Hello world!

Welcome everyone!  It was only a matter of time before I started blogging on a personal basis.  Well, here I am…. expect to hear a lot from me on current events, politics, social issues, freedom of speech, privacy issues and more!

I am mostly a liberal boy, usually vote for the democrats or third party candidates.  But sometimes, on some issues, I take a sort of libertarian approach – and wish the government would shrink and states rights would be restored.

As an openly gay/bisexual person, I have faced my fair share of persecutions on occasions, some of this resulting from intrusive government civil liberties violations and some of it from plain old bigotry.  I have plenty of opinions on social issues, including gay rights, marriage, discrimination, and more.

On states rights, I question a government which has been (at least on the federal level) run by Republicans who are seldom challenged by their (castrati) Democratic opponents.  While Republicans claim to be for “less government” or “smaller government” they have allowed their party to be dominated by religious fundamentalists, who confuse religion with government and desire a theocracy, rather than a democracy.  Rather than “get government off our backs” they really just want unregulated big business for corporations, while at the same time spying on and regulating anyone who isn’t a right wing RELIGIOUS fundamentalist.

This has resulted in anti-gay ballott initiatives and worse yet, constitutional amendments in some states barring gay marriage – and even forbidding companies who had previously, voluntarily decided to provide same sex domestic partner health benefits, from doing so…..and the gay issue, so to speak, is being used as a political football, to distract the attention of the “average Joe” in middle America, as his jobs are shipped overseas, and her/his union rights are abolished.

Only about 10% of the workforce has a union, and at that, pro-big-business court decisions have stripped much of the bargaining power away from these unions – taking power away from the little people, and lowering wages and reducing benefits.

Jobs are shipped to foreign countries, where slave labor (or at least indentured servititude) is used, causing our middle class to shrink.

Draconian drug laws and anti-Marijuana reefer madness still prevails on a federal (and in most states) level, with politicians refusing the will of the majority of the people — to get out of people’s medicine cabinets.  These laws were invented (see propaganda films and ads from the 1930’s and later) specifically to incite racial tension, and have an excuse to easily jail racial minorities.

Millions of people are in jail, in the “land of the free” on non-violent petty drug charges.  We ridicule other countries on human rights violations, as we do the same or worse, on a massive scale.

Yet, reform never seems to happen on a tangible level.  Why?  Because big government Republicans and Democrats are too cowardly in the face of pharmaceutical lobbyists, religious fundamentalist-prohibitionists, and anti-freedom extremists!

In the past, when the courts (even on the federal level) struck down some of these laws, congress would enact harsher laws, and design them in ways to make it harder to strike them down in court — while at the same time, bullying the media into propagandizing one side of the story, and also pressuring the judiciary to act as a prosecutorial arm of the government, rather than independently deciding cases.

These drug laws were direct precursors to erroding the 1st and 4th amendments of the Constitution of the USA (in the Bill of Rights)

This led to our quiet acceptance of the USA Patriot Act after 9/11 — which made a giant leap into a police-state like government, where no one is quite sure what rights they have (none).

Freedom of Information requests to government agencies are often denied on “security” grounds, even though they have nothing to do with security. 

Citizens are frequently targeted, in secret, by warrantless wiretapping and spying.

Neighbors are turned against neighbors in secret informant/spy programs.

All of this supposedly to catch terrorists.  Yet, all of this is used against people like you and me, who are concerned about our freedoms, average citizens who read the newspapers, blog online, watch the news, develop healthy political opinions.

Where will it all lead?  Hopefully, soon, we’ll exit this era of 1950’s era paranoia, and revise these laws, and reverse the damage done to our constitution.

Hopefully.

I have a lot more to say about this and other issues.  Come back often.  I hope to update my personal blog at least once a week.

I hope that my blog won’t be just a list of complaints.  I want to brainstorm solutions.  Me, the average 30 something person.  I want answers, and talking, blogging, is a way to find them!

I leave you with the 1st and 4th amendments:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Found at http://www.billofrights.org

and let’s not forget the frequently ignored 10th amendment:

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

We’ll talk more about this another time….!

 

~David