Journalists who have a bias in any direction of the political spectrum beyond “facts” should be dragged out of their houses by the people and shot.

The job of a Journalist is to inform the population; an essential component of any Republic that ensures its citizens can make smart decisions when casting ballots.

When Journalists take it upon themselves to slant an issue, insert their own commentary, or effect political change towards an agenda they personally support, they are violating their duties in the same way as a gynecologist who gets off on fondling your girlfriend during an exam.

In keeping with my use of this blog mainly as a coatrack for stuff I care about, this is just nifty:

Hrm, I don’t have a category for Economics, but I don’t really post much on it anyway.

Originally posted in this thread on Sociocide.

An old friend of mine is currently living in the Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  While keeping up with the goings-on in her life over there, I’ve gotten a clear sense that she’s growing progressively more frustrated with how things are done in a country run by a fundamentalist religion.  I genuinely feel for her in that predicament.

Moral pantywaist apologists notwithstanding, I would hope most clear-headed people are aware of how culturally backwards things are in any country which allows itself to be governed by something as nebulous as faith, and ruled by something as archaic as a monarch.

But my contempt for that situation leads me down a path of thought that intersects with something else that I hold in great contempt; the fact that many (most?) people have a deep-seated need to subject themselves to some form of peonage, be it governmental, ideological, religious, or all three.

I get it, life is already hard enough as it is, and it’s extremely convenient to buy a pre-packaged set of morals, laws, or beliefs.  It’s even more convenient when they’re either free, or in some cases, you’d have to literally fight not to accept them.

I’m also not putting myself above this either; I consider myself a patriot, a Skeptic, and a futurist, all labels that provide others  a certain set of expectations as to my values and actions.  However, when I do label myself, for the sake of convenience, I also make an effort to “hang a lamp” on the fact that it’s precisely the convenience factor that compels me to do so.  Few people would actually care to know anyone’s entire set of values and convictions in casual conversation.  So the act of labeling oneself is useful to allow others to get a sense of who you are at the ten-thousand-foot level.

But just because you stick a label on your forehead that reads “Libertarian”, that doesn’t require you to cast a straight-party ballot, any more than wearing Joe Snuffy’s name tag makes you Joe Snuffy.  Too many people, however, do make this mistake and confuse their self-stuck labels with their core identity, instead of using them as tools for communication.  And when this happens, you start down the road towards the dangerous kind of group-think that destroys individuality, an ultimately, individual sovereignty.

A label isn’t a brand;  you should never be so attached to your convictions that you make them permanent, inescapable, and requiring vigilant devotion. By doing so you fail to allow yourself the opportunity to examine new evidence, consider new points of view, or ultimate, even think for yourself.  You also put yourself in a position where you are obligated to defend views in the face of evidence that refutes them.

The reason this issue concerns me is because of a trend I think I see emerging.  As religious faith in the western world is on the decline, it seems to be being replaced with a religious-like attachment to another ideology.  This is most noticeable in the Skeptics movement, of which as I’ve referenced, I consider myself a part.

If you follow a lot of  “Skeptics” online discussions, you often get a sense of a “party line” to be followed, which is counter to the fundamental nature of “Skepticism” in the first place.   And when you do run into this counter-intuitive phenomenon, it can be extremely frustration.

(For the record, I’m making this criticism as more of a “heads-up”, than an assault on the Skeptics movement, lest some of the conspiracy theorists, paranomalists, or garden-variety looneys try to reference this in an attempt at validating their nonsense.)

I think I owe anyone who reads this, examples of this happening.  Unfortunately I’m pressed for time a bit on what should have been a short jotting of things bouncing around in my head at the moment.  I’ll try to revisit that later, and include my observations about the subjects on which self-labeled Skeptics likely to suspend their critical thinking as well as the types of individuals who seem prone to doing so.

But the most important thing to take away from this is that, you are not your name tag, your labels, your government, or your religion.  You are you, and when you chose to stop being you in exchange for falling in-line with a label, you renounce your individuality.   A human being is not a hive insect; cultural, spiritual, and moral laziness should never be allowed to devolve him into one.

It is incredibly difficult to sit down and compose a coherent post on little more than half a cup of coffee and sheer willpower. And the latter seems to be much more effective than the former.

“Social justice” is a phrase that I’ve seen popping up a lot in the past few days, usually related to left/liberalism and especially within the context of health care. Come to think of it, the guy in my last blog post used the phrase as a part of his denunciation of liberal politics.

So whenever I see a trend like that, whether it’s a genuine emerging phenomenon or just a random fractal blip on the cultural canvas, I do what I can to get my head around it. I mean, it’s not like as grownups we get a vocabulary hand-out to study every week for the test on Friday.

The problem with the term “Social Justice” is that the concept of “Justice” is mostly subjective. And given that the term originates from Liberalism (which is generally anything but, these days), anything with the word “Social” appended to it in that context tends to mean “Government-run and supported by heavy taxation” in my experience.

So if I were to draw a picture of “Social Justice” as espoused by those most likely to use the term, it would probably involve Robin Hood in a cheap suit sodomizing an entrepreneur through his back pocket in a public square in front of a crowd of hippies, celebrities, and slackers. He’d have a briefcase in one hand, and his other would be a fist triumphantly raised in the air.

But being as it’s still early in the morning I’m not even going to pretend I’d attempt to construct an actual image for this. Anyway, feel free to let me know if my picture of “Social Justice” is incorrect.

Oozies This comes from Chicago Gun Rights Examiner, Don Gwinn, via a blog entitled The Breda Fallacy.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – The crime curbing effort has collected over 1,600 guns over the past 2 years and city leaders said this is another successful year.

Mayor Byron Brown said, “We will get anything from long guns rifles, AK-47’s, oozies, so we have gotten those assault weapons.”

And all those weapons are good for a pre-paid credit card, with assault weapons collecting 100 bucks.

I’m not even going to deal with the ridiculous notion of how law-abiding citizens turning in legally owned firearms somehow curbs crime, or the idiocy of the term “buyback” given how the guns never belonged to the government in the first place. But really? Are you that goddamn ignorant that you think “Oozie” is perhaps a slang term for a type of firearm, or worse, the actual spelling of one?

It took me three seconds to do a Google search on the word “Oozie”, and two of those were spent sipping luke-warm coffee. The first 4 results included an Urban Dictionary definition of a Burmese elephant rider and a jazz club or something. Right below those, Google helpfully asks “Did you mean UZI?“.

There’s no excuse for this level of ignorance and lack of fact-checking if you consider yourself a journalist, or even an intern hoping to become a journalist. But it’s symptomatic of the same ignorance when it comes to firearms reporting, and why there’s such a decidedly hostile slant against the amendment that bumps up right next to the one that allows journalism to exist in the first place.

From now on I’m going to refer to journalists who incorrectly report on firearms issues as “Oozies”.

There’s no such thing as either a trustworthy Government, or a trustworthy Business. But at least it’s in the immediate, unavoidable interests of the Business to live up to its obligations; Government never has to close up shop when they overspend their budgets or fail to provide services as obligated.

A large man approaches the front door to a house in the suburbs and rings the doorbell.  It’s answered by a middle-aged woman with a polite, but confused look.

“Are you Sarah Connor Palin?”, the man in sunglasses asks with a thick accent.

“Yes”, she responds, and immediately notices a small, red dot moving up her shirt towards her forehead.

Bang.

Now fortunately the Democratic National Committee doesn’t have a time machine or bodybuilding cyborgs.  But as the saying goes, “there’s no time like the present”, and the DNC or their proxies are already on the hunt to pre-emptively “terminate” any potential opponent for the 2012 election.  Their squad of Terminators obviously isn’t going around with firearms, smashing through walls and doors to get their prey.  The target isn’t the actual members of the Republican opposition, it’s those individuals’ credibility which has been marked for termination. And in the interest of reserving Obama’s stay in the White House for another four years, this political machine feels no pain, no mercy, and absolutely will not stop until that credibility is dead.

Since shortly after the election, this squad of robots has been out in full force, running down a list which began with (and continues to include) Sarah Palin, moved on to young and popular Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and now includes the fiscal conservative Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford.

All three individuals share the potential for a successful run at the oval office in 2012, and all three have been subject to the kind of vitriol that would earn a Republican all sorts of lovely labels including “sexist”, “racist”, “bigot”, among other things.  Governor Sanford had no doubt triggered all kinds of warning alarms in DNCNet when he displayed inexcuseable gall by daring to close his mouth when the federal government attempted to cram $700 Million of national taxpayer’s money down his throat.

So what is the weapon being wielded against Mr. Sanford in this case?

He went for a walk.

Literally.

The Governor of the state of South Carolina took a few days off to go enjoy the natural beauty of the state  he governs and hike the Appalachian Trail.

And for this, he’s been accused of everything from having a screw loose to having a secret gay tryst with Rush Limbaugh.

I personally don’t care either way about all of this.  I just want to document it so that when my descendants wistfully ponder “the good old days when things were simpler”, this may be around to let them know that ultimately, shit never really changes.

Although they probably won’t get the Terminator reference by then.

Edit: Shortly after I posted this, Governor Sanford held a press conference during which he admitted to flying to Argentina to rendezvous with his mistress. My point about the Terminators stands, but it’s as if the Republicans are willingly walking into the line of fire at every opportunity.

Sigh, they really need to split the GOP. If they can lose the “moral majority” then there won’t be the epic, Ted Haggard-level of hypocrisy when they, as all humans eventually do, screw up. You can’t stand on upon a pedestal looking down on others if you’re up there banging hookers, soliciting gay sex in mens rooms, and cheating on your wife.

Like many people inextricably plugged-in to the Internet, I’ve been following the (hopefully) historic events in Iran over the past several days with a combination of horror and hope. Will we get to see the birth of a new, true democracy in the Middle East, or will tyranny slam its fist down upon the people?

But if you haven’t been keeping as much of an eye on the situation, here are a few key things that bear pointing out:

Mousavi, the candidate who lost the “election”, is also the former president of Iran. Under his watch in the 80’s, Iran began its nuclear weapons program. He has, smartly, positioned himself as the defacto head of the uprising, but is nowhere near as liberal as the majority of the people that comprise this movement.

There is an apparent power struggle going on between the Mullahs who appoint candidates for election, and it’s possible that Mousavi only seeks to shift the balance of power within the current system as opposed to what many of the protesters want, which is truly free elections and representative democracy as seen in the west.

The Basij are an extra-government branch of thugs chartered to keep order in support of the hard-line elements in the regime. Ahmadinejad, or “Dinner Jacket” as he’s been not-so-lovingly referred to in many tweets/facebook posts, was once a member of this group.

“Dinner Jacket” apparently was coined by our own former president, in reference to the man’s choice of wardrobe.

60% of Iran’s population is under the age of 30, and highly tech/internet savvy.

Anonymous has offered its support in the cause of free speech and open communication, for what that’s worth.

Fox News, for the most part, has been doing a surprisingly good job of coverage while CNN appears to be toeing the line with the Iranian regime to keep their access to the country. MSNBC has taken off for the weekend and is showing prisonsploitation documentaries. The BBC has apparently been kicked out of Iran (according to the latest news).

Twitter seems to be the primary outlet for most information despite the Basij smashing computers in universities and internet cafes, and the general internet crackdown across the country.