REMOVE HAMILTON FROM THE $10 BILL ALREADY!

     Recently, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew mentioned modifying the $10 bill to feature a woman instead of Alexander Hamilton as it was next in line to be redesigned in 2020 though I do not believe he committed to totally ousting his portrait on the note...maybe it'll still be the watermark? I don't know. However this has been causing a minor uproar in various newspaper editorials on why Hamilton ought not be removed and it's the same provincial reasoning that has kept dead Presidents/elder statesmen on our coins since 1948.

     The rules for currency redesign are not codified in law to my knowledge but the Coinage Act of 1890 does specify that a design may be changed on a coin without the approval of Congress after 25 years and while this was done for a little while.
     Barber coinage replacing the long-lasting Seated Liberty coinage from 1892-1916 which in turn was replaced by a veritable renaissance of Liberty depictions covering a span of 1916-1947 which in turn was replaced, starting in 1909 or 1932 depending on how you look at it, with Presidents that have never been replaced. Only the Franklin half dollar yielded to John F. Kennedy in 1964 and that design has proven unremovable as well.
     In fact, the only President successfully replaced on a coin was Eisenhower whose dollar was made from 1971-1978. He was replaced by Susan B. Anthony in 1979 and she proved replaceable with the Sacagawea dollar starting in 2000. The key difference here though, the dollar coin barely circulates so no one's constituencies feel "threatened".

     Our currency, like our coins, was once colorful and imaginatively designed. The idea of a portrait of a famous American to act as a focal piece of the note began from its inception in 1861. They even featured Lincoln while he was still alive, something which cannot be done now.
     But also like our coins, starting in the 1920s, it became a goal to standardize our currency which up until that point had frequent redesigns and depicted a wide variety of portraiture such as Presidents, famous generals, Treasurers, notable Americans like Lewis and Clark, American Indians, and even allegorical depictions of Science, Liberty, America, and Industry.
     Additionally, by the late 1920s it was deemed necessary to save money on printing by reducing the size of bank notes to their present-day size. When these small-sized notes were introduced, the portrait line-up was frozen with $1 Washington, $2 Jefferson, $5 Lincoln, $10 Hamilton, $20 Jackson, $50 Grant, $100 Franklin, $500 McKinley, $1000 Cleveland, $5000 Madison, and $10000 Chase.

     These notes were introduced in 1929.

     1929!

     That's almost 90 years ago. There's probably less than a hundred people still alive with a living memory of anyone other than Hamilton appearing on the $10 bill and odds are that memory would be of Andrew Jackson who graced the 1914 series $10 Federal Reserve Note, 1918 series $10 Federal Reserve Bank Note, and 1923 series United States Note. Other current portraits on $10 bills at the time before the changeover were the first Treasurer of the United States, Michael Hillegas, graced the 1922 series $10 Gold Certificate and recently deceased Vice-President Thomas Hendricks appeared on the 1908 series $10 Silver Certificate. Assassinated President William McKinley graced the 1902 series $10 National Bank Notes.

     Money used to be a lot more than Federal Reserve Notes!

     I'm not saying I hate Alexander Hamilton, a man instrumental making this country what it is today, no. Though that is what people would imply of me but it's not the case. It's about sharing the spotlight with other notable Americans like was done previously. Replace all the current portraiture in fact, even Washington and Lincoln.
     You can't tell me there are no other men and women truly worthy of such commemoration. You can make a rule like they have to not only be dead but maybe dead for at least 50 years so as to allow perspective to develop. I don't know who Thomas Hendricks is. I seriously only learned looking up whose portrait graced the various $10 bills of yesteryear. He was commemorated too quickly one might presume. I would argue the same with Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower on the dime (less than a year after his death), half-dollar (less than a year after his assassination), and dollar coin (about two years after his death) respectively.
     Change the vignettes on the reverses too.

     But the point is, 90 years is too long. If the Federal Reserve wants to redesign currency every 7-10 years to keep up with counterfeiters then why not introduce new portraiture and vignettes while we're at it?

     I feel like the US missed a great opportunity for a grand redesign of our coins and currency during the Bicentennial. We got a new reverse for the $2 bill (the old ones prior to the 1976 series featured Jefferson's mansion Monticello) and some reverse-modified quarters, halves, and dollar coins but that was it (and in the case of the latter, the design was produced only for 18 months with the previous designs resuming in 1977).
    We could have had currency vignettes depicting important/triumphant events in US history. The $2 bill led the way with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We could have had things like the Surrender at Saratoga (which ended the Revolutionary War), the signing of the Constitution, an artist's rendering of the assault on Fort McHenry (where the Star Spangled Banner was written), Lincoln delivering the Gettysberg Address (or the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse which ended the Civil War), the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, and the Moon Landing among other possibilities.

     Who might have graced such notes? I don't know, but the point is...we should have tried. Same with our coins. All our money designs are tired and stale. Surely good art is not dead in this country. Surely we can do better...

VOTING SHMOTING...

     If you don't vote, you lose the right to complain. See, I don't understand that line of reasoning. How is that even possible? Does not voting somehow negate my rights as a US citizen under the Constitution? No, of course not. You can't even vote until you're both 18 and registered and there are numerous ways to lose that right but regardless of whether you vote or not (or can't), your rights under the First Amendment...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

     ...are in no way affected, not to mention any of the other rights afforded to you as a citizen. Whether I vote or not, I am still allowed to petition the government and peaceably assemble. Those are not voter's rights, those are US citizen rights.
     Voting may have gotten those men and women into office but it doesn't preclude the citizenry from complaining about them (or praising them as the case may be...or have I "lost" that right too by not voting?).

     Another reason that argument is bullshit is because only white, land-owning males were allowed to vote originally. That's a whole lotta people with no say in who may or may not represent them. Were the multitudes of disenfranchised from the late 18th to mid-20th century admonished for complaining about a government they did not vote for?
     Their voices may not have been appreciated (especially I would gather from blacks and women), but they were still entitled to their free speech, free presses, to peaceably assemble, and to write the government about wrongs they feel have been committed.

     I'm pretty sure the only thing you lose by not voting is the ability to say you voted for that particular person or proposition.

     By extension, I wonder if anyone has done any research on those who didn't vote. Like, during the day of an election or just before, has a suitably done poll of people who were definitely not voting ever been conducted to see whom they would've voted for if they could've been bothered to go to a polling station?
     If so, did the acquired results, if tabulated as actual votes, ever affect the outcome of an election? I have this feeling their missing votes would not change anything. Without any evidence (mind you) to support my opinion, I feel the collective opinion of those who don't vote will closely match the collective opinion of those who did vote.

     I say this because there are no longer any deliberately disenfranchised voters in this country anymore. Women have the vote. Blacks have the vote. Anyone who's 18 and older and a US citizen may vote.
     Arguably the only disenfranchised population are felons. Whether convicted or not, and especially those who have been released, I don't see why committing a crime ought to cause one's right to vote to be revoked. Criminals may not be desirable but they are still citizens, right?
     But that's a different argument. My concern here would be are there enough legally disenfranchised people that, if their votes could be cast, would they be able to affect the outcome of an election? I'm guessing had the United States had full suffrage for all citizens back at the Constitution's signing, our line-up of Presidents would likely be very different today.

     I don't know. That's not much of argument and it's certainly not well-supported, but it's something to perhaps start a conversation...

A CAUSE CONSERVATIVES WILL SURELY RALLY BEHIND?

     Reading Numismatic News the other day, I learned that the Presidential Dollar series is now slated to end with President Ford and not Reagan as previously thought. The reasoning behind this is that ex-President Jimmy Carter is still alive and since living people are not eligible for depiction on coins, the mint is not about to skip his presidency just to do Reagan.

     I wonder if this will put Republicans in a phony uproar like they did to get "In God We Trust" moved from the edge of the coin to its obverse (remember the so-called "godless" dollars fiasco that Republicans used to score easy political points with their constituents?). While it would have fit better on the reverse of the coin, it was put on the heads side forcing the use of an even tinier font.

     To have their idol shunned like this. Surely it will be some liberal conspiracy and most certainly Obama will have had something to do with it even though the law was written during George W. Bush's term by a Republican dominated House and Senate. I know Republicans have been wanting to put Reagan on either a coin or paper currency for years now. I remember it suggested for the dime in time for the centennial of Reagan's birth. Another for the $10 bill as Alexander Hamilton is an easier target for removal than would be Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc.

     Now while I'm tired of Presidential portraiture on our nation's coins, I'll admit there would have been some poetry to having Reagan's dime debut in 2011. The Roosevelt dime began in 1946. By 2010, 65 years worth of them would have been produced. How fitting that the dime would be "retired" after its 65th anniversary and that the portrait being retired at the traditional age for retirement would be that of the man who championed Social Security in the first place?

     But that did not happen as politics once again got in the way. This is why you shouldn't have real people depicted on coins...you can never get them off once on. Roosevelt's constituencies including the March of Dimes opposed the change, never mind that literally tens of BILLIONS of Roosevelt dimes currently exist and would continue to exist long after a new coin's debut. You regularly find dimes going back to 1965, the first year after silver coins ceased. Fifty years worth of dimes. They're not going away, but (mocking tone) no, we "need" him on the dime because of our charity. Ugh...so provincial.

     I'm guessing this "snubbing" of President Reagan will fire the Republicans to finally get their Reagan coin. Maybe he'll be the new dollar coin of the realm. Maybe in their zeal to get Reagan dollars out into the public's hands, the Republicans will finally end the dollar bill (and hopefully the Sacagawea dollar too...I don't need annual concurrent dollar coins) to get their hero into commerce.

      We'll see what happens when Fox News gets a hold of this non-story...

A POST LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE WORLD...

     I wonder if the liberal/conservative divide has run its course in American politics? We seem to be at an apex for the two ideologies...at least from the perspective of the House of Representatives. Hell, I'm not even sure what the words liberal and conservative mean politically anymore. I've had this notion that liberality was about embracing change or at least trying something new; that is was akin to progression...future thinking and that conservativism was about preserving the status quo or even retrogressing to a time or way of doing things perceived to be better than the way they are being done now. Liberalism was about trying out untested ideas and Conservativism was about proven ones (even if those ideas had been proven ill-advised).
     Yet that's not what the words mean. Like how "theory" means one thing to scientists and means quite the opposite colloquially, liberal and conservative, when worn as political labels, take on very different senses from the dictionary senses of the words.

     But where do we go from here? If liberalism and conservativism are on the way out, what ideologies replace them?
     In the past, there were liberal and conservative Democrats as well as liberal and conservative Republicans. What was their ideological dividing line? What did the parties back then ultimately disagree on before reaching an apex that allowed the current liberal/conservative paradigm reign?
     I'm not sure. I'm guessing this was the turn of the century (the 20th one) right up and through World War II that defined it. I imagine it came to a head in the McCarthy era. The Cold War paranoia may have ended the one reign bringing about the current liberal/conservative divide.
     Or maybe it goes back further to the ascendancy of the Republican party. Abraham Lincoln was its first President and soon after the Whig party died out. Perhaps a third party will rise soon in this country, electing its first President causing one of the two major parties to go extinct (I'd bank on the Republicans going extinct because they seem to be rushing headlong into it with their Tea Party and overzealous conservative factions).

     What might tomorrow's paradigm be? Libertarianism/authoritarianism? Labor/Capitalists?
     Personally I'd hope for the rise of a true labor party in this country. One emerging paradigm is the Haves vs. the Have Nots and there's a lot of Have Nots in this country who are unrepresented in government or at best marginally so. Congress is comprised as a percentage of their body by many more millionaires than are present as a percentage of the nation's population. Congress is also heavy on lawyers and businessmen. As Neil deGrasse Tyson asked (and I'm paraphrasing), where are the engineers, the scientists, the teachers, the service industry, the philosophers, hell even the ditchdiggers? Can we truly be represented by a government if that government's representatives do not even remotely resemble its constituencies?
      Personally I'd like to see a political party comprised of the actual poor, working, and middle classes and if any of its leaders are wealthy, they should have worked their way up to it. They should know intimately what it is like to be in the trenches so to speak.
       I would think the next divide would be between labor and the capitalists. The Republicans seem almost totally comprised of the latter category and the Democrats mostly so. What about the rest of us?

      But given the very close, very bipartisan vote on defunding the NSA (I believe it was 217 - 205 against defunding it), perhaps the next partisan divide that will shake up and reorganize the parties will be that of libertarians and authoritarians (though I'm sure the latter side will pick a better moniker). Privacy versus Need to Know.

      I hope something happens in the next few election cycles because this current stalemate between the two parties is preventing the government from governing at all and it's really annoying. To paraphrase a line from Babylon 5, the two parties are like divorcing parents fighting in front of their children and trying to make those children choose sides. It's one or the other we're told. I just look forward to a modern-day John Sheridan who can rise up and remind us that we don't need either of those parties anymore.

      As a Facebook friend suggested, we need to form the Mercutio Party...a pox on both your houses!...and figure out our own way through liberalism and conservativism; libertarianism and authoritarianism; labor and capitalists; privacy and publicity; individualism and community; etc. etc. etc.

ADDENDUM: This Daily Kos rant I offer as an example adding weight to my argument that the next division will be between labor and capitalists. If professionals organize in this country into guilds like screen actors and writers have in Hollywood, then I think the country will begin moving toward a real middle class again. Loyalty to companies seems a quaint and antiquated notion these days. It is further brought about by declining benefits and loss of pensions. Why bother sticking around? Accountants, lawyers, secretaries, hell even clerks, et al. need to organize into guilds.

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXXIV

(from cspackler from this article)

"From Conservatives, all we hear is the constant bitching and crying about how all lazy people want is welfare and to loaf about like lumps of crap on the teat of society. These are people that are working full time and still getting the shaft. When we argue that people should have the dignity of a living wage to encourage more work- we get a resounding no. And why? Because it potentially compromises the profits of the largest corporation in the history of the world.

I have news for you Righties. There are a lot of Americans who are utterly incapable of delivering value in a knowledge based economy, and the number is increasing. This was cool when we had factories, but sadly, even the factories we still have need fewer, more computer literate workers.  So it seems to me that you have two choices: get comfortable with sharing a bit more of the wealth in the form of higher wages, or look forward to seeing them with burning torches at a gated community near you.

And finally, let me demystify this for everyone who believes in the myth of the infallible, omniscient CEO: there isn't anyone alive in business who is worth 500 or 1000X an average worker. No one."

     I tend to agree with this sentiment. I'm also one of those people who gets pissed off when some asinine commenter mentions things like "those jobs are ENTRY LEVEL: they're not meant to support families" or "if you don't like your job/pay, get a different one" or "start your own business" or my favorite of all, "go to college and get an education so you can land a better job".

     Each one of those is stupid and simplistic in its own way. Are there jobs out there which are entry level? Yes. Should they pay less than jobs which require a skill base? Also yes. However there are a couple of things wrong, or at least questions I have, with that sentiment.
     Are there enough living wage jobs out there for everyone who wants one? If the answer is no, as I've ventured before, then it is arguable that the minimum wage must rise. It is also arguable that those jobs which do require a skill base are also not paying enough for the investment of time and money put into them. Perhaps your wages ought to be going up as well. Something tells me everyone working for a large company could get a decent raise if CEO compensation packages were limited to 25-40 times what the lowest paid worker (hired or contracted) for the company gets paid.
     The other thing is, and this may sound harsh, but I simply don't believe that it is possible, no matter how lofty our goals, to educate everyone to the levels necessary to participate in today's economy. Some people just don't have the intellect necessary to take on such difficult learning. Any Bell Curve will see to that. What of those people? Are they not deserving of dignity? And what of those people performing vital services that don't necessarily require a top-notch education like garbage haulers or bus/subway/taxi drivers or other low-level but obviously vital, services? I'm sure you would not want to live in a world where you were responsible for hauling your own trash to the dump or walking around a large city or cleaning your own sewage pipes. Yes, it's arguable that "anybody could do those jobs" but just because that is so, does that mean they are automatically undeserving of a living wage given the scale of the service provided?
     Also, what of those people who perform tasks that are also necessary but seem to add little or no value to the economy like people who work in animal shelters or for sanctuaries? What of librarians, philosophers, and researchers? Those latter jobs require a ton of skill, but offer few good-paying positions and the former jobs require passion, compassion, and dedication yet apparently ensuring the livelihoods of our abandoned furry and feathered friends and providing safety and comfort for abuse victims is not high on the pay priority scale.
     Replacing the low-education jobs with machinery isn't a smart idea either...at least not in a country with a rising population. Those people need work...they need money...and odds are they are not smart enough to compete in a knowledge-based internet level economy. And since we're not the kind of society which would kill such people for their unproductiveness or lack of utility, they have to be housed, clothed, fed, and provided with a measure of dignity. Something you're not going to get by paying poverty wages.
     To put it simply, if you don't like the idea of an entry-level worker making a better wage, then you're not being paid enough too. Don't attack down.

     I've also always hated the fallacious argument of leaving your job for another if you don't like it. This couples with the going back to school argument because while perfectly simple on paper, both arguments fail to take into account that these things cost money. And then there's logistics.
     I'd love to leave my job for something where I feel like a person and not a number on a budgetary spreadsheet, but where would I go that would pay me as much or more than what I'm making now and accessible from my home without a car? I'm trapped. My job pays too much to just up and go, but too little to really live off of (as evidenced by me not owning a car). I'm sure there are many people like me. Plus jobs, even in the best of times, are not abundant or at least readily available. And forget about quitting on principle. Unless you have a ton of cash you're sitting on, that's not even an option. Believe me, I'd love to have fuck-you money in the bank, but I don't...so I have to suck it up and take the hits to my dignity, to my pride, and to my sense of self-worth practically daily.
      Going back to school is just as stupid an argument because that costs a shit-ton of money...even with loans. And odds are you will not be able to go to school full time to get a degree in four years. No, you'll be working too, trying to stay afloat while studying complex and difficult subjects...and that's if you don't have children. If you have a spouse, you might stand a chance if s/he's supportive of the idea and willing to carry you during that time. But still, there's no guarantee that your degree will get you a job that not only pays better, but enough to also pay off your loans while living your life. Otherwise, you may have been better off where you had been. It's simply not an option without a society willing to pay for such an education socially.
      The value of an education is at an all-time low I would say. In days of yore, your father could have taught you ironworking and you would have that skill for life. And you could take that skill and teach it to your son and pass along the family business just as your grandfather had taught your father. A skilled, once learned, was worth a lifetime of labor and then some.
      How many jobs can you say that about nowadays? A lifetime career traditionally spanned forty years (I guess 25-65). Think about what goes on today. Imagine you were 65 right now. That means, you would have embarked on your career in 1973. That means you would've been formally educated in the 1960s. Life's changed a lot since then. If you were picking up where a retiree was leaving off in 1973, he would have begun his career in the 1930s. The world changed a lot in those forty years too, but not so much that a (wo)man couldn't have relied on their education to last them throughout most, if not all, of their career.
      How long does an education last now? I figure at an ideal minimum, it should last for at least as many years as it would take to pay off the student loans...or at the very minimum, an education should be worth at least as many years on the market as it took to earn it (in other words, if it takes four years to get a degree, the education received should last at least four years before needing to re-up on it). Does that even come close to how long an education lasts these days? How quickly does skill obsolescence take hold forcing workers to increase their knowledge and skills these days? It sounds all so very stressful and while I'm sure there are numbers among us who can handle (and even welcome) that kind of stress, I feel most people would burn out.

      As for starting your own business, the numbers bear this one out. Unless it's all sole proprietorships, we can't all be business owners. Some people lead, others follow. I suspect in any given group there are more followers than leaders. It's a great sentiment to try to make it on one's own but you still need investment capital which the poorer among us certainly don't have and you'll also need a marketable idea and an education in business and accounting (which brings us back to the prior example).

      Just pay people better. It's also a numbers game. Ultimately businesses have to sell shit and they can't sell shit if the people on the bottom have no money to spend because it's all going into housing, food, and transportation. The few people on top, the One Percenters as they've been called lately, can't buy it all and charity from the ultra-wealthy is ultimately insufficient. Until the wealth up top is spread to the lower classes, dreamers can't dream. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there with good ideas worth trying out but they'll never get the chance because they're too busy trying to survive, unable to save a few bucks to get ahead or take risks with.

      I can't think anymore so I'm done...

RATIOS & MINIMUM WAGE...

     In yet another article talking about the high cost of living in states like New Jersey, the comments section blazes with arguments about whether the minimum wage needs to be raised or the educational level of the citizenry with each side ready with its talking points and no hope of a consensus ever being reached.

     I had a thought. Why not let math be our guide?

     It's simple really (and yes I'm aware that simple answers fly in the face of complicated situations like these) and my intent is to use it as a guide post for further debate, not a be-all/end-all solution.

     The article focuses on the cost of living in New Jersey for a family of four (the typical metric) and what that cost would be to barely get by. You'll do better on this amount if you manage to avoid emergency expenses for health and transportation but still, an amount was given. In this case, the answer comes in at almost exactly $80,000 a year for a family of four.
     So if you're going to have the traditional nuclear family with one stay-at-home parent, then a living wage job pays $80,000 a year. But that might be a bit too idealistic in this day and age where everybody is expected to work so it instead could be thought of as two $40,000 a year jobs (one for each parent). Taken from the latter perspective, a living wage job in New Jersey pays $40,000 a year.

     For the record, I make about $28,000 a year so an extra $12,000 would go a long way toward improving my life. I get by because I don't drive, I am very careful with my money, and most importantly, I have neither been sick nor injured enough to require hospitalization since I was 2½. But luck is not a game plan for life.

     Anyways, as for whether or not the minimum wage should be raised to reflect actual living costs in New Jersey (and elsewhere in the country to their respective rates), I think using a simple ratio would prove sufficient to answer the question.

     My question is this: What is the number of jobs in New Jersey which pay a living wage divided by the number of people who need a job which pays a living wage? I don't have the necessary information at hand to answer that question. However...

     If the ratio is less than one, then I think it would strongly suggest the need to raise the minimum wage.

     However, if the ratio is greater than one, then it would strongly suggest the population needs to be better educated. 

MY TWO BITS ON SNOWDEN...

     I fully support what Edward Snowden has done and I agree with Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War that this leak surpasses even their own in terms of importance. But why, you ask? It's very simple actually...

     The basis of the justice system in our country is presumption of innocence. Whether the job of the government or a prosecutor, it is their responsibility to prove beyond the benefit of doubt that the accused is guilty of a crime. It is not the job of the accused to prove their innocence.

      And no, I don't buy into the bullshit claim that one has nothing to fear if one has nothing to hide.

      The NSA surveillance programs that were revealed via Snowden's leak turned that presumption on its head. Understand I'm not talking about ordinary spying done by governments against other governments. That has a long history and what they do is fine. The problem here is that it involves U.S. citizens and when what you're doing involves U.S. citizens, the laws of this nation and the spirit of those very same laws must be followed to the letter if not better.
       Warrantless spying on U.S. citizens creates a presumption of guilt and I can't stand for that. It's also a violation of the Fourth Amendment which not only requires the government to have a warrant and/or reasonable suspicion to initiate a search, but it must also have a specific target in mind. Law enforcement agents cannot search for anything more than they are allowed to search for. There's a reason these limits on power exist.

      The NSA spying program works on the assumption that all citizens are terrorists or are aiding terrorists until shown otherwise. Also, there is nothing specific being searched for nor have the people being searched via this program been charged with or even accused of a crime.

       The fact that this isn't being talked about by the press has been infuriating. With rare exception, the mainstream press is actually condemning Snowden rather than the revelations made. This in turn makes me furious because since when did the press become official spokesmen for the government?

      At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, it really does bring about the feeling that we are in the opening stages of a dictatorship. Not now...not through President Obama (I'm not that crazy), but soon. That slow transition...

      It certainly does feel like the groundwork has been laid.

ROBIN HOOD WOULD APPROVE

Wealth Inequality in America"
     Now I don't know what the best solution to this problem is but it seems clear that even the best-designed progressive taxation system would do little to fix this enormous disparity. If you haven't watched that infuriating video, this is a screen cap showing wealth distribution presented in the forms of what people think would be ideal wealth distribution; what people think the wealth distribution is; and what it actually is in the United States of America.

Pictured: how little you actually matter

     It's a shocking bar graph to say the least. How frightening is it that the Top 1% in reality have more wealth than the idealized Top 20%? or that the Top 20% have almost twice as much wealth as people even thought they had? How sad to realize that the lower 40% barely show up on the top graph at all? Odds are that's where you lie.

     Now remember, this is wealth quintiles, not income. This is a measure of ownership or how much of a slice of the American pie you have. As a result, you can actually be considerably more wealthy than your income indicates, even if much of that wealth is fairly non-liquid like a house or car. Your wealth can even be negative if you owe more than you have in assets (like when you first buy a home, the bank is the primary owner...you just have a slice - or when you first get out of college, you'll have a ton of student loan debt crippling your net worth) Income quintiles can be found here as well as other data. I'll quickly list the quintiles by income so you can see where you fit:

• First Quintile (0-20%): $0 - $18,500
• Second Quintile (20-40%): $18,501 - $34,738
• Third Quintile (40-60%): $34,739 - $55,330
• Fourth Quintile (60-80%): $55,331 - $88,029
• Fifth Quintile (80-100%): $88,030 and up

    Anyways, I'm having trouble locating a simple chart that shows wealth distribution by quintile (or any percentage). If this tool found on this page is worth its salt, then the thresholds of wealth for the individual quintiles are as follows (and remember, you can have a negative net worth):

• Bottom 20% : $6 or less
• Second Quintile : $6 - $22,500
• Third Quintile: $22,500 - $119,000
• Fourth Quintile: $119,000 - $390,000
• 80-99%: $390,000- $1,460,000
• Top 1%: $1,460,000 or higher

    I find data like this interesting because while I am in the Second Quintile for income, I am in the Fourth Quintile for net worth mostly due to my lack of debt. It also wouldn't surprise me if the majority of the poor in this country are actually in the Second Quintile for wealth and that most of the bottom 20% are actually freshly educated but saddled with student loan debt or are recent purchasers of homes. It's also weird to think that if you are debt-free and have $20 in your pocket, you're worth more than 20.8% of all American households.

    Okay, the point of this stupid meandering entry was what to do about this horrific wealth inequality. Progressive taxation helps with some of it but as the charts have shown, it is now so out of whack that even if the ultra-wealthy were levied 99% taxation levels on their income, they'd still make money and wealth faster than the bottom 80%.

     I'm thinking the only way to deal with this problem is a wealth tax. I believe France already does this but not necessarily for the purpose for which I would support it. Wealth redistribution seems necessary and it doesn't have to reflect the ideal. Even as the narrator in the video agrees that the way we THINK wealth is distributed in this country is still pretty fair. So what if a wealth tax existed in order to bring the distribution of wealth in line with that of what those surveyed thought it was? The money raised would not go to fund government operations, it instead would be redistributed slowly over decades like the Earned Income Tax Credit until the distribution mostly matches that middle bar graph. Then the wealth tax would fade away as it would no longer be necessary but able to be resurrected should wealth inequality stray too much again.

     I hear the cries of socialism and blah blah blah. I don't care and also, I don't want pure socialism because that would be stupid. I want fairness of opportunity. If you squander that opportunity then fuck you. You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!

    I look at the current situation and see one of no hope for those at the bottom. Class mobility was a feature of this country. It has practically disappeared. If wealth distribution were more equitable, there would be greater class fluidity. If America is truly about letting the best idea win, then people's fortunes should rise and fall with those ideas. Instead we have a system set up to protect those who are already wealthy. Wealth should not be a birthright but that's exactly what it has become in the United States. We have now what amounts to the aristocracy of yore and a plutocracy in practice. If you weren't born into wealth, you're practically guaranteed never to achieve it. Once poor, always poor. Take a look at any chart to show the growth in both income and wealth inequality.
     Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was quoted as saying recently that had the minimum wage kept up with the productivity of the American worker, minimum wage would be $22 per hour. It's $7.15 now. Chew on that as you try and stretch ever further those few dollars you do make just to get by and every year you fall a little further behind because inflation goes up faster than does your wages.
     The massive wealth inequality represents more a theft from the American people than it does the destiny of capitalism. I don't like the idea of a wealth tax, but I'm not sure what else would work. I'll stick with that one for now though I have heard of an idea to tax ownership rather than income. It's not like there aren't other ideas out there...

IMAGINING A COMPROMISE...

     I'm a bit of an old-school politician in that I understand that in order to get something, you must also give something. And that process had a word: compromise. Now, as usual, there's a lot of talk about taxes and deficits going on in Washington D.C. but mostly it comes across as posturing. All talk and nothing to show for it, except of course, extreme proposals like Rep. Paul Ryan's budget which of course balances the budget on the backs of the poor and middle classes (a nebulously defined term - I'm actually middle class as per the government...imagine that! Seriously, I have to imagine that because reality certainly doesn't conform to it) and while the Democrats have an idea of their own, it doesn't appear to have much in mind when it comes to ending the idea that the government spend more than it takes in. As seriously flawed as Rep. Ryan's budget is, at least he's trying to balance the fucking thing.

     And seriously, what's wrong with that? That's how we all have to live. Why should the government get a reprieve from living within its means or asking more of its citizens if spending does need to increase? I'm cool with deficits during declared wars (i.e. a national emergency), to help fund infrastructure projects which are designed to last for decades (e.g. the interstate highway system), and to aid in lessening the pain of an economic depression...but I'm not cool with deficits being run any other time. Our excursions in Afghanistan and Iraq were not declared wars so a surtax should've been created to pay for those wars. Recessions are not depressions and they should be paid for with rainy day funds, not deficits. And yearly budgets should be paid for with an appropriate amount of tax revenue, not deficits. If you're spending more than you're taking in you are either spending too much or taxing too little...or both.

     But about the debt. As of now, it stands at 16.7 TRILLION dollars. Click on the link for an update. We should be paying that off, right? But seeing as how it only counts up, clearly we're not. I believe it was President Andrew Jackson who made it a point to pay off our debts...and he did. He even threw a party over the achievement.

     Anyways, I'm blabbing so let me get to my compromise proposal. We have the Clinton-era tax rates which were set up during good economic times and actually resulted in a couple years of surpluses. We also have the Bush-era tax rates favored by Republicans (big surprise, I know). The differences between them are not much and that's where I'd like to start.

(image source)

     The left percentage column shows the Clinton-era rates and the right percentage column shows the Bush-era tax rates.

     My proposal is this. Restore the Clinton-era tax rates but create two tiers for spending. The first tier is for annual government spending. This tier will be based on the Bush-era tax rates. In other words, the money that comes in from taxes up until those percentages is ear-marked for government spending. The revenue that comes in from the remaining percentage (i.e. the Clinton-era rate minus the Bush-era rate) is ear-marked for paying down the national debt only.

      Using the $35,500 - $86,000 quintile for reference (25% under Bush; 28% under Clinton): The revenue brought in from the 25% part is for government spending and the remaining 3% goes toward paying down the debt.

      Once the debt is paid off, the Clinton-era rates disappear leaving the Bush-era rates only and permanent. Having this set-up I feel will allow for both parties to figure out how to balance the budget and get used to spending within the Bush-era rate framework. Plus, there's incentive for both parties to work together because as soon as the debt is paid, taxes go down. It feels like a win-win for everyone.

NRAce DEBATE

     Considering that Muslims, especially the middle-Eastern variety, are the enemies du jour of the United States, I wonder how the debate on gun control would be going if those Muslims living here in the United States as law-abiding, integrating citizens starting arming themselves and patrolling the streets à la the Black Panthers in an effort to counteract the endless suspicions their group faces and ensure they are treated justly?

(image source)

     Hell, even given the suspicion surrounding the various Latino communities, I suppose the same could be said for them too. Something tells me the Second Amendment wouldn't be coming up nearly so much in these debates...

     I thought it was the obvious question to ask (that of course wasn't) after having read that Addicting Info article linking under the Black Panthers picture.

CARLY McKINNEY IS A ROLE MODEL...

     I saw this post on Gawker the other day. It's about a 23 year old math teacher in Colorado who has since been put on "administrative leave" for posts made on a now defunct Twitter account showing herself in various states of PG-13 undress, calling her students jailbait, and implying drug use.

Carly McKinney : Yes, I am totally adding these images in a nakedly desperate attempt to get my stupid blog to show up and be visited via a Google Image Search

     Now I personally do not know if any of the aforementioned tweets have been made on school time. If that's the case, I can understand any suspension and whatnot as I've argued in the past.  For the sake of this opinion, I will be assuming that they were not posted during school hours or using school computers and done instead, on her own time (even though under current law, my arguments do not matter according to the NEA - all that needs to happen is for the activity to be declared disruptive to the school: a judgement I'm sure will be found in a totally fair and unbiased manner).

     Comments in these articles inevitably point to Ms. McKinney deserving to be fired for failing to be a role model. (examples from the Gawker link)

"You can be a party girl famewhore, or you can be a schoolteacher. You cannot be both."

(commenter: Dismissed)

[sarcastically] "Yeah, she should really be rewarded for showing the judgement of a 14 year old while theoretically helping teach people's kids how to get on with life. Thanks for your insightful comment."

(commenter: Paul Tatara)

"...I know it is not right, but if you work in certain jobs, you simply can not behave this way online..."

(commenter: TuMadreTanbien)

"Idiot. You can't do that shit when you're a teacher, full stop. This woman grew up breathing social media if she's anything like other millennials, so there is absolutely no reason she should think any of that is okay. If you're a teacher (or any number of other public positions), you don't post this stuff online."

(commenter: GMaMazur)

     You can search articles for comments defending her: they're not hard to find. I will be offering my own defenses,  however, and these defenses will go beyond the obvious "slut shaming" thing needing to stop as it has happened inexcusably before and will continue to happen again. Because seriously, when was the last time a man was fired for being an underwear model or in porn?
     A quick Google search yielded nothing so the slant is fairly obvious.
     The teachers linked in the two articles not only did nothing illegal, but even if it's still technically conduct "unbecoming of a teacher" (how 19th century does that sound?), their photos and videos were made prior to them even becoming teachers!
     And it is that latter concept which factors into my defense...

     Why is Carly McKinney a role model of sorts? Because she demonstrates conclusively (at least up until the point of this media gossip-storm) that perfection is not required for success in life; that yes, you can grow up and with proper education, get a professional career regardless of one's past.
      It's the idea that you can still get ahead despite one's "youthful indiscretions". It's this idea that teachers can still be people too and not have to be held to these bizarre Victorian standards of stainlessness in order to be given the authority to teach our children.

Being hot should never be a terminable offense for a woman

     Because seriously, what are supposed to tell the stoners, the delinquents, the freaks and other perpetrators of "youthful indiscretions" in high school? That they can never amount to anything because they will be barred from any and all professions regardless of later academic achievement because society will refuse to acknowledge that they can change or gasp! actually be competent despite these faults?
     What are we supposed to tell the people who have prostituted themselves, performed in pornography, supported a position publicly that is unpopular, been to prison, and others whether legal or illegal? That despite this being a Christian nation, forgiveness will never come unto them? That they will be considered fuck-ups forever with no possibility for redemption or for simply letting bygones be bygones?

     That's the way it goes right now and probably will continue to go for the foreseeable future ever since background checks became so ludicrously easy to perform. And why should it be that way? Why should this system of intolerance and bullying - and yes, it is bullying...bullying in its most insidious degree as anyone who has ever been effectively shunned will recognize - be allowed to persist?
      And I don't care if the perpetrator was too young to know better or could have known better or should have known better...it doesn't matter. This gossip whose purpose is to ruin the lives of those who are either trying to make a better one for themselves or who are able to function competently in their jobs/professions despite their vices is entirely conducive to fostering hopelessness.
     Great...you made a mistake: now you've got to pay for it forever.
     Great...you've done something perfectly legal that petty people frown upon: now you've got to pay for it forever.
     Great...there's no point in working hard to achieve: no one will ever let you.
     Great...now you can either own up to your past and fail forever or you can hide it, living in perpetual terror that it will one day resurface and be used against you.

     What a shitty system.

Once a topless model, always a topless model...because it makes sense to do that to people

     If it were in my power, I would forgive Carly McKinney, reinstating her with pay immediately and without comment for actions both real and alleged portrayed by her online while off the clock. I would openly and hostilely condemn those who have maligned her for daring to have a life outside of her profession. I would condemn them for being busybodies and gossips. I would condemn those who insist upon such irresponsibly unrealistic purity standards for which a teacher may be judged fit for teaching.
     I would forgive those like Stacie Halas and Tiffani Webb, immediately reinstating them and without comment for actions performed by them PRIOR to becoming teachers and even if they were teachers at the time, those same actions were TOTALLY FUCKING LEGAL (and in the case of Stacie Halas for certain, also performed under a pseudonym) and thus would not be subject to firing if they were doing this stuff now (though if they did it in the school, yes...another matter entirely). I would condemn those that would judge these women unfit for duty on the basis of actions performed which were unrelated to their professions. I would condemn them for their inability to move on from their past lives. I would condemn them for holding these women guilty for their non-professional conduct. I would remind them that none of those doing the condemning and shaming are themselves without sin and that if held to their own standards, all of them would almost certainly be out of work.
     There are plenty of reasons to fire a teacher (or any professional): these are not any of them.

Because this clearly happened in the classroom

     No, if these women are to be judged, they are to be judged by the quality of their work in the classroom and their conduct therein. They should be judged by their professionalism as directly related their career. If Carly McKinney does an illegal drug in the classroom (or on school grounds): fired. If Stacie Halas films or her showcases her porn scenes in the classroom: fired. If Tiffani Webb models or has students take pictures of her in lingerie in the classroom: fired.

     But if they've done, they do or if they even consider doing any of these things (and more) on their own time, tell me again why it matters?

Pictured: personal time

      We tell people that life is about making mistakes and learning from them. But increasingly society makes life for people and especially professionals just so terrifyingly unforgiving. Yes, I am most certainly dreaming the dream of the idealist...but I want to live in a world where people are judged for their skills in life and not for their past lives.

     It really would only be fair.

As it should be...

ADDENDUM: Turns out a month before I had posted this, the Huffington Post reported that Stacie Halas, the teacher who PRIOR TO BECOMING A TEACHER performed in adult films had lost her appeal to get her job back and create a legal precedent that one's past is not allowed to infringe upon their present. Remember kids, in the eyes of the law: once a fuck up, always a fuck up. No forgiveness. No hope.

No forgiveness. No hope.

SENATOR SHUFFLE

     A letter to the editor in a recent issue of the New York Times wondered aloud about adding to our number of Congressmen in the House, raising the number from the current 435 to an unwieldly 3,100 in an effort to bring down the number of people each Congressman represents from the current approximation of 1 for about every 708,000 people (though that number varies by state as each state is guaranteed one Congressman regardless of population) to 1 for every 100,000 which the writer felt better approximated what the Constitution had originally set out (1 for every 30,000 - which, if used today, would result in the United States having 10,267 members in the House of Representatives while still only having 100 Senators).

     Now while I can accept the idea of increasing the total number of Congressmen somewhat. Maybe 650 - get it? Cuz that's 13 times the total number of states? And there were thirteen states when the Constitution was ratified? Moving along...

      I am actually more interested in the Senators. Each state gets two regardless of population but their districts are apportioned by population (within their respective states) like the House of Representatives. But why not apportion them differently?

     The recent debate over gun ownership rights and regulations thereof sparked by the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school massacre brought about two major mindsets of those in this country. No, not liberal and conservative, but rather that of rural and urban. In a survey showing gun ownership throughout the country, the suburbs fell almost precisely in the middle of the two regions. However, for the purposes of what I'm about to suggest, I will be lumping the suburbs in with the rural.

     When looking at the debate surrounding this issue, one finds that it is the rural regions which are very pro-gun and the urban regions which are very anti-gun. It suggests to me that the two regions have very different priorities and not that one particular priority or the other is necessarily wrong. Just that, perhaps these perspectives, one that of rural and the other of urban ought to be what is represented by our Senators, rather than some gross approximation of half the state's population.
     Sure, more people live in the cities than in the suburbs and small towns but the apportionment of the House is already determined solely by a state's population so why not apportion the Senate on the basis of mentality, specifically the rural/urban divide?

     It would seem a sensible idea to me.

     Hell, and if we're gonna argue for increasing the size of the House of Representatives, why not do the same for the Senate and give three Senators to each state? That way, one can exist for each of the three mindsets of this nation: the rural, suburban, and urban.

PEOPLE AGAINST DOLLAR COINS ARE RETARDED

     Okay, I can't find a link to it, but in the December 2nd, 2012 issue of the New York Post, a brief editorial appeared to take a stand against switching over to dollar coins using the same retarded reasoning that I tend to come across. A Democratic congresswoman, Lacy Clay (D-Mo) is quoted as saying, "[M]en don’t like carrying coins in their pockets or their suits." Another NY state representative who apparently has not seen a dollar coin since the Susan B. Anthony Dollar, claimed that constituents had a difficult time distinguishing them from a quarter (not that I've ever heard this complaint regarding a dime and cent which are also nearly identically sized and differ in roughly the same ways).

    You also still get the occasional problem with "heavy coins" even though four quarters weigh more than a single dollar coin. In fact, four quarters weigh about as much as three dollar coins. Three times the value per unit weight!

     The editorial later mentioned bringing accumulated coins to the bank to cash in for bills. See, that's where the issue of dollar coins comes in. Coins weren't minted to be hoarded and cashed in periodically: They were made to be spent. The reason your coins fill up jars for days and weeks on end only to be cashed out at a later time is because they, the coins, have no purchasing power. Remember, a bottle of Coca-Cola didn't cost 5¢ "back in the day" because it was cute, but rather because the money supply was much smaller so five cents went further. The old song, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" referred to a coin with actual purchasing power (based on inflation, a dime in 1931, when that song was written, is worth $1.52 today).

     The fact is, our current monetary system contains several coins with negligible purchasing power. If you go back to 1913, when the U.S. government first started keeping inflation statistics, you'll find that a cent back then would be worth 23¢ today which suggests that the quarter today is our "penny" making the dime, nickel, and lowly cent far more a nuisance than useful. Our face-to-face transactions do not need to be more precise than the quarter-dollar.
     Thinking back on it, I have no memory of ever being able to use a penny in vending machines or for pay phones. My entire life of over 30 years, the cent has been "nummus non grata", so why have we kept it? I remember when ShopRite first started offering 2¢ for a reused bag back in 1990, laughing about the worthlessness of 2¢ to my brother even back then. Nickel vending machines existed briefly during my childhood for the tiniest of gumballs only but I don't remember them after 1983 or 4. Dime vending machines disappeared sometime around 1993 or 4.
     Cents, nickels, and dimes must be used in enormous aggregate to buy even trivial things. The average item value in a supermarket these days is about $2.30 (approximately 10¢ in 1913). That would mean the average item would cost 230 pennies, 46 nickels, 23 dimes, 10 quarters, 5 half dollars, or 3 dollar coins to meet or exceed that total. Justifying even quarters under this scheme is difficult but the first three coins? Forget it. They're not useful for transactions and more work than they're worth (by that I mean if you are diligent, you can cycle your pennies into nickels and nickels into dimes and so forth until getting a dollar again).

     And here, people complain about dollar coins which now effectively have less purchasing power than the 1913 nickel (approximately 4.3¢). There shouldn't even be five and ten dollar bills at this point either. But that is another argument.
     Back to the stupid Congresswoman's argument, large numbers of coins would not be carried in one's pockets if they were more valuable. In fact, they would be too valuable to be carried around like that. We only carry lots of change now because change, even in aggregate, cannot buy anything anymore and quarters are the only commonly encountered coins whose value adds up fast enough to be even minorly significant.

     It's our mentality about change that is wrong. This was also evident in the editorial when the author mentioned other nations' high value coins (Like Canada and Switzerland. In fact, I believe the highest Swiss coin is worth more than $5) but using the same "pocketful of change" mentality we now have instead of realizing that if we regularly carried coins with significant value, that we would spend them accordingly because they would not be nuisances weighing down and wearing out our pockets but economically useful like the coins of the United States used to be, y'know...back in the day.

     I hate inflation. I would rather a deflationary policy to improve the value of our money, but that's not gonna happen. The dollar bill needs to go (as does the cent, nickel, dime, $2 bill, $5 bill, and $10 bill). We need a more sensible coin and currency structure for this country.
     In my opinion, it should be three sets of three: Three base metal coins (25¢, 50¢, $1); Three appropriately-sized silver coins ($2 or $2½, $5, $10); and Three pieces of currency ($20, $50, $100). With the presence of debit/credit cards, bills larger than $100 would not be necessary. The purpose of using silver would be to raise the intrinsic value of the high value coins enough so as to discourage counterfeiting. The cent, nickel, and dime have to be eliminated and I say this as an ardent cent collector too...

     What do you think?

I AM A MEMBER OF THE BULL-MOOSE PARTY

     Probably the biggest reason I could never vote Republican is the disconnect they display when it comes to their (alleged) Christian convictions and their rabid support for individualism, especially when it comes to businesses.

     Okay, I'll admit, I am a lapsed Catholic at best, but that doesn't mean I have lost that sense of "we're all in this together" mentality that came with those Christian values which were imparted on me in my youth. I have lost some of it. I have become more selfish with my giving. I tend to limit what I do give, emotionally and especially financially, to those whom I love, care about, or at least could conceivably benefit from if I were to aid them. It is rare that I give without any of these concerns. My annual donations are typically limited to the DAV, breast cancer research, and at least $20 to the Salvation Army each year around Christmas (or if I don't encounter them, a Toys for Tots campaign will do just nicely). If I were wealthier I would certainly do more as I only need so much to live on even after an increase in lifestyle is considered in this equation. I'll admit I feel bad that I'm on the poorer end of the spectrum when considering these things.

     The point I'm making is that what feels like everything I remember from my Sunday School classes and those times I did attend Mass even semi-regularly in my youth, the lessons offered were that of charity, duty, and obligation to others. This idea that it's not just about me. The story of the widow's mite comes to mind. I suppose that's what tithing was all about. We each alone cannot attend to all the duties asked of us to and for our fellow men, but others are dedicated to these tasks and we can help them considerably through donation. If we cannot do the work ourselves, then let the money which represents value from work done, serve in our stead.
      Yet, the Republican creed centers on individualism and inherent in individualism is selfishness. The Social Darwinistic idea that the poor are so not by circumstance (or even by design) but by their own actions; that the sick should not rely on handouts, especially government handouts, to aid in their convalescence but instead should pay for it themselves and if they can't, well...that's not our problem now is it?; that we are entitled to that which we earn and are equally entitled to not have to contribute unwillingly via taxation to public functions though the military tends to get a huge pass on this one.
     The Republicans put forth this notion that we are in it for ourselves...kind of the opposite of e pluribus unum (more like ex uno unum?) and wear it like a badge of honor; as a symbol of a proud American. Now I understand the history of this nation is full of proud rugged individuals but I don't recall them ever acting alone or believing that they alone were responsible for their successes. They seemed to understand that their successes were built on the work of others. However, how does this ideology jibe with the Christianity they so brazenly wear on their sleeves?

      These are the same people who will shout out loudly when the idols of their faith are threatened. Some Presidential Dollars failed to get their edge inscriptions? Must be a plot to remove God from our money. We need "In God We Trust" on our currency to distinguish ourselves from the Godless Communists! We need an affirmation of our faith in the Lord on our coins lest history judge us a heathen nation. We need the Ten Commandments openly displayed as they are the source of our laws and the moral foundation upon which we have built our society!
     It gets ridiculous because when faced with actual things Jesus would have done like helping the poor, comforting the sick, and working together for the betterment of all, they rise up practically in arms to shout down foodstamps, welfare, universal health care, housing assistance, job retraining programs, unemployment insurance, WIC, addiction recovery programs, battered women's shelters, etc. etc. etc. No, let's fuck over the poor, our greatest obligation as Christians, because we believe that the government needs to get out of our lives all the while not setting up alternative, non-governmental programs to assist these people.
     They want smaller government; a government which does not interfere with their lives...except for when it comes to abortion and preventing the spread of contraception/sex education. Then we need government assistance!

     That's actually one thing I've never understood about faith. Why do people feel the need to forcibly save others? Is that actually a mandate explicitly stated in the Bible? I say this also in light of their desire to be rugged individuals. I have thought that while we are obligated to help one and other, our responsibility and faithfulness to the Lord is our own burden. It may take a village to care for one and other on Earth, but our path to the rewards of Heaven was meant to be a lonely one, or at least one between the individual and God. Perhaps I have been wrong? Then again, I have been guilty of apostasy since the early 1990s so what do I know? :-)
     But they say they want the government out of their lives but are perfectly content to use it to impose upon others their twisted views of their faith in an effort to spare others temptation. How can one say they are able to remain faithful and resist temptation if they do not allow temptation to exist and move freely among them?
     If pornography is wrong (for the sake of argument), how does eliminating it make one less of a sinner? If you are not supposed to view pornography as a part of your religious beliefs, how can you know if you are truly worthy if you have never had to resist its temptation? Only by having it around you can you know if you are truly worthy of your faith and more importantly, know if you are capable of resisting its temptations. Same for any other aberrant behaviors/lifestyles.


Crusade: The MOST Holy...
     This brings me around to businesses, the other big position of the Republican party. They are very cozy with big business and despite being a religious party, they expect no moral and/or ethical behavior from the businesses they support. The more businesses parasitically fuck over the communities which helped them grow strong and wealthy, the more adored they are. Businesses, despite being legal persons in the eyes of the law, are not expected to behave like their living counterparts. In fact that kind of behavior is frowned upon the cutthroat game of capitalism.
      It's not that businesses have to behave this way: it is certainly not a congenital property. We've allowed them to become this way and I have a very hard time supporting a party which espouses Christian values while supporting the very opposite kinds of behavior in the businesses they allow to generously fund their campaigns.

     Why is it wrong to expect a business to support the community which helped it grow? Why is it wrong to suggest that businesses have an obligation to enable the people they employ to enjoy fruitful and productive lives? Why is it wrong to suggest that businesses (and people and communities too) need to be stewards of their environments; that it is not all about now and us, but about the future and those yet to come as well? Why would any party of God be so eager to support the kinds of unethical and decidedly un-Christian behaviors which made the heads of our wealthiest corporations (and even the not-so-wealthy ones)?

     I'm not saying the Democrats are any better, but what I am saying is that the hypocrisy of the Republican party glares as brightly as the sun. I cannot vote for them so long as their platforms are so incongruent. And of course, their obvious abiding hatred for women...

$20 PAC

     You want to limit the influence of money on politics or at least make the money that goes into politics more democratic? While a lot of laws would need to be changed to even get this idea off the ground, here's what you do. It's simple, possibly elegant, and definitely stupid.

     The maximum donation a candidate/incumbent can accept from a person (or corporation...thanks Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission decision) is twenty dollars ($20). Twenty bucks. That's it...even from himself. The person doing the donating would have to be at least of voting age (preferably registered to do so as well, but I won't advocate that just yet) because if you can't vote, you cannot participate in the system. I don't know how much of this country is over eighteen, but you have to figure at least half making a minimum possible total of about 150 million people which, multiplied by the maximum donation of $20 would be $3 billion dollars per Presidential candidate (though considerably less for each lesser one as I don't think you should be able to donate to people who are not in your district and thus cannot vote for).

     What is the point of this donation limit? For me, the idea is that even the poorest of the poor should have at least twenty dollars to spare for charitable purposes and I will consider donating money to a candidate seeking election to represent you in government as a charitable donation. Each person gets one vote and that is considered fair. No matter how wealthy or poor, you only get one. Money should really be no different. Why is it considered fair that a billionaire can tap his vast fortune to run for office, saturating the landscape with advertisements and socials, or that the well-to-do can donate vast sums of money to a candidate or party? Does that not give them undue influence? Isn't it supposed to be, "Let the best man with the best ideas win" and not "Let the most moneyed man win"? It's about ideas, not dollars...right?

     Therefore, limit the dollars to something more equitable. Candidates would need to get many donations to run a campaign or would have to actually appear at non-partisan sponsored events to debate one and other. They would need to listen to the people because they would need the money to get (re)elected. Politicians would be unable to shut them out. I admit this idea sounds terribly impractical but then I also think, "Who was the last President we've had who wasn't already wealthy?" We've had some rags to riches stories (Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln come to mind), but by the time they were in office, they had some cash to play with. Would it be so wrong to try a little something different?

     And while we're at it, eliminate the direct primary too. Let the political parties who back these candidates actually choose their candidates again. Direct primaries bring out the extremists on both ends and we end up with unelectable candidates as a result. If the direct primary is eliminated, then I will allow people to donate $20 to a political party in addition to a candidate. Maybe it can be a matching donation thing. For every candidate you give $20 to, you can also give $20 to their party assuming the candidate is represented by one.

     Deal?

DISCLAIMER: To anyone reading this, you are welcome to not only use, but claim this idea as your own without giving credit to me. I sometimes have ideas, but I do not have the skills needed to express them. It is more important to me to see these ideas done than to receive recognition for them. That being said, giving me a mention anyway would make me giddy. If this idea has in fact already been done, then I strongly suggest you not actually steal it (at least not without major revisions) :-) 

POLITICAL INTERFERENCE

      As far as I am concerned, both liberals and conservatives are anti-science. The only differences are which sciences they soundly reject. Both sides are dangerously undereducated in the scientific method^*.

      Conservatives are notorious for being anti-science, most notably for their denial of evolution (despite over 150 years of research and corroboration from nearly EVERY scientific discipline [including but not limited to organic chemistry, geology, plate tectonics, paleobiology, ecology, genetics, etc.] it is still supposed "just a theory" which, of course, doubles as a reminder that evolution deniers are woefully uneducated in the scientific method as it shows a profound ignorance of the meaning of the term "theory"), their denial of climate change/global warming (never minding ACTUAL evidence of rising sea levels, rising CO₂ levels, average global temperature increases, etc. Sure, the sun is getting hotter as it ages. Yes, the Earth has gone through hotter periods than today as well as colder. Sea levels used to be much higher. But it seems to be happening awful fast lately to pass off as one of those things and of course, to use such countermanding claims requires you to accept things that religious dogmas tend to categorically deny like the age of the Earth, acceptance of the accuracy of radiometric dating, etc.), the need for environmental stewardship (because why bother when you either believe the world is going to end with the current generation or that God gave us the Earth to do with as we please), their beliefs that homosexuality is a choice (because, well, this is hardly scientific, but why would anyone WANT to be homosexual given the way they are viewed/treated throughout the world? Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I might accept the idea of it being a mental disorder or a genetic mutation of sorts but then that would require an acceptance of biological evolution so my original non-scientific idea stands), and human behavior (e.g. the need for sex education/contraception because again, to believe otherwise would require you to accept that you are both the product of and subject to, hundreds of millions of years of sexual evolution that is really not possible to overcome absent some sort of anomaly. Seriously, I'd love to believe abstinence could be enough, but just because logically it is the only way to 100% prevent a pregnancy does not mean it is reasonable to expect such behavior from meat machines designed to make other meat machines). I think because conservative anti-science is so much more "obvious" and a sign of a lack of more basic education in the sciences, that it leads liberals who are traditionally more educated, to view themselves as superior to conservatives and to be blinded to their own kinds of anti-science.

      Liberal anti-science comes to my attention primarily from celebrities who tend to be notoriously liberal (as well as stupid). Prime examples are the anti-vaccination crowd (never mind the 200+ years of evidence that vaccinations are WAY more beneficial than harmful...eradication of smallpox anyone?...and that, while yes, a few people suffer ill effects from vaccines, it is truly a case of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" so fuck you and your philosophical/religious objections to modern medicine. I say your kid either gets vaccinated with a dead virus or quarantined [at your expense] and exposed to the live ones. Let him get his immunity the natural way...assuming he survives. Don't even get me started on the indescribably retarded people who have linked vaccines to autism and continue to do so despite the original study being PROVEN as fraud. These assholes are damning us all with their ignorance. Vaccines are victims of their success because there's really no longer any living memory of the "classic diseases" and how people would actually lose friends and family to them but with the exception of smallpox, dangerous diseases like polio, measles, mumps, pertussis, and hepatitis are still around and still killing. But no, I have to do my OWN research because I don't find hundreds of years of evidence showing the safety and efficacy of vaccines convincing - you sound like the anti-global warming crowd and people who believe in "chemtrails". You honestly believe your pennyweight of doubt will balance out the tons of evidence?), the anti-GMO crowd (yes, Monsanto is practically the epitome of corporate evil, but this idea that genetically modifying an organism is somehow bad for us humans or for the environment is idiotic seeing as how all our staple crops are examples of genetic modification through selective breeding and/or hybridization. It's been going on for some time [dog breeds anyone? Mules? grapefruit?]. The only difference is now we know how inheritance works and can take it a step further and in far less time. Hypocrisy aside, you have scientists doing wonderful things like making rice produce vitamin A for countries whose diets are low in that vitamin and involve a lot of rice, improving the health of untold millions of people. Just because Monsanto does some pretty stupid shit doesn't invalidate the science behind genetic modification), the belief that reality is subjective rather than objective (Probably the most ridiculous and arrogant belief of all. Just because you believe something does not make it so. Our brains are designed to approximate reality, not perceive it, and the brain will lie to you - need proof? Check out ANY optical illusion. If your brains were windows to truth, you would not be fooled. So yeah, your perception of reality outweighs the entire fucking universe. Your personal "truth" supercedes all. Of course it does...), the alternative medicine crowd (because yeah, hundreds of years of medical research is totally invalidating by your non-degree-holding ass. You of course know better than generations of scientists who have spent their lives studying human health at levels you could not even begin to understand), the "natural is always better" fallacy (I wonder when it changed? When did we go from celebrating advancements in things like agriculture, technology, and chemistry to shunning them?), human behavior (brought to you by the people who believed that we are born as blank slates...that our minds are solely the products of the society in which we were raised again denying decades of research showing that there really were biological bases for male and female behaviors), and the germaphobes (These immensely ignorant people are damning us all by permitting the creation of vastly superior bacteria capable of doing us harm and are possibly behind the rise in allergies in the population) --- just to name a few.

I have no actual point to make with this post so let's just say, ideology and science do not mix.

Ideology is just as happy to use science as it is to suppress it when doing so suits its needs.

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^*  Not claiming that I have been properly educated