An Essay

My mother says that my grandfather would often bang his fist on the dinner table and shout, “A vote for a democrat is a vote for socialism!” My mother would always calmly reply, “Well dad, I am a socialist.” That was when my mother was in high school. Since, my grandfather has become a solid democrat. He eventually realized that he was old and poor, and saw that democrats were the ones that gave money to the old and the poor.

Unlike my mother, I am not a socialist. I am more a democratic communist. I do not believe in corporations. I think corporations, money in general, physical property in general, promote greed and intolerance, violence, and oppression. Capitalism promotes the exploitation of one person by another, promotes tyranny and hatred. My exact position, which I believe to be correct, is a complicated one. Democracy is key, and no system is good without it, but the people can almost never be trusted. People form groups and the groups develop their own ideology. Then the individuals are forced to accept the group ideology. Such a process is exactly what happened to our own government. The idea that person deserves such excess as the wealthiest in our country possess is ridiculous. I am entirely convinced that the worst off American makes several times as much as the average citizen of a country in say Africa, or China.

America is a country of tyrants. Who more than a tyrant hates being mastered? All people would be tyrants, given the chance. Thus all people hate being mastered. Who more than a tyrant loves mastering others? This is the theory behind capitalism, behind all of Western culture in general.

Humanity is, at its core, imperfect. But that is what makes it so beautiful. Its imperfections make it perfect, in a way. If there was perfection in human kind then life would be mind-numbingly boring. Men and women call their lovers perfect, but their can be no love for perfection. Perfection spawns jealousy and fear, which spawn hatred and anger, which spawn heartbreak and murder. There can be no love for what is perfect, only fear and reverence. Society is imperfect because humans are imperfect. All humans, including the one writing these words. The same is true for religion.

What is it that makes humans human? The selfishness? Or the selflessness? The ability to hate unconditionally? Or the ability to love equally passionately? The fact that humans are the only beings that will kill members of another species purely for fun? Or the fact that humans are the only beings that will run into a burning building to save a member of a different species? The wisdom? Or the rash impetuosity? The laughter in bad times? Or the tears of anguish that run even though all is well? The curiosity? Or the contentedness at our own position?

The Tucson Massacre: Who is to blame?

The obvious target of blame is Jared Lee Loughner. I do not deny his guilt, but he did not act alone. Hateful rhetoric from both sides pushed him to violence. The Conservatives call the Liberals idiots, the Liberals call the Conservatives assholes. The hate-speech from both sides is to blame. We must tone down the hate, learn to be nice to our fellow humans, and maybe sometimes be willing to compromise on issues.

Gabby Giffords update

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, known as Gabby to her friends, remains in critical condition today. She has been able to respond to basic commands such as raising her thumb and wiggling her toes. Doctors are cautiously optimistic, and she is not out of the woods yet. The Congresswoman is the only victim of Saturdays shooting to remain in critical condition at this time. Let us hope we are not forced to charge Jared Lee Loughner with the assassination of a member of Congress.

This whole issue brings forth a larger topic. Gun control. One cannot deny, if the purchase of firearms was illegal, twenty people would still be in full health. Here at the Humanist, we respect the 2nd Amendment. However, we have actually read the Amendment. It says all states have the right to keep a well-regulated militia. Not that all homicidal maniacs are allowed to purchase semi-automatic weapons. It is our stance that firearms should be carried solely by military and law enforcement. With tighter gun laws, we can greatly reduce incidents like this one.

Call your congresspeople and senators. Tell them to do something.

Six dead, fourteen others injured in Arizona shooting

Yesterday a gunman in Tucson, Arizona, shot twenty people. Six of them died. Their names are Gabriel Zimmerman, age 30, Dorothy Murray, age 76, Dorwin Stoddard, age 76, Phyllis Scheck, age 79, US District Judge John Roll, age 63, and Christina Greene, age 9. Tragedy is printed in blood red ink on every article about these killings.

But this was no random act of violence. Jared Lee Loughner, age 22, was specifically targeting Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona's eighth congressional district. Loughner shot Giffords in the head at point blank range. Doctors say the bullet passed through the left side of her brain and exited, leaving her critically injured but alive. She is currently conscious and able to use basic nonverbal forms of communication. Let us hope that she is able to make a full recovery and return to her seat in the House of Representatives.

We must never forget that, while there are those who condemn violence, there are those who revel in it. The Westboro Baptist Church (not in any way affiliated with any other branches of the Baptist Church) has decided to take signs saying things like, “Thank God for the Shooter-6 dead!” and, “God sent the shooter to shoot you!” It is people like this that sometimes make us doubt the wisdom of having freedom of speech. But we must pay them no mind, their numbers are few and if we give in to their hate-mongering and openly hate them back we will only encourage them.

What strikes me as odd is that Giffords is only injured and doctors are as optimistic as the situation allows for her recovery, yet the headlines say, "Gabrielle Giffords shot," not, "Six, including 9 year old, killed." While Giffords is a Congresswoman and is needed in our capital, who knows what young Christina Greene would have become. Maybe, had she lived longer than 9 years and 4 months, she'd have cured cancer. Maybe she'd have become a paramedic and saved people's lives. Maybe she'd be President someday, if her heartbeat hadn't been cut short.

We should all try and ease the pain of the victims and their families. Maybe send a check if you can spare the money. It's capitalist, I know, but one cannot deny that money makes this world work. A better idea might be to write a sincere, heartfelt card to the one of the victims or one of their family members. They need to know that they do not stand alone. If you cannot do anything, then convince someone else to do something.

I feel there is nothing more I can say on this matter, so I shall end this post by saying something that you have long ago gathered. This is a terrible, terrible thing and we should all do everything in our power to make sure nothing like it happens again.

Don't Ask Don't Tell repealed!

This Sunday, the Senate voted to repeal a law which made it illegal for any openly gay man or woman to serve in the military. The vote was a landslide victory, 65 to 31 with eight Republican votes for the repeal. This law was originally passed under the Clinton administration, as a compromise between those who wanted a blanket ban on gays in the military and those who wanted to abolish all forms of sexual-orientation based discrimination in the military. It's been in place for seventeen years, and it was high time it was done away with. This landslide vote will hopefully lead to more progress of this nature towards true equality.

WikiLeaks founder arrested

The founder of the website WikiLeaks has been arrested, but interestingly enough not for the creation of the website. For some years now he has been in Sweden, but recently was accused off the rape of two women and was arrested in London. As far as I know the website is still up, but this may not be for long. Here's hoping this exchange of information isn't censored by the US government. So much for freedom of expression when it comes to government secrets

More from Wikileaks

I was browsing Wikileaks for recently released documents today, and I stumbled upon a document titled, "LEFT USING HUMAN RIGHTS TO DISCREDIT US." At first I looked at the title and said to myself, "Well, I guess the government has looked at my blog, or Freedom Press, or something like that. No news to me, why was this confidential?" Then I realized it was because it contained information about declassified documents containing secrets about American funding of dictatorships in Uruguay. It didn't contain the secrets, just said they existed. And so our government doesn't want us finding out about any of its dirty secrets of the past, or even of their existence. Typical American lies by omission.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2006/12/06MONTEVIDEO1179.html