MLK Jr. was a Democratic Socialist?!?

dem⋅o⋅crat⋅ic
–adjective
1. pertaining to or of the nature of democracy or a democracy

de⋅moc⋅ra⋅cy
–noun, plural -cies.
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
3. a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.

so⋅cial⋅ist
–noun
1. an advocate or supporter of socialism.

so⋅cial⋅ism
–noun
1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
~ all from Dictionary.com

So, how is that not an oxy moron? In the democracy, everyone has equal rights so an individual's ownership is held sacred, but in the socialist system, their ownership is vested (i.e. given/assigned) to the entire community. They are not the same thing in the slightest.

i've listened to more talk radio in the past week than in the past couple of months. Rush has been talking about the new Supreme Court ruling and explaining how corporations have free speech because they are composed of individuals. All the reporters that are anti-corporations... work for and are in a corporation called a news organization. They apparently work for the exact thing they profess to hate! But this goes on to other levels of society, too. Do you hate your neighbors? Well, if they have a job, you might as well, because they are part of a corporation. They may not be owners, or shareholders, but a corporation can not function without employees. So, when the U.S. government takes money away from corporations (i.e. taxes), where do you think it comes from? The more taxes that have to be paid, the lower everyone's wages must be and the less people can be hired. It isn't rocket science! These days, the government even treats small businesses harshly, so if you're thinking of working out of your home or if your neighbors are doing so, then you're one of the enemies according to them! Kind of puts thing into a new perspective, doesn't it?

socialism stinks (my 700th post)

i tire of trying to come up with titles.

i used to write quite a bit about politics here, but haven't really had the heart for it lately.  Following the news has been very discouraging, and since my cruise in November i have not paid much attention to it.  Today was my first day back in classes, and i had the chance to hear some Beck and Limbaugh.  It used to be that communism and socialism were strongly looked down upon in this country and in the UK.  Grand Junction's own writer darling, Dalton Trumbo, was red listed and had his work banned at one time.  Now, i am not at all for banning books, plays, etc., and i think that certain senators were just trying to burn witches to save face as it were, but at the same time it seems that conservatives have somehow become the witches.  The truth about communism and socialism isn't taught in schools anymore, and if one believes in freedom they are treated as if they are spiteful and cruel.

Some of the United States' first colonies made a go of socialism, and it didn't work.  Everyone would put the fruit of their labors into a community pot, and everyone would take out of said pot equally.  The trouble was that many people weren't putting into the pot at all (they were simply lazing about or working on mining schemes), while the people who were actually working at something useful were getting the fruit of their labors redistributed.  Colonies were failing because of this.  So they finally got smart and nixed the entire socialism scheme:  if people wanted to eat, have a roof over their head, etc., then they had to work for it.  All of a sudden the colonies were prospering!

Now, i'm no expert on the history of the UK, i'm just an American girl with predominantly German roots (and i know even less about that country's history), but i also have Slavic blood in me.  A couple of semesters i gave a report on Peter Sis' book The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain.  He grew up in a time where Czechoslovakia was ruled by communists, and all he wanted was to listen to rock and roll and draw and paint the things that he felt like expressing, rather than following the party rules about what acceptable art was.  Czechoslovakia's government eventually fell in one of the most successful peaceful protests in human history, the Velvet/Gentle Revolution in 1989! i was eight years old at the time.

What's been bothering me is that David Tennant seems to think that socialism is good ("Scots know to eat what's good for them").  Now, as a freedom loving yank, i am all for Scotland having its independence, but i absolutely abhor socialism; in fact, i think that it would be better for Scotland to remain part of the monarchy instead, if socialism is the other option.  In terms of evils, Republic is better than Monarchy is better than Socialist regime.  i support the Labour line that Scotland should devolve (as my geography professor would have put it) and have more of its own rule, but i don't believe that socialism will help any country.  Sure, it sounds bad that 7% of Scotland's population holds 84% of the wealth, but that's no reason to steal money from the 7% so that the other 93% can play around with what they didn't earn.  In such a situation, no one will prosper.

In Einstein and Eddington, Eddington's sister went to Germany to offer aid because food and medicine weren't being allowed into the Berlin.  She was a Quaker and didn't steal money from the government to do that, so far as i know (after all, it was Britain's government that was stopping those things from being allowed into the city).  Fast forward to today, and where does most aid come from now?  The Red Cross and Southern Baptists, all of which is funded by donations from what i understand.  Who do you think is in Haiti right now picking up the pieces?  People are making all sorts of donations, a percentage of what you buy goes to it at some websites, etc.  The operative term here is donations.  Most of us normal people make donations each year, whether it be because of our faith or because we want a tax break.  The rich donate the most of all, even if they donate the same percentage of their income as the rest of us.  Obama, the great redistributer of wealth, has been reported to donate less than 10% of his income in a given year, which means he isn't even tithing.  Meanwhile, Obama doesn't only want to use the rich people's money, he wants to use the poorer people's money, too, in order to fund things like his version of health care reform, just for starters.  It's bad enough that about 40% of my income goes to taxes like social security, now you want to take more?  No thank you, Mr. President.  i am not as knowledgable or articulate as some, but i do realize that what you're trying to do is not the best idea, in fact it's making a slightly bad situation unbelievably bad.

What bothers me the most about Tennant saying that socialism is good, is that he claims to hold to the Protestant ideals of always being able to do better.  This goes along with the Christian work ethic of giving and working wholeheartedly, as if you're giving directly to God (which you are, according to Christ).  Is he saying that because he has been fortunate enough to work his entire adult life that his money should get taken away and given to people who refuse to work?  Who squander their money?  The harder he works, the more he earns, the closer he gets to becoming part of that 7%.  If he suddenly lands a contract to make a movie, and gets paid millions of dollars for doing so, does he suddenly become his own enemy?  Tennant is very vocal about giving to charity, but what happens when the government takes away so much of your money that you can't live anymore, let alone give to anyone else?  Aren't the people who are in that 7% mostly just like in America, people who earned the money from their own hard work?  From what i understand, it's much easier to fall back into the 93% and have your children living just as poorly as you were when you started, if not more.

i doubt that anything i say can convince anyone, in fact i'm sure that everything that i've written is flawed in some way or utterly offensive, but i still cling to the cry:  "Give me liberty, or give me death!"

ETA: incidentally, i believe that there's a wee bit of Scottish blood in my veins as well. i really wish i knew more about my ancestry.

New Year's resolutions of a sort

i do not normally make New Year's resolutions: i figure that there is no point in putting off until the New Year to start improving upon something that needs fixing today. i've been fighting to fix things in my life for over a decade now, so this post is more of a State of the Lunacy speech. It's been an arduous journey, stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out the answers to questions that seem to have no answers, trying to figure out God's will when He has been so very silent. i'm sorry to say that i don't pursue God as keenly as i once did: i realized a long time ago that the harder i sought Him the more i fell apart when i didn't find Him. i used to blame Him for that, for my inability to find Him, because i was always taught that He would come running when i called. When that proved to not necessarily be the case, my whole life fell apart. Some people would call my opinions towards how God works to be sacrilegious, but i think that very often we take God's Word out of context. We're all stumbling around in the dark whether we realize it or not, and there's no way that any one person has all the answers while they're here on earth, otherwise what would be the point in continuing to live? If you aren't striving and learning then you're wasting precious life.

There were many things that i had to come to terms with in order to reach this point. My quarter life crisis hit me hard, and in many ways is still hitting me. i have no career. i have no relationship prospects. i had to get over Brad and then come to terms with the fact that i was willing to give him so very much that compromised parts of myself that i never wanted to compromise. Because i have no experience in dating or love i didn't realize what i was doing, i was completely blind. It didn't help matters that the man that i fell in love with turned out to be nothing like i thought he was and that i had been ignoring the small warning signs. i'm glad that i didn't end up with Brad now, but it took me a long time to reach this point, i still cannot say that i am entirely over him. It would be very hard for me to articulate just how very much i long to be in a marriage relationship, to not be alone, and where i have slid to as a result without losing all integrity. Yes, i am still a virgin, but i still feel sullied because of how much i gave emotionally and how much lust that i'm trying to deal with right now. i have no idea how to come to grips with my sexuality when i am single and trying to live a pure life, the entire "just ignore it" thing that the church has going on isn't helping me. i've also come to realize that i have some rather unrealistic expectations when it comes to marriage, that i've bought into the chick flick mentality a bit too much.

So my first two resolutions for this year are to more actively seek God again and surrender my lustful urges to Him in an attempt to confine them to His will and guidelines.

One of the most obvious external indicators of the changes that have happened in my life over the past year and a half is my body. It has taken me a very, very long time to come to grips with my weight. The truth is that i thought i was fat since i was about eight or nine, largely because that's what my peers told me and it seemed as if my mother thought she was fat. When i was Katie's age and size i hid my body and lived in humiliation because i did not understand what i had done to become fat or why i couldn't lose the weight. What i did not understand at the time was that i wasn't fat, my body just looked different than the ones i saw around me because i was athletic and big boned and more padded than the stick straight anorexic look that most people seem to go for these days. i would love to have my body from high school back again, but the little known truth is that our body's shape and size is not what determines our happiness. Our weight only has as much power as we give it, we don't have to be obsessed with losing those 10-15 pounds that we don't need to lose no matter how much society is screaming at us to do so. Is it more important to look like a model or be healthy?

i feel vastly healthier than i did after Brad and i broke up, which was at a point in my life where i was depressed and didn't care about taking care of my body. The ironic thing is that, my first big jump in weight gain, i was depressed but trying very hard to take care of my body, i just wasn't going about it in the right way. i have fought very hard not to gain more weight than i have. The things that i blame the most on my weight gain are depression and insomnia, even more than eating junk food or anything else, because i have almost always been active. i used to think that there was something wrong with my body because i didn't lose weight when i dieted and worked out. More sacrilege? Still, it's the truth. i'm starting to wonder if it's all the unnecessary chemicals and growth hormones that are in all the food at the local grocery store that have caused my body to not maintain a healthy weight.

So my next two resolutions are to reapply myself to eating less high fructose corn syrup, unnecessary chemicals--and instead buy natural and organic foods as much as possible--and to reapply myself to my training. i think i've finally come to a place where i am truly happy with my body but know that i have to keep fighting to lose more weight. i will never be the same size as Megan, and i'll probably never be the same size as Katie again, but maybe i can get below 200 pounds and get back into size 14 or 16 and just be healthy and happy. To that end i believe that i'll start training for Olympic length triathlons but only compete in Sprint length ones until i can improve my performance... say at least come in the top 75%! lol

My last three resolutions are to expand my social circle, write more, and balance my selfless and self-protective natures.

i have always felt a bit socially awkward, and to be honest playing WoW has exacerbated that. Throwing myself into the game, i thought i had a lot of friends, when in reality they were just nicer to me than most people are. There was no real connection or hold between us. Everything there has fallen apart time and again, and there's always two or three jerks that have to bring out the worst in me. One of the reasons that i didn't make a very good actress is because i was afraid to look bad: Emma Thompson and David Tennant have proven to me that the ugly parts of a person can make them all the more beautiful. i need to stop caring so much about what people say about me because very often they do it just to get a rise out of me and it makes me uglier than if i would have let it slide off my back.

So i'm quitting WoW, probably for good, and that was part of the deal i made with God when i decided to apply for the job at WoW.com: i have been considering leaving the game for a long time, and i promised Him that if i didn't get the job that i would finally quit the game. i want to try to make more friends my own age, or maybe just within my own interests. Let's face it, i am and have been and will always be a geek. Gaming will just become a smaller part of my life, just as it always was before i took up WoW. Now i will seek relationships based on shared faith, or interest in reading/writing, or in knitting, or in triathlons. Of course i also have two more semesters of school to get through, and a lot of what i can accomplish will depend on what my school-load is like.

i have been so grateful with my friendship with Katie these past few months. i also hate being sick, and cannot wait for this stupid cold to go away and the semester to start so i can start training again. i have several knitting projects that i'm looking forward to working on soon. i'm trying to make healthy choices and continue to grow as we enter a new decade... even though that decade technically doesn't begin until a year from now. (;