,

Global Reset – The Road to World War III

I stumbled onto the CommonGround website and spent some time reading and listening to what they had to say. They are a non partisan group promoting a peaceful but aware revolution. One that starts with ideas but is backed by the understanding of power and the use of force if necessary.

From their website:

Very few would disagree with the assertion that our current system has us headed for a disaster. However not everyone agrees on what that disaster will look like, and it’s virtually impossible to get people to agree on the solution. As a result forming a unified front to face these challenges has been next to impossible.

The Common Ground is an approach designed to deal with this issue.

Their core philosophy can be found here, but the main premise is that they understand that there is no way we are going to be able to agree on everything (ideologically that is) so we should break our process down into its core components, agree on at least a few of those and then move forward from there.

Their three main tenants:

  1. No more wars of aggression.
  2. End the surveillance state, and the militarization of the police.
  3. Hold the corrupt political and financial systems accountable.

Those were all things I thought I could get behind so i wanted to explore more.

If you click their Get Involved link you are directed to another video which mentions some strategy on how to get organized as well as some suggested reading. There is no official organizational structure (at least that’s what they claim in the video) and their message revolves around the idea that the leaders of the movement will present themselves as leaders by actually leading. Anther philosophy I can get behind.

I often talk about the Raymmar Revolution and part of my initial goal with this website, is to make it a resource for people who are ready to look at the world from a different perspective. I want to provide links, resources and other pertinent information that you can then use to form your own ideas and opinions about what is going on all around us.

My desire is not to get people to think like I do, it is simply to get people to understand why they thing the things they think. I want people to think for themselves and be firm in their findings. I want you to know what you stand for and why you stand for it.

I am not endorsing the Common Ground organization by any means and advise you to consider all of the information they present for yourself and come to your own conclusion. I just thought it was in line with what we talk about on this website and I wanted to share it with you.

Download the book they mention in the second video

I also grabbed a few other books on Amazon that I thought were relevant to the topic.

Subscribe-COI_full-width

Image Credit

/0 Comments/by
,

Understanding Power: Why Being Stupid Is In Style

A harsh look at the ignorance that affects our society as a whole, and an explanation for why the powerful have no problem keeping you in the dark.

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….”

― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good ―

We are all susceptible to the influence and power of others. We also crave to have it for ourselves.

We watch those who do, and all we do is hate. If we can’t have it, then neither should they. We are no longer taught to understand the power of the people so we forget what if feels like to have any power at all. Over time we start to believe that we have little or no power at all.

As a society, we have outsourced our intellect to a large group of social, political and financial oligarchs. We have given way to a new type of tyranny. Digital tyranny. A version that hides in plain sight and secretly wishes to take control of everything, including your behaviors.

We see some story on Twitter and take it at face value. We hear the satirical perspective from a social celebrity and let it shape our opinions and ideology, but rarely think to explore the topic deeper. We never read proposed legislation before it’s passed. Instead, we rely on those who wrote it to tell us how great this next new law is going to be. Instead we find ourselves fighting about left vs right, while both are nothing but wrong.

Most of us don’t know how governments are created, how they work, or how they are destroyed. Why then, would we notice that our own government is falling apart right in front of us? We pay little attention to other countries who are facing or have faced the same perils we face, so why would we pay any attention when it happens here at home?

It’s not that you are all stupid

After all, I have no Idea how smart any of you actually are. For all I know you are a 4.0 grade-getting, chess-club-running, pocket-protector-wearing, three-degree-having, bad motherfucker who knows a lot about something.

I’m just saying that in spite of all the things you know, you still have no clue as to what any of it actually means. And by any of “it,” I mean life in general.

Sure, you graduated high school, maybe went to college, got a job, got married, bought a house, had a kid, etc. But the question I want you to ask yourself is this; what do you really know about any of it? What is your purpose in life? Other than to exist that is?

“Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.”

― Napoleon ―

We’ve been trained to be idiots

You can use the word interchangeably if you’d like. Slaves, surfs, peasants, proletariat, or whatever popular label you’d like to put on the purposely oppressed people that have populated this planet over the years.

The powers that be have always controlled the people through the flow of information and we are all to happy to accept their projections as our realities. We are happy to have a place to lay our heads and we take for granted the responsibility of what it means to live in a free country.

So many people walk around thinking they know something about anything, but in reality, all they know are the things they think the know. And really, what kind of benchmark is that for understanding anything in life?

What would the world be like if all that we needed to do to flourish and to understand it was to sit around and watch? At what point are you going to admit to yourself that in order to accomplish anything, you have to go out and do something? You must learn to experience and influence the people and the world around you in order to truly elevate your intellect?

That’s the way the world works. Someone has an idea, then they do something about it and in the process of building, refining and distributing that idea, they convert it into a reality. Often creating something from nothing.

The problem is that inside of that growth comes power and with that power comes perversion.

As we begin to create and manipulate the methods of information distribution (governments, religions, businesses), power shifts to the individuals who control and manipulate the flow of that information. Often embracing the structure and benefit of power but repressing you, or anyone else from finding it for themselves. This is the problem that has lead us to where we are.

“If you are not open to the idea that everything you know might be wrong, then you are likely to be wrong about most things.”

― Raymmar Tirado ―

Think about the power that entities like Google, Facebook or the NSA have amassed recently.  All of the things we fear most about any of them are the invasions of our privacy as they manipulate the flow of our personal information.

We are seeing larger and larger power structures spring up around the flow of this precious information. As if information were becoming the ultimate and final currency. One that gives the bearer the power to control entire civilizations, regardless of their country of origin.

The first groups of man did it through grunts and chest-thumps, cave drawings, swords and story telling. Then came written languages and and eventually books. Now we have radio, television and the internet. All results of technological innovation. All brilliant in their own right, but all easily manipulated for power. All easily used to exert control over the narratives that then become the societies we live in.

Every time humanity meets a new invention that allows for the mass distribution of information we see these fluctuations in social behavior. We see new influencers emerge and old pockets of power fade. Superpowers are born, then they die or adapt to fit in with the new technology of the time.

Publishing houses, media companies, news organizations, revolutions, wars, and even new governments, all born from the desire of one man (or a group of men) to control another. The advantage always siding with whoever has the best information at the time of battle.

Winners write the history books…

So who is writing the books that are putting the thoughts inside of your head? Where did you get your understanding of life? What experiences have made you, you?

Did you get your information from the same place as everyone else or have you gone out to find it for yourself? Did you ever stop to wonder why some things stay the same while others are constantly evolving? Is it because stillness is the natural state of the universe or is it because man has intended those things to remain stagnant.

It seems to me that the universe and nature itself is always changing and evolving, always adapting to the most efficient version of itself. Why then, have we as a society stalled when it seems we should have everything we’ve ever needed to solve all of the problems we’ve ever had?

Why does it seem like humanity is sliding backwards?

Why does it feel like we are regressing as an entire species? Why can’t we make meaningful change, and how come there seems to be less-and-less on which to rest our hopes on as more-and-more changes take place around us?

How is it possible that we are still letting the same flaws that have hindered humanity since the beginning of time slow us down when everything around us seems to be speeding up?

Is it really so hard to believe that the people who would want to control you would also rather you remain ignorant. They prefer you that way. It makes the process of keeping you under their control easier. This is what we must resist.

This is the unrest we are starting to see all around us. We are watching as the established powers, fight to defend their existing control over the flow of information, while new methods of distribution pop up faster than they can be shut down.

You are seeing information fight to be free but these fights always end in ferocious battles. Sometimes in the courts but often in cold blood. And every once in a while, in grand scale with a global war.

Their power will be protected at all costs and we must no longer be willing to accept that as our reality. We must wage this war of ideas now in order to stop the oppressive war that waits for us at the end of inaction.

In what America was just-good ever good-enough?

In order to drive any meaningful change you must be willing to go hungry, to be bored. You must be willing to be uncomfortable, to do what is difficult and refuse what is easy.

It’s hard to let your intellect evolve. It’s hard to admit to yourself that you have been wrong about the things that have felt so right your entire life.

It’s almost impossible to make those changes alone. So for most of us things will stay the same, that is to say, until they’re not.

One of these days the changes will affect you. They will finally make an impact in your life and your reality as you know it will be revealed as ridiculous. You will be left running and screaming for help as if the sky were just starting to fall. But in that moment you will know that it is already too late.

In that moment you will know that your ignorance has finally failed you.

What do you think about ignorance and power? Let me know in the comments below.

Eric Liu: Why ordinary people need to understand power

A friend sent me this video as I was editing this article and it goes right along with my greater point so I thought I would share.


Subscribe-raymmar-cta

/11 Comments/by
, , ,

Together Alone

I am working on a video for this poem but I decided to share the audio now instead of waiting a few months or however long it takes to produce the video. The concept is relevant considering our social situation and well, I’m also kind of impatient like that.

I am interested in creative collaborations, so please, feel free to download the audio above and use it as a backdrop for your footage. Then share the link with us and maybe we will publish it on our site. Be sure to attribute the audio properly in your video.

Send submissions or any questions to: submit@Raymmar.com

Scroll down for the poem text.

 

The Poem

I stand beside you and feel all alone staring at my feet, then down to my phone.
Maybe inside of this small screen I’ll see, a friend thats been patiently waiting for me.
Someone who “likes” the things that I write but still no one’s here when day turns to night.
But no matter how long I stare at that phone, I still end up feeling completely alone.

Then I look at you and it seems to me, that you are as popular as anyone can be.
How do you make the friends that you have, and why do I never see you feel sad?
Is it that you’re so much stronger than me or is there something else, a thing I can’t see?
But there you sit holding your phone, and I Instantly wonder, if you too, are alone.

Could we all be lost, together as one, always connected but friendships with none.
There is a mass of we’s and a slew of you’s, but its getting harder to find the few who are true.
Everyone wants but few want to give, everyone dies, but not all of us live.
So unplug your mind and set down that phone, we can’t solve these problems together alone.

Image Credit


Subscribe-raymmar-cta

/2 Comments/by

Alexis de Tocqueville on Soft Tyranny

I am reading the book “Liberty Amendments” by Mark Levin and this is a quote that he references in the beginning of the book. I have read some de Tocqueville in the past, but this quote resonated with me. Alexis de Tocqueville’s was a French political thinker and historian, most famous for his work Democracy in America.

It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Alexis de Tocqueville

I encourage all of my readers to read up on American history, political philosophy and discover for themselves the nature of the problems we face as a nation.

Our current state of affairs has nothing to do with Democrats vs Republicans and everything to do with the government inserting themselves into our lives as the grand puppeteers of society.

They will not break our will all at once as many expect. This big moment where things are totally different is never going to come so many people are left thinking that things are as they always have been.

In reality, they have been doing it slowly over the last 100+ years. They have created overbearing legislation and burdensome regulations. They are slowly suffocating us of our freedoms. Like the frog sitting in a pot of boiling water, we are unable to notice the gradual change in temperature, and by the time most of us realize that the water is boiling it will be too late.

Maybe it’s already too late? What do you think? How do you propose we turn things around in America?

Learn-about-coi-full-length-2

Subscribe-COI_full-width

/13 Comments/by
, , ,

An Inspirational Illusion; The Art of Hard Work

The power of mind over matter.

This is a short video about hard work and the illusions that we sometimes imagine when we see others succeeding or doing something we think we cannot do.

For so long I have pretended to be able to solve a Rubik’s Cube when in reality, all I was doing was looking for a specific set of patterns and then executing a memorized sequence of moves in order to make the cube whole again.

A skill that anyone could learn to do if they if they put their mind to it. However, any time I did this in public, it would appear that I was solving one of the most difficult puzzles known to man.

“They would never know my secret and the illusion of intellect is a powerful sword to swing.”

So often in life we give up on ourselves because we automatically presume that we are not smart enough, fast enough, tall enough or strong enough.Whatever the self imposed hurdle might be, it is usually set by we.

The individual has become weak and it is about time we started believing in ourselves again. It is about time we admit that we are usually the biggest reason for why we cant get anything done in life and then start doing something about that.

After making that realization, we can actually start to move past ourselves and towards success.

Video Script

I wrote the script for this video a while back and now that I bought my own camera you will start seeing a lot more content like this. Please share this with a friend and leave your comments below. 

This is my Rubiks cube…

I’ve had this Rubik’s Cube for more than 15 years.

Some people think that you can solve it by pulling off the stickers, but it doesn’t take too long to figure out that swapping the stickers isn’t a real solution.

When I got my first Rubik’s cube, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to solve it legitimately but then I discovered a little trick.

I realized that I could take the cube apart and reassemble it in the right order.

There! Good as new. No one would ever know the difference, that is, as long as I was alone when I did it.

So much for that little trick.

I was determined to find a way to solve the cube in plain site. I wanted to be able to stand in front of anyone and do something that no one else they knew could do.

So I went back to work.I spent hours trying to solve that damn puzzle, but I still couldn’t figure it out… until, I did.

I was searching for instructions online when I learned that there are a number of patterns that you can recognize, along with a series of moves that you can memorize, in order to solve the cube from any position.

I learned that there were turns and twists that would allow me to move a piece from one side of the cube to the other without disrupting the rest of my progress.

After a few months of practice I had it down cold, and for more than a decade I have let the world think I could solve a rubiks cube in under 5 minutes.

But why does any of that even matter? Who cares whether or not I can solve a rubiks cube legitimately.

What difference does it make when I am standing right in front of you solving it?

All that matters in that moment is that I can do it, and unless I’ve told you this story or you’ve watched this video, you’d simply think that I was solving one of the most difficult puzzles know to man.

So the next time you see someone doing something you think is amazing, something you think you could never actually do, I want you to stop and think about this story.

I want you to ask yourself whether they’re actually doing something amazing, something you are simply incapable of doing, or whether they’re just doing something that you are not willing to do?

Text on screen to close video

How hard are you trying to do the things you think you can’t do?

 


Subscribe-raymmar-cta

/2 Comments/by
,

Solving Problems Like A Psychopath

The Importance of Learning to Control Your Inner Killer

In this podcast we explore the power of a positive attitude and expose the human predisposition to being controlled as a species.

– Highlight any text in this article to tweet it directly –

As always, if you want to skip over the introduction, you can do so by jumping to the 1:40 mark. Just remember, a polar bear will be left stranded on an iceberg every time someone does this.

1:40 – The Power of Positivity

Pretending to be positive is a powerful way to impact the world around you.

Most sales people are trained in the art of pretending to be positive but it is something that we would all be well served to learn. People underestimate the impact that positive thought can have on the lives of the people around them. Especially if you can find a way to stay positive on a regular basis.

When you understand that we all have problems that we are dealing with and that complaining about your particular problems does nothing other than push the people around you away, then you can finally start to see the real power of positive thinking. Even if you struggle with the execution early on.

Now, I am not talking about stupid, overbearing, goofy-faced pretending. I am talking about genuinely believing that things in your life are good and will get better. Start believing it or others will see it for exactly what it is. Fake.

The truth about happiness – Read the full article

3:09 – The slave mentality

Humans have delegated their entire existence to external controls. Everything outside of entertainment and the facade of education that is. We have given up on trying to understand the world around us and how it really works and instead accept whatever the popular belief is, regardless of how easy the truth might actually be to access.

We have given ultimate control of our lives to the government and we have become slaves to our elected leaders and the corporations that place them.

We are slaves to our lives, jobs, debt, drugs and on and on.

The perversions of our attitudes and over all psyches have been so completely corrupted, that we are actually satisfied in our slavery. The lack of individual accountability has put is in a precarious place as a population and the uninformed masses that make up the membership of that new majority are dragging us all towards mediocrity.

solving-problems-like-a-psychopath

“The world is a very dangerous place. Not because bad people do bad things, but because most people do nothing.” – Albert Einstein –

5:50 – It’s a cancer really

The distractions have been purposeful and direct. What we are watching sprout up around us, is the fruit of more than a hundred years of hard labor. The culmination of closet communism in America. Something that the whole world seems to be running from, while we  (America) run towards it with open arms.

The good news is that people are waking up to the truth. Every day people like you are listening to podcasts like these and reading articles like these to learn more about what is really going on in this country.

I think more people need to be reading and exploring the history our founding, where we came from and where we are going. Understand the ultimate fallibility of man and the inherent nature of large societies to self destruct. It has happened over and over again throughout history, yet we continue to accept it as if everything were ok.

8:10 – How to claim your superpower

Becoming bulletproof is important to finding your place in the world. Learn how to be comfortable in your own skin by finding beauty in your individual flaws. So many of us are worried about what is going on in the world of others more than worrying about our own world as a whole.

How to claim your super power – Read the full article

A community of support

None of this is going to be easy. It is up to you to apply and execute these ideas as they apply to your particular place in life. If you want to dig deeper and join the conversation then register as an early adopter and then join us in the forums.

10:18 –  It’s not always easy

It is important to understand how powerful a shift you can make in your own life (as well as the life of others) by allowing yourself to commit completely to making these changes. To convince yourself that you are actually able to do it.

You may have to fake it before you make it early on, but I promise that over the time, you will love the new, freer, you. The people around you will love you more too. They will actually be able to see you. Maybe even for the first time.

12:05 – Let’s not pretend that pretending is always enough

Just pretending to be positive is not going to cut it.

Some days you may have to go to war with yourself, all on your own. Depression and self imposed hurdles are real, and pretending to be happy is never enough. Eventually you have to buy into the idea of actually finding fulfillment in whatever it is you are trying to do and let it consume you from the inside out.

13:45 – What if money didn’t matter?

What if we just give everyone a million bucks? Think about it.  It would cost pennies on the dollar compared to the level of debt we are burying ourselves under as a society and it would instantly free us all of the constraints of our current monetary monopoly. Or would it?

You might think that by giving everyone a million dollars, you’d make everyone rich, but what it would really do is expose the trivial nature of the mirage we call money. Imagine how devalued the dollar would become if all of a sudden, it was all actually spendable, by you and I, the average person.

Flooding the market with that much cash would expose the nature of our monopoly money. It would make the entire system instantly irrelevant. It just goes to show how perverted everything about our monetary system actually is, and why it is important that the average American do a better job of understanding the monetary policy that has enslaved us all so effectively.

15:50 – A cure for depression?

Disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist and you should not take my thoughts as mental health advice. I am only offering my perspective, insights and personal points of view that has helped me cope with my depression personally. 

Acknowledging the dark thoughts and exploring the evil nature of your negative emotions is an important step in your development as enlightened individuals. You have to explore the boundaries of your positive and negative thoughts, if only in your own head, in order to understand the limits of what someone else might do without your level of control.

You have to learn that those dark thoughts and the crazy voices in your head are just other parts of you.You must learn to embrace and control them, just as you control any other part of your emotional interactions in life.

Depression can make that difficult but these theories can help. Take it from a guy who has struggled with depression his whole life. These tips may not cure your depression but they can definitely help you understand and manage it.

You also have to understand that these emotions do not define you. You can have these thoughts and know that they are not in control of your actions. Exploring these thoughts in depth is really the same as exploring the other thoughts and desires for knowledge that you might have through life. All a part of the insatiable curiosity I try to inspire with the content on this website.

18:20 – Solving problems like a psychopath

Embracing these thoughts and learning to use them as pieces of the bigger puzzle that is your life, can really help set yourself free. Many powerful professionals and personalities have characteristics that are common among psychopaths.

Buy the book – The Wisdom of Psychopaths

Knowing and understanding those boundaries will allow you to understand that there is real evil in this world. An understanding that can lead you to strength and eventual mastery of the thoughts in your head.

20:00 – Are you even capable of succeeding

So many times we are responsible for holding ourselves back. While the whole world is waking up to the idea of mass slavery, America (the one place on earth where people actually found freedom) is succumbing to a type of soft-tyrannical control.

21:10 – Getting fucked

It is your responsibility in life to not get fucked.

Not that I am excusing the people who are doing the fucking, but it is ultimately your responsibility to provide yourself with an adequate defense against all of the fuckery in this world.

Each of us enjoys a certain level of chaos, so it is natural for us to find comfort inside of a certain level of it, but more often than not, you are the very reason why you will never do anything amazing with your life.

23:50 – Why you should think about robbing a bank

Seeing the world from the perspective of a master criminal allows you to see all the angles.

When you allow yourself to see the world as if you were trying to rob it blind, then you can see where all of it’s weaknesses are masterfully hidden.

This is the same reason hackers are important to website security and why master criminals make great informants. They are uniquely qualified to exploit the flaws of whatever system they are tasked to sabotage, and then find creative ways to fix them. This is the very approach I propose  for solving problems in life. It is the reason for this podcast and a large  reason behind much of what I do.

I think the average person walks around this world completely clueless to what is going on and I plan on doing all I can to reverse that trend.

 

/13 Comments/by
, , ,

Has Your Entire Life Been A Lie?

“We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.”

Denis Diderot

Highlight any text in this article to share it with friends.

Why do we walk around pretending like the whole world is telling us the truth when most of the time, we won’t even tell ourselves the truth.

We accept lies every day. From the world, from the government, from the media, from our friends, from our family and mostly, from ourselves.

We tell ourselves that we will get-to-it-tomorrow, or maybe we’ll send that email later, let me just mark it as un-read real quick.

We have all heard the excuses, “This is the last cigarette. I promise…” or “I haven’t had that many drinks, I’m good to drive.”

The truth is that we lie to ourselves every day. Shit, many of our memories are lies. Our brains are notoriously inefficient at creating accurate records of our life experiences. Sometimes we just fill in the blanks for ourselves.

Over time our imagination can even shift our reality. We start interjecting our own opinions and begin to mold our own memories while re-writing the past. Eventually our new version becomes the truth.

We lie to ourselves about past lovers and romanticize the experiences. We dwell on that someone we just broke up with, someone we couldn’t live with, yet somehow, can’t seem to let go.

We know it’s over. It probably should have been over a long time ago but we can’t bring ourselves to pull away. We live the lie of love, and love to live the lie.

[ted id=16]

We use lies to protect us from ourselves and to soften the blows from reality. We allow lies to excuse our behaviors. “Just this once…” because, “You know me, I never really do things like this!”

I’m not saying it’s right to lie, and I’m not saying it’s necessarily always wrong, I’m simply saying that it is. It’s hard wired into each of our brains and it is something we all do. No matter how much you want to pretend not to.

We don’t need to be taught how to lie, we just do it. We’ve known how to lie ever since the fist time we fucked up. From the first moment your mom looked at you with that face. The face that till this very day means only one thing. Brace for impact!

“I don’t know what happened…” or “it was the dog! I swear! Cross my fingers hope to die, stick a needle through my eye!”

Anything to deflect the truth. Anything to save face. But at the end of the day, we know what is right and what is wrong.

We all know what we should have done or how we should have done it. More likely than not we even knew how we should have done it, while we were doing it, but we still made the wrong decision.

[ted id=420]

Sometimes we even pretend to know what is best for our friends while we can’t even figure out what is right for ourselves. Something called the “Solomon Paradox” Instead of pushing ourselves to be the best, we’ve become ok with just “fitting in” with the rest.

We then shower praise upon the people who live inside of the very screens that stream the majority of these lies directly into our lines-of-sight. The actors and athletes, the affluent and the elites.

Forget working hard, just become famous. That’s what the cool kids are doing. Just do something silly, have sex in the street. Sell your soul to the devil and maybe you can get a spot on the next hot reality show.

We set our eyes on the spoils of those who have and instantly think of ourselves as the have-nots. We accept the lie of a level playing field and then lie to ourselves about why we can’t succeed on it.

We deserve our share after all! We want what they have and we would have it if only things were a little different. If only life wasn’t so hard and the world wasn’t out to get us! Poor, poor us. Whatever will we do.

Life is made up of these little lies. Things that you get to discover as you go. We love lies, fairy tales and falsehoods. We all pass them on, like a bad plague, from generation to generation.

We allow ourselves to be shackled by lies. Controlled by the system in which we live. For god’s sake, our entire monetary system is a complete lie. Digital ledgers of ones and zeros that for some reason we continue to believe in.

We lie to ourselves about why we can’t get a new job or why we can’t lose those last few pounds. Why we don’t have enough time to get it all done, or… wait, what was I saying? Hang on a sec, while I have some more fun.

The problem with lies is that they become complicated. One day you look back and you’ve wasted your youth, all of a sudden you don’t know which part of your life is a lie and which part is truth.

The world was flat, and then it wasn’t.

The sun revolved around the earth, and then it didn’t.

We knew each of those things to be true for hundreds of years before they were commonly accepted as fact, yet at the time, many still believed otherwise.

Like many before us, we have allowed lies to tear through our entire society like rust. Slowly eating through all of the structural components and now, finally out onto the surface. Leaving the entire structure weak and ready for collapse.

The truth is that our whole lives have been lies, and we are supposed to remain stupid. We have been played and will continue to be played until we decide to create the change we seek. Pawns in this game called life.

And sometimes those distortions lead to something good. Because well intentioned shifts in thought based on deeper understandings and new information, can often lead to great innovation; but sometimes it get’s out of control.

Sometimes that distorted reality can bring down an entire society.

Sometimes that house of cards collapses and brings everyone else crashing down with it. And you’d be believing another lie if you thought it was not happening again. Right now, and all around you.

And that right there, is nothing but the cold hard truth.

 

/12 Comments/by

5 Things You Shouldn’t Forget About This 4th Of July

A quick exploration of 5 things we would be well served to remember a little more regularly.

Today is the anniversary of our independence as a nation. A day where we will all gather to grill out, watch fireworks and maybe drink a few too many beers. All under the false pretense of celebrating an event that many of us know little about. An event that my generation has taken for granted, and would be well served to remember a little more regularly.

Today…

I want you to take a minute and think about the things that you don’t think about most every other day of your life. I want you to think about why you don’t consider them a little more closely and then think about what an amazing freedom it actually is to not have to think about it. Now imagine it gone. Exactly, I don’t like the thought of that either. So before you crack open your first brew, and before you start blowing off all your bottle rockets, take a minute and browse these 5 things we celebrate on Independence Day , yet forget daily.

1 – Our Independence Is Still Important

We should make sure not to forget that our differences are neither about opinion, nor moral belief. They’re about freedom. We forget that “all men are created equal” regardless of race, color, creed, or religion. We forget our freedoms did not come free and we forget how fragile those freedoms actually are.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.” – Jim Morrison-

2 – “We The People…” Means You and I

Read more from Grace about why “We The People…” Are the Problem. Please do not forget that we must first be the kind of leaders we want to see leading our government. We have to paint, with permanent ink, the words “with liberty and justice for all” on our future generations . If we want to see American values survive over the ages, then that means we have to stand up and use our voices!

“As we look over the list of the early leaders of the republic, Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, and others, we discern that they were all men who insisted upon being themselves and who refused to truckle to the people. With each succeeding generation, the growing demand of the people that its elective officials shall not lead but merely register the popular will has steadily undermined the independence of those who derive their power from popular election. The persistent refusal of the Adams’ to sacrifice the integrity of their own intellectual and moral standards and values for the sake of winning public office or popular favor is another of the measuring rods by which we may measure the divergence of American life from its starting point.” – James Truslow Adam-

3 – The Real American Dream Is Dying

We must not forget that the real American Dream is not just about buying a two story house, having one and a half kids, building a white picket fence, and getting a dog. We are allowing doors to be closed that we fought so hard to open, “from sea to shinning sea,”. But where is that fellowship when the fireworks fade?

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” – The Epic of America –

4 – Freedom Never Was & Never Will Be Free

We cannot forget why The Declaration of Independence is so important. It was intended to declare that the individual should be free from the oppressive tyrannical rule of power hungry politicians.  It declares that each of us is endowed by our creator (regardless of who you think that creator might be) with certain inalienable rights. Democratic, Republican, Conservative or Liberal? No! “We are the people, and we are being played.”

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” – Declaration of Independence – 

5 – United We Stood – Divided We Failed

Most importantly, we must not forget that we are “one nation, indivisible” not a bunch of segments of society, divided and displaced! United we stand and divided we’ll fall . . . and we’re falling fast. When the holiday is over, we’ll return to our norms of complaining, rallying, debating, and “who scammed who” talk – forgetting why we stand bold in our freedoms.

‘My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

“If America is to be a great nation, this must become true! – Martin Luther King, Jr.

We have stood by and watched while the nation we love is destroyed and abused and stood by as these freedoms we take for granted are slowly being taken from us. It’s time for a change, America! A real change, not just some overrated rally cry. We must stand behind the laws, freedoms, and values of our land! Our soldiers have fought, our families have scarified, our children have seen tragedy and death, and now, its time! Let us all take a stand!

“The great value of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it. – James Truslow Adams –

Learn-about-coi-full-length-2 Early-adopter-blog-bottom-2

/3 Comments/by
,

Corruption, Cover-Up, Controversy; The IRS Scandal For Dummies

I have not done a political podcast for a while. mostly because my views have been changing quite a bit over the last 4 months.

Listen to the full recording to hear me describe the evolution of my political perspective in a little more detail.

Why cover this?

Considering my platform, and position on the current state of political affairs, I could not ignore what was going on with the current IRS scandal in Washington. It has me in disbelief as I sit here and watch this administration tell lie after lie. I just couldn’t sit quiet and neither should you.

Please share this podcast and article with your friends and let them know it is time to realize that we are in deep shit as a country. 

Raymmar’s Rundown

So here is what is going on with the IRS scandal and why this it is absolutely ridiculous for anyone to think that this recent “hard drive failure” is just a coincidence.

This is the same administration that told us that the attacks on Benghazi were started because of a YouTube video. For two weeks they told us it was a video and then it all turned out to be a lie.

You can keep your healthcare. Lie!

I am going to shut down Guantanamo bay. Lie!

I am going to get our country out of war. Lie!

Taxes will not go up. Lie!

Lie, after lie, after lie!

This administration, which claimed it was going to be the most transparent administration of all time, has turned into one of the most power hungry and tyrannical administrations that the American people have ever seen.

To round it all off, back in 2013 it was discovered that the IRS was using its powers to target conservative political organizations and other right-leaning non-profit organizations, especially if the words “Tea Party” were in the organizations name.

IRS-scandal-bias-graph

IRS Targets Conservative Groups – Click image for source reference.

Now, a few weeks ago, we find out that a bunch of emails, that just so happens to correspond with the time in question, have gone missing from the hard drive of the woman who was at the head of the IRS when it happened.

1. Shannon Bream, filling in for Megyn Kelly on Fox news – Start at 0:19

Announcing that emails were announced missing by John Koskinen and deemed to be unrecoverable.

Let me explain how these large email servers actually work and why they couldn’t have just disappeared. These systems are backed up daily, backed up across multiple servers and stored in multiple locations. There is so much redundancy in a system like this that there are probably back-ups of the back-ups. To think that these emails just disappeared is preposterous. Or is it.

What about the people who received the emails? Did those computers all crash too? Have we forgotten that in order for an email to work it has to be received as well as sent. What happened to the emails on the other end? Why can we not run the entire database through a search query and look throughout all of the other computers for emails sent by Lois Lerner and find them with a reverse look-up process. Seems logical to me.

The other thing that strikes me about that last clip is that only one out of every eight Americans that think this is suspicious. How can you look at this information think that this is anything other than a cover up. This is simply a pitiful attempt to cover up the even larger conspiracy, which is that this administration was systematically picking off its political opponents by means of regulation, excessive audit and general molestation by the Internal Revenue Service.

We have seen the IRS grow by more than 16,000 agents just to enforce the healthcare legislation and if this is any indication of what conservative groups will be facing in the years to come, then there is a lot to be worried about.

2.  Mark Thiessen – From  American Enterprise Institute on Fox News. – Start at 5:59

Now apparently, the Democrats are in a tizzy too? Give me a break. Again, this is just part of the game and I predict that both sides of the political aisle will come together to cover this up because there is too much at stake here. The IRS is the largest weapon the government has to control the people. It is the system by which all of their revenue is collected and to think that anyone of them is going to let something bring it all down then you have another thing coming.

What we will see is a “bi-partisan effort” to get this scandal under control and bury it any way they can. Probably in the upcoming 4th of July weekend which I think is even more ironic. As we watch our liberties slowly disappear, we also celebrate the anniversary of our independence.

To make things worse, we also find out that 6 other employees, who are also under investigation have miraculously had their emails disappear as well. How stupid do these guys really think we are?

This is absolutely absurd and it just goes to show the level of corruption that we have allowed to take over this entire government. Think about how corrupt the entire system must be for them to think that they can get away with something like this.

The crazy part is that they probably will. Much like the other lies and cover-ups from this current administration, this will get swept under the rug and we will all forget about it soon enough.

This is what happens when you get government organizations with unchecked power. The IRS has had unrestricted rule for a while, and now we are watching the Executive Branch take their lead and step out on their own. They are taking more power and making congress more and more irrelevant every day.

3.  The arrogance of Obama talking to Bill O’Reily. Start at 0:50

Back to President Obama last year. In this next clip he is talking to Bill O’Reily about the IRS scandal and asking why Douglas Shulman, former IRS Chief had been to the White house so many times over the last year? 157 times to be exact.

Listen to the arrogance. Look at his face while he sits there. He can not believe that he is being asked these questions.

It seems like he is asking us why we won’t just sweep this under the rug? Do you hear what he is saying here? He is literally wondering why we won’t just let them bury this. His face screams “Why are you asking me so many questions?”

First of all, lets look at the number of visits to the White House from the head of the IRS. 157 to be exact. And we are to believe that he didn’t meet with this guy once? Not even to say hi? I find that hard to believe.

If you would like to see more about who is visiting the white house and why it matters then click here.

This is nothing new though. President Obama has a long history of allowing his political operatives access to the White House. Andy Stern from SEIU has been there more than 20 times, 677 Billionaires have come to see Obama in the white house out of 1326 logged visits. Throw in another 50 for top political donors and a couple other hundred misc donors, lobbyists, etc and it is not hard to see a pattern in the type of political games that are being played here.

Obama then goes on to tell us “That is not what happened.” He expects us to believe him as if he never lied to us before. “There have been multiple hearings on this.” he says, although there has been no conclusion or verdict reached and there is no hard evidence to refute anything other than this being a scandal. Now you throw in these missing emails and things really start to get suspicious.

“It only comes up because people like you keep bringing it up.” Obama continues, talking about how it is O’Reily’s fault that people are still talking about it. As if it is the medias fault that this is still an issue. Again, telling us to just let it go.

Later in the video,  President Obama passes the blame to the political organizations inability to understand the tax law and then goes on to say that there is “not even a smidgen of corruption.”

I agree that the tax law might be complicated but how come there were so few liberal or left leaning organizations caught up in the confusion? If it was just a difficult law, then you would think that there would be at least some level of fallibility from groups on both sides of the political aisle. But that is not what is going on here. The majority of the targeted organizations were conservative or right leaning which points to this having been a planned political attack and not just a fluke.

You have to watch the whole clip to appreciate the presidents complete arrogance while being questioned. In the podcast, I try to point out his laughter and smugness but it is plain as day in this video.

4. Obama calls IRS scandals phony. Start at 2:18

Check out this montage of Obama and his press mouthpiece calling these scandals phony.

It is like he is telling us to just quit paying attention. Seriously, these are just made up scandals and Washington problems. He wants us to believe that there is nothing to see here. No need to bother yourself with this. Just go back to your Kardashians. Does anyone have a line on the next sext tape?

So now this is a phony made-up scandal, but somehow the missing emails are real, and they just happen to be from the time in question. Additionally, 6 other employees that are also under investigation have had this mysterious corruption affect them as well.

It’s all just too difficult to believe if you ask me. I think that the average person paying attention would also be hard pressed to think that this was actually just a mistake.

5. Jon Koskinen talking to congress. Start at 0:00

In this video, temporary head of the IRS Jon Koskinen, is finishing up his prepared testimony in front of congress.  He then goes on to talk about how all of the emails after the investigation are still there. As if anyone actually ared about the emails that have been sent since the event.

I couldn’t listen to it for much longer than a few minutes but I was astonished at what I heard in that short time.

What I want to know is what these guys are hiding from us? Why won’t they produce those emails? And how out of touch must they actually be, if they think we are going to believe this line of crap.

We are coming up on a point in history where we either stand up or we get run over. The people in power are getting bold and if we let this go by then they will know that they can get anything over on us. If this thing goes unsolved then they will know that they can lie to our face and tell us whatever they want. We will eat it up and the media will be right there to help them sell it to you.

I remember growing up as a kid and learning about the Watergate scandal. I remember thinking about how crazy it would be to see a president resign and how the people of that time must have felt. What is happening now makes Watergate look like a joke and if you think this is something that is just happening in the IRS then you would sadly mistaken. This is something that is systemic and this level of inbred corruption has infiltrated every level of our political establishment.

Where are the people in the streets? Where is the outrage from the public?

At what point are people going to realize that this is all a charade. When will we realize that the elites are finally getting bold enough to do what they have always done. They are staking claims to their power and soon we will lose any semblance of what is left of the republic. This has little to do with a technological failure and everything to do with power and corruption. This has all happened before because all societies eventually self destruct. We just happened to learn how to do it faster than most might have expected.

Image credit

So what happens next? Will they just sweep this under the rug and let it go or will we actually get an answer? Will there be any change? Leave your thoughts in the comments or click below to join us in the forums.

Join the conversation about this topic in the forums
/5 Comments/by
, , ,

Why You Should Avoid “Fitting-In” At All Costs

Why fitting in is not what it seems and why you should avoid it at all costs.

You see them all the time.

The cool people.

The person you wish you could be.

The people we all wish we could be.

We look up to them, want to be them, wish we could grow up to be… “Just Like Mike!”

The people who convince you that you can only be cool if you look, act and do what they do. Eat, drive and play like they do. Fuck, slut and strut, exactly like they do.

More and more in society we deify these individuals and prop them up on pedestals, in place of ourselves and our peers.

Instead of promoting the exploration of a deeper inner-consciousness (one where we might actually find ourselves) we promote a collective unconsciousness. One that that has infected our entire society.

We find ourselves entertained by our lack of education and enthralled by our erotic inclinations.

We exalt the men who make us think that in order to fit-in we must give-in. They make us feel like we should relinquish our thoughts and accept theirs instead. I mean, everyone else is already doing it. You want to be like the rest of the class don’t you?

You know who I am talking about: The politicians, corporations, large religious organizations etc. Basically anyone who’s agenda it is to manage the masses. The ones who hide their message in plain sight. The ones who tell us we’re wrong any time we try to fight.

They lurk all around us. Tempting us to give up our hopes in exchange for theirs. Convincing us that individual endeavors are arbitrarily inappropriate. That if you really want to “be cool” you’ll think about the collective. Sacrifice yourself for the greater good. Fit-in to get-in. You know the rules.

The basic concepts behind the game haven’t changed since you were in elementary school. The stakes however, those have changed. Dramatically.

Now we’re playing for keeps. We are playing for souls, and life-savings. For products and for professions. We are allowing our whole lives to be played like pawns in a game. Small steps forward, always at the command of someone else.

The cool people have always liked to collect other cool people. The “elites” always entice the masses with the simplest of notions. But it is the independent thinkers that live on the outside of their influence that make them worry. The ones who stand free from the restriction of their opinions. The few who think for themselves.

We make them feel uneasy about their intentions, even if their intentions are good. But take note, it is rarely the well intentioned who plead for you to “understand.” It is often those who would lead you astray that would have you change your way.

The cool kids are always worried about what brand of clothes you are wearing and the make and model of the car you drive. They want you to worry about possessions because things are beautiful distractions. But us? We ask you to convince yourself. We pass on our information and then suggest you look more than skin deep. That you make an effort to find the answers on your own.

We must not label ourselves on the premise of “have” and “have-not,” but instead on the concept of “does” and “does-not.” We must base our interactions on what each of us as individuals are contributing to society as a whole. Forgetting about how we can fit in and focusing instead on how we can bend the world around us.

In what way can you make a mark? How can you make the world want to fit in with you? In what way can you move the masses? How can you turn the tables on the establishment?

Because the truth is that the majority of people in this world will never lose a minute of sleep thinking about you. They will not care whether you are depressed and want to kill yourself, can’t get laid or can’t get paid.

Whatever it is that is holding you back is your own puzzle to solve. It is up to you to go out there and make the best of whatever circumstances life has dealt you. It is up to you to look at life and the world as something more to explore. It is up to you to make yourself impossible to ignore.

So if you ask me, (and I know you didn’t) I say “Fuck the cool kids,” those assholes always run away when things gets hard. Forget about fitting in and go find yourself instead. I bet we’d all like that version of you a lot more anyway.

Image Credit


Subscribe-raymmar-cta
30DOT-feature-image-CTA

/5 Comments/by
, ,

4 Life Lessons I Never Learned, And Probably Never Will

Why you shouldn’t learn them either and why it is time we started playing this game called life by a new set of rules. A message to the establishment.

Skip to the 2:00 mark to bypass the intro. But beware, a baby panda will fall out of a tree every time someone does this.

Life is always trying to teach us lessons. Some worth learning, others, not-so-much.

My generation definitely has it’s flaws. We are not perfect but we are humans. That means that more likely than not, we are simply symptoms of our own environments. Environments that you built for us.

I wonder, if you have even once, considered blaming yourself for the mess we’re all in?

I wonder if these lessons you keep trying to teach us are not specifically intended to hold us back; I wonder if you knew what you were doing all along?

1

“You really should learn to keep your mouth shut!”

Oh really, how has that worked for us in the past? It seems to me that keeping your mouths shut is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. You must have seen what they were trying to do. You must have wanted to scream out yourself. Why would you tell me to shut up? Why would you think that just because you were willing to be silent we should do the same?

I say scream louder! I say that when a stranger comes around you and tries to bend you over backwards and have their way with you, you should scream as loud as you can. I say you should do whatever it takes to get away from that attacker. Why wouldn’t we teach that lesson to the perverted factions of our existing political and corporate structures? Should we sit here and let you have your way with us just because you sat their and let them have their way with you?

2

“You need to eat some humble pie!”

Humble pie? Really? This coming from the monster who can’t quit telling me how great their product is? Pardon me if I ignore a message on humility from the same people that put professional athletes on pedestals while paying our educators a pittance? Excuse me while I ignore your “Do as I say, not as I do philosophy.”

You wouldn’t know humble if it smacked you in the face so why would you expect us to (1)  know any different and (2) care, even if we did?

The system you designed is built around breaking out of our humility. You have taught us to love the taste of our own egos and we feast on them regularly.

We enjoy giving up our privacy and selling ourselves short. We enjoy our addiction to technology and we accept your propaganda as our reality. Just as long as the illusion of independence remains. But, I see your hypocrisy and I reject it.

3

“What do you even know? What have you really done in your life?”

What do I know? I know that we have sat by for far too long and watched you destroy this once great nation.

I know that you have perverted the free market and sold us all into the slavery of debt.

I know that your thirst for wealth, and gluttony for greed has lead to the most unstable economy in human history.

I know that you have made it impossible for us to find employment and infinitely more difficult for us to try and make it on our own.

I know that we may be young, but we have seen enough. We have watched you bastardize everything, with complete disregard for that moment when someone has to pay the piper.

We might not be good at a lot of things, but we are good at watching, and we have watched a lot.

We have watched an entire generation rot its brain on television and pervert itself on the internet. We have been complicit in burying ourselves in mindless entertainment and massive sporting spectacles. All in an attempt to distract ourselves from facing the harsh truth.

We fear that to be wrong means that we have failed, but it really just means that we are getting better at being people. It means that we have learned from our mistakes and are ready to turn from them. We are ready because we can no longer just sit and watch.

We can no longer watch you gorge on the earth and devour the resources that are supposed to sustain us all.

We can no longer watch you spend money as if somehow, we were never going to have to repay this debt.

We can no longer sit and watch you take us into wars, under the pretense of profit, or pride. We will no longer watch as you meddle with the middle class as if we were yours to play with.

We will no longer watch as you corrupt and infect the entire system of governance. We will no longer elect leaders that are purely puppets at the end of strings. Strings on which the large corporations can pull, any which way they want.

We will no longer sit as a society, stupid, and blissful in our ignorance.

We have sat silent for far too long.

4

“Wait your turn, you just need to pay your dues!”

Wait our turn? If we wait any longer there’s not going to be anything left to have waited for.

You don’t want me to pay my dues, you want me to pay your dues.

You want me to pay the same price you paid to get to where you are. The problem with that strategy, well one of them, is that you falsely assume that I want to be where you are. You think that we all need to do it like you did it.

You want us to play by the rules you played by because after-all, that is what you did and that is how the system is supposed to work.

You remember when you were my age and you were forced to eat your pride. You hated every second of it, but now it is your turn to pass on this despicable trait. It is your turn to have your finger on the trigger. You worked hard and waited a long time for this so who the hell are we to get in your way? Who are we to try and stop you?

Like the alcoholic father who beats his son, and the son who swears to never become that man. But the pawns have been played and the son soon finds himself as a drunken dad, with his own son bent over his knee and a belt gripped tightly in his hand.

It is the only thing you know.

It is what you have taught us and is the example you that have set.

You do not consider how the world has changed. You have not changed with it and you have not allowed us to change. You have stolen from us. In resources and in principle.

You refuse to admit that the way we did things has no relevance on how we can do them now. Very few things that were, still are, and even less of what is left will survive the next shift.

Do you not see what is happening? The system in which you are so desperate to have us play, is falling down all around you.

We have let you lead us down the wrong road for too long. I will not shut-up. I will not “do things your way,” and I will not stand by as you continue to abuse and enslave me, my generation and the ones to follow.

It is time you learned a few lessons. It is time that you learned something new.

Fuck your game!

“This is not how the game is supposed to be played!”

Your game is rigged. I am not sucking your corporate cock just so you can tell me how much money I don’t get to make. I will not let you dictate how I live my life, when I wake up, what I do every moment of my life and how I do it. I’m not going to let you sit there and watch, while I do all the work and you take home all the money. This is not the game I signed up to play.

I say we throw them all out. I say we show government and corporations alike that we are still the American people and that they should still fear us. We are here to hold them accountable now.

Instead of sitting here and blaming us for being lazy, stupid and ideological, I’ll tell you to look in a mirror and blame yourself.

You were the one who thought you could control us. You were the one who allowed the government to treat us like dogs. To pit us against ourselves and distract society from the perils of a populist agenda.

You are not allowed to get mad when the dog chews on the furniture, destroys your belongings, and digs up all the dirt in your backyard. You may not be angered when we tear the fence down and desire to run free.

But us? We get to be plenty pissed off!

You had the excuse of ignorance. But that is no longer acceptable and we now require results!

We will not learn your lessons. We will not play your games. We will not shut up, and we most certainly will not compare our accomplishments to yours.

Success should be measured on how solid a foundation one generation can lay down for the next. And by those standards, you have royally failed.

Sincerely yours,

#GenerationNext

#RaymmarRevolution

Subscribe-raymmar-cta

/1 Comment/by

We The People… Are The Problem

Grace Durbin takes us on an exploration of human behaviors and why more often than not, we (humans) are at the center of what ails us as a society.

We have problem America . . . And It’s Us.

It’s convenient to focus our vexation at our country’s ever-present adversity on impractical venues such as government. After all, we can vote, complain, rant and rave, post bumper stickers, and invest in campaigns, but we really can’t change much. Yet, what do we do in an effort to make changes? We find someone who resembles ourselves, carries our morals, and will do what we want them to do (we think). Then, we go vote for our hopeful savior; signed, sealed, delivered! Whew! We did our part! Now, what’s for dinner?

Six months later . . . we’ll find ourselves right back where we started.

We’ll point to the president, news and media, Wall Street, guns, drugs, poverty; anything to keep us from looking at the real picture:

“We the people” are the problem!

The solution begins with us. If we cannot make a change there, then we shouldn’t even bother showing up to vote, because we have already failed!

After my previous article, I found myself engaged in many debates about guns. Soon, I realized I was saying the same thing over and over again,“We have a people problem.”

The more I thought on that, the more media stories flooded my mind, and they all had a common denominator . . .

People.

Recently the Slender Man case that’s been monopolizing the media has sparked the ethical debate of whether or not children should be tried as adults. As I watched the masses respond, I was appalled. Of course it was a horrible tragedy, but among the comments were remarks such as, “Hang em’!” “Death penalty!” “It’s a shame what our children have become!”

Yet, didn’t we establish and sustain a justice system specifically for juveniles? Didn’t we do that because they are, indeed, children; by the same age limit we established as law! Children have not changed. We have changed. We’re not legally focused anymore. We’re emotionally charged! It’s justice/revenge to the full extent of the law! But . . . What about those two 12-year-old girls? Didn’t we create that law to protect them, too?

People.

Not long before that, I found myself shocked that an elementary school student’s Gender Identity Disorder made the media, announcing how a boy had returned to school as a girl. I was angered by every media outlet that felt it was okay to make her a hot topic for debate, but I was even more upset at the people. Again, I watched as the comments filled the thread, “This nation’s going to hell.” “That’s why homosexuals shouldn’t raise kids.” (The child was raised by a loving mother and father.) “I don’t want my kids exposed to that!”

Yet, do we not still fight for freedom? Have our forefathers, sons, mothers, fathers, not died defending our freedoms for every American citizen? Like selfish fools we disregarded her privacy, her vulnerability, her age, her disorder, her family, and we did what we do best, America! We made it all about us, that same word again . . .

People.

“American Schools Are STILL Racist,” wrote, Joy Resmovits for the Huffington Post. I can’t get the beginning of that title out of my mind. Why didn’t this article go viral? Why weren’t we angered by that? Who stood up to make a change? Who took action? Who talked about racism with their children?

Why are we not angered, enraged, to see any adult take his fists to a child, even if that child is a teenager? An adult is 18 years of age as defined by law! How do we stand back so smugly and announce on public networks, “That bus driver can drive my kids to school every day of the week!”

Then we look at ourselves, our nation, our families, our children, and we wonder what we’ve become and where we went wrong?

WE THE PEOPLE!!

That means all of us- you and me.

It means: if we want our schools safer we should keep our homes safe.

If we want our streets free of crime, we need to be crime free, and teach our children the same!

If we want guns to be controlled, we need to control guns within our homes.

If we want our children to love and respect others, we should love and respect them and others, inside our home, at the dinner table, on the phone, in conversation with friends; when we’re happy, mad, tired or stressed!

It means that if we want change as a nation, we have to change as a “people!”

Time is of the essence.

We cannot stand back one more second and believe we have the right to shake our heads at our young people while setting such a poor example, of the heart of America, ourselves . . .

Not when the most important culture this country thrives upon starts at our own front doors.

Image credit

Subscribe-to-raymmar-com-master

/14 Comments/by
, ,

What If The World Finds Out I’m A Fraud?

I am willing to pay whatever the price may be, for being unabashedly me.

– Highlight any text in this article to tweet it directly –

So… What’s Your Biggest Fear?

I was with a friend the other day, and as I was about to leave she asked me a simple question.

She looked me straight in the face, and asked me what I was afraid of.

She caught me a little off guard with that question, and I said to myself, “This bitch is trying to be my mamma.”

I couldn’t tell if I was bothered because of the nature of the question, or because I felt like maybe she could already see the answer.

I puffed my chest out like a proper macho-man and said, “I am not scared of anything!”

But then, I started to think

My heart sunk into my stomach as I came to the realization that I did have a fear. A huge fear.

One that I have trained myself to ignore, but a fear none the less.

But let’s back up for a second, I have a confession to make.

I am a total failure

I actually admit that proudly, and like to get it out of the way early.

I don’t usually lead with it, but hey, this is a blog, and not an HBO special, so I don’t have much time for character development.

Learn more about Raymmar

I have failed repeatedly in my personal life, my professional career, and definitely in my political perspectives.

Quite frankly, I’m sure I will continue to make mistakes. Lots of them. I’ll continue to stumble, because this is the life I have chosen to live.

I will never apologize for being who I am or how I am, but this does not answer the question at hand.

I’m really good at faking it you see

I can twist you and bend you however I want.

The power of coercion is strong in this one. It has been since I was young.

Maybe that’s why I found the world of sales so comfortable. I felt right at home in a world where all that mattered was whether or not I made the sale.

It was easy for me

Living in a lie seemed normal. It seemed like everyone was doing it.

I’d do whatever needed to be done in order to get what I wanted. The problem was, I had no idea what I wanted.

Maybe that’s what led me to build a house of cards on top of all of those lies.

Maybe it’s that line of thinking that led me to believe that I could be happy in the life I was building, or maybe that is why I sat there that day with a gun in one hand and a phone in the other, wondering whether to pull the trigger or call for help.

Maybe that is why I am writing this article today. Maybe I was unwilling to admit it back then.

Maybe I was unwilling to admit that I was wrong, so I pushed forward. I pushed with no regard for the price that would one day have to be paid.

But that was then, and this is now.

That price has been paid.

In fact, I am still paying. It cost me 10 years, a wife, some strife, and almost my life.

It has pushed me to accept and reject many things about myself and the world around me.

It has forced me on this path that I am on, but this, again, does not answer the question at hand.

You want to know what I am afraid of now?

You want to know what I’m scared of today?

I fear that one day I will become successful, and the world will look at me as if I were a total joke.

I fear that one day I will stand at the top of this mountain I am climbing, and people will say that I lied, cheated, and stole to get here.

I fear that they will say that I hurt others in order to help myself.

I fear that the whole world will get to look at the person that I really am, and then decide to destroy me because they can no longer control me.

You see, I have faced all of my fears

I can honestly look you straight in the face and tell you that the only thing I fear anymore is finding out that I actually am a fraud.

That I am incapable of doing what I set out to do.

I am scared that at some point, I will have to turn back and admit defeat.

I am afraid to find out that the guy who “faked-it-til-he-made-it,” actually made it, and he won’t know that it is okay to stop pretending.

I am afraid that I won’t recognize success, and that I will keep on thirsting for more.

I am afraid that I will never find true happiness because of my inability to truly let people in.

I am afraid that I will be unable to realize that once you fake something for so long, it’s no longer fake, it’s just you.

I am afraid that one day it will all come crashing down again, but that this time I won’t be strong enough to handle it.

But even that doesn’t really scare me

Up until now, I’ve done this all before. I have been on this road, and I know where it leads.

I might not be able to see around the bend, but I have memorized the map.

I adjusted my approach in order to come around the corner just right: at just the right speed so as not to fly off the edge of the cliff.

I will make the turn, hammer the gas, and never look back.

This time is going to be different.

This time, I am becoming successful by being myself, and that is what scares me.

I am scared to be walking around this world naked – emotionally, and otherwise, completely unprotected, yet somehow entirely prepared to take the arrows and to face the consequences.

I am willing to pay whatever the price might be, for being unabashedly me.

There will be no shield, no barrier, no buffer between me and the real world.

No one to blame for my failures but myself…and that, my friends, is absolutely terrifying.

Image Credit

What is your biggest fear? Let’s talk about it in the comments below.


Subscribe-raymmar-cta
30DOT-feature-image-CTA

/28 Comments/by
, ,

Understand Bitcoin: How To Print Money And Not End Up In Prison

An adventure in digital currencies.

Please excuse the vertical video and sound quality. This was an impromptu video that I grabbed quickly at the end of the day.

Why write this?

I recently spent the day in a high security, anti-static, temperature-controlled data center where I watched one of my clients set up the beginning of their commercial Bitcoin mining operation.

The world of digital currency is evolving quickly and can be quite confusing. I thought my readers would appreciate learning a bit more about Bitcoin and what it might mean for the future of money.

Watch the short video and then read on to learn more about Bitcoin.

The basics of Bitcoin

About 4 months ago I started talking to a company that needed help building an online presence for their Bitcoin start-up. They wanted to build a commercial Bitcoin mining operation and to be completely honest, I was totally clueless about Bitcoin.

I had heard of Bitcoin, but I really had no idea what it was. I had a rudimentary understanding of cryptocurrencies and considering my stance on limited government, found myself leery about the thought of a digital currency going main-stream in America.

Being the good capitalist that I am, I went out and dove head first into understand this new technology called Bitcoin. I was interested in not only landing a new client, but in learning more about this thing that has so many people taking sides on the future of money right now. I wanted to learn more about the technology that could revolutionize the world of finance, and forever change the internet as we know it.

I figured that since I regularly mention Bitcoin in my podcasts, and miscellaneously on this website, I should also try and help you better understand Bitcoin. I thought I would take this as an opportunity to give you a look at the new frontier that is digital currency. I ‘ll do so by pointing you towards the resources I used while getting my Bitcoin learn on and then breaking it down in a little more detail.

Listen to this

This is hands down, the best resource I have come across for understanding Bitcoin in one single sitting.

Joe Rogan and Andreas Antonopulos take you on an in-depth journey to help you understand what Bitcoin is, how it came to be and why you need to know about it.

If you are serious about understanding Bitcoin, then this is a great first step.

Seriously, listen to the whole show. They talk about how Bitcoin could disrupt the entire economy while fundamentally changing the way the world thinks about money.

“The combined computing power of all Bitcoin mining operations has exceeded that of the top several hundred super-computers on earth combined.”

 – Andreas Antonopulos

Visualizing the global spread of Bitcoin

How to get involved in Bitcoin

There are a few different ways to get involved in the Bitcoin community.

As A Developer:

Since Bitcoin is an open network of peer-to-peer computing power, there is an opportunity for growth in the form of third-party software applications that will allow you to interact with and use Bitcoin inside the daily life of the average person. You will soon start to see cryptocurrencies and digital dollars being used more and more throughout our favorite apps, as well as being integrated into the payment portals that we are all already used to.

Bitcoin is open source, just like many other online projects,which means that anyone can get into the back end and look at the code, make modifications and otherwise try to improve on the system. This is not to say that you could just go in and change the whole Bitcoin network architecture, but you can definitely find ways to innovate with this new technology.

Much like social media was an evolution of communication and the internet, Bitcoin is the evolution of money and information exchange. We will see software and online applications that allow us to creatively use the technology behind Bitcoin to do everything from eliminating identity theft & simplifying accounting to allowing for a secure form of digital voting.

These concepts might be a little difficult for you to wrap your head around if you are new to Bitcoin and I wont take it too far since this is an entry level article but you should know that Bitcoin is as much an invention as it is anything else. It is an invention of information and is just the first of many digital inventions revolving around the exchange of information that we will see emerge in the next 50 years.

As A Miner:

At this point in time, it would be pretty difficult for you to make it rich as an individual miner of Bitcoin. The main reason is the ever increasing network difficulty but the price barrier to mining on your own is pretty steep too. Bitcoin mining computers are highly specialized machines that are expensive and go obsolete faster than your average computer, typically lasting less than six months. The speed and pace at which people are building these mining computers is overwhelming and it is hard to think that the manufacturers are not the ones who are laughing all the way to the bank right now.

The high price point makes it difficult for anyone without access to substantial financial resources to get involved in mining Bitcoin with any real effectiveness.

This was not always the case though. It’s really the main reasons I find Bitcoin to be so interesting. There are so many people who have made millions in Bitcoin while it was still young that it is truly a new frontier for entrepreneurs trying to find a way in a world of digital currency. However, those days are pretty much over.

What we are seeing is the emergence of large scale commercial Bitcoin mining operations sprouting up all over the world. You even have manufacturers of Bitcoin machines who will mine with their own machines for anywhere from 24 hours to a few months before shipping the units off to their clients to install in their data centers.

It has become next to impossible for an individual to compete with the hashing power of these large commercial operations or the against any number of large Bitcoin mining pools around the internet.

If you still want to get involved as an individual then you can join a Bitcoin pool, or invest in an online mining contract but this is a high stakes game.

The volatility of the market and large fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin make this a very risky investment. Any investment in Bitcoin should be done so with the full understanding that you could lose your entire investment overnight.

As A Consumer:

This is probably the safest and most likely place for the average person to get involved. Don’t believe me?

An excerpt from this article on Mashable – BitPay Now Top-Funded Bitcoin Startup After Raising $30 Million

Those investors included some impressive names. BitPay raised funds from Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang, Founders Fund, a VC firm started by PayPal cofounder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel.

So basically, the big boys have noticed. The IRS recently ruled on Bitcoin which gives the currency some level of credibility and now we have some big money players getting into the game.

The next step will be when a major financial institution announces that it is working on a Bitcoin integration strategy and then you will know that this is not a test. It really is just a matter of time before transferring money digitally is as common as sending a text. Whether you want to pay attention or not this “Bitcoin thing” is making a substantial impact on digital commerce and will find a way into our lives moving forward.

Talking with a Bitcoin miner manufacturer

One of the most interesting parts of my day at the data center yesterday was getting to meet Yoshi.

Yoshi was here from China and was helping Digital Mining Investments set up their Ant Miner computers. The stories he told me about fraud in the Bitcoin business and the competitive nature among the manufacturers of Bitcoin mining hardware in China should be enough to scare anyone away from Bitcoin. There are plenty of companies out there trying to do it right but there are always those who want to take advantage of new trends.

He is the one that told me about the manufacturers who run their machines for a month before sending them out to their clients and he also told me about the diminishing return and exponential difficulty of becoming a Bitcoin miner. Since the machines are only good for a few months, the manufacturers of mining equipment are actually manipulating the market by controlling the total available flow of Bitcoin miners.

This is a baby currency but where there is money there is manipulation and Bitcoin is no different. At this point the manufacturers are at a basic level controlling the money supply in Bitcoin and reselling their machines to unscrupulous miners who really have no recourse since most of these manufacturers are based in China.

Yoshi laid it out in plain term that soon the shift would be away from directly mining for new coins (what happens when all Bitcoin are mined?) and then the play would be for institutional control of the Bitcoin network. Instead of mining they would be validating transactions and collectiong the transaction fees. Something that (as we explained earlier in the article) the individual miner would not be able to maintain due to the overhead involved and constant maintenance. The larger organizations can scale the operation and that is what you might see some of the larger hashing operations convert to after that point but that is a lot of speculation in a market that fluctuates so wildly each day.

Yoshi told me that the manufacturers would begin to buy up market share for processing capabilities. Think of Visa’s digital infrastructure. How are all of those transactions handled across a global network? They need infrastructure right? Even after all 21million bitcoin are mined the Bitcoin network will still have to validate all of the transactions that are happening on the system so it will actually be necessary for someone to step in and continue to bear the cost of running these massive computers.

Couple this with the fact that returns are harder and harder to come by for an individual and you can easily see how Bitcoin could become institutionalized and evolve into another household name.

But what about the fraud

Much like any major societal shift, the transition to digital currency is going to take us a while to figure out.

Think about the scams that happened when people first started selling products online.

Think about the phishing scams that were so prevalent when email first came around and how hesitant you were to put your credit card on the internet.

That was all just a few years ago and now we are checking balances online, sending money via text and depositing checks with the flash of a camera.

The American Dollar is used for a large amount of fraud across the globe and some might argue that banks are legally defrauding all of us anyway. Why would there not be fraud in the evolution of a digital currency.

We still deal with counterfeit dollars and people who want to steal and manipulate real paper currency on a large scale so why wouldn’t someone want to do it with Bitcoin as well.

Fraud is fraud, people are people and that is not going to change. Whether we are dealing with cash or a digital currency.

The cool thing about Bitcoin is that it gives us some unique tools to deal with fraud and theft, but those are for another article.

Should you get involved in Bitcoin?

This is a decision you will need to make on your own. Me? I think digital currencies or cryptocurrencies will be a big part of our future whether we like it or not.

As technology evolves and becomes more ingrained into our lives and daily routines, it’s hard to think that we won’t eventually relinquish our grip on a paper currency that is backed by a corrupted government. It’s not like a lot of people trust the dollar right now anyway.

It might not be Bitcoin itself but some form of digital currency will find its way into our lives in the immediate future. I still have my reservations about all of it and I will continue to approach the issue with a healthy dose of skepticism but that skepticism is quickly fading as I learn more and more about the inner workings of what might end up being the most influential inventions of my generation.

Got some thoughts about Bitcoin? Want to ask a question about Bitcoin? Leave it in the comments below and I will do my best to find the answer and get back with an answer.

subscribe with face and or else line-thin

 

/1 Comment/by

A History of Social Media & The Future of Politics

The purpose of this article is to explain the social media adoption curve, the growth of the internet as a whole, and to help you understand how it will all affect the American political machine moving forward.

A Brief History of Social Media

Social media is a broad term. Social media websites are quickly becoming the communication hubs for new, digital nations. Nations which are forming all around us right now, without borders or geographic reach. Places where people can come together to interact and engage each other freely, share ideas, and gossip about life.

They have become real time forums for exchanging information, pictures, status updates and even piddly little arguments. And let’s not forget the amount of business that is transacted on the internet each year. They have become a large part of our pop culture and a primary means for the majority of internet users to interact with each other, even from across the globe.

The question then becomes, what will the next evolution of technology and social communication look like, and how will it affect the world around you? And more specifically, for the purpose of this article, how it could affect the next major American election cycle.

As web technology evolves, and the web becomes more interactive, it becomes easier and easier for the average person to get involved and make an impact. For some punk kid like me to come out of nowhere, and reach an audience that was only possible as part of a big boy media network.

This evolution of technology and innovation is empowering the creative class like never before, and it does’t mean that the big boys are going away anytime soon, but it does open the doors for a digital revolution. But for now, back to the topic at hand.

Social Media Adoption Timeline

In order to truly understand the speed at which everything is moving, let’s look at the major milestones in the timeline of social media development over the last 20 years. For more social media stats, click here.

1994

  • More than 1,500 Web servers were online in 1994 and people were referring to the Internet as the Information Superhighway.

1995

1997

  • The Web had one million sites.
  • Blogging begins.
  • AOL Instant Messenger lets users chat.

1998

  • Google opens as a major Internet search engine and index.

2000

  • In the world of business and commerce, the dot.com bubble burst and the future online seemed bleak as the millennium turned.
  • Seventy million computers were connected to the Internet.

2001

  • Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia and world’s largest wiki, was started.
  • This is also the time Apple started selling iPods.

2002

  • Friendster, a social networking website, was opened to the public in the U.S. and grew to 3 million users in three months.
  • AOL had 34 million members.

2003

  • MySpace. another social networking website, was launched as a clone of Friendster.
  • Linden Lab opened the virtual world Second Life on the Internet.
  • LinkedIn was started as a business-oriented social networking site for professionals.
  • There were more than 3 billion Web pages.
  • Apple introduced the online music service iTunes.

2004

  • Facebook, another social networking website, was started for students at Harvard College. It was referred to at the time as a college version of Friendster.
  • MySpace surpassed Friendster in page views.
  • Podcasting began on the Internet.
  • Flickr image hosting website opened.
  • Digg was founded as a social news website where people shared stories found across the Internet.

2005

  • News Corporation, buys MySpace.
  • YouTube began storing and retrieving videos.
  • There were more than 8 billion Web pages.

2006

  • MySpace was the most popular but Facebook would take away that lead later, in 2008.
  • Twitter was launched
  • Facebook membership was expanded and opened to anyone over age 13.
  • Google had indexed more than 25 billion web pages, 400 million queries per day, 1.3 billion images, and more than a billion Usenet messages.

2007

  • Microsoft bought a stake in Facebook.
  • Apple released the iPhone multimedia and Internet smartphone.

2008

  • Facebook surpassed MySpace in the total number of monthly unique visitors. Meanwhile, Facebook tried unsuccessfully to buy Twitter.

2009 

  • Facebook ranked as the most-used social network worldwide with more than 200 million. The site’s traffic was twice that of MySpace.
  • Unfriend was the New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year.
  • By this time It’s estimated that a quarter of Earth’s population used the Internet.
  • Google saw one trillion unique URLs — after eliminating duplicate entries.
  • The Internet had at least 27 billion web pages and could have had as many as 58 billion web pages. They changed so many times a day it was nearly impossible to count.

2010

  • Facebook’s rapid growth moved it above 400 million users,
  • Apple released the iPad tablet
  • The Democratic National Committee advertised for a social networks manager to oversee President Barack Obama’s accounts on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
  • It was estimated the population of Internet users was 1.97 billion. That was almost 30 percent of the global population.
  • This was also the first time the Internet had surpassed newspapers as a primary way for Americans to get news,

2011

  • more than 550 million people on Facebook, 65 million tweets sent through Twitter each day, and 2 billion video views every day on YouTube. LinkedIn has 90 million professional users.
  • Public sharing of so much personal information via social media sites raised concern over privacy.
  • It was estimated Internet users would double by 2015 to a global total of some four billion users, or nearly 60 percent of Earth’s population.

2012

  • Some 2 billion people around the world use the Internet and social media, while 213 million Americans use the Internet via computers while 52 million use the Web via smartphone and 55 million use it via tablets.
  • People also connect to the Internet via handheld music players, game consoles, Internet-enabled TVs and e-readers.
  • The top ten social networks are Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, MySpace and Wikipedia.
  • More than half of adults 25-34 use social media at the office. Almost a third of young adults 18-24 use social media in the bathroom. All use social networks to stay connected with acquaintances, be informed and be amused.
  • Advertisers look to social “likes” to enhance brand visibility.
  • Facebook reached a billion users in 2012.

The Age of You Tube:

  • YouTube has more than 800 million users each month with more than 1 trillion views per year or around 140 views for every person on Earth.
  • Seventy percent of YouTube traffic comes from outside the U.S.
  • YouTube is local in 43 countries and uses 60 languages.
  • 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute with more than 4 billion hours of video watched each month on YouTube.

2013

  • YouTube topped one billion monthly users with 4 billion views per day
  • Facebook user total climbed to 1.11 billion. 200% growth in 2 years
  • Twitter had 500 million registered users, with more than 200 million active.
  • LinkedIn had 225 million users, while MySpace had 25 million users.
  • Pinterest had 48.7 million users, while WordPress hosted 74 million blogs.
  • Dropbox had more than 100 million users with 1 billion files uploaded daily.
  • Google+ had 343 million users.
  • Reddit had 69.9 million monthly users, with 4.8 billion monthly page views.
  • There were 156 million blogs. Blogs, online videos and podcasts continue to be staples for marketers.

Where do people use social media?

An Australian survey found that as a percentage, social network users logged on…

  • 34% at work
  • 13% at school
  • 18% in the car
  • 44% in bed
  • 7% in the bathroom
  • 6% on the toilet.

Social Networking Fact Sheet

Highlights of the Pew Internet Project’s research related to social networking.

 Click here for a link to a current version of these stats and the source for this graphic. 

As of September 2013 — 73% of online adults use social networking sites

  • 71% of online adults use Facebook
  • 18% of online adults use Twitter
  • 17% use Instagram
  • 21% use Pinterest
  • 22% use LinkedIn

In May 2013, 74% of women were users of social networking sites, compared with 62% of men.

For a detailed demographic portrait of users of various social networking sites please see this recent report, Social Media Update 2013.

Early Adopters & Growth Curve

It is not hard to guess that the earliest of adopters were the 18-29 age segment which is made up mostly of millennials.

Between February 2005 and August 2006, the use of social networking sites among young adult internet users ages 18-29 jumped from 9% to 49%. Social networking site use by age group, over time:

As it stands now, the total percentage of 18-24 year olds who already use social media is at 98%

Mobile Adoption

As social networking sites grow and evolve, so do the means of accessing them.

Mobile phones are quickly replacing desktops and laptops as the primary means of accessing the internet as well as interacting with social media applications. Native iPhone and Android apps make up a large part of direct traffic to each of the major social networks, and many are starting to design their entire experiences with mobile as their number one priority.

A battle for eyeballs which is taking place right in front of our eyes.

40% of cell phone owners use a social networking sites on their phone, and 28% do so on a typical day.

Social-networking-on-mobile-phones

Holy shit! That’s some social growth!

Social media is upon us in full force. Furthermore, as trends continue to develop social media will evolve and become a larger piece of the entire internet culture.

As websites begin to implement more social features and developers find ways to make the process of building social websites easier for the average person, you will see an almost imminent adoption of niche style social networks built around small, targeted interests.

“Instead of lobbying happening in the back rooms in Washington, it will take place all around us.”

Privacy concerns will continue to grow, and security will become an even more important part of our daily internet activity.

Masses will flock to seek shelter from spying governments and over powered online collectors of information such as Google and Facebook.

We are on the precipice of a new economic explosion. One where information dictates your status in society and your ability to control and manage your digital presence is becoming something we all need to worry about.

 

From here forward, I’ll be explaining some of my theories on how all this information will come together in the future, to help you understand the progression of social media and the effect it will have on our entire political system.

Voter demographics

Who votes?

 

Social media is good for online discourse, but in the real world. people who show up have all the power. Something that social media has failed to replicate. At least for now.

That being said, lets look at some voter demographics and find out if the same people that are using social media are actually voting and what conclusions we can draw based on the growth trends of social media and the voter turnout trends over the last 20 years.

Voter turn out by age 

This is a chart illustrating voter turnout by sex and age for the 2008 US Presidential Election. The source is the U.S. Census Bureau. I used the 2008 election because it was the highest voter turnout in the last decade. It also represents the last election before mass adoption of social media and as we discussed already, there were massive disparities between the two sides of the political aisle and their social media adoption rates. Disparities that have grown exponentially since the 2008 election.

Voter Registration vs. Turnout by Age

This chart takes a look at voter registration, turnout, and turnout-of-registered trends across the past four presidential elections in the United States: 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. The data come from the Current Population Survey and are smoothed to reduce the variability across age due to survey sampling. — source

Voter-registration-and-turnut-by-age

Voter turn out year over year 

A comparison of year over year voter turnout over the last 18 years. The bold text indicates it was a presidential election year.

YEARVOTING-AGE
POPULATION		VOTER
REGISTRATION		VOTER TURNOUTTURNOUT OF VOTING-AGE 
POPULATION (PERCENT)
2012240,926,957NA130,234,60057.5
2010235,809,266NA90,682,96837.8
2008231,229,580NA132,618,580*62.3 
2006220,600,000135,889,60080,588,00037.1
2004221,256,931174,800,000122,294,97860.4
2002215,473,000150,990,59879,830,11937.0
2000205,815,000156,421,311105,586,27451.3
1998200,929,000141,850,55873,117,02236.4
1996196,511,000146,211,96096,456,34549.1
1994193,650,000130,292,82275,105,86038.8

Read more about these numbers: National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2010 | Infoplease.com https://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html#ixzz2x0wTNOtb

There was a substantial drop in voter turnout from the 2004 and 2008 elections which is interesting because this correlates with a massive increase in the social media timeline. You can also look at the difference between social media presence between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. Obama had Romney beat by a substantial margin which might have helped demoralize the republicans and decreased their excitement to even vote, feeling that the election was out of their hands already.

I feel like this more than anything was the value of social media in the last few elections. They served more as a demoralization engine, making the other party believe they had already lost. Leave out the arguments about the weak candidates as that theory only increases the effectiveness of poor social strategies. President Obama and the Democrat Party used Social Media flawlessly since its inception and there is much to be learned from them. More than I could ever cover in this short report.

Much like the mainstream media, social media will have to be mastered by any politician hoping to compete on a national stage moving forward. A shift that will leave some of the existing political class a little exposed and scrambling for help on their campaign teams.

Voter confidence levels

Do people still believe in their elected officials?

The american people are absolutely fed up with the federal government. With an insatiable thirst for power and an inability to spend within their means the United States Government has completely lost touch with its citizens and the voter turnouts reflect their lack of confidence. Voter apathy and overall engagement are down because the Amreican people have been beaten into thinking that nothing they do matters. All the decisions are to be made in Washington and the people be damned.

Presidential approval ratings are down, congressional approval ratings are down and most Americans would be ok with throwing all of Washington DC out on their asses. How come no one is talking about term limits for everyone? How come no one is talking about anything drastically different than what we have done to get us up to this point.

No matter how social politics gets, there is no changing anything until engagement and political education as a whole increase across America.

Presidential approval rating over the last 4 years

In this next chart, you can see the timeline of voter confidence in President Barack Obama as determined by ABC’s Voter Confidence Index.

presidential-approval-rating

Congressional approval rating over the last 5 years

This chart shows congressional approval ratings since 2009. The highest they have been at any point since then is 39% which is disgusting in and of itself, even if you do not take into consideration the current low of 13% and the all time low of 9% congressional approval which we set at the end of 2013.

congressional-job-approval

The American People Are Just Fed Up and Tuned Out

The overwhelming majority of America feels that their voice is not making a difference and they have completely tuned out. They are made to feel like they cant make a difference which then creates a self fulfilling prophecy.

By looking at the charts of the social adoption levels by age and comparing them to the average voter demographics you start to see that the majority of younger voters, although involved in social media are not necessarily voting at the same rate. This might lead you to believe that social media is not that effective in swinging a major election but that would make you really wrong.

As you can see by the information below, Barack Obama had an overwhelming advantage over Mitt Romney in regards to social media in general. With this kind of ass kicking online, it is easy to see how much of the voter base for the opposition might have felt defeated already.

 

View original infographice on inc.com

We like to pretend

Because my generation likes to pretend that they are involved, they will share the pretty stuff with their friends. Apparently, we only care about skin deep, so send out a tweet with a cool picture and some catchy words on it and you got us hook line and sinker. No way we might actually care about the meat of the issue, we’ll just forward it on as the truth. Even worse is their assumption that we wouldn’t be able to understand the issue. Maybe that is why they treat us like they do. Maybe we are too stupid to understand, after-all, we do keep making the same mistakes over and over! #GenerationStupid

If you plan on running a successful campaign, either nationally or regionally, you need to master the art of marketing and making effective social connections. Design, messaging and copy-writing are all things that must be part of a strong online campaign in order to have a chance against a social media savvy opponent.

Politics is evolving and so is the battle ground of ideas. As technology creeps into every facet of our lives we will have to fundamentally shift the way we recieve, interact with and are impacted by, information. We are seeing it in all facets of life, and politics will be no different. It just so happens that the people who run the political world are not the ones who run the social sphere… yet.

Politicians need to understand that they should be using the same tactics they would use for a strong inbound marketing campaign. the same concepts that help drive people to take action online are the same tactics that can drive people to the polls. Companies are adopting it by the masses and any politician who wants to have a chance moving forward would be well served to do the same.

The future of Politics 

As we enter into an age of massive information we will see the political playing field be expanded, shifted, morphed and manipulated in ways that we have not even thought about. Well.. maybe you have not thought about it yet but this shit keeps me up at night.

The next few segments will cover my thoughts on the current information age, how it is being used as a political tool and where this road we are on leads us.

We live in an Information Age

In 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt did an interview with Tech Crunch in which he talked about the rate at which we are generating information. The excerpts below give you a taste of what is coming but even this is almost 4 years old.

Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says.

“The real issue is user-generated content,” Schmidt said. He noted that pictures, instant messages, and tweets all add to this.

“I spend most of my time assuming the world is not ready for the technology revolution that will be happening to them soon,” Schmidt said.

In this article from science daily they tell us that upwards of 90% of all of the worlds data has been generated in the last 2 years.

These numbers are astounding. What this really means is that we are just barely stepping into the world of being able to dissect and understand all of this data. As I mentioned before, businesses, politicians and more importantly governments are all scrambling for ways to collect, understand and exploit the data they are collecting.

Information is the new currency

Related: The Future of Sales: Understanding Information as a Currency

The more information we generate, the more people will scramble to find interesting ways to assemble, analyze and monetize that information. Because of this you will see a whole new world of digital innovation.

We are on the precipice of a technological revolution that will fundamentally change the entire world much like the industrial revolution did. This is not a dot.com bubble or anything else. Inventions will be made from the assembly of massive data sets and artificial intelligence will eventually predict the future.

This is some world changing, god making, human breaking type shit. As we reach a point where technology and humanity collide there will be a fundamental shift in the value and understanding of currency. It will no longer be based on fiat (paper) money, but it will be about the secure exchange of information from one place to another.

Your value to the world will be based on your ability to gather, or produce quantifiable and actionable information. How many data points can they get from you in order to know you more completely. Just like Amazon serves you the products you want, and Google tailors your search results based on your overall browsing patterns, the information you give other people will help them understand you completely. This will in turn lead to them being able to control you completely.

As information becomes more instant, web bots and sophisticated artificial intelligence will become better at predicting large patterns of human behavior. There will be a time where the pulse of the people will be able to be taken in real time. Where crime will be predicted before it is committed and where our individual rights to privacy will be a distant memory as we are video taped, recorded and monitored at an unimaginable pace.

The future of America and politics in a post social media world is an interesting one to say the least. There are many things to learn but the one thing to keep in mind is that it is anyone’s game at this point. It is up to us to decide how we use this technology and whether we let it become part of the status quo, or whether we use it to flip the entire system on its head!

The personalization of politics

As politicians learn to use online relationship building to get closer with their voter base, the need to be more transparency and the ability to hide from your constituents will become more difficult. I see a future of truly transparent politics that will be made possible by technology.

Imagine being able to hold your politicians accountable in real time. Imagine if there was an app that showed you their voting record and allowed you to chart it against their promises. What if you could even immediately give feedback to your elected officials. Imagine really giving the power back to the people by forcing our elected officials to serve the people as opposed to themselves.

As technology evolves and we get better at understanding how to take advantage of this network that is the internet, we will see an evolution in many things. I predict the digital voting debate is not too far around the corner and there are many more evolutions to come.

Right now there are very few people with the budget and infrastructure to take advantage of all of this information. As it becomes more main stream, as the technology evolves, it will allow us to connect and interact like never before. Something that should be as intriguing as it is intimidating.

Like what you just read? Get more of it in your inbox. Subscribe here.

subscribe with face and or else line-thin

/8 Comments/by
, , ,

Do Humans Survive This Virus Called Technology? [Podcast]

Exploring enlightenment; Can you find it or does it find you?

Kyle Cross helps me break down the quest for enlightenment and how to participate in the conversation. We talk about why you should not be getting your news in 3 minute segments from the main street media and why you need to surround your brain with interesting ideas from other people in order to truly stimulate your own creative process.

Learn more about Kyle Cross

We discuss the basics of enlightenment being the ability to recognize that you know absolutely nothing but desire to know everything. It is a self awareness and understanding of how significant you can really be but how much easier it is to allow yourself to become insignificant.

Between discussing the quest for enlightenment we dive into a bit of religion, drugs, graffiti and more. Kyle even dives into a bit of his personal background and talks about his childhood and even mentions growing up as an orphan.

Always A RayDO Twist

We talk about some of my favorite YouTube channels and how to find the information you need and want in the moment you need it. Quit pretending like you have to wait for the information you need to come to you, instead of just going out and working hard to find it.

You Tube References –

Here are the YouTube channels I mentioned in the podcast.

  • V-Sauce – Awesome videos about science and life. History from a whole new perspective. I promise you will love this.
  • Minute Physics – Quick videos that help you understand complex physics in a fun way.
  • Smarter Every Day – Down to earth explanations of curious topics in science. #LoveThisGuy
  • ASAP Science – More simple science that blows your mind. Short video crack.
  • Raymmar.com – Obviously you should subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Digital Connections

We also explore the growing digital network that is enslaving all of us, discuss the possibility of an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) destroying it all and how instant communication could potentially lead to a completely new digital nation.

We touch on the evolution of online commerce and understanding how we might soon be able to plug into computers. Whether for gaming, porn, gambling or any other experience that will inevitably be digitized, the human experience will be merged with the digital life soon enough.

As always, we explain why we do what we do and show you how all of these issues are interconnected and how they can let you bring all of these experiences together in a completely new understanding on the meaning of life.

Introducing Sarasota Underground

In this episode of RayDO we talk about my current city of residence, Sarasota Florida and my plans for SarasotaUnderground.com.

We begin to explore the inner workings of a city that is dead set on staying the same and why some would restrict its growth.

We also talk about the difference between Bradenton and Sarasota and how people from the inside look at it versus the way people from the outside look at it. Why don’t they work better together and why this really is an amazing place to be and will be for the next few decades as the entire culture in Sarasota shifts towards a new generation of doers.

Explore Sarasota Underground

We Always Bounce Around

This is RayDO, and we do bounce all over the place so there might be a few more surprises along the way. You’ll just have to listen in to find out what else we talk about this time on RayDO.

Make sure you grab us on Stitcher and iTunes Podcast app so you can get the newest episodes delivered to your phone immediately upon release.

Grab RayDO on Stitcher

The listening experience is totally customized and if you have to turn it off in the middle of an episode it will save your place and start it back up from the same place.

Finally, be sure to subscribe to Raymmar.com to keep up with all of our progress and updates about what we are doing.

Click here to subscribe to RayDO on Raymmar.com
/2 Comments/by
, ,

Redefining American Politics: Meet The Conservative Hippie

“What happens when both parties are completely corrupt and the ivory towers are falling down?”

A Little background on me and my upbringing

I am a rare breed to say the least. A breath of fresh air for some and a pain in the ass for others.

Unwilling to succumb to the status-quo, determined to bring about real change. Dedicated to proving that America is, was, and always will be the greatest country ever know to man.

I was raised in a Christian home by loving parents who emigrated from Puerto Rico in the early 80′s. Puerto Rican born citizens are automatically citizens of the United States but other than that, the similarities between my family story and any modern day immigrant are eerily similar.

My dad: was a poor country boy, who grew up in New York until he was 7 and then moved back to Puerto Rico where they lived with no running water or electricity. I’ve seen the house and it always blows my mind when I think of what that must have been like.

My mom: was the rich city girl (if you can call Guayama PR a city) who fell in love with the country boy. They decided to get married and come to the states for my dad to finish his degree. I was already in the womb when they came over. Apparently I was a journey man before birth.

They were on a quest to make a better life for themselves and open doors for their children that had never been opened for them. They were as lost as a couple from a small island might be after moving from their homeland, to a much larger city, learning to cope with the cold winters, and mostly just trying to figuring out how to survive.

We lived a simple life…

My parents took us to church most Sunday’s while we were growing up (against my will most of the time), but I learned the bible and its message all while rebelling in my own way.

I was a renegade from early on. I remember always questioning authority and giving my parents a hard time. You could say I was the text book case study on how to be a black sheep.

My sister is a few months and a year older than me and my brother is about 3 years younger. There I sat, right in the middle of a five person household, in a modest cape cod style home (with only one bathroom, I-might-add). The house sat one block away from some of the rougher neighborhoods on the north side of Columbus Ohio.

The rules I learned to play by

Ever since I can remember, I’ve played this game called life by my own rules. Running around questioning authority and pushing the limits of acceptability; often crossing over the proverbial line-in-the-sand which usually carried it’s own own set of consequences.

Most of the time, my efforts lead to a tanned hide at the hands of my moms favorite wooden spoon or my fathers leather belt which was branded with his name. Something he had picked up on a recent trip to Mexico.

No matter which of them was reminding me how much of a screw up I had just been, I learned early on that decisions had consequences. I learned that the choices I made, were not un-makable and that once I did what I did, I would get what I had coming.

“I know I have something special waiting for me when I eventually have children because of the nightmares I must have given my parents growing up.”

Sometimes I deserved every bit of the whooping I got, but most of the time, I deserved more.

How much have I really learned?

I can’t say I really learned anything because I still make all sorts of mistakes. However, the way I see the world is what they truly affected. I might mess up once in a while but they instilled good values. They taught me the most important things and left it up to me to learn the rest.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I can appreciate that tough love more than ever, as I watch a culture of idiocy sprouting up all around me, I wonder if I will do half as good a job raising my children as they did raising me.

There are so many children running around unchecked by neutered parents, unwilling and unable to be restrained. Entitled to everything, working for nothing and otherwise raising themselves in a society that becomes more and more unrecognizable as time goes on.

Lost, wandering around aimlessly, unprepared for the rude awakening that will surely find them one day soon. Unaware of the backhand that awaits around one of the next corners in their maze called life. The smack down they desperately need and undoubtedly deserve.

Growing up liberal, err… creative.

I have always been a man of the arts. I remember on one of our family trips to Puerto Rico as a child, my mom tried to bribe me with bubble gum to sing for random members of the family. I was part of at least 4 different choirs growing up, attended a Commercial Arts program my senior year of high school and would attend a prestigious design school to study industrial design when I graduated high school.

My mom would later tell me that at times she worried I might turn out to be gay… Me? I just loved to create and capture my ideas. First visually, then later through my words. It would become an addiction I would never break.

As a child I remember drawing all the time. It started when I was younger. I used to copy characters (X-Men mostly) out of the comic books I used to collect. One time I remember showing one of the drawings to my dad. He looked at it and told me there was no way I could have drawn it. He said that I must have traced it. I persisted and showed him the comic book I had copied it from. When he compared the drawings and saw that the scale didn’t match he had nothing left to do but apologize for telling me he thought I traced it.

My time as a liberal…

Lasted about as long as a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.

I still remember thinking at one point, that money was silly and that people should just have what they needed and give what they could. I never studied Marxism formally but there was a time in my life where I believed in the ideology of socialism and the principles of communism. I think it is a natural progression in the development of a curious mind. The exploration of a truly ideal society is appealing to everyone at some level.

Even to this day I understand the appeal of that ideology. I understand the desire to believe in a Utopian society where people are always good, have everything they need and there is no suffering anywhere.

I quickly discovered that this utopia I dreamed of would be impossible to actually pull off. There is no chance for a perfect society, and there can be no equality in life, whether talking about outcome or income. America was the closest man will ever come to a true Utopia and we are doing all we can do to destroy it.

Later in life I would get an opportunity to chase my dreams, but I also learned early on that it would be the hard work that paid off in the end. The road would be bumpy and success would be no ones responsibility but mine.

I quickly realized that there would be no one there to hold my hand or make sure I didn’t get hurt in life. There would be no do-over’s or mulligan’s. I discovered that I would have to fight, claw and suffer in order to truly be the man I thought I was destined to be. I learned that I would have to lose it all before there was any chance at having anything real.

A constitutionally conservative libertarian

I actually remembering helping my parents deliver newspapers early in the morning and hearing Rush Limbaugh on the radio. I don’t ever remember listening to it and I am sure I even protested it at times but that was before children ran all over their parents so mine just told me to shut-up.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I stated to really explore politics and learn about American History on my own. I had this thirst to understand the founding of this country and to understand other parts of world history. I wanted to know about the rise and fall of the other great societies that came before America.

I wanted to know why we were different and why, over the last 200 years America was able to grow technologically and economically like no country before it.

I am sure I studied the constitution growing up, and I’m sure I even memorized the preamble without ever really understanding what it meant. But, for some reason, at this point in my life, I had a genuine desire to know more about what it all really meant. I wanted to understand the political and ideological philosophy of the great leaders and nation builders of the past.

When I made the switch

I was carving my own path as a freshman sales professional at a Toyota dealership in Bradenton Florida, and I was finally making some real money. I started paying attention to the world and wanted to understand business and economics.

These were all things I might have learned in college… had I stuck it out. Instead, I would be forced to discover my own path. I would explore the world for myself and appreciate what it meant to live in a free country. I decided early on that I wanted to be my own king and build my own castle.

I learned to learn, and I learned to love it. I read book-after-book, not only discovering the foundation of this country but the demise of other great nations throughout history.

I wanted to understand the background for what is now the progressive political movement in America. The spawn of Marxism, Communism and Fascism. A movement that has been patiently executing a long-con on the inner workings of our entire political system.

I wanted to know everything about everything. I finally stepped out of the bubble, started exploring for myself and learned that the world is an amazing place. I saw that there was so much to know and learn about it and the human species. So much to learn about our behavior and habits as social beings.

I need to understand how and why these behaviors are constantly manipulated and how they are used to move entire sections of society. I wanted to learn more about how we are socially engineered on a mass scale and why anyone would want to corrupt the most brilliant social experiment on the face of the earth.

I wanted it all.

I started learning about political philosophy and life itself. I mixed everything I read with my own life experiences and then started to understand why someone would want it all for themselves.

I started to understand why a group of people would eventually want to take it all for themselves and turn the rest of us into their slaves. Leaving us all ultimately unable to change the national decision making process by neutering the power of our entire political system.

I saw how both of the political parties had corrupted the entire system from the inside out, and how they desensitized everyone to politics as a whole. I discovered a religion of government being built right underneath our noses and that we were falling for it hook line and sinker. I saw that it was more of a battle to protect their power than to govern under the constraints of the constitution. Or even under the pretense of protecting the people.

I saw corporations greasing the wheels of a political machine that runs the vehicle of progress that is America. I watched them pervert the word progress as a whole and dictate the entire premise of any debate.

I began to see their master plan and started to wonder when they would finally pull the rug out from under all of us. When they would have enough leverage to pull the cloak over the entire country and finally flip the switch.

I wondered if we even had a chance to stop and turn things around. Whether we even had a chance to save the country I had fallen in love with all over again.

I’m still a liberal at heart

In the truest sense of the word I am a liberal. I believe in maximum freedom and limited government. I believe in personal accountability and even used to call myself a liberal until I realized how badly the word had been bastardized.

My Struggle with the current political establishment

I don’t really know what I am when it comes to a current political affiliation. At least in the sense of using one of their popular labels.

I am usually able to understand both sides of most of their arguments, I even think there are some pretty logical solutions to many of our current political problems. I am just utterly appalled at the current state of affairs in America. It seems as if we are incapable of playing nice with one another. As if for some reason the system was set up to get us to fight among ourselves. Almost as if they were purposely dividing us in order to distract us while they ran away with unchecked power.

They have lulled us to sleep and put us all inside of boxes. With their political labels they have branded us and we are to conform or be crushed. We must fall in line with popular opinion or fall under attack. As if for some reason, all of us should somehow be ok with getting put into one of their boxes and never speaking out.

We should all live under the name of one of the labels they give us and never question a thing.  We are all bridled in political correctness, unable to express an opinion for the fear of being labeled a bigot or racist. We are to throw common sense out the door and instead follow only their direct instruction. We are to trust in them with as much faith as any religion and we are not to ask questions.

I for one think that’s an utterly absurd premise and refuse to accept it. I am unwilling to succumb to the pull of one established political party or the other. In my eyes the political parties in this country are both irreversibly corrupt. Both sides pulling us towards a tyrannical state in which we will all be left at the mercy of our beloved king.

The only difference is that we will refer to our king as president. And his kingdom will be capital hill.

 

/13 Comments/by
,

Why All Conservatives Are Actually Pro-Choice

“Oh no he didn’t…”

“Oh yes I did!”

Let’s start with a question:

How many ways are there to make a baby? Naturally that is.

I say naturally, because I am assuming someone who is getting artificially inseminated is probably not making an abortion decision so lets presume I am also using common sense for the rest of this article as well. If you are incapable of forming logical thoughts, you should probably go read something else.

Now back to the question at hand…

How many ways are there to make a baby?

There is only one way to make a baby naturally; last time I checked at least. A male puts his penis inside a woman’s vagina and ejaculates. The sperm and the egg do some high five shit and next thing you know cells are splitting.

9 months latter a little version of you is screaming all night keeping you from your precious 8 hours of sleep. (Parents, feel free to use that as your birds and bees speech!) #YoureWelcome

So now that we understand that…

We send you back to your regularly scheduled programming, which is already in progress:

“Uhh oh…. I don’t want a baby” said someone somewhere, after a drunk night of playing hide the salami. But, isn’t it already too late?

Couldn’t you argue that at this point the decision has already been made. That you have already done the deed. “Made-your-choice”, if you will.

You had sex; you knew what you were doing. You decided not to use a condom, take the pill or otherwise protect yourself from the one specific result that the act you committed is designed to produce. You may think sex is about the orgasm but really it is about the insemination and propagation of your species. If you cannot understand that concept then do us all a favor and please stop reproducing.

Cant you see that the entire abortion argument is based on a false premise. One where pro-life is different than pro-choice? Cant you see that they have succeeded in getting us to spend our time fighting among ourselves in an attempt to change the wrong part of the system altogether?

We scream at the state for their meddling while we collapse internally as a family? As our entire society rots from the inside out?

Sex is fun but it is also a huge responsibility.

Much like drinking alcohol or doing drugs, deciding to have sex is not something that should be taken lightly.

Think about it. If you go get drunk and kill someone on the drive home, you don’t get to just decide at some point during the trial that you just want to pay some money and erase the entire event from the timeline that is your life.

You don’t get to tell the judge that you made a mistake and that you don’t want to face any of the consequences. Instead, you get to sit in court and probably spend some time in jail. You get to live with what you have done and try to make the best of it.

The difference is that in this case you get to see the pain you caused. You get to look the family of the person whose life you took in the eyes, and feel their pain course through you. The baby has no choice, no day in court and his only family is the one sentencing him to death.

Sure, you can come out of jail and try to get your life back on track and make sure you don’t make the same mistakes again, but you can never go back. You cannot change the past. You can never take it back.

Back to the point

I go back to my article title… “Why All Conservatives Are Actually Pro-Choice”. Conservatives are typically pro-life which happens to be the other CHOICE when deciding to abort or not. Why is that choice diminished among our current pop-culture?

Why is the choice to chose responsibility looked at with scorn or somehow relegated to anything other than what it is… Responsible.

Why is ending life the only “choice”? Why is the argument fought as if there were only one choice to make when facing the decision of an unexpected pregnancy.

I would even argue further, that it takes more courage to keep the baby, but don’t run out of here thinking I am completely complicit with the entire conservative ideology on this argument.

What about rape?

The whole abortion discussion is such a touchy issue. There are so many nuances and you almost always upset someone’s ideology, which is often the collection of everything that makes them, them.

I acknowledge all of these things. I am just trying to approach it with a level head and some rational thought. Anyone who screams at you like abortion is supposed to be a cut-and-dry, black-and-white issue is just plain ignorant.

I could never pretend to tell a woman who had been raped that she has to keep the baby.

That is not my decision to make. I can love her and support her and encourage her to give thought to the choice of life.

I can encourage her to bring the child into the world and at least let them fight for themselves.

I would try to convince her to give them the chance to go out and make something of themselves. To let another family give her unborn child the childhood that she doesn’t want to, or cannot provide.

I would push her to think about the weight of this decision. A weight she will have to carry from that moment forward, but at the end of the day, it is not my body. It is not my decision to make. It is ultimately her choice to make.

The beauty of being human, is that we have to make our own choices. We have to live with our decisions and we are the only ones who can make them. That’s what makes this a pro-choice vs pro-choice debate! One which we must wage on a level stage of ideas and away from emotional attacks.

If there were only one option it would not be a choice. You cannot then, argue the issue from only one side of that choice! You cannot simply discredit the other side of the argument simply because you disagree.

There is a choice to be made, and allowing it to be argued on any premise other than the ones of that specific context is just plain disingenuous.

I still struggle with this issue

I know there are a million other issues at play here. There are a lot of places this thing could go next but I am just trying to start a conversation. I am just trying to get you to think about the premise of the entire debate and understand how we allow these issues to divide us as a nation!

All I am saying is that there is only one way to make a baby, and we all know what it is.

There are some situations in which the process is taken out of the hands of the woman (forced sexual relations, rape, date rape, etc) but for the most part, people having abortions are there because they already made one bad choice. Because they chose pleasure over sense. Because they had sex and got pregnant, and now are either not prepared or are unwilling to accept the results of their actions.

Instead, they are sitting in the courtroom, signing a contract with the judge, trying to erase history. Cashing in on one of the few instances in life where you can actually apply for a mulligan.

So… I’ll leave you with a couple questions:

Does that mulligan come at the expense of a potential life?

And, is that a choice you are really ready to make… especially for someone else?

subscribe with face and or else line-thin

/11 Comments/by
,

United States of Failure – How To Collapse A Country

“We will gather as one big monster of mediocrity, only to have our heads chopped off with one swift blow.”

This video is based loosely on a speach given by Ellsworth Toohey, in “The Fountainhead“, a novel by Ayn Rand.

After reading the book I thought the message in this speech was too important to not tell. It seemed so fitting with everything that is going on in America right now.

Ellsworth was revealing to one of the other major characters the strategy behind his efforts to control society up to this point. As I read it I saw close parallels between what he was saying and what is going on all around us.

I definitely recommend everyone read that book. Now.

More Videos on Raymmar.com

, ,

Online Shopping Vs Total Consumer Spending

, ,

WordCamp Miami 2018 with Matt Mullenweg [New Videos]

A special thanks to Rick Lucas for helping me film this video.

The Video Script

First, you must destroy the soul!

Don’t do it with whips and shackles, that’s why Caesar, Attillas & Napoleon never had a chance.

You must break the individual spirit but not with a vicious beating.

You must drive a wedge into man’s soul, grab it with a clenched fist and shake them from the inside out and when the spirit is finally broken, he will bring you the whip and ask you to beat him with it.

You must use man against himself.

You must make him feel small and insignificant.

Make him feel guilty.

Kill his aspirations and remove all of his hope.

Kill man’s sense of value.

Kill his capacity to recognize or achieve greatness.

Great men cannot be ruled so in order to destroy a country you must remove the path for people to become great.

You must make mediocrity the median method for measuring success.

You have to distract the masses with entertainment and propaganda disguised as education.

Bread and circus for everyone! That part the Roman’s had right.

You have to make everything evil.

Sex, Drugs, Love, Money, Wealth, businesses, Property… make them all evil.

Just prove that any “thing” makes man happy is evil and you are well on your way.

Deny a man anything that makes him happy because a happy man is self-contained and self-sufficient.

Destroy the entrepreneurial spirit, control a man’s diet, healthcare, and infiltrate all the means of production.

Convince them instead that everything is bad; that the quest for individual desires is in and of itself evil.

Make all men dependent on a massive government and replace the idea of religion with a full fledged faith in a system of laws that only apply as the people who make them see fit.

Convince them that they are working towards universal harmony and that they should sacrifice for the greater good of humanity.

Drive them to sacrifice and then stand there to collect the sacrifices.

Ask people to serve and then convince them that you are the one who should be served.

Enslave man to societal standards that can never be met and when they realize that the bar can never be reached they will give in and shackle themselves.

Destroy the man who tells you to be happy, the man that tells you to push yourself to be great and demands nothing but your best.

He wants nothing from you other than what you want from yourself, but a man like this must be destroyed.

A man like this stands in the way of the agenda and must therefore be vilified and silenced.

He will be labeled a selfish monster and an arrogant asshole. He must be destroyed so that the powerful can keep their power and the wealthy can keep their wealth.

He must be silenced and the door closed behind him so that no one else may enter behind him.

You must continue to blindly follow the masses and lose yourself in the mob. You must become a conspirator in the most heinous of crimes.

Unwilling to search for happiness or push yourself for the fear of being silenced. For the fear of standing out and being squashed.

You know I am speaking the truth, you see it all around you, yet you continue to move forward as if immune to the impact of all of it, as if America were immune to the same strategies that have collapsed every empire that came before it.

Unable to understand that these things are all intentional methods of mass manipulation.

Don’t get mad at me. I didn’t build it, I am simply the messenger. You are already a part of this system.

We all are.

We are complacent in creating a future of obedience and unity.

A world where the thoughts of each man are no longer their own.

Instead his thoughts will be an attempt to guess the thoughts of his neighbor who’s thoughts are the thoughts of his neighbor and so on.

A world where no individual desires will be pursued. Where all of your efforts will be to satisfy the the desires of your neighbor, who’s only thought is to satisfy the desires of his neighbor and so on.

A world in which all men serve all men so that in the end, no one is.

A world ruled not by judgement but by public opinion.

A world controlled by people who understand what makes men move forward. Those who know what makes you tick.

You sit there and let these things happen and therefore you deserve what you get

Because you do not rise up or get offended when you are reffered to as average. Because you let the world beat at your soul and do nothing to defend it.

You sit there with all the power in the world and do nothing. Wasting the greatest opportunity in all of human society by mastering the mundane.

You have become a slave and are forcing slavery on the rest of us as well.

Collectivism will be the death of us. The demise of this once great nation. We will gather as one massive monster of mediocrity, only to have our head chopped off with one swift blow.

So you want to destroy the country? Just keep doing what we are doing; don’t change a thing. I’mean we are doing a really good job at it so seriously, don’t change a thing.

Thanks to Edward Whay for the title ideation.

What did you think of the video? Leave your thoughts in the comments. 

Subscribe-to-raymmar-com-master

/1 Comment/by
, ,

This Video From UpWorthy Exposes A Cobweb Of Communism In America

An expose on progressive politics in America

Things Might Not Get A Lot Better…

And Its Time We Talked About It.

That was the headline they came up with on the UpWorthy homepage for this this video, produced on behalf of the Post Carbon Institute.

It was produced in conjunction with New Society Publishers which is another openly progressive book publisher with ties to the author of a number of book about progressive activism, one of which inspired the video in question.

The video is directed by Dalton Crosthwait who now works at MONSTRO. Two strands in what is quickly becoming a cobweb of closet-communism, spread across the internet, disguised as small business activists and community organizers.

I Start To Dig

As I began to follow their trail and connect the dots of association and involvement, I started to see that the people who produced the video were the same people trying to sell you these books, and then trying sell you on becoming active in one of their post carbon cult communities.

After a click on a featured partners links I come across a website called Balle – Be A Localist.

Balle is another large online network of businesses working together in their communities to build a network of like minded organizations.

I love a little online collaboration between creative communities so I wanted to know more, but something still felt off about the message in this video.

I still felt like there was an underlying message connecting the mission statement of these organizations and helping to unify their cause but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

I Dig Deeper

As I explored the Balle website, I found a list of their partners in their online efforts towards social sustainability.

At first glance they all seem to be pretty cool. Conscious companies trying to make a difference in their communities, through their products, by creating an economy around a sustainable environment.

Sounds Awesome! Tell Me More!

The first on their list of partners was a company called Etsy.

Now, I have a few friends who use the Etsy platform to sell their products online, but I don’t know a whole lot about the company itself. I hear their name in the world of eCommerce fairly frequently, so being the good little online marketer that I am, I decided to take this as an opportunity to learn more about them.

The Etsy about page proudly touts the B Corp certification that some of the other partners on the Balle site also had in common.

Having seen it a couple times now, I decided to learn more about B Corporations and their overall mission.

The B-Corp homepage claims that they are a network of “people using business as a force for good”.

I was all “F*@k Yeah!” because I thought I had finally found a place where businesses with a conscience could come to trade high fives online. I immediately wanted to become a part of the B-Team!” until I actually stopped to think about what I had just read.

I asked myself this question:

“Does that mean that all the other people on earth are using their business for evil?” And also… Who the hell wants to be on the “B” team? Just saying.

Poor Them

That all sounded a little too cold blooded, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt again.

I know that some people have a twisted view of capitalism but there is no way that these guys were saying that there are only 967 awesome businesses in the whole world… are they?

Maybe they just hadn’t found all of the other amazing businesses yet. Maybe they just need some kind of big announcement in order to get the word out.

If only they could find a huge platform to stand on globally in an attempt to reach the masses.

I Wanted To Believe

I was literally about to give up and admit defeat when I found the connection to the Clinton Global Initiative.

I wanted to quit digging, satisfied that my gut feelings had been wrong, but as I suspected, it was too good to be true.

I was starting to finally understand why I felt so sleazy when I initially watched this video. I realized that it was my gut telling me that I was not being entertained or educated. It was my brain sending up a red flag letting me know I was being indoctrinated.

They almost had me too, I was skeptical but bought in, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then the oil tankers fell off the side of a flat earth and I actually laughed-out-loud at the irony of them using that visual representation as their metaphor for the entire argument.

The Earth Is Definitely Flat…

Sike.

Because-Economic-Growth-is-over-a-cobweb-of-communism-700x462

It became apparent that this video was part a coordinated message.

Not specifically from a single group of people, sitting in a room plotting this specific video script or colors for the animations, but as a direct result of the efforts of the same people that are responsible for the global warming hoax, the green movement and the perpetuators of Agenda 21.

It didn’t take long from me to string this video back to a group of high level political activists who will stop at nothing to spread their message of globalism and social justice.

When you look at this video through that lens, you can quickly start to see it as another attempt to convince us that the current state of affairs is permanent and insurmountable.

You can then see it as a bold statement that from here on out, America will begin to move away from the A-equals-awesome column to the A-equals-average list of countries in the world.

I Barely Scratched The Surface

I could have kept going.

As I looked at the list of founding members there were a few that immediately jumped off the page with ties to the United Nations but I had already seen enough. I had already uncovered enough of a connection to at-the-very-least,  justify my initial skepticism about the message behind the video.

Am I Totally Off Base?

Can you imagine a situation where the same people running around screaming about the structure falling apart are the ones actually chipping away at its foundation; socially engineering the collapse that they are supposedly saving us from.

That they are trying to fundamentally transform our country into a pseudo-socialist state, controlled by the same special interests and political powers that they pretend to protect us from.

What makes this time any different?

These guys are trying to close the door to prosperity and success, and will seal it shut if we don’t act now to stop it. If we don’t acknowledge that the principles of small business have been co-opted by these closet communists in an attempt to fool us once again with their manufactured message of mediocrity.

One that they secretly feed us in the form of conscious capitalism, but be warned… things like this are rarely what they seem.

Subscribe-to-raymmar-com-master

/11 Comments/by