Thursday, March 4, 2010

Steve Gets Political (From October 13th, 2009)

I'm tired of all of this. Everything. I'm tired of 'liberal' this and 'conservative' that and I'm tired of the goddamn hillbilly teabaggers running around screaming about words they can't even properly define.

A long time ago, a group of men came together and formed an idea of a government by the people and for the people. 234 years ago, today, the Continental Navy was commissioned and a big step towards reaching independence was taken.

So the journey began, to fight for the rights of EVERYONE. The 'certain inalienable rights' of ALL men, which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So many men and women have fought and died so that we can all take our fat American dollars and buy stuff we don't need. So we can stuff our fat faces and sit on our fat asses and watch the View and American Idol and MAURY. Let's not forget about Maury.

But I digress. I don't want to get on a pop culture tangent. Let's talk about the word 'liberal' and the stigma attached to it. Do you not think that our forefathers were liberal? I don't think sparking a revolution and challenging the throne of England could be deemed 'conservative'. And that crazy Abe Lincoln fellow who freed the slaves. Slavery was quite the 'conservative' concept.

The definition of conservative is this: "disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change."

In effect, slavery, Jim Crow, monarchies, lynching, witch hunts, and many other things are all 'conservative' practices and ideas.

The definition of liberal is this: "favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs."

Or we can go a step further and list the politcal definition: "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."

So it would seem to me, that to gain any progress in this country, we need to be progressive and LIBERAL in our actions. There can be no change if we stay conservative in our ideals. We can't continue to grow as a people and develop as a nation without progress or liberal thought. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hancock, Paine - these were all liberal men who had liberal thoughts and ideas. They founded a liberal nation and wrote a liberal Constitution.

We can amend the Constitution to make things better. To better our lives and our nation. It was written that way. It was written so that it could adapt to fit the needs of the country and her people as time moved on.

Certain administrations (in my opinion, all of them in the last few decades) have violated this sacred document and enforced 'Acts' under the guise of national security. They threw this blanket facade over these 'Acts' claiming they were for our benefit, when in reality they were slowly stripping away our civil rights and liberties.

Don't get me wrong, there are amendments and acts and executive orders that have provided great things for the people of this country. Women and minorities can now vote, black people are no longer slaves, and they are counted as a whole person and not 3/5 of a person, de-segregation, etc.

Now here we are today, bickering over the public healthcare issue. Uninformed, uneducated people are being poked and prodded in the wrong direction by rich, fat, white people with radio shows. These people are throwing around words that they can't even define because that's what we've been taught to do.

Communism and Socialism and Fascism and Dictatorships have become synonymous with 'evil' in this country. They've just plain become synonymous which is offensive in and of itself. I don't have time to nitpick and define all of these terms, but they are all different to a large degree. The USSR was a communist country. Communism was 'evil' because the US of A couldn't profit from a communist nation. Because the USSR has 'socialist' in the title, socialism became identical to communism in the American mind.

Just because a communist dictatorship calls itself socialist, doesn't make it so. Governments lie about things all the time. Like the Patriot Act for instance. There is absolutely NOTHING patriotic about that ridiculous thing. Nothing.

That being said, I will define socialism: "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole."

Nowhere in there does it say that leaders can't be chosen by the people. There is no invisible law or rule that states that there is no such thing as a socialist democracy. There's no law or rule that says that a socialist country must live in fear and under the fist of the government.

And "vesting in the community as a whole" is evil? Is this really such an awful thought? Is having a nation of people working together to make sure that EVERYONE is prosperous such an evil idea? Isn't that what we wanted? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all American citizens? EVERYONE working together and reaping the rewards of their toil, instead of the 1% that enjoys the fruits of our labor right now?

This country already has a multitude of socialist practices. We have public education, social security, welfare, medicaid, medicare, public universities, grants, etc.

England, Australia, Canada, and most of Western Europe are all, by definition, socialist nations. They are also democracies.

I know what some might be thinking right now - "I've talked to Canadians/Britons that hate it." I've got news for you - there are always going to be people who don't like things. That's just the way it goes. But when all you have backing your argument is a statement like "someone I know says...", you are ignorant. There's nothing different between doing that, and the guy that prefaces a 'nigger joke' with "I've got black friends." or "I heard it from a black guy." It's all ignorant.

The Public Option is unconstitutional? READ the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence and tell me where it says that public healthcare is off-limits. IT DOESN'T. In fact, I can pretty well guess that if they had had the means to do so, our government would have provided public healthcare to begin with. They didn't have the means to do so. The difference between them and us is now we DO have the ability to enhance the lives of everyone in this way.

Sure, there are going to be faults and setbacks, but there are faults and setbacks with every government program. It's the government. But why waste time and put this off any longer? What will it hurt? WHO will it hurt? Nobody. Nobody at all.

People sat back and cheered as we tossed $3 trillion down the drain with a war on foreign soil that didn't benefit a single American, but there are practically riots in the streets now that the government is proposing to spend less the a THIRD of that amount on something that will most likely save lives AND money.

I don't understand it. Maybe I'm not meant to. Or maybe it's because I'm a crazy "Commie Bastard". That's it. We social libertarians are just fascist communists in hippie clothing.

Sincerely Yours,

Steve Stalin

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