Trouble in Burma
Leave a CommentFor those who have not noticed, the Burmese military government has had some trouble lately with all those pesky Buddhists and civilian protestors who are upset about Burma’s human rights violations. Burma’s response to the protests? Automatic gunfire and tear gas grenades. Murdering a Japanese journalist. Lying about the death toll. You know, standard stuff.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/28/nosplit/wburma128.xml
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/27/1435255
All I can do is to pray, and to ask others to pray. If you can do anything else, do it. Civil rights are universal, not regional.
~ NG
What Geneva Convention?
It is sort of alarming when something like this even ends up in mainstream news…
American Snipers Baiting Iraqis
What is interesting here is that the snipers are taking shots at “suspected” but not confirmed terrorists.
- Griff
Israel and America love doing business
So there is an interesting article here that details the upcoming meetings about what to do with that little sliver of land called the Gaza Strip. Apparently, it looks to me like the Palestinians are going to get f’ed.
The US has mirrored the decision of Israel and declared the Gaza Strip to be a “hostile entity”.
Even though, the U.S. fails to realise that during the Lebanese / Israeli conflict recently, Hamas aided the civilians in Lebanon by helping them in their rebuilding and reconstruction. Will the Palestinians ever get their land back that was unjustly taken from them or is it still 1967?
- Griff
Having it both ways
Filed under: civil rights, election, law, politics, social |
Leave a Comment I like to spend hours at a time browsing through those massive bookstores you find in Suburbia. While my fiance was at work last evening, I spent some time at Barnes & Noble, especially in the current events/politics section. While there, I noticed a problem. Now, I’m good at picking out problems in society but this one is glaring and I’m surprised that it isn’t pointed out more.
The Constitution, the foundation of American law (and, if you ask me, one of the most important political documents ever written), was designed rather purposefully to allow for a balance of two things: extreme individualism and social collectivism. Both of these factors are important in a free society. Those two words together, “free” and “society”, say just about everything that can be said about the American ideal that can be said without being redundant.
Free: The American ideal allows for us to do what we want, when we want, with whom we want, as long as we are not forcing anybody into it, are not hurting anybody else. Basically, we can do what we want insofar as we are not infringing upon the equal freedom of anybody else. (I will soon be writing another article about “concrete morality” which goes further into this in practice.) Of course, the Government has done everything it can to pinch away at this one overarching right without deleting it entirely (that would get too much attention, of course), but it remains the American ideal.
Society: That “not infringing upon the equal freedom of anybody else” part above is what makes the American ideal a social contract. The social contract is just what it sounds like: a contract. Contrary to the lines we’ve been fed, we are not forced into this contract just by the act of being born; instead, we must make the conscious choice at every moment of our lives. “Will I, or will I not, live according to the social contract?” Of course, not ’signing on’ means that you are subject to the punishment due to you for transgressing the concrete rights of others, but that’s a calculated risk that some people have been willing to take. In other words, crime is a valid career path and getting arrested or killed are among the job risks. Basically, this social contract is what allows us to act as a Society of Law, which is of vital importance for our continued existence and evolution. We take care of our own, while requiring personal responsibility among society’s members; we respect one another’s rights while defending our own. I could keep listing applications, but you get the idea.
Now, what does this all mean in modern politics? We no longer have this important balance. It has been broken and its meaning thrown under the thresher. So-called Liberals and Conservatives attack one another at every opportunity, publishing books which portray little more than a caricature of the “enemy” and basing entire news networks on the idea of making one another look bad. But what are they really attacking?
Traditionally, Liberals have been supporters of collectivism (“society”), while Conservatives have been supporters of individualism (“freedom”). These roles have been reversed with the advent of so-called “Neoconservatism” (Bush and his cronies being the most public exponents of this largely violence-based philosophy); Neocons spend their efforts on a corrupted form of collectivism, requiring blind obedience to generally religious ideals (usually a sort of false Christianity known as Dominionism), while Liberals beat their heads against the wall in an attempt to stem the tide with a healthy dose of individualistic civil rights.
Now, I am an anti-federalist. It is easy to observe through history how quickly centralized power of any sort quickly grows out of control and destroys the basic rights of human life: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom from being brutalized by the government, and other such obviously trivial things. We are all bearing witness to this very process. Centralized power has established itself and grown beyond all reason in less than 200 years, and has been battling its way across the globe in the name of Empire from the beginning.
I do not look upon the past as a Golden Age like most anti-federalists (Libertarians, Constitutionalists, right-wing anarchists, etc.) do. Instead, I look upon it as a time when, even if imperfectly applied (as in cases of slavery, which Thomas Jefferson tried unsuccesfully to reverse, or the case of the still current mistreatment of this continent’s previous inhabitants), the appropriate ideals of a balanced Liberty-Loving Society of Law were widespread. Even Federalists of the day had pretty strong opinions as to the limitations implied by the Constitution. (“The specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended.” ~ Alexander Hamilton, in reference to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.)
This is precisely why I support Ron Paul in his bid for President of the United States in 2008. Yes, he’s a Republican. No, I’m not a Republican (more like an ontological anarchist, if you want to get specific); no, I don’t support the current policies or operations of the Republican Party. Ron Paul, however, is different. He understands the importance of personal freedom and individualism as the foundation of a society of law in which individual rights play nicely with the necessities of the social contract. In other words, the social contract exists in order to protect individual rights and for no other reason.
Peace and Liberty must make a comeback, in stronger force than their previous incarnations in American Government if they’re to survive and make lasting change for those of us who love them so much. I do not, cannot, agree with everything he says or believes, or everything his other supporters say or believe, but one must choose one’s battles and one’s allies carefully. Ron Paul truly loves Liberty and truly desires Peace. In a presidential candidate, what more could I reasonably ask for?
~NG
Did the Founders Write Christianity into the Constitution?
Filed under: constitution, law, politics, religious politics |
Leave a Comment The answer is no. However, a shocking number of Americans of all political and religious persuasions have been convinced, thanks to American Dominionist pundits, that this is indeed the case. This is dangerous thinking in every way. Even if it were true, which again it isn’t, it’s still something that would have to be changed.
~NG
While the U.S. becomes entangled in software patents, the world moves on…
This snippet, coming from the previous Stallman article, gives Richard Stallman’s view on software patents. It is important to note that software patents do not exist in many countries outside of the United States.
Microsoft has recently claimed that free software like Linux, OpenOffice and some e-mail programs violate 235 of its patents. But Microsoft also said it won’t sue for now. Is this the start of a new legal nightmare?
Stallman: Software patents – in those countries foolish enough to authorize them – are a legal nightmare for all software developers. About half of all patents in any field belong to mega-corporations, which gives them a chokehold on the technology. In countries that allow software patents, that happens in software too.
- Griff
Richard Stallman on Free Software
Who is Richard Stallman? He is the founder of the Free Software Foundation which embodies the core principles found in Open Source, Free Software, and the operating system known as GNU/Linux. In this recent article Stallman asks the community if they will stand with him and fight for software freedom, or be too lazy to resist?
PS – If you are wondering what all of this is about, then get to it! Drop that proprietary Microsoft Windows operating system and get the real deal Holyfield. (Without loosing an ear even!)
- Griff
If only hulk hogan were this macho.
“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” –Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.
- Griff
Bush to withdraw troops…well, not really.
In USA Today there appeared a recent headline that George Bush was indeed going to withdraw, up to 30,000 troops, within the next six months. If anyone remembers correctly the “surge” placed an additional 22,000+ troops in the region than were there before. So basically, we are possibly going back to the old baseline of around 130-140 thousand troops. Hmm, I smell bullshit…
In other news there was an interesting article posted on Al-Jazeera at this address:
The article is speaking about innocent civilian deaths by direct, and indirect American actions. However, I will say that I am unsure if any other news sources are covering this story so you may either take that as Al-Jazeera is trying make this out to be more than it is, or that American news stations just doesn’t want you to think about that….it might just be despicable. 
- Griff
