Religion is all about telling others what to do–for were it ever actually about personal enlightenment, two things: 1) after a few thousand years of it, you’d expect a few more enlightened folks, 2) enlightened people don’t preach.

Western religion is much more about looking for answers in the book rather than outside of it, where more enlightened people live and work–people who’ve come to peace with the uncertainty itself rather than devoting themselves to the delusional belief that there is certainty in the world despite unlimited evidence to the contrary.

The proof that religion doesn’t work is that it has no predictive value. The proof that it has no predictive value is that nobody ever gets all they want–and the more ambitious they are in life, religious or not, the further they felt away from it. The it isn’t happiness–everyone knows that’s temporary and comes off of a personal success, but it abates. To goal of enlightenment is peace. The irony, however, is that peace is in all of our futures whether we pursue it or not. But having it in our lives is another matter. So even if you’ll never make it there (before you’re taken there), the journey is rich with rewards–but you won’t be able to see them or even consider them only reading about it or having it told to you. Those you can only discover on your own.

Even if there were a creator, evidence (itself) only exists within the creation itself. Not in language–a tool far too crude and imperfect to ever transmit such a thing. We’re lucky enough if we can communicate what we want on our sandwiches.

2) they either die or make like it. they must go away until if and when they’re forgiven.

I forgive people. That’s my nature. It’s part of acceptance. Even those many things about myself I didn’t choose I’ve chosen to accept, otherwise I couldn’t love myself. But if anyone ever gave me any indication they were cognizant of that fact during an apology, I’d never accept it and if and when I forgave them, they’d never know. I’d never tell them.

So this applies either way to me, and there are several people I’ve reluctantly made like dead for. Not that they deserved my death, of course, nor did I deserve to die, but if they truly wished for my absence from their lives, it made enough sense to me they deserved that. And anyhow, if they couldn’t forgive me no matter the amends I wished to make, I shouldn’t want to interact with them anymore. We should just make separate ways in this big world, or even city. But if you two live in a small enough town, one of you are going to have to leave.

Fortunately, I’ve never lived in that small of a town or been involved in a crime involving death. Just physical assault, property crimes, and some truly awful maligning of character. Nothing, as I’d said before, out of my capacity to forgive. I hope that never happens to me–but philosophically, it probably won’t. I can’t live that way, so even if they happened, I forgave at least the incident, the people are no longer in my life or I in theirs, and thus I’ve thankfully forgotten about them, at least out of the context of this particular moment in time. Right now, I’m at utter peace. And I know for a fact no matter how troubled you are, you will be too. We all will be. That much, I believe, even as an atheist, is absolutely assured.

So when it comes to choosing between Democrats and Republicans, it’s a choice I’m willing to make as opposed to having someone else make it for me. And 9 times out of 10, I’ll choose the Democrat. And the reason comes down to this: am I more likely to be harmed by a private individual or institution and seek restitution from the government or more likely to be harmed by the government and find myself seeking refuge with my friends and family.

In the United States, it’s always been the former and I’d very much like to keep it that way.

I have a problem with speaking of the governments singular institutions. Like most people, there are good ones and bad ones and among every one of those there are good and bad attributes. Like most people, Libertarians included, there are policies I like that make the government function better and policies I don’t like that, while possibly well intentioned, have had disastrous consequences. My problem with Libertarians is that rather than change policies to improve the government, their arguments often diverge into the problems with government in general. And while I agree with their major frustrations, I disagree that there is a better alternative to representative democracy and feel that all of their greatest frustrations are far more valid in the contexts of corporations or private institutions–institutions that can and have and I believe would act with even greater indiscretion than the government without government oversight. And I believe the best cure to government indiscretion is citizen oversight.

My belief in the importance of transparency totality trumps my belief in the importance of personal property. The policies he supports treat transparency like an invasion of personal property. For me, without transparency, you can’t enforce your rights–to property and otherwise. The game isn’t fair if you don’t get to see who’s making the rules–and as a human being born into a world already well underway, you don’t start out in a very good position to help yourself if you’re occluded from the truth.

As for me, I’m not convinced the government is sitting on bigger secrets than individuals. In fact, I’m absolutely certain they aren’t because groups are bad at keeping secrets and our history is full of secrets which are revealed long before it’s makers intended. So, my money is still behind the government to protect me from rogue individuals–and then citizens to protect themselves from rogue governments, but the cure is always the same: sunlight.

It’s the best disinfectant, don’t you know?

I am Mitch Harris. I am an all purpose Geek-for-Hire living in San Francisco.

I have started a WordPress blog to post solutions to common problems or suggestions for approaching common aggravations, but mostly, like everyone else with a blog, to rant.

I hope it’s helpful or at the very east insightful–and, in any case, I hope to hear about it.

As for now, however, I’m just setting it up, so don’t expect anything interesting unless changes in appearance and features interest you.

After that, I’m going to try to fit it in here and again rather than simply ranting on Facebook–what I do most–but as a father, self-employed techie, gamer, musician, thinker and sleeper (I do like my sleep), sometimes my other pursuits aren’t pursued with resolute vigor. Facebook gets attention only because it calls for it. If this blog starts calling for my attention, it will start getting some too.

But they are pursed, however obliquely.