Random Political Thoughts Part 12

Unlike our president who posts his thoughts for all to see without really thinking about it, I often find myself about to hit enter when I think better of dropping a bit of nonsense on those who are still willing to call me friend (Facebook friend, at least). What happens to all those ill-advised and abandoned thoughts that would only have caused harsh responses and unfriendings? Why, they end up in a collection of random thoughts, such as you see here:

If making guns illegal won’t stop people from getting guns, why do gun owners worry so much about gun laws?

Prison labor means you as a tax payer are paying to house and feed the people who are taking your jobs.

Capitalists claim they love capitalism but what they truly love is capital. Capitalism is just one means of acquiring it.

We cannot fix the world by working within existing systems because existing systems are trying to kill us and subjugate us. We need to act despite existing systems. The existing systems will attempt to coopt everything we do, but we must continue to have the existing systems reacting to us rather than us reacting to the existing systems. Do not give them your violence, do not give them your money, do not give them your labor, and for God’s sake, don’t give them your mind and attention. I know this is not always possible, but in all ways try to think and act outside the box in which they wish to imprison you. The fight has been too long a defensive one, we need to be busy about shaping the world we desire instead of imploring our oppressors to be less mean.

In a healthy political climate, intelligent and principled conservatives and liberals can respectfully disagree. But in an unhealthy climate intelligent, principled conservatives and liberals actually DO agree. They agree on the incompetence and corruption that exists on both sides.

When your political heroes become Eminem and Larry Flynt, you may have lost the moral high ground.

Name a country the United States considers a threat that doesn’t have U.S. bases already on their border. Name a country the United States considers a threat that has bases on our border.

My odds of people with guns fighting for my rights after the government falls or turns against us is about equal to the amount of times armed citizens have saved me from a mass shooting. The reality is people with guns will shoot those without guns, about the same as it is now. The fact that you own a gun does not make you special, it makes you scary. It does not make you a freedom fighter, it makes you an oppressor.

There are higher laws than the laws of the market.

It is not the government’s job to provide tax incentives to businesses. It is not the government’s job to train workers for corporations. It is not the government’s duty to ameliorate the suffering of workers whose jobs have been sent overseas or automated. It is not the government’s job to subsidize workers who don’t earn enough in wages to pay for the necessities. And it is not the government’s role to go to war in order to advance the foreign interests of corporations.

God, government, and the free market are the excuses we use for not deciding our future for ourselves.

The three branches of government as they exist today are: the corporate, the military, and the intelligence agencies.

Globalization means corporations getting rich by shipping jobs overseas, resulting in displaced works that are to be retrained with assistance from a government that receives no tax money from corporations.

It is said that those who have never experienced war can truly understand what a soldier has experienced. This may be true, but we can at least get some approximation of it. But those who send soldiers into the hell of war have no interest in sharing with the folks at home just what it is they’ve been asked to do in our name. And yet those who keep us ignorant tell us that because of we do not know we should not criticize. It is not the troops they wish to protect, but the reasons why they are sent.

The world will not be changed by you waging war on those with whom you disagree, but by you making positive connections with others in any way in which you can agree. The world is a gigantic puzzle for us to figure out, and it is a child who pounds at the pieces in an attempt to make them fit. If we do not fit with others without force, we were not meant to. Move on. It is the big picture we must focus on, and in order to do that we must not get lost in the small battles we might want to win. It is not about the individual pieces but about the totality. Nobody cares for the individual pieces when there is no hope of completing the puzzle. In fact, even throwing away a single piece will leave us all feeling incomplete.

The process towards making all the pieces fit will always be the same. It will require patience, but force will only result in ruining the entire picture, the one we have already been shown on the cover of the box. We know it will work out, know there is a grand design to it all. Let us rid ourselves of our impatience, and finally begin the task of putting the puzzle together.

Let us not blame the pieces that do not fit, let us accept that for the moment we do not know WHERE they fit. It is a problem to be solved, not a battle to be fought.

If you lose to Trump, you are doing something wrong.

There are people who cannot exist without enemies. Avoid them. There are governments that cannot exist without enemies, do whatever you can to change them.

The goal of capitalism is to drive out all thoughts of things like cooperation, caring, kindness, charity, and equality. It is necessary because the whole point of capitalism is to selfishly acquire everything you can for yourself, and those who are best at this are the most successful. And those who are most successful are best equipped to further their message. Any other message is considered sacrilege.