Your Government: Watching Its Own Ass

Ed Snowden. Brad Manning.

These are two names that may elicit a range of responses in people. Some despise the owners of these names and others like them. Others may feel neutral and many others applaud their courage and audacity.

Let's just look at some cold hard facts.

Federal/State Mandatory Minimum Sentences (Bold Sentences taken from the harshest State statutes)
Murder in the 1st Degree: None.
Trafficking Cocaine: 3 years (depends on amount)
Sexual Abuse: 1 year  plus 1 day
Aggravated Sexual Assault (not rape): any term of years*
Rape: 10 years
Sex Trafficking of a child 14-18 (w/o force or fraud): 10 years
Enticing or coercing a child under 18 to engage in prostitution: 10 years
Transporting a child under 18 for illicit sexual purposes (Mann act): 10 years
Murder in the course of a Mann Act, sex trafficking, or production of child pornography offense: any term of years*
Child Pornography transportation, receipt, or sale: 5 years
Child exploitation enterprise; 3 or more instances involve 3 or more others and multiple victims of child pornography, child sex trafficking, or Mann Act involving a child: 20 years
Unlawfully bringing in aliens for profit or knowing the alien will commit a felony
within the U.S.: 3 years
Burning or bombing federal property: 5 years; 7 years if the offense
involves personal injury or a substantial risk of personal injury; if death results, 20 years or life

Brad (now known as Chelsea) Manning's Sentence: 35 years
Her crime? Telling the truth to people the Government wanted to continue lying to, namely: you and me.

What information was included in Manning's leaks to WikiLeaks?
Data pertaining to Government intel on WikiLeaks itself, media exposing war crimes committed by the U.S. and its foreign representatives, and other general documentation that the U.S. Government did not want you to see.

Let's take a moment to examine that top list of "mandatory minimum" sentences. Read it again. Then, read it once more just to let the information really sink in.

I could traffic YOUR 12 year old daughter and receive 10 years in a federal prison. 10 years. That means your daughter could be raped REPEATEDLY by strange men, possibly with STDs or other horrible disease,  and I would spend 10 years in prison for it. Oh, and did I mention that, in many cases, the minimum isn't even the real minimum? If I had a shark for a lawyer I could be getting out on parole in a matter of years for "good behavior." How do you feel about that?

Now, consider that Chelsea Manning is sitting in prison for 25 years more than my sentence for selling your daughter as a sex slave. How do you feel about that?

Let's consider the phrase any term of years. I could sexually assault your 12 year old myself and serve that sentence. What does that mean? I could serve 1 year or I could serve 7 or I could serve 50. We don't know, it depends on the judge, jury, and how good my lawyer is. How does that make you feel?

I could rape your daughter and get "1 year and 1 day" in the harshest states (states like Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi). How do you feel about that?

Chelsea Manning is in prison serving out a sentence of 35 years for exposing truths about the U.S. and its military officials. Oh, and Julian Assange, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks and the man who actually published the leaks? What time is he serving? 0. In a storm of providence I discovered that Assange has been accused of sexually assaulting two women in Sweden. What is his sentence for that? Asylum in Ecuador.

Take what you want from this information.

Why ACA is not socialist legislation

There has been much controversy surrounding the Affordable Care Act in the past three years. From conservatives denouncing it as the most evil thing since the Nazis to the liberals praising it as their safeguard against failure we're all talking or bitching about it. Many people decry ObamaCare as an attempt to make us a socialist country. This is bullshit.

ObamaCare does not provide for any subsidies or government paying of the premiums and other bills due health insurance providers. This is the main crux of the issue with the ACA. Socialist healthcare would include taxation to allow the government to pay for health services. There would be no premiums to pay in a socialist healthcare system.

It is ridiculous to even consider calling the ACA socialist. It has no features that are socialist outside the individual mandate, which is completely inconsistent with the rest of the massive bill.

I don't know why the left in the U.S. doesn't have the guts to just go socialist, as its obvious they want to do so. I guess they just don't want to lose power. In any case, I say Go socialist or stay free market. They cannot have it both ways.

"The Internationale, unites the human race!"

Socialist Apology

Note: I mean "apology" in the older sense of explanation and detailing. I am not saying "sorry" for being socialist.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the utter vilification of socialism as a socio-economic system of government. In talks with my father and younger brother, I've started to understand why people harbor such hatred toward collectivism even to this day.

I hear a lot of Conservatives complaining about the evils of socialism. Both on TV and in the people around me, my father included, socialism is held in contempt. As I listen to my brother and dad debate these issues, usually as they relate to "ObamaCare" (which is a crock of shit on its own and is NOT socialist despite what many people may think), I hear a lot of guff about how socialists "don't want to work and want the Government to take care of them." I realize more and more one thing: people just do not understand what socialism actually is! Its really a misunderstanding perpetuated for decades by right-wing terror-mongers.

Here's what dictionary.com has to say about it.

so·cial·ism [soh-shuh-liz-uh m] Show IPA

—noun

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Its that simple and that innocuous. Obviously, a dictionary definition does not do many words justice, but we'll start from there.

"A system that advocates the vesting of the ownership...of the means of production...of capital...etc., in the community as a whole." Does that really sound so horrifying? What that means is not that the Government or some shadow agency that wants to take your rights away controls production. No, that isn't socialism at all! You're thinking of authoritarianism, which isn't the same thing. People still connect socialism and communism with the USSR and Cuba which had authoritarian/dictatorial governments. It doesn't have to be that way!

In socialism the People control the means of production, the capital, and the land. Isn't that really what most libertarians claim to desire wholeheartedly? This is where that ugly specter of economy comes in.

See, right libertarians believe in a free market system. There is a problem with that and it is the main reason I'm so liberal politically. The issue with a truly free market (which we haven't had since Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican and my favorite president I might add, began his campaign of "trustbusting" to avoid monopolies) is that it allows predatorial companies that use dishonest and destructive means to corner the capitalist market. We get corporations like Enron, Standard Oil, and other seriously polluting and/or monopolistic collections.

With regulation, we can still retain a relatively "free" market without allowing one company or two companies to control all the goods and services we receive. Could you imagine if Apple, Inc. also controlled the gasoline supply and a good portion of the food industry? There would be no competition. Products would likely lower in quality over time (or at least improve much more slowly), resources would be squandered, and it would be more difficult to maintain standards for wages and employee welfare.

Socialism offers an alternative to the extremes of capitalism and communism/Marxism. It allows us to take the middle road. We get to keep elements of our beloved capitalism while also increasing services for those that earn/need them and continue to ensure products improve. Socialism doesn't necessarily mean that the Government controls healthcare and oil (which it already regulates anyway) it means the public or the People control such things. People usually conflate "public" with "government" which isn't always the case. Still, in our country, when Government is PROPERLY implemented (which it is clearly not at the current time) the Government is "of the People, by the People, and for the People." This should mean that we keep our politicians on a tight leash and that the Government IS an extension of the People. Unfortunately, we are far too complacent to do our democratic duty these days.

Whatever you think about socialism, I think you can probably agree that things as they are just are not working. Our Government is corrupt, self-serving, and concerned more with money than the wellbeing of us, the People of these United States. Let's all stand up, reclaim our backbones, and say "NO MORE!" Even supposing we don't embrace socialism, I would be very happy just to see us reclaiming our rights as citizens and kicking those boneheads out of Congress and the Whitehouse.

As this is getting to be rather long, I'll skip a couple things I really wanted to get to for now. Namely, why "ObamaCare" is NOT a socialist idea but instead is a wishy washy wannabe socialist capitalist approach that attempts to please everyone and thus fails across the board. I will, hopefully, get there on my next post! Stay tuned and have an unbelievable day!

Oh, and please let me know what you think if you take the time to read some or all of this monstrosity! I want to hear your thoughts on anything I mentioned in here.

Left Libertarianism

This post, as my first, will be where I put my political views out there. If you don't like it, leave a comment saying why you disagree with me.

As the title suggests, I am a left libertarian. If you aren't sure what that means, I'll elucidate for you.

Left libertarianism is essentially a code term for "socialism." Since that word tends to be a kind of bogeyman in our society, even today, I say "left libertarian." Basically, I am liberal economically and fiscally, but socially a libertarian. I believe in the sanctity of the individual, but feel that our leaders still have an obligation to defend the right of each person to do with their own life/body as they so choose. Just to show you where I stand visually, I'll show my "Political Compass" test results. While the test is somewhat outdated maybe, and possibly a little skewed, I think its still fairly accurate.

Economic Left/Right: -6.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.33

To give some context here, that falls significantly lower and farther left than famous Left Libertarians such as: Gahndi, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela. While I don't consider myself an extremist and certainly don't feel like one, there are many who would label me that way.

I remember calling into a local conservative talk radio station and identifying as a Liberal Libertarian. What did the host say? "See, that just baffles me." People don't get it. For me, TEA Partiers and other Right Libertarians are baffling. I guess its the "free market" appeal that draws them so far right. I agree with free market economy, to a degree, and yet I'm so far left due to my other ideologies. Still, I find that I agree a lot more with Libertarians of any left-right leaning than I do with the more "authoritarian" people.

So, that's where I stand. Let me know where you fall based on your own understanding of your political views. Better yet, just go take the test at http://www.politicalcompass.org/! I want to hear your thoughts.