Here's a quandary. How do you wrap your head around a moral absolutist argument by those who also believe in moral/cultural relativism? How do you find the theoretical synthesis between having an impenetrable morality all the while believing that other moralities/cultures are just as legitimate, even if they violate the absolute moral code?

Want to know the answer?

The answer is that you don't.

Politics as Life

There are millions of my fellow political junkies out there who eat, sleep, live and breathe the goings on of home and the world. We read the news, the opinion sections, the blogs; we watch the news, listen to the talk hosts, agree or disagree over and over. Some of us are more informed than others. Some of us are more passionate than others. The key thing is that the amount of passion you have for politics has no bearing on the depth of your knowledge and the accuracy of your points.

This is not a phenomenon of the left or the right. Both sides have those who are informed, those who are passionate, some who are more of one than the other and some who are equally both. Of the both category, on the right, you have thinkers like Thomas Sowell, Rich Lowry, George Will and Will Wilkinson. On the left, you have such names as Ezra Klien, Matt Yglesias, Bill Scher and Fareed Zakaria. There is plenty of knowledgeable and passionate people on all sides, all with views that make sense, even if you don't agree with them.

The problem arrives with the appearance of the passionately uninformed politico. In a debate on torture on Blogginghead.tv between John McWhorter and Glenn Loury, two distinguished professors, the comments were flooded with post after post on how the Bush administration should be prosecuted for the so-called crimes these people accuse them of. Some commenters went so far as to say both men were dead wrong on the subject because said commenters knew a priori that what the United States did was wrong, and by such astounding argument any other talk on it, or any other path of thinking other than conviction, was null and void.

I'm all for an actual, intelligent, back and forth battle of wits. I think I'm right when I debate, of course (who wouldn't think that?), but I've been corrected by others and I have corrected others countless times. Such is the way you learn and grow your intellectual mind. But it's these people who take politics as a lifestyle, not just a hobby or an interest, that come to be the people who get the deluge of links from eager beaver college students in their term papers when they call President Bush a war criminal and a fascist. It's these people who get vast followings by questioning the authenticity of birth certificates or claiming FEMA is about to round us all up in the event Obama turns out to be a Muslim Martian. These people are the ones that fan the flames of unintelligent debate. And just because it'll piss off the uninformed left, I'm going to focus on their contradictory moralities and totally ignore the right.

Torture as National Moral Rot

The argument I hear constantly from the passionate moralists is that giving a green light to torture, with specific focus on waterboarding, would erode America's moral standing and national moral core. Whether the other methods like temperature fluctuation and sleep deprivation count as well depends on the moralist you're talking to. This argument crosses so many different ideas and cherry picks from them only to make an inane point that has no bearing on the real world.

To start off with torture, there is no conclusive proof of actual state-sanctioned torture. Waterboarding is still being debated by Barack Obama and Barack Obama, let alone the rest of the government. Even in foreign policy hawk circles there is plenty of room for discussion. All this while the other methods are not even on the table except by the most hardened of activists. So to sing the praises of Spanish judges or demagogues is so premature as to be embryonic.

Moving on, the green light to this so-called torture program was given years ago by not only the slew of public policy experts in the government, but by Congressional leaders. Congress is the voice of the people and the people at that time wanted to prevent another 9/11 at all costs. Luckily, for captured terrorists, at all costs in America does not mean beheading, gang rape, burying and stoning, or any other disgusting and horrific methods used by radical Islamists. At all costs, in American-speak, means within reason. What the “torture” memos describe is not the legal gymnastics to do whatever we need, but to build a legal ceiling to prevent torture from occurring while doing its best to not hamper the goal of the entire program: gathering intelligence. Basically, to do the best one can with terrorists who've been expertly trained in interrogation without it actually being torture.

And now we get to the icing on this mudcake: the idea of a collective national morality affected by the collective agreement to institutionalize torture. First and foremost, the idea of a collective national morality is fascistic. Such talk was used by every Progressive from Teddy to Kennedy. It was used by the Nazis, the Italian Fascists and many others. A belief in a collective national morality dismisses the idea that individuals are able to determine their own morality because of some kind of collective psychological slavery to the will of the mob. It also dismisses the checks and balances of our republican system in which the collective can (and has been) reserved in its fury by the executive or judicial branches, as was the case in the Civil War and its aftermath. The nation could be calling for the extermination of all redheaded stepchildren, but it'd still go against a warehouse full of constitutional protections and it would be struck down, if the judges actually did their job. As for our moral standing, other parts of the world have opposing moral/cultural codes which naturally conflict with ours, and so our moral standing with these nations probably isn't exactly high during good times, let alone the times that they can exploit as a war against their values when, in fact, we do nothing of the sort.

So, what we have from this paraphrase summary of the layman left's argument against torture, is this:

The United States, through its representative legislature, green lighted methods that have yet to be determined as torture, but if the people, now in discussion over the issue, do not demand the prosecution of the past administration for crimes that have yet to be conclusively ruled on as crimes, then the collective morality of the nation, a concept both fascistic and questionable, will be affected by the people's choice and negatively affect the nation in ways we do not know nor in ways we can hypothesize except that it won't be good for our moral standings with nations whose views conflict with ours naturally and who exploit every chance they get to denounce us.

Compelling stuff.

Arguing To Win

These politically passionate folk, armed with their air-tight argument against the use of harsh interrogation, strut their stuff on their blogs, on message boards, in coffee shops and on the street. They proclaim the immorality of what President Bush and his administration did. They attack others as fascists and monsters. There is no way someone who is moral can support these methods. No way in hell. Anything else deserves a stern response, preferably snarky or emotional. And this is where the passionately blind lose sight of their goal, if they had a goal to being with.

Their mistake is to believe they can change the mind of someone in a political debate that cumulatively lasts less than an enema (though sometimes the enema may be preferable depending on who you're debating). You're not arguing to win, you're arguing to argue. I don't slide over to my conservative group on Facebook to turn the doe-eyed liberal into a cranky, shotgun toting conservative. I go on there to be motivated to come up with new and interesting ways to prove a point. What began as a “But I'm right” morphed into a “Of course, Alternet is a unbiased source!” to “Eh... Wikipedia? Are you sure?”. The one thing I never did was actually win an argument. The one thing I did do early on was explode due to my opponent's odd opposition of changing his entire code of values. Who knew a conservative didn't want to give up US national sovereignty to foreign powers?

Spy vs Spy: Leftist Theory Fights Itself

“Politics as life”-ers have an emotional attachment to their views and that view's superiority that it puts them in the predicament of contradicting past or current views. For example, the political left's defense of not-so-covert agent Valarie Plame (found in D.C.'s Who's Who next to the name of her ambassador husband while “undercover”) while promoting the outing of CIA interrogators. The “torture” debate puts this front and center when it pits liberal/leftist moral absolutism against their equally vigorous support for multiculturalism, which is a product of moral relativism. Of course, not everyone arguing against the use of waterboarding or other methods are moral relativists, but I'm not arguing against everyone who has an objection to “torture”, but those who have an objection to “torture” that contradicts their other standing views.

Moral relativism has a bad rap because of its association with liberal/leftist social theory. From the left, moral relativism holds that the world has a plurality of moralities and those moralities are equal in comparison as they relate to the individual's belief and passing judgment would be ignorant. Basically, the “one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter” argument. Thing is, if you scratch the egalitarianism from moral relativism, you actually have a very basic and accurate theory on the reality of moral views in the world. There are different moralities, that is a fact, but the key thing for any intelligent person (liberal or conservative) is to realize is that not every single morality can be equal with the other. This is impossible because morality is subjective, and no matter how much a liberal may try to respect every single morality that shows itself on campus there's going to be some view that'll outrage them (other than a conservative point of view, of course).

Now, how exactly does someone who believes in an equality of moralities turn around and proclaim that “torture” is immoral?

They want to win. The argument they use is partisan, not intellectual. They want to be objectively right, not just subjectively right, and that involves doing all you can to appear on the winning side of history (and that's only if history exonerates their view). Those who take to the streets, to the blogs and to the boards in anger are not trying to find out what exactly is torture in our complicated world, or add to the discourse on the morality of using torture, if what we've done is indeed torture. They want the honor of being proclaimed victorious over an issue that is mostly subjective and therefore can never be really determined on objective grounds.

So, if you ever encounter one of these moralists in the middle of proclamation of moral absolutes, ask “Who says?”. If they are anything like the person I described, you should be able to hear the explosion. Just make sure you're under something when it happens.

Have you ever talked to a political person and have them cite Nineteen Eight-Four in an argument against the PATRIOT Act or about the terrorist surveillance program? What about someone quoting Brave New World while railing against the dangers of capitalism? Oh, how about having Fahrenheit 451 put together with hardcore Christians views on certain books? It happened. I used to do it in my younger days. Its quite simple, its very effective and its wholly dishonest in that it removes the context of the action from the universe the book is set in.

The Anti-Communist Socialist

Written by Eric Aurthur Blair (aka George Orwell) during the Second World War, Nineteen Eight-Four has become the icon of all political dystopia novels before and after it. Blair, a socialist, was a soldier in the Spanish Civil War, fighting for the leftist Republican faction against the monarchist-fascist Nationalist faction. It was there in the trenches with his comrades that he came face to face with the reality of what revolutionary communism and socialism has become. The Soviets had sent agents and arms to aid the leftists in the war. With the aid came Stalinist paranoia and purges. Blair's friends were gunned down by their own side because Stalin had deemed them too moderate or a threat to his rule of all communists worldwide. The author barely got out of Spain alive.

The book is about life in a futuristic Stalinist regime called Oceania that has taken over the Western Hemisphere and the English Isles. In this world, your only way to advance is to join the Party, otherwise you are relegated to the inhuman slums where the “proles” live. If you're in the Party, your life is regulated twenty-four hours by Big Brother, the ever watchful and ruthless face of the security apparatus. You are to believe whatever the state says, even if you know it to be wrong. If they say two plus two equals five, its five. Thought police kick down doors if you mutter anything against the Party or Big Brother. Children are recruited into the domestic intelligence agencies to spy on their parents. Even the much hated resistance leader and his band of ruffians are nothing more than a fiction created by the state to catch free thinkers so they can be tortured back into submission. The entire book is one big nightmare for any lover of liberty.

The left, most actively the student left, loves to point out how our interrogations are akin to the torture perpetrated in the book, but this is wrong on so many levels. First off, in the big picture, the United States is not a super-state Stalinist tyranny that enslaves the lower classes through ignorance, submits the middle class through brainwashing and has an upper class of Party members that are outside the law. The United States is a democratic republic with 50 unique states in a union held together by a federal government who leaders are elected every two, four and six years, depending on their position. Secondly, the interrogations of captured Islamist terrorists are not to break their ideological or religious beliefs, but to extract intelligence about their network, their associates and their plots to kill Americans. Our interrogations do not try to convince the terrorists two plus two is five or that Big Brother is their friend. All they need to do is give us actionable intelligence, and they have. Thousands of intelligence reports have been written based upon the vetted information given to us by these terrorists. Thirdly, the harsh interrogation were only used upon the high level terrorists in our custody. The harshest of methods, such as waterboarding, are not used on the foot soldiers. The Party, on the other hand, goes so far as to capture and torture loyal members who happen to mutter disloyal things in their sleep!

Blair was a democratic socialist. While he was disciple of Marxist economics, he wasn't for the tyrannical states that usually followed a socialist or communist coup. Blair would probably be quite content with the current status of most European nations, though the “neo-liberal” (corporatist) economics may have worried him. But, in no way, was Nineteen Eight-Four an allegory for all totalitarianism as some of the more ignorant like to profess. It was a fictionalized warning against Stalinist communism and its perversion of the ideals he held dear. There's a good reason Big Brother's face resembles Joseph's and not FDR's.

The Industrial Humanity

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a classic of dystopian literature. A reaction to the spreading mass industrial culture of the late 1920s and early 1930s, it sends us far into the future where mass industrialization, mass commercialization and societal collectivism have created the World State. Reproduction is no longer a individual choice, but the responsibility of the government. Most children, except for the Alphas and Betas the upper tiers of the State's caste system, are mass produced using the “Bokanovsky process” which allows an egg to create up to 96 different embryos. Through chemical manipulation, the lower castes are literally grown and then brainwashed into their jobs. There is no free will at all for those deemed to be Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Individuality is considered an egregious violation of the fabric of society. All citizens must interact with other citizens or be constantly looked down upon and ridiculed. Since reproduction is a state responsibility, sex has become a social and religious experience, with drug taking and orgies taking the place of prayer and Bible study. Parenthood, family, love; all the things that we hold dear today are considered evil tomorrow.

While the boons of capitalism have led to some very unhealthy things such as celebrity cults, mass advertising at children, and other things that have come to define our free market culture, Brave New World is not attacking capitalism and consumerism alone. Huxley's intention was to parody both the consumerism of America with the cold industrial fetish of the socialists and communists. Along with that, much of the future society of the World State is anti-traditional, anti-religion and anti-individualism; things hardly associated with conservatism and conservative values. The mass production of human beings is exactly what the conservative argument about cloning and embryonic stem-cell research is about. Despite the liberal myth, President Bush invested federal funds in stem-cell research, but refused to allow human embryos to be grown simply to be destroyed. The brainwashing of children isn't exactly what conservative presidents and Congresses do, especially not straight out of the womb (or the tube). But, it is a staple of communist and fascist governments to reform society from the infant up, creating fanatics by the time they've mastered riding a bike.

Huxley was an early hippie. Not the ones you see today who are one with nature, but also one with Marxist theory. Huxley was a believer in the mind and he took countless amounts of psychotropic drugs to prove it. He hated any kind to totalitarianism, either real like the USSR's anti-democratic governance or spiritual like American consumerism and American reliance on neurological medication. To use the book as a example of runaway capitalism, or of any other conservative cause, as many student revolutionaries do, just proves our education system needs revamping in the literary departments.

Books Are Hard

When some devout Christians questioned the Harry Potter books and some went so far as to burn it, constant allusions to the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 were made by social liberals, the media and other critics of these passionate religious folk. While I think its silly to believe that the Harry Potter series may incite children to take up the more dangerous and violent parts of witchcraft, I also think these people have every right to do what they want with the books. As for the citation of the classic novel about anti-intellectualism, those who use it use it wrong.

The world of Fahrenheit 451 is not one of theocracy or religious fervor, or of hyper-nationalism like the Nazis, but a pleasure-loving society who has deemed that learning is too hard, that any kind of lawful governance or cultural discipline is just not right. Teens drive into people and no one cares. People kill animals just to enjoy the gory death. The main character is a fireman: someone who burns the books found by the government. After a chance interaction with a free-thinking neighbor, he's set on a path of resistance to this destructive society. He's told years before his time, the people of this dytopian America decided rather than deal with minor backlashes from offended minorities, political correctness would flourish through the destruction of all books. Better for everyone to be equally unoffended by no literature than some people be offended by some literature.

Now where exactly in the book does it state that a cabal of Christian conservatives have deemed books to be blasphemous so they burn them all? Where exactly is the analogy (or allegory) to the zealotry of the faithful? Of course, it isn't there. Like the two previous examples, these famous novels of a world gone wrong are taken out of context so often its become common knowledge. Those who deem themselves political, liberal and well read, they would be aghast to know that the three books are, in fact, against what they believe. Usually, is hedonism associated with liberal or conservative ideology? How about the nanny state? How about genetic manipulation of embryos?

The classical dystopias of our literary cannon are not against a nation of free thinkers and humble faithful, nor are they against a separation of powers, a reasonable national defense, free markets or natural diversity. These horrors of our political imaginations are warnings against the very things we conservatives detest and the very thing many liberals, unwittingly, are for.

BY MIKE PORTER

As the financial crisis continues to linger, our government has already expanded the national debt by dumping money into private enterprises. Today we see our government is now a significant owner in all major banks and two of the three US automakers. I have disagreed with the approach our government has taken in regard to bailing out failing companies from the beginning. I was outspoken when federal dollars were going to “save” companies under orders by George W. Bush, and I disagree with Obama’s continuation and expansion of this policy. I am sickened by the lack of ownership our government has taken in the financial problem and their failure to change the policies that contributed to this crisis. While federal ownership in any private industry is dangerous, I would like to send a special warning to the rest of the world should the US government decide buy into media and newspaper companies.

First, let us focus on why government ownership in any private company is bad. Today our government has already bought significant ownership in automotive and financial industries. Government coming to the rescue of any failed company is bad for the company, the industry, and for our country as a whole. Investing government dollars in a failing business might save the company in the short run, but the long run effects of doing so are far more problematic than letting these companies fail. If these companies ran themselves to the point of going out of business, then the market should determine whether or not these companies go into Chapter 11 and not our government. A large automaker or a bank going out of business will create some short-term problems in any economy. There is no denying that fact. That being said, a large competitor going away in any industry could save the other lagging companies or possibly lead to expansion from companies who are being ran well and are profitable. The customers who used to go to the failed firm will still need the goods and services their old company provided. However, now they will have other firms to choose from. Large companies leaving an industry will open the door for new smaller companies to compete who weren’t large enough to compete before. Many times, companies that go into chapter 11 will emerge later as a smaller, more efficient, company. A company going out of business is just as important as business success because it tells everyone they did something wrong.

Government ownership in a company turns government bureaucrats and tax payers into vocal partners in an organization. We have already seen how Obama asked the former CEO of GM to step down - a decision that should have been left to the board of directors. Salaries and bonuses of executives and all employees can be dictated by the primary owner who is now the government. Taxpayers are in a position where their tax dollars are being invested in a company they did not choose. This opens the company up to tremendous scrutiny that otherwise would not exist. Anything from where billboards are placed to the soap they use in their bathrooms can and will be questioned. Taxpayers will be free to criticize any investment that appears to them as “wasting their money” even if the company is taking steps that could lead to turning the company around in the future. Many high level decisions appear questionable to investors initially only to bear fruit at a later date. It will only be worse when taxpayers have a vested interest in the company and a government who can block these decisions. The existence of government in a private firm will allow the government to have a say in how that company uses its resources or what direction that company will go. This can be used for political expediency in the case of making “green cars” that may be too expensive, asking banks to give out loans to political friends or unqualified borrowers, or forcing unwanted mergers as has been discussed with Chrysler corporation. Our government getting involved only increases taxpayer stake in a company which will only get more costly for the taxpayer when they come back asking for more capital. Many economists have also voiced concerns about inflation as billions and billions of dollars are being borrowed and thrown in the private sector which will complicate the existing macroeconomic problem.

Finally, let us examine the most important and more dangerous next step. The step I believe is coming soon for the “good of the nation” as our government will put it. Several leading media and newspaper companies have fallen on hard times like many other companies. Clear Channel, NY Times, Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune are only some of the examples. If our government uses the same logic that was applied to the auto and bank industry, then federal bailouts of media companies seem to be the next logical step. Aside from the problems I have listed above, all of which still apply, our government will have a vested interest in the press and the media. Our government advancing to this step will stand as the greatest threat to American freedom we have ever seen. They would then have a direct voice in what we see, hear, and read. Government officials would have the power to shut down any voice that opposes or disagrees. They will be able to tell journalists what they should and shouldn’t print. This would be the end of free speech as we know it and therefore the end of our freedom. This sounds more like Communist Soviet Union than free America, and I fear this is coming soon if we do not voice our concerns against it. This identical tactic has been used by fascist governments time and time again who have turned democracies into dictatorships.

Let me be clear, I do not believe Obama (or Bush for that matter) is the Manchurian candidate and has an agenda to knowingly destroy America. Unfortunately, nobody can be certain about future administrations that come to power after. I believe most people in government today mean well and really want to prevent short-term job loss. However, if members of our government think they can play God and save the economy by doing bailouts, then they are naïve at best. Losing jobs in the short run through free market capitalism have occurred countless times in our history; and, as a result, we have grown to become the largest and most successful economy this world has ever seen. Regardless of what you hear, this financial crisis will turn out no different than any other economic setback in the past. Jobs going away in the short term are a small price to pay for reckless spending at the expense of losing our liberties, freedom, and our country as we know it. The good news is Uncle Sam doesn’t own any newspapers yet, so you are still in power to prevent it. Please call your Senators and Representatives and tell them you do not want any more bailouts and especially bailouts of media companies. If they do not listen, you have the power to let others know what they said to you and vote for someone else. America simply cannot afford to bail out media (or any) companies…in more ways than one.

I don't know about all my former comrades across the world, but when I was a dyed red anarchist I had deep survivalist notions about the world and, in fact, wished for them to come to fruition. When oil would spike, I'd look for signs of downfall. When wars would flare, I'd wish for revolutions. When things went bad, I'd see things going well. For me, when the world ended, the world had actually just began.

Survivalism isn't specifically an anarchist aspect, there are plenty of right-wing militias, cross-ideological conspiracy laden groups and various other sects within American politics that talk peace and utopia while planning for Armageddon. It was easier to be a survivalist as well as an anarchist, though, since having an ideology claiming the world works better without government has a greater chance of combining with survivalism than right-wingers that profess loyalty to the idea of US government or militant socialists who are for large government. Not all anarchists are survivalists, mind you, as there is a deep schism between the industrial world anarchists who wish to do away with class but keep the spoils, and the primitive, anti-industrial, anti-civilization anarchists who believe a better world is a world based on tribalism.

By itself, survivialism isn't ideological in the sense of conservative or liberal, but in that its a belief/set of beliefs that command the individual to plan for or to talk about a threat (in the less extreme) to plan for /talk about civilization collapse (in the most extreme). Pure survivalists are nearly impossible, though I think that the Alex Jones conspiracy people could be considered close. I can't imagine being that paranoid and being able to function.

Although I am now a libertarian conservative and no longer hold that the best thing for the world is the end of organized human society, I've never been able to shake the feeling that I need to plan for very bad things that may or may not happen. There is a reason, of course, and that is the way specific civilizations tend to turn against their own or collapse throughout history. I am not saying that America is near the edge, far from it. President Obama was elected with a majority and without any electoral violence despite his radical background and various other unsavory ideological aspects. That is proof enough that, right now, America has should not worry about any kind of civilization collapse. But, just because the America political system still works amazingly, it does not mean something cannot change the stability and safety of our nation. No one, and I mean no one, should assume we are safe from any kind of danger: crime, natural disaster, terrorism, war, etc.

I am not trying to scare, but advise. I find it that the people who panic the most are the ones who never think of the situation their in in the first place: bad weather car accidents, accidents while hiking, crime in the neighborhood, mass murder by the mentally insane, etc. No one and no government should turn paranoid about these things and turn simple vigilance to mass panic, but the inability to be alert to threats does not mean the threats do not exist and to not plan for these threats may mean a harder life afterward.

Again, I am not trying to scare. The rash of mass murder this past few weeks and within the past few years have shown that simple security procedures like security guards (for the immigration office in NY) or in the more expansive sense, armed teachers (Columbine, Virgina Tech) could prevent massive loss of life. Having emergency food storage, having a self defense weapon, having a simple plan to meet during a disaster; all these things tap in to the basic human urge to survive, which has been dumbed down with our comforting lifestyles.

For all the urge we love to give in to (food, sex, etc), why can't protecting ourselves count among them?

The world ain't perfect and no one should expect it to be. Since the creation of civilization there's been war, hate, jealously, thievery, rape, murder and so on. No once has a day gone by that something horrible has happened to someone or to a group of people. The world is a dangerous place no matter if you live in the Sahara or in Salt Lake City. We should never trick ourselves into thinking that we live in anything but a thin layer of protection from the natural battles our nature and our culture wage everyday.

Countless numbers of Americans pray to the Gods of Modernity as often as they can. The lives of millions are hedged on that the Gods will provide with haste and without any strings attached. Alas, what we have been told by the preachers is only one side of the story. Unlike the Abrahamic God that gives well to its believers and brings them to heaven for their loyalty, the Modern Gods are as fickle as the ones of Greek legend. No matter the amount of praise, the amount of energy and amount of money invested in this pantheon will ever assure the bounty promised.

One praises these Gods as their own risk. To invest anything is akin to betting on a random number at a horse race. There are those who have made horse racing their life, but most of the time it is just the random rube hoping for a quick buck on a lucky number. The Gods do not look highly on the impatient and the inexperienced. They do not give in to the begging of those down on their luck for they are not compassionate. These Gods are in it for themselves, just like their cultists, except the Gods do not shroud their intent in rhetoric. The Gods are blunt, if you listen.

Yet, more now than ever before, we have duped ourselves into a bubble reality where the Gods of Modernity give and never take. We live in a world where housing prices always rise, gas prices always fall and you can buy a large screen TV without worry that your health insurance just expired because someone else will pay that for you. When we are at war, sacrifice is left to those fighting and their families, and the only thing the rest of us complain about is about the morality, the ideology and endless inane crowing about if winning a war is costing us entitlements. We assume the Gods are on our side because we cannot fathom the Gods being apathetic.

That's the key to living, but which no one really understands. One must realize the Gods and the people who praise them and the people who deny them do not do it altruistically. We do not move from city to city, vote on a ballot, bank with a this company and work for that company because we are part of a bigger plan. We do what we do based upon what our individual needs and wants are. We trust based on that trust being reciprocated. We give hoping we can get. That is the way of things.

The cult of the Gods tell you different, though. The tell you the Gods give because its right. They tell you the Gods smite because its right. They tell you the Gods will help the poor, save the weak, grow the crops and keep the world safe. They tell you things you want to hear because the horror that the most powerful aspects of our civilization are based on anarchistic self-interest scare the rube and the layman. They manipulate this fear and use it for their own particular goals which profess to attempt to consolidate the anarchy in the name of altruism. In other words, they use you for their self-interest.

The Gods will not change for you. The Gods will not change for a bunch of you. The Gods are eternally themselves and eternally do things in the name of their own feelings and goals, not yours. Never attempt to collar the Gods or pigeonhole the Gods as to ostracize them from the human condition. These Gods can never be defeated, unless we are willing to defeat the very things that make us human. The only way to end the insanity of our anarchistic world is to destroy ourselves, but I highly doubt the health insurance-less couch potato will want that just so he can have his world a little bit easier.

I just got this wonderful E-Mail from my good friends at Rock The Vote, who want me to contact my Senators and tell them to take away my ability to contribute freely of my time and energy to activities of my own choosing.

For those who haven't heard about the GIVE and Serve America Acts because you were to busy being distracted by the contrived AIG scandal, here's a summary of what they entail:

http://www.infowars.com/house-passes-mandatory-national-service-bill/

"Dear Juan,

Contact Your Senator.

Check this out, last week Congress voted and passed the 'GIVE Act,' a bill to significantly expand community service opportunities and reward young people for their service with education stipends, job training, and more. It was huge and this week the Senate is taking up their version with the 'Serve America Act'. We need to make sure this passes.

Will you contact your Senators and ask them to vote 'yes' on the Serve America Act?

Our country, and many of us, are facing crazy hard times right now. We need to reshape what our country looks like and how it works, change where we get our energy from, create new jobs and train workers for these new jobs, restructure our health care system to cover the tens of million of 18-29 year olds without coverage, and make college affordable.

Many of you are already doing your part, taking action online and in your communities. And this bill will open up significantly more opportunities.

This is why we need the Senate to pass the Serve America Act, the boldest service legislation in 70 years.

Here are some more details, the Serve America Act creates a chance for young people to participate in actively rebuilding and changing the direction of our country, while rewarding us with job training, financial support, education awards, and more. Specifically it will:

* More than triple the number of volunteer opportunities for Americans, from 75,000 to 250,000.

* Create four targeted problem-solving corps that will deploy Americans of all ages to increase access to job training and placement resources, help raise high school graduation and college-going rates, enhance energy efficiency and preserve natural resources, and improve access to health care

* Launch Youth Engagement Zones to involve young people in high-quality service learning projects, and recognize 'Campuses of Service' that engage students in service activities, integrate service and learning, and promote service careers

* Mobilize skilled Americans to serve in developing countries around the world to tackle urgent problems, such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, through Volunteers for Prosperity, and expand international service opportunities that help better connect America to the world.

Want to know all the details? Check out the bill.

We want to make sure those we elected last November know we are paying attention to the decisions that are making.

Please contact your Senators.

Thanks for taking action,
Heather Smith"

Sadly, the blatant misrepresentation and ignorance in this letter, which has gone out to millions of young Americans, will go unnoticed by most. However, I am not most and would, thus, like to make a quick point.

Forcing people to partake in specific, ideologically driven, government subsidized and approved pet projects is NOT the same as increasing volunteer opportunities. It's more like telling your neighbor at gun point to mow your lawn without pay and claiming he did it voluntarily.

There are plenty of volunteer opportunities. The Salvation Army isn't closing its doors and turning away people who want to stand out in the freezing cold, ringing a bell next to a rusty bucket. Habitat for Humanity isn't telling teens and young adults that their services aren't needed because the homeless in South America enjoy living in cardboard shacks. The fact is, the United States is already the most charitable nation in the world, even without the tax payer dollars that go to foreign aid, so this bill has nothing, and I mean NOTHING to do with serving the community and making a better world, and everything to do with forcing individuals to partake in a social and ideological agenda that over half of them do not agree with, and doing so with threats and coercion.

The GIVE act requires that any child in middle or high school perform 50 hours of community service and that any college student perform 100 hours per year. Of course, you don't get to decide what kind of community service is acceptable, the government does. The Secretary of Education for the United states will decide what organizations will be accepted as community service and this law specifically disallows any religious organizations to be a part of the program. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood, for instance, are perfectly within the bounds of the program because they receive federal funding, yet Habitat for Humanity, an ecumenical Christian organization, will not be considered an acceptable use of your community service time. That is the reality of this legislation.

Perhaps it is time to teach these bloated heads in Washington what charity actually entails. First and foremost, charity requires the free will to make the decision of engaging in the charitable act. Sending billions of tax payer dollars to combat AIDS in Africa or for food in third world countries, for instance, is not charity, despite what the claims may be. The simple fact that it is forced upon party A (the taxpayer) by party B (the government) disqualifies it from being labeled as such, whatever the merits or demerits of the actual action may be. Now, many of you may argue that such action being undertaken by the government is good, and will help feed starving peoples in under-developed nations, and that may be true, but who made the choice?

Another way to look at this may help to better explain my point. Recently, President Obama lifted the ban on Federal funding for abortions performed in other countries and increased the amount of tax payer money (our money) that goes to fund the procedures. If you pay taxes (~55% of Americans), you are, at this very moment, indirectly funding an abortion. Would you, under normal circumstances, donate to Planned Parenthood, or its Chinese equivalent? Maybe, maybe not, yet you were not given the option. The money was simply taken from you and transferred to someone else. That is the crux of the issue.

What this bill does, much to my dismay, is take away your ability to decide where, when, and how to spend 500 hours of your life. 500 hours dictated to you by the benevolent government of the United States of America. Many of us would have no issue with doing 500 hours of community service in our lifetime, and many of us gladly exceed that, but we do so of our own free will and in the charity of our choice. Mandatory volunteer work is, in and of itself, the epitome of an oxymoron, and should be called what it actually is: indentured servitude. “We contribute our time and money under no government coercion on a scale the rest of the world doesn’t emulate and probably can’t imagine,” states contributing editor for the Family Security Foundation Luke Sheahan. “The idea that government should order its people to perform acts of charity is contrary to the idea of charity and it removes the responsibility for charity from the people to the government, destroying private initiative.”

Unfortunately, that is not the most egregious attack on liberty contained in this bill, which, while unsurprising given the administration's complete disregard for the people they supposedly serve, should have caused outrage within both the House and Senate the moment it was proposed. What truly is awe inspiring, however, is the grievous violation of the most basic and fundamental protection granted to private individuals in the very first amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America: the freedom to speak out against our government. As is pointed out in an article from TheCitizen.com, an amendment to the GIVE act contains language that strips First Amendment rights from participants, which includes every 'volunteer' in the mandatory program, even taking from them their right to attend religious services.

The 12th amendment to the act states, “Amendment to prohibit organizations from attempting to influence legislation; organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; and assist, promote, or deter union organizing.”

Gary Wood explains it best when he writes, “...the people associated through service under the G.I.V.E. Act are considered volunteers, still free citizens, yet it will be unlawful for them to take part in any protests against any legislation. This is as close to a sedition act, a violation of 1st Amendment rights, as has been proposed in recent history. A basic right as a part of our natural, inalienable rights, is to resist government. Our founders not only knew it was a right but it was a responsibility. This legislation begins to break that down significantly.”

Section 125 of the bill states which organizations are and which aren't eligible for the program as well as what activities people involved will not be allowed to partake in.

SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

‘(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:

‘(1) Attempting to influence legislation.

‘(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.

‘(3) Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing.

‘(4) Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements.

‘(5) Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office.

‘(6) Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials.

‘(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.

‘(8) Providing a direct benefit to–

‘(A.) a business organized for profit;

‘(B.) a labor organization;

‘(C.) a partisan political organization;

‘(D.) a nonprofit organization that fails to comply with the restrictions contained in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 except that nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent participants from engaging in advocacy activities undertaken at their own initiative; and

‘(E.) an organization engaged in the religious activities described in paragraph (7), unless Corporation assistance is not used to support those religious activities.

‘(9) Conducting a voter registration drive or using Corporation funds to conduct a voter registration drive.

‘(10) Such other activities as the Corporation may prohibit.

Section 120 of the bill, which discusses the “Youth Engagement Zone Program” also states that “service learning” will be “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.”

Additionally, the corps included in this bill, by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's own admission, will be run much differently than current volunteer organizations. Emanuel, who has publicly stated his intent to of creating a “universal civil defense training” program, explained during an interview with Ben Smith of the New York Daily News that "somewhere between the ages of 18 to 25 you will do three months of training… but there can be nothing wrong with all Americans having a joint similar experience of what we call civil defense training or civil service in service of the country, in preparation, which will give people a sense of what it means to be an American.”

When asked if it would be military style training, Emanuel stated, “If you’re worried about are you going to have to do 50 jumping jacks the answer is yes,” and added that the state National Guard could possibly be put in charge of the training.

Whether or not this is cause for concern is up to you to decide, but, personally, I'll be keeping an eye on what's happening under the cover of pretend corporate scandals and contrived political outrage. Just because the boy cries wolf doesn't mean it's a good idea to let the fox guard the hen house. When politicians put on a show, there's always a reason.

1.http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/25/video-demint-opposes-give-act/
2.http://www.blog.rockthevote.com/2009/03/dear-senator-vote-yes.html
3.http://www.thecitizen.com/node/35819
4.http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1388

I'm going to be blunt: the anger over the AIG bonuses is bull-effing-crap.

Bullcrap. Straight from the rear, not even on the ground yet bullcrap.

What Congress and the Democratic majority won't tell you is that the AIG bonus “loophole” was written in AIG bailout by the Democrats at the behest of AIG's bosses, who somehow thought that running the newly government-owned company like a business, and not as congressional political puppet, would be a good thing. Of course, the CEO and the management are quite undeserving of bonuses since their company is no longer independent due to their choices, but there are employees at AIG who did nothing wrong and who rely on these mostly merit-based bonuses in their paychecks.

The fact that the same Congress who wrote the bailout is now screaming bloody murder to inflame populist anger against AIG and Wall Street is disgusting to extremes. These are the same people who told oil companies that they'd be nationalized if they did not co-operate with Congress' paranoid hearings during high gas prices (Hugo Chavez has admirers in Congress, apparently). These are the same people who refused to fix the very obvious problems with government owned Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac years before those problems infected the economy. Fanny and Freddie held held over 50% of the so-called toxic mortgages that sunk companies like AIG. These are the same people who now attack capitalism itself for the economy when it was the failings of their own confusing and unbalanced regulatory system. And now they have the stones to throw a bone to the populist mob, sacrificing a major American company for political gain.

Disgustingly dishonest.

Populism is not an old ideology, if you can call it an ideology. Anytime a leader gave in to the protests or riots of angry people, that was populism. Anytime a leader inflamed a group of people with an “us vs them” speech or a “poor vs rich” speech, that was populism. Anytime a politician claimed that everyone but an agree upon social pariah deserves the same rights as everyone else, that's populism. Populism is a broad-reaching, very successful way to gain votes and turn a population against a minority.

Populism is, for lack of a better term, the poor man's revolutionary theory. While Marxists, anarchists and even Islamists have written and debated about how to exactly create a revolution, all populists have to do is get a group of people together and say key words. With conservatives in 2008, it was things like “liberal”, “socialist” or “abortion”. With liberals in 2008 (actually, pretty much from 2000) it was things like “free market”, “war on terror”, “Guantanamo”, “Iraq”, “privatization”, “surge”, “war”, “patriotism”, “success” or “George W. Bush”. When these words were said crowds would become filled with a renewed energy and maybe even anger. They'd become even more motivated to take on the people they see as harmful to the United States.

This kind of serious politics is cheap. It supports rumor mongering, anti-intellectualism and, to be blunt, the most stupid people in politics. At the height of the election, when both candidates were basically carrying torches and pitchforks to every rally, the worst of the worst in attacks made it to everyone's doorstep.

Intentional or not, Barack Obama supported people who went after John McCain's age, spread rumors about his mental capacity, insulted his wife, demeaned his service in the military and so on. Obama's populist army also took horrible shots at Sarah Palin's intelligence and her skills as a mother as well as her husband, her soldier son, her pregnant daughter (and still to today attack her daughter) and her disabled infant son.

From our side, we had people questioning Obama's citizenship (which still continues to this day in an insane, paranoid crusade), holding Obama's race against him (his blackness and/or his mixed blood, humorously), accusing him of being a closet Muslim terrorist despite the fact a huge scandal erupted over his loudmouthed Christian pastor, and countless bigoted statements and cartoons from so-called patriots.

Call me an elitist, but I believe pandering to the mob doesn't help the country all that much. I understand that in a democratic nation like ours the people are the last word on any politician or policy, as they should be, but the extent our leaders pander to the bottom of the intellectual barrel as they do today just shoves out any real chance we have at high minded debate. Political laymans, those who have a very shallow knowledge of politics and history, should not be the ones defining where our country goes.

Our Founders were not kids with a crush on Obama or wearers of large T-shirts with Sarah Palin's face painted on the front. Our Founders were some of the best and brightest people of their generation in British North America. They knew the difference between rights and privileges. They debated law, society, war and justice. They could tell when a king was overstepping his bounds in a constitutional monarchy. Today's laymans write to each other using a massacred version of the English language. Today's laymans read both US Weekly as well as political blogs (US Weekly being more accurate in its reporting). Today's laymans get enraged when a President uses his constitutional powers to listen in on our foreign enemies, but do not blink when Congress usurps the power of states to decide their own fates as they have with the stimulus package and as some want to do with gay marriage.

The need to inflame populist outrage has a lot to do with education. We don't teach critical thinking. We don't teach proper history or enforce proper economic teaching, let alone ideological history and proper identification of ideologies. We have professors teaching that fascism and communism are polar opposites when they are actually nearly the same. We have entire sections of American military history focused (Vietnam) on while others are blatantly ignored (War of 1812, early 1900s Progressive imperialism). These things should be taught in high school or elementary school. Our kids should be able to know what populism is before they vote, not after they have a tenured professor skip over the crimes of the Soviet Union so he can talk about the joys of the command economy.

There is nothing wrong with anyone talking politics or speaking out on politics. The First Amendment gives citizens the right to do so, but it does not means we have to listen to them or think they are smart. We should not be afraid of giving in to mobs just because they threatened to whine and bitch about something they thing is wrong. Like the AIG bonus anger, lowbrow populist anger over Rush Limbaugh's comments on how he wants President Obama's socialist agenda to fail misleads the general voting population, and I have little doubt the ringleaders of the mob intend for that to happen. Alas, relativity smart people like David Frum and David Brooks give in to such people, for reasons I don't know, but when they do it hurts the future of the conservative movement.

I'm pretty cynical on the future of my generation and its ability to think past the next issue of People or the next paycheck, but that does not mean we have to give up on the future of us or our children. Teach your children to read the news. Teach your kids to read the classic stories, to read history and economics. Teach your kids to remain loyal to country, not party.

If we can do that, maybe we can beat populism and the dumbing down of our citizenry and maybe we can have our wonderful nation last a little big longer as a intellectual powerhouse.