As most to all of you should know, I am a resident of Oregon. A “blue” state. We always vote for the democrat in presidential elections, we are known for our “liberal” and “progressive” stance on many things. We’re the home of the bottle bill, and FPEP… we have medical marijuana, doctor assisted suicide, one of the (if not the) highest minimum wages in the country ($7.05/hr), and many other ideals that are WAY out there in the political scale. But like the rest of America… someone mentions “taxes” and we all turn into tight assed, hypocritical, heartless assholes. Today was polling day for a temporary $800 million dollar tax bill. Why did it go to the polls? Because a few years back a man named Bill Sizemore (all you Oregonians know him) got a measure passed that made it so Tax Increases had to be voted on if they didn’t receive a 2/3 majority in the State House. So basically, they always go to the voters. And what do voters do? They vote on shit they know very little about. All they see is “tax increase” and go “HOLY SHIT! The man wants to take more of MY money to waste on worthless shit”. Yeah, worthless shit like state health care, education, roads, police, firemen, etc etc etc. I even saw a sign that said “No on 30. 30 means more Unemployment.” Riiiiight… anyone have a clue how many state workers are going to be laid off because of this? Or how many people will suddently not have state healthcare?

We claim to be an evolved species… we have computers, machines, we talk, read, etc… but we’re no better than any other animal when it comes to helping another? Sure, we’ll stop and maybe see if they’re okay… but when it comes to actually putting effort into helping them… very few people can pull it off.

You may be saying, “sure, what do you care? you make very little… the tax increase wouldn’t have hurt you (much)…” and you’re right… it would have ment MAYBE $20 a month. But you know what… I work for the government. I attend a state school… I have no healthcare because my mom’s employer is a hospital and doesn’t believe that her son deserves healthcare because he’s 23. But hey… we care about people… we’re in Iraq because we wanted to free the people from Saddam…

So yeah… welcome to the new Idaho. We are being pushed further and further down the ranking in lowest taxed states… soon our freeways will be nothing but chunks of asphalt, and the unemployment lines will be many times longer with former government employees in the lines, and fewer people at the counter to help them.

On the plus side… it does look like the country is fed up with Bush, and as of tonight, it seems like 9 of the 50 states in the country want Kerry to be the Democratic Running in 2004… and Lieberman bowed out. Wow… if I were living in another state today might have been a really good day. Bush’s approval rating keeps falling… I believe it’s now at something like 48% (from the Garner Group). While that number still seems high, it’s nice to see that even conservative numbers place him as an unpopular president. If it does turn out to be Kerry running (which I must say, I like him much better than Dean), I hope he can really keep the momentum going and whoop Bush’s ass back to Texas just like Clinton whooped his daddy.

Well… it’s almost 0400… I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow I hope to make a post I’ve been wanting to for over a week now dealing with a shitty anime con that should be completely blacklisted from the listing of all anime cons.

Well, since Chris asked for it, I’ll go ahead and talk about it. Not sure what he covered on it already in his LJ, but I can certainly go over what comes to mind.

First thing, and it’s a major concern with the idea of objectivity. Being Human. The very notion of someone trying to be objective is in some ways, ludicrous. You cannot possibly remove yourself so far from personal feeling to become completely objective. The human experience is based upon personal experience of every human, and when it comes to analysis of a situation, those experiences are used. Let’s say you’re a lawyer or a judge and all you are using to base your decision on is previous law. Well, that’s all due to interpretation too.

Relativity. It’s entirely what is it. The idea of objectivity is really the same as the idea of truth. You have personal truth, and universal truth. Due to the limits of the human experience, you cannot possibly know universal truth, so even if by chance your personal truth was the exact same as universal truth, you would have no way to know. There is no basis for comparison. So, what’s truth? Personal experience, opinion, rational thought, etc etc. All this is what builds someone’s personal truth. So really, objectivity is kind of a myth… though there are exceptions. One, if god exists (something that knows whatever Universal Truth). Another is a computer… but even that is programmed by a person, someone that has experience that tells them that heat is hot, cold is cold, etc etc. To a computer, what does that mean? All this is programming a computer to share experiences that a human has… so while it may be able to be more objective than a human, it’s still only objective from a human point of view. It’s not all bad though… there is a reasonable exception… math. It’s pretty damn objective… but again, only to the human point of view. To another species, or to the universal truth, it could be a long way from objective.

So does this mean objectivity is the same as truth? Seems like it to me. This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t be objective. They should be. But they shouldn’t pass it off as Truth to everyone. Societal objectivity might be able to do this… but only within that society. And until there is a world wide gathering of people into one national society, it seems rather silly to think that the US societal truth is valid to a group of Shiite Muslims on the other side of the world, or even a group of Americans… some would say that you accept the societal truth if you become a citizen of that state… that may be truth to an extent, but you cannot expect people to sign off on a truth that is only written in stone for some people, and is easily changable or avoidable to other people. But then you might argue that those two groups are difference societies… which says there’s even more of a reason to create a world society so there is no group that is able to get around these rules. But you certainly don’t want a subset of people that are non-representative creating this.

This really morphs into something Chris and I have been talking about the past few days. In Japan he has been faced with the reality of being an American in another country, and having to fight with the stereotypes that American’s face in other countries. We’re Cowboys, we don’t care about what the rest of the world thinks, we consume 70% of the worlds GEP, we have a moron for a president (that we didn’t elect), and anytime we don’t like someone, we go to war with them and to hell with what the world thinks. I think that’s basically it. The sad thing is, most of it’s true in one way or another. But, the thing that really doesn’t get across to the world at large: it isn’t all the people that are this way, it’s a subset of the population.

Texans are cowboys, a lot of the midwest are hicks, we all do help consume that much (it’s a group effort), we do have a moron president, but we didn’t vote for him (most of the nation did NOT vote for him), and anytime a subset of the nation doesn’t like someone, they send another subset of the population off to kill them.

One of the main problems, American’s don’t go abroad. They don’t show the world that the average Joe isn’t like his ruling class. It is a ruling class by the way… it’s the top 1% of the country that does all this, and the cowboy thing, well, that’s just movies and Bush (and before him, Daddy and Reagan). A lot of people come to the US from their native country, but a lot of them stay… and others go back, and talk to a small population of their native country and don’t really get across the idea that we’re not all like their pre-existing idea of us. So when someone like Chris goes over to Japan, he gets to face people from Japan, or from other countries saying something about the way Americans are… and Chris having to get into a debate with them about how we really are. Someone saying “Oregon is a hick state” (this came from someone online talking to Tara). And then having to say, “umm, actually Oregon is the most liberal state in the country, and we have the highest Lesbian Percentage of the population in the country” (would that be a percapita thing? lol, kidding, kidding).

So, what do we do, as a nation, to solve this? Well, first thing would be to quit killing people we don’t like. That would be a big chunk there, and really short term too. The other things are going to take time, are going to require something that the US has very little idea of. Long Term Solutions. As a nation, the longest we tend to look into the future is 4 years: the time from one Presidential election to the next. Last time we looked more into the future than that was when Kennedy wanted to go to the moon… but that still wasn’t very far sighted of us. We need to start thinking 10,20,40 years in the future. We need to start educating the people of this country. Raise the national education level of the country up to the point where it should be for the world’s richest country. Get the people to the point where they can truly vote in their best interest, instead of just voting for some pretty commercial add. How about we put however many billions of dollars that Bush is putting toward Mars toward Educating the Nation. But no… that would be taking money that would be going toward Corporate America and spending it within the government. And to get people to vote for you, you have to convince them that Government spending is down. Well, it is, within parts of the Government, but the money does flow. More and More each year… that’s called Growth. I think we need to coin a term for modern republican values…. Retroactive De-evolution Spending. Spend a lot to move the country back to where it was pre-Roosevelt.

Eh, I’ve gotten into Ranting. Comment on this if you want me to cover anything else… I’ve kinda lost the groove.

Until next time.

“I’d be interested to know your views on how to achieve and maintain happiness, whether the world (or people in general) are basically good or evil, and maybe your 10 favorite animes ;]”

Individuals, huh. Oddly enough that might be harder than worldwide, or even “does god exist,” etc. Because really, the religions of the world may or may not care about the existance of a supreme being, but they all attempt to bring happiness or oneness to the individual subscribers of said religion. So really, if I attempt to broach this subject, I will not only be approaching religious ramblings, but I will indeed be stepping on some feet. But hey… that’s why I wear big heavy boots… to step on feet.

I’ll first start out by saying that Happiness is completely subjective. If you don’t believe that, then I’d suggest you stop reading this and go read Ayn Rand or someone equally as annoying… perhaps Ann Coulter.

Okay… with that out of the way. Let’s get down to the tacks. To attain happiness, you must lower your expectations. lol… kidding… partially. Western civilization has poisoned the ability for someone to be happy. Bigger, better, faster. We all know how that goes… we want something, we think it will make us happy, and it usually does give us some happy feeling for a brief amount of time, but it fades and we must go consume again. That’s what we are even without western Civilization… consumers. Food, Water, etc. And ever since the harnessing of fire, some strange desire has appeared in humanity to consume more than (s)he needs. wants. Buddhists and Essenes alike would say we must eliminate the want from life to attain happiness… and there is a very good argument for that. What is a want, a desire? To look for something we do not have: almost always external to our being. A refirmation of the fact that we do not have whatever we are looking for. Be it a cool computer, or happiness itself. “I just wish I could be happy…” Doesn’t that in itself make things worse?

It is the same word game that you play when you say “Try to pick up something infront of you”… all of you that just picked it up fail. I said Try… not Do. Or “Look all you want, you’ll never find anything”. Starting to sound like Yoda? Makes sense… before Lucas f-ed it all up, Yoda was a good representation of some Eastern thought.

Back to what I was saying though… in the West we have some notion that anyone who doesn’t have a ______ (insert item here) must not be happy. “Thou shalt not covet thy…” That could be true… but many a Monk would disgree. They have the clothes on their back… and some might even prefer to have less. Hmmm… but then, they have the choice to give up their worldlies. Someone who lives in Africa with nothing does not have that choice. Hmmm… so is choice integral to happiness? Your guess is as good as mine. But I’d probably say it is. But then we get into what is choice? We all have choice whether we are wealthy or poor… it’s all a matter of magnitude.

So really, it all comes back to the first thing I said… subjective. Happiness comes from within. Be good to yourself, and let life come to you. Don’t force it… Bobby Mcferrin said it too… Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Simple Simple. Don’t dwell in worrying or doubt, or malice. Just live… let things work themselves out… when it comes down to it, it really does come out even in the end.

For now, that’s it.

BTW, have a great and safe New Year’s Eve… don’t do anything I wouldn’t do… er well… you figure that one out. And remember, the reason people have New Year’s Day off is to recover from NYE.