Orignal post here by pastor Dave Barnhart.

“The unborn” are the single most convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you. They are morally uncomplicated; unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike immigrants, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you so loathe; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work or effort or sincerity; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they are no longer “the unborn.” You can love the unborn and advocate for them without challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus in favor of the unborn.

This will be my last post on the subject of America until 2024 (unless something crazy happens).

I am tired of thinking about it and it is all out of my hands at this point. I am doing what I can by voting and calling. And, I am working on some larger ways to make an impact but at the end of the day I am a mere peasant.

What is coming?

2022

The USA heads deeper into fascism and a slow-moving coup. 2022 will end with elections that will likely see the Democrats lose both houses. It will be a small miracle if they don’t and even if they win you will see a lot of crazy Republicans in key positions on the state level (which control key voting infrastructure). The people on the state level are the ones who are preparing to overthrow the 2024 election.

I am a very optimistic person. I still hope that this chaos could lead to a better system that starts to fix an utterly broken America (maybe we shouldn’t fuck over the bottom 80% of the country in every way possible???). If they would get rid of the filibuster and pass laws to protect voting rights that would be a good start in keeping the country a “kinda” democracy. Even better would be to make people’s votes count equally instead of 1 vote ranging from .78 to 2.97 in weight depending on the state. And, ultimately the social contract with Americans needs to be fixed.

2024

By the end of 2024, the USA could be an autocracy ruled by the Republican party and Trump (or Desantis or any similar idiot who does anything for power). It weirdly looks a lot like Hitler’s rise to power. A bungled attempt at a coup… only to come back years later planned and ready for action. Only time will tell… 

My biggest fear is with world security and the current economic system. The current system has some problems but it is war-free and stable. I don’t want big regional or world wars. I don’t want a massive change in reserve currencies or a global depression because some orange idiot doesn’t understand economics (see Turkey if you want to see what happens when a dictator tries to run a central bank).

Things I am thinking about:

• Effective government is so important, if you have a democracy but it isn’t effective it is not working even if people can vote (I think this is a big reason why we are seeing so much frustration with democracy globally). The Republicans and Democrats have failed to effectively govern at local and national levels in so many key ways around health care, home pricing, and safety net.
• What happens to the world economy if the USA has a real coup? Can businesses and governments just pretend it is still a democracy? And, will Americans even care if they live in a faux democracy?
• What happens to the US dollar as a reserve currency if that happens?
• What happens to world security if an autocratic USA led by Republicans removes themselves from NATO and goes full isolationist. Does Europe step up? Does China get more aggressive and annex Tawain or maybe Korea?
• Should I remove political posts from my blog now? What will the Wayback machine and Facebook do to protect people if the autocratic USA starts targeting people using that data?

Fun times :)

If you think January 6th was scary just wait… the Republican party is fully swallowing the lie that the election was stolen and that there was election fraud despite every piece of evidence (aka reality – which they are not familiar with given the last twenty years of delusion). Trump is massing control of the party and forcing everyone to back this HUGE lie. Normal American Republicans believe this lie and this is not going to end well. And, Republicans are using this lie to justify laws designed to reduce voting and American’s participation in Democracy. These are the same laws they have been trying for years but amped up considerably. You have Republicans like John Kavanagh saying things like “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well.” What does quality mean? It means Republican voters and winning at any cost… it makes you ask, does the Republican party want to live in a Democracy?

Best case?

It destroys the Republican party. My irrational hope is that there are enough rational people in the Republican party that they lose 3% to 4% of voters who are turned off by this insanity. I think that is pretty unlikely given the echo chamber of Fox News, the cowardice of their “leadership”, and experience. The other hope is that 5% to 10% of their voter base gives up because they think the entire thing is rigged by the communist lizard people who are stealing children. The flip side of this is it requires the Democratic party to finally recognize the Republican party is not a governing partner (and hasn’t been trying to govern in 20 years. Then they have to get rid of the filibuster and make real changes (as currently, Biden has done NOTHING except optics).

Worst case?

The Republicans win the midterm election based on restrictive voting laws upheld by the SC and their normal propaganda… and stop the government from doing anything (not much past the current situation where they refuse to govern). Then in the next presidential election, a Republican wins and moves to disband large aspects of our Democracy. And as a country we slide into a fascist dictatorship… something like McCarthyism with a constant Communist/Socialist boogyman as everything is rewritten around the insane conspiracy theories that define the Republican party.

Regardless, large swaths of Republicans have been radicalized and violence is going to follow regardless of the path…

And, if you think the Republican party believes in maintaining Democracy as a core attribute of this country you need to wake up. The number of editorials and “think” pieces from Republicans challenging the idea that Democracy is tied to freedom is increasing… you are starting to see the idea emerge that freedom isn’t tied to Democracy and that what needs to be protected are the rights of the “few” against socialism. If you think it can’t happen in the USA you were not awake during the Cold War. The Republican party is heading toward a path of trying to overthrow the United States government, January 6th was the idiot’s version of that, and now we wait to see if the Democrats will do anything about this looming threat.

AEI did a big survey (full breakdown with graphs in the link) and found the following:

• 66% of Republicans say that Biden’s election win was not legitimate. Among Republicans without a college education that is 75%.
• 29% of Republicans say that it is completely or mostly true that Donald Trump is fighting a global child sex trafficking ring (QAnon idiocy).
• 55% of Republicans “support the use of force as a way to arrest the decline of the traditional American way of life“.
• 39% of Republicans “support Americans taking violent actions if elected leaders fail to act“. 13% of Republicans completely agree in the necessity of taking violent actions if political leaders fail.

Not a good sign… this is the war over America’s direction coming to a head IMO. As well as the 30-year shift of the Republican party to extremism and fear-mongering.

Do Republicans support Democracy? What if the majority of people in that Democratic system want something different than them? How will they react? Hint… they are showing us, violence.

Do they believe in the rule of law and our justice system? If our criminal system investigates something and finds no evidence will they believe it if it contradicts their fake reality? If our justice system does not rule in their favor will they recognize it as a valid ruling? Hint… they have shown us, they will not.

Interesting times. It is going to be a fun 10 to 20 years.

I posted in 2019 about my struggle to vote for Biden.

So, why should I vote for him now?

He is a bland centrist, he is too old, and * most importantly * I think he lacks the knowledge and will to use the Republican’s own methods against them. My biggest complaint about the Democratic party is their resistance to using Republican tactics against Republicans. They like to stick to informal rules that haven’t existed for 25 years and they need to recognize that the Republican party is no longer the Republican party of old. It is a cult run on fear and Fox news. If the Democrats do not start playing by the new rules they will lose the war to determine the soul of this country.

By not playing the new rules they have already allowed the Republicans to play the game without offering real solutions to the American people. The Republicans only have fear mantras that their supports recite, have you ever seen a Republican plan to improve anything we face? Health care? Climate change? Growing inequality? Clean water?

I should note, I am not a Democrat, I switched from being an Independent to a Democrat after Trump. I felt I had no choice and wanted to register how utterly disgusted I am by the modern Republican party. The Democratic party and I have many differences, but the Republican party’s war on data, good governance, science, education, clean water, clean energy, good capitalism, and minorities is insanity.

But back to Biden/Harris…

I will suck it up and vote for them.

Why?

Because at the very least they are competent. Joe Biden is too old to be President but Kamala Harris is uber competent. We need competent people at the helm during this crisis. I am also hopeful that out of this crisis we can reboot significant parts of our society and economy to make them more resilient. It might be too early, but my hope is this is the right time for FDR level change. And, I have hope that Kamala recognizes the new rules.

I won’t lie, a big part of me thinks this country needs 4 more years of Republicans and Trump. Why?

Because only then will enough people be in REAL PAIN to drive REAL change. We are too rich and too stupid. Too many poor white people are voting Republican and too many rich white people are stuck in their bubble, unable to see past the Republican fear mantras.

P.S. Republicans of old used to have many good ideas. We need to move to a personal and corporate territorial tax system like the rest of the world. We need to safeguard the USD as a tool internationally. We don’t need to balance the federal budget, but we need to get it under control and build some better planning around how and when we flex it (see the prior point about safeguarding global USD dominance), we need to increase taxes or lower military spending, we need to bring in economist and data and experiments into government programs to make sure they are effective, we need to reduce and streamline rules, we need to de-license some of the license economies that have grown up, we need to look at the pros/cons of the monopolies we have created in a globalized world, etc, etc.

There are lots of great people who vote Republican. It is easy to see why. Simplistic solutions are easy to sell and easy to fit into your world narrative. We live in an uber complex world and it isn’t easy to sell the complexity. For example, keeping our water safe for consumption is HARD, we are failing at that in many parts of the USA yet the EPA gets railed on for overreach and hurting business by the Republican party. I want to live to see a future where the Republican party cares about giving people clean water to drink instead of pretending the EPA is some anti-business boogeyman.

P.S. 2. I think Joe Biden is a superb human being. And, someone who has dedicated his life to public service. I just don’t think he is the leader we need right now. I hope I am wrong :).

So is “fucknuts” one word, two words or hyphenated?

I am so fucking tired of people who talk about the government taking “their” money and how government should be run like a business. I hope this last shutdown has shown them some of the value of government so they can stop being such fucknuts.

Taxes are civilization.

They are you paying your debt to society for the framework it provides that creates the environment we all want.

Do you like drinking clean water?
Do you like driving on bridges that don’t collapse?
Do you like roads?
Do you like buying “olive oil” and it actually being olive oil?
Do you like ads that don’t make false claims?
Do you like cars that don’t randomly explode?
Do you like knowing if someone commits a crime they go to jail?

Civilization doesn’t magically happen. It takes money, skilled people to keep it running, and a society that RESPECTS the people who serve this country. The level of debate we are having in this country is so remedial it is sad.

Second, Government is not business, it CAN be very efficient but it many cases it should not be because it is providing a service to all of society in a way that private business would never do. Private business would watch your injured ass bleed to death if you don’t have money. That isn’t what we want as a society. Government is a platform, it is a platform that is meant to deliver results for its members. I wish we would stop having a debate over this and start respecting the people who work in OUR Government and the amazing work they do.

I am stunned this tax bill passed… I did not think it would. I am waiting to see how the house/senate reconcile the differences between the two versions before I do a longer post on the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It seems like every year I have a harder time believing I live in a Democratic Republic. With the huge amount of cash in politics it looks and feels like a Plutocracy. It is frustrating. At what point do the people we elect serve us, and not the super wealthy and corporations who fund their campaigns.

I feel so sad for our country and for the people that voted for this guy. I hope they learn something. The Republican leadership has consistently pulled their entire organization toward crazy town. Real conservatives who have good ideas and want to build a better country are crying in the corner while the rest of their party screams about who is using what bathroom :(. It is super frustrating.

What an interesting time to be alive.

“Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a dumb man’s idea of a smart man, and a weak man’s idea of a strong man.”

Are we witnessing the rise of a new wave of nationalism? Is this what it felt like to be in Europe after WW2 and watch the rise of a new political movement in Spain, Italy, and Germany? Or, is this what it felt like in the quiet before the 1930s global depression and massive changes around the world due to economic chaos?

Is this going to produce a huge backlash and back to expanding FDR’s programs? Will the Democrats come back in 2018 and 2020 with big wins? Will this be the last death rattle of the modern Republican party or can they survive with Trump and his core supporters?

Or, is this just a minor event that will fizzle away? Will Trump be impeached in 100 days and back to typical? How much damage can Trump and his people do to the social contract & safety net Americans currently enjoy?

Or, is Trump and his team going to bring about improved prosperity for ordinary people? Will he smash the old system and actually provide something better for Americans? Will he remove FDR’s big government, remove the social safety net, and see America’s economy flourish because of that?

Living in this moment is a lot scarier than you read in a history book about the quiet before something big. The only thing I have to compare it to is September 11th, but that was quick, and then it was just a feeling of watching history as we picked who to bomb and the rest of us went back to our normal lives. It is weird & cool & scary to be in this moment.

Nice to see even our shitty Congress unanimously say NO to some group of assholes trying to destroy the very fabric of the internet and free speech online. Along with the EU, Canada, Aussies, etc etc.

The 27 EU member states also voted unanimously, joining the U.S. to fight the ITU’s WCIT-12 plans as a unified bloc. The E.U. is backed in its stance by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and other countries who are also members of the ITU.

Nice!

“We need to send a strong message to the world that the Internet has thrived under a decentralized, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder governance model.”

Holy shit a Republican said that? I know it makes your mind want to explode because it’s logical and not some nonsense about the social fabric of this country disintegrating. Quick nobody tell them about all the porn and abortion online :)

The NY Times released this awesome tool that allows you to go through and apply different items that will help to fix the budget and shortfall for 2015 and 2030. Check out the tool here but be warned it is super addictive!

Here are my my choices! And a couple notes:

1. Farm subsidies, Joel made a convincing argument on these, and I left them only because i want the subsidies moved towards promoting better eating. So away from corn…

2. Reduce the federal work force, this one I’m a tad split on and left it unchecked. I think we need to lower it but do it smartly. There are some offices that need more resources and some that do not. Personal need to go towards areas such as education, energy policy, SEC and bank monitoring and investigation, and other protective areas. I did however cut the 250k in government contractors.

3. On military I reduced our nuke and space spending, duh. I feel strongly we should keep troops in Asia and Europe and really push that up, its good for the country and for our ability to project force abroad. Which is also why I didn’t vote for reducing the navy and air force fleet as they enable us to do that. I cut some of the terrible programs like the osprey, we need to drop the cold war race against our self. And not cutting veterans benefits as that seems insulting. And I voted to reduce the troops to 60k by 2015, I’d love to do 30k but I don’t think that is as feasible.

4. With health care I voted to cap medicare growth as I’ve read some on that and it makes sense, and to enact medical malpractice reform. I also wanted to vote to reduce tax breaks on employer provided health insurance, but this should be done once we have a base government provided health care or at least something that you buy yourself. Then the added extra insurance through your employer should be taxed.

5. Social security… I voted to reduce social security to those with high incomes and use an alternative measure for inflation. I’m not huge on increasing the retirement age just yet.

6. Existing taxes. This is a big one for me and I would vote for the most moderate one by Lincoln, the Obama one is good too as its the same as Bushes. Investment taxes, we need to go with Obama’s proposal. And on the bush tax cuts I want to allow expiration of taxes for incomes above 250,000 a year. And allow the payroll tax for those above 106k a year.

7. New taxes… The millionaire tax needs to happen. In terms of overhaul I’m very for the Bowles Simpson plan, we need to bring corporate tax rates down while cutting loopholes and other tax deductions. Plus reducing mortgage deductoins for high income households.

This puts me at 43% savings from tax increases and 57% from spending cuts… It puts me around 42 billion over the 2015 shortfall and it puts me 185 billion in surplus over the 2030 shortfall.

Now, I am very interested in a national VAT tax of 5%… I like consumption taxes as right now Americans just consume consume consume and this might break that a bit and bring in much needed money we could focus on doubling teacher saleries and redoing our energy grid…

So here are my results to view.

Great video on the idiocy that is Glenn Beck, this makes me want to go into TV if any idiot can spout this insane rabble and be so powerful.

John Stewart is an absolute genius.

Fantastic, what a strong person to go to them and call them out on their bullshit as well of some of his own parties bs. I’m so tired of the rhetoric on both sides, but especially the republicans as they seem to just want to do nothing when they don’t have the presidency. As if their job when they are in the minority is just to stop all forward progress, and to deny that the majority of Americans want universal health care!

Wow, watch this movie of Palin supporters trying to explain why they like her. It is super painful but I think this is the level of knowledge that at least 60% of the people in this country are at. And unfortunately a higher majority of republicans seems to love repeating buzz words without anything to back them up.

Here according to her supporters is what Palin is about:

Liberty
Right to Speak
Fairness
Realness
Make A Difference
Good Judgment
Clean Up The Spending
Cutting Taxes
Entrepreneurial Environment
Less Government
Back To Individuals
Obama is Marxist, Leninist
Obama Hates The Military
Obama is not a citizen.
We need profiling of people?
Drill oil in protected areas.
Hate special interest groups like PETA
Abortion Crap
Obama is taking away free speech and religious choice?
Back To Basics Of America?

Buzz words and talking points. A few really crazy people too, especially guy with glasses half way in..

Blame Fox News.

Joe Wilson is a disgrace to his state and America! Plus a total crazy who believes the crap fox news puts out. People like this give republicans a bad name and why I wince every time someone says the word, your party is full of stupid people, good luck with that plan.

Step 1: Fill Party With Idiots and Religious Zealouts
Step 2: ?
Step 3: World Domination / Return of Jesus?

If you would like to see something that explains death panels
please watch this movie. No really they are totally real! Cause everyone loves killing old people, especially liberals. Really?