Blacks for Bush

  Wow: even The Black Commentator Doesn't like Africa Town

Desperate circumstances cause human beings to make questionable decisions....

The impetus for African Town and homes for moribund baseball teams is the same. Black urban areas are in bad shape. High unemployment rates, a dwindling tax base and a lack of community owned businesses are all recipes for high crime, bad schools, and well meaning but foolish solutions. ....

In their infinite wisdom, the members of the Detroit City Council added an extra dose of unneeded drama to an already bad situation. It is true that Detroit’s city government created a Greektown and a Mexican Town to promote tourism and economic development. The idea of an African Town is equally legitimate, and yet it would have the dubious distinction of recommending that immigrant groups be excluded from enjoying any of its benefits. ....

The furor created by the African Town proposal raises another issue. Detroit’s population is 80% black. In theory, the entire city should be a boom town for black people. If a majority black population and black political leadership can’t provide economic development for Detroit, then the African Town discussion is a waste of time and energy that might be better spent developing a real plan for that city. ...

I have nothing to add.

  Kerry Lies or (flip flops) about his tax Increases

What is amazing is he lies and contradicts himself on the same page of his website linked above.

To quote the Kerry website:

John Kerry will roll back only Bush's tax cuts for those making over $200,000 a year, and invest those resources in affordable health care and better schools. Specifically, the Kerry-Edwards plan will: ...

But he flips flops on the same webpage, lets see what he says next.

To quote the Kerry website:

Restore the top two tax brackets to their levels under President Clinton.

Well lets take a look a the tax brackets from 1999.
For an example, in 1999, those tax brackets were: 15%, 28%, 31%, 36% and 39.6%.
For a single person the 36% tax bracket starts at $130,250.
Married filing separately the 36% tax bracket starts at $ 79,275
Married filing jointly the 36% tax bracket starts at $158,550

All of these numbers are significantly less that the $200,000 number he passes around that most people think is the number he is quoting for individuals not for couples.

  Lynching Follow up: Or lack of

As I posted last April a young black man was lynched in Mississippi. There has not been much follow up on it at all, as to be expected. But the family believes it was killed over the family land.

Veal had returned to his home from Seattle to help his family fight a land-grab attempt by whites who alleged title and timber rights to acres that had been in Veal’s family for three generations, since the late 19th century.

Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesperson Warren Stain declared the death as “consistent with suicide.” But there are serious and troubling contradictions to this explanation, including the fact that Veal had been hooded in a pillowcase before his death (Seattle Post-Intelligencer).

Theft of Black land

There is a long history of white vigilante violence against Black economic independence and land ownership in the region.

At the close of the Civil War, a few Union generals began to allocate the plantations of the former slave owners to freed African Americans, part of the “40 acres and a mule” land redistribution.

Please take time to read the entire article. And then contact your congressman to demand justice.

  Abortion on demand : My thoughts

Abortion on demand is being able to get an abortion like a snickers bar as a member of my political listserv pointed out. And yes its that easy, you walk into clinic drop your cash wait on line and 1/2 hour later the life you created is gone. Something that was living is now not, whether you think of it as killing a bug, a human or a cat it is more than a hair cut.

To be clear it is easier to get an abortion than it is to get antibiotics. With antibiotics you have to go to doctor, the doctor can then refuse you anti-biotics if she thinks they are not warranted. So basically its easier to kill off a potential human easier than killing off bacteria that are infesting your body.

Everyone says that abortions are not done lightly but if you look at the required procedures it does seem to be taken very lightly.

Abortions should not be done lightly, Even if only for the mothers mental health. I think there should be limitations. At a minimum consultation with a doctor should be required. At minimum there should be a 2 day waiting period between consultation and procedure. At minimum there should be follow up after the procedure to make sure the women is using birth control in the future. At the minimum as the fetus reaches point closer to viability there should be some procedures to protect that life. Obviously the baby's life is worth less than the mothers, but it shouldn't be worthless.

There is also the huge issue of father rights/ responsibilities. In our society a man can be held legally responsible for any child that a mother says he is the father of. (paternity is assumed and has to be disproved by the father if not married to the mother, if the man is not the father but was married I am not sure if there is anyway to remove the legal burden) Our society has chosen to put this responsibility on men, But it has removed the rights such as being informed if your wife is pregnant or is having an abortion. As a parent you have responsibility for your 14 year old daughter, you will be called if they skip school or get a broken leg but you wont be informed if they are pregnant and getting an abortion. Its insane. Its wrong.

No doubt I am advocating a much more complicated system, but its a life and death issue and I think it warrants a more robust system that protects the rights of everyone involved but also cares for those affected by these pregnancies.

  Polygamy laws expose our own hypocrisy

No matter which side you are on the marriage debate this article is a must read.

However, in its 1878 opinion in Reynolds vs. United States, the court refused to recognize polygamy as a legitimate religious practice, dismissing it in racist and anti-Mormon terms as "almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and African people." In later decisions, the court declared polygamy to be "a blot on our civilization" and compared it to human sacrifice and "a return to barbarism." Most tellingly, the court found that the practice is "contrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western World."

Contrary to the court's statements, the practice of polygamy is actually one of the common threads between Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Deuteronomy contains a rule for the division of property in polygamist marriages. Old Testament figures such as Abraham, David, Jacob and Solomon were all favored by God and were all polygamists. Solomon truly put the "poly" to polygamy with 700 wives and 300 concubines. Mohammed had 10 wives, though the Koran limits multiple wives to four. Martin Luther at one time accepted polygamy as a practical necessity. Polygamy is still present among Jews in Israel, Yemen and the Mediterranean.

Indeed, studies have found polygamy present in 78% of the world's cultures, including some Native American tribes. (While most are polygynists — with one man and multiple women — there are polyandrists in Nepal and Tibet in which one woman has multiple male spouses.) As many as 50,000 polygamists live in the United States.

I will share my opinions on this issue later when I have time to write more fully.

  Vice presidential Debate Analysis

Both sides pandered to their base and found no converts.

I was pissed off with Edwards because he spun more facts. The most egergious is saying that millions lost their "health care". Which is a LIE. Millions have lost health insurance. Health insurance is not Health care. In my life I have had insurance without care and care without insurance. As long as politicians continue to provide more insurance instead of care well will get closer and closer to another social security ponzi scheme cluster fuck.

  The Medium is the Message: Debate # 1

Lashawn listen to teh debate and said Bush obviously one. Pro-Kerry A guy on my political listserve saw on small screen on computer and he knew Bush had won hand down. How you viewed the debate has a tremendous effect on how you precieve it.

And Kerry's stand on North Korea was fucking frightening.

I was amazed that Kerry was finally able to make flip-floping work for him in the debate this cartoon says it all.



Please note the pre-debate commentary came true with a vengance:

Surge Protector

As you watch the debate on Thursday night, remember: No matter what happens, on Friday morning, you're going to hear that the race is tightening.

  Lifeboat Situations

Mises.org's is a great site for those interested in libertarian ideals.

Here is some thoughts about property rights in life boat situtations.

In a lifeboat situation, indeed, we apparently have a war of all against all, and there seems at first to be no way to apply our theory of self-ownership or of property rights. But, in the example cited, the reason is because the property right has so far been ill-defined. For the vital question here is: who owns the lifeboat? If the owner of the boat or his representative (e.g., the captain of the ship) has died in the wreck, and if he has not laid down known rules in advance of the wreck for allocation of seats in such a crisis,2 then the lifeboat may be considered—at least temporarily for the emergency—abandoned and therefore unowned. At this point, our rules for unowned property come into play: namely, that unowned resources become the property of the first people possessing them. In short, the first eight people to reach the boat are, in our theory, the proper "owners" and users of the boat. Anyone who throws them out of the boat then commits an act of aggression in violating the property right of the "homesteader" he throws out of the boat. After he returns to shore, then, the aggressor becomes liable for prosecution for his act of violation of property right (as well, perhaps, for murder of the person he ejected from the boat).

Doesn’t this homesteading principle sanction a mad scramble for the seats in the lifeboat? Scramble perhaps; but it should be pointed out that the scramble must not, of course, be violent, since any physical force used against another to keep him from homesteading is an act of criminal assault against him, and aggression may not be used to establish a homestead right (just as one would-be homesteader may not use force to prevent someone else from getting to a piece of land first).