We Have Moved

If you're one of the faithful who have checked on this brilliant site hoping to have more wisdom imparted on yourself, we have moved to sillyreason.wordpress.com.

End the Party

I live in Utah. Here, the faithful fans of the Utah Jazz are a step beyond loyal. Watching a game at Salt Lake City's Energy Solutions Arena is loud, fun, and obnoxious if you like basketball.

A Jazz player could easily knock an opposing player to the floor, kick him in the neck and call his mother a bad name, and still boo if the officials called that same Jazz player for a foul. It's not a matter of whether the call was right or wrong-- that's their guy, and that's what they are there to cheer for.

It can be pretty annoying to hear endless booing and cat-calling that is basically unwarranted, but that is what makes Energy Solutions Arena a formidable place for opponents to play. In basketball, it gains the home team a great advantage to have mindless sheep supporting everything they do.

In the political arena, we have similar get togethers. Both parties have huge rallies complete with signs, pins, buttons and fliers. The gathered crowds are overwhelmed with the greatness of their candidate and cheer for them mid-sentence. The mere mention of the opponent brings a plethora of boos. While they are showing support for their candidate, they aren't thinking at these conventions-- they are barely cognitive in doing nothing more than rooting for their team.

So what's wrong with this? The thing that is absolutely wrong is that the Jazz do commit fouls. They do turn the ball over. They do miss shots and they absolutely deserve to lose some of the games that they lose. When we are a nation who doesn't care if the rules of our nation are upheld-- we care that our team wins-- the problems should be apparent.

This is not a new problem, and I'm not the first one to notice that it has extremely negative consequences for the United States. George Washington, our nation's first President and arguably the best yet, once said of political parties:

"They [political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.

"However combination's or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

Clearly, this is a very bad thing. In fact, it's so obvious that it is so bad for America to be so clearly divided that it makes one curious as to why we wouldn't change this gross oversight.

Because that's the way we always do it-- that's why.

In America, we love tradition. We eat in the same booth at restaurants, wear lucky hats; we celebrate our past so much that we love things we've done almost just because of the fact that we did them. And that is why we can't rid ourselves of this process.

We watch late night shows even though we know they are just giant advertisements. We watch SNL even though it hasn't been funny in 15 years. We are sad when TV shows that have been on for years are canceled even if we don't like them-- we love tradition.

Another problem is that we think our "team" is literally perfect. In thinking that our team never makes mistakes, we think we're better than the other team. It is in every conceivable way divisive for America, and makes the name "United" States like a cruel and ironic prank.

It's true whether we like it or not: America is not United.

So stop joining parties. Stop going to rallies. Stop forwarding blatantly partisan emails-- they're probably trash anyway. Start thinking for yourself and voting based on issues. Be an American: not a Democrat or a Republican.

Moving Forward

Last week, I got an email that quoted the book of Revelation. Specifically it mentioned the anti-Christ (ironically, the anti-Christ isn't even mentioned in Revelation) and how Obama could fit the bill.

This week, my favorite email claimed to be from Bill Phillips of Phillips 66 Oil. He was just writing to make sure that we understand that a) there are no big oil companies in America, b) we could get more oil with very little effort, and c) that it's the Democrats deliberate and evil plan that has resulted in high gas prices.

While none of these things are true, there is a sad truth about them. The fact is that millions of Americans get their political information in the form of Internet forward. These forwards have no references, no trackable history and most importantly, no credibility. We don't know who wrote these articles or if any of the claims can be taken seriously.


Yet people continue to forward them. Something in our brain actually considers that Barack Obama might actually be the anti-Christ, and thanks to our hotmail account, we know it now. Our minds seem to justify Winston Churchill when he said "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."


If you were a candidate for President, would you want someone headed to the polls with a head full of fear mongering and frivolous email forwards, about to spill onto a ballot with little to no clue as to who the better candidate is? I would certainly hope not.


And so, as we near the election, I would quote America's 35th President, John F. Kennedy, who said, "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all." So ask yourself, what is John McCain's policy on Iraq? Senator Obama's policy on immigration? Either candidate's policy on health care? Do we know what our candidates believe on these basic platforms? These are issues that not only affect Americans, but things we need to know in order to rightfully use the freedoms that make us proud to be Americans.


Here's the truth on the last two weeks of internet forwards. No descriptions of the anti-Christ whatsoever are found anywhere in the Bible. Obama doesn't fit the description that was concocted by the email's mystery author anyway.


Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company on the planet, is an American oil company. The Republican party has been in power for the last eight years, and had also had control of congress for six of the last eight years, so it wasn't an evil plot by the Democrats to charge more for gas.


Whenever you find yourself gaining new information from an email forward, do some research. Even a quick Google search can shed some light on the validity or falsehood of what you've just read. Another great place to check is here. It's a website that researches the validity of claims made in the political arena.


Or you could just ask yourself: did you get the $10,000 per person that you forwarded that AOL study on to? Hmmm....

Patriotism

In my weakness, I have been watching cable news. I do this whenever my life is going well and I just want to upset myself with the ridiculousness on TV. The debate on both MSNBC and Fox News was this: are John McCain and/or Barack Obama patriotic enough to be President?

Astonished at the boredom of these networks and the apparent lack of actual news, I watched for a while. After only a few minutes, I had heard enough. It became clear that for many Americans, the word "patriotism" has become skewed into something very different than the actual definition.

The definition is: "devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty."

I think that many people have developed a personal definition that is twisted by things that they hear.

I hate to pick on Bill O'Reilly, but he does have the best ratings-- of which he is frequent to remind us-- so he can handle it. He has stated several times that people who criticize America in any way are not patriotic. He believes that America is good enough already, and that anyone who does not support everything done by our country and the way that we do those things is, according to him, a "pinhead" and not a patriot.

I would like to dismantle that thinking. I believe that many people who follow Mr. O'Reilly's line of thinking are actually more nationalistic than patriotic. Nationalism is, in this way: "the doctrine that your national culture and interests are superior to any other."

The thought that the way we currently our is great, and therefore in no need of improvement is not only ignorant and wrong; it's dangerous. It was a "superior" race that, less than a lifetime ago, attempted to obliterate the Jewish people from the face of the earth. It was the thought that merely who they were, based on the color of their skin and the nation in which they were born made them in no uncertain terms superior.

Bill O'Reilly and many others have labeled all those who disapprove of any American tradition, or who think that there is anything wrong with America, or who think poorly of the President as America Haters, as I've written about before. According to them, whining, complaining, or criticizing elected representatives is not something that patriotic people do. We should support our President in everything we do because he is our boss.

In reality, the President works for us. We are the ones who are responsible for his paycheck. He is elected by us to do what we think is best for America.

The train of thought that says we have everything perfect right now is the same thought pattern that once said, "If God had intended for men to fly, they would have been born with wings." It is backward. It is outdated. It is ridiculous. If we do not change, we will not only not be the "best" country in the world, but we will fall behind where we are now. Our universities will fill with foreign students with better grades and our drivers will buy foreign cars that out perform our own.

And the notion that we must blindly follow our President like sheep (or in this current administration, lemmings) and support any ridiculous statement or policy is flat our wrong. It is unarguably wrong. Why have freedom if we give our mind and our will over to a fallible and imperfect President? Our President is not a prophet. His words are not inspired. He is imperfect. He makes mistakes.

If you think that an elected official is doing a bad job, and you are patriotic-- meaning that you have love or respect for your country-- and you don't speak out against that person, then you have failed as an American. Someone is either harming your country, its citizens, or making a bad name for it, and for you to say you still support that because it fulfills some thoughtless definition of patriotism is thought process more than fitting for the definition of stupid.

If you are patriotic, you should want what's best for your country. I hope that's not too extreme of a statement.

Happy Independence Day.

Why liberal?

I should have warned people I was going to use a dirty word. On the Internet, on cable news, and in the workplace all across the United States, "liberal" is a bad word.

People will say that it is un-American to be liberal, or that people who are liberal don't have very high standards. Despite the frequency of those ignorant comments, here is what liberal actually means:

-favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.

-favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.

-of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.

I hope that any person, not just in America, but in the world, thinks of themselves as a "liberal" in that way. I hope they would think of themselves as people who want the maximum freedom from oppression, dictatorship and discrimination that they could ever possibly achieve.

Yet this word remains taboo and is thrown about as a meaningless yet heavy label. In the case of this election, people attack Senator Barack Obama and dismiss him as someone who is too liberal. Judging by the recently shown definition, how would one fit that description too well? He wants freedom too much? He really doesn't want a dictatorship? I'm not saying that he is a perfect candidate, I'm merely saying if you're going to suggest that this is one of flaws, you're going to need to keep looking.

The next step people take is calling Senator Obama a socialist. Now that one really packs a punch. After all, it wasn't that long ago when we were at war with the socialists. The Soviet Union was socialist, right?

Socialism is defined as "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole."

So what countries are socialist today? How about Sweden, The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and finally the United States. There is no question about it, America is a socialist country already and you didn't even know it.

How much did you pay for the road in front of your house? The school down the street? The post office just around the corner? The fire department? You use all of these things virtually free of cost because of the socialism that is alive and well in the United States of America.

Social programs shouldn't scare us: we were raised on them. We went to a socialized school. We drive to work on a socialized street every day of our lives. We don't lose control of things when they become socialized; it literally gives power to the people.

So don't be tricked into being afraid of these "scary" words anymore. And when someone tells you that Senator Obama is too liberal, let them know that you're a liberal too. Unless you really do hate freedom and liberties and would like a dictatorship, of course.