Assange: U.N. rules his detainment is illegal, a victory for freedom is won.

 

 

I remember when he exposed the crimes of not only my government, but crimes and corruption of governments around the world. I remember when he was first on the run. I remember when he was hit with trumped up charges. I remember when the leaders of my country called for his blood. I remember being disgusted by calling for the blood of a man who should be hailed as the next Daniel Ellsberg who should be hailed as a hero with even the anti-war left to scared to defend him.

 

 

I also remember this being what woke me from political apathy. For most of my life I had sat on the defense only standing up for myself and those I cared about but this changed me just as it changed the world. I defended him publicly and although I can't claim to suffer like he did or those working for him I took a lot of heat for it including a someone trying to get me kicked out of college.

 

Now Assange's detainment has been ruled illegal by the United Nations. I would love to hear what those who had called for his assassination or sited trumped up charges would say now. Probably just come up with another excuse to arrest him so they either kill him or just put him in a secret prison and torture him for the rest of his life. He would be wise to continue hiding out in the embassy. But for his cause which is accountable government worldwide and all those who believe in it this is a victory that should be celebrated.

Based on our viewing the future looks horrible.

 

Based on our viewing the future doesn’t looks horrible.

Cynical Perspectives:

If you haven’t noticed apocalyptic futures seem to be in right now, walking dead, A Nation, etc. If you judge by our watching style we don’t have a whole lot of belief in ourselves or the world these days. I remember as a kid watching Independence Day, where the whole world gathered united out the United States to fight off an alien invasion. Remember star trek again a bright future where mankind unites. As time progresses we get darker and darker pictures. First it mankind unites to make the world better, then mankind unites to fight off a greater threat, then it turns into mankind devolves into a backward primitive state full of ruthless amoral survivors that only care about surviving another day. Mankind survives.

Into the Badlands:

Let’s look at Into the Badlands. A new hit show with a somewhat negative take on the future. It strikes a good balance making society that is too much like ours and one that is so different that we can’t connect to it and draw no connection. Into The Badland is like your life, just immeasurably worse. Just like today there is a cast system, only so much worse:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/162903711499609909/

As shown on the AMC Badlands site I couldn’t copy it so I got it from Pininterest.  http://www.amc.com/shows/into-the-badlands/exclusives/the-world#killing-anchor

Today’s World Only Worse: in the future your life is valued on your ability to farm opium or force others to farm opium for this slave owning/murdering/drug dealing/polygamist/ect/piece of shit.

               Instead of 1% CEOS you have Barons who literally own everything, and everyone. Instead of cops who get away with somewhat questionable shootings you have bands “Clippers” who are basically assassins who kill anyone the Baron doesn’t like, hope you don’t think working in a cubicle or making fries is bad, it should give you an idea of what life is life for most people when commoners are referred to as Cogs (seriously that is there name and what role most of us would be in, gives you an idea of what life is like for ordinary people). Then you have the Dolls, mainly women who were abducted by human traffickers, except in their society the traffickers are the government. Again you think women’s rights are bad today, you have a society where the status of women in the Badlands isn’t that much different than in Saudi Arabia when the subject of polygamy was introduced I couldn’t help but think it was a reference to modern day Saudi Arabia. The only people who seem outside the system are bandits and scientist. This is also much like today. In a weird way if you’re a criminal you have certain amount of freedom that others do not (even though in the process you risk losing all freedom).

Only thing that stands out as totally different from the modern world as opposed to just being the exaggeration of the modern world is the government having no interest in technology. I can’t think of a government no matter how oppressive that doesn’t take an interest in citizens who display talent in important technology. You can bet that North Koreas scientist live VERY good lives in comparison to most of their countrymen and probably even in comparison to most Americans. But this is not the case in the Badlands. Science with the exception of automobiles is actively stifled and guns have been abolished. This makes sense considering when you realize that the Barons main threat isn’t others Barons but their own people. Their Clipper have to train at a young age at sword fighting and martial arts. But anyone can learn to use to a gun effectively with little training. This could be seen as a very nuanced view on gun rights. There are many ways to make weapons, to use edged blades very effectively, to print out paper guns (yes they exist) but these are out of the league of most American citizens.

There is a representative of modern values in the Badland that comes in the form of the “Widow”. But as with the other qualities of the Badlands it comes somewhat sinister form. A woman that killed her Baron husband and is trying to achieve gender and class equality for the badlands. Again they take modern, and they twist it. Yes there is a representative for the values we grew up with, but it comes in the form of an individual who by modern standards can only be described as a murderer, terrorist and would be dictator who uses a cabal of informants and assassins who foment a war in which she’ll take power regardless of the death toll inflicted.

The Best Opinion poll I’ve ever seen:

Now to get back to what I was talking about before it shows that we don’t believe our society will work. We don’t. We watch these shows to help us get use to a world where everything we know goes to hell. It’s the most honest opinion poll we you can find. Just look at what kind of societies people see evolving in the future. It doesn’t look good.

 

About me

 

About me:

This is Richard McLaughlin though I prefer Rick to be called Rick, I am a 27 year old college graduate with a degree in Political Science still taking classes because I find the information offered in them to be useful for my future profession which is investigative journalism I’m from Florida with a love for history, politics, the darker parts of human psychology, movies, anime, and prefer radio to TV.

Where getting off on the wrong foot. This isn’t about me, this is about you, you and me, or really the parts of me that are relevant to information I post to you. This is about the parts of me relevant to the blog. This is my resume. This is me making the case about why you should listen to anything I say or recommend. Let’s get started.

But then again lots of people have a degree, plenty of them are complete idiots. Knowledge is useless without wisdom, and wisdom comes from life experiences, usually rough ones. So here’s why. I’m the best at what I do. What is it what I do? I apply reason to intuition. I size up situations and see them for what they are, I look deep into the world and into people, and see things for how they truly are it’s a gift. I do this because I combine the low brow and the highbrow. If you don’t know the low brow is the gutter, its smut, its raunchy comedies and bloody action movies, its lessons learned when hitchhiking. Highbrow is the arts, its reading books not comics, its reading

 I’m very good at what I do, I’m not better than you but most likely I’m better at this skill than you mainly because I had to learn it. It was sink or swim.

Before I go on this not meant to be whining. This is meant to be my personal resume of why you should listen to me and in my experience very few life lessons come from pleasant experiences. I’m not trying to get you to feel sorry for but rather informing you where I learned how the world actually is as opposed to how we would like it to be.

Those from a young age. I went to an “alternative school” basically a step above a reform school. To sum it up it was horrible. The teachers were usually people who couldn’t get jobs in public schools, some I suspect because I violent acts against students. The students usually came in two categories, they were mentally disabled, or were delinquent to some degree usually coming from horrible family situation, and I came from the latter. I learned many things there. Even though I curse being sent there I can’t help but be grateful for what I learned. The importance of brotherhood and friendship which forms very easily when you know that those in charge don’t especially like or care about you. You learn that the old blood is thicker than water argument doesn’t really hold weight when your family has left you to rot in hell but your friends whom you are not related to are fighting for you and you for them.

With an environment like this you can expect that I have many bad influences and made many bad decisions. But guess what I survived them. I survived them and learned very important lessons. I got to tell you, you can learn a lot from hitchhiking, who will pick you up who won’t, who will tell you they’re going to Walmart just to you’ll go with them because they’ll feel safer with a guy when they go to their drug deal. There are learned very quickly that I couldn’t just be a normal teenager, I when I saw the car surrounded several gang members I had to light up a cigarillo put up my hoodie and pretend to be a stone cold gangster I any of us were getting out of there alive. Just to clarify I’m not stone cold or a gangster, but for that moment I had to be. It was a lie front, I’m not bragging about being tough or even saying I am, I’m saying I’m good at sizing up a situation in a very short amount of time and doing what I can to resolve it.

After incidents like this I took a VERY hard look at myself and where I was going which was as slow road to nowhere. I got very serious about what I wanted for myself. I wanted to leave my mark on the world. I wanted to matter. I wanted to get into writing and investigative journalism. I found that the skills that I was forced to learn as a kid go very well with my direction. I found I was very good in piecing together why people vote the why they do. Recently for class assignment I snuck through to the center of the Bernie sanders at More House College. Only the first 50 or so people with press passes could get through and although I had a press pass didn’t get there early enough. So I snuck though where the crowd was heavy on dividing line. If I hadn’t learned and practiced this skill earlier in life. I then used my skill that I utilized many times growing up to get to the center of the crowd, the skill is bluffing and I’m good at it. I kept yelling saying that I was looking for a fellow member of my press team asking in anyone had seen Quinn. People fell for it and I got to the center.

I predicted that both Sanders and Trump would come out on top in the primaries which if you look at the news is happening. I predicted that the Iraq war would end much like the Vietnam War ended, with America leaving but the division coming home to America. If you look at how US police force has militarized and the recent police shootings and resulting riots I think that I wasn’t that far off. If you can predict a fight breaking out between to people with a little education it’s not hard to see it happen at a much larger macro level.

I’m very good at debating people and getting them to contradict themselves. I’m good because I know how to employ both lowbrow and highbrow methods and methodology in my life taking what’s best from both of them.

Please don’t think I’m bragging. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of my life, it’s not good or bad it just is. I’m telling you this because it’s on me to show that I am a worthwhile source before you invest anytime reading what I have to say.

A guide in debating those of opposing views: by Rick McLaughlin

 

 

 

A guide in debating those of opposing views: by Rick McLaughlin

I’m a political science graduate. I’ve done a lot of debating with those whose views are diametrically opposed to mine and for the most part it’s a waste of time. The main reason is our views are created by life experiences that causes us to have completely different views on life. Since you can’t change these life experiences the chance of changing the persons views are very slim. This is not to say that debating other viewpoints is a complete waste of time, just most of the time it is, and that is mainly because we try to change the viewpoint of someone who has already made up their mind. There are four main ways to debate your opponent, three I recommend, and one that does not work at all.

Option 1: The losing strategy.

Let’s start with the one I have since given up on. Convincing someone who’s views are different from yours because their life experiences. I was assigned to a group of three people to come up with a way to restore faith in Law Enforcement among Americans. It was someone majoring in criminal justice, and someone from a small town policed by a sheriff she knew and me all in the same group. I’ve had bad experiences with cops, I’ve had personal belongings stolen from me by them and been arrested no reason other than being out late at night, this is my reality. As you can imagine the conversation broke down, my answer to the problem was that we needed to get rid of police unions and make the same laws that apply to civilians apply to law enforcement. The soon to be cop’s idea was that the media needed to stop showing police in bad light then America would trust them again, he has this view because those instructing him in his classes for the most part are either cops or prosecutors , making their views into his reality. The girl from the small town seemed to take his side because all she had ever known were cops that she ever encountered were ones that she knew personally and liked her, this is her reality. It was such a waste, we literally got ZERO work done. This assignment was doomed from the start because my reality had literally zero in common with theirs. I can’t change their reality and they can’t change mine.

Option 2: the show must go on.

When I debate people now it’s for one of three reasons, the first and main reason is for the audience. I make a show out of it for those watching. I want those watching to see that my viewpoint is the right one, or at least make my viewpoint seem better than my opponent. I did this during a mock election debate, neither of us were going to change each other’s minds but there was a mandatory audience of about 30 people and I knew if I did well I could change a couple minds, I think I did and I’m still proud of it. This is what you see in presidential debates. Obama and Romney were not trying to change each other’s minds during the 2012 debates, they were trying to change ours. This is the principle of Option 2.

Option 3: dealing with a psychological terrorist.

The second reason is when you’re on the defensive, when someone attacks you for your opinions or on the rare occasion that the person’s views or behavior is so objectionable that I feel I that someone needs to take them a notch. I never start these conflicts, never, I you shouldn’t either. Those that do are scum who want to bully people as a means of war. Yes I said a means of war, they want you to feel bullied, helpless and demoralized and hurt so that when it’s time to decide the future your shell-shocked to act. Their psychological terrorist’s and though you should never start off thinking of someone as your enemy when they prove to be one you must see them for as enemies who want to ruin you unless you can ruin them first or you will lose and they will win, not at the argument but at life. You should deal with them without mercy and turn their emotional battery against them.

When you are subject to an attack where someone goes after you saying negative things about you personally for a statement you made you can do many things such as yelling at them, hitting them, threatening them, all of which actually hurt you more than them. When I face someone like this I take their opinion apart piece by making their argument look stupid, weak, and innefective. I don’t get drawn into their insults or accusations. I remember this crooked former jail guard who was bragging in class about beating people. I could have gone on a self-righteous rant about rights and how he’s a “mean” or “bad” person, instead I just laughed at him pointing out his lack of for beating up a drunk with a with a bunch of armed guards to back him up. The class nicknamed him “rent a cop”.             

Another time I dealt with this guy, he claimed he was in the military (looking tack I think he wasn’t) and mad that his professor made him read “Slaughterhouse Five” which is a book about the firebombing of Dresden during the Second World War. He ranted and raved about wanting to wage total war against America’s enemies killing men women and children literally screaming at them that they needed to die “for breathing”. I wanted to go on a rant telling him what bad person he was but he probably would have laughed. Instead I made him look like someone who should be pitied. Pointed out he wasn’t much different Nazis or Imperial Japan. By the end of the conversation I saw him with his fist balled up, he wanted to hit me, to lose his chance at a college education, to lose his personal liberty, I was that important to him. I won.

Those on the fence: the most worthwhile debates.

A friend of mine I’m not going to name because he is looking for a job right now and I don’t want to jeopardize it by mentioning his association with someone like me. He’s very conservative, he fought in Iraq, believed in the mission and is looking to be a police officer. I on the other hand have an isolationist view on foreign policy on have issues with police. But we DID have some common ground. We did believe albeit for different reasons that the government no longer represented the people and that the system was doomed to fail as well as a common philosophy about life in general. Because of those commonalities we were able to influence each other’s views when we sparred over things like who the media was biased towards, foreign policy, police policy. Our debates resulted in both of us gaining a more nuanced view of the world we live in. These are some of the best debates you can have because they not only influence the world around you but also make you a better person. Not only that but people who are on the fence see both sides and can give you information on people who are enemies so next time you have a debate with someone who is diametrically opposed to you you’ll know your enemy.

The internet to be controlled by Washington.

http://www.wired.com/2015/12/gop-debate-internet/

If you look at the what the candidates are talking about internet freedom in the US may be the same soon as internet freedom in China. They talk about it in terms of defeating ISIS but I have the feeling that they intend to go after anyone publishing something they disagree with.

It always amazes me how gullible people are. The government just has to wave a foreign threat in the air and my fellow Americans are ready to throw away their freedom in a heartbeat.

Boondocks did a great parody of this.