i am the laziest astronaut
oh hello what is up. i am jared. i am just chillin'. what are you doing?
Look at things I wrote and drew and found in dumpsters.
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i am also on these things:
Why I will vote for Ron Paul in the primaries, but not the general election.
I will vote for Ron Paul in the primaries because I do not want a complete goddamn lunatic running in the general election. That said, I will not vote for him in the general election. I am going to be honest: I disagree with Ron Paul on a staggering number of his policies. I do think he is more sensible than most politicians and genuinely cares about the citizens of this country. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I agree with Dr. Paul on these issues:
National Defense
I agree that expensive wars with no clear terms of victory are ridiculous.
I partially agree with him on these issues:
Healthcare
I am cool with giving tax breaks to people for medical expenses and exempting people fighting terminal illness from payroll taxes. I am cool with stopping the FDA from interfering with doctors’ ability to inform patients about dietary supplements and alternative treatments. Most of our problems stem from corporate greed, and the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to deny people the knowledge and availablity of treatment that does not include patented chemicals is a deplorable example of this. I am happy he wants to attempt to lower the ridiculous costs of healthcare by reducing the burden of malpractice litigation, however I do not think this should be shifted directly to patients through “negative outcomes” insurance. I agree that a national database of personal health information is terrible. That’s it. All his other healthcare ideas still involve having to go through insurance companies, which is fucking stupid. We pay a company for a service, and that service is to pay for medical costs in the event that our health is compromised. But it is in the best interest of a for-profit company to do everything in its power to deny that service. That’s just fucked up.
Economy
I like that he would veto unbalanced budgets. I am in favor of fully auditing the Federal Reserve. More on that shortly. I am, to my own surprise, in favor of legalizing competing currency. Seemed weird at first, but it forces those in power to stop recklessly lowering the value of the dollar. I am against his platform of eliminating income, capital gains, and inheritance taxes (I refuse to call that the “death tax” because that is a stupid conservative buzzword meant to imbue the concept with an inherent sense of unfairness). Historically in economic crises, raising taxes was what brought our economy out of a slump. Capital gains = income. Here’s what I think on inheritance tax. The argument I usually hear is “that money has already been taxed.” Sure. All money has already been taxed. When you get money, you are taxed. I do not understand the confusion. Because it belonged to a relative does not mean it belonged to you. Following this line of thinking all the way through would lead to NO taxes, which is not a very useful idea to even mention. This is almost irrelevant anyway, as I believe inheritance tax rates should be low for the lower and middle class and only notable if the inheritor is gaining a lot. Like Warren Buffett, I am made uneasy by the concept of “dynastic wealth.” And finally, I am happy that Dr. Paul wants to “end the corporate stranglehold on the White House.”
Ending the Fed
The Fed is a shady organization that invests and lends taxpayer money with no congressional oversight. Completely opaque operation. That is what is wrong with it. Its existence is indeed debatable, but I support a completely transparent organization with oversight. If it is still deemed unnecessary or detrimental after being run in the public eye and regulated by Congress, then end it. My main concern is that with monetary policy and especially international monetary policy, America would be represented by the nation’s largest private banks. Additionally, smaller banks would depend on the larger banks for a lot of things, and historically larger banks see small banks as competition and have no real interest in their solvency.
Gun Rights
I support the 2nd ammendment, I really do. It was more relevant and necessary when it was conceived, but I believe it is still valid. I believe in strict regulation, however, because people are selfish, stupid, and careless. There is a direct correlation between the high firearm murder rate in Texas and the availability and lax restrictions on firearms there. Not hard to get a license to carry a concealed weapon, which directly results in barroom brawls ending in death far more often than in states with tighter restrictions. I am wholeheartedly against his stance on assault weapons. Handguns, rifles, shotguns - these can be useful tools and good for protecting one’s self and family (possibly). Automatic weapons, kevlar-piercing bullets, etc… These should not be sold to just anybody over 21 who is patient enough to wait 48 or 72 hours.
Unions
Unions are not as necessary as they were during the industrial revolution. But I do not believe we can remove government oversight from business practices and disassemble unions. Unions have gotten pretty greedy and the system needs to be reformed. But if the government ceases to be involved in business and joining a union ceases to be a requirement, then we create an environment where the greediest companies will be able to hire desperate non-union employees, lowering the value of labor and the standard of living of the working class. I do agree that elections for union organizers should have secret ballots so workers are not intimidated to vote a certain way. I believe in unions, and I believe there should be regulations in place that keep them accountable and working for the common interest of both workers and employers.
Homeschooling
This is a complicated issue. I agree that parents have a right to educate their children themselves, sure. I do not have any suggestions on this topic, but would just like to note that the most important thing children learn in schools is social interaction. As long as this unbelievably essential part of development is considered and addressed, and as long as children are taught things that are factual and useful for survival in society, then I do not care much who does the teaching. What public schools offer, however, is a relatively balanced, relatively unbiased presentation of core curriculum. Schools definitely do need to be run better. Different learning styles should not hinder a child from being academically successful. But a strong standard for education is a necessity for creating a prosperous, efficient future.
I disagree almost entirely with these policies:
Abortion
Not that many people are pro-abortion. That is a silly thing to think. I think this can be a hard, emotional decision. The answer is not to cut funding to health clinics that provide uninsured women with their only opportunity for gynecological exams, but rather we must invest in education. Education about being as safe as possible with sex, about relationships, about self-esteem, and about making good decisions in the face of temptation and social pressure. A much higher percentage of Swedish teenagers than American teenagers are sexually active, but there is a much, much lower pregnancy-, and subsequently abortion-rate because they are taught extensively about contraception, which is made much more available than it is here. Al Gore said it best when he said abortions should be safe, legal, and entirely unnecessary. I think repealing Roe v. Wade is a very dangerous thing to do. It won’t stop people from having abortions entirely, but it certainly will make the process much more dangerous and emotionally damaging.
Lower taxes
Adjusting for inflation, income tax is as low as it’s been since the 50’s. The flat tax might look equal on paper, but it leaves poor families with a much greater burden just to survive. I agree that government spending could be drastically cut, but even if we drastically cut spending and keep taxes exactly as they are now, it will take a very long time to pay off the unfathomable debt we are in (which, by the way, was caused by war and tax breaks, not public assistance programs).
Immigration
I do not think illegal immigration is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. Illegal immigrants are not a significant drain on the system, they are not qualified to receive most benefits of the system, but a lot of them do pay taxes into the system. Paul’s policy that children of illegal immigrants who are born here would not be citizens seems to be lacking in compassion and care for our fellow man. We are all humans. Because Mexico’s government is corrupt, because living conditions are terrible for a sizable amount of their population, desperate people (people who love their families, have dogs, want a bright future for their children, and have almost every other quality in common with YOU) are doing what they can to provide for their loved ones. Most often by doing jobs most of us wouldn’t deign to do in the worst of circumstances. Face it, most American citizens would rather be on welfare or standing on a corner with a cardboard sign than work in the fields for 12 hours a day for well below minimum wage. This is cold, unethical, borderline-racist thinking, and I honestly expected better from Ron Paul.
Energy Independence
That’s a great positively connoted buzzword. What he wants, though, is to remove restrictions on drilling for oil as well as coal and natural gas production. He wants to eliminate the EPA. From his web site: “Polluters should answer directly to property owners in court for the damages they create – not to Washington.” Yes, because property owners give a shit about the future of our world enough to stop making tons of money from people drilling on their land. Hydrofracking for natural gas is devastating to the environment and poisons local water supplies. Coal is an inefficient, highly destructive form of fuel. The only thing I agree with is that he wants to give tax credits to people who purchase and produce alternative fuel technologies. This should not be the last bulletpoint on his page about fuel, put there to appease progressives who are leaning his direction because everyone else running is a fucking moron. This should be the first, most important part of fuel policy. Because drilling on our priceless, amazing national parks for a resource that WILL RUN OUT is shortsighted, inefficient, and stupid. Because hydrofracking is reckless, dangerous, and wrong. We should not be removing regulations so companies can “tap into the vast amount of oil we have here at home.” We should be making it impossible not to invest in alternative fuels; our future as a species depends on it. One last often overlooked but incredibly important point I must make is that petroleum is incredibly valuable as a resource beyond fuel. Burning the limited resource necessary to make PLASTIC - among humanity’s most important achievements, one which touches and positively affects nearly every aspect of modern existence - is one of the dumbest things we could possibly be fighting very hard to keep doing.
There. That is why I cannot fully support Ron Paul.
murder spree
when you go on an ant-killing rampage, do you ever wonder if there is some giant mutant ant overlord that will find you and tear you apart? sometimes i do, but also sometimes i want to meet this mutant freak and tell him (or her): ”ur doodz are in my base, and i am killing the bejeezus out of them.” i did not have any bug spray, but 409 seems to end their stupid little lives pretty well. and now the place smells lemony fresh.
life:
Mascots are essential characters in college sports. They get crowds pumped. They harass opponents. They terrify the unprepared and the weak in spirit…Well, some of them do.
wow, gary busey seems to have found a steady gig. good for him!
An essay about a rape joke that backfired and why everybody’s opinions are valid
I do not know very much about anything. One thing that I do know is this: without being somebody and without having been that person for a lifetime, there is no way to know what another person truly thinks or feels. You cannot really judge anybody’s actions or opinions, merely react in the way that seems most logical and helpful. I came to this conclusion based on my own experiences with other people’s myriad reactions to my depression and anxiety. People don’t react to the fact that I have it; a lot of people think everybody has it (they don’t). But people do tend to say a lot of horseshit like: “Just cheer up,” or “It’s easy, just stop being sad.” Because I know for certain that nobody knows how I feel or sees all the reasons for my actions, I know that I can never really know these things about anyone else.
In August of last year, Penny Arcade made a comic that mentions rape. It was not the punchline of the joke, but it did not need to be to divide the readership into two distinct groups: those that found it funny, and those that believed it perpetuated a “rape culture” in which the gravity of rape is continually diminished through casual use of the term and the concept.
My view on this subject is pretty objective, I think. I found the comic funny, and had it not received such a public fallout, I probably would have not even noticed the reference to rape, merely the pointed criticism of the perceived “morality” of players’ actions in videogames, specifically how the mechanics of a particular game might remove the humanity from a character’s actions.
But I am not a rape survivor. I cannot know what feelings a seemingly humorous reference could evoke in an individual who has dealt with such an awful event. And even if I was a survivor of sexual assault, I could not possibly know how other survivors would feel, given that the circumstances of their own trauma would be entirely different, as would their upbringing, their brain chemistry, and their genetic disposition to feel or react to events in their own particular ways. There is no real way to know how anyone is going to react to anything.
This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, Mike and Jerry’s initial reaction and decision to make and sell a shirt based on the subject was incredibly insensitive. However: I do not know them personally, but I have met them on a few occasions and followed them for years before I got busy and pretty much stopped following everyone, and they have never struck me as particularly insensitive guys (a demographic I am acutely aware of, given my own particular sensitivities), and so I must conclude that they did not mean to specifically hurt anybody. On the other hand, without knowing how people are going to react, it is impossible to tailor jokes or any other art to appeal to everyone. It is very lame that trigger words can bring on episodes of PTSD. That sucks. But it is unfair to expect other human beings to alter their entire course to avoid subjects that might offend a portion of their audience.
That being said, Mike and Jerry (mostly Mike) reacted to reader/fans’ very real concern and valid opinions with sarcasm and general insensitivity. Mike reacted in a way that was not really helpful or insightful. It was a defensive reaction, which is often necessary or perceived to be necessary. And truthfully, the most damage was done and perpetuated by an anonymous Internet that has no unified interest in effective communication or resolution. We cannot expect people to act rationally in any situation ever. See my note at the bottom of the post for my general perception of human behavior.
All of this was really blown out of proportion on both sides. I think it is important to note that humor involving rape or any other terrible experience is often not intended to poke fun at victims, but to cope with such tragedy through laughter. Take for example Amanda Palmer’s song “Oasis.” A lot of people were offended by this sing-songy joke song about rape and abortion. But the song was borne of a need to deal with Amanda’s own experiences with rape and abortion, and hopefully to help some other people cope with similar tragedy. Most of my own comics deal with depression and real or perceived failure. It is not an accident. That is what is at the heart of any authentic artistic creation: a fundamental truth about the artist, whether experienced directly or vicariously. Jerry’s ultimate response to the backlash was insightful and beautiful and tragic and true: “I am who I am, in the end; the comics I make are the result of my damage.”
You can never know how anybody else feels about anything. The most you can do is react to things as best you can and understand that we all suffer in our own ways, and that sometimes shitty things happen. It sucks pretty hard, but that is the way things are.
***
A note about my perception of human behavior:
I think a lot of miscommunication arises from the fact that for some reason most people consider human beings to be “fundamentally good.” I do not share this belief. They are not “fundamentally bad” either. These concepts require context to convey meaning. A very religious person might think that having sex before marriage is “bad.” I do not think that, therefore the action “having sex before marriage” cannot be “good” or “bad” in a universal sense, but only as the terms apply to a specific context, such as “having sex before marriage is bad within the context of the views of the Catholic Church,” or “having sex before marriage is more or less neutral within the context of Jared’s personal worldview.”
One thing that human beings most certainly are, however, is self-serving. It is difficult to overcome this perceived defect, and few actually manage to. And here I am talking about Gandhi and Mother Theresa and “People Who Work With Children and Have No Vested Interest In the Ultimate Belief System of Said Children.”
So it is illogical and irresponsible to assume that people are going to react to things with the wellbeing of other human beings as their primary motive. Not that all motives are self-serving or that people don’t do nice things for other human beings, but that it should not be expected, because we as a species are not inherently imbued with such virtue. It is unfair and unwise to assume differently.
Be the best person you can be, whatever that means to you. We are all uniquely defective, we are all morally neutral to the physical mechanisms of the universe.
WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?
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my planet was destroyed about a week after i was born. but i would very much like to visit china. probably more than anywhere else.
