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I'm learning about rights in History class
We just read the Enlish Bill of Rights
Does any of you live in a place where there is not a lot of rights?
What right do you want that there isn't?

I guess I can give my opinion on rights in the United States, and disclaimer, this will be very heavy, so don't read this if you don't like to read a ton of information!

I think that there's more to how a government and its departments operate than we civilians actually know, and that the government is trying to keep us simple-minded so that there is no possibility of the populus speaking out against their actions.

Let's take the Bush - Kerry 2004 Presidential election, shall we? Florida had introduced a new type of ballot for this election, called the "butterfly ballot".

Exhibit A:


From the results of the Florida polls, there was a substantial increase in the number of votes for the Reform party, indicating that many people probably confused the second hole on the ballot for the Democratic party, as explained in the picture. Also, since the governor of Florida at the time was Jeb Bush (George Bush's cousin), there was little effort into rectifying the situation, meaning that Bush possibly won the election unfairly. Since the 2004 election, the butterfly ballot has not been instituted.

Also, let me mention the NDAA, which is currently being debated in Congress, which allows for any United States citizen to be arrested indefinitely if they are suspected of being a terrorist, which means basically anyone who causes a raucous within the country. Hopefully, this won't be abused by the Department of Defense (which is also getting $662 billion as next fiscal year's budget), but I'm not too sure, seeing as they have severely abused the Patriot Act, which basically gives the FBI a free pass to wire-tap/thoroughly investigate innocent Americans.

And need I even start on American cops:

The modern type of government is 99.9% bullshit. Goes to any government I can think of. Since the majority of people are idiots, they are more than willing to exchange freedom for security. From what I know and suspect about the way the USA government operates, it's a prime example of why democracy for all is a bad, bad idea. The first few presidents were admirable people, the ones in the last 50 years are a fucking joke. When you have more than 90% of the people being sheeple, there's your problem. Controlling idiots is much, much easier than controlling people with critical thinking who can hold their own against anything you can throw at them. A good example of idiocy is the whole 9/11 bullshit story. Left me utterly confused about how so many people can believe so many things with so little evidence. 5 min video about that, briefly summarizing the government's official story.



After which they invaded Iraq, initiated the Patriot act(which allows them to jail anyone suspected to be a terrorist without any evidence whatsoever) and spent billions only to find out that they didn't have weapons of mass destruction. This is a huge subject and I'd have to spend days to write down my thoughts on it, so I'll leave it at that. I'd be willing to discuss in the skype chat room, though. I very much doubt anybody would be interested.


About my problems with democracy, it's exactly the equality part, which may come as a surprise to a lot of you. In reality, people are not equal. They're not. I can't compare with Einstein in the field of physics any more than he can compare with me in a jog in his current state. A man who has spent 60 years traveling the world would be much more knowledgeable than a 20 year old peasant man who has spent his entire life in a farm. The idea of democracy is that everyone gets a vote about who should lead that particular government and all votes are equal. Then whoever has the majority of votes wins. Not a smart system. If you had 90 stupid people and 10 smart, obviously the stupid people will be the majority. They would pick a stupid person to lead them, since they can relate to him/her and they would feel he/she would best appeal to their interests. He/she would win the election - even if a single smart person hasn't voted for him/her. However, the smart people may feel the stupid people's choice is extremely unsatisfactory. Nobody would care, the majority are supposedly happy, right? Now this may come off as very arrogant, but I consider the "average law abiding citizen" to be stupid. The very sad thing about this is, that if the average person is stupid, that would mean half of the population would be even dumber than him/her. Makes running a government very easy, especially if you apply bullshit politics(all of politics) to the entire system, keep the people fed and dumb and make sure they don't develop critical thinking. For if you attempt to make them happy and smart, inevitably there will come a day when they will call you on your bullshit and that will be the end of your reign. I believe I've said these things before, but I'm not sure if anyone had seen them then.

For the record, I'm an atheist libertarian and I try to tweak my way of life to fit me, rather than try to fit into the way of life that's supposedly socially acceptable. If I don't consider you smart and kind and you're not bothering anyone, I'll never choose to speak to you or have any kind of interaction with you. I have no interest in what the government feels I am or am not allowed to do - I have my own personal code of conduct, I keep to it.

@wannin: Fortunately, Carlin's views about rights are extremely similar to my own(regretfully I didn't know the man existed until 2 years after his death). However, he was much more experienced at that point and he spent a lot more time writing his material, so I'll let him explain. Video in the spoiler tag.



@SilentAssassin: If you haven't familiarized yourself with George Carlin by now, I implore you to do so. The man is probably my most favorite guy who's ever been born in the USA. I've watched all his shows and he is one of my role models. That being said, I don't automatically agree with everything he says(it just so happens that his views are really incredibly similar to mine, and I had formed mine before I knew he existed). Those of you who have known me for a long time will know that I do my best to question everything I'm told and there are no exceptions. I've been constantly reminding people here to question me and everything I say. There is nothing negative about skepticism.


@clan: So, have any favorite dessert?

I'm going to have to disagree with this. Personally, no matter how uneducated someone is in government, politics, or any other subject, it does not mean that they deserve less than any other citizen, even if their decisions may lead to the detrement of the country.

From what you're saying, it seems like you want to go back to a system of government where only a small population could vote, which to me, I think, is radically unfair, mainly because that minority, no matter how smart, will begin to vote based on their own self-interests than the interests of the country, similar to how the original 13 American colonies ran their governments.

At this rate, it seems as though our only option is to fence off the entire state of Kansas and use it as a prison camp for idiots; and yes, I have seen George Carlin, who was probably the smartest person of the last 40 years. Why 40? Because 50 years ago, Kennedy was alive.

Yeah, Kennedy was great too. It's why he got shot.

I forgot to explain what I feel is a solution, sorry. Everyone should have a vote. I just don't feel like everyone belongs together in one place, that everyone should vote for the same things. To me, it would be ideal if the smart people decided to form another government, another society to live in. Separated from the rest. That way neither party will have to suffer the other party's decisions. The smart being equal with each other, the stupid being equal with each other. I don't think stupid people deserve any "less", I think they just deserve different. I don't believe I'm among the smart ones just yet. Of course, it is entirely possible for someone to get smarter or dumber. Then he/she should be allowed to switch governments, so to speak. But convincing people that they are the same will inevitably lead to them adopting traits from their environment. If you're in a room with 40 other people - you being smart and they being stupid - the odds that they'll get smarter by being around you are much lower than the odds you'll get dumber by being around them. If you let them influence you, of course. But even if you don't, you'll still have nobody "worthy" to talk to. Either you'll keep to yourself in order to not degrade, or one day you'll really want social interaction and you will drop down to their level(or pretend to, but it's easy to get lost there).

@wannin: Even the sentence "All men are created equal". No human is created. We're born. As a result of thousands of our ancestors who managed to survive and breed. Of course, when people tend to get their morals from religion, it tends to lead to some nasty stuff. More people have been killed in the name of religions than for any other reason.

You're right about the laws though. To me, the entire lawyer profession is ridiculous. Isn't the law supposed to be universal? Also, about law. It is retarded to treat law as a f*cking assembly line. Situations are different, just because some idiot in a monkey suit found a similar case 60 years ago doesn't mean the judges should make the same decision as the one it was made then. There is no universal justice. Let's say I'm in a family gathering and there's about 20 of us there. Suddenly a group of armed men attack my family and kill a few. If I manage to kill them all, should I be treated as murderer, the same as one person who killed 5 men while walking on the street just because he thought they were "gang members"? Or better yet, should it be treated as a first degree murder? Maybe I could have simply disabled them, so they could go to jail. I obviously had the intention of killing them, which could be interpreted to mean I planned how to kill them. This argument is not very well-thought out, but I think you get the point.


@clan: Also, favorite dessert would be something like this.

Mine would have to be Tiramisu -


With extra added alcohol
It gives that extra 'Zing' you know?