What's Wrong With Fox News, Vol. 3, Part 6,819

A message from Maroon 5

Because They Wouldn't Feel Comfortable If You Blamed the Parties Responsible

What is more, the Republican "individualistic" health care plan is for the elderly to save up, put themselves through med school and then operate on themselves when they need surgery.

And let’s not overlook just how character-building it is for people to be without decent wages, jobs, retirement and health care. 

Up, up, up by those bootstraps. The people whose union jobs have been killed by Republicans really ought to thank the billionaires and their handmaidens in the GOP for diverting America's wealth overseas and giving them this great opportunity at self-improvement from the ground up.

Got Nothing for Most Americans? No Problem. Just Define Them Out of Existence

Not really, of course. Actually, Romney regards those who make a paltry $250,000 annually  as "poor people." But he won't say it out loud, because he needs their votes. People who make any less than that don't exist at all in any way  that matters to the Romneys and Ryans of the world. 
Yes, Mitt Romney loves this country the way a tiger loves a piece of raw steak.

What's Wrong With Fox News, Vol. 3, Part 6,818

They are lying fascist propagandists, that's what. And I mean that literally and seriously.

Rules? He Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules

Look, Mitt Romney was raised as a rich, white, male authoritarian in a church that actually worships them. He doesn’t need to obey any damn rules. YOU need to obey the rules he gives you, and say “yessir” pretty snappy, too. 

He can barely stand listening to You People, let alone pretending that what you think matters. He's here to rule you damn people. In fact, he thinks he's been fated to rule you since the dawn of time.

Attraction and Aversion

By Dan Hagen

Both Buddhists and Stoics like to point out that, second by second, much of your day is devoted to — they might say “wasted on” — attraction and aversion.

You see that fellow over there and grimace ever so slightly because he reminds you of something your father did that you didn’t like when you were seven years old. You want the new Smartphone and that beautiful person to have sex with you and a dish of French vanilla ice cream. So your day goes.

And so what? That’s life, right? Not really, not life at its best. In many ways, that’s the avoidance of life as it actually exists. Even if you obtained all those things you want and jettisoned all those things you don’t want, would you then be happy? No. These unconsidered, only half-recognized wants and worries would be instantly replaced by others equally fleeting, and those by still others.

“As soon as we get the object or experience we have been longing for, we move on to another desire, because the more we pursue desire, the more desire we experience,” Steve Sampson wrote.

“Fulfillment of desire can never satisfy — a fact that turns upside-down our cultural understanding which tells us we will be happy if only we fulfill sensual desire for pleasant experiences: food, sex, cars, clothes, homes, and on and on.”

Your wants carry you to a future that does not exist, your regrets call you to a past that cannot be changed. Both stand between you and the here, the now — your presence in the only reality you can ever really experience, and therefore the only reality that can ever really satisfy you.

What would be better? Mindfulness — the practice of being aware of your thoughts and actions in the present, without judging yourself. Mindfulness brings the heart rate, blood pressure and stress hormone levels down, and raises the consciousness up.

Mindfulness is examining one’s thoughts as if they were as remote as the dancing reflection in the pond of the distant streaks of clouds high in the sky. It is simply being.

“Thoughts come and go,” said Sampson. “They are not you.”

The Freethinker and the Atheist

“The word ‘atheist’ is a powerful word,” my friend Steve Sampson noted on his blog, Mindfully Gay. “People have strong reactions to the word. Many atheists have learned if they ‘come out of the closet’ they face a huge amount of negativity.

“If you’re a politician and you tell the world you’re an atheist, chances are you will be defeated, defeated badly.

“Atheists are not trusted. Many think there is no moral ground on which an atheist can stand. I believe the opposite. An atheist is ethical, is moral, because it is the proper way to live.

“An theist does not have to be bribed or threatened to be ethical. Most atheists have a better understanding of religions than many practitioners because they have studied a great deal before making the decision to follow common sense and not subjective belief. I know many atheists and they are all deeply intelligent people. They are people of thought and reason. They are people who hold the scientific method in high regard.

“In the end; at some point we (and that ‘we’ includes me) have to stop judging a person because of a belief or non-belief. Actions, words, friends, these describe a person,” Steve concluded.

And here’s my reply to Steve: “I prefer the term ‘freethinker,’ which implies that we're really talking about dogma, not deity. I’m not a non-theist any more than I am a non-unicornist. Defining yourself by what you DON’T believe is conceding unnecessary ground to the people pushing the other beliefs.”