The rules of Marriage

It is rather ironic that anti-gay marriage proponent, and self named “defender of Traditional Marriage” in California, Doug Manchester is getting divorced. Almost poetic. Perhaps if Mr Manchester had spent less time funding anti-gay movements, less time stealing $9.3million from the joint account of him and his wife of 43 years, and more time trying to save his traditional marriage, this essence we know as Karma wouldn’t have made him a bit of a public laughing stock.

Mr Manchester told the New York Times in July 2008, that he was funding Prop 8, because; “my Catholic faith and longtime affiliation with the Catholic Church leads me to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.” I hope I can count on Manchester’s money to help me fund an initiative designed to ban divorce… because the Catholic Church doesn’t look too kindly at that particular subject.

The word “traditional” in the horribly right winged mantra; “traditional marriage” is almost ironic in itself. In the same way that American’s tend to call tall people “shorty“. Whilst marriage certainly has been a case of man and woman throughout history (mainly because society had not evolved to the stage where homosexuality was acceptable, and that punishment for homosexuality was considered perfectly legitimate, yet for some odd reason all Christians, even Mr Manchester would agree we’ve evolved enough as a society to ignore other sections of Biblical “traditions“, such as Exodus 21:7 – “If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do“), it has no traditional precedent in the slightest.

Take Biblical marriage for example. If the homophobes among us are going to chant the boring, unoriginal, ridiculous mantra of “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” (God also made Eve out of Adam’s rib. So when you’re finished attacking Gay people, why not surgically remove your own rib, and try to raise it into a Female, go on, try it!) then they also have to, by their very own logic, point out that Exodus 21:10 states “If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights“…… So, traditional marriage, in the very earliest sense, the very essence of what marriage traditionally meant, was that you can marry as many women as you like, as long as you look after the first wife.

Now, if we skip forward to the New Testament, we see; Matthew 22:23-32, which paraphrases Deuteronomy 25:5, with; “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him“
Traditional Marriage is becoming a little bit complicated. It certainly isn’t a romantic union of pure Love between a man and a woman. It can be apparently between a man and many women, a man and his brother’s widow, or if you’re King David – anyone you quite like the look of on that particular day.

Roman marriage was not much filled with love and romance either. Roman women were expected to marry, purely to produce a son, and purely because the wealth of the girl, when married, moved entirely to the husband, who would use it as political capital. The ceremony itself did not involve mother-in-laws crying at how happy their Daughter looked, or the kissing of the bride, or the romantic glance into each others eyes. Instead, it consisted of the two households signing into agreements about property and wealth, and the agreement from the new wife that she would provide children, pretty much on demand. If a wife failed to produce male offspring, the male would often divorce her and just move on to another woman in the hope of producing a male.

Skip even further, to Renaissance Europe, and England in particular, we are presented with the death of King Henry Tudor, and the crowning of his second son (Prince Arthur, originally supposed to succeed his father, died young), the 17 year old King Henry VIII. Henry’s new bride, and the widow of Arthur (sticking with tradition so far!) Catherine was the daughter of the recently formed Spain (the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile) and so a powerful Princess. The marriage between Arthur, and then Henry, and Catherine was one designed purely to create an ally out of England and Spain in the face of a powerful enemy in France. Henry soon became overly bored with Catherine, given that she failed to produce any living sons to succeed Henry. She gave him a daughter, the future Queen Mary, and Henry wanted a son. He became convinced that he was cursed to have no sons, and that God did not appreciate him marrying his Brother’s widow (clearly the contradictions of the Bible confused him). It was always going to be difficult to get a marriage annulment from the Pope, given that the Pope was now under the control of The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who just happened to be Catherine’s nephew. This in turn, lead to Henry deciding he didn’t need the Pope’s permission, and so broke from Rome, which set the ball rolling for what he now know as the Protestant Reformation – cemented fully, during the reigns of Henry’s only son King Edward, and his daughter Queen Elizabeth – the very reason us Brits aren’t some mindless Catholic drones. Meanwhile, Catherine, was simply banished from Court. And the subsequent marriages of Henry, were all designed purely for the creation of a male heir. Marriage in Tudor England, Renaissance Europe, and in fact, the preceding centuries had absolutely nothing to do with love, nor was it anything like it is today. Marriage was reasons of power and wealth, the joining of two strong families with visions of grandeur. It is the reason Henry’s father, Henry Tudor married the niece of Henry’s enemy, Richard III. It cemented the Tudor dynasty beautifully. Marriage in the proceeding centuries following the Tudor’s comes directly from our 16th Century King, marrying six times, executing two, and divorcing two, all for the sake of a male heir.

A couple of centuries later, and America has just elected it’s first President. George Washington at the helm of perhaps the most impressive Government in American History. John Adams as Vice President. Alexander Hamilton at the Treasury. John Jay as Chief Justice. And most importantly to this blog, Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State. Jefferson is possibly one of the most contradictory characters in American history. He promotes small government, wont actually shut up about the joys of small government and how destructive large government is….. and yet it is Jefferson who expands government the most when he becomes America’s 3rd President. Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, writing that “all men are created equal” yet, he owns many slaves. When Jefferson’s wife died, it is widely assumed that he had a long affair with a slave in his possession, Sally Hemings, whom he does not free, but instead, has sex with. His own personal sex slave. She then has children, which DNA testing has supported the notion that all six of them, were Jefferson’s. The four surviving children, also become his slaves until the age of 21 (two ran away). A man has needs!!!! Jefferson refused to marry Hemings, stating of mixed race marriages; “The amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent“. So, marriage between blacks and whites during the 18th Century, it would seem was just as sneered upon by the elites, as gay marriage is today. Jefferson, was the 18th Century’s version of Doug Manchester when it comes to marriage.

In fact, it was only in 1967 that the U.S Supreme Court announced it’s decision in the case of Loving v. Virginia, that Anti-Miscegenation laws were unconstitutional.

Marriage has been a subject that has no formal tradition. It isn’t something that has been set in stone since the Biblical era. In fact, it doesn’t resemble Biblical or even early Christian traditions in any way shape or form. It has been used for wealth, prestige, political gain, property, and power, producing of children, much much more than anything to do with a sense of love and unity. Marriage, like society, evolves. We exist at a time when the next stage in the evolution of Marriage is occurring, and whilst 16th Century Europe struggled to come to terms with a major stage in Marriage evolution, with what it meant for a King to proclaim himself more important than the Church when it comes to the institution of Marriage itself, I’d suggest that in today’s World, society in general has evolved to a much more sensible and reasonable level to be able to accept changes, like the inclusion of homosexual couples, without taking opposition to the extreme.

If we are to cite obscure passages in the Bible, to state our case against certain subjects, then we must also cite the Bible to state our case against accepted norms. I’m sure I can count on Mr Manchester’s support when I start selling my children into Slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7-11.

Teo Te Ching: The normality of selfishness

“Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires”
- Lao Tzu

I have a deep love for anyone who dedicates their lives or part of their wealth to Charitable causes. People who can freely reject consumerism and embrace humanitarianism full throttle I not only admire, but I envy quite significantly so that it annoys me just how weak I am in rejecting the pointless life I lead now, and embrace the route they take.
Those, like myself, who do little when we know we should do more, I do not have all that much respect for. In fact, they (and by they, I include myself) lead a worthless life.

Often the reason given for the success of Capitalism and the failure of Communism, is that the human race is inherently selfish; driven by our own self interest. And whilst I utterly disagree with that, it has become the centre piece for the argument in support of deregulated free trade. What this argument fails to accept is two points; firstly that with upward mobility increasing it isn’t just down to free markets, it’s also down to Government interference in the markets – the New Deal springs to mind, as well as social aspects like the Civil Rights act; Secondly, given that i’m going along the Taoist line – upward mobility has the opposite of downward mobility. America appears to classify it’s economic dominance by the wealth of the rich. The fact that 40,000,000 people cannot afford Health insurance, which includes 10,000,000 children is largely ignored because whilst those people are allowed to suffer in silence, people like Bill Gates can have $60bn. What is so horribly wrong and offensive when I suggest that we take $30bn of Bill Gates wealth, and spend it purely on feeding those who cannot afford to feed themselves? Let’s truly give everyone the right to life. Because not everyone can afford to be on the relentless trail of profit. Some, just need to eat.

Somewhere along the line, compassion died and the morality of self interest became dominant. Suddenly it isn’t Britain or America’s responsibility to lift millions of Third World citizens out of poverty; to feed them; to clothe them; to protect them. We prefer to turn our heads and blame corrupt governments, forgetting nonchalantly that many of those governments we empowered. We chose to ignore that our Western Companies such as Coca Cola have been poisoning water supplies in poverty stricken areas of India, because the profit gained pleases Western shareholders; who appear to be much more important that a few Indian children. And still, there’s an insistence that this system we live by, is the fairest. It isn’t the fairest, it’s merely because we in the West happen to be lucky enough to have been born where we were born, in relative paradise; taught to exploit whenever the opportunity to advance our wealth presents itself. And suddenly we all think if we try hard enough, we can become Bill Gates, rather than the reality that if we try hard enough, chances are all we’ll be able to do is afford a holiday to Spain twice a year instead of once a year, like before the promotion. That’s it. Every so often, a talent is required, like that of Bill Gates, and that person with that talent, is rewarded monstrously. If we lived in a World where we didn’t need Microsoft, in a World where blogging on a site called futiledemocracy.com were heavily rewarded, Bill Gates’ talent would be useless and mine would be incredibly well cashed up…. and Republicans would be shouting about how fair it is that I cash in on my talent. What if a Bill Gates exists in Sudan right now? What if the man with the idea on how to cure Cancer is born in Kenya tomorrow to an Aids ridden family? Are we really relying on the Western World to produce the most intelligent and brave people?

Today, a close friend of mine rang me up to tell me that she’d just been asked to give to charity, and she turned it down. She doesn’t like to give to charity. She then insisted that she doesn’t have the money to give to charity, yet in the next breath told me she’s been shopping in Primark and later in Subway. She vocalises her submission to consumerism; her pointless existence as if it’s perfectly ok. Which, it isn’t. It isn’t fair. It isn’t moral. It’s wrong. And yet, i’m no different. It’s the reason my room is kitted out with an Xbox 360, a TV, this very PC that I use to thunderously smash my confused fist against the keyboard buttons in order to create meaningless blog entries for Republicans and Conservatives to spew their bullshit over. It’s the reason I have books on by Chomsky, John McCain, Franklin Roosevelt. It’s the reason an episode from my series two Lost DVD is on pause. I spent that money on myself, which went to giant companies; which in turn helped to buy a new yaht and a house in Paradise for the Sir Fred Goodwins of the World. It’s wrong, so very wrong. And whilst I’m a horrible hypocrite for buying into it, i’m slowly trying to dig my way out of it. I don’t want to live a life based on the turd of consumerism. And whilst I have fully bought into the Capitalist system, i’m not somebody who will suggest it’s fair and right; I recognise the harshness and the lies hidden behind the system.

We’re lost Spiritually, because we’re found Materialistically.

My very Philosophy on life is that the less you have, the happier you are. The more you give, the more satisfying the result. Work should be undertaken for the community; everyone should be fed, sheltered, educated, and have a minimal standard of health care across the Planet. The moment anyone dies of extreme poverty, is the moment we all drop the chase for profit, and make sure nobody else can possibly die of extreme poverty. Once the Planet is free from poverty. Once Pharmaceutical companies allow their much needed drugs to be widely available in Countries like Mozambique at the same price as they are available in countries that do not need them like Norway; the moment essential resources of poor nations are not snapped up by European and American businessmen at the expense of the native people; the moment the plundering of resources does not harm any one in the way that Coca Cola harmed the water supply of India; the moment the deaths of 60,000,000 people over the space of five years from nothing more than lack of food is recognised as THE most important and inhumane issue facing civilisation instead of just being completely ignored because it’s more important to make sure a crook controlling AIG keeps his obscene pension – when all this is achieved, and only then, should we be allowed to focus on individual profit. We’re all people, we’re all from the same place, and we’re all going to end up in the same place. Why is it such a taboo to suggest we should work together and help each other?

The very same people who insist that Socialism, the redistribution of wealth, giving “free money” to those who haven’t worked for it, is wrong; then go on to tell me how inheritance tax is despicable. Isn’t inherited wealth just a form of inter-family Socialism? The children haven’t worked for that money. They could potentially inherit millions of dollars and not have to work a day in their lives, whilst the child who was born in the hospital bed next to him, has a family who are unable to leave him much at all. The rich only tend to insult the ideals of Socialism, when it threatens their wealth. Otherwise, they’re all for it. The moment we all realise how hypocritical and dreadfully ignorant we are, the better the chance we have at creating a much more equal and just society.

According to Commondreams.org , the average CEO takes home wages 300 times heavier than their workers. Are those CEOs 300 times more important? Do they work 300 times harder? Now i’m not sure where in the doctrine of fairness, it was written that the wealth created by those workers, was fairly distributed when it went to pay the CEO 300 times more money than themselves but where ever it was, it was wrong. I’d go further, and suggest that this isn’t Capitalism, this is Corporate Communism. It’s a bunch of small Communist companies, in which the bottom of the pit are exploited to feed the extravagances of the top few. It’s the reason that 40% of the World’s wealth is owned by 1% of the population. What if we took 30% of that away from them, and gave it feed the hungry? Why should we wait for people to be charitable? Is 1% of the population earning almost half the wealth of the World, the trickle down affect that Thatcher and Reagan promoted? When is that 40% going to trickle down? Because there’s an entire Continent over the sea called Africa that seems to have been forgotten.

Do I believe my life would be much worse, if I “Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, and had few desires“…. no. I don’t believe that humanity is inherently selfish and addicted to the very core of consumerist sentiment so much so that we can’t let go. Nor do I believe that once that consumerist sentiment has burrowed deep within you, is it simple to let go. I’d be the first to admit that i’d struggle with TV, my Wii Fit, a bike, my books, and my PC. I’d struggle hugely. But that doesn’t mean I need all those things. It certainly doesn’t mean I should be free to have those things whilst others die unnecessarily. My greed and my selfishness embodies that of Western society as a whole. We all know consumerism is detremental, we all know that climate change is down to our excessive consumption of green house gases due to the fact that we take the car the short journey down the road because we cannot be arsed to walk; we all know that the food we waste is nothing short of criminal given that millions are dying every year for lack of that food; we all know that whilst we sit in relative luxury we are happy to blindly defend a system that is inherently unfair, unjust, corrupt and murderous by nature….. because to do otherwise, would be hypocritical of us at best, and threaten our luxurious lifestyles at worst.

I believe we’ve all had it drummed into our minds for far too long, generation after generation, told that free market capitalism, exploitation is fair and just. That we should just ignore those less fortunate because it’s probably their fault. We should just turn our heads to the African child dying in the street, because his or her government, who the child has never heard of or seen before is corrupt, that we should embrace it, because the alternative would mean we can’t have that Xbox game we want as the money would go to someone who actually needs it, and for some reason, that would be inexcusably wrong and immoral. It is, in short, utter bullshit, and we all know it, we just don’t all admit it.

Am I embracing my own Philosophy? Practising what I preach? No. Would I complain if a man came to my house, took my Xbox and sold it, then showed by a photo of a child who can now eat because the money he made went to feeding that child? No. I’d nominate that man for a Knighthood. He’s a better man than me.

Written off as trash…

“The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied…but written off as trash.” – John Berger

There is a Conservative concensus that says a Liberal is merely out to steal from those who work the hardest, to subsidise the laziness of those who don’t.

When a person is starving to death, and we have the food to feed that person, nothing else matters. Business does not matter. Men in suits at the Wharf in London do not matter. Money does not matter. Debate does not matter. Profit does not matter. Religion does not matter. Keeping that person fed and alive is what matters.

The moral vacuum that is poverty is not a question of free markets or economics. It should never be that question. The fact remains for me, and for many like me, that if we can take a portion of a rich mans wealth, to feed a starving child, there is no moral out come superior to doing just that. It is not stealing. There is merely no term in the English language, that can describe it, other than completely necessary.

If it upsets you that you might be a few pounds or dollars short this month, or this year, then perhaps you should take a moment to look at the the Unicef stats published in 2005, that say the USA has a Child poverty rate of over 20%. How wrong the Free Marketeers really are, when they say that wealth creation is the single most important aspect of ending poverty becomes evident when you look at these figures. And it isn’t because people are lazy. It’s because those in poverty are stuck in a cycle that cannot be broken.
The UK, under the Labour government, pledged to cut child poverty. Since 1997, the Child Poverty rate in the UK has dropped significantly, due to ‘Socialist’ acts like The Minimum Wage and Education Maintenance Allowance, but is still one of the higest in developed nations. 15.4% of the child population in 2005 in the UK was in Poverty. This was much much higher during the Conservative Government who continually preached the moral virtues of the free market.

The U.S has an above 20% rate of Child Povert. According to United Nations University, 2% of the the population of the adult World, owns more than 50% of the wealth. The riches 10% of the population, owns more than 80% of the wealth of the World. Is this truly the fairest way to distribute Wealth across the World, as Free marketeers would have me believe? Does it not make sense to give some of that to those who cannot afford to live, first before massive profit is allowed to take place?
Again, if it upsets you that you might be taxed a bit harder, to pay for a better life for those who need it the most, perhaps you should be questioning exactly what date in history, compassion was lost.

“Solving the world AIDS crisis will require something that governments, international lending institutions and multinational companies often lack: compassion and the ability to see beyond profit. ” – Tamara Straus

We cannot possibly emphasise the mistreatment of the word ‘Freedom’ in the debate about Poverty. ‘Freedom’ is the most misleading word in recent history. ‘Freedom’ has come to mean the right to profit at the expense of others, as in the case of the Pharmaceutical company ‘Pfizer’, who when hearing about the news that Cholera had broken out across Kano in 1996, decided to use the children suffering, as drug testers for their new Cholera drugs, even though the parents of those children were never informed that the drugs had not been tested. The results were devastating. The same drug, was never tested in America. They waited until a developing Nation was in trouble.
‘Freedom’ has also come to mean ‘America’. Iraq was accused of hating the freedom of America, by George Bush in 2002, and ever since. Perhaps he was referring to the Freedom of Defence contractors, who netted a hefty $647bn in 2007 and 2008, because he surely cannot be referring to the plight of the 655,000 innocent dead Iraqis that the Washington Post reported, back in 2006. Not to mention the families of those 655,000 whose lives are now destroyed. ‘Freedom’ is a very ugly word.

A Nation should not be judged ‘developed’ on the richest in society. A Nation should be judged by how many people it has forgotten and left to rot.

Pro-Capitalism defenders seem to be unable to understand that when a system they claim to be a World Wide success, has left 90% of the population of the adult World with less than 20% of the Wealth of the World to distribute between them, the system has not worked, it hasn’t even slightly worked. It’s a disgustingly huge failure of catastrophic proportion.

Conservatism, tells us that it’s just the way the World works. That you cannot feed the World by giving money. That there is little we can do about it. We’ve almost come to accept it. Even I, who has a deep passion for ending poverty, cannot fully comprehend the evil of Poverty, whilst i’m sitting comfortably in my chair sipping a glass of orange juice. It seems a World away, and so not as important as perhaps it should be. It doesn’t figure highly in most peoples assumption, often flawed assumption, of what is important. Why should we accept that it’s the way the World works? Why shouldn’t there be those who wish to change it for the better?

If I were in control of the economy, I would add a company charity tax to expensive products. So for example, a brand new Yacht, which costs for example £400,000, would have an extra £100,000 added to it, which would subsequently be put into a Poverty Fund. New £1000 HDTVs would suddenly cost an extra £500. If you have this great wealth, and you feel robbed whenever the government takes a few extra pounds off of you, you will be charged extra for such great luxury, a brand new luxury goods tax, for the most expensive of luxury goods.

In 1994, the picture you see on the right, won the Pulitzer prize. It was taken by a Photographer named Kevin Carter. After taking the photo of a child crawling, unable to stand, to a UN Food Camp over 1km away whilst a vulture waits for the child to die, Carter walked away. He did not help the child. A few months later, Carter committed suicide. His suicide note read…. “I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners…“. This is the reality of a policy geared toward making the rich richer, whilst the poor are reduced to rats in the street. It can never be right to let it happen, under the moral assumption that it is much more unfair to see a businessman lose a little bit of his million dollar fortune to help those who need it most.

Morally, I cannot accept the position that it is much fairer to allow a CEO who already owns two yahts and a holiday home in Spain to gain more, than it is to take a portion of his wealth and give it to those who will die without it. There is something fundamentally wrong with Humanity and our sense of compassion, when it is widely accepted that the rich have the right to profit more, whilst the poor only have the right to an undignified, horrible death.

The liberal within

I was sat wondering today, what does it mean to be liberal and why do I class myself as Liberal?

Firstly, I have very little respect for the idea of “tradition” when it seems to contradict the vision of the future. Take Fox Hunting. The only arguments i’ve heard in favour of Fox hunting, are “it’s tradition”……. so was Slavery, let’s bring that back shall we? “It’s a humane way to kill the fox”, no it isn’t, when i die, i do not want to be chased to exhaustion, scared for my life, only to find myself being bitten by a pack full of crazed hungry hounds whilst a toff on a horse cowardly sits back and watches. I don’t care how quick i’d die, it’s not humane. And of course my favourite “It’s to keep the number of foxes down, they kill our chickens! They’re vermin!” Tough!!!! That’s a Fox being a Fox. That’s what they do. It’s instinct. What’s unnatural, and verminous, is the idea of keeping chickens in a pen. That’s not natural. That’s our fault, not the foxes. Perhaps we should hunt the hunters, because they kill foxes, hunters are vermin. Infact, humanity is pretty verminous. I think it was George Orwell who said “Man is the only creature that consumes but does not produce”. We don’t lay eggs, or give milk, or pull ploughs, instead we kill each other, and create Earth destroying bombs, we use child labour to create clothes for Primark, we chop down forests wiping out habitats so that we can have a nice new wooden table for our TVs whilst we slowly get fat at the expense of those who have to walk miles just for some water………. and then we have the fucking nerve to call a fox vermin. Get a grip.

I can never understand the statement that Liberals are indeed, selfish. That’s a contradiction in terms, for me.
To be Liberal is to act morally with a sense of deep empathy, realising that you are not the most important set of atoms in the World. That a “Nation” is just a place where people on the right wing of the political spectrum can get together, call themselves “Patriots” and decide they’re better than those of us “unpatriotic” lefties, and foreigners. Nothing more.

I believe everyone, regardless of wealth, should have healthcare, paid for by the taxpaying public, that leaves no one out. Wealth should not equate to a superior form of healthcare because wealth and hard work does not make you more or less entitled to life.

John McCain saw fit to suggest during the Presidential race, that the British NHS is an undesirable model. I liked McCain up until that point. Up until the point he made me want to punch his face-that-looks-a-bit-like-a-scrotum in. This horribly undesirable NHS he speaks of, saved my Dad’s life when he had a heart attack, saved my grandma several times after her numerous heart attacks. She’s in and out of hospital all the time, she’s nearly ninety, she would not be here with us today, she would not have been at our big family dinner, the first we’ve had in around fifteen years that brought all of us together one more time, she would not be alive today if it weren’t for the NHS. Thank God for the NHS. When McCain insulted the NHS, all I could see, was a big old man, draped in Dollar signs. And here lies the fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives. Money is not everything, especially when it comes to moral issues.

Being Liberal is progressive, not for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of society as a whole. That includes a protective government that uses the common wealth (taxes) to ensure safety nets are in place so that although failure in the market place should be allowed to exist, it shouldn’t mean complete disaster. We’re all people. Black and white people should not be segregated at home or at work, homosexuality should not be looked down upon or treated like a taboo – gay marriage should be legal, those who may have had a bad start in life who then turn to drugs or drink or homelessness should not be treated like animals – they are flawed but that doesn’t make them bad people, I believe in the woman’s right to choose when it comes to abortion, and I believe war for the sake of future profits is no different from a serial murderer going mad on the streets.

Of course i’d agree that the market place in principle, should dictate it’s own terms. In principle. Clearly, those “terms” can become twisted, and selfish, and greedy. Governments should not allow that to happen. Because with deregulation comes the death of responsibility. Suddenly accountability is taken away from those elected officials, and moves to the shadowy private sector, accountable purely to it’s shareholders. And so hunger grows, the gap between rich and poor grows, a child in Africa is allowed to starve to death with no help whatsoever, whilst a CEO is lazing his days away on his yaht. When it involves such strong socially moral issues, regulation is the only way. If Government can help achieve some form of social justice, then it should.

It seems all the range to say that a single mum struggling to feed her family, who then ‘scrounges’ a few extra £ in benefits is evil, should be sent to prison, cheating the system. Yet, it seems perfectly fine to give $750,000,000,000 away to greedy CEOs, who Thatcher and Regan had us believing her the future, and would solve all the World’s problems, that the unregulated markets would lift millions out of poverty across the World. Well just look how well THAT turned out. How the hell can you find $750 billion to bail out men in suits, yet you can’t feed the starving? For me, this is the biggest social injustice of our time.

Being Liberal, is the appreciation of the human mind and gene pool. We’re not all the same, some of us are straight, we’re attracted to the opposite sex, some of us are gay, attracted to the same sex, it’s neither natural or unnatural to anyone else other than the individual. If in your mind you’re gay, but because the Christian Right tell you it’s a sin, you hide yourself away, pretending to be straight in the hope that God will forgive you, isn’t that the most unnatural thing in the world? Denying yourself?

“Freedom”, “Unamerican”, “Democracy”, “Terrorism”, “Patriot” and most manipulative of them all “God” can be heard in every speech pretty much, given by most Right Winged politicians across the World. I hate the word “Freedom”, they use it in such a disgusting way. They try to suggest that allowing 1% of the World to suck up 90% of the World’s wealth is freedom.
Recently, especially with Obama, the word “Socialist” has been thrown around by the Right Wing. Obama would be thrown out of Socialist governments, for being too Capitalist. It’s ridiculous to call him Socialist. The Right wing knows it’s ridiculous. They’ve then started to suggest that Obama will destroy the country. They totally ignore that the past eight years have seen the reign of the World’s most hated U.S President, even more hated than Nixon……. Both of whom, come from the Right Wing.
Freedom is fine, it’s a great thing, economic freedom, the right to succeed is a wonderful idea, but before economic freedom is achieved, why can’t we make sure every human being is equipped to take advantage of that freedom? Humanity is not a resource to be used for profiteering through exploitation. Economic freedom relies on those less fortunate, without those less fortunate, in places like Africa, Economic freedom and the free market is doomed. And so the “free” in Freedom applies only to those who were lucky enough to be born into a system that is ready.

I think the over riding trait within me that makes me 100% Liberal, is when people say Liberals are dangerous because we want to tax those who work hard more in order to help others who have less. If I had made a fortune working hard, maybe let’s say, £1,000,000 sat in my bank for example, i’d feel horribly guilty whenever I looked at my account knowing i’d sucked up wealth that otherwise might have saved a life elsewhere. Liberal, to me, means empathy, compassion, and social justice.

This is why i’m a proud Liberal.