On voting

I had originally planned to do a major screed on the philosophy of voting prior to the elections in November, but an ongoing discussion thread has convinced me that the time is now.

However you want to boil it down, there are three predominant philosophies for voting in an election where two unpalatable candidates are representing the major political parties:

1. Boycott the election - it's futile, because the elites have stacked the deck. Major proponents: Vox Day and Nate (Der Hausfraurer).
2. YOU HAVE TO VOTE!!!!!!! Vote the lesser of two evils! Hold your nose and vote for the guy with the 'R' or 'D' after their name, regardless of whether you like, respect, or agree with them, because this is the most importantest election ever and the future of the Supreme Court depends on it!!!!! Major proponents: Rachel Lucas and Dr. Helen.
3. Vote for anyone BUT the major party candidates. Major proponent: the Vulture.

Each approach has its pros and cons. But only one is a winner.

Boycott the election!

The "boycott" crowd gets to stand up and say, "This government is illegitimate and I refuse to participate in its sham elections." They get to stand off to the side and (rightfully) point out that whether you vote for the guy with the 'R' after his name or the guy with the 'D' after his name, you'll get the same results, because the president isn't really "running" things, the elites are.

But this is where the "boycott" crowd has it all wrong. The elites don't give two shits whether you vote or not. In fact, the statist media will point to your non-vote as "apathy among the electorate". Your "boycott" will be viewed by the elite as a de facto acquiescence to "the system". You meant to send a message saying the process is illegitimate. The message that is received is "we don't care who's in charge". That's a very bad message, trust me.

Vote for 'our' guy

The "OMGs YOU HAFTA VOTE FOR 'OUR' GUY!!!!!!!!!" crowd is just a little too tightly wound for their own good (sorry mark and dw). I know that Limbaugh and other blatherers have you all wound up because of the Supreme Court. It's the trump card for the pro-status quo crowd. "Sure, Candidate A sucks...but at least we can count on him to appoint the right judges to the Supreme Court".

Again, wrong. Ronald Reagan, the gold standard for Republicans, appointed Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist, and Anthony Kennedy. One dud, one excellent choice, one statist/leftist. In fairness, it must be noted that Reagan also nominated Robert Bork, who was rejected by the Senate because he actually believed in the Constitution. Bush 41 appointed David Souter and Clarence Thomas. One ultra-leftist, one excellent choice. King George the Dim succeeded in getting John Roberts and Samuel Alito appointed. Both are generally conservative, sure, but both are pro-Homeland Security apparatchiks. And let's not forget that he originally nominated the gawdawful Harriett Miers before Alito. Call that three bad choices.

So the scorecard reads: 2 excellent choices (and 1 excellent choice rejected), 2 bad choices (and an additional horrendous nominee), 1 dud, and 2 leftists. And this is from the last three presidents from Team Elephant!

How'd Clinton do? He appointed Ruth Vader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer - two gawdawful ultra-leftists.

The previous Team Donkey president, the peerlessly awful Jimmy Carter, didn't have the opportunity to appoint any justices. Thank God! The way he effed up everything else, there's no telling who he would have nominated!

Aha, you say! You just made my point! No, sadly, I didn't. With Team Donkey, you know what you're getting with the Supreme Court: Ultra-leftist nominees. A Senate with any stones will REJECT those nominees; sadly, the Team Elephant-dominated Senate of the 90's approved Clinton's nominees. Aha, I say! I just made my point!

Team Elephant gets about 1 in 4 nominees right. Team Donkey gets all of theirs wrong...but it doesn't matter because Team Elephant doesn't have the spine to oppose gawdawful candidates! Voting based on who will appoint Supreme Court justices is a losing argument.

Last point: there is no such thing as voting for the lesser of two evils. Once elected, the "lesser evil" becomes "the evil". If you wouldn't have voted for candidate A in the primaries, based on their unsuitablity for the office, then don't vote for candidate A in the general election, either. Be consistent and vote your conscience, always.

Vote for anyone BUT the mainstream candidates

The Vulture's way is simple: vote contrarian. Send the elites this message: "I care enough to vote...and I reject your hand-picked BS candidates!" No ambiguity, as is the case with the boycott crowd. No "I'm perfectly fine with the elite's choices of candidates" message, as with the "VOTE OUR GUY!!!!" crowd. Just a protest vote, pure and simple.

The downside? If the Vulture goes to the polls and casts his one lonely protest vote, he's just a crank and can be easily dismissed by the elite. But if the Vulture is joined by several million of his fellow citizens? THEN the elite has to sit up and take notice! My way only works if it becomes a grass-roots movement; sadly, in 21st century America, my way isn't even on the cultural radar.

So what's a curmudgeonly avian to do? I'm voting my conscience. I voted for Ron Paul in the primaries. I'm writing in Ron Paul in the general election. He won't win. I know that. But I won't send a message of apathy to the elites, and I won't send a message of "your candidates are swell!" to them, either. It'll be one lonely vote. But it will be done with a clear conscience and without compromise to my principles.

Really, should a person ever vote any other way?

Militarized Police run amok in PG county

Tip of the Beak to Rachel Lucas for calling my attention to this steaming mess.

Prince Georges county (PG county or "piggy" county to you out-of-staters) is a highly schizophrenic place. There is the PG county of bedroom suburbs of Washington, DC; places like College Park and Silver Spring. Bowie and Laurel. But much of the county sits hard against the worst and most crime-ridden Wards of DC. Places with names like Suitland and Capitol Heights. High-crime places.

But now, thanks to the PG County Sheriffs Department, the phenomena of increasingly militarized and out of control local police forces has come home to Maryland.

Don't believe me? Ask the mayor of Berwyn Heights. He's seen it, up close and personal.

When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.

After the raid, Prince George's County police officials who burst into the home of Berwyn Heights' mayor last week seized the same unopened package of marijuana that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier.

What police left behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct. No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo's home in this small bedroom community near College Park.

This week Prince George's police arrested two men for orchestrating a plot to deliver marijuana to the addresses of unsuspecting recipients -- among them, Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic.

Yet neither county Police Chief Melvin C. High nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson have apologized to him, his wife or her mother, Georgia Porter, for the raid that traumatized the family and killed their black Labrador retrievers, Payton and Chase.

Apology? APOLOGY?!?!?! We're the Law! We don't have to apologize.

Mayor Calvo is calling for a Federal investigation of the invasion. Good luck there, Mayor. Who do you think it was that provided all of those neat toys for destroying homes to the PG County Sheriffs Department in the first place?

Apparently the PG County Sheriffs Department likes to get their aggression on versus family pets.

In once such case, Prince George's sheriff's deputies executed a warrant on the home of Frank and Pamela Myers of Accokeek in November. The Myers told sheriffs that they had the wrong address as their dog began barking from the yard. The couple asked if they could retrieve their dog, but deputies refused. Minutes later, two shots were fired and the dog was killed, according to a notice of a tort claims filed by attorney Michael J. Winkelman. The Myers were never charged and nothing was seized from their house.

So, what's it going to take before the sheeple are sufficiently roused to decry this Cops-vs-Citizens war that the Federales have fueled? Is it when the Stoßtruppen move beyond killing pets to killing homeowners? Oh, I'm sorry. They're already there in some parts of the country.

Wake up, people! The next house the Stoßtruppen crash could be yours!

Wiener of the Week

This week's WotW will reveal that the Vulture is, if nothing else, consistent and fair (to a point). About two weeks ago I jumped ugly on atheists who were rude, condescending, and cruel to Rachel Lucas when her boyfriend's dad was lying in a hospital in a coma, all because she titled a post about her praying for him "There are no atheists in a foxhole". Earlier this week, I jumped ugly on strident homosexuals who are always in your face with their agenda when commenting on the two Anglican priests who got "married".

Now it's time for me to jump ugly on MY team. Meet the quintessential strident Christian.

A public school teacher preached his Christian beliefs despite complaints by other teachers and administrators and used a device to burn the image of a cross on students' arms, according to a report by independent investigators.

Mount Vernon Middle School teacher John Freshwater also taught creationism in his science class and was insubordinate in failing to remove a Bible and other religious materials from his classroom, the report said.

Are you f'ing kidding me?!?!?!? Mr. Freshwater, you are a total tool. NO ONE should EVER be coerced into anything, let alone Christianity! If I were the king of the world (thank your lucky stars that I'm NOT), I'd have you turned over to Islamic extremists to have you tortured until you agreed to convert to Islam. Because, sir, that's essentially what you have done in your public school classroom.

Stridency is stridency, whether it's feminists in your face, homosexuals in your face, atheists in your face, or flaming extremist Christians in your face. You, sir, are an extreme example of how NOT to be a Christian. And you, John Freshwater, are the Wiener of the Week. May God have mercy on your soul.

 

Atheist hate

Why is it that so many of those who identify themselves as atheists are major a-holes? Vox Day refers to them as Socially Autistic, but I'm not quite so nice (BTW, Vox also blogged on this same "event" today, in case you want to check out what he had to say.

There's a young woman from Texas named Rachel Lucas who blogs about various themes and issues. She's quite popular (hold the jealousy, Vulture!). Over the weekend, her boyfriend's dad was involved in a bad motorcycle accident. He's pretty mangled. The doctors put him into a coma for his own protection (he was thrashing pretty badly) and to help with the cerebral swelling. This is the context within which this little episode occurred.

Rachel made the mistake of titling a post, "There are no atheists in a fox hole". Everyone over a certain age (trust me, I'm over a certain age) knows that this truism dates back to WW II. Well, almost everyone knows -- certainly the asshat atheists didn't, either that or they were just spoiling for a fight. She received page after page of hate- and profanity-filled shinola from the "intellectuals" who comprise the atheist community. Here's Rachel in her own defense.

The update I posted about Rupert’s dad was titled “There are no atheists in a foxhole.” Which anyone who reads here regularly would understand is my way of poking fun at myself, seeing as how publicly, on this blog, I’ve repeatedly identified myself as feeling like either an atheist or an agnostic, depending on my mood. I’ve regularly criticized Christians and their beliefs and have asked them to defend themselves, which they did, some nicely and some not. I’ve been very open about the fact that I simply don’t know the truth even though I’d like to, and that I find debates about religion interesting because they give you such a window into how other people think and view the world. There’s a whole category here called “Religion” but the point is, I have no religion. I reject organized Christianity and every other religion that’s ever been.

So I used that quote to describe the way I was feeling at that moment, while writing about a loved one who is in a coma. I was feeling down and sad and worried, and I used that quote because whenever I’m in a scary situation, I think about whether there’s a God, and I almost always find myself believing that there is because it helps me and comforts me to do so. The belief diminishes my suffering, simple as that. It may be wishful thinking but so what? It helps me and hurts no one.

Well. That post title really, really, really pissed off some atheists.

---

So I hope the atheists have gotten what they wanted from me. That’s what I’m here for, to use “offensive” quotes during emotional times and to be instructed with great gusto and attention about what a bigoted jackass I am so that I’ll never use such quotes again and all the world will learn what happens to you when you make that mistake. It’s really quite marvelous and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to join their organization RIGHT NOW, if they’ll have me.

They just seem like such kind and considerate people, out there teaching the world about tolerance and overcoming bigotry, spreading their word wherever they think it’s necessary for the furtherance of enlightenment and elimination of negative stereotypes about atheists, even if it means hijacking a thread on a personal blog about someone in a coma. Because TRUTH is all that matters, people. Learn it and live it.

Actually, the quoted material above doesn't do the post justice; she handled herself very well. You should read it for yourself.

I know there are REALLY clueless Christians who would have confronted Rachel with a whole sermonette full of fire and brimstone to "convert" her in her hour of pain and anxiety. They're jerks -- it's not the time nor the place.

But I'm pretty sure -- REALLY sure -- that no Christian would treat her like these two paragons of intellectualism.

If you are going to pray “just in case”, I suggest you pray to as many different gods as possible. If not, you may be praying to the wrong one. And don’t forget to gather a few additional lucky charms while you’re at it. I suggest a rabbit’s foot, 4 leaf clover, and a horseshoe for starters. Then you might want to do a Google search for lucky charms. There may be a number of them recognized by other cultures which are effective that we don’t know about.

Then you might want to tackle eliminating all the bad luck charms. You never know, that might make a difference as well.

If you are comforted by these measures which give the appearance of ‘doing something’, then why limit them to simply praying to one potential god when there are so many other acts of magical thinking which are comforting in situations where there is little else one can control.
- Skeptigirl

Your opening post is a lie. There ARE atheists in foxholes… even if you don’t “believe” there are. Pat Tilman was just such an atheist. Educate yourself and quit deleting posts who try to lessen the bigotry you spread. http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/

Lying for Jesus is still lying. I hope your friend gets better. I hope he never is the bigot you are.

Just because your faith makes you feel all humble and honest… doesn’t make it true, you know.
- A Third Atheist (articulett)

Doesn't it make you warm all over to see the concern they have for...right. No concern. No thought for her injured family member ("get better so you can represent non-bigotry" hardly counts). No thought for her feelings as she goes through a tough time. Only hatred, contempt, and vitriol. Kinda makes you hope with all your might that there IS a hell, just so those a-holes can go there.