A Great Rant

Written by the brother of a friend. I wish I could take credit for it.

Intro
The partisanship in our society has reached a level unprecedented in recent memory. Granted, my memory is not that long – I am only 32 years old – and I am sure tension must have been high during the 1960’s and at other times, like the Civil War. Still, there were singular issues tearing the nation apart at those times and we don’t have that now. The Iraq War is certainly a deep dividing line between the Right and the Left, but barely a fraction of our society is involved in the war and most have no real understanding of the sacrifice of those who are fighting it. The divide this time is cultural, and this is an attempt to spell it out in real terms that are impossible for public figures to express.
The Right is much more willing to express their disdain in honest terms, albeit disingenuous and without full disclosure. The Left only admits the truth when hanging out with other people wearing linen pants and Birkenstocks, and not even Olbermann would expound upon them on live TV. Bill Maher comes the closest. Strangely enough the candidate himself, caught unawares at a CA fund raiser with an open mic, approached the feelings of the Left base when he made the remark of rural folk “clinging” to their Gods and guns. Is there anyone on the Left who actually disagrees with that? No, but he had to retreat from the statement. Next to Ron Paul’s statement (later forced to retract) that 9/11 and other acts of terrorism are inspired, in part, by US foreign policy, Obama’s “clinging” comment was about as honest as we saw in the campaigns this year.
Us
From a solid Lefty with a moderate streak and an unusual resume’ for someone who likes Kashi cereal, let me try and break it down for you. This is not an attempt to bridge the chasm between us, but rather allow us to sit down across from each other and know where we stand. By the way, I speak for every educated liberal when I write this so don’t let them tell you any differently. First and foremost we divide the Rep party into two groups: dare I say the “elites” that run it, who are wealthy and educated, and the rambling, smelly masses. We don’t have so much of an issue with the former group, although we believe them to be greedy and self-centered. They vote with their wallets. I have friends who make literally millions and tell me straight up that they are voting because it could mean upwards of $100K in tax savings for them. I don’t know if the numbers are correct and I withhold my judgment. Maybe if I made that much money I could come up with a political philosophy that would match my interests as well. I don’t know, but at least I understand it. We comprehend and actually admire the way your party leaders are able to use hot-button issues like abortion, stem cells, and gun shows to mesmerize the retards and get them to do their bidding – if only we could do the same, we lament, as we break down in the shower and cry to ourselves after yet another stunning defeat at the polls.
You will notice that I referred to the second group as “retards” and no word is more fitting, in our view, despite its political incorrectness (a diseased concept of the WAY Left). This group baffles us. No social phenomenon deserves more attention from anthropologists and sociologists than this mass of sweaty imbeciles. They are absolutely bereft of any logic so trying to reason or debate with them is like having an argument with an automaton or a game of Frogger at the local arcade: they beep and blink and repeat the same inane phrases over and over again without delay or any attempt to make a counter-point to your statements. Their leaders are Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, two ideologues who are not hampered, but actually bolstered, by their college drop-out status and “regular guy” appeal. No one is more “regular” than Glenn Beck. He has no understanding of any issue which apparently appeals to this demographic, since they don’t either.
Generally speaking, the Left are pretty ambivalent on the gun issue other than thinking there ought to be limits on the caliber, automatic firing capacity, and the number of rounds in a clip. That being said, we don’t really understand the inbred fascination with them either. Secretly, when we read an account of some redneck in Alabama blasting his nephew in the chest with a burst from his AR-15 while cleaning it at the kitchen table, the highest sympathy we can muster is “No surprise there,” or, “The gene pool has benefitted from this tragedy.” We don’t care because we don’t understand why you have an AR-15, or why you have it in your kitchen with kids around. We seethe to our core when we get behind your pickup truck at a stop light and have to read your ‘W in ‘04’ and ‘NRA’ bumper stickers and we dream about dragging a key the length of your Humvee parked on a side street in Georgetown.
We find your absolute faith in the literal translation (and literal is the key word here) of the Bible baffling and, ultimately, disheartening, in that it precludes you from objectively evaluating science and subjugates another generation of our nation’s children to forced lobotomization. We mock your failure to recognize human instincts and give up your drive for abstinence-only sex education and find your lack of support for birth control immoral and dangerous, especially in places like Africa. We rejoiced when we heard Bristol Palin was pregnant. You have, like, 5-6 kids and don’t live on a farm, and we think that is funny. You pay actual money to go to places like Bob Jones University and call it an education.
We believe that your endless rants about higher taxes and Dem “welfare state” comments highlight both your hypocrisy (for the educated) and your retardedness (for the peasants). Most of these rants come from parasite states that are net receivers of Federal aid that pours out of the blue states like CA and New York City (gasp!), New Jersey, and other liberal enclaves. Excuse us if we stare in disbelief while some leech in Mississippi is taking my money to buy stop signs and school text books while regurgitating some nonsense about big government. We don’t even try to explain that both the government and the deficit have exploded under Bush. We know you don’t understand the word “deficit.”
The “Hey, I’m just like him/her,” method of choosing leaders seems to be all the rage in backwater America and we got it the first time Bush was elected, sort of. Hell yeah I’d rather have a beer with the coke bumping, booze swilling Bush over stiff and starchy Gore, although we were puzzled a bit since he actually gave up drinking years ago. I have to defer to Bush for his second election and this coming one: “You can fool me once…” How did he get elected the second time when you see what happens when you elect people who are “regular” guys? We tried that experiment and it failed miserably. If you pick elite athletes to represent the US in the Olympics, and we comb the Ivy Leagues for our next business CEOs, why do we want to send squarely average people to lead the US and the free world? Do you pick average mechanics and doctors? WTF is wrong with you? We are amused at your leaders standing before you pushing this concept. Multi-millionaire Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney talking about “East Coast elites;” NYC mayor Rudi ‘it’s 9/12 every day’ Giuliani talking about “cosmopolitans.” Seriously?
Speaking of average, you look at Sarah Palin’s family and ask “why not;” we look at her family and say, “What the f*ck?” Her family is a microcosm of all of our fears rolled into one. If they were my neighbors while growing up I would have been thoroughly unimpressed, while trying to bang their daughters just to say I did. I like ethnic names. I really do. But I can’t get my head around Track, Trig, Tramp, Willow, and…whatever. But that wouldn’t even be an issue if my blood didn’t boil every time she opens her mouth. She stands solidly behind every crackpot idea that fulminate against, on the domestic scene. Internationally, we know that she holds the same disdain as you for effeminate Europeans and a general xenophobia of scary people with dark skin and strange accents. We think Wasila is hokey and lame. We would love to hang out with Todd Palin, seriously, but don’t relish the idea of our VP’s husband having a goatee and racing snowmobiles on the White House lawn. We think that she is even less intellectually curious than George Bush given that the limits of her academic endeavors are a BA from the University of Idaho – in one word, average. If she were President it would be the second coming of Andrew Jackson, complete with an annoying accent, but without the good parties. We are embarrassed of the possibility of these rednecks going overseas and meeting with Sarkozy or some other multi-lingual, cosmopolitan leader. At least Bush is funny.
You
You hate us because we have passports with stamps in them other than from Jamaica, where you went on your honeymoon and never left the resort compound except to get to and from the airport. You find it appalling that we not only travel to foreign countries but also attempt to take their views into consideration when it comes to foreign policy, apparently undermining the sovereignty of the United States. You want to sink the United Nations into the East River even though it was founded in the US by one of our greatest Presidents and lauded by the Left and the Right alike upon its creation and every Rep President, including the Bush whacker, has claimed to hold its Wilsonian ideals close to his heart.
You are dumbfounded that we still read Marx and think that Che Guevara had some real good ideas. You hate our indie music with lyrics that echo our feelings about the nature of life and human beings. You find our moral and cultural relativism abhorrent and anathema to Winthrop’s idea of our nation as a “shining city on a hill.” You hate me because I use the words “abhorrent” and “anathema,” and because I know who Winthrop is. You think we are douches because we can say “latte,” “prog rock,” and “carbon footprint” with a straight face.
You think we are fags because we drive a Prius and ride a bike to work, when we can. Your claims of our effeminate nature are bolstered when you see us wearing $150 designer pre-stressed jeans and $400 sunglasses that are apparently worth it because they are “polarized.” You mock us for wanting to feed the poor while simultaneously rejecting genetically grown foods that would increase crop yields, despite there being no evidence that they are harmful. The weeks of reporting on Obama’s eating of an “arugula salad” highlights your disdain for anything that can’t be deep fried or put on a stick. You can’t imagine why we would pay exorbitant rent for a 600 sf apartment in a crowded city and then rave to our friends about the great view from our balcony that holds two people. The noise and the smog are enough to convince we are legally insane. You think we are dicks because we want to prevent development or military training to save the breeding grounds of the Western Spotted Woodpecker, the California tortoise, and even the polar bear.
Lastly, we know that the dirty secret of your uneducated base is that you are nationalistic and racist. It is time to admit it. It slips out from time to time anyway. You are absolutely apoplectic about the possibility of someone with the middle name “Hussein” entering the White House, and this is enough for you not to vote for him without knowing anything else about the man. The name Barack Obama confuses you. It should be “John” or “Michael.” “Mitt” was apparently biblical so that was OK, but “Barack?” Sounds African, or something, right? Never mind Trig and Track and… A leader of the PA College Reps was dismissed this week for saying on an internet webpage that “Barack’s lips are so big that he could float half of Cuba to America, and probably would.” Secretly, you read that and say, “Isn’t that the truth!” One of your Southern Congressman called Barack “uppity” and then pretended that it wasn’t racially motivated – maybe he thinks it so often that he can’t tell the difference. Bottom line, you say it amongst yourselves and sometimes around us, thinking we might share the same feelings – oops! I am not speaking of the educated and wealthy, but of the retard masses who are scared.
For the same reason we find Obama so impressive, you find him elitist: he went to Columbia College and Harvard Law and was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. This is the most accomplished college in the world and you certainly believe that there is a conspiracy brewing behind its Ivy walls. But if you got to send your daughter or son to any university in the world, I would bet that most of you would put Harvard somewhere near the top and the University of Idaho…on a different list. The fact that a large number of your leaders went to Ivy League schools (Laura Ingraham, John Podhoretz, Bush I and II, William Kristol, Bill O’Reilly, on and on and on…) severely weakens your arguments and demonstrates that you are giving in to simple jealousy.
Conclusion
If McCain had not selected Palin as his running mate I would say that even if he was elected we could heal some of the wounds. As The Economist recently highlighted when they urged the “real McCain” to return, his views prior to open pandering to the smelly masses in “real America” were reconcilable with liberal, douche bag America. His foreign policy is a problem for my side but he could have been curtailed. Palin is a gross distortion of the national interest and I don’t see how she can be reconciled with the Left. She makes us vomit in our mouths.
If the Right wins this election the Dems are effectively, ineffective. After eight years of nonsense and lies and abysmal approval ratings for the incumbent, if we can’t capture the White House then we ought to throw in the towel. At that point I will join educated Reps with a wink and a nod at the door of the secret club and join in the fleecing of white trash America. Don’t want to pay taxes? Fine, don’t. I will send my kids to private school while your public ones crumble around you. Want to keep complaining about jobs running off to China without taking the time to listen to why they are doing it? Fine, I will stand next to you in line at Wal Mart and buy a television and living room dining set for $16.50 and never question how that is possible, while manufacturing leaves and factories close. I don’t work in a factory. I don’t know anyone who does or ever did and isn’t, like, 90 years old and retired. You work in a factory – get it? Fuel prices are high and progressive Dem solutions for fixing it will take time and be painful, but the Rep option of “drill, baby, drill” just delays the pain while simultaneously filling their pockets and the pockets of their friends with more profits. It won’t help you. But have higher gas prices changed my habits? No. I couldn’t care less, really. It doesn’t cost much to power my 4-cylinder car or heat my small apartment. You just lost 40% of the value of your stupid SUV in less than a month and are taking a Stay-cation this year. I went to Europe. Seriously. But hey, at least your VP believes in creationism and infuses her military strategies with messianic visions of righteousness. That should feed and clothe your family.
Maybe it is time I start following my own advice, and vote my interests.

Funny Presentation on Religion

http://atheistdelusion.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

Opportunity Cost

I was reading the WSJ this morning and there was a brief article on the current cost of our country's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan ( please keep in mind these figures come form a non-partisan group named the Congressional Research Service which provides research and analysis to lawmakers). The cost of the war is now running at $12 billion a month. The $12 billion monthly "burn rate" covers the costs for both Iraq and Afghanistan. The total funds appropriated by congress since 2001 for these wars is now at $650 billion, with Iraq totaling nearly $500 billion of that. And please keep in mind that this aggregate amount will only increase faster, as the monthly cost continues to rise.

Another important fact to keep in mind is that the government ran a fiscal deficit of $400 billion in 2006 and are forecasting another deficit of $280 billion in 2007. So wouldn't you think you might want to try to rein in expenses? Oh that's right, they did that by decreasing the budget for student financial aid, medicare, and other social programs.

So my point is this. Allocating resources and capital to war spending takes away resources from other areas. So by spending this money on wars which have no return on investment (only death and increased global tensions) you are essentially forgoing the possible benefit of investing those dollars back into American households. Wealth inequality in America continues to grow and it's more evident that more and more people from the lower income brackets are being left behind, i.e. lower high school graduation rates, lower college attendance, and much, much slower growth in median income.

I am a firm believer in capitalism and I am well aware of the fact that today's society is a meritocracy (your worth is measured by knowledge) so I don't believe that all wealth should be distributed evenly. It should be distributed according to the value of what you create, tangible or intangible. But I do believe in equal access to opportunity and unfortunately the trends show this becoming less available. Opportunity is what leads to the notion of social mobility and that is what has made America great. It provides the incentive for people to educate themselves, work hard, and eventually live a better life than where they came from. If social mobility fades away, so too will conformism to our society and economy. We need to look internally and dedicate resources to address our problems because it is with these people where our future lies. Not in a desert on the other side of the globe.

A Summary From My Trip To The Homeland

I just got back from a week long trip to Sayulita, Mexico. It was an awesome little town about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. Completely undeveloped, as 95% of the roads are dirt and randomly has wild dogs and donkeys running all over. Very strange.

The town is known for its surfing as the bay has the several sets of nice constant breaks. One of them is pretty large and the other one is a bit smaller (which is where I stayed). I also saw two people get stung by stingrays while out there in the water..kind of disconcerning but I guess that's part of the sport.

I also went fishing, and between four of us, caught like 40 mahi mahi, or El Dorado as the Mexicans call them. That was pretty cool. Also saw some really strange jellyfish out there in the ocean. Reminds me of why the ocean scares the shit out of me.

There was this tiny little taco shop near the plaza that had the BEST fish/shrimp tacos I've ever had and I probably ate their once their day. We also found a place on the beach that had the largest margarita known to mankind. It was literally probably a half gallon in volume and resulted in the vomiting of several of my comrades. Oh yeah, and of course, we went to Kimber and JP's wedding.

Mexicanos al grito de guerra....(the beginning of the Mexican National Anthem)

Acceptance

I just received word from the University of Washington that I was accepted into their MBA program. Obviously, I'm very excited about this. The program at UW is extremely difficult to get into so they must have switched up my application with someone else's. But regardless, I'm in. Now I just have to make the decision to go or not. Getting an MBA has always been a personal and professional goal of mine, but taking two years off from working is a big decision. Especially when I have a fiance' who enjoys spending money. Kind of sucks. I want to be excited and just do it, but there's also a part of me that tells me to just go back to work. I keep telling myself that it's a small short-term sacrifice for long-term gains, but its a tough decision to make.

Feel free to vote and let me know. In true democratic fashion I will let the people decide.

Things You Do That Are Never Cool

I was walking to catch the bus to go downtown today when something happened that opened my eyes. It happened as I saw my bus go through the intersection two blocks ahead of me as it pulled up to the bus stop. Upon seeing this I started running in order to try to catch it. As I found myself running awkwardly down Mercer St with my flip-flops about to fly off, my Messenger Bag flapping on my back, and my coffee spilling all over, I realized something. Boy, do I not look cool right now. And so after my 200-Yard dash to catch the bus, I came to a fascinating conclusion as I sat on the bus sweating profusely. There are just some things in life that, no matter who you are or what you look like, are impossible to look cool doing. Here's some that came to mind. Feel free to add.

1) Running to catch a bus
2) Pooping
3) Masturbating (Applies to Males Only)
4) Karaokeing
5) Playing XBOX360 with the headset and mic on
6) Roller-Blading
7) Driving any "GEO" car
8) Clamming
9) Metal-Detecting (Is this the proper verb?)
10) Buying Preparation-H at the grocery store

Words of Juvenile Humor

I was sitting at the gym today reading the WSJ when I read an article titled, "Oil Lubricates Asia-Mideast Ties" when I found myself laughing at loud at the word "Lubricates". In addition to realizing that I am a 12 year-old in the body of a 29 year-old, I also came to the conclusion that there's a subset of words that make me laugh anytime I hear them, no matter what context they are used in. I've listed the ones that came to mind, along with examples of non-inaapropriate usage. Please feel free to add any.

Lubricate - "Oil Lubricates Asia-Mideast Ties."
Nuts - "These nuts are very salty."
Penetrate - "This product has the ability to really penetrate the market."
Balls - "Those balls almost hit her in the face."
Gas - "The smell was attributed to a gas leak."
Beaver - "The beaver is extremely adept at taking down wood."
Dick - "Hello, my name is Dick."
Discharge - "The combination of those two chemicals produces a noxious discharge."
Uranus - "Uranus is a gaseous planet."
Skid Mark - "The accident left a notable skid mark on the street."