Medicine

I was at a local hookah lounge a few nights ago, and they were having a poetry event, and then the owner of the place did a 10 or 15 minute rambling talk to his audience of young hippies which basically consisted of cliche new age speak. During one part he was talking about alternative medicine and said “Conventional medicine doesn’t work!”

I had to bite my tongue. I like the place and I generally like the guy as well, but such a ridiculous blanket statement like that made me lose a lot of respect for him. He was trying hard to be inspirational and said a few good things, but he kept throwing out cliched talk and blanket statements like that and I eventually tuned him out and just talked quietly to my friends.
There was a lot I wanted to say about that particular statement, because I hear it a lot from those who prefer alternative medicine. However, I want to keep going there for hookah and saying something would have only created drama and made the place uncomfortable for me to return to. It wouldn’t have been worth it. But, I gotta get this out somewhere.

See, I like a lot of alternative medicine. Some of it is quite good, but a good deal of it is also crap. Tim Minchin said it best: “You know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.”

I wanted to tell this guy that I’d had a bad flu a couple of years ago which developed into a sinus infection.  I tried tons of garlic, ginger, cayenne, echinacea, zinc, grapefruit seed extract, teas, tinctures, etc. The only thing that worked was Zithromax.

If conventional medicine doesn’t work, then why does it cure so many people?

See, I completely understand the arguments against the pharmaceutical industry. I’m right there with the alt med folks on that. They’re evil, corrupt fucks who often release medication that’s not been properly tested just for profit. If a recall happens later, their court costs and/or paying out a settlement will be much less than the profit they made. Yes, most pharmaceuticals have horrible side effects. There’s a lot of bad stuff in conventional medicine.

However, most of it works. Most of it does just what it should.

There’s needs to be a better balance when these discussions are happening. Sadly, a lot of alternative medicine supporters dismiss conventional medicine out of hand (like the aforementioned guy at the hookah place). Similarly, there are hardcore medical folks who completely disregard alternative methods. I don’t think either approach is correct.

See, the reason a lot of conventional medicine is so strictly adhered to by the medical community is because, when the protocols are followed (which they are far more often than not), there are tests, studies, research, etc. and it is peer reviewed. Most medical researchers are quite thorough in finding out exactly what does what and how it works. When it comes to alternative medicine, you generally have one medical spokesperson, and they either invented the medicine or are somehow affiliated. So, it can be harder to find good info for it.

I used to have a lot more trust in alternative medicine, but over recent years I’ve seen more widespread falseness and fraud than I’ve seen in the conventional community. See, in the conventional world, you have to have tons of money to get away with defrauding the public. There are a ton of checks and balances to bypass. In the alternative world, anyone can get a mail order PhD and stamp that after their name and people will gobble up whatever they say, because, look at those initials! They’re a REAL doctor!! Plus, what they said just FEELS right! I’ve learned the hard way that what “feels” right can be dead wrong, again and again. However, if something is peer-reviewed and corroborated by other studies, it’s more likely to be true.

Also, if one eschews the conventional community, why use their credentials to gain believability? See, it’s that same double standard I see in creationism. They eschew science, yet try to get people with degrees in various sciences to back them up. It’s a glaring hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, when I try to research many alternative medicines, it’s really hard to find solid scientific studies. Generally, the info that backs up a lot of it is a lot of personal stories and small, one-off, non-peer reviewed “studies”.  Some things are getting properly studied, and some of the things have proven effective. A lot has not only not been proven effective, but some of it has been proven completely ineffective, such as homeopathy.

There’s a good interactive chart which shows popular health supplements by the strength of the evidence for what they are purported to cure. For instance, St. John’s Wort has proven to be effective against depression and PMS symptoms. Green tea is good against cholesterol. Folic Acid is good against certain birth defects. On the other hand, there’s no support for antioxidants giving longer life, saw palmetto for prostate issues, or grapefruit seed extract as an antibiotic/antifungal. Then, there are even conflicting studies, such as for coconut oil lowering cholesterol, aloe vera against diabetes and green tea against cancer.

There’s one thing that both conventional and alternative medicine excel at: marketing. Anyone who tells you one of them is all good and the other all bad is full of crap. My suggestion is to read. If you want to know if something is proven to work, don’t just listen to anyone who has initials after their name. See if you can find several studies and compare them. If you want to know the truth of things, you can’t be mentally lazy. If you’ve already decided that one or the other is always better, then you likely aren’t one who cares for facts anyway. The main thing I would want people to take away from this is to not dismiss either field out of hand, and instead, base one’s stance on evidence.

You Think You Got It Bad?

I’ve been called out by a good and respectable friend for my ridicule of religion. It’s something that we atheists hear pretty often: how disrespectful we are. As if we have no reason and we’re just being mean to kindly, good, God-lovin’ folk. We’re lording our Science over them and mocking them just to get our kicks over their “primitive” beliefs. However, I think a lot of people don’t understand why this happens and some back-story is necessary.

First off, let me defend my friend and say that he is one of the few Christians I have encountered who does not disparage atheists and he’s an exceptionally honest and respectable individual. This article isn’t even directed at him so much as the many who distrust and vilify atheists for the mere crime of not sharing their beliefs. However, some things here might give him some perspective he might not have otherwise considered. That’s more the intent of this, but I figured I’d kill a few birds with one stone.

I should begin by explaining what atheism is, to clear up a massive social misconception. It is not the belief that God does not exist. Let that sink in. It is a lack of belief in a deity. That’s all. Nothing more. There quite literally is no belief in atheism which is why it can’t be considered a religion. It’s been said that atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.

Now, many atheists are also anti-theists, which means they are against a belief in god. The two stances are separate, even if they are often hand in hand. I’m not against the simple belief in a god and I have no issue with Deists, for instance. I also take the stance that no one knows whether or not a god exists. I don’t claim there is none, though I do find it unlikely. Personally, I would go as far as to say that I believe the Christian god does not exist, but who knows, there may be some kind of consciousness out there. A great deal of atheists are simply of the position that we would be willing to believe in a god if there were evidence of one.

However, if we are open about our lack of belief in public, well, it’s a lot like being gay, I imagine. We are vilified, hated, feared, demonized, dehumanized and attacked quite vehemently. An openly atheist person could not get elected to any major office in this country. In fact, some State constitutions require a belief in god in order to be elected. It’s like being black a century ago, except that our atheism isn’t readily apparent. We have the luxury of being able to fake it, which we must sometimes do for our social survival.

We’ve had to shut up for so long while we hear ourselves being disparaged left and right. If we were to say “Hey, I’m an atheist, and I find your words insulting,” we are shouted down and often hated. The internet has been a “godsend” for us because it finally allowed us to anonymously talk about reason and atheism and who and what we really are, which is people, just like everyone else.

I became atheist somewhat late in life. I think I finally realized I was atheist around age 36. Prior to that, I was what I called “Spiritual, but not religious”. Basically, I was into a mishmash of pagan, Buddhist and New Age stuff and I would often poke fun at atheists and talk about how science had it all wrong and had the common misconceptions about what atheism is and how science works. I was absolutely certain that some kind of consciousness or god existed. I would assume that anyone who didn’t believe as I did was “unevolved”. Though a central tenet of my spirituality was non-judgment, I was pretty judgmental.

However, I’d always said that I wanted to know the truth, whatever it may be, even if it shattered my most cherished beliefs. I started exploring science, and found many of my beliefs outright debunked. Dowsing, the efficacy of prayer, homepathic medicine, and many other things had to be discarded due to very solid evidence that they don’t work. Eventually I started coming up to a wall and had to make a choice. I could either accept the evidence, or reject reality. I chose reality. I chose not having answers to some big questions rather than insisting I had the answer, but that you had to just get it, or you weren’t highly evolved enough.

I look back at how I used to think and I’m ashamed and more than a little embarrassed. But, I also know what it’s like to think ill of atheists and disparage science while knowing next to nothing about either. You simply can’t reason with people who believe like that. There’s not anything you can say that will penetrate the wall of stuff that people will pull out of their asses to defend their beliefs. Believe me, I was rather adept at the psychosomatic practice of making shit up and believing wholeheartedly that I was right.

For a great deal of atheists, we started out with fervent belief, and once we did our research and came to the conclusion that the only honest position is “I don’t know” regarding god, we are then faced with a massive feeling of betrayal. Our entire society helps perpetrate a lot of inconsistent and unfounded beliefs and also perpetuates the belief that those who do not have these beliefs are wrong and misguided at best, and on top of that, probably very bad, even dangerous people.

Imagine being in a room your whole life, and you’re told that those who look out the window are bad people, and that only lies and evil exist on the other side of that window. But you sneak peeks, and eventually find yourself observing it at length, and it becomes apparent that you were lied to by everyone else in the room. Some of them even knew they were lying, but they have to protect themselves, so they played along. You finally say, “Just look out the window…there’s nothing evil there, it’s just trees and sky and things. We’ve been lied to!” The mob jumps all over you, because you dared to question what everyone “knows”. You looked where you shouldn’t have, and it doesn’t matter that you found out a liberating truth, you broke the taboo of looking out the window. The rules are more important than reality. You aren’t supposed to question or disobey. You are outcast and hated for doing nothing more than peeking out of a fucking window.

Society is like being in that room. So many things that we are expected to believe don’t hold up to scrutiny when actually examined objectively. But, we’re the bad ones for doing so. We try to explain things like evolution and we’re treated like we’re the ones with tinfoil hats. However, if people simply looked at the vast collection of evidence which makes evolution not a belief, but a very solid, provable and observable fact, they might understand. They just have to look out the window from the room of their beliefs and realized that they have been lied to about many other things.

This has been the case throughout history. Galileo had to endure house arrest for life for trying to explain the fact that the earth revolves around the sun and is not the center of the universe. He was right, and was imprisoned for it because he dared to look out the window. Giordano Bruno was actually executed for espousing similar discoveries. What belief can be correct that dares not be questioned?

Imagine how it would feel to know, factually, provably, with massive evidence on your side that something is factual, but it goes against what you were taught all your life. Everyone around you seems to be in this haze and you try to clear up that haze just a little and are treated like you killed and ate their baby. Imagine how monumentally frustrating that is.

All these centuries, even millenia, the people who applied science and truly tried to discover how the universe really works with the intent of helping all of humanity understand these things and move forward…these people have been the enemy.

These days, we have the technology to instantly share new evidence of various things as they come forward and the gaps in our knowledge are very quickly getting smaller, yet there are still millions who believe that this is wrong. Understanding reality is wrong. Is there a more clear definition of insanity?

This overwhelming ignorance is what we contend with on a daily basis, and quite frankly, I’m amazed at the composure with which our most public spokespeople handle it. People like Hitchens and Dawkins are called “testy” and “stern” and “condescending”. Believe me, they could be much worse. They could be hateful and fanatical, like those who vilify them. If they take part in mockery from time to time, are they really so bad?

Are atheists supposed to continue to shut up and not question? Are we to treat those who vilify us with kid gloves? Really? No. Fuck that. When we have people bombing abortion clinics, picketing funerals, preaching against condom use in AIDS-ridden areas, and insisting that their mythology replace sound science in the classroom, we should not shut up. Science may have been used in the creation of things like the atomic bomb, but it is the religious fanatics that are so eager to use them.

To have modern technology in the hands of those whose understanding of the universe is 2000 years behind the times is dangerous. Leaving decisions of policy with those who consult the stars rather than sound science is applied ignorance. In these days, if people choose to hold on to the beliefs of desert tribesmen from 2000 years ago, they are welcome to do so, however they should not expect to be taken seriously. With how they have treated everyone throughout history who dared to question, and were right, I think they can take a little ridicule. You can’t violently oppress a mindset for so long and then expect not to be harshly criticized and even mocked especially when the evidence is on the side of those who questioned. Reality happens to have a scientific bias.

When we are defending proven facts against those who never bothered to look at the evidence, we know we are right on certain specific things. These days, if anyone tries to claim that the sun revolves around the earth, even almost all of the religious people would ridicule them. That the boat we are in with things like evolution today. We know it happens, we know how it happens, there is no question. We know for a fact that we are right on this issue and we can prove it. Yet we have to deal with a vast number of people, even those who run for President, who reject this very solid fact. That our heads are not exploding in frustration and that we are not just going postal and are restraining ourselves to just ridicule and mockery is actually a major point for us. I think we’re actually showing considerable restraint.

See, atheists don’t picket funerals, bomb churches, or practice violence on those who don’t accept evolution. We don’t go to Sunday School and insist that biology be taught alongside or replace creationism. We really just want to be left alone and explore how things work, but we’re not. We still have to deal with the scorn and the vilification. It’s no longer socially acceptable to attack people of color or women, and it’s becoming similarly wrong to be homophobic. However atheists are still fair game. Well, we have to defend ourselves somehow, and since they won’t look at the evidence of many things, all we have is ridicule. If enough people beat a dog, the next person who approaches might be snapped at. Until there’s less dog-beating going on in general, this is to be expected.

So we write our words and speak our minds and we know that each time we do, we are to expect a torrent of replies filled with incorrect assumptions, misconceptions, misunderstandings, and irrelevant tangents. Wading through that miasma every time is tiresome and we become worn out from having to constantly explain and defend ourselves and eventually we say fuck it and resort to easy ridicule. Even when we explain clearly, we get the same barrage.

So, if some of you kinder and more reasonable souls get caught in the crossfire, we do very sincerely apologize, but there is one thing you could do to help. Explain to your fellow brethren that we don’t deserve their derision and maybe exhort them to be more “Christ-like” in their dealings with us. I don’t mean to bring a sword rather than peace (yes, he said it, look it up), but more like the forgiveness and love thy enemy type of thing. Or maybe the Golden Rule. If more believers could simply deal with us in a rational manner, that would really help everyone out.

When we seek to find out how things work in the universe, it’s not with the desire to attack anyone’s beliefs. We just want to see how things really work. If the evidence that comes from this exploration happens to disprove some beliefs, it is not our fault. It’s just reality. We’re just trying to share it because the rational reaction to such a thing would be “Oh! So that’s how that works! Good to know! Maybe we can use this constructively somehow to improve our lives!” Not, “You are evil and hellbound! How dare you question God!!” “But, um, we have the evidence right here, look, I’ll show you…” “No! You’re wrong! I don’t care about your “evidence” or “facts”, you’re just wrong and I KNOW IT!!”

See what we have to deal with? For God’s sake, give us a break.

Siamese Dreams

Descriptions of travel destinations are like stories of war. Nobody talks about the smell. They’ll go into all the visceral, gory details, but they don’t talk about that all-pervasive companion who snuggles up inside your nostrils and refuses to be evicted. It reaches into your eyes, back into your brain and tries to occupy your lungs and your very pores. Thailand has a Scent.

If you’d like to recreate this scent at home, and you will not come close, you should do the following:

Piss on a towel and put it some where warm and humid. Let it mold over. Let your cat piss on it too. Let it sit for a couple of months. Piss on it some more. When the urge to vomit overtakes you, let it gush out onto the towel. Now take a shit on the towel. Go find some fresh roadkill, wrap it up in the towel and let it sit another month. Throw it in an old trash can that has the solidified goo of years of use inside it. Now, find some incense, some flowers, and the most tasty Pad Thai you can find. Get some fresh aromatic herbs. Mix it around with the towel, piss, shit, and roadkill.

At this point, your olfactory senses will overload with confusion. The best and the worst of smells dance together is a miasma of wafting, indifferent saturation. That’s Thailand. It varies in intensity, but it’s never completely gone. You either get used to it or you go mad. You try to chase it away with something more immediate, right under your nose, but it’s an illusion. The cruel stink can’t be masked. It can’t be bargained with. It is a nasal Terminator which will never, ever give up.

You will not be greeted by smiling Siamese. Your first greeting will be this smell. If it were music, it would be a simultaneous playback of Dark Side of the Moon, Carmina Burana, a five year old practicing scales on a recorder, Friday, We Built This City, and the best guitar solo ever, with just a touch of off-key hobo. Your ears would cry tears of incredulous sickness and elation.

As daunting as this may seem, it is merely one of your eternal companions in this strange land.

One of the causes of The Scent is your pal Humidity. You will look around and see the smiling Thai walking around, dry as a bone, as if in another dimension that dampness may not visit. Yet you stand there dripping like the hair of a rockstar. It’s as if your pores simply went on strike and decided to dump all of your fluids from your skin. “We’re done! We’re not working for you anymore!” Go ahead, wipe your brow. Do it again…and again. No effect, right?

Scent and Humidity will work together to wear you down and instantly disorient you so that eternal companion number three will be harder to resist. The Scam.

As soon as you land, a scam is waiting. You’re supposed to go to some stand to pay for a taxi, and they act like it’s official. Like you have to and there are no other options. You’ll find out later you could have simply hailed a taxi outside and paid a third of what you actually paid when you arrived. You’ll only realize this after having been roped into your hotel which you were told was full or closed (but it wasn’t), and after having been told that the temple you want to see is closed today for a special holiday (it isn’t), and that the taxi’s meter is broken (bullshit).

Eventually, like a soldier must in war, you find ways to cope. You get drunk enough that the smell doesn’t matter. You embrace the sweat, or go to one of the islands where a swim in the ocean will refresh you. Lastly, you completely ignore everyone unless you have decided before hand that you will enter into a transaction with them.

That’s right, just pretend they don’t exist. They’ll still pursue you and try to get your money, but after a while you develop The Stare. You stop looking around in wonder and awe and bewilderment and you look straight ahead and don’t even say no. You don’t say a damn thing. They give up in two seconds rather than ten minutes. You know where you are, where you’re going and what you want, even if you don’t.

When you need a taxi, you tell them they will use the meter. If they resist at all, you walk away. Someone will use it, and since they saw that you don’t fuck around, they will only rip you off a little.

Now that you’re thoroughly disgusted with the place, let me tell you…Thailand is awesome! It is amazing and magical. It’s all those wonderful adjectives you’ve heard bandied about by guidebooks and blogs. Yes, it’s true. Thailand has its charms. You just have to get through the initial boot camp of sensory overload, develop a carapace, know how to stand your ground and learn to haggle, and then Thailand opens up to you.

It’s like meeting that girl who seemed like a bitch, but she was just being abrasive in case you were an asshole, and then she realizes you’re not trying to fuck her around and she suddenly opens up with the sweetest smile and most enticing touch. She starts to let you discover her, and now she welcomes your touch and inside you’re just giddy as hell, like you were in high school and just got to feel a girl up for the first time.

You get away from Bangkok and start to see the countryside and everything is so lush and green. Sure, the person selling you the train ticket probably ripped you off, but in the end, it was, what, a dollar or two more?

You see the rice fields, and The Scent is pretty faint here. Someone sits next to you and knows three words of English, but they try so hard to converse with you that you can’t turn them away. You try too, and the two of you might end up only saying ten words that the other person understands, but you had the most amazing two hour conversation of your life, and learned a ton of things you never knew about another culture just through interacting with this person. This person you could hardly understand will be forever etched into your memory.

While you wait at another train station, an impossibly old man takes your hand and smiles, reading your palm and pantomiming things like “two marriage” and “long life” and “wealth”. Then he just sits there and smiles and you feel like that smile itself is the most intense and honorable gift a person could give you.

At night, you have a couple of beers and some old, disheveled lady with a rickety food cart whips up the best goddamn Pad Thai you have ever eaten in your life. It was roughly 35 cents, and you devour two more plates, and every bite just blows you away with its flavor.

A few days later you’re on a beach, and it’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever been. You plan to stay in that place for maybe three days but end up staying two weeks. You don’t even notice the days running into each other because time fails to reach you here. You simply drift in contentment and joy.

You come home, back to your “real life”, and float in and out of memories. It was difficult, frustrating, even enraging at times. Other times it was…indescribable. Simply beyond anything in your experience. You can’t look at the world the same way again. You can’t look at everyone you know in the same way again. All the things they concern themselves with seem so absurd, and you want to share what you went through. They’ll smile and nod and glance at your pictures, but then it’s back to whatever drama or tv show or whatever. The fact is, they’re wrapped up in the same old same old and they don’t really care, and it breaks your heart a little. Eventually you slip back into the old life, but in the corner of your mind, the world awaits, and you can only hold it off for so long.

Symbiotic Society

We all know that things need to change. We know it in our bones. Society, as it is, is broken. We see the rich getting unimaginably rich and everyone else losing everything. Pretty much every aspect of our infrastructure is corrupt and is run by people who are greedy and apathetic. Extremism has become the norm in politics and religion and it looks like everyone is simply divorcing themselves from reality. Those who are supposed to protect and serve instead harass and abuse. Everyone ignores pertinent issues and instead focuses on banal entertainment fodder. It seems that as long as people are fed and entertained, they will tolerate every form of decline. How are we to survive this?

No policy change will make it better, because it still takes place within a defunct system. We need a complete overhaul, but it won’t be enacted by the current system. It will only come about when people take it upon themselves to stop playing along and create something else. It has to start with our own minds.

Now, I know that feeling you just got. “Not another book on imagining things into reality and New Age mumbo-jumbo!” You’re right, this isn’t one. No mumbo-jumbo here. Just practical, useful information to deprogram ourselves from all the bullshit and restructure how we think so that we can restructure how we live, and create an entirely new infrastructure based not on some ideology, but on what makes rational, practical sense. Based on what simply works. However, that mountain of bullshit is mighty high. We will bring that mountain down, or we will go extinct.

Or, even worse, we’ll survive and complete our decline into idiocracy. A nation of people who spend their days in cubicles and nights absorbing misinformation while stuffing their faces with monochromatic lumps of slow death. Perhaps we’ll evolve a second mouth so that we simultaneously can stuff ourselves while spouting talking points and Bible verses, and quoting sitcoms and “reality” shows. Should anyone question the status-quo, they’ll be drowned out by the senseless gibbering of ignorant automatons which will only subside when they get hungry or have to go shopping. Their day will end with drinking pisswater beer and laughing at lolcats. We’re nearly there as it is, so we have no time to lose. Let’s get to it!

If you’re offended by any of the above, then you likely enjoy the status quo, and you can have it. However, the rest of us are moving on.

See, not everyone will come along for the ride. At first, it will be a few of us, followed by a groundswell of people defecting from the current system. Of course, we’ll be demonized and made to look like the most destructive force since exposed breasts, but our adherence to common sense, rationality, and facts will make their arguments look as stupid as they are. A ton of people will still stick steadfastly to their broken system and others will claim to represent us while spouting wingnuttery. Eventually it will become like marijuana: many partake and many disparage, and they do so side-by-side. However, we’ll be happier, or at the very least, have a sense of purpose and usefulness rather than simply squandering our lives as we make others rich.

There are already some people living the symbiotic lifestyle but just haven’t put a name to it. Many individuals and some loosely gathered. Many have decided to covertly live as they will and let everyone else play the game. Stealth symbiotism, as it were.

What do I mean by symbiotism? Well, the word usually refers to two different species whose survival depends on each other, like bees and flowers. In this book, I use it to mean interdependence rather than just dependence. The current societal structure has us dependent on the government and the economy for pretty much everything. A symbiotic society simply depends on people helping each other out without all the red tape, corruption, and ideology. It’s where people make use of their talents and abilities to enrich each others’ lives and work together to create a means of living that isn’t some useless, soulless, timesink that makes some people rich while they live paycheck to paycheck if they’re lucky.

No, it’s not about forming communities, at least not in the usual sense. People live where they will and how they will, but the way they conduct their lives and the effort they put forth helps create lives of practicality, fulfillment, and sometimes even happiness. It’s helping each other live lives that make sense.

It’s also not about pure logic and function. Without passion, what’s the point?

You may have heard of Burning Man. It’s based on the concept of radical self-reliance. It means you have the ability to take care of your own needs, but at the same time, everyone comes together to create a necessity that most leave out when talking about the basics: amazing experiences. Burners are fiercely independent, yet share the deepest of bonds. These bonds are not possessive and are nearly indefinable, and they’re mostly unspoken, but the effect of them is tangible and transformative.

The experience of Burning Man is similar to what I am trying to describe as symbiotism. Burning Man takes place in a lifeless, alkaline, flat expanse comprised of nothing but dust. The symbiotism I’m talking about can take place among the vast resources of the whole world. It will take courage, it will take resourcefulness, creativity, imagination, discipline, and intense self-examination, and it will be worth every frustrating pain of growth that happens along the way.

Now, let me be clear that I’m not talking about creating Burning Man-like events as a way of life (though some happily do), I simply use it as an example of what is possible. We can use our intelligence and passion to create lives worth living, but it means we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing. We need to do this not just for ourselves, but for each other. Either that, or more of the same.

Sometimes life is a choice of two hells: one hell is a difficult process of transformation where you come out on the other side much stronger and resilient and fulfilled, and the other has you continuing to do what you are doing now for the rest of your life. Your choice.

The Economic Impact of SB-1070 on Arizona

An unfortunate tendency of lawmakers is enacting laws that have been disastrous in other states and thinking that somehow, magically, it’ll work in their state. Usually these things are done for political PR purposes rather than any useful purpose. They want to make their constituents chant talking points and pump fists in the air and vigorously wave flags, distracting them from the very real consequences of legislation that has already been proven in another state of being not only a failure, but a very serious detriment.

See, this has been tried before. In Prince William County in the state of Virginia in 2007 and 2008. Same kind of bill, same intention. It was made popular by jingoistic shrieks of “Remember who caused 9/11! Illegals!!”

It passed, and it divided the county into almost warring factions. It also completely destroyed their already suffering economy. When we get riled up about political issues, we don’t often stop to think about the unintended, yet very real consequences. We just parrot what we think we’re right about and we don’t stop to think.

House forclosures skyrocketed. Retail stores and restaurants lost tons of sales. They forgot that all these brown people actually do work and have some money, and they spend it everywhere. When they’re not welcome, they leave, and their money goes with them. They lost not only the illegal immigrants, but legal citizens who were born and raised in America, but happened to be brown, and therefore were targets. They left too, along with their money.

The effect was so devastating that they had to repeal most of the bill. Perhaps we should learn from their example, because we have far more to lose.

In Virginia, Latinos were a much smaller percentage of the population. Here in Arizona, we don’t need to be told that it is much, much higher. Therfore, we will lose much, much more money.

Already, the University of Arizona has lost over $100,000 in canceled tuitions. ASU has probably lost even more. Resorts, airlines, hotels and other parts of the tourist industry are reporting increasing canellations and loss of projected revenue. This bill hasn’t even gone into effect yet and we’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. When it goes into effect, you can be sure we will lose millions, at least. Not just from Latinos, but from all people who view this bill as distatsteful, if not illegal. You’ve already heard the calls for boycotting our state. It’s happening, and we can’t afford it.

Unfortunately, those most strongly in favor of the bill can’t see past the word “Illegals!” and are paying no attention to the real cost of this legislation.

Arizona happens to be the state that is number one in job losses in this economy. We’re at the bottom. We can’t afford the financial devastation that this bill will bring.

It was once explained to me that the reason the economy is so bad is because big corporations knew that Democrats were about to seize power and are known for being less business friendly, so they pulled out. Same thing here. Make the environment unfriendly for most of your population and you can say goodbye to the money they used to spend here.

Now, a person can be against illegal immigrants all they like. No matter how worked up they get, their emotion will not make this bill a good idea. No matter what problems we blame on illegals, this bill will bring even worse problems.

Farms will close and food prices will surge upwards. House forclosures will be far worse than what Virginia suffered. Money will vacate our state as if it were being swept away by the sea. Like it or not, those illegals are a large part of our economy, and what will replace that? Tourism is another big part. What will we replace that with? (cue the sound of crickets)

You can be against illegals to the core of your being, but we need a solution that won’t kill us. I don’t know what that solution is, but if we can repeal this bill now rather than waiting to die and then repealing it, then we’ll have the resources available to enact a viable solution when someone comes up with one. Until then, unbunch the panties and buy some oranges on the street corner, because while some of that money may go to their families elsewhere, some of it will get fed back into our stores and restaurants.

We can’t afford to be picky about our neighbors. We gotta suck it up and deal. All the talking points in the world will not change the reality of how bad we will suffer if we continue to support this bill. Sometimes medicine is bitter, but it beats dying.

If You’ve Done Nothing Wrong, You Don’t Have To Worry, Right?

With every intrusive law that gets passed, you’ll invariably hear a chorus of “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!” I’ve heard this several times over the last week alone, and it has to be addressed.

If this statement were true, you’d never hear of innocent people being harassed or going to jail. You’d never hear of corrupt police. You’d never hear of the wrong house being raided. You’d never hear of people being screwed over because the other guy has a better lawyer and can get away with a fabricated case. You’d never hear of people being harassed by cops simply for the color of their skin or their style of clothing.

There are countless episodes of innocents having their lives ruined or even ended due to a deeply corrupt legal system and vague laws that allow cops to decide for themselves who should be singled out next.

The argument that you are safe as long as you obey the law is the epitome of social ignorance. You have to ignore all of history and current events in order to believe it. You basically have to completely divorce yourself from reality to buy into the idea that the cops will treat you fairly, and the law will protect you.

When a system becomes very corrupt, every citizen is a victim. Every law that singles out some people eventually ends up affecting far more people than it was intended to. The War on Drugs, the Patriot Act, the recent Arizona immigration bill, all of these create a system where the police are above the law and every citizen is suspect.

Every law like this that gets passed is another axe chop at the tree of freedom. Sure, it doesn’t look so bad to many people, but it won’t take that many more whacks to make that tree fall.

This is the worst kind of ignorance. It is hypocritical as well, because those who claim to desire freedom the most are the ones who have no issue taking it away from people who are not like them. Sorry, folks, that’s not how freedom works. If any of us do not have the same rights as others of us, then none of us are truly free.

When we say that some citizens are less “American” than others, or that some don’t deserve the same rights as “us”, we tear down the very fabric of democracy. If you buy into the idea that some are less deserving than others of rights, then you are wiping your ass with the Constitution and the Flag you claim to honor.

Freedom means having to deal with people and lifestyles and races and beliefs that you don’t like or agree with. It means that you have to deal with the fact that your neighbor, whose values, beliefs, choice of sexual partner, choice of music, choice of religion or lack thereof, skin color, and everything else you might detest deserves the exact same rights and freedoms that you enjoy just because they are an American citizen.

What’s going to happen soon, is that perfectly legal citizens who happen to have brown skin are going to be harassed more than usual. They’ll be profiled and you know it. And they won’t have done anything wrong. If you are okay with this, you don’t truly care about freedom. If you agree with it and spout patriotic phrases about freedom, you are completely full of shit.

I think it is Un-American to be okay with any of us being harassed or singled out. Ever heard of “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”? As divided as we are, it’s no wonder we’re falling so fast.

As crazy and ignorant as I think the Tea Party folks are, I would defend to the best of my ability their right to spew their jingoistic bullshit, short of threats to the President. After all, if it’s not okay to threaten one, it’s not okay to threaten any.

If only they were as diligent in protecting the freedom of ALL citizens, even if they are brown, gay, non-Christian, or liberal. Their cries for freedom and democracy are empty if it doesn’t apply to all citizens equally.

See, folks, to be American is to not have to have everyone be just like you or agree with you. No matter how wrong you may think another person is, the basic fact that they are a citizen means you should defend their rights and freedoms as intensely as you’d protect your own. That would include resisting laws that would curtail those rights and freedoms. So, wake up and be real Americans.

A Realistic Look at the AZ Immigration Bill

Natural Morality

There’s a huge culture clash regarding all kinds of issues that are often relegated to aspects of morality. Many claim that, without some kind of religious guidance, we simply revert to barbarism and lack of conscience. I will show how this is not only untrue, but that morality is best served outside of religion.

In primitive societies, there are still basic, commonly understood rules even if they don’t have a written code of law. They have no religious text to tell them what to do and no set of commandments from some deity to guide them. They may have theistic beliefs of a primitive nature, but there’s no equivalent to a Bible, Quran, or Talmud.

Yet, primitive tribes did just fine surviving even to modern times, at least those that weren’t wiped out by supposedly more civilized peoples. How would this be possible with no Bible or similar text to guide them? How did they know not to wantonly destroy each other without conscience? How did they understand that it’s best to not kill each other off, steal from each other or abandon all sense of social unity?

Common sense. Human instinct. Natural morality. Our nature is to be sociable, just as it is often in our nature to be selfish and violent at times. Yet, the only times we fall into violent madness that includes wanton destruction of others, the basic social understanding is overridden by some kind of dogmatic beliefs. Whether religious or secular in nature, it is dogma that makes us barbaric. It is a belief of racial or cultural or religious superiority that causes humans to lash out mindlessly.

Left to our own devices without dogma, we seem to get along reasonably well. There’s no inherent natural reason for any culture to view another as inferior or inhuman. Think of it this way: when the pilgrims landed in America, they were treated with gifts and hospitality by a godless, primitive people. It was the religious, “civilized” people that committed genocide, intentional spread of disease and famine, and systematically wiped out all those who would not conform to their culture. Who was more barbaric?

It’s an unfortunate irony that most cultures that have been invaded in this way tend to have the highest percentage of religious people. A dogma that is spread by the sword tends to hang on rather tenaciously.

These people that cut down and eradicated entire cultures were Christians who knew all about the teachings of Jesus and believed they had God on their side. They had religious guidance. This guidance told them that they were meant to have dominion over all the earth and that anyone who stood in their way was expendable.

The native peoples had no such guidance. They had primitive animist religious beliefs, but nothing in their beliefs told them that they had the right to take anything and everything. In fact, their beliefs were quite the opposite. Many of these indigenous cultures had beliefs that included reverence of nature and included a kind of inherent sustainability.

The difference between these beliefs was dogma. So, to be clear, it is not religious or spiritual beliefs or lack thereof that is the problem with regards to morality, it is dogma.

Secular people will bring up the Crusades, Inquisition and other events in order to point the finger at religion, and the religious will bring up Stalin, Pol Pot and other events to point the finger at secularism, however, as we can see, all of those incidents had the same thing in common: dogma.

If we are to find common ground, we must base it on a lack of dogma. If people wish to have dogmatic beliefs as part of their worldview, well, they’re welcome to them as long as they do not take any action that would cause harm to an unconsenting person or their property.

The main reason we can’t use popular religions as the basis for a common morality is because you can find a horrible admonishment to commit atrocities for every admonishment to do something nice. Usually these kindnesses are reserved for believers only. One scripture will say love thy neighbor, and another will say to kill them if they suggest that you worship another god.

Natural morality already includes the positive messages such as the Golden Rule. The reason for this is that these messages were not invented by the religions they tend to be associated with. They’re just common sense with or without any belief in any god(s).

So, we already know that we should not kill, steal, rape, lie, etc. We don’t need any special beliefs to understand these things. Even the most primitive cultures understand this, which is why they survived for thousands of years without the help of dogmatic religion.

Of course, some people will still do these things and they’re generally punished. In a primitive society, there are no legal loopholes to hide behind. The tribe finds you and brings swift retaliation.  The survival of the tribe depends on people not adopting some kind of “anything goes” attitude.

For some odd reason, many religious people will say that atheists believe in “anything goes”. They have yet to provide any evidence for this. All of us are human, no matter what religious beliefs we may or may not have. We still have our inherent natural morality which, on balance, is all we really need to get along. We have aberrations, but they are always a scant minority.

We also have the fact that all the good messages in all the religious texts do not prevent people from committing atrocities. When they are riled up, they aren’t remembering the passages that tell them to be kind and hospitable, they are acting on the ones that tell them to kill unbelievers. Without dogma, it’s very hard to get anyone to agree that it’s a good idea to go kill a lot of other people. Even in the military, it’s been shown that many soldiers will aim over the heads of their enemy to avoid killing them.

It basically takes brainwashing, propaganda and indoctrination to convince humans to adopt barbarism, and the basis for all of it is dogma.

How do we differentiate dogmatic beliefs from non-dogmatic ones? Simple. If the belief is simply a version of “do not cause harm” then it is not dogmatic. If it purports any kind of superiority, being “chosen”, or in any other way having something about oneself that other humans don’t have (including beliefs), it is dogmatic.

Consensual crimes are a whole other ball of wax, and the laws against them tend to be based on dogmatic beliefs rather than natural morality. I’ll address those in detail soon.

For now, let’s collectively agree to put to bed the idea that it is religion or secularism themselves that are responsible for the worst atrocities committed by mankind. It isn’t a contest. We know that it’s dogma, and there’s no such thing as a good one.

Sam Harris – Misconceptions About Atheism

A very well-reasoned and enlightening explanation of many common misconceptions about Atheism.

Balanced Atheism

Like any other group (I know, we’re not actually a cohesive group, but bear with me), attitudes among atheists cover a wide spectrum. Some are timid and afraid to offend and some revel in tearing apart every theist that crosses their path.

There are militant atheists and moderate atheists. I’ve heard some atheists refer to other atheists who are nice to theists as “appeasers”. As if treating them like humans is somehow weak or gives credence to their beliefs.

Now, when a theist is being obstinate, pushy and is doing nothing but obfuscating and preaching, they need to be put in their place. Unfortunately, those are the types that tend to show up in online discussions regarding atheism and theism. So, such discussions generally immediately devolve into mud slinging where the theists quote Bible verses and psuedo science and atheists hurl quotes from Hitchens and Dawkins, the more vitriolic the better.

While this can be funny as hell, it’s not doing a lot for our image. Yes, we know we can be good without god, but if we’re dicks, we don’t do a good job of proving it. After all, if we’re big on evidence, let’s provide some.

Most theists don’t take part in these discussions and, mostly through no fault of their own, are simply ignorant regarding their own Bible and regarding science. Most theists only know what they’ve been told via the mainstream media and through sermons at their churches. I’m talking about non-fundamentalists here. The ones who, when someone takes the time to calmly and kindly explain a lot of things, can say “Oh, I didn’t know that” and are more capable of being accepting of not just scientific facts, but of atheists.

We need them on our side, and furthermore, they need us on theirs. Why? Because, to the fundies, moderate theists may as well be atheists. Anyone who is not a fundie is hellbound and an enemy that must be converted or destroyed. Fundies are not known for embracing any ideas that aren’t already part of their ideology. They need to know that even most theists are not on their side.

If the moderate theists can view us as allies and we can view them as allies, then we can both expose fundamentalism for the social poison that it is. Imagine a group of atheists and moderate theists standing together to oppose hate and blind fear! Imagine the message that would show the world for how we really can all get along.

We need to show them that we’re not trying to remove their freedom to believe in their god, we just want to have the freedom not to.

Now, I know what Sam Harris has to say about moderate theism enabling fundamentalism, and I agree. However, it’s not an intentional act on the part of these theists. Most of them are simply theist by default. They grew up with it and don’t even know that atheists don’t hate god and are simply people just like them who want a good life and friends and families and to take part in a civil society. They are given an image of us that would be laughably cartoonish if it wasn’t so dispicable.

So, let’s reach out as friendly atheists and show the moderates that we’re people too. Treat them with kindness. Stand up for them when they’re under attack from fundies. Be an example of the Golden Rule they claim to hold so dear. When they see that we truly are good without god, they won’t have to fear us anymore. They won’t misunderstand us so much. They may even stand up for us in return.

The big enemy is the abject wingnuttery that has taken hold of the fundamentalists. The mindless insanity that drives them to bomb abortion clinics, picket funerals, and constantly spew such ugly hate whenever they have anyone’s attention.

Don’t forget, we can be an example to their children! When they see their own parents acting like maniacs and they see us treating people well and being happier, they may start to question their indoctrination! Being good examples is a wonderful way to teach!

We don’t need to respect the beliefs of moderate theists, we just need to respect them as people. In return, they don’t need to agree with or respect our lack of belief, but they can learn to treat us like humans too. This is what’s missing from the whole theist/atheist clash: basic human respect.

Part of this respect is choosing our battles more wisely. If you sneeze and they say “God bless you”, don’t say “I’M AN ATHEIST!! KEEP YOUR GOD TO YOURSELF!!” Just say “thanks”. In those little moments, they’re not trying to convert us, they’re just saying what they feel is polite according to their default beliefs. It’s not an attack on our freedoms.

Of course, if they’re trying to replace evolution in a neighborhood school, fight tooth and nail! Like I said, pick your battles wisely. We can’t expect respect if we’re not respectable, and neither can they.