Not a Bad Romance

For your listening pleasure, the fruits of my labor this week:




This would not have been possible without the hard work of the delightful Benjamin Shenberger of SubZero Audio. Round of applause!

As always, please feel free to post this anywhere you wish. In the interest of not cluttering up my front page, since Blogger seems to have an issue with embedded video and pagebreaks, I included the lyrics on the song's YouTube page.

I haven't forgotten Govt. 101 -- I've just been hard at work cranking this out this week. Stay tuned.

Govt 101: Learning Left From Right

I've been pondering the direction to take this blog for awhile now, and I think I may have hit upon it.

I was talking to my relatively politically apathetic younger sister the other day, and realized that she really doesn't know the things I've come to believe or how I got to my conclusions. Basically, my whole immediate family thinks I'm nuts for waving the Tea Party flag. So while I'll still be commenting on current events whenever one captures my fancy and I think I have a point that needs making, in the meantime I'll be writing as though my lovely little sister has actually taken me up on my offer. Even if she doesn't, I hope that someone can use this to help communicate their own ideas to rather incredulous friends and family members. I can't be the only one, right?

Right?

At any rate, Jennifer, this is for you.

GOVT 101: Learning Left From Right


When I was a junior in high school, I took an AP US History course. Early in the course, we discussed what constitutes right wing vs left wing stances on various issues, and to illustrate, our teacher drew a little chart on the board that looked something like this:

I dutifully copied it down, but something about it didn't seem right, and I couldn't put my finger on it. It wasn't until about ten years later (which, yes, was fairly recently) that I finally figured out what was wrong with this picture: What are shown as complete opposites -- Communism and Monarchy -- are in fact both totalitarian forms of government. They are not opposites; they are at least cousins. The only substantial difference between the two is one of administration.

Most people nowadays would take that first spectrum, replace "monarchy" with "fascism" (monarchies are soooo 18th century) and call it good. But this leaves us with the same problem -- what are being shown as polar opposites are in fact closely related ideologies.

The fact is that the true left and right spectrum looks like this:

In simple terms: the more decisions and responsibilities you have over your own life, the farther to the right your government is. The more it makes those decisions and assumes those responsibilities for you, the farther to the left it is. Right equals less intrusive; left equals more intrusive. If you sit down and start putting various forms of government on this spectrum, you'll notice it's a little left-heavy. Tyranny has many names.

(And please don't think I'm trying to disparage my history teacher in any way. He's a good teacher and a smart man. He got the chart that he drew from the curriculum; it appears to be regarded as common knowledge. Unfortunately, this is a case where the "common knowledge" turns out to be a bunch of bunk.)

Coming next: More charty awesomeness. Stay tuned.

That's What You Get

 
I reworked the lyrics to this song over the summer -- "waking up in Vegas" seemed to me to be a good metaphor for how a growing portion of the 52% of the country who voted Obama in 2008 is beginning to feel about that vote. The vocals are mine too. I put it up on YouTube a little over a week ago, where it has so far garnished over 800 hits. Not bad for a first run.

("First run, you say?" Oh yes. There are more like this to come.)

If anyone reading this has the skillz to put together video to go with it, by all means feel free to do so and/or contact me.

And the lyrics; everybody sing along!


You gotta help me out
It's all a blur last year
I voted for this guy
Then he up and disappeared
He promised Hope and Change
But we just got more of the same
Lies and corruption
Spending all our kids' money

Just called the White House
To give a piece of my mind
Got called a racist
And then they laughed and told me

Better get used to all the D.C. drama
That's what you get for voting for Obama
Shut up, get back in line, do as you're told now
That's what you get for voting for Obama

The media spin won't fly
I've seen it with my own eyes
Spare me your frickin'
Tingly legs, you don't fool me

Just called the Congress
And told them this is a crime
Got called a Nazi
And then they laughed and told me

We're gonna make this government grow massive
That's what you get for voting for Progressives
Shut up, get back in line, do as you're told now
That's what you get for voting for Progressives

They try to push all this
Information overload
Try to keep their own control
Send out an SOS
And get the word out
We're gonna take back that town
Start this November
Remember what they told us
Remember what they told us
Remember what to tell them, tell hem, tell them

Oh
Get out, you'll have to find a new vocation
That's what you get for messing with our nation
Shut up and get into the unemployed line
That's what you get for messing with our nation

That's what you get baby
Send them packing
Take take take it back now
Don't need a bailout, baby
Just need a ballot baby

What I've Been Up To

Shortly after I started this blog, I started to become a more active participant in another, much larger blog I was following. This one kind of fell by the wayside as a result.

Recently, however, I was on the receiving end of a public missive from the other blog, the upshot of which is that I am no longer welcome on their site, stemming from their misreading of an email I had sent them.

I'm not gonna lie -- I took that missive rather hard. But the truth is that, in the end, there is no such thing as bad experience -- it's all in what you do with it. So, after stepping back and taking a hard look at the situation, I've decided to pick this back up. I felt prompted to make this blog in the first place; perhaps this whole mess has been a sort of Nudge from On High to get back on task. I am sorry for my hiatus, and will do my best to post here regularly.