Socialism.

Socialism

n.

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

Socialism has become a bit of a buzzword lately. If my memory serves me correctly, it’s application to the current administration started during the campaign in the infamous Joe the Plumber episode, when Mr. Wurzelbacher confronted soon-to-be President Obama about his plans for more progressive taxation, arguing that higher taxes for the wealthy amounted to redistribution of wealth, i.e. socialism. Of course, by that logic we’ve apparently been a socialist nation since the ratification of the 16th amendment, which constitutionally sanctioned income taxes. And under the Obama proposal to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest tax bracket, we would in fact still be less socialist than under Ronald Reagan:

As we can see here, our least socialist president was Bill Clinton, and all kinds of socialism was happening under that dastardly Eisenhower.

After the election, the socialism debate shifted to the bailouts, and to a lesser extent the stimulus bill, though in that case only because people seem incapable of differentiating the stimulus from the bailouts. But the bailouts don’t amount to any kind of socialism, because the government took no ownership stake in the banks it bailed out. Of course, this means the government won’t get any return on investment from stock ownership, and has limited capacity to influence the decisions of the banks who would otherwise be bankrupt, but hey, that’s all worth it in the name of protecting us from socialism.

Then, of course, there’s healthcare. The government take over of one sixth of our economy! The conservative argument here seems to be that by having a government insurance company, we are competing with private insurers and will thus run private insurers out of business and create socialism. Because as any true socialist will tell you, the best way to achieve socialism is through the use of market forces. Have Medicare and Medicaid run the healthcare industry out of business? Has Social Security ended the entire investment industry because no one creates retirement portfolios anymore? Have national parks run all private recreation out of business? Or has the Post Offices destroyed FedEx? Or what about Amtrak? The list goes on and on. These things don’t amount to socialism because the government does not abolish the market and replace it with itself, it simply creates an entity that works within the market.

Conservatives make the mistake of confusing progressivism with socialism. Progressivism is simply government intervention into the economy for egalitarian purposes. It never suggests the abolition of the market. Is it informed in some way by socialist principles? Absolutely, but if that’s an issue, then we’ve had problems with socialism ever since Teddy Roosevelt made the first national park. And in that case, every president since then, Democrat or Republican, who has complicity allowed these programs to continue to exist, can be accused of socialist thinking. I don’t see any Republican out there arguing to abolish Social Security or Medicare, despite the fact that those programs are keystones of the progressive movement. In fact, Republicans now use cuts to Medicare as one of their chief arguments against healthcare reform.

Government intervention in the economy is part of life. To think that the current administration has somehow crossed some line that no other ever has is ludicrous. Our government, and all governments, have always had socialist elements to them for longer than any of us have been alive. Just like all governments, no matter how socialist or communist they might be, have some amount of capitalist elements to them (e.g. China). The world is not so black and white. Screaming socialism to argue against anything you disagree with has become the ultimate expression of ideology over pragmatism. I don’t care how socialist a program is. I don’t care how capitalist a program is. I only care if it will benefit the nation. All programs are going to have elements of both, and there are going to be times to lean to one or the other.  To think that a program can be opposed solely because it contains elements that can be construed as socialist is to live with blinders on.

P. S. While I’m talking about healthcare let me just make the point, we all accept that the government can use the military to protect our life, liberty, and property from the actions of others, but the use of healthcare to similarly protect our lives is construed as illegitimate. Why is that?

Hey look, something not about politics. (Happy 4th Birthday, Xbox 360!)

Earlier, Nicki and I were talking about 360 achievements, which I realize is something that’s been discussed to the point of nausea, but I’m going to talk about them now anyway! At first I thought the whole achievement system seemed kind of silly. My first 360 game was Oblivion and all it did with its achievements was chronicle how close you were to beating the game. Then there were the horror stories about some ill-conceived achievements, like the NBA Live 07 one that grants 100 points for being signed in at the same time as 100 other players, or how about the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter achievements for being number one ranked on various leaderboards or for playing for 8 hours straight. Back then achievements were just some obligatory thing developers threw in without thought, and occasionally made near impossible to achieve to infuriate completionists.

But over the course of that first year, something shifted. People became addicted to achievements. Everyone wanted more points than their friends. It did brilliant business for Microsoft. People bought games just for achievement points. In those early days, King Kong became popular entirely due to its easy 1,000 points. I’ve had friends go rent Disney games for the points, or the most notorious one of them all, the Avatar: The Last Airbender game, with it’s 1,000 points awarded in under a minute. RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age now reward you for playing through the game several time with different types of characters or for choosing different paths in the story. I know I personally held onto games that I otherwise would’ve sold, hoping to one day go back to go scoop up a few more achievements. I had never bothered to play a game on hard mode until achievements came around, nor had I ever rally replayed a single player game.

Arguably the game to really set achievements on fire was Dead Rising, which started the trend which now dominates gaming of short but replayable titles that reward the player not so much for getting to the next plot point, because that should be reward in and of itself, but rather simply for doing all the random little things there are to do in the game. It encouraged exploration and experimentation, and made you think about the game and your tactics in ways you never would have before. Had it not been for that game’s achievement system, every time the game reached the night phase where convicts roamed the mall in a military jeep, I would’ve just tried to run past them and hope for the best. Achievements encouraged you to find all the food and all the costumes in the game. Collectibles are a hot commodity in the achievement era. And thanks to the games restrained time system, getting all of these achievements required multiple playthroughs, each one usually dedicated to a specific goal.

A year into the 360’s life came a little game called Gears of War. It took the philosophy of using achievements to change how you play, and worked it into multiplayer. Now you were tasked with getting 100 kills with each weapon, but when you change how people play in a team game, you ruin team cohesion. People stop playing to win and instead forsake their team to focus on nothing but pistol kills, even if the team would be better served if you had just picked up that sniper rifle right next to you and taken that guy out. When you spend hours in Geometry Wars trying to survive without firing a shot for the Pacifist achievement, that’s fun and creative. When you run around in Gears multiplayer constantly dying because you need those pistol kills, it might be fun for you, but you ruin it for everyone else.

Or another example, in The Darkness, if you wanted to get all of the achievements, you had to leave behind the game’s good single player to play the awful multiplayer, and that was if you could find anyone else playing it. Good luck with that. Developers became convinced of three points this generation:

1. You must do everything in your power to stop your buyer from reselling this title to Gamestop.
2. Multiplayer modes will make them keep their games longer.
3. Achievements will make them keep their game longer.

Multiplayer modes are now tacked onto pretty much everything, and are usually awful. It was considered shocking when BioShock decided to go without multiplayer. For developers, combining points two and three with multiplayer achievements seemed only logical. But now they force us to play the horrible tacked on multiplayer in games like The Darkness or, I’m willing to wager, the upcoming BioShock 2 multiplayer.

The solution to this problem came a year later in the form of Call of Duty 4. There are no multiplayer achievements in CoD4, yet I don’t think anyone would argue it hindered the popularity of that game’s multiplayer modes. Just like I argued earlier that single player achievements for completing story missions are unnecessary because advancing the plot should be reward in itself, CoD4 made multiplayer a reward in itself through its system of leveling and unlocks.

Unfortunately, while developers seem to have latched onto CoD4’s RPG-lite multiplayer mechanics as the wave of the future, few seem to have noticed the lack of multiplayer achievements. Post-CoD4 multiplayer modes like those in Chronicles of Riddick and Wolfenstein still featured multiplayer achievements, not to mention some of the more ludicrously awful shooters out there like Turning Point: Fall of Liberty or Legendary: The Box. Now, I don’t own any of those games, but I would bet that it would be fairly difficult to even find a match to earn achievements in any of them, let alone to build up the willpower to subject yourself to such a thing.

I’m sitting here on the 4th anniversary of the 360s launch, and it’s really kind of shocking that something as seemingly trivial as achievements have become one of the dominant features of the new generation, being ripped off from everyone from Sony to Blizzard to Valve. They’ve completely changed the way we play games, and the system has come a long, long war since it’s inception. But it still has a ways to go, and I hope developers continue to refine it. And by that I mean lose the multiplayer achievements. Please.

Homework, definitely the Devil.

I came across this bizarre article where two Canadian parents passed a law that states none of their children will ever have to do homework again. I wish I had these people as my parents back in high school, I can tell you that. A lot of discussion flared up around whether or not homework should be a requirement or an option amongst students. Truth be told, I never learned a thing from homework after I got into middle school. Granted, I moved from California to Alabama during the summer before junior high, so changing schools may have affected me greatly in that regard, but I still don’t think homework should be so harshly enforced. I think when it comes to teaching, it’s less about how much you go over material, and more about how it’s taught and what kind of environment you provide for your students. Kids, teens, and adults tend to learn more whenever they enjoy what’s being taught to them. Simply doing “busy work” and assigning fifty problems to do at home isn’t nearly as effective as teachers have arsed themselves into believing.

There is a lot backing up why homework is good, why it’s needed, and how it benefits students in the long run. While I agree that some subjects being practiced on at home is beneficiary, I don’t think that mindset can apply to all students. Teenagers go through a lot. You may think that your little brother or sister is ungrateful, melodramatic, or just plain crazy, but they’re not. Their moods swing up and down because of the hormonal changes in their bodies. They may not always think clearly because they’re experiencing what it feels like to really like someone for the first time in their life. They may become unruly whenever you think you’re being reasonable. What I’m trying to say is, teenagers don’t like being forced to do anything, homework included. Students start those fifty problems at home already hating it, so they don’t retain any of the information they just spent an hour jolting down on paper. Why would they want to remember something that they hate doing?

How does homework even help those students who don’t understand it to begin with? They need special attention, given by the individuals who spent four or six years in college, learning how to properly teach the subject at hand, and yet they’re sent home with a twenty-five pound backpack and a folder full of mundane tasks to complete before tomorrow.  Failing students shouldn’t be punished with more work they can’t comprehend. To be honest, I think a lot of teachers get lazy. They’re not paid enough, so why should the bust their ass so hard, right? It’s not their fault if their students’ parents choose to be inattentive to their needs. So, instead of trying to set up some sort of study session with the students who need it the most, they choose to drown the problems with excessive homework. I’m not saying that this kind of behaviour applies to all teachers, but it’s pretty damn rampant regardless.

I don’t know if my hatred for our current education system comes from living in Alabama, but I think a lot of people can agree with me on this premises. Homework probably does a lot more bad than good. Students now have access to the glory that is the internet, so their reading comprehension and writing skills improve a lot more naturally these days. When it comes to mathematics and the sciences, the teacher needs to understand what their students need by other means than just homework. Teachers should be a lot more involved in their students educational needs.

The United States has fallen behind a lot of other countries, some even considered third-world, when it comes to education. There’s clearly a lot that needs to be changed, and making the school days last longer and shortening summer break is not the way to do it. So, how do we improve? I think having an allotted “study hall” a few times out of the week will help students get into the habit of studying much  easier. Many kids don’t have the ideal home environment, so getting that hour or two of quiet time to study before a test is nearly impossible. Schools should be less about cramming in as many classes and subjects as possible into a day, and more about understanding what teenaged students actually need to learn. I believe that using a system similar to what colleges use is a good idea. It would help students transition easier to college life and not be as intimidated by the idea of college once they near graduation. They will already understand the basis of what is required, and I believe that is ideal.

Once a person enters high school, they already have a grip on what subjects they like, which ones they’re good at, and which ones they hate. Allowing students to choose between a handful of classes that interest them will make school more enjoyable for them. Forcing them to take a “business” class where they are to type the same sentence over and over for five minutes is stupid. Oh, and don’t even get me started on those yearly abstinence lessons.  Outside of the core classes and physical education classes, I think schools shouldn’t require much more than that. You’re basically halting progress on their individual interests, something they could choose to major in while in college.

Well, this post is definitely way too long. I think I would be able to write an entire book about my ideas on how to change our education system for the better, but I’m going to have to stop here before I put you guys to sleep. I would much appreciate hearing your thoughts on this matter, though. I figure a lot of you will agree with me, but I welcome those with differing opinions as well. I’m mostly just trying to create discussion on this humble little blog, and I thought this was a good way to do so! So, leave a comment if you so desire, and I will make sure to respond!

Woe is you.

So, you don’t have a significant other. For most people, this is a big concern. Am I not attracted enough? Do I smelly funny? Are people intimidated by me? To be honest, probably none of those things are true. You’re (more than likely) a moderately successful and good looking individual. Your lack of confidence actually keeps you from finding someone. People don’t like admitting they have flaws, though.  So, instead of facing up to the parts of their problems, they will assume everyone else has a problem. Oh, women are humorless because they don’t find my abrasive flirt jokes hilarious. Oh, men don’t like me because they like bony girls like Paris Hilton and not real women. Yeah, of course. Everyone else is at fault, not you.

That mindset irritates me. If you’re in your late twenties and still think the world is against you, you really need to grow up. You’re not experiencing weird chemical changes in your brain anymore. You know why you touch yourself at night now. There’s no reason to continue thinking like a teenager when you’re not. If you want someone to hold at night that badly, and yet you are too proud to admit that you have flaws, then you’re never going to find that happy relationship you seek so badly. In the words of my boyfriend, “Go read a book on Psychology. It’ll offend the fuck out of you.”

Oh, and don’t give me that hogwash that you’re supposed to be loved throughout your flaws. Yes, that’s true, but if you can’t even tell yourself that something is wrong with you, how will you ever accept it when someone else does? There’s a saying that goes, “If you want to fall in love, you must first love yourself,” and it’s true. People are never really happy with their relationship unless they’re happy with themselves. I see people who have been together for years and are nothing but a mere “content”. I see people getting married while ignoring the flaws of their significant other. Love isn’t about being content or ignoring each others problems. It’s about recognizing what’s wrong with you, what’s wrong with the person you love, and wanting to be with one another anyway.

You fall in love with someone when you realize that, even throughout your crazy induced jealously, your boyfriend still wants to sleep in the same bed with you. You fall in love when you realize that, “Hey, I’m fucked up, but at least I have someone that loves me anyway.” You learn to fall in love when you admit your faults and accept them. Your confidence in who you are and your willingness to work on those problems together is what makes couples last. Confidence doesn’t just appear because you want it to. You have to stop filling your head with negative thoughts about yourself. You should look at yourself objectively. It should not be a painful experience.

People can get desperate, though. If you only want to be loved because you’re lonely, you need to stop thinking like that. I can tell you this now. You will do bad things to yourself in order to seek acceptance and approval from others. You will act in ways that will make you sick when you’re older and reflect back on how far you’ve come. You will date shady people who don’t want anything other than a fuck buddy. You will get hurt and hurt again. Maybe you already have. Either way down the road to love, there is no point in time where you have to change who you are completely to be someone. You will adopt their hobbies, watch their television shows, listen to their music, yes, but you do not change entirely. What I’m saying here is to know who you are. If you don’t even know that, then you need to do more evaluating than just a simple tune-up.

I’m not telling saying that people who cannot accept their flaws are horrible people. I’m saying that they’re out of touch. They could very well be dandy people on the outside, but they have some serious inner turmoil that needs to be recognized. I know that it’s hard to face things head-on, especially if they’ve stemmed personally from you, but you’re an adult now. You’re going to have to fess up when you make a mistake, and it’s more than just a simple apology. I hope I haven’t pissed too many people off with this rant, but I’m so tired of people I know playing the victim when I call them out in their bullshit. You’re not as confident as you pretend you are, otherwise you wouldn’t make excuses.

On party purity.

Since I last wrote, two major political events have gone down. First, off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Maine, and New York’s 23rd district have taken place, and secondly, the passage of the healthcare bill in the House. As for the first three off-year races mentioned, I won’t say much. While I might not particularly like the new governors of Virginia and New Jersey, Creigh Deeds ran an utterly incompetent campaign, and Jon Corzine had really given New Jersey no reason to renew his term. As for Maine, Nicki’s said all that can be said.

As the title here implies, my focus is a trend in conservative thought that seems to be coming out of the NY-23 race and healthcare vote. In New York, the 23rd district had been held for 120 years by Republicans, though the district did vote fairly strongly for Barack Obama, who, as president, proceeded to appoint their former representative as Secretary of the Army. The district’s Republican establishment nominated moderate, pro-choice, pro-gay rights Republican Dede Scozzafava to be their nominee. Seemingly a good fit for a Republican district that nevertheless went for Obama. The tea party movement, however, would not have this. They instead backed Doug Hoffman, a businessman who did not even live in NY-23, but had very graciously agreed to move there if he had won the election. The GOP leadership soon rallied behind the conservative revolution they saw in Hoffman, going so far as to chastise even the formerly unquestionable Newt Gingrich when he backed Scozzafava. Scozzafava’s support collapsed, so she dropped out and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens over the ultraconservative Hoffman. Needless to say, Owens won.

This is all an enthralling tale full of twists, but the real story lies in the nonsense coming out of conservatives. To them, Hoffman’s defeat of Scozzafava shows that the people want real conservatives and not moderates like Scozzafava. That assumption would make perfect sense, if one chooses to only follow the race up until the night before Bill Owens won the election. Hoffman managed to lose a district that’s been in Republican hands for one hundred and twenty years, in an off-year election, and in what seems to be a fairly Republican year. That’s not an achievement, that’s a travesty. If anything, it’s proof that candidates must fit their districts. You cannot primary someone simply for being a “bad” Republican, or a “bad” Democrat, for that matter, if they’re in a district where a “good” Republican cannot win. It’s the essence of the median voter theorem. You take the best you can get. You don’t lose races on principle. That’s just counterproductive.

And that brings us to tonight’s vote. It went down basically as expected, 220-215. The twist came in vote #220, cast by Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, Republican of Louisiana. Now, Cao does come from a district that leans to the left by something like 28 points, but that logic didn’t stop him from being whipped in line by the GOP leadership on the stimulus vote, which he also threatened to join Democrats on. Furthermore, he did only vote for healthcare reform after it had secured passage by getting 218 votes, and probably would’ve voted the other way had his vote been needed to secure its defeat, unless he’s way braver than I’m giving him credit for.

But once again, the right wing of the Republican Party pounced, declaring Cao a traitor, amongst other ugly things. A little bit of anger after a bitterly fought defeat isn’t a big problem, but the fact of the matter is that for the district he represents, Cao is a godsend for the Republicans. He might be the most moderate Republican in the House, but that’s compared to the average Democrat from his district, who, trust me, is considerably more liberal. Internet conservatives are now telling Cao to kiss his seat goodbye, when in reality he probably just did the only thing that could have ever given him a tiny chance of retaining his seat. On top of that,  his defeat would result in something even further away from the tea partiers’ ideal candidate.

This principle over practicality idealism seems to be overtaking the GOP as of late. Rather than using the leverage of compromise to get bills closer to what they want, they simply vote against every Democratic bill out of spite, going so far as to boycott sessions on environmental legislation this week. Of course, the Blue Dogs seem to be doing most of their compromising for them, but I digress. Republicans had already been targeting a handful of moderates in the 2010 primaries, but after the NY-23 debacle, they’re more confident than ever. Who knows how many wingnuts they’ll try to get elected now.

The Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 stemmed largely from the recruitment of moderate candidates to win districts which had previously been Republican strongholds. The Democratic caucus includes gun rights activists and pro-lifers, and yeah, they annoy the hell out of the other Democrats when they force them to water down legislation, but they’re also responsible for the Democrats hold on power. A minority isn’t any more powerful just because it believes in itself more strongly than the majority does. Should the GOP continue to split their voters between conservatives and moderates, it could very well be an even smaller minority. You don’t win by dividing the power amongst yourselves and trying to force your own thoughts onto everyone else, you compromise. If the Republicans want to return to majority status, they have to study the model that restored the Democrats to power and begin to look more seriously at moderates within their party.

The public option, apparently the Devil.

The public option. It has been around for quite some time in other less developed countries like England and Canada. I’ve heard that if the public option were ever to come to America, we would have to wait in lines just to get a simple check-up! Can you believe that? There are so many Canadian immigrants in this country who have fled to America to escape that socialist regime to the north of us, don’t you know? It’s a wonder how the people of these nations haven’t just all died out, really.

The Obama administration is nothing but a bunch of Nazi lovers! With their college educations and their love for all things foreign, I’m surprised America hasn’t been sold to China yet. I guess it’s only a matter of time now, though. That traitor, Joseph Cao, voted for the public option today in the House. I wonder if he’s actually been hatching a plan with his Asian counterparts to be the leader of the new communistic America once Obama does sell us. I’ll have you know now that I will not stand for it! America has a bad enough problem with those Mexicans jumping the border. I will place a gun in every child’s hand, because children are responsible enough to have guns if they’re American, and defend this country from these socialists!

This country was created by our founding fathers and the greatest father of them all, the Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. What would Jesus think if we became just like the countries who have denied Him? Surely having the public option would mean those who decide to partake in such a vile organization would not be able to get into Heaven. That means that if we were forced to have it, no one would get into Heaven! Barack Obama does not want us to get into Heaven. He wants us all to convert to Islam and worship Allah, because Allah favours government run healthcare.

Have we forgotten all about the death panels, people?! Don’t you care about what happens to your grandmother? We cannot simply let Obama’s Nazi socialism invade America. We fought so hard against the terrorists in the Middle East and now they are operating on American soil. That soil should be valued above all other soil and not mixed in with the terrorist and communist soil of other countries. We must stay uniquely American. That means we do not adopt the ways of other countries. If England wants to drink tea with their pinky out, we will not drink tea in the same fashion. If England wants to eat fish with fries, then we will eat the meat of a cow with ours. That is AMERICAN! Healthcare should be treated the same way.

Who else wants to get rid of the Muslim in the White House? We must start with voicing our disdain for his foreign policies. We must flood Joseph Cao’s Facebook page with nasty comments about how he’s a decendent of Mao Zedong or we will never be taken seriously! We must make #obamasucks as trending topic on Twitter before they will hear our voice! We must write completely fabricated posts on our WordPress blogs and link them to everyone we know so we can spread the word! In fact, link this post to every man, woman, and child who can read and educate them! Show them the face of a true American by getting my page hits up. It’s the only way. May God have mercy on those who are mislead by MSNBC, and may God watch over you and your family.

One step forward, two steps back.

I write now with great remorse. Yesterday, the people of Maine voted and revoked a law allowing homosexuals to marry, 52% to 47%. It was a small margin, but big enough to be considered legitimate by the state. I think it’s safe to say that anyone with half a brain is outraged. It’s bad enough that Proposition 8 was voted out in California at the beginning of the year, but now human rights have taken a second beating from the supposedly open-minded state of Maine as well. I am hurt, and I am disappointed. Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught to love and accept everyone. Their beliefs and choices in life were not to affect how I thought of them. It seems, however, that others were not raised in the same way.

Just because homosexuals cannot produce an offspring of their own is not a strong enough argument to ban gay marriage. Someone who is infertile cannot produce a child, so does that mean they cannot get married? Once a woman goes through menopause, is her husband supposed to leave her and look for a younger, more fertile mate? There are so many orphaned children thanks to unprotected sex with our nation’s teenagers. If a homosexual couple wants to adopt a baby, shouldn’t they be able to? They can love the child just as unconditionally as a heterosexual couple can. The love gay people experience with one another is no different than the love I feel for my boyfriend.

If you really want to protect marriage, then you should look into banning divorce all together. Any couple that produces a child out of marriage should be legally obliged to marry, so no child can go without heterosexual parents. Cheaters will be sent to rehabilitation clinics. Scientists will also run tests on them to figure out why they desire any one other than their spouse, for in the Bible, adultery is wrong. Therapists and psychologists will meet with families regularly to make sure that the husband and wife are not neglectful of their offspring or each other. Sexual activity between straight couples will be monitored, in order to prevent unclean anal sex from occurring. This is what we will do in order to keep marriage wholesome and natural for the people of America.

How can the people of Maine listen to this man and not feel something? This man is 86 years old. He can barely stand. His voice breaks and his hands shake as he reads from his little piece of paper about his experiences in World War II. He tells us how he thought he was fighting for equality for all Americans, for his gay son, and now he may not see the day where his son can rightfully marry whomever he chooses. It’s as if we are stuck in the movie Aladdin. Jasmine, unable to marry someone she loves, fights against the law and her father’s demands to marry until she can make that choice herself. These bigots are getting to choose our rights for us, only they are not as loving and understanding as Jasmine’s father. They continue to spread hate and ignorance amongst themselves and unsuspecting children. Why is this allowed to happen?

What happened in Maine was unfair, but I will not let it discourage me. I may live in the conservative state of Alabama, but that will not detour me from standing up for what I believe in. I may come from a close-minded baptist family, but I will be honest with who I am and my beliefs. I will fight for that veteran in Maine and his son. I will fight for Harvey Milk and Matthew Shepard. I will provide intelligent and well-reasoned arguments to back up my claims and I will not become violent with my opponents. I will argue until my face turns a vibrant, liberal blue. I may have been foolish and thought that America had made major progress with the election of Barack Obama, but I will continue to be hopeful. Gay marriage will be legalized eventually, but that does not mean we should just wait around for it to happen. Even if you live in a state like Alabama, stand up for yourself and the others. Take every little step you can toward progression. Fight the good fight and do not give up, no matter what.

Rape is serious business.

Much commotion has been made recently about  the amendment  to the Senate Defense Appropriations bill proposed by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), whose combined name and title I will never, ever get used to typing out. The amendment would’ve prohibited the military from contracting with firms that include stipulations in their employees’ contracts, barring them from seeking justice in civil court if they are the victim of sexual assault in the workplace. It passed 68-30. All nay votes were from male Republicans. Senators Bennett, Collins, Grassley, Hatch, Hutchison, LeMieux, Lugar, Murkowski, Snowe, and Voinovich all deserve props for bucking their party on this one, even if it did seem painfully obvious to do so.

The Republican arguments came mostly from Senator Sessions (R-AL) who seemed particularly impassioned about rapists’ rights. According to the good Senator from Alabama, the amendment constituted needless federal involvement in the private sector, which I assume just means Mr. Sessions believes that the government shouldn’t purchase any goods or services at all, since that would pump filthy, government dollars into the private sector. The truth is the government is a buyer on the private market just like any other. Like you or I can choose not to buy products made by child labor, genetic modification, or any other silly little thing, so can the government.

The other main argument from the nay-voters was that the Pentagon opposes the amendment, to which I reply, no duh. The military isn’t going to support any bill that’s going to restrict who it can buy from. It’s a self-interested entity like any other and wants to maximize its power to acquire weapons and personnel. That’s why we put the military under elected, civilian rule, so that it will be restrained by the people’s morality and will not be able to see out its aims if those aims are at odds with those of the people.

What’s most disappointing, though, is that after this amendment passed and after all the scorn placed on those who voted nay, the defense industry and Department of Defense have ratcheted up their campaign to have the amendment removed in conference committee. Now, once again this is just two groups acting in their own self interest, you can’t really blame them for that, but who you can blame are those in Congress seriously looking at stripping this amendment.

Reports surfaced the other day that Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) was looking pretty seriously at either completely stripping or neutering the amendment to little more than a symbolic gesture. Now Inouye, probably in large part due to being based out of Hawaii where the military is a major factor, takes a good deal of contributions from the military-industrial complex, which could explain his hesitance on the amendment. On the other side, he’s Daniel Inouye, eight term senator/war hero from one of the most heavily Democratic states in the Union. It would take a felony or two to get the man unelected. It would seem unlikely that he could be swayed on any issue he cared about to any substantial degree. Especially now that the issue has garnered such attention, it seems that going against it would hurt one’s public perception more than any loss of campaign funds from the defense industry would.

All I can is is hopefully HuffPo’s report was exaggerating his leanings on the issue, or the fact that those leanings are now public has changed his mind.

Hollywood, apparently the Devil.

Thanks to ONTD, I came across this article written by a seemingly bitter woman at the Washington Post.  The article talks about the movie, Amelia, and it’s inevitable bombing at the box office. Reading further into the article, it becomes more of a rant about how women in Hollywood are perceived on the big screen, and less about the movie itself. While I do agree with a few points the writer makes, most prominently with the fact that women are more likely to play a certain kind of role because they are simply not offered different ones, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with the rest of it.  As a woman, especially a woman who plays Halo 3 on Xbox Live, I’m well aware of the close-minded views on women who have certain hobbies or act certain ways. I know that as far as America’s progression goes on getting rid of sexual discrimination, we have been in a bit of a stand still these last ten or fifteen years. I don’t think, however, that you can simply say the reason movies like Amelia bomb are because they are about strong women.

In the movie, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Cate Blanchett plays the benevolent Queen of England, Elizabeth I. The movie features more than just the Queen’s many romantic interests, but also details the challenges she faced while being Queen. The movie was a hit at the box office, earning $82 million worldwide, while the film was made for only $25 million. Elizabeth: The Golden Age went on to receive many awards, including Best Actress awards for Cate Blanchett. In Amelia, critics have voiced their disappointment for the film not focusing more on Amelia Earhart’s accomplishments and more about her love life.

People have said that their anger isn’t about Amelia or its bad run in theaters, but more about the bigoted comments made by a few men featured in the article. The “fact” that women simply do not grow up playing video games or reading comic books stood out to me. I won’t sit here and tell you my life story, but I will say that the first date my parents ever went on was to a video game arcade. Why, you ask? Because my mother wanted to play Pacman. I will also like to add that my mom is now fifty years old, probably a good deal older than the close-minded man who said claimed such an absurd thing.

I must admit that I wasn’t nearly as angry about the mindless comments as I was about the idea that Jennifer’s Body and Whip It are somehow good “girl power” flicks. Last I checked, Jennifer’s Body was about a greasy, talentless actress taking off her clothes and licking her lips as much as she possibly can within a two hour time frame. I’m sure Whip It is a good movie, but quite frankly, anything featuring Ellen Page or Drew Barrymore is not my cup of tea. I’m tired of the movie industry as a whole right now.

I can only think of a handful of movies that have come out this year that were actually worth seeing in theaters. How many movies has Seth Rogen played a incompetent pothead in? How many times has Megan Fox paraded around in skimpy clothing just for the sake of doing it? How many supposedly “scary” movies have come out recently that aren’t just about people getting killed in the most gruesome way possible? Don’t even get me started on all the vampire flicks that have come out this year. I think right now, it’s less about producers making these horrible films, and more about the consumer demand to have them. Companies are going to do what makes the most the money, no matter how evil or wrong it is. That’s how business works, people.

The people seeing these movies in theaters are more than likely teenagers. Do you remember having an impeccable taste in movies at 16? I sure don’t. I do remember that I would go see movies on opening night with about ten other of my friends from high school, not because we were interested in the movie itself, but because that was the only thing you could without getting in trouble at 16. I’m 20 now and I went to the theater more this year than I have since I’ve been out of high school. Why? District 9, Star Trek, and Inglourious Basterds, just to name a few. You want to know who else saw those movies in theaters? My 15-year-old sister. She also went and saw all of those movies any respecting adult would not subject themselves to.

All I hope is that people won’t take Amelia‘s failing as a sign of strong female roles being avoided at all costs by those at Hollywood. They’re “being avoided” because that’s not what people want to see right now, according to the millions of people who went and watched Jennifer’s Body and Twilight. Just because you, personally, hate bad movies, does not mean that there aren’t people out there who love them. I just wish people would try to understand what consumer demand is before they write up an article about how evil Hollywood is. The people we should be complaining most about aren’t the people making the movies, but the people watching or not watching them.

Feminism today.

Feminism of this day and age is fucking horrible. I can’t even tell you how many blogs I’ve read where women write about how “objectified” they feel because they see a commercial on TV that does not fit their ideal of how a woman should carry herself in the modern world. Shaving your legs/armpits, wearing skirts, and being “weak” are just a few of the things these women frown upon. If they spent half the time worrying about what is being shown on TV and actually worry about how our country or other countries are truly objectifying women, I would feel a lot better about feminism today. What feminism was in the 1960’s and what is today have become two completely different things.

There are a lot cases where women are quite obviously discriminated against today, we know that. We know that there are also a lot of cases where black and hispanic people are also discriminated against in America, but you don’t see nearly as many people starting blogs about that shit. Why? Because the world will never fully be completely free of racial and sexual discrimination. It’s a depressing realization, yes, but it’s true. If and when that day happens, none of us will be alive to see it. Nor will our grandchildren. Or their grandchildren. I’m not saying you can’t speak out against the people who are actively practicing hate crimes or discriminatory behaviour, but you can’t expect the world to change over night. Starting a blog about how discriminated against you feel certainly won’t do much good.

The point of this rant isn’t to talk about my depressing viewpoints on the world, but rather to talk mainly about these women who feel insulted by things most of us don’t even think twice about. The attractive woman in a hair color commerical, turning dramatically to demonstrate just how amazing L’Oreal’s new hair color brand is? Being objectified. The scantily-clad women posing along side a man in a cologne ad? Being objectified. Let’s not forget that these actresses and models choose these jobs on their own free will. They are not forced into any of these positions by men. They do it because they want to do it, yet these feminist bloggers are still enraged.

The men in these cologne or razor blade commercials are just as “objectified”. They’re usually incredibly fit dudes with amazingly chiseled jaws or they’re the glaring stereotype of a beer drinking redneck. None of which men usually are. Just like most women aren’t unruly mothers, nagging wives, or super models. The media does not reflect real life, but whether what real life people prefer to see. True, there could be some adjustments made to the way we are perceived by the media, but that will only change if enough people care, and they don’t.

It kills me to think that these women believe so strongly that men view their female counterparts as “tools” or “objects”. In what era do you live? The only people who are still being repressed by the government in any shape or form are homosexuals. They can’t even put two men holding hands in a gay marriage legalization commerical without it being seen as “icky” by their focus testers. Everything that the media controls is going to be what makes them the most money. If that’s putting fit and sexy people into their commercials to sell merchandise, then that’s what they’re going to do.  These women have to stop caring so much about what they see on television and actually do real research behind what the words “demeaned” and “objectified” really mean. Otherwise, they’re just another angry fat chick with a blog.