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The Immorality of Business

The talking heads are out in droves making statements about the latest shooting.  Obama called it the largest mass shooting in our nation’s history.  I guess that’s true as long as you don’t ask a Native American.  That talking sphincter running for the Republican party doubled down on his desire to deport anyone not rich, uneducated or orange, and Clinton has pretty much said we need to continue with the same Middle-East policies we’ve had since 1945.  

Some people think this is about guns.  It is but not in the way they think.  Would he have been able to kill as many had he not had access?  Sure.  It’s likely he would have found a way.  I don’t think the method of death took all that much intellectual consideration.  He could have just as easily locked all the doors and set the place on fire.  The outcome would have been the same.  Still, you would think only an idiot would want to sell a gun to a crazy person.  Well…unless you’re the gun lobby.  Of course they want to sell guns to the crazy people.  Good lord, if the crazy person kills someone they get to sell several thousand more guns to the terrified people that survive.  It’s a great business plan!  
Is this about the problems in the Middle-East?  Yes, but again, not in the way they think.  Hillary thinks we need to ratchet up our involvement in the Middle East.  Perhaps someone should give her Einstein’s quote on insanity.  It hasn’t worked, and it will never work.  If we look back on history, the only thing…and I mean the ONLY thing that has ever removed the threat of terrorism from small groups is the complete genocide of that group.  It is how all civilizations begin. 

Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Israel (Palestine), Gaza, and several other areas of the Middle-East are not civilized.  The only way they will get that way is for us to do the unconscionable.  We would have to kill, or imprison every man, woman, and child in that region and turn it into a bunch of small vacation resorts.  They have all been fighting for more than 10,000 years and they will continue fighting for 10,000 more.  It’s all they know.  It’s all they will ever know.  So unless we are willing to begin the quest of a complete murder of everyone in the entire region, we need to just get the hell out.  

American’s like to pine over the loss of the native people, but they forget that the natives were equally as violent and unpredictable as any tribe in the Middle-East.  They just didn’t have the Internet…or…you know…airplanes.  When the Europeans got here most of the Native Americans were small bans of warring tribes hell bent on killing each other…and us.  The pilgrims were fortunate enough to meet a group of peaceful natives on the beach but then got hacked to death once they set up light housekeeping.  If they really had any morals, what they should have done was set sail back to Europe.  But nope.  Europe decided that “Hey…let’s just kill them all off and take their land.”  

So with all this history, and all this proof that all we’re doing is whacking a hornets nest, why do we still meddle in the problems of the Middle-East?  Why are we still trying to do the same thing over, and over, and over again, just so we can be put in the crosshairs of some crazy religious zealot?  Why are we doing things that cause a crazed gunman to enter a bar in Florida and just randomly start shooting people?  It’s easy.  The gun lobby.  That’s why Junior.  The gun lobby.  The gun lobby has some long arms.  We actually supply the weapons to our enemies that kill our soldiers.  That’s right.  We sell to these countries, and they turn around and sell those same weapons to our enemies.  It’s the same business model that’s currently being demonstrated in Florida.  Sell an assault rifle to the most bat-shit-crazy individuals you can find and then sell more guns to the people that need to protect themselves from the bat-shit-crazy people.  

Never underestimate the immorality of business.

Rex
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Common Sense: An Idiot’s Answer to Education

When I was growing up I was constantly hearing how educated people had no common sense.  “They have them book smarts, but them folk can’t just have no common sense!”  Then I got an education.  While I do admit that common sense is great if you limit your circle of influence to whatever fishbowl you live in, it’s pretty much worthless in the larger world.  Sure…you can wow the catfish and carp with your knowledge of the algae and slime growing at the bottom of your tank, but you have no idea how any social or political issues impact the larger world. 

People who tout their common sense are usually just showing their self-centered bias and ignorance for anything and anyone beyond their city block.  It also just gives them an excuse for being too lazy, too racist, and too ignorant to better themselves.  For why on earth would you care how decisions made in the larger world impact anyone other than you?

The other day I was watching the news and a story came on where American Airlines kicked a guy off the plane for doing math.  That’s right…math.  He was a college professor who was working on a presentation and had a sheet of paper with a bunch of calculations on it.  Evidently the woman next to him thought those magical numbers would jump off the page and blow up the plane.  Her common sense told her that math is dangerous.  “If I don’t understand it, it must be evil.”  So…they kicked him off the plane and sent him to the FBI, where they told him that math is bad…you know…like science…and that ever pesky being for the ignorant…technology.

My God, have we gone back to the dark ages?  So now when we don’t understand something it must be a terrorist act?  You know this has already been tried right?  A few times.  Didn’t the Spanish Inquisition, or the Salem Witch trials teach you anything?  Seriously you ignorant, uneducated, racists, sexist, back water, gutter snipe.  Did you ever think there is a larger world out there and perhaps you might want to take some time to understand it?

Here are just a few things common sense told people.  The sun and plants circled the earth.  Turns out that common sense was wrong.  When Galileo proved this by using that ever present evil of the ignorant, math and reality, he was brought before the church and ordered to denounce his findings.  After all, never let reality get in the way of someone’s agenda.  Especially one that profits on the ignorance of others.

Keeping with the Renaissance, one of the common sense theories of the time was bleeding.  That’s right, the way to heal your illness was to remove your blood…because after all…what better way to get you over the flu than to remove the mechanism by which your body heals itself.  Oh wait…you’re bleeding internally?  Let’s get that pesky blood out of you so you can heal.  It’s full of demons you know!  Oops…sorry…you died…we didn’t get all that blood out soon enough!

Think common sense medical advice is something only found before the advent of modern plumbing?  Nope, common sense once told medical professionals that if you had an ulcer you should drink milk.  No one questioned it until one day someone actually used science and general observation to do a study that showed that drinking milk increases acid production in the stomach which causes ulcers.  And this was in the 1980s. 

With all this Gomer what I’m getting at is never rely on just your common sense and then walk away from a situation thinking you know what the fuck you’re talking about.  It’s quite likely you don’t.  If all you’re doing is basing your opinion on your own experience then you’ve severely limited your ability to have any sense at all, common or otherwise.  So the next time you think an educated person has made a decision that you find silly, maybe you should consider that they likely have a lot more information than you.  Because while you were sitting in your fishbowl swimming in your own shit, they were taking the time to understand that maybe, just maybe, the world doesn’t revolve around you.

Rex
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What Freedom are you Protecting?

I was hiking through Garden of the God’s park this weekend and I saw an old man wearing a t-shirt that said “I’m a Republican because I believe in Freedom.”  I see and hear these statements all that time from the right.  They tell me if I’m not a Republican I’m a communist.  There’s always talking about how they’re about to lose their freedom.  So as I walked through the park I tried to think about all the freedoms they want to protect.  I made a mental list and the following was my thought process:
1.     It’s not the freedom to choose.  Evidently I don’t have the freedom to make decisions about the health and welfare of my own body.  If Republicans had their way, they would decide that for me.
2.     It’s not the freedom of Speech.  The leading Republican candidate has stated many times that he will expand the libel laws so if someone is critical of The President they will be jailed and fined.  In fact in all the Republican rallies they limit press access to a pen as far away as they possibly can from the candidates. 
3.     It’s not freedom of religion.  According to the Republican platform Christianity is the only true faith.  In fact they want to keep me out of the country if I practice another.
4.     It’s not freedom for quarters of soldiers.  Republicans and conservatives have consistently upheld and supported measures that would allow law enforcement to enter a home without warrant, and without warning.  In modern parlance they are called “no knock orders.”
5.     It’s not freedom from search or seizure.  Republicans in many states, most notably Iowa, can seize property on your person and keep it without warrant or due process.  They only have to “suspect” it might be used in a crime. 
6.     It’s not freedom of privacy.  Republicans support unwarranted surveillance of my personal communications.  They’ve even demanded the extradition of whistle blowers who have provided clear evidence of invasion of privacy violations committed by the U.S. Government both inside and outside our boarders.
7.     It’s not freedom from war.  If it were up to the Republicans we’d bomb every country in on the planet for no other reason than they don’t agree with us.  They’re willing to go to war for so little provocation and disguise it as protecting our freedom.  The problem is when you smack a hornets’ nest you don’t reduce your chances of getting stung, you increase them.
8.     It’s not freedom from being poisoned.  Republicans want to remove the laws and regulations which surround food safety, air quality, drug safety, and any regulation that has to do with the products I consume or use.
9.     It’s not freedom from being killed by faulty products.  Republicans want to remove any regulation that inhibits manufacturers from making products that would impose life threatening dangers for me and my family.  For instance regulations for automobiles, toys, construction, bridges, roads, and any other product I might use in everyday life.
10.   It’s not the freedom to have a quality education.  At every turn they remove funding for public education and install some of the worst policies which every leading educator say don’t work. 
I could go on, but really the only freedom the care about is the freedom to own a gun.  I guess they think that’s all the freedom that is important in the world.  Because if you have a gun then you don’t need the government to protect you.  We can remove all those other pesky freedoms and just live by the rule of the most powerful.  The problem is that’s not freedom.  That’s anarchy.
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The Big Lie

Oh I hate to admit it when the facts fly in the face of what I believe.  So does everyone else.  However, the grownups among us are usually able to concede our opinions when we’re confronted with the facts.  This is why I have to eat some major crow when it comes to discussions I’ve had with my wife.  But let’s not get into that.  Let’s just say that I’m really not ready to hear “So I’m what?” for the countless time during our marriage.  Anyway, with that said, here we go!

Mitt Romney made a speech today about how no one should be backing Donald Trump.  I agree with his sentiments.  However, he also said that Hillary Clinton was the most dishonest person in politics.  I hear that a lot so I decided to go out to Politifact.com and do some checking.  I have been a Bernie Sanders fan throughout the election, thinking he was by far the most honest person on the campaign trail.  It turns out that I was wrong about that as well.  Either way, below is the breakdown: 

5.       Donald Trump       10% factual.  He couldn’t even make a tenth of a percent.
4         Ted Cruz                 36% factual
3         Marco Rubio         66% factual
2         Bernie Sanders     76% factual
1         Hilary Clinton        78% factual.  That’s right folks!  She’s by far the most honest in the campaign!

Politifact lists candidate statements that are True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False, False, and Pants on Fire.  For these numbers I took out the Half True, and Mostly False stats since many of those statements could go either way.  I wanted harder numbers.  It also is important to understand that out of all the candidates Bernie had 0 pants on fire and Hillary had only 2.  Rubio had 4, Cruz 7 and Donald a WHOPPING 21!  For my calculation I took out the statistics for statements that were half true, or mostly false since I wanted pretty clear numbers. 

Now, what do these number mean?  They actually don’t mean that these people are always just lying or telling the truth.  It shows their connection to the facts.  They may not be always lying, they just may be ignorant of the facts.  There’s a huge difference between lying and just being wrong.  Either way, Hillary is more correct than any other politician in the field.  Swallow that one!  I thought it would be Bernie.  I hate it when my wife is right.  It should also be noted that Mitt Romney who said that Hillary was the most dishonest politician scored only 55% in the fact category and was almost as bad as Trump in the pants on fire category at 19!

So why do a people think Hillary is the most dishonest politician?  Because they’re sheep.  They don’t want to check the facts.  They want mommy and daddy to tell them what to think.  That’s why when they’re told over and over and over again wrong information when they see a fact they think it’s a lie.  It’s like when their parents told them for the first 3 years of their lives that Santa was real and then when they’re hit with the truth they get violent.  Think I’m kidding?  Try telling a 3 year old there’s no Santa and see what happens.  And no group is better at this than Republicans.  They do better than Joseph Goebbels when it comes to the “big lie” and their minions eat it up! 

I don’t just blame the Republicans for Hillary’s honesty problem.  I blame her as well.  In fact I blame all Democrats.  They seem to cower at the thought of pushing back when someone presents them with bullshit.  They function under the false assumption that people will take the time to verify the facts.  No…they won’t.  Most people only have a tenuous grasp of a sixth grade education.  How the hell do you expect them to understand critical analysis?  The four word soundbite baby!  That’s the best they can do.  Most people lack the intellectual fortitude to understand anything that can’t fit on a bumper sticker.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people without an education call someone with one an “educated idiot.”  Really?  The guy with the education is the idiot?  Right.  Sure he is.  The problem is more likely that gomer barely possesses the scholastic ability to sign his name on a voter registration card.  We require anyone coming into this country to pass a simple civics test to be a citizen.  I say we require that across the board and send the failures some desert province where they can do no harm to the existing gene pool. 

There are many people are just too lazy to research the facts.  You never take a single source for your information.  Take the Hillary email scandal.  I read today that Hillary was the only Secretary of State to use a private email server.  Was she?  Nope.  Condoleezza Rice and Colon Powell both used their own private servers.  I read that Hillary had secret emails doctored to take them off the government server.  Nope.  She had an assistant remove the secure headers of an email that had her talking points for a speech.  The system wasn’t working so it wouldn’t send the damn email.  Is this high treason?  Nope.  Is it getting the job done?  Yep!

This is a little inside baseball, but even I have had to use my private computer systems when working projects for government jobs.  The reason being that the work systems were so jacked up that it made it difficult if not impossible to do my job.  Too often organizations tie up their systems in such a way to make them more secure that they render those systems useless.  They’re more secure alright!  They’re useless!  But when it gets to the media it turns into high treason.  If the Clintons were as criminal as the right says they’d have been in prison decades ago.  This isn’t about crime, it’s about getting idiots to swallow your bullshit.  No…it’s not bullshit.  It’s brown cottage cheese.  Really!  Try some!

When Bush started gearing up to invade Iraq, I was very vocal about the stupidity of that decision.  I had someone disagree with me and the only thing she could say was “I support our troops!”  Really?  How?  By getting them killed?  How does that support anyone?  When you ask people why are you voting for Trump?  “I hate Hillary Clinton.”  Why do you hate her?  “She’s a damn liar.”  What specifically was her lie, please provide detailed evidence and factual proof:  crickets.  If it doesn’t fit onto the bumper sticker they’ve got diddly.

Living for the four word soundbite just makes you a moron.  Why the public continues to do this is amazing me.  No one seems to take the time to investigate whether what they’re being told is real or bullshit.  Politicians know this.  They know that the public won’t verify what they’re being told because they’re either too lazy or more likely too stupid to do it.  This is why you end up with candidates who make ridiculous claims like they saw Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11, or that 93 million working age people are out of work, that Mexicans are all murderers and thieves or that over 50 million people are driving Mercedes Benz paid for with their welfare checks.

I’ll make you a deal.  If you think all the statements in the previous paragraph are true then send me the data.  If you can prove it, I’ll give you 1 million dollars.  I’m serious.  1 million dollars.  All you have to do is provide to me the government statistics that prove any of those statements are true.  All the data around this is available for free.  I’ll even give you the website usa.gov.  All you have to do is go look it up.  If any of those statements are true, I’ll pay it.  You know what.  I think I’ll get to keep my money.  Anyone dumb enough to think any of this is true is likely too stupid to spell USA. 

Rex

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Politics and the WWF

Oh look what the Republican’s created!  For decades the GOP has made a point to scare the electorate into thinking that at every turn they are being threatened.  Their jobs are being threatened by emigrants.  Their comfort is being threatened by the poor.  Their guns are being threatened by liberals.  Their economy is being threatened by science, and their religion is being threatened by Muslims.  With all the rhetoric and all the imagined threats is it no wonder that in the end what you get is Donald Trump?

What Donald has been doing is nothing more than vocalizing what has been in the hearts, minds, and actions of the worst of the Republican Party.  It’s no wonder he’s been doing so well.  The attitudes and desires that were once spoken behind closed doors are now out into the open for all to see and the party doesn’t like it.  Their shtick has always been to present their ideas in private or hushed tones so they didn’t call attention to the corrosive right wing of the party.  That way they could still enter the Whitehouse doors.  Now it’s like being presented to the gates of heaven and shown all the sins that keep you from going in.  They’re frightened.

Republican leaders are coming out of the woodwork to denounce Trump’s actions.  Not Trump, mind you, just his actions.  All they’re doing is fueling the fire.  Many of them like Paul Ryan can’t seem to point a direct finger at the person causing all the commotion, making statements like “We need to denounce bigotry.”  Ryan and others are just too afraid to step right out and call Trump a bigoted blow-hole with delusions of adequacy.  This is why Trump is killing it.  If he thinks you’re a pussy with zero political abilities and a face like a hatchet he’ll just say it.  And his minions LOVE him for it!

I’ll give you this, Donald knows how to play to the WWF/NASCAR crowd!  Every time he speaks it’s like watching wrestlers throwing barbs and eventually chairs at each other to the sounds of roaring fans.  The difference is, this is real.  Hulk Hogan and The Rock don’t go back into the dressing room and have a drink together.  His fans are the types that will put a bullet in you if they don’t like how you’re dressed.  If he were to be elected the first time he issued in illegal order that the government rightly refused to follow, his people would start attacking Federal establishments with all the glee of the jihadists they so claim to hate.

It’s actually fun for me watching the Republican chickens come home to roost.  They’re paying the price for failing to lead.  Rather than educating their constituency in the realities of the world, they’ve been all too happy following the direction of the fire and reacting after they see which way the wind blows.  Now that the fire has led to the volcano, they’re less than thrilled with the outcome.  The only thing left to do now is to get out of the way and hope that ground rumbling is just a warning and not a full eruption.