Amazing tweets I got from "Gun Rights" activists! (Regarding Gun Control)

Yesterday I decided to put out a tweet about what I thought about people that feel like they have to carry guns everywhere that they went. Some of my fellow liberals that tweeted me said that I may have gone too far with my tweet, but it's my opinion and I was not going to back down to pressure from the right wing.

The #OpenCarry nutjobs are all pussies and not man enough to fight with their fists. #GunControl #UniteBlue #p2
— Angel Rivera (@TheMadMan31686) July 8, 2014

This was the original tweet that I sent out yesterday, which got "gun rights" activists angry at me, and maybe it was for a good reason I did call them "pussies" however the reason I did this honestly is because I wanted to get a reaction from these people and for them to show me their true colors and they did show me their true colors for sure. They called me names and tried to offend me even though they failed to offend me, here are some of those tweets.

If only that were true. But it's not. You're scum. @TheMadMan31686
— Linoge (@wallsofthecity) July 8, 2014

Plus, I'd rather be considered a "pussy" by small-minded bigots than be dead. But that's just me. #guncontrol @TL671 @TheMadMan31686
— Linoge (@wallsofthecity) July 8, 2014

No, you made a blanket stereotype that includes disabled persons, and women for that matter. Way to go. #guncontrol #fail @TheMadMan31686
— Linoge (@wallsofthecity) July 8, 2014

These are some of the examples of what I was called through out the evening last night, I did not take any of their tweets seriously because these are the most foolish people in America. Now I want to show you the tweets that really just shocked me because of how stupid they are here are some examples.

Bullshit. You can kill more people easier w/ contents of your kitchen cabinet than a gun. @TheMadMan31686 @TorcerT @motoraderGP @dwneylonsr
— Linoge (@wallsofthecity) July 9, 2014

I have to write about this tweet because anybody with half a brain knows that it's easier to kill someone with a gun compared to any other tool that is available currently. This person seriously suggested that it's easier to kill someone with kitchen tools compared with a firearm. I could not believe it when I read this tweet, I thought he was joking but I realized that he was serious. It's got to be either one or the other, either he's a really bad shot, or he's delusional and he needs to be on medication. According to Slate since the Newtown Conn. shootings 12,042 people have died around the country. According to this person that tweeted me it's easier to kill someone with a knife than with a gun, what a joke. This is the reason why these gun nuts can't be taken seriously because of their willful ignorance. He's smart enough to know that guns kill people a lot easier than anything else, however he loves his guns so much that he can't admit to himself that guns are the problem. (The date of the article was September 16, 2013, so there are many more people that died since that date which makes it even worse for these people that argue to me that Kitchen cabinets contents.) Now I'm going to post a few more tweets that I got that I found to be interesting.

@TheMadMan31686 @wallsofthecity @TorcerT @motoraderGP Let me try small words. If you don't need guns to kill then it's no use banning them
— David W Neylon, Sr. (@dwneylonsr) July 9, 2014

@th3v0t4ry this has been going on all day. Here's a less scary gun for @TheMadMan31686. Happy? pic.twitter.com/sPUxeNf0TK
— Chris Magill (@cmagill) July 9, 2014

I’m so sorry to hear that @haplesspursuer. You must really worry about how much that scares @TheMadMan31686. @cmagill
— The Votary (@th3v0t4ry) July 9, 2014

My final thoughts are that these people are lack empathy and they do not care about their fellow man, and there is plenty of willful ignorance going around as well. Whether these people that tweeted me last night like it or not there is a major gun problem in the United States and we need to do something about it. Then someone from Australia tweeted me last night and he told me that Australia banned guns about fifteen years ago after a mass shooting that took place there. Here's the tweet that I'm talking about.

@TheMadMan31686 @janet_sistare hi, I'll never understand this gun love, we got rid of ours in only 3 months, never had a mass shouting since
— Warren 2.1 (@driestmartini) July 9, 2014

Is this realistic here in America? I don't think so, but that does not mean we should not try. What's more realistic is passing a assault weapons ban and increase spending on mental health and make it more difficult for people to guy and possess weapons. I also noticed a lot of fear from these people, it seems to me like they are scared of their own shadow, and it also seems like they can't wait to use their weapons and that is what scares me the most, some of the people that tweeted me last night could use the guns that they have on other people and more people will die. So my final question is how many more people have to die before we as a nation want to do something about our national shame? As long as we don't do anything about our gun deaths in this country than we can't call ourselves America the Beautiful anymore, our country is drenched in the blood of the innocent.

 

Slate Peice: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

The Republicans want to destroy our democracy!

Wow it's been months since I posted on this blog, I was going through a lot in the last three months. Now I'm feeling much better and I can't wait to start writing about conservative nonsense and there is plenty of nonsense that conservatives are pushing lately. I'm personally quite frustrated with conservatives and their insistence on trying to destroy the government and make sure that the government does not do anything at all. I've always wondered why they insist on doing that? If you follow me on Twitter and if you've read this blog over the last few months you will know that I used to be a Republican. I was trying to be a liberal republican which now I realize was a foolish move. However I could agree with some republican ideas, like people taking responsibility for their own actions and staying out of other countries business. I've always hated the idea of using our military to replace governments that we don't like. who the hell does American think it is doing that? Anyway I figured out pretty quickly that the republicans were lying and did that believe their own rhetoric.


Anyway back to the point of this post, people that run for office need to care about the country and the people of this country. Republicans don't give a damn about this country or the people. What they care about is corporations and tax cuts and deregulation of those same corporations. The Republicans are heartless assholes and I can never be a republican or support a political party that just cares about corporations and the most wealthy people of this country and the rest of us can go to hell. That's not right, that's not justice, that's just infuriating. Why do Republicans insist on hating our government and our way of life? I'll never understand it, but I'll give my theory. Simply put the Republican party is dying a slow and horrible death, and they know it, there ideas are failing with the American people. Their ideas are the same ideas they had thirty years ago. Tax cuts and deregulation. That's all they know and they don't want to have any new ideas. I've had enough of that nonsense it's time to vote these bums out once and for all, and whatever we do we can't vote these bums back into office because the same thing will happen again. Republicans hate our way of life and our country!

Hillary Clinton would be a horrible candidate in 2016

I know that it's been a couple of weeks since I wrote my last blog post but currently I'm taking two classes this semester and I'm also looking for a job so writing blog posts is something that I've just not have time to do. The government shutdown is over and now we have moved on to other issues. However that's not the reason why I'm writing this blog post tonight. The question that I had on my mind recently is who is going to run for president on the democratic side in 2016. I know that 2016 is still three years away but it's something that progressives need to think about because honestly we can't run Hillary Clinton because in my personal opinion she would be a horrible candidate for us in 2016. The reason why I make this point is after eight years of President Obama we can't afford to have someone that would be running for President Obama's third term. For the record I have nothing against Hillary Clinton but when 2016 does roll around I don't think that she would not be a strong candidate for President because she is a establishment candidate and she would be funded by the bankers and the top one percent to do their bidding, and what we need in 2016 is a true progressive. One example I can name is Elizabeth Warren, she is a true progressive and I believe that she would regulate wall street and make sure that the top one percent pay their fair share of taxes as some examples. I understand that a lot of people are Hillary supporters, I want my readers to understand that she would not be the best candidate for president. This is just my opinion.

How Can we End GOP Manufactured Crisis

Today is the eighth day of the government shutdown caused by the tea party republicans and now even the quote moderate republicans now are siding with the tea party and they want to defund the Affordable Care Act in order to fund the government and to raise the debt ceiling. So why are the republicans doing this? The reason why is because the first time the republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling in 2011 President Obama gave in a negotiated with them. That was a big mistake by the president, if he did not negotiate with the republicans back in 2011 then they would not be doing this now in 2013. All of the republicans are expecting President Obama and the Democrats are going to give in and give them something in exchange for opening the government and raising the debt ceiling. If the Democrats give in now, then every time the debt ceiling needs to be raised, the republicans will want something for doing their jobs and the Democrats and the President can't allow that for the sake of the country.

Now the question must be what can President Obama do to end the republican manufactured crisis? The debt ceiling is easy, all the President has to do is invoke the 14th amendment and order to treasury department to continue to pay our debts the way that they've always have. Section four of the 14th amendment states as follows,"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void." With the republican party's threat of not raising the debt ceiling they are questioning the debt of the United States and the President should be able order the treasury to continue to pay the debts of the United States no matter what the republican party says. The President can't allow the republican party to insert fear into not only the American people but to the rest of the world he has to have a backbone and say no to the republican party America will always pay her bills no matter what.

Now to the issue of opening the government back up, that's much tougher because according to the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse strings which means that only congress has the power to fund the government, which is why that President Obama can't be responsible for the government shutdown because the executive branch of the government can't fund the government that's up to Congress and they've failed to do that so it's the republicans fault not President Obama. The question is what can President Obama do about the budget? Unfortunately not much the Republican party has the power of the purse, because ignorant Americans voted for the tea party republicans who had no interest in governing their interest is shutting down the government and to destroy the American government. The issue is that the founders never imagined that one day in the far future that there would be a political party that would be willing to hold the American people hostage in order to get what they want from the political party in power. To me what the republican party is doing is the most Anti-American thing that any political party has ever done in America's history.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures, and maybe it's time to arrest certain republican members of the house and charge them with treason. I know that this will lead to a shit storm but this is the only way that I can see that we can't get the government functioning again and as a nation we can't wait until 2014 in order to vote out the republican party. However this suggestion would be a last resort to me because if anybody does this then it would set a dangerous precedent and if a president does not agree with any congress they can arrest them for treason so in my opinion this would be the nuclear option, but it maybe time for the president to use it because the republicans in the house will not budge from there current position. The Republicans need to be scared straight and the only way that I can see that happening is that the President arrests some of the republican leaders of the house and maybe just maybe that scares them straight.  

Conservatives have always been against America's progress!

The weekend is coming up and I'm going to write this blog because it's the total truth and I'm sick of conservatives who think that they own the Constitution and/or the American flag. If you look through out American history you will see that progressives have had the backbone to change what needed to be changed and all through out American history you will see conservatives crying and whining like babies while that change for the better is being made. Before I continue I understand that not all progressive policies work however at least progressives or liberals whatever you want to call us, want to try and make things better in this country, meanwhile conservatives don't want to do anything and they want to keep the status quo. Conservative policies have always caused problems for this country and it seems like conservatives will never change, if we keep giving them power things will get worse and worse. Primary example of that is the state of Mississippi the poorest state in the union. The last time a Democrat was governor of Mississippi was in 2000 over ten years ago. I think that progressives should call out conservatives who use the flag and the constitution as political props they are not the only real Americans, we are all real Americans no matter what's your political affiliation. So now let's start with the era of the American Revolution, because these conservatives think that the founding fathers were conservative and they would've agree with their world view.

Let's briefly look at the era of the American Revolution the founding fathers were sick and tired of the tyranny of the British King George III and they wanted to create a new nation based on a fundamental rights and principles that every person should be created equal. The founders created a document called the Declaration of Independence, and later on the Constitution. The founding fathers created the two most progressive documents in the history of the world at the time. However there were other people that were called "loyalists" these people were still loyal to the crown and they did not want to fight for their freedom from the crown. These people were very conservative and they wanted to keep the status quo. In my opinion the founding fathers had the foresight and the guts to fight for what they believed in which is why these are the most progressive men of the 18th century. That's the total truth and I'm sick of today's conservatives and the tea party claim that these men were conservatives. That's the biggest joke of all.

Now let's jump ahead to 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected President and as we all know Lincoln was the first Republican President and at this time no one knew how Lincoln would govern as President. eight of nine states had seceded from the union and Lincoln had publicly been against slavery since the 1850s. and he knew that slavery was morally reprehensible and as a country we could not allow this policy to be continued. The people in the south were very conservative and they are for the most part still very conservative today. Over 600,000 people died in that brutal Civil War and Lincoln wrote the The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 which was one of the most famous executive orders ever written by a US President and this executive order ordered the army to free all of the slaves in the south during the war. President Lincoln was one of the most progressive Presidents in American history and I'm proud to be a progressive just like President Abraham Lincoln. I laugh whenever conservatives pretend that President Lincoln was a conservative and he would have agreed with them. If Abraham Lincoln knew what his Republican party has turned into today, he would be sick to his stomach and he would turn over in his grave has well.

I could go on and on but I'm going to move on to today, we see that conservative policies are destroying America and these conservatives do not care about governing and fixing the problems that they created quite frankly instead they talk about shutting down our government and they refuse to pay the bills that our government has incurred, these people are holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to defund the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare and if we don't raise the debt ceiling then we can't pay our bills and if we won't pay our bills then we will destroy our economy and the world's economy. These people are the most anti American group of people in the country and they will not stop until they destroy our country. We progressives need to take power back from these crazy people and we need some sensible leaders in Washington again. Because Ted Cruz and his ilk are not going to help things, they are going to make our problems worse for our country. It's time to fight these damn fools and vote them out of office.

Progressives Need to Vote in every Election!

Hello everyone I know I did not write a blog post yesterday and I'm sorry about that. I know how my readers like to read my blog and I appreciate that very much. However I had a lot on my mind lately and I felt a little down, however I'm back and ready to keep fighting for what I believe in and nobody is going to stop me. Now I need to talk about why progressives need to vote. Voting is the key to democracy, in my opinion if you did not vote in 2010 then I don't think that you have the right to complain about what's our government is doing wrong.  I don't care if you are a progressive, you should have voted in 2010 and you should vote in every election after 2010 and please vote in 2014 and 2016 and in very election after that. If not then conservatives will continue to have power in our government, and as we all know conservatives have no interest in governing but there interest is to destroy our government and cut taxes on the top 1% and corporations, that's all they care about. If you've read my blog, you know that I love philosophy and I love Plato and Socrates and I'm going to quote Plato because what he said about politics is so apt he said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

Plato was so right in his time and his words are so true in today's politics, because if we look at 2010 progressives did not vote, I don't really know why progressives did not vote in 2010, the only reason I can think of is because progressives were intimated by the tea party and they thought that the tea party were going to win anyway so they did not bother to come out and vote. I could be wrong but that's my personal opinion on why progressives did not come out and vote. Now let's go back to what Plato said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Now because progressives did not come out and vote we are now governed by the tea party and they are clearly our inferiors so progressives got what they deserved because they did not come out and vote. To be fair to progressives they did come and vote in 2012 which is Obama was reelected and house democrats got more votes then house republicans however because of the gerrymandering that republicans did so they retained control of the house, and why did that happen because progressives did not vote in 2010 and now we have to wait until 2020 until the next census before we can fix the mess that republicans made. So what's the lesson here if you don't listen to me listen to Plato when he says "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." So let's fight and make sure that our inferiors which are conservatives do not take power from us anymore.

PS I know that there are no pictures on my blog today but I think my message that I have to say is much more important than making this post look nice and pretty.

Conservatives are not Dumb they're just Ignorant!

Plato and Socrates

It's almost the weekend and if you follow me on twitter (@TheMadMan31686) then you know that last night I went on a epic rant against Republicans and conservatives calling them every name in the book. I will not back down from anything that I said, what I tweeted last night was my honest opinion. The reason why I realized that Conservatives or Tea Partiers however you want to refer to them are not dumb they are just ignorant is because I just got through reading Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and I this story reminded me of my political life. The first election that I voted in was the 2004 Presidential election between John Kerry currently the Secretary of State vs. George W. Bush who was running for a second term as President of the United States. I was 18 years old and I just registered to vote in June of that year, at the time and I considered myself a Republican, yes I know that's shocking but the reason why I was a Republican is because I believed in their lie that they were the fiscal conservatives and they had the balanced budgets. Yeah I was young and I was foolish for believe in them. However I did not vote for George W. Bush I voted for John Kerry and the reason why I did that is because I thought that Bush was a moron and he had no business as President of the United States. I was a ignorant 18 year old kid and I did not know a damn thing about politics or how things worked in Washington DC.

Now if you've read the "Allegory of the Cave" you know what it's about and if you've had not read it I suggest that you read it because I don't want to go through the whole thing here but I'll go through the more relevant parts. I won't directly quote it but I'll paraphrase at the beginning of the story there is all of these prisoners and the cave is their whole lives and they see these shadows that preform for the prisoners, the prisoners are ignorant they think that the cave is the whole world and they do not know any better. Now I was one of these prisoners I believed in the conservative talking points and I believed in Fox News performances. I was a very ignorant person and it took a lot for me to believe in the truth.

Then one day I came across a clip of Keith Olbermann at the time I came across the clip he was on MSNBC on the Internet and I was released from my shackles of ignorance and I left the cave, at first I did not believe in what the truth really was but after a while I realized that this was the truth and now I love the fact that I was released from my ignorance and I saw the light and I feel so welcomed by the other progressives and now I feel like I have to go back to the cave of ignorance where I came from and try to help these other conservatives to be released from their ignorance and even though I get nothing but hate from these conservatives part of me does not want to give up on them because I see hope in them, so to my conservative friends please come with me and let me lead you to the light.

PS: I know that I sound like a philosopher in this blog post but I thought that I would try my hand at being a philosopher so what do you think?

The 2nd Amendment is a Relic of the 18th Century!

Yesterday was the Navy Years Shooting in Washington DC and it's another outrageous crime that should have never happened but it did, and why is that? The reason why this happened is the lack of sensible gun regulation and I place the blame on the Republican Party, Conservatives and the NRA and the gun manufacturers. Democrats share part of the blame as well because they don't fight hard enough when it comes to sensible gun regulation. I know that's a lot of people at fault however it's the truth. Many Americans have the misguided idea that the founding fathers were always right and they were infallible and that the United States Constitution is a document inspired by Jesus (Yes the Jesus from the bible) As you can see on the right a painting of Jesus Christ bring the Constitution to the founders. For the record the founding fathers were not infallible in fact they were human that make mistakes just like the rest of us. As a example look at the Three-Fifths Compromise in the Constitution. In Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." This compromise counted black people that were slaves at the time as three-fifths of a person and they were not legally a citizen of the United States. Everyone admits that this was a big mistake and the founders clearly made this mistake. Now getting to the point of this blog post is the real history of the 2nd amendment of the US Constitution. The 2nd amendment has been perverted and used by conservatives and NRA in order to put more guns on the streets in order to make more money for the gun  manufacturers. Conservatives always say that the 2nd amendment has always been considered a individual right that's wrong let's look at the real history.

In 1876 the Supreme Court ruled in a case United States v. Cruikshank and the case held that "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence" and limited the applicability of the Second Amendment to the federal government." This case proves that that the 2nd amendment has not always been considered a individual right and in my opinion the individual right theory of the 2nd amendment is a fallacy, and I know about the District of Colombia vs. Heller case in 2008 now states that the 2nd amendment is a individual right, but the reasons why were some of the dumbest I've ever heard. I talked about the DC v. Heller case in a previous blog post last week and the details are on there check it out if you have not already. So to me the individual right that is in the 2nd amendment is just a theory with no basis in fact. If you've followed me on Twitter (@TheMadMan31686) you've seen this tweet:

The 2nd amendment is a relic of the 18th century we should not be making policy in 21st century America (cont) http://t.co/dqbEyCwoMy
— Angel Rivera (@TheMadMan31686) September 17, 2013

This has been my opinion for most of my political life and let's look at some of the reasons why the 2nd amendment is a relic of the 18th century. In the 18th century these are some of the reasons why Americans thought the right to keep and bear arms were for enabling the people to organize a militia system. participating in law enforcement deterring tyrannical government repelling invasion suppressing insurrection, allegedly including slave revolts facilitating a natural right of self-defense. All of these are not problems in the 21st century America and this point is for the conservatives that use the famous Thomas Jefferson quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." I've heard conservatives use this quote over and over again, and I don't think that these people understand the era that Thomas Jefferson came from. We have got to remember that in Jefferson's time America was a colony of Kingdom of England and there was a tyrannical king named King George III. Even after America gained her independence from England there was plenty of concern that America could fall into a tyrannical government once again, which is why when Jefferson's said that it made perfect sense. For conservatives to use this quote today makes no damn sense because we don't have a tyrannical government and there are no tyrants threating the United States anymore.

I don't understand the gun culture in the United States today, people want to buy more and more guns and there are more and more mass shootings where more and more innocent people die and every American should reject that. Part of the reason why Americans want more and more guns is because of all of the mass shootings Americans are afraid so in order to feel protected they buy more and more guns and that's another way that gun makers profit off all of the death that has been happening in the last six months. Another factor is the people that are called "preprers" these are the people that are preparing for the apocalypse whether it's zombies or something else these people buy millions of dollars worth of guns and ammo and store them. To me these people are nut jobs and they need lots of help. Gun makers take advantage of these poor people and make millions and millions of dollars of these people.  Simply put the gun makers are manipulated this whole debate thanks to help from the NRA to profit off of people's deaths or profit off of people's fears and to me that's not right and the NRA, the gun makers, and the conservatives have blood on their hands.

My opinion on President Putin's Op-Ed in NYT

Presidents Obama & Putin

Well the weekend is coming up and there's been a lot of news coming out about Syria, some of it bad and some of the news is good. However last night President Vladimir Putin of Russia wrote a opinion piece or Op-Ed in the New York Times (NYT) which was published last night on the NYT website. I heard about it on Twitter last night and I was reading some of the tweets from some of the people that I was following and I honestly did not understand the reaction towards President Putin's Op-Ed, most of the people I follow are progressives of course and like I said I don't understand the reaction, the reason why is because progressives start to attack Putin and don't get me wrong all of the attacks were valid, however I could be wrong and please let me know if I am but it seemed like to me that no one really read his piece and just started to criticize him. Like I said all of the attacks were valid but after reading Putin's Op-Ed I agree with most of what he had to say. Before I give my reasons on why I agree with President Putin, I'm going to talk about why I think President Putin motivation was when he wrote his Op-Ed. I don't think that President Putin is worried about American interests or the American people, hell I don't even think he cares about his own people. The reason why I think that President Putin wrote his Op-Ed is because he's worried about his own government's interests and he's worried about the United States possibly starting World War III over these chemical weapons. That's the Russian President main motivation.

Presidents Assad & Putin

Now the first point that Putin made which I agree with is that "The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria's borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance."This is a good point of Putin because most counties of the world do not agree with the action to bomb Syria, and if the United States bombs Syria without UN authorization, then we would lose even more credibility with the rest of the world, and we can't afford that at this point because thanks to President Bush we lost most of our credibility with the rest of the world. Also if we do attack Syria without the support of the rest of the world, then if Syria retaliates then this could lead to World War III and nobody wants that.

Another point that Putin made was "It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America's long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you're either with us or against us.” Putin is right because as a American I'm alarmed that the United States always think that military intervention is always the answer and no that is not in our best interests right now, and that's going to cost us more and more money which we don't have by the way because we won't raise taxes on the top 1% or the corporations. I'm glad that President Obama is allowing the Russians to try and get the Chemical Weapons from the Syrians that way the government would not have bomb Syria, because if Mitt Romney would've became President then we would have boots on the ground in Syria right now which would be a awful decision.

US forces in Iraq

Putin also talked about American intervention in recent history "But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes. I do agree that force is ineffective and pointless we started two wars and Afghanistan and in Iraq and more than a decade later neither of those counties are not stable and Iraq has slipped into civil war, so the United States policy of democracy by force did not work and it's a failure, and in my opinion we can't force feed democracy to the rest of the world, to me democracy has to manifest organically and not by force by another government, like in Egypt for example when they removed Mubarak from power a few years ago. It was organic that's my point but I digress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Putin also said that "We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement." He's 100% right about that and I would hope that the Syrian's would hand over their Chemical Weapons to the Russians because I've always been anti-war and I don't want to keep using the military in order to fix the internal problems of other countries, the United States should stay out of Syria and other countries internal problems. The last point that I would like to make is that I understand the frustration of progressives with President Putin, Putin has used the politics of fear in order to gain a firm hold on his power in Russia, he's blamed gay people for all of Russia's problems and it's worked unfortunately. Reminds me of what Hitler did with the Jewish people which lead to World War II but I digress, the final point that I'm trying to make is that Putin is not the ideal leader for Russia we can all agree to that, but we should not close our minds to what he has to say just because he's Vladimir Putin President of Russia, we as progressive should not be closed minded no matter who's making good points we need to listen and learn.

President Putin's Op-Ed in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html

Update: I just came across a story from Al-Jazeera America that says that "Assad told Russia's state Rossiya 24 news channel in an interview that is set to be broadcast fully later Thursday that "Syria is transferring chemical weapons under international control because of Russia." He added that "the U.S. threats hadn't influenced" his government's decision." This is a good development because like I said many times I'm against any bombing action in Syria and I don't care what reasons the Syrians have for handing over their chemical weapons, as long as they do it that is what matters to me.

Al-Jazeera America link: http://live.america.aljazeera.com/Event/Syrias_War/88723083

 

The Right Wing/Republicans are trying to start another War in Syria because of religious prophecy

This is why President Bush went into Iraq for Moron!

I know that some progressives in this country are religious, so before I start to write today's blog post, I want to say that my intent is not to offend anyone, I just want to write my honest opinion. I want to preface this post by saying that I was raised a Christian and I still believe in Jesus' teachings and he had the ideal way to live life. The reason why I don't consider myself to be a Christian today is because there are certain Christians that will use the religion in order to do outrageous things like hating homosexuals, starting wars in the middle east just because they think that the end times prophecies will come true, example is when President Bush invaded Iraq. In 2003 Bush told the French President at the time Jacques Chirac that "“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.” (http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5) Whatever we do as a country can't allow these fundamentalist Christians to take the power in order to invade another country that did nothing to us in this case Syria.

Now after one long paragraph, what was my motivation for writing this post today is I saw a article on the web site therawstory.com "Fox anchor asks viewers to consider if bombing Syria is a harbinger of the Second Coming of Christ" Honestly I assumed that the "Fox anchor" would be Sean Hannity, because for one Glenn Beck is not at Fox anymore and Hannity is so into the Christianity I thought that it made sense to assume that it was Hannity. I read a little bit of the piece and I found out that the anchor was Neil Cavuto, I'm not saying that I'm surprised because all of Fox News is a propaganda outlet for the Republican party and for the Christian/Catholic Church. In my opinion Fox News is dangerous for the country because a portion of the American population takes them seriously and those people think that they are real news. They disguise their propaganda under the guise of real news and that's what makes them really dangerous. The story that I started to talk about in the beginning of this paragraph is another example of how dangerous Fox News is for the country.

Now after two paragraphs I'm finally going to talk about the article I started to talk about in the second paragraph. The article is accompanied by a video, which I will post at the end of this post, so you can check it out for yourselves. Cavuto said that "This Syria stuff is way old, I mean Old Testament old. That’s how old I’m talking about. Don’t laugh. Some biblical scholars say it’s all there in black and white." To be fair to Cavuto the Bible does talk about prophecy regarding Damascus, “This message came to me concerning Damascus: ‘Look, Damascus will disappear! It will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Aroer will be deserted. Sheep will graze in the streets and lie down unafraid. There will be no one to chase them away. The fortified cities of Israel will also be destroyed, and the power of Damascus will end. The few left in Aram will share the fate of Israel’s departed glory,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 17:1-3 as an example, my problem with this is that these prophecies are not real, they are just stories that were told thousands of years ago just to entertain people. Then Joel Rosenberg said that "“These are prophecies more than 2,700 years old, some of them, but they have not actually been fulfilled,” Rosenberg said. “But this prophecy, as you just pointed out, talks about the complete and utter destruction of Damascus. That’s an End Times or eschatological prophecy. It’s a very sobering thought to think that a judgment of a city or a country could happen in which an entire city could be wiped out, but that is, in fact, what the Bible is predicting,” he added. “I think it’s wrong for people who teach Bible prophecies to guess — I mean, in a sense try to say for certain it’s going to happen now.”

This Joel Rosenberg guy is a fraud, because not many people would take these prophecies seriously because they were spoken 2000 years ago and it was for entertainment purposes only, and to people that take these prophecies seriously my question is why do you take these prophecies seriously? I don't get it, like I said at the beginning of this post, I was raised a Christian but I never took any of those prophecies seriously. However that's just my opinion, but I'm serious but Fox News being dangerous for this country as long as they are treated like serious news, if one day most people realize that Fox News is right wing propaganda, then I will have no problem with them because in America there are free speech rights and they have to right to say whatever they want and I as an American will defend their rights. However I'm glad that President Obama is in office now and not President Bush or else we would be going to war with Syria and we as a country can't afford that.

Link to the article: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/10/fox-anchor-asks-viewers-to-consider-if-bombing-syria-is-a-harbinger-of-the-second-coming-of-christ/

My Thoughts on Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad interview with Charlie Rose

President Assad of Syria

First of all I hope that everyone has a good week, and last night I had started to write a post for today. However I went on the Huffington Post website and I saw that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad gave a interview to Charlie Rose, I had to put my original post for today on hold and I had to give my thoughts on the clips of the interview that I saw on Huffington Post. I've been on record on this blog and on my twitter account that unless Syria is a direct threat to the United States, that the United States should not involve ourselves in the Syrian Civil War, as we all know Syria is not a threat to the United States, the obvious reason is because Assad is fighting a Civil War for the last two years. Before I give my opinion on what Assad said on this interview with Charlie Rose, I would like to say that, I know that Assad is a brutal dictator and this civil war has killed over 100,000 people so far and I know that Assad will do almost anything to maintain his power in Syria. Now I think that Assad made some decent points in the interview that I would like to discuss.

First off Assad said that "We have the precedent of Colin Powell ten years ago when he showed the evidence [that Iraq had WMDs], it was false and it was forged." and that the "United States credibility was at an all-time low." In my opinion Assad is totally right, the reason why I say that is
because the United States did lie about Weapons of Mass-Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, even though was during the Bush years and the credibility of the US government is at an all time low, thanks to President Bush and Obama is not helping matters now. Assad also made another good point when he said "Americans don't want a war anywhere, not only against Syria." I personally think that the reason why Assad said this is because he cares what the American people think, but he's using this fact in order to try and stop the US government from attacking his country. Which I think was his main motivation for wanting to do an interview with Charlie Rose. He wanted to directly appeal to the American people in order to stop the US from attacking his country.

What I thought was the most interesting comments that Assad made during this interview was the threats that Assad made against the United States if they went through with the bombings against his country. Assad said that "You should expect everything... expect every action," and he also said "Not necessarily from the government." I'm pretty sure that the Republicans and Conservative pundits will try to use this as a excuse in order to justify a long drawn out invasion of Syria and they
will want to use the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strike. However let's say that Syria came out and said that they wanted to bomb the United States because we had used Chemical Weapons, our government for sure would consider it an act of war and we will retaliate if Syria did attack us. Then if the United States would retaliate if Syria bombed us in my hypothetical, then what do you expect Assad to do when he threatened to retaliate against the United States. Anybody in Assad's position would make the same decision. I don't want to hear from conservatives and war hawks that we have to attack Assad just because he said that.    

Update: I had just finished my blog post for today when I saw a interesting story from the Huffington Post once again, and I saw people tweeting about it as well. Now in order to avoid an attack from the United States, Russia is now pushing Syria to give up it's Chemical Weapons to international control and then those weapons will be destroyed, and that way the United States will not attack Syria. This development is a good because as I said many times I'm against any action in Syria and if there is someway that the crisis can be ended with out the US bombing Syria and I'm totally in favor of it.    
Link to Huffington Post peice: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/russia-syria-chemical-weapons-international-control_n_3893951.html?utm_hp_ref=world

Our Government is owned by Corporations we need Campaign Finance Reform!

Constitutional Convention 1787

One of the very few points that both conservatives and progressives can agree upon is that there is way too much corporate money in our politics and lobbyists that represent the corporate interests have bought our government. The government does not represent the American people's interest anymore instead they represent the corporations interest. I'm not just referring to just the banks, I'm referring to all corporations private health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the private military contractors (PMCs) and I'm sure I could name more corporations who own a share of our government but I think that my readers get the point. I personally think that the only way that we can try and fix this major problem is to have a Constitutional amendment in order to ban corporate money in our politics. I know that it would next to impossible for congress to ever propose this Constitutional Amendment because they are the ones that are bought by the corporations, but we have another option which is a Constitutional Convention which is in Article V of the United States Constitution, the exact language is;

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."  

(http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html)

See, all we would need to 34 states and we can get a Constitutional Convention

To simplify it we would need two-thirds or 34 states to ask for a Constitutional Convention in order to get one and that way we can change the Constitution in order get the amendment to finally get corporate money out of our politics and get our country back from these corporations. As everyone knows the reason why we have unlimited corporate money in our politics is because of the Citizen's United ruling. To me the Citizen's United ruling is one of the worst that the Supreme Court has handed down since the Dred Scott case. If you know your history you will know what the Dred Scott case held, I'm not getting into it in this entry, just Google Dred Scott. Anyway if you don't know the Citizen's United case, this is the infamous case that held that "that corporations and unions can not constitutionally be prohibited from promoting the election of one candidate over another candidate." (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf) In other words as Mitt Romney once infamously said "Corporations are people my friend" This Supreme Court ruling has destroyed our country and allowed corporations to completely take over our government.



See, Conservatives and Progressives can agree on something.

So what can we as progressives do? Well my answer is to go to the states where progressives and conservatives can agree and we as a country can fight for this amendment in order to finally rid ourselves of the blight of the Citizen's United ruling and make our politicians work for us the people again, like it was always meant to be. One final point that I would like to make for this post is to the conservative politicians that think that Corporations are people as Mitt Romney said, do you men really think that the founding fathers really wanted corporations to run our government? There is no way that you so called men can really believe that, you republican politicians are just corporate robots that take the corporate money and crush your political opponents, and which is regular people like myself who have ideas for our great country can't run for office because we don't have the money for a political campaign and that is the saddest part of this.