The scourge of the left.

First off, this is my first entry in this thing. I probably should have started one of these a long time ago, I've been an avid message-boarder for a long time, but seeing as how the message boards I most often frequented died a painful death, I suppose this is a good spot to put my thoughts. Ever since I lost the public forum for expressing views, I started to write more documents for myself that just sit as saved text files on the computer, I imagine some of them will migrate over here in time, but this is an excellent place to put them, where my ideas can possibly contribute slightly to public knowledge and awareness. The internet gives us more ability to share thoughts and ideas then ever before, no information is bad information as long as everyone thinks for themselves and is aware of others' thoughts, but still forms their own ideas and thinks for themselves.

So before I go into the topic that finally urged me to take up a blog, that is the meaning behind its title. This space exists as a spot for me to express myself, having quite a bout with social anxiety it can be difficult to organize thoughts and ideas the way I want in "on the spot" oral communication, and writing has always been my best outlet. Now I don't have to worry about loosing my writings, as they are on the internet in public domain, and maybe my thoughts and ideas can inspire others, and spark thoughts and ideas for people as an added bonus.

I didn't title this Think for yourself because I expect anyone to fully agree with everything, in fact I have issues with people accepting what I say as truth and fact outward, people should seek truth for themselves and form ideas and opinions which best express their personal values and experiences. If everyone shared the exact same values and experiences the world would be a dull and uninspired wasteland, but by exercising our free speech we can bring issues up front for discussion that might have not even occurred to others. Arguments, I have found are the biggest waste of energy ever, when two parties argue, they are so concerned with making the other be exactly the same as themselves, that neither inspires the other at all. Resentment, distrust, and intolerance seem to ride the coattails of every argument as a direct result. Listen to each other and try and see things from their point of view, then evaluate how they fit in to your stance on things, everyone deserves the basic human right of being treated as a human being, and communication is one of the core traits that make us human.

Anything I say is how I feel at the time of writing, and being true to yourself is much more progressive and healthy then putting on a show and acting the way you perceive you ought. What if everyone felt that the proper thing to do at this moment was the hokey poky dance, now doing that silly fad dance seems like a great idea to me and I could be the only one in the world who feels that way, but if everyone perceived that it was what was expected of them to do, and no one questioned it, then they'd all feel like idiots shaking their left leg all about, and I'd be the only one deliriously happy at the moment.

That is the other thing that excites me is getting feedback, I can't imagine how awful life would be if I was right all the time without fail, a completely predictable world for the rest of my natural being. Being wrong and seeing things from other points of view is a great joy to be had in life, read chuck palahniuk's book Survivor for a great perspective on what it would be like to know everything and be surprised by nothing.

So that is all I ask is constructive criticism, if you don't understand anything I say, how can you expect me to understand anything you say? Most of what I see on the internet, I perceive as making the likes of Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift cry in anguish wherever they may be. It would be delightful to be dead wrong and have progressive meaningful discussion.

So the topic that finally made me take the blog plunge was reading all the backlash about Ralph Nader. No man is perfect, but as I have said before, when you were in school and you needed help with your physics or algebra, was it natural to ask the football quarterback? He'd be a great source of banter about blitz defense and would be able to discuss in detail the necessity of a good offensive line, but you need help with your algebra. What about the Cheer leading captain, she could probably give you great tips on how to rally a crowd behind you, and educate you on how morale can be best effected over a great number of people, but you need help with physics. What about that nerdy kid with the awkward sense of humor and odd appearance, who is always reading the textbook, and always has his hand up first to answer a question from the teacher?

Ralph Nader is the biggest political nerd I have ever seen in public view, it's a damn good thing he's not running for prom royalty, he's running for president and the fact that he receives so much hatred trying to run for president seems fickle. Do we also convince that weird kid we mentioned before NOT to enter the academic decathlon because our quarterback friend could get some extra credit by taking his place which would solidify a passing grade for his athletic participation? Telling someone who has devoted so much of their time and energy to civil service to just "go away" because they might spoil an election? It's the quarterback's fault if he fails for not working hard enough in class to keep his grades up without extra credit, as much as it is the fault of any mainstream candidate for not being able to compensate for the marginal amount of votes they "lost" to him. If their views and platforms are so similar, why can't they pull the same voters to their side? The number of swing voters is almost always a much greater number then the number of devoted third-party voters, it would seem to make a lot more sense to direct attention there.

"But Ralph Nader campaigned in Florida and cost Al Gore that state!" they say. Al Gore cost Al Gore Florida, which was shrouded in ballot issues anyways. All in all, it is extremely pretentious to assume that all Green Party members support the Democratic platform, and it can also be seen that the Democratic parties scare tactics cost the Green party its 5% of the total popular vote it was polled to receive, which would have ensured ballot status for the party in the future.

The most illogical thing I hear is that the supposed left wing third parties need to all join the greater Democratic party and reform it rather then support a new direction entirely. First off with that logic, all third parties and do likewise, and the Libertarian party should dissolve and join with the Republicans, which is a larger party then the Green party I might add. Secondly, we might as well take that idea and run with it, for instance with George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation. Rather then be in favor of scrapping it as completely misguided, maybe we need to work on joining up with it and improving our methods of administering standardized tests, and reduce the financial penalties on under performing schools.

My mother has been a high school teacher for over 20 years at a low income high school in West Phoenix comprised of over 90% minorities (it even gained temporary fame as a robotics team from the school comprised of mostly illegal aliens defeated the University MIT in a robotics competition), and I saw firsthand the effects of this policy, it created a lot of work for teachers that was not involved in planning the specific curriculum for their classes, and changed the whole focus of the school on ensuring that every student was adequately trained to meet the narrow requirements of the testing. Most tragically by putting so much effort on leaving no child behind, it took most of the effort out of helping any child get ahead and programs for gifted students who will hopefully cure cancer, solve cold fusion, design our public works projects, and even be our next politicians, were hardly focused on at all. Lets face it, the policy sucks, there isn't much resurrecting or compromising about it.

That's how many in the Green party feel about the Democratic party. I remember back in 1999 I was 15 years old, and the WTO convention was coming up. I was out passing out fliers urging people to contact their local politicians in an effort of stopping the president from signing us into a pact that, according to the fliers could possibly encourage exporting our labor to foreign countries, decrease oversight and ability to control imports, and put our economy in awkward positions with radically different economies. The president we were trying so hard to stop was President Clinton, and the speculated possibilities of this flier from 1999 are eerily haunting today.

A lot of people say Green party members should go ahead and vote republican since they are in a sense doing it anyways, I might be so inclined since at least the Republican party didn't demonize Ross Perot to pass the blame for their own shortcomings in the George HW Bush vs Bill Clinton election.

In the 2008 elections adament supporters of Ralph Nader were supposed to abandon the "demon election-spoiler" and support the real tide of progression and change. You experience something every day that Ralph Nader had a hand in accomplishing from seat belts to cleaner drinking water, when die-hard Democrats were asked what Barack Obama has done to show that he's more then just talk, answers like "He is a black presidential candidate" (not the first, and also this years green party candidate was also black.... a black woman. Also Ralph Nader's running mate is the first mexican american to ever run for the position of vice president). "He voted against the last funding bill for the Iraq war" (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were about the last two senators to cast votes on that bill, and when they did it was blatantly obvious that the bill passed). Barack Obama voted on bills as a senator and ran for office as a minority, those are his major qualifying acheivements. Barack Obama is a wonderfully eloquent speaker, we havn't heard a president who could speak as well as him since the days of John F. Kennedy, and he seems very eager and idealistic and genuine, but don't drag Ralph Nader's name through the mud because people aren't giving him up as a candidate for Barack Obama. Also don't say that the Democratic party wouldn't have done this or that reguarding events in the past 8 years, there are checks and balances built within the foundation of our national law in the constitution, and we saw Nansi Pelosi and the Democratic-led congress use theatre like slumber-party deliberations on capitol hill. No one could have predicted that the twin towers would be destroyed while preparing for the 2000 elections, and even if so, there hasn't been much hard proof to show that things would have gone a whole lot differently.

I've seen it said that Nader supporters need to "grow up." If growing up means selling your soul for something you don't belive in, call the Green party, Nader supporters, and even the Libertarian party for that matter the lost boys in never-never land.