The Madhouse That Is The G.O.P

You would never know it from reading my blog, but I voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush I.  I was a twenty-something white kid with a limited world view who didn't read the papers. I was Catholic who never experienced real poverty and hardship. In other words, I was the perfect GOP demographic. I grew up on Long Island and was only about a 40 minute ride on the LIRR into Manhattan. In my world you were either Jewish or Roman Catholic and the only real poor people that you saw were the brown faces begging for quarters at Penn Station.

When Ronald Reagan came into office, the Iran hostage crisis ended almost simultaneously and it seemed like America was coming back. The whole country was waking up and we were getting our "fuck you" shit going again. It was easy to vote for for Ronnie because we were blowin shit up, telling the Russians to go fuck themselves and everybody was working for the weekend. Iran-Contra was too confusing for my politically complacent brain and even though deep down I knew something fucked was happening I felt that the American ship would eventually right itself. Voting for Georgie the first was easy too because it was just  an extension of Ronnie's second term anyway. It wasn't until Clinton came along that I started morphing into the filthy liberal scum that stands before you today, but that is a tale for another day. The point that I am making is that it was easy for ill-informed, politically lazy white males to vote Republican back then.

What a difference 20 years makes, huh? That form of Reagan Republicanism that conservatives continually extol and weep for is practically Marxism compared to the drivel that this current crop of crazed lunatics preach. The fanatical right wing of the party has officially taken over. It does not matter what over the top, coo coo for cocoa puffs, neo-con crap they spew out! Can you imagine Ronald Reagan saying this?

"The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong." Rick Santorum

What? College education is bad? Improving one's situation by educating oneself so they can be better citizens is wrong? It is bad enough that these cross-eyed, knuckle draggers have the sheer audacity to even utter this venom, but it is one thousand times worse for a group of citizens to push a lever and vote for these fuckers!!! This current crop of GOP stooges seem to be trying to out-stupid themselves everyday. First they were against the health care bill calling it socialism. That's right, how dare someone with a life threatening illness want to get better without going into indentured servitude for the rest of their lives. But now they are against women's health services and publicly funded breast exams and contraception!!! Fucking Contraception??!!! Didn't we really get this all figured out 40 years ago for Christ's sake? These pious, holier than thou motherfuckers preach all this shit about less government and how we need to spend less, and then create larger government by mandating that that women have ultrasounds and their vagina's probed before having an abortion that is legally their right!!

These neanderthal fucktards talk about how their is so much waste in the system and how we need to cut social programs when by far the biggest return on investment would come from expanding access to family planning through Medicaid, something made possibly through the 2010 Affordable Care Act. A $235 million investment there would lower taxpayer costs of $1.32 billion by preventing unintended pregnancies. 1.32 Billion motherfucking dollars!!!!

Rick Scott, our fucking piece of shit governor down hear in Florida wanted to make sure that people receiving welfare weren't taking drugs. Because every republican right wing asshole understands that all poor people are drug addicts right? Wrong again!!! They set up a government program to preform blood tests on welfare recipients to make sure they weren't using the money to buy drugs. So far only 2% of those tested have come up positive, the Tampa Tribune reports, with 96% testing clean and 2% declining to complete the application process. The result was an intrusive government program that ended up costing the taxpayer more money!!! How much you ask? The state spent $40,000.00 implementing the program and saved $5000.00 a month in denied welfare payments. I say to you then, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON???

Here's what's going on. These Republican assholes have nothing. They have no jobs bill. No plan for alternative energies. No foreign policy except to release democracy drones and drop freedom bombs on third world countries. They feel that Americans workers forming Labor Unions are Marxists bent on destroying America, but rich investors have the God given right to form corporations to protect their interests. They ship American jobs overseas and pay Indonesian children 50 cents a day then complain that American workers are selfish and don't understand how to be competitive in the world market. They are all of these things and in a normal, rational, free thinking society these fat cat oligarchists would be run out of town. But they have Jesus. And they use him to distract the rabid mob away from the stinking pile of shit that is the Republican platform.

I have no doubt that Obama will be the 45th president of the united states. The ultra-conservative right wing of the Republican party have alienated minorites, women, atheists, anyone who is not Christian and LBGT. I think that they have earned the right to alienate the 18-30 white male demographic.

Why the OWS and the Tea Party should hold hands and make nice nice...

I remember back not too long ago that the Tea Party was this new Pseudo-Libertarian, pro civil liberties, anti-tax group that exploded when Bush and congress passed The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. They practically rioted in the streets with the thought of 700 billion tax dollars going to bail out Wall Street and the banks. I ask you know, where is the Tea Party support for the Occupy Wall Street group who are rallying to the same call?  Surely we can put aside our differences so that we can unify and fight the greatest threat that our nation has faced since the civil war? All that we hear from the Tea Party is how American citizens have lost their voice and how lobbyists have taken over the government and how we need a revolution to restore our democracy! Well Tea Party Patriots.....Join us and we can truly change the way things are done in Washington. If we are united then we will make them listen and we will make our country a more fair prosperous place for our children! Are you with us Tea Party Patriots? Ready........CHARGE!!!

Unfortunately, this is a rally call that will fall on deaf ears. That is because the Tea Party is not about civil liberties and tax fairness. It's not about getting lobbyists and corporate dollars out of government. It is not about less government and power to the working class. Their fight is getting Obama out of the White House. Period. Once that is accomplished than the fat and the stupid will roll up their flags, pack up their lawn chairs and go home. The problem is that their home is in foreclosure and they've just received a pink slip because the company they've worked for for thirty years just "downsized" and shipped his job to Ethiopia. This of course results in him losing his health benefits increasing his heart medication cost to $250.00 monthly instead of his normal $10.00 copay.

These Fox News, brainwashed morons perceive the Occupy Wall Street crowd as some subversive cult looking to destroy American values when in fact they are the ones with the most to lose. The young people in this country see whats coming down the road. They don't give a fuck about abortion or family values Christian conservatism. They don't give a shit if homosexuals marry and they certainly are getting pissed that they have college loans the size of your average 30 mortgage. They are moving back in with their parents because they can't find a fucking job and then have to listen to richest 10% complain that their marginal tax rate may go up 3%.

Of course when unemployed, hungry people get pissed and start making noise the media calls it "class warfare". Of course when Wall Street and the banks bring the world economy to the brink of collapse resulting in millions of people losing their homes, their retirement money and investment savings they will never refer to that as class warfare. And they shouldn't because what they did was a fucking blitzkrieg!! Wall Street was the greed Luftwaffe reigning down misery and despair upon the populace with not bombs and artillery but credit default swaps derivatives and decades of reckless speculation. And just when we are at the brink, these shit beetles crawl out from under their golden toilets and demand that we give them a fucking trillion dollars claiming that they were the only people smart enough to fix it.

Well it's three years later and unemployment is unchanged, wages are stagnant, there is a war on organized labor and it seems like half the country is one fucking paycheck from the poorhouse. But where are the Tea Party? The Tea Party was taken over by the Koch Bros. and other corporate scumbags who hypnotized an entire segment of  angry, white, Christian robots into thinking that the banking disaster was caused by fucking NPR and Planned Parenthood. These scumbags with the assistance of Fox News, have gotten these poor saps to blame the stock market collapse and the failure of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch on the African American president who wasn't even in office yet. These elitist Wall Street bloated maggots have convinced this group of middle class zombies that the poor are to blame and that we should go back to the days when Churches set up poor houses and leper colonies as a viable health care option. These bloody cantankerous shit stools prop up right wing Barbie and Ken doll politicians who blabber on and on in a third grade vernacular about God and country and how liberals and progressives are the anti-Christ while they raid your grandmothers social security and medicare. And all the while this group of fat middle class douche bags sit in front of their televisions watching Fox news, eating mayonaise sandwiches and drooling on their Hank Williams Jr. T-shirts.

The fact is that if things don't change soon we are all fucked. We all have different political views and we can certainly fight about anything and come to terms with it so we can all live reasonably with the outcome. That is what we have always done as Americans. But we must all come together to realize that what is destroying our country right now is not gay marriage, abortion and public radio. It's not welfare or the deficit. It's unbridled corporate greed. They own the politicians, they own the country, they own us. They have divided us with bullshit issues like school prayer and a woman's right to choose while they destroy our economy, squander our natural resources and pilfer our reserves. You say that I sound angry? Fucking A I'm angry. I'm angry at them, but I am more angry at us for allowing them to divide and conquer us so easily. Don't dismiss this OWS movement as some dirty hippie movement. Don't let the media manipulate you when they show you the drumlines and weirdness that goes on. They're young people for Chrissakes!!! They haven't been jaded and life slapped enough to become as cynical and critical as you and I have. They are smart and articulate and college educated. They want jobs and they want to feel like their government hears them. They saw what Wall St. did to their grandparent's and parent's retirement funds. They see how the banks and Wall Street and the media manipulate the system. They are watching how these bastards are fucking this country and they now if they don't blow the rape whistle now, it will be their turn next. 

The Fear Of Seeming Inconsequential

I recently watched a documentary on the Hubble space telescope. The information and science they are gathering on the universe is truly staggering. The enormity of the cosmos is incomprehensible to most of us without an MIT degree in astrophysics. At on point in the film, the scientists had decided to point the telescope to an area in space that seemed utterly empty. An area that was the comparable to the size of a grain of sand if you were to look up at the night sky. It was the only spot in the sky devoid of any planets, stars or galaxies. When the processed the photos and information, what they discovered was incredible. The scientists counted 3000 galaxies and each one of them contained hundreds of billions of stars. This was discovered in deep space in an area of the sky smaller than a pinhead.

When processing this information it's hard not to feel a little temporary and small. As a matter of fact our individual lives are rather insignificant when applying it to the sheer vastness of space and time. A lot of people equate this to the hand of God. They believe that only a supreme creator could have made a universe so vast and that studying it only creates quandaries and paradoxes. Why seek truth and knowledge when it is just easier to believe God. When talking to most religious folks about des choses de nature philosophique they will often come back with quips like give it up to God. It's God's will. God only knows. I think that they are just plain scared.

Now being the nerd that I am, I always find solace in humor. I believe that Monty Python offers more answers than the Roman Catholic Church or any other world religion for that matter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWVshkVF0SY Please watch video and tell me you don't feel a whole lot better about being a speck of microscopic dust traveling on another slightly larger speck of microscopic dust that is swirling around with 100 trillion other specks of dust in an area the size of Arizona that is constantly expanding.

Finished?
Felling Better, right? I told you.

Religious people who don't get the humor in the song are the ones who are the most insecure. And I believe people with deep seated insecurities can be the most dangerous. Why they are insecure is sort of baffling though. If one is so sure that they will go to heaven and live in Shangrala in the afterlife then why would they give a rat's ass about whether I believe it or not? Well I think that I know why. It's because they can't know for sure. All they have is faith based on unsubstantiated fact and myth and they get angry when I tell them that I don't believe it. This goes against everything that they were raised to believe. The fear of Hell and being tortured for eternity is a real fear. I know! I had this fear as anyone raised a Christian did. That's why the church created it. The Church of tolerance and forgiveness where an all knowing spiritual being looks down upon us and loves all of us equally can also throw you into a pit of fire for eternity if you don't do what it says.

You can have faith. You can believe in God and that you're going to heaven. That is totally fine and cool. But don't tell me that it is a fact and that it should be taught in public schools as science.  It is a perpetration that is destroying our country and our society. We are becoming a joke in the eyes of the world. We are getting our asses kicked in math and science. The rest of the world is moving away from us because we are not inquisitive and problem solvers anymore. We deny climate change. We are not moving away from fossil fuels. We are not taking an active role in bettering our society. We are not looking through the Hubble telescope with wonder and awe. We are burying our nose in an ancient book of stories written by primitives 2000 years ago and trying to teach our children that it's true. It's okay to feel inconsequential. It's alright to admit that you don't understand what is going to happen to you when you die. It's alright to be scared.

Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Liberal? or Fear Of Obamafacismarxocommunimuslimism

I keep being told how dangerous Liberals and progressives are. I myself am actually shocked at how menacing I could be. Here are some of the things that I hear:


"So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research. ... Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. ... The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening." Glenn Beck.

"Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots." Ann Coulter.

"Our fiscal ruin and resulting loss of world leadership will, in [liberals'] eyes, be not a tragic event but a desirable one." - Mitch Daniels.

"The objective of the liberals is to destroy this country." - Herman Cain.

"That is [liberalism's] goal — to destroy the family… [liberals] just made up this gay marriage thing… gays are natural conservatives." - Ann Coulter (again)

I had no idea that I was an anti-American Marxist out to destroy this country. Well I guess the only thing left to do is to round us up and put us somewhere where we can't topple our democracy. I know! A camp!! But not a nice sleep away camp, it's got to be someplace where they can isolate us and concentrate our numbers down so they can properly deal with us. I am not sure what we'll call this place, but it will come to me.

If liberal and progressive thought is so destructive and dangerous, then who are all the dangerous Liberal leaders and henchman? Who are these radical men and woman who are making conservatives in this country want to arm themselves to the teeth and prepare for revolution? What radical Marxist social ideology are they teaching our young people to turn them into brainwashed Maoist puppet people? Well the answer is even more insidious then you could ever imagine. Here are 3 of the nastiest elitist progressive voices conservatives fear:

Jimmy Carter- Mr. Carter is an evil anti-Semite who loves terrorists. He is the cause of all the problems in the Middle East. Conservatives believe that the unrest in the region began in 1979 with the overthrow of the Shah in Iran. They will also tell you that it took two terms for Ronald Reagan to undo all the damage that was done by Carter. Of course they completely forget about the recession that he inherited and the terrible apathy the country was in after the Watergate scandal. Conservatives even blamed Carter for the current fiscal crisis!! They claim the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977 was the cause of the bank meltdown in 2008. Wow! That Jimmy Carter was really evil. Passing legislation that would bring down the economy 31 years later. You have to hand it to conservatives, they eat this bullshit up.

Al Gore- Nothing gets a conservatives blood boiling with fear and loathing more than even the mention of Al Gore's name. Right off the top he believes climate change is a real phenomenon that will have devastating consequences to the environment if left unchecked. Of course this all a left wing, liberal conspiracy bent on destroying god fearing, American capitalism. Everyone knows that the U.S of A runs on oil and the blood of our sweet lord Jesus. Solar and wind power are just fantasies that have no place in a creationist...oops, I mean intelligently designed world. Oil was injected into the earth’s crust by God the same way a baker squeezes sweet jelly into a luscious donut for us to enjoy. The earth warming is a good thing as it will create more sunny beaches and happiness!! Mr Gore and those elitist scientists don't understand God's simple plan. Jesus loves Americans and he will always protect us because we pray to him. Those who don't put complete faith in him (liberals, progressives, and educated people) are doomed.

George Soros
Nothing scares a conservative more than a European. In fact George Soros is pure European evil that hates America and wants to destroy it from within. Conservatives and Tea party nuts believe he lurks in the shadows as an all powerful socialist puppet master bent on destroying economies, controlling elections and strangling the life out of innocent benign American capitalism with his powerful 80 year old Hungarian penis. Why he even gave up Jews to the Nazis during WWII in Budapest when he was 10 years old!! Of course all this is complete bullshit. But it doesn't matter because the giant Fox News anus keeps squeezing out hot steaming turd after hot steaming turd of regurgitated talking points and lies. Of course the Fox news listeners can't get enough of putrid smell and try to tell you that it smells like sweet tea but we progressives know it's just a pile of shit.

Now there are many more liberal voices that will send chills down a conservative’s spine causing them to loosen their bowels in terror. The Clintons, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Bernie Sanders, Rachael Maddow, this list could go on forever but the reality is that conservatives are just plain scared. Conservative, Right Wing Radio and Fox News also realize this and they feed the fear to their listeners. They create tales of barbaric abortion clinics and leftist woman's rights advocates with the claims that they are evil immoral people yet they offer no solutions to solve the problem of unwed teen mothers, hungry children and poverty. Wait, I'm sorry they do have a solution. Cut welfare, social programs to help young working single mothers and children's healthcare. They blame labor unions as the cause for all the woes of the American worker, yet they stand behind large corporations who ship jobs overseas and expect American citizens to compete for jobs with Asian workers making a dollar a day. They demonize teachers for demanding a living wage to educate our children. They dare to point their lecherous fingers at the President and call him a communist, a terrorist and even question his citizenship to this country.

But I guess it isn't really me they fear. They fear the illusion of me. The filthy liberal. The stupid progressive. The other. But these fears are false and unrealized. What Fox News and Right Wing Radio want us to fear is ourselves. We are teachers and union members and mothers and fathers. Most of us are hard working citizens just doing the best we can for ourselves and our families, but they want us to fear the immigrant and the homosexual and the atheist and the poor even though they are part of us! Tea Partiers always talk about "We the people", yet they always side with big business against their own interests out of unproven, unrealistic fear. Don't be afraid of me. Don't be afraid of brown people. Don't be afraid of gay people. You know what? How about you try not being afraid at all. Let's all try and work together and try to fight against the things that are really wrong with this country.

Can I Interest You In An Outhouse?

 I apologize if I use a lot of plumbing analogies, but I was in the business for so long that it always seems to leech into my vernacular.
 Let's say one day you wake up one morning to get ready for the day and while performing your bathroom duties, you realize that the toilet is not flushing properly. You call a  plumber who meets you later that evening to give you an estimate of repairing the toilet. After examining the commode, he offers you the following explanation on what needs to be accomplished.
  "Glenn, firstly let me begin by saying that I am glad you called me. I know how to solve your plumbing problem and I want to be the plumber that works in your home. With that being said I have to tell you that I don't believe in modern 20th century Plumbing. Sure it's worked for you up until this point, but now the toilet doesn't work and although I could replace it with something better and little more efficient, ultimately it may break again somewhere down the road and then your children may have the burden of replacing this toilet again. Think about all the pipes and pipe fittings in the walls and floors of your home. There's no guarantee that one or maybe all of these pipe fittings may fail and you could have water or even fecal matter flowing into your home. Remember the old days? Our grandparents would never have stood to have shit filled pipes in their homes!! They shit and pissed outside where shit and piss belongs and they did it like good Christians!  I believe that if Thomas Jefferson were here today, he would agree that it would be Un-American to have pipes filled with shit and piss flowing in the walls of a citizen's home! Don't listen to these progressive plumbers with all their safe septic systems and sanitary mumbo jumbo.  As an a experienced plumber I must recommend that we remove all the plumbing from the home. Now it may be very difficult and expensive to do this, so I am going to sub this work out to another company that will use inexpensive immigrant labor to do it because although I am the plumber that you hired I feel that someone else could do it better than I can. After this has been accomplished I have another friend...I  mean contractor that will work with you to install an outhouse in the yard. You can pay me for this service than I will take my fairly large cut and pass it along to this other builder who will in turn sub it out to another company who will buy the outhouse from from a Chinese company owned by another good friend err....contractor, who will then install the outhouse. After the outhouse is installed,  I will have another company remove all the shit and piss from the outhouse, at your cost of course. And by removing it I mean pump it into the creek behind your house.....you know the one the supplies water into your drinking water system. Think of all the money that you will ultimately save......maybe,  if nothing goes wrong. And remember, after all this work is done I will be out of business.
  Welcome to the GOP and Tea- Party platform! This bizarre way of running the government began in earnest with Saint Ronald Reagan. He made such famous statements as "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" and "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." These pearls of wisdom are past down to all the Republican and Tea Party candidates who in turn run on a platform of  "Government can't work, so Vote for me so I can prove it to you!"
  This is the Conservative Mantra spewed forth by so many Palinesque hybrid dimwits.  Progressivism is what made our country great not conservatism. The Progressive movement of the early 20th century was responsible for Women's suffrage, regulation of child labor, Americanization of Immigrants and the expansion of public schools. Educated men like John Dewey led the fight for these great advances in our culture. New Deal democratic socialism sealed the deal on our country's greatness by creating the Federal Housing Administration, The Public Works Administration, The Social Security Act and The Tennessee Valley Authority. By the way, big business and conservatives fought against all these things. Why? The same reason that conservative and Tea Party people fight against health care and art funding and gay rights. Because conservatives can't get filthy rich if the government takes over or regulates things that should be basic rights for everyone.
  Am I saying that government is infallible and the answer to all our nation's ills? Of course not. That's because I am not a narrow-minded conservative who sees the world in a pure sense of Black and White, Good and Evil and Right and Wrong. Are there scumbags milking the welfare and unemployment system? Are their people filing bogus law suits that are wasting the court's time and costing the taxpayer money? Of course! There always will be, but these issues are paled when compared to scams and skulduggery that large national and multi-national corporations are perpetrating on not only American citizens but on the global community. The conservative politician's answer is always and will always be to limit the power of everyday people by creating laws to prohibit the citizen from taking lawful action against these corporate entities.
  Big Businesses and banks care about one thing and one thing only. PROFITS. They do not care about America or it's citizens. They do not care about democracy, in fact they despise it. They do not care about work conditions for their employees. They do not care about the health of their employees. They do not care if they close the plant in you town that will cost you your job and destroy the community that you live in. Not if they can re-open it Malaysia where they can hire 9 year old girls for a dollar a day. These same corporations now own all of the American media outlets and have hoodwinked a large part of the citizenry into thinking that health care and social programs that are meant to assist everyone are part of a vast Marxist conspiracy led by a Muslim communist president out to destroy America.
  Does our country have a stopped up toilet, some leaky faucets and few busted pipes? We sure do. We need some experienced plumbers who understand how these things work so we can make these repairs correctly and effectively. We don't need moronic handymen who have no experience and who will take our money and make us go outside in the cold night to piss and shit in a shack out by the garage.

Merry Krissmas!!

 

 Since I have fully embraced my Atheism years ago, I always find that this time of the year is the most troubling. It's not because I have pangs of Christmas holidays of my youth or because deep down I actually feel the spirit of Yule time washing over me and I choose to stubbornly repress it. What it really comes down to is that all the people near and dear to me really enjoy this holiday and I really love it too. I love it when when everyone is coming together and laughing and drinking and enjoying themselves. We cook and eat and meet with old friends we haven't seen is a long time. It's a time when we seem to temporarily put away all the bullshit and at least tolerate each other for a short while. It's also a time that reminds me that we don't meed religion to do it. We also don't need to spend ourselves into a hole to tell the people in our lives that we love them. I say, let's take the Christ out of Chritmas! We'll call it.........Krissmas!!

  We wouldn't really have to change that much. Let's look at Krissmas carols that are fun. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snow Man, Holly Jolly Krissmas, White Krissmas and so many more that we wouldn't have to touch lyrically. There are tons of great classic Krissmas songs that don't mention bowing before an infant surrounded by barnyard animals. One song that would have to be stricken from the annals of human history would be The Christmas Shoes. This disgusting example of right wing Christian tripe is not only the worst Krissmas song ever, it may be the worst song ever written. I won't even begin to unleash my distaste for this piece of Elitist Christian black hearted blood vomit. Instead you can go to this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq10bz3PxyY Patton Oswalt expresses it so much better than I ever could. It's not like the shops and malls have pictures or images of Jesus staring down and reminding us to be good little boys and girls instead we have Santa!! You better be good or old Kris Kringle is gonna take a dump in your stocking, Ho Ho Ho!! And people give me shit for not believing in an all knowing bearded man in the sky, yet they tell their children that there is an all knowing bearded guy who watches them all year and will judge them if they are good or bad. Wait a minute.........

  We could also try to keep the gift giving to a minimum. How about we try to be Humans and Citizens instead of Consumers. What is this holiday really about right? It's supposed to be about giving and kindness and appreciating what we have while trying to give something back to those less fortunate. This so called "Christmas Spirit" we hear about is just a brainwashing of commercialism that has become almost Pavlovian. The lights and music and endless T.V commercials must emit some magnetic pulse that seems to transform us into a mob of yule time zombies encircling the shopping malls like in a George Romero film. Here is the truth. I don't want anything from anybody!! If I want something, then I will buy it myself. Want to buy me something? Buy a bottle of 25 year old Chivas, come on over and we will drink and be merry. My daughter is coming home from college during the holidays. That is my present. My son is doing well in school. Another awesome gift. I am luckiest bastard in the whole world that I get to share my life with two of the most awesome women on the planet. Merry Fucking Christmas to me!!

  So instead of waking up Krissmas morning and running to a jam-packed church full of people who go once a year and don't really want to be there anyway, stay in your P.Js have a big breakfast, start drinking mimosas and tell the people that you care about that you love them. Oh and Happy New Year!!

I guess that I am Amoral?

Amoral: being outside or beyond the moral order or a particular code of morals <amoral customs>

  Many years ago before I had fully embraced my atheism, I was approached by someone who I did business with to join their church. Bill (not his real name) knew that I was a bass player and indicated that they had a real hip christian band that played at services on Sunday and it was a lot of fun and spiritually uplifting. I told him that I was a Catholic and that I wasn't into the whole "Church" thing but thanks for the invite. Sensing a challenge he began to extol the virtues of his little church and added that he too was a dissatisfied Roman Catholic who had recently become born again. He went on about how his life is so much more fulfilling now that he has accepted Jesus Christ into his heart. Again, I politely thanked him for the offer and began to change the subject.
  It was then that he dropped the bomb. He said, "You do realize that if you do not take Jesus Christ into your heart and become reborn, that you will burn in Hell forever." At first I thought he was kidding around, but after a few uncomfortable seconds I realized that he was as serious as a heart attack. To reaffirm my suspicion I asked, "You are Kidding right?" He confirmed that he was in fact serious.
  Now, I knew Bill for years. Although we never saw each other socially, he was a customer of ours and we had quite a few conversations about a myriad of subjects. He was a good contractor, had a good sense of humor and just seemed like a really sharp guy. I live in the south now, so I am used to hearing this blather, but this was in New York and about 20 years ago so I only heard statements like this from crazy preachers on the T.V at 3:00 in the morning. I was so intrigued by his comment that I felt the need to explore this statement with him further. He indicated to me that it matters not what good deeds that I do on this earth, if I don't re accept Christ into my heart I will burn in Hell for eternity. So "hypothetically", I ask, "I can be faithful to my wife, raise my kids with love and respect, volunteer to help the poor and lead a generally loving life and still burn in hell?"  "Yep", he says.  Now of course I have to ask the craziest fucking hypothetical shit I can come up with. The following are a few of the rules and standards by which people are allowed to enter Heaven according to a born again Christian.


3 billion Muslims?    Hell
7 billion Hindus?      Hell
13 million Jews?       Hell
What if John Gotti was saved right before he died?  Heaven
What if Hitler was saved right before he died?         Heaven

  Hitler? Really? Hitler? Bill explained that God is so kind that he would even take Hitler into Heaven if he accepted Jesus into his heart. So there you have it ladies and germs, God is willing to send a few billion non-believers to eternal damnation, but he would be willing to let Hitler in on a last minute death bed baptism.
  It was this conversation that started me thinking about morality. I keep being told that atheists/agnostics participate in morally questionable behaviors to a much greater degree than people of  a religious faith. Of course these are statistics supplied by people of religious faith and of course there is no possible way to measure morality in a person because people have different morals. What religious people are talking about of course is what they determine to be "immoral" behavior. Usually that revolves primarily around the following 5 criteria:

1. Fucking.
    Most people of faith don't approve of fucking. Unless of course it is to procreate. When my wife and I attended Pre Cana before we were married (For you non-catholic readers, Pre-Cana is a course  Catholic couples must undergo before they can be married in a Catholic church.) the priest asked me if there was any reason I couldn't perform "the marital act". I thought the marital act was the act of getting married. So I therefore quickly deduced that he was asking me if I was capable of walking down the aisle. I confirm this by saying, "Well Father, my legs haven't given out on me yet." My wife looked at me in shock and horror. The priest was trying to decide whether I was being a wise guy or if I was just mildly retarded. It suddenly dawned on me that the marital act is fucking!!! It was also at that point were my wife began to have second thoughts about me. But I digress........the point of the story is that the church believes the only reason that 2 people have to do the nasty is to make little Christians.
   Sex is all about fun, and freedom. You can do it with a woman or do it with two women or a man or with 3 woman two guys and a transvestite. You can do it in all different positions and places. You can be tied down on a bed by a 75 year old granny who shoves pickles in your ass while her husband teabags you in the mouth. If that's what floats your boat, got to town hoss.  It's awesome!  Unless that is, you have dickhead telling you that God will punish you for these acts. Then it's a bummer. 
Morality Lesson 1: Sex is wrong, unless it's between 2 people of the opposite sex in order to make babies of said religion.

2. Same Sex Marriage: (see Fucking)

3. Homosexuality: (see Fucking)

4. Violence:
  Religious people don't believe in violence.......just as long as the violence doesn't happen to people of their religion. Before everybody gets all crazy, lets be honest. The Christians hate the Muslims, the Muslims hate the Jews, the Jews hate the Muslims and the Muslims hate the Christians. Oh and the Christians hate the Jews and the Jews hate the Christians. Also the Hindus hate the Muslims and the Muslims hate the Hindus. I think that the Christians and the Jews are Okay with the Hindus. Within the Muslim religion the Shi'ite hate the Sunni and the Sunni hate the Shi'ite. Within Christianity the Catholics hate the Protestants. Lutherans hate the Presbyterian and the fucking Baptists hate everyone. We have the Crusades, The Inquisition, The holocaust, The current situation in Gaza, The violence in Zimbabwe, Serbia in the 90's, etc. etc etc. etc.
Morality Lesson 2: Never ever kill anyone of your own faith. Everyone else is fair game because they're going to hell anyway.

5. The Biggie!!! Abortion:
  Besides homosexuality, abortion is the big moral issue of our lifetime. Religious people believe that life begins at conception and that an abortion at anytime during a pregnancy is murder. Although I do not believe this to be true I feel that it is actually quite honorable to have this belief. It tells me that a person who believes this has a real love for humanity, a great respect for human life and a true commitment to the betterment of mankind. If only this were true. Ask yourself if you are pro-life or if not, ask someone you know who is if they believe in the death penalty. In my case most of them are against killing zygotes but are for the state sponsored murder of fully formed human beings. I don't want to get into the argument about what crime a person committed or what if that person killed your mom, because if you unconditionally believe in the sanctity of life and yet believe in state sponsored execution than you my friend, are a hypocrite. If you believe that throwing a pipe bomb into planned parenthood clinic is pro-life, you are a hypocrite. If you believe that shooting a doctor in front of his family is pro-life, you are a hypocrite. As a matter of fact it makes you a terrorist.
  Does Jesus really love all his zygote little children? Obviously he does because people of faith certainly spend alot of resources trying to make sure they develop into human beings. Of course once the baby is actually born, than you're on your own!! These pro-lifers are also the people who are anti-immigration, anti-welfare, conservative religious zealots who will denigrate a woman as a parasite on society after she has a baby she cannot afford to have or is ill-equipped to raise because abortion was unavailable to her.
Morality Lesson #3: Unborn babies are God's blessing and sacred, and we should as God's children fight for their protection as they cannot protect themselves. Once the baby has been born then we don't really give a shit what happens because the teenage mom is probably a dirty slut  for getting pregnant in the first place.
 
  So I guess that I am amoral because I don't follow the normal Judeo-Christian moral ethic. Most religious people attempt to do the right thing because it will get them into heaven. I attempt to do the right thing because I have to share this planet with other humans and I want them to in turn respect me as well. I attempt to be a tolerant, open minded compassionate person because I believe the world would be a better place if we all were. I live for this short time that I have on this planet, not for what awaits me after I take a dirt nap. I don't see the world in black and white. The world is grey. 100,000 shades of grey and each shade has a thousand different hues.
I am not immoral.
I am an atheist, and I bet that I am a better Christian than you.