Violence in Video Games

Video games are very near and dear to my heart. I've been playing them since I was very young. In fact, my very first video game was the original Mortal Kombat, and I remember being absolutely fascinated with the animations when I wasn't busy freezing all of my opponents with Sub-Zero. I've grown up with video games, and they've provided the backdrop to my entire life. Some of my fondest memories have taken place with a controller in my hand. They've told me incredible stories, shown me rich and vibrant new worlds, forced me to make impactful choices, and even introduced me to some of my best friends in real life. Since those first days in Mortal Kombat to the moments yesterday when I beat Far Cry 3 and gaped at the screen, to the many, many more years I will be playing them, video games have had their hand in shaping my life.

Eleven days before Christmas, 20 children and 6 adults were shot dead at Sandy Hook Elementary. The event shook the country in a way that it hasn't seen since the Columbine shootings. As the country recovers from the shock, we look for places to point the fingers. For whatever reason, we are not satisfied by blaming the person who walked into the school and actually pulled the trigger. In our minds, there has to be something more, something more to blame and some sort of action that needs to be taken to prevent this from happening in the future. The deaths need to mean something.

This About Sums it Up...

In lieu of actually blogging about politics today, I will share this graph instead. Enjoy.


see more Funny Graphs

The Economy, Barack Obama, and the USSR

I was planning on writing a thing or two about what I consider to be the already epic failure of our current President. Not only has he started off his 4 years of Presidency with fear mongering and further bailouts that are proving just as ineffective as the previous round of magicmoney (my own term for the money that's made out of thin air for the purposes of bailing out, TARPing, or otherwise servicing our troubled economy) printing, but he has failed to set a plan in place to withdraw troops from Iraq (a major platform issue during his election speeches) and he has failed to rescind the evil laws that were put in place by Bush post-9/11. 

Obama's entire campaign rested on one word: "Change". Yes, there was some "hope" and other sweet keywords that were part of the election, but the one word that got him elected was "change". Yet, here we are, 3 months after the chimp left office, and we are the same country. Not one thing has been accomplished under Obama. New jobs haven't been created. Steps have not been taken to rectify the economic crisis. No plan is in place to withdraw from Iraq. Change... psh. Perhaps by the time his 4 year term is up, the country will have pulled its heads out of its collective rear end long enough to elect an official who actually understands the issues and how to work towards a solution. Somebody whose idea of saving the economy isn't creating randomly ginormous amounts of money that might make the economy look decent now, but will crash the economy with hyperinflation. Can you believe how much money we've created for the bailouts? 

This site lists all the bailouts in the country's history through the GM/Chrysler bailout. In essence:

Then, Obama takes office, and this is what he does: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It sounds all PC and happy, but check out the amount of magicmoney we're creating for this bad boy: $787.5 billion. Let me write that out for you: $787,500,000,000. So, let me get this straight, the first $1.339 trillion didn't fix the economy (as smart people knew it wouldn't), but an extra (almost) trillion dollars is going to do something? Is having common sense a prerequisite to holding a political office? Apparently not.

There is a reason Zimbabwe had to make a 1 trillion dollar bill. It has everything to do with creating too much money.

The one thing I was hoping would change with the new administration is the repeal of the laws Bush put into place after 9/11. The laws I'm referring to are the ones that strip us of our Constitutional rights as American citizens. The Patriot Act and everything that followed should have been removed by now, but no, it's still alive and kicking. But, I will defer to Mr. Robert Hawes, who posted this to Campaign for Liberty.

The Dream That Was America
By Robert Hawes

In Ridley Scott's film Gladiator, the ailing Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (portrayed by the late Richard Harris) travels from the comforts of Rome to the muddy battlefields of second-century Germania on a mission. The Roman army, fighting under the capable leadership of General Maximus (Russell Crowe), has finally defeated the Germanic tribesmen, and Aurelius now longs to turn his attention from the maintenance of an empire to the restoration of a republic. The chief obstacle that stands in his way is his own failing health. Rome needs a young, strong and vigorous leader to take it down the path that Aurelius envisions. His son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) is weak and spoiled, full of base ambition, not at all the man for the job of relinquishing power. Maximus is the man Aurelius wishes to succeed him to the imperial seat, but Maximus is tired of war and strife, and more than anything else he simply wants to return home. In the following lines of dialogue, Aurelius struggles to convince Maximus that Rome still needs its finest soldier: 

MAXIMUS: "5,000 of my men are out there in the freezing mud. 3,000 are cleaved and bloodied. 2,000 will never leave this place. I will not believe they fought and died for nothing."
AURELIUS: "And what would you believe?"
MAXIMUS: "They fought for you and for Rome."
AURELIUS: "And what is Rome, Maximus?" 
MAXIMUS: "I have seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark. Rome is the light." 
AURELIUS: "Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end he wants to know that there has been some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher, the warrior, the tyrant? Or will I be remembered as the Emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome, you could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter." 

Most of you probably know the story. Commodus learns of his father's intentions, kills Aurelius and tries to do the same to Maximus, who barely escapes with his life. Maximus is sold into slavery, becomes a gladiator, and eventually fights in the Colosseum under the eye of Commodus. At one point in the film, Maximus points toward the bloodthirsty crowd awaiting him and exclaims, "Marcus Aurelius had a dream that was Rome... And this is not it. This is not it!" 

Say whatever derogatory thing you will about Hollyweird; chances are, I'll see your insult and raise you a little righteous indignation. But every once in a while a film comes along with a message that rings true in a powerful way. Braveheart was such a film. And while Gladiator isn't quite on the same level (the story it depicts is fictional), it carries its own impact. The struggle it portrays, that of a good man battling against evil in high places, has universal appeal. The ideals behind the story rise above its historical setting. 

And every time I hear Richard Harris speaking as Marcus Aurelius I can't help but think: there was once a dream that was America too, and I fear that it may not survive the next election. 

For a moment, set aside your party affiliation and whatever special interest you might have and travel back in time with me. We won't need to go far; the seventies and eighties will do just fine. This was the era in which I grew up. 

It was also the latter part of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was our great enemy. Why? Because the Soviets were communists, and communists were the sworn enemies of freedom. They were not merely authoritarians but totalitarians. They believed in absolute state control over every aspect of an individual's life, and they were intent on spreading their system throughout the world. 

I clearly remember being taught that, in the Soviet Union, fear ruled with an iron fist. Government spies were everywhere. The secret police could listen in on your phone calls at any time. They could read your mail. They could search your home and other property and seize whatever they liked. You could never be certain that you weren't being watched, no matter where you were. You had to carry identification papers everywhere you went, and many times you had to have permission to travel very far at all. And it wasn't just government agents that you had to be concerned about; you also had to live with the fear that your own friends, co-workers or family members might report you for "suspicious activities" or "politically questionable statements," sometimes for no other reason than to endear themselves to the communist party bosses. You had no enforceable rights where the state was concerned. Government agents could kick your door down in the middle of the night, drag you away to a state prison, torture you and even execute you. Your family would never know where you were. More than likely, you would not have legal council or ever see the inside of a courtroom. You were the property of the state, which was free to do whatever it liked with you. 

We called this oppressive, militaristic mega-state "the Evil Empire," and we prided ourselves on being everything that the Soviets were not. 

In America, the common man had enforceable rights, even where the government was concerned. Americans were not the property of the state. You could travel where you wished, and most of the time the government didn't care about what you were doing. Americans could say what they wished, engage in whatever peaceful political activities they wished, with no fear of violent reprisal. Americans did not disappear into gulags. If the government accused you of illegal activities, it had to give you a day in court and prove its case before a jury of your peers. Sure, America had its problems; virtually everyone admitted that. But we were still the "land of the free," and our institutions and daily lives backed that claim to a high degree, certainly in comparison to the Soviet Union. 

This is the dream that was America versus the nightmare that was the Soviet Union. 

Now, fast-forward in time. As I write this, fewer than twenty years have passed since the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War specter lifted. The Soviet Union is gone, and America. . . well, if you had told us in the 1970s or 1980s what America would be like today, and where it seems to be heading, I don't think we would have believed you. 

You see, today the American government tells us that it can spy on us whenever and however it likes. It can read our e-mail and postal mail, track our financial records, pry into our medical histories, force libraries to turn over lists of the books we read, force internet service providers to turn over records of our surfing habits, and tap our phones and record our calls. It can deny us the right to travel without certain government approved "papers." It can send its agents into our homes without warrant and remove whatever it wishes, without ever notifying us even. The president claims that he can seize anyone, including American citizens, and turn them into non-persons. The government -- the American government -- can arrest you without warrant, put you into prison without charge, and hold you for as long as it pleases. It can deny you legal council and try you before a military court, where none of the regular rules of evidence and reasonable person standards apply, and where your guilt will be assumed. It can subject to you "enhanced interrogation techniques" (torture, by any other name -- "Ve hev vays of making you talk"), and you will have no recourse. Your family may not be permitted to know where you are. Since September 11, 2001, the precedent has been set that presidents -- and those who take orders from them -- are not bound by law or accountable to anyone in any way whatsoever, as long as they claim to be acting in the name of "national security." And if you question any of this, these self-appointed caesars bristle like enraged porcupines and suggest that maybe you don't have the best interests of the country in mind, that you need to choose whether you'll be "with us or with the terrorists." We have former president George W. Bush (a member of the party that once prided itself on being the "party of limited government," and that even now prides itself on being the party that brought down the Evil Empire) to thank for this unfortunate state of affairs. Even more unfortunate is the fact that his successor, President Barack Obama, has not repudiated these police-state doctrines. 

This is America, 2009; not the Soviet Union, circa 1980. Like it or not, we are, by degrees, becoming like the very thing we once hated. And we are becoming more like it all the time. 

Some will call this unpatriotic nonsense. "We're nothing like the Soviets," they claim. "We're just changing to meet the changing threats of our time, and if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about." 

Really? 

So, we can do the same types of things that the Soviets did but not be like them? We can adopt their police-state tactics, spy on people like they did, hold secret courts like they did, kick down doors and haul people away like they did, throw people into secret prisons like they did, torture people like they did, refuse to answer questions like they did, ignore the laws like they did, and criticize the opposition as being disloyal like they did. . . and yet be nothing like them? Notice that I'm not saying that we're the same as the Soviets; I'm saying that we're becoming progressively more like they were, that we're on a slippery slope here, and that we're desperately trying to rationalize our way out of confronting the obvious (torture isn't torture as long as we don't call it that, etc.). 

Tell me, how much evil do you have to do before you yourself become evil? Is there a certain magic number of people that we need to have in prison without charge before it becomes wrong? How many do we have to waterboard and stuff into cramped, freezing cells before it becomes un-American? 

And as for not having anything to worry about as long as you haven't done anything wrong -- please, don't tell me you've fallen for this! This argument assumes two things: 1) that the government is accountable to someone for what it does with you, and 2) that it has to prove that you've done something wrong before anything bad can happen to you. Neither one of these is necessarily true anymore. All the government has to do is classify you as a suspected "terrorist" and the legal niceties that we used to call "rights" suddenly vanish, along with all of their guarantees. If the president and his subordinates have the authority to ignore the laws of the land, then whether or not you've done anything illegal is a moot question by default, because the law no longer exists as far as you are concerned! You are no longer being judged by that standard; you are being judged by the whims of the powerful, whose motives and actions are not being judged by anyone. You cannot tie the hands of the law and then expect it to protect you. 

Our Founding Fathers understood this. This is why they required an oath to support the Constitution on the part of our government officials, because they knew that the only way the common people can be safe from tyranny is if their government is restrained by the law. The Constitution isn't there to hinder us, it's there to protect us -- because freedom is fragile. It must be guarded, handled delicately, cared for like the precious thing that it is. 

Some will argue with the comparisons I've made to the old Soviet Union, because, like General Maximus, they refuse to believe that our country is caught up in corruption, that our leaders have anything but pure motives, and that our men and women in uniform are killing and being killed for nothing but the most honorable of causes. They too have seen much of the rest of the world, if only by way of CNN or Fox News, and they find it brutal and cruel and dark. America is their light in that darkness, and as long as it remains a bit brighter than what they see around them, they seem willing to overlook the fact that our "city on a hill" doesn't shine as brightly as it once did. Cruelty, brutality and darkness are creeping in here, but as long as we're not as bad as someone else, we're generally content with our illusions of safety and superiority. We find no contradiction, no hypocrisy in speaking the tyrannical language of the Soviet state with an American accent. 

God forgive us. The men who froze at Valley Forge, who crawled up the beaches of Normandy into the murderous teeth of Nazi machine gun fire, who faced undreamed of horrors in steamy jungles thousands of miles from the comforts of home, did not fight so that we could let our country slip into the hands of those who would re-make us in the image of our enemies. Whether you agree with every cause that Americans have spilled their blood for or not, we can acknowledge that most of them believed that they were fighting for freedom, to protect the whisper-fragile American dream. They didn't sacrifice to give us Moscow on the Potomac. We owe them, ourselves, and the future generations who must live with the world we give them, more, much more, than to let this happen with so little struggle. 

There was once a dream that was America. And friends, this is not it. This is not it.

It's ridiculous how well he is able to sum that up. Wouldn't you agree?

A Long Overdue Farewell

Just a few thoughts on President Bush's farewell speech last night.

Arlene Howard gave President Bush her son's police badge to remind him at all times of what was lost on 9/11. What was lost on 9/11 were people's lives in a truly tragic event. What has been lost since then, with Bush at the helm, has been nearly everything this country has stood for for over 200 years. Our freedom, our prosperity, our national pride. It seems that President Bush not only forgot what has been taken from the people of this country, he stopped caring. 

Since when is Iraq an actual democracy?

It has been 7 years since the last attack on American soil, something that Bush slyly takes a certain amount of credit for. Yet, prior to his term, it had been over 200 years without a terrorist attack.

Bush's presidency was a campaign of terror. Not, perhaps, in the same way as 9/11, but his single-minded invasion of numerous foreign countries in his selfish crusade for power was nothing less than an act of terrorism. In the course of his quest, he has run this country into the ground. He has stripped away freedom after freedom, he has constantly overstepped the bounds of his office as outlined in the Constitution, he has abused every shred of power he was entrusted with, and he leaves us with words of how much good he has done for us. Preposterous.

The environment is not cleaner, particularly after the last few weeks with him lifting restriction after restriction. 

The greatest threat to this country's freedoms is not a terrorist attack. Our greatest threat is the way we idly sit by as our freedoms are stripped from us. That must stop.

America can lead the cause of freedom without interventionist policies and without going to war with any country that doesn't happen to be a democracy. 

In citizens like the ones Bush spoke of, I see the reason that this country will rebound from the catastrophe that was the Bush administration.

Chris Knight over at The Knight Shift posted a great response to Bush's farewell speech in that of Ronald Reagan. It was truly nice to relive what was perhaps the best farewell address in the history of the tradition. It was honest and humble, unlike that of our current president, who sounded very defensive.  Check out Chris's post here. 

I'd like to leave you today, with a couple of quotes from Reagan's farewell address that I think are quite relevant to the current state of this country. 

"Man is not free unless government is limited." 

"As government expands, Liberty contracts."

-Ronald Reagan

Hooray, Common Sense Prevails...

... for now. The ridiculous bailout for the not-so-big 3 has failed in the Senate. It failed to pass in the Senate because the UAW refused to support a Republican-sponsored bill that cut union wages. I say just abolish it. I suppose I can't really call this bill not passing "common sense" because it didn't fail on the basis of people refusing to pass it, it failed on insignificant minutiae. There is NO reason that a bailout should pass through the Senate (why it passed the House is beyond me), and to me, it is infuriating that our elected officials are acting on their own whims as opposed to the pleadings of the folks they're supposed to support. Even if their constituents are split, the guiding hand in our country is (well, should be) the Constitution, which does not in any way give Congress power to decide to make taxpayers bail out large corporations (in fact, that's called socialism, which is why that power was never given to Congress).

Moving on, the Bush administration (in all their infinite wisdom) has made a statement saying that they will not allow the big 3 to fail, and have plans on using part of the $700B from the bank bailout to keep the auto industry from imploding until Congress reconvenes next month. Sad days ahead for us all. 

I've said it before, but it's the automakers' fault and it's the UAW's fault that this is happening. The automakers fought tougher fuel standards and continued to make sub-par models that drove consumers to more richly designed imports that came with the same features, better design, better fuel economy, and often a smaller price tag. The UAW strangled the auomakers, because they are bloated and overpowered and they could. Now they are both begging to a bailout, though the UAW is too dense to allow union wage cuts to be part of a bailout plan, which cost them today's bailout vote. Oops.

I'd like to say that eventually these companies will learn, but as long as we continue to throw money at them, they never will. In his mad dash to secure a legacy that he hopes will exonerate him in the eyes of historians (don't even get me started), Bush is insisting that we cannot allow the auto industry to fail. Save the American company - the sadly mismanaged company run by greedy SOBs - at the expense of the American taxpayers. 

More to the point, let's call this what it is: socializing this country. Anybody who does not now see this bailout crap for what it is is either completely naive or voluntarily ignorant. Part of the definition of capitalism is that companies that suck go out of business. The simple fact of the matter is that even without the current economic crisis, domestic automakers were well on their way to bankrupting themselves, because the imports were better. By the rules of capitalism, a free market, companies who cannot adapt to keep up with the times should die so that the companies who are more successful can take their place. This is not what's happeneing here with the bailouts (I'm also talking about the bank bailouts). We are very quickly moving away from a capitalist sort of economy, and we are barreling right down the throat of socialism, which advocates the government owning industry and forced spreading of wealth (as seen with taxpayers bailing out large corporations and banks). 

As our Congress sits back and indulges themselves with the feeling that they are doing the right thing, patting themselves on the back for such a hard effort, I can visualize the House floor as they received word of the bailout passing. I picture cheers and whoops, like something amazing and good was actually accomplished in that room. Yet the image sickeningly paralell to another, this out of Star Wars. The new Emperor announcing that he is taking over the government, turning it into a dictatorship, and everybody is applauding. And we see Padme Amidala, and she says, "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause." It rings so true right now, as we edge closer and closer to that precipitous drop, where the government owns it all and the idea of capitalism, of a free market, of the liberties on which we have prided ourselves on as Americans, blow away, nothing more than dust in the wind.

There is one person, though, who is fighting against the socialization of America, our own Padme, if you will. Ron Paul. At the moment, he's fighting a losing battle (as evidenced by the passing of both bailout packages through the House). I'd like to take a moment here to urge you to call your representatives when Congress reconvenes after the holidays. Your Congressmen are currently throwing your country away, so now is not the time to sit idly by and watch. Contact your Congressmen, tell them in no uncertain terms that you oppose this and all future bailouts. Equally imprtant, however, is that you hold them accountable. If they end up voting for these bailout plans, do not vote them back into office when they come up for re-election. The power of your vote is what holds sway over their votes, and if they won't listen to you, put somebody in office who will

You can find contact information for all Congressmen at campaignforliberty.org (it's on the "States" page). While you're there, check out some of the literature they have posted on the site. It's remarkably educational.

Auto Bailout Update

The news of last night saddens me a bit. The House passed the auto bailout plan yesterday evening 237-170. Dispicable. 

Now the campaign is on to convince the Senate to turn this thing away. There's no reason at all that the not-so-big 3 should ever be bailed out. Period. they are private companies that were mismanaged and overrun by an all-too-powerful union. They should go under, in my most humble opinion. 

Visit Congress.gov to find the contact information for your Senators to urge them to vote "no" on this bailout plan. 

Fun with Bailouts

That title was meant more in an ironic sense...

So anyway, in brief bailut news:

The Big 3 (Ford, Chrysler, and GM) are still petitioning the g-man for a large sum of money to help get their businesses back on track. There is a problem with their proposed business models, however. Namely, it assumes people will buy their cars. As sales trends have shown over the past decade or so, people don't. They buy "imports". I quote imports because more of my Honda was built in the good ol' US of A than any car offered by the Big 3 (at least at the time of my purchase). More than 70% of my car was built and manufactured here. It has US-built parts and was assembled in a US factory. When I was shopping big 3, I was lucky to find a US-built percentage greater than 50%. It's sad, all things considered. 

I've been accused of being heartless by certain people who are supporting this idiotic bailout plan, but if you stop to think about it for a moment, these three companies have had years to fix themselves. I mean this at both the companies' execs and the overpaid union workers who are employed by them. The money-mongering executives rode on the SUV wave and failed miserably to put any money back into R&D to invest in a future where gas wasn't $0.99 a gallon. Gas prices have been trending upwards for at least 8 years, but instead on noticing, the car companies sat on their haunches while the import companies innovated and innovated again. 

The bloated and overpowered Union of Automotive Workers is also to blame though. The car companies have to pay exorbitantly to employ anybody because of the outrageous demands of the inflated union. I read somewhere that GM pay an average of $2400 per car above the cost of the employees' salaries for benefits and other union fees. I won't vouch for the validity of that particular statistic, but if it's true, it's outrageous. Unions have gone past their prime and should have faded out a long time ago. 

Nevermind the domestic vs. import dispute. People aren't buying cars at all. What part of that does a bailout fix? None. When (if) the economy stabilizes, we're still left with a trend of declining big 3 car sales. The collapse of the big 3 is completely inevitable, so I say let 'em burn.

Yet, Congress is still at it. Here's the draft of the bill proposing the bailout as posted by CNN today. Barack Obama, our oh so wonderful President-elect has said that he supports the bailout as well... so long as fuel economy improves. 

Anyway, I'm done ranting. Down with bailout proposals! They won't help anything (and they haven't yet, but more on that in another blog).

VERY IMPORTANT

Register to vote!

A Few Quick Notes

If I had to pick a candidate to vote for, it would probably be Obama, and it is because of his speech last night. He slammed the Bush administration and the current state of the Republican party. He made many promises, and most importantly, he talked about America's dire need for change.

But... is it any more than just talk? Speeches like this would mean more if the candidate didn't have prepared remarks, if they instead had to speak from the heart. Sure, Obama's speech was well-written, but what are the chances that he wrote it? He delivered it, and passionately, but it was, in all likelihood, written by a professional speech-writer who was tasked with coming up with the things people want to hear.

And yes, I want to hear about change. But what I don't want is to hear about it because somebody is analyzing the results of a focus group and writing a speech that caters to getting the biggest popularity boost. I don't want to hear about it because Obama was told to say it. I want to hear these things because he intends to take these ideas and run with them, because he actually intends to change things instead of listening only to the big corporations lining his pockets.

So, let me rephrase my first sentence. If I thought there was a chance in hell that either of the two candidates would change something, I'd think that Obama would be the one to change it for the better. But that leaves us with the question, do I think that either one will change anything.

Hell no.

Revolution

All things considered, I won't vote for either of the two political candidates. They're both puppets and braindead. Not only that, they're out of touch with what this country needs.

That's why I was very excited to see this in my facebook inbox today:

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

Ron Paul FTW! It's great to see that, even though he won't be president this time around, Ron Paul's Revolution will continue! Just for grins, check this out! It's ME!