Same as I ever was

It’s funny, I’m the same person that I’ve always been. I created a Mac website because I couldn’t stand dishonesty and just following the herd, just because other people believed something. So popular opinion was that PC’s were cheaper, faster, as easy to use, Apple was doomed, and so on. So I wrote hundreds of (actually over a thousand) articles, that tried to show the counter-balance or other side. Basically, I believed that I should stand up against popular, and say what was right; even if I could be more popular, make more money being a PC advocate, get jobs easier, and so on. Sometimes doing right is going against what is popular.

Why? The truth matters. Macs were still easier to use and have better User Interfaces. PC’s may be cheaper on initial purchase by a few percent (especially if you didn’t compare feature-to-feature), but in total cost of ownership Macs were usually cheaper. Macs cost less to self-maintain. If you have an IT staff trained on PC/Windows (or Unix) maintenance, then PC’s may be cheaper. Apple was not doomed if you looked at the business, they were being pressured by disinformation and had problems, but as a society and as individuals we have a responsibility to look deeper than just propaganda. When Mac advocates went too far, I tried to stand against that and for fairness on both sides. I’m human and made mistakes, but the important thing is making the effort to be intellectually honest, and not tolerate popular dishonesty or denial. Admitting the shortcomings or limitations didn’t weaken my arguments or positions, but strengthened them.

Now enter politics/philosophy/idealism. I’m still the same person. A counter-culture liberal leaning artistic type, with a very strong sense of fairness, that is willing to go against popular or the crowd, and will not personally sacrifice fairness. Heck, I was an abused child and one of the few things you have left is your sense of self (personal integrity). Individuals and groups will attack you, whether you are right or wrong, they are usually attacking you over their own frustrations. They only win if you give into the bullies and what is wrong but popular. Conformity above truth is the true Orwellian blackwhite doublethink.

I grew up in California. I have a gay-communist Uncle that took me backpacking for 3 weeks in the Sierras. My closest cousin that I grew up with is gay, and a gay activist. I had many gay friends and students that I taught martial arts to. My wife’s step-brother is gay. I have hired gays in my jobs, and worked next to them, and have absolutely zero problem with what they do in their bedrooms. I wrote multiple articles about how California (or the nation) was wrong to not offer equal protection under the law, how gays deserve the same rights afforded straights (when it comes to marriage) and I’m against the persecution that many gays suffer. So I’m very liberal on this view.

That being said, I actually find myself more at odds with the democrats more than the republicans. Why? Because I realize that society has to change at a certain pace. When 60-70%+ of the nation is polling against gay-marriage, it is not time to push the pro-gay-marriage agenda through either the courts as laws, or the back-door (pun intended) of activist judges. Compromise is possible; try to pass laws that say “civil unions” but guarantee the term of marriage to just the traditional definition, and you’d have less problems. Republicans, including Bush, we more amenable to that compromise than many liberals. Both sides used it as political opportunism — but the left showed less tolerance and liberalism towards the status quo than the other side. Thus I hold them more accountable for their hypocrisy. So the left’s extreme position looked good for their constituents, and set the actual movement back 20+ years. Good politics (they got individual support), bad for society. So while I have many problems with some conservatives hypocritical views on this, since they aren’t the ones that did the biggest harm to the cause, I actually blame the extremists on the other side more. Democrats were not sensitive, they were not liberal or tolerant towards the other side’s views, they called the majority of Americans bigot and homophobes, and as they tried to go around the law (legislating from the bench) they created the backlash and friction in society. So both sides wrong, one more than the other.

We get to personal freedoms issues. Again, I’m a liberal. I’m for legalizing drugs, against the drug war, for more legalized prostitution, against most gun control, and against less centralized control of our morality and our wallets, for more free trade, for tolerating religions and so on. That’s classical liberal all the way. Democrats support some things that I agree with; medical marijuana use (even though I don’t do smoke pot), legal euthanasia (right to die), and so on. But then they’re against other issues like legalized prostitution; even though it allows more controls which saves more lives than illegal prostitution. (Prohibition doesn’t work). So there are some areas I agree and align with dems, and they have soft wins. But then on other issues, like gun control, individual responsibility and individual freedom, the liberal democrats forget their philosophy and go with where they can get money (from anti-gun groups, etc.). They’ll walk all over private or public business rights for the sake of their unions/socialist payola. They believe in socialized arts, support socialized television and radio (PBS/NPR), and in anything socialized that supports their agenda. That’s not liberal, that’s progressive fascism/socialism (in degrees). Coastal democrats (the most powerful in the party) attack religion and the red-states or “fly over country” and have zero tolerance or sensitivity to any religion other than mine (secular science and atheism). Then they take that much further into secular hedonism and social irresponsibility. (Individuals aren’t responsible for their actions, society is, etc.). And they take their agenda so far, that I have to resist. They can’t just tolerate others doing what they disagree with, they have to make federal laws or regulatory agencies to cram their one world view down the whole nations throat, instead of accepting that different regions have different feelings on issues and should be free to set their own cultural/regional/state views on issues. Thus as a classical liberal, I find that the republicans actually support my views on tolerance and personal freedoms with some social accountability, at least more than the democrats do.

Heck, I went to religious college in the midwest because a best friend in high-school was going there, and I came back screaming and an anti-religious zealot because of the bigotry and frustration I felt there. Still, I learned a lot, and learned tolerance towards religion as I matured, am not at all uncomfortable with people praying before meals or school, and think attacks against them are completely unnecessary. And intolerant attacks against them, turn me against the coastal democrats on a regular basis. While I don’t believe in God, and think the Bible was written by men to explain things the world around them, I do believe in many of the lessons the Bible tries to teach. And I certainly don’t think religion (including Christianity) should be ignored, mocked or treated with intolerance and disrespect. Which is too often what I find the Democrats, especially West/East coast Democrats doing. Southern and Central Democrats are far less obnoxious, but a few sound more preachy to me than the conservatives . But liberal to me means tolerant and respectful towards religions, traditions, etc., and not just tolerant towards secularists.

I look at an issue like the war in Iraq. I was against it before it started and wrote about that. There was a lot of “if’s” and I wasn’t convinced that information was firm enough. But I had to admit many things to be intellectually honest/fair; the President had more information than I did, Iraq was certainly involved in terrorism, Saddam had used WMD’s and was not in compliance with the laws and peace agreement, and this Jihad is global. While many naive or ignorant westerners don’t tie the terrorist attacks in Somalia, France, Spain, Italy, UK, U.S., Thailand, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, etc., together — the other side does! They consider it multiple fronts in the same Jihad against the west. There are no borders in this war, and it is a war. Jihad means “the struggle”, as does “Mein Kampf”. They are scarily similar philosophies in many ways; it is a struggle against the western ideals of freedom and tolerance, it is about scape-goating the Jews (and Americans) for everything that goes wrong in their society. They grab the young and indoctrinate them with Hitler/Terrorist youth training programs, and run propaganda and lies on their T.V. programs. And so on, and so on. Just like pre-WWII Europe and America, people are in denial, and they’d have blamed Chamberlain if he had gotten them in a war, so he did what was wrong, made concessions to keep them out of a war, so the war was much bigger when it came. We promised we’d never be that stupid again, then ignored that, and are doing our best to repeat the same mistakes again.

There have been over 6400 terrorist attacks since 9/11, 54 just last week, there were many thousands before 9/11. Clinton gave tons of concessions and tried to buy off many leaders in the east, we got 9/11 immediately after that. All the concessions and things we have done, have not stopped the attacks and will not. They saw concessions as weakness and continued or got more anti-U.S. So this has little to nothing to do with our actions, in exactly the same way that Chamerlains and the wests appeasements of Hitler did nothing to change his or his countries views either! Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and many muslim countries teach “death to America” in their elementary schools; that suicide bombing is good, that nothing is a Muslims fault, and everything bad happening the them is the fault of Jews, the West, or Americans. They are attacking us no matter what we do. We can wake up to that, or deny it. But the truth is the truth either way. Over questioning ourselves, denying what is going on, offering self-hating propaganda that you know will be used by the enemy to help their ends, is just stupid. This war isn’t about Bush or Iraq, he just brought American attention to it, because Iraq shook them out of their denial, and many are stupidly taking out their frustrations at the situation on Bush. If I heard better suggestions from the Democrats, I’d support them in a heartbeat. Instead, I believe the Democrats know all this (as they were saying the same things when Clinton was in office and were almost fully behind the war at the start), but they’re choosing to put personal and political interests ahead of national interests. They can finger-point and scapegoat, and they aren’t these poor little gullible people that didn’t know better are were duped by Bush, because they were saying the same things under Clinton. Are we a better society if we tolerate that double-speak and double dealing? Will we be safer if we put in the party that attacked every single measure that has made us safer, and in hind-sight all their attacks were full of crap exaggerations? I don’t personally think so, but I do understand the idea that we need a change. But before I change, I want to hear what the changing party promises to do, in some detail, other than “I’m right because my opponent is so wrong”. That’s not a position, that’s just a lame attack.

Our media skews things. This year in Iraq, 11,134 civilians have been killed by ISLAMIC terrorists. 86 by Americans (collateral damage). Saddam averages 100,000 deaths per year. Most of Iraq is getting better, Bagdad is not. How often do you hear that context? Instead we’re responsible for all the deaths, and the terrorists for none? If you have any intellectual integrity, then you have to take a stand against the dishonesty and skew. That’s why I’m against the populist media skew — the truth is no where near just that one side. But that one side gets viewers and ratings.

Roger had written something that talked about how Christian extremists were Amish, and Muslim extremists were terrorists. I thought that was unfair, and still do. But did more research. Turns out while Christians wrongs are very wrong, they pale in comparison to Muslim wrongs. You remember hearing about the spanish inquisition and how bad it was? In 350 years total the Inquisition killed fewer people (total) than are killed EACH year by Islamic-fascists. Jihadists killed more people in two hours (on 9/11) than the KKK has killed in the last 50 years, and more than the IRA has in the last 36 years! So while I don’t agree with all the decisions and all the management of the war, I can at least admit there is a war. I can look at each party or politicians individual views on the war, and vote accordingly. I can do the math and think, “if the KKK is bad, and the Inquisition is bad, then Muslim terrorists are bad too”. Because I’m a liberal, and support freedom, tolerance and the truth, I have to vote against the media and democrats position of lies/skew/denial. I have balance and understand there’s a difference between coerced interrogations and torture or between how you treat uniformed soldiers that follow geneva conventions and how you treat terrorists who do not! I believe that you should leave other countries alone but also understand and react to threats or deeds against you or your country like violating laws or paying families of suicide attacks for those good deeds! The democrats either don’t understand this, or do, and are choosing to exploit public interest for personal/political gain. They certainly aren’t being respectful or honest towards the President or those that disagree with them. But it isn’t about party but issue. I support the pro-war democrats, and don’t support the anti-war republicans. It is about truth and fairness and having a clue about consequences.

None of this means that all liberals have to agree with me. But if they aren’t mature enough to at least accept some of the obvious facts as to why I’d have my view, then we’re fine. If they attack my views without supporting their own, or ignore all the facts that contradict their sacred hypocritical cows, then I might just call them on them. Plus as being a little counter-culture, when the rest of the group is saying “go left”, I’m the one saying “hold on a second and let’s think about this”. When the media, or a bunch of bloggers on MyMac, are all posting towards one side, I’m going to go against that, and try to get counter-balance in, and talk about the other. It isn’t that I’m playing devil’s advocate for the fun or conflict of it, I just think the truth can be found by looking at both sides. So I’m go to try to ensure that both sides of the truth gets out there.

In the end, I’m still the same writer I’ve always been. A counter-culture true moderate liberal. I want a freer and more tolerant world and country. I want more local government and less federal intrusion in both our personal and financial lives. I’m sad that the real state of the world and security threats are making us intrude more on personal freedoms. But I’m not going put my head in the sand (or up my rear) and deny that these threats are real — or pretend that the President is stupid/bad just because he isn’t a great speaker (when he out-tested and out scored Kerry in military and college), or that he is arrogant because he has behaved far more humbly than say John Kerry has. Leadership and morality often requires doing what is unpopular and sticking with it — so I respect the President that does that (Bush) FAR more than I respect a Clinton/Kerry type which governs with their fingers in the wind (based on political polls). I can’t pretend that loosening lowering taxes hasn’t helped the economy, despite 9/11, a war, globalization and multiple other things going on, because you can look up the numbers and see the growth and good it has done in even the lowest income rates. I think the President is far from perfect, but can recognize that the gross majority of the ignorant personal attacks on him and the truth are just that.

So I’m stuck in a political world that frustrates me. Democrats and Republicans alike aren’t very liberal or tolerant towards the other side. So too often, I find that if I want to stand for truth and balance and for true classical liberalism and tolerance, then sadly, that puts me against the Democrats and the media. I currently live in a liberal part of Texas, that is very tolerant of other cultures and both sides politics. When I go back home to California, I get bombarded with a very intolerant culture of progressive liberalism that has almost no tolerance and outright hostility towards those that disagree with them. The conservatives tend to be more willing to accept my disagreements with them than those that call themselves liberals, which says a lot. So that puts me at odds with my own; coastal liberal secularists, even if that’s what I am, in the same ways I could be german and embarrassed by some of what my country/people have done. But like I was a Mac user that was willing to write about Macs were both good at and bad at, I’m not going to change that just to fit the political intolerance’s of my political group.

I think tomorrow many democrats will take many seats in house and senate. I think a lot of turn-over is good, so I’m not upset about that — and it is normal for 6 year elections to get that turn-over. I’d vote against Republicans in a lot of the individual elections myself, as well as many Democrats in others. I hope that more true liberals get in from both sides; one’s that want to tax less, have less government intrusion in our lives, respects the other side’s views more, and defend all minority groups (including ones like rich white men, CEO’s and CFO’s, small business owners, etc.). I hope we don’t put in a lot of Holocaust deniers or Jihad deniers. I hope we get people that can find compromises that are good for us, and not just use their pulpits for grandstanding or vilification. I want more moderates and more truth. And if the press plays this up as some referendum against Bush or the war, I’m going to question the fairness of why they didn’t do the same when Clinton lost far more seats during his term. Basically, I’ll be the same person I’ve always been. Hopefully getting a little more tolerant, mature and wise every year.