American, British, and Ukranian Politics and Ethics

Congressional sessions in America follow a relatively boring path of voting, speeches, occasional bouts of dispute, and usually a Republican saying something completely ridiculous. But it's nice, oh it's so very nice and pleasant and polite. Parliamentary sessions in the UK are a bit.... rowdy, with more direct words and much more of an emphasis on embarrassing or tarnishing the opposition's name. But they even have been topped.

A recent parliamentary session in the Ukraine over the extension of a Russian base in one of their cities was up and apparently stirred up a lot of emotions. As you see in the article, they are committing pretty violent acts, at least, those of a professional legislative branch of a country. While I think that's going a bit too far, I do think American politics can take a bit from this.

First off, this polite nonsense, at least from the Democrats, is just too detached from the real issues. And the one time you use a bit of actual rules to enforce and play the political game, they reel back like they've been shot in the gut. British politics has it right, too, but we need to fix OUR system. There's too many polite gestures and too "favors" being put into play here.

I believe in just saying what you need to say. I think, as a whole, Americans are getting soft. We've been at the top so long, we are used to comforts. We are used to other nations bending to our will, dominating the world in armed services, at least, not to mention the Hollywood and internet cultures. And we can no longer take proper criticism. If our senators, those in charge of legislating and making the rules, can't handle a bit of criticism, and I would go about ten times farther, then they are either too weak or are exploiting the "politeness" to stray the conversation away.

My Problem With The Judeo-Christian God

This is just a personal piece, filled with why I don't like the aforementioned deity.


To start off with, if he exists, he has rigged the system against people like me. He is omnipotent, sees all, past, present, and future. He already knows what decisions I'll make, what I'll believe and what it will take to make me believe. He created me, knowing full well that I would never accept him as reality because of his perchant for skewing his own believability by having so much evidence stacked against him and yet, not even close enough for him. He knows that I won't believe without enough evidence and has set me up to fail, no matter what! That's the move of a sadistic, cruel asshole. He, instead, rewards blind obedience and faith based on feelings, emotions, and selfish desires. If you believe that you are going to heaven to spend eternity in paradise, that is selfish. That means you will forgo doing the necessary things to ensure that everyone else will have stable real lives. Think of the benefits of abortion, condoms, and other forms of birth control, fuck, population control. That alone makes you selfish. And if you are for those positions, by God's standards, you're going to Hell. Great choice for a benevolent God, eh?

Next point is Hell. You steal a candy bar, you pay a small fine for your transgression. You rob a store at gunpoint, you take a much harsher punishment as the punishment fit the crime, by human standards. Could you possibly see a finite crime used to judge us for eternity, in punishment? Much less, simply "thinking" bad thoughts? What kind of God, LOVING at that, would set up such a system where you would have eternal torment, based on a finite crime? Hell, even the Greeks didn't have a system that fucked up. Then of course, this goes back to my previous point of God setting up people like me to fail and spending an eternity in hell.

Last point, I think it's kind of silly of us every knowing just what God wants or what he could possibly be like. Don't you find it a little convenient that we happen to know JUST what is bad and what is not, in his eyes? It goes back to an original post of mine (The Human Perception), that you cannot attribute human qualities to God and still call him mysterious. I think the deist position is more likely, if anything. Sure, there *might* be a divine being, but as limited humans, mere playthings, could be we ever hope to understand? I doubt it. We just have to leave it up to chance, because with all the choices of different religions, it's just a choice, usually based on your regional preference among your indigenous tribe.

Final thoughts: if God did exist, he has long abandoned us. While, in the golden years of the Old Testament, he was talking to everyone "Hey, Samuel.... what's up? I'm kinda bored now", now he has erased all pure evidence to his very existence, signaling to me, he either doesn't want to be found or he isn't quite the god we all know him as.