Random nonsense

Reminder: People are people. Good or evil doesn't depend on race, nationality, hair color, or economic status. On average, the typical backwoods aborigine in the furthest depths of the Amazon is no more or less noble than any other human being on the planet. Except neo-cons. But neo-cons, like the Sith, chose to go to the dark side. That free will thing.

Some Bible kiddy came around here and spit out a buncha verses that "prove" that Man is inherently evil. I pointed out that his verses weren't even 1/10th of 1% of the Bible and that a handful of verses out of context didn't mean diddly, but I'm not quite sure of that. Anyhow, it's not true. I've travelled all over this country and in a variety of places in the world, and people is people. Mostly apathetic, mostly self-absorbed and concerned only with whatever is happening in their own lives, true. But evil? No. To me, "evil" means that you actually go out of your way to do bad things. And I just have not met many people like that. And I've met a fair number of people who you probably would not want to invite home for dinner, given the fact that I taught in ghetto schools in two different locations. I've met misguided people. I've met stupid people. I've met people who will come to no good end. But I've met precious few people who actually go out of their way to do harm to others simply to do evil, and the one that I remember best is a neo-con "Christian" from Houston who was always ranting and railing about how he didn't want any of his tax money going to pay for schools for "niggers". (Yes, he used that word, at his own private dinner parties, one of which I attended in hopes of getting donations for the school I was teaching at). If the Bible appears to contradict reality, well, either the Bible is wrong or you are reading the Bible wrong. Pick your poison. If you're a Christian who believes the Bible is Truth, the only conclusion you can come to at that point is that your feeble human reading skills simply aren't capable of fetching God's truth out of text written in human language. If you're not a Christian, feel free to consider the Bible just another bunch of snake oil bunkum intended to seperate sheeple from their money.

Who the hell is Mike Gravel? Some cranky 77 year old who is running for President, apparently. He apparently had to take a city bus merely to get to the Washington Press Club to announce his candidacy. A Democrat of the old populist podium-pounding type. While I agree with some of his stuff, I'm not voting for him -- he's just too goddamned old. But he had some good quotes at the "debate" last week:

• I got to tell you, we should just plain get out. Just plain get out. [... ] It’s [Iraq] their country. They’re asking us to leave, and we insist on staying there.
• You know what’s worse than a soldier dying in vain? More soldiers dying in vain.
• ... this war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis.
• George Bush communicated over a year ago that he would not get out of Iraq until he left office. Do we not believe him? ... How do you get out? You pass the law, not a resolution, a law making it a felony to stay there.
• This invasion brought about more terrorism. Osama bin Laden must have been rolling in his blankets, how happy he was, our invading Iraq.

And oh -- it's the Fourth Annual Mission Accomplished Day, where we declared victory in Iraq... and then didn't go home. Given that we won on May 1, 2003 -- why, The Decider even said we did -- why are we still in Iraq? Mike Gravel is right. We should just plain get out.

-- Badtux the Random Penguin