she's got everything i need...

i think, since i'm the political/social arm (read: not-sports) of this blog, i'm going to post on somethings that have been aggravating me.

It has become popular for conservative commentators to state the those on welfare should lose their right to vote. in fact, one (Michael Savage) said: "Do you think a person on welfare has the right to vote? I don't. Why should a person who is on public assistance maintain the right to vote? Tell me why. Where is it written that they should have the right to vote?... I support them, and they should have the same vote I do? That would be like saying an infant has the right to vote or an insane person has the right to vote. Why should a welfare recipient have the right to vote? They're only gonna vote themselves a raise."

another commentator, Jim Quinn has stated, while discussing the history of property rights in the United States, "Originally, if you didn't own land, you didn't vote, and there was a good reason for it: because those without property will always vote away the property of other people unto themselves, and that's the beginning of the end... But, oh no, that was -- that was just too mean-spirited."

if i hate anything, its misinformation and blatant lying and stupidity. first, mr. savage's argument is logically meaningless. he's basically stating that those who vote their self-interest should not be allowed to vote. unfortunately for his theory, most if not all of modern politics and economics are founded on self-interest. in fact, self-interest underlies the political thought that defines our political perspective. his comment sounds great as something you shout at something, but it lacks all substance.

aside from the meaninglessness of these arguments and their total lack of substance, there is another fundamental reason why the right to vote was expanded to non-property owners. the beginning of the emergence of our modern economic framework required that the vote be expanded. non-landowners began to play a larger role in society, especially respectable political society. therefore, as their contribution increased it became more and more difficult to exclude them, and there could have been unfortunate results if these individuals were not extended the ability to vote. these changes came as society was moving from an agrarian economic structure to a modern industrial structure. with these changes in the means of production were necessitated changes in political and social structure. there is a cognitive dissonance between the market ideas of conservatives and comments such as this. free markets, in my opinion, are the pinnacle of democracy. individuals all have a say in what is made, what we have, and how we distribute it. even the idea of removing the vote should be completely unfathomable to people with this worldview, it is to me.

there is a serious problem in america, its the nature of our discourse. its full of shit. everyone is lying to everyone else. the problem is that not everyone can sort this stuff out, or see through this stuff. people really believe that obama is a muslim. people really think that one tax plan is welfare and the other is not. all tax plans can be defined as welfare under McCain's definition, including his own. obama and the unions are not honest about mccain's health plan. no one can make an informed decision whatsoever.

people are also attacking colin powell. i say kudos to him. he was pushed to the end because of the religion-baiting and real-america baiting going on in this campaign. he's right, its not un-american to be muslim. and that we make it sound like that is wrong. there is no national religion. in fact, if i had my way, everyone would realize that religion is a lie. but, sadly, i do not have my way, and people still wander along believing in some guy somewhere who started stuff a long time ago (just disagreeing on what is long) and cares about all of us (so long as bad stuff isn't happening, and actually, we seem to think the bad stuff is caring too, wish i could convince more women of that). back to the point... it is retarded that religion is playing such a role in this campaign, even if it is on the sidelines. it makes me forlorn.

finally, republicans are trying to make the financial collapse about housing for poor people and democrats are trying to blame greenspan. LISTEN, THIS ISN'T A BLAME THING. what's the point, first off? second, its not like there was one mistake that sent this whole thing spiralling down. this isn't time to kill markets either, as some news outlets have been suggesting. they work, but we just fucked up. it happens. we haven't been doing this for very long... it isn't perfect yet. we've only had real markets for what, 100 years? the housing collapse isn't about the FMs getting mortgages for inner-city (read: minorities) residents. most of those sub-prime loans were not made by lenders participating in the FMs. even the portion of blame they do deserve is not enough on its own to bring everything down like it did. and dems shouldn't blame anyone for not seeing this coming, gary becker has talked about how few people predicted a fall like this and the high costs of listening to warnings and getting people to stop riding a strongly increasing market. if people keep sharing these ideas that have no real merit, we'll never actually fix the cause of this problem.

so that's what i'm calling for. the use and exercise of reason, the most human of all human traits. everyone needs to stop behaving like an ass. currently all of our information markets are facing a problem similar to the housing market 5 years ago. we've got a bubble of all this valueless crap out there muddying up the real value of information and parading around as real value. we deserve good information. anyone have any ideas on how to get it out to the public?