Changing America

I believe we are close to a point in America where the only way to get positive change is through force...the reason we have the 2nd amendment...which is slowly being eroded away.

However, what I think may be an issue is a lack of attention on changing how we elect people to positions of government...how campaigns are ran. How we allow the media to use their bias, their control over who even appears on the television, to control public opinion and thus the public vote. Why is it we constantly attempt to attain change through voting, only to end up with politicians who only care about corporate interests? Why is there not more outcry for change on this whole system?

Some changes for starters, the smear campaigns that may typically take things out of context to make someone look bad should be banned. It's not a campaign for why you should vote for one or the other, but why you shouldn't vote for them.

News coverage should be required to cover all possible candidates equally. Rather than the focus given to only the top two contenders...who may not actually be the top two, but the top two for corporate interests. These corporations that provide news coverage and claim to be unbiased and fair...should be fined greatly if not have prison time when it comes to misleading and biased information when it comes to elections. We are electing people who will be running cities, states, and even an entire country! These people will be making decisions that effect thousands and millions of people. People deserve to know and have access to accurate and complete coverage for all of them.

Debates should include all running candidates. Not just republican and democrat. There are more than two parties. It's manipulative to only allow people to only see two sides. If I have to decide between coke, pepsi, and popco, never having heard of popco or being able to taste it, I will obviously choose only between coke and pepsi. In the case of a restaurant food menu, that may not be a huge issue, but when it comes to something greater like who will run the country, popco might be the greatest soda I've ever had...but if they don't have corporate interests in mind, then those corporate assholes will keep it off the air. In the end, the people lose out to corporate interest.

Corporate funding should be nearly eliminated from politics. Let the people back who they want to win, not corporations and special interest groups. When it comes to candidates, the ones with the most financial backing are typical the front runners. Not because they are the best, but because they are the most advertised. With the digital age, this isn't as much the case, but for a majority of voters who do not get their information online, it is.

Essentially, what I think we need to do to change things, is change the way campaigns are run first. We will not get politicians who have the interests of the people into office when corporations are allowed to manipulate public opinion so easily. This is how I believe we the people will make actual change for the good of America. Corruption within the system needs to be removed. You don't leave a bad apple in with a bag of apples, you have to remove it before it infects the others. If you don't, at some point all the apples will go bad and introducing good apples will not improve anything, as they also become corrupt.

This is of course, assuming that politics aren't fixed at a level beyond voter manipulation.

History in digital - Can we trust it?

I don't know many people who turn to books for history lessons anymore. These days everyone goes to google, or wikipedia most likely. I have to wonder how reliable and accurate is that? Everyone currently accepts wikipedia as accurate and a reliable source of information. But as we know (hopefully know), it's been proven that it's not always accurate. I remember seeing news about how Scientologists will edit pages, and even politicians edit pages about themselves, not to mention the countless anonymous trolling that occurs via wikipedia and other sources. Though we can't even trust history books...

More recently, history has been modified according to current times definitions of terrorism, in that the Boston Tea Party is now being called an act of terrorism. I had seen an image online which showed that even history text books have reflected this, though I question the authenticity of images like that online. This all makes me wonder, how do we know what really happened in history if all we do is look it up on an easily modified source such as the internet? If they are editing history in schools, how do we know they haven't already changed the sources on the internet? I for one do not have the best memory and will look things up. I would not know if something had been modified or not. But if the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism, then America is a terrorist organization.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/26/boston-tea-party-was-act-_n_2193916.html

Considering the current tyrannical path our government has taken, and seeing that other such governments have gone as far as modifying their own historical information to fit their needs and agendas, how do we know that our own hasn't already done so? Some lesser known historical information that even when I went through school was not accurate (or not even taught), such as how the native Americans were so great in numbers that even with firearms there is no way we would have been able to take America from them had it not been for the diseases and plagues that wiped the majority of them out. Christopher Columbus was not some great explorer who discovered America. President Lincoln abused government power, that when the civil war started, it was not because of slavery, but because the south succeeded from the Union and Lincoln would not allow that. Not only historical falsification occurs, but even the meanings of things such as our constitution is being modified. Such as how the 2nd amendment only applied to muskets. Anyone who thinks that, is a fucking idiot.

The more I learn, the more I find that what history is generally accepted and taught, is not factual history at all. I further believe that our government has in fact been falsifying history just as other governments have to paint it in a better light than is factual. Our government has been tyrannical since the 1800's. And slowly we have had our liberties and freedoms that were fought for taken away. What America was founded on and escaped from no longer exists. We came to America to get away from taxation, to have freedom of religion, and have our liberties and pursue happiness. We are being taxed more and more, freedom of religion is slowly becoming freedom of Christianity, and our liberties taken away while being forced into wage slavery.

If we knew our true history, perhaps we would not be in the situation we are in today, where our government is slowly eroding away the constitution that America was founded on, and our liberties being taken away. Remember, history is "written" not recorded, by the victor. Rise up sheeple. Stop being mindless faux news drones believing everything you're told.

http://www.southernheritage411.com/truehistory.php?th=131 - Civil War history

Is anyone raising children anymore?

It seems to me that more parents are merely watching their children grow older than actually raising them...

We live in a day and age with so many gadgets and applications for monitoring where and what your child is doing, so rather than raising children that the parents can trust they simply monitor everything they do. This is bad, not only for the child but for society as a whole.

Parents have become "big brother" to their kids. Monitoring everywhere they go, every web site they visit, everything they do is monitored these days. They even have drones that can watch them as they walk to bus stops...which is crazy. I understand some parents aren't worried about what their children may do as much as worried for their safety out in the real world. But it's a false sense of security. It's like knowing police can show up in 30 minutes as opposed to actually having the ability to defend yourself. You have a cop on call, but if something actually happens you're defenseless. A kid that knows the candy van isn't real is far better off than a kid who doesn't...and even better off a kid who knows how to fend off a possible attacker or kidnapper.

In the past, parents never had all the child surveillance technology we do today, and it's become so common place. They sell these devices with the idea of "child safety" and "child protection". Yet, the same parents probably complain when the government does the same to them with the purpose of "citizen protection". I find it difficult to believe the world is so bad that we have to use such technology to watch children because it's that unsafe out there. From what I've seen, it's a lack of proper parenting that's the real issue.

On a bigger picture, this is going to be awful for society in the long run. We essentially are making the "big brother" scenario common for them. They will be used to this idea of always being watched and may even expect it later in life without realizing or seeing the negative implications of having no privacy. This is paving the way for a big brother government, or at least one more so invasive than it already is.

It's simple. If you raise children properly, you won't need to monitor them. I think this qoute applies to the issue of child monitoring, just as much as government monitoring its citizens...

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Self Defense is Best Defense

Defending ourselves, or relying on an outside force to do so...why would we put our safety and livelihood in the hands of complete strangers who are susceptible to corruption other self motivating conditions?

I for one do not believe in the idea of relying on police to protect an entire country of people from murder, theft, and other crimes. Laws do not prevent the crimes they make illegal, and police can't prevent crimes. They are only good after the crime is already committed. So why are we being forced into a position of having to rely on them for our safety?

For example, assuming you don't have weapons, if an armed burglar breaks into your home you can call the cops. They will arrive 30 minutes or more later after the burglar has already stolen everything, and in a worse case scenario, killed everyone. Also, the cops only show up if you are able to call them. Then those same cops will maybe look for evidence to help them find the person who broke in if it's important enough since they don't have time to look into every case. In most cases, they will simply show up for the sake of any insurance claim you make assuming you have insurance in the first place for it.

So what I would prefer this country pursue is a country of trained and armed citizens. It makes more sense to have a country of citizens who can defend themselves and their property than paying for the poor service of protection provided by police. Consider Switzerland, the most armed citizens and lowest rate for homicide. Essentially, who is going to take the chance of being killed if that chance is so high? Same reason all the countries want nuclear weapons...who wants to fight a country that could nuke you?

Rather than trying to ban any weapon, the US really should consider the idea of pushing for people to arm themselves, and ensure everyone is trained in the use of firearms. An increase in the chance that you'll be shot and killed robbing someone, a bank, store, etc, would greatly decrease the crime rate. Having people walk around cities with pistols, or even assault rifles slung across their shoulder would be a great deterrent to crime. It would kind of be like having police everywhere...which just isn't going to happen, I hope.

An article about Switzerland, guns, and crime...
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/articles/guns-crime-swiss.html