On the left, a Ukrainian man who lost all his entire family pictured, murdered in a missile-strike by Russia.

On the right, a Palestinian man picking up the birth certificates for his 3-day-old twins when his wife and twins were murdered in a missile-strike by Israel.

All morning I haven't been able to shake the parallel fates of these two fathers. It adds another level of connection when I can simply look over to my healthy kids cheerfully playing, oblivious to such horrors.

My wife has a stressful job where she sees pretty crazy stuff. It helps keep her grounded. Nevertheless the "little things" can add up. So it's a common refrain for us to say, "At least our kids aren't in Ukraine or Gaza...Or Syria... Or Yemen..." and so on — and it's so unbelievably fucked that this happened at all because of propaganda and territorial conquest, something that we just can't seem to shake. That we cannot grasp that we're one people all on this planet just trying to work together. Isn't life hard enough as it is? Yet these psychopaths persist, From Sinwar to Putin to Netanyahu, and they continue to dupe masses to do the dirty work on their behalf.

Meanwhile there seems to be a clear double-standard and profound cognitive dissonance around the world in recognizing the tragedy of one of these over the other. I hope we can equalize our outrage for these and recognize that it's the innocent civilians caught in between who always suffer the most.

I don't know what more there is to say but what is already felt. I just don't know how a father can go on. I can only live for them and in some way or another make the world a little better.

I guess I'm curious about generations (namely GenZ and Alpha) who didn't live in a pre-Internet time. Like,

• How was the concept first explained to you, or when did it click?
• Do you understand how insane it is to have the aggregate of all human knowledge — the only comparable thing once being a physical library or university — one search away? That it's absolutely insane you can engage in a real-time conversation with someone on the opposite side of the world? That you can find niche communities in an instant?
• Were your parents super strict about internet usage? How quickly did you find workarounds?

I hope people understand that campaign finance/election reform is one of the biggest (the biggest in my opinion) issues of our time. If you've ever said they're all the same or my vote doesn't matter, and so on, without falling into false-equivalence—you're partly* right, and it's because of this.

*^{See my edit below addressing this asterisk}

There's a lot we could do in the realm of campaign finance/election reform, but the most ideal goals are:

• Reversal of Citizens United v. FEC (Corporations/Unions can donate) and SpeechNow v. FEC (these entities can donate unlimited amounts, effectively crippling the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a.k.a McCain-Feingold Act) and redefining Buckley v. Valeo (Set no limit on campaign expenditures, setting a precedent to throw equality of political speech out and equating money with free-speech).

• Publicly funded elections to level the playing-field and not limit our pool of candidates to those who have deep pockets or friends with deep-pockets.

• Transition to an alternative voting system (such as IRV or Approval voting—both of which are far superior to FPTP). This allows for (1) independent tickets to run without running the risk of spoiling your vote (splitting tickets and ending up with your least-preferable candidate), (2) the victor has the largest possible majority, and (3) reduces the odds that a Gore v. Bush will repeat and someone without the popular vote will be elected. Countries like France and states like Maine employ this to great success.

• Abolition of the Electoral College

Finally, there is also the issue of gerrymandering. For addressing Gerrymandering, the most promising solution is a technical one. Computer algorithms can independently re-district locations as fairly and naturally as possible under the circumstances, all the while being overseen by an independent bipartisan committee who would intervene in exceptional cases or shortcomings of the software's redistricting algorithm.

Campaign finance/election reform also has bipartisan appeal among voters. When you look at the problems the right and left both have with government, the common denominator is money and a lack of representation. In fact, this is the easiest topic to bring people on opposite ends of the spectrum together at the same table. No other single issue transcends almost every other national issue in the U.S. Bear in mind that I am referring to the average electorate—not party officials.

Say what you will about former democratic candidate Lawrence Lessig (who? you might ask), but he was right to put his sole weight on this issue. We need more candidates willing to put this issue front & center.

So why is the system so broken and why is it so hard to change?

Big money tends to disproportionately help Republicans. As a result, they favor lax campaign finance laws. Gerrymandering is used by both parties for different reasons, but ultimately to diminish the effective representation of their opponents while artificially bolstering their own. This is counter to the interests of the American people as a whole, and serves to muddy the waters of discourse. For Democrats, it takes more money to offset this disadvantage in the wake of Citizens United and SpeechNow cases.

On the other hand, this is a way Republicans have now increased their natural advantage over Democrats. If you DON'T embrace the unleashed corporate financing of elections, then you are at a disadvantage. But if you want to play by the game in order to change the rules of the game in the end, then you'll be accused of being a hypocrite. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

If there was a single issue to vote on, Campaign Finance / Election Reform would be it. And if you don't believe the severity of this issue, first watch this short video, and then watch this short video from represent.us and connect the dots.

Bonus: If you have extra time, watch this quick 10-minute video after the first two (It's a bit quirky, but has some great explanations)

Edit: I want to be clear that when I'm making this "they're all the same argument," I'm trying to thread a needle between recognizing why some people feel defeated or disenfranchised with the status-quo of government not moving fast enough or listening to them, but at the same time without claiming that "each side" is equally-wrong/right substantively. While the latter simply is not true and it would indeed be a false-equivalence to say so, I think we can indeed find common-ground among both Democrats and Republicans (citizens, not party-officials) that there exists a lack of representation. The most passionate of the left feel the factual issues they have become watered-down by centrist solutions (causing them not to function as intended in the first place), while the right-wing feel their concerns frequently aren't adequately addressed by their own party—that it's better to be in a constant state of fear/anger/scapegoating for political-expediency of party leaders than it is to attempt to actually solve the issue. There's truth to both, and the solution is found within campaign finance/election reform.

In the past when I've posted this, I've seen a pattern of responses who are trying to highlight that Democrats utilize SuperPAC money, Dark Money, etc. and claim it's equal or more than Republicans. That may or may not be true. Here's the key point that supersedes that argument*: Only the Democrats have made a concerted effort to destroy the entire process.** Republicans widely have not and in fact only widened the speech inequality. I'm not trying to be partisan in saying this; that's just a fact. So ask yourself: If (a) Democrats are indeed benefiting more or equally from this process, why would they undermine their own advantage unless they cared about fixing the system? If (b) Republicans have the advantage, then Democrats are still correct to remove this disproportionate advantage which undermines the average citizens' voice.

------------------------------

FAQs

Q. Why Abolish the Electoral College? Wasn't it for helping smaller states?

A. To those arguing that this makes smaller states irrelevant, I'll explain why this is unnecessary:

The Framers already factored in the small-state disadvantage in their design of a Bicameral Congress. That is, small states have a massively disproportionate advantage of authority in the Senate.

Take the population of Wyoming — ~577,737 total residents in the state. They, like every state, get 2 Senators. In a State that has 0.177% (<--Note the decimal) of the nation's population, they get 2% (2 out of 100 Senators) of the nation's Senate power—a ~11.3:1 legislative-to-population ratio. One can see how California would be at a disadvantage with only 2 Senators, but a much larger population to represent: they have 12.8% of the nation's total population, leading to their Senator Power being: 0.16:1.

In a similar manner to the Senate, the Electoral College benefits smaller states disproportionately, giving greater "voting power" to each of its residents. Wyoming has 3 electoral votes due to its 2 Senators, and 1 House Representative. California has 55. 5.1 votes per million Wyoming citizens. California? 1.3 Electoral votes per million citizens. **If California residents had the voting-power of Wyoming residents, California would have 205 electoral votes. Add up all the small bible-belt/rust-belt states and you see why Republicans keep taking elections despite being in the minority. This is, by all accounts, minority rule.

The Electoral College only affects the election of a President, which is not state-dependent, it's national. In other words, all states are treated as one during such a popular vote for the Executive who is responsible for overseeing all states, combined. Imagine that all states are one when voting for the executive, in the same way all counties within a state have an equal say in electing a Governor:

The last two Republican Presidents won election without even obtaining the popular vote—they won despite having less individual votes than their competitor. Let that sink in.

We understand the State model is essentially a scaled-down model of the Federal model. That is:

• Presidency = Governor
• Counties = States

When a state-wide official is elected to office, be it a Governor or Senator, do we dictate the voting-weight of an individual from one county to another within a state? NO.

So why in the WORLD, when electing the "Governor for the Country" do we arbitrarily determine that the voting Power of a Montana person is more important than the voting power of a California person? This is directly defiant to everything a Democracy stands for and deeply unequal. Add up all the small-states like Wyoming or Montana, and you find enough votes to influence the outcome of an election.

In a Democracy (We are a Representative Republic, but that's still a type-of Democracy), it makes little sense that someone can win the election without earning the popular vote. Call for abolishing the Electoral College.

To close, Aaron Swartz once said, "It's not a question of Freedom of Speech, it's a question of who gets heard." When everyone has a voice but certain voices drown out the rest, does freedom of speech really matter as much as being heard? Obviously a reasonable person can infer that the spirit of freedom of speech was forged with this very thought in mind -- for what is freedom of speech but an assurance of equality against corruption or authoritarian power?

>June 28 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. voters who were unable to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump before Thursday's presidential debate delivered their verdicts after the contest and it was almost universally bad news for Biden.

>Of the 13 "undecideds" who spoke to Reuters, 10 described the 81-year-old Democratic president's performance against Republican candidate Trump collectively as feeble, befuddled, embarrassing and difficult to watch.

>All undecided voters in a U.S. swing states focus group hosted by pollster Frank Luntz said President Biden should be replaced as the Democratic nominee after watching his first presidential debate against former President Trump.

>Lord Cameron said while he would not support a major ground offensive in the Gazan city of Rafah, the UK would not copy US plans to stop some arms sales.

>He said the UK supplies just 1% of Israel's weapons and warned Israel must do more to protect civilians and allow humanitarian aid through.

https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request

They must oblige within a certain time frame — even if your account has been suspended and I believe even if you've deleted your account. Curiously, this might be one effective way to protest. Golly I wonder what would happen if many people requested such reports simultaneously. It seems these must be processed manually by admins.

As a bonus, it's nice because all your comments and messages are searchable.

>Both men said economic hardship, political instability and crime had left them with little option but to abandon their native Nigeria. Africa's most populous country has longstanding issues of violence and poverty, and kidnappings are endemic.

Imagine being so desperate that you navigate oceans from atop a ship's rudder to seek a better life.

It's really no different than the hardships those from Central and South America go through in trying to find a better life in North America. Can't blame them one bit. I'd hope to have the courage to do something similar to improve the conditions for my own family.

Don't take for granted what you've got. Live For Them.

Yesterday I wake up early in the morning to my wife asking for help because our toddler just suddenly puked all over both my wife and herself in bed. My wife had gone into our kid's room to comfort her when she woke up in a coughing fit. Suddenly, projectile vomit.

So she has a stomach bug — big deal right? Get some fluids in her, let her watch cartoons, keep a bucket nearby and ride this sucker out. I'd be totally onboard with that except for some context:

She and I had been swimming in the pool nearly every day. Recently the pool's water quality dipped because we had our pool robot cleaner break, followed by a nasty storm that dumped a lot of debris in there. Finally the chlorine levels were dipping and I hadn't shocked the pool in a while. Not really thinking, we went swimming the day before. Swimming in a dirty, very warm, unsantized pool... Worse, she's jumping into the pool over and over again. Worse, I managed to fix the obstruction and get my cleaner working again, so it's kicking up more sediment from the floor.

So there I was, awoken by my frantic wife telling me that that my daughter is puking and my heart drops to the sense of dread. The entire morning I'm just a wreck, leaping to the worst conclusions: brain-eating amoeba. Why? Just recently I read a tragic story of a 2-year-old passing away from this nightmare and I thought it might now become my own. All it takes is the wrong drop of water up the nose.

Let me tell you, in the end even atheists get down on their knees and beg to some high power in moments of desperation so outside their control.

I can give my child the best diet for their health, protect them from the monsters in their room, and even most of the real ones out in the world... But I know the statistics on this thing are only just below rabies in terms of survivability. I was monitoring all the symptoms closely but I didn't want to tell my wife to make her panic until I was certain. I'm reading up every article I can find on this horror. Is the vomiting persisting? Does she have a worsening headache? Fever? All I could think of was that poor 2-year-old with tubes coming out of his mouth in the news article I read.

Mind you my wife is an experienced nurse who's seen some shit and is usually cool as a cucumber, but even her nursing senses were tingling at our daughter's strange behavior. After getting our daughter into the shower to clean up, she became incredibly lethargic and pretty non-responsive. Pukes again. I get my daughter out and take her down to watch her favorite cartoons, get a popsicle, snuggle up in blankies on the couch. Time to spoil her just to get some sort of familiar response out of our tough firecracker.... No luck. Worst, she seems confused. She's watching cartoons but with a sort of deadpan stare. I ask her an obvious question about who her favorite character is that would normally get a quick answer, but she responds slowly, "I don't know..." By this point, I was literally begging to come down with a stomach virus myself.

I started to track the frequency of her vomits... 10 minutes, 20, 20, 25, 30, 35... Then finally, 1.5 hours passed. Then 2 hours. She took a short 20 minute cat-nap and waking up began acting like her old self slowly while the vomiting completely stopped. Maybe she swallowed some pool water; she may have eaten something the previous day. Either way, she was feeling better and acting like her troll-like self. Apparently she was just plainly exhausted from lack of sleep and pain.

Moments like these help reset your perspective on what's important in life. Not like I didn't know before... But the doldrums of passing days leave you taking for granted things you think will always be there without question while your mind's attention wanders to more mundane crap.

So anyway... Life's not so bad.

Also that's the last time I slack on maintaining the pool.

Conservative parents don't believe empathy and tolerance are important virtues to instill in their children (that's a bit concerning, as I thought they were the party who always invoking Jesus...).

Liberals believe it is important to teach Children:

• Curiosity
• Empathy
• Tolerance

Whereas Conservatives believe it's important to teach:

• Obedience
• Faith

It's right here where you see the divide being sown. Empathy—a high-level emotion—needs to be fostered and learned just like any high-level logic techniques. If the mother and/or father fails in doing this, it leads to long-term issues in behavioral development. Teachers have also widely called for bolstering teaching empathy:

>How can a child be kind without being helpful or thoughtful? By being polite. It turns out that manners were very important to parents. When given a choice between having manners and having empathy and asked, "Which of these is more important for your child to be right now?" 58 percent chose manners compared with just 41 percent who chose empathy.

>Kotler Clarke suggests that some parents may assume that teaching a child manners is a good way of building empathy. But, she says, "There's really no great evidence around that. In fact, bullies are very good at having manners around adults."

>On this point, teachers broke with parents, overwhelmingly preferring empathy (63 percent) over manners (37 percent). And teachers can see the disconnect in their classrooms. Thirty-four percent say, of the children they teach, that all or most of their parents are raising kids to be empathetic and kind, while just 30 percent say all or most parents are raising children with values consistent with their teachers'.

Furthermore:

• Conservatives are responsible for the vast majority of violence in our nation's history.

• Conservatives / Trump supporters are the least-educated Source 2 Source 3

This is probably the source of why they think the female body rejects rape pregnancies, why they think snowballs on the Senate floor disproves climate change...

• Conservatives diversify their news the least and are most susceptible to misinformation.

• Conservatives are less informed on history and current-events.

• Conservatives are less consistent in their moral foundation, having more double-standards, and greater hypocrisy.

There is another interesting correlation, if not a causal-factor, in that those identifying as conservatives are likely to have elevated testosterone levels compared to their left-wing counterparts. Testosterone, the predominant male hormone is known to elevate rage and aggression while muting emotional sensitivities like empathy. On the surface, conservatives may cheer over this, but consider respect for a rabid wild animal / loose-cannon is not the same respect for someone posing intelligent arguments. This is why one frequently sees conservatives substituting aggression and intimidation for a lack of substantive reasoning -- Example. (1 2 3 4 5)

Furthermore, there's a connection with conservatism, and enlarged amygdala (fear, anger), along with reduced pattern-recognition and flexibility to change/adaptation (smaller anterior cingulate cortex compared to liberals).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/

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Now imagine if you will that you are decades past your college years (IF you went to college at all) where you were once exposed to a variety of cultures, your preconceived beliefs challenged and you're humbled by how little you do not know (so goes the adage, 'the more you know, the more you realize you don't know*'). Add to this that you are at your peak mental fitness—you pick things up quickly. You also have more time focused on "learning" and being "aware." You are less afraid of change, albeit perhaps naive at times, but you almost look forward to change and progress.

In older years, your free-time dwindles, your priorities change. You can no longer spend as much time reading a book and focusing on current-events. Your time is spent on immediate concerns rather than the abstract and worldly, such as:

• Likely raising a family
• Focusing on your career/work/income
• Your mental capacity likely has deteriorated since your early years
• Your peers are all in the same boat, which then feeds back into itself

Now, instead of reading long-form journalist pieces, timely non-fictional books, researching academic journals—you're limited to "bite-sized" pieces of news via talk radio (Rush) or TV (Fox) as you're eating breakfast before work, then you've got the evening news and your social media feed. This is all you've got. Such a shallow understanding of what's going on makes you malleable, more susceptible to "common-sense" rhetoric when all variables are not known to you.

Because of this, you become more shortsighted. You may be more stressed because you have a family to support, and so you become more selfish—making you hate "all the taxes" that are impacting your bottom-line. Instead of progress, you just want things to "stay the same," and be "stable" because it's harder to adapt in older years. No longer are you looking at the long-term game, but the immediate return.

I contest the correlation with age is not a result of wisdom, but a lack of time to understand issues at depth, or await the return on investment. Compounding this:

Peak Hours Worked By Age

Educational Activities by Age

Fluid intelligence degradation

>"“Chrystalized” intelligence, i.e., knowledge or experience accumulated over time, actually remains stable with age. On the other hand, “fluid” intelligence or abilities not based on experience or education tend to decline."

In short, Occam's Razor suggests that—surprise—education makes you more informed, and is not some liberal conspiracy. Perhaps we need to start considering the possibility that it's not that education is biased with liberalism, but that liberalism is a result of being educated.

By the way, I say this as a former Republican conservative. But the good news is that they change! My family did! Peace, love, tolerance, curiosity—these aren't exactly bad things. By the way, can you call me a bleeding heart hippie tree-hugger SJW? I wear that badge with honor.

The vast majority of domestic terrorist, political, hate-crime violence has been committed by the Right. This is not a "both sides" issue.

• Right-Wing conservative who killed 6 people and attempted-murder on Gabby Giffords (MURDER)

• Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting - Anti-semite right-wing nut-job. (MURDER)

• White Man Gets 10 Years in Prison for Trying to Hire Hit Man to Lynch Black Neighbor. Hitman was Undercover FBI Agent

• Florida man charged with threatening to kill three Democratic lawmakers

• San Diego Jewish Synagogue shooting (MURDER)

• Kentucky Gunman entering historically-black church (MURDER)

• Charleston Church Shooter (2015, 9 dead - MURDER)

• Minneaoplis Shooting (2016, 5 shot at, 2 wounded MURDER)

• Charlottesville Vehicle-Ramming / Violence Instigation by right-wing nut-jobs carrying Lowe's tiki-torches chanting "Jews will not replace us"

• Portland Train Stabbing (2017 - MURDER)

• Tallahassee Yoga Studio Conservative Shooter (2018 - MURDER) - Right-wing incel nutjob supporting past shooters, hating on african-americans, illegal immigrants, interracial relationships.

• Florida conservative makes threats to 3 leftist politicians

• El Paso Shooter Nut Job (MURDER)

• Poway Synagogue Shooting (MURDER)

• Right-wing nut-jobs do drive-by shooting, killing Federal security guard & LEO at Federal courthouse, using peaceful leftist protests as cover to frame (2020 - MURDER)

• Virginian KKK member who ran his car into protesters for racial injustice & Police brutality (2020)

• Rally attendee threatens to bomb news crew while being filmed (2020)

• Right-wing extremists saying Democratic leaders need shot dead

• Two convicted felons in illegal possession of weapons stockpile planned to go to Kenosha and Portland to "loot and possibly pick people off." (Thankfully, the law permitted their arrest for a crime of possession instead of having to wait for them to murder someone. Maybe gun laws do work?)

• Self-proclaimed white-supremacist Buffalo Shooter killed 10 (MURDER)

• Highland Park Shooter regularly posted "far-right and neo-fascist" ideological rhetoric (MURDER)

• Armed right-wing terrorist storms FBI office in response to Mar-a-lago raid

• Nut job storms a Dairy Queen in a clown suit, saying "he was armed to protect himself from 'drug traffickers' and wanted to 'kill Democrats and liberals'"

• 2 Right-wing nutjobs convicted of kidnapping plot against Michigan governor

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Let me unpack this further and not mince words:

You see, conservatives have always been responsible for the VAST majority of violence in our nation, from the treasonous confederates fighting for slavery, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands, not to mention those whom they exploited; then you've got the 4,000+ documented lynchings per NAACP, clinic bombings, and all the hate crimes on Hispanics and Muslims and Sikhs (who look Muslim... not really).

Remember the Oklahoma City bomber that killed a bunch children in a daycare with his attack, Timothy McVeigh? He was a lunatic nut-job who disagreed with law-enforcement and their crackdown on Waco and Ruby Ridge and all those lunatic soverign citizens/religious nut-jobs/"free folk". Ultra right-wing conservative extremists.

Basically, he was the same sort of moron as the Bundy crew terrorists who did an armed takeover of a Federal facility in Oregon while also holding their ground against law-enforcement in Nevada (Watch this Documentary covering these terrorists).

It's places like td red-hat-snowflake-zone that instigate domestic terrorism. And fun fact: For the past 16+ years, radical right-wing conservative groups have been a larger threat per the FBI than any other domestic group. Moreover, radical right-wingers have killed far more people in the U.S. since Trump's election than any foreigner or Muslim.

And whaddyaknow, Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter was both a gun nut and of the exact same breed as Bundy and McVeigh:

>Another woman recalled overhearing a man that looked like Paddock talking to another man at a restaurant in las Vegas days before the massacre. She told police that Paddock was ranting about two separate events that took place in the 1990s. One was the standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992, where a right-wing activist resisting federal weapons charges moved with his family to a remote cabin, leading to an 11-day armed standoff with authorities. The other was the 51-day standoff in Waco, Texas, between a Christian cult and police, which led to the deaths of more than 80 people, including 22 children.

and

>One man told the FBI and police that less than one month before the massacre, Paddock responded to his online ad selling schematics which showed how to transform your semi-automatic rifle to make it fire like an automatic weapon. “Somebody has to wake up the American public and get them to arm themselves,” the man recalled Paddock saying during their meeting outside a Las Vegas sporting goods store. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”

(Very odd, also, how Vegas police tried to keep these documents locked up.)

These kind of people are amped up by the rhetoric from Trump. When Trump tells them to commit violence at his rallies (Source 1 Source 2), eventually, someone will do it. Not long ago, we had a "Florida Man who Threatened to Kill Democrats and 'Weak Republicans' Over Kavanaugh Nomination", saying:

>“I can’t do this by myself, I need more conservatives going into liberal homes at night killing them in their sleep,” Patrick said.

From Snopes:

>Over the past decade, extremists of every stripe have killed 372 Americans. 74 percent of those killings were committed by right wing extremists. Only 2 percent of those deaths were at the hands of left wing extremists. Mayo told us:

>"I don’t want to give moral equivalence to the two sides because one side is fighting against white supremacy. On the Antifa side, they’ve never murdered anyone but there have been many murders done by white supremacists, so we have to be concerned about that movement."*

Another report released in 2019 (PDF Warning), analyzing 2018 extremist attacks noted the following:

>2018 was a particularly active year for right-wing extremist murders: Every single extremist killing - from Pittsburgh to Parkland - had a link to right-wing extremism

>In 2018, domestic extremists killed at least 50 people in the U.S., a sharp increase from the 37 extremist-related murders documented in 2017, though still lower than the totals for 2015 (70) and 2016 (72). The 50 deaths make 2018 the fourth-deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings since 1970.

>Of these killings, 78% were perpetrated by white-supremacists, 16% by anti-government extremists, 4% by "incel" extremists, and 2% by domestic Islamist extremists

Literally all right-wing in nature (Yes, the 2% Islamic extremism is also right-wing).

When the right-wing psycho emboldened by Trump supporters chanting with Lowes tiki-torches, "jews will not replace us" ran over peaceful protesters, killing one, what did Trump do? Muddy the waters and say it was "both sides." No.

Of course, you have the MAGABomber and the Pittsburgh lunatic as just more examples of right-wing extremism recently, among countless others I cannot keep up with.

• The US State Department also notes an uptick in global right-wing white supremacist terrorism, with the "US not being immune.

• Retired FBI Special Agent who infiltrated Californian White Supremacist groups notes that vast majority of ideologically-motivated homicides are right-wing, while on the other hand:

>There are no US deaths associated with any action that could be accurately described as, "Anti-Fascist."*

That, however, doesn't stop right-wing extremists from posing as Antifa to make them seem more violent than they really are and to rally support to their own cause. Here's another example.

Conservatives love to pretend that those tree-huggin' bleedin'-heart peace-lovin' anti-gun hippies are somehow deranged murderers!! Whoops. Are they snowflakes, or they are they literally Hitler...? So when they point to cases of liberal violence, sometimes they're right, but as always they play the game of false-equivalence (I literally had two separate Trump supporters equating leftists protesting by blocking highways and boycotting restaurants supportive of Trump to the murders of the right). If they want to play the game of who can list the most tragedies, the statistics outright prove I'll win in showing conservatives are more violent in America.

Meanwhile, you had 45% of Americans somehow approving President Trump, 23% of Republicans who wouldn't prosecute Trump if he shot James Comey in cold blood (page 47)—then you have 43% of Republicans as of 2015 who are still so incredibly ignorant that they believe Obama is a Muslim, 51% of Republicans as of 2017 who still think Obama is Kenyan-born. If you cannot connect the dots between the blatant ignorance and hatred revealed by these studies, and the increased tick in violence at this point today—then you're frankly not paying attention.

When it comes down to it, that really is the problem: people aren't paying attention. People aren't calling out ignorance when they see it, and letting it slide and being "polite" and holding your tongue leaves these people into delusions that they have it all figured out. Meanwhile Fox News, Right-Wing Radio, the Bannon/Jones-types of the internet and so forth feed this uninformed audience what they want to hear; they're gullible and easily manipulated into believing whatever is needed in the moment for political expediency. Why do these talking-heads manipulate your crazy Uncle, your conspiracy-loving teenage neighbor, your dad on long trips? Like most corrupt things, it's about money & power. They're profiting off ignorance and fear. It's a scary tragic reality.

This all should all lead to a big question: Why does the Conservative Ideology inherently attract or create more violence? We should all be wondering that, but some of my thoughts on this can be read here.

UPDATE: * Note: While the facts are still be uncovered, a self-proclaimed Anti-Fascist shot a right-wing extremist in Portland. Assuming it wasn't self-defense as the man claimed in his interview before he was killed by police, the "politically-motivated murder count" is:

Antifa: 1

Right-wing Fascists: Hundreds. (thousands if you count right-wing foreign extremists or want to go back in our history).

NOTE: ORIGINALLY MADE BY REDDIT USER, TrumpImpeachedAugust

Republicans capriciously modify their viewpoints and policies depending on what will benefit the Party. They don't care in the slightest about actual policies, or their supposed "principles". They just care what the Party (and particularly Donald Trump) is in favor of at any given moment. Meanwhile, it's worth noting that Democrats maintain fairly consistent opinions about policy, regardless of which party favors it, or who is in power.

#The Party of Principles:

• Exhibit 1: Opinion of Syrian airstrikes under Obama vs. Trump. Source Data 1, Source Data 2 and Article for Context

• Exhibit 2: Opinion of the NFL after large amounts of players began kneeling during the anthem to protest racism. Article for Context (viewing source data requires purchasing Morning Consult package)

• Exhibit 3: Opinion of ESPN after they fired a conservative broadcast analyst. Article for Context (viewing source data requires purchasing YouGov’s “BrandIndex” package)

• Exhibit 4: Opinion of Vladimir Putin after Trump began praising Russia during the election. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 5: Opinion of "Obamacare" vs. "Kynect" (Kentucky's implementation of Obamacare). Kentuckians feel differently about the policy depending on the name. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 6: Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 7: White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. (Same source and article as previous exhibit.)

• Exhibit 8: Republicans were far more likely to embrace a certain policy if they knew Trump was for it—whether the policy was liberal or conservative. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 9: Republicans became far more opposed to gun control when Obama took office. Democrats have remained consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 10: Republicans started to think universities had a negative impact on the country after Trump entered the primary. Democrats remain consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 11: Wisconsin Republicans felt the economy improve by 85 approval points the day Trump was sworn in. Graph also shows some Democratic bias, but not nearly as bad. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 12: Republicans became deeply negative about trade agreements when Trump became the GOP frontrunner. Democrats remain consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 13: 10% fewer Republicans believed the wealthy weren't paying enough in taxes once a billionaire became their president. Democrats remain fairly consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 14: Republicans suddenly feel very comfortable making major purchases now that Trump is president. Democrats don't feel more or less comfortable than before. Article for Context (viewing source data requires purchasing Gallup's Advanced Analytics package)

• Exhibit 15: Democrats have had a consistently improving outlook on the economy, including after Trump's victory. Republicans? A 30-point spike once Trump won. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 16: Shift in opinion of the media's utility for keeping politicians in check. Democrats reacted a bit after Trump took office (+15 points), but Republicans had a 35-point nose dive. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 17: Republicans had an evenly split opinion in April regarding whether James Comey should be fired. After he was fired, they became overwhelmingly in favor. Source Data 1, Source Data 2 and Article for Context

Donald Trump could go on a stage and start shouting about raising the minimum wage, increasing taxes on the wealthy, allowing more immigrants into the country, and combating climate change. His supporters would cheer and shout, and would all suddenly support liberal policies. It's not a party of principles--it's a party of sheep. And the data suggest that "both sides" aren't the same in this regard. Republicans are significantly more guilty. #Caveats and Considerations:

Yes, the exhibits above paint a one-sided picture. I posit that this is because the reality truly is one-sided. However, there are several things to keep in mind.

• Democrats are not immune to this effect. But the degree to which they display it seems to be significantly less. Several of the exhibits above (e.g. 11, 15, and 16) demonstrate this. Democrats do sometimes react in this manner when their party takes power, but the reaction from Republicans under similar circumstances seems to be notably larger. It would be interesting to do a meta-analysis of these studies and compare the trend of swing among Democrats to the swing among Republicans.

• There were several circumstances under which I omitted graphs from this list. I omitted graphs which were not relevant. I omitted graphs that I could not source. I omitted graphs that did not show either side reacting more strongly than the other side.

• There are indications that certain demographics which tend to lean Democrat had strong negative feelings of health/well-being immediately after the 2016 election. It is very important to note that there was no data collected about party affiliation in this study, and it is only conjecture that the groups discussed are likely to lean left. It is also entirely likely that their change in well-being wasn’t a result of party identity, but broader societal fears regarding discrimination, etc.

• In the course of building this list, I have found only one graph that showed Democrats reacting strongly to their own party gaining power, while Republicans mostly held their ground. Here it is: Democrats developed a more positive outlook on the US succeeding in Iraq after Obama took office. Republicans were comparatively consistent. Source Data. However, this comes with its own caveat: after the 2008 election, many people with strong anti-war convictions stopped identifying with the Democratic party. Source Data.

• To that last point, the biggest potential criticism of the List of Exhibits is that the trends may not be driven by changes of opinion, but by changes in party affiliation. However, if the data in Exhibit 8 are to be trusted, this would seem not to be the case. Instead, the stronger someone identifies with the party, the more likely they are to willingly change their positions to be in line with their leadership. Furthermore, at least regarding data gathered since January 2017, it looks like there’s been little shift in party identity (until October, at least): Page 14 of this Fox poll

Remarkable resilience and stoicism from these people. They didn't deserve any of this. Makes me appreciate the roof over my head.

I would like to spread some of my copy pasta on being an informed citizen, here, as I think it's relevant. As much as we take issue with media, we also need to educate ourselves on how to seek out the hard-hitting journalism you describe:

Perceived Bias is NOT an indicator of truth or falsehood in itself.

We got to where we are today because the ludicrous and absurd is normalized along with the reasonable and factual. That is, certain media outlets are in the middle-ground; but don't confuse being in the middle-ground with being objective. What happens is outlets such as CNN purport a viewpoint knowing that it's factually incorrect, but giving it equal weight/time with something more factual. When climate change was the primary contentious topic a few years back, you would see news outlets propping up these fringe groups against an academic consensus of expert climatologists. This is the problem with false middle-grounds is it can muddy the waters.

It can be okay to be biased in the informal sense; a climate scientist is absolutely biased, but a pool of knowledge and expertise informs their judgement. Conversely, the Congressman who threw a snowball on the House floor to disprove climate change... Both have a perceived bias by respective groups, but only the former has the evidence and expertise to inform his "bias."

Both the truth and ignorance tends to have a bias; it's up to you as the critical thinker to distinguish which is which.

Speaking of consensus of experts

Bertrand Russell, famous 20th century philosopher and mathematician made what I believe is a very important point when it comes to seeking the truth and relying on experts:

>Nevertheless the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The skepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

It is for this reason we submit to the consensus on things from climate change to vaccinations.

I am currently working on a guide to being an informed citizen; it's been an ongoing side project for years now. But a few of the basics:

Diversify Your News - You wouldn't write a research paper with one or two sources alone, why would you do that with obtaining information to inform yourself?

• Domestic/Mainstream Outlets: New York Times, USA Today (HQ'd in Switzerland), Time, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, C-SPAN (cable-provided as a service) etc

• Foreign Sources: Al-Jazeera English, BBC, CBC, Reuters, Der Spiegel, The Economist, UK Guardian, Deutsche Welle (DW)

• Publicly-Funded News: NPR, PBS, PRI, APM, The Associated Press (AP - Non-profit Cooperative), Duetsche Welle

• Indie-Sources: Truthout, ProPublica, VICE, The Intercept, Democracy Now!

• Fact-Checkers/Media Watchdogs: Politifact.com, Factcheck.org, NewsGuard, MBFC, MediaMatters, Fair.org

• Research/Statistics Centers: PEW Research Center, Gallup, 538.

• Photo-Blogs: National Geographic, The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture photo-blog, LIFE, The Atlantic's "In Focus"

• News Aggregators: Google News, Digg, Reddit

• Documentaries:(Find mostly on Hulu, Netflix, or Youtube). Fairly comprehensive list can be found here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com and archive.org

• (And of course, please continue to read)

Each of these serves a particular purpose and are curated based on consistency, reputation, studies (analyzing reporting on pivotal events, how informed respective audiences are, where funding is coming from, etc.), and my own anecdotal experience with them over the years. The best defense against ignorance and tinting your own lens? Remain humble and reflect on the notion that you perhaps don't know it all. And two: tap into as many different sources as possible in order to garner a Big Picture perspective. If you feel the need, you can include the mainstream cable news outlets in order to get the perspective of who else is watching them, but I don't particularly advise them.

RSS Feeds are a great way to diversify your news. You can have them dump into one feed, or I have about 24+ RSS Feeds on my browser's toolbar.

Each year, PEW Research issues a "State of the Media" report that highlights how people receive their information, and associated with this there is a lot of valuable information on journalism and the quality of sources. Their reports along with others are a part of the baseline for which media outlets I choose. For example, some key research in recent years:

• Media habits along the political spectrum; who trusts which outlets?

• What is the demographic information of a variety of major news outlets, and how informed are their audience when tested on current events?

The above links are from 2014 and 2012, respectively. I highlighted those particular studies because I found them particularly pertinent to today. Here is an archive of every report. Remember, keep in mind that no single media outlet is perfect.

Also, a while back I made the case against Politifact's verdict on Jon Stewart saying, "FOX viewers are consistently the most misinformed." You may find the many links within informative.

Familiarize yourself with Logical Fallacies - Starter

... And the triangle of rhetoric

When you challenge the ideas of others and they challenge yours, it's important to maintain the focus on the mutual pursuit of truth and knowledge rather than the competitive aspect that is, winning the argument. This is easier said than done, but mutual respect can ensure a healthy discussion where both parties walk away with new information—even if their stances have not shifted.

Any questions, please ask! This is something I'm very passionate about. Since writing this, I've made a follow-up post to this, addressing some common questions

Edit: Updated 06/28/17

Edit: Updated 11/1/19 - Added MBFC, NewsGuard, Fair.org, 538; link to Part II Follow-up post, general clean-up.

Edit: 06/16/2020:

I've had some past criticism of a couple sources, and I wanted to address the background of my choice:

There was a time I even had Real News Network on there, and on review of the list (and noting how objective fact-checkers caution against it), I've been on the fence about why I left Truthout on but removed RNN (which has better scoring). If I'm honest with myself, I had left it on because years back it was a source that helped me see a different perspective than what I was used to seeing. They did a lot of critical reporting during the Bush Jr. administration and the Iraq War and transitioning into Obama's presidency.

Then there is The Intercept. That one is very perplexing to me, which is why I leave it on there for now. Greenwald's ethos to me have been called into question in recent years. I've listened to interviews he's done and read some of his articles; and boy, he's come a long way from the days of being a reputable Guardian journalist covering Snowden. I can't help but to wonder if there's some sort of blackmail going on behind the scenes with he and Snowden having been in Russia for so long.

Edit: 9/14/2020: Added Deutsche Welle, a publicly-funded German broadcast similar to PBS or BBC.

Given this war in Ukraine, it cannot be emphasized enough how important it is that Republicans are not handed the keys to the White House, or Congress.

After all, see such sentiment commonly-expressed among Republicans at Trump rallies...

I'll further will explain why this is relevant on the world stage and Ukraine:

• Giuliani (Trump's lawyer) gave an interview at start of conflict, somehow blaming Biden with major mental gymnastics. Meanwhile:

• Trump has only praised Putin's "genius," Yet Fox News ignores this

• Observe Sean Hannity praising Putin's manliness while denigrating Obama for wearing a bicycle helmet while, dare I say it, riding a bicycle

• Kremlin memos urged Russian media to use Tucker Carlson clips

• Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praising Putin just before the invasion

• When Trump was President, he was floating withdrawing from NATO (more on this).

• Recall Trump's strange relationship with Putin, his interest in establishing hotels in Moscow, and outright requesting Russia to hack / leak domestic opposition's data ("Russia, if you're listening...").

• Trump took Putin's word over the consensus of his own intelligence, saying, "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be."

• Trump extorted Zelenskyy, who was requesting aid, in exchange for dirt on Joe Biden (leading to Abuse of Power impeachment of Trump)..

• In 2018, 8 Congressional Republicans flew to Moscow (On July 4th) and met with their government officials in a closed-door meeting.

• A month later, Rand Paul hand-delivered a Letter from Trump to Putin, the contents of which not known..

Donate, and please plan to REGISTER and VOTE for the CRUCIAL election in the US that are right around the corner. Google your state's Voter registration procedure.

Not voting, voting Republican, or 3rd-party is effectively supporting and advancing Putin's goals. (I want new parties too but our system penalizes 3rd parties as it stands). Every Democrat should be railing Republicans, particularly Trump, over this nonstop. And despite them rapidly going into damage-control, remind them that Democrats were, once again, ahead of the curve on this issue in telling them so.

------------

When I previously posted this, I received some very strange pro-Russian/Trump replies, trying to deflect attention to the fact that Trump seriously weighed attempting to withdraw from NATO.

Why does this matter? Because this is an event that won't end any time soon. I'm giving concrete steps of what the average American can do for Ukrainian citizens in the long-run, which is to ensure the strongest opposition to Russia remains out of the hands of...Russia. It's time to ensure that Pro-Russian, potentially-compromised individuals never get into the White House again.

Further Reading:

• How Putin's oligarchs funneled millions into GOP Campaigns.

• Trump admin refusing aid to Ukraine

• How the Ukraine invasion connects to Trump's first impeachment

• NRA Was a Foreign Asset for Russia

• Trump National Security Advisor, John Bolton, said Putin waiting for Trump to Withdraw from NATO in 2nd term.

Putin wants Republicans. Not good. Don't let this happen.