil servant shootings and tinfoil hats
OK, this may be a stretch, but there is something odd about the fireifghter shooting and the teacher shootings.
Let's be honest, the GOP has no love for civil servants, be they teacher or firefighters. They cannot get attack the Cops as easily, though we all know that the rich use private "security."
Could it be that the forthing hate that has stirred up against civil servants is now forming, or at the very least, the GOP will stir the pot, all the while crying crocodile tears?
Think of it, gut the unions, make the jobs impossible, make them dangerous, aha, this looks liek a job for "private security companies!" After all, if they have Charter Schools,which are workign so well (do I need the damn sarcasm flag?), why not charter police departments, charter fire companies, full of union scabs and ex gis that cannot get a job because uncle sam never deprogammed them. Then of course, the CEOS will have their own occupying force, capable of makign people disappear as surely as they could in Stalin's day.
Laugh if you wish, but I smell something rotten.
Why O lost even though he won
Look, I get annoyed when some here slam everything O does. I can already hear people revving up the engines for Hillary 2016, where she will be given the halo of being the last true FDR liberal that Obama was too young/stupid/not American enough to be. However, in this case, even though he knew that the GOP would not bite, he should have never used SS as a chip.
Now, it is not the current generation of GOP that worry me. Yes, they are stupid, yes they are tied up by little Grover.
What worries me is the next generation of conservatives, and by that, I do not necessarily mean GOP.
To explain: even the thickest in Wall Street are going to realize they overplayed their hand. The GOP could not put Mitt in, and many of the Tea Party types may be on the way out. They will realize they cannot walk in through the front door. So they need a back door.
Of course, they have had success with the DLC. As far right as Obama is, he is nothing compared to those ready to take over: the Hillarys, the Cory Bookers, the Rahm Emmanuels. Combine this with the fact that many "moderate" GOP will jump ship. Wall Street will remake it's old illusion, the 'compassionate conservative". There, you have a mix where someone can bring up "well Obama offered a chained CPI." Yes, we will know that the offer was never going to be taken, but that seed will be enough.
Like I said, I am an Obama supporter. I do not regret either time I voted for him, however, this was a mistake..
how do we keep the war on guns from being like the war on drugs?
Now, let me clear what this post is NOT:
It is not a denial of the fact that our gun policy needs to change. There is no reason a civilian should have military weaponry, period, and yes, automatic and semi automatic weapons with magazines are military weapons. Gun shows that do NOT background check, and sales of weapons other than by dealers that can lose their license, must be phased out.
So, now that I have said this, let me offer a problem that needs an answer.
The war on drugs is rightfully considered foolish, because you cannot stop people from buying something they want. It only winds up catching those who cannot afford lawyers and stuffs the prison system.
SO, consider that the same criminal networks that sell grass sell guns, how do you avoid making another prison stuffing fiasco? Laugh if you want to, but if you have $100 dollars, you can get a dimebag and a 9mm, often from the same person. How would you stop a back market without running into the exact same mess?
My answer would be, regulate guns to death, tax it to death, but do not force gun sales to go underground. Make Jimmy the gun and herbal medicine seller account for every bullet, and every stem and seed, but make it so that people will still want to frequent Jimmy's shop.
I am saying this because I do not want to see the ATF, or perhaps the soon to be division of Cannabis, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have to become some big monster just to deal with Bubba that thinks any regulation of his habits and toys is tyranny.
Just like her?
Sadly, I think Hillary would have been as right as Obama, if not more, remember, she was the brains behind the big dawg, the one that was ready to private SS back in the 90's before getting caught with a cigar made him lean left.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/05/29/the-pact-between-bill-clinton-and-newt-gingrich
If anythign, the things that make me disappointed about Obama are the ways he IS like Clinton.
a free republic article that is NOT barf worthy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2933120/postsFrom the article:
“Hobbes and Bacon” is a “Calvin and Hobbes” tribute that takes place 26 years later.
Yes, Calvin is a dad, married to Susie. There may be hope for some fr buggers yet.
An open letter to Adam Lanza
Disclaimer: yes I know the Newtown shooter cannot read this, yes I am going to say some angry things, but in light of the fact that myself, as well as many of my fellow Autists, did not take his route, I write this to speak, and condemn those responsible for this, including and especially him.When you shot yourself, you probably realized that whatever pain you thought you were seeking revenge on was not going to be relieved. You were probably angry, after all, you just had your big moment, and you realized you were still the small, selfish boy you always were, and that not even selling what little soul you had was going to change that. Oh, I am sure you could probably sing songs of your pain, of whatever your mommy and daddy could not see, or how the masses never realized how much pain they caused you, intentionally or not.
I have news for you, there are many of us who walked that same damned path, many of us who could not even get care. I have to spend a big chunk of my SSI on a psychologist I can barely afford, yet whose services I need. I had a long,nasty string of broken jobs, and before I got diagnosed, I was the kid who was "so smart" yet always got fired. I went through the government route, being assigned to a therapist that seemed to get a sick pleasure in attacking the poor patients that became his little zoo of broken freaks. Your Mother got you care, granted, she, being a "survivalist" was also STUPID enough to teach you how to shoot rifles, buying into the right wing crap she probably heard on talk radio! However, all accounts say that she tried to get you help, and she sure got you that apartment in Hoboken. I grew up within walking distance of where you lived, and I could not afford to live there, neither would many of what this country calls the "mentally disabled."
I understand that we Aspies sometimes get so focused on a detail that we miss a bigger picture, well, you sure as hell missed the bigger one, one where you were just a small part of the canvas, where yes, we Aspies DO have empathy, perhaps so much so that we shut down just to keep our brain from overloading, but you, you not only ruined other's people's lives, not only ruined your own. By your act, you justified every time someone called you a freak, not because of how you were made, but because YOU CHOSE TO BECOME A MONSTER. Millions of us (and you know there ARE millions of us) deal with stress and pain that would have made your little brain wither like a rose in a winter frost, and even though we ARE hated, scorned, and misunderstood, we choose NOT TO BECOME the monster, even if out of sheer spite and pride! For all I know, I might end up on some street corner, dressed in rags and stinking of piss, but I know full well that whatever tatters my mind breaks into, I will never make your choice to become an egotistical little monster. Note I say little, for there is no grandeur you deserve, even in infamy!
And please do not think I exonerate what this nation calls "mental health", or the fact that guns are considered a sacrament, namely because this nation was founded by England's abused children that were told to take out their aggression on the natives, and send the gold back to London. The powers that be never want a "well regulated militia" but a bunch of fools they can abuse and use as fodder. Ask any solider in Iraq whose family had to attend a gun show, not to get some survivalist fetish/toy, but because Uncle Sam would not equip their own soldiers with working weapons and bullet proof vests! But frankly, this is about you, the last bit of attention you deserve and will get.
The atheist/agnostic/whatever in me knows there is no Heaven or Hell. As much as we wish to take life seriously, the universe does not take us very seriously at all. If there was a Heaven for those children, I would hope it would be a playground with friends, as that is the closest many of us get to Heaven anyway. if there was a Hell, I would hope you are forever in a schoolyard, getting laughed at and picked on, till the hyper cranked senses we aspies have scream for the relief we never get! I say this as someone who has been beaten to a bloody pulp in many a schoolyard, and who knows that schoolyards for those who are "different" can make Dante's inferno look like Disneyland. I would not wish this on my worst enemy, but I do for you.
Go out into the darkness that you chose, and whatever you sought that day, may you never find.
PS: To DU,please remember, even though our ability to express ourselves may be hindered, we Aspies do have empathy,and yes, we do feel pain, remember that when the media tries to offer some scapegoat/panacea, because while Adam sold his soul,most of us are fighting like hell for ours.
UGLY ass truth
The reason so many of these people fear gun control is because America encourages a fantasy, that if worse comes to worse, White Anglo Saxon Protestant males can go ahead and blow away whoever dares limit their rights to whatever they want...yee-haw. It is the threat of violence that was meant to keep everyone else in check, thus the threats of shooting Obama, and the actual shooting of Mexicans. The Government does not want to damage that because the military depends on the idea that you, yes, you, can be turned into a superhero that can shoot those evil brown people who even arm their children with guns! Be....alll that you can be....coz it's not just a job, it's an adventure!
But more than that, the powers that be want Joe rural to think that the big threats to him come from brown people, when the corporate scum are already busy sending his job to China, and figuring out all the ways to screw Joe Rural over for profit. As vile as many of our enemies are (and yes, they are) Wall Street has killed more Americans than Ben ladin ever could.
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