NDAA

I read some stuff this week that got me a little fired up.  Something called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  It's political season, and the biggest thing that pisses me off about all these adds and bitching is that, you absolutely CANNOT get a straight answer on anything.  It can't go 'Oh, NDAA, a bunch of people are bitching about this, I better look up what it is!'  Trying to do so gets thousands of pages of people bitching about one side or the other of it.  Try that with anything anyone is government is promoting, and you do not get FACTS, you get OPINIONS.  All that is available is random fuck heads interpretation of what was done, not what actually IS.  So, the shit that pissed me off is some guys opinion on what the NDAA means.  The article is here. 

It is a good article, and well written by a guy whose work I have read in the past, and I respect his opinions on things.  His discussion regarding why the NDAA is a bad thing was well reasoned and coherent, but unfortunately it does not reference the letter of the law, or the precise content of what is written in to the NDAA, merely conjecture from other sites and discussions about it.  I would recommend reading the article, but the gist of it is that the NDAA is a law allowing the U.S. government to detain someone suspected of terrorist sympathies or activities indefinitely, without council or anything else we enjoy under the protection of things like Habeaus Corpus.  He was against the law, and suggesting not that we vote for or against Obama, but just that the law was passed in the first place.  In fact, the very first sentence of the very first article that he references actually betrays his entire point.

It wasn't the article itself that pissed me off.  The article got me thinking about why Gladstone was upset, and I agree.  It does appear unconstitutional to hold anyone without due course, merely on the suspicion of terroristic action.  But, I also agree that, it was a decision that had to be made.  What pissed me off was the moronic, short sighted, vacuous, hate mongering jack fucks that were spewing gallons of bullshit in wrong headed support of the article.  As if the author was instigating outright revolt against our government.

As I said, as distasteful as the idea of detention without question is, it was a decision that is necessary in the current state of the nation.  Even though we have beaten them thoroughly in to submission, the terrorists won a huge victory that day.  They put us ridiculously on our guard, and have made us do stupid things and generally fucked us up for a decade.  Whatever their ultimate end goal was, they succeeded in rocking us back on our heels.  Now we live under the forcible perception that we are potentially under attack at any time.  In WWII, Roosevelt made the extremely difficult decision to imprison anyone in the country of Asian descent.  Why did he do that?  For fear of EXACTLY what happened to us in 2001.  Was it justified?  That can be debated for ever and ever, but the fact is, it happened.  It happened because of Pearl Harbor.

The debate on that issue goes that we were behaving in much the same manner as Hitler... by detaining 'undesirables', and impuning on their rights to humanity.  We had perfect justification for the action at the time, and that does not make it any less barbaric, but it IS something that happened, and with good reason.  For the greater good of the nation and its people.  It was a horrendous decision, one that no one should have to make ever... but there was one man whose job it was to decide things like that, and it was the duly elected president of the nation.  It is his JOB to decide things that should never have to be decided. He should never have been put in to a position to imprison hundreds of thousands of human beings, take them away from their homes and their families, lock them in to camps, hold them against their will for years... but he had hundreds of MILLIONS of other people to care for.  What was he to do?  No man should ever be put in a position of judgement against another man, but dammit, SOMETIMES it just has to be done.  We all know that there are some people in this world that just absolutely need an ass kicking.  Some motherfuckers just absolutely REFUSE to learn, until you beat the shit out of them.  Is it up to any man to decide when another man needs his ass kicked?  It shouldn't be, but by-fucking-god, sometimes a motherfucker just needs punched in the fucking head. 

I have seen other things this week. Take the 4 minutes to watch that video, and you will see what I mean.  Now, that security guard probably received a reprimand, but he made the right decision.  The dickbag with the camera probably uploaded the video expecting to get someone fired, and just solidified the point that the guard made the right decision.  That dude needed punched in the fucking mouth.  We live in the BEST country on the entire planet.  We have freedoms that most other nations dream of... yet, you have to understand that you still cannot just do what ever the fuck you want to do, and not have consequences!  I have the right to be an unrepentant, screaming fuck-hole.  I can hate all the black, white, and brown people I want, loudly and proudly.  I can talk all of the shit about how I hate my country and everything sucks here, and we should blow this whole thing up.  But, the second I slap my dick on the counter at Arby's and ask for some hot sauce for this sexy hunk of meat, I'm going to get arrested.  And, I fucking deserve it too.  It is a terrible, horrendous, heinous idea that someone may need to snatch up somebody for just THINKING about whipping their pecker out... but if it stops me from having to see Mr. Veiny while I'm eating my curly fries, then I'm going to have to go along with it.  Even in the event that it puts my own self at possible risk of detainment.  Because, I truly believe in my government.  I truly believe in people's general goodness and consideration of morality.  I believe in the process of Democracy, and elected officials, and that while not every single law passed makes sense to me, I believe that it makes sense to over half of my peers, and I am going to have to respect that.

I also believe I'll have another beer...




The Angry Man

Offense - Religion pt. 1

Of anything I've written so far, this is the subject most likely to piss people off... why is that? I've been talking to people and researching it for awhile, and its time to get some of this out of my head. I titled it 'part 1' because it is such a HUGE subject, I'm going to have to tackle it in bite sized chunks.

Religion and Politics are two areas that many people are just unwilling to discuss intelligently. Yet, these are two items that effect human life every minute of every day. Don't believe me? How about when you drove over that pot hole this morning, and said "God Damn It!" Or, when you roll your eyes to heaven when listening to any fucking thing Rush Limbaugh says? Or, that marriage is a state sponsored institution regulating your 'holy matrimony'? (Except for the homosexuals, who are apparently not allowed to exist in either arena.) There you go... several examples of both politics AND religion at the same time.

In just ONE paragraph, I have managed to offend the Christians, the Republicans AND the gays... (ok, maybe not gay people; what I said is true, in marriage, you guys truly get the shaft. HA. Ok, NOW I've offended gay people...) Why is it, that I cannot go into a work place, or a public setting at all, and say something as simple as "I don't believe in god?" BUT, I can certainly shout 'Hallelujah' and 'Amen' at any time at all, because these things are considered 'acceptable'. Why is it ok to be O-fended by my disbelief, when spoken quietly, without fervor... yet, its NOT ok to be irritated by being blessed when you sneeze? How fucking stupid is that? Shouldn't GOD have better things to bless than my snot? Why stop there? Bless me when I fart, piss, spit... any bodily fluid oozing out of me should be worthy of 'HIS' holiness...

Another thing that bothers me about both subjects... At work, it is OK to have a picture of a cross, displaying your religious allegiance... yet it is NOT ok to have a picture of the president. Both could be cause for 'workplace disturbances'. There have been people walked out of the building at my office for their political displays, because it was somehow O-fensive to someone. However, Religion is the leading cause of death the world over... Oh, your doctor will tell you some shit about heart disease or cancer, but believe me, too much religion will kill you fast. Its been killing people non stop since it started millennia ago, and there is no cure.

And the bitch of it? It kills perfectly healthy people! Not just healthy people, but young, strong people... people who could accomplish real good with their lives, yet they have been made to believe that throwing away the only life they are going to get is somehow worthy of praise from an invisible man in the clouds. I'm sorry, but that is fucking retarded. Why spend your life guiding yourself by a strict set of asinine rules so that you will be happy when you are dead? What's wrong with being happy now? Be a good person, because it FEELS GOOD to be a good person! Not because you are afraid of the consequences after you die!! I cannot believe that religion was originally designed to make people feel bad about themselves, and want to die... I think I'll do 'religious design' next time around, I've got some good shit to say about that...

I've talked about being a Buddhist at some point in this column, and in a loose way, that's true. I've chosen a religion that works for me, and I follow as much of it that makes sense to me. AND, I still think I'm a good person, which is what matters... Buddhism suggests not drinking alcohol because it is a toxin, and destructive to your body, which I believe to be true. I also believe that I'll have another beer...

The Angry Man