Weighted voting in America

There is one big flaw in our current voting system… every vote is equal :)

Okay, I wasn’t just trying to get a rise from you; I really meant that as a problem. And no need to try and quote the constitution… I’m fully aware of what the 15th, 19th and 26th amendments say. But you take this good ideological principle and apply it to today’s population and what you get is a majority of the people who don’t understand or don’t care to learn the democratic process or the issues that face them. They have neither the time nor the inclination to better themselves by participating in the election process. The most important role a citizen can play for the country, apart from serving in the military, is voting. And not just blindly voting, but making an educated vote.

The concept of a weighted vote is simple; we “weigh” the knowledge of the voter based on certain basic criteria (which we’ll talk about later) and based on their response, their vote can be counted between a range of 0 to 1. So let’s say we make this simple and ask each voter 5 questions and each question carries a weight of 20%. Then the voter with 0 correct answers will contribute to 0 vote, the one with 5 correct answers will contribute to 1 vote and the person with 2 correct answers will contribute to 0.4 votes. The questions will not be based on the voter’s intelligence or party affiliation, but basic civic questions: Who is the governor of your state? How many seats does your state have in the House of Representatives? How many senators are there in Congress? Where does the candidate you’ve chosen stand on Roe vs. Wade? As you can see, these are the type of questions they expect immigrants wanting a US citizenship to know the answers to, so why shouldn’t we expect the voting public to know the same.

So why do all of this? Well, it bugs me that the vote of an informed, analytical voter carries the same weight as someone who read that Justin Beaver (yeah, I know that’s not how you spell it, but I like it this way :)) likes the outfit some candidate was wearing! A vote is the closest thing to politics that most of us get to and that needs to be taken more seriously. People spend countless hours watching American Idol and Jersey Shore, but don’t know the different between a caucus and a primary or a delegate and a lobbyist! Their vote should not count the same as someone who exercised their right to vote in the way it was meant to be done; by understanding the issues, evaluating them and coming up with an informed decision on their own.

This will probably never happen since the PC police will never let it happen. But I wish people thought of their vote as such an important RIGHT that they have and took it more seriously and conversations like this is the only way that can happen.

Next time, we’ll talk about how I think people who are physically able, but choose not to vote should be penalized! :)

Why Gandhi was the worst thing that could have happened to India

As Indians, we’ve all heard and grew up with the sentiment that Gandhi was a great man and that by standing up to the British empire with nothing more than powerful words, he was braver than the bravest knight in all of Britain, blah, blah!! Those who know me personally know that I, to put it mildly, am not a big fan of the guy. Which is to say that I hate the coward and place a big part of the blame for India’s delayed Independence and it’s slow start as a new nation squarely on him. And as for his famous weapon of non-violence, it’s caused more deaths than most people would care to admit. Want proof? I’ll give you 5:

1. Supporting the British war effort in WWI between 1914 – 1918: Gandhi agreed to support the British by recruiting thousands of Indian soldiers in order to solicit some sort of goodwill from Britain. But he failed to negotiate any terms with the British for this deal making this the dumbest exhibition of political skill by a man said to be a trained lawyer! Not to mention a pacifist signing up thousands of his countrymen to go die in a war that didn’t benefit them in any way.

2. The Gandhi-Irwin pact of 1931: for a simple man with no real political title, Gandhi made an autocratic decision to call off the mass agitation in 1931 by his close lieutenants and instead negotiated a “deal” with the then Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin. There was a chance we could have kicked out the British by 1931, but instead we listened to Gandhi and called off the troops and let him make this deal. In short, the British agreed to give some of our basic freedoms back (like conducting peaceful protests!) and releasing most of our political prisoners and in return, we would support the British at the Round Table conference. Well, guess who didn’t keep their end of the bargain! Again, for a lawyer, he sure made some sucky deals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi%E2%80%93Irwin_Pact

3. Supporting the British in WWII: At first, Gandhi refused to agree to sending Indian soldiers again to fight alongside the British, but it wasn’t for pacifist reasons… it was simply because the British had committed Indian troops to fight without the consent of the native leadership, which made Gandhi look bad. However, under pressure, he succumbed and eventually ended up sending 2.5 million soldiers of the INA (Indian National Army) to fight the Nazis when Germany had no intention of invading India. 2.5 million troops??? There weren’t nearly that many Brits in India at that time… how about using those troops to drive out these bastards instead?

4. India-Pakistan partition: yes… I place the blame squarely on Gandhi. If you’re the unofficial leader of this new country and your #2 is asking you to split the country into two against your will, it’s your job to get him to shut up. For someone who “bravely opposed the mighty Brits”, he caved like a bitch when it came to opposing Jinnah. Under his watch, 25 million people crossed borders from either side… more than 1 million of them never made it. Not so good on a non-violent pacifist’s resume, is it? Even if he gave into the political pressures of the time, there was surely a more efficient way to execute the exchange. If you couldn’t care enough to organize this properly, then why should you be called a great humanitarian?

5. Finally, why he really was murdered by a fellow Hindu: most people only remember his last words as he was being shot and call him a great man. Sure, that was very noble of him to pardon his shooter; personally, I would asked for his ass to be roasted over a grill for 48 hours! Anyway, the reason some of the Hindus turned against Gandhi was after the Indo-Pak war of 1947 when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, the Indian congress sought to freeze the 55 crore rupees in payment from the British-Indian treasury to the Pakistani government… seems like the logical thing to do, right? But Gandhi fought against it and went so far as staging a “fast until death” protest against the Indian government until they paid out the cash to Pakistan. They just attacked your country and you fast to get them money from your own treasury??? Brilliant!!

Now why am I so against the guy? Well, I hate it when people say “at least he did something when everyone else was just simply bowing down to the British”. Well, not exactly true. There were other true leaders, more pragmatic leaders, who sought the kick the British out of the country, but they never got the support of the masses because of people like Gandhi. So there is such a thing as bad leadership, especially when you shape the entire future of a country based on your stupid ideologies. And yes, non-violence as a foreign policy in any political environment or country is a stupid idea. Now, there’s a big difference between non-aggressive and non-violence; the former says “I won’t attack you unless” and the latter says “I won’t attack you no matter what”. Big freakin’ difference.

Not convinced yet? Well, let’s play a game. You play Gandhi and I’ll play the British. You sit there and fast while I rape your wife, steal your wealth and beat the crap out of you. And while I’m doing that, we’ll see if you continue to sit there and tell me “please sir, stop raping my wife; stop stealing from me; stop beating me… otherwise I won’t eat until you do!!”. Or, even if you’re out-numbered and out-powered, we’ll see if you try to at least kick me in the nuts once, even if you don’t manage to kill me.

Eugenics! Good idea or evil practice?

As promised in one of my earlier comments, let’s talk about eugenics. I’m sure all of you are going, “geez, Fred’s the next Hitler!! He supports eugenics”. Well, not really. First of all, this is one of those words that has been associated with such negativity that the word itself has taken on a very derogatory meaning. So when I say I support the general principles of eugenics, here’s the definition I have in mind:

“The study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).”

This is not a new theory or idea and is readily available in nature under the name “natural selection”. Everything in nature follows the general principle of natural selection. Humans as a species would not have come about if not for natural selection (I see all of the religious nut-jobs going “that’s preposterous! God created us exactly as we are today”. Sorry folks, not true; get back to reality here). So in it’s basic definition, eugenics is not a bad idea. It simply suggests that the good genes of a population will triumph and produce better genes and the bad genes will wither away leaving room for the good ones.

However, what’s wrong and dangerous is man trying to control that for his/her own agenda. This is where most of the abuse of this idea comes from. Most people immediately associate eugenics to the mass murders committed by Hitler and his Nazis. True… they were the biggest offenders of this. But they actually got their ideas for this from the American eugenics movement which lasted from 1907 all the way through 1960. It started off with the principle that some people (white, rich, healthy) were better suited to procreate than others (non-white, poor, sick, mentally unstable, burden to society). As this propaganda grew, the natural direction it took was “So, what do we do about it”. Some suggested restricting such people from procreating, but that wasn’t easy to implement. So that led to sterilizations, both forcibly and unknowingly (as in, call them in to do some “tests” and sterilize them without getting their permission to do so). This was supported by an overwhelming section of the population including politicians, government officials and of course, the church.

Anyway, coming back to the question of “should any form of eugenics be practiced”, I tend to say yes. Before you judge me, tell me if you think people on welfare should really have 6 kids just to claim more welfare benefits? Tell me if people like the Octomom should be allowed to do what she did to make money off the entertainment value? Tell me if people who are certified as mentally disabled (insane) should be allowed to mate and have offsprings that they cannot take care of and end up being the state’s (read yours and my) problem.

There are safe alternatives to permanent sterilization; there’s a drug developed in the 90’s called Norplant, which when implanted in a woman, prevents pregnancy for up to 5 years. If you’re on welfare… well, you can’t enjoy the “free money” you’re getting and use that to get knocked up and get more free money; you’ll have to agree to this “blackout period” if you will until you get your own life in order. Is that such a bad thing to advocate? That seems like the logical thing most of us would do, but for the ignorant few that don’t care or want to take advantage of these things, these kinds of mandatory rules is what it would take.

You’ll be surprised by how many bills there are currently pending with the congress that touch upon eugenics principles. In Florida, there’s a bill pending that would offer $400 for men living below the poverty line for undergoing a vasectomy. In Colorado, the bill would allow certain criminals early release or reduced sentence for the same. Sounds crazy? Well, desperate times…

A universe from nothing

Those who know me know I'm an atheist. More importantly, I am extremely anti-religion. Not to be confused with anti-spirituality, but strictly anti-"organizations who take themselves too seriously in the name of religion and brain wash people into believing that their god is better than yours". It's very hard to talk to these religious fanatics since, when all else fails, they throw words like "dogma" and "inner feeling"... things that cannot be verified by any means known to man. But when I sometimes do talk to them, one of the final defensive arguments is "well you can't explain how the universe began since you cannot create something out of nothing".

That's actually a valid argument and something that the scientific community has always had a hard time answering. My only argument to that point until now has been "well, just because we cannot prove the exact instant and method in which the universe was created billions of years ago doesn't mean the religious theories are correct. There are still several other FACTS that support the evolution theory much more clearly and without doubt that any creationism story can ever hope to do". I still stand by that argument since we've already proven (and I mean without doubt or prejudice) that the sun is close to 14 billion years old and almost at half it's life span, that the big bang did in fact occur, that there are actually several universes (multiverse), that millions of other galaxies exist and have existed over a very long period of time with a very good probability of having sustained life, etc. But that's not enough for the bible thumpers... they need proof (which, coming from a bunch that implicitly believed the first "invisible man in the sky" story that their parents and pastors fed them, is kinda funny!).

So I've always been fascinated by the work done by theoretical physicists and the field of cosmology since that's the field of science that explains a lot of what has happened and what we can expect to see over the next 14 billion years, should we somehow find a way to survive that long. One of the prominent members of this scientific community is Dr. Lawrence Krauss; he's a theoretical physicist who runs the Origins project at Arizona State University's Cosmology department. He delivered a very famous lecture, now titled "A universe from nothing"; it's about an hour long and does get quite technical, though he does a great job of dumbing it down for people like me. Now I'm no scientist or even pretend to understand a lot of what they say. But just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean it's not true. It's that blatant audacity of the religious community that pisses me off the most; that if they can't understand it, it can't be true. If they'd only stop and consider the fact that they are too stupid and closed minded to even comprehend what's being said, then a lot of this nonsense would stop.

In any case, for those searching for alternate explanations and a slice of the complicated truth, this is a must see: http://www.youtube.com/user/richarddawkinsdotnet#p/u/34/7ImvlS8PLIo
Hopefully this will at least open your eyes to the possibility of a vast collection of facts that is out there.

Happy viewing!
- Fred

I'm back!!

To my dear fans who have patiently waited for 3 years for me to get back to updating my blog, I say thank you :). If you notice, I started the blog in late 2008 when the presidential campainging was in full swing and now in early 2012, I had the itch to vent again. So I remembered my good old blog and decided to add more to it.
Hopefully I'll find enough time to keep updating the blog since I surely have enough to vent about. So stay tuned... this is going to be fun!
Cheers!
- Fred