Fuck early voting

I vote on election day.

What would Jesus want us to do?

Regarding the arguments using Christian teachings to slam people who use Christianity as a club:

Matt 20:1-16 "For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. To them he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. About the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’ "They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ "He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’ When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’ "When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’ "But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen."

In defense of capitalism: "‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own?"

In defense of charity (or spreading the wealth), besides the "it's my money, I get to choose": "About the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’ "They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ "He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’" He was being generous to those who did not work all day, BUT, they worked. They didn't just get a handout. THEY HAD TO GO INTO THE VINEYARD, OF THEIR OWN WILL.

New hypothetical bullshit benchmark

Fuck asking, "Which candidate would you rather have a beer with?" I'd rather have a beer with my friends. Rather ask, "Which candidate would you rather work with?" Or maybe better, "Which candidate would you rather have working for you?"

Religion by any other name

There's a line commonly used by the science side in science vs. religion arguments, "Why would God give us the intelligence to learn and understand if we weren't supposed to use it?" This is a fun (and non-productive) rhetorical tool, and the unstated intent is that you're calling the other person a troglodyte, a luddite, and a fucking idiot with his head up his ass.

However, a variant of this line can also be used on other religions, to equally pointless effect:

Regarding STDs, pregnancy, etc, "conservatives" say that abstinence is the answer, "liberals" say that education and birth control is the answer. In my experience, most "liberals" would also agree that it is proper and important for HIV research to continue, to produce new and better drugs for the infected, and vaccines to protect the uninfected. However, the "conservative" approach of abstinence from sex and drugs would eliminate the virus from humans in 2-3 generations. The natural attack on this position is that it is completely unrealistic to expect people to behave themselves in the name of the common good.

NOW, let me grind the gears in shifting to - environmentalism. The banner carriers for global warning say we've got to cut carbon emissions to save the environment. I don't really have a problem with alternatives to pumping out carbon dioxide (and methane, which is much worse than CO2, and produced by some of the "solutions" to CO2 production, but that's a different argument), for a variety of reasons. However, the one true faith of environmentalism is that the answer is to STOP. STOP the fossil fuel burning, the end. Read Superfreakonomics, and do your own research here, but the data and models (the currently believed data and models, that is), state that if all human production of CO2 were to STOP RIGHT NOW, the effect would not be seen for 50-150 years, and even then, it's not clear what the effect would be.

However, God gave us a sign to show us the way (here's the bit about how God gave us intelligence to develop science so that we could solve our problems), the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. This divinely inspired volcanic eruption precisely demonstrated a simple, cheap, rapid, and reversible mechanism to reduce global temperatures. I think it might even qualify as a miracle because of its potential to save all life on earth, if the environmental doom-sayers are right. Mt. Pinatubo precisely injected sulfur dioxide into the proper layer of the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures, reversing the (presumed) sum total of industrial anthropogenic global warming. There should be a festival day commemorating this discovery.

The technology exists for humans to replicate this effect, cheaply. And, from the Pinatubo data (and this is DATA, real-by-God, measured DATA, not models or projections) we know how long the effect lasts (not long). So, it's cheap, we will almost immediately know if it's working (unlike waiting 50 years to see what STOPPING does), and if it's not working right, after shutting it off, the effect is gone in 1-2 years.

Al Gore does not like this. Many environmentalists do not like this. The general opinion is that "climate engineering" is voodoo hocus pocus, and should not be done. What should be done is to STOP. What does STOPPING require? Requiring people to change their behavior in the name of the common good. That should sound familiar, it's the unrealistic approach to sex and drug related problems, as mentioned above. But the environmental answer is different, because governments would FORCE people to change their behaviors, and that would be right because THIS problem is important enough to justify FORCE.

So here it is, the same people who on one day would gleefully say "Maybe God gave us the intelligence and resources to discover a new solution", would on the next day say "science and engineering are not the answer, a set of rules to regulate human moral behavior is the answer."

Everyone has his head up his ass.

"Moral authority does not belong in the hands of those who have the legal right to use lethal force."

Supreme opinions

Well, the supreme court should now be off deliberating on, amongst other things, the health care omnibus, in particular, the mandate that people buy insurance. One issue that was raised before it went to them was that one of the justices (I think Sotomayor), at the time that the law was being debated, said that it really needed to be passed. A second thing that I haven't heard mentioned is that years and years ago, when still semi-new to the court, Justice Ginsberg stated that she believed that the constitution should provide a right to health care. I almost started a column then (blogs didn't really exist yet), titled "Things that pissed me off this week", with that as the headliner. The beauty of the constitution is how vague it is, and when specific, it is specific in limiting the powers of the government. If the US government were specifically tasked with providing something to the citizenry, I fear that it would be a disaster, as a comprehensive statement of what is to be provided would be ridiculously long and complex (just like Obamacare), and almost immediately be outdated by advances. A simple statement would never be cleanly interpreted. At the time, I thought that Ginsberg's statement showed a very poor comprehension of the purpose of the constitution, and time has not changed my opinion of that.

On a similar, but different note, the "Marriage Amendment" is coming up for a vote in NC soon. I don't know how I really feel about gay marriage, but I know how I feel about amending the state constitution in order to monkey with the rights of the citizens. That's a no-brainer right there. In a letter from September 2011, William Barber, of the local NAACP essentially made that same statement. He buried it in multiple pages of rhetoric in which he got into the history of civil rights, how people have been trampled on before, etc. However, only one thing really matters, you don't use the constitution to step on somebody. As the Adaptive Curmudgeon said, stop and think about how your worst enemy could use it, before you pass it. And as someone else I know said, "If they'll do it for you, they'll do it to you."

And finally, once upon a time, representatives debated the constitutionality of a law BEFORE they voted on it. They didn't pass it, saying they would leave it to the courts to decide. That attitude is laziness, incompetence, and dereliction of duty.