Okay so can I just say Double-U Tee Eff?

Barack Obama has not even been in freaking office for a year and has yet to do anything except for spend a whole ton of money that we don’t have, ignore Afghanistan, and allow Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela to mock the U.S. completely. Oh and let’s not forget his healthcare program that he has been trying to force down our throats for the last few months. But somehow doing nothing while still promising to do amazing things for the entire world sometime in the future…that equals Nobel Peace Prize. Sounds to me like pretty much any politician who has ever run for office deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

Mahatma Ghandi, who did amazing things throughout his life and made huge leaps and bounds in the whole world peace department…yeah he didn’t get a Nobel Peace Prize…and he actually DID something. Lots of somethings, in fact. He helped liberate an entire nation peacefully. He inspired other revolutionary and civil rights leaders all over the world to achieve their goals peacefully. And HE did not win a Nobel Peace Prize. Can you say JACKED UP?

The hype surrounding this guy annoys the crap out of me. He is not Martin Luther King Jr. He is not George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Heck he isn’t even FDR or Ronald Reagan (who many will say were both either geniuses or complete idiots – depending who you ask). He has not liberated anyone. He has not made significant changes to society. He has not done anything to promote peace in the world. All he has done is talked about it. I talk about losing weight ALL the time – BUT I have never actually done it. I think I deserve the title of Biggest Loser and the prize money from this season of the NBC show.

He was nominated for the prize only 11 Days after being inaugurated. 11 DAYS!! what!?! Not only has he not done enough to deserve it up to the point of actually accepting the award – but they had already picked him out even before that! He was basically given a prestigious and sought after award for being the first Black President of the United States. You can call me racist if you want. I really don’t care. But it’s not true.

Martin Luther King Jr. himself said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Say what you will, but a large number of people who voted for Barack Obama in the general election did so because of the color of his skin, not because of the content of his character. I personally did not like John McCain much and made it a point to ask Obama supports about him and why they liked him. The vast majority of people that I talked to (and there were a great deal) knew nothing about his policies, they simply knew that he was able to fire up a crowd and wanted change. Did they even know what kind of change he meant? No. Over half of them mentioned in one way or another that it is about time we have a black president. Obviously a motivating factor if it’s one of the top 3 reasons to vote for the man.

I think it’s great that we as a people have arrived at the point where we can and have elected a black man to lead our nation. I understand the importance of the notion and what it means for equality. I do however feel that his policies are crap and that he has an alternate agenda, which varies greatly from that which he purports to the nation. Perhaps he does state his agenda directly, but no one understands his words to mean what he intends them to mean.

And so 11 days after being instated he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He had spent the last year talking about things and making claims about what he wanted to do, but was not even in a position of power for two weeks when they decided “hey this guy deserves a Nobel Prize, because A: we are so glad to see Bush gone, 2. Because he has promised to do so many great things…oh yeah and because he is the first black president”

Come on, you’re all thinking it. I just said it out loud.

In reality all they have done, by award this significant prize to someone who hasn’t done jack squat, is lower the value, meaning, and importance of something that has always been so great. The same effect Obama seems to have been having on our nation. But what can we do about it? Even less than Obama has done so far. We are just little people. We aren’t heads of committees, groups, and organizations which wield national and international power…well not yet anyway.

Other articles on Obama’s Peace Prize shenanigans:

Zombies get a bad wrap. But that is wrong, because zombies are people too. I mean think about it. Zombies are definitely somewhat different from the rest of us- but that is no reason at all to treat them differently. Deep inside they are the same as we are. They have a heart and a brain and feelings that can be hurt.

We curse them and make tacky movies about them because they are different, because they have a slightly different diet than we do, because they dress a little different, and aren’t such huge fans of bathing. But so what? This is America and that is not how we operate. Here people are allowed to be different, even strange. Here people are allowed to chase after their dreams. Sure Zombies have different dreams than we do. They have different goals. But that is what they do, not who they are.

We act as if them achieving their goals will somehow impede the rest of us in achieving our own goals. That’s really all we are worried about isn’t it? For some reason each of us thinks that the things we work so hard for are the most important things in this world, but that is not always true. There are others out there; Other people with other needs, and we sometimes get in the way. That is rude and inconsiderate of us.

We need to think of others more. Many of us claim to be willing to give up blood sweat tears and even limbs in the service of others, but who of us has actually done that? I for one have never donated an arm to the zombie cause and it makes me disgusted with myself. As soon as I finish this post I plan to make that donation, and make a difference in the life of some young zombie child who might otherwise go hungry. I encourage you to do the same.

We live in a world where all are treated equally, we have affirmative action and equal opportunity employment programs to ensure that a certain percentage of each race, former prisoners, and even those of different sexual orientations, can work and learn together. But why not the zombies? what have they ever done to harm us? Sure they gorge themselves on the occasional child and sometimes turn others into their own kind, but so what? That’s no reason to shun them. There is no reason that they should have to work to earn such god-given rights as that of employment, education, healthcare, housing, utilities, groceries, and transportation when the rest of us are simply given all of these things by our loving government.

I feel that the government is seriously missing the mark here. The constitution calls for the government to look after the general welfare of each and every citizen. One’s citizenship does not change just because their chemical make-up and overall species has changed. They are still citizens of this, the greatest country on earth, and they deserve all of the rights, privileges and freebies that come with that title.

So next time you find yourself in a dark alley with one of our zombie brothers, do not run, do not scream in terror or attempt to remove it’s head with whatever sharp or blunt object you might have with you. Instead remember that he/she/it also has needs. Offer up your hand in friendship, which I am sure he/she/it will consider a gracious and delectable (tho small) snack.

Okay so I realize that not a soul on earth reads this, but I have decided that I don’t care. I’m gonna keep posting shiz anyway. Pretty much because I can. Today a facebook friend of mine posted a YouTube video of congressman Mike Rogers making a very good case against the current bill on the table for Healthcare reform. The video was great. I agree with Mr. Rogers 1000%. But the comments after…holy crap are these people confused. I never respond to this crap online but I decided to today. Somebody has got to set these people straight.

One guy talks about how he wouldn’t mind paying for the care of the %15 of Americans who don’t actually have healthcare. And you know what? That’s just fine. If he wants to pay for their healthcare then by all means go for it. But that does not mean that I and the rest of America have to pay for it.

I donate way more money to charities and such than most broke college students my age do. I pay 10% of my income to my church, a non profit organization which does tons and tons to benefit its members and others with that money. I also donate fast offerings which are used expressly for the help of those in need of food, clothing and other necessities. I feel comfortable donating my money to this organization because I know it goes to the right place.

I know of plenty of occasions in which the church has used this money to help those who can’t help themselves with eveything from medical bills to rent and groceries. The church has strict rules and no middlemen. All of the church’s leaders are laymen; they don’t get paid. So my money does not go into anyone’s paycheck. It goes to the people who need it. The church also doesn’t just hand out money to people who ask for it.

Before giving anyone money for these types of things the Bishop checks to make sure that the family is doing everything they can with the budget that they have, in order to pay their bills. The church isn’t going to give them money to pay their phone bill if they have a plan with unnecessary features, or give them money for a grocery bill that they could pay themselves if only they discontinued their cable TV subscription. And the church will not continue to help a family for months and months if they are not putting their own blood sweat and tears into providing for themselves. The government doesn’t do it like that.

Long story short, (okay not THAT much shorter – but a little bit) I give MY money that I earn to organizations that I trust and that I know will not squander my money on people who are not trying to take care of themselves, or waste it all on middlemen. I bring this up because by creating a government healthcare plan, paid for by MY taxes the government forces me to donate to people that THEY deem deserving of it; I don’t get a say.

Plenty of our money is already used in medicaid and welfare programs that waste our money. Federally funded programs like ACORN use our money to help prostitutes set up brothels and get illegal home loans(see foxnews.com). So why in the heck would I want to give more of MY money to the federal government so that it can go to people who don’t deserve it and aren’t working for it?

By charging me higher taxes to pay for other’s healthcare and the like, the government takes away MY freedom to give MY money to charitable organizations that I want to donate to.

Another guy argues that it is our duty to help these people because they cannot help themselves(apparently he thinks all of this 15% are incapable of working). He then states that we must help them until they can help themselves and then they will become productive and contribute. There is a SERIOUS flaw in this guy’s argument. He ASSUMES (and you know what they say about assuming) that people WANT to work and WILL work. I’m sorry to sound sinister but I have met WAY too many lazy people who are all too happy to leech off of the government(us) and stay home watching MTV (which we pay for) instead of working.

I lived in Brazil for 2 years and there I saw a great example of how the government spoon-feeding people does them no good in the end. I love Brazil and it’s people more than most of you could possibly understand, but Brazilians are very laid back people. The kind of people who don’t work unless they have to. In northern Brazil, where I lived, the people are very poor and most of them are on some kind of welfare. At the beginning of every month they line up for blocks and blocks to get their checks from the government. The problem in Brazil is that they have a very small upper class and an even smaller middle class, and these two classes pay for a very very large poor class. So the checks that these people are getting aren’t even big. They use these checks and whatever profit they can make selling candy and baked goods on street corners to pay for their rent and food for their families.

Systems like theirs, which reward people for not contributing to the system contribute to a polarization of the classes. In order to survive you either give up and lay back, in order to qualify for government assistance, or you work your butt off in order to break into the upper class. Which is much much harder there than it is here. By creating a similar system here – one in which you get free healthcare for not working and have to pay for it when you do work – we will similarly polarize our own classes and increase our own poor class by exorbitant amounts.

We live in a society that teaches us to do what is right for ourselves, as individuals. When was the last time you saw a movie or TV show in which a character was encouraged to give up their dreams in order to contribute to the family or community as a whole? I, for one, can’t think of any, and I have seen A LOT of movies. They all result in the rest of the family making sacrifices so that one person can follow their dreams. Then in real life we all have this image, this idea, in which everyone is supposed to cater to our needs in the end and support the individual’s happiness.

And when there are programs out there that actually pay people for not going to work and not contributing then that is what they do. Everyone has those days where they just don’t want to go to work. If you could still live at the same comfort level and not have to work every day wouldn’t you do it? “but a welfare check can’t pay for the rent on my house and the kinds of food i like to eat” you say, but what if you had already grown up in the poor part of town? In a tiny apartment and learning to live with less expensive food and clothing? well a welfare check covers that doesn’t it?

I don’t want any of you thinking that I am categorizing everyone with needs as lazy and poor, because that’s not true. But I am saying that it is a factor. I am saying that by rewarding people for not contributing to society then we will create a larger problem for ourselves and our country. A problem which then gets passed on generation after generation. Don’t we already have enough problems as it is?

The point of all this is that we cannot bring some people up simply by pulling others down. There are crooks everywhere trying to scam others and make money by doing as little as possible. Those people are scum and I’d like to smack them. But I am a firm believer that a person at the bottom CAN work their way to the top by working hard and honestly. My own father did not graduate high school. He got a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken and worked his way into management. He worked hard 80-hour weeks with little to no sleep.

After marrying my mother they ran into some of the scum that I already mentioned. These people were dishonest and through corrupt business dealings pushed my parents into bankruptcy. From that point on my father and mother have been perpetual entrepreneurs, constantly working to dig themselves out of that bankruptcy hole. They’ve done everything from VHS duplication to party planning and even reselling restaurant equipment on eBay. I know no two people in the entire world who work harder. They’ve done everything in their power to make it in the middle class. They are both over 50 now and still work for themselves; they work hard and do honest work. AND they did all this while raising 6 children. You can’t tell me that hard work can’t take you places.

The healthcare and poverty problems cannot be blamed on a lack of government intervention. I find that most (if not all) of the problems we encounter in our country are a result of two things: laziness and greed, people attempting to work less and earn more as to glorify themselves and fatten their own wallets. What I feel is the best way to solve these problems is to find ways to do away with both of laziness and greed in our society. Not surprisingly both of these attributes are developed at a very young age in the home and taught/influenced by parents, teachers, and media – but that is a different rant for a different day.