It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

In my struggle for sanity, the darkness often gets the upper hand and I wind up with days like this. Google has removed me from their cache…again, I was insulted by a more successful blogger, I thought about how if I didn't create an article I would be "letting my readers down," but then I realized that I don't have any. Just shoot me now.

Then I recall my article about how that, if I didn't have any readers, I could write anything I want. So, sitting down at the keyboard I vomited up this piece.

Politics

Comedy central had a piece on how the winds are blowing against the Republicans in the upcoming election. The Democrats are a sad bunch, but they are the only practical alternative to the crass, self-serving pure evil that is the Republican party. But the worst part for me is the voters themselves.

For example, this story from "Poll: Half of Americans think Congress is corrupt." And yet we've sat on our respective rumps as the FCC allows more news services to be merged so we get fewer points of view. We accept a president who authorizes wire tapping by the NSA.

Another example, people decry the 9/11 tragedy and yet, when Dick Clark mentions that he wasn't allowed to talk to the president for months and months about terrorism, no one raises an eyebrow.

My point is that we da people can and should hold our elected officials to a higher standard. We have the means and the power to do so; and yet we do not. To make matters worse, these things are relatively easy to accomplish and the only way we can get into the current situation is apathy.

Gay Marriage

There has been talk for quite some time now about how a constitutional amendment should be created to ban gay marriages. The idea, as I understand it, is to defend the institution of marriage.

Given the state of some marriages that I've seen, I don't exactly understand the objective: are we trying to defend marriage from gay people or are we trying to defend gay people from marriage? I mean, I can understand the idea of some wild-eyed individual bursting into a room where a same-sexed couple is tying the knot and screaming "Stop! You don't know what you're in for!" but I don't see how this is going to cause hetero couples to stop getting married.

In any case, the institution of marriage isn't something that the government should take a stand on in any case: separation of church and state. People who feel that religion should be running the show should take a good hard look at the wonderful examples of theocracy that we've seen in places like Iran and Pakistan.

From a purely taxation without representation standpoint, I also think gay couples have a valid point: if the government refuses to grant them the legal rights that hetro couples have, why should gay couples have to pay taxes? That is, if the government is going to discriminate against them, why should they have to support the government?

Stripped of the moral and religious arguments, the debate on same-sexed marriage remains the disturbing thing that it has always been: persecuting a minority. One of the things that groups of people like to do is persecute other, smaller groups of people. You see it with sports fans, religions, science-fiction fans, etc. why wouldn't we expect to see it with homosexuals?

Blech

Well, here I am at the end of another post that stinks. If you have suffered through this, all I can say is thank you. Hopefully, the simple exercising of writing will keep me coming back so I will eventually write something good.

But don't hold your breath.

Technorati: blather, rant, crap, a dark and stormy night.