The Huddled Masses amass on the Capital!

As I sit here and watch MSNBC, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, et al. I am amazed at the sight.

It is unbelievable! The huddled masses that have come to the country's capital to cheer our new President on as he begins his new message of CHANGE. Yes we can!

I wish everyone a great day. The faces of the populace of our citizens are exemplary of the mood of this land. Shall I even say the mood of world. This is the new world.

With the words of Rachel Maddow, "If you are a civics dork, this is bigger than Christmas!!"

Have a great day in whatever way you will celebrate just how our founding forefather's had in mind as they created this country.




This, the 242th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

Bush's Perception of Inherent Truth

Descartes, the 16th century French born philosopher claimed that our senses were deemed unreliable. To further demonstrate the limitations of the senses, Descartes proceeds with what is now known as The Wax Argument. He considers a piece of wax; his senses inform him that it has certain characteristics, such as shape, texture, size, color, smell, etc. When he brings the wax towards a flame, these characteristics change completely. However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still a piece of wax, even though the data of the senses inform him that all of its characteristics are different. Therefore, in order to properly grasp the nature of the wax, he cannot use the senses. He must use his mind.

He therefore posited, "And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgment which is in my mind."

Could we then go on to say that perception is not a means to truth, but of it? Or is there inherent truth? We must perceive a truth for it to become a law. This is what brings about common law and customary international laws. Common law refers to law and the corresponding legal system developed through decisions of courts and similar tribunals (called case law), rather than through legislative statutes or executive action. Customary international law are those aspects of international law that derive from custom. Coupled with general principles of law and treaties, custom is considered by the International Court of Justice, jurists, the United Nations, and its member states to be among the primary sources of international law. For example, laws of war were long a matter of customary law before they were codified in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, Geneva Conventions, and other treaties.

Does all of this mean that there are no inherent laws? Nature has inherent law within it. Descartes, Galileo, Newton and so many others spent their lives in pursuit of these laws and defining them for the layman to begin to grasp and understand the meanings and rules that govern them. If the universe has inherent laws that it exists within, humans do so as well.

What separate humans, at least in our own egotistic perception of various species and our own reality, is that we think, therefore we are...But, this is only perceived in order to make it true.

Is there such thing as universal truths? As I discussed back on June 7th, 2008, in my entry entitled "You Can't Handle the Truth", I discuss the writer Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, who believed that truth exists independently of the minds and opinions of people. That there was an underlying universal self evident truth that existed beyond the scope of society and its collective manipulations that can cloud the value of universal truth.

The Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, had a response to Descartes which he published in 1744 in the Principi De Scienza Nuova to which he posited, “The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be a criterion of the mind itself, still less of other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself."

Descartes also goes on to argue that sensory perceptions come to him involuntarily, and are not willed by him. They are external to his senses, and according to Descartes, this is evidence of the existence of something outside of his mind, and thus, an external world.

Descartes viewed rational knowledge as being "incapable of being destroyed" and sought to construct an unshakable ground upon which all other knowledge can be based. The first item of unshakable knowledge that Descartes argues for is the aforementioned cogito, or thinking thing.

We see that laws are created, through rational knowledge, yet we create these laws out of our own perception of an inherent belief of truth. Through time we have been able to observe that truth can change as our perceptions change. Do we live in such a malleable global society that our customary international laws change with time and become perceived laws and not bound by a perceived universal self evident truth?

This is the philosophy behind the Bush Administration. Now, on his last day of rule, he must resign himself to the fact that as he thought that he was immune to law, or that he could make people perceive the truth in ways that we had not done so before, he must now realize that we, as a global society, have certain common laws and customary laws based on a perception of truth. This perception of truth has been created to eliminate tyrants, murderers, and dictators.

Laws are only laws when they are acted on and policed in order to make and sustain societal order. As our global civic community becomes more accustomed to being more and more interactive with each separate entity we must realize the delicacy and necessity of the customary international laws to maintain a perceived truth.

It is time that the world maintain its perceived truth and customary international laws and hold Bush and his exiting administration accountable to the rules of law as we hold them today.

We must prosecute and uphold our international laws. As Obama wants to look forward we must realize that a step forward means we are coming "from" somewhere. We are stepping away "from" something. Without acknowledging what we are stepping from we will not be able to create what we want to step to. Without the order of perceived truths, that we have made rules of law, that we abide by to which we step away from we will not have those perceived rules as we step into our new future.

Without restitution of laws there is only anarchy. If this man gets away with the atrocities to which he committed to this world, its perceived truths that have governed our ever shrinking global community will forever be changed and precedent will have been set for such unaccountable tyranny to rule once again.




This, the 241th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

One last act against women by a withering Bush...

He just can't seem to keep his sexist, classist, racist idiocy quelled for a minute.

In one of President Bush’s final acts in office, he issued an outrageous new regulation that represents a tremendous step back in women’s access to reproductive-health services, including birth control.

Urge our new President Barack Obama to make it a priority to fix this dangerous regulation once he takes office.

Bush’s regulation could undermine state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape survivors. It could allow health-care corporations to refuse services and referrals for birth control.

And it could hurt low-income women in particular by allowing family-planning and Medicaid providers - even the receptionists at their front desks - to deny contraception services and referrals to women.

President Bush snuck this regulation through at the last moment - a regulation is radically out of step with the way we live, as 98 percent of women use birth control at some point in their lives.

This January, President-elect Obama can reverse this outrageous law - but he needs your support.

GO HERE AND VOICE YOUR SUPPORT NOW!!





This, the 240th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

Don't let the door hit you in your ass on your way out...sir!

I am amazed as I read through some blogs this morning referring to last nights "farewell" speech by our current reigning terrorist...I mean President. I read responses of people and their statements that Bush had the best interest of the country in mind during his tenure. He had the best interest of HIM in mind throughout his reign.

For a man who has tortured others against the rules of war; for a man who has illegally wiretapped innocent civilians of his own country(after consulting his legal staff); for a man who has tried desperately hard to take away rights of its country's people(after consulting his legal staff); for a man who has tried desperately, illegally and immorally to change the Supreme Court through illegal judicial firings(after consulting his legal staff); for a man who illegally, immorally, and because his god "told" him to started a war to which over a million innocent people have died; for a man who ignored intel on his watch as over 3000 people died due to the twin towers crash; for a man who has taken more time off his job as President than any other even though this past eight years has been continual global mayhem; for a man and his valiant staff and advisers who did nothing to quell the approaching financial collapse(and when the opportunity arose tried to get another blank check in order to make new rules once again to the tune of $700B) due to his arrogant policies of deregulation of the financial industry; for a man who has said is sad to be leaving is due to the fact that he will be unable to continue his reign of arrogance and destruction of this great land; for a man who has created the largest global disconnect and disrespect that our nation has ever experienced, I say good riddance.

I'm sure your offshore accounts are filled due to your carefully crafted Bailout Program which has no means of accountability. You know, those same offshore accounts that were funded by your war on oil, I mean terror, in the middle east which help bring the price of oil into the stratus-fear! Your departure no longer means you need to have your legal staff think of semantic excuses to help make sure your actions do not send you directly to prison. Good bye to a President who throughout your reign discussed accountability at every turn, but have none to show for yourself.

I do so hope that the Obama nation does not let you get your get out of jail free card. There are people you need to meet in Leavenworth.

Don't let the door hit you in your ass on the way out!




This, the 239th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs

Two kinds of people in this world, Winners...Losers

Lindsey Buckingham, the prolific singer/songwriter/producer from the famed Fleetwood Mac band, once wrote "Two kinds of people in this world, Winners...Losers, I lost my power in this world, cause I did not use it. So I go insane"

We, as a country, are riding a very fine line. We are at a tipping point of no return. It feels as if there is an expectation from our populace for Obama to make change, so much, that the people are forgetting that the possibility for Obama to even be in the position to make change came from the voice of the people themselves.

It has come back to us again. Only this time, if we do not succeed, we will find this country slip into a moral and ethical tailspin that it will be hard pressed to find a way out. We must take action as a people! Write your legislators!

I'm talking about the Attorney General position in Obama's cabinet. We must email or call our Senators and legislators and demand that there be a criminal trial to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, for their knowingly allowing torture in their little war on terror. Cheney's proud video moment shows a sincere lack of concern for law. Responses from interviews with Bush show their blatant attempts to mitigate the future prosecutions through legal statements from their own attorney's.

We must remember that attorney's do not make the law. John Yoo, Bush's legal council and who wrote memos in which he advocated the possible legality of torture and that enemy combatants could be denied protection under the Geneva Conventions, also stated that waterboarding is not a means of torture, does not a law make.

Waterboarding is torture under the rule of war. These men MUST be tried for war crimes just like Saddam Hussein, Pinochet, and numerous others from other countries.

The world needs to see that this country must abide by rules of the world as well. The world must see that this country has a true concern for truth and justice. The world must see that the country demands it and is changing to make the wrongs of the past righted before their eyes. We are the only ones that can demand the actions from Washington as they begin to interview and confirm the new AG into office.

Without this action, all our work to put "Change" into the highest office of the land will be for naught. The moral righteousness of the United States in its actions throughout the world will forever be circumspect due to our neglect to right these legal and moral wrongs from the exiting criminals of Washington.

We must show the world that our leaders must also abide by laws and rules. That the laws and rules apply to them as well. Without this action and retribution we will find ourselves living a professed lie to the world. We can expect the respect to disappear for good.

Any future actions from our country to save this or right that will be shameful as it will show the world that we only pick certain rights and certain battles. And if it doesn't work out, tough, we have more bombs than you do, so piss off!

This is not what our founding fathers worked so hard to create. They were trying diligently to move away from the dictatorial leadership of the kingdom. They were trying hard to show that the little guy has rights, and a voice in this world. This is the very reason that our first President, George Washington, stepped down from the office after his second term. He was feeling the power of dictatorial possibilities to the office and chose to keep the vision that was created and stepped down to make room for another President, rather than create another dictatorship. It could have gone down that other path. We are at that crossroads again, but the President must make the move and we as a people must speak loudly to make sure he has our support to make the rule of law apply. Without this Washington will forever be the haven for power hungry criminals to find solace.

This is the one act that will define Obama's history from this point forward. Without the trial of war crimes to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo and more, we will create a precedent that we will never return from. The statement that absolute power corrupts absolutely will forever tarnish this great country from this point forward.

Let's not go insane, as Lindsey says. Let us use our power and help Obama create the change that this country so desperately needs from its people!

We are on a roll right now, let is bring back and keep the power to the people!






This, the 238th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2009 Doug Boggs