What it means to 'win'

Let me weigh in on just how corrupted we've let our minds become.

America the great is only great because of conflict resolution. We're the mavericks of the planet and that doesn't sit well with those whose traditions make short work of dissenters and free thinking people in their own societies. Yet, we are at a time in which politics have successfully infiltrated and corrupted our ability to make sound critical decisions on our future.

Give up on your mantras, anti-war rhetoric brought pain, shame to our solders, and a split (during Vietnam) sharper then any colored non-sense we have now. Everybody knows and agrees that war, conflict, death, and every think else that smells of conspiracy is wrong or should have done differently. However, we've allowed schisms and factions to break our resolve, as the world's mavericks, to stand proud as such.

It's complicated, we are in a battle of ideologies. There are those who believe the resolve of Americans can be broken. That your opinions and beliefs are fickle and will fall to their superior belief that they are stronger and that God is on their side not yours. There are those who are hell bent on defacing the government in order to end the war against the previous groupm who believe that we will eventually leave their territory. There are those who believe that we must fight tooth and nail to show, not just the enemy, but the world that America's resolve and triumph stands stronger then any half-baked religious theory our enemies tell their solders.

Central to the core is that none of us are weak or are into giving up. Those who believe we must leave the conflict will not back down, as will those who believe we should fight this conflict to prove our resolve. Strength in ideology and beliefs is America's trump card in this ideological war.

WE DON'T BACK DOWN. Americas don't back down; Not to terrorists, not to our government, not to tyranny. We're fighters... even if it's for peace..

Thus, winning doesn't mean that we kill every last person who rises out of the muck to shoot us. Winning means showing those who hold the belief that America DOES BACK DOWN is completely wrong.

We are strong, we are resolute, you show those terrorists that you don't have any back down (be it to your own government, to their belief that the opposite [leaving or changing your mind] is true, or to anyone who commands you to submit) --

America Always Fights For Keeps and Fights to Win

They lose when we show them our back down switch wasn't broken, it just was never there.

~J out

Unscripted Thought

Our lives are divided in so many ways that we roll between what one meaning of life is with another. Goals are mingled with our purpose and resolve. We mix the part of accomplishment as victory with victory itself. In this failed world, we sometimes make religion our bed rock. However, our religion is often crippled by politics, scandal, and misgivings. If Jesus is the center of the universe, then what matters most is what he said and not any interpretation or explanation from a pastor, clergyman, and especially a politician.

Hear me out when I say that Jesus spoke of love as the way in which humans connect on the deepest level. Don’t be mistaken, love is a four letter word in English…But its impact is stronger then letters… Take heed that love, if it is the bedrock of your soul and uncorrupted by false guidance, will guide you to the truth you seek.

~J out

A long pause indeed

It has been a long silence since I posted last to this blog. How hypocritical would it be if I said that blogging was my passion, but then the sole source of insight into my being just disappears. Hypocritical offense it is! It would be as if I died inside and you're waiting for the 10'o'clock news coverage of it. I can't let that be the end of it. I must tell you what devious plot I've been hatching.. in this mini sabbatical.

Ok-- In 1990, if some white, shy, nerd with glasses and a high pitched voice walked up to you and said “Yahoo! is the future” you either A.) say “Yahoo!? you mean booze and rodeos are going to get cheaper in the future?” or B.) you'd say, “you've gone crazy dude.. a word cannot dictate my future!” However, where are we now ladies and gentlemen? Yahoo! is a global enterprise that doesn't even need to create it's own services, it just pays companies to develop software for them. People, I'm telling you “Rangernet” is the future.

Like the nerd who foretold the future vis-a-vis a Texas cowboy ideom. I tell you now, rangernet could be it, with no knowledge of its potential. For now its a fantastic forum or group of people who are committed to the teachings of God, but are also committed to being real role models for young men with no direction in their lives. I encourage my readers to at least visit the modest forum we've created at http://www.rangernet.org.

So what of me? What has become of my politics these days? My goals are simplistic, but their execution is far too complex for me to figure out just how and when I'm going to complete them all. You could say that in the beginning of September, I walked into a cheap buffet (of projects) and loaded three plates full of things I have to complete.

I have a whole plate of immediate things that need doing,

a plate of things to be completed by the end of next month,

and a plate of things I need to plan, research, or execute in “the long term.”

Pretty intense 'eh?

So what is Josh's tally so far on his endeavors? What has the r3dragon done thus far?

I've made rangernet.org happen,

I've started on my thesis and selected a topic,

I'm working 40 hours a week in what many call “a dream job for colleged age people,”

I still have a person who loves me and cares for me,

I've bought a new harddrive and memory for my old laptop making it useful again!

I've installed linux on that laptop to wean myself off of microsoft like we all should do with oil,

I'm alive,

I have multiple hobbies,

I've temporarily stopped playing video games,

I bought an Giorgio Armani Suit Jacket,

and maybe something else that I haven't remembered.

I'm busy and I suppose that confirms that I'm alive and have a purpose.

As these things slowly get completed, I know I'll have lots more time to keep you informed on what crazy madness runs through the mind of the r3dragon.

thanks all~

~R3d

ps. I love you tink

Political Boxes: This side goes up ^

Whiz Bang Boom!

Am I really seeing this or am I just dreaming?

Events are about to happen before our eyes and soon what one man says is all of the sudden going to change the way that candidates for the commander and chief role pitch to us their *new* spin. Of course we're all going to listen to it (or not) and some way or another will eventually pass judgment on those people with our only free democratic right and political power... the people's vote.

First I want to mention that I'm feeling cramped here and I'm starting to get a real bad case of claustrophobia. In more literal terms.. Look up ^ what do you see? If you're like me you'll see a ceiling and likewise, if you look to your left or right you'll see walls, but you don't usually associate this with a box. It would too depressing to think that your mind, body, and existence would spend a lifetime sitting in boxes all day, yet we do, and like clockwork.. our opinions, choices, and votes are all cast in, yep, a box... Gee doesn't that just make you feel free as a bird...

I've lived in the land of boxes (Japan) and quite frankly using a mobile box to call, or eating out of a box with food in it, and visiting a very old box on occasion gets somewhat old and uninteresting.. so why does two people or a whole cast of people who are essentially arguing the same politics-in-a-box, any better then the land of the rising box? Truth is, it all just forces us to compromise our honest opinions... In reality, we just want a Simon to sit in on every debate and every speech and to keep hitting that big ole red X, shutting them all up, and then go into these talking heads with the straight brutal Simon Cowell Brit talk.

Listen up... Americans are being given a salad bar of choices and it would save all of us the headache of analyzing what matters and what doesn't matter if all the Candidates just stood up and said, “I'm an order number 1 with a side of measured withdrawal or stay the course.” Then I could discount all of them and look for an all around Presidential Commander and Chef that would make me a salad when I want a burger, then whip up an Italian meal fit for the Royals, but in general a real candidate that cooks rather then one who puts this chef's food on his plate and then tries to serve it as though it was an original idea.

Step it up a bit on leadership and who knows.. The man (or woman) I vote for won't speak to what they'll do in Iraq after Petraeus' report tomorrow. They'll give me a comprehensive strategy on what they're going to do about Cuba or how they're going to go about Taiwan when China goes ahead and “reclaims” Taiwan for China. If the job opening calls for leadership then I'm looking for a person that'll show competence in not just in Middle East tom foolery, but real knowledge about all of the world's events and how as President they'll shape an America that can make a difference where a real difference is actually needed...

Anyone willing to step up to that?

Impeach the box, not the man...
~J

Moving Over.. Taking ground

Like a hermit crab takes over a new shell once he's gotten bigger.. I'm moving over and claiming my cube for myself. Once I was crouched over to one side leaving a big nothing open for somebody else, but now I'm double parking, moving to the center, claiming unclaimed territory...

I'm owning this cube.. ya hear?

(we'll see how long I'll last before I move :)

Next goal.. Fill'n up the cube with posters, figurines, and stuff.

~J out

My View on '08 Presidential p0l!Tik$

For a second I want to put my roughly $128,000 college education to work on this blog...

Assessing the '08 race to the white house

This build up to essentially our vote is like one of those mobster movies or one of those big casino hit movies. In the beginning the actors have to plan out what the major target is. Then plan how they're going to get it. It might involve sophisticated gadgets, deception, or some form of “mobsterism.” Either way enough talking about what voters are thinking will induce a self-fulfilling prophecy (candidates and party strategists believe), which will ultimately take the prize in a firestorm... leaving us (the one's with the vote remember) enamored as to how person A, B, or C got there in the first place.

We have to understand who all of us (the voters) are...

In 2004, I couldn't believe as Bush swept parts of my college colleagues (a community college on the west coast) in some blind understanding that students (my age) felt like they were part of some Republican team. Baffled, this prompted some sort of long drawn out thinking which ultimately landed “the real question” in my mind, “How is it that in 2004, there were 20 somethings that intended to vote for “social conservatism” and for 4 more years of the seemingly flawed Bush doctrine?” There was something in the neocon cool-aid drenched trap that even now I have to admit to falling for...

Lets go back to 2000... The Clinton administration pulled off 8 amazing years leading our country through potential conflicts that if it was anyone else in that office would have landed us in either A.) More Cold war (as in convincing Russia to go back to communism) or B.) Absolute isolationism ... Republicans, after Bush Senior, thought that he would land a second term in '92 entered the 2000 elections (double-ott) with both barrels loaded. In order to create a Republican friendly environment they had to create a new image of the GOP. A “neo” conservatism that would be a mockery of Regan conservatism, but basically create a football-team like atmosphere and would set the political caucuses up as the home games to pitch football team-like mockery at the dems. Bush's team was fighting first to get the nomination. Among candidates in his own party his team of bandits had to create an aura of determinism that included a strategy to basically annihilate good people like John McCain who was a real republican. Needless to say.. Something that in its entirety would seem like a giant joke with no hope of working... actually worked and worked almost too good. A 50/50 polarizing split among us Americans set all of us at odds with each other like some civil war football game against the Ducks and the Beavers.

I remember back in 1999 as a young freshman in high school thinking that Bush was going to win, because that's just the way it was going to be. Furthermore, I remember that the brutal attacks against McCain was necessary and that this vicious campaigning is what the winning candidate has to do to win against the seemingly established democratic party. The strategy dictated that you needed a pack of wild dogs or a stampede of Elephants to crush the opposition making everything (even lies) fair game to throw like mud at your opponents. To do this you also had to demonetize Al Gore, make him and his followers look like absolute crazy nut-jobs, thus making Bush supporters “rational thinking Americans.” This all formed a new group of unknowingly independent non-traditional, non-voting Americans a part of this neocon-Christian Republican base which re-shaped the landscape to bring about grassroots Republicanism. What's absolutely mind blowing was that to pull it all off you just needed a simple formula of campaigning like a WWF wrestler (i.e. taking a tip from Stone Cold Steve Austin's “What?” chant) and then continue your dehumanizing of whoever opposed you (Political Opponents, Dems, the “liberal” press, democratic voters, environmentalists, pro-choice women, gays, etc.).

Unfortunately democrats had no choice but to play along if they wanted to play at all... which is now their downfall. Americans identify their states and themselves by some sort of school color (Red or Blue) and use basic labeling (e.g. Flipflop, Liberal Nut Job, Neocon, etc.) as some sort of secret code for energizing us as though we were a team of cheerleaders hyping each other/ or booing each other like a crowd at a game, after a touchdown. Red or Blue? Liberal or Neocon? Flip or flop? this isn't rational thinking here! This isn't true critical thinking on the part of college educated individuals. Honestly, I would and you would fail out of college in the first semester if you used the “flip flop argument” as some critical point to convince your professor that your side of the debate was the more rational one. Yet, use it in a crowd of (perceivably) smart and rational people, and you win?!

How long can flip-flop theory, Strategery, or Stampede politics last? Milking the strategy for even more is now both Democrats and Republicans with some sort myth that the same thing that made crazy-heads out of politics will work once more.. Perhaps prompting more of us voters just turn off politics all together and vote for the person with the best shoes (Fred Thompson) or the best hair (John Edwards).

“Change” is to argue on a rational educated platform that properly debates the issues in scholarly journals, analytical PEER-REVIEWED books, in college sponsored halls, somewhere other then a non-hyped fan-frenzied media blitzed debate that quite frankly makes all the candidates look like fools for a seat unsuited for anybody at this point.

Unfit for duty.. pleaz..

~J Out