Right Wing = Duh

I don't have time for a big post, and it's frankly a little late for my best work, but in watching TV this evening in a hotel room in Austin Texas I observed two particularly stupid opinion pieces A.K.A. 'news' clips on the local TV that to me highlighted again the shocking gulf between right wing thinking and reality.

The first was regarding a program in Texas that has cost the taxpayer around $26m in the past ten years.  The program allows prisoners to receive an education, even a degree while inside.  Of course, as part of the latest round of cuts and attacks on 'social programs' and 'government waste' this program is now in jeopardy.  It's not enough that we slap petty criminals with a record that relegates them to living on welfare, crime or the worst jobs in society for the rest of their life, we are now looking to cut spending on a program that offers inmates a second chance.

On the surface, which is where all Republican thinking tends to exist, this seems like a reasonable cut.  After all there are probably some programs for law abiding citizens that should get priority right?  But of course, yet again, this is simply stupid logic.  In fact, not logic at all.

You cut programs designed to allow prisoners to rehabilitate, reintegrate, and become productive members of society, and you force them into welfare or re-offending once they have been released.  So you cut back on a program that has cost on average $2.6m per year for the last decade, but you lose the tax the law abiding and now educated former con may have paid, and you have to pay for police, lawyers, courts, and prisons once the repeat offender bounces back into the system.

I just don't understand how this is rocket science to some people.  They want to cut a program to save money, on the grounds that most people don't object when you talk about cutting benefits of criminals.  But they completely ignore all the scarcely hidden costs of making such a cut.  Their stupid policies waste money, create more criminal acts, more victims, and raise the likelihood of normal law-abiding people becoming a victim of crime.

The second story was about certain politicians in Texas getting mad that companies like Amazon.com don't collect sales tax on their sales.  They were touting stupid figures of money they 'should' have collected if sales tax had been charged just like with B&M store.

They were demanding that justice be done and we force these companies to pay their share.  Oh if only this were actually the philosophy of American politicians throughout the country!  There are companies making billions of dollars who pay little to no tax because of the giant tax loopholes.  We're not 'broke' because we didn't force Amazon.com to charge sales tax.  We are 'broke' because we keep giving tax gifts to millionaires, billionaires, and powerful corporations.

If we were taxing companies and millionaires at a reasonable level, there'd be plenty of money to go around.  But now Republicans want to tax relatively new companies like Amazon.com who are creating employment, and helping the economy of the United States and many other countries where they have a presence.  It's almost like Republicans are mad at Amazon for selling books, which allow people to educate themselves.

As we watch Republicans in action in 2011, I am constantly amazed and re-amazed with their smoke and mirror bullshit they constantly use to vilify legitimate reasonable organizations, while ignoring the big herd of elephants in the room that really affect our economy.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.  This is the political strategy they have chosen to adopt and they are pursuing it relentlessly.  It doesn't make any logical sense, it does not better society.  But they are banking on the stupid among us to ignore their actions and support them like a rabid fan supports a sports team.

I just hope that in the next election the intelligent can defeat the stupid who love to vote against their own self interests, and continue to let these assholes fuck our country just for their own personal gain.

Conservative Parents

I happened to overhear a conversation the other day between two conservative parents, who were still in their twenties.  One said to the other, "I've told my kids, they can have a Facebook account when they turn 18..."

It reminded me of a theory I've had for a while now about how conservative parents fuck up their children, despite the best of intentions.

The picture above of course needs no explanation.  All over the country right now, tiny children are being dressed as sluts and paraded around stages in front of a bunch of old pervert guys and sad old women who want to live vicariously though their daughters.  It's not just the pageant scene either, I've seen young parents on Facebook asking their friends to vote on the cuteness of their (usually) girl, for some school competition.

But while I find the entire concept of teaching girls that their worth is only in their appearance, the issue I specifically wanted to post about is that of overly strict parents.  Among conservatives there is the belief that enacting certain laws will magically stop crime.  And among this same subset of conservatives, you'll find parents who think that strict rules, spanking, total control of a child's social life, and spying on their kids will produce a well rounded and safe child.  Some even take this as far as home schooling their children so they can keep tabs on them 24/7.

The fact is, these ideas are, like most conservative ideologies, okay on the surface.  If you only think of the most basic and superficial aspects of your logic, then all this can make wonderful sense.  Strict rules build character.  Spanking provides a deterrent for bad behavior.  A dose of the belt can reinforce a lesson when needed.  Organizing all of a child's social interactions will ensure they don't meet with undesirables (people of a different race, social class, religion, sexuality, gender, political leaning).  Spying on their children will allow them to monitor the adherence to the path they have been forced to walk.  And home schooling will ensure that the right classes are taught, and silly nonsense such as science, gender equality, evolution, and other non-Christian values will be omitted.  With the right grades the little dear might make it into a Christian college founded by a former TV evangelist.

Living in Bible belt I've met kids like this.  Fortunately, no amount of parental abuse can alter the fact that they are human beings.  And at some point, perhaps not today, or even next week, but one day these children will grow up.  They will rebel and finally tell their overly controlling parents to go fuck themselves.  Prior to this final blow up will be a lot of subterfuge and lying to ensure that certain undesirable behavior will remain hidden from the parents.  As a result instead of open lines of communication, honesty and respect, what you have instead is a child who learns pretty quickly that parents cannot be trusted with the truth.  This in turn leads to risky behaviors, carried out without knowledge of the parents.  Useful discussions about drugs, alcohol and sex, never happen because instead the parent simply tells the child that all such activities are forbidden and sinful, so the child does them anyway without helpful guidance or supervision.

Now having criticized conservative parents I would certainly balance that with the obvious realization that Drew Barrymore clearly could have used some less liberal boundaries during her childhood.  Sure, she turned out okay, but that was raw talent and some luck more than good parenting.  For every Drew Barrymore there are a slew of other kids who ended up dead thanks to bad parenting.

The only conclusion I can reach is that parents need to be parents.  Not in your face controlling assholes, and not hippies who want to be your friend and smoke weed with you.  There has to be a middle ground.  But whichever path you take, please stop putting little girls into pageants.  It's so fucking wrong it isn't even funny.

Stupid Gains A Foothold In The UK

A rather sad survey came out in February. Apparently the education system is failing so badly in Britain that half of adults now do not believe in evolution.

It's always a sign that the education system is fucked when you see surveys like this.

22% of adults surveyed said they believed in creationism, intelligent design, or some other made up magic to explain the world.

A scary 10% said that they believed in the young Earth 'theory' that this planet is only about 10,000 years old!

A significant percentage of people had intermingled poorly understood science, with mythology, magic and religion, to form weird twisted ideas that showed ignorance and stupidity was king. But at least there might be hope with these people. They are clearly morons, but perhaps with some remedial education, we can teach them the difference between made up fiction, and reality.

Thankfully around 50% of those surveyed stated that the theory of evolution was true (with varying degrees of certainty).

With such a disturbing statistic, I think it's time to push back. It's time we took prayer out of British schools, and stopped peddling stupid fairy tales of talking snakes, and magic, as if it were fact.