A Silly Little Something I Made

This is an animation I made for my cousin’s 14th birthday. Well, actually she’s my second cousin. Of course, she calls me her uncle because she says I’m too old to be her cousin. (thanks a lot). I tend to think of her as more of a little sister. That way, I can still give her advice without feeling quite as old. Anyway, here’s the silliness.

My First Animated Short

I’ve been trying to teach myself animation for a little while now and I just finished my first animated short. I just thought I’d share. It’s relatively simple, but I like how it turned out. It’s best if watched in HD and full screen.

 

Two Videos That Need To Be Shared

I haven’t written anything on here in quite awhile. The reason for this, is that I’ve been spending a majority of my time working on video projects. I’d like to share my latest two projects with you all.

The latest one is the result of an idea I had a few weeks ago. I had written a speech of sorts and had an idea to turn it into a video. I began to contact Ron Paul supporters on Facebook and on various other forums to ask them to record a video of themselves reciting the speech. I ended up getting 48 videos submitted, which I edited into the final presentation below. If any of you share this video, be sure and tell people to go to the actual video page in order to “like” and comment on the video. It’s being used as a kind of petition to the GOP. Read the description on the YouTube page for more information.

This next video which I made a few weeks ago, has been featured on LewRockwell.com and is being featured on RonPaulFlix.com as I write this. The idea for this video came when I read this article by Rafi Farber. I am not exactly a religious person, but even though this article has religious themes in it, it still moved me very much. The writer lives in Israel. I contacted him and asked if I could make a video using words from his article and he allowed me to do so. So, the video is my voice, but they are Rafi’s amazing words for the most part. I did paraphrase some parts to make it read more like a speech. Anyway, here is that video.

Well, these two videos show what I’ve been up to lately. I will get back to writing soon. Share these videos with as many people as you can.

A Tale of Two Candidates – The Movie

It’s funny how things happen sometimes. My last blog post has been getting a bit of attention around the web. A couple of days ago, a fellow Ron Paul supporter by the name of Eric Foote contacted me and gave me a link to a video he had made of my ‘A Tale of Two Candidates’ post. The video was terrific, except it had no music and he used a computer generated text to speech program for the narration. I asked him if he minded me taking his video and adding music and doing the voice over myself. He said that would be great. So, I found the time to get this done last night and here is the result. I hope you all enjoy it.

A Tale of Two Candidates – Ron Paul & Mitt Romney

Hey there boys and girls, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and listen to a story. We even have pictures, because pictures always make story time more fun.

This is the story of two presidential candidates and the very different lives that have led them to where they are today.

Here we have a young Mitt Romney, born into a wealthy and privileged family. Young Mitt spent his youth in country clubs, on the golf course, wearing expensive suits, and being groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps of wealth and political power.

Next we have a young Ron Paul, who grew up working in his father’s small dairy business, delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, working at a local drug store, working as a painter and a furniture mover. He saved up money from an early age and used it to begin his college education.

During the Vietnam war,  a young Mitt Romney spent his time protesting against the anti-war protesters. Luckily he had plenty of time to tell others that they should go to war, since he was exempt thanks to his position as a Mormon “missionary”. When he wasn’t scolding others for not wanting to be sent to war, he spent his free time riding his bike around France. He found, at the time, that it really helped him take his mind off of the thousands of his peers who were dying in a jungle in Southeast Asia.

  
 

During this same time period, Ron Paul was serving as a flight surgeon with the United States Air Force. It wasn’t easy for him, since he had a wife and two small children at home, but when he was called to serve, he did.

Mitt spent his time in the private sector working for consulting and investment companies, many times buying out companies, firing all their workers and selling off the assets. Oh sure, some people lost their jobs, but Mitt sure did make a lot of money. He was really good at making money, in fact, I guess you could say that he liked doing that more than just about anything. He was so good at making money, that he’s worth over $250 million now, so you know he can really relate to the rest of us, well the rest of us that are worth a quarter billion dollars anyway. Mitt Romney’s co-workers really liked him a lot, because he always put making money above anything else and they all got really rich too. Just look at how happy they all are with all that money.

Ron Paul spent his time in the private sector as a doctor. An OB/GYN to be exact. He delivered over 4000 babies into the world! His co-workers and patients loved him too, not because he made them all rich, but because he routinely provided discounted and free care to those that couldn’t afford it. He even refused to accept Medicare or Medicaid as payment, choosing instead to work for free. Silly Ron Paul, he could have made a whole lot more money if he didn’t have those silly principles of his.

Alright boys and girls, I think that’s enough story time for today. Maybe next time, I’ll tell you the story of their political careers and how they clashed head to head in an epic battle. That story is known as, ‘The Champion of Liberty vs. The Flip-Flopping Monster From Massachusetts’.

‘Til next time.

Iran – Is This The Face of Evil?

(NOTE: It has been brought to my attention that many of these pictures and captions came from an article, well more of a slideshow really, seeing as there wasn’t really an article attached, on The Atlantic, found here:

A View Inside Iran.

I highly recommend you look at their collection, as it includes even more great photographs.

I was not aware of this as I came across some of these photos on an internet forum that didn’t give a source. I stated clearly that I did not write the captions, but found them attached to the photographs, which is why I left the credits intact. Several of the pictures, I found on my own through Google and labeled them with the information that was attached to them.

The words in this article, outside of the captions are my own.)

It’s amazing to me how many people inside our government try to portray other countries as the epitome of evil.  Don’t get me wrong, there are bad people in charge of some countries, many would argue that ours is one of them, but bad leaders do not not equate to bad populations. Most people are so brainwashed by the warmongering media and politicians that they have no idea what life is really like inside some of these “evil” countries. Well, allow me to give you a glimpse of life inside the latest country that many of our leaders are wanting to invade.

There are over 75 million people living in Iran. While a vast majority of them belong to the Shia branch of Islam, Iran is also home to the largest community of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel, as well as almost 300,000 Christians.

Let’s take a look inside Iran with the help of some various photographs found around the web and the captions that describe them. I believe you’ll find that the average person in America has more in common with the average person in Iran than you might think.

Iranian family in Mellat park, Tehran, Iran. Photo by Farshad Palideh

Iranians enjoy their holidays, at the seaside, as kites fly, in Babolsar at the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, 150 mi (250 km) northeast of the capital Tehran, on July 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian university students play in snow in northern Tehran, Iran on January 17, 2011. The heavy snow in Tehran caused many schools to closed down on Monday. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian

Iranian archer Shiva Mafakheri aims at a target during horseback archery competitions, in Tehran, on May 28, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Sevan Shahmirian, a member of the underground music band “Wednesday Call” prepares for a practice session at a home music studio in Tehran, on July 7, 2011. Many Iranian bands do not bother asking for the mandatory government permits to release their music and seek contracts with foreign companies or put their music on websites blocked by the state but still accessible to anyone with a modicum of technical skill. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl)

An Iranian-Kurd woman talks on her mobile phone as she walks in a bazaar while shopping in Marivan in Kurdistan province, 512 km (318 miles) west of Tehran, on May 12, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl)

Noora (right) and Shahrzad Naraghi practice on a motocross track in the mountains overlooking Tehran, on July 3, 2011. Shahrzad Naraghi started riding motocross eight years ago to spend more time with her daughter Noora who became interested in the sport after watching her father compete in races, and began riding motorcycles at the age of four. The pair raced against each other at first and in women’s only motocross races in Iran in 2009. In 2010, Noora travelled to the United States, completed training courses and raced in competitions sponsored by the American Motorcyclist Association. Women are banned from driving motorcycles on the streets of Iran. (Reuters/Caren Firouz)

Iranian dog-lover Andia caresses a puppy as she brings food donations to the Vafa animal shelter in the town of Hashtgerd, some 70 km west of the capital Tehran, on June 30, 2011. The first animal shelter in Iran, the non-government charity relies on private donations and volunteers to provide shelter to injured and homeless dogs in Iran. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images)

Nature lovers prepare before a trash disposal campaign in the Miankaleh area, 250 km (155 mi) northeast of Tehran , onSeptember 22, 2011. The Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), an NGO organization, arranged a symbolic trash disposal campaign with 200 environmentally friendly people, along the Caspian Sea. They collected more than 3 tons of trash. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi)

Wearing traditional dress, Salameh Bazmandegan, poses during a visit to “Darreyeh Setaregan” or Stars Valley, a tourist site on the Iranian island of Qeshm, which oversees the strategic waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, on December 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian female kart racer, Solmaz Hamzehzadeh, foreground, competes during an Iranian Karting championship race, at the Azadi sport complex, in Tehran, on June 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranians Morteza Alavi and Mehdi Hagh Badri fly with a tandem paraglider over northwestern Tehran, on May 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Tuche Ayar, a member of the Cerbrus Turkish robotic team, prepares her robot before a soccer match during the 6th RoboCup Iran Open 2011 Competitions soccer match in Tehran, on April 7, 2011. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi)

Iranian rollerbladers wait to hear whistle of referee, to start their competition, in a women’s rollerblading championship league, at the Azadi (Freedom) sport complex, in Tehran, on June 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

An Iranian man wears Santa Claus costume, as he stands in front of a shop with Christmas decorations, in central Tehran, on December 20, 2011. (AP Photo)

An Iranian Sunni Kurd shepherd carries a lamb as he walks on a road next to a grassland in Divandare in Kurdistan province, 540 km (338 miles) west of Tehran, on May 13, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl)

Supporters of Iranian soccer team Persepolis, prior to start of the match with Esteghlal in their 73rd derby, during Iran’s Jam-e-Hazfi, or Elimination Cup, at the Azadi (Freedom) stadium in Tehran, on December 9, 2011. Iran’s two giant soccer teams fought in a quarter final match of the cup and Esteghlal won 3-0. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian youths shoot water at each other with water guns, during water fights at the Water and Fire Park in northern Tehran, on July 29, 2011. (AP Photo/Milad Beheshti)

I want you to keep one thing in mind after looking at these photos. The people above are the ones who will suffer and die if our government starts a war with Iran, and please have no doubts that it will be our government starting the war, not theirs. As much as our media and our government would like you to think that the Iranian people want us to come and “free” them from their horrible lives, I’d be willing to bet that none of the people in the above photos will thank us for spreading “democracy” and “freedom” by leveling their cities and killing their people.

The average citizen in Iran has nothing against us. They are not out to get us. They are just people, trying to live their lives the best they can the same way we all are. But hey, if you can sleep at night supporting a candidate that wants to kill them in the name of promoting “freedom”, then I suppose that’s on your conscience. I for one sleep well at night knowing that I support the one candidate who believes they have just as much of a right to live as I do.

The Mainstream Media Has Lost All Credibility

I have a simple question for you if you still listen to anything the major news outlets tell you. That question is, “why?” As we’ve seen in recent days, you might as well get your news from Star or The National Enquirer.

In case you don’t know what I’m referring to, allow me to get you caught up. Oh, and just for the record, I’ll be using these things called ‘facts’. If any of you “professional” journalists happen to read this, you should look into this strange concept of reporting facts. It can do wonders for your credibility.

On Jan. 4, some anonymous user created an account on YouTube under the name  NHLiberty4Paul. This user then went on to upload a cheaply made, stupid, pointless and offensive video about Jon Huntsman. At the end of this video and in the video description area, this user claims to be a Ron Paul supporter. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Literally, within hours of this video being uploaded, major news outlets start writing stories and filming reports about it. Here’s a list of just a few of them:

The Washington Post
CNN
New York Daily News
Fox News
The Boston Globe
The Los Angeles Times
CBS News
The Huffington Post
USA Today
San Francisco Chronicle
Chicago Tribune

So, let me get this straight. It’s national news when an anonymous person creates an account on YouTube, then uploads an offensive, rambling and pointless video and says they support a political candidate? Am I getting this right? Also, apparently any political candidate is responsible for anything that any one of their so-called supporters ever does, is this right as well? Well, in that case, allow me to present some really juicy stories for you then.

Here’s a lovely clip from 2008 showing Obama supporter Terry Tate violently tackling Sarah Palin and then screaming at the top of his lungs at her motionless body on the floor.

Terry Tate gets VP Palin! LIVE! Exclusive!

Obviously, President Obama is responsible for this video and should disavow it. If he doesn’t, that must mean that he supports violence against women right? Oh and even worse, he must support violence against white people. That is the logic that we’re going with these days, right?

Two of Obama’s biggest supporters are the rappers Jay-Z and Sean ’P. Diddy’ Combs who repeatedly use the words ‘bitch’ and ‘ho’ when referring to women in their songs and use the dreaded ‘n-word’ when talking about African-Americans. So, I suppose that every time they put out a new album full of offensive language, President Obama should publicly disavow them. I mean, they are his supporters, so he’s responsible for every single thing they do and say, right? That’s the way it works, right?

I could go on with example after example here but I won’t. Are you starting to see the absolute hypocrisy here? Obviously any logical person wouldn’t conclude that President Obama advocates violence against women because of the actions of someone he doesn’t even know that supports him. I’ll even go out of my way to be fair and say that he doesn’t advocate the language used by his famous supporters on their albums even though he does know them. It’s just basic common sense. So why is it that so many “professional” journalists seem to lack this basic common sense? Why is it they give a video uploaded to YouTube by an anonymous person national media coverage? Is it perhaps because this one video out of the 428,000 Ron Paul videos on YouTube made Dr. Paul look bad? Is it maybe, the fact that they do have that common sense, but simply choose to ignore it when it comes to coverage of Dr. Paul or any of his supporters?

Let me also mention that ten minutes of fact checking would lead to some pretty strong evidence that the Huntsman campaign was behind the whole video anyway. I’m not going to go into detail on that here. If you’d like to read the evidence, just check out this link.

Huntsman Complicit in “False Flag”-Style Dirty Trick Against Paul

So, to sum things up.

1. An anonymous person opens an account on YouTube.

2. This person uploads an offensive video and claims to be a Ron Paul supporter.

3. Within hours, the national media has dozens of stories on the video and Jon Huntsman is all over the news playing the victim.

I will say this in closing. If you still refuse to see the bias in the media. If you still accept the things that they tell you as truth, then you are an idiot. You’re an idiot who refuses to see the truth when it’s right in front of your eyes and you’re an idiot who deserves everything that’s coming to you when the next media selected candidate takes office.

‎”The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

- Henry Louis Mencken

Why Newt Gingrich’s Infidelity And Sociopathic Tendencies Matter.

I doubt that many people are going to read this, but I’m going to write it anyway. I’m writing this in the hope that at least a few people come across it and, at the very least, pause to consider the man who is supposedly leading the GOP polls right now.

I’ve been following the GOP race very closely since the beginning and although I’ve never agreed with any of the so-called “top-tier” candidates, at the very least I’ve understood to some extent why they were in the front of the pack. There is one exception though. I have yet to wrap my head around the fact that Newt Gingrich is leading in most of the polls right now. I mean really? Newt Gingrich? It absolutely boggles the mind that any human being in their right mind would consider this man worthy of holding the highest office in the land.

First of all, let me say that my criticisms of Newt don’t come from a religious viewpoint or a “holier than thou” place. I was raised in a conservative Baptist home, but I rarely attend church these days and don’t consider myself to be a religious person at all. I do however still believe there is such a thing as morals and I don’t believe that morals are a result of religious beliefs as much as they are a result of basic human decency and common sense. Having said all that, I believe that infidelity is one of the most immoral actions a person can commit. I also believe that it says a whole hell of a lot about a person’s character.

So, let’s talk about a person who cheats. I’m not so much talking about the person that slips up that one time when they had too much to drink at the party and makes out with someone, although don’t get me wrong, I think they are just as guilty. What I’m talking about is an habitual cheater, the repeat offender, if you will. Now, just so we’re all on the same page, in case you somehow don’t know about Newt’s history of infidelity, allow me to get you caught up.

Gingrich married his first wife, Jackie Battley in 1962. They had two children together. In the Spring of 1980, Gingrich divorced her after having an affair with Marianne Ginther. He was kind enough to let Battley know he wanted a divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from a cancer related surgery. According to his campaign treasurer at the time, L.H. Carter, Gingrich said of Battley: “She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.” Of course Newt denies ever saying this, but it is food for thought. Six months later, in 1981, Gingrich married his mistress Marianne Ginther. In the early 90′s Gingrich began an affair with Callista Bisek who was a staff worker at the House of Representatives. This affair was going on at the exact same time that Newt was leading the charge to have Bill Clinton impeached for his infidelity with Monica Lewinsky. On a side note, Newt was recently asked in an interview if it was hypocritical for him to have been leading that attack on Clinton while he himself was having an affair and he actually had the nerve to say it was not. Wow. In the year 2000, shortly after divorcing his second wife/first mistress, Gingrich married his third wife/second mistress, Callista Bisek, who he has yet to cheat on…as far as we know anyway.

So, what does Newt have to say for himself then? I mean, surely he has some real remorse over his actions right? Well, in an interview earlier this year with David Brody of the Christian Broadcast Network, Gingrich had this to say:

“There’s no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

Again, wow. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Newt just loves this country so much that every now and then, he has to get a new piece of ass to blow off some steam. I mean, if he doesn’t cheat, then the terrorist win…or something. Yeah, I’m not buying the whole, ” I love my country so much that I have to cheat on my wives” excuse and neither should you.

Now I know that some of you honestly think that a person’s personal life has nothing to do with them being qualified for public office. Let me try to explain why this simply isn’t true when it comes to infidelity. You see, at it’s very core, the act of infidelity is a selfish, self-serving act. Someone who repeatedly cheats on their partners reveals some pretty major flaws in their character.  It demonstrates a lack of self-control and self-discipline. It demonstrates one of two things, either that this person is impulsive and doesn’t think things through before acting on their urges or perhaps even worse, that this person does think things through and still acts on their urges with a total disregard for anyone other than themselves. Either way, neither one of these things is a quality we should be willing to overlook when considering someone for any public office, much less that of the president. If a man who claims to believe in God has no problem repeatedly breaking oaths, not only to his wives, but to the God he claims to believe in, then why should we believe anything that comes out of his mouth? If Gingrich stood face to face with me and said everything I ever wanted to hear a presidential candidate say, why should I believe any of it? I would argue, that I simply shouldn’t and neither should you.

I’ve always felt that their was something just a bit off about Newt Gingrich. Just the way he speaks and carries himself has always made me a little uncomfortable for some reason. It wasn’t until recently that it dawned on me just how many characteristics of a sociopath he displays. There are many websites out there where you can read about these characteristics. For this article, I’ll be referencing a list found on healthguidance.org regarding the subject. Let’s take a look at some of these characteristics and see how many of them apply to Gingrich.

• Lack of empathy – Inability to feel sympathy for others or to understand the emotional consequences of their actions
• Cold, calculating nature – The ability and willingness to use others around them to personal gain
• Low tolerance for boredom – Sociopaths require constant stimulation and get quickly bored
• Shallow emotions – Lack of real emotion in response to events, limited capacity to feel love
• Sexually deviant – The lack of remorse, guilt or emotional attachments means that the sociopath is happy to have affairs and to engage in questionable sexual activity without questioning their desires

Well, I’d say the first five qualities speak for themselves when you look at Gingrich’s personal life and public life. It’s not just the fact that he has repeatedly cheated on his wives or the fact he was the first speaker of the house to be disciplined for ethical violations. It’s the fact that Gingrich has never showed the slightest bit of remorse for anything he’s done. Even in acknowledging his mistakes, he has always done so in an arrogant and self-centered way, which leads me to our next quality of a sociopath.

• Sensitive to criticism –  The sociopath will desire the approval of others and will be highly sensitive to criticisms. They often feel they deserve adulation and admiration of the world and might feel victimized

In 1998, after Republicans lost seats in the House, Newt was under heavy criticism from members of his own party. Instead of taking any responsibility like an adult, he chose instead to go the way of the five-year old and take his ball and go home. Just one day after being elected to his 11th term in congress, Gingrich resigned not only as speaker but from the House completely. He left his position with the following comment.

“I’m willing to lead but I’m not willing to preside over people who are cannibals. My only fear would be that if I tried to stay, it would just overshadow whoever my successor is.”

Translation: “I’m willing to be a leader, but not if everyone is going to pick on me and besides the awesomeness that is me would just be too much to handle for whomever becomes the next speaker, so I might as well just quit anyway.” Which leads us to our next set of qualities.

• Narcissism – A personality disorder in itself in which the individual feels strong love and admiration toward themselves (often a defense mechanism against deep-seated low esteem)
• Grandiose self-image – They might see themselves as someone who is superior to others and sometimes even experiences delusions. A sociopath might see themselves as a fitting ruler of a country or even the world, but might also have delusional beliefs such as seeing themselves as a God or having super powers

If you don’t already understand why those two qualities apply to Gingrich, allow me to present a few of his best quotes about one of his favorite subjects…himself.

“I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too abstract; I think too much.”

“I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it. I am now a famous person. I represent real power.”

“Gingrich – Primary mission, Advocate of civilization, Definer of civilization, Teacher of the rules of civilization, Leader of the civilizing forces.”

“The most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times.”

“It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

I don’t think I even need to say anything about those comments. Those quotes aside though, just listen to the man speak about anything. He oozes narcissism from every pore on his body. Now to be fair, sociopaths also display some qualities that would be considered to be positive by most people. For example:

• Charming – While the sociopath is unable to fully understand the emotions of others, they are capable but rather highly adept at mimicking them and might appear to be charming and normal at first
• High IQ – Often sociopaths will exhibit a high IQ which they can use to manipulate and plan
• Lawfulness – Despite popular belief, a sociopath is not likely to be a problem to the law in later life, but rather will seek to find loopholes, to rise to a position of power, or to move to another area so that their behavior is tolerated

When it comes to the charming part, I suppose it is a bit subjective, but for the most part I think that we can all agree that Gingrich exhibits a certain kind of charm. He most certainly does with the opposite sex apparently. I think we can all agree as well, that he is an intelligent and well spoken individual. The lawfulness trait is definitely an interesting one to think about when it comes to Gingrich.

So now that we’ve presented a pretty good case for Gingrich being a sociopath, let’s look at a few other qualities that sociopaths exhibit.

• Compulsive lying – As part of their facade, and as a means to an end, sociopaths are compulsive liars and will rarely speak truthfully making them hard to pin down
• Manipulative – Sociopaths use their superficial charm and high IQ to manipulate others to get their ends, and their lack of empathy allows them to do this with no sense of guilt or remorse
• Secretive – Has little need for others and is highly secretive in their actions meaning
• Paranoid – Often their lack of understanding of emotion along with their incongruous self view means that they feel a lack of trust and paranoia
• Despotic/Authoritarian – Often the sociopath will see themselves as a necessary authority and will be in favor or totalitarian rule
• Impulsive behavior – A lack of regret and empathy means makes sociopaths more likely to make sudden rash decisions based on the current facts

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find any of the above qualities to be ones that I look for in anyone, much less a potential president.

I also found other parts of the sociopath description on healthguidance.org to be very interesting. Namely the following quotes.

“As they grow older they are likely to be highly successful which is a result of their willingness to get one over on their competition and colleagues, a desire and belief in success, and lack of risk aversion. Thus they are likely to be found in positions as stock brokers, as CEOs or even as politicians…In all cases though the psychopath will appear highly intelligent, charming and charismatic to talk to and it is only careful guardedness that can uncover their true motivations.”

Does this describe Newt Gingrich? I suppose I’ll let you make that decision for yourself. As for whether or not Gingrich is a sociopath, I’ll leave that up to the experts, but I think anyone who is honest with themselves would have to agree that he sure does seem to fit the bill.

In closing, I would just like to ask anyone thinking of voting for this man to ask themselves one question. Why should I trust Newt Gingrich? I believe that anyone who gives this question serious thought would be hard-pressed to find a good answer.

A Rant For Ron Paul.

I’m going to warn you ahead of time, this is basically a rant, with a bit of a sports analogy thrown in for good measure.

I was thinking earlier that the biggest problem we face right now is that the vast majority of people in this country absolutely never think for themselves. They don’t read or research anything. They never validate statements made by politicians or the media. They just accept what they are told to believe because they don’t want to leave their comfort zone. Older generation, I’m especially looking at you on a lot of this. Not all of you, just those like my father who, not too long ago, would have believed that Obama was a talking, insect-like space alien from a planet somewhere in the Proxima Centauri system if Rush Limbaugh said it was true.

Listen, I know the internet thing is still a little scary to some of you and I know that it’s easier to just believe what Fox News or CNN tells you, but there is really no excuse in the world to not be informed about things anymore. Information is more freely available than it has ever been in the history of mankind. You don’t need so called “reporters” to tell you if something is true anymore, all you need is about ten minutes, Google and your brain. I promise you, if you learn to look things up for yourself, it won’t be very long at all before you realize how much you are lied to every day by those “reporters” you love and trust so much. You may be wondering why I put quotations around the word “reporters”. Well, to borrow a line from the character Faith from the game, Mirror’s Edge, “It’s not news anymore, it’s advertising.”

I’ll throw in my own two cents here as well. They aren’t reporters anymore. They’re entertainers and commentators. They don’t report the news, they tell you the facts for thirty seconds and then proceed to give you their opinions about it for the next 2 hours. I mean, come on, take one look at every single female reporter on Fox News and CNN and then tell me they’re hired for their journalistic integrity.

I’ve heard many of the talking heads trying to figure out why it is that “cranky old” Ron Paul has such a huge youth following. It’s really not that hard to figure out. The younger generation grew up with and is still growing up with the internet. Hell, I’m 34 years old, and even I’ve been online since high school. The point is, we don’t get our news from CNN and FOX. When something is going on in the news, we’re reading about it from a hundred different sources all over the world. We’re getting news from our friends around the world through Facebook and Twitter. When the riots were going on in London earlier this year I wasn’t watching CNN, I was talking to a friend online who I’ve never even met, who lives in London and she was telling me exactly what was going on. We are purposefully trying to get as many sides to the story as we can find so we can make up our own minds about what to believe. To put it very bluntly, we’re not buying your bullshit anymore. Does that explain it well enough Bill O’Reilly’s of the world?

Too many people in this country have been conditioned to pick a side, republican or democrat, because that’s what they are told they’re suppose to do, then they root for their “team” to beat the other “team”. They fail to realize that the owners of  both teams sold us all out many years ago. More importantly, they fail to see that both teams actually have the same owners and it doesn’t really matter to them who wins. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few good players left on both teams, but the owners do everything in their power to keep those problem players on the bench unless they play by the team rules.

What we all need to realize is that without “fans” their game becomes meaningless. If we would all quit taking sides against each other and quit cheering for our “team” to beat their “team” we would all win. If we would all stop voting for people based on what “team” they are on and instead, vote for people based on their character and their record, we would all win. If this isn’t good enough for you and you really feel the need to be on a team, then allow me to make this proposal. How about, we the people along with the few honest politicians and real reporters out there all be on one team and the lying politicians and biased, lying media entertainers be on the other team? I’m pretty sure if we chose teams like that, we’d kick their ass. Hell, I’d wager if we chose our teams like that, their team would be out of business in a few short years, then maybe we could all just be on the same team and start trying to get along with each other.

I have another proposal. The next time someone comes at you with one of those canned statements about how Ron Paul is “crazy” or something of that nature, calmly and politely ask them to name the last book they read on history, foreign affairs or economics. 99.9% of them will have no response because they haven’t read a book since high school. They can’t back up their argument because all they know how to do is parrot what they’ve heard on the news. If they are mature enough not to call you a name and stop talking to you at this point, then nicely recommend a book for them to read. If you own a good book for them to read, then offer to let them borrow it. It works, I promise you.

If you yourself are one of those people that calls Ron Paul names you heard on the news, I ask you politely to read one or more of his books. My father, who I mentioned before, is 63 years old, a Vietnam vet and a die-hard conservative Republican who is very set in his ways. Rush Limbaugh’s words were damned near scripture to him not too long ago. I told him I supported Ron Paul and he echoed many of the things he had heard on Fox News about him. I politely gave my dad my copies of Liberty Defined and The Revolution: A Manifesto and asked him to read them. I’ll give you one guess who he’s voting for now.

The Truth As I See It

First of all, I’m going to apologize in advance if there turns out to be no point to this post.

I’ve just been going through a huge change in the last few years and more specifically in the last few months when it comes to my way of thinking. I’ve been doing a lot of self-analysis lately and this is one of the things that I’ve been thinking about.

I’ve been obsessed lately with the concept of “truth”. What I mean by that is when I hear or read about any subject anymore, I just want to know the “truth” about it. To me, that is fundamentally the most important thing when it comes to any subject or issue in life. So, I started to think about what I consider to be truth.

The first thing that came to my mind were facts. I think we can all agree that by its very definition a fact = truth. Not too hard to follow right? If something is a fact, then it must also be true. If something is untrue, it cannot be a fact. What I then began to realize however was that there were different kinds of facts and that’s where it started to get interesting, at least to me. It may not interest anyone else in the slightest bit, but here we go.

Facts As I See Them

Absolute Facts:

An absolute fact is the only kind of fact that to me is 100%, without any question, the complete truth. In order for something to qualify as an absolute fact, it has to be something that I have experienced first hand. For example, I can say that a lemon tastes sour because I have tasted lemons on many occasions, therefore I know that this is an absolute truth. On the other hand, I personally cannot say that “lemons grow on trees” is an absolute fact in my mind, because I have never personally seen a lemon tree with my own eyes. I’m not saying I don’t believe it, just that it doesn’t fall into the “absolute fact” category in my mind.

Trusted Facts:

The next category in my mind is what I call a “trusted fact”. This is something that I have never experienced first hand, but someone close to me, whom I trust, has experienced first hand and told me about. Using the above example, my aunt came to visit from Florida and brought me lemons that she said grew on a tree in her yard. Therefore, although I still can’t say that lemons grow on trees is an absolute fact in my mind, it is a trusted fact and therefore I would still consider it to be true.

Collective Facts:

Here’s where it starts to get a little tricky in my mind. A collective fact is anything that I have never experienced first hand and no one that I know has ever experienced either and yet there is such a large number of people who say that this thing does exist or is true that there is some probability that it is. Better yet if there are hundreds, thousands, or even millions of photos or videos from thousands or millions of different people, all showing the same thing, then in my mind, it is much more likely to be true.

The tricky thing in my mind when it comes to this kind of fact though, is that you must start to factor in individual motivations and also motivations of groups. Factoring in motivation can drastically affect whether or not I choose to accept something as truth, much more than numbers can.

For example, let’s say that I meet a small group of 5 people who claim they have seen a UFO, they are all adults. One is an Air Force pilot, one is a professor at a local college, one is firefighter, one is a well-known aerospace engineer and the last one is a minister. My first thought when meeting all of these people is that they have no motivation to lie about seeing a UFO. In fact, they have a whole lot of motivation to not make up a story like that because they will most likely not gain any fame or fortune from telling such a story and they will most likely even be ridiculed by their peers.

Now, let’s say on the other hand I meet a group of 200 people from Sample City, USA. They tell me this amazing story of a mass UFO sighting in their quiet little town and even provide a few blurry photographs. Upon further investigation, I find out that they are all members of the Sample City, USA tourism committee, therefore I am less inclined to believe this group than the first group even though 200 of them have the same story and even some blurry evidence simply because they have an obvious motivation to not tell the truth.

OK, hopefully I haven’t bored you to death yet. I have one more item that I relate all of this to and that is the subject of history.

Going by my above definitions, anything that I haven’t experienced first hand in my first 33 yrs on this earth, I can’t say is absolute truth. So when it comes to anything that happened in the world before I was old enough to retain memories, my next best source for “truth” is trusted facts.

For example, both my grandfather’s told me many stories about their experiences fighting during WWII and my father told me about his experiences fighting in Vietnam, therefore I accept as truth that these wars did occur. Now, staying on the same train of thought, I can look at the civil war. The only way I can say the civil war ever actually happened is if I accept it as a collective truth, which I do. Seeing as I wasn’t there personally nor was anyone else that is alive on the entire planet right now, the only thing I have to go by is many photographs and many written accounts from many different people, that this did occur. Seeing as this event is seen by many as one of the ugliest periods in our history, it doesn’t seem logical that a large group of people would make up a war that never happened. Having said that if I read individual accounts of this war or accounts from certain groups or organizations, I have to again take into account the motivations of the writer when I decide whether or not to believe something they say. Anyway, I didn’t mean to get of on a tangent about the civil war, it’s not my point at all and I’m not trying to say anything concerning that topic. It was simply an example.

Staying on the subject of history though, once we get back to a time before photographs, it begins to be harder and harder for me to accept anything as being “truth” on any level. I certainly can’t say anything is absolute fact by my definition, and I certainly can’t say anything is a trusted fact. The problem is, that the further you go back, it becomes even harder to accept something as even a collective fact. The reason I say this is due to there being relatively few written accounts of so much of our history.

For example, let’s say there’s an event in the history of the world that we have written accounts from 5 different people. Well, relatively speaking, five people out of millions alive at the time writing about something happening, doesn’t necessarily make it true. Furthermore, let’s say that you have 5 slightly different accounts of this event that happened long before any of us existed. Then it becomes even more difficult to find any real “truth” in any of it.

Now let’s say we have written accounts from hundreds of individuals about a certain historical event, but they all belonged to a group or organization of some kind. We then have to take into account what motivations they may have had to write what they did at the time.

Anyway, I honestly am not trying to refer to any particular event or group in our history, so please don’t read anything into what I’ve said that isn’t there. The primary point that I’m trying to make is that maybe it would benefit us all if we had different levels of what “truth” is to us and your definitions of what you might accept as “truth” may be different from mine and that’s definitely alright. I think maybe I’m hoping that this post will help someone to start questioning things a little more and analyzing why they should accept something as being “truth”

Perhaps, we’d all be better off if we stopped looking at things in such a black/white manner. I know I use to think like that. I also use to accept a whole lot of things as being absolute facts that never really were. I can now honestly and comfortably admit when I just don’t know something. There are a lot of things that we just don’t know and never will in this life. But you know what? That’s OK. If we knew everything to be an absolute fact or an absolute lie, life would be a whole lot less interesting.

In my opinion, the mysteries of life, not the absolutes, are what make it worth living.