PaleoCrat Tribune

Speaking Truth to Power!

Dilyn Corner

I am currently in my final semester of high school, about ready to pack up and go off to college: Michigan State University's Honors College with a double major in Mathematics and Physics with teacher certification. My passions include math, philosophy, and photography - logic, discourse, and art. I have transitioned in life through many different political and religious views. An exciting transition from conservatism to communism, all the way to anarchism. Then I went back to an extreme laissez-faire capitalist libertarian. I would now classify myself as some twisted cross between a capitalist and a liberal... It's weird. Maybe I'll flesh out what I think through my posts. I went from being a (rational) Lutheran to deism, switching over shortly to pantheism and then finally to atheism just this past Summer. My world-view is most consistent with the ideals held by secular humanism (it has been this way for the past five years). My most inspirational people include Socrates, René Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Carl Sagan. I am always open to questions and try to be as transparent about my life as possible. My entire Facebook profile is open to the public. I love having an intelligent discourse with someone, regardless of their own beliefs. Seeking a higher understanding is my life goal, only ending when I finally kick the bucket.

Homepage: https://www.facebook.com/dilyn.corner

AIM: dilyncorner

An Election Day Reflection

6th November 2012 by under Blog, Contributors, Dilyn Corner     

All day on November 5th I was met with Election Day posts. People looking forward to making changes, to getting America back on track, to cause the change that this country so desperately needs. To all of these people, I have a message. To everyone who has has posted something to the effect of “you have no right to complain if you do not vote” and has supported themselves by saying “the lesser of two evils”, I would like you to do something for me.

I ask that you reflect on everything you’ve ever said about politics. Everything and anything you’ve ever said during election season. Anything you’ve ever thought or believed about politics and presidential candidates. Now, I want you to think long and hard about how many times you’ve said “the lesser of two evils” over all of these election cycles you’ve been participating in, whether it be through encouraging or actual voting. How many times do you think that that same phrase has been used in our country’s history? For how many election cycles has that same idea been spread, that we need to vote for the least of the two evils to run our country, believing that that ‘lesser of evils’ will bring us out of our slump and into long-term success, growth, and prosperity?

Now think about how many times that has actually happened.
Think of all the times you’ve been disappointed by your ‘lesser of evils’. Think of all the times that you’ve vowed to change the system in the next election. Will you just at the very least consider this? Maybe if you think long and hard about this, you’ll understand why I am not voting this year. Maybe you’ll understand why I don’t plan on voting in the foreseeable future.

Do you get it now? It doesn’t matter what you say, which of the ‘least evil’ you select and support. Just because you select the least does not mean that you do not select evil, and it certainly does not mean that you have selected the best. The politics of America have been corrupt for decades; we all know it, and we all openly admit that politicians are crooked criminals. And yet every two years, we bamboozle ourselves into believing that somehow, someway, this year is gong to be different. If only we can get them in this term, then everything will be fixed: we’ll be on our way back to the once-great America that we dreamed of, that the Founding Fathers envisioned for us to enjoy.

But it won’t change. The status quo will remain the same. The two-party paradigm will hold strong, and the change that we so desperately seek will be put aside by the powers that be for things that they knew they were going to put on their priorities list all along. They have already been bought out long before you cast your ballot, and they will do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing. This fake choice cycle will continue on ad infinitum unless you actually do something productive for change.

Voting is the LAST thing you should be doing to encourage and foster change in this country. Talk about the issues in a meaningful way with everyone you meet. Pose those hard questions and don’t take bullshit answers as being acceptable. Ask why. Demand support for positions. Don’t settle for those ‘politics’ answers that we so often hear at debates. Become active, pass out fliers and hold debates. Create a club to talk about topics. Meet up with friends at a cafe and chat for a few hours about those pressing questions that all too often divide us. Encourage an intellectual base, and you will get educated leaders.

If you actually want to help change America and you want to vote, I urge you to vote third party. I don’t care what party it is, I don’t care why you do it. If a third party candidate gets at least 5% of the popular vote, that candidate will receive federal funding for the next political election. That means more money to spend advertising, pointing out the flaws of a closed two party system (one that’s really only a single party in the first place). If you REALLY want to see some change, start locally. Look at your state legislators. Hell, look at those in your city who make decisions. Making big changes starts locally.

If you really want to take control of America’s fiscal policy, America’s energy crisis, America’s endless wars, then vote for a senators and state representatives who are aligned with your values. The idea that the President is the one who does these things is ludicrous. The dynamic is certainly different now, but the President isn’t the only one who influences the decision. Congress needs to be reigned in. Congress is the one you should be looking at, wondering what in the flying fuck they are up to. The President is the least of your concerns if those are your three major issues.

I just ask that you all think long, hard, and critically about the decisions you are all about to make on this election day. I know I did.

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Evidence? Meh…

20th May 2012 by under Blog, Dilyn Corner     

I just know it.

We’ve all heard it before.  Whether it’s someone of the religious persuasion attempting to convince you of their deity of choice or your best friend assuring you that he’s going the right way to the party, this phrase has cropped up more than enough times in conversations across the world to last each of us a lifetime.

A couple of months ago, I was cornered by a friend who brought up this very issue with me. They posited that it was possible to simply know something to be true without having any evidence. Certainly this claim seems ridiculous. Of course, I cannot refute the thing that they ‘know’ without evidence, which can make refuting certain ideas difficult. An idea without any evidence to support it is simply that: an unsubstantiated idea. You may believe it all you like, but good luck convincing anyone that you’re right.

This topic has actually come up a lot over the past few months. My friend earlier this week and I were talking about knowing things – how can we authoritatively state that we actually know something to be true? Well, the short answer is that we can’t. Because of the limited understanding that we as humans have, we cannot truly claim to know anything; pure, unadulterated knowledge is beyond our grasp, and we must make due with our limited data and make the best conclusions we can. We can’t claim that there is no god, just as we can’t claim that there is. (If you do find anyone making such gnostic claims, I would love to hear their reasoning. Maybe they’re seeing something the rest of us aren’t.)

Take gravity, for example. Gravity is just a theory. A scientific theory, mind you. That means that there is an enormous amount of evidence supporting the claim that what we call gravity exists. We can observe its effects on us and how it effects us daily, and we can see how it effects our universe. Ergo, the theory of gravity. Now, within this umbrella term ‘theory’, there exists a word we refer to as ‘laws’. With the case of gravity, we have things like Newton’s Universal Theory of Gravitation and Einstein’s General Relativity. Newton’s theory provides an excellent explanation of how gravity operates within our universe (how it is the direct relationship between two masses inversely related to the square of the distance separating them), whilst Einstein’s theory helps us to understand gravity in more extreme circumstances. Now, these laws are by no means a sort of ‘end-all’ to what gravity is: they are merely human interpretations and definitions of gravity. Gravity clearly exists, although maybe not entirely as what we claim it to be.

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Land of the Ruled, Home of the Ignorant

9th May 2012 by under PaleoCrat, Politics     

I hate America.

These are the words that those unfortunate enough to be stalking my Facebook page last night saw as I set this photo as my new cover photo.

Of course, as anyone would expect, I was met with both acclaim and criticism for my statement. All of my teenage friends commented like they were in the America-bash-brigade, talking about how terrible a nation America is, whilst my elders infrequently posted their pro-American beliefs. After being  ’enlightened’ about the wonders of America twice, I decided that this simple little summation of my extreme disliking of my nation was not going to lead to the kind of discussion that I approve of – it would simply turn into a shouting match between two immovable sides, the new generation vs. the old, the kids vs. the adults.

Now, so that you all don’t think that I’m simply some sort of anti-America liberal scum (I assure you that I am none of these), I will tell you exactly what I told those who got mad at me, and I think you will find that you completely agree with many of the things on my list.

I hate the blind patriotism, the American exceptionalist attitudes, the failed foreign policies, the detrimental monetary policies, the absolute disdain for freedoms and preserving the Constitution that the American political parties have, the party system in and of itself, the ridiculous lobbying and partisan power plays, the intolerance of other cultures, various lifestyles, and different belief systems, and the general ignorance towards anything not pop-culture that the American populace holds.

Many of these complaints that I hold are held by many of my peers and family members, and even much of mainstream America. I think we can all agree that America is not the greatest nation on Earth – America has fallen from the ideals it once stood for. America does not fight for democracy; America fights for puppet governments that it can control from behind the  curtain. America does not stand for free enterprise; America stands for corporate greed and politicians placed in the pockets of well-paid Wall Street execs who can’t ever seem to get enough. America does not stand for equality; America stands for the guy who has the deepest pockets and the most powerful friends. We all know it’s true. American politics is corrupt. Now, this isn’t to say that we are the worst out there – as someone pointed out in the 65 comments long thread on my picture, America is better than certain countries that came around in the early 90s following the disbanding of the Soviet Union. And I grant that completely. America has a lot of great things going for it. But we had even more great things, and we have dropped our proverbial ball. America is no longer the king of the hill or sitting on the tallest pedestal, and it has not been there for a long time.

I love the ideals my nation was built upon, but I hate the distortion they have undergone in the name of ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’. Delivering freedom on a silver platter to other nations is not something America should do. Giving free passes to the manipulators of America’s economy is not something America should be doing.

I hate America.

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