Republicratism: The New Religion

This concept has existed since the beginning of the Bi-Partisan era. However, these days, it's spreading fast. If politics were baseball, Republicans would be the Red Sox, and Democrats would be the Yankees, with Independents as the young kids wondering why their dads are yelling at the other team's fans instead of just watching the game. The two parties are so divided, that virtually no one is a true "Republican" or "Democrat". Or are they??? (Dun dun dunnnn....)

Why do people consider themselves a Republican or a Democrat? Get this - I believe the answer is the same as why people are a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew. Parents and Community. Since birth, we are placed into categories that, most of the time, don't even have close to the same values as us.

"What a cute kid." "Yup he's my little Democrat."

What???

How can a 3 year old know enough about the world to have opinions about it? I don't remember a lot from when I was 3, but I know I wasn't concerned with world issues.

Now when that same kid is 10, he wants to beat up a classmate, because he said Democrats suck (which the classmate's parents taught him to say). These children grow up, vote for their party, have children, and it starts all over again. Just like Religion, people believe in the party itself, retrofitting their views to agree with the party's. As the presidential campaign continues, the initial biases against the opposing candidate get strengthened every time something negative is said. Even if it's not true! These political patriots will still find a way to allow that statement, however untrue it may be, to enhance their hatred towards the candidate. It gets to the point where just seeing the other candidate, or listening to their speeches make them angry. Everything the opposing candidate says is a lie in their mind. It's all an attempt to brainwash you into voting for them, so they can be elected and execute their plan for world domination. Party polarization at its finest. This all happens in the unconscious, which is why most people don't think they are being biased at all. They will just claim that they disagree with the opposing candidate, and agree with their own.

- "We're not anti-abortion. We're pro-life!"
- "Oh yeah? I am also an advocate of life! Go Republicans!"

- "We want tax cuts to the lower 95%!"
- "Woot. Go Democrats."
- "But they will be raising the tax for your business."
- "Yeah, but they are lowering taxes for 95%! Go Democrats!"

Are people actually against gay marriage? Or is it just because their party says they are? Why would someone "pro-life" want less gun control? Ah Yes! Political patriotism is at it again. I think the worst is when people respond with "because I'm a Democrat/Republican" when asked why they are voting for their candidate. We are giving up our critical thinking skills, and allowing the irrational emotional part of our consiousness to take over. No one wants to question themself, so why do it? Admittedly, when Barack Obama became a potential candidate, I wanted to vote for him, almost exclusively because he was Black. I thought that having a Black president would be a huge step in the progression of this country. Plus it would be a great way to tell those who oppose it to get with the times. To me, this issue was way more important than anything else. Now this is no where near as bad as voting for someone because of their political party, but I now agree (thanks to a few friends) that all issues should be considered when choosing a candidate. I mean, what if he was palin' around with terrorists?(LOL @ Fox News) After looking up the issues, and positions I found that I agreed on mostly everything he had to say. Did I hold those same beliefs before I knew Obama was supporting them? Who knows? I'd like to think so (I was a "little Democrat" afterall :)).

But, I'm an Independent now. Only because we all have to be in a category, right? We can't just be a Person. One who holds their own beliefs, shaped from critical thinking, and rational thought about what we experience in our life. We have to choose a group, and since there is no WeLikeTo Party, Independent is the next best thing I guess. It feels nice being able to think for yourself. No obligation trying to defend your group of people against criticism. No need to retrofit your beliefs to justify the category that you want to be associated with. How does one obtain such luxury? Not blindly following one party or another is a great first step. Voting for Obama, because he is Black, or McCain, because he is old are both pretty stupid reasons, but they are at least reasons that required conscious thought. Simply going with "the usual" is not the way to go. Unless "the usual" is a Taylor ham egg and cheese sandwich.


Epilogue - An experiment I would love to see happen is to present hypothetical candidates to the most hardcore partisan patriots. Each candidate has the other party's plaform. How many would still vote for their party's candidate? I would hypothesize significantly more than if you didn't give party names.

Moar Politix

Last night was the part 3 of the Republican National Convention, and oh what a night it was! I managed to make it through an hour before deciding that there were more important things that I could be doing (like trying to max out my character's stats in Castle Crashers). In that hour, I saw what looked to be a combination of a country concert sans beautiful girls, one of those evangelical mass gatherings you see on TV, and an unorganized rally where everyone just puts together their own signs that really don't make sense. Despite the red and blue everywhere, I noticed a lot of WHITE in the room. You're not fooling anyone, camera crew! I know people of different races all look the same, but when you focus the camera on the same one black person in the crowd, people begin to notice. They had those faces like, "What the fuck did I get myself into?" Old white people dancing and shouting everywhere. I found the chanting actually funny. "NBC! NBC! NBC!" as an attack on the media? Sorry, but that's not going to help it. "Drill Baby, Drill!" I love it! These people don't even know what they are chanting about. This crowd was so fired up, I could have gone and started a chant like "Show Your Boobs!" or "O'Doyle Rules!" and most of these blind zealots would have joined in, without question. For the most part, the speeches went well. Palin's, was delivering one-liner after one-liner that got the crowd even more pumped. She's got talent. Even Joe Biden was impressed, http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/04/biden-reviews-palin-shes-good/ However, when it comes to the real issues she's gonna have a problem. How will she be able to debate real ticket issues without coming off bat shit crazy? I hope she passed gym class, because she'll have to dodge a ball of topics(ohhhhh!). Back to the convention. Here are some pictures I dug up of last night:

What? You want to drill?? For moose???

Sold out seats

Heeeeeerrrreee's Johnny!

I approve of both of those buttons.

Texas: We are exactly what you thought we were.

Ah yes... The main reason McCain chose Palin - To unite all hockey moms...

No.

Ok... ¿Dónde están sus amigos unidos?

A scary picture.

I realize this is very bias. I'm sure there are just as many flaws that could be pointed out in the Democratic National Convention. If anyone has some funny info / pictures from the DNC worth sharing, lemme know.

Kafir Girl

Will you marry me?

No? Ok, thats cool. I'll just get your father to marry you off to me. But wait... You ARE at least 1 year old, right? Anything less would be unlawful of course.

Kafir Girl is the creator of a most righteous blog about the Quran, the book of Islam. She takes on the monumental task of actually reading the book (because who actually reads the books they lead their life by?) and writing brilliant responses almost line by line to everything in it. And by brilliant responses, I mean this healthy dose of awesome at the start of chapter 2:

God pulls out the big guns right at the beginning.

"2. This is a book free from doubt and involution"

He just throws that out there: there is no doubt or complexity in this book. No doubt. No complexity. In my opinion, the validity of this entire book absolutely hangs off of this claim. If there is any doubt or complexity in this book, it’s all a sham. I mean, that’s a serious claim there. It doesn’t take long for things to fall apart. A few verses later comes the abrogation clause:

"106. When We cancel a message (sent to an earlier prophet) or throw it into oblivion, We replace it with one better or one similar. Do you not know that God has power over all things?"

God, who is omniscient and all-powerful, makes a neat little loophole for himself, so he can suddenly change his mind and cancel out previous revelations and replace them with newer, better revelations. …I don’t even know what to say.

Yes I do: DOUBT! INVOLUTION!

Mohammed was one clever summabitch. A merchant life was wasted on that guy, he should have been a lawyer...

As you probably guess she is not a muslim, and assuming her quotes are legit, I don't understand how anyone could be when you really think about how nonsensical the verses and ideas sound.

Anyway, head over there if you want a very well written athiest's view on the Quran. ...or if you just want some entertainment. There are 114 chapters in The Holy Quran and she is only on 8, so you'll have plenty of time to catch up.