The Liberal's Burden

It's become clear to me where the problem in contemporary politics is coming from. Our political discourse has been literally hijacked by proud, and angry people.

What does it mean to say "I am conservative." I am conservative, therefore I conserve. I want to spend less money on government, and allow the people to do what they want more of their day. What kind of lifestyle would one attribute to this? Would you suspect that a conservative, by this definition would stay far away from the political sphere?

Hell to the no.

They're out there, and they're angry. They're shooting guns, and corresponding with their political cohorts, myself included.

I could intellectually take them all down a notch in a public hearing of my peers, and they may just as well be able to do the same in front of their own peers. I think they aren't so different from anybody else, except for the fact that yes, they do hold radical views on politics and the place of government.

They cite numerous instances of hippie, commie punk, entitled EBT, cruelty-free quinoa buying, hippies, I suppose you would call them.

They aren't unreasonable. But they don't agree with my reasons. They seem to get off on ranting their political opinions to anyone who will listen, and I wouldn't feel safe knowing them.

Martin Luther King Jr. didn't just do what he did to save himself. He was, in fact, a martyr. It seems that this world is going to need a whole lot more martyrs before we can hug long enough those pained individuals in our society who would tell a homeless person on the street to get a job, or tell a grown homosexual that he shouldn't be allowed to marry his boyfriend and that his lifestyle is immoral (so is being righteous).

I'm not sure I even started the process, and my feeling is that this blog post will be seen as an attack on the radical right wing. Perhaps it is an optimistic meditation on the work that needs to be done to move this great country into a harmonious future.

I urge anyone who reads this to have compassion towards your neighbor, even if they don't think you know what you're talking about.

To Republicans, I will say, that it might be hard for less political types and the people whose lives you have contributed so much pain to, so much needless agony over things like gay marriage and Just Say No and all the times you defend guns in the face of dying and dead children and every time you call an immigrant an "illegal" and every time you look at your neighbor and judge with the fury of G-d almighty...

It might be hard for them to forgive you, but you have a choice. You can have your convictions, but is it pragmatic to tell someone what they can and can't do all the time?

A better life comes when you start moving forward. We all must move forward together, or we all must fall behind.

Sensible Politics: Politicians Have No Choice But To Rethink Politics

Politics is dead. After all, it didn't really have much of a chance. The overwhelming transparency of the current youth generation (who's coming up on thirty in a minute) and the overwhelming understanding that comes along with transparency is revealing that the fabricated teachings coming out of right wing nutjobs, and even left wing know-nothings no longer holds any water.

You must know what you're talking about, perhaps for the first time ever.

George W. Bush had the luxury of being able to skirt by on his name and, supposedly and purportedly, his ability to "have a beer wit ya!" Thanks Karl Rove.

Perhaps we should really thank Karl Rove a whole lot more. The political minded, among which you are a member now that you're reading an obscure political blog shared with the Google plus sensible politics community (awesome job, Google!), the political minded must come together now and reach out to the other side who is also fed up with Karl Rove bullshit.

We can't immediately gauge their disgust with Karl Rove. Instead, we ought to realize that a large sect of the population was fed inconsistent and convenient truths about the nature of the world, in order to line the pockets of a Mr. Peanut.

It's time to reach out and say, "We will not be unreasonable." The lack of humility, and the lack of reason being used by politicians, the amount of moral righteousness, of immoral, amoral tactics, it's those ineptitudes that make it hard for us to address the problems of climate change, of actual policies to move forward on gun violence.

SPOILER ALERT: They will require nuance.!! :-)

See... that's a nose. The hyphen.

It's not time tomorrow to take this approach. It's time right now. We needn't consider a perceived intellectual disparity any more. There is nothing you can't do. There are only so many things that we can do.

Don't be a Democrat or a Republican. Be human first. Consider the squabbling an illness. Let's heal.

Guns and The Second Amendment

Let me not ingratiate myself with anyone with any particular language: I don't support the second amendment. I am not a constitutionalist.  I am not interested in the safety of your or anyone else's right to own an AR-15. I am not concerned with these non-solutions.

We're murdering children in this country and it's happening daily. Every day you hear about another school shooting. Every day you hear about another senseless gun death. It's become a matter of pragmatism. We can't stand the morale destroying effects of this cancer on our society.

"We need a holistic approach," said Illinois Representative Luis Gutierrez on The Rachel Maddow show on Friday night.

The representative described incidences where drug peddlers killed a woman recently to "protect their turf."

Still, much most policy makers that comes on TV these days, they have tons of ideas, and no solutions. Perhaps I'm selling Gutierrez short. He did call out the staggering statistics related to handguns in gun fatalities. The majority, a staggering 351 (or 361, he was confused on the specific number) of around 500 gun deaths in 2011.

Solutions?

Gutierrez did say we need a holistic approach. What would that look like?

A holistic approach would probably involve the health and well being of the populations involved in the majority of gun violence cases. I would say, it would not be unreasonable to argue that all of the gun deaths in civilian life are the result of serious mental illness.

We need to keep an eye out on each other. We need to feed the hungry. Help the poor. We need to make sure people have the proper tools to take care of themselves and lead happy productive lives. This is an absolute no brainer. How frequently do happy people kill people?

We have heard so many people talk about mental illness lately. In my opinion, it's been heavily vitriolic and damaging to the cause. People with self-acknolwedged mental illness might feel the need to "blend in" for fear of being feared. Kids with autism have become our primary suspects.

Turning a blind eye on the content, the very substance that gives us the abstraction of "taking on mental illness" is a great way to disconnect from the problem at hand.

Democrats Will Take Back The House

I was very struck by the confidence with which President Obama's campaign strategists spoke about their certainty over the 2012 election. They seemed to have pinpointed down the margins nationwide, and claimed to have never lost assuredness in an Obama victory.

I shared that assuredness with Obama's pollsters, and I share that sentiment now with Obama assuring the house democrats at their retreat in Virginia, that Nancy Pelosi will be speaker again really soon.

The Republican party has had their foundation ripped out from under them. The "Grand Ole Party" is no longer representative of the majority in this country, and that's only becoming more apparent.

When your candidate received a 0% in a poll of African Americans, you know you have an issue. Whether that's a policy issue or a messaging issue, the two aren't mutually exclusive. The party principals held by Republicans are outmoded, outdated, non-sense.

The lack of morality in the language on homosexuals, Women, African-Americans, Latinos and guns is nothing short of astounding. It's incredulous that there would exist such a brotherhood of idiots, for lack of a better term, with any amount of power at all.

A new party must emerge in place of The GOP, one which represents the true, leftists to the moderates in this country. Perhaps there are greater issues than same-sex marriage and gun control really present in society, and perhaps taking on these under heard populations, which I would argue, consist of a lot of disgruntled 20 somethings with no jobs, or jobs they hate, would have a positive impact on the country.

When are we going to mobilize the entire generation of educated people who have the know-how and the accessibility. Welfare sustains, it does not improve. We must teach the youth to take risks. To write blogs. To be bold. As much as it's easy to claim that 20-somethings today are all these things, for every one of the bold and brave, there are a dozen others dwindling at home with their parents, depressed, and massively in debt.

Why are we handing debt to people with NO JOBS! A massive duh. Massive.

What will the next generation, the 20-somethings going on 30-somethings bring to the table? When are we going to see a shining example of the new transparent citizen in office? Maybe a better question, when are we going to see the shining examples of amoral sloths get the boot?

The Time Is Now

It's time to talk about Climate change. It's time to talk about healthcare in a practical way. It's time to talk about the fact that immigrants make up too large a population to be simply deported. These are self-evident truths that seem to be ignored in D.C. Constantly, and utterly, ignored.

I'm glad Obama said what he said about Nancy Pelosi. I like Nancy Pelosi. The reason I ever had a bad connotation associated with Pelosi is from Michael Steel "Fire Pelosi" campaign of the 2010 mid-terms.
(Thought I will say, I do like Michael Steele quite a bit now.)

I like to come off as balanced. Balanced in the sense that I can relate to both sides of an issue. To all sides of an issue. This is called compassion. Perhaps it's simply compassion our Republican brother's and sisters lack. See: ALL OF THEM!

The Wolverine Is Now Endangered

This incredible animal, the wolverine, is now on the endangered species list, with only 250 left in the United States.

Wake up, folks. If this creature can't survive anymore, then don't you think that may represent a difficulty for you sometime in the future?

I think sometimes we ignore the fact that humans are just another type of animal? Albeit we've got a more extensive vocabulary, is there anything you can't say in a series of grunts?

Let's stop ignoring things because they don't apply to the present... oh wait, they do.
Remember the FRANKEN-STORM? Didn't that get upgraded even higher?

This is how I feel right now

Are Deportations Moral? Expect Nothing. Get Nothing.

Do you have a stance on immigration?

When you consider immigration, and immigrants, do you consider the people that we're deporting? Does the state consider the people? I knew a girl in college, we were casual friends, who faced deportation after graduation.

This was a girl who wrote for the daily newspaper, one of the most prominent college newspapers in the country, The Daily Iowan. She was an honor student, a feat saved for those who have learned how to work hard and buckle down. And yet, me, a class-skipping, pot-smoking social deviant, couldn't fathom of having to deal with all of that.

Watching Melissa Harris Perry this morning, there's a latino guy who graduated from Law School, heading up an organization, can't practice law because of his immigrant status. 

These are examples of people contributing to society. I'm not suggesting that we don't deport people, we give them ample opportunity to succeed.

Ample opportunity for everyone is the way towards ample opportunity for everyone. 

What creates value? People create value. It would be unwise to consider all of the things you aren't getting from the immigrants next door. You keep talking about nothing... you're gonna get nothing.

Instead, ask how can we help each other. Man power is POWER. It's hard to... no impossible to be a contributing member of society without interacting with people. There is no intrinsic value on being documented or not. We're all looking for the same things.