Some of The Strangest Things in The Universe

I thought in honor of Halloween, I might blog a little bit about the strange but true. I figured it might be fun to discuss some of the wackiest things about our universe that although seem utterly impossible or unlikely, are very true and help to fill this universe with the awe and wonder that will hopefully inspire everyone for generations to come. I've created a list of some of the things I've found very strange, but fascinating about our universe, in no particular order of course.

1. BLACK HOLES

One of the most amazing phenomena in our universe for a long time was thought only to be a theory. Conceived accidently by Albert Einstein while explaining his theory of relativity, black holes are a point in spacetime where gravity has become so strong, that nothing, not even light can escape its grasp.

A black hole is created when a very large star, one that is three to five times the mass of our own star, or 3 to 5 solar masses, collapses in on itself, producing a supernova and leaving its black hole corpse behind. At the very heart of every star is an engine of nuclear fusion that fuses hydrogen atoms into helium, the explosion created when the atoms fuse together becomes the fuel of the star. Because stars are so massive, they have very large gravitational force that continually pushes against the surface of the star. At the same time, the star’s inner fusion is creating outward pressure that counteracts the force of the gravity pushing inward. It’s a very real balancing act that is taking place in every star, even our own Sun. But this star is bigger than our Sun, as the star’s hydrogen fuel begins to run out and less helium can be fused, the star begins its expansion phase. The star will continue to expand, as it does, it begins combining helium into heavier elements: Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, etc. It will continue to fuse elements together as the star expands, and only when it begins to fuse Iron, is the star on its final countdown. The problem with iron is that the amount of energy needed to fuse elements into iron exceeds the amount of energy released by the fusion itself. Because the iron fusion process begins absorbing energy instead of radiating it, the star can no longer sustain the pressure needed to keep gravity from collapsing it, and the star begins to collapse in on itself. Within seconds the star will explode but not before gravity crushes all the remaining elements into heavier ones at the core. The star explodes, sloughing off its layer of elemental particles and tossing them into the cosmos. Then suddenly without any energy left, gravity collapses the remaining core into an infinitesimal point of extreme gravity, the black hole.

Once believed to be a terrifying reality of gravity that is the harbinger of doom, a deeper understanding of the process has left scientists understanding that although black holes certainly mean death, they are also critical to life as their process has helped seed our universe with the elements necessary to create life.

An example of a stellar black hole.

2. NEUTRON STARS

Not all stars become black holes when they supernova, because not all stars are large enough and have enough mass for that to occur. Some stars become even stranger objects when they die than a black hole.
Neutron stars form when a star with mass equivalent to about three solar masses collapses into a supernova, but the process is halted because the gravitational mass of the star was not big enough to cause it to collapse further, the outer layers of the star containing elemental particles are sloughed off, leaving behind a stellar remnant comprised almost entirely of neutrons. Neutron stars are so dense that a teaspoon of its material would weigh 5.5×10¹² kg or 5,000 million tonnes.

Artwork depicting a neutron star.

3. MAGNETARS

As if Neutron Stars were not weird enough, some Neutron stars form into something stranger called the Magnetar.  Magnetars form when a newly formed spinning Neutron Star with a perfectly aligned magnetic field and enough heat, causes it to convert heat and rotation into magnetic energy. The resulting stellar remnant becomes a dense magnet of pure neutrons. So dangerous are the effects of magnetars that a small change in the surface of a magnetar, can cause a quake on the star that would burst energy that could be felt as far as 50,000 light-years away, that’s halfway across our own Milky Way galaxy. The electromagnetic energy would be strong enough to fry unshielded electronic equipment.

Actual NASA photo of a distant magnetar.

4. PULSARS

When a Neutron Star forms, if its angular momentum is strong enough, it can emit electromagnetic beam of energy from its axis which shines outward like the beam of light coming from a lighthouse. As the star spins faster and faster, the star’s light appears to pulsate, hence its name: Pulsar.

Actual NASA photo of distant pulsar.

5. SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES

When scientists went snooping at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, they discovered that something odd was occurring there. Around the center were dozens of stars that appeared to be orbiting very quickly around an invisible object, at seemingly astronomical speeds. Typical stars move through space around 220 km/s. These orbiting stars were moving around this invisible object around 5,000 km/s, approximately 22 times faster than our Sun moves through space, indicating a massive gravitational field. But when scientists looked with telescopes, they saw nothing was there. Scientists then began to examine the orbit of these stars over time and could see that each orbit had a common focal point. Toward its center there is a faint radio emission scientists dubbed Sagittarius A, which doesn't seem to be moving much at all, indicating that it’s tied to something much more massive. When you examine the mass around Sagittarius A, you reach something of a lower limit of 4 million solar masses. Astronomers can't see the galactic center well enough to measure exactly how large Sagittarius A is, but they can say for sure that its radius is no larger than about two-tenths the distance between the Earth and the sun. That means that something 4 million times more massive than our own Sun fits inside an area that would fit the orbit of Mercury, astronomers could only draw from this one conclusion. At the center of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole. Intrigued, scientists began looking at other galaxies, and were astonished to find that each galaxy they looked at appeared to have at its center a supermassive black hole. Scientists now believe all galaxies have them.

There has been much speculation as to why they exist, and where they came from, but much of that remains a mystery. Most scientists believe that these supermassive black holes formed from very massive stars that formed long after the big bang, during its infancy, when galaxies were still forming. As the gas and dust coalesced, the supermassive black holes pulled the gas and dust together, allowing smaller stars to form, and the angular momentum of the supermassive black hole continued to spin the galaxy allowing everything within to coalesce. In a very real sense, all galaxies owe their existence to black holes, without which nothing would have stuck together. It is believed that the angular momentum that continues to spin the black holes allows galaxies to rotate continuously, moving everything throughout the universe.

Example depiction of supermassive black hole.

6. QUASARS

Until recently, Quasars were kind of a mystery. Much of why they exist remained a mystery, but due to the discovery of supermassive black holes, quasars can be more easily explained. A Quasar is a very energetic and active galactic nucleus. Quasars are very luminous and some of the brightest objects in the universe and are responsible for much of the light that can be seen at the center of some galaxies. Quasars are believed to be the compact region of space that surrounds the supermassive black hole at the center of each galaxy. It’s powered entirely by the accretion disc surrounding that black hole. Quasars emit a radio signal that can be picked up as x-rays and gamma rays extend outward from its center.

Actual NASA photo of a distant quasar.

7. GAMMA RAY BURSTS

When a star goes supernova producing a black hole, the black hole begins sucking everything in around it. Much of what is left of the star that hasn't escaped its gravitational grasp begins being deposited into the black hole’s event horizon at a tremendous rate. So much material begins passing through this tiny hole in space that eventually the black hole burps, sending out a burst of pure gamma radiation, so bright it will outshine anything else in the universe, and vaporizing everything in its path for thousands of light-years. So powerful are these bursts that if a star exploded within close relative distance to Earth that produced a gamma ray burst in our path, it would wipe out all life on Earth. It has also been observed that primordial galaxies produced massive gamma-ray bursts at their center during formation, an occurrence that can now be explained by supermassive black holes.

Actual NASA photo of gamma ray burst.

8. NEUTRINOS

Neutrinos are tiny almost massless particles that pass seemingly through everything, all the time, with no interaction. Neutrinos do not carry electric charge, which means that they are not affected by the electromagnetic forces that act on charged particles such as electrons and protons. Neutrinos are affected only by the weak sub-atomic force. Because of this neutrinos can pass through matter completely unimpeded. Neutrinos are produced in a variety of ways, either through the process of nuclear fusion in a star, or as a result of supernova, or even through radioactive decay.

Actual image of neutrinos interacting with other particles.

9. COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND RADIATION

When the universe was in its infancy, before the formation of stars and planets, it was smaller, much hotter, and filled with a uniform glow from its white-hot fog of hydrogen plasma. As the universe expanded, it cooled off. When the universe cooled enough, protons and electrons could form neutral atoms. These atoms could no longer absorb the thermal radiation, and the universe became transparent. As photons began freely flowing throughout the universe, their wavelengths increased over time, as it expanded and they grew less energetic. This produced a glow that could be seen uniformly throughout the universe and could be picked up by radio telescopes as a hum.

This hum is evidence of our universe’s beginning, and before we switched our televisions to a digital signal, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation could be felt, anytime a television network went off the air, leaving static on your television.

WMAP reading of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

10. DARK MATTER

When scientists with apparently a lot of time on their hands wanted to know how much the universe weighed, they began adding up all the matter in the universe and came to an astonishing inaccuracy. If you account for all observable matter in the universe, there is a large chunk of matter that cannot account for what is actually out there. That means that the universe weighs more than it’s letting on. This didn't make a whole lot of sense, so a scientist by the name of Fritz Zwicky hypothesized that there must be some type of matter out there that cannot be seen, and must account for the missing matter. He dubbed this phenomena dark matter. After years of calculations we now know that dark matter accounts for 84% of all the matter in the universe and 23% of the mass-energy. So much of the matter that exists today, is completely unseen, and undetectable by modern instrumentation, however  there are indicators to suggest that dark matter really does exist.

When scientists began looking into galactic formations they observed that in some galaxies density of star formation could not account for enough gravity and kinetic energy to keep the stars in the galaxy. The only plausible explanation why a galaxy with stars so far from each other could hold themselves together gravitationally would be if there was some force that was holding them together. This force is dark matter. If the matter unseen between stars, accounted for the missing gravity, it would explain that much of the matter in galaxies is actually dark and it’s this binding force that holds things together.

NASA Hubble map of dark matter.

11. DARK ENERGY

When scientists convinced that the expansion of the universe was slowing down peered into the universe for a look, they made an astonishing discovery. Not only was the universe not on the verge of collapse, but indeed its expansion was accelerating exponentially. This meant that galaxies were accelerating away from each other faster and faster as time passes. Scientists have come to dub this mysterious phenomenon as Dark Energy. Once you account for everything in the universe something amazing happens, Dark Energy accounts for 72% of all the mass-energy in the universe today, 23% of it accounted for by Dark Matter, and only 4.6% of it from Atoms. That means all the galaxies, planets, stars, moons, comets, asteroids, and life account for almost nothing. The universe is mostly made up of stuff we can’t see or detect, and remain partially a mystery.

Because of Dark Energy, ultimately the fate of our universe has already been decided. Eventually the light from galaxies will be too far from each other to ever reach, and the light inside each galaxy will slowly fade over time. As each star fades away into darkness, without a supply of new hydrogen, no new stars will form, and eventually all the light in the universe will go out and all that will be left is a cold, dark shell of a once brilliant existence. And on that day when the last star’s light dims out for the last time, like a candle in the wind, the universe will breathe its last breath, and its last light, will go out, and it will die, cold, alone, in the vast emptiness.

Example of web-like effect of Dark Energy, pervasive in universe.

12. QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT

When quantum particles interact physically and separate, sometimes they take on the characteristics of each other. This means that two particles become a pair, which otherwise would not have. It has been shown that this pair will remain identical until a measurement is taken, at which point one particle will decide to change its characteristic, which then forces the other to take on this characteristic as well. What seems most amazing about this phenomenon is that entangled particles can change other particles even over vastly large distances, where it would seem that a connection would be impossible. In lab experiments entanglement has been used for the first time to teleport information from one position to another. If ever the possibility of future Star Trek type transporters exists, it will be from the work with quantum entanglement that such a thing becomes possible.

Depiction of two particles entangled together.

13. QUANTUM TUNNELING

Quantum tunneling is an effect where a particle can pass through a barrier it would not normally have the energy to surmount.  Because of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle on particles that disallows a certain amount of knowledge to ever be known about the particle, the probability of a particle passing through a barrier becomes as probable as it would not. Thus a particle can borrow energy from the barrier that it is interacting with, allowing it to pass through it, effortlessly, and then simply discard the energy. And this is where it gets really weird, because the energy of the particle cannot be measured accurately, the particle can be in many places on its way to the barrier including passing through and being on the other side. It is only when such a measurement is taken, that the particle decides its position. So for a time, the particle is indeed in every place it could be, in front, inside, and on the other side of the barrier.

Example of quantum tunneling physics.

14. NEBULAE

Nebulae are extremely large clouds of dense, hot, dust, gas, and plasma. Nebulae which can span light-years across are the birth place of stars. It is in this dense cloud of material that the amazing process of star formation begins, when gas and dust coalesce into new baby stars. This stellar nursery is responsible for the cluster formation of thousands of stars to form in galaxies.

Actual NASA photo of Eta Carinae Nebula

15. LIFE

Maybe the strangest thing to come out of our universe is found in abundance on our planet Earth. Life is a wonderfully mysterious result of billions of years of cosmic evolution. And as much as we do know about how life evolved, we still know little about the chemistry that allowed it to form in the first place. As we expand ourselves outward in our own universal backyard, we look to places inside our own solar system that we believe will have life.

Three candidates with the best possibilities are Jupiter’s little moon Europa, and the moons of Saturn, Titan and Enceladus. Europa is a small moon covered in ice marked with a cracked eggshell-like appearance that suggests reformation. Because of the intense gravitational pull of Jupiter it is believed that beneath its icy surface lies a deep liquid ocean of water, a natural womb for the possibility of life outside our own planet. Saturn’s moon Titan is another candidate for the possibility of life, besides Earth, it is the only known place in our solar system with liquid lakes. Although Titan does not have water per se, its liquid lakes of methane, and endless hydrocarbon rain, allow the possibility of life to form. It is believed that for life to form liquid is necessary in whatever form, because it is only through the natural motion of liquid that interaction of molecules can occur freely. And although water is not in the equation for Titan, its liquid-formed lakes of natural gas do allow for life to form chemically. But maybe the best chance for life to form in our solar neighborhood beyond Earth lies on the icy moon of Saturn called Enceladus. When NASA’s Cassini photographed geysers of hot water spewing from cracks in its surface, it meant that below the surface of that moon exist reservoirs of liquid water, heated by the gravitational pull of Saturn on the little moon. And if liquid water exists, so does the possibility of life.  

Actual photo of unlinked DNA under a microscope.

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A War Over States’ Rights

In the first presidential debate of the season, Mitt Romney the republican candidate attacked President Obama on many issues, but none so more than the Affordable Care Act; he referred negatively to as Obamacare. Romney continued to echo the republican view on states’ rights when he sighted that in Massachusetts, his state-wide insurance plan worked, but wasn't right for America. Over and over, Romney continued to poke the viewers with this republican ideal about states’ rights, but just where did this come from? Where exactly does it say that States’ have rights over the federal government? Romney continued the attack and even referenced the constitution and declaration of independence, although incorrectly as I will explain.

So just where did this view on states’ rights come from?


Well if you believe the republicans, our constitution. But since the only two things a republican knows about our constitution is that it grants people the right to hold their bible in one hand and a gun in the other, we know it’s just not so.

So what does the constitution say about states’ rights?

Amendment X:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Now what republicans would like you to believe is that the government of each state is granted the right to make decisions about its state as long as the constitution doesn't specifically say otherwise. And at first glance it does seem to make sense. But then there is article XI, clause two, referred to as the supremacy clause, which reads:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

This is important because it clearly states that the Federal government and its powers are supreme, and judges in those states shall be bound to the laws of the federal constitution. It states that where contradictions between constitutions, state and federal happen, federal law is supreme.

What does this all mean?

It means that each state has the right to create its own constitution, granting rights to the citizens of its states, however when any such right contradicts federal law, than the state must set aside its laws in favor of the federal law. Now for some people, this sounds terrible. There are people out there who consider themselves an American second only to membership in their state first, as if there existed this commonwealth of independent states.  Although it may seem as if states are independent, and in some respect they may be, they are all part of the same republic. In the federalist papers, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two of the founders of this nation, wrote that the Supremacy clause of the constitution was vital to enforce the powers of the federal government, that ratification of the constitution alone, gave the federal government supremacy over the rights of the states.

So we know that the intention of the founders was to give the federal government authority over states as well as constitutionally overriding power.

So where did this issue of states’ rights come from?

Well it should be no surprise that the idea of states making their own decisions came from the south. In the 1820’s the South was a major exporter of agriculture both foreign and domestic. The south benefited heavily from the agriculture of crops farmed in the south exclusively through slave labor. The north at the time in contrast relied heavily on industry, and the two sides clashed on basic policies. In 1828, Congress passed tariff legislation that heavily benefited the north and punished the south simultaneously. The only thing that continued to allow the south to compete with the northern industrial explosion was its use of free labor, with slavery. Never more was the term of states’ rights brought into the minds of the citizens than on the subject of slavery. In the years leading up to the civil war, many debates were held between the members of northern abolitionists and southern slave owners. Southerners maintained that their economy built on the backs of slaves would crumble to dust if they were to succumb to the public discord in the north calling for the abolishment of slavery. Furthermore, this idea of states’ rights played vital in the ability of slave owners to move product through states that did not support their cause. Northern states, whose public outrage at slavery led citizens to free slaves whenever they encountered them in the north, caused a battle between the abolitionists and slave owners that ended in the 1857 Supreme Court decision affirming the right of slave owners. Ultimately, this decision as well as the electing of President Lincoln and the Republican Party, the tariffs and unsavory opinion of the south are what probably led to the civil war.

Although it was widely held that the Republican Party were not in favor of slavery, Lincoln himself stated that his only intention was to restore that which had been taken illegally, calling the cessation of southern states “legally void.” Lincoln’s primary goal was to restore the Union of states and although the issue of slavery was one that his party did not tolerate, it was secondary to his primary goal. Had Lincoln been able to restore the Union to what it was without abolishing slavery, he would have done so. The confederacy believed that cessation allowed them to form a new independent government, and sent representatives to Washington offering a monetary settlement with the Union that granted the confederacy federal properties they had already taken. Lincoln tossed the men from his office, believing that any negotiation with the confederacy would be a sign of acceptance of a sovereign nation. To show his determination Lincoln ordered troops to guard forts, even against overwhelming odds. This cost the lives of thousands of men.

In 1862, Lincoln discussed at length with his cabinet the possibility of ending slavery in contested states. Lincoln believed that in order to push the idea throughout the Union, he would need to show everyone the force of the Union, in order to make it a completely popular one. He also believed that by doing so he could solidify those on the fence, and force the war into the slave states. On September 17, 1862 President Lincoln would get his chance. The battle of Antietam, a decisive victory for General Lee, allows the president just five days later to announce to his cabinet the content of his proclamation.  On January 1, 1863, by executive order, Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation. The executive order granted the freedom of slaves in contested states, but did not grant freedom for all, or an end to slavery.  Nearing the end of the civil war, abolitionists in his party believing that the proclamation was merely a war act, pressured Lincoln to make it something permanent. Lincoln concerned with his own re-election, pushed the idea through the Congress which enacted the 13th amendment abolishing slavery.

Now although slavery had been abolished, equal rights were another thing. After all, the idea that a black man was 3/5 a white man was still very popular, even if they had severed the shackles of slavery. Over the next 100 years, southern states would fight vigorously to oppress black citizens.

In the 1960’s it was well known that “states’ rights” was a term used when referring to segregation. During the period from 1876 to 1965, southern states formerly part of the confederacy adopted a set of policies referred to as the “Jim Crow” laws. These policies were meant to substantiate the mentality flowing through the minds of southerners that blacks were “separate but equal.” These policies allowed the formerly confederate states to create an entirely segregated society which favored the whites of society. With these laws, the legislators were able to create separate schools, transportation, restaurants, restrooms and drinking fountains for whites and for blacks. It also made illegal, the usage of any of these segregated services by someone of the other race. These laws would remain in effect until 1954 in a landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. Although it is hard to say for sure where the civil rights movement began, this is by far a pivotal moment for that movement.

In 1890 Louisiana began segregating its railway cars, a move to fall in line with the segregation of other services provided in the southern states. To many this was just another act of torture being perpetrated on the blacks in the south. Railway cars in those days were not air conditioned as they are today, and the accommodations in the blacks-only cars were less than accommodating. Many saw this as a chance to challenge these new laws, and a committee was formed to try and repeal the law. A man by the name of Homer Plessy was asked if he would like to be the one to challenge the law, and he agreed. On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought his first-class ticket and boarded the train. He immediately sat in the whites-only car as instructed by the committee. When Plessy was asked to move to the blacks-only car, he refused, and was arrested.

When Plessy appeared before the judge he argued that his rights under the 13th and 14th amendments of the constitution were violated, asking the judge to dismiss the case. The judge declined, and the found him guilty. Plessy was not done of course, and he and the committee appealed the decision to the State Supreme Court of Louisiana, which upheld the original ruling. With one more shot, Plessy appealed his case to the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, and on April 13, 1896, four years later oral arguments were heard on the case. Plessy’s attorney argued that his client’s rights under the constitution’s 13th and 14th amendments did not allow Louisiana to treat him any differently because of the color of his skin. He offered the notion that such treatment continued to subject blacks to the feeling of being property. On May 18, 1896, the court handed down its 7-1 decision, rejecting Plessy’s arguments and establishing the “separate but equal” doctrine that would continue until Brown v. Board of Education. The only dissenting opinion was that of Justice Harlan, who almost prophetically called the decision infamous, sighting that its court’s decision would create a racial divide that would be felt for a long time to come, and believed that the constitution should be seen as “color-blind.”

With established segregation laws in place throughout the south, things remained “separate but equal” until 1951 when the parents of elementary school children decided to file a class action suit against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. The parents with the help of the local NAACP, attempted to enroll their children in closest available schools in their district only to be turned away to the segregated schools. On August 3rd, 1951, the district court handed down their decision rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments and citing the original Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 Supreme Court decision.

Although the Supreme Court would hear the arguments first in December of 1952, they were unable to reach a decision and it seemed as if the issue would remain in limbo. In reality, a plan was being hatched by Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter who wanted to delay the case to allow the court to reach a unanimous decision in favor of desegregation. Although, a unanimous decision was not required to rule on the arguments, those who believed the original court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson to be a moral question and ultimately wrong believed that a strong united message of opposition would be needed to stop segregation. With the dissenters finally agreeing to rule in favor, arguments were reheard on December 8, 1953. On May 17th, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and rule in favor of Brown, ending the segregation of public schools.

Although the decision was accepted easily in some states, others like Virginia, and Texas opposed the desegregation by organizing citizen’s campaigns and closing schools rather than allow the integration. In a story that became national news, June 11, 1963, Gov. George Wallace personally blocked the doors at the University of Alabama to prevent the enrollment of two black students and only moved when ordered by a member of the National Guard following the orders of President Kennedy.

Many brave individuals who risked life and limb, like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, Jr. are shining examples of individuals who believed their rights were more important as human beings, than the rights of any state.

April 4th 1968, one day after giving his most famous speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. What was surely an attempt to silence the civil rights movement by removing its most prominent figure, turned into another of its most pivotal moments, making the man a martyr for the cause. Riots broke out all throughout the United States, cries for justice and want for the things he saw in his dreams to come true. Only a week after his assassination, Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1968; this effectively ends the practice of segregation in the United States. All challenges prove to fail as all forms of segregation are then declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Since the end of the civil rights movement of the 60's, the term had not been used, until it was reawakened by the Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas in 2010. Since the days of Lincoln, the Republican Party has changed quite a bit. The Republican Party that elected presidents Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Theodore Roosevelt, is not the same Republican Party that exists today. The modern Republican Party began its decline into insanity around the time that Ronald Reagan was elected president. That party has since turned into a class of wealthy, white, religious, bigoted individuals who believe their ideologies on government outweigh the common good. They believe that the only laws worth preserving are the ones dictated to them by a holy book full of hatred, and violence. In the last thirty years the redistribution of wealth in this country has resulted in an economy of corrupt wealthy few who capitalize on the need of others, taking advantage of the weak to gain strength, a parasite on the American public. This 1% believes they can control what the other 99% of people can do in this country and it starts with gaining control of our politicians.

Of course, controlling individual politicians in Congress and even the white house is not enough. You see again, individuals perceive themselves to be Americans, but only second to being part of their state, and it is there that war must be waged, and won, in order to control the Union.

Throughout the last thirty years in the modern Republican Party no issue as much as the issue of equality of the LGBT community has been so polarizing. The uncanny treatment of this community echoes the treatment of blacks during the civil rights movement so closely that the opposition of these two could be juxtaposed against each other with little difference. As if the constitution were written on an etch-a-sketch, Republicans would have you believe that civil rights apply to just about anyone, except homosexuals. As if history were merely the memory of another nation’s past, with nothing to look back at as an example of moral judgment, those who enjoy the rights others fought so hard to grant them, with a callous heart, turn against those who demand equality. Nevermore has the utter hypocrisy of the Republican Party been so clearly seen as it has been on this issue.

September 21, 1996, then President Bill Clinton a democrat signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, which federally defined marriage between a man and a woman. Since that time, Clinton has changed his view, advocating for same-sex marriages throughout the United States. President Obama has called the Act a violation of the principles of the constitution, and ordered the Department of Justice to not defend any case brought before a court where the law was challenged. Republicans, who have taken on the role of bigot party, have instructed their party’s lawyers to defend the law in place of the Department of Justice. Since 2004, six states now recognize same-sex marriages as legal in their state, but because of the provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act, their marriages are only legal in the states in which they were married. The Supreme Court of the United States is slated to hear arguments on this Act in cases, as early as next year.

 So what is the problem?

The same Party that has been advocating for States’ rights has been pushing for a federal law making same-sex marriage illegal under the supremacy clause of the constitution. The same clause that grants a federal mandate be treated by each state as law, the same clause for which those who continue to argue States’ rights, I.E. republicans, are supreme. Hypocrisy unfortunately is seemingly part and parcel with that party. It’s not just on issues of same-sex marriage, they continue to push for federal laws banning abortion, an issue of health, at the same time crying foul when the federal government impose healthcare mandates across the nation.

What should be clear is that States are given latitude on issues involving how each state wants to govern itself, and federal mandates are only made on issues that affect everyone equally.

As I mentioned in the beginning Mitt Romney attacked the president and referenced the constitution and declaration of independence, albeit incorrectly.

He said, “The role of government is to promote and protect the principles of those documents.” He continued, “First, life, and liberty. We have a responsibility to protect the lives and liberties of our people…”

The problem is, he doesn't understand what that statement even means, or he doesn't believe it himself. Calling for States’ rights in the face of a federal document that grants supremacy over state government is tantamount to the confederacy asking Lincoln for sovereignty for the confederate states. There is something else that document mentions, although I’m sure Gov. Romney only memorized the portions he felt he needed. It mentions the principle of a Perfect Union. It mentions by name several times, the United States, not Separatist States, of America.

Life, Liberty?

Words to a man, who believes States’, should have the right to mandate separate laws.

Like the southern States of old republic that believed blacks were 3/5 a man?

Segregated their lives to inferiority based on the color of their skin?

You mean those states?

Do you mean those same states, now asking for states’ rights being able to decide how two people can show love for each other?

Is that what you mean Gov. Romney?

Or was it merely your attempt to slide those issues by, in disguise of the Affordable Care Act, that not only guarantees no citizen can ever be denied medical coverage because they were born with a condition, but grants every child in this country the care they need to survive, and gives support to millions of people who otherwise would not have it. You see Gov. Romney, when you seek to classify states as sovereign entities, merely to reverse the laws in that constitution, that already grant people life and liberty, you offend the lives of every man and woman who defended with their lives, that document, and reduce it to a rag of parchment, covered in the signatures of people whose ideas founded this nation with the blood of patriots. That declaration of independence you referred to was signed by fifty-six men who knew signing it, would be signing their own death warrants. Those men, you so effortlessly and figuratively shat on, by mentioning that document, would rather have died than give up their liberties, the very liberties you seek to take away from people, by granting state sovereignty.

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The Hypocrisy of Religion

I thought I’d take a stab at something that has been bothering me as of late, hypocrisy. You see religion in general and not just Christianity is full of it. People who see themselves as religious hold some values, but fail to understand what those values truly mean. For example, the issue of people who consider themselves to be Pro-Life. That is, people who call themselves Pro-Life as opposed to Pro-Choice. No more has there been such a divisive issue in the last 40 years, than the issue of abortion. People who feel it’s their place to tell women what they can do with their own bodies. Now this issue brings up quite a lot of hypocrisy, not only by the usage of the moniker ‘Pro-Life’ but merely in their ideology itself.

Pro-Lifers are typically conservative republicans who believe that government is bad, too big, and too over-stepping. People like this believe that government should be reduced to nothing more than a sign that says: Here sits the United States. There is nothing wrong with having an ideology, however outright hypocrisy leads to credibility problems, and such is the problem with the Pro-Lifers. Because anyone who believes government has no business telling citizens what they can do with their healthcare, their money, and their education, loses all credibility if they believe that same government should be legislating what a women should be able to do with her own body.


People who hold this view, must not see the irony in electing politicians to congress that view government as an intrusive body that needs to be stopped, at the same time granting it the power to be overly intrusive. That said, it’s not the only hypocrisy with Pro-Lifers.

The biggest problem I have with the Pro-life movement isn't that they have taken a stance against abortion, but rather that their stance is that all life is important, all life is sacred. So then let’s continue to talk about this issue attacking a fundamental part of their ideology, which is that all life must have some value. If you support the idea that life is sacred on religious grounds than you must concede that all life is venerable, because to assert that life has some value because its blessed by God, or created by God means, that to take such a life is to go against God, or to disrespect his creation. After all, if God really did create everyone, and you believe that human life is sacred, you do so because God gave such a life to the world, and respect should be shown to this life. Now there is a point to where I am going with this and it leads back to hypocrisy within their religious ideology.

Now as I have already said most Pro-Lifers are conservative republicans, and part of the typical ideology of a modern conservative is one who believes in the death penalty. Now I won’t go into a deep discussion about the abhorrent nature of capital punishment, except to say that it is most certainly hypocritical for anyone to picket an abortion clinic holding signs that criticize abortion in one moment and hold signs at an execution hailing capital punishment in another. You see never is there more certain an issue of hypocrisy than in the modern conservative party who seeks to ban abortions throughout this country but extend capital punishment to all states.

Pro-Lifers tend to be the poorest Americans living mostly in the southern states, the Bible belt, a place where American Pride seems to be a strong part of everyday life. It is a place where people honor their country with a flag on every porch and a son or daughter from every family in some military service. And it is there where much of the Pro-Life movement is strongest. But in just such a place why can someone so strongly believe in the sanctity of life and be so eager to send their child off to fight a war? It is hypocritical for any person to believe all life is sacred and hand over like a pagan sacrifice their own child, sending it like a lamb to the slaughter. To add insult to injury, a person who believes in the sanctity of human life, but holds no value to those lives of people who are not citizens of their own country are too a hypocrite. The bible, that book the Christians hold so dear and build their faith on, talks a lot about murder and one thing that is clear from Exodus is God’s Ten Commandments. Rules set forth by God himself, given to Moses as instructions for everyone to live by. And one of those rules, plain as day, says: Thou shalt not kill. It does not say, thou shalt not kill, except those of a different color, different religion, or different ideology.

I was fortunate to be born in this country, maybe not with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I always had food to eat, a place to sleep, and medicine when I needed it growing up. Estimates are that 17 million children in the United States of America go to bed each night having not eaten a thing all day. 1 in 45 children, 1.6 million of them, homeless, have no place to live, no place to play, except the street corner or garbage where they go to find food.  1 in 4 children in the United States of America have gone without some form of health care. The estimates are that 9 million are completely uninsured, over 11 million are only insured part of the year, and 3 million simply have no way to actually see a doctor. That means 23 million children in this country at one time or another during a typical year go untreated.

It is a travesty that in a country where so many people enjoy living their lives with seemingly no cares in the world, so many children through no fault of their own do not have the things they need to live. We live in a consumerist country where people spend, spend, and spend again. They buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have. They visit all you can eat restaurants and engorge themselves into a bigger waist line, and then throw the remaining food into the trash can as if from some inexhaustible source created just for them. They return to their fancy homes and watch reality shows on their wall-sized big screen televisions, depicting the same type of grossly inarticulate excuses for human beings they are themselves, doing tremendously embarrassing or overly ridiculous acts of stupidity all in the name of money. They go to bed at night, secure in their gated communities, and filled with a sense of accomplishment for escaping such a horrendous day, where they were approached by a homeless person, received a latte with cream instead of soy, and had to wait in line at the check-out because an elderly lady counted out the change she had in her purse to purchase a can of cat food, she plans to eat because it’s cheaper than a can of tuna. Tomorrow he or she will wake up, with no cares in the world and repeat their day over again.

The hypocrite who believes all life is sacred but allows anyone, especially a child, to starve, live on the street, or to be without healthcare, has no business declaring them self to be Pro-Life.

• If you are Pro-War, you are not Pro-Life.
• If you are Pro-Death penalty, you are not Pro-Life.
• If you believe it is ok to save the life of an unborn fetus, but allow a child to starve, you are not Pro-Life.
• If you believe the slogan “You’re on your own,” fits your ideology, you are not Pro-Life.
• If you are okay with wealthy people getting wealthier, and poor people becoming homeless, you are not Pro-Life.
• If you are unwilling to help sick, disabled, and elderly people unable to work or support themselves, you are not Pro-Life.
• If you are against Universal Healthcare, you are not Pro-Life.
• And if you are against abortion even in cases of incest, or the rape of a minor, then you are a religious hypocrite, and not Pro-Life.

Matthew 19:14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” 

Jesus Christ, the man for whom a Christian’s entire religion is based, said that children are considered holy, they belong to God. Pro-Lifers claim to love all life, but they clearly set higher value to some and a lower value to others. If the basis for the argument against abortion is truly a matter of protecting children, than such an argument should apply to all children equally, however those who call themselves Pro-Life do not see it as such. For these people they are not so much Pro-Life or even Pro-Children, but rather Pro-Fetus.

As an atheist and a humanist, I too believe life is precious, but I am unwilling to place a higher value on the life of an unborn child, as opposed to a person on death row. That is because, even if the person on death row has committed terrible atrocities, I know the knowledge contained in his brain, the experiences he has had, and the life he has lived is still worth more than the life unlived by a bunch of cells in the uterus of a woman.  Now I’m sure I’ll get plenty of hate mail, and I’m okay with that, but the statement is one I hold to. A child, who is unborn, is not a person, because a person is someone who has lived, and a fetus has not lived. Although, it is easy to claim that life begins at conception, or even when a child could conceivably live on its own outside the womb, the reality is we are products of our own minds. We all live in a world of our creation, perceiving the world around us through the environment in which we build our experiences from. That is to say, we build our lives, one experience at a time, as we move throughout a day. We are literally the products of our own experiences. In effect, a person’s life is a blend of those experiences over time. But a fetus has had no experiences. A fetus has no perception of time, or the passage there of. To argue that a fetus has value merely because it is alive is to devalue that which has lived.

Hypocrisy isn't isolated to Christianity of course; it exists in all religions, but none so more than a religion where its followers like to refer to their religion as: The religion of peace. Of course, I’m referring to the Islamic religion, which of course is the farthest thing from a peaceful religion you could have.

It is hypocritical to refer to your religion as a peaceful religion when your own holy book the Al-Qur’an says things like:

“Those who reject our signs, We shall gradually visit with punishment, in ways they perceive not.”

Anyone reading that would know it to mean, reject our teachings and you will be punished in ways you cannot even imagine. To claim peaceful intent is highly hypocritical when the book for which your entire religion is based upon, pronounces punishment, not for an actual crime, instead for an idea, a thought. To continue, it is widely taught and known that Islam requires that the punishment for apostasy is death. It’s highly suspect when a religion punishes someone for something considered a crime, based not on established law, but merely on religious doctrine. Worse still, that punishment is death, not for committing a crime anyone with either sanity or at least some moral sense would consider worthy of death, but instead based on devotion or the lack there of, to their religion. It’s a little akin to a gang whose members join for life. No one with any sense would ever claim that any gang displays a peaceful intent, so it is both hypocritical and disingenuous to continue to refer to your religion as one of peace.

Recently the embassy in Libya was overrun by Islamic terrorists and innocent people were killed. Now it is easy for those not responsible for this attack, or the attacks on 9/11 or the attacks throughout the world in the name of Islam to condemn them as anything but the work of religious extremists. The problem is even if that is an accurate assessment, it does not change the fact that they are Islamic extremists following the text found in the holy book they all consider the word of God. There are Christians who wake up every Sunday morning and go to church, they pray and they lead productive lives. There are also Christians who dedicate their lives to bombing abortion clinics, and picketing, and murdering doctors, and whether they are extremists in their religious views or not, and they are, they are still Christians. An extremist Muslim is still a Muslim. In a modern Christian world, Christian extremists who harm others are a rare occurrence, but even if it wasn't, no one has ever declared Christianity as the religion of Peace. It is abject to regard Islam as a religion of peace, when truly peaceful religions like Hinduism exist in the world.

If Muslims who truly wish condemnation of the extremism within their religion to appear as repudiation, they must stop calling their religion a religion of peace and start calling it what is it. It is a relatively young religion whose members are mostly dominated by ignorant, angry, violent, oppressed people for whom violence and religious dogma are ways of life. Christianity has had the advantage of hundreds of years of progression through modern society. Christianity has had the advantage of going through its dark ages, something Islam has not. The difference is that Christianity was at the time, on par with the rest of the world around it. When Christianity evolved, so did its followers and much of the world. Islam is behind everyone else in the world. They are an archaic religion living in a modern world trying to apply archaic law to civilization.

During the dark ages, there was no option for those who wanted to seek something more civilized, Christianity was it. But Muslims have that option; any Muslim can seek out the modern world and leave the old one behind. The problem with that religion is the same problem Christianity had a thousand years ago, to do so is certainly punishable by death. The problem isn't really with those that don’t; they are merely following the religion as it was taught to them. The problem is with those who do leave the archaic nature of their religion behind them, continue to practice what they consider to be the peaceful parts, and condemn those who continue to act out those parts that are violent. Because of this it is not the contention of the extremists Muslims that their religion is a religion of Peace, but rather peaceful Muslims who lead peaceful lives.

The problem with Muslims is they want you to believe that somehow there are really two Islam’s, the peaceful one and the violent one. Muslims like this would have us believe that water that is hot is hot water and water that is cold is cold water, and although this certainly serves as a way to describe the temperature of the water, the state of the water has not changed, it is still water.

Muslims that declare their religion peaceful would have us believe this because a majority of peaceful Muslims live peaceful lives. That is all fine and dandy except that all Christians read the same Holy Bible, except some of them pray and some pray and blow up clinics. The so-called peaceful Christians are simply those who refuse to accept the violent parts of the Bible as anything more than nonsense, story, or lesson. In much the same way, Muslims who live peaceful lives do so because they ignore the nonsense in their own holy book, where the extremists do not. Of course, there is hypocrisy in that as well. Because if you do not follow the teachings of your religion as they are written and intended, then why do you follow it at all? A Christian, who isn't very Christ-like, isn't likely to actually gain acceptance into this heaven they all so want to get into. Just like a Muslim who condemns the violent Jihadist ways of his religion isn't likely to get his 72 virgins. Look if you are only following some of the stuff in your religion, you’re not a follower, you’re merely auditing, and if you choose to ignore much of the text of your holy handbook, you are just using the Cliffs Notes.

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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No Taxation Without Representation, or How The Republicans Intend To Steal The Election With Voter ID Laws

I haven’t blogged in a while because of how I have been feeling, but I thought it would be an interesting topic if I talked about the Voter ID laws going up in more conservative states around the country. The thing about the voter ID laws that gives me quite the chuckle is the fraudulent way in which these laws have been marketed to the American people. Being told that Voter ID laws are needed to stop the problem of voter fraud, a problem that really doesn't even exist.  With over 146 million registered voters in this country, in the last three elections there were just over 2,000 cases of alleged voter fraud. I say alleged fraud, because only about 400 of those cases actually involved voter registration fraud.


Now conservatives will have us all believe, that in order to stop this terribly troubling statistic, in 37 states around the country they have imposed laws that require some kind of photo ID to be shown when trying to vote. Of course what they won’t tell you is that this law is really designed to prevent the elderly, disabled, and poor voters, most of which are minorities from having any say in this next election. These classes of people, who have the most to lose if Romney/Ryan gets elected, have been disallowed their right to vote by virtue of a law that is unconstitutional. Let me say this again, because it’s worth noting. Voter ID laws are unconstitutional.

We often hear people refer to some things as privileges, as opposed to rights. You will often hear a parent or police officer say driving is a privilege not a right, but you’ll never hear them refer to voting in this way. That is because voting is a right, not a privilege.

Amendment XV:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Amendment XIX:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Amendment XXIV:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reasons of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

These three amendments to our constitution simply state that no one can be denied the right to vote for any reason, whether it is by color, sex, or class.

Amendment XIV:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The fourteenth amendment considered the amendment which guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law prevents the federal government or any state from enacting laws which grant rights to specific people and not others.

Furthermore, this was already decided by our Supreme Court in 1966. In Harper v. Virginia board of elections, 383 U.S. 663:

"We conclude that a State violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth nor to paying or not paying this or any other tax. Our cases demonstrate that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment restrains the States from fixing voter qualifications which invidiously discriminate."

I’ll make a couple points I hope are as interesting to you as they are to me. First, Photo Identification in this country is not free. You must pay a fee or tax in order to have one. It’s considered a privilege, not a right. That is the difference between rights and privileges, privileges always cost you something, and rights cost you nothing, provided you are a citizen of this country. When a state requires a person purchase an ID for any reason, they are stating that any benefits that come as a result of having an ID are also a privilege.  For example, getting the ability to drive is a privilege afforded to you by having a driver’s license, a form of photo ID. However, things that extend a privilege are not a requirement to having a constitutional right, that is, you are not required to have photo identification in order to be granted the freedom of speech, or the right to bear arms, or the right to a fair trial. Now some of you may have read that and thought to yourselves that buying a gun most definitely requires a photo ID. Purchasing a gun is not a right, only having the right to own and use one (putting aside a previous argument I've had on the subject), and in no state is it required to have a photo id if purchasing a gun from a private seller. So the reality is that rights and privileges are considered separate entities and protected from one another.

Second, requiring that any citizen pay a fee in order to vote violates a principle on which this country was founded, and a reason why the original thirteen colonies went to war with England: No taxation without representation. Now, although the circumstances are somewhat different, in many ways they are quite similar. When the thirteen colonies concluded that they were being unfairly taxed, indeed without having a representative to speak for them in parliament, the slogan took off and helped to incite a revolution. Today a similar battle is taking place. People are being denied the right to have a representative to speak for them in congress, or the white house because of a tax that is being imposed on them. A principle on which this country we all live in, for which the founders fought for their freedom, and many died to give us all is being subverted by a right-wing agenda that is only concerned with further deepening the pockets of the wealthiest 1% of this country on the backs of the everyone else.

I often hear republican rhetoric which I find myself ignoring most of the time repeating things like, Criticism is un-American, if you criticize the war, you are saying you hate the troops, or saying that anything that goes against the opinion of our government is anti-American.  Of course, if any of these piss poor examples of Americans even understood the founding principles of the United States, they would know that none of that is true, and nothing is more un-American than subverting its constitution and founding principles in favor of taking away people’s rights, giving corporations a monetary stake in elections, and allowing the wealthiest 1% of people the ability to decide policies which affect the other 99%.

Under these new voter ID laws, citizens who want to vote in elections are required to have a photo ID. Since in no state in the country are photo IDs free, you must pay to have one. Since you are required to pay for an ID before you may vote, this means that any citizen who wants to vote in one of these states is now required to pay money in order to vote.

I want everyone to really understand what that means, because I've already discussed the differences between privileges and rights. If you want to exercise your constitutional right to vote in an election you must pay a fee to do so.

Now setting aside the many reasons why a citizen might not have a photo ID for a minute, one of the biggest reasons may just be the fact that it’s because it costs money. Now for someone who makes decent money, or needs to be able to drive to work, or have one for some other reason, this is just a tax they pay because they want the privileges it grants them. But for some people, the people who are on food stamps, or disabled with an inability to get to the DMV, or just an inability to afford a $30 fee for a photo ID, for which they have never needed it before, the cost may just be too prohibitive.

These people are the people who are most affected by laws that prohibit their ability to have meaningful lives in this country. That means the 1% who are trying to fix this election to grant themselves tax breaks and loopholes that give them more money can only do so by increasing the tax on the middle class and poor, and reducing the benefits of being a citizen of this country, benefits that only help you if you are one of the 99% who don’t consider themselves wealthy.

Simply put, the people who will be most affected by not voting in this election will be most affected if Romney/Ryan win by virtue of unconstitutional voter ID laws.

See here is the problem. Many citizens of this country believe they live in a democracy, however this is not the reality of the situation. In fact, we live in a republic. That means we elect people to represent us, and they decide how to run the country. Most citizens are often disenfranchised by election results as they come in when watching them on their favorite news network during election night. This is because the popular vote which is often shown can be vastly different than the results shown per state, and this is solely determined by our choice to build this country on the principles of a republic. The Electoral College which is made up of state delegates decides who actually wins elections, not the citizens, something most people are often confused about. And this is where things get hinky, because if this country decided its elections purely on the popular vote, even with voter ID laws in place, republican ideology would be unable to overcome the vast number of liberal and moderate people who believe in common sense and being good as opposed to being ignorant, morally questionable, and wealthy. That’s right, wealthy. Because 99% of the United States is not made of wealthy individuals, nor will it ever be. The majority of people in this country are middle class or poor citizens, and although you can always count on a few bible bashers to vote ideology over common sense, the vast majority would overwhelm them.

So wealthy individuals throw tons of money to buy votes, and when they can rig elections anyway they can. This isn't the first time they have tried to rig elections. They have been accused of trying to rig voting machines in many states over the last 12 years, and even though it’s pretty clear Al Gore won Florida in 2000, George Bush was granted a victory by virtue of badly designed voting machines, voting cards, and a conservative court system. Now although I can’t speak to the ruling by the Supreme Court, by every account the voting machines in minority districts in Florida were the ones affected by the bad chad situation due to the punching mechanism that required a tremendous amount of force to punch the cards, and no feedback as to whether they were actually punched. The cards used were also approved by Katherine Harris, the republican Secretary of State for Florida at the time. The cards were aligned incorrectly so that when a person placed the card in the device, the names did not match up correctly to where they were punched, making some votes invalid completely. Are we to believe that coincidentally the poorest districts in Florida, those with minorities, and mostly elderly registered democrats were given these machines, but all other districts that routinely vote republican were given electronic voting machines that not only allowed a person to vote by a simple push of the button but were given feedback to guarantee the person they cast their vote for was in fact the person they voted for.

You decide for yourself. Ask yourself what a person with a whole lot to gain and nothing to lose will do to ensure they continue to gain, or stand to gain even more should they win an election? Ask yourself if you want to live in a country that values disassembling our constitution? Because should the Tea party republicans be granted a republican white house, and republican congress that is exactly what they will do. Ask yourself what category you fall in: poor, middle-class, minority, female, disabled, elderly, homosexual, young, sick, dying, atheist, intelligent, and good. If you fit into any of these classes of people and you vote republican in the next election, you are voting against your interests. Even if you do not agree with some of Obama’s policies, and you fit into one of these classes of people, voting for Romney/Ryan is like shooting yourself in the foot with your own gun, after you load it and point it at your own foot. I’m going to break it down in simplest terms anyone can understand, no lies, no nonsense. If you vote for Obama and you fit in one of these classes of people, nothing gets worse for you the day after the election or in the next four years after, things only get better. If you vote for Romney/Ryan and you are not healthy, white, and male with more money than you could spend in ten lifetimes, than things will only get worse for you in January and in the next four years. But vastly worse than fucking up your own life, you will fuck up the lives of your children. Education will go down, but costs will go up. Social Security which you are paying into right now, will become insolvent as early as 2016, and by the time you are ready to retire you better hope you stashed away a lot of money and remain healthy because you will be paying for all those medical bills and medications out of pocket, or you will need to get the money from your children who will now have less money to support their families because the economy has been deliberately tanked to broaden the gap between the upper and lower class citizens. I say this because the middle-class will be utterly obliterated.

If you think everything I have said is bullshit, vote republican, but ask yourself this: Is it worth losing the benefits you enjoy now as a citizen of this country, even if by the smallest chance I’m actually right?

I often joke that what we don’t need in this country are voter ID laws, but instead Voter IQ laws, which seek to impose laws that require people who want to vote must be able to pass a simple test on subjects like science, economics, social studies, you know all that shit you learned in school. Now the ridiculousness of my idea is as ridiculous as imposing voter ID laws, except that my idea makes a whole lot more sense than theirs.

If the answer to the first question on the test is anything but C, then you fail and can’t vote.

Question 1: Choose one. Elections are decided by:

A. God
B. Magic
C. None of the Above

Ok, that one was too hard, let’s try another question.

Question 2: If you choose an answer at random what is your probability of being correct?

A. 25%
B. 50%
C. 60%
D. 25%

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor. – Thomas Jefferson

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.—Plutarch

The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on. – Warren Buffet, 2010

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The Right of The People To Not Be Shot: An Examination of The 2nd Amendment.

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Many people will look at this amendment and see that it clearly states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Others will look at this same amendment and see that well regulated militia’s have the right to keep and bear arms. No matter what side of the debate you are on, I’m going to take a serious look at both arguments and examine why the question should not be “Why are they trying to take our guns away?” and instead be, “Why do you have the right to possibly shoot me?”

Now if you believe rhetoric like the kind from the mouths of NRA members, they will argue that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is absolute. That means that under no circumstances can this right ever be abridged. They will also state with absolute certainty that the 2nd amendment was an individual’s right to bear arms and not the right of a well regulated militia. So let’s examine those two issues to start.

In order for a right to be absolute, a country must recognize, and so the government, that under no circumstance can that right ever be abridged for any reason. That means no one can ever take that right away from you for any reason whatsoever. People who argue that the Bill of Rights apply in just such a way, are quick to point out for instance, that at no time can anyone take away your right to speak freely. Now to be fair, I myself, have argued this point for a long time, however it is not something that the government is comfortable doing just yet. In fact, it is well documented that your right to freely speak has limitations, and as such it cannot by definition be absolute.

For instance, I cannot publish a work of non-fiction on a particular person sighting that this particular person molests children, sells illegal drugs, or steals from the elderly, if I know these statements are false. Doing so would cause me to be libelous, and a person could seek damages against me for such statements in a court of law. It’s also true that I can’t walk into a crowded theater and scream “fire!” if I know full well there is no fire. Doing so, may cause injury due to the panic associated with such an action. There are also many instances where lying to certain persons would cause a perjury charge to be filed, even though if my right to free speech is absolute as these people believe, I can say anything I want without repercussion.

The reason that rights can be abridged deals with a possible instance when one person’s right to something conflicts with another’s, and it’s in these cases that things become muddled. For instance in the examples above, my right to write a book on someone that states this person to be a bad person, conflicts with their right to not have their name and image tarnished. It is also true that screaming “fire!” in a crowded theater is a bad idea because my right to do it, conflicts with the rights of those people to not be injured as a result. There are clearly many other instances where this applies over and over. For example, you can’t walk up to someone you don’t like and simply hit them, or do worse harm to them, even if you feel justified in doing so. Justification, meaning a good reason, is by no means valid when causing harm.

Imagine, for just a second, what kind of country this would be if we were allowed to do this? It would be chaos, and as a means to stop just such chaos, laws are written to protect, which may conflict with your rights. And just as a matter of thoroughness, the 4th amendment which deals with unreasonable search and seizure has been routinely abridged as a matter of public policy in matters of public safety. Consider the FISA court which authorizes the government to secretly search people’s properties without their knowledge if they believe they are committing acts of terrorism. Also consider that people are routinely arrested and incarcerated without trial, if they believe them to be a danger to society, a clear violation of 6th and 14th amendments.

So now that I have dealt with the issue of absolute rights, let’s deal with the issue of that comma. In the second amendment, it can easily be interpreted that either a well regulated militia has the right to bear arms, or the people in general, depending on what side of the comma you fall on.

You can make an argument that the first line before states with certainty that a well regulated militia has the right to keep and bear arms; they are after all the people. This would be a means for the founders to sight with clarity that the people who form state militia, for the protection of this nation, do so with a non infringing right to have weapons. Imagine for a second that time in which this document was written, 1789, only thirteen years after the declaration of independence was written and voted on, and only eight years after our final battle with the British in 1781.

Invasion was a very real threat, a well regulated militia would be necessary to protect the freedom of the inhabitants of the United States, so a second amendment that gave militia’s the right to carry weapons was a good idea. The intention is worded right in the amendment, “…being necessary to the security of a free state…” That line implies that in order to prevent a country from invading ours, we authorize those militias to keep and bear arms. It does not imply that people, in order to protect themselves from tyranny, have the right to carry weapons, as many gun enthusiasts might suggest. This is a ridiculous assumption after all, when this document was written there was no belief that any such occurrence would take place even if they had just fought a war of independence.

Remember again, in this instance that the United States was a new country and could have easily been overwhelmed by another country or maybe a few, with enough force. Giving the right of the people to form militias allows, when necessary, people who are not ordinarily militant to become so, in cases when need arises, to protect the country for instance. It is hard to imagine for most people invasion as a real possibility, it rarely happens, however it happened all the time hundreds of years ago, and going back further, entire empires were built on this action. For example, Britain built an empire entirely by invading other countries, are we to assume that, the United States was in no real danger of such a thing, considering the nature of the world a few hundred years ago?

Now to be fair, it can also be argued that this amendment is two parts, indicated by the comma. It can be argued that, a well regulated militia is necessary; however the right of the people to keep and bear arms is also necessary. The issue I have with this assertion is that it’s unnecessary to state the obvious. If they really were saying everyone should be able to carry weapons, than its unnecessary to include the militia in that amendment at all, and instead keep it simple saying that “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” It is an unnecessary inclusion if you are stating the obvious, militias after all, are made up of the people, not dogs for example, but more so by the language, not made up of non-citizens of the United States. So I believe this argument to be a moot point, if you have a brain and are capable of using it, than a logical inference is that a well regulated militia being necessary to secure the freedom of the state, shall carry weapons and no one can take them away.

Now this is where the argument should end if that is all there is, but there is more. Many gun owners will argue that arms means just about anything. For example, if you take the 2nd amendment as being absolute, its interpretation to mean anyone can carry weapons, than there is no limitation to what that can be, hand guns, rifles, assault weapons, bazookas, tanks, nuclear weapons, etc. After all, if they are correct than the position of the government should be that any citizen should be able to carry any weapon. Now imagine again for a second, you live in 1789. Percussion-cap weapons were not invented until 1825, and the colt revolver, not until 1835, so all you have are flint-lock weapons.

That means that you have to load the barrel of your weapon with a projectile, and load the pan of your weapon with a spark in order to even fire it, a process which takes several minutes. Because of the nature of projectile not being designed with precision, and a tumbling effect, rather than spiraling effect, gun barrels were required to be very long to allow the projectile to follow a straight path longer before exiting the end to make it more accurate. That meant that guns were big and heavy and designed to be used sparingly. So it’s easy to see how a second amendment could be applied to a weapon such as this, but to assume that the founders meant all weapons is quite a stretch.

To be fair again, it is easy to assume the amendment was limiting to the weapons of the time, but to argue that the founders could not foresee innovation, is slightly ridiculous. In the 13th century when the Chinese invented gunpowder they used it by filling long tubes and firing projectiles, a kind of rocket. In the hundreds of years since, they would have easily realized that innovation would have produced better weapons, clearly seen by the invention of the first gun in the 14th century and the subsequent improvements over the years.

So I am not so naive to believe the founders could not have imagined better weapons, however they could not have imagined anything like we have today. People base their imaginations on the technologies of the time, and apply such technologies to conform around them. For example, the first science fiction novels written hundreds of years ago depict the technologies of the future, although certainly forward thinking, still applied a very real at the time, modern technological spin on things. Rockets to the moon were flung into space by giant sling shots, or the use of steam.

Although people are capable of envisioning future technologies, they must have a basis by which their imaginations have something to build on. The founders living in 1789 had no way to envision nuclear weapons, or even automatic weapons because the idea of such a thing was not pervasive of the time. It is conceivable that anyone creating laws in just such a time, who could foresee a future hundreds of years later with technologies so far advanced one would think them alien, might want to create some restrictions. It is the lack of such restrictions that can lead you to either conclude that they meant that this right was absolute, or it was not, and if it were absolute than any such restriction would be unnecessary. It is however, more likely to conceive that the founders were simply unable to foresee a necessity because they could not envision technologies so advanced, and because of this, we should take pause when considering the 2nd amendment just on this basis alone.

If taken as an absolute law, and written with no restriction of arms, than it is the right of the people to carry all means of weapons. However, most people would agree, anyone allowed to carry a nuclear weapon, or even a bazooka, is something that should not be allowed. And it is this consensus of the people that show we ourselves do not hold this law as absolute.

So if the consensus of the people is that gun control is necessary, why are we a nation filled with guns with a system that so easily allows anyone to get one?

The simple answer to that is that even public safety has a price. As I’ve stated many times, public policy is a matter left to the greedy and not the health conscious. Our elected officials bow to corporations, the kind who make guns and the kind that use them and money is the currency of the greedy.

Government exists for only a few reasons as illustrated by the preamble to our constitution:

 “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We can take from this text that a government’s existence is merely to protect its people. This is accomplished through the process of law. We create laws to protect people from other people, whether it is foreign or domestic. This is further reiterated by the establishment of the Bill of Rights and Constitution as a whole. Our government was designed to be a regulating body, like all governments. That means it protects us, by establishing laws and enforcing them. So it is hard to believe that gun regulation cannot even be considered by our government, if said government’s existence is merely to regulate?

We regulate a lot in this country, from the food we eat, to the cars we drive to even the kinds of things we put in our medicines. We do this for the purpose of protecting people from themselves. It sounds like a ridiculous notion; however in general people do many stupid things that without regulation might cause more injury than it does. For example, until the 60’s cars did not carry safety belts. I think you would be a amissed to find anyone that would argue that cars should feature no such safety devices, or for that matter roller coasters,  child safety seats, baby strollers, or shopping carts. Or that we might decide that we need no FDA to regulate what food manufacturers put in our bodies or drug companies, the drugs we take.

Regulation allows people to feel safer about the products they use and in general the society they live in. For example, people feel safer knowing that laws have been put into effect that prohibits minors from drinking alcohol. This is mainly due to the fact that a minor can legally drive at sixteen but must legally wait until they are twenty-one to purchase alcohol. The same thing is true of mothers who buy baby formula for their infants. Imagine if that industry was not as heavily regulated as it is. People often take for granted the regulations that have been put in place as a matter of public safety.

So why is it that with all this regulation on everything else in this country, guns are something we cannot regulate?

Again, in matters of public safety, greed can overwhelm morality.

So let’s talk about the arguments that gun enthusiasts like to make for why their right to carry a gun outweighs the public right to be safe. Most gun enthusiasts believe they need to have guns for home protection, hunting, and recreational shooting.

The argument for protecting one’s home admittedly is a good argument, after all, in a society where we value our things above our lives it makes sense that we might want to protect said things. Or maybe you don’t agree, maybe you believe it is your life that is more valuable than your belongings. Well if you believe that, than you are on the wrong side of this argument, because carrying a gun in your home for protection is more dangerous to you and your family than it will ever to be to an intruder.

Research has shown that a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of your family than an intruder, furthermore the very act of bringing a gun into an already violent situation is more likely to get you or a family member killed by said intruder than had it not been introduced. The reality of the situation is that an intruder that has broken into your home to take your things is unlikely to want to commit a violent act against you, and is likely to take what they want and leave without incident if they are left to do so. And if you really do believe that your life or the life of a family member is more valuable than your property than the argument for a having a gun in the home is not a valid one.

The argument that guns are needed for hunting at first seems to be valid, after all people do hunt for game and having a gun makes it a lot easier to take a target like a deer down than using for example, a bow and arrow. On this premise alone, they almost have me, however if this argument is meant to be taken seriously, than we should require a serious examination of what is actually needed to hunt game. I have heard the argument many times why assault weapons need to be legal, and someone always tells me they need them to hunt. However, I feel it necessary to mention the only valid reason for hunting with an assault rifle is if you are hunting humans, lower animals do not have the ingenuity to resist any kind of weapons fire, so something as sophisticated as an assault rifle, it can be presumed, is only useful in hunting humans.

Having said that, many might make the argument that the bigger the animal, the more powerful a weapon that is needed. For example, let’s say you are stupid enough to try and hunt bears, and if you are I don’t feel sorry for you if you are mauled by one. Bears are very large, built with lots of bone and muscle, and these two things alone determine the effect a bullet will have on them.

For your average size bear of a thousand pounds, a small handgun is not going to do the job; they simply do not carry enough kinetic energy and maximum potential force to do any real damage to something so large. So what caliber of handgun would do it? A .357 magnum, and higher like .454 and .500 certainly have the ability to take a bear down and they are all handguns. But even if you want to use something more accurate like a rifle at long range, you can find this caliber of rifles capable of taking down a bear at any gun store. So the argument for assault rifles as a means of hunting begins to sound a little absurd.

And what of the argument that having guns available for recreation is a valid reason?

Well like most people who have fired a gun, it’s an enjoyable experience. I have fired several different types of rifles and handguns and enjoyed doing so with each opportunity. However, this when I begin to think about it, is a little disturbing. 

What is it about guns that we enjoy so much?

For me, I enjoyed just firing the guns. But for some it’s the feel of the gun, or the sound it makes, or the force it has, in any case although these all seem valid, we should all consider something.

I imagine for a murderer, it feels nice to strangle someone, to hear the sound they make struggling to breathe, to feel the life leave them as their body goes limp.

So the question should maybe be: Why do we as Americans like our violence?

And what about the argument that guns don’t kill people, people do?

Well that is true, people do kill other people. But that doesn’t mean that we do not regulate the means by which criminals facilitate their crimes, all the time. For example, carjacking tools are illegal in this country. We also try to regulate the distribution of materials that could be used to for example, make home explosives. We are also quite careful to regulate biological, chemical, and nuclear materials in this country, which by themselves could be used nefariously but also used in a more benign manner.

And while we are on the subject of criminal activity, why is it ok to allow someone who is predisposed to violence the ability to facilitate that violence so easily with the purchase of guns?

Or for that matter, why is their right to purchase a gun, more important than my right to not be shot by one?

Remember when I talked about how the only time we abridge rights is when they conflict with the rights of others, or the rights of the public to be safe?

When a mentally disturbed person is able to purchase an assault rifle and a thousand rounds of ammo on the Internet without regulation, other than a criminal background check, there is something wrong. Someone who is predisposed to violence through no fault of their own, should no less be protected from committing violence against others as he would be protected from committing violence against himself. It should be the position of every rational person that no one who hears voices telling themselves to stab someone in the face should ever have an opportunity to do so if it can be prevented. And it is in this area that things become harder to regulate. Because restricting the rights of a group of people based on mental illness violates the constitution’s 14th amendment’s equal protection clause. However, as a matter of public safety, in times of necessity, rights can and are abridged.

And once you realize that ultimately you are comfortable with such an action, than the reality is you have already decided that the second amendment isn’t absolute and because of this unnecessary.

In the world we like to consider ourselves at the top, on legal and moral issues. But reality simply does not fit this notion. In the rest of the civilized world, gun control is a necessity government’s place on their people, not as a matter of moral high ground, tyrannical control, or principle, but as a matter of public safety. The fact is, less guns, means less gun violence and there is never an argument that could be used against that. The fact is most violence committed with a gun, is done so with a legally purchased gun, and in places where gun purchases are mostly restricted, gun violence goes down. You can’t argue with reality.

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