A Talk By Richard Dawkins on Atheism in The United States.

God, Evolution, and Scientific Inquiry: A Conversation.

The following is a conversation between me and an old camp friend, Sam Vore, who has since become a pastor. It started when I posted a story on Facebook about the Pope's comments to Africans that condoms would not solve the HIV/ AIDS epidemic there, implying that abstinence and a moral sense of sexuality are the only real solutions. I made an angry comment along with my post about how silly it is that we still listen to men in white robes whom do not hold higher degrees or provide any viable solutions to real world problems in the 21st century when we have the level of scientific data and empirical evidence that we do today to rely on. The following debate occurred as a result of this post.

SAM: As a pastor I'm glad I wear jeans and shirts when I preach and not these robes you speak of...pfew! Religion is bad. Pop christian, islam, buddhism, evolution, catholic, tarot and crystals, conspiracists, mormon, fortune cookies they all do spread ignorance! Matthew is right! But jeff, on principle I would disagree that a person has to be doctor, psychologist, or a social worker to be right. So I don't share your view that only educated people should have a voice. People should read Jesus without any preconcieved bias. Then the world would change for the good. Everyone would work together to eliminate AIDS. Everyone needs to be fed, housed, and given medical care. I agree!.. I don't like the pope.

JEFF: Hey Sam, I agree that SOME religious groups do try to help end social problems. My beef is that they don't seem to understand that there are very educated people doing very useful studies on HOW to solve these problems in universities worldwide. So if they want to help, I believe they should help as concerned people, not as members of a religion, and that they use the methods being established by the educated specialists sans the moralizing religious judgments and alternative treatments. For instance, something like Doctors Without Borders is a very useful, secular group trying to help with the African AIDS epidemic. However, right along side them are missionary groups saying, "I want to help, but I also want to talk about my faith, and about Jesus, and about moral choices these people are making." I don't believe this is helpful because in these religious opinions they are going to contradict the empirical evidence and confuse the people being treated as to who knows what's best. This could potentially make matters worse, making the doctor's job even harder. So I don't believe educated people are the only one's who should have a voice, but I do believe they should be turned to for information on how to best carry out one's good intentions.

Wait, wait, wait...did you just throw evolution in with tarrot cards and crystals spreading ignorance? Sam! Evolution is science! Ok, I know the argument that it is not fact, per say, it is technically a theory, but this is only true because it is only provable through deductive reasoning, not empirical evidence. However, if it is wrong most of what we know in the field of natural sciences can't be true and we should all stop going to doctors and cut all science programs from schools everywhere.

SAM: Yeah I did=) If science needs to be fact, and evolution is as you admit technically a theory, then theory has no place in science as fact and should be placed in the category of religion and faith. You can practice your faith just as I can, but our faith has no place to be taught as fact. If you don't want me teaching my theory of creation in school, don't teach the theory of evolution in school. Dude, don't say that human deductive reason leads us to know evolution is true because human reason also leads us to know there is something bigger than us and therefore we're not just animals. Science is good, but theorys should never be presented as fact, but only as theorys...I want you to know this is all just friendly debate, and I don't disown friends just cause we disagree, just so you know. I also support HIV/AIDS work and personal differences come well after helping human beings.

JEFF: Sam, no one teaches evolution as fact in science. It always has been a theory. However, here is the difference between the theory of evolution and the theory of creationism. The theory of creationism is made up. 100% fabricated out of someone's mind and presented as a viable alternative to evolution despite its being in conflict with numerous other facts in history and actual laws of science that we know for sure to be true. In science it only takes one example of something contradicting scientific law or historical fact for a theory to be dismissed. Evolution, however, is based on the fact that we know living beings evolve in present day reality. We have collected data for long enough periods on species of creatures that proves they have evolved from a point earlier in history to now--be it a week, a month, or a hundred years. We also know from our recorded history that nothing natural has happened that would suggest that things did not evolve in the same way for as long as life has existed. Therefore, evolution is breaking no scientific laws, nor is it in conflict with any historical evidence, plus we can see it happening right in front of us today, thus we can assume it has always happened this way. That's deductive reasoning. We cannot see things appearing out of thin air today, and we know that this is scientifically impossible (for matter to appear out of thin air). Thus we can deduce this is NOT the way human life began. It's a story and should be taught as such. Understanding that things evolves leads to other scientific inquiries necessary to cure diseases, understand natural behaviors and continuing intellectually evolving as human beings. And I believe the reason creationist are particularly upset these days is because this debate was already had over 100 years ago and evolution won. Thus, we don't have to have it again. We can point them to the history books where the debate is recorded and see if they have anything new to add.

SAM: Oh please, No evolutionist has ever come up with a good explanation of how life began in the universe that is any more believable than that God did it. You're right things don't come from nothing so everything has to have an origin therefore the question is of how life began in the first place. Evolutionists theories range from alien seed to random... Read More probability. Nobody finds it ironic that the probability of chemicals arranging themselves into simple proteins is so small that belief in aliens or a creater is more logical? Darwin even said that his theory was quite flawed. And besides, his methods were so primative, and I would speculate (and its ok to do so because evolutionist can make assumptions about things nobody actually saw) that if Darwin had access to equipment today, he would not have come to the same conclusions. Evolution has won like Bush won his first election: if you get down top the root of it, things don't add up. I went through public high school and a public university and thought evolution was fine untill things didn't add up. I started reasoning myself and came to the conclusion that someone created the earth...If natural selection rules the world why worry about protecting species. If pink iquanas in the Galapagos can't evolve maybe they shouldn't be allowed to live among the "fittest." Same for humans. If we destroy the Earth, it means our ethics and consumption lead us to it, and maybe humanity should die out. Life will spring forth again and evolution will continue. If we can't adapt to a warmer earth, or evolve to live in a warm ocean then that's the way its supposed to be. We don't need AC cause we need to start evolving today! Disease helps limit population growth so compassion to stop it would be contrary to the natural order. Or could it be that there is way more to the universe then we know?

JEFF: First I want to say that I appreciate the debate Sam, and you do raise some interesting questions, but at the same time I think you are mistaken about what science is teaching. You're talking about the beginning as though it is completely disconnected from the present. I've never heard the "alien seed" or the "random probability" theories. My understanding of the most plausible theory is Big Bang and Evolution. Big Bang being based on the fact that the universe is expanding in all directions, which implies there may have been a central point that exploded and sent these parts floating off into different orbits. Earth has life based purely on where it landed in the universe in proximity to an energy source like the sun and that it's atmosphere is made up of gases that create water. Micro-organisms grow in water and thus life begins and evolutionary theory picks up there with the adaptations that took place over millions of years to get from there to here. Why does a higher power have to be involved in this equation? I guess the question would be where did the initial chunk of matter that exploded come from, but some Big Bang theorists believe that the universe is going through cycles of expansion and implosion. Meaning that the matter could have always existed (mind blowing as that is) and has been expanding to a point until the physics of outer space send it back into an imploding cycle. It compresses back together, builds pressure until it can't implode any further from the heat build up and explodes again. Seems perfectly plausible to me. It at least follows general laws of physics and biology. It isn't just some random guess based on mythology.

SAM: Jeff, I appreciate the debate too. I always hear out anybody who would like to peacefully share their view. I don't want anyone to think I respect you less because we apparently disagree. The alien seed and random probability theories are just two explanations I've seen from highly educated evolutionists about how life began. Primordial soup and random molecular formation into proteins is just about scientifically impossible. People don't realize how near impossible it is, but people still say life began by chance from primordial ooze. I know the universe is currently expanding. I don't argue with scientists on that observation. God speaking the universe into existence seems like a big bang to me. The fact is the earth is in a perfect spot. I think God put it there, others claim its by chance. Micro organisms grow in water yes, but its the molecules and structure of even single celled critters that are scientifically improbable to have happened. A higher power has everything to do with this discussion. My ancient text says there is a God who created the earth. I look at the data of bones in the dirt and strata in the ground and it proves the text. We can both find fact to try to prove our beliefs. There is a great debate in "science" about throwing creation out of the possible interpretations of the data we collect. If its a mind-blowing idea that matter can exist eternally (which does defy laws of thermo dynamics) could it not also be just as mind blowing that a God really could have made life and the whole universe...I am an educated human being. I believe the God of Israel to be the only living God, who created the Earth. The history of this God is recorded in ancient Hebrew texts as well as first century texts in reference to the hebrew messiah Yeshua of Nazareth, who has delivered the world from sin. If that makes me crazy, I'm happy to be... Jeff, I need to sign off, but today has been good. You can have the final word.

JEFF: Ok, well thank you for the last word. I have had this debate enough times to know I won't convince anyone who doesn't want to be convinced because there is absolutely no way to prove that there is a higher power. I say that means there isn't one. If there has been no empirical evidence to back the theory of a higher power in the history of humankind, that to me is pretty clear evidence that we're doing this on our own (which makes educating ourselves on what has already been tried and what theories are the most radically out of touch even more significant). In my experience many Christians have the luxury of not having the weight of these decisions on their shoulders and when they do they most often put aside their faith and go with science and logic in life and death situations. That's how this discussion was started. I believe religion needlessly instills doubt in science when science never claims to have all the answers, it simply has the best answers humans have come up with. Religion on the other hand strikes me as being very much like the Republican Party right now. They have no ideas. The ideas they do have are old and have been tried and didn't work, but for some reason they think if they just keep raising doubts in people generation after generation this will somehow change the outcome. It strikes me as intellectual dishonesty and ideological warfare. Instead of seeing holes in science and problems in society and trying to help--perhaps choosing that particular gap as what they will spend their life studying in an attempt to solve this question for the next generation--they see a hole and say, "See! Look, your argument is faulty and therefore there must be a God." That's not a theory, or even a debate, it's just a made up story to fill in the holes that science hasn't gotten to yet. And if they weren't hurting anyone I would say, great, who cares, let them believe what they want, but since they are causing confusing and blurring the truth about science and ideologically speaking, not really doing any good for anyone. I think it can be said that people can be moral and concerned and helpful without the need for religious institutions confusing young people and the less educated about whom is telling them the truth.

Obama Has Nothing To Prove

In recent days it has become quite apparent that some Americans (mostly those working as correspondents for Fox News and their cowardly followers) are outraged with our president going to other nations abroad, acting like a civilized diplomat, and telling the truth about what our nation is all about. He told members of the G-20 that we were not a Christian nation, but a nation of citizens with the freedom of religion, which is true. He then went to Saudi Arabia and bowed to the king, as is customary in their country. Conservatives are upset because he has not been to church in the 11 weeks of his presidency, even though he was very clear during his campaign that although he was a Christian he did not go to church very regularly. They are outraged! "What is he doing to our nation?" they ask. Well, let me explain.

Obama is doing what everyone of us in this nation should be learning to do. He is living by the rights endowed to him as a U.S. citizen to practice religion as he sees fit, or to not practice religion at all. He is going to other countries and having the common courtesy to abide by the local customs instead of shoving some generic, low-brow form of American culture down the throats of the rest of the world. When he greets members of other nations, he takes the time on the plane ride to learn how to say, "Hello," in their language. This is not a difficult task, and quite frankly is something anyone can and should do if visiting another country. It goes a long way in extending a signal of peace and civility to our neighbors. It also says to them that we are not monolingual idiots incapable of comprehending other languages while the rest of the world speaks two, three, even four or five different languages before leaving high school.

Where this becomes an issue for the right-wing nut jobs of America is that they believe it makes Obama look weak to be so friendly and peaceful with the rest of the world. They like the image we have portrayed for the last eight years of being hard-ass cowboys with the largest military in human history. They like scaring the shit out of the rest of the world and watching them squirm under the thumb of a giant nation. Obama, along with the 60% of Americans who gleefully approve of his policies so far, seem to understand that a well-spoken, attractive, worldclass educated, bi-lingual man--with a beautiful, worldclass educated, formly corporate executive, bi-lingual wife, and two intelligent, compassionate children--who is president of the wealthiest, most powerful and well-armed nation in the history of humankind does not have to walk around in the world being paranoid and defensive and so scared of other world leaders that he needs to put up a front of power. He understands that his prescence is reminder enough of what America is capable of. His very being as a black man with his abilities democratically elected to lead a free nation is symbolic enough to the rest of the world that we do have classy, hardworking, intelligent citizens among us and we are capable of finding them and electing them as leaders. By bowing to other leaders in their country, he is sending the signal that when he is in someone else's country, he is a visitor and will behave like one. This then allows him the leverage to demand the same respect when leaders visit our country. In fact, the Obamas are so respectful and polite that the Queen of England actually let Michelle put her arm around her, when the custom is that no one ever touches the queen. It really isn't that complicated. It's how decent human beings interact with other human beings. Period. No games. No drama. Honesty and fair competition. We're in the lead, we don't have to work so damn hard to impress people.

What we are seeing is that the Obamas are defusing tension around the world with their calm respectful demeanor and sending a message that we are an open nation ready to talk through our problems like mature, educated people do. The world is well aware that we have 9,000 nuclear warheads pointed at every region of the world and that all it would take is this man's word to literally desimate a large portion of the globe. A man with that power needs to speak softly or people tend to get a little shaky. People respond to fear in many different ways. Some respond with pride and would rather die than be under the thumb of an aggressive super-power. That is what we do not want. That is the message Bush sent to the world as the threatened, childish little dumbass that he was. Now we have an adult who wants those proud poor (economically speaking) people of the world to feel that they are in the peaceful embrace of a giant who feels their pain. He wants them to know that we are not a nation of Christians that hate Muslims, that we are in fact, as he clearly stated, a nation of citizens with the right to worship as we please. As far as foreign policy is concerned--religion has no place in government. Thus, Obama does not, and should not, care what religion other world leaders abide by in their personal lives. He is saying, "We don't even care what religion our own citizens are. Hell, I haven't been to church in 11 weeks! Rather we care about understanding on a logical, secular level what other nations want for their citizens, why they would want to attack us, and what we can do to help with the former and aleviate the latter." That is what wealthy, capable people with any shred of human decency do with their wealth and power. They use it to solve world problems. They do not use it to lock down their private property like some kind of gated community with nukes and spend the rest of their existence gaining more wealth and building higher walls and larger weapons to fight off poor nations just looking to get some respect.

So I hope Americans will turn off the rantings of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and recognize that although we have freedom of speech, there is a big difference between listening to a man who chooses his words carefully and thoughtfully with the best intentions for everyone involved, and listening to rich, paranoid chickenshits who can't comprehend that they have a better chance of dying on their way to work in a traffic jam than they do getting bombed by an angry nation looking for attention. Thus, Obama can chill out and work on making friends and preventing all of the other "fates worse than death" that occur within our own boarders everyday. Everyone dies. More people die everyday from cigarette smoking, heart disease, traffic accidents, etcetera, etcetera than died in the 9/11 bombings. They aren't always as violent and flashy, but the people die all the same. So if one is that concerned and afraid of another attack, there is no logical reason why one would not be very concerned with our failing health care system, with our poor laws of preventing greenhouse emissions, and with our poor laws for reducing health risks before they happen. No one wants to have to pass legislation to make people do what is best for them and for society as a whole. Things run much more smoothly when people educate themselves and do these things of their own accord. However, people don't. Americans misuse and abuse their freedoms to do what ever they damn well please. This is dysfunctional. This is what caused the plethora of crises we are experiencing now and this is why we are likely to see a multitude of regulations placed on everyone to get things back to good. It's not socialism. It's not tyranny. It's one confident guy standing up and saying, "Look you morons, think about the big picture. Is it really worth having freedom if your nation is full of sick and dying, uneducated, frightened people? If everyone in the world wants to kill us for acting like arrogant assholes? Is that really something we can be proud of? Is that really an enjoyable way to spend our lives and the message we want to send to our children? No. So either get your shit together and learn about what's going on outside your own little narcissistic wonderland, or we're going to have to pass laws that wake you up and re-engage you in reality. That's what the majority of the country voted for. That's what I'm going to do." I for one could not be more proud. Everyday I am more amazed with Obama's boldness and intelligent ways of handling problems. I hope others agree and that we get eight wonderful years of this and, fate willing, another eight after that and after that and after that.

The Academic Time Warp

Academia is a world unlike any other that one will find in any other part of our culture. It is challenging, it is open, it chews up many a weak mind and spits it back out while taking other minds and brutally molding them into something strong and refined and worthy of a sophisticated life elsewhere in the world. The politics of academia are unequaled, and the personalities more interesting than what one will find in any day-to-day job or community organization. However, something happens to these individuals during this schooling process that both robs them of their humanity and gives them permission to leave social and cultural norms and responsibilities by the wayside. What is it?

I, like the majority of human beings living in the world today, did not come from a community of highly educated citizens. There were, of course, a handful of doctors, lawyers, and professionals who lived in and did work in my community, but they were often detached and more or less seen as role models for the rest of us. They interacted on the human level as little as possible with those whom they saw as beneath them and did their jobs, which for the most part allowed them to interact professionally and in a detached manner. Starting my life, as everyone does, as an uneducated person building on my experiences and studies to reach the level I have achieved today, I was very curious about what happened to a person once he or she left high school and began the world of higher education. I can remember as a younger person watching my older cousins go into college with an exuberance and excitement, a wantonness to make a difference and change the world, only to come out the other side better dressed, soft spoken, and seemingly incapable of communicating with the rest of the world. The excitement was gone. The enthusiasm was gone. The interest in other people disappeared and those social and cultural concerns were no more. It was as though they were superheros who had slipped away into a phonebooth for several years only to come out as Clark Kent instead of the other way around. People were no longer people, but clients, patients, and markets to be sold to. They were something to be polled and studied and manipulated for the sake of impressing a distinguished few standing outside the rat cage, poking and prodding at their experiments.

Now that I am older and have experienced this phonebooth for myself I can see that it is not so much like a secret place to change clothes as it is like walking into a hurricane and finding ways of seeming civilized and cordial while keeping from falling into a hundred mile-away stare that others might mistake as lunacy. Academia is the wardrobe that we walk through in anticipation of the snowy-white pleasantries of Narnia only to come out the other side in professional clothing, armed only with our wits, in the same caustic warzone we were a part of earlier in life. Suddenly we are responsible for other people's lives. They want to know what we know and what we plan to do about it and if we can not answer fast enough or with the appropriate conviction, we are tossed to the wolves; all of our hard work written off as insignificant and impractical. Furthermore, the wolves want to know why they should respect us when we don't even have any money. They want to know why the hell anyone would spend years of their life and tens of thousands of dollars on a wardrobe that just kicks them out on the other side with a head full of theories and statistics and an uppidy attitude on how to solve the world's problems. But they don't know what goes on in there.

Those who never enter the wardrobe, or who tried to enter the wardrobe and became overwhelmed with how different it was in there and how complicated the world is beneath the surface, don't seem to get that there never was a promise of riches or snowy-white pleasantries. This seems to be an urban myth of college that is told to young people so that they will stay focused on getting into this world. What we can't tell them is that they are actually choosing the lesser of two evils. If we truly wanted our kids to go to college we should take them out to work on construction sites and fishing boats. We should send them off to actual warzones or make them live in roach-infested apartments on food stamps. We should make them work thirty-five hours a week at a corporation that requires fulltime employment to receive healthcare benefits and remind them that the corporation will NEVER give them those extra five hours. We should show them how the rest of the country has to live who could not afford, or could not make it through collge.

What college offers is an education, nothing more, nothing less. It allows one to stay on par with those also getting an education so that they cannot be tricked or fooled or bamboozled into the projects of those less-ethical graduates who, feeling duped by the system as well, decide they will make up for those lost years and missing dollars by smooth-talking the uneducated into working for them for nothing or handing over their hard-earned cash for products and services nowhere worth what they will charge.

I now see that that far-away look and lack of exuberance I saw in my relatives was the look of knowing that now that they had this information about how the "real world" works, and now that they had spent their first ten year's salary on learning these tricks, they would not be off to solve the problems of the world and help the less-fortunate as their high school teachers had hoped, but instead would be tip-toeing the line of ethics for the rest of their days in an attempt to uphold the worthiness of their academic experience. They will scrimp and save and withdrawal themselves from everyday life to build fortresses that protect them and their family from the uneducated wolves, fighting to get by in the world. They will send their kids to private schools where they can learn how to get ahead without the distracting influence of the poor and uneducated. They will teach their kids philosophies that allow them to believe that the wolves are not struggling and oppressed people who need their help, but are lazy, good-for-nothing fools who don't care about their children's futures or about taking care of their families. They will build a world so neurotic and stress-filled that no one will ever be accepted in this world until they are AS neurotic and stress-filled as those already living there. And that's how they will know that you are hard-working and worthy. If you are relaxed and still able to communicate and still want to communicate with the general public, you must be one of THEM and thus you cannot play in this game. If you are not surrounded by only the most wealthy and highly educated, you are low-class yourself and unworthy of the time of those in the bourgeois and aristocracy. You had your chance, and you blew it so you could remain a "normal" lay person. Now you are out, until you can find the energy to get stressed out about things that don't ultimately matter and sink yourself into a debt that you will never pay off...then you will be "with the program" and the civilized world will include you in their reindeer games.

It's rather pathetic really and I don't know which side I should be more concerned with: the side that thinks college is so unimportant that they throw away an opportunity at living a rich and full life and passing on the information necessary for their kids to live an even better life so that they can make some fast cash and eat fast food the rest of their lives, or the side that after a couple generations of financial comfort completely forget that there is a whole world of people out there starving and dying and destroying eachother while we sip coffee and talk about high art. And the fact that both exist within the same country does not speak well to the systems we have created for ourselves that allow such a dicotomy of beliefs, both with enough money to have serious influence over other people. It is something that has been with me my entire life and something I'm sure others are experiencing or are working/ drinking extra hard to ignore. I don't know what the answer is. I only highlight the problems as I see them.

CPAC-tastic and Obama Foreign Policy

The GOP recently had a conference to bitch and complain about how uneducated and irrational bigots and bible-thumpers are having their opinions marginalized. I couldn't quite stomach watching the entire thing as it was one angry white man after another coming to the podium to rant about guns and power and using one's inalienable rights for nothing but lowbrow fighting and the bullying of others in our society and the world at large. As I listened it struck me that these people just don't have any idea about what is going on in America. They don't understand its history, they misunderstand the forefather's intentions, they are virtually incapable of high-minded debate and discourse. In fact, if they were students in a college classroom I believe it is likely they would be asked to leave for disrupting class to rant about unfounded opinions and unresearched ideas.

So where does this stuff come from? It's absolutely baffling to me because they are so steadfast in their wrongness. I have to give it to them, if there was a prize for unfounded confidence and asserting oneself based on how much money one has accumulated rather than how many experiences one has had or how capable one is at articulating reality once broken down into its tangible parts, they win, hands down. What democrats and progressives do not have going for them is that it is nearly impossible to explain complicated realities in thirty second sound bites to a nation of people who have no idea how their government even works. On the contrary it is extremely easy to wage character assassinations, make fun of intelligent people, and conjure a sense of pride in one's country in thirty seconds. I believe this is where it starts and frankly why conservatives have been so successful at creating a leaning right nation over the last thirty years that values nationalistic pride, religious culture, and creating a dominating economic/ militaristic presence in the world--because it is easier to package and sell. Just as it is easier for a large bully to march out onto the playground with a big stick and go into circles of children minding their own business and enjoying themselves and take their money, it is also easier for Americans to remain ignorant of what is happening in the rest of the industrialized world and continue to intimidate everyone into doing what we want. Rather than showing them we are smarter, more innovative, respectful of our brightest minds and latest studies, and capable of leading by example, we have created a much less sophisticated, but none-the-less effective game that rises out of a philosophy of, "He who has the most guns runs the show." The new president of the NRA actually said at the CPAC convention that, "Our forefathers understood this principle." Rubbish. Our forefathers were brilliant secular men who believed in fairness and balance of power and high-minded logical debate and diplomacy. They were frankly disgusted by war and violence. In fact most of our constitution was written under the premise that when given the opportunity to not be under the thumb of the wealthy and oppressed by religious institutions, Americans would use their freedoms to rise up against these fat cats and rework their government to protect "the people." Instead we have devolved into a mass of unhealthy, uneducated citizens who are not even sure what our rights entail, and what rights we do understand we use mainly to get out of having to challenge ourselves or engage in confrontation with our oppressors.

I believe this is why we have become so concerned with Islamic radicalism: It is not far from what some in our country (mainly those speaking at the CPAC convention) believe philosophically about how America should be run. They believe we can get our way by bullying and intimidating and making our presence known militarily in the world. So do terrorists. The difference is they don't have the trading power that we do or the tools to create the nice shiny facade that America presents to the world. They have oil that we need or we (The industrialized nations of the world) would do what we should do with these countries: monitor their weapons programs, extend an olive branch to engage them in a peaceful exchange of ideas, trade, tourism, etc. and leave them alone.

In the past I have always, without exception, been against America expanding its borders to include other nations, but in recent years I have had to ask myself what the outcome would be if, as a group, the industrialized nations of the world split up some of the Middle Eastern nations that have become such a problem for the world and more or less offered them the opportunity at living in a more democratic and civilized society. I almost can't believe I am writing this and already I can hear the opposition being that this would be absolutely immoral and to suggest that they are uncivilized just because they aren't like us is insensitive. However, they have nothing in many of these places. Afghanistan in particular is the fourth poorest nation in the world. The people there are largely illiterate even with their own language. Meaning we are trying to teach sophisticated means of governance to a nation without the education necessary to understand how peace and diplomacy and education could possibly help keep them safe and get food in their stomachs tomorrow. The place is a wild west situation where the cowboy with the biggest posse and the largest guns gets control, which of course leaves it open as a training ground for any terrorist group that needs a home. So my question is, Why not offer Iraq and Afghanistan statehood in the United States? Why not go in and say, "We have bigger guns than all of these guys and we will happily protect you and help you build a prosperous nation, and in exchange you will pay taxes as a United States citizen, be required to follow all federal regulations, elect officials to sit in our congress, and maintain the same freedoms that states have in our country. They can always say, "No," but I feel this would be a good way to obviate the terrorists' interests while helping the civilians that just want to get on with their day-to-day lives. I actually feel this way about a lot of nations in the world today. We're letting our corporations go in and take over anyway with absolutely no oversight, why not extend the offer of statehood, receive more tax revenue, set higher expectations for these nations that are still functioning in agrarian societies and continue to allow them the freedom of electing state officials that could throw their ideas into the American melting pot. Everyone wins. Plus we and the people of these nations regain control of the corporate giants who are essentially running the world unfettered by a democratically elected government.

I would love to hear from people on this because I think it could work, but I'm sure there are things I am missing. I realize that cultural takeover would be one of the biggest counter-arguments and the potential uprisings, but wouldn't this still be better than military occupations and building a damn fence across our borders? Obama's foreign policy has been less than impressive to me thus far; in fact seems to be a continuation of the Bush policies in large part. I believe this is probably a nod to the right that he is trying to be bi-partisan (though I have no idea why he feels the need to please people who didn't elect him and whose ideas those of us who did vote for him would like to marginalize as much as possible), but to me it seems like a brilliant man is getting wrapped up in a stagnant ideology of how we do things here in America. I fear his creativity is going to diminish year by year as he tries to please conservatives who are reluctant to change. My feeling: people will understand when they see how much better progressive ideas work (if they are even paying enough attention to notice something changed), much in the same way that one learns to trust professors upon seeing how much smarter they are than students. One cannot teach people who think they know everything or feel empowered by their "personal freedoms" to not listen to those who have data on what is going on. Obama and his cabinet are more educated than 99% of the world population. In fact those smarter than Obama's cabinet are most likely teaching in our universities. Thus, I believe that the citizens would be best suited to give the president some slack and let him show us what he knows. Instead he is walking the line trying not to upset conservatives by showing them how much smarter he is than they are. Makes no sense to me, but then, democracy is not a very efficient way to run a country. It's sloppy and expensive and unruly because a person who is educated has only one vote and one voice like everyone else. This to me says that we should be trying to educate more people so the voices are more informed and discussion is possible, but apparently as long as they're self-reliant financially they can yell their little heads off. Anyway, that's my piece.

Logic and Spiritual Beliefs (A Conversation)

The following is a conversation that started in a chat with my aunt on Facebook concerning the afterlife and spirituality. I always love talking about this stuff (I realize others do not), so I thought I would share for any who care to read. I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

I guess my first thought when it comes to the human need for a belief in "otherworldliness" and the afterlife is that it is uniquely a human belief. Humans are the only creatures on the entire planet, that we know of, that have brains capable of comprehending their own deaths far in advance of their own deaths. Therefore we can plan for them, make attempts to avoid dying, make plans for those who will be left in our absence, and maybe more significantly, worry incessantly about dying and make very poor, shallow decisions based in clinging to something that will inevitably end. This is why I believe that what one creates during his or her life is what goes on, not the actual person or the "soul" of the person. If a person was a total asshole for his entire life, when he dies he will likely leave behind a total mess that will be passed down to the next generation (much in the same way Bush, a total asshole, passed on a wreck of a country to Obama/ all of us). On the other hand, if a person lives a magnanimous and altruistic life, he will actually solve problems that were left to him and pass on a better situation to the next generation. In this way, these people are with us for a long time after they are gone and the more good they do while here, the longer lasting their inspiring influence; the more negative, the longer lasting their mess will hang around.

So, I believe this is where religion comes from; the attempt to build a community based on values that are timeless--such as not taking others lives prematurely or out of anger or fear or lust or spite, etc; not taking sex so lightly that one forgets that life can be produced with this act and will then need a responsible set of parents to flourish; not getting so caught up in day to day logistics that we forget to slow down and appreciate the finer things in life while we still have it--otherwise our life can devolve into the pursuit of comfort and money and "things" and we start overlooking the big-picture goal which, I believe to be to improve ones life and pass on a better situation for our children. What I think religion has turned into for many is the need for an authority figure to tell them how to behave because many people do not develop into rational thinking adults with adult tastes and adult interests with adult brains capable of comprehending these mature subjects and having adult conversations about them. Therefore they cling to their fear of death and begin thinking everyone in the world is as scary and immature and unenlightened as they are and that they need protection from these scary people. They also begin to see their religion as "THE WAY" that all must come to in order to become enlightened, rational people with mature insights into life and begin expending massive amounts of energy, money, effort, etc. arguing over the specifics of how we ALL (all 6.5 billion and growing of us) should be living in order to achieve God's graces. The irony is of course that the more rigid one becomes in believing in something that is essentially unknowable (and can only be speculated about) the more the person begins to break all of these timeless values in an attempt to get others to think the way they do (i.e. starting wars, fighting instead of discussing, becoming bitter and callous and unopen, protectionist, etc)--when the ultimate goal in the first place was to get people who might devolve into unloving, killing, raping, thieves and liars (or more animalistic, uncivilized behaviors) to not do these things out of fear and guilt that God is watching.

Enter 21st century science and logic: we have overcome a lot of the problems that religion and spirituality once had to deal with through scientific inquiry and viable studies. We don't have to guilt our kids into abstinence anymore because we can educate them on where babies come from and how diseases are contracted and how to avoid both while still enjoying the pleasures of sex. However, we still have a huge chunk of people believing this is absurd and immoral to talk to young people (who are already talking about sex and having it) about something that is so clearly sinful based on books written 2000 years ago in the most war-stricken region of the entire world because of differing religious beliefs. I say, who the hell cares what religion says on this topic (and many topics), we've solved the problem. They say, it wasn't our problem to solve and we should just take what God gives us and suffer through it. I say, we can't think clearly and solve problems if we're always suffering, fearful, and feeling guilty and judgemental. So this is a real problem with respect to the afterlife. If they are correct and it is as simple as God spoke to the prophets and we're just supposed to live out what these religious texts say (which are highly open to interpretation) than yes, America is the devil, science is an arrogant, shallow, sinful area of study and we're all going to hell for messing with God's infallible creation. If, as many of us have obviously accepted in western culture, there is nothing supernatural controlling what happens here in reality and we are completely in control of our own fate, than America is a leader and science and logic trump religion and we should be having secular, rational arguments about how to live as ethical and free-thinking human beings, enjoying life and passing on a healthier, happier world to our children. I know many are trying to reconcile these two schools of thought, but I really don't think it's entirely possible, suffice to say that there are things science hasn't explained yet and things science has created that have not been positive and thus we still need to instill a sense of humanity, morality, and responsibility as we progress. However, as long as people still believe that there are ghosts and spirits and gods guiding our behaviors I think we are actually inhibiting our society from maturing and controlling its own fate; rather encouraging people to ignore our leaders in logic and science and philosophy and turn to books written in a time and place that is completely unfathomable by today's standards. I know it is comforting to believe that there are "angels among us" but unless those angels have studied 21st century law, ethics, and scientific inquiry, they may very well be out of touch with what one needs to know to achieve some level of peace and satisfaction in today's world.

Anyway, that's where I am with it all these days. I am open to more fantastical interpretations. I'm a creative person and I enjoy fantasy and imagination and there really is no way to know that we aren't just pawns of the spiritual world. However, for the practical purposes of living sane lives and having sane conversations about life, I do believe it is healthy to be able to recognize the difference between fantasy and reality and travel between the two worlds in a way that doesn't suggest to others that we are unreliable narrators of our own experiences.

Careers, Marriage, Family, Degrees, Boring.

How do you define yourself? When you meet someone at a party, is it, "I am an Engineer or a Journalist?" Or something along the lines of, "Well since Jill and I got married, she's been working and I've been taking care of the house and kids," or, "I'm working on my PhD." I ask because my wife just turned 30 last week and I am not far behind and I'm wondering if this is really the end of the line for my cohort in terms of talking about what really matters in life. Really? At 30 are we all just finished with our hopes and dreams? Have we really wracked up that many heartbreaks and rejections and things not working out in our favor a third of the way into our lives (with any luck) that we're just going to spend the next sixty years yammerin' on about trite details and never getting to the heart of what we're all about as a person? Never surprising ourselves or others.

I try periodically to change this question of, "Who are you? What do you do?" into something more interesting. For instance, you could answer, "Well I poop every morning. Is that what you mean?" It's as banal and meaningless as what most people do for a living, just a way that one fills up a portion of one's day, but no one wants to hear about that. They would rather chat your ear off about money troubles, or their asshole of a boss, or their broken down car, or little Jimmy's lost tooth. In fact at age 30 many people seem almost ashamed of having human emotions at all. It's a sign of weakness to some people I suppose or lack of education maybe. On the contrary I would argue that those trying to act as though they are NOT human sound miserable and angry; inhumane even in their pretending to never be melancholic, or desirous of something that is missing from their life. In fact I would argue that it is this common searching for answers that ties us together; young and old, across genders, and cross-culturally. It is the melancholia that comes from never fully understanding, not the distraction from the questions (which is what most of our lives are), that makes us human. What's so hard about saying something to the effect of, "Well I really feel like I should be teaching, but I have all these student loans now and the insurance business pays better." That's understandable, and more importantly REAL. Most human beings would understand this more so than someone actually trying to own the job of sitting in a cubical for 40+ hours a week and claiming it's their "calling." If you're waiting for a wake up call, let me help. If you consider sitting in a five by five box staring at a computer screen and doing trivial tasks all day "not so bad" you have officially lost touch with what "good" feels like. You're numb. You're inured. You're losing the ability to have genuine human emotions and you're justifying it because you have nicer stuff than someone who might be completely satisfied doing something that pays less and brings them joy when they show up in the morning.

My generation has officially become one giant mundane exercise in one-uppery. "What's your degree in? Where did you go to school? Are you married yet? Have you bought a house? Have you traveled to xyz? What kind of car do you drive?" Who really gives a shit? Boring. Boring. Boring. Let me be forthright in saying, "I don't give a shit." It's not that your hard work doesn't impress me--if it's what you want to be doing--but it is more a question of, if you're happy, I'm happy. And if you're wondering if you are happy, if you've lost touch to the point of having forgotten what happiness feels like, again, allow me to assist...you wouldn't have to talk about it so damn much if you were really happy. It would be obvious. Happy people are generally fairly relaxed and able to talk about a variety of topics that go beyond their own tiny world. They have peace of mind. If you cannot, or if you have built your world up to be more interesting than everyone else's on the planet, consider therapy. You're losing touch with your humanity and trouble in your relationships is soon to follow.

That being said, of course you are allowed to both be happy and go on nice vacations, own a house, have a family, work a satisfying job etc. etc. I'm just saying these things do not have to define you. They are what you personally value for one reason or another; no more, no less. They aren't necessarily what is going to make you as an individual happy, nor do they necessarily add anything to your life story. They do often keep one from spending hours worrying about things that don't really matter. A nice car that runs properly and saves money on gas would alleviate a lot of my stress in driving this 1988 dumper that breaks down every six months. However, when I'm lying on my deathbed I seriously doubt if the crapper car I owned as a grad student sixty years earlier is going to pop into my head. And if it does, someone please pull the plug.

Something else that should be mentioned is that there are a lot of people in today's modern world who have large outside influences working against their attempts to be happy. Despite our great nation claiming to give the rights of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness to everyone many people are not allowed to pursue the things that bring them pleasure due to rigid ideologies, lack of education, cultural norms, and simple mean-spiritedness of the majority. Many have depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses not conducive to the breakneck competition expected of Americans. Some are gay, lesbian, transgendered, or questioning their sexuality. Some are just plain creative and misunderstood by a society that rewards analytical, logical thought and clean, organized, sensible lifestyles. These individuals spend a lifetime being harassed and abused and rejected while simultaneously harassing and abusing themselves for being "different." If they seem "unhappy" to you, consider how you are treating them. Perhaps they're just responding to your assumption that they are like you, which is a ridiculous approach, because who is, in fact, really just like you? Shouldn't we approach each other under the assumption that we will have nothing in common and be pleasantly surprised if we do? Seems more logical to me, and we love logic in western culture.

So again, I say, if it harms no one else and makes you happy, do it. If it doesn't, stop doing it. If you have to work some BS job to pay the bills while pursuing what you really want to be doing, do it, and shut up about it, but don't try to build up the BS job as being what you really want to be doing. That's just enabling the oppressors out there that get off on having people smarter and more talented than they are working for them. The world changes to fit what individuals choose to do with their lives. If you are trying to live your life in a way that constantly changes to fit the world that is constantly changing to fit the people living in the world, the tail is wagging the dog. Have some balls and dare to be happy. If nothing else, I am sure your life will become more interesting and exciting.

Right Intention

I don't believe I've ever written about this before, but if I'm wrong, I apologize. Something that I hear about a lot, everywhere I go, in every state, even now in Spain, is hard work. I believe in hard work. I think hard work leads to a lot of very beneficial things in life and intrinsically feels good. However, I do not believe it leads one towards happiness, nor do I think it necessarily accomplishes anything more than a large exertion of effort. Anyone who knows me well would likely not describe me as "a hard worker." Although anyone who has every worked with me would probably tell you that I am most often one of the best workers they've ever had. It baffles even me sometimes and I'm the one living by this philosophy that I believe works better than the "hard work" dogma that the rest of the Puritan world is teaching. Right intention (as in correct intention) is a Buddhist principle that essentially says that one can work all they want in life, but if one is working with the wrong intentions they should not be surprised when the work rarely leads anywhere or accomplishes any greater cause. What I take this to mean is that one can define work in any number of ways. Work when one is a student is to listen, become soft and teachable, read and memorize and learn new vocabularies, theories, and methods. Work when one is a runner means practicing regularly, learning more efficient techniques, and acquiring useful gear to aid in the task of running. When one is building a house, work can be defined as lifting heavy objects, making proper cuts and measurements, keeping things flush and level and put together in an appropriate manner. So "work" can mean a lot of things. Essentially it boils down to exerting effort toward a goal. However, in many walks of life this word takes on a very narrow meaning. It means making the end goal of all your effort be the acquiring of wealth and things. This, by Buddhist principles, would likely be considered, wrong intention.

In my experience the individuals who make up the larger groups who consider this the "correct" if not the "only" way that a person can spend his or her time on the planet are largely of lower education and suffering from extremely low expectations from life. They confuse "work" with "stress." They believe that work is an obligation from birth and that it must not be enjoyable or stimulating. It is what one does to make money. Of course this is ridiculous as anyone who has achieved a career in medicine, research, architecture, the arts and sciences, teaching or any other field where one gets to use his or her skills and intellect to solve problems or create things of enormous beauty can tell you that their job is at least moderately fulfilling and that the money is better in these arenas as well. A philosopher of right intention would suggest that this is because these individuals are not only working hard but are working with the correct intention for their work. It is focused toward happiness and toward ending or alleviating suffering, bot in themselves and others. Perhaps a good example of "wrong intention" would be someone who believes work must be hard, stressful, and joyless and that he or she is supposed to suffer. This may cause an individual to focus his or her efforts on the mundane and uninteresting. He might create nobility in his work where there is none and defend his efforts even despite his own suffering and the suffering he is bringing to other's lives. This individual will likely suggest that his work is holding together the fabric of society and that without these truly "hard" workers we would live in disarray. This person may be absolutely sure of this stance and back it to the point of violence, bringing even greater suffering on himself and on others. Right intention does not imply that one's work will never be frustrating or challenging or even frightening at times, but does suggest that the greater goal of reducing suffering and bringing more peace and happiness to the world outweighs the day to day effort exerted and brings greater fulfillment and deeper sense of joy. Anyone can swing a hammer at a nail. This in and of itself is not right or wrong. What is right or wrong is what one attaches to this action. If it becomes the work of an uneducated or poor or untalented person, it will likely destroy this individual. He will act like the person he has defined himself as through his work. If one can remove that judgment and continue to learn and grow and make wise choices in other areas; swinging a hammer can be a rewarding and highly skilled job; even an artform. This is right intention. Mind control. Stress managment. Reduction of suffering. Continual growth and progress. And intrinsically...joy.

The Broader Picture of Economic Crisis

For all those unfamiliar, a fantastic site for reading a variety of political news and forming your own opinions is Realclearpolitics.com. I was reading several articles this morning and what most caught my attention is how there seems to be this opinion among conservatives that regardless of how badly a ship is wrecked or how quickly it is sinking, the thing to do in all situations is to hang tight and wait out the storm--even go down with the ship if necessary. This opinion is not without its merit. A lot of fine men and women have been the type of people who are able to stand firm through the bumpier parts of life and come out on top over the long run. The problem with these conservative values (beside the fact that they are only viable for a portion of very stubborn ingenuous individuals) is that often times if these same individuals would resort creativity and resourcefulness over their hard and fast dogmas and traditions, the ship could be repaired in the midst of the storm and continue sailing to a more pleasant climate. No one has to die for us to remain strong and enjoy life. Although we may have to swallow our pride once in awhile and go with brains over brawn.

What provoked this thought this morning was an article by Joseph Calhoun who had the hubris to suggest that our current economic crisis was actually the fault of previous government intervention, which screwed up the free market system and now by trying to fix it again we are going to screw it up even further (perhaps so much so that we'll be unrecognizable as a capitalistic nation in the near future). This is one way of seeing it. Another is that free market capitalism has never worked in the history of the United States. The great depression happened as a result of President Coolidge, a laizze-faire president, like Bush, who thought the market would fix all our problems. During his presidency, which began with great economic success and continued to be successful through his eight years, it appearred that this system worked. However, the first year of Hoover's presidency directly following all of Coolidge's deregulation, the great depression happened. The great depression was ended by FDR, who created many of the socialized systems and civilian action organizations we have today that put people back to work and pulled us back into a time of great economic success (not to mention made life easier and more enjoyable for everyone). The same happened with Reagan and Bush Sr. They deregulated government and cut funding to our socialized and civilian organizations and the economy faultered. Clinton reinstated government organizations and we prospered again. Bush Jr. has undone all of Clinton's work to allow corporations to prosper instead of everyday people and again, here we are facing another depression. Free market capitalism doesn't work and never has. It is a fallacy of the American Dream (that we're all going to be the next Bill Gates) that working and middle-class conservatives seem to want to believe in against all evidence to the contrary.

What Mr. Calhoun is actually saying in his article is that we are waving, "Hasta luego" to capitalism as we have always known it. Conservatives of course hate this because it means they believe in something that doesn't work and will no doubt fight to reinstate this dysfunctional system even after Obama takes over and socializes a great deal of our nation's programs and gets our economy rolling again. Socialism is not a bad word. It has been made into a bad word by very loud and uninformed conservatives thoughout the last three decades comparing a hybrid of democracy and socialism (which is what FDR America looked like and likely what an Obama America would look like) with the Lenin style of socialism, which occurred under a hostile dictator in the early 20th century. Lenin's socialism was used to oppress his people by taking complete control of the government and allowing it to prevade every aspect of life in Russia without giving the people any means of voting him out or regaining control. Democratic socialism, which is working beautifully in most European nations, Canada and Japan is not this. The main reason being that even though there will be greater governmental control, we the people still elect the government officials. Which means with more socialized systems in place, we the people actually have more control over our country by paying attention to and participating in our nation's politics. With a laizze-faire style of capitalism (what John McCain and Bush and Reagan and conservatives in general purpose), the corporations are in control and they will claim that their wealth will "trickle down" to the struggling people or the people who just don't care to spend their entire existence chasing their own avarice and greedy intentions just to stay alive.

This brings me to the final point of this broader picture that life is short and that a great deal of stress in our citizen's lives is created by an imbalance of money and power. A wise supreme court justice once said that he didn't mind paying taxes, it was the price he paid for living in a civilization. This is what a democratic/ socialist hybrid of government would create--a civilization. A place where good people don't need to own guns to feel safe because the poor and impoverished have no reason to rob another person if their needs are being met by the whole of society. A place where we can send our kids to public schools with some confidence that they won't be disrupted by the children of those people not capable or not trying to take care of their own kids. We can raise our kids as a village and not keep allowing the rich to get richer (and more bitter) and create their own privitized world away from the real problems of society. We have to all grow as one unit or we're doomed to a future of class warfare by the poorer classes who have no way of rising up to care for themselves. It happened throughout Europe, it will happen here if we let it.

The American Dream

I have had an interesting phenomenon happening to me lately that I am feeling the need to address: older people talking to me about the American Dream. Sometimes it is not as direct as an individual coming right out and asking, "What are your thoughts on the American dream?" Most times it is more subtle and presumptuous, such as a person saying, "That's what's so great about America," or "Aren't we so lucky that we live in a place like this?" or "See what can happen in America if you have a little guts?" I'm always fascinated with comments like this because they are rich with layers of misconceptions, assumptions, and shameless arrogance. When I was a kid growing up in Kentucky where the culture was some hybrid of Southern and Midwestern traditions, I bought into the idea of America hook, line, and sinker (as they say). As an adult now having lived in seven different states from the southeast to the southwest, the west coast to the Midwest, and now in the unique culture of the Northwest I don't have the slightest idea what people mean when they make comments like the aforementioned. Perhaps it is I who should be considered judgmental, but I have to assume that people still throwing out their chests and boasting of American patriotism either live in a cave of money insulating them from the entire world population, or they just don't give a shit about what we've given up for financial success.

Let's rewind (because these same people also love to talk about the beginning days of America and the wise forefather's intentions). America in its beginning was a lush untapped (by western culture) nation full of indigenous people. Europeans fleeing from oppression and persecution of religious intolerance and tyrannical rule showed up here and immediately split. There were the people who found the natives to be wise and knowledgeable and thought perhaps Europeans could find a way to live side-by-side with these people (on their land mind you), and there were the people who, pardon my French again, didn't give a shit. The intellectuals did their best to reason with the natives and share cultural elements and talk through disagreements and forge treaties, and the conservatives (as they do) said, "Enough of this compassionate chitchat, let's kill these weirdos and get to building our country. Manifest Destiny! This is what God wants." And so from the very beginning we had religious zealots who thought it was a higher power's will to commit genocide and use slavery to reap this land of its resources and create a nation of wealth and power and compassionate intellectuals trying to use reason and tact to create a more peaceful and enjoyable situation. The previous, I can only assume is the American Dream that conservatives still boast of today as being so great--the dream of accumulating wealth and using "inferior cultures" (not excluding overly exploiting plants, animals, third world nations, children, etc.) to further maximize our income. However, at the same time these conservative skull crushers were raping and pillaging their way to economic success, we had intellectuals finding easier ways of doing everything and infusing our culture with those things that last: art, writing, architecture, progressive politics, technology, etc. What is interesting is that the parts of America that conservatives are so proud of were created and conjured by progressive, liberal minds. It was conservatives that started slavery. It was progressives that ended it. It was conservatives who kept women from voting. It was progressives who pushed through women's suffrage. It was conservatives who kept African-Americans from being considered full human beings. It was progressives who debunked this myth and created affirmative action in an attempt to help balance the playing field. And now it is conservatives who don't understand homosexuality and are trying hard to push them out of our mainstream while progressives are succeeding slowly at making their lives more comfortable here. In fact throughout our history it has been straight, white, conservative men who have been working hard at creating fear and hate toward those who aren't straight, white, conservative men so that they don't have to work hard at getting an education, learning of other cultures, exhibiting the least bit of talent or problem solving skills, or doing anything that requires them to speak in full sentences with what I like to call, "Grown-up words." They are also the ones who seem to think that making money, without regard for humanity, environment, cultural sensitivity, or respect for spirituality, is all that matters in life. They don't seem to know what they would do with the money besides buy shiny, fast-moving crap once they have it, but they know that's what the American Dream is about and that's what they plan to spend their life working toward in hopes that they can spend the last fifteen years of life not making money. Fascinating.

On the other hand, intellectuals, scientists, artists, inventors, writers, and other progressive minds attempting to bring beauty, truth, and solutions into the world seem to get relegated to a small corner of our society to be poked fun at and alienated and ignored until something serious happens that needs their input. For the most part these creative and brilliant minds seem to be okay with working behind the scenes and allowing their life's work to be what is carried on and not their toys and dollars that will later be squandered by ungrateful offspring. However, once in awhile, as we have seen in the last eight years, conservatives screw things up so royally with their mythological belief systems and hot-headed misconceptions about "scary bad people" that we find introverts churning out volumes of works and flying from the woodwork to push things forward. In a way I guess it can be viewed as positive. Perhaps without the freedom to elect ignorant rich puppets our progressive minds would just get lazy or leave the country entirely. This way, the thought of things getting so bad in their absence seems to be superb motivation to work harder at educating the masses and passing laws that prevent conservatives from killing themselves and everyone else in their blind pursuit of wealth and shiny fast things that make girls like them. Thus, both progressives and conservatives get to be happy. Progressives can feel important by keeping conservatives safe, educated, healthy, and making the country look good historically with their contributions to the arts and sciences and conservatives can yell their brains out about how scared and threatened they feel while building suburbanite super fortresses and turning their God into another way to make money and buy more stuff. Which is what the American Dream is all about, right? What a great country this truly is. USA! USA! Go team go!

If We Just Act Like It Isn't There, Maybe God Will Fix It

I love this. It's from Jay Leno now. It was from Ben Stein last year. Either way, not exactly the scholars we should be taking political advice from in an election year.

Why is 67% of America unhappy with our direction?

A.. Is it that we have
electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a
week? --Very nice sentiment. In a world full of iPods, PCs, nuclear weapons and space shuttles , yes, I suppose we should still not forget our archaic utility systems. God bless.

B.. Is our unhappiness
the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the
winter? --Maybe that our current air conditioning systems are huge contributors to global warming, killing thousands of species of living organisms, melting glaciers, drowning polar bears, and potentially leading to our extinction; all so we don't have to feel discomfort for a few months? Seems rational.

C.. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job? --I'll give him this one. This is nice. I think it will change very soon as companies have to lay off people to make up for the cost of fuel, but for the time, this is good.


D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in
moments than Darfur has seen in the last year? --Unless you expend any level of thought considering where your food came from: i.e. what third-world country's community was ripped off and made to work for slave wages in the growing of your food, how much energy was wasted on shipping your food around the world (possibly several times) to be processed, packaged, and marketed, what is actually in your food such as pesticides, preservatives, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup (all of which are doing extreme harm to your body), how many animals were pumped full of hormones, crammed into tight spaces and made to live in their own defecation on a concrete slab for their entire life before being slaughtered and brought to a friendly neighborhood store near you.


E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic
Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move
through each state? --Again, nice sentiment I suppose. It's a big country. That's nice. Most citizens ARE able to cross their entire country without showing ID.

F.. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can
provide temporary shelter? --Again, these exist in pretty much all industrialized nations. How about the $15 a night hostels all over Europe. Perfectly safe and clean with breakfast included! Yea! Great places to meet people too.

G.. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world
is just not good enough either.--Again, exists everywhere. Side note though: we have mainly Americanized versions of ethnic cuisine because most Americans won't eat genuinely ethnic foods without being "grossed out." This is how grown up and sophisticated we are as the world's superpower.

H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.--Again, happens in all industrialized nations. In many of these nations they don't actually make you pay for this trip to the hospital for the rest of your life when you get out. In some, it's free because they believe in taking care of their entire citizenry, not just their rich.


I.. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. --Is this a good number? This means 195 million Americans don't own homes. Hmm?


J.. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained
firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.--Happens everywhere where people aren't living in thatch huts. Side note: These are the wonderful socialized systems that take care of our basic needs so that we can live a higher quality of life. Keep this in mind when Republicans start demonizing the socialization of medicine and higher education this year.

K.. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler
intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss. --Or we could take care of the poor and struggling who feel the need to rob homes and develop gun laws that don't allow disgruntled citizens to carry guns so we can live in a nation like the UK where cops carry nightsticks (no guns) and have a significantly lower crime rate (ridiculously lower violent murder rate). We have the highest murder rates anywhere in the world because of our lack of gun control. Even higher than most of the Middle East.

L.. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging
the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own cell phones and computers.--This is happening in most neighborhoods in technologically advanced nations worldwide where there isn't a war going on...a war we started mind you.


M.. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the
envy of everyone in the world? --Unless you're a minority, gay, or believe something that strays very far from the American mainstream. You can have rights, just don't live anywhere close to us or participate in our communities. Right? We're no where close to the only free and democratic country in the world. If "Jay" ever left, he would know this.


Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy. That's why I'm unhappy. Is Jay in the 33% still thinking things are peachy?

Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen (That's a fact huh? Bet that study has some interesting data behind it). No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens (Maybe because we bomb nations without logical grounds and take whatever we want economically from countries that can't stand up to us?) They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the
world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here. No, I'm pretty sure they hate us for constantly pushing our Christian BS on them while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge that we rose to power by hijacking a nation of indigenous people, committing genocide on the native men and women, kidnapping natives of Africa and making them work for free to utilize the untapped resources of what is now the United States, then set them free with no rights; raped, beat, and lynched them for almost another hundred years and still treat them like second-class citizens even though they pretty much built our economy for free and against their will. I think they also hate our values; i.e. that we are, again, the wealthiest nation in history and don't take care of our citizen's health needs, provide a pathetic amount of assistance to get our citizenry to a higher level of education, and accept much lower standards for living than most industrialized countries. Essentially they hate us because we could be living in the most idealistic country that has ever existed, comfortably peaceful and minding our own business and dolling out charity from our huge surplus of revenue and instead we have accepted a second-rate country where people send emails like this one comparing us to nations where people still hunt with bows and arrows.

I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out?
Yes Jay, what about that? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? or the 11% rating of the Democrat House of Representatives, Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11 (told us to keep shopping?)? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? (Recession is still kicking Jay) Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding (Hahahahahahahahaha! Succeeding. Hilarious) in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? (Correlation does not equal causality Jay. Lack of terrorist attacks doesn't mean he did anything to prevent them). The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Yes, yes, yes...he will likely be remembered as the worst president in U.S. history. Where are we going with this? We still have nice hotels, is that the point?

Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so
much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the President YES! because he actually caused you personal pain No, just embarrassment, but just because I'm privileged doesn't mean I'm not feeling bad for the pain he caused everyone else worldwide OR is it because the 'Media' [Did their job and] told you he was failing to kiss your sorry
ungrateful behind every day (Wow, Jay's a little self-righteous, huh?). Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom . There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days
in the brig. --Would they joined in the first place if they had another way out of their small towns without joining the military? Isn't this more of an economic problem we need to solve inside our own borders? Maybe if we had mandatory service we would think twice before killing off our poor in wars for oil. Side note: we are experiencing the highest level of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and military suicides in history. They may have volunteered but they don't want to be there.


So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent (It just went up 2% before he finished writing this. Yea for rational minds!) of Americans?

Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize
in bad news (Ignoring problems isn't solving problems, but I agree they could point out some positive from time to time). Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? (Awe, this is like a sappy John Couger Mellencamp song) The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations (Except NPR and Associated Press). They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like OJ. Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his
wife, but if he did he would have done it this way (What the hell does this have to do with media? First, news media and publishing houses are two completely separate industries. Second, publishers can't "allow" or disallow people to write anything, we all enjoy first amendment privileges . And they didn't publish it anyway! Who is this guy?)......Insane!

Turn off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times (Interesting that these are two of the better sources for news in the country, but I would still recommend NPR, and The Associated Press, which from the rest of this email I'm guessing Jay doesn't listen to or read) for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth (interesting that we think this about ourselves more than anyone else thinks this about us. Self-centered much?) and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.' 'With hurricanes, tornado's, fires out of
control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' --Probably a good time to take God out of everything if he's causing all this trouble. ;) Side note: we're actually living in the most peaceful period in human history. Also, countries that are predominantly secular (run their countries based on logical studies over religious superstition) have overall higher education rates, higher public health, lower unwanted pregnancies, stronger socialized systems, lower poverty rates, less crime and violence and stronger economies.

Sorry to rain on your parade Jay, but simple-minded conservatism just isn't cutting it anymore. It's not that we aren't grateful, it's that we can do better, and should. Also interesting that most of what is pointed out in this email relates to materialistic comfort and fear of very preventable natural and societal problems that many other nations have already solved. If everyone would stop praying to and thanking something that may or may not even exist and actually used their own intelligence and human talents to solve our nation's problems we might actually be able to sit back and appreciate how functional America is. Interesting also, that he points out in the end that he thinks things are so overwhelmingly bad that we should throw up our hands and pray versus organizing our communities, electing better leaders, and establishing better systems to avoid similar problems in the future. It is comforting that 67-69% of people disagree with this email.
How the other 31-33% keep passing it to my Inbox and crediting different celebrities as sources is beyond me.

Happy election year! Stay informed!

Jeff