I wish to start a political party. It will be founded on the principle of total predictability. I will call it the Logic Party. This will not be your "Vote Vulcan" are-you-a-trekkie-or-a-trekker kind of bullshit--OBEY WILLIAM SHATNER and GET A LIFE--kind of thing. Rather, the fundamental tenet of the Logic Party will be that A) lots of decisions will be made, every day, and B) any decisions that get made will be totally predictable and consistent given the constraints of any situation.
No magic will be invoked. There will be no non-sequiturs. There will be no stupidity or evil. Only rationality. The number one rule of the Logic Party will be: never remove your brain. Operating a human body without a brain will be punishable by banishment (see below).
The Logic Party will infuriate exactly 50% of the population of the United States with every decision it makes. But every decision will be totally predictable, unalterable, and understandable.
People will say, "I hate this shit, but I understand it."
For instance, if there is money to be spent, it will be spent. All of it. If the accounts run dry, there will be no money for anybody, no matter how hard you whine.
We will not threaten to shut down hospitals, libraries, sewage treatment plants, water towers, or electric power generation stations, to get people to pay more taxes or higher prices for things. There will just be no money. These things will disappear. When they are out of your life, the Logic Party will suggest ways to get them back. You will choose how this happens. You might not like it. But you will get them back. Taxes or higher prices may be involved. You as an owner of a human brain will decide. It will not be decided for you.
The Logic Party will not misappropriate your money. The penalty for corruption like embezzlement will be banishment to Johnson Island. You will be dropped off on Johnson Island, naked and penniless. It will be up to you to decide how to survive and how to get back, if you want.
There will be no death penalty. Nobody will be killed in the name of the state. Instead, there will be Johnson Island.
We will not threaten other countries. When we are mad at them, we will obliterate them. Our ability and total willingness to obliterate anyone we get cranky with will be our national defense. It will be totally understandable and reasonable.
National policy corollary number one will be to never to get mad at anyone for any reason. It will be a national goal. We will celebrate "100 years of never losing our temper," and then 500. Getting mad will require a vote of congress and a general vote of the population. 100% of congress and 3/4 of the humans in the country will need to be mad before "a state of madness" is declared. The 25% of those unmad people will be invited to watch Tom Hanks movies while some part of the world is vaporized. Chits for free popcorn will be distributed.
People will be encouraged to worship the God of their choice, or to not worship anything for any reason. The requirement will be to have an opinion on the subject. God worshipping will be viewed as a human right. Not God worshiping will be viewed as a human right. Everyone will get one day off per week to either worship God or not. Movies, books, and National Park entry will all be free on that day.
I think it should be Thursday.
Consenting adults will be able to stick any appendage, device, appliance, limb, into any of their personal bodily orifices or those of another consenting adult without state involvement.
Any two people will be able to form a union that allows them to take care of each other until they die.
An important national goal will be to outlast the duration of The Roman Empire. Then we will try for more.
We will have national goals. People will be encouraged to help the nation meet them. Participation will be optional, though chits for free burgers will be given to those who can prove they've helped.
I live in
California. It's a blue state. This year I learned that blue means
Democrat and red doesn't mean
communist anymore (which would probably be
ultraviolet in the political spectrum) but rather, red is
Republican. In the days of
Nixon, we called the
Republican Party the G.O.P. (grand old party). But now it's red.
My friend and I were driving to Starbucks for our afternoon coffee and a pickup truck cut us off. The truck had a broom handle mounted in the bed, vertically, and upon the handle was stapled an American flag. My friend said, "I didn't think they allowed those guys over here on the peninsula."
For those of you who don't live in California, what he was referring to was the demography of San Francisco bay-area politics, which suggests that people who live closer to the Pacific Ocean are more liberal in their political leanings than those who live closer inland.
I said to him, because he's my friend and I can say things like this: "This bugs the shit out of me. I'm probably more liberal than that guy, but if I were to display the American flag so haphazardly, people would presume I was conservative Republican. Why is that? Why can't I be American, too?"
He said, "That's because more people on the liberal side of things are likely to abuse the flag by burning it or wearing it like a diaper than people on the right."
Now, since Abby Hoffman, I have personally not seen this happen. Not even on television, which I don't watch very much of, admittedly. Maybe that's the problem. If I'd watch more Fox news I'd see more flag burning and hate mongering. Because I have my head in the sand I think Democrats are Americans, too.
Silly me.
By the way. I have avoided political designation but if my arm was totally twisted around the back of my head I'd claim to be Libertarian, would arm myself to the teeth and go hide out in a valley in Idaho and wait for the UFOs to land. While I was waiting I would found the Logic Party.
I am for John Kerry in this election. As I have said before, I believe George Bush's agenda can be summed up as follows, "Surrender your liberties to me, and we will subjugate the profitable sections of the world."
By the way, I think John Kerry's agenda can be summed up thus: "...hey, what did I just say, before, yesterday, whatever?"
I have given money to John Kerry's efforts, because I believe that if our only weapon is stupidity, then stupidity must defeat evil. A man who hides behind God while violating the word of the same God, is a false prophet. Probably THE false prophet. The great thing about the separation of church and state is that the President of the U.S. at times MUST KILL PEOPLE, thus effectively violating the fifth commandment God himself gave to Moses a couple thousand years ago. People will be killed. Evil will be performed in the name of National Security. Pretending God wants this to happen is a sin according to God. Yaway, Allah, Father-son-holy ghost--never said, "Kill your enemies in my name. Your enemies are my enemies." Never. Not once. Anywhere. Plain and simple. If we did what Jesus said, we'd be Gandhi. We'd be standing in front of an advancing army in our underwear. Russian nuclear weapons would have wiped us out in the 60's, if we'd all been devout. We'd be under France's thumb like quivering lab mice. We'd be slaughtered like lambs.
I believe that's the biblical term. Like lambs. Lamb of God.
Turn the other cheek. Render unto Caesar. Blah blah. If we truly followed the teachings of Christ we would not be enriching ourselves via our political connections. We'd be Saint Francis. We'd run around naked until someone clothed us. We'd starve until someone fed us.
This is one reason why there's a separation. It's not feasible to run a religious government. In fact, history has proven that any government founded on religion is doomed. (Of course, all governments are doomed, eventually, I suppose, but religion drives you to hell faster.)
The other reason is because there is no national religion here. The founders of this place escaped religious persecution by coming here. Etc.
(So we came here and wiped out the indigenous culture, who were in their own way a warring bunch, and in our infinite purity we made them open casinos and dance in our National Parks.)
The work of the state is exclusively the purvey of mankind. It is messy and non biblical. Nobody wants to be devout and be slaughtered like God suggests. Especially not me. I'm for fighting and wiping floors with my enemies' scalps. God has nothing to do with this. There is no rationalization that makes sense. Standing up and being Christian, and worrying about stem cell research and gay marriage while killing people half a world away is just plain comedy.
By the way, how many of you Americans out there are traveling internationally on business? How do you like the work out there in the "rest of the world(nudge nudge)" with "W" in the White House? Kind of makes you feel EXPOSED, does it, walking around in a train station at the middle of the night in a foreign land, looking all American, with your western accent and the last episode of "Joan of Arcadia" running through your brain? Worried about flying? Eyeing every dark skinned guy in coach with a beard and bushy eyebrows? Maybe you can just stop doing business with Europe or Asia and just stay here and buy things from Texas(deep red) or California(purple).
By the way, the trade deficit means if we stop buying stuff from THOSE people, we die. Ok? Because we don't actually MAKE anything here anymore. Italy will have us subjugated in no time. Hope you can speak some Italian. I can.
I will vote for the, "Duh, what the fuck?" candidate, because I believe the confusion he causes will mean less death and destruction for the less enlightened peoples of the world than the focused, "Get the fuck off my planet," attitude demonstrated by the undereducated, so called Christian whiny boy currently occupying the seat of power in my country.
And then the next thing I'll do is work for the campaign to help Arnold Schwarzenegger defeat that equally mindless idiotrix, Barbara Boxer, for the senate seat she has occupied for the last twelve miserable years.
Actually, I wish to clone Dianne Feinstein. I want her ass in both seats. Maybe we can just skootch one over. Her ass would probably be better accommodated by two, anyway.
This, "No Child Left Behind" idea seems like, "Put all poor kids in jail," to me.
Let's analyze: Federal standards for public school performance seems like a great idea. It is, actually, a great idea. Then maybe our high school graduates would be able to hold their own in math contests with second graders from countries like Japan if we actually made sure American kids learned something.
Another good idea (irrespective of my wife being a card carrying member of the NEA): giving teachers yearly reviews like the WHOLE DAMNED REST OF THE BUSINESS world. Chucking tenure. Making people answer for the quality of their work. Good idea.
Really good idea: Pay teachers 2-3X what they get now. Did you know you can make more money collecting garbage in Santa Clara county, California, than educating its youth? True story. Maybe if teaching jobs paid well, better qualified people would try to become teachers instead of garbage collectors.
Another good idea (these Republicans have a lot of them. I vote for them occasionally): Test kids to see how they're doing. Maybe we could actually find out if they weren't doing well BEFORE they graduate and have no alternatives left to them than teaching or garbage collection.
Now here's the Really dumb asinine idea: cut off funding for schools whose students don't meet federal minimum requirements as measured by the testing.
Hello?
Hello, is this thing on? Did I just hear that?
The fucking car is running out of gas, and the solution is to take away all the gas money? WTF?
As the charter member of the Logic Party, I smell the fetid stench of stupidity at play. Under the Logic Party, stupidity is a federal crime.
In San Jose, California there are school districts where more than 80% of the enrolled students are legal (notice the word LEGAL is not the word ILLEGAL) immigrants with little English language skill. In our state, we have passed a law forbidding bilingual education in the public schools. After all, which should be the OTHER language? Why not French or Inuittuktuk?
There will soon be Logic Party applications. I will hand them out.
The kids can't speak English, but they can only be taught and tested in English. They can't possibly make the minimum Federal Requirements, EVER. So what will happen to those schools under our illogical President's administration? Their funding will be cut off, so their teachers will be laid off and there will be no school supplies or electricity in the school house.
The children will go to school, and there will be no fucking school at school. Their parents will be given vouchers to go to private schools they will not be able to attend because they do not meet the minimum standard requirements for private school. As they are poor, they will certainly not be able to pay the "surcharges" demanded by the private schools above and beyond the voucher amount, because nobody could profitably educate a child for the ridiculously small sums allocated by our government--so when we privatize education there WILL be surcharges.
So they will grow up stupid (which will be illegal), unable to work in any job (except teaching or garbage collection) and many will opt to exercise their second amendment rights to own firearms, and being stupid and uneducated, they'll go to jail. Because what is being said here is that the public education system is failing, and we should just give it up because it's unfixable.
Next is, "Goddamned this whole private property mess. It would be easier if we could put the gun batteries wherever we wanted. Let's just condemn Los Angeles."
The Logic Party doctrine suggests two courses of action are possible: A) Put all native Spanish-speaking children in jail at birth. B) Elect a president who isn't a fucking dickhead.
Have you been with me till now? Will you follow me my lead? After this you'll be tossing rocks and checking the internet for sources of plastic explosives and Bibles.
Last weekend I decided it was time to take the children shooting. I've been a gun owner since I turned 18. I own handguns. Couple 9mm handguns. A .22. Some rifles. I'm American.
When I was a kid in New Jersey, all my friends had guns. It was tough to get guns. We had to go to the police station, get fingerprinted, and be interviewed by the Chief of Police, who upon his own satisfaction decided whether or not to grant us 18-year olds permission to purchase a weapon. It was worse if you wanted a handgun. There were FBI background checks and a mandatory gun safety course.
Never once did me or any of my gun-owning friends shoot up a high school. We did not rob convenience stores. By the standards of today's yellow journalism we were all "heavily armed youths". We did not threaten to kill playground bullies. We did not threaten law-abiding citizens. We did not foment terror.
WHY? If ever once, I pointed a weapon at another living creature, my father would tear off my arms and beat me to death with them. And if he failed to kill me, he would enlist me in the Army where they would teach me proper gun safety techniques. And the same was true for all my friends and their fathers.
When it came time for me to own a weapon, I went right for the max--handgun permit. It took me months but I got it, and I purchased my first weapon, a Smith and Wesson Model 59. Went to the classes. Went to the range. Fired thousands of rounds.
My NEA-member wife will never admit to the other union members that one of our first dates was to a pistol range. (and she is a dramatically good shot)
When we had our first baby, I locked up the guns and put them away in the attic. Got rid of all the ammo in the house. It stayed that way for 18 years. My kids knew there were firearms somewhere in the house, but they didn't know where, and even if they found them, they'd have to know how to reassemble field-stripped weapons, after they picked the locks on the firearms boxes, and then the trigger locks, etc.
The Logic Party's justification for gun ownership is this: there has only ever been less restrictive gun laws in our country. With the exception of the "assault rifle ban" which just expired in certain states (not mine), gun ownership has only ever gotten more difficult to achieve.
Yet gun crime goes up. Kids walk into schools and kill each other. Gang bangers and psychos rob people with Mac-10s. What's with this shit? Back at the turn of the 20th century, you could buy a Thompson Submachine Gun at the hardware store along with your garden rake. People shot gophers with them.
Gun control absolutely works, to a point. There are hardly any crimes performed by people possessing machine guns. Clearly, the fact it is terribly illegal to own one has kept them out of the hands of criminals and no normal human being has a need for a machine gun any more than he needs a steam-powered marine-pier pile driver. And I think a total gun ban would keep lots more guns out of the hands of criminals, because there'd be less around.
I see that logic.
I also think that banning guns because people are wacko is like reinstituting prohibition to stop drunk driving. Indeed, there would be less DUI-related accidents if alcohol was outlawed. Likewise, if automobile ownership was severely restricted, there'd be less pollution, less traffic-related injury, and less reliance on foreign oil. If we set limits on the amount of groceries an American family could purchase in one week, adolescent obesity would cease to be a concern.
The Logic Party would see the logic in all of that.
Yet, as the founding member of the Logic Party, I agree with none of it. And primary Logic dictates we exercise judgment. Number one rule of the Logic Party: NEVER SEPARATE YOUR BRAIN FROM YOUR BODY.
The problem with gun crime is with criminals. And that sounds stupid, even to me, but it's true. As a kid I knew that if I made even one single mistake with a firearm, it was liable to cause grievous harm, and so I didn't get to make a mistake. And if my father caught me in the process of making a mindless firearm-related safety error, the penalties would be extreme. I chose to enjoy that sport knowing the downside risk.
I think the problem with guns and crime and all of the above is the fact that my father and men like him are almost totally dead. Where is the man to put the fear of God into the adolescent? Where are the men who made these kids? Why are they not threatening them with dismemberment, and coaching them with kindness?
Instead, we make up for the absence of living men by trying to pretend kids are adults. Kids are not adults. Kids are kids. Kids are not to be trusted because they are CHILDREN. They stick their tongues in wall socket outlets. They eat dirt. They pee in their pants because they are kids.
Pretending they are adults by convicting children of crimes is insane--they can't drive, they can't vote, they can't be drafted, they can't even buy a goddamned mug of suds, but they can be guilty of a death-penalty offense at the age of 13? The Logic Party pukes at this. Kids are not adults and should never be tried as such. Would you trust a child with your life savings? Then why can any child be put on trial as an adult? It's illogical. The child does not understand the difference between being tried as a child and tried as an adult. A 13-year old does not understand 13 years in prison. The people who are doing this have abandoned their brains. They ask kids--"Do you understand how serious this is?" and the kid nods "yes" or "no" to every adult according to what gets them the next cookie.
It's abdication of responsibility by US, the humans who are not allowed to remove their brains. (Again, when the Logic Party rules, stupidity becomes a crime.) Every kid is the responsibility of SOMEONE. No child is ever responsible. Period. Only adults can be responsible. Inuit hunters do not leave the fate of the next meal for the tribe to a nine-year old with a rifle. Why do we think we're different? Those people--the ones who fucked and made the child--it's THEIR fault. The Logic Party says -- have a kid who commits a bad crime -- and YOU THE PARENT must answer and correct the situation, or go to jail. And if the child has no parents, then every last member of the Logic Party is responsible for him. Every fucking one of us. Leave No Child Behind is bullshit. That's "our bus is leaving, better get on--whoops, poor little Raoul missed..." ideology.
The Children are OURS -- is the Logic Party dictum. All children are on the Logic Party bus at birth and can only get off when they turn 18.
The best solution to this, if you think it's a problem, is a little something called birth control. A little something called "reproductive responsibility". You do not get to run from it. Under the Logic Party, police will hunt you down and make you pay for the actions of your offspring. How many kids do you want to have if you have responsibility for all of them?
(In my case, the number was two, but then one snuck up on us, so God made it three before we could hit the birth control wagon.)
Adult responsibility fixes everything. Then we could even own machine guns and nuclear weapons, and everything would be cool. But the more we refuse responsibility, we'll keep popping out kids we don't want to raise, don't want to educate, and truly, just want to be rid of. (To me, "No Child Left Behind" starts sounding a lot more like post birth abortion.)
And so it was time for me to be a responsible parent and for my daughters to learn to shoot, so the wife and I brought the family arsenal out of entombment, purchased some ammo, and began the training of the young.
The girls were simultaneously thrilled and terrified by the whole prospect. I wondered if one of them would declare "conscientious objector" status and evade the process, but it didn't happen. Kids tend to trust their parents, if they have that sort of relationship. Strange how that is, but if a child knows it will be vaporized by the parent for doing something tremendously awful, they tend to listen and enjoy the company of the parent. In fact, they feel secure with the adult. It's weird how that works. But it does.
We went over the drill. Never point a weapon at anyone for any reason. How to check to see if a loaded gun is loaded. All guns are always loaded. Etc.
When they passed the initial screening, we took them to the Los Altos Rod and Gun Club up on route 9. (Why they call a shooting range a *rod* and gun club, when there is no known fish that climbs trees or lives underground, is a mystery even the Logic Party faithful cannot untangle.)
My girls handled their weapons skillfully, and respectfully. I was proud of their performance, and the range safety officer came by to give each of them some pointers on how to keep their groupings small, and to compliment them on their range etiquette.
Mrs. Owl, loaded Beretta in hand, demonstrated to her spawn why in her younger days we called her "killer" as she punched a nice quarter-sized grouping of ten rounds through the center of the target. So the girls knew they had a model of skill and grace to aspire to.
And I was a happy man. For once I did something with my family that was fun and demanded something of us that was considerate and conscious of our surroundings and our society.
When the girls went back to school the next day, they told all their friends of their shooting experiences. My wife was questioned about it by her fellow educators who heard through the grapevine that the Owl family was armed and not dangerous, but armed just the same.
Those people presumed we were members of the NRA and that we were prepared to vote for the red candidates. They presumed the American flag sticker on my Jeep meant I was a fan of the Fox News channel.
They were wrong on all counts.
They were not logical.