Voter fraud in Texas.... Texas GOVERNMENT, that is!

Okay, check this out and see how fast your jaw hits the floor....



Do you really know what your state legislator is VOTING FOR? It's bad enough that these corrupt bitches and bastards don't bother READING the things they vote for, but now you have places like Texas where the legislators don't even know they're VOTING!!!

BTW, special thanks goes to the folks at Reason for finding this one!

Brutally Honest Rant - 09/26/07

NOTE: As of this time we are experiencing problems with loading the current audio file to the server. This should be resolved shortly.

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Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Do You REALLY Know Your Constitution?
Audio Transcripts
09/26/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well it is the end of September… we’re going to soon be wrapping up the year, so now is probably a good time to get some of the little things out of the way.

First, all through October I’m planning a new mini-series that will fit right in with the spirit of Halloween. It’s called “The Worst Fears”, and the thing about this miniseries that will stand out is that it won’t be a bunch of rants, but rather little narrations describing those worst fears and why they would qualify as such. Long time Brutally Honest supporters pretty much know what to expect since I’ve done these kinds of specials before, but this will be the first time that I’ll actually be doing a whole string of them.

Second… for those of you who haven’t been tuning in over at the Brutally Honest blogs or haven’t been reading the transcripts, you may have been missing out on some really great commentary over at ShockNet Radio. For the past few months I’ve been doing a special segment over on ShockNet Radio called “The News Pundit Report with David 2”, which is my take on various news stories of the week. My segment is part of a weekend show called “American Heathen®” which is hosted by my friend RJ Evans every Friday and Saturday nights from 7-11pm Eastern Time, and I URGE you to PLEASE tune in over at ShockNetRadio.com and give a listen. Seriously. Please listen in…

Because… Third… I’ve got some SERIOUS changes in store for the audio rants for 2008! The biggest of the changes will obviously be the audio format. Real Audio will be a thing of the past. One way or another, I’m taking this show to MP3 format. That means a larger audience base.

NOW… what other changes are in store will depend on you guys. That’s why I need you guys to tune in over at ShockNetRadio.com and listen to the “News Pundit Report”! Listen in, join the online discussions there, and let folks know that you’re there because of Brutally Honest.

Okay, on with the show…

There was a certain celebration that I’m sure many of you didn’t realize was going on. It happened on September 17^th.

Now WHAT happened on that day, you wonder? Well if you don’t know then you failed history… and I mean RECENT history!

You see, back in 2004, someone in Congress realized that September 17^th was the day that the United States Constitution was officially ratified back in 1787. Rather convenient of them to remember it THEN, don’t you? I suppose it’s better late than never. So they passed a law… or rather they had a law get WEASELED in… that declared that day to be Constitution Day and REQUIRED that any school that gets federal funding teach their students about that day and what it means.

Still drawing a blank? Not surprised. I mean, we have a few other more important things going on around this time! We have school just starting up for students, we have that HUGE federal holiday called Labor Day, not to mention the accompanying telethon. And then we have that huge neo-con pseudo-sexual gratification day… what is that called? Oh, wait a minute, Bill O’Reilly comes on the air EVERY day, doesn’t he?

I hope that you weren’t thinking that I would even DIGNIFY that other date by linking it to the neo-cons. No, I’m sorry, but they don’t deserve that date, and they certainly have no right to capitalize on that date by using fear and terror to remind us of what happened.

Needless to say, it’s sort of understandable that people wouldn’t really give a care about when the United States Constitution was ratified, given all of these other things going on around this time anyway.

Understandable… but not acceptable… or, for that matter, forgivable.

You know, there isn’t a week that doesn’t go by when some barely functional person… be they a janitor, a shyster lawyer, a used car salesman, or even a tenured college professor… writes a letter to the editor in some newspaper publication and complains about free speech and proclaims that our founding fathers NEVER INTENDED to protect speech that was offensive! Or, for that matter, protect speech that INSULTS someone in our government!

And every time I come across these barely functioning people, I am absolutely amazed about how utterly CLUELESS they are! Seriously. I mean, if we were talking about simply uninformed rednecks or geriatrics suffering from Alzheimer’s, then maybe I could cut these folks some slack. But we’re talking about people who are supposedly educated, or in some instances WELL-educated, and they are speaking as though they personally KNEW what our founding fathers were thinking.

Oh and by the way, this little discussion didn’t just spring up overnight just because of MoveOn.org’s ad about General Petraeus the other week. This argument has actually been festering for several years now. You’re not supposed to be criticizing our president, or the Republicans, or conservatives in general. Or there’s not supposed to be violence or nudity on the airwaves, or people aren’t supposed to use so-called “hate speech”. Our founding fathers “supposedly” wouldn’t have allowed it.

So that makes me wonder… have these people ever actually read a little document called the Declaration of Independence? I mean actually READ it from start to finish. I have. Our founding fathers had some pretty choice words about King George III of England. They gave a long list of crimes that ol’ George was guilty of committing, some of which weren’t even true, and then accused the king of actually being UNFIT to wear the crown.

Now do you REALLY THINK that our founding fathers would make such accusations about the King of England… APPOINTED BY GOD according to the Divine Right of Kings… and then favor restrictions against others from using that kind of speech? Remember, our founding fathers, simply on the allegations they presented in that document alone, not only committed an act of treason against the lawful government of the time… but they also were guilty of BLASPHEMY because they challenged the authority of one who was supposedly appointed BY GOD and also served as the leader of that government’s official religion! Do you REALLY think that they would commit these crimes, put them to paper, put their futures and the futures of their families on the line, and then turn around and say “well, we only support peaceful and respectful conversations”? Do you REALLY think that our founding fathers were a bunch of two-faced hypocrites on a scale that would make the hypocrisy of today’s politicians pale in comparison?

You know, I’ll be the first one to admit this: our founding fathers weren’t perfect. They weren’t gods or anywhere near to being gods. They were human. They had plenty of faults and failings. They talked about freedom, while many of them owned slaves. They wanted people to have the right to vote, but only applied that to male landowners.

And you know what? There’s a LOT of things that our founding fathers would have never considered. They would have never envisioned things like railroads and automobiles. Radio, television, telephones, public schools… even INDUSTRY itself… these were things that never existed when our founding fathers lived. Would you, then, believe that the scope of the protections in the U.S. Constitution should STOP when it involves things that never existed during the time of our founding fathers? Take a look at the FCC if you need an example of what I mean.

And let’s get brutally honest here… what the barely functional in our society do when they claim that our founding fathers would or wouldn’t have intended things to happen is that they presume that our country was based on these PEOPLE. That they were based ON George Washington, or that they were based ON Thomas Jefferson, or ON John Adams, or ON Benjamin Franklin. And anything that THESE PEOPLE did or did not do in their lives would be the ONLY things that would be allowed. In other words, they believe in a government of MEN… just like the British ran things under King George III.

They don’t understand… and they certainly don’t WANT to understand… that the US Constitution wasn’t based ON our founding fathers. They were based on IDEAS that came FROM our founding fathers. Ideas that TRANSCEND time and progress! And some of those ideas couldn’t fully be REALIZED in their time!

It would take four score and seven years before the people realized that slavery was wrong, and even then it wasn’t given up without a fight. It would take GENERATIONS before people would wake the hell up and realize what Freedom of Speech REALLY means! It’s more than just “political” speech, or speech that isn’t branded as “hateful” or “offensive”. But, as is demonstrated by the barely functional, this is something that STILL needs to be actively defended!

And that’s the really tricky part here. A system of government based on IDEAS only really works when you have people willing to DEFEND those ideas. To stand up for those ideas and champion them just like our founding fathers did. Anyone can stand up and fight for a political or religious leader. Anyone can stand up and fight for a geographic area. Countless millions have done just that throughout history. But in order for our system of government to truly WORK the way that our founding fathers INTEND it to, we have to be willing to stand up and fight for the IDEAS behind it.

Clearly we have plenty of people who fail to get the bigger picture. They are so fixated on momentary threats and phantoms of what COULD happen that they forget that we’ve been down this specific road several times before. They wrap themselves up in the icons, but they have no inkling of what those icons really MEAN. And so they pervert the meaning of those icons by making them into whatever they want those icons to be. Patriotism becomes thuggery. Freedom becomes compliance. Free speech becomes “hate speech”.

That’s yet another reason why Constitution Day has been badly ignored since its inception back in 2004. We really don’t care about the Constitution anymore… so why should we bother to celebrate it, never mind teach it to our children? We have more important things to worry about in this world, don’t we? Like who will win American Idol. And did you catch the new season of shows on TV yet? And, oh yeah, what’s on Fox News?

(Computer – some appropriate stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

You know, a few days ago someone asked me about whether or not our system of justice is color-blind. I responded that the real question is whether or not the society that SUPPORTS that justice system is color-blind, because as long as it isn’t, it certainly will not support a justice system that is SUPPOSED to be so.

Well the same answer applies to our system of government. It will only support freedom when WE do. As long as we treat freedom as just another political buzzword, then we really shouldn’t expect anyone else in the world to treat it any differently.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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Great rant on free speech!

Here's a guy who knows how to give a good rant!

Henry Rollins is both an actor and a singer. Well, okay, he's a singer who dabbles in acting. But when he speaks his mind, he really knows his stuff. Anyway, he's got a GREAT bit about free speech that you should watch and learn...

Brutally Honest Rant - 09/19/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Comedy and the REAL Meaning of PC
Audio Transcripts
09/19/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

When it comes to minority groups in the United States, there is one that is both the smallest group possible and the one that is often attacked, marginalized, and discriminated against.

Anyone want to guess what that group is?

Well obviously I’m not talking about Christians… because they’re not the smallest group possible. And contrary to the ongoing delusions of certain Christians, they’re NOT the ones often attacked, marginalized and discriminated against. In fact, Christianity itself is guilty of BEING the persecutors more times then they ever are persecuted against.

In fact you can toss out pretty much every organized religion from this category as well. Toss out the atheists and agnostics as well, although they actually come CLOSE to fitting the description, and some of them may even know the correct answer to the question!

Likewise, toss out the gender groups and the racial groups and even the ethnic groups.

You want to know what is the SMALLEST minority group possible and the one often attacked and marginalized and discriminated against?

It is the minority group of ONE. It’s the individual.

Think about it for a moment. How many times has individuality been trashed? How many times has it taken a back seat to some whims and demands of any number of groups? “The needs of the many…” how many times has that been invoked in one way or another?

We treat individuality as a luxury at best… and at worst we treat it as a crime against humanity.

Comedian Kathy Griffin probably gave the best example of how badly we treat individuality in her recent speech at the Emmy Awards. When she got an award for her cable show “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List” she announced that she would NOT give thanks to Jesus, because she said that Jesus had the LEAST to do with her winning the award. She then announced that the Emmy statue itself would be her new god.

Well obviously that invoked the WRATH of the self-righteous goon squad over in the Catholic Church, because you don’t DARE trash Jesus while the Catholic goon squad is around! They asked for and easily got their demands for censorship, even though the rest of the thinking populace was wondering what the hell the fuss was all about!

Well I’ll TELL you what it’s all about! It’s all about two things.

The first is the REAL definition of “PC”. People keep on saying that “PC” stands for “politically correct”… well that’s a load of BULL! You want to know what “PC” really stands for? POWER and CONTROL! That’s how it is used! You have some special interest group that gets “offended” by something someone else says and they use THAT as the means to seize POWER over the masses and thus CONTROL what they say and think!

Good squad leader William Donahue has been wielding that power UNCHECKED of late, going so far as to actually threaten to HARM someone who dared disagree with his goon squad mentality. THAT’S what I mean by power and control, folks.

Oh, and by the way, thanks Mr. Donahue for showing your TRUE Christian motives on camera. If those are the rules that you wish to go by, then don’t be surprised if someone takes you up on that offer to “take it outside” and gives you the judgment that has been LONG overdue! Just don’t expect any sympathy afterwards because you have already publicly forfeited any and all claims of injury.

And the second thing is this… the whole phony “outrage” excuse being foisted on us by the Catholic goon squad is to keep people from understanding the TRUTH… and the truth is that Kathy Griffin IS RIGHT! Not about making the Emmy statue her god, mind you, but in her assertion that Jesus is the LEAST responsible for her winning that statue!

Let’s get brutally honest here… I am SICK AND TIRED of hearing people marginalize individual achievement!

Kathy Griffin didn’t win that Emmy statue because some higher power so declared her. She won because OTHER PEOPLE decided that she was the best option of the group! She won because of HER TALENT! HER talent! Not God’s talent! Not Jesus’ talent! HERS!

You want to know if her win was TRULY the will of some higher power? If NOBODY voted for her at all and yet her name showed up on all the ballots. THAT would be a sign of a higher power at work!

Oh, but wait a minute, that would also be called “voter fraud”, wouldn’t it? Boy the almighty just can’t catch a break, huh?

But we don’t really RECOGNIZE individual achievement! We marginalize it! We condemn individual success just like we condemn and marginalize everything else about individuality.

We have sports teams that actually believe that their wins are ONLY because GOD is on their side, but their losses are somehow all because of mistakes made by INDIVIDUALS. The funny part is that a SMART person would to it in reverse… give credit for individuals and blame God for their mistakes. But then again, thinking and belief really have a hard time getting along.

I’ve been talking about this for quite some time on a variety of subjects, but little by little we are losing any kind of meaningful sense of SELF. Liberals and conservatives argue over which collectivist mentality is superior, but they both seem to tacitly agree that individuality in and of itself is EVIL.

Little by little, they both try to DEMONIZE individuality. And the BEST way to do that is to deny individual achievement. YOU can’t achieve anything… it’s all gotta come through some external factor. You have to thank your parents or your friends for being who you are… or you have to thank some kind of deity for it. You can’t say that it was YOUR talent and YOUR imagination and YOUR skills that do it. Oh no… that’s somehow WRONG, but they can’t understand WHY it is.

And THAT is what Kathy Griffin was exposing when she exclaimed that Jesus had the LEAST to do with her Emmy award. She’s telling all of those people who start out their acceptance speeches with praising God and praising Jesus to get over themselves. How you were brought up only plays a small part of the things that make you a success. It’s using what YOU have that makes it unique. YOU make it what it is. Not God. Not your parents or your friends. YOU do. It’s all on YOU because YOU are the one that put it all together and made it happen.

If you’re going to blame individuals for mistakes then you also have to credit them for their successes. You’re not going to get good behavior from people if all that you’re doing is demonizing what they do.

(Computer – some VERY appropriate stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

If you think about it, every exercise in the virtues of individuality seem to all come from comedians. Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Rusty Warren, Sam Kinison… sure they take the lumps for what they say, but it’s really ironic that some of the most serious and profound debates about our look at society come from people who make us laugh.

Maybe instead of needing more churches, we need more comedy clubs. At least the comedian has better hours. Who really wants to get up early on the weekends anyway?

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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Special commentary TONIGHT over at ShockNet Radio

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that once again I've been inspired (and encouraged) to come up with another special comment to wrap up tonight's "News Pundit Report" over at ShockNet Radio. Once again this will be a great sampler of what my usual commentary style is like in my weekly commentaries and columns, so if you've never heard me give one of my audio rants, here's another opportunity for you to tune in!!

"The News Pundit Report with David 2" is a regular segment of ShockNet Radio's "American Heathen®" program which airs every Friday and Saturday nights from 7-11pm EST (4-8pm PST). There is an interactive chat room where listeners can contribute thoughts to the show and quite often those comments are aired.

So PLEASE tune in tonight and hear my special "Brutally Honest" commentary!

http://www.shocknetradio.com

Bring a helmet!

Brutally Honest Rant - 09/12/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Polarization and the Idiot Factor
Audio Transcripts
09/12/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

My friend RJ over at ShockNet Radio was asking recently about why America seems to be so badly polaraized in all sorts of different ways. You have neo-cons, you have Muslim jihadists, you have Christian evangelicals, you have liberal wackos, and you even have extreme atheists. YES, there is such a thing as extreme atheism!

Look in the business world and you have extreme socialists versus extreme corporatists. People who think that everything should be free, versus those who think that everything should be up for sale to the highest bidder. You have people who think that everything should be shared and should be free, and then you have the copyright Gestapo that send out shakedown lawyers to demand money from you for just mentioning a song or a movie.

Everything seems to be zero-sum and extremist. There doesn’t seem to be middle ground for any of it, and nobody seems to even WANT middle ground! There is no compromise.

And it’s all done for a reason!

People have been wondering why conservatives and neo-conservatives have managed to be so damn successful in the field of talk radio. Liberals certainly would like to know why that is because that’s the group that has stymied them for years now. They can’t match the kind of audience that conservatives have been bringing in, and radio stations certainly don’t want to give them a platform if they can’t bring in audiences like that, and they want to know why that is.

Well my friends, I’m going to give you the secret of why CTR – Conservative Talk Radio – has been so damn successful for all of these years. And the strange part is… this is something that the liberals should know, because it’s something they’ve used as well.

The secret is this: they appeal to the idiots in our society!

Now when I say “idiots”, I don’t mean the people who are mentally retarded or are suffering from Alzheimer’s or brain damage. I’m talking about those people who are barely functional in our society, and are so BY CHOICE!

You know these people! You see them every day! Maybe you’re even one of them. These are the people with WAY too much stuff going on at any given time. These are the folks who multitask while driving. They’re talking on the cellphone while drinking their lattes and trying to munch on some French Fries while listening to the radio and driving down the highway… and if something else were to complicate that delicate balance that they love to create, then they’re going to have a REALLY bad day. They may not get hurt… because they love to drive urban assault vehicles… but they WILL have a really bad day because of it.

Now barely functionally people in our society have short attention spans. They have so much going on in their lives that they really can’t formulate long and complicated ideas. This is why they are idiots by choice. They really just don’t have the time to THINK! Everything is action. They’re having to DO things and they don’t have a chance to THINK about them. Thinking is for other people. They expect things to just WORK for them.

There’s also two things about the barely functional that I’ve observed… they don’t like to hear the word “no”, and they certainly don’t want to hear WHY the answer is “no”. They don’t care what it is, they want gratification and they want it now and they will go through hell and back to find someone who won’t tell them “no”. Whoever came up with the business idea that “the customer is always right” obviously never had to deal with these kinds of social idiots. But I digress here…

Something else about the barely functional that needs to be pointed out… many of the barely functional are also parents. That pretty much explains why there are so many barely functional folks around because parenting is a full-time job in and of itself, never mind if you have to work for a living on top of that.

It should be noted, then, that there is no sense of SELF around the barely functional. Parenting, by its very nature, destroys all sense of self, but the demands of the workplace also do that quite well. You’re not a person, you’re a caretaker and a teacher and a babysitter, and, most importantly, you are an employee-slash-account number. Banks, credit card companies, utility services, they all refer to you as a NUMBER, not as a person. Even the federal government knows you only as your Social Security Number.

So now here comes the conservatives, and do you know what they do? They play up on this! The conservatives cater to the barely functional.

They will tell you that once upon a time things weren’t this complicated! Well, yeah, of course they weren’t! WE made them this complicated! But they won’t tell you that part, because they’re trying to coddle you.

They reduce everything to simple Idiotspeak. They point to a church and they say “Let THEM tell you what to think!” They point to conservative politicians and they say “Let THEM make the hard decisions for you!” They point to the police and they say “Let THEM catch and beat-up bad guys!” They point to the FCC and they say “Let THEM babysit your kids!” They point to the military and they say “Let THEM kill the enemy!”

And they HAVE to keep things that simple! Even in their books – which, by the way, writing one is pretty much a requirement for the CTR crowd – everything is designed for the barely functional mentality. This is where they normally would bring in long drawn-out philosophies and detailed stances on subjects. Instead you have anecdotes, you have limited comparisons and abbreviated studies, and you have simplistic statements repeated and rehashed from their broadcasts. This is so they don’t have to constantly repeat the whole thing every week. All they have to do is say “hey, just go buy my book and look at page 693 where I talk about this subject”. Simplistic.

And this is where the polarization comes in. They actually GIVE the barely functional an identity and something for them to identify with. You think like us, you agree with our simplistic statements and our simplistic ideas, so you are one of US. You’re not one of “THEM”… the people who made your life complicated and messed up.

And that’s what they tell people! They tell people that this is really a WAR between “US” and “THEM”. They use war-like phrases and use war-like euphemisms, because THAT is what gets the attention of the barely functional. It’s confrontational, it’s zero-sum extremism, but it WORKS! It gets your attention! It gets people fired up on both sides of the issue! And it’s simplistic enough to be used as sound-bytes, making them GREAT promotional spots, which is another boom for radio and TV broadcasters.

AND not to mention that the simplicity of conservative programming works for the limited timeframe for commercial radio and television broadcasters. Remember folks, the stuff on radio and TV is merely FILLER for their REAL purpose of broadcasting… namely to air advertising! If you have seven minutes between commercials segments, then you talk for maybe three minutes, and then have a bunch of callers call in, and you get to control the callers so the time frame is completely manageable. That’s why broadcast providers LOVE conservative talk radio, because it fits right into their hidden agenda.

Now… what I’m saying about CTR pretty much flies in the face of what the conservatives LOVE to portray themselves as! They LOVE to portray themselves as the voices of REASON, as opposed to the irrational stances of their liberal critics. In TRUTH, however, they’re not the voices of REASON, but instead are the voices of simplicity.

And this is where liberals lose it… because once upon a time they actually HAD that connection. They understood the barely functional. They could relate to the barely functional. And how do I know this? Because THEY were the ones who created the Pavlovian link between tax cuts and class warfare! It really IS Pavlovian too, because all you have to do is say “TAX CUTS” and you have to BITE YOUR TONGUE to keep yourself from immediately blurting out “FOR THE RICH”! It’s absolutely MASTERFUL how they were able to condition the masses to think that! And to DEMONIZE it too!

Rich versus poor… that’s a simplistic concept for the barely functional! That’s the original “us” versus “them” struggle in politics! And who is “the rich”? Well most of us would say that WE AREN’T! Even if we make $100-grand a year, we will still consider ourselves as barely making do. And besides, WE KNOW who “the rich” are! We see them on MTV’s show “Cribs”! Robin Leech will tell us all about them and how they live, and WE certainly don’t live like them, so we aren’t “rich”. That’s the mindset, folks, and the liberals are still able to pull that out every so often.

So the liberals had that connection once upon a time. And how did they lose it? They became too elitist. They’d talk about struggles with the poor and then go home to their mansions. They would hang around power players and Hollywood stars and elitist scholars sitting on their tenure at universities all across the country. You know, it’s a little hard for the barely functional to agree with someone who talks about struggling to make ends meet and then spends their summers at exclusive resorts with the producers of “The West Wing”.

“No blood for oil!” GREAT slogan that the liberals used any time we would talk about the Middle East. But there’s just one problem… WE NEED OIL! Yeah, it’s easy to say “No blood for oil” if you’re not paying $100 every three days to fuel up your urban assault vehicle. That kind of statement doesn’t sit well with the barely functional. “Kill them all and let God sort them out!” Now THAT’S something that the barely functional can understand!

Let’s get brutally honest here… the GREAT SECRET to conservatives and neo-conservatives has NOT been their righteousness of their causes or the strengths of their arguments, but because they managed to coddle and cater to those who choose to not do too much thinking!

Think about it for a minute… in 2004, John Kerry was seen as an intellectual elitist. He would go windsailing and skiing and do Botox injections. How many of you do those things? George W. Bush would clear brush at his Texas ranch, getting around in his pickup truck… the kind of truck that many of the barely functional are driving themselves to bankruptcy trying to make the payments on. And he CERTAINLY was far from being an intellectual! In fact, he probably would make Barney Fife look like a Rhodes Scholar in comparison. Now you tell me who had the upper hand with the great unwashed?

And extremism works because it gets attention! It stands out amidst all of the other stances and positions.

Plus it does something else… it serves as a poor substitute for individuality. That’s why people become extremists… they feel they’ve lost that sense of self, and they try to find it again through associating with something dramatic. They really want to BE the cause because they don’t know how to BE themselves!

My friend RJ is right to be concerned about the rise of extremism and radical polarization in our society. But the solution isn’t in trying to encourage moderation or trying to find common ground. The solution rests with restoring a REAL sense of individuality. Once that happens, moderation and common ground become second nature.

(Computer – some stuff about television and mind-mush)
(Fade Music In – “Who am I” by Peace Orchestra)

You know we’re all guilty of getting lost in all of the crazy things going on in our lives. I’m just as guilty of this as the next person. But I really have very little sympathy for those who are barely functional in our society… the ones who are idiots by choice, and choose to remain so. It’s one thing to be played. It’s another to put yourself in a position so that you can’t help but be played! I am a supporter of individuality and personal responsibility, and as such you have an obligation to help yourself out instead of relying on others to do that for you.

Of course politicians and special interest groups – including the talk show hosts – don’t want you to hear that. They would rather keep you barely functional. It makes doing their jobs a whole lot easier.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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Ron Paul and "Al Qaeda"?

In the spirit of JibJab... (but without the lengthy musical numbers)

Ron Paul taking orders from Al Qaeda?!

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Support him or not, he does have a point...

Something special tonight...

Hey folks, just wanted to let you guys know that I have something special planned for tonight's News Pundit Report over on ShockNet Radio. If you haven't had a chance to tune in yet, THIS is the perfect time for you to do so!

The News Pundit Report is my fifteen-minute segment which talks about news with my own unique take on them. Unlike my regular rants and columns, this is totally off-the-cuff... unless of course I include a special comment like I will do for tonight's show. The News Pundit Report is a regular part of ShockNet Radio's "American Heathen®" program which airs every Friday and Saturday nights from 7-11pm EST (6-10 central, 4-8 pacific) and is broadcast both on ShockNetRadio.com and FreethoughtRadio.com. The "American Heathen®" show also has a live chat room that listeners can take part in, and some parts of the discussions there do end up on the air.

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Brutally Honest Rant - 09/05/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Destined to Fail
Audio Transcripts
09/05/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

“Good ol’ Charlie Brown”, the round-headed central character in the legendary “Peanuts” comic strip, was the ultimate born loser. I say “was” because the comic strip pretty much ended when creator Charles Schultz died. It’s been living on in repeats since 2000. This is the kid who couldn’t seem to get a break, no matter how hard he tried.

But probably the most notable thing about his animated young life was that the biggest of failures that he endured were intentionally caused by other people. He never could kick the football from Lucy Van Pelt because she would intentionally sabotage it every single time. She would orchestrate the other kids to make fun of him. She would belittle him at every opportunity. She would demand she take part in team activities and then sabotage them. In fact, Lucy was always the saboteur of Charlie Brown’s life… which makes you wonder how a kid like that would ever grow up with that kind of abuse and torment on his psyche.

Charlie Brown was destined to fail, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how optimistic he was, no matter how determined he was to finally win, he would fail… because other people would make sure that he failed.

If you think about it, there are plenty of people out there who are just like Charlie Brown. They try hard, they think they can pull off a win, but they simply can’t do it. They can’t because the system is intentionally DRIVING them to fail!

Think for a moment about the gambling casinos. Everyone who goes there has dreams of beating the house and raking in the fortune, but everything about casinos are designed to make sure that you LOSE. That’s how they make their money. The odds are ALWAYS stacked in favor of the house. And it’s all legitimate.

Lending institutions have certainly pulled this off with their subprime mortgages. Millions of people who were sold into the compulsion to buy or to refinance their homes did so through subprime mortgages that essentially were DESIGNED to fail. Interest rates that would go up and up and up beyond the ability to make even the minimum payments, forcing those people to go into bankruptcy and foreclosure. I mean, come on folks, did you REALLY think that Federal Reserve Board would keep key rates at zero-point-five percent forever?

So who do you blame in this? Do you blame the people who were suckered and pressured into getting into these risky loans even though there was a chance they would fail? Or do you blame the lending institutions that convinced Congress to change the rules and allowed these kinds of risky lending practices to take place?

There’s plenty of blame to go around here, folks. I understand the drive by stupid and naïve people to convince you to buy things that you shouldn’t. I hear it as well. Stupid and naïve people tell me that I should sell my car once I pay off the loan and then get another car… as well as get another car loan. Stupid and naïve people tell me that I should buy a house for no reason whatsoever other than to buy a house. Never mind wondering if I could afford to make the mortgage payments and pay for the utility costs, homeowners insurance, and taxes associated with owning a house. Oh no, just BUY a house. Do these people even THINK about these things? Nope. Not in the least! They’re just parroting the sales pitches that they heard from other people.

Well guess what? You HAVE to think about these things! And you have to say NO to them! Just like you have to say NO to those stupid credit card offers that you see on TV. Those stupid American Express commercials and those stupid Chase Visa commercials that tell you that you can do all sorts of really NEAT things with their cards. Yeah they’re great IF you can afford to keep up with the payments on them AFTERWARDS. If you can’t, then you’re screwed!

College students are falling into this trap as well, with credit card companies EAGER to give them credit cards so they can spend to their heart’s content, not realizing the burdens of having those cards and in keeping up with the payments. Never mind that many students simply can’t AFFORD to be in debt like that because they will have HUGE student loans to pay off on top of everything else. Doesn’t matter… give them the cards and let them figure it out later on.

People who take out payday loans are in a similar situation. They take out a loan, promise to pay it off by the next pay period, and not realizing that the finance charges for such a loan are literally HUNDREDS of times more than other methods of borrowing. But people do it because they’re in dire straits and they usually don’t see themselves having any other option.

These folks are all destined to FAIL, and they don’t even realize it. And no matter what they do, the system will make sure that they continue to fail.

And that’s not counting the number of businesses that are set up on the promises of success and money and instead are designed to keep the suckers working diligently for a payoff that will never happen. Day traders and multi-level-marketing people are all sold on this idea that if they work hard enough, if they put in enough effort, that they will make oodles of cash. They have no idea that the only people who are making the money in those games are the ones who sold them the idea in the first place.

They all have one thing in common… they were all sold on a DREAM. But what they are really BUYING is anything BUT a dream.

And how do you deal with that? Government action is a short-term option, but I wouldn’t even dare to call it a solution, because it’s far from one. There needs to be an INDIVIDUAL solution, not a government one. Besides, the government is the institution that ALLOWED these things to happen in the first place! When the time comes to help people out, who do you REALLY think they’re going to support? You? Fat chance!

Sure life is about RISK, but people need to understand that YOU’RE the only party that is really taking the risk here! These lending institutions and businesses are no different than gambling casinos in that the deck is ALWAYS stacked against you and that “the house” ALWAYS wins. And if you can’t afford to lose, then you have an obligation to yourself and your loved ones to walk away BEFORE you put your name on the dotted line.

And, speaking of the government, that brings me to a certain government program that is also destined to FAIL.

I’m talking about the FAILED phony “War on Drugs”. I say “phony” because it’s not a real war in the same regard as, say, the War in Iraq. It’s a phony war. It’s a fraud. It’s a joke foisted up by mealy-mouthed politicians pretending to take the problem seriously.

Oh I know that drugs are a problem in society, but the government adopting a neo-prohibitionist stance is NOT the way to deal with it!

Okay… follow me on this. Let’s start with a really simple message that can be expressed in a way that even little kids can understand.

“Drugs are bad.”

Simple, direct, easy to remember. “Drugs are bad.”

Okay, so you take that message to Little Johnny Precious or Suzie Purebred and you have them repeat it over and over again. “Drugs are bad.” “Drugs are bad.” “Drugs are bad.”

Then they go to school… and they find out that if they don’t sit down and don’t shut up in certain classes that the teacher will send them to the nurse to put them on a pill that will make them behave. And the parents have to pay for this pill that they will have to take every day so that they will behave.

But… drugs are bad.

Then they go home and they turn on the TV and they discover that grown-ups have to take a pill for all sorts of different problems. If they’re not happy, they need to take a pill. If they have problems going to the bathroom, they need to take a pill. If they can’t sleep, they need to take a pill. If they have too much stress, they need to take a pill. If they sneeze too many times, they need to take a pill. If they can’t do some sort of activity that usually produces other children and somehow involves really cheesy music, they need to take a pill.

But… drugs are bad.

They hear about all sorts of problems with this thing called “smoking”, which involves a substance called tobacco, that some parents take on a regular basis that everyone says is bad but the government still rakes in millions in taxes from it and they want to rake in even more from the few people who do take part in this thing.

But… drugs are bad.

Then they visit their older brother, who talks about ingesting this drug called “alcohol” that makes people do really stupid things and really messes up their lives, but it’s a neat thing to take and they ingest too much of it every time. And once upon a time they used to ban it, but then changed their minds because too many people were breaking the law.

But… drugs are bad.

Then they visit their older sister, who tries to hide the little container of pills that she takes so she can also take part in those activities with the really cheesy music… but without producing other children from it. And if by some chance she forgets to take these pills, then she has to take some other pills afterwards so she won’t have children when she’s not ready for them.

But… drugs are bad.

Then grandma and grandpa come over to visit, and they each pull out their bag of medications that they have to take every day. And they will line them all up in a row and mark off when they have to take each of them so they won’t take too much or forget to take them at all.

But… drugs are bad.

And let’s not forget that the sugary carbonated substance that the kids drink and the black liquid that the adults drink to keep themselves awake that are full of something called “caffeine”… which is also a drug.

But… drugs are bad, right? I mean that’s the message that the government wants us to accept, right?

Do you see where this is all going? And I haven’t even gotten to the really TRICKY subjects!

Let’s get brutally honest here… as a government program, the fraudulent “war on drugs” was BORN to fail! It was born to fail because the extremist neo-prohibitionist philosophy behind it – namely to BAN everything and deal with the consequences later – is incompatible with the REALITIES of our society!

The simple fact of the matter is this: we LIVE with drugs in one form or another. We can’t just spout off some extremist zero-sum mentality about how “drugs are bad” and then expect people to buy it when we use all sorts of drugs in our own lives.

Oh sure we CALL them something else! We call them proscriptions, medications, coffee, soft drinks, cigarettes, beer. But it’s still hypocrisy. We crucify athletes who take steroids, but we think nothing of the doctor that gives us a steroid injection to help our body heal after an accident. We’ll all condemn the crack whore who will do anything for her next hit, but we all probably know a parent or a grandparent who puts more chemicals into their body on a daily basis and will spend any amount of money to do it just to live another year. We’ll demand that drug dealers go to prison, but we’ll help put pharmaceutical executives in mansions.

And we expect the next generation to understand that? We have a hard time accepting it ourselves!

We need to seriously rethink this whole approach. People are going to mess up their lives no matter how they do it… either through sheer stupidity or simply as a means to pass the time away and possibly hasten their own demise. Outlawing the MEANS doesn’t make the DESIRE go away. It just gives people more opportunity to find ways to get around the law.

(Computer – some appropriate stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

There is a significant difference between someone failing and someone being FORCED to fail. When a person fails on their own accord, you can tell them to get up and try again, and the onus is actually on them to do better. But the man – or woman – who intentionally forces that person to fail and then tells them to just get up and try again so they can fail again is nothing short of a sadist. And whether it’s for profit or simply for the sheer pleasure of watching a person fail at your own hands, it’s still despicable, deplorable, and just plain evil.

What do you do when you’re faced with that kind of evil that was displayed in people like the Lucy Van Pelts of the world? At that point is it really the fault of guys like Charlie Brown when they can do nothing BUT fail? I’d have to say no.

But then again, I have more in common with “good ol’ Charlie Brown” than most people would dare admit to.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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