Goose Nonnegotiables

I, The Goose, state that the following positions are essential to long-term sustainability and to the integrity of the human community. I will never retreat one micron from any of these positions:

Women's Rights
A woman must always be treated 100% equal to a man. There are no exceptions to this rule. Religions, cultures, and traditions are no excuse for treating a woman any less than a male. If you are in a church group that says you can hold any job except a senior leadership position, get out of there. Don't buy into this crap about a "woman's role." It's a lie.

Gay Rights
Gays must be treated with 100% equality to non-gays, and this includes marriage, partner benefits, etc... At this time, the Religious Right is using gays as the "enemy of choice" to unify their base. Don't buy into their crap. Gays are overwhelmingly peaceful people that have lives like everyone else. Targeting them as something wrong or bad is a total fabrication. Are gays moral? Of course they are, and I EXPECT everyone to be moral, regardless of their sexual orientation. In other words, the whole gay issue is a complete non issue.

Human Dignity
All humans are completely equal, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, economic class, sexual preference, nationality, etc... Labels placed on a person mean nothing — the only thing that matters is what is in a person's heart.

Animal Rights
A human being is no better than any other animal. By that, I'm saying that the million-plus species we share the Planet with should be RESPECTED and not EXPLOITED. Human decisions should always take animal life into consideration. Yes, it's okay to occasionally eat them, albeit reverently and respectfully, and be thankful for the protein they give you.

Religion Is Inherently Bad
Yes, religions do good works, but so do many secular charitable organizations. The "good" is greatly overstated. In fact, most religious resources go into self-perpetuation of social clubs that are unified by unproven dogma. Religion forces humans to believe in the unproven, stifles questioning and dissent, and forces conformity, robbing the individual of free thought and skepticism. If you don't believe that religion is bad, study the history of Easter Island and other failed civilizations — their theology only became the vise that ultimately crushed them. All religions were invented by MEN (sorry, not women) and emerged from ancient astrological worship. Christianity is simply an evolved religion that was mainly created by the Egyptians and borrowed by the Hebrews. The Greeks sprinkled it with their intellectualism and the Romans used it to unify their empire. And like magic, after a few hundred years, you have one generally crappy religion that basically makes no sense, and has little historical or archeological backing. If you don't believe me, study the Dead Sea scrolls and read books on the origins of your religion. If you think you are angering God by researching the history of your religion, then you've lost your ability to think.

Individual Responsibility & Advocacy
All humans have a personal responsibility to reduce their impact on the Earth. This is done in two ways: by reducing consumption and reducing family size, preferably to one or two children. Those of us in the developed world have a higher responsibility. We must end our addiction to materialism and adopt a simplistic lifestyle. Trust me, no one cares about how much crap you own, and no one is impressed. Owning a lot of crap will NEVER bring you happiness. If buying crap gives you a jolt, find another way to get your high. Secondly, those of us in the developed world must advocate for more equality for those in the Third World. We should provide education, micro loans, and give infrastructure grants to the developing nations. MOST IMPORTANTLY, we must ensure that funds are available to provide universal access to family planning services. Most well-meaning aid organizations focus on the immediate relief of the world's starving and extremely poor citizens, and fail to appreciate the fact that family planning is the NUMBER ONE thing that can help the developing world in the long-term.

Free Trade
Free trade promotes the exchange of ideas and encourages peace. Free trade must always be FAIR trade and should not be manipulated by a handful of multinational corporations. Free trade should be for the PEOPLE and not for soulless, parasitic companies.

Immigration/Migration
Free movement should be a basic human right. Having said that, I believe that there should be "People Areas" and "Nature Areas." Humans do not have the right to rape and plunder every last square inch of the Earth.

Earthian First
My allegiance is always to my Planet first and then to my country. A country is merely a political unit organized for administrative efficiency. Borders mean nothing to nature. And all humans are one world community. Every man is my brother, every female is my sister, and every animal is my pet.

Peacemaking
Just because violence is built into our culture and maybe even our genetics doesn't make it right. It is essential for humanity to evolve beyond violence. More nations are getting nuclear weapons and ultimately the technology and material will permeate to rogue terrorist groups. So, really, we don't have a choice but to pursue world peace and the eradication of nuclear weapons. Do you really want to get goosed? The Goose sure doesn't.