Dear Michaela MacMoor:

It’s the sort of personal question I do not answer via any social media, not even with someone who has known me personally for decades; not even with family (exception: live, public posts).

I don’t mean to exclude you though of course, having never met and neither of us wishing to push oneself upon the other in defiance or disrespect of personal boundaries.

Michelle, you say (accuse) that I am "caught up" in something, and you ask is if you had rights: WHAT IS IT...?! The only singular thing I am caught up in is this DM (or “PM”) exchange. 

Why do you ask what I’m doing?

I tell you: I do not communicate online in private.

Ever.

In order to have peace between us, must we resort to platform UXUI block/mute? Neither of us is anything like that stupid or ornery; I know this. You have been utterly respectful, except for the spike of curiosity just displayed: only just now.

It is the least and easiest thing in the world to say what I mean. Works with complete and utter strangers. Works with blood. Works with water. Works even with my own hard spirit.

____________

Gin, of course. Trumps! 

TRUMPS everything in any glass ever raised to the king, queen, or Lorde. Now that’s a matter of longstanding public knowledge, but a bit early in the day for that!

Another matter of longstanding public knowledge:

Coffee’s on. 

Good morning and cheers off. 

Get The Flag Out Of The Pledge.

You know what's seriously weird? The idea of pledging allegiance to a flag. Yes, of course they do add in the "...and to the Republic for which it stands," but why even put the flag in there at all? Who cares, the flag. Piece of cloth! I mean, it's old, and it's glorious, I KNOW. I love the thing, myself - I salute it on its many self-evident and resplendent merits! I'm a great lover of banners, sigils and symbols, and the power they have to carry meaning. I love that!

But to pledge allegiance to it?

It's a bizarre call. Swearing an oath to protect or uphold the Constitution, now, that's a pledge with some meaning to it. The Constitution does more than stand for something. It enumerates rights. It lays down guarantees. It's a sheet of paper, maybe, but its words pin down what is best and to the greatest benefit of all - it is an anchor, not a pennant. It doesn't just flap in the breeze. To pledge allegiance to a FLAG? ABSURD!! Might was well say, "I pledge allegiance to Air Force One, to Mount Rushmore and the Lincoln Memorial, and to the Republic with which these things are generally associated..." WHO DOES THIS? Who pledges allegiance to a symbol? Far more meaningfully these days, in a cynical sense we might indeed stand with hand on heart, and declare: "I pledge allegiance to the Almighty Buck, and to the Republic by whose full faith and credit it is backed..."

You know? You know what I'm saying? Are people feeling me on this one? Just flip the two, and see how dumb it sounds to even bother to include the flag in there. "I pledge allegiance to the Republic of the United States of America, and...also to the flag, which is used to represent it visually..." What does that add? What does that add?

The flag does NOT belong in the pledge.

Look, even if you want to say "Hey buddy, the use of flag here is pretty clearly intended as metonymy" - nice try! You're still so off-base, there, you might as well be trying to play cricket on a basketball court. THAT is how off-base you are - FIGURATIVELY. Because if it's true what you say, that the flag is clearly meant as metonymy, then the shout out to the Republic is just-as-clearly redundant.

The Vaccination Debate!

Well, the point is there is no medical intervention without risk. But immunization for most major contagious diseases is SO MUCH provably greater benefit vs. miniscule risk, compared to other interventions. Benefit hugely first for the patient - the one immunized; benefit HUGELY second, for every human being they come in contact with.

Every un-inoculated person is a plague vector, for whatever they missed their shots on. And these chumps, these poor sacrifices, these burnt offerings offered up by their parents on an altar of ignorant nay-sayage, these children - left unprotected just to prove some political point about "we don't let the government tell US" - these kids will burn. Across every vector that intersects them, fire is coming, torches are already lit - polio, measles, other preventable diseases will burn through them and every kid whose asshole, incompetent, ACTIVELY EVIL PARENTS have chosen to sacrifice THEIR CHILD to this utterly childish myth, this wish that "we good, gov't evil, always..."

These poor kids will burn. And I hope when every single one of these pandemics comes, the now childless parents will be rounded up and shot like the christian scientists they fucking are. It is god damn mother fucking murder. It is criminal negligence, and it's bad enough that under some interpretations, we let you kill your own kids - but by slacking on inoculation requirements, we let parents kill others' kids too. Breeding disease vectors, raising up your offspring for the express purpose to convey plague. "Good job!"

Opt out of that.

You won't be able to. The check's already in the mail, this won't be about opinion anymore. Within this now living adult generation, that check - more than one of them - is already, brutally, mailed. And with plenty of cold sick death in the germ bank to draw against.

You want to leave your kids un-vaccinated? Well, we apparently give you that right. Know what I say? You just did the gene pool a favor. Your kids will burn, and that was your choice.

Autism my ass. Apart from the five times repeatably-proven fact that there is no link between vaccination and autism, the plagues these vaccinations protect your kid - and every kid your kid touches - against make autism look like a birthday present.

I hope your kid fucking dies, you barbarian luddite. But in the process of conducting the disease you actively chose to give your kid, I hope that at least your dead kid doesn't take out the six next kids, too. There are a lot of kids out here who don't even have access to the medicine you haughtily spurn. And every little bit of this is not on your kid.

It's on you.

A Proposed War on Proposed Moral Equivalents Of War

Language has dangerous power to reframe a problem in terms that will lend legitimacy to absolutist (or "zero-tolerance") solutions. This is the climate, day, and age of The Moral Equivalent of War.

Now I haven't read the book of the same title (I started it...it's a little dry...), but the idea is clear, and has wide currency. Establishing a problem as a moral equivalent to war is a sort of holy grail for policymakers: to spin the struggle they're selling, to get us to buy it at a level where we accept that "all is fair" in that fight, because it is war - or the moral equivalent of war. And so it cries out for all means necessary.

Once we accept that a thing Not War can be equivalent to the horror, tragedy, degredation and depredations of war, we soon find how easy it is to declare as many as we want to. Any cause at all can be trumped up to this level, if only people are willing to buy the tradeoff that is being sold.

Much is at stake in that tradeoff. Declared wars on drugs, terror, and obesity are far more than rhetorical. The insidious attempt to get people to believe the scale of the problem is one that justifies all means pays off big, for the demagogues and policy jockeys. Once you accept the scale of the problem justifies all means, next you may find that unless you have better means handy, you will have to accept their means.

An atrocity on our side? Ahhh that's justified, because what we're fighting is worse, and we "have to." Liberty? Oh, we needed to curtail liberty, for now, because something more important came up. Nah, those protections against surveillance? You weren't really doing anything with those. We need the latitude - don't you WANT the illusion of safety? No, you can't get the effective over-the-counter cold remedy anymore, people were using it to make drugs. Don't you WANT the appearance of something being done? No, you can't enjoy your favorite meal out anymore - the chef has been legally prohibited from adding salt during the preparation of the meal. PEOPLE ARE DYING OF BAD HEALTH! YOUR YUM is MURDERING THEM! Tighten your belts, buy war bonds and keep the home fires burning. YOU MUST ACCEPT THE MEANS WE PROPOSE. Our means won't achieve the end we say, but they will achieve yours.

The end of your life, maybe. Liberty, definitely. Pursuit of happiness, mostly. Our means will achieve our most cherished ends: to increase our control. To increase the approved uses of power - publicly approved, nothing sneaky! To win acceptance of the idea that we, government, need to be able in a crisis to void any human being necessary, for the greater good. And then, to expand the idea of crisis until it covers...whatever is necessary. Once you've allowed one moral equivalent to war, you'll allow them all.

Or maybe you don't realize the magnitude of this crisis! 250,000 to 300,000 people die every day. Something must be done. Don't worry, we'll tell you what must be done. You signed away your veto power years ago, didn't you? "Greatest good for the greatest people"? As decided by...well, who did you think?

As decided by those in charge. In crisis, we'll decide the greatest good for you. We've all agreed on "whatever is necessary." Never mind your rights, or anyone else's. All tough calls will be made exactly as we please. This is WAR, people.

We know what to do. All you needed to do was consent that the people don't. Don't know what to do. Aren't competent to know what to do. An individual can't control itself. It needs to be controlled. Happy to help.

Oh, we know exactly what to do in every situation: whatever we want. Whatever we say: whatever is necessary. Fire up the Permanent Emergency Code, start prosecuting people for antisocial sex! Okay.

Reality break.

There is no moral equivalent to war.

None. Nothing on earth remotely approaches to that horror. The only way to get something to approach to it is if you can convince people to go along with....whatever is necessary. If you can do that, you will be able to make a very great many things quite as horrific as war itself. You will be able to make pretty much anything as horrific as war, with that kind of support from the public.

Where policymakers ratchet up stakes to the point the public at large abdicates personal responsibility (something all too many of them are all too willing to do), yielding up all the call to authority - you could characterize it as paternalism. To be more precise, call it a demagogracy. To be exact, there's no better term than tyranny.

War, Or Something Like It.

I wonder if all peoples who consider themselves civilized could agree that war is stupid, horrible and to be avoided as it is? Even wars declared by nations, and conducted according to the conventions of war as agreed by the global community of nations - even such war as that is terrible, horrific, disgusting. War is bad enough.

But when someone steps forth to sanction "war" not declared by a nation or against a nation but rather, "war" declared by individuals or groups of activists - I confess I despair. I waver. I begin to consider giving up all my ideals, rather than live in a world where that can be made true.

It can be made true, if we allow war to be redefined in this way: it will be true. Such support, if carried, will make it true.

As a last ditch effort, I feel I'd have to advocate (or at least, sanction) a tyranny. To prevent that worst coming true. Said tyranny should keep every other single one of our rights in place! Including all right to criticize the governments of nations, including one's own. This tyranny would be very focused, targeted: an Amendment would be passed, making it overtly legal for the government to abduct, try, and murder the irresponsible scumbag who supports and justifies terrorism.

Terrorism, put plainly, is to kill a bystander/secondary target in order to make a statement to the primary target. That statement is designed to sow fear in the enemy's populace, and to destabilize the enemy's power structure.

Terrorism's justification could be stated thus:

"A personal act of war is an appropriate response for whatever injustice offends us."

Support for terrorism would be anyone claiming the above.

Under my proposal, people offering such support and justification to terrorism would be eligible for government abduction, prosecution, and public murder. I won't dignify the acts of a tyranny with niceties like "execution." Still it's a small price to pay, to kill those who openly support and offer justification to terrorism. Leave all the rest of free speech in place, just make that one exemption - better that than giving up on the whole thing, right? Because if such justification is countenanced, if such support is carried, is made generally accepted, then an act of personal, political war becomes appropriate response to whatever you like. Whatever you hate.

We can't survive that.

War is bad enough when we restrict it to declaration by nation against nation, and expect that it shall be conducted according to convention - or else violations of convention may be subject to prosecution under legally-convened war crimes tribunals. Even such "civilized" war is horrific. The world can't survive us extending the envelope of war to personal (non-officially-publicly-state-sanctioned) political vendettas.

Mind you, it would be a terrible state of affairs, a tyranny such as the one I propose. It would mean scumbags who justify that maybe terrorists have a good point would have to fear for their lives, if investigators could track them down and tie them to their words (and of course, if their statements could be proven to have been made after the Amendment when through - no retroactive application of penalties to what was then not a crime!). Even with clear limitations laid out, I fear the slippery slope that could take further liberties from us. That slope leads to a nasty cliff.

But at least we'd have the chance of climbing back from it. The slippery slope of allowing private moral justifications as equivalent to war leads to an abyss. There is no bottom, no climbing back.

The Bomb-Throwing Anarchist

I am scared to see this happening again. I always wonder why stuff like this stopped happening, to be honest. At least, stopped happening with regularity.

I mean, it was in the late 1880s and '90s, all the way into and through the early prewar 1900s and '10s, with powerful explosives becoming widely understood and easy to make and use, when bomb outrages first became - well, not common maybe, but common enough to make the hated and feared archetype (stereotype?) of the "bomb-throwing anarchist" as prevalent then as the hated and feared archetypes of "mass-murder-by-any-means-available fanatical terrorist," or "bullet-strewing unhinged troubled youth" are prevalent now.

What scares me is, as far as I can tell, effective measures were never brought to bear to stop the bomb-throwing anarchist. I mean, sure: investigations conducted, culprits identified where possible, books thrown - but there never really seemed to be anything we ever came up with to "make them stop." They just kind of tapered off. My personal theory was, maybe when the Great War and the Spanish Flu Epidemic came along, people got distracted by outrages and tragedies of far huger scale. By the time WWII came and went, most of those then living had experienced an overdose of aggression, and the death of most ideals as things worth killing for. A numbed world, glad just to get through to some kind of peace, was more than ready to sublimate hatreds into playing some role or another in the coming cold war. The bomb-throwing anarchist - pretty stupid-looking, by comparison with pandemic, blitzkreig, systematic genocide and nuclear annihilation - just more or less seems to have...stopped. Stopped being an issue, at least.

As a non-bomb-thrower with some pacifist anarchist sympathies, I'm glad the bomb-throwing anarchist per se pretty much went away. But eventually, anti-established-powers sentiment began welling up in its new guise of "terrorist." Whether Irish, Semetic, Balkan or otherwise, a terrorist is one who attacks a bystander/secondary target to cause fear in and destablize the primary target. You'll note: pretty much the same as what the bomb-throwing anarchist attempted to do. What is the difference, really?

Sadly, as far as I can tell, we have never come up with any really good way to stop it, recently or in past times. We just waited it out, the world went on, other horrible shit happened and it went away. When it came back, we relabeled it "terrorism" and blamed religion. Everyone knows religion is a problem no one wants to try to solve! Blaming something on religion is a get-out-of-solving-the-problem-free card. As if problems in the Middle East (or Ireland) don't have their strong roots in rulership and ownership wrangles - in hard and ugly political and economic realities.

"Wait and see if it goes away" isn't much of an action plan to be comfortable with. Nor is pretending that killing bunches of strangers over claimed reason X is any better than killing bunches of strangers over any claimed reason why.

I don't know what to say, except this was disgusting. The Boston Marathon. Holy hell, why is that even on anyone's list of things to target? What can we do?

Investigate, I guess. Identify culprits where possible. Throw the book. I dearly hope we catch the bastards responsible for this. Whether acting alone or supported by a group, I hope we catch the bastards responsible - and if they weren't acting alone, I hope we go after and get as many of the supporters as we can find additionally responsible, under the law. It's a hard thing to be, legal.

Every bomb-throwing anarchist attempted to terrify. Every death-dealing terrorist attempts to sow anarchy. The goal is always the same: to destabilize and undermine the power structure of the enemy population. To show its people that their power structure is powerless to stop the outrages. To make the people, terrified, clamor for any new power structure that can "protect them." Perhaps a fundamentalist power structure could protect us? Perhaps a fascist power structure can do it?

The only way they win is if we let them change who we are.

A Word On The Establishment Clause

The so-called "Establishment Clause" of the 1st Amendment protects all of us - those who are religious, and those who are not - from a government establishment of religion. The 1st Amendment's protection from government interference in any person's religion is inextricably bound to its prohibition against governmental establishment of [ some person's ] religion. Of all points government can pronounce upon, there are no significant points on which all major religions unite. Why, some religions even sanctify murder - with damnable and abominable justifications!

Now I personally believe there is only one blasphemy. It is: "God says kill." However, I wouldn't enshrine even this into the Constitution. Why?

Well first, I trust God. Great Lord God will strike those blasphemers down, or failing that, God will judge them eternally - each according to the justice God has. In the meantime, I say: "Let 'em all live! And let God sort 'em out."

Second, because there's no need to enshrine sins. We already have the crime of murder. God can prosecute sins: let go, and let God. Meanwhile, we have the crime of murder. Murder includes all killings of homo sapiens not officially sanctioned by government. Nice, right? There are a ton of ways to get your killing of a homo sapiens sanctioned by the government - check your federal, state and municipal codes of law for details. Yet God-based killings probably don't ever meet the criteria for government sanctioned approval. If someone wants to test it in a given case, of course it falls to the D.A., the judge and the jury - but ultimately, I doubt they will find in law any blessing for a killing whose sole claimed basis is supernatural ("God says!").

For one thing, the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment forbids laws whose basis consists solely in the supernatural.

So it would be so weird if there were an exemption on the books for a specific type of killing where "God says." Now when I say "Let 'em all live! And let God sort 'em out," I don't mean I'm against letting them live behind bars. Society can show basis to deprive a person of liberty, if they meet the usual and not-too-cruel standards. If accused, tried, and found guilty - the usual penalty is fair to apply. Forfeit liberty - fine. Forfeit property - fine, literally. Throw the book.

We don't need God-based law to put someone away. Any one of those "render unto Caesar" type laws will work. We have tons of these, and the law prohibiting murder is one of them. It's one of the easiest of all laws to justify, even using purely secular means. There's ample and compelling non-supernatural basis, to demonstrate the compelling necessity of murder being a crime.

Which is a very important point. Because in a society where there is liberty, no law of prohibition, no law of confiscation, no law of compulsion can be allowed - except where government can show the compelling necessity of that law.

In our society, in our Revolution which continues to roll, the 1st Amendment and its Establishment Clause forbids that government make any establishment of law whose basis consists solely in the supernatural. For the protection of the religious and the non-religious alike, law whose basis consists solely in some person's or persons' idea of what God wants is invalid. Such law is very simply and clearly, an establishment of religion - and nothing else.

Get that shit out of here.

My Sexuality: Silent No Longer

I just want to take a moment here to come out as straight. And not to mince words, I do mean: heterosexual. I am a cisgendered (folks, this is a term that means the sex you were born as is the same as the gender you identify as, for example: I was born chromosomally XY, a sexual male, and today I gender-identify as "male") male, and I am attracted, heterosexually, to females. Heterosexual is a term that means you are sexually attracted to another sex, not your own sex. Homosexual, of course, would mean you are attracted to your own sex. We've all heard that one!

So I was prompted to come out with this open declaration for a reason. I heard there was recently some news story about a kid, high-school age I think, who came out as gay, and was apparently supported in doing so by the website Twitter.com. And the report I heard was that some of the reaction to this story was: "What's the big deal? I don't go around telling people I'm straight."

Well guess what, whoever said that? I do. I go around telling people I'm straight. Maybe this is the first big declaration I've done online, but for years now I have in my life openly, proudly declared myself and my sexuality. Openly, I say. Do you have a problem with that? What, am I going to shut up about it? NO. Why should I? Because you have a problem with it?

Listen up, people. My sexual orientation is every bit as natural, every bit as acceptable as any other person's is. Am I proud? You bet I'm proud. Hell yes I'm proud! What's there to be proud of as far as my sexual orientation goes? Plenty. For one thing, I'm attracted to women. Now, nothing to be proud about, there, necessarily. Okay, I can admit that. But it's a huge source of pride that on occasion, I've been able to "get with" some of them! I'm straight, and fuck yes I have occasionally been able to "get with" women! And you bet I'm proud of that - damn proud. Because that's something to be proud of. Because take one look at me! Hairy. Gangly. Muscular in all the places that I myself would find - off-putting, to say the least. Big and lumbering of gait, yet lithe of limb and graceful at the extremities! Fingers like a ballet tosser. A born dancer! In fact, except, born by accident into the body of a casino rec league linebacker. If I were to look at myself from a sexual standpoint, I'd find myself borderline revolted! No offense, self-confidence, but I just can't be into me that way. So proud? Proud that in some way, some how, I've managed to be and present a whole package that together could be attractive to women, in spite of my baseline physical appearance? That's a big source of pride for me, that a woman would want to be with me despite all that. And I don't mean to brag, but - more than one woman. Several, in fact. Close to five or six, over a lifetime. Maybe more or less, but not by a ton. Who's counting, honestly? I'm not some pig, racking up notches.

But I am proud of my sexuality. I'm openly, actively (within a very selective company, to be sure, but very actively within that select company), flamboyantly straight - and to anybody who doesn't know it, HELL YES HALLELUJAH! YOU KNOW IT NOW.

I wasn't always this open. I used to be silent.

I was silent for too long.

I was silent in solidarity with those who felt they needed to be silent. And if somebody asked me what I was, persuasion-wise, I'd sometimes even take a cue from Michael Stipe and say, "it's none of anybody's business who you like on your lap." True dat, Stipey. That's a true thing. It *IS* none of anybody's business. It's certainly none of Michael Stipe's business! And well, why would it be? For that matter, it's probably none of Michael Stipe's busines who I tell about who I want on my lap. Including nobody but prospective lap-mates if I wish, but including the whole wide world, if I want to.

At some point I realized silence is the wrong message, for me. I respect anyone's privacy and desire for it. Those who choose to remain private, be so. But for me, I realized I needed to change my silence. I need to come out and SHOUT. I need to throw my weight around, and let it land on and support the side of those who say: "Sexuality is a thing to proclaim! It's a thing to celebrate, and demand equal recognition!" YES. TELL IT.

So am I straight? Mother love, I was born straight. Am I proud? Oh, hell yes. I'm proud. I laid out the reasons already.

But here's something else I can acknowledge, and that I want to acknowledge. There is an extra reason and an extra aspect, where I do not have the same cause another may have, to be proud. To have and display and shout: PRIDE.

We are all of us in this life in this same boat: we are human beings, and at the ground level of those we know, those we deal with, those in whose circles we move and from whom we'd wish for love and respect, friendship, acceptance, or at a minimum tolerance and recognition of our right to exist, to be who we are and to pursue happiness with like-minded consenting adults - we are all in that same boat.

But some of us get it. Every day, and largely without even question. And some of us don't.

Those of you who have to do without, and who are brave and soldier on in the face of active hostility and dismissal, in the face of even the open disgust and contempt and derogation and detestation - of strangers! And even of acquaintances, and even of family, and who consequently have learned to fear to lose friends, and to be shut out of love, of business, of life if they admit who they are, all because of ... what? genitalcentric interaction issues?


You who have that to deal with, and who manage despite that to keep human, you have a reason and a cause to be proud that I do not have, and could not have. I can't have pride like the pride you have, and deserve.

Of you, I am proud. When I see you put the haters to shame, I am proud. When I see you throw the weight of your pride around, heedless of shamers - I am more proud. When I see you say things and do things to lift up all of us, despite the shameful ways of too many of us, who put you down - I could not be more proud.

And I can't share in what you have to go through, and I won't insult you by saying I wish I could. I don't wish I could. I'm glad as hell and fortunate as fuck to be spared having to go through what you have to go through, every step forward of your life. I don't want to share your burden, because it is a burden that no one should have in the first place. But what I should wish is that I could help lift it off of you.

And I do wish that. But what I find myself wishing more often is that I could tear the rest of the world a new one, for putting it on you in the first place.

People who are "like me" in that cis-regard, in that hetero-sex way, born in the "right" body, and to sexually dig the "right" side, and so able to sidestep, to not be subject to all the societywide bias and taboo that hits you daily, daily, daily and you have to STEEP in it - people "like me" in that respect, so fortunate! We should have some kind of beautiful humility and gratitude, for being spared so much grief! Yet far too many of us cisborn heterofuckers choose instead to create your grief. To add to your grief. It makes me furious. I am more than ashamed of them.

But I am not ashamed of "us," though. Because those intolerant cisborn heterofuckers...they opt out of any "us" that I care to be a part of. Because I am a cisborn heterofucker. And as I already said, I am proud of it. As proud as I am of you. You keep strong.

Anybody who has a problem with that, the problem is all theirs.

Every Two-Party System Has Its Silent 3rd Party, Pt.2: The Marginal Parties and Their Role

Your marginal parties like Green, Libertarian - they, too, are important. When I said in the previous post "The third party in any 2-party system is: your conscience," that is not to dismiss these two, but to uphold them.

Green and Libertarian are each - with respect to their own core issue - the self-appointed party of conscience. They each form a locus, to focus public debate, to lobby for public pressure and to pull as much public will as they can to their key cause. This includes pulling public will from the other two parties, and from those parties' supporters. These marginal parties have strong arguments that effectively pull that will towards their cause, since each of their separate causes affects us all - and each could arguably be called the single most important cause there is. Green stands for planet earth: for defense against wanton rapacity of it, and against the negligence of our stewardship of it. Libertarian stands for humanity itself, and for defense against tyranny by means of the neverending fight to secure the human rights of the individual as paramount.

The Democrats and Republicans each claim to embrace, embody, or be "the real party of" key pieces of each of the Green team and the Liberteam's platforms. The bigs dismiss those marginal parties as irrelevant, small-time players unable to do the real job of a political party because they can't think broadly enough. The littles accuse the big parties of being functionally identical, equally corrupted by their shared hegemony, and unable to effect real good in the most crucially-important areas (two guesses what those are).

The real state of affairs is closer to this: a marginal party can do its part by being a very focused, single-cause party. It can serve effectively as a pressure group to marshall the public will that its single cause's strong merit draws. A marginal party can afford to attack either side as it sees it needs to. It is beholden to no compromise, and if it is well-run and its mission is kept on-focus, then practically speaking, it can serve as the party of conscience - for only its one cause.

A party of conscience occurs everywhere an individual person - a legislator, for instance - unites on an issue with others who believe conscience comes ahead of party. In most cases, one's conscience is perfectly in accord with one's party and its position, and there your party is the party of conscience. For other cases, you find you must cross the aisle, because you believe something bigger is at stake than solidarity with one's party and its official position.

That "something bigger" may be a necessary compromise - to sacrifice something now, in order to secure something urgent for now, but with pains taken to preserve the fight in the future for that point you cede today.

That "something bigger" may also be a real disagreement between one's conscience and a specific party plank. One presumes that if you disagree with your party on most things, you'll leave it.

For those who find that one particular point is always more important than all others, it falls to those thinkers to form up with those of like mind, in a marginal party whose purpose is to dedicate all to that one cause. Together you can make it your mission to be - on that one point - the "party of conscience," as you see fit. Not everybody's going to agree with you, but at least they will know what you stand for. Also, good news: there's probably already a marginal party in place, for whatever cause seems all-important to you. If not, you can start one, but why do all that work if there's already one going?

Now if the Green party and the Libertarians could only see eye-to-eye on this whole climate-tax deal, together, with that combined pressure - maybe we could force those damn big-timer Redempublicrats to come off the dime!

Every Two-Party System Has Its Silent 3rd Party.

Dan and I were talking politics the other day, while drinking and he and I rarely do that. Anyway, between us I think somebody brought up a pretty good point: our two party system works pretty well, but it does have one FLAW:

We need to have GOD,

...in our classrooms,

...PERFORMING ABORTIONS

...with a FULLY-AUTOMATIC FIREARM -

- and then getting the death penalty for it.

If we had that, I think we'd have a pretty good system, one that has all its extremes brought right back into balance with some necessary, albeit regrettably-evil, checks. Apart from that, though, the system we have works pretty well. People vote for what they'd vote for, some vote the slate (of one party's candidates), others pick and choose on issues or person or other basis.

In our legislatures, the same goes to a large extent: people vote for what they'd vote for. They've joined their party for a reason. Most of them espouse all or most, or at least, much of its platform stances, so most of the time, they'll vote those. Other times, they may disagree with this or that plank of the platform - so they vote the other way. If they're honest, then they've admitted that disagreement with that plank during their career, or during their campaign - assuming they were questioned about it, which is kind of supposed to happen with candidates for service at state and federal levels. So if they were honest about their position and got in anyway, then the will of the people simply was that they wanted a person in that position who believes in things for reasons, and who doesn't just swallow platforms whole and vote the slate.

Not a bad thing to want, if you're the will of a people.

Of course, sometimes it's not a case of disagreement with the party plank, when you vote the other way as a legislator. Sometimes you - or a bunch of you together, in strategy - decide that a trade is needed, for some bigger thing. So you decide you need to bite the bullet, and trade away, for now, a thing you want - as long as we can do so without damaging what we want later on that important score! You trade it off, in order to get that bigger thing. That thing we need even more, right now. You've preserved that other, smaller fight for the future, because you were careful to do no damage to it by what you accepted today. And that's compromise. Compromise is also a matter of conscience. Compromise is conscience with a sense of proportion.

Anyone - public servant or not - can subscribe to all, or most, or even only much of a given party platform, and still identify as this or that party. You can do this because you believe there's value in coming together, and because you find the party supports most of your core points, or you support most of its. As someone who identifies as that party - whether you are or aren't a registered member, or even if you're an elected legislator - you don't necessarily swallow the whole platform. You will criticize it, to your fellow party members or sympathizers, where you find a stance wanting. You'll work within, with like minds, to make the party a better organization as you see it. But ultimately in the meantime, you accept the planks you dislike. You that see others dislike yours, too, and you see that you all still have a great deal to gain, by coming together on most of it.

Never will a meaningful or powerful number of people come together on all of it. Let pipsqeaks, weaklings and noncomformists wail on the sidelines and "opt out," much good may it do them. And much good it does do - to wail and rail in protest, to refuse to join in any part of it, does do much good.

Yet coalitionists know the value of common cause, and so they make it. Painfully, bitterly sometimes, they make it, because they believe in a greater good that we can make together despite our points between of painful difference. Sometimes we make common cause painfully even in victory, often we make it bitterly in defeat.

A party platform is not a thing that demands a thinking, caring being to subscribe to it all, always in every case, as if it were an absolute, a fixed ideal - and the being, a slave to it. No. When a given case demands compromise, the sacrifice of immediate gain to a greater need and goal for the cause, you make that sacrifice as part of your fight for the bigger picture. And when a given case demands no compromise with conscience is possible, because you disagree too strongly with this point of the plank - you vote the other way, and for reasons you can passionately state.

Whether out of a measured, needful compromise, or real disagreement with a point, you vote your conscience. They call it bipartisanship, they call it compromise, when Rightists or Leftors cross the aisle. But really, it is simply conscience. You know that what's right in this case is not the cut-dried point-by-point stance of your party, so - painfully, perhaps; knowing you sacrifice solidarity, and that some will fault you for it - you vote what's right in this case.

The third party in any 2-party system is: your conscience, together in a coalition of all those who agree with you on what is right, on what must be done in the hard case at hand. In every 2-party system that works, there must be that third party that exists both within and across party lines. It will have different members based on different issues, and at different times. Party bloc loyalists will decry every little defection across the aisles, but party bloc loyalists are not the problem. They too are voting their consciences.

Oh, I was kidding up there, about there being a need for God to be in our classrooms performing abortions with an assault weapon. If God did that, I do believe we should try and execute God, because talk about hypocrisy.

A Proposal, in re: the Sick and the Murderous.

Imagine if our press corps banded together on a new ethical principle: to make the perp of mass-killing crimes anonymous.

Pick an alias, a boring and bad one, and leave all the personal detail and glory out of it. Report the grossest most embarrassing personal problems you could unearth. Make it a general practice in the industry - I don't mean legislate, I mean adopt an ethical business principle. Didn't it used to be that victim's names of certain horrible crimes were not reported? Well - aren't these sick scumbag motherfuckers also victims, horrible victims of society? We can bend a point for the greater good, here, I think. We can get the media on board with the ethical journalistic need to stop heaping glory on the perpetrator's person, as they report fully on the story and all its other aspects.

We could at least try. Media coverage is a piece of this.

If we make it a practice and make it stick, that if you do that mess, if you go kill a bunch of people with a gun, or a homemade bomb, or a billowing cloud of some chemical agent, anyway you do it - the national/major news media isn't going to be trumpeting your name, or plastering your face, or dissecting your theories and opinions, but they are going to trumpet your full medical history and your permanent record from school, and what a loser you are, and how fucked up you were.

Now of course, your maverick amateur you tube journos and etc. can flout the ethic if they wish. You can't stop sick people on the margins from spreading what they wish. You can't stop sick people on the margins from being the free, unpaying audience to it. Seeking it out. But who's going to care in the mainstream? In the world in general, and in public acclaim?

You reduced yourself to a horrific act. What does it matter to us what your name was, and your face, and who you were? Your atrocious act did not make you significant. It only made significant the wish in others' minds to not be like you.

Or so it should be.

Our compassion and help to those who are in trouble and crisis will always be urgently needed, and well spent. But it's time for us to grow the fuck up, as a society, and get over this question: "What could make a person DO something like this?"

We already know what could - and what does. We also know that of all the factors that could and do "make" a person do the inexcusable, tons of people undergo those same factors and do not kill. It's time to stop fetishizing those who do.

Against Sensitivity!

I rail against sensitivity, and I do it for the sake of compassion.

The expectation of sensitivity is to expect the sensitive person to see the other in pain before it happens, and to act so as to avoid doing anything to cause it. Where we don't share the same vulnerabilities as the other, sensitivity entails a deliberate and false identification with the other's perceived weakness. We can only know how to act by estimating the degree to which the other person is too weak to take what we ourselves would have no problem with. Sensitivity is a form of contempt.

Sensitivity is deemed a wonderful thing, and if in some moment you find you are possessed of it, thank your stars! But have pity on the miserables who were born bereft of that psychic sense, and so are sentenced to spend years over uncomfortable lifetimes being rebuked, accused of being insensitive, and feeling utterly alienated. If you think these lost souls enjoy their exile, you are simply cruel, that's all.

Compassion springs forth in the moment we see that another is in anguish, in pain. We rush to save and and aid that one. Our heart has known suffering too, and we see it - we leap. If we were the cause of it, we weep. We weep on the inside, one hopes - so as to not affront the one who we wronged! Still we rush to save and aid, and make amends. Compassionate beings, we strive always not to be cruel.

Sensitivity run amok can cause total shutdown of most generous and surprising gifts or outpourings. The paralysis brought on by the desire and requirement not to be offensive, or uncomfortable, or unwanted, or objectionable, can be quite suffocatingly complete.

Compassion, oddly, can not cause this. Compassion cares deeply what it means, and it means well, and can answer for itself. But compassion does not insult the other beforehand, with the presumption that maybe the other can't take what one means.

For Governance of Humans at the Level of Nations, Democracy Is Best!

So.

How do we decide things? Why, easily! Of course! As easy as you please and are able. Do all you wish and are able to do. If others wish to join in and you wish to have them - do! A pleasant and powerful arrangement! Who will this system frustrate? It will frustrate those who want to decide what others are to do. In other words: the tyrant. But this is beautiful! To frustrate the tyrant is our goal and dream, we will kill if need be to achieve this. Don't worry, need won't be (assuming the system holds up, fingers-crossed).

What then is tyranny? To constrain the liberty of another to do as they please and are able, without being able to show the compelling necessity of the restraint or prohibition, is tyranny. To destroy, defile or confiscate the property of another (such as one's own anything; a work of creation, a personal possession, a minor child, any property of one's own including especially one's own body) without being able to show the compelling necessity of the deprivation, is tyranny. Tyranny expresses in other, small ways as well, but these two are great.

What kinds of tyranny are there? The most common kind is usually called democracy. In theory rule by the people, democracy is a dream, an ideal filled with wonder and first concocted under the severe mental illness or social disorder driven idea that arguing over and voting on the minutiae of life could or should be a focus and pursuit for most people's lives. This is the ideal of democracy, mind you. That the people must have the say on decisions. But since it is manifestly obvious that people want the direct exercise of no such say, most systems that name-check the ideal bump the decision-work up to select delegates, for almost all aspects of rule. This, too, is arguably democracy: it is inarguably the peoples' will that it be so. The people's will, come to governance, is very clear: "I don't want to do this. Somebody else needs to do this! Can we get someone qualified?"

People believe they have a right to expect select delegates to do a good job. To handle minutiae decisions according to general principles laid out and campaigned upon, together in bodies of those who have volunteered and competed to provide such service, under the understanding that these servants shall be orderly, well-regulated, checked and balanced.

Hit and miss, in practice, that. But the theory as it has developed is still better than the actual ideal of democracy itself. Because people - sane people, intelligent people, well-balanced people - do not want to spend strife to decide what others are to do. Public service is a horrible job that attracts horrible people because the goal and practice itself is irredeemably sick. Those who throw themselves selflessly into it not for power, but to be the means to protect others from its abuse, are the greatest heroes modern society so far knows - and we do not know them. These heroes are legion, thankless, and mostly go nameless, and - they are always far, far too few.

Leave aside the huge world of gears, levers, where corporate machines and metamilitary entities engage in good-natured brinksmanship for amusement and gain, with only droves of human lives at stake. Leave aside the world where democracy is - well, all I've said above, yet remains undoubtedly the least of all so-far-enacted evils, at the level of national governance. Give democracy a chance. Let ideal system meet ideal world.

What is democracy, in an ideal world where humanity is what it is in all things human-scale, yet where corruption above that scale is not an issue, and where abuse of power is an idea such as to chuckle over?

Democracy is the tyranny of the tiny minority of people who enjoy the process of canvassing, campaigning, proselytizing and political finance over all of the vast majority of people who quite naturally have higher priorities in mind, such as: human life. The agonies and joys of those they know. Their next meal. Being able to function. Whether to keep trying when efforts to connect are met with scorn, rebuff, unease and ridicule. Disease and death too close to home. The act of sex, and all that that entails. Sports team oh no! You don't love me anymore. Oh my god it is so beautiful - you did that? What do you mean fired! What is that engine noise. You are the most beautiful woman I ever hoped to meet; you remind me of what - the rest of my life could be. God, this wine.

Do you want to argue with me and convince me some idiotically trivial thing with no bearing on what is true, good, important in life is better than another trivially idiotic thing of nigh-but-not-quite-identical relevance? GOOD! Welcome to the tiny minority! Be the tyranny you wish to see in the world. Rule in small ways over the lives of all those who refuse to lower their well-placed priorities to your fucked-up priorities, to the point where merely in order to "have the say" you say they must (so as not to be deemed apathetic, sheepish, complicit in the unjust), it would be necessary for them to do as you do: scream and chant over the distinctions they today (with their eyes on the fact that they have an actual life) can barely even see. Democracy is yours.

Well, yours and everybody else's who enjoys that sort of thing. Have fun with that. Don't get shot by anybody you're trying to make do things! Try to be one of the good ones. Please.

And fuck off while you're at it, would you? I mean, if you please. If you'd be so kind.

Good News for the World: Humanity Causes Climate Change

WASHINGTON - An upbeat tone reigned over the annual Environmental Sciences Conference at the Foundation Towards Reality summit in Washington D.C. this past week, where scientists announced that after a long period of controversy, it has been finally, conclusively proven that human activity is a primary cause of global climate change. "Anthropogenic" (human-caused) climate change is a reality.

"The news couldn't be better," enthused Dr. Lovell 'Lovey' Bubbage, chairman of the Research Sciences Institute Into Ecology, and keynote speaker at the conference. "A third-grade student knows that left to its own courses, Earth has been ping-ponging from global melt to global freeze and back again, all through its natural history. Now, finally, we know humanity has the power to affect this cycle."

Dr. Keanu Harrington of the Climate Studies Group elaborates: "As you know, we're in an ice age right now. The presence of year-round polar ice, by definition - that's an ice age. So we're either in a temporary warmer pocket - a thaw - within the current ice age to-be-resumed, or else we're at the tail end and coming out of the now-passing ice age. Either of these natural states spells bad news for humanity! We don't like nature like that. Nature embraces extremes: hot muggy winters with Wyoming submerged, all the way to nasty snowy summers with ice sheets reaching to Ohio. That's not how humanity likes nature. We want nice frosty caps of polar ice, wide temperate zones with four seasons to grow crops and build cities in, and a tropical belt around the middle for vacations."

But does humanity have as much influence as we need? Can we arrest nature at that happy medium, and keep it from going to its usual hot and cold extremes? "That has now become the question," notes natural historian and theoretical meteorologist Jeddo Phepps. "For too long, the naysayers were telling us we were helpless. Telling us no, humanity doesn't have this influence on the climate. Well that dismal picture is considerably brighter now! We know for an absolute fact: humanity does have influence, strong influence. With that controversy settled, we can focus our research and attention on understanding that influence. Directing it. We've proven dozens of mechanisms by which we do definitely affect the climate, and more are coming into view all the time. Some factors increase global temperature, others reduce it. Understanding these mechanisms is the only difference between anthropogenic climate change - and anthropogenic climate control."

What will this mean to the global warming debate going forward? "Well, it's over," says Dr. Abby McFey, summing up. "After years of political controversy and wrangling over whether we can affect climate, finally we can stop wasting time and money studying what-if, and put that funding towards how-to. With all the climate-changing tools we've discovered already, there's no reason careful research and application can't get the climate under control within this century."

(mostly) ALL-CAPS MOVIE-REVIEW #1: The Odd Life Of Timothy Green

I saw The Odd Life Of Timothy Green on the plane, and the less said about that freak and his fucking disgusting ankle-leaves the better.

I don't think any of the below is really a SPOILER, since all this crap can be pretty much inferred from the trailer. But still. It's a bit harsh. So I may be "spoiling the film," for some people. In some sense. "Spoiler Alert."

NO, YOU MYSTICAL LITTLE MUD-BIRTHED BASTARD: EVERYBODY'S *NOT* DIFFERENT. NOT LIKE THAT! NOT LIKE YOU ARE. AND NO, SORRY, IT'S *NOT* OKAY. IT COULD HAVE BEEN OKAY, MAYBE - BUT NOTHING YOU SAY AND NOTHING WE SEE EVEN BOTHERS TO TRY TO MAKE THAT SHIT OKAY! NOT WHEN YOUR "PARENTS" ARE SUCH BLATANT ASSHOLES THAT THE VERY BLATANCY OF THEIR INHERENT ASSHOLISH OBLIVIOUSNESS CAN MAGICALLY AND INEXPLICABLY INFECT AND HOODWINK THE ENTIRE TOWN INTO ACCEPTING THAT YOU'RE THEIRS, WITHOUT SOME KIND OF FUCKING EXPLANATION THAT INVOLVES PAPERWORK! AND ENROLL YOU IN SCHOOL?!?!? NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE!? NO FUCKING VACCINATION RECORDS!? MIRACLES LIKE THIS ARE NOT OKAY. NOT IN A FILM SET IN THE HERE AND NOW TODAY, POST-INTERNET, POST-MEGAN'S LAW, POST-PATRIOT ACT. DON'T GIVE US THE TRAPPINGS OF BIG BAD HARSH WORLD AND THEN MAKE EVERYBODY ACT LIKE A PLOT TOOL TO CONTRADICT THE PREMISE. YOU WANT TO TELL US WE'RE SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT THE POSSIBILITY OF MIRACLES IN THIS HARSH WORLD OF OURS? FINE! PRESENT US WITH SAID HARSH WORLD, AND THEN WORK A MIRACLE IN THERE! IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE, IN THE MOVIES AT LEAST. BUT DON'T TELL US WE'RE SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT THE POSSIBILITY OF MIRACLES IN THIS HARSH WORLD OF OURS, ONLY TO SWAP OUT "HARSH WORLD" WITH "KINGDOM OF BUBBLEGUM SUGARLUMPS"! YOUR MESSAGE DOESN'T WORK, THEN, DOES IT? OF COURSE WE SHOULD EXPECT MIRACLES IN THE KINGDOM OF BUBBLEGUM SUGARLUMPS. THAT'S NO INSPIRATION AT ALL FOR US, HERE! NOT IN THE WORLD WHERE WE LIVE. AND SORRY KID, NEITHER ARE YOU. FUCK YOU AND YOUR DOPEY EXPRESSION. IF YOU'RE GOING TO ASK ME TO SUSPEND DISBELIEF, DON'T KEEP SHOOTING BBs AT MY MOOD BALLOON.

Yeah, yeah, I cried a little at the end, so what. Those were unearned tears. The whole movie sucked, apart from the performances which were generally quite fine. But the whole thing itself sucked.

If I cried, I was crying for whoever paid for tickets.

CHICK-FIL-A WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING! Now Introducing for a Limited Time: The Chicken McBigotry Sandwich!

If you're like me, you can't get enough of those tender delicious fast food chicken sandwiches, you love to pour your hard-earned patriotic dollars into causes that say it straight and traditional about American values, and you hate fags. But not everyone has a Chick-Fil-A near you! What to do?

Well, we've heard your cry. Come on down to one of our conveniently-located locations to satisfy that God-fearing Chicken-Loving Christian urge! Bite into the newest fundamentalist taste sensation: our new Chicken McBigotry Sandwich. One hot, white, juicy all-breast patty of delicious chicken, either baked up hot and healthy for the ladies watching their figure, or battered and crisp-fried to a golden decadence for the men, also watching their ladies' figure, but solely for the goal of procreation as seen through the sanctified eyes of the blessed union of holy matrimony: one man. One woman. And one chicken sandwich.

Either way you order it, you get it seasoned with our Secret Rub of spices and herbs, and slapped onto a pert, waiting bun, loaded up with crisp lettuce, red ripe tomato, and white tangy dressing for a chicken-y delicious taste sensation that your mouth won't be able to get a big enough bite of. Sized just right for a woman's appetite! And men? If I may be so bold, a touch of gluttony now and then for the sake of a good cause is no sin. Surely for the healthy, red-blooded appetites of an upstanding Christian man, one breast can't be enough to satisfy. Better make it a pair: one Double-Chicken McBigotry to go, please! There you are.

Ladies, you know you want this chicken sandwich. It's an all-natural celebration of the way God intended lunch to be: and at $2.99, it's a celebration of value, as well as values! Bite into something that sends the right message to the community, and to the nation. Men - what do you want in your mouth? A dick? Or a delicious crispy chicken sandwich. Go ahead. Send a moral message. Take a big man-sized bite, and look around at who's watching. They know what sandwich this is. And every bite you take of it, righteously, standing before God and in the eyes of the world - that's a bite that says: "I choose chicken - not dick - to fill my mouth."

Try the new Chicken McBigotry Sandwich! Available now for a limited time, only at participating franchises.

Notes On Language.

This site is intended as a repository of some damn serious criticism of the world, and as such, I don't intend to mince words. Two words in particular:

1. "retarded"

Acceptable uses: slowed or delayed in advancement, progress, or accomplishment.

Unacceptable uses: in reference to the developmentally disabled, or as an insult implying the target is of or like the developmentally disabled.

HOW I INTEND TO USE IT: as a pejorative term, meaning "gay."

2. "gay"

Acceptable uses: frolicksome! Prone to traipsing joyously! Light-hearted! Or, homosexual in a good way!

Unacceptable uses: in reference to homosexuals or homosexuality in a bad way, or as an insult implying the target is of or like a homosexual in a bad way.

HOW I INTEND TO USE IT: as a pejorative term, meaning "retarded."