Flada Blog

We’ve had a 17″ HP computer monitor sitting in a box in the garage since we moved to Pensacola almost a year ago. Prior to that, the monitor was sitting in storage in Norfolk for almost a year. Today, while cleaning out the garage I finally decided that we aren’t ever going to use that monitor again so I brought it over to the drop box for the Navy Morale, Welfare, and Recreation thrift store.

When I dropped it off, a woman came up to me and asked me if it worked. I told her that it had worked great when we replaced it and it’s just been sitting in a box in our garage since we replaced it with a flat screen monitor.

So then she asked me if “all it needs is a hard drive or whatever.”

I told her that it isn’t a computer but just a monitor so to make it work it would pretty much need a whole computer–including a hard drive.

“But it shouldn’t need much, right?”

“Just a whole computer,” I replied.

“Well the neighbor girl comes over and uses my computer a lot so maybe I’ll take it for her to use. If it works.”

By this point, I was pretty well convinced that the woman didn’t have a clue that a monitor is not a computer but only displays information from a computer.

“Well, it worked great when I disconnected it from the computer that’s now using a flatscreen monitor. I hope your neighbor’s girl enjoys it.”

I really didn’t know what else to say.

You hear the words “extremist Islamic terrorists” thrown around a lot these days. The people who use this terminology will be quick to point out that they don’t believe all Muslims are extremists or terrorists, but implied in their original statement is the idea that all terrorists and all extremists are Islamic. To those of us on the sidelines, it’s often difficult to discern a difference between them and the people they hate so much.

Boca Raton Republican Debates

While talking about “extremist Islamic Terrorists” it’s impossible for me to not think about this past week’s Republican debate in Boca Raton, Florida which was broadcast on MSNBC. All but one candidate is running and campaigning on voters’ fear. The fear that we will be attacked by some massive army of radical Muslims. They remind me of the anti-WalMart crowd or the anti-corporation crowd that is so fearful of Walton’s ghost hiding in their closets or the Microsoft under their beds.

The problem with such fear is that corporations grow large for one of two reasons (or a combination): they produce goods or services that many people want at prices many people are willing to pay, or they are propped up by government welfare. (I should note that welfare does not mean “letting people or businesses keep more of their own money” but means things like laws that don’t apply universally, subsidies, and grants. Calling tax breaks “welfare” is simply a rewriting of definitions in order to confuse the masses reminiscent of Orwell; thanks, Ralph Nader.

Redefining Terms

In the same way, those who thrive off of the public’s fear of terrorism come up with new definitions for old words in order to confuse the masses. Surrender, which the online Free Dictionary defines as the act of giving up one’s person, one’s possessions, or people under one’s command to the authority, power, or control of another is redefined. Unless we accept that we possess or hold legal authority over Iraq and the sovereign Iraqi people, to leave Iraq can not be called “surrender” without a redefinition.

They also use the word “insurgent” as if it were a negative thing. An insurgent is one who stands up to an established authority. So initially, who were the “insurgents” in Iraq? And now, there really isn’t an established authority, unless you count the sham puppet government we’ve put there.

Then again, redefining terms to suit your ends is nothing new. Propaganda has existed for a long, long time.

Heath Ledger’s death

The morning after Heath Ledger’s death, a few of the instructors where I teach were discussing it. One of them said, “Good! I’m glad he’s dead.” Then he proceeded to call Mr. Ledger a few derogatory terms that are often used to reference homosexuals.

I told them that I had been a Heath Ledger fan since the first time I saw The Patriot. Ledger struck me as a wonderful, fresh young actor with a lot of potential. The few other movies I’ve seen in which he acted confirmed my initial opinion. So I asked the instructor in question why he disliked Heath Ledger so much. It pretty much boiled down to the kiss in Brokeback Mountain, which is what I had suspected. Homophobe Instructor explained that, “God hates queers,” and that what they do is unnatural and sinful. At one point in his diatribe, he also stated that he (and presumably God) would be happy if all homosexuals were dead. I didn’t push my counter (and far more rational) views because I have to work with this extremist Christian Terrorist on a daily basis.

Yet, I was immediately reminded of something Mahandas Ghandi once said: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

If you have been reading about Ron Paul and like what you’ve read, the only way you will be able to vote for him in the General Elections in November is if he wins the Republican nomination during the Primaries. His website has put together a table of the Primary and Caucus information for all of the States and Commonwealths. The chart also lists the date that you have to be registered by in order to vote in that State’s primary.

Many Ron Paul supporters have never voted before, and many others are registered in other parties. If you live in a State that has a closed Primary, then you won’t have any input into the Republican nominee unless you are registered Republican. Time is running out to change your party affiliation in order to vote for Ron Paul. A lot of you are off work for the next week, this would be a good time to go to your DMV, or other voter registration center and update your registration. If you’re unsure where to go, Googling “voter registration ‘My State’ ” is a good place to start. This is very important if the chart below shows you are in a “Closed” primary State.

Here is the chart from ronpaul2008.com:

I’ve been a Dr. Ron Paul fan for many years. I first heard of Congressman Paul in 2000(ish) in a Yahoo Politics Chat room. One of the other conservative libertarians in the room asked me what I thought of Ron Paul and I had to confess that I’d never heard of him. So my chat buddy pointed me to a few links and I read up on the Congressman and was very impressed with what I read.

At the time, most of the self-professed conservatives in the chatrooms liked what they heard about Dr. Paul as well. Such statements as, “If you hear that there were 434 votes in Congress for a bill and only 1 vote against, you can be pretty sure that the one vote was cast by Ron Paul and that it was an unconstitutional bill.” were often read.

Another frequent comment was, “Wow, there’s actually someone in Congress who does more than just talk about smaller government.”

What a difference 7 years make. I was a member at Freerepublic from sometime in 1997 until about a month ago. Now, I’ve taken the unprecedented step of blocking Freerepublic on my wireless router. This is primarily because the comments about Dr. Paul have changed from the above. Now, even the owner of Freerepublic is on record actually saying that Ron Paul and all of his supporters are traitors. This post is dedicated to debunking some of the whoppers written about Ron Paul on that and other sites.

So here are a few of my favorite lies about Dr. Ron Paul (in no particular order).

Ron Paul is an isolationist

This is the one that McCain used during the Youtube debate to wedge his foot in his mouth. Dr. Paul did a pretty decent job of responding (considering he only had 30 seconds). His reply was that McCain doesn’t understand the difference between isolationism and non-interventionist policies. It is unfortunate that Dr. Paul had so little time to reply, because it’s impossible to say too much about this.

Historically, conservatives have been major proponents of non-interventionist policies. Unfortunately, their elected representatives (as well as those of their Democrat opponents) often seem to govern exactly the opposite from this stated ideal. Interventionism has led to a common belief that we can go anywhere in the world and do anything we want as long as we claim that our intent is to spread democracy or freedom. Unfortunately, you can’t hold a gun on someone and force them to be free. The only way is to lead by example. Be the shining city on the hill that Reagan spoke about. Be an example of freedom, justice, self-reliance, responsibility.

Yet, instead of trying to improve the example we set, we send armies in and decrease our levels of freedom at home. Just the opposite of what we should try to do. Ron Paul would fight terrorism by showing them something better that they could strive for and by destroying trade barriers. Guiliani, McCain, Thompson, and Romney would increase terrorism by giving large numbers of people more reasons to hate Americans–unless they somehow think they can kill them all (which may explain why each of them have stated that they would even consider pre-emptive nuclear strikes).

Isolationists are people like Pat Buchanan who would be happy if we built a huge wall completely around our country to keep immigrants out and to keep our companies from sending jobs to places where labor is less expensive. Ron Paul would like to encourage more trade by keeping the government on the sidelines. Ron Paul would like to encourage companies to keep jobs here by lowering (to zero) the taxes that both the companies and their laborers pay. He would also lower the regulatory costs involved in providing jobs here in the United States.

Ron Paul wants Federal dollars to go to the shrimping industry

This one is about as ridiculous as they get, but many of the ronpaulophobes were trying to gain traction with the claim. The claim started when Congressmen were asked to publicly release their requested earmarks. One of the few who actually released such information (because of his principled stance of full disclosure) was Dr. Paul. The problem is that few people understand what earmarks are so it’s easy to attempt to smear a good man.

Spending bills determine what kind of program the money will be spent on, and Ron Paul votes against every unconstitutional spending bill. Despite his vote, the spending bills ultimately pass, bills that are loaded with money for unconstitutional programs (like farm subsidies), and nothing Ron Paul does will effect or change that. Requesting earmarks is not ADDING anything unconstitutional to the bill, it is simply determining exactly how the money in that unconstitutional spending bill will be spent. Without the earmarks, the complete decision goes to the executive branch on how to spend the money in the unconstitutional bill. Effectively, all Ron Paul does, is pass along earmark requests from his constituents.

His explanation compares earmarks to any other unconstitutional spending. For example, if a constituent needed help with a medicare claim, Ron Paul’s job is not to tear up the constituent’s claim despite the fact that medicare is unconstitutional.

Some might even argue that Dr. Paul has a responsibility to try to bring some of the money that has been stolen through taxation back to his constituents, although he doesn’t make that argument.

He can’t possibly win

I used to believe this one myself. Despite being a huge supporter and fan, I firmly believed that the power structure was built in a way that our continuous slide into more socialism, less individual liberty, and less individual autonomy was inevitable. However, recent events have changed my mind.

Ron Paul became the recipient of the largest single-day campaign fundraising in Republican history. On November 5, his campaign brought in $4.2 million. I, unfortunately, failed to contribute that day, but on Dec. 16 there will be another fund drive and I will be donating this time.

Especially among young people, Dr. Paul seems to be a huge favorite. I guess young people still like the idea of freedom. I’m in a position where I work with thousands of young military enlistees and many of them intend to support Ron Paul.

With enough people talking about him, enough people sending money, and enough people who actually feel they have a reason to care about politics again–he most certainly can win.

There aren’t a lot of good things to be said about living in base housing on a Navy base. But there are a few nice things. I guess it’s like a gated community in that there are armed guards controlling who can access the community. On the down side, you sure don’t want to forget your ID at home when you leave the base.

Last night I discovered the best thing about living here–the greatest trick-or-treating that a kid could imagine. Many housed decorated with very friendly people giving out candy are the norm on this base. One of the houses we stopped at had a sheet over their garage door with a fog machine in the garage and more than a few ghosts, ghouls, and other nasties. I’ve paid to go to haunted houses that weren’t nearly as nicely done as that garage.

My wife walked with our older son while I pushed the stroller with the baby. It was a fabulous night which makes me wish that we could go knocking on people’s doors every night. Conrad didn’t have a costume, so I put some mousse in his hair and messed it up while my wife drew a moustache on him with some kind of eyeliner pencil. It was our attempt to make him an Albert Einstein costume. Although I’m not sure anyone knew who he was supposed to be, he got a lot of comments on how cute he was. Of course, the baby wasn’t wearing any costume and he got a few comments on how cute he is as well.

Anyway, a picture:

Unfortunately, this is the only photo I took of Conrad that actually turned out decent.

Other (non-Halloween) photos:

Click any picture to see a larger image.