Name:Kryss Country:United States State:Oklahoma Metro:Enid Gender:Male
Interests:I'm a liberal, a Democrat, a freethinker, and an agnostic. I support a secular America and "Robin Hood" economics. I support all civil rights for homosexuals, including marriage. I do not support the war in Iraq, but I do support the war in Afghanistan (the real war on terror). I also support a woman's right to choose. I'm aware of the fact that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor, as well as the fact that global warming and terrorism are equally urgent threats to America. I'm defying the closed-mindedness and propaganda of both right-wing republican conservatism and christianity. Expertise:This is my political blog; my main xanga is www.xanga.com/kryss864.
Like I've said, all of my future political/religious writings will go on my Main Blog from now on, but I am NOT deleting this one. Too many memories, too much work, too much fun, too many brilliant insights ().
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/04/planned-parenthoods-obscene-profits/ The ONLY time Michelle Malkin goes batshit over a company's profits are when it's a company involved with helping women. Big Oil rakes in billions of dollars in record profits, and she doesn't bat an eye. Planned Parenthood helps a few women maintain control over their bodies, and it's the fucking end of the world. Give me a break.
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/09/plucky-90-year-old-klansman-d-wva-clings-to-committee-chairmanship/ "Plucky 90-year-old Klansman (D-W.Va) clings to Committee Chairmanship" Of course, little Miss Journalistic Integrity doesn't mention anything about Robert Byrd's reform and denouncement of the Klan 70 years ago, or the fact that he and Obama became great friends after he won his Senate race. No no no, to Michelle Malkin, once a Klansman, always a Klansman. Which makes you wonder what she thinks of about half the Republicans in Congress....
http://soldiersangelsgermany.blogspot.com/2008/06/trust.html So, the Iraq War has been a disaster of epic proportions that has made the world less safe and was waged for the sole purpose of shoveling money toward war-based businesses, but look at these warm and fuzzy pictures! That's enough to make you forget about the 4,145 dead American soldiers, right? Right? Now shut up and vote Republican.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/10/bill-sali-bigotry/ "Rep. Bill Sali: Religious Diversity In Congress ‘Was Not Envisioned By The Founding Fathers’ " Right, right....so they decided to establish a firmly secular government as opposed to a theocracy by.....coin toss?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver "Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt." "Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3087486.ece "Richard Dawkins, the British scientist who has become the high priest of atheism, is launching a crusade in America to win new recruits to the church of nonbelievers. He is to embark on a lecture tour of 2,000-seater halls in the Bible Belt and the Midwest in the wake of the presidential primary season, which reaches its climax in early February. Dawkins, whose book The God Delusion has sold 1.5m copies in the English language, has teamed up with Robin Wight, the man behind some of Britain’s most memorable advertising campaigns, to make it respectable to admit to being an atheist."
http://www.theresistancemanifesto.com/ Oh now HERE'S a good one: Young Earth Creationists who think 9/11 was an inside job. I didn't even know that much Koolaid has ever even existed.....
http://www.secularcovenant.com/TSE/2008/01/11/who-killed-slavery-response-to-dinesh-dsouza/ Another good one: Dinesh D'Souza claims that Christianity is what brought about the end to slavery in America. Of course, being completely ignorant of reality and simultaneously full of shit, this laughably absurd argument is ripped to shreds. It's like breaking 1,496 priceless vases, then duct-taping one of them back together and patting yourself on the back for it. Nevermind the Church quoted as describing the abolition movement as "undeniably atheistic".
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/26/anti-gay-summit/ " ‘Values Voter Summit’ Features Attack on ‘Faggots,’ Claim That Gay Rights Movement Inspired ‘From The Pit Of Hell Itself’ " Hating people who are different: it's what Jesus would have done.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2008/03/27/grace.girl.pray.cnn "The case of an 11-year-old girl who died after her parents opted for prayer over medical care." These parents should be charged with manslaughter, and placed in a psychiatric ward for the rest of their lives.
BILL O'REILLY DEFEATS SECULARISTS IN THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!!!!1111
but also,
I DEFEAT BILL O'REILLY IN THE WAR ON THE BLUE SKY THEORY!!!!!!1111
Well, it's happened. Billo's relentless stream of mighty Christian logic has finally defeated us. I had to say, I was hoping we anti-American, Christmas hating secular-progressives stood a chance in our War on Christmas, but deep down, I knew....I looked at Bill O'Reilly and said to my atheist comrades, "well, there's just no way we could ever compete with a fat, balding white guy whose audience consists mainly of people in their 60's". Come on, it's Bill O'Reilly! Defeat for us was inevitable.
What was our defeat, exactly? Well, I'm not exactly sure, but Billo said it on his show, so it must be true. He has single-handedly defeated all of us atheists. And he beat us bad. In fact, Bill O'Reilly's steady stream of American Righteousness and Invincible Conservative Rationality has defeated us so soundly, I'm going to get baptized and convert to Christianity this Sunday.
Keep in mind, O'Reilly's declaration of victory over Christmas-hating secular-progressives like me is completely different from the declaration of victory he made last week. Or last year. Completely different. This time, Billo has REALLY beaten us in our War on Christmas. I don't think we'll be able to pull our forces together and regroup, this time. I think we're done for. We should have known better than try to take on Bill O'Reilly, the Cultural Warrior. This isn't just some arbitrary declaration of victory from O'Reilly, either.....no no no, this is and arbitrary declaration of victory that he announced on his show! To declare victory in a war, you usually have to have a victory in at least one battle, but this is different. This is the O'Reilly Factor we're talking about! Imagine if O'Reilly had been around in World War II! Billo would go on the Factor, declare a victory two days after Pearl Harbor, and the Nazis and Japanese would have laid down their arms and given up in droves.
So Bill O'Reilly has defeated us secular-progressives yet again. Boy, he sure is racking up those wins against us! Score one for Jeeeeeeeesuuuuuuus!! Billo even declared on his show that the secular-progressives are "furious, furious about losing the War on Christmas." Well, I'm not furious. I saw it coming, I knew there was no way we could ever defeat the Great Bill O'Reilly. He declared on his show that the S-P's "Taliban-like oppression of Christmas", his words, is at an end. Because, you know how oppressed Christmas has been. We sure had been successful at oppressing the holiday that is celebrated at the end of December, but who's shopping season now starts before Halloween. But alas! Our days of Christmas-oppressing have ended. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that secularism is in its lastthroes.
But wait, my heathen, godless comrades!
I've just declared a victory over Bill O'Reilly as well. I'm sure you'll be hearing about it on all the major news networks next week. You see, Bill O'Reilly believes the sky is green with purple polka dots.
Yes, he has relentlessly been fighting a war on the blue-sky theory. You may not have heard about this war, but it's there....it's there, just believe me. Bill O'Reilly has been leading a group of people around the country fighting this war. They're the Purple-polka-dot Sky-ists. We'll call them P-S's for short.
You see, the P-S's are furious, furious that we have defeated them in the War on the Blue Sky Theory. What specific defeat did we hand them, you ask? Well, that's not important. The important think is that we have finally defeated Bill O'Reilly in his War on the Blue Sky Theory. Making this declaration of victory IS how we've beaten them in this war. It's perfect logic! We simply declare victory in the P-S's War on the Blue Sky Theory, and that's that! What are they going to do, say that we haven't defeated them? Phht! Once victory has been declared, you can't go back and un-declare it. You can only declare victory again on top of it. Like now: I officially declare that we have defeated Bill O'Reilly and the Purple-polka-dot Sky-ists in the War on the Blue Sky Theory. BAM! Did you see that? In the space of the time it took me do declare victory the first time to declaring victory in the sentence preceding this one, we have defeated Bill O'Reilly TWICE! I bet the P-S's are furious.
Just give it up, Billo. We've beaten you and your America hating P-S's twice already in your evil, America-hating War on the Blue Sky Theory. There's no use in standing up to our infallible, American, anti-terrorist logic. Might as well just give up and pack it in, pal, because I'm a GOD CULTURE WARRIOR, and I will fight you and all the other P-S's until we achieve yet another victory in the War on the Blue Sky Theory. Your days of Taliban-like oppression of the Blue Sky Theory are OVER!
As of last Wednesday, I've had this blog for 3 years. Which means I've been blogging since before "blog" was a household term . Readers come and go, readership goes up and down....here's the thing. Xanga is primarily a social networking site, and not a serious blogging site. But Xanga has been losing out to Myspace and Facebook over the past several months. For a lot of people, Xanga was just a fad. A year ago, two or three dozen of my friends in real life had Xangas; now, only a couple do. But to be blunt, I really don't care; I would keep writing on this blog and my other one even if no one at all read them. It's what I do. But in retrospect, I wish I had chosen a host that was geared more toward serious blogging (Blogspot) than toward social networking (Xanga). C'est la vie - I'm not about to dump three years worth of posts just to switch over now. I'll be writing on Defiance_01 for a very, very, very long time.
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine interviewed me for a report paper at her Christian college.
The Full Paper (names have been removed): Introduction I have provided my interview responses below and feel that adequate explanation of the people answering these questions is required. The first requirement is an active Christian not associated with Ozark Christian College. I turned to a close friend of mine named [TC]. He is a student at the University of Central Oklahoma studying to one day become a politician and have a positive influence in our government. I have known [TC] for about two years, and have come to see him as a very blunt man with set opinions.
The other requirement for this report is a person who is not an active Christian. Honestly, I knew exactly who to contact. I turned to a very good friend of mine, [Kryss]. I have known him since elementary school, and we have always had different opinions when it came to religion and views of God. He is a very active atheist/agnostic with also very bold opinions to share with everyone who will listen. He claims to be atheist/agnostic meaning that it is indeed possible for a deity or a group of deities to exist but no evidence to support either has ever been made known. [Kryss] is a student at Oklahoma State University studying [Computer Engineering].
Interview with [TC], a Christian
1) Do you believe that a personal God really exists? Why or why not? Yes, because you are able to have a personal relationship with God the Son (Jesus Christ).
2) Do you believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate? Why or why not? Yes. Jesus either had to be Lord, liar, or a lunatic. If a liar then he could not have been a "good man" or "prophet" as other religions claim. If a lunatic the same follows. He claimed to be Lord and was indeed who he claimed to be.
3) What is the purpose of human existence? To worship God.
4) How do you know what is right and wrong? Through prompting of the Holy Spirit. God gives us a knowledge of right and wrong. The bible says that we are not to expect non-believers to act like believers do. Therefore becoming a Christian (believer) gives us a clearer definition of right and wrong.
5) What happens to a person at death? You die. If you’re a Christian, you either stay here on earth until the 2nd coming, or you pass go and collect $200. Or Christians go straight to heaven upon death. Non-Christians go to hell... eventually to be thrown into the lake of fire where they will cease to exist.
Interview with [Kryss], an Atheist/Agnostic
1) Do you believe that a personal God really exists? Why or why not? If by "personal god" you mean a deity whose personality and actions can be explicitly known though works such as the Bible and the Koran, absolutely not. Those works are not only clearly man-made and intended to control and pacify vulnerable and/or gullible minds by appealing to the basest of human desires, such as to be comforted from our fears (e.g. death), to be given a sense of personal cosmic significance, and to believe in some sort of control behind the chaotic nature of the universe, but are so riddled with scientific and historical (let alone ethical) flaws that to think of them as anything other than at best historical fiction and at worst simply manipulative fairy tales is, to the unbiased mind, asinine.
But if by "personal god", you mean some sort of guiding hand or universally cohesive entity, essentially synonymous with nature, then the existence of such an entity is possible; but only as equally possible as the existence of multiple deities, or no deity at all. And while there is certainly a possibility that a deity or group of deities exists, there has been no evidence or proof to definitively confirm so.
2) Do you believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate? Why or why not? Certainly not. Aside from the aforementioned overwhelming unreliability of the Bible, the Christian concept of Jesus is nearly identical to hundreds of other stories of demigods that had been around for centuries (such as Dionysus, from Greek mythology). Jesus Christ was either a very nice and compassionate leader whose story was distorted and exaggerated to suit the political purposes of the early Christian church, or an out-and-out con artist who was able to manipulate the people of that era into believing he was directly connected to an all-powerful deity to suit his own ambitions and further his own agenda.
3) What is the purpose of human existence? Who says human existence requires a predetermined purpose? Once a person realizes that, as Christopher Hitchens puts it, "The cosmos is not designed with us in mind," it's a profound liberation to see that we are free to create our own purpose rather than to presuppose that the universe put us here for a reason and that it's our job to find it.
4) How do you know what is right and wrong? Our understanding of morality is constantly evolving, just as we are. Two thousand years ago, people thought of the cold-blooded murder that took place in the Roman Colosseum was merely a sport. Civilized modern society, as a whole, has long understood it to be barbaric and, to say the least, immoral. Two hundred years ago, people thought it was all right to enslave an entire group of people simply because they had darker-colored skin. We now understand that slavery of any kind is abhorrent. Twenty years ago, people thought homosexuality was nothing more than sexual deviancy and unnatural perversion. We are now beginning to understand that sexual orientation is a matter of physiology and biology, stemming from brain chemistry and essentially the same as a person's race, though less directly connected to genetics. Our understanding of "right and wrong" is evolving just as humanity as a species is.
5) What happens to a person at death? No one will ever know before they actually die. Although some modern scientists like Aubrey de Grey are working on ways to eliminate death completely, and I say more power to them. Some people accuse them of playing god, but if there really is a god who doesn't want us to play god, I'm sure he'd just twitch his nose and smite them, or something.
Response and Evaluation After conducting these interviews, I was slightly discouraged, because too many times within the church have I seen this happen. People who have no faith are more bold and ready to give an answer than those are commanded to be ready. Not to say that [TC] did not give a proper answer, but to me, they seem concise and maybe without much thought behind them. I found myself thinking, “Well, duh, anyone who actually listens in church could say that,” wondering maybe he should put some more thought into his answers. Then again I do not know how much research he has done for his own personal apologetic. [TC]’s response seemed based on experience only and that there was not much more. [Kryss] gave a very thorough, well-thought response. I asked him to help me because I knew he would give such an answer and take an interest in why I wanted his opinions.
So what then? Who is out there challenging the church to teach their faith? Are we afraid to think about the “Why?” and “How?” because we worry it might lead to doubt, which might lead to unbelief? Why should the church be afraid to examine that which they claim is irrefutable truth? Has the church simply become content with saying that we do not know all the answers and that is acceptable? Granted, we will never know all the answers; yet that should not be an excuse to sit back and not take an active attempt.
My Comments: Heaven help us, no pun intended, if [TC] gets into public office. But then again, since Oklahoma has people like Jim Inhofe in office, it would pretty much be a lateral move.
"Are we afraid to think about the “Why?” and “How?” because we worry it might lead to doubt, which might lead to unbelief? Why should the church be afraid to examine that which they claim is irrefutable truth?"
In a word: Yes. For two thousand years, the Christian church has been horrified at the thought of opening their beliefs up to scrutiny and examination from scientific, historical, and philosophical perspectives. That's how all religion survives: the minute an objection is made to that particular belief system, all the members of that belief system bury their heads in the sand. After all, if we can prevent ourselves from hearing what people like Richard Dawkins have to say, we protect ourselves from having to accept the possibility that what they're saying might actually make sense, right?
But the fundamental problem with all of this is that the Christians who attend colleges like this and like "Liberty" University is that they're not seeking "truth". They're beginning with the assumption that the Bible is innerrant, accurate, and the "word of god". Why? Because that's what they've been ordered to believe their whole lives by their parents and preachers. The problem is that in taking this approach, right off the bat you're rejecting the possibility that the Bible is completely and utterly wrong - and in doing so, rejecting an immeasurably large amount of information and knowledge that may very well point to the "truth". The classic examples of this Christian rejection of reality are the Creationism, and the Young Earth Theory, but now is not the time for debates about such nonsense.
"People who have no faith are more bold and ready to give an answer than those are commanded to be ready."
More than anything, this is because of the recent move toward Atheism and secularism in American over the past 5-10 years. Atheists in America are finally beginning to realize that we don't have to simply sit back and be bullied by moronic cretins who think our beliefs and our way of life are "immoral" or "evil". There's a chapter in Christohper Hitchens' new book called "The Resistance of the Rational", and while I haven't read the chapter in its entirety, most synopses describe the chapter as explaining this in full. There has been an underground movement in America for some time to take the country back from hyperreligious dogmatists who have come to rule it with what can only be described as one click south of an iron fist. Spurred on by intellectuals such as Dawkins, this secularist resistance is beginning to grow more vocal and more bold. If current trends continue, by the middle of the 21st century there will be more secularists in America than Christians.
But back to my previous point about Christians rejecting anything dealing with religion that conflicts with what has already been cemented into their psyche, there is proof of that in [TC]'s response to question #5. It's not just his response, it's the response Christianity has been using for two thousand years:
"Non-Christians go to hell... eventually to be thrown into the lake of fire where they will cease to exist."
"Join us or burn in hell." That sentiment is really the only thing Christianity is about, isn't it? It's certainly not "feed the hungry and clothe the poor", because a) statistics show nonbelievers are almost always more compassionate and caring about the less fortunate in society and b) as shown in any Christian activist group, who has time to be empathetic to those damned welfare cheats while we have abortions and gay marriages to stop? So now we see the heart of Christianity (and Islam, and Judaism, and any other religion throughout history): "Conform to us, or else!"
....which is much easier than trying to fight facts with facts (come to think it, Christians kind of have an empty quiver in that regard). But when someone (like myself) comes to understand that the concept of hell (a place of fiery torture that juuuuust so happens to be reserved for anyone who doesn't agree with their dogma) is little more than one in a long series of fairy tales meant to intimidate and control weak-minded and gullible people, that argument of "Join us or burn in hell", which is the core of Christianity and countless other religions throughout history, loses its sway entirely.
One of the many things that can be learned from all of the recent books by atheist authors who show religion for what it really is is that while the task of gathering enough evidence to conclude that a religion is based on lies, ignorance, antiquated ideas, and little else is straightforward and relatively simple, what's much more difficult is to prove to the believers in that religion that the evidence you've collected is both accurate and adequate. The main reason for this is that the believers in these religions have had their beliefs so entrenched into them since birth that they don't want to believe this disillusionment because that would shatter their perception of the world around them. And the idea of having that perception shattered, of having that bubble of fantasy (in which there is a god who loves them and that they will one day live in a perfect utopia) burst is too frightening for most of them to even consider.
[EDIT]: One quote of [TC]'s that I forgot to mention:
"Yes. Jesus either had to be Lord, liar, or a lunatic. If a liar then he could not have been a "good man" or "prophet" as other religions claim. If a lunatic the same follows. He claimed to be Lord and was indeed who he claimed to be."
First off, just how many religions other than Christianity and Islam claim that Jesus is both a good man and a prophet? Second, if a liar, then they could still make the claim that he is a good man and a prophet if he has successfully decieved them into believing so. Third, the word "lunatic" has different meaning two thousand years ago and today: two thousand years ago, almost everyone thought the earth was flat, and today, people who believe such a thing are called lunatics. Given the aforementioned fact that the story of Jesus is one of hundreds of stories of people who were thought to be prophetic and to posess divine power, it's not hard to see how a common man either skilled in propaganda or completely delusional could make these claims and avoid the label "lunatic". The question is not whether Jesus was Lord, liar, or lunatic, the question is whether Jesus was liar, lunatic, or both.
Youtube Videos (and lots of them!)
Let's start with a video of a mother who has just discovered that her son is an Atheist:
Penn and Teller: "The Bible is Bullshit" (GREAT VIDEO)
Richard Dawkin's response to an audience member's question: "But what if you're wrong?" This is why I love Dawkins: his answer could not have been any more perfect:
Part 1 of Dawkins speaking at a college in Virginia. The above clip is from this lecture.
Part 2 of the above lecture. As a bonus, he often slaps down the imbecility that spews forth whenever an audience member from "Liberty" University opens their mouth:
Christians often whine about being "persecuted" in modern times. What a load of utter garbage. Try this instead - this is the price atheists often pay for living in America:
And now, for some comic relief:
An EXCELLENT video of Julia Sweeney, Christopher Hitchens, and Ellen Johnson. Especially Sweeney's mother's reaction to learning about her atheism:
Bill Maher, doing what he does best:
And finally, a classic. She's a SPIRITUAL WARRIOR!:
The End of the Republican Party? (We can only hope.)
What MoveOn.org said: General Petraeus, or General Betray Us?
What MoveOn.org meant: "General Petraeus has allowed himself to become a puppet of the Bush administration, and in doing so, has turned his back on both his country and the troops under his command."
The Right: "OMFG, THIS 1S LYKE T0TALY OUTR4G3US!!!!!!11 I C4NT B3LIEVE THEY WUD DO SUCH A THNG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111 L1BRALS R EV1L AND HAT3 TEH TROOPS AND HAT3 AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111"
Congressional Democrats: "You criticized him? But he's wearing a uniform! That mean's you can't criticize him, doesn't it? But you did it anyway. And that's mean."
(Later that month....)
Rush Limbaugh: "Troops who don't support this war are phony soldiers!"
The Right: .....
The Left: "Hey! You just bashed troops for opposing your opinion, and did so without constructing any logical arguments! And then you bashed the people who criticized Petraeus, even though there actually is a legitimate reason for why they did it! That's not only asinine, it's hypocritical!"
The Right: "STFU!!!!!!!!1111 RUSH LUVS TEH TROOPS!!!!!!!!111 TH3R3 WUZ N0 HYP0CR1SY AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!111111"
Congressional Democrats: .....
I would almost think that Limbaugh said what he said just because he wanted to subtly prove the point that the right can get away with doing anything to and saying anything about the troops. Anyone with any semblance of common sense can see that Rush, who was one of the right-wingers who went ape-shit over the MoveOn.org ad, was being as hypocritical as anything in the history of hypocrisy after then going on to blatantly attack any and all soldiers who opposed his position on the war. This whole MoveOn/Limbaugh debacle is downright laughable in the level of obtuseness displayed by Rush.
You'd think he'd learn. After all, Rush's bashing of Michael J. Fox over the issue of stem cells is essentially what handed Claire McCaskill her victory over her Republican rival for the Missouri Senate seat in 2006. We all know that story; you could easily make the case that Limbaugh's sick and twisted on-air rants handed Democrats the 51st Senate seat.
And yet he's at it again. "Damn MoveOn for their criticism of an American military man! Oh, and by the way, any American military man who disagrees with my opinion on the war is a phony soldier!"
The American people may not be quick to pick up on things.....but Christ, You'd have to be fucking brain dead to not catch (and/or care about) Limbaugh's 180.
It's just the latest in a series of right-wing fuckups so obvious and severe that they couldn't do a better job of handing 2008 to the Democrats if they tried.
And 2008 is the conservative assessment (pardon the pun). One Republican lawmaker remarked, "There's talk about us going the way of the Whigs."
Three articles I've read recently highlight this:
Leading Indicators Point Down for GOP - This one expands on how the left is crushing the right in terms of fundraising. And most of the left's contributions come from grassroots - the people - as opposed to the right, whose contributions come primarily from the rich and from big business.
The Religious Right's Power Ebbs - Fundamentalist Christianity is (finally) losing it's chokehold on American political power (presumably because Atheism, Secularism, and Freethought are rising exponentially each year). I'll expand on this more in my next post, which will be devoted to religion and Atheism.
In a word: Yes. One EXTREMELY noteworthy example is Bush's recent veto of S-CHIP (State's Children's Health Insurance Program). It would give free health insurance to millions of poor children in America (a small step toward Universal Health Care). What's more, it would do so by raising taxes on cigarettes - health insurance for children would be paid for by the people who already have enough money to take up that god awful habit. It's a win-win, right? Right. And the overwhelming majority of Americans support the bill.
So what does Bush do? He vetoes it.
Talk about things that make no fucking sense: a) It's going to drive his 29% approval rating even lower. b) It puts the right in the position of defending someone who's taking away health care from children. c) It's fucking cruel and downright sadistic.
As Jon Stewart remarks, Bush's actions are actually starting to resemble someone else:
.....which is hilarious, until you realize just how true it is, and until you realize the fact that taking away so much from people who have so little is anything but a laughing matter.
Because as we all know, denying poor children the right to medical care simply because equality despite wealth is a Socialist principle instead of a Capitalist one is EXACTLY what Jesus would have done.
But this S-CHIP veto is just the latest in a ridiculously long line of right-wing fuckups so severe that the country is not only turning left now, it may be turning left long term.
Allowing 9/11 to happen, taking away our freedoms and privacy with the Patriot Act, focusing on banning gay marriage and abortion when they should be focusing on real issues, lying about WMDs, entering a war of choice Iraq, saying we'll only be there 6 months and that it will only cost us $10 billion, failing to plan for the post-war, denying troops body armor and vacation time, extending troop deployments, failing to react to Hurricane Katrina, embracing crony Capitalism, putting us into a debt that will take us at least half a century to get out of, authorizing torture, ignoring global warming, failing to capture bin Laden, failing to secure the borders because of squabbling over how to best punish the people trying to provide a better life for their families, letting Walter Reed go to shit, pushing America ever close to a theocracy......
And that's not even including the sex scandals. Mark Foley, Jeff Gannon, Ted Haggard, Bob Allen, David Vitter, Larry Craig.....party of "family values", indeed......
Right-wing sleazebag commentators are only hastening the separation between conservatism and the future of America. Rush calls troops who disagree with him "phony soldiers". Bill O'Reilly is shocked to find out that African-Americans actually have table manners. Neil Boortz, aside from his asinine idea of the "Fair" Tax, has said this about immigrants: "When we yank out the welcome mat, and they all start going back to Mexico, as a going away gift let's all give them a box of nuclear waste....Tell 'em it'll heat tortillas". It's hard for any rational person not to cringe in the face of such blatant racism.
And to top it all of, the king (pun intended) of all the right-wing nutjob screwballs is coming out with another book. Ann Coulter's latest book is called "Democrats Would Be Republicans If They Had Any Brains". Now, for a commentator who wants herself to be taken seriously, she's a hair off of sounding like Lil the Toddler on the old Rugrats cartoons: "If Brains Were Gasoline, Democrats Wouldn't Have Enough To Power An Ant's Car Around The Outside Of A Penny". Well I hate to break it to you Ann, but most of us have graduated elementary school. We have real jobs now, so we won't have any time to meet you on the playground after school to play a game of Throw Rocks At Poor Kids.
But even Ann Coulter knows that the right-wing could very well be facing the end of it's days. Here's something I noticed while watching Faux News a couple days ago, so I decided to track down a couple pictures for comparison to make sure I wasn't imagining things:
"I AM SMILING, SEE? THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS GOING TO LAST FOREVER! AND JESUS WILL RETURN BEFORE ANYONE PUTS ANOTHER DEMOCRAT BACK INTO THE PRESIDENCY! SEE MY SMILE? HOW COULD ANYONE BE NERVOUS WHEN THEY'RE SMILING AS WIDE AS I AM!"
That's what I noticed when I saw her on TV. Looking much more ragged, and obviously faking a smile that's trying to mask the fact that she knows 2008 and a good chunk of America's political future lies with the left. The exact same kind of forced optimism that Karl Rove showed while he was proclaiming that Republicans would win even more seats in the Congress just days before the 2006 election.
But she was part of what contributed to that. Sane, rational people are repulsed by the things that Coulter, Limbaugh, and Hannity proclaim on a regular basis. The best thing that could ever happen to America would be if political discussions shifted from "right vs. left" (or "right vs. middle", given the wimpy Dems currently controlling Congress) to "middle vs. left". This is Coulter/Limbaugh/Hannity's worst nightmare, but by steadily spewing blatant hatespeech through TV, books, and radio, people have begun to see just how asinine the radical right's "principles" and "values" really are.
It's the combination of that hatespeech with the maliciousness and incompetence of the Bush Regime that has essentially cemented the left's influence over American politics in the near future (and quite possibly for a very long time to come).
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. Readers come and go, readership goes up and down....here's the thing. Xanga is primarily a social networking site, and not a serious blogging site. But Xanga has been losing out to Myspace and Facebook over the past several months. For a lot of people, Xanga was just a fad. A year ago, two or three dozen of my friends in real life had Xangas; now, only a couple do. But to be blunt, I really don't care; I would keep writing on this blog and my other one even if no one at all read them. It's what I do. But in retrospect, I wish I had chosen a host that was geared more toward serious blogging (Blogspot) than toward social networking (Xanga). C'est la vie - I'm not about to dump three years worth of posts just to switch over now. I'll be writing on Defiance_01 for a very, very, very long time. 
