I know I wrote a post last month claiming to have retired from here, but I couldn’t resist just one more blog to air my opinions on the election. I feel this is a fitting end and can assure you this will be my last.
This has truly been an interesting night. I must admit I started out rather nervous; I began reading the voting data as soon as it came in and at the very start McCain was ahead in the popular vote on many different news sites. This didn’t last obviously, not long in to the night it was obvious Obama was going to take the victory. To anyone not in fear of the Bradley effect it’s been clear Obama stood an overwhelming chance of winning for the past few days, but you never want to make assumptions on something with this magnitude.
The one thing that did surprise me about this election night was the atrocious attitude of almost every Republican featured in the mainstream media. John Bolton was on the BBC coverage and spent every moment of his speaking time attacking any criticisms of McCain or Republican policy. The Republican chairman in Colorado attacked a BBC correspondent most vehemently when he suggested that Colorado was an expected win for McCain. And to top it off the attitude of the Republican crowd at McCain’s concession speech was nothing short of despicable.
I gained a great deal of respect for McCain in his concession speech. He seemed sincere and warmed towards the idea of Obama as president, he did not seem bitter or angry at all, he took it well. His supporters however were almost the polar opposite, they booed heavily both times McCain mentioned his phone call to Obama conceding, they booed at almost any mention of Obama in fact. McCain’s supporters let him down massively.
It seems a fairly reasonable constant that almost every Republican I have seen from Television to internet forums tonight knows not the meaning of the word grace. In their attitudes and demeanor they have shown themselves to be little more than small children, whining and throwing their rattle out of the pram because things have not gone their way. They seem to believe that aggression is the best way to greet defeat. I consider my views mostly Conservative, but these people make me ashamed to call myself that.
I am sure there are gracious Republicans out there, but they are surely a rare breed. The people so concerned about Obama becoming president could only offer ‘I don’t want to discuss this’ on more than one internet forum I frequent. I suspect most of them will now crawl back to the political woodwork, waiting for a time in Obama’s presidency when they can crawl out and point their crooked and misguided fingers of ‘I told you so’. Although with how politically inept most of these people seem to be, it will surely provide comedy value more than anything else.
As I am typing a commentator on the BBC coverage is saying the Republican party is not simply a party, it is a mindset. and I agree, it is a mindset built around hatred, fear, ignorance and intolerance. It is built around deceit and misinformation. Around tricking the guilable, feeding them lies and exploiting their lack of knowledge. This ‘mindset’ is why you lost. Because in this age you can not succeed on such virtues. Hopefully you will realize this sooner rather than later. If you do, it will be for the better of yourself and your country.
Yup, after a short period of deliberation I’ve decided to discontinue use of this blog. The main reason being I really struggle to find anything decent to write about anymore. Although that’s not strictly true, there are plenty of things I’d like to write about but I either can’t seem to find the right words or I feel stupid writing about them. Honestly, you can’t really jump between mocking politicians and certain Oceanic countries and deep philosophical thoughts about feelings and love. It’s just weird. Or at least it is to me.
Thanks to everyone who ever read or commented, positive or negative, on anything I wrote. It was and is appreciated, no matter how venomously I may have replied to you. This will remain up for another few weeks or so until I get Shane to pull the plug.
Anybody who can watch that, understand the points being made against her, and still want to vote for her and think she should be the second most powerful person in America can only be classed as mentally retarded.
I was lying in bed last night unable to sleep (as is often the case) and without really consciously directing my thoughts I began to think about the topic of religion. I am of the belief the only people who believe in god and theology are the people who were raised to. I don’t believe you could raise a child in a purely secular environment and from what they saw around them or from what they learned as they grew would they choose god as a logical choice, unless somebody coerced them towards it.
But this post is not about that alone. While thinking this over in my head I began to look at the wider picture. If it is so believable that the only way one can be religious is through ones upbringing then surely it is not inconceivable that almost every aspect of our personalities stems from our upbringing. It seems obvious when you state it this way but I can honestly say it never occurred to me before.
Is it really possible we are born as a blank slate and our experiences and the things were hear and see as we grow are what programs our personality? Sure, certain aspects are already ingrained by genetics but how much does our upbringing impact on our personality? Could the most staunch of theists have been just as easily atheists had their parents been different inclined? Could the most bitter conservative just as easily be the most liberal thinker? When you think about it in that sense it does make our personalities seem exceptionally shallow, to know what identity we may claim to have is from nothing more than what we heard or saw when we were small. To know the beliefs we hold dear may just be so dear to us because they’ve all we’ve ever known.
I was watching a politics program on television a few months back and they were talking to factory workers in Crewe (city in northern England) because there was a bi-election taking place there and many believed Labour would lose it to the Conservatives (and as a matter of fact they did). The program were interviewing workers in a factory and asking them if they still were supportive of Labour under Gordon Brown and two of the answers that stuck in my head were something like:
1st answer
I’ll always vote Labour because they look after and care about the working class and the Conservatives don’t. I’ll never vote Conservative.
2nd answer
I think the problems Gordon Brown is having at the moment are because of the lasting damage done by the last Conservative government and we should give him more time to solve them.
Those answers are obviously so plain stupid I’m not going to spend much time explaining them but basically no political party gives a shit about the working class *really* but that false assumption has won Labour reelection three times now and the Conservatives have been out of power since 1997. So go figure.
But those answers got me thinking. I think people being over loyal to people, organizations, even ideas is all too common. I think back to some of the spats that have occurred on RSBANDB within the staff that have most of the time led to people leaving (or being pushed from) the moderating team. People attempting to defend their friends when they’ve blatantly broken the rules and basically been asses.
I’ve never been able to understand why people behave like that. Why do people try and defend the undefendable? Many people have used the argument against me in the past ‘Wouldn’t you defend your friends?’ Well no.. Not if they said or did something that I downright disagreed with. I’m not saying I’d condemn them for it as I would if it was someone I didn’t care about, but I certainly wouldn’t try and defend them. Why would anyone think that was a sign of being a good friend? If anything it just makes you an idiot.
It’s the same with political parties, my grandparents, my parents. They’ve voted for the same political parties all their life, at every election, regardless of whos standing. I remember at the last election I asked my grandfather who he was voting for.. and he replied Conservative.. and I said ‘No.. who?’ he had no idea what Conservative candidate was standing in our constituency.. I don’t think he cared.. he was just voting for the same party he’d always done.
The same happens everywhere. It was hilarious to see the Republicans barking over how wonderful a VP pick Sarah Palin is, when the truth is they would have cheered and applauded if John McCain had appointed a feral cat as his VP. Same thing with McCain himself, the Republican party as a whole was indifferent to him during the primaries yet the moment he was their official candidate they were all lording over how wonderful he was in every way. It didn’t matter who he was, he was just standing for the Republican Party. So funny when people try and make arguments for why McCain is the right person. When you know they’re just supporting him because of the party he’s the nominee of. These are the people who say George Bush was a good president.. because he’s a Republican and so are they.
Most people have difficulty drawing a line between loyalty and idiocy it seems.
1. People who say ‘Don’t say hate, that’s a horrible word’
2. People who make idiots of themselves on public forums
3. Death metal, along with the million other shitty sub genres of metal, IT DOES NOT TAKE ANY SORT OF ABILITY TO SCREAM IN A HOARSE VOICE
4. People who put down others to try and hide their own insecurity
5. People who are full of themselves
6. Patriotic Americans
7. People who think George Bush was a ‘good’ president.
8. People who think Ron Paul would make a good president.
9. Ron Paul
10. Creationists
11. Evangelicals
12. People who have no idea how to drive a car properly even though they managed to pass their test
13. The majority of female drivers (not sexist, just true)
14. Fanboys of any kind (I’m talking to you, Shane)
15. Majority of liberals (Get some fucking perspective)
16. Anybody who is loyal to anything without questioning it
17. Anybody dumb enough to think the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) was actually going to open up a black hole
18. Australian accents (note; not the country or people, just the whiney accent)
19. Southern US accents
20. Airport security
21. Airports in general
22. Flying
23. People who criticize the notion of hating things
24. People who make claims without any substance
25. Dogs
26. Self righteous Vegetarians
27. Small children
28. Revolutionists
29. Conspiracy theories
30. Space exploration (lets sort out this planet before we go and find another one to fuck up?)
31. Rugby (no skill involved, no wonder England is somewhat good at it)
32. Overprotective parents (who’s kids turn in to incapable weaklings)
33. People who are incapable of saying what they really think or feel about something or someone and blatantly spout bullshit instead
34. People who think quoting intelligent makes them intelligent by some form of fucked up association
35. Just putting this in as a holder to see if anyone is actually still reading these, if you are; good job.
36. The fact I can never think of anything decent to write in this blog anymore
37. People who say ‘I understand’ when they clearly don’t
38. Majority of Republicans
39. Anyone who is dumb enough to be pro life
40. Anyone who is bloodthirsty enough to support the death penalty. Killing someone doesn’t go anybody any good and is a let off for the criminal.
41. People who use the argument ‘well I don’t want my tax money spent on ____ ‘ when they don’t even pay any fucking tax, let alone earn any full time wage.
42. People who spit, it’s just fucking gross
43. People who refuse to eat things because they’re a day over the expiry date even if they look fine
44. People who invent extraordinary lives for themselves and tell them to a forum full of people. When their stories are about as likely as me moving to Australia
45. People who post pictures of themselves every other fucking day on forums. Hey! Guess what? You looked the same as you did last week!
46. Grammar Nazis, if you understood what was typed well enough to correct it then why did you need to correct it? You understood what was said, idiots.
47. Americans calling football ’soccer’. Your version of football barely uses your feet.
48. People who ask other people to do things they’d never dream of doing themselves
49. People who talk REALLY LOUDLY IN PUBLIC LIKE EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY
50. People who take things too seriously (read: irony of me making a list of things that annoy me about the world and then ending it with that)
I’ve been meaning to make a blog post like this for the past few months. Ever since the whole Hilary Vs. Obama thing has been going on. But hey, I procrastinate.
I like to think of elections as being a choice between two evils. No political candidate is perfect, most of them are as far from it as you can get. But it is possible to select the lesser of two evils. The better of the two candidates. Now I say two candidates, but I know there will be a hell of a lot more standing. Ralph Nader will probably stand again under some retarded delusion that he might actually win, and the same can be said of all the other people standing as independents or for lesser parties. But lets face it, a Republican or a Democrat will win this election. The only way the independents are going to sway the vote is by taking votes away from either Obama or McCain who might have won had there just been a choice between two.
Now I’m not that fond of Obama or McCain. Both have a hell of a lot of faults in my opinion. But in my eyes Obama is most certainly the lesser of two evils. Not that I like him that much. It’s just that McCain is so dam incapable and George Bush-esque that he degrades himself more than his rival. The fact McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time should tell anybody on the fence that if you want another 8 years of Economy rape and a foreign policy that makes you look like a bunch of trigger happy retards, coupled with the further erosion of your civil liberties* then McCain is your man. And if you seriously believe that he is the better man for the job you’re either a brainwashed Republican or just plain dumb.
Added to this McCain decided to appoint Sarah Palin as his VP candidate. Now this bitch is a real piece of work. It’s clear to anybody with two functioning eyes he’s only done this to try and win some Hilary voters from Obama. But what he’s obviously not contemplated is that Hilary voters are mostly pro choice and pro life. Something Palin is not. It’s also hilariously comical how Palins eldest daughter is pregnant at 17 when Palin belives the only sex education children should receive is abstinence. That’s what a pro abstinence stance has got her; a knocked up 17 year old daughter. And apparently it’s all right because Bristol Palin (The daughter) is going to marry the father and keep the baby. YES, THAT MAKES EVERYTHING OK. She’s going to marry some redneck who got her pregnant at 17 just to make her mother look better. Fuck, I seriously question how mentally competent some people are.
But who do I think is going to win? Well I’m really not sure. Obviously I think Obama is the better candidate. But the American electorate has a really bad habit of voting for the wrong guy. Added to that Obama is black, and whether people will admit it or not I think a lot are unsure of him for that reason alone. Yes it’s sad, but it’s also the truth of our society today. A lot of people still judge people subconsciously because of the colour of their skin.
Now before I wrap this up, I just want to make a small shout out to Ron Paul. I wish the Republican party had nominated him as their candidate. Not because I’m a member of the weird ass Ron Paul internet cult but because I think he’s a fucking idiot and I hate the people who praise him as a god with fiery passion. I don’t care what policies he has or what he would do if he ever got elected. All that matters to me is that the dumb fucker doesn’t believe in evolution. Now he could have a perfect policy set and we could agree every to eye on every single detail of his campaign but if he’s a creationist he can go fuck himself. I wouldn’t want someone who believes god created the earth in 7 days in spite of all the evidence to the contrary to hold the highest office in the world.
Added to that a lot of people talk about the changes Ron Paul would make and most of them seem like they’d never work. At the end of the day the president is just a figurehead, He isn’t going to be able to change a hell of a lot just at his word. It’s like that old saying ‘If elections changed anything, they’d make them illegal’.
3 Years to the day since this blog first started. Seems like it’s gone awfully quickly to me. A lot of stuff has changed in the past 3 years, if I think about it little has stayed constant in my life over that period.
I guess in the past 3 years I’ve changed quite a bit. Lots of people have come and gone online. Sometimes when I have nothing better to do I just think about how much things have changed around here (RSBANDB), How different it was several years ago, even a year ago. The people that passed by, banned, left, never to be seen again.
I’m a nostalgic bastard most of the time. Despite the fact I know I can’t change what happened in the past and I can’t ever truly revisit it I always cling on this childish hope that I might be able to. Always seems like things were a lot better in the past. I think it’s that way for most people.
Most of us seem to view the past through rose coloured spectacles. Probably the same way we’ll view the present now in several years. Either things are steadily getting worse or we’re simply just convincing ourselves that things were better. Like when you ask Old people what it was like when they were young. I think it’s more likely the latter.
I miss certain people. I’m glad to see the back of others. Although even people I hated vehemently at the time I think I’d greet with some kindness were we to cross paths again. Times funny like that. It drastically changes your perspective of things and people. Even when at the time you convince yourself nothing will change how you feel about certain things.
I’m going to stop writing now because I probably could ramble on forever.
australian
http://.. | gobacktoschool@live.com | 122.107.240.27
This is by the dumbest idiotic article I’ve seen and this is coming from a uni student, I must say, way to soil yourself. From a proud Australian, i hope you enjoyed your former prime minister tony Blair which went to our uni in Australia dont bother replying, i have better things to do.
From About Me, 2008/09/06 at 11:53 AM
If you’re an example of the average Australian graduate you pretty much prove my point. Lovely grammar, punctuation and spelling. My my you really have the full ticket don’t you?
Just for the record, Blair went to university at Oxford. Even if he had gone to University in Australia as you claim it’s not like it’d make much difference to the fact you’re a retard.
Oh and just another FYI. Saying you’re something doesn’t make it so. You may well be at university. But I very much doubt it. Your IP has been spamming my comments with useless crap for over a year now. And those little posts attempting to stretch my page were really a waste of your time. They must have took you at least 10-15 seconds to spam up and took me just one click to delete. Waste of your time. And not something anyone over the age of 12 would even attempt, those things combined make me think you’re not a university student, but much more an angsty, emotionally retarded 12 year old with more hormones than you know what to do with. Better luck next time.
This is further proved when you say ‘don’t bother replying’ like the sort of mentally deficient pre teens who try and attack other people on message boards and then hide behind a ‘don’t reply cos i wont read it lolol’. If you’re going to make an attack on someone, at least have the balls to stand up and take whatever words they have to defend themselves. I always have.
Besides the fact I’ve actually posted on more than one occasion I really have nothing much against Australia. I was just attempting to annoy Australian friends of mine. Yet you retards still keep diving forward and launching hysterical attempts at attacks. You prove a point I never seriously believed myself.
Now this was an issue that myself and Shane debated very briefly in the RSBANDB!Update of two weeks ago. Now I went away on holiday before this update was actually posted up for the masses and upon my return earlier this morning I was shocked to find many people had taken to debating this point. This shocked me first and foremost because I can’t see how anyone (even Shane) can think it’s anything to debate over. It’s just dam stupid.
There is no debate to be had. But I think what many people arguing on the topic seemed to try and say was that Audio books and reading a book is the same because you get the same information out at the end. God dammit how ignorant can people be. The debate on the show and in general was never about if the information you got at the end of both processes was the same. Of course, it’s going to be the fucking same. If you watch a movie and then read the book you’ll get the same dam story, give or take depending on how much Hollywood has mangled it. The argument is that the way you reach that information is profoundly DIFFERENT.
When you sit down and read a book you use your fucking eyes, something which you people arguing that audio books are the same obviously don’t do very often. When you listen to an audio book you use your ears. Two different ways of getting the same information yes, but different ways. Which was my original argument. How you can claim they are the same is beyond any reasonable persons comprehension.
Listening is not reading. Reading is not listening. Sometimes I seriously question how many of you were dropped multiple times on your head as small children.
dont bother replying, i have better things to do.