On the emotional aspect of Socialism.

I am against socialism for many reasons, but one of the greatest is the emotional aspect on which it encompasses. The entire concept of taking that WHICH DOES NOT BELONG TO THOSE TAKING IT and giving it to those who feel they need it, rather than letting that person get it through charity, can work only in a world where nearly everyone agrees with this. The fact is that as human beings we have the tendancy to be very possessive, so there's inevitably someone with enough influence that will be affected that there will be a revolution. If you want proof, look at history. Every system has collapsed, more or less, because the emotional aspect of it was far too taxing, and people did not like what was happenening emotionally. You hear this mainly in the form of opression- a word that has been so overused that it now has little meaning to most. But the truth is, opression on a people can be absolutely devastating to both the economy and people of that country. Opression in general has been proven over history's word to be a generally bad thing, where people make motions against the government. Also, history has shown that people generally do not like to be controlled by government too heavily, and it's fairly obvious why, because emotionally speaking, opression and control by the government most times leads to eventual revolution. This is why emotionally speaking, the taking of people's possessions in general, which is the premise of most socialism, makes people emotionally hateful and in the minds of most people, cannot work. If you really need further proof of how corrupted socialist governments become hellholes, just look at the healthcare system of the UK, or the governmental state of France, where there are almost daily riots. My point will remain- that a socialist government emotionally cannot work.

A quote to live by.

I was reading Eragon today, when I stumbled across an interesting trinket of wisdom. In the book, it comes from the mouth of Garrow, as Eragon's close friend Roran is about to leave. The words are as follows:

"First, let no one rule your mind or body . Take special care that your thoughts remain unfettered. One may be a free man and yet be bound tighter than a slave. Give men your ear, but not your heart. Show respect for those in power, but don't follow them blindly. Judge with logic and reason, but comment not."

Garrow's speech continues: "Consider none your superior, whatever their rank or station in life. Treat all fairly or they will seek revenge. Be careful with your money. Hold fast to your beliefs and others will listen.

There was a bit on love after that, but the author of this blog does not entirely agree with it due to the superficial nature of some women these days. But other than that, certainly words to live by from the narrative of an excellent author. It's a living shame more people wouldn't heed it. So many of us are slaves to our devices, yet we feel free. What if once in a while, we decided to just completely get away from our computers and experience something different? I do it on a regular basis, I have hobbies outside computers, runescape, etc. I play piano, guitar, and I do a bit of woodcrafting now and then. It, for the time being, reminds me I myself am not a machine.

As for Garrow's other words about reasoning with those of power, I cannot agree more with them. People like Obama prove we really need to judge someone by their actions and their motivations, and not just their character. And above all I try to put logic and reason above my own vanity, though it can be difficult when you're put in a rock and a hard place. For example: I've had a few times where it was late at night and my mother forgot her keys. I was tired and didn't want to let her into her own apartment (I live on my own, but she lives in the building next to me). But I let her in, simply because I knew that she would have to face a drunk husband six blocks away and I didn't want that risk. My mother and I are close, despite the fact that she can be quite commanding.

Recently my character was put to the test when she wanted me to loan her my $1500 laptop. Well, it wasn't easily replaced, and at first I said no. It didn't help that she didn't particularly care well for her own possessions in terms of electronics. But as time wore on, I realized she needed the laptop and gave it to her. Further down the line, though, I got an older and somewhat needy cat, and the stress grew. So I knew my limit, and explained to her that I simply couldn't handle the stress involved with having one of my prized possessions in hers, AND handling the cat.

I do hope she gets her own laptop back soon though.

My new companion.

Since roughly the beginning of man himself, he has tamed beasts for companionship. They did not find their match in excellence until the cat and the dog. And now I have a domesticated feline of my own. Go check out my photobucket for pictures! I love interacting and playing with my little ball of loveliness, Jessica, and she has at least 5 years left of her. According to the contract I made with my apartment, she truly IS a companion. She is considered a service animal by law, and if anyone takes her away from me there will be hell to pay.

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Well, there is much to report. For one thing, I was in a Day of Defeat: Source clan. That honeymoon lasted about two months and I moved on due to circumstances (more on that later), and I must say I met some interesting characters. The clan I was in was a part of a Realism community known as the United Warfare League (or UWFL for short). The clan was known as the 22nd Royal Regiment (we always just abbreviated it to the 22nd RR), the heritage taken from one of Canada's most elite military establishments. And we WERE the best (and I brought up the rear, I would say, though there were some relatively close to my level but just a smidge better than me). Our leader, who would not for the sake of realism claim a title higher than Lieutenant, was a man known only to us as Paulin. He was a pretty cool guy, as were most of the people I met while in that clan. If you're wondering how a person so horrible as me found his way into the best of the best, let's just say I'd met someone over Ventrilo that invited me one day. They were short a few people so they gladly accepted my application. Times came and went, and by the time I left (not bringing up the circumstances just yet), only a few of the members that were present from the start of my short stay in the unit remained. We all knew the reason why, though those reasons are rather personal and too deep to go into here. Suffice it to say that there were certain members not behaving themselves, some people wanted to move on to another unit anyway, and we had a lack of activity quite often. I did my best to keep active when I thought to do so, but usually the only person that noticed was Paulin or his second in command, Sisson (if you didn't notice the trend, we all went by our last names, with a few exceptions), who would join me for a bit of no-objective fun. Now for those of you who've played DOD:S you know that generally, the objective is to capture flags. In most realism games we were forbade from capturing those flags built into the map. Our goal was that of pure elimination, unless we were doing a force battle (more of a tactical CTF).

But enough on my experience in the virtual military. So after that, some old friends I knew from both Ventrilo and Chatango were putting together a little SA:MP server called San Fierro Role Play. It's currently a lame duck as our vigilant coder/leader DeLuca searches through 50,000+ lines of code for some simple error he must have made, at a rate of an hour or two a day. It'll be some time before we're ready to update, I reckon, so I'm currently attempting to fill the void with some roleplaying of a different kind. And DeLuca says we're now going to become a gaming community. Well, we'll see where that goes, but it WOULD potentially net us sponsorship and attention.

In the mean time, the role playing of a different sort is being done on two fronts: first off I'm finally getting around to playing The Last Remnant on my 360. With it freshly installed on the hard drive, most all of the lag issues have vanished, and it's turning out to be an interesting strategy/RPG hybrid. On the PC side of things hot off the press I have a game from the makers of the first two Diablo games, Torchlight, which I find extremely visceral, gorey (how did this thing get a teen rating?!), and amazing (and sometimes deep) experience. I acquired it for the bargain price of $20, and I have to say it's worth every penny, and they probably should've priced it closer to $30, because this game is worth far more than the asking price. It's in the style of Fate, but with skill trees like Diablo. Three characters, and each one is a blast to play with their own unique abilities.

In other news, time for the smaller stuff. I've decided that I may feed the pig just a little (but only on the cheap stuff, mostly, unless it's a DVD loaded with special features, or a CD set that's collectible). Most of the stuff I buy new from the industry is by the small fries anyway, they're really making minimal profit on a $5.00 album like Live at Budokan anyway. My wishlist grows yet longer as some great new games emerge for the console that I'll probably never play. Lately, my console staples have been Virtua Fighter 5, Forza 3, and The Last Remnant. I haven't played some of my old favorites in ages. Maybe I should boot up the 'ole N64 and play some Tony Hawk from back when Tony Hawk wasn't about money mongering and bullshit extras. I have 40 something PS2 titles and the only one I've even touched lately is Gran Turismo 4. Between the two, I have to say that Forza 3 is the better of them by far and away, but it's still fun to roar down Nurburgring in one of 721 cars, as of yet unrivaled in its scale.

Well, it's getting late, and I think I'll crash soon, but I may or may not finish the update on my life tomorrow. It all depends on how I feel about it.