The Death Penalty

The question of whether or not we should use the death penalty should be a strictly moral one. There are certain arguments that are used, which I have used, such as that it costs more to execute someone than it does to keep him in prison for the rest of his life, but when it comes down to it, if you feel that capital punishment saves lives, or has some other moral strengths that are significant to overwhelm its moral shortcomings (which are great), then that justification is more than likely enough to cover the extra cost.
That being said, that statistic leads us to the first point, that cetaris paribus it would be better not to execute someone. The burden of proof lies on those attempting to justify the execution.

But anywho, I've concluded that the death penalty cannot be used well, and thus should not be used at all, in true democracies (and similar forms of government, such as the representitive republic).

What could justify the death penalty? Personally, if the death penalty was a deterent, and thus we'd be in effect trading the life of a convicted murderer for the life of an innocent who would otherwise be murdered, I'd view it as justified. The problem with this is that for the death penalty to be a deterent, the death penalty has to be used in a way that it would be a significant enough concern to play a part in the criminal's decision making process, which we know to not be the case in the American system (except perhaps in Texas).
I've grown up around liberals, and they all like to point to Texas as the example of wacked out hicks lynching criminals, but I would argue that if you're going to use the death penalty, you have to use it like Texas. I'd actually argue that Texas is a little light on it, but at least they get the point that is lost on the other states that use capital punishment. For the death penalty to deter me from any action, then the risk of me getting executed must be significant enough to play a role in my decision making process, and if I'm planning on murdering someone who's trying to ruin my career, the possibility of being convicted despite only needing reasonable doubt to get off, then the substantially smaller possibility of being sentanced to death, then the substantially smaller possibility of making it through the appeals process without getting off, then 10 or 15 years before they actually kill me, probably not a huge concern (and there's even less marginal value, if you consider how much more of a concern the death penalty is than life in prison without the possibility of parole). In short, for it to be a deterent, I'd have to think there's a pretty good chance you're going to kill me if I do what I'm planning to do.


But is that right? What would we have to do to our system in order to do this the way it needs to be done? First, it would have to seem likely that I would be caught. As an aggregate, I think the police forces in the United States tend to be pretty good (with a few notable exceptions, certainly). On the other hand, this leads us to another point that murders tend to happen, more often than not, in areas where other murders happen relatively frequently, and thus there is also a higher standard of fear of death that would be necessary for the death penalty to prove to have deterent effects, because for the fear to have any sort of deterent effect, it must be at the very least more than their day to day fear of death. Anywho, I'd imagine that we tend to catch a lesser proportion of murders in areas where murders are frequent, so we'll move on.
Next, it has to seem likely that I'll be convicted. This is where the problems start. Considering our legal standard is that of reasonable doubt for an aquittal, this obviously means that there are a substantial amount of people who in fact commit crimes and get let off. We deem this as acceptable because we would rather let the guilty be free than punish the innocent, and the harder it is to prove the standard of innocence, the more innocent people who will be convicted. The problem with this is that it makes me less concerned about anything the government threatens to do, because it's less likely that they'll actually do anything.

Let's think of this from a strategy perspective
We'll consider the benefit to me of committing the murder to be 5 (obviously there is a benefit to me in committing the murder, because if you assume that I am rational, then you have to assume that there was some benefit to me in my actions). So let's say that the death penalty would carry the utility of -10. Now if this is the case, if I knew that I would be executed if I committed this crime, then I would never commit the crime.
But now let's say that there's only a 45% chance of me actually being convicted of this crime. Then in my rational decision making process, I'd weigh the deterent effect of the death penalty at -4.5, at which point I would still murder that person. Now if we changed the legal standard necessary to prove innocence, making it a 57% chance of being convicted, then all of a sudden the deterent effect of the death penalty is -5.7, making it so that I'll never murder that person.

So for us to have an effective death penalty, we'd have to change the legal standard, and thus admittedly send more innocent people to be punished for the actions of others.

Next there's the probability of actually being executed once you're convicted. Now we have many safeguards in place to try to ensure that we never execute an innocent. There are typically a number of appeals, and I think a fair amount of people sentanced to death either have their sentances commuted to life without parole, or get let go altogether. So this decreases the deterent effect of the death penalty.

Next we have the time value of benefits. As a species, the human race has been defined by valuing things now a lot more than things in ten or fifteen years. So thus the longer the time people typically have to wait to die, the less relevent the fear of death in the decision making process.

From these two we establish that we'd need to, at the very least, cut back substantially on the time and effort we dedicate to making sure no one innocent is executed (which one can reasonably assume would lead to innocent people being executed).

Let's go back to the decision of the would be murderer. Let's say that if you commit a murder, there's a .7 chance of being caught, a .6 chance of being convicted, a .8 chance of staying convicted, and a .4 value of the effect due to time. I'd say that those numbers would be close enough to being conservative guesses based on nothing. Anywho, what we see is that, due to this system, the deterent effect of anything is immidiate reduced to 13.44% of its original self.

So thus we can either give up on using it as a deterent, or completely overhaul our legal system while sacrificing a number of ideals which, as a society, we value more than the lives of a few (thus why we fought the revolutionary war).

So if we give up on using it as a deterent, why would we still use it at all? Well we use it all over the place, without any real deterent effect, so if it's not reforming the criminal, and it's not convincing other criminals not to do as he has done, and if cetaris paribus it'd be better not to execute someone, then we are left with two possible justifications, justice for the sake of justice, and revenge.
It's a thin line between the two, the primary difference is that with justice for the sake of justice, the feelings of those who were left behind by the victim are not the primary concern. If we are discussing justice, I believe you could justify a belief in the death penalty, if we can agree that that is what the criminal deserves for his actions, but it's definately a hard sell. First we must separate justice from its utilitarian effects, which are deterence and revenge, thus allowing us to examine justice for the sake of justice. Now there is a utilitarian benefit to justice for the sake of justice, and that is building faith and confidence in a system of justice. That being said, as far as justice goes, what is the benefit of killing someone over taking away all of his freedom? How much better can it be to take away someone's life than taking away his ability to live? From a perspective of pure justice, it seems to me that it more just to have the murderer to live out his days behind bars while the people around him avoid lowering themselves to his level than it is to do the exact same thing that we're punishing him for (well not the exact same thing, he killed an innocent, while we kill murderers, but in the end we're all killing). Speaking about justice for the sake of justice, the marginal value of executing a prisoner seems vastly outweighed by the marginal cost.
So then we're at revenge. This is how we all justify the death penalty to ourselves "Think of the mother, she's not going to have her son anymore, what kind of people are we if we don't avenge her?" Although I like to consider myself somewhat more of a hawk than Ghandi, the quote "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" has relevence here. We've seen it on a macro level over an over again, violence begets violence, revenge is avenged, and it never stops. The Irish and the Ulstrians (if that's what they're called), each has ample claim to revenge against the other, and thus the violence went on for hundreds of years, until eventually the IRA decided to be mature and say "We don't want revenge anymore, too many people have died", in effect. We see the same thing between the Israelis and the Arabs, each has ample claim to revenge against the other (and if either were intellectually honest about the matter they'd see that), and the violence won't stop until they both lay down their claim to vengence. This is because revenge has nothing to do with justice. Revenge isn't:
what you did to him
- What he did to you
______________________
= Amount of revenge you deserve

People don't think this way. In reality, they don't really think at all, it's all emotion. You hurt someone I love, and thus I must hurt you, that's all it is. It comes from a good place, actually, but as they say, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". The devil is the temptation to do what is easy instead of what is right, and thus revenge is the devil. If we can accept that there are extrordinarily few, if any, people who are inherently bad, then we can accept that people become bad as a product of their decisions, which typically won't be Batman villain shit, instead it will almost always be people giving into the temptation to do what is easy instead of what is right. From this we can take that how good we are, as a people, is defined by our ability to be do what is right instead of what is easy. The reason why there's nothing good about the rampant liberal humanitarianism coming out of Hollywood is that none of them advocate anything that is hard (not to mention the majority of them who ignore the complexities of the issues on which they speak, and so thus they are actually doing what is easy instead of what is right, and thus they are doing bad things in advocating this shit). Why doesn't advocating against what's happening in Darfur make you any better of a person? Because it's easy! It's so blatantly obviously wrong in every possible way that it doesn't say anything about you to observe that fact. What defines us as a people isn't what we decide when the questions are obvious, it's when we're faced with two options, one of which appeals to all of our most basic wants and needs, and the other which is unpleasant, but right. It's when we decide to not vote for politicians who promise to give us money, it's when we accept that our agriculture subsidies are ruining nations all over the world, it's when every bone in our body is aching to torture this motherfucker in the middle of the town square for the pain he has caused people that we love, but we say "No, because it's the wrong thing to do."

Don't think I'm arguing that people who are opposed to the death penalty are better people than those who support it, because that's not what I'm saying in any way, shape, or form. Many people who are opposed to the death penalty oppose it because they don't have the sack for it. Many people simply don't have the sack to accept that the cost of being rich, free, and alive, all at the same time (yes, I stole that from the West Wing) is that most of our decisions aren't whether we're going to kill someone or not, but how many are going to die. Environmentalists ignore that the suicide rate goes up with unemployment, and thus environmental regulations which hurt the economy are in fact killing people. People who want to pull out of Iraq to save American soldiers ignore how many more will die because of this. I'm certainly not saying this about all liberals, there are certainly some who have considered all of this and come to different conclusions than I have, but the vast majority of them willfully ignore all of this obvious shit. If you're only opposed to the death penalty because you refuse to have blood on your hands, then you are too timid for matters of government, and you are most certainly not morally superior to anyone.

It is safe to say that anyone who acts self satisfied and morally superior isn't actually morally superior, because no one with superior moral abilities will ever feel satisfied with themselves. This is because those who are truly morally superior regularly make decisions which disgust themselves.

Anywho, back to the death penalty.
To sum up the conclusions, we've concluded that the marginal sacrifices necessary in order to have an effective domestic death penalty are significantly greater than the marginal benefit of having capital punishment which functions as a deterent.
The death penalty for the sake of revenge is morally unjustifiable.
The death penalty for the sake of justice is potentially justifiable, but it would take an argument for it stronger than mine against it.

Now in the beginning I mentioned that this was almost entirely a moral argument, and it may seem that I've been a little too cold and logical in my analysis for this to be a moral argument. I would beg to differ. Everything must be governed by reason, morality is no exception. Once we have decided on what morality is (and in the Judeo-Christian tradition, morality is typically defined by how much better we make things for everyone around us), then we need to use reason to figure out what we can actually do to reach that goal. Ever notice how there are never any hippies nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? The guy who won last year, I forget his name, he was from Bangladesh. What he won it for? Banking. He used technical knowledge and combined it with logic and reason, and actually made life ridiculously better for a large amount of people. If we do not critically analyze the actual effects of our actions, then there is no reason to believe that we'll ever get anywhere closer to the end we are pursuing (namely because we have no way of knowing where we're going in the first place). The road to hell is paved with good intentions because intentions stem from emotion. We feel this is a good thing to do, and so we do it, when we should've first looked into it and seen if it was actually a good thing to do.

Crime and Punishment

There is no set of issues in which who we are, but in terms of intelligence and morality, as a people, is more evident than in issues of crime and punishment. This is because it raises two questions, "How capable is our system in both creating laws that will be followed and making sure that its laws are followed?" which raises all sorts of questions and our use of intelligence in government, and "How do we treat people who've wronged us?" which is one of the two primary moral questions, the other being "How do we treat people who need our help?" (and there is a great deal of overlap between these questions).

And it is appalling what I see in our system, both in what is done, and what is suggested that we do. And this goes for both sides of the political spectrum (as always).

Laws have to be enforcable and enforced. It shouldn't be a great leap of faith to agree that the quality of our legal system is weighed both by the quality of the laws, and of the quality of enforcement. And it is because one of these requirements requires us to use nuance, and acknowledge the complexity of society, a large segment of the population is lost there, and since the other requirement requires us to do things that may not on the surface apprear right, most of what's left is lost there.

We have to accept that some people may not be curable, some because they're genuinely incapable, and some because they have no desire to be cured. And it is tragic that this is the case, but this is the case. If we are not strong enough as a people to accept that some people should not be let around the rest of people, then we cannot have a government.
That being said, every situation is different, and legality does not equate with morality. This means that, to the question "Is this the right thing to do?" "No, because it's illegal" is not an appropriate answer. This also is what makes things like mandatory minimums ridiculous, since all they do is remove the system's ability to respond to any given situation correctly. Essentially the argument for mandatory minimums is "I, someone who knows nothing about this case, am in a better position to decide what an appropriate punishment is than you, a judge who has actually heard this case." Now I'll admit readily that judges overstep their bounds more than once in a while, but a system of judges is better than a machine trying to deal with human problems.

A root problem is we try to legislate too much. Once law reached a point when it started legislating against business interactions between a willing buyer and seller with no immidiate threat to anyone not participating in the transaction, it crossed the line. Alcahol prohibition, drug prohibition, prostitution prohibition, "sin taxes", and so on and so forth, are huge steps towards undermining our legal system. These laws are terribly hard to enforce (which equates to hardly ever actually enforced), since there is no victim. No one's gonna go to the police about this crime, and it's possible for the crime, and all of its after effects, to happen without anyone other than the buyer and seller knowing. When there is a law that is well known, and is one of the police forces primary objectives, and it still goes unstopped, this undermines the police force as a whole. To avoid this this leads to numerous violations of rights on which our society was founded, but which are neccisary to do a little more in trying to enfore unenforcable laws.
Also, it undermines law in general. For a society to be a society of laws, it is essential that the society, as a whole, respects these laws. To explore why this is wrong, we have to look at law as a concept. Law is people sacrificing freedom to protect safety and order. From this we can take that if a person is rational, the benefit from having this law has to outweigh the cost of the freedom sacrificed to have this law for the law to be viewed as acceptable. Since freedom is more of an intangible concept, its real effects can be extremely varied, from actually being a pothead, thus having a defining aspect of your life in opposition to the law, to not liking the effects of spending billions of dollars in attempts to stop this, to not liking having to take drug tests, and being treated like a criminal, in order to get a job, and so on and so forth. In the case of these laws, the costs clearly outweigh the benefits (which are especially minimal due to the inability to enforce them), and having unacceptable laws chips away at the credibility of the legal system.

The legal system has problems of its own too. There are clear patterns in certain groups getting far more punished, be it based on race or socioeconomic status. Now although this could happen just by strict adherence to enforcing the law, it undermines the legal system's stance as a moral delegate of justice if it appears that one group of people is being unjustly focused for punishment. Now clearly the fault for these patterns lie with many others beyond the actual legal system, such as with the individuals, the education system, the cultural systems, both within the criminal class and within the non-criminal classes, and so on and so forth, there is responsibility lying with the legal system. If the legal system is to the purpose of protecting us as well as it can, then the rates of people being readmitted after release are appalling. This is because it shows that clearly the legal system is not doing its job, especially when it's complemented by us having the highest rate of incarcerations, despite other societies seemingly functioning relatively crime free without such incarceration rates. This shows that people are being released when they're still threats to society, and that people are incarcerated when they are not threats to society.
I believe very strongly in rehabilitation programs in prisons. We lose nothing from reinvesting our money into rehabilitation, and we gain so much from having people who otherwise are criminals becoming morally stable, hard working, tax paying members of society. Thus, from a rational perspective, it's ridiculous to not focus justice on rehabilitation.

Although my arguments may seem to have a pattern going to them, arguing that we need fewer laws, more judicial freedom, rehabilitation based justice, this is not a soft on crime liberal stance I am arguing. I believe very strongly in enforcement of laws. I believe that if a person is still gonna be a criminal upon being released, the criminal should not be released. In a better system I might support use of the death penalty. We need more police, and if need be more prisons. We need a good system of laws that is vigorously enforced. Harsher penalties are obviously deterents from crime, and should be used when neccisary.

But what I have argued is essential in allowing a legal system to be both just and effective. There is no use in trying to make it appear as if we are tougher in crime if in effect it makes us weaker in our stance to prevent crime.

American Pride and Intellectual Insecurity

I've noticed that certain people like to brag about how patriotic they are. Recently I was in a debate with someone over various aspects of American security, and at the end of one of his statements he said "Well I value freedom and American lives". My first reaction was pure rage that someone would be so stupid to think that, while we're discussing something as complex as American security, that I would have informed opinions on American security if I did not value freedom or American lives. So I explained to him that, for all practical purposes, everyone that will be expressing enough interest in American security values those things, and thus stating those things in that debate was about as relevant as stating "I am a carbon based life form". After which he apologized, and said that what he meant was that he shows his love of freedom and American lives, while I don't (in the process he, of course, accused me of liberalism). So I asked him what exactly it was about my thoughts on the matter made it reasonable to assume that I did not value freedom or American lives. I got no response.

It's really not a very hard thing to figure out, why someone would state something like that. It's because his side needs a boost. In stating "I value freedom, and American lives" while debating me, the basic assumption made by a looker on is that, since he statedly values freedom and American lives, and since I disagree with him on many issues, I don't value freedom or American lives, and thus why should anyone take what I have to say on American security? But this would lead to the next conclusion, which is that the presence of such statement is evidence that the person who stated that feels like s/he is losing the debate. Why else would someone state something that a child could tell isn't relevant in the debate (well, it's unfair to say it's irrelevant, since if he could've actually proven that I in fact do not value freedom or American lives, it would very rightly place into question the legitimacy of what I am saying about American security)?

But what of those who state it regularly. On the debate forum that I frequent there is a member who's name is ProudAmerican. Why would someone do this? Is it possible that someone believes that they need this unfairly earned extra legitimacy before any debate even begins?

I'd say it's a sign of intellectual insecurity. Intellectual insecurity isn't an uncommon thing, or something that is solely held to those who do not have anything worthwhile to say, just as much as someone being insecure in general doesn't mean that the person has more reason to be insecure than anyone else. Hell, Frank Sinatra was admitedly insecure, and he was fuckin Frank Sinatra!

but although a problem is not required to bring about intellectual insecurity, intellectual insecurity itself is a problem. This is because, if a given person is insecure intellectually, yet they place themselves in a situation where every aspect of one's intellect, and what they draw from that intellect (aka debate), they are clearly there to attempt to bolster their confidence in what they believe, as opposed to reforming what they believe into what is correct. Thus they are pointless in discussions, since they will always ignore the points that you make, while attacking you in any way possible in an attempt to justify, namely to themselves, that their opinions are correct.

And this leads to the single biggest problem in the world today, the one problem that all other problems stem from. Lowered levels of debate. I am a firm believer that there is not a single problem that the human race has, or will ever face that we couldn't eventually find a solution to. Now this is, of course, a debatable stance to hold. It is reasonable to look at human progress and human history and take from that that there are certain inherent aspects of humanity that make us incapable of solving certain problems. What I would argue, though, is that since humans are in a constant state of evolution, we are constantly improving, and the presence of improvement is proof that we have not achieved our full potential, and it is impossible to say what traits are inherent, and which traits can be improved, and thus the problems stemming from them become solvable once our full potential has been reached (although I do see the argument that, since we are in a constant state of evolution, for us to reach our true potential we have to reach a zenith, in which the human race is perfect, and how some could see this as impossible). That being said, that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it (unless someone presents an argument that would change my mind, which is certainly possible. I have not reached my full potential, and thus any of my views or beliefs are fallible).

Anywho, what we do know is that the limits of human potential are not static. There is short term full potential, and then there is long term full potential. If someone lowers the level of debate, what we know is that after which we are no longer discussing our problems, and their potential solutions, at the current full level of our potential. Although it is debatable on whether or not this slows down the speed of our intellectual evolution, it is unquestionable that it slows down the level of human progress. This is because debate, at its very core, is not just an intellectual pissing match, but a comparison of ideas on various perceived problems, and a comparison of proposed solutions to those problems, from which we can learn from each other, and thus develop better ideas and better potential solutions to our problems. Thus the one thing we do know about a lower level of debate is that we get worse ideas and worse potential solutions (speaking in an opportunity cost sense).

This effects every aspect of human existance. The vast majority of our problems are so complex that solutions are almost always imperfect. Imperfection in a solution is that, along with solving current problems, it brings about problems of its own. For example, yes, a minimum wage solves the problem of people who work hard but don't make enough to survive. But along with doing that, it also messes up the equilibrium in the market, and makes it so that fewer people will have jobs then had them before (and due to the nature of who is effected, both positively and negatively, from an increase in the minimum wage, those who lose their jobs are the ones who were barely scraping by in the first place, and thus they are the single group that has the least ability to absorb such a loss). Thus the minimum wage is an imperfect solution. Whether or not you believe that the overall benefit achieved by those who benefit from an increase in the minimum wage outweighs the cost of those who lose their jobs is a matter of opinion, but to deny the imperfection of the minimum wage brings us to a point where we cannot discuss how to deal with those who would lose their jobs because of an increase, simply because a large portion of the population denies their existance.

Since we know that our solutions are imperfect in nature, what we're seeking is the least imperfect solution to any given problem. And to effectively and constantly find these solutions, we must be at the top of our game, which a lowered level of debate makes impossible, by definition. Thus there is no greater sin against humanity than lowering the level of debate.

But who is responsible? Is it those who are intellectually insecure? That doesn't sound very fair to me, since insecurity is unpleasant in and of itself, and thus it is reasonable to believe that if those who are intellectually insecure would stop if they knew how, just as if something's consistantly stabbing me in my foot, I reasonably would remove it as soon as I realized what was actually stabbing me. So I'd say know, it is not their fault per se, but instead that they are merely pawns in this matter.

The ones who play upon intellectual insecurity are the ones who are responsible, regardless of their own level of intellectual security. The worst are the ones who are secure, and have a great understanding of how things work, but personally stand to benefit from misunderstanding, and thus foster misunderstanding. For example, those who try to convince people that there are only two options in any issue. This lowers the level of debate simply because, out of the seemingly infinite possible solutions, it eliminates all but 2, the one we're currently using, and the opposite of that. If we're at war, it's either we stop fighting or we keep fighting, which doesn't allow us to discuss different ways of fighting, fighting a different target, or anything else. You're either for gay marriage or you're against it. You're either for welfare, or you're for making all poor people fend for themselves. You're either for a minimum wage, or you think that people who work, but don't make enough to survive, is not a problem worth adressing. You can either vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.

Another breed of these people are a seemingly less viscous group, those who introduce emotion into debate. Emotion, by its very nature, is illogical, since emotion causes us to act in ways that we otherwise would not if we had summed up a situation objectively and logically. When in "Bowling for Columbine" when Michael Moore left the picture of some kid who'd been killed by gun violence at Charleton Heston's door, that was lowering the level of debate. Forcing someone to adress someone who just lost their job to outsourcing while discussing the merits of outsourcing, that is lowering the level of debate. MADD constantly telling sob stories in trying to make drunk driving more illegal, is lowering the level of debate.

Note, this is not to say that the points they are arguing are wrong, but just the methods that they are using. This is because they are intentionally introducing an illogical factor into a debate that, for it to find the least imperfect solutions, must be entirely logical. Is it logical for a police force to dedicate more of its resources to stopping drunk driving then stopping rape? It depends, but if people are more outraged over drunk driving than rape, due to the presence of more horrible stories about drunk driving then rape, this question will not get the level of thought needed to find the correct answer. Should we have attacked Iraq? Probably not, but we certainly didn't come to that conclusion due to those in favor of it repeatedly mentioning September 11th, something that obviously elicits strong emotional responses, despite questionable links between the two at best. Considering the wealth of knowledge gained from the work of Darwin, does it matter if people are uncomfortable with his discoveries, or is it relevant if he was a drunk? Regardless of your opinions on George W. Bush, what is the ACTUAL relevence of his former coke addiction or alcaholism or weak grasp on the english language?

Let's go back to the original story, of the debate between me and the person who vocally values freedom and American life. What we should take from this is that the problem in this was not that he's intellectually insecure, but instead the problem is that he missed out on things he may have learned by lowering the level of debate (and possibly moreso, what I didn't learn because of his lifetime of participating in a lower level of debate). It should not be tolerated. It should be called out, regardless of what they may think of you for it, because when it comes down to it, their level of thought calls into question the value of their current thoughts anyways.

Israel and the Middle East

I hate to say this again (moreso, I hate the fact that I have to say this again), it's time for everyone to stop being stupid.

To the left, stop acting like there's no reason for Israel to be in this conflict. It's stupid. Although on face value this conflict is ridiculous, you can never adress any conflict involving Israel in and of itself. Hezbollah wants to eliminate Israel, and futhermore wouldn't mind killing off all of the jews. Yes, they're killing civilians, but if they allow hiding behind civilians to be an infallible form of defense, then they have no way of stopping Hezbollah.

To the right, stop acting like Israel's completely justified. In this conflict Hezbollah has killed maybe 6 Israeli civilians, something like that. There is no way that Hezbollah poses enough of a threat to justify the killing of hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians. This conflict, just like every other conflict over the last several thousand years, will just make things worse.

And to the truly retarded, there are reasons that the Lebanese support Hezbollah. What have they seen from Israel? First they saw fellow Arabs run out of their homes, followed by them killing countless Arabs, and they see attacks on Israel as being, although pre-emptive, still defensive in nature. They see Hezbollah as a group fighting to protect them, and Israel has given them no reason to think otherwise.

People are not adharently different from region to region. Thus we must accept that there are reasons why the Palestinians elected Hamas, and why Hezbollah holds many seats in the Lebanese government, just as we must accept that there are reasons that people in the middle east hate us and want us dead. There is no way that we are perfect, and everyone in that region are just blood thirsty maniacs, and until we accept that and internalize that, we're fucked, because there's no fucking way we're gonna get anywhere close to solving these problems.

The only way to ever solve problems is to correctly identify them first, which is impossible until we cut through all of the bullshit rhetoric, and start accepting our role, and Israel's role in motivating this conflict. That being said, we must not let ourselves fall into the trap of thinking it's our fault, or it's Israel's fault. It's everyone's fault.

It's our fault that we've alienated an entire region, and responded to an act of terrorism which was, although devastating to us, not that huge of a deal when you take into account that shit like that happens every day throughout the world. Hundreds of thousands died in genocides in Africa and we didn't do shit, but when 3,000 of us die, it's time to blow up the entire fucking middle east. It's Israel's fault that they drove all of the Palestinians from their homes, and have responded to every threat with the grace and nuance of a blind hyena hopped up on PCP. It's the various governments in the middle east's fault for perpetuating this conflict to distract their people from their horrible living conditions and the horrible amounts of corruption, and it's the people in the middle easts fault for falling for it.

I'm not a dove, and there are most certainly times when force is neccisary, and if we shy away from force at those times we are fucking ourselves and the rest of the world. But military force should only be used when it is the BEST thing we can do, and short of a full out war, it is just about never justifiable to use force without any tandem acts of diplomacy and sanctions.

That being said, there is 3 groups that are 100% in the wrong in this conflict, Hezbollah, the Iranian government, and the Syrian government. There are no justifications, there are no excuses, they are causing the deaths of hundreds to try to distract the world from preventing them from killing millions, and there are absolutely no redeeming features to what they're doing.


So here's what needs to happen. The whole world needs to stop being stupid, the Syrians and Iranians need to rise up and cast out their governments, the rest of the world needs to make it so they can transition out of these governments and into new ones with relatively little friction and damage to their infrastructures, and then we all need to root out the Hezbollah's and Al Quedas of this world. In our attempts to do the last part we have also been very stupid. We've been stupid because we're only adressing one side of it. We're killing those who join, but we're making NO effort to make it so new people don't want to join.

To a degree, getting rid of current members, and preventing the recruitment of new members are contradictory missions. This is because great acts of violence are neccisary in getting rid of the current members, and these acts of violence will seem to many as cause to join these groups. But there's a lot we can do. Providing infrastructure, respecting and supporting nationalism, even when it's inconvinient to us, making the quality of life all and all better in the middle east, THAT'S what we can do to prevent terrorism. Hezbollah wouldn't have shit for support in Lebanon if there was someone else stepping in and providing them with basic infrastructure. While we're busy drafting pointless UN resolutions, they're off feeding, educating, and taking care of medically the Lebanese people, and it's ridiculous that we're not right there providing better food, better education, and better medicine, and helping them set up a system in which they can provide this for themselves, with no other hopes than to leave Lebanon better than when we entered. Haven't you ever wondered why there are just about no terrorists from the United Arab Emerites, or Kuwait? It's because life is good there, and people who have something to lose don't become terrorists. Well, some of them do, but not many. Terrorists certainly wouldn't be picking up as many votes as they are across the region.

So stop being stupid, adress the situation for what it is, and then work for a solution that respects the complexity that is the Israel/Middle East conflicts. We're all adults here, so let's fucking act like it.

Gay Marriage

Alright, the whole debate on Gay Marriage is stupid. This is because it ignores one ESSENTIAL aspect of the debate, and thus we're left with a bunch of politicians yelling at each other "You're homophobic!" or "You hate the traditional American family!" and all the other bullshit.

The essential point they ignore is that marriage is a multi-tiered institution, three tiers to be exact. There is the the state institution of marriage, the religious institution of marriage, and the institution of marriage between the two married individuals. They are three entirely different institutions, and thus to speak of what "marriage" as a whole is, is quite frankly preposterous.

Now I've been accused of being a liberal because I support gay marriage on all three tiers. I am of the opinion that those who are willing to throw those accusations are retarded.

On the state level, it's a government institution, and I am firmly of the belief that there is no sanctity in ANY government institution. Marriage in particular is nothing more than state recognition of a domestic partnership. Now if you think this is sacred, I would actually maintain that YOU are a liberal, because there is no fucking way a conservative could think that any aspect of government is sacred. The actual institution is important, calling it marriage is not (and if that's your only issue, then shut the fuck up, cause you are being petty). The institution is important because it allows governmental issues to more accurately address the people it effects. For example, it would be unreasonable to allow anyone who wants to to come in and visit someone on their death bed. That being said, we are closer to some that are not our blood relatives, and to deny the right to visit a dying loved one just because there is no blood relation is cruel and immoral. Marriage helps to lessen how often this happens. Also tax wise, two people sharing income is different than one person with an income, thus another important aspect of the institution. Also, the reason why employee health insurance applies to the employee's family is because we often have situations where one partner works outside the home, and the other does the work inside the home (thus allowing the other to be able to work outside the home more), and due to that domestic partnership the rewards of the payed work (that which is outside the home) are shared.

Now none of these should be denied to gays. Gays love each other, and share all of the aspects of domestic partnership that straights have, and thus the only reason one would want to deny them these rights is bigotry.


Then there is the religious institution of marriage. This is only important to the religious. As a religious person, I do find marriage sacred, but I do not see monogamous gays as a threat to it. I instead see Hollywood publicity stunt marriages as a threat to it's sanctity, I see people who get married 6 or 7 times as a threat to it's sanctity, but I do not see gays as a threat to it (other than gays who'd get married as a publicity stunt or get married 6 or 7 times, just as straights, but that's an issue we're yet to have to face). In my personal beliefs, love is love, and if two people love each other, and want to stand together with God, then by all means. Thus religiously I recognize gay marriage.

But, as it is with all issues dealing with religion, it's to a great deal subjective. Just as I respect those who believe that Mohammed is the savior instead of Jesus, I also respect those who honestly believe that homosexuality is wrong. If we do not respect each others' religious beliefs, then we have no right to expect others to respect our own.

This is not the government's business, plain and simple. Whether or not you choose morally to recognize gay marriage should be entirely up to you.

Then there is the personal institution, which I won't speak on much. Essentially, it only involves those participating in it. My cousin Morgan is only married in this way, but it's still a marriage as far as I'm concerned. Hippie married, but married none the less.


As we blur these lines between religious and governmental institutions, the debates become muddled and irrelevent. We have separation of church and state for a reason, and it's to avoid ridiculous shit like this.

God

Although I've been, for the most part, a conservative my whole life, I've run in very liberal circles my whole life also. The town I grew up in, Evanston, IL, is and was insanely liberal.

Now, I'm not making any other claims about liberalism other than if you run with liberals, and you're a christian, you're gonna meet more than your fair share of people who think you're an idiot.

And their arguments are all the same, it's either "You might as well believe in Santa Clause", or "You know you're all hypocrites, that why you did the spanish inquisition" (yeah, I played a HUGE role in the spanish inquisition), or "There's proof that the world's existed for billions of years, thus proving that christianity's wrong", or some moral paradox that they feel proves not only that there is no God, but also that all christians are idiots for believing otherwise.

I'm a firm believer that if you're asked a logical question about any of your beliefs, religious or otherwise, if you can't answer it, than you need to reconsider your stance. No one benefits from self deceit, and so regardless of what my answers (or lack thereof) may imply, I try my best to respond to these questions.

"You might as well believe in Santa Clause." This is not a condemnation of religion, but of faith in general. If your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife leaves your sight, most believe that s/he will not go sleep with someone else. Why would you believe this? Unless you've actually spied on your significant other, you have absolutely no idea what s/he does out of your sight. Just turn on "Cheaters" and you can see that it's perfectly possible that your significant other is just running to another's arms as soon as s/he leaves. So why do so many believe that their mate is remaining faithful outside of one's sight? It's faith, so according to this logic, they might as well believe in Santa Clause.
And, of course, in many situations, it's true, one might as well believe in Santa Clause. Many like to close their eyes and ears to anything they hear that's inconvinient to their current beliefs, thus why there's a debate about creationism.

"You know you're all hypocrites, that why you did the spanish inquisition"
This is the argument of those who lack the presence of mind to realize that christians are a diverse group of people.
I'm personally of the opinion that this argument does not even merit a counterpoint, but I'll provide one anyways. What happened in the Spanish Inquisition, and other similar situations was deplorable and immoral, and I can guarantee there is no way one could read the bible and afterwards say with a straight face that that shit was justifiable. I personally have not oppressed, tortured, or murdered anyone, nor have the majority of christians, so clearly this is a problem of a sect, and only an idiot would be stupid enough to believe those situations are generalizable to the christian community as a whole.

Also, name me one group that is still judged for shit that happened centuries. How well is the "I hate jews because they killed Jesus" argument playing these days? How about "I don't trust Italians because Romans used to feed people to lions."?


"There's proof that the world's existed for billions of years, thus proving that christianity's wrong"
This is only over whether the bible is meant to be interpreted literally, which I believe it very clearly isn't.
"This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says:
You shall indeed hear but never understand,
and you shall indeed see but never perceive."
-Matthew 13: 13,14

If you want to prove the bible isn't a history book, don't bother, I agree.



The most recent thing that helped shape my opinion on God is a logical thread that someone presented. I'll sum it up
1 God is omnipotent
2 God is omnibenevolent
3 There is evil in the world
4 If God were omnipotent, then God could give us anything that zhe gives us through the trials of this life without the trials, and thus in allowing suffering when zhe could prevent it God is not omnibenevolent.

The more I tried to argue against this, the more merit I saw in it. Even though I haven't ever taken the bible as literal, I've always thought of God as omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but I kept coming up with counterpoints to my counterpoints, and I couldn't come up with any counterpoints to those, and thus it left me feeling that my beliefs were in need of revision.

The first argument that came to mind against this was "Maybe we benefit the most from going through these struggles, and we learn more about the need to help each other and to love our neighbors."
But the counterpoint to this lies in omnipotence. If God is omnipotent, not only could God prevent this suffering, but God could also give us all of the benefits we would've gotten from going through the suffering without compramising our free will.

Between the two aspects of God, zhis omnipotence and zhis omnibenevolence, I feel compelled to believe that the omnipotence, in the literal sense, is my initial flaw. This does not compramise my belief that through God all things are possible. When a person truly turns him/herself over to God anything is possible, which has been shown over and over again. I mean, christ, it was through people who had given themselves to God that the civil rights movement happened. People have food where none grows because of others who have given themselves to God.



When it comes to God, I could be wrong. Hell, I assume at least parts of my beliefs on God are wrong in some way shape or form. I am a human being, and thus I am fallible. And I have difficulties articulating what God is on this earth beyond the teaching that if two people are together in the Lord, God is there. God is the force that joins all humans together, that gives meaning and accountability to this life. Why is it wrong to hurt your brother or sister? Because we are connected through God, and thus if you hurt anyone you hurt everyone including yourself. It's hard to articulate, I hope that you get what I mean.
But even if I'm entirely wrong about God, and if I die there's nothing there (considering that I'm afforded an opportunity to reflect), I wouldn't give a shit, to be perfectly honest. I live a certain way because of my belief in God. I treat people a certain way, I try my best to extend unconditional love to all (I fail, but I keep trying), and my life is better for it. I am not concerned about the afterlife, because I figure that I should be on God's good side regardless, so if I die, hopefully I go to heaven (unless I completely got all of my beliefs on christianity wrong and I end up elsewhere), or I'll have lived a richer life due to my belief in God, and then I rot in the ground like everyone else.

I've never heard a good counterpoint to that.

truth.com and the like

There's this new commercial here, I'm not sure if it's airing elsewhere, but I wouldn't be suprised. It's from another one of those anti-big tobacco websites, this one's I think "whatthefxsup.com" or something like that. In this, they claim that big tobacco supports banning sleep. I am not kidding.
Now anyone with half a brain could tell you that every single tobacco executive is a human being, and is thus just as reliant on sleep as the retards behind this commercial.

This made me think of a different issue. Is it really fair that we allow groups to advertise against another group, when that other group cannot legally advertise in its own defense?

It was annoying enough when "truth.org" or "truth.com" or whatever the hell it was called was solely doing anti-smoking ads. I mean, at least the goal is good, and maybe there are some retarded children living under rocks their whole lives who didn't already know that smoking is addictive and bad for you.
But then it seems someone pointed it out to them that anyone who has so much as heard of a cigarette knows that they're bad for you! What? NO!

So anyway, they've turned now to just throwing stones at tobacco executives. Now don't get me wrong, I'd expect tobacco executives to be evil, just as evil as the executives of every other corporation that sells things that kill you (McDonalds, Burger King, Winchestor, etc.) This is not to say that these products are immoral, but I would say that trying to advertise something when you know that someone may in the end die because of a chain of events started by that person seeing that ad would require a certain degree of callousness.
There are a lot of reasons why I smoke, and there are many reasons why I'd like to quit. The morality of the tobacco executives is not a factor. I do not have enough time or money to make sure that everything I purchase is from a moral merchant. And I am inclined to believe whatthefxsup.com knows this is true for just about everyone.

So what this is is a national ad campaign that serves the purpose of drawing a mustache and eyepatch on the metaphorical photographs of tobacco executives. Oh, what courage that must take! Hurling accusations at a group of people that have absolutely no means of defending themselves! Why not go tip over some people's wheel chairs while you're at it!
No one will listen to a tobacco executive's defense, I'm about as sympathetic for big tobacco as they come, and if I see some dude worth hundreds of millions of dollars who's made his fortune selling death sticks, and he starts complaining about people making fun of him, my reaction's gonna be "Oh boo hoo, I feel so sorry for you having to see ads mocking you while you watch your flat screen TV in your Bentley limo that is made of the bones of dead African children".
And that's what sucks. It's not to cool to pick on people who have no means of defense. It is completely possible that there are several tobacco executives who are legitimately good people, and realize what they are doing now is simply supplying a demand. And I don't think it's cool that they are being made a target because liberals don't think people are responsible for their own actions.

I started smoking when I was 9 years old, so if anyone had an argument that they were victimized by big tobacco, it would be me. And I don't deny that there were probably intentionally placed things that played a factor in me wanting to start smoking, but in the end it was 100% me.
I took the cigarette, I lit it, I inhaled it, I enjoyed it, I did it more, and thus I got addicted. I knew it was bad for me, and I knew it was addictive. Thus the single largest factor in my nicotine addiction is my own personal stupidity, and it is the exact same for everyone else who started smoking after they started putting WARNINGS ON THE ACTUAL PACKS OF CIGARETTES THEMSELVES WARNING THE CONSUMER THAT THEY'RE BAD FOR YOU.

It's just a stupid use of resources. If you want to prevent cigarette smoking, open up places to help people quit. Keep a steady stream of things to teach kids that smoking is bad for you.
But just hurling false accusations at people, that's fucked up.