Most nations of the world today claim to be democracies, while - in fact - most governments and systems of leadership are based on giving privileges to people with wealth (plutocracy), family connections (nepotism), certain classes (oligarchy), or long-standing friends (cronyism).

One of the main reasons for this is the sheer size of government and the sheer length of time that people sit in their office. During the four or five years that political leaders sit in their office, they have plenty of time to make sure that their personal interests are maintained and that their friends only get wealthier and establish more power. Take, for example, Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States under the Bush government. For a long time, he was the leader of a company named Halliburton. After the invasion of Iraq, led by the Bush government, Halliburton stood to gain quite a lot by signing various contracts - which Dick Cheney, of course, managed to arrange for his previous company to sign. His stock in this company rose almost 3000% during the year 2007.

So; as the size of a government increases, the risks that some corruption occurs in it rises along with it. Many people have wondered how best to fix this problem, and have come up with a few options. Short of anarchy - which some suggest as a realistic solution to the problem - the two most popular options seem to be either demarchy (Thanks, Johan S!) or a night watchman state.

In short, a demarchy is a system of government where random people chosen from the entire population to take all roles in the government, and then re-elected at a certain time. Demarchy attempts to overcome some of the functional problems with conventional representative democracy. Random selection of policymakers would make it easier for everyday citizens to meaningfully participate, and harder for special interests to corrupt the process. In the Revelation Space-series by Sci-Fi author Alastair Reynolds, one of the human factions - aptly named the demarchists - use this form of government. Everyone is theoretically equal, and all major political related issues are voted upon by everyone via neural implant. It has become so natural for people to vote in this way that most people are not aware of voting at all; they simply have opinions that are polled automatically when a political question arises that needs a vote. It should be noted that the “Demarchy” in this society is actually more of a direct democracy.

The second option, a night watchman state, is probably the more interesting of the two; mainly because it goes in the opposite direction of what most governments seem to be doing. A night watchman state, sometimes called “a minimal state” or a “minarcy”, is a form of government in political philosophy where the government’s responsibilities are so minimal they cannot be reduced much further without becoming a form of anarchy. The only governmental institutions in a hypothetical night watchman state would be police, judicial systems, prisons and the military. Minarchists argue that the state has no right to interfere in free transactions between people, and see the state’s sole responsibility as ensuring that transactions between private individuals are free. In general, the majority of minarchists use deontological arguments: they claim that a minimal state is good in and of itself, and that any further extension of government is inherently evil, even if it leads to good consequences. A system such as this one would, for example, minimize taxes to a bare minimum, as there would be so few government functions to fund.

There are large criticisms towards both forms of government. The argument against demarchy is, of course, that people will the people chosen by random will be unsuitable. If the random choise of head of government falls upon a person who is extremely racist, the minorities of the country will suffer. Nobody would want a person in charge of the countries finances if he or she has declared personal bankrupcy several times.

The arguments against the night watchman state are more diverse. For example, there is an argument from a welfare perspective; a government such as this one would not be well suited to provide care and protection for the elderly or otherwise disadvantaged. A night watchman state could do nothing in face of issues like economic recession. Another issue is that it is undemocratic to have a constitution which cannot be amended by the people.

All forms of government seem to have their inherent weaknesses; we can only hope that the one we’re currently using is the best of all possible worlds.

Sorry, folks, this will probably be my last post for around two months weeks (oops, wrong unit of time!) time. In another three days, I’m flying off on a short African tour, visiting Rwanda Rwanda, Uganda, (oops, wrong link there!) and Cameroon. Hopefully I’ll have enough Internet access there to be able to post something interesting, but you never know how the Internet will behave in Africa.

I’d like to talk about the claims of America spreading “Freedom and Democracy” throughout the world, at the threat of death and destruction if need be. George W. Bush is quoted as having said:

A free society requires more than free elections; it also requires free institutions, a vibrant civil society, rule of law, anti-corruption, and the habits of liberty built over generations. [...] In a democracy, the government must uphold the will of the majority while respecting the rights of minorities. [...] And when freedom and democracy take root in the Middle East, America and the world will be safer and more peaceful.
(George W. Bush, March 29th, 2005)

Let’s take a look at that statement, shall we? To do so, we need to analyze the definitions of the words.

Democracy

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
(E.B. White)

The word “Democracy” comes from the Greek root words demos, meaning “people”, and kratos, meaning “power”. Thus, the word basically means “people-power”. The word kratos, however, has more to do with a misuse of power, a tyranny of sorts. The way we normally would say power in Greek would be arche, which we can see in words such as “anarchy”, “oligarchy” and “monarchy”.

Defining your political system as one in which the people have the power requires an additional definition; who are the people? In some countries, “people” was defined as adult men who had completed military service. Today, thankfully, many western countries have redefined the term to mean everybody above a certain age. America stands as an exception - as it does so often - by considering “people” to be all mentally competent adults except convicted criminal offenders. This means that about 4 million Americans cannot make their voice heard when selecting the next leader of their nation. This includes 13% of the male African-American population. This varies from state to state, however. In Massachusetts, a person who has been convicted for burglary may vote in the national elections while still in prison, while in Indiana he cannot. A person that is convicted of theft in New Jersey is allowed to vote the day after he is released from prison. In New Mexico, that same person isn’t allowed to vote for the rest of his/her life.

In other parts of the world, we see the term “Democracy” being pulled through the mud in other ways. North Korea, or “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” has regular elections, elected legislatures and some limited choice in candidates. However, voting is mandatory, and there is only one Party to vote for. In America, there are (realistically) only two parties. Sweden has 7 major parties and 18 “minor” parties that still net a significant sum of votes every election.

Democracy - a liberal democratic political culture - is not about having elections every four or five years. A democracy only exists when a democratic political culture exists in a nation; where people are diverse, informed, discursive, pluralistic, multicultural and tolerant of people and their ideas. A democracy only exists when the vox populi has an impact on the way the government leads.

In America, it is possible to win the election for president with only 27% of the voters voting for you. If you win the 11 largest states by just one vote in each and don’t get a single popular vote in any of the other 39 states; you’re still president. This is hardly the voice of the people; this is the result of the electorate system not giving every vote the same value. All states are equal, it seems, but some are more equal than others. We all remember how George W. Bush lost the popular vote by half a million people (getting 50,456,002 votes against Al Gore’s 50,999,897), but won in “better” states and thus was made president.

Freedom

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
(Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759)

Freedom is another strange word, as it has two main meanings; the political and the philosophical. Political freedom, which is the more interesting of the two in this context, is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression. The word comes from an Indo-European root that means “not to be enslaved”.

Freedom, then, is the ability to live your life as you want to, unsupervised by your superiors, unrestricted by pointless legislature and with the same opportunities as everybody else. Some philosophers, like Isaiah Berlin, haev noted that it is important to point out the differences between a “freedom from something” and a “freedom to something”; for example the freedom from oppression and the freedom to marry same-sex partners.

True political freedom only exists in countries where the government is afraid of the people, not the other way around. With Patriot Acts, wiretapping legislation, search warrants becoming unnessecary and the ability of a government to hold you indefinately without trial and without accusations except the vague “terrorism”-stamp, we are most certainly not free.

Everybody knows who this is ...

... but who is this?

To compensate, we’re given a healthy dose of music, entertainment and gossip to keep us distracted. The school system is getting worse every year and people are better at identifying B-list celebrities than they are at recounting important historical events. I mean; how many people are even able to identify the man on the right, while the woman on the left is as familiar to most people as their own family’s faces. People who have made a true impact on the world, people who are making the differences in our lives remain unknown to most. Instead, we know people whose only function is to entertain us and to give us something to talk about, somebody to remind us that it is possible to achieve this great and exalted status - at least for fifteen minutes, and at least if you don’t mind being hounded by camera-toting “journalists” (I use the term loosely) whose only purpose is to propagate the very same system.

No; for America to spread Freedom and Democracy throughout the world is a misnomer. America is not a true democracy, nor are its people free. The Pledge of Allegiance reads “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all“. Read that again; “[...] and to the Republic for which it stands“. America is not a democracy, but a Republic; a Constitutional Republic, to be precise. Here is the definition for a Constitutional Republic:

A constitutional republic is a state where the head of state and other officials are elected as representatives of the people and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government’s power over citizens. In a constitutional republic, executive, legislative, and judicial powers are separated into distinct branches so that no individual or group has absolute power and the power of the majority of the population is checked by only allowing them to elect representatives. The fact that a constitution exists that limits the government’s power, makes the state constitutional. That the head(s) of state and other officials are chosen by election, rather than inheriting their positions, and that their decisions are subject to judicial review makes a state republican.

The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticized democracy, which they interpreted as a “direct democracy”, where people vote in individual questions. Instead, they chose to settle with a republic, a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, serving for a limited term.

I still chose to believe in Freedom, but I don’t care about democracy - as long as we have Freedom. Sure, it may be hard to imagine a totalitarian theocracy that guarantees complete freedom, but on the off-chance that it’s possible, I wouldn’t mind it. Complete and utter freedoms; unrestricted freedom of press, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of sexual identity, freedom of speech; these are the things that are the most important. While government continues to pass legislation to restrict us, they are restricting our freedom and only driving us closer and closer to an inevitable rebellion against the current paradigm.

(For those that failed to identify the man on the picture to the right, it was Dwight D. Eisenhower)

I watched Zeitgeist: Addendum yesterday, the sequel to the hugely successful free-for-download documentary Zeitgeist, yesterday. Even though much of the information in the first half of the movie, relating to economy and the way that a monetary economy worked, was old to me, there were a couple of interesting examples and historical facts that I was unaware of. The second half, however, which mainly discussed The Venus Project and some other forms of transhumanism and utopianism was more or less entirely new to me.

When The Venus Project was being discussed, I immediately began thinking about Star Trek, as the similarities to the way that people in The Federation live are very large. War, poverty, strife and inequality has been eliminated in both cases, and people are working together to better themselves, helping each other out to the fullest degree.

The United Federation of Planets

In Star Trek, The Federation is a utopia in every definition of the word. It exists in a state of abundance, where - at least on Earth - war and poverty are completely eliminated, and money no longer exists. The state of the world has been named the “New World Economy”. Money, at least in the modern sense, is no longer used and is not needed for the life of the average person. Some limited resources are available through the use of “Credits”. In the Star Trek universe, money began to fade from common use in the end of the 22nd century and was completely gone in the beginning of the 24th.

Much of this is due to two factors; scientific advances (especially in replicator and teleporter technology) and the realization that humans are not the only species of intelligent animals in the Universe.

According to The Venus Project, much of the same can be reached by switching from our current monetary-based economies to a resource-based economy. Allow me to quote their definition of the term:

A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.

Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care; update our educational system; and develop a limitless supply of renewable, non-contaminating energy. By supplying an efficiently designed economy, everyone can enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities of a high technological society.

A resource-based economy would utilize existing resources from the land and sea, physical equipment, industrial plants, etc. to enhance the lives of the total population. In an economy based on resources rather than money, we could easily produce all of the necessities of life and provide a high standard of living for all.

Even though this idea is as beautiful as it is revolutionary, there are some inherent problems that I can see right away. The first, and most obvious, is this one: Why would resource-rich countries like the Saudi Arabia willingly share their oil with other countries? Well, one could argue, it is because then other countries will freely share things with them too. How about countries that are self-sufficient? Is there any reason for them to join in this resource-based economy? What if ten countries create this joint economy but the rest of the world stays in a monetary-based economy? Would these ten countries be isolating themselves from the remainder of the world?

They continue to claim that “Money is only important in a society when certain resources for survival must be rationed and the people accept money as an exchange medium for the scarce resources. Money is a social convention, an agreement if you will. It is neither a natural resource nor does it represent one. It is not necessary for survival unless we have been conditioned to accept it as such”, which is very true. Money does not exist as a ding an sich, but is an agreement between people that have decided to use it to represent negative debt and potential ownership of resources, products or services.

Even though I absolutely love the concepts of The Federation and The Venus Project, I still believe that any progress in this direction will take time. A good way of beginning would be to underline the interdependence of nations on each other in the world today. Buckminster Fuller, one of the most incredible people of the 20th century, once suggested that “the best global strategy is to connect the electric power networks between all regions and continents into one, global energy grid.  It would use the abundant renewable energy resources available all over the world and would create a world wide web of electricity.” He claimed that this would decrease pollution, reduce hunger and poverty, increase trade and cooperation and stabilize population growth. Large claims, to be sure, but the project is now being run under the name GENI and has wide international support from many people. A system like this one would, for example, allow Iceland, which has an enormous wealth in geothermal energy, to export this power to other nations which could then reduce their own fossil fuel-based energy.

Technology and ease of travel also has to be a large step. At the moment, travel from one country to another is still a very inconvenient thing. Airplanes are (relatively) slow, they cost a lot, they are uncomfortable to fly in, and they only have a few places in each country from which they can depart. A fast way of being able to travel between countries, such as a worldwide maglev shuttle train system, would be able to take you from New York to Tokyo in no more than two hours. With the problem regarding ease of transport fixed and prices dropping, this will become more available to people, and over time - knock on wood! - security measures like the ones we have imposed on us today at airports will begin to become less strict until travel between nations is as unrestricted as travel between nations in the European Union was supposed to be.

I’m not an utopian; not by a long shot, but I do believe in progress, and I have such high hopes for humanity. One day, I hope that we will reach the high degree of civilization as we can see in Star Trek’s ideal “Federation” and in the hearts and minds of the people behind The Venus Project. We’re years, decades and centuries away, but I will continue to hope and to help out as best I can for as long as I live.

The elections are finally over, and we can now begin to turn our heads towards more interesting matters. I’m sorry for not having written here during the past week, but I’ve been on a business trip to Chad and been quite unable to access the Internet for more than a few minutes at a time. Today, I’m back in Sweden and planning my next trip; which will be to Rwanda, Uganda and Cameroon. That said; let’s write one final entry about the election, now that it’s finally over.

It will come to no surprise to anybody that I was a supporter of Obama ever since the days that Hillary and him were duking it out between themselves in Who Wants to be a Millio^H^H^H^H^H^HCandidate. Obama’s policies, eloquence, background and his rhetoric spoke to me early on, and I continued to support him ever since.

Traditionally speaking, to become president in the United States, you needed to be four things:

1. White. Up until today, every single President of the United States has been white. They’ve been exceedingly white; not even a smudge of South European swarthiness or a hint of South American blood.
2. Rich. In order to be president, you need to campaign, and campaigning costs money. Lots and lots of money. Most of the times, the winner of the election was also the one who was able to spend the most money on his campaign.
3. Christian. To become President of the United States - a nation with a separation of Church and State, mind you! - you need to be a Christian. Like the point about being rich, nowhere does it claim that “The president of the United States must be a Christian”, but we could all see the extremely negative attitude that people took towards Barrack Obama on just the rumor - the assumption! - that he might just be “a … a Muslim.”
4. Male. Again, even though it’s nowhere stated, every President of the United States has been male. The thought of a female president is welcome to many people, and is not as original as some people might think. I heard somebody say that “Hillary could become the first female president … in the world!”, but this is just not true. In 1980, President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became the first democratically elected woman to become President of a nation - in this case Iceland. She held on to this position until the first of October 1996, a period of 16 years. Since 1996 she has been involved in a wide range of international humanitarian and cultural organizations. Other women have had presidential positions in other nations, as can be seen on lists such as this one.

We knew early on that this year’s election was going to be interesting. By the time that the Democrats were down to Hillary or Obama, we knew that either way things turned, one of these four points would be challenged by the Democrats. Either we’d get a rich white Christian woman or a rich black christian male. These seem to be the only two paradigms we’re ready to challenge, getting a non-rich or a non-Christian president still seems to be quite far into the future, even if I could argue that Mahatma Ghandi would have made an excellent US President, and he only filled one of these four qualifications; he was male.

Lastly, let me leave you with this interview with John McCain, recorded a little over a year ago.

O’REILLY: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say you’ve got to cap with a number.

MCCAIN: In America today we’ve got a very strong economy and low unemployment, so we need addition farm workers, including by the way agriculture, but there may come a time where we have an economic downturn, and we don’t need so many. [Lonely Savage note: "There may come a time when we have an economic downturn"? Prophetic words if I ever heard them.]

O’REILLY: But in this bill, you guys have got to cap it. Because estimation is 12 million, there may be 20 [million]. You don’t know, I don’t know. We’ve got to cap it.

MCCAIN: We do, we do. I agree with you.

Angry McCain!

Okay, so I lied when I said that there wouldn’t be any more political commentary for a while; this was too good to pass up.

We’ve all heard about the connections that the Republicans are so eager to bring up between Senator Obama and William Ayers, and the GOP has done its best to portray themselves as the anti-terrorist party. The two parties seem to be divided into “The party that cares about the economy” and “The party that cares about war and security”, and grabbing the voters depending on what they feel is most important. But how much should we actually count on the Republicans being the best anti-terrorism party?

Firstly, we must ask ourselves why Al-Qaeda seems to prefer McCain winning. Supporters of al-Quaeda have been very outspoken about how they would prefer the Republicans to win the US election simply because he is more likely to continue the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why do they want the war to continue, you think? Well, if al-Qaeda wants to exhaust the US - militarily and economically - the “impetuous” (their words, not mine) Republican presidential candidate is the better choice. They even claim that a pre-election terrorist attack on US soil would be welcomed to further cement his win, like I speculated on in a previous entry. They seem to warm to him despite the fact that McCain apparently believed (believes?) that al-Qaeda had trained in Iran. Naturally, he doesn’t mention that they were trained by the CIA first, though. Well, at least that’s better than Palin’s belief that Iraq helped plan 9/11.

It goes further than that, however, and I feel I need to cover both sides of the story despite my obvious Democratic leanings. In Iran, which seems to be the next candidate for a visit from the US Military - so much so that many Americans already think they are at war with Iran - members of parliament want Senator Obama to win because “he is more flexible and rational”.

Naturally, this has added even more fuel to the “Obama = Terrorist” debate, provoking comments like (and please do not hold me responsible for the lapses in judgement, grammar and spelling:

Obama is loved by all our enemies and those who hate the United States even by those who live here.
—
Obama is part of the Muslim World and ideology.  Jews and all Americans…this Obama loves all the Terrorists. No Joke, his best friends are Terrorists lovers in the US and outside the US.
—
Of course Iran wants BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA and his anti Jewish, anti Israel pals the Rev. Wright, Louis Farrahkan, and terrorist Ayers
—
Of course terrorists will always support Obama, because they feel that he is weaker than Mac cain on security issues. Because they are afraid that Mac Cain will unleash on them the fires of Hell!
—
Obama is the Iranian’s government favorite candidate for president? Wow! Did you know that his middle name is Hussein. doesn’t that bother you after the Iraq-Iranian War? Seriously, Obama, not Sarah Palin? I just don’t get it.

It’s no big surprise that people seem to gloss over the fact that al-Qaeda, a proven terrorist organization that was responsible for the biggest terrorist attack in the history of the United States, supports McCain. Iran, a nation with tenuous links at best to international terrorism supports Obama because they feel he is the candidate that has the highest chance to provide situations that lead to peace in the Middle East

The election is 13 days off, and even though I can’t promise that I won’t write any more about it, I’ll certainly try to write about something else as well before then.

I was just struck by a coincidence that I’m sure I can’t have been the first to spot - but which I feel that I have to bring up either way. It’s all a combination of three facts (or ‘factoids’, rather) that, when read together, give us a rather chilling message. Please read this entry with a little bit of tongue-in-cheek; much of it is just a joke and a conspiracy theory. Much; but unfortunately not all.

1. It’s well known that Sarah Palin believes that the End Times will occur during her lifetime. She is a Biblical literalist and denies evolution - she has to deny evolution to remain in her church. She believes that the earth was created 6,000 years ago and that men and dinosaurs walked the Earth together. She believes that the Apocalypse will start in the Middle East.Both believing this and having a tremendous amount of power make for a very scary situation. A person who believes that the world will have to be annihilated in an apocalypse - sorry, make that Capital-A-Apocalypse - that starts in the Middle East might not be too hesitant towards the idea of hurrying such an event and maybe provoking it or fueling the fire that is already burning there.
2. There are already plans and suggestions that Sarah Palin should be President of the United States of America in 2012. In blogs such as “Palin for President 2012“, the idea is presented with such wide acceptance and support that it almost scares me to believe that such a thing might actually happen.Sarah Palin would in that case become the first female president of the United States of America (Unless the Republicans win in 2008 and John McCain dies during the presidency).
3. On December 21st (or 22nd, depending on how you count), the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar completes its thirteenth baktun cycle since the calendar started. Various theorists have discussed the importance of this dates, and have suggested events as drastic as the “end of history“, a worldwide catastrophe, a pole shift or a sudden rapture-like heightening of consciousness for all - and chaos as the masses of people caught unprepared die while trying to adjust to their sudden psychic powers.

Put all three together, and a picture emerges. Sarah Palin, who wins the election in 2012, sets about to bring about the End Times. On December 21st, 2012, she manages to do so, and the world is caught up in some sort of major event that changes the history of humanity forever.

That said, please note that only point 1 above is actually true. Point 2 is wishful thinking and point 3 is unscientific theorizing. Also, I promise this will be the last political post for a few days, I’ll try to get back to my more varied content.

This is probably old news to many of you, but a top advisor to John McCain, a man named Charlie Black, has stated that a terrorist attack on US soil would be a “big advantage” for McCain, who - of the two major presidential candidates - is seen as the go-to guy when it comes to domestic security issues. No matter how tasteless it is to people who lost friends and family in the World Trade Towers, the fact remains: it’s probably true.

This mention wasn’t the first that I’d heard of it either; it was whispered already two or three months ago that something “sensational” was probably going to happen near the end of October that would sway the people dramatically in John McCains favor; either the successful capture of Osama Bin Laden or a low-scale domestic act of terrorism. Now; I know a conspiracy theory when I hear one, and this reeks of it; but just consider for a moment if this were to happen. How many people would know it for a gimmick, and how many people would just be swayed along?

I was watching a movie on Youtube entitled “Why People hate America”; where a reporter walks around some major city in America, asking people why they think foreigners often look down on America and Americans. At about 1:23 in, a goth-type girl is interviewed, asked a question about her opinion about how Americans are uneducated and unenlightened, and the following - ingenious! - answer pours out of her mouth:

Well, I think as a whole we are! (Uh, you know, absolutely). In comparison to other countries, their history - well, we’re a young country - but we don’t know as much history. So, I think we’re the adolescent of the countries, and we’re rebellious and we’re a little naïve too as we get into things. [...] We think we know everything but we really actually don’t know too much at all. We need to be grounded for a couple of hundreds of years first, I think.

The metaphor is so apt that it makes me wonder how much further we can take it. Pimply, awkward and hormonal are all common attributes of teenagers too.

In the video linked above, we see Chris Matthews on MSNBC interviewing Michelle Bachman, a congresswoman (who, by the way, claimed that “God called me to run for US Senate”) who goes on a tirade that sounds like something from the McCarthy era. The word that jumps out at me more than any other is the term “Anti-American”, a term that brings to mind the old “Anti-Soviet” term from the Soviet era. Do you think that this term could arise in any other country in the world except America today? Do you think that a Swede who didn’t subscribe to the lagom-philosophy or follow the Law of Jante would be called “Anti-Swedish”? Do you think that a Finn that didn’t like going to the sauna - and maybe advised others against it - would be called “Anti-Finnish”? How about a Frenchman who thought that the country’s longstanding tradition of going on strike against various reforms was destabilizing for the country; would he be called “Anti-French”? Somehow, I doubt it.

Only in America is it that a political agenda that goes against the current one becomes “Anti-American”; a term that is so ridiculous that it buckles under even the most cursory scrutiny.

Then again, we can hardly expect anything more from this woman than this lapse in … I was going to write ‘judgment’, but I think ’sanity’ is a better term. Regarding the failing fortune in the War in Iraq, she claimed that “God has not abandoned us”. On global warming, this is what she said: “The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax”. And it’s no big surprise why she’s against the theory of global warming; “We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet”. Yup. Global warming can’t be true because Jesus saved us. Criticizing the theories that Global warming theories are talking about is one thing; meeting science with science is better yet. Saying “Jesus fixed it” is quite something else (And before anybody points it out, yes; I have criticized global warming theorists as well - but at least I don’t just wave it off with religion).

It took me some minutes on Google to figure out why McCain didn’t pick this lunatic for his running mate, seeing as how she is everything Sarah Palin is, has more experience, and is - and I didn’t think it possible until today - even more right-wing nutty. I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked her before settling with Sarah Palin, however; McCain seems to be “too leftist” for this woman, who is quoted as having said that “He is not my man. Our candidate was chosen by the media”. Yeah; the election process, the delegates in the primaries and the popular vote amongst the republicans had nothing to do with it; it’s all the evil leftist media’s fault.

Something else that she seems very interested in is the adage of “protecting the citizens of the United States”, making it out to be that this is the number one job of the President of the United States. While it is an important job, it is not the most important. According to the Oath of Office, the number one job of the President is to, and I quote; “protect and defend the Constitution“. The person who drew up the Oath of Office was smart enough to understand that if it read that the job description was to “protect and defend the people of the USA” a tyrant or a despot could use that wording as an excuse to violate the freedoms of Americans - much like we’ve seen with things like the PATRIOT Act.

Here are a couple of quotes from her about intelligent design and abortion, all courtesy of Youtube, which also brings us highlights like Keith Olberman discussing how she just might be one of the Worst People on Earth.

In other news, I’m glad to see that Colin Powell endorses Obama, and in such a beautiful short speech as well. He brings up the major points with eloquence; saying he questions Sen. John McCain’s judgment in picking Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate because he doesn’t think she is ready to be president. He also said he was disappointed with some of McCain’s campaign tactics, such as bringing up Obama’s ties to former radical Bill Ayers. He reminded us all that even if Obama were Muslim, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Update: I just found a really funny quote from The Crazy Woman<tm>, describing her extreme knowledge about Iraq and Iran and the Middle East in general. Check this out:

Iran is the troublemaker, trying to tip over apple carts all over Bagdad right now, because they want America to pull out. And do you know why? It’s because they’ve already decided that they want to partition Iraq. (…) In half of Iraq, the western-northern part of Iraq, is going to be called The Iraq State of Islam, or something like that, and I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it’s meant to be a training ground for the terrorists. There’s already an agreement made; they’re going to get half of Iraq, it’s going to be a terrorist safe haven zone where they can go ahead and bring about more terrorist attacks in the middle east region and then come against the United States because we are their avowed enemy.

Wait, what? The northern area of Iraq is Sunni and borders Syria; Iran is a Shia nation, so why would they be putting up something like this? Sunni terrorists and Iranian Shiites are two completely different things, and I don’t think either would be caught dead working with the other.

I’m sorry for the lack of updates during the past few days, I’ve been in California visiting Blizzcon, and the work that had piled up during my absence has taken me three days to catch up on before I could finally relax and start planning entries for the blog.

I don’t like writing about the election in the United States, but it is hard to keep quiet about a subject that takes up so much space in the media and the blogosphere. The first topic that I feel I have to talk about is “Joe the Plumber”, or Joe Wurzelbacher. He was mentioned a good many times during the latest presidential debate by both Obama and McCain, and became a little bit of a symbol in the same way as “Joe Six-pack” failed to become. He was mentioned more often than the war in Iraq. Joe the Plumber has had more press conferences than Sarah Palin. Now, it seems, a couple of interesting things have turned up about him.

Yesterday, for example he said that he doesn’t have a plumber’s license and that he doesn’t need one, but anyone working under Newell Plumbing and Heating Co. of Toledo should have a journeyman’s plumbing license or an apprenticeship license. Lucas County, where Joe Wurzelbacher and Al Newell (his boss) live, requires plumbers to have licenses, but neither is licensed there.

As if that wasn’t enough, it also turns out that Joe Wurzelbacher has connections to the Keating Five Family, a group of five US Senators (including John McCain) that were accused of corruption in 1989, which in turn ignited a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The corruption charge lay in the claim that these five individuals had improperly intervened in 1987 on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. This scandal, of which John McCain was a major part, was finally lifted up in the Election debate on October 6th as a reminder of McCain’s poor judgment and financial strategies and the parallel to the subprime mortgage crisis and liquidity crisis of September 2008. This introduction occurred after the McCain campaign began emphasizing the Obama–Ayers controversy.

The connection to the Keating Five Family comes via Robert Wurzelbacher, a close relative mentioned in news-articles such as this one, where it says:

The guilty plea today was from Robert M. Wurzelbacher Jr., who had been a senior vice president of Lincoln’s parent company, the American Continental Corporation of Phoenix, and the chief executive of an investment firm owned by Lincoln Savings. Mr. Wurzelbacher, who is 38 years old, is married to the former Elizabeth Keating, one of Mr. Keating’s daughters.

Mr. Wurzelbacher pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer to three felony counts of misapplication of federally insured funds.

Robert Wurzelbacher has given more than $10,000 in donations to the Republican party and various republican causes during the past few years. If this “plumber” isn’t a plant from the McCain Train, I don’t know what else he could be.

And then we have this:

I’ve seen a few of these videos before, but this one truly made me gape wide-eyed at my monitor. Just the audacity, gall and sheer ignorance in statements such as this one astound me!

He seems like a sheep - or a wolf in sheep’s clothing to be honest with you. And I believe Palin - she’s filled with the Holy Spirit, and I believe she’s gonna bring honesty and integrity to the White House.

Honesty and integrity? This is a woman who:

• Thinks that Saddam Hussein worked with al-Qaeda to attack America on 9/11.
• Used a private Yahoo account to conduct state business; the account was subsequently hacked.
• Asserted the right to ban books from an Alaska library and attempted to fire the librarian.
• Wants creationism taught in schools.
• Charged the state nearly $17,000 in per diem travel expenses when she was living at home.
• Abused her authority in seeking to get Mark Wooten, who was involved in a messy divorce with Palin’s sister, fired.
• Attends a church with an anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic pastor which is also into exorcisms and other rites to protect from witches and “python spirits”.
• Thought the Pledge of Allegiance dates to the founding of the country (it was actually penned in 1892 and “under God” was added in 1954)
• Actually believes that the End Times will occur in her lifetime.

Another person in the movie claims that Obama is “[...] related to a known terrorist, for one”. Really? This is news to me, and would probably have been announced quite loudly; who is this? I suppose they mean Ayers, but that’s not a family relation, as suggested in the quote, Obama and Ayers met when they worked on community boards many years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career. The terrorism charges against Ayers occurred when Obama was a child.

“I don’t like the fact that he thinks us white people are trash … because we’re not!” - No, most white people are not trash, I agree with you on that one. However, some are, but I’ve never heard Barack Obama claim that anybody is.

Something that I find ironic is how, in most cases, the Democrat and Republican divide has been quite obviously divided into social classes. Historically, we see that the lower and middle classes vote Democrat because of the tax and health care benefits while the upper middle and upper classes vote Republican because of the tax benefits there. Now, instead, we see an election where Obama, the Democrat Candidate, is attracting votes from the entire spread, but with curiously many educated, well-employed and high-income on his list. McCain, the Republican candidate, also has a very wide spread of voters, but here we see an uncharacteristically high amount of uneducated, unemployed and low-income people that traditionally vote Democrat. I wonder if the connections mentioned in the video above are to blame or if there is an underlying political difference between the Democrats and Republicans this year as compared to their historical counterparts.

On a lighter note, let’s look at another candidate; Bob Barr, holding 1% of the popular vote for President in America, running for the Libertarian party, seems to be a good source for humor now that the McCain Train has seemed to lock Sarah Palin in a room to keep her away from the media. Bob Barr, apparently, along with voting for the Patriot Act, against same-sex marriage, for the Iraq war, and making anti-abortionist propaganda seems to have another less known opinion. He has - in all seriousness! - proposed that the Pentagon should ban the practice of Wicca in the military. In his defense, one should note that Barr has become a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act and has claimed that he regrets voting for it. Then again, he also filed suit in Texas to remove both McCain and Obama from the ballot. Both political parties failed to file their nominees by the deadline, but the Texas Supreme Court rejected the request without giving a reason for its decision. Wouldn’t it have been interesting if Texans could only vote for Barr and Nader?