Author Archives: philosophocle

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About philosophocle

Free-thinking centrist Libertarian, straight, married, white Southern male. I'm UNreligious to the point of being virtually anti-religious, and I don't vote simply because Libertarians can't win & I won't support another party I don't believe in. I also prefer to use my own brain & form my own opinions. But I sleep good at night knowing I'm not sheep nor living a lie.

So what were YOUR parents like?

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My dad is waiting for me in Hell.

Just kidding — my dad was a good man to me all in all.  Yeah, I can certainly find fault as he wasn’t perfect or even close to it, but all in all, he was a really good guy & I miss him — he died quite some time ago after a long & fruitful life.

But you don’t see a lot of posts where somebody hates their parent(s), didn’t know them, etc. — it’s only those who had a good relationship who post it.  I believe it’s because most of the people who got screwed over by their parents don’t care to blog about it, or simply don’t blog as they have more important things to do, like trying to survive, don’t have internet access (mainly concerned with having a roof over their head today or tomorrow), or doing hard time, or they’re dead, don’t have a way with words, don’t want to share their misfortune with the world, or they’re on a lot of meds — it’s usually not pretty when kids aren’t raised properly or have parental issues they’re carrying with them every day of their lives well into their adulthood.

My parental issues are small comparatively.  I think about all the people who didn’t know their parents, or got screwed over by them, they didn’t pay child support, gave them up to relatives or the state, abused them, didn’t give them what they needed in some way, etc.  These are the people who are ashamed to let people know the truth, and there are a lot of them — and I believe they are a large percentage of people today & they need to know that they’re not alone & that they should somehow learn to rise above it & not blame themselves so they don’t continue the cycle of abuse by passing it forward.  They are indeed poor souls, and if/when they overcome this & do something positive in life, they are strong people indeed for doing so, and that’s the motivation they need to overcome it.

My dad didn’t take me hunting or fishing or to ballgames or play any sports with me because he was old enough to be a young grandpa & busy earning a living as a self-employed businessman in hard economic times during my youth, but he always provided the necessities for me financially, didn’t smoke or drink, preached righteousness to me even though he wasn’t religious at all, was there when I needed him, supported me when I was down & helped me get going again because he believed in me, and he let me live my life the way I wanted to, no matter how much he disagreed with it (and he was right, btw) — that’s the real job description of a parent if you ask me.

If the truth be known, those kids who got a new car at 16, had access to a nice country club, had all the right friends and inherited their parents good looks & had wealthy parents & were admitted to fraternities & sororities because they were legacies & are socially & politically connected — I’ll bet you those people have parental issues they don’t want you to know about deep in their psyche.  At the very least, even if they were happy kids & are happy adults now, they are poor souls in that they can’t appreciate what it feels like to have to find happiness & success on your own because someone didn’t give it you or buy it for you, you little bastards & bitches!  Sorry — I digress.

Just because you didn’t have a good parent doesn’t mean you can’t be a good person or parent yourself.  That’s assuming you can work your way around all those “issues” & that you decide to have kids & hopefully learn from the mistakes your parents made.

We should be thankful for what we get & be happy we’re still alive & have a shot at being happy, even if we aren’t completely happy at the moment, and stop blaming others for our remorse & shortcomings.

Life is too short — get a grip on it & make it what you want it to be.

As The Rev Charles once said, Luke is — not from New Jersey

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Let’s start this with something the far right can understand and appreciate — biblical scripture — Luke 9:51-56: “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face.  And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him.  But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem.  And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’  But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.  For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’  And they went to another village.”

What this says to me is liking or hating anyone simply based upon their beliefs, race, or being different in any manner that they cannot change is prejudicial & wrong — end of discussion.  I know that religious beliefs can be changed, but that doesn’t mean they should be changed simply because they don’t agree with yours.  Heck, in my opinion, the fact that you embrace religion at all is a negative to me, but I respect your right to be ignorant as long & deeply as you want.

The biggest problem I have with the far right is that they believe their religious beliefs & their use of them for personal/financial gain & human segregation is beyond reproach, including the use of them to align groups of people against each other socially & professionally. This type of behavior is just a stone’s throw from radical Muslims who kill people whenever their religion is “blasphemed” in their eyes, or Hitler Youth for that matter — the Jews of yesterday are the social/political critics & “deviants” of today.

Intolerance seems to be the theme in many religions & politics, which tends to go against the intent of the founders of them, like Jesus, who would surely abhor the bashing of those who don’t believe the same as he did.  This is a (surely fictional) being who helped the poor, walked among the lepers, and threw out the moneychangers, all ideas that today’s Christians & Republicans don’t embrace, which is the true meaning of the work “ironic” if you ask me.

I understand that people are passionate about their religious beliefs, but I’m not, and I don’t like the level of intolerance they invoke when confronted by people like me who do not believe as they do, labeling me as a hatemonger when I point out the fact that religion is simply unproven theory and that I have no respect for the idea of it.  I don’t hate them; I simply have no respect for their ideology.

I find it hard to discuss anything rationally or intelligently with most people on the far right, especially those who consider themselves highly religious. I don’t agree with speech that demeans a person or a particular group simply according to their race, religious choice (or lack thereof), sexual orientation, or nationality without regard for any other issue thereof, nor do I support any group of people or any person who holds those views, and I don’t believe (the fictional character of) Jesus would have either. People have been using certain archaic notions written in the Bible for centuries to justify their hate for various groups and it will probably never end.

It’s a different matter entirely to not like an idea that is detachable from a person vs not liking that a person is gay, or black, or some other condition that they can’t & shouldn’t change.

You’re so “gay”?!?

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The problem with many heterosexuals (or those who outwardly act/claim to be heterosexual) is that they are simply ignorant or at least short-sighted.  They make disparaging remarks and use “gay” as an attack word against a heterosexual as slur or curse word against them, such as “that’s so gay” or “you’re so gay”, then they apologize for saying it & that’s usually the end of it without any thought as to the thought process behind this.

Keep in mind that this argument is being made by a hopelessly-hetero, married Southern male, and I’ve never had a gay experience or even a thought about it in my entire life — not that that’s wrong, as “Seinfeld” famously said; it’s just that I’m wired “straight”.  I almost wish I was gay because I get so pissed at the “team I’m playing on” (another “Seinfeld” quote) at times — does quoting “Seinfeld” make me gay?  I think it makes me intelligent more than anything, as I’m not busy watching Larry The Cable Guy, who by the way isn’t a redneck, but close — he’s from Nebraska, just another backassward Red state.

What we have to change is not just the speech, but the mindset of these idiotic people.  For example, we have pretty well banned the “n-word” from public use throughout our society unless you’re a black comic or rapper (and they’re surely next), but we have plenty of people who use the n-word privately, and those who don’t in racial situations in many cases are thinking it, and they’re living their lives segregated from others of different races by choice.  The Civil Rights Act of 1968 broke down the legal race boundaries, but it did nothing much for social race boundaries, although I do admit things are much better now than they were 45 years ago — your local country club has at least 1 non-white member and maybe 1 woman member — great progress, eh?  What a waste of land those places are.

We have to first get these people to realize that their religion shouldn’t apply to others who don’t believe in it, and if their religion says that homosexuality is bad, it’s not a good religion at all if it excludes people who have no choice being what they are, and that being that is not a birth defect.  We also have to show them that whatever sexual preference people have should have no bearing on them as a person anymore than being left-handed, red-headed, a person of some color other than peachy white, or disabled.

The part of Tim Tebow will be played tonight by Satan

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Tim Tebow is a loser and always has been a has-been. He’s the epitome of the Christian Right-Wingers whose holier-than-thou attitude is nothing more than wolf’s suit made of sheep’s wool.  The only reason people didn’t notice in college is because mediocrity can survive there, but once you get into the NFL with the adults, it’s a whole different game with different rules, as the Pat Sullivans and Ryan Leafs & Todd Marinovichs of the world found out, just like little Timmy found out.

If the guy was really a team player like he claims to be, he’d work on assuming a different role on the field, maybe as a gadget player, a slotback/pass option player, a tight end, whatever it takes to makes the squad & contribute positively, which he said he would do when he joined the Pats, but he says he only wants to play the 1 position he can’t play well — QB.  The guy is delusional — the rest of the league has already figured him out rather quickly & he was one of the worst passers ever, and the stats don’t lie.

He’s not nearly as good at fooling the NFL at QB as he is at fooling the religious right & snagging $50,000+ per speaking engagement. He invented “tebowing” as a marketing ploy — the guy is actually Satan in disguise — Tim is the character in the movie “The Dead Zone” who tries to become President & ends humanity by pushing the button while everyone’s drinking his Jim Jones-brand of Kool-Aid, but Christopher Walken (played by Nick Saban in this cerebral script treatment of mine) steps in & says “screw you, Tim Tebow, and Roll Tide, you MF-er”, and then Tim’s on the cover of TIME holding up a baby as a shield. That’s the real Tebow, and “only time will tell” as the band ASIA once sang decades ago.

What gets me is that the Jacksonville Jaguars owner isn’t smart enough to realize that hiring Tebow at QB couldn’t make things any worse than they already are for them (4-12 in 2013), and the attendance & resulting merch sales would go sky-high.

If Tebow is #2 on Olbermann’s World’s Worst list any night, then Shahid Khan, the stupid owner of the Jags, is #1 every night.

Gay sir-uh, sir-uhhhhhhhhhhh

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As of 2010, appx 2.3 million Americans are either active military (appx 1.45 million) or in the reserves (appx 850,000), and it’s been estimated by various reputable sources that the number of people in America who are members of the LGBT community are appx 4% (12 million people), so assuming that the military typically doesn’t attract the LGBT community, and assuming maybe only 1 in 100 of LGBT persons want to be soldiers (20,000), on the low side of this equation, there are appx 20,000 US soldiers who are either gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Of course, that’s strictly conjecture on my part, as nobody has a clue what the true numbers are, but there’s at least 1, and she’s an Army General (Brig. Gen. Tammy S. Smith), and if you support the troops, you should support ALL of them as long as they are doing the rightful, legal thing as Americans & soldiers, so since being LGBT soldier is not a crime (anymore), if you support ALL the troops, you should be supporting soldiers who are LGBT.

Most people don’t think about these things — they prefer to think in terms of “black & white” and ignore what they can’t get their arms around intellectually, but since the world is filled with shades of gray, looking for black & white answers in our world is a faulty premise, logically speaking.

So expand your mind and imagine the possibilities.  If you believe there is a God, certainly since He (or She) gave us a mind to think with, surely He/She hoped we’d use it every now and then to see how ignorant we are.

Fight back — we can all be Matlock

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I was being harassed & legally extorted by a collection agency & their client, a cable TV company, but I beat them myself with no lawyer’s fees . . .

The cable company overcharged me almost $200 when I canceled my service toward the end of the month, yet they continued to bill me into the next month.  I wouldn’t pay it, so they gave it to the collection agent who, instead of contacting me about it & negotiating it or providing me with evidence of the debt, they instead held my credit history (and essentially my entire life) hostage by putting it on my credit report immediately & didn’t bother to contact me to try to collect it first.  I didn’t find out until I applied for credit some months later & was denied.  They wouldn’t remove it whether I paid or disputed it & they had no proof I owed it.

After arguing with them for a month, I paid it, then sued the cable company myself without a lawyer (“pro se” they call it) for the $200 I paid them.  I sued them in my state’s District Court/Small Claims Court (the lowest level, where I knew I could get a quick trial) & also asked for $10,000 in damages, which was the dollar limit of Small Claims.  I asked for punitive damages because I knew it would get their attention even though I knew that they don’t typically award punitive damages at this level.

It took me 4 months total, but the lawyer for the cable company was a contracted lawyer in my area & just wanted to get it settled & was real nice & polite; we never went to court.  I said “let’s make a deal — keep the $200, plus no reimbursement for my $150 lawsuit filing fee, and I’ll forget about the $10,000, but I want ALL evidence of the collection removed from my credit report (not just showing “paid”) at all 3 major credit bureaus, and my offer is firm”, which of course is only what I wanted all along.  He said no problem & it was done within a few weeks.  Cost me $350 & some time, but my credit is clean once again and it saved me thousands in interest costs as I was about to get a $300,000 mortgage.

I also beat a lawyer/collection agent who tried to collect an invalid debt against my dear old 85-yr old mom before she died, a debt that she didn’t owe for a contract for services that she never signed & never used.  There are a lot of companies that prey on old ladies, and this was one of them — a complete scam operation.

I beat them by simply citing the state law.  Collection agencies usually try to sue people to collect a debt that is over 3 years old (which is the limit for collecting it in our state) by claiming it’s a “breach of contract” lawsuit, which has a 6-year statute of limitations, but a bad debt is NOT a breach of contract under the laws of my state.

I first filed a Response to Complaint for my mom a soon as she got the notice, because if you don’t respond within the time frame required by the court (30 days in our case), we’d automatically lose.

I then followed it up 3 days later with a Motion to Dismiss With Prejudice (“with” prejudice means they can’t ever refile the case again, vs “without” prejudice) and requested the court dismiss the case due to the Bad Debt statute being only 3 years from the date of last activity — they call that the “DLA” in the credit/collection biz, and that this debt was older than 3 years & that they were trying to circumvent state law using the Breach of Contract statute.

Within 30 days, the lawyer filed its own Motion to Dismiss With Prejudice knowing they were beat.  I didn’t do this, but I should have filed a complaint with the State Bar in conjunction with it to put added pressure on them.  Of course, I’m not a lawyer and I’m not recommending anyone do this — I’m just sharing my own personal experiences an as anecdote on how I fought back & won.  Sadly, my mom died about a month before the case was settled & didn’t get a chance to see me win it for her, but she knew I would win anyway.

The unemployable

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The unemployment rate should always be at appx 7.5%, not 5% or less.  In regards to the “ideal” 5% figure, I believe that 4% of the public is unemployable in any capacity and/or won’t work, and 1% is employable but simply in-between jobs at the moment, but there’s another segment being left out, and they make all the difference in the world . . .

The people who should be working ARE working at 7.5%, and those who are entirely too stupid, incompetent or unemployable to find or keep a job are able to not only find work, they can bounce from job to job during a “boom” when unemployment rates are between 5% & 7.5% & continue screwing up life for everyone they come in contact with.

These people are the chronically unemployable, which means that sometimes they’re good employees & sometimes they’re bad.  This happens due to a number of reasons, e.g., poor work habits, poor personal decisions, addiction, personality disorders, you name it.

But if they get fired in a boom period, they’ll simply get hired on elsewhere due to a lack of qualified employees.  So there’s actually a segment of the population that will work, but they don’t do good work & you can’t work with them for long, or they’re just too damn stupid or lazy or shiftless to toe the line, and that figure is about 2.5% of the population in my opinion.

We may have 7.5 million people out there that we can’t keep employed and who cause trouble everywhere they go.  No, they’re not ALL your relatives or co-workers, though it may seem like that at times.

A boom period also brings in these same idiots who now think they that since they constantly clash with their employers & can’t hold a job for whatever reasons, they were meant to run a business, and many of them do so simply because they have no option otherwise.  They then proceed to screw over their customers because they aren’t smart enough to be in business and/or they’re perpetually under-capitalized & not tending to their business, and now they have no one to whom they can pass the buck.

Everybody I know who has a good brain & is a good person/businessman is making money right now.  At the current national unemployment rate of 7.3% as of Oct 2013, we have the perfect balance to keep the idiots “out of the loop” who don’t deserve to prosper & screw up the natural market balance.  It keeps out “loser” employees who are only working to fund a drug habit or simply pay whatever current debt they have that they can’t cover through their own normal, unscrupulous means (drug sales or the opportunity to steal is not good at this moment), plus it omits wannabe entrepreneurs who have no business being in business, including unscrupulous, inexperienced & low-capitalized employers/contractors, protecting those who know how to deliver goods & services properly, which protects consumers from shoddy business practices & horrible employees.

Be happy we’re where we’re at, as a buyer’s market is what we need to ensure not only that the few thriving experienced businesses are paid a proper profit margin, but mainly to protect consumers from unsound businesses that are riding the prosperity wave and trying to cash in to collect a dollar for a dime’s worth of service, who employ people who should be sitting on the sidelines until they get their act together.

Politics preys on the weak

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Politics should not be about increasing the wealth & power of only certain individuals or segments of our population who clearly don’t need its help, including special-interest groups.  It should be about ideals that bring society together on a just & fair plane with a better societal direction & working to rectify problems, achieve goals & maintain a fair societal balance rather than separating us into unequal divisions fueled by hate, greed & egotistical values.

Our people should be taken care of in all their basic needs as needed, such as adequate safe housing that has access to proper infrastructure such as sanitary sewer/septic systems, public water & electricity, free & proper health care, treatment for mental issues & addictive disorders and given basic food if they cannot afford it. However, this help should be temporary and only as-needed, and those “in the system” need to be trained & educated to get out of it quickly, and failure to do so should land them in a minimum-security “educational prison” until they learn a trade they can use to earn a living. Many homeless are so simply of their own choosing/doing, and many people getting welfare refuse to improve themselves to try & get off it.

Unlike animals, our human minds are naturally geared toward compassion, reason & rationalization in a zero-sum game rather than being polar opposites fighting for survival — instead, we are taught to hate those who are different & see things differently & we despise the weak & less-fortunate in our society.

We do that because we’ve been taught to win at all costs & punish those who don’t make the grade for whatever reason, and that’s what will cost us as a society at some point — we’re paying for it now by worshiping people who have no business being idolized simply because our society looks upon them as strong, beautiful, or some other appealing yet superficial trait.

Until we can treat all of our citizens with respect, and until all our citizens work to earn that respect, we will be doomed to mediocrity.

How to fix an underwater housing market

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Here’s my plan to save America’s “underwater” homeowners when we eventually plummet into a “bear” housing market & find that we have a plethora of those who owe more on their home than its alleged fair-market worth — it’s a 4-step process:

1) Have the president create an agency within HUD funded initially by the US Treasury & later partially or (hopefully) wholly funded by fees that, upon application by a homeowner, they will issue a check at a short sale to cover the difference between the appraised value & the outstanding mortgage balance, which check will be paid to the mortgagee (the bank/entity holding the mortgage) at closing.  A fee must be paid by the seller along with the appraisal fee.  The homeowner also agrees to sign a note for the shortfall check that will become a gov’t debt (with no time limits/expiration) on any future homes they buy.  This debt/lien is not to be included on credit reports & instead entered on a gov’t database to let lenders & closing attorneys know there is a future debt to be paid at some point if they have a closing with this person as a seller so that if they have any equity in any new homes, that new equity will pay down the debt.  It would be an interest-free loan & it can’t be bankrupted upon for at least 25 years. This would allows sellers to move on to a hopefully more profitable/valuable home & free up the market to jumpstart sales again, as well as provide more liquidity for banks & more opportunities for homebuyers, which in turn would bring home values up again & would possibly cure the negative equity problem entirely.

2) Have the President remove the due-on-sale clause for all FHA, VA, USDA, FNMA & even private or other conventional mortgage loans that are more than 5 years old & are current so that ANY buyer can buy them so long as they meet these simple guidelines — A) Show income that meets the FNMA income ratio test or show assets equal to 20% of the price of the home, which you must pay down the loan with; B) Show a credit rating of at least 640, with only a 24-month lookback/seasoning for foreclosures & bankruptcies, and 12-month for any other negatives on your credit (i.e., no 30-day late pays within 12 months), and no consideration for any medical bills in collection (they won’t count against you as long as they’re not judgments). Only a $500 leader fee or 0.5% of the sales price may be charged by the lender (whichever is less) to transfer the loan. The loan must be “above-water”, i.e., not owe more than the home is worth or the “underwater” provisions apply above.  This would also apply to short-sales as explained above.

3) Bankruptcy & credit overhaul — Bar current & future prospective employers & insurance companies & anyone else from checking a person’s or a business’ credit history if not in direct relation to a request for credit, and insurance “premium financing” will not be considered a debt for this purpose. A person with bad credit is usually not a bad person; they just either got caught up in a situation that went sideways without warning or made a bad decision that looked good initially, or are burdened by medical bills or a student loan (which can’t be discharged, but they can discharge the other debt so they can afford to pay back the student loan). Restrict credit histories to 5 years instead of 7, and put Chapter 7 BK back to 5 years for reporting (from the current 10 years) & set repeat filings of BK at no earlier than 10 years (currently 8 years). Remove the $150,000 loan threshold & make it so that no one can go back & look at a person’s credit history more than 5 years for any amount of loan. FHA, VA, FHMA & USDA loan guidelines must restrict seasoning of BK & foreclosures to 2 years (current law is 3 yrs on foreclosures & 2 years on BK, which makes no sense) unless it’s an equity sale with 20% down, which would be no seasoning needed.  Require all creditors to allow the customer to reaffirm a debt in BK at no worse than its current terms, and require all interest & payments to be frozen until the BK case is discharged so that debts aren’t piling up between the date of filing & the date of discharge.

4) Require land developers to provide at least 33% upfront equity in the form of cash or other marketable liquid assets as collateral, and require spec home builders to provide 20% of the building cost in cash upfront which includes the cost of the land. This will slow down the supply, increase demand & slow down future speculative booms, plus get rid of speculative builders who have little capital.

All of this makes perfect sense & will step on the toes of many wealthy bankers & real estate moguls, which is why it won’t ever happen, but they can’t say they don’t have a plan to fix it now.

Armed school security doesn’t work well & isn’t the answer

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History shows us that armed school security didn’t work at Columbine HS, which had an armed security guard who was a 15-yr veteran of the Sheriff’s office there, yet it didn’t stop the infamous rampage there.  Virginia Tech had an entire armed campus police force, yet 32 people were killed by a lone gunman.  Eliminating access to “assault weapons” & expanded pistol clips is a start, and though it will do little in the long run, it’s still a must as every little bit of effort counts.

More importantly to the issue is proper parenting & proper education, and even more important is teaching our children (and our adult peers) not to exclude & bully people that seem different or weak to them, as these societal victims are the ones who invariably end up on the front page for these horrific crimes — after all, it’s not the Homecoming King/Queen or the BMOC perpetrating these crimes, it’s the downtrodden souls who don’t feel they fit in because our society treats many people as social outcasts, especially those who don’t support the status quo.

Unfortunately, a few of these ill-fitting outcasts decides in their deluded mind that the only answer for them is to go out in a blaze of notoriety/glory & they take out a bunch of poor innocent souls with them, and then we wonder why it happens.

We need to show more compassion & tolerance with others & learn to incorporate everyone into our inner circle & not ostracize people, and provide quick access to help, counseling & treatment for those who don’t/can’t fit in and ask ourselves why everyone must conform to certain standards and why we must exclude people in order to make ourselves feel superior, and why must we strive to feel superior in the first place? Maybe there will be a future where people respect and love each other without demands, where people feel accepted, wanted & loved, and can get free & good mental help (and get real help from those in control in our society, like teachers & school counselors) when they feel they don’t fit in.

Like all cops, armed school security can’t be in all places all the time.  We need figure out what does work most effectively in securing the schools until we can make changes in our society to help rid ourselves of this phenomenon by getting to the core of it.  Stricter gun laws will help, but they aren’t the foolproof answer either.

The best answer we have to prevent mass shootings like this is rooted deep within our society in how we treat each other.  The people who do this are typically those who are alienated from mainstream society by socio-political forces within it.  The more inclusive we become of everyone in our society, the faster we heal those mental wounds.  We also need people to act more responsibly in parental guidance & teach their children to respect everyone & be compassionate — like Jesus.  

Funny how the religious crowd and those who have the money & power in our society are typically the ones who don’t show compassion for those who have-not or are on the outside. Those are the folks who would’ve kept & ate the 2 fish & 5 loaves of bread themselves.