and, they may become angry when you question the superiority of their ignorance.

but, they are barbarians. that is expected.

and, you must be as patient as you are careful.

and, yes, my fellow liberals - we are going to have to go back to mill and make the argument from the start, for the debates we are to have in the upcoming decades are going to be the same debates that our great-great-great-grandparents had, all those many years ago, with christianity replaced by islam.

the barbarians will not spontaneously discard their religion.

we must help them out of ignorance, and help them to discard their nonsense and learn philosophy, instead.

and, mill is the blueprint, as he was before.

because, they might be wrong. right? just a little doubt, is the right way to start.

i have better things to do, too. but, this is our task, whether we like it or not - because, if we fail. the consequences are potentially catastrophic.

so, we live in a liberal democracy.

and, we have elected a member of the liberal party to be our prime minister.

what does that mean, exactly? what is with this world liberal?

well, it's a complicated word. truly.

but, in canada, when we use the world liberal in a social or political or even an economic sense, we almost always refer to it in the sense of the term as it was understood by js mill, who was a dominant figure in the british liberal party, of which our own liberal party derives from.

mill wrote a classic text - on liberty. this is very much the foundational text of what we call canadian liberalism.

i read it in first year law, myself.

you can access it here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm

and, it would, indeed, be quite useful if you were to read it and understand it, if you insist on throwing this word liberal around - even if you ultimately disagree with it.

after all - he might be wrong.

fwiw, though, my sexuality doesn't affect anybody.

you can't get sick from a queer neighbour - unless, perhaps, you have sex with them. but, second-hand smoke kills lots and lots and lots of people every single fucking day.

it's a dumb comparison.

it's not that i'm not acknowledging that you might not like my sexuality. it's that it doesn't matter, because it doesn't affect you - whereas your smoking does matter, because it does affect me.

...which is why the correct solution is to get people to smoke away from the house, where it doesn't affect anybody.

i need to be as clear as i can about this.

my lifestyle does not allow for me to live in a rooming house. and, i'm not talking about my sexuality - i haven't had sex in years, and have been under chemical castration for nearly the entire period. i'm just not sexually active. at all. i mean the hours i keep, and the way i spend my time.

any roomate would instantly feel snubbed, as i basically wouldn't talk to them. i'm often up all night. i eat at 3:00 am. i shower randomly. i'm in and out at all times of the day and night. etc.

and, i'm not going to change to conform to somebody else's schedule. i'm not going to pretend i care about their lives. and i'm not going to spend any time with them.

there is a 100% chance that i'm going to get into a fight with any roomate.

i would rather live in a coffee shop for a few months than force myself into a schedule and a lifestyle that i don't want.

i was in denial, because i did like the place and i didn't want to move.

but, now that i've been removed from the situation, i can see i'm better off looking for something else, anyways.

even if it takes me out of the city...

the owners basically took the money i gave them for rent and used it to ruin the place.

it would have been better if they would have just left it how it was...

it would be nice if i could find a replica of that space, but the way it was when i found it - with electrical heating instead of gas heating, without smokers next door or outside, without electrical interference issues from messing with the electrical, without cats shitting everywhere and without an overbearing air conditioner coming in from upstairs.

i could have probably even dealt with the smoke in the hallway.

the fact is that the fans worked just fine, cost nothing and bothered nobody.

there's no question that i liked that basement apartment a lot, but there were health problems attached to it, i believe as a result of the gas furnace. i was getting frequent migraines. aphasia. auras. that has completely stopped since i moved out.

the headaches i've been getting here are different. it's the smoke.

they replaced the upstairs smokers with an outside smoker, which in a lot of ways was worse, as it hung over the property. there were neighbours smoking outside the window. the main floor upstairs neighbour was smoking in the laundry room, which was right outside my inside door. it was as unhealthy as where i am now, if a little less intense at times.

and, when you combine the gas with the smoking...

the floors were structurally unsound, which i could deal with if it weren't for the fact that the tenants were all obese. they destroyed light fixtures. and, the cracks in the floors were legitimately frightening.

and, even if i could deal with that, the owner was throwing cat shit at my window, entering my apartment illegally and broadly harassing me to leave - because she wanted her mom in.

it was unhealthy and unsafe, and i was unwanted. my pushback was warranted. and, the reaction was just a reflection of why it wasn't a good place for me to stay.

i could have outlived the old guy on top of me. but, the gas furnace was there to stay. and, the new owner was actually less concerned about the smoke than the previous one.

it was the change in ownership at the root of the situation, not my fully justified behaviour.

and, as bad as the smoke is here, i'm at least not getting overwhelming headaches.

more rules for local content is a good step forward.

but, now, is that $16/hr us, or $16/hr in the country of origin? because the minimum wage in most of canada is currently $15/hr, which is about $11-12/hr us. $16/hr us would be about $20/hr canadian. or, am i missing the point - is this meant to move with measures to bring in parity (or even a common currency?), to mess with this manipulation charge?

but, i've argued loudly that the way to stop companies from moving factories to mexico is to increase wages in mexico. and, it sounds like that's what the general crux is.

i'm sure there'll be plenty of analysis in the upcoming weeks.

but, the few details i've seen sound good.

now, we'll find out what it does to help investors, right...

i think a 16 year sunset clause is about right, and proposed something like that in this space a few months ago.

the last time we went through this, we signed a bad deal to avoid being cut out.

and, we just fucked this up terribly. this is going to be a terrible legacy for the sitting prime minister, regardless.

but, we should not repeat that mistake - we should learn from it.

we should have come in trying to isolate mexico; instead, we tried to isolate the americans and foolishly ended up isolating ourselves. now we're better off pushing for a return to the fta.

i want to be clear: i would prefer bilateral deals with the two different countries. and, i think that's what trump wants, too.

but, i want to see what's released before i jump to further conclusions.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nafta-us-mexico-progress-monday-1.4800182

capitalism is boring.

it's simply not an acceptable means of existence, regardless of where you are in the hierarchy.

in the broader scheme of things, you have to understand that i'm not a businessperson.

i don't want to run a business. i don't want to be a ceo. i don't want to sell tshirts. it's just not how i want to spend my time.

i want to create. i want to think. i want to write. and, i don't want to spend any more time worrying about how to pay the rentiers than i'm absolutely forced to....

my biggest argument against capitalism has never been that it's unfair, or that it's oppressive, or that it creates inequality. my biggest argument against capitalism has always been that i have a finite amount of time to exist in, and i don't want to waste it being a fucking capitalist. it's a quality of life argument - this is not a pleasurable way for a free person to exist.

a better way to understand what i do is to look up the term culture jamming. and, the term agitprop.

remember: i'm a communist.

what i'm trying to do is take control of the medium. i'm not trying to actually use it.

but, yeah, i need to pay my bills, too - and i need to find somewhere to live. so, buy the art. treat it like a donation, if you want. that's how this is supposed to work.

to be clear.

i have never cashed a check from youtube ad revenue, and i do not run ads on my blogs.

my writing is not a revenue stream.

if you would like to send me money, please go to the bandcamp site (http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com) and buy my art. it is the only way to pay me. and, that is by design; it is the only thing i'm selling.

i am actually deeply philosophically opposed to the idea of selling ad space on the internet. the blogs are a kind of a compromise, because they're pointless, anyways. but, i don't want ads on my art. i don't want my third symphony to be brought to you by mcdonald's. and, i don't want ads on my writing, either, as it voids them of any seriousness. serious writing is not clickbait.

the only thing i've monetized are my blogs, because it's not really an art form, it's an ad in itself. putting an ad on an ad is a different thing than putting an ad on an artform. but, the purpose of the ads is to direct you to the music, not to act as a revenue stream, in itself. so, this is the total sum of money that i've made from ad revenue and streaming media, for my entire life.

i've considered setting up a patreon site. but, if you're going to donate, why not get some files at the website while you're at it?

when you live in an oecd country in the twenty-first century, actively assuming atheism and a secular value system on first impression is a matter of providing a level of base intellectual respect - which can, of course, be withdrawn upon further evidence.

"if you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."

no, listen.

it would be racist if i were to tell you that you have to be a certain way because you are of a certain ethnicity, or i were to treat you a specific way based on the statistical majorities present in groups you may identify with. assuming you must be religious because you're an arab is an example of racism.

i don't do do that: i assume you're innocent. that is, i assume apostasy. and, then i wait for you to incriminate yourself, or demonstrate otherwise.

but, criticizing a religion itself is not racist. generally, liberals have been exceedingly critical of religion, and sought to minimize the public influence of religion in society. nor is treating you differently because you subscribe to certain religious beliefs in any way discriminatory, as those beliefs are legitimately things i do not like - and that i have every intent to stand up against.

speaking out against islam is not racism, it's liberalism.

but, making generalizations about your beliefs based on your ethnicity is racism, and i won't do that.

so, i'm not being two-faced. i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. and, if you remove it, you can be sure that my attitude will change rather quickly.

...because i'm fully aware that the problem, here, isn't whether i accept you or not, but whether you accept me or not. and, i'm fully cognizant of the reality that, if you're a practising muslim, then you don't - and that this is where the discrimination actually exists, at the heart of the religion, itself.

05/2016 is updated.

& i left off midway through june, so i'm actually back where i started.

that took longer than i wanted it to, but i think the outcome is meaningful, and, as mentioned, it's not like i had anything better to do.

i don't know when i'll pick up the politics site in the alter-reality, but if i can find some old usenet posts, it could be relatively early.

to be clear: my politics blog now exists, solid, from aug/2013 to june/2016. i just need to fill in about five more months. & my music blog now exists solid from aug/2013, although i'll be updating it as i continue, as well.

these documents will be used to create liner notes for inri000-inri074, and to close the aleph discs. the first set of liner notes should close when i finish rebuilding up to the end of 2016 - when i can finally get back to catching up in the alter-reality.

that's right. this has all been a part of the process. as should have been obvious.