The One About... Troy Davis Is Easy. It's Lawrence Russell Brewer That's Hard.

Two men died today. One was black. One was white. One was in Texas. The other in Georgia. The one was convicted of a crime that most likely he did not commit. There is no doubt at all about the guilt of the other man. Despite all of their differences, these two men share one sad commonality. They were both murdered by the state.

There is a great outpouring of grief over the wrongful execution of Troy Davis. And rightly so. This entire situation is disgusting beyond measure.

The problem is that so long as we allow the state to hold the power to execute even so much as one single person we leave ourselves open to a never ending moral quagmire.

I understand how hard of a challenge this is. Unless you are superhuman, you are always going to hit serious challenges to your belief that the death penalty is wrong in every case. It is a very human thing to wish for exceptions. Just this once. Just this once, we say to ourselves, it's okay to cheer the state murdering another human being. Just this once, the person who was executed really and truly deserved it. Just. This. Once.

You know what? I'm not going to sit here and make an argument against executing someone like Lawrence Russell Brewer based on anything to do with him. I personally don't subscribe to the notion that we are all special little snowflakes. Some of us are simply pieces of shit wearing a human suit. And I won't argue from the notion of what his execution might do to his family. Because frankly I think that's just a weak argument.

Instead I'm going to simply ask anyone who might be for the death penalty in any conceivable situation to ask themselves one deceptively simple question. "What kind of society do I want to live in?"

Do you want to live in a society where people, prideful, imperfect, deceivable people reserve unto themselves the right to kill other people?

Because I guarantee you that so long as we think that people en masse under the guise of The State have the right to kill they are going to find ways to exercise that power. Now it would be a comforting fantasy to believe that they tend to more often than not be executing the Lawrence Brewers. But the facts don't bear that fantasy out.

The simple truth is that so long as we continue to permit the death penalty to exist anywhere in this country using Lawrence Brewer as our excuse we are going to continue to end up executing a lot of Troy Davis's.

I know it's not fair, and it's not right. But it is what it is.

It's time that we stand up and say No More Killing! No ifs. No ands. No buts. No Lawrence Russell Brewers. No Troy Davis's.

Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!

Related articles

• Victim's son objects as Texas sets execution in hate crime death (huffingtonpost.com)
• My blog around Troy Davis and Lawrence Russell Brewer (incensedbuddhist.wordpress.com)

The One About... It's A Poor Carpenter Who Blames His Tools.

I happened to catch the following exchange on Twitter the other day...

"I thought 2000 had taught liberals a lesson about making the perfect the enemy of the good. But maybe not."

"it taught this liberal a lesson I'll never forget."

Since one of the participants in this exchange is someone I follow on Twitter and respect even if I often don't agree with them, I thought perhaps they would be so kind as to respond to a question that has long been bugging me. So I tweeted...

"Serious ?. y do U & so many others cont 2 downplay or ignore the role the SCOTUS played in helping Jr steal the 2000 election?"

(Translated from Twit-speak it reads, "Serious question. Why do you and so many others continue to downplay or ignore the role the Supreme Court of The United States played in helping Bush junior steal the two thousand election?")

This persons reply was...

"because SCOTUS would not have been involved at all, had Nader not peeled off millions of votes."

I sat at my keyboard stunned.

Now to be honest this is not the first time that I've encountered this reasoning. Ironically it was a very similar kind of reasoning that Republicans used to explain Bush Sr.'s loss to Bill Clinton in ninety two, when Ross Perot ran as an independent candidate for President.

Now from a pure math standpoint of course it's inarguable. Let me reduce the numbers to make it easy to talk about for purposes of this article.

Lets say you have two candidates for dog catcher and there are fifty nine people casting their votes.

Well one person can conceivably end up with twenty nine votes and the other person can possibly end up with thirty.

Now what would happen if a third candidate was on the ballot?

Well now it's conceivable that two of the candidates could get twenty votes and a third one gets nineteen.

Bottom line the votes have to go somewhere.

But the problem is that statements like the one I cited above about Nader are never made in the spirit of mathematical accuracy. No they are made in a spirit of blame. With an implied tone of "How dare they?" As if there is only one possible right choice. And anyone who has the audacity not to choose correctly is an idiot or a simpleton, or must be deranged or damaged in one way or another.

It's a presumptuous and arrogant argument and it's one that it sickens me to hear Liberals in general and Progressives in particular make.

It is an argument that lines up very nicely with the narrative that the GOP has been trying to shove down our throats all these years. Oh they talk a good game, the GOP does. About the "Will Of The People" and all that. But the truth of the matter is that the Republicans don't want to be bothered with the will of the people unless it's in alignment with the will of the Republican party, and therefore in alignment with the will of the Corporatocracy.

It is an argument that says that the system is just fine and that there is no need for anything other than the two parties that have anointed themselves perpetual Kings and Queens on alternating Tuesdays.

It is an argument that insists that anyone who does not get in line and vote with the majority is an idiot. A dreamer who honestly probably doesn't even deserve the vote they are wasting.

It is an argument that they are trotting out again to use against anyone who dares to talk about the idea of a Primary challenger to Obama.

Now I've gone on record as saying in this very blog that I think that trying to Primary Obama is a bad idea. When I wrote that I was speaking tactically and I still believe that tactically that is the case. But here's a bit of news that will shock some people. A lot of people don't vote tactically. Instead they vote their conscience.

What idiots. What fools. How dare they? Don't they know what's at stake? If Obama were to lose because of such nonsense it would be all their fault.

But you see it wouldn't. Because here's another shocking bit of news. Voting your conscience, is, ideally, what you are supposed to do.

You are supposed to look at the candidates on offer and choose the one who most shares your values. Not the one with the best chance of winning that you find the least despiseable.

Now if you want to vote based on who you indeed believe has the best chance of winning and doesn't totally make your skin crawl you are entitled to do exactly that. It doesn't make you a fool or an idiot for doing so. It just makes your conscience calibrated a little differently from the person who votes based purely on which candidate they believe best represents their views on a wide array of issues.

But if Obama cannot successfully convince those kind of people to vote for him in two thousand and twelve it will not be their fault. It will not be because they were stupid, or naive. It will be because Obama did not offer them something they felt was worth their vote.

So perhaps Obama and his supporters would be well advised to find ways for him to become worth voting for instead of finding ways to blame those who so far hold their vote as too valuable to ransom for petty trinkets.

Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!

Related articles

• Liberals vow to challenge Obama in Democratic primaries (peregrine5700.wordpress.com)
• Ralph Nader Is a Traitor to Democratic Success! (goodolewoody.wordpress.com)
• Ralph Nader ready to run a whole slate of far-left candidates against Obama or something (hotair.com)
• The return of Ross Perot Syndrome (salon.com)

The One About... I Have Met The Enemy. And He Is Us.

Ten years ago, September Eleventh was a weekday work day for my wife and I. Her mother was visiting, getting ready to go back to work driving truck cross country. She was waiting on a call from her dispatcher telling her they had a load for her. Her dispatcher called and told her to turn on the television. In an event that Americans haven't seen the like of, probably since Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the whole of the nations attention was glued to their televisions. After picking our jaws up off the floor, and not fully understanding the depth of what was taking place, my wife and I went to work.

(To read the full article for free just click here.)

The One About... I've Got Twenty Pounds In The Game. How About You?

Well, a day without a rich asshole whining about paying too much in taxes, is like a day without burning rectal itching. It's a real popular Wrong Wing talking point lately. The Rich, and Super Rich, in an attempt to appear just a little bit less like assholes, are almost universally stepping away from out and out saying, "Fuck the poor! If they want more money they can go and screw over some brown people in a third world country like I did.", and instead carefully shading their words. "Oh well I don't mind that those who have more money pay more. But it's not fair that so many people pay no taxes at all. Everyone should have some skin in the game." With the notable exception of Warren Buffet, (...And, hey, Warren? Nothing personal, but you're still an asshole. You're just less of an asshole than the rest of them....) pretty much anytime you hear anything from a millionaire, or billionaire, it's for them to seek to perpetrate two major bullshit notions.

One, that the only tax of any consequence is income tax. And two, that if you don't pay income tax than you have absolutely nothing invested in how things are run in this country.

(To read the rest of this article for free just click here.)

The One About... You've Called Down The Thunder GOP! Well Now You've Got It!

 

So James Hoffa called the Tea Party (...A wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP...) "sons of bitches" and told them we are going to take them out. And of course they are hurt and shocked and outraged, and all the other phony bullshit they claim to be when anyone dares to speak the truth to them.

Well I've got some news for everyone on the Right. Get used to it! The Radical Left is here and we are done playing nice. 

(To read the entire article for free just click here!)

The One About... It's Time We All Accept That It's The 21st Century Not The 18th.

 

So Matthew Vadum has a problem with the idea of people working to help the poor to vote. He carries on at great length about the evils of Welfare, and as most Professional Conservatives like to do, he invokes the Founding Fathers as some sort of quasi deities. 

For some time now, it has been very popular on the Right to suggest, both directly and indirectly, that some people are more worthy of the right to vote than others. In times past this idea was propagated against African Americans in forms such as poll taxes, and on the spot literacy tests. Today the idea is applied more broadly against anyone who is poor or Working Class through ridiculously strict voter identification laws, or in some cases campaigns of outright disinformation about when polls are open, where one is to vote etc.

This all seems to stem from a problem that many in the Professional Right seem have around accepting a very simple, irreversible fact.

This is not the 1700's. Nor is it the 1800's. And for over a decade now it's also not been the 1900's. In fact right now, at this very moment (you may want to brace yourself) it is the year Two Thousand and Eleven.

(Click here to read the full article for free)

In the last nearly three hundred years, we have seen incredible changes to the way life is lived, both in the world in general, and the United States of America in specific.

The Founders, were a great many things. Some were visionaries, some were more on the order of small minded politicos. But even the best of them were products of their time. They tended to be inherently racist, sexist, and to a great extent classist. Most of them could not quite envision a world where a woman, a black man, or even a non land owner was really their equal. So in the beginning voting rights were held to be for a very, very few.

This was in an age where it was much more likely that if one were able bodied, male and white, that one would indeed hold at least a bit of property.

The founders were also generally against the Federal Government being in the business of taking care of the indigent. But this was in a time when for many people their entire world was most likely the township where they were born. There were local organs of charity, and because the scale was small it was usually easy to meet peoples needs.

But then came industrialization, and mechanization. More and more people, many of them immigrants, some of them women, went to work in factories. In short things changed.

Now the founders, whatever their flaws may have been, had a singular genius seldom seen before them, as regards one very particular part of the creation of the Government of The United States of America. They recognized that the challenges the people of the United States and their government would face in the 1700's, would most likely not be the exact same challenges that people would face in centuries yet to come. So they crafted a Constitution that was a dynamic and changeable document, and they created a system whereby the Constitution was meant to be interpreted and reinterpreted down through the years to meet the challenges of today, rather than to try and force society to fit itself into the patterns of ages gone bye.

This brings us to today. An age in which, excepting those serving time for being convicted of a crime, everyone age eighteen or older is eligible to register and vote.

But Matthew Vadum, doesn't seem to like that idea. He seems to wish that the poor wouldn't exercise that right. And he especially seems to wish that no one would help them to do so. His reason for this? Well it largely seems to boil down to hating the idea that the poor might vote in line with their own self interest. This strikes me as more than a bit hypocritical since that is exactly everyone else does with their vote, especially the very rich.

But here's something to consider, the idea that there is more than one kind of self interest. There is direct self interest, and there is indirect self interest.

Direct self interest, is, quite literally, seeking to vote for candidates and measures, that only directly benefit oneself or people like oneself. This is what many of the top twenty percent, who hold roughly eighty five percent of the wealth, tend to do. This leads to measures like privatization of pretty much everything including education, policing, healthcare etc. It also tends to lead to opposition to measures that would regulate pollution, food safety, and a great many other things that the rich are insulated from having to worry about thanks to their wealth.

Indirect self interest, is a great deal more complex. It is based on the notion, that that which benefits the greatest number directly, will ultimately benefit me indirectly, even if I am not also benefited directly as well. Take for example public education. Even if I were able to send my child to a private school, it would still benefit me to pay my taxes, and to have those taxes go towards robust public schools offering a well rounded education, because it would mean that the people going to such schools would come out of them better people, more likely to feel a sense of responsibility to the welfare of their community, and their country. Plus, such people would make better employees, and would require less training.

The same idea is at the heart of things like welfare, or jobs programs. If the people around me have at best gainful, (ideally meaningful) employment, and at worst at least have their basic needs to food, shelter, and healthcare met, then I am at a lessened risk to be the victim of a crime by someone who is jobless and hungry. If I pay my taxes I am helping to subsidize a public police force, which, while it benefits people who aren't me, it also means that I do not have to pay for a cadre of private security forces to stand around and wait for an attack on my person or property that may never come.

Ultimately it's a question of what kind of society do we want to be? A "Me" society, or a "We" society?

It seems to me that every time we have tried to turn this country into a survival of the fittest, I've got mine and devil take the hindmost, kind of zero sum game, we have been stricken with things like the Great Depression in the 1930's, and the current Neo-Depression we are enduring now. It is at times like this that many who once thought themselves insulated from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune discover just how wrong they were.

It is only when we decide that the only moral choice is to make certain that all people regardless of situation have lives of reasonable quality and unassailable dignity that we see the kind of amazing progress on all fronts that we enjoyed throughout the 1960's and into the 70's, especially technological and social. And it is the only way that we are going to have any hope of creating a new golden age of peace and prosperity for all.

Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!

Related articles

• Conservative Troll of a Journalist Says Profoundly Un-American Things (midwestaholic.wordpress.com)
• Reich-wing pundit says registering the poor to vote is 'un-American' (dangerousminds.net)
• Matthew Vadum Isn't Bad-Famous Enough Yet (theawl.com)
• Democracy Is Un-American (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Andrew C (✓): Columnist: Registering Poor To Vote 'Like Handing Out Burglary Tools To Criminals' | TPMMuckraker (tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com)