SUPPORT THE TROOPS.

"if you don't support our troops then you don't deserve freedom", "if you don't vote then you're insulting the troops that died fighting for your freedom", and other similar ridiculous phrases i hear from time to time...

what bullshit is this? there are so many things wrong with thinking this way. so many it's almost impossible to explain them, how is it not more self evident? first of all- voting is a right, yes, but it's not a freedom to choose one of multiple bad scenarios. the freedom lays in having a say, and not all the time but sometimes having a say means not voting if your voice isn't represented in the options available. if everyone keeps voting in parties that everyone wishes were better then no one can blame them because they voted them in... it's like being at a dinner party and there's a group of people all talking about what everyone will eat. so far it's been decided that there are 3 options, because discussing over each person's wants would be impractical, there's only one kitchen. when someone brings up a new idea they're told to either get with the program or leave the conversation. meanwhile roughly half of the party are in the next room waiting to see what happens since most of them would prefer something different than any of the three options or are just too lazy to put in their say. turns out we get a nice fish dish with a thai peanut sauce. mmm. too bad a few people are allergic to nuts, jim is a vegetarian and a few others are lactose intolerant to the cream in the sauce. great work guys.

 we're like the god damned frog in the pot of water on the stove. oh, only half the country voted? that's okay, we'll still call it a majority win. where will the line be drawn? "hmm... only 22% of our citizens voted... well i'm sure that's still a fair and equal sample of everyone else in the country!" freedom? we consider ourselves free based on our not only our perception of ourselves but of the skewed idea of what freedom is that something has somehow given us. free? i can't shoot heroin without breaking the law, yet i can find government approved safe injection sites. i can't grow certain plants even without intent to dry and smoke or sell without fear of being caught and either greatly fined or thrown in jail, but if i have bad enough luck to be in a gross amount of pain or have some other malady that the government deems worthy of the benefits of said plants then i'm allowed to lend them a profit because of it? i'm realizing more and more how free people aren't, and it's annoying me more and more that i feel people don't see this. 

your money is not your own. first of all, very rarely do banks make you money, they provide you a service and as for every service you have to pay for it. the service is keeping it "safe" even if that means that anyone and their mother who the government or bank deems deserves some of your money can dip into it without your consent or knowledge, also while locking you out of your own money. carry cash? that's a pretty safe step, but even then your currency is only supported by your countries currency's value. get a job? if you don't want anyone taking a piece of your pie without asking you'll have to work illegally, and that'll likely be a shit job since employers are scared to hire illegal workers. 

we have such a bloated sense of self worth it's disgusting. if you ask yourself how much a human life is worth it's a hard question to answer. priceless, right? that's the answer most people would give. but this is impossible and it's a serious question, i don't care how much you don't want to think about it or want to be romantic, how much is a human life worth? is a country going bankrupt worth saving the life of one person? shit no. a province? no. a city? no. and so on and so on it goes, getting scaled down more and more until you come to an answer. everyone has a price. to make this easy Time did a thing on this a little while ago in 2008 and the highest value they got was 488,000.00$. (a little note here, the pay a family receives for a US soldier that falls in battle is only 12,000 more than that.) does that sound enough to you? or too much? okay, well maybe some lives are worth more than others then? well health insurance sure sees it that way, but that's besides the point. so a person has a value, and things that have value can be traded for other things that have value, that's where currency comes from. so if this could actually happen in a legal way and there was no squabbling about how much who is worth, then you would be able to buy someone's life for 488,000$. you would own them entirely, and you would be able to kill them without penalty as they are your property and you have just bought every right they own. that's a neat idea, but it's not like too many people would be able to do that anyways. right? wait, how much is the US military budget? in 2007 it was approximately 530,000,000,000. with signs of rising each year after that. so each year the US government is spending roughly the amount of 1,086,065 lives on whatever the military does. this should be tragic. this should be as tragic as that many soldiers dying for the same cause (save for it may be said that those on million+ soldiers were drafted as they didn't really have a say as to where they were spent.) why should this be so tragic? because you do not own your life. you are a currency, and you belong to your country. your country is currently about 1,100,000,000,000.00$ in debt? congrats, you need just under 1/3rd of the world's population in their previously decided monetary worth to pay off your debt; 2,254,098 and 36/100ths of someone as well. i don't see how it makes sense to while owing 2.5 billion lives be spending 1 million each year on military spending. the Iran war is hypocritical in the first place, while the US has >3000 nuclear warheads stockpiled in various locations as of 2006 it is intervening under the excuse of preventing the research of nuclear arms by Iran? that's a battle you can never hope to win as long as the will is there. as education progresses and information becomes more and more readily available, as well as the existence of black markets it is only a matter of time before they do gain access to nuclear arms. all that aside, nuclear research does not specifically mean nuclear arms, and as the president of Iran said they don't intend on using the research for that purpose as it would not be for their best interest and also against their religion. so, it's not the US's war, they don't claim to be researching nuclear power for the production of nuclear arms, and Israel is already at war with them. "oh noooooo, of course they're going to use it for arms, what else is it good for!?" well, let's see.. it's benefits include things from better smoke detectors, wine production, insect control, bone imaging, bone sterilization, to making sure the seals in pipelines don't burst, testing the pressure capacity of blast furnaces, testing the density of material one would be drilling through for mining purposes, and, oh i don't know, NUCLEAR ENERGY. you know, that cleaner more efficient energy that everyone's been raving about? it's a shame about the cool down time but the pros outweigh the cons. outweigh so much so that it accounted for 20% of the US's electrical output in 2010, also being 30% of the world's entire output of nuclear electrical energy. so as for the war being a good and grand idea, it's bullshit. the military is shitting on another country- a developing country within the UN's Development Programme (UNDP). 

still feel all "Ra ra! support the troops!"? don't. feel sorry for them that they're in a shitty situation, hope that they get home, but giving someone a bigger gun in a fight is the worst way of supporting them. encouraging someone to join the army? remember that number we talked about earlier, the 488,000.00 one? every time the military deploys a missile around that cost, which as i understand i likely most (if not they cost more but it is REALLY hard to find some trustworthy sources on that matter...) missiles, then they are spending the match amount of that soldier's life. i do not believe that if it were presently possible for a robot to be made with all the pros and cons of a human soldier, that cost 2 million dollars to produce, that the military would use such a thing. because it wouldn't be cost effective. soldiers are a weapon, and they're worth roughly half a million dollars. every time a missile is shot, break that cost down into soldiers lives. then keep an eye on how many "lives" are really lost each day. do not encourage people to join the army, do not support the war effort. 

here are some new ones to try on- "if you support our troops you support the purchasing of human lives as tools for someone else's trade.", "if you vote you support a system that disguises itself as freedom which while still in place hides from you what freedom really is for the sake of its own survival"

Time life cost - http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1808049,00.html

2007 military budget and signs of rising- http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2009-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-20

US national deficit - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/business/federal-deficit-for-2012-fiscal-year-falls-to-1-1-trillion.html

US stobkpile - http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Wpngall.html

Iran president claiming research not meant for arms - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4613644.stm

benefits of nuclear research - http://www.ansto.gov.au/nuclear_information/benefits_of_nuclear_science

pros outweighing cons of nuclear energy - http://energyinformative.org/nuclear-energy-pros-and-cons/

nuclear power output by US in 2010 - http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html

Bad Words

Faggot>fag>fruit>homo>homosexual.

add in however many other terms you can think of in their respective place with left being the most widely accepted as being more offensive and the right being the most widely accepted as being neutral.

i don't really get the purpose or idea of referring to something with a different label because one is less offensive. without the word being a flat out insult, like referring to someone as Fuck Face, or lets say, a whole race or sexual orientation as Fuck Faces, then it's a legit describing word. changing the word used to something else which describes the same thing doesn't change anything.

unless you're thinking that words like Faggot, Kike, Nigger, etc, are inherently evil, as in it is written in the laws of the universe that these words are bad, then saying something else (a less offensive widely accepted word) in their place to describe the same thing doesn't fix or change anything. the intent to describe that specific thing would be the same. so... is what is being described that which is evil? yes, but no, because things aren't inherently evil. specific words CAN be used instead of other words for the express purpose to offend, of course. that's true because people trying not to offend avoid using those words so fervently. if the ONLY occasions when what are considered to be offensive words are used is to offend people, then they only gain more and more power to offend. if EVERYONE used ANY word that described what they wanted to describe to describe what they wanted to describe, then there would be NO words deemed inherently evil or offensive. this excludes insults like Fuck Face, unless you are describing someone's face when they fuck, or if someone, somehow, is actually a fuck face. whatever that would be. the origin of words shouldn't be considered here, because once a word is introduced and accepted as describing a thing, then that's it. it describes that thing. trying to make it hush-hush and sweep it under the rug because it's so offensive is, like i said before, just giving it more power to offend because it is being recognized as officially being offensive. however, like i also mentioned before, words can't be evil. there are no certain combinations of man-made symbols which have the innate property of being evil. that doesn't make any sense. SO, if something is officially recognized as being offensive, then it's not the word that's actually being recognized as being offensive, whether that's how people see it or not. what's being made official is "don't use words that remind groups of people or someone that they're different." which reinforces that being different is bad, more specifically that being what makes that group or person different is bad...

the problem with offensive words is that there are no widely accepted definitions that are exact enough for people to say "hey, no, you're using that word wrong. "Nigger" is a word that was used by a people of a completely different era to describe another people of the same completely different era, both being peoples who have changed much since then. you are neither of these, and neither is what you are describing. are you stupid, or are you delusional and think that you are present in that era?"that doesn't happen because these offensive words have been given life, oomph, power, and stigma over the decades due to being so taboo. they won't change by being ignored and left only to the people who will use them as a one-word-insult. if offensive words were used much much more often by everyone then they would become watered down, and no longer capable of being used to insult people. those people who would use those words to offend would then be stuck with actually having to describe how they're offending their target, which, i believe, since there isn't really anything to be offended about, wouldn't work very well....

Offender: "FAGGOT!"Faggot: "huh? well, yes, i am a faggot. also a queer. and i belong under many other descriptive words. what do you want, friend?"Offender: "What? No, i'm calling you a faggot, faggot. because you're a fucking faggot. be offended or hurt or whatever!"Faggot: "i don't get it. why am i supposed to be offended or hurt? what you're saying is true, i belong to these definitions."Offender: "wh... you're just supposed to be offended! pissed off! because what i'm saying is bad!*** because you like men! and that's bad! because it's gross and icky and you fucking faggot just be fucking offended!"Faggot: "i don't see what's bad about it, i thoroughly enjoy being the way i am, if i didn't i don't think i would be this way. i don't think you understand what you're saying, there's really nothing offensive about it... the only thing that's mildly offensive is that you apparently want me to be offended and hurt, but don't entirely know why... so, i hope you figure out whatever it is you're angry at. maybe after that we can be friends."Offender: "no! we can't be friends! because you're gay!"Faggot: "i don't get it. that doesn't seem like much of a reason not to be friends."Offender: "it's a perfect reason! you're gay! and being gay isn't natural! you're like some kind of mutant!"Faggot: "well, no, because i am entirely natural. if i wasn't i think i would be some kind of robot or something."Wannabe-Offender: *frustrated noises, walks off.*...***this is exactly what i'm talking about. people use these words because they know them to be offensive but not why. this is a learned shortcut to skip the process of actually figuring out an insult and telling someone they should be offended "just because...". if these words were used in everyday language to describe the things they describe neutrally then they would lose their offensive power. i have many first hand experiences and examples to draw from and i'm sure everyone does. mine vary from mispronouncing words in a different language and being told "nein.... dass ist nicht OK" to being raised thinking "indian" was a perfectly acceptable word to describe a people who i was later told prefer the term native. and then later, first nations. and i'm still confused about how the term aboriginal is accepted or refused. i had no idea why one was correct or more correct than the other, and now i'm in a place where it apparently doesn't matter. black, negro, african american, i have no idea. i have NO idea what is actually acceptable because i feel like i've heard of one or more people being offended about being referred to by every one of those and more. it doesn't make fucking sense. WORDS aren't offensive. PEOPLE are offendable. I didn't have a clear notion of what racism was until highschool, it didn't make sense. it still doesn't, but now when people say "racism" i have experiences to draw from. elementary was "yeah, people have different coloured skin. and racists are people who don't like some colours, but why? there's nothing wrong with someone just because of their colour or where they're from." and highschool (and forever after) was (and is) "what the fuck is wrong with people for suddenly joining a team or taking a side? this still doesn't make sense, but now it exists around me in my circle." there is no backing behind the offensive words people use, there is just stigma. Every word used to put people down, to keep people down, etc, was only able to do so because people let it do that. someone said "this word describes a people, and these persons are disgusting, dirty, and barely considered a "people"." and then the seeming majority of people said "okay." and if something describes something, then that thing suddenly exists. "but cameron, the word Unicorn describes a unicorn but they don't exist... idiot." yeah, sure they don't.. mind describing what a unicorn is to me? you bet it exists, because you know exactly what it is. now, if the word Unicorn described something different from what you know as a unicorn now, then what you know as a unicorn now wouldn't exist. viola, words creating things by being accepted as describing the thing they describe. the key here is that they need to be ACCEPTED to mean that thing. which is what is so fucking retarded about having "bad" words in a language. "PEOPLE! i have an announcement, i have just created a word - Wikke - which describes white people. I am filing it under the "bad" word category, and it should be used as being synonymous with terms that describe things of the like of "someone who doesn't know when to shut the fuck up about things they don't understand", "someone who can't stop talking about things they don't have first hand experience in", "someone who is so fucking retarded that they think that wounds caused to mass groups of people over centuries can just be undone", "an inconsiderate asshole", "a fatass who doesn't know what real work is or how it is to get somewhere from nothing", "someone who doesn't know what it's like to have all the odds stacked against them", "the butcher of world civilizations and rapist of lands the world over, taking advantage of peoples and their religions, cultures, ingrained beliefs, and good natures" etc." but.. why would we want that word? it's being born into taboo, it's being created for the EXPRESS purpose of offending people. however, there are two things there- the definition and the attached connotations. the definition is fine, it's just describing something. the attached meaning to that word is what doesn't make sense. there should be OTHER words to describe each one of those things.  Scargiter- someone who doesn't know when to shut the fuck up... and so on... it is the described thing that matters, and that is ALL that matters. in this case it would go like this-

Wikke. Noun. def. - a Caucasian or light skinned person. and in another example of how things should be in a world where words are taken as what they describe...  

Fag. Noun. def. - a person (normally male) who is sexually attracted to the same sex.

what you're NOT going to find are official definitions like this:

Wikke. Noun. def. - a Caucasian or light skinned person, which are all punk ass white boys who never understand when they're talking about things they aren't allowed to talk about, who have things given to them, who think they're better than everyone else because they're Caucasian or light skinned, who are just bad people.

Dyke. Noun. def. - a pussy licking rug munching bitch who is jealous of the male body and is sexually attracted to females... and on and on and on. for more examples, just imagine all the bad words you know and think about what you think they mean or what they describe and how they describe it.

THIS ISN'T HOW WORDS WORK. you might be thinking "well, yeah, some words DO mean things like that". i can't say this enough... that's ONLY because you accept that they do! so STOP accepting that they mean offensive things! because YOU are the one (of many) who give those words power to invoke those vary types of descriptions in the people who hear them and are offended!

if you're using those words to offend people, you're the bully in the schoolyard. if you don't use those words because they're "bad" you are the bystander/enabler. if you're using those words to describe what they describe in a neutral manner then you're making an active effort to diminish the power those words have, taking away power from the words of people who wish to offend others with bad words....

alright, i don't think i could ever come to a good close to this. i don't even know if this was a good start or middle either. whatever the case, i'm blaming the exact taboo i'm talking about as well as trying to talk about words while using words. it's just. so. fucking. frustrating....

also, bad words used in exclamation like when you hurt yourself, "FUCK!" are ridiculous to substitute with something else. the word is just a word, if anything is offensive it's the expression of anger....

also also, people having a personal problem with a word and being offended by it are completely understandable. sometimes people are scarred by things and have trigger words. it's fine for them to ask someone to avoid using that word, but it's ridiculous for them to expect someone to cater to them. most people probably will, but how much would you want to smack someone if they told you "hey! i want this asshole fired! he used my trigger word and i asked him to stop and he kept using it! ...by the way, my trigger word is "Family""...