I tend to read many sources of news each day. They often leave my mind on fire bouncing from idea to idea. In fact I have a little notepad++ document I make sure to jot down ideas so I can come back to them. This blog post is another stream of consciousness style post inspired by quite a number of things I read today, as well as thoughts from the past. I am going to reference some news articles from today's @newsagg post for September 16th.

In addition, this is also related to my word hijacking series and likely some other posts. [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 ]

Today's post on this subject was greatly inspired by reading through the news on the above @newsagg post I linked. I briefly considered doing a topic by topic post related to what that news aggregation made me think today. I changed my mind.

It began with a simple article stating the following:

GOP Congressman Proposes Pardon Deal for Julian Assange

One thing that has often interested me about Julian Assange and the Wikileaks is how many people have called him a Traitor, and I find this Pardon deal interesting for the same reason. Julian Assange is NOT a U.S. Citizen. This makes it impossible for him to be a traitor. It also makes one wonder what a pardon deal may mean. Julian Assange was a citizen of Australia the last I heard though he has been in hiding for some time now. Now the pardon may apply to an extradition deal that the U.S. has with Australia, Sweden, U.K., etc. Yet, still are not such deals usually tied to extraditing people from the U.S. that flee to those locations to escape? I am not 100% certain on that detail myself. That is the assumption that I have been operating under. If that is the case then would he even technically be suitable for extradition? If extradition applies to citizens of other countries then the pardon might make sense as that is the only thing I can think a U.S. Pardon would have to do with Assange.

The "Traitor" aspect is one example of a word going somewhere to die. I cover that in some detail in one of the Word Hijacking posts I linked above. The Pardon aspect is a case of the death of Law. Has Julian Assange lied? Not that I have ever found. What has he done? Published information leaked to him from sources. Isn't that what journalists are supposed to do? What else has he done? Protected his sources. Again, is that not what journalists are supposed to do? What other crime has he done? Revealed crimes of powerful people, corporations, government and groups. Again, isn't that what journalists were supposed to do? Was it fake? No. Were those that committed the crimes brought to justice? No, they were ignored while the focus was put on Julian Assange and Wikileaks that revealed the crimes. Death of Law, Death of Justice.

High-Ranking CIA Agent Blows Whistle on Deep State, Shadow Govt

This is new. Yet, it isn't the first time. Considering how little has been done in terms of justice when Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, etc reveal crimes I truly do not expect to see much justice here. In fact, I would expect it to be more shoot the messenger.

ESPN Employee: 'I Pretend I'm A Democrat So I Can Keep My Job'

So are we openly pushing for a one party government? Are we finally going to unmask the false dichotomy that has predominantly dominated U.S. politics? We really have mostly been a one party system for a long time. The entrenched Congressmen and Senators who in some cases have had their position for over THREE DECADES have kept kind of a status quo thing going. The illusion of in fighting has kept the people in line. I don't think things went exactly as planned this last election. Yet, I find this push to try to make everyone conform with one ideology as a pretty damning and unjust approach to life.

School Warns Chanting 'USA' Can 'Communicate An Unintended Message'

Any word, or phrase can communicate an unintended message if the person the message is being expressed to has the inability to put themselves into other people's shoes and consider different points of view. If they have bias and tunnel vision fixated on their own mental image of reality then literally anything someone says to them can have an unintended message. The death of words. The death of mind. The death of individuality.

Legislature Declares California a 'Sanctuary State'

If I could insure that NONE of the taxes I had to pay went to California then I'd be fine with this. Let them make their own bed. Yet, since the federal government takes taxes from me. I see them using taxes I was forced to hand over to pay for those that illegally enter the country as unjust.

I know there are those that have called for California to secede from the United States. I've said before. Go for it. Colorado would love to have it's water back since the bulk of the water from the Colorado River is used by California to turn a desert area into a bunch of farms that produce food. With legislature like this I am not shrugging. I'd be happy if they seceded.

ESPN Is Letting the Conservative Trolls Win

I've written about the word troll several times. It is a good example of the death of words. Troll does not mean "someone who disagrees with me". It originally didn't mean what it became to mean. What it was used for in internet parlance was someone who intentionally attempts to get a rise out of other people by whatever means work. A Troll did not argue because they had different beliefs. They would say whatever they thought would get a rise. One technique to identify them is to agree with them. If they suddenly say something that is in contradiction of what they were previously stating then you likely have a troll on your hands.

This ESPN headline is not trolling though. It is just another attempt to hijack and repurpose a word for leverage and manipulation of the reader/audience. The truth is the "Conservative Trolls" are not trolls. They just don't agree with the people they are speaking with. Disagreement is natural, and required. None of us are perfect. If we all agreed all the time we'd likely have gone extinct a long time ago.

Was Trump's Pardon of Joe Arpaio Unconstitutional?

If you research Joe Arpaio's case he was not legally charged. They used statutes that did not apply to him. They also denied him a jury trial. Let's set that aside though. I am unaware of what limits there may be to a presidential pardon. I actually didn't know there were any. In addition, looking at past presidential pardons if this one is "unconstitutional" then I'd think that many of the previous pardons by presidents would fit that even more. In reality though if you bother to truly dig into the Joe Arpaio case without an agenda it is clear that LAW and JUSTICE were not in operation with regard to him. The judge in his trial had clear bias that should have made them ineligible for handling his case. They denied him basic constitutional rights. The convicted him under a statute that did not apply. Yet, without a jury the judge could be judge, jury, and executioner. I believe this is sometimes called a Kangaroo Court. If anyone should get a pardon, I believe he applies.

The Death of Words: The Word Singularity

As I was reading all of those news articles (as you can see @newsagg was quite inspirational for me) my previous concept of word hijacking began to take on a new form. I began to think about the historical/mythological Tower of Babel. That lead me to think of the phrase "The place words go to die'. This has lead me to think of current trends and how words are hijacked and thrown about so casually today that they are losing their meaning, their identity. Words are used so casually the person typically appears to not actually know what the word they use means. Is this a singularity. Are we rushing towards a point where words are meaningless and they are just sounds that have no depth of thought?

It made me think the other day that the culture, rappers, and others that used simply the phrase "Word!" may have been onto something. Perhaps they saw this coming before I did. What else need be said when words no longer mean anything? "Word!"

Dreamers is a word that is used a lot these days. It is used to refer to those that either themselves entered the U.S. Illegally and are essentially trespassers, or those who were brought by their parents who were trespassing. The DACA Executive Order that Obama initiated without congress created this. It gives free education opportunities to these "dreamers". Yet, those who understand reality know the government cannot give anything for free. It is paid for either by the taxes taken from the citizens, or by incurring more debt (getting new credit card that the citizens have no control over, but are responsible for that debt).

Dreamers is a good example of a dying word here. It is used as a propaganda piece. Are these children of illegals (average age of a DACA recipient is 25) the only dreamers? Are your taxes going to pay for your childrens dreams? Do your children get free education? Mine didn't. We're all still in debt, and some of them haven't gone to college as it is too expensive. Yet they still dream and they are here legally, they are citizens. Yet apparently citizens do not "dream" we must import them. Actually that is wrong. We are not importing them. Importing them implies legal immigration. We're simply making trespassing legal, and even more we're giving the trespassers benefits that citizens don't even get.

Yet watch how the word "dreamers" is used to make the attack on this program seem like a bad thing. Currently the amount of people that have received this support is 800,000. So why didn't 800,000 LEGAL citizens get this instead? Do their dreams count for less?

Other words that have lost meaning. Racism, Sexism, Nazi, Hate, Freedom of Speech, Fascism, etc. These are words that it is often clear the people shouting, chanting, or sometimes SCREECHING them have no clue the actual meaning of the word. There are many other examples, but those are some very common ones I see misused on a frequent basis of late.

The Death of Justice

It becomes clear that the laws are there mainly for the average person. We clearly have class systems. If you are high enough in the system you are virtually untouchable. If you are certain types of entities you are considered "too big to fail" and this stupid concept makes them unaccountable. It opened the door for understanding that they could act with impunity.

Recent examples of this are found by looking no further than Well's Fargo. They create something like $5.6 billion in false accounts and charges under other people's names. The people damaged are awarded not even close to the damage done to them and their credit. The bulk of the $190 million dollar fine went to the government. I am not citing the source and the actual numbers. I did write an article about it awhile back.

Essentially they had to pay a 3% fine on the billions they made. That is a pretty amazing return on investment. I predicted they'd likely do it again. That is a great deal for them. You can look at that 3% fine as a license fee to break the law. They are happy and the government is happy.

Guess what? They did it again. It was in the news not long ago, but didn't get much coverage. It was I believe less than $2 billion in fake accounts this time. Did they get another license fee deal? If so, this will likely become the norm.

The Death of Justice.

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That's it. That's my long ramble inspired by the news today. I realize I covered a lot of things. This is all my opinion. My thoughts, etc.