And They Don’t Even Know They are Crazy

Tags

Bryan Fischer, budget, economy, environment, Eric Cantor, global warming, Individual Rights, Islamophobia, Michele Bachmann, teabaggers

Imagine what THAT must be like? Being crazy as the proverbial loon, and having nary a clue.

I feel, in the name of good consciousness, I should have to tell ’em. I really do. It’s a moral thing. A person has a right to know they are not playing with a full deck.

Case in point.

Bryan Fischer, that homophobic/Islamophobic, all around provider of hate. He’s crazy. Batshit, Wonka, nutzo, drooling and showing us his nasty privates kinda crazy.

You don’t believe me?

Well, okay, I’ll prove it to ya.

In his radio broadcast of only yesterday, picklebrain Bryan talked about a Pew poll that said that half of all Muslims think of themselves as Muslim first and Americans second. Being no dummy in his empty skull, he fully admitted that Christians pretty much do the same thing, think of themselves as Christian first and Americans second.

Okay.

But when you are crazy as a 42-year-old male in Louisiana claiming that he is Napoleon Bonaparte returned from the dead, well then that gets interpreted this way:

 It’s not a problem when a Christian says that. For the Christian to say “I am a Christian first and an American second,” that’s what we all ought to say. Our ultimate allegiance is not to country, not to the Constitution, it’s to God and the Scripture. If you have to make a choice between the two, we must obey God rather than man.

But when a Christian says “I’m a Christian first and an American second,” the fact that he is a Christian first, he’s got devotion and allegiance to Jesus Christ means he’s going to be a better American. He’s going to be an asset to his country, he’s going to love his country, he’s going to become more fervent in his patriotism. His love for his country and for its traditions are going to deepen because those traditions are rooted in the soil of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Now if you have a Muslim, on the other hand, that says that – “I am a Muslim first and an American second” – look out! Because that indicates his ultimate devotion is to the Quran, it’s to Allah, it’s to Muhammad. It’s not to Jesus Christ, it’s not to the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is not to American values and American tradition and American history and American heroes – it is to Allah and Allah tells him to slay the idolaters wherever you find them.

So the more devout a Muslim gets, the more of a threat he becomes to America’s national security.

 And that dear friends, qualifies Mr. Fischer as being crazier than 95% of the patients in Bellevue.

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Case in point 2:

In 2004, Eric Cantor asked for federal funds to help his hurricane ravaged state. Some time after than, Eric (I am more important than John) Cantor, forget what little he ever knew. Sharing the common TeaNutz® drool cup, Eric the crazy CANNOT sing that tune in 2011. So it comes out, we want aid, if we can offset it with cutting something somewhere.

Cantor you can’t become Speaker that way. I think your constituency is already lookin’ about for a new representative. You’re not playing with even half a deck there Eric the Cant.

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Case in point 3:

Michele Bachmann. Oh hell, why bother. She’s too obvious, and let it not be said that I have no compassion for the crazy among us. It was God. . .No it was only a joke. . .No it was God. I’m lying, or I’m not.

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Case in point 4:

The TeaNutz®. They are most all of ’em crazy as seals at a polar bear party. I mean it. And if you don’t believe me on that one, than please go read wearerespectablenegroes interview with “Whiteness.”

It will all sound so eerily familiar to ya. And you will whisper for the men in white jackets with the funny jacket that has the strings attached to the sleeves, and the refrain, “they’re coming to take me away haha, heehee, ho-ho. . .”

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Case in point 5:

There is a squirrelly fellow by the name of Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, and he runs a “Christian environmental think tank”. Read anti-global warming. He claims that the folks protesting at the White House against the Canadian pipeline are “violating scripture” and are just publicity seekers.

How so you ask?

Why, scripture is quite clear:

“They profess to believe the Bible,” he points out. “Well, the Bible tells them that they’re supposed to obey the governing authorities unless those governing authorities either require them to do what God forbids or forbids them to do what God requires — and that has not happened. So they are actually disobeying scripture by doing this.”

Sumpin’ tells me that old Cal wouldn’t be singing that tune when it comes to go old “American” teabagger protestin’ now would he?

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And Case in Point, 6 and last but never the least of the crazies:

The US Congress, except for a few Dems here and there:

From Joe.My.God.

Sean Hannity: EXPOSED

Tags

Barack Obama, Humor, Sean Hannity

In a stunning announcement this morning, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon informed world governments, that indeed, there are aliens living among us. Or more specifically one.

The High Council of RePakTron contacted the Secretary General late Monday night, apologizing for the lateness of the hour, but concerned to end the situation that was a deep embarrassment to the beings of RePakTron.

In a communique distributed to all governments, the Supreme Pupon, Derrick, spoke for his people:

Dear People of Earth:

Greetings!

Dear folks of planet Earth, or as we call it, the Land of So-so Evolution. We are sad to confess that one of our juvenile delinquents has found his way to your planet and has been causing some kerfuffle here.

You know him as Sean Hannity, but to us, he is our beloved simpleton, Bruce. You see, Bruce was one of our genetic accidents, harmed in a laboratory accident some years ago.

Now this does happen from time to time, and we take great care to love and protect these miscreants as best we can. We raised Bruce with plenty of love, and a room full of play-do and something similar to what you call “Lincoln logs.” When he got old enough, he was given a big job (among our simpleton population) as junior to the junior assistant to the assistant, twice removed superintendent of janitors of Block 7, housing unit 4 (B). This is high praise indeed.

However, Bruce never could get over the fact that he was a simpleton. He was, you see, too simple. It drove him purely nuts that he was not smart. He started out doing little things to disrupt our fair planet of RePakTron. Things like, spraying the toilet paper with sticky glue. As you can imagine, this was quite unsettling.

We tried our best to understand Bruce’s anger, and to channel it appropriately through various, what you would call coloring books, but to no avail. A dozen psychologists worked round the clock to keep him occupied, but he continued to squander his limited powers on ways to punish us.

You cannot imagine the trouble he caused when he screwed in the out-waste tube to the intake tube and well, showering became impossible in all of Block 7, housing unit 4 (B).

We thought a field trip might do him some good, but that turned into a disaster when he snuck off and located a voice-activated ship and took off.

We’ve been looking for him ever since.

We have traced him across four galaxies and nearly 32 life-supporting planets. We never would have found him here, had it not been for the penile implant that we place in all our genetic accidents. (Used only to monitor that they don’t reproduce inappropriately, we assure you.)

In any case, we began to get a high series of “ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping, etc., etc., etc.” and they lasted just long enough for us to get a fix on him.

Once we had him secured, we were able by our mind-review analysis, to determine events that ended in our capture of our little way-faring delinquent.

It seems that Bruce, or Sean as you know him, still being highly resentful of intelligent people, landed at a place called Fox News, or as the Secretary General kindly informed us, Foxy Noise. Sean was what they call a pundit there. Finding, apparently that people called RePUBlicans (we hope we have that right) are nearly as simple as he, well, he naturally joined their cause.

Most of his time, so we learn, has been spent bashing the intelligent people, many of whom are called DeMOcrats. One DeMOcrat in particular, who is (even by our standards) particularly wise, a Barrack Obama I believe you call him, has driven our poor Bruce nearly crazed.

It seems that someone in a country called America wrote a piece about another human, a Rick Perry, and suggested that he might be more along Bruce’s lines–meaning not too smart. Somehow, Bruce, getting all upset and all, decided to make another attack on this smart Obama fellow.

Anyway, that led to a rather lengthy and messy marathon of what you call masturbation on Bruce’s part. That in a nutshell, activated the “pinger” and here we are.

We are most assuredly sorry for any inconvenience this child has caused anyone here in the country of America, sometimes called the US of A. We have done our best to find him, but as you can see, until recently Bruce has not been penile-ly active.

We shall take him home forthwith, and I can assure you that he will be having no television (yes we have it too) for a month and no dessert either!

Sorry for the inconvenience.

We might return in a few more thousands of years, assuming you don’t go kerblooey with the bombs and such.

PS: evolution is a FACT, and damn your planet stinks–clean up the air!

Your’s truly,

Derrick, Supreme Pupon, High Council, RePakTron.

This has been a public service message. Return to normal life now.

Related articles

• WATCH: Sean Hannity Rages, Calls Obama Dumb (huffingtonpost.com)

Back to Disgusting Politics

Tags

atheists, fundamentalism, Gadsden Flag, Humor, liberalism, Michele Bachmann, Ricky Perry, social security, teabaggers

Ya see, it’s fairly insidious. You start out quite innocently going to read one blog, and they turn ya on to another. So you think, okay, one more in the old reader won’t hurt.

So then you go to capture a picture and in the background of the picture you see the website it came from, and you think, “hey that looks interesting, and so you go and take a look and then say, “okay, I guess I can add another.

That’s how you end up with 259 damn blogs in your reader folks. Remember that, and beware!

Figured I’d give you the full size of this gem since the fine print is funny too.

Anyway, I was over at “we are respectable negroes” and that led to this site called Random Walks, and he, (being John) had a well done piece on the TeaNutz® and the use of the Gadsden Flag. And while you are at it, stop by 3CHICSPOLITICO and see if you like the offerings there.

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Most of you know that I have little truck with the New Atheism. I rather like the old frankly. There is an amazingly good article in the Guardian about the subject and why the New Atheist is pretty much just as fundamentally literalistic as the fundamentalist Christian. Here’s a nice quote that might whet you appetite:

This from a former but still believing parish priest:

 “It is impossible to be a serious Christian and believe in heaven and hell.” When I, who as raised in a strongly and conventionally religious home, expressed surprise and suggested that once one stops believing in heaven one might as well stop believing in God, he said, more vehemently: “It’s exactly the opposite: not believing in heaven and hell is a prerequisite for serious Christian belief.”

As James Woods points out, the New Atheists have no argument to make against this group of Christians. Nor with other mainstream Buddhists, Hindus or Muslims either.

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Meanwhile, back at the Casbah, Michele “Who’s your crazy now?” Bachmann is all up in arms. Isn’t it perfectly clear that GOD has spoken in the guise of earthquake and hurricane? I mean isn’t this down right obvious? And Michele of course has his ear, and purports to speak for his Supreme Being.

You see, GOD Almighty wishes to be heard, and he wishes politicians, and most particularly one Barrack Hussein Obama would listen to the PEOPLE. So she says.

Except, that the INSANE minority that Michele wishes to represent, ain’t exactly the definition of “the people” as we see it. The people would seem to suggest some sort of BARE FREAKIN’ MAJORITY doncha think there doll?

Anyways, I got not nearly the satirical game as Juanita Jean’s take on the Bachmann thing, so go read her biting commentary.

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Me is much likin’ the great double down of Ricky “aw shucks” Perry. He’s gonna drive that Ponzi scheme Social Security argument right into the La Brea Tar Pits. I’d love to be around in a few million when they dig up his bones and put him on display in the Natural History Museum as a “TeaNutz® relic” known only to a very few political scientists who like really really obscure subject matter.

SmartyPants says it all with this great cartoon:

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And then SmartyPants led me here to this which I must say, says it all too.

That which I cannot study empirically I do not understand.  If there is nothing for me to have observed and I have either not sought or not been persuaded with evidence, then my answer is I do not know.

My peace is not in knowing; it is in wanting to know.  And my bliss is not in knowing; it is in trying to know.

This makes me a liberal.  Evidence is not something I fight against, and answers are not something I require.

That which one cannot study empirically the conservative claims to understand anyway.  Even when there is nothing to observe and the conservative has neither sought nor been presented with evidence, the conservative’s answer is I know.

The conservative finds peace only in knowing the answers to questions that she has not even asked.  And once she knows, she will not be persuaded by evidence; hers is to defend her truth, not to find nature’s.

And this of course means that Beeryblog must also go into my reader.

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And humorously speaking, if they weren’t so darn sick in the head, here is what the Blaze nincompoops which you to know today:

The Blaze’s Jonathon Seidel, a pretence of a journalist, wants you to know that Bernice King, daughter of MLK just might be a racist, or perhaps she just made an honest mistake. More fun to think the former though rich Jonathon? The Blaze racists don’t know the definition of racism of course.

And Jon stumps for the nearly forgotten Glenny *I’m gettiin’ out of my straight-jacket soon” Beck, and urges you to watch his “rousing human rights speech” at some church in Texas.

Meanwhile, a “possible” and “maybe illegal” uncle of President Obama’s “might” have been arrested in Massachusetts last week for DUI.

Have a good one!

Related articles

• Atheists, Muslims More Popular Than Tea Party (Also, Tea Party’s Just a New Name for Racist Christian Right) (alternet.org)

Did Ya Hear About the Hurricane?

Tags

Dick Cheney, Election 2012, gay rights, GOP, hurricane Irene, Media, Mitt Romney, weather

You may have missed it. The media hasn’t really emphasized it that much.

So just an update. There is a hurricane along the east coast. It’s raining and the wind is blowing. Most of the people are gone. The media, by the thousands, are strung out along various shores, bays, boating marinas and so forth showing you how good they are at standing in windy rainstorms. It’s exciting.

They give a lot of useful information. Like “get out of here” and “don’t stand in front of windows,” and “don’t go outside.” They specialize in speculating about what could happen if a whole lot of “ifs” should all simultaneously occur. I like that. It’s like a game. “If it wasn’t low tide now, and if the winds should increase, and if the waters should come over the sand dune here, and if the houses weren’t all built on stilts across the way here, well if all those things happen, it could be really bad here.”

This is only surpassed by reporters driving around in circles trying to find “some damage” to report on. So far some roofing shingles have been show flapping and a piece of aluminum siding is loose. A fine politico from Massachusetts advised that “this is gonna affect different parts of Massachusetts differently.” Yeah I bet. Boy informative!  

I don’t mean to minimize the troubles that certain people are facing, but this is the usual media farce that we would expect. Heading for the movie channels today.

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Oh, by the by. I have another blog. It’s one you may have little or no interest in. It’s not designed to be a big conversation blog. It’s really my personal cookbook made public. I have tried to make hard copies of my recipes and put them in order, and nothing works well, and so I hit on this idea. Where I can organize easily and get rid of all the paper, and I don’t have to worry about losing anything.

Phew. So anyway, it’s called “What’s on the Stove?” If you like recipes, well then the best thing to do is just subscribe by e-mail and you’ll get it when I post one. I post irregularly. There are only four up now. I think. Lol. I’m going to put up one later. I also post on Just a Pinch. They have about 100 new recipes a day which are nice to run through and then bring up any one that looks interesting. For $10 you get a recipe organizer and shopping list capabilities. Also a nice apron. And their tech people are awesome. Again, if ya like recipes.

Oh the only really unique thing about the blog, is that no recipe is or will be listed there that I haven’t made and added to my regular repertoire of menu items. I’m probably going to incorporate a page just for a comprehensive shopping list, which could be adaptable to your needs. If you are so inclined. I’m anal. I know.

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Ya see, when some goofy jackass starts really getting all homophobic, then’s the time to start paying attention to his behavior. Did you hear about Mr Hinkle? The Indiana State GOPer? The one who is always pushing DOM legislation? Oh ya didn’t?

Seems Mr. Hinkle, who is pushing 60, got himself a boy on Craigslist which is a teen. And they were at a motel. And well, you can guess. Mr. Hinkle says they talked about sports. And as he put it, “he went to the edge” but thank God pulled himself back in time!

So he claims nothing happened, except the kid stole his money and his electronics. Except that his wifey, gave the kid’s sister $10,000 in hush your mouth money, except she told everybody anyway.

Will they never learn? Mr. Hinkle assures everyone he has no interest in marrying the boy.

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Did you happen to see the latest dust-up Mitty (I WANT to be President) Romney had with a lady who came to his whatever speech? She asked him would he mind stopping all the platitudes, before he cut her off. He comes off in these encounters awfully nasty, arrogant, and playing gotcha with words. He is rude and obnoxious frankly. Case ya didn’t here, he’s trying pledging not to spend one dollar on “global warming” in an attempt to stick his nose deeper into the collective butts of the TeaNutz®.

I think Mitty is starting to crackle around the edges and it appears so far at least that RIcky is surging hard and fast. I’m having a ball watching this train wreck.

Speaking of things that make your skin crawl, that’s about how I feel when I see or hear Dickie Darth Cheney these days. He is actually evil in every sense of the word. He loves him some torture. I bet he does something unmentionable to his nether regions every time he hears those immortal words, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Duval has him shaking with delight, and oh, I don’t want that image in my mind! Help! Erase, Erase!

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Time to get back to the hurricane coverage. I sure don’t want to miss anything.

 

 

Related articles

• State Rep. Phil Hinkle: I’m not gay, I just like baseball (dailykos.com)
• Indiana Republican Just Talked About Baseball, ‘The View’ With Gay Teen He Met on Craigslist [Sex Scandal] (gawker.com)
• Hurricane Irene Exposes Charlatans on All Sides of Climate Science (forbes.com)

Cul-cher-alee Speakin’

Tags

creationism, evolution, irony, sociology, surivival of the fittest

On Friday, or any other day that the mood strikes me, we hear at AFeatherAdrift (doncha love that “we” crap?), like to offer a more culturally mature post, directing you to the kinds of things that will impress your boss, your uncle Bart and the mail deliverer.

So grab a chair, belt up, and be prepared to be bedazzled with high-minded fare.

The New Atlantis has a nice long but very entertaining piece about travel in the age of GPS. If you are like me, you have had the experience of landing after a long plane ride, all of a sudden thrust into a wildly different environment, all peopled by folks who seem to take it as quite normal to be there.

The author muses about Kerouac, Odysseus, Huck, Quixote and others and how they would have found traveling in a world where “you are here” is a constant given. Good writing to boot. What more can you ask for?

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It’s downright amazing how things just come to you. Ironic things, or sudden connections. Oddities and as “they” say these days, “ah ha moments.

Well, if you recall, Darwin was talking about changes the species over time caused, as we now know, by mutations. He posited that those species whose mutations led to their being better able to survive, did so at a greater rate than those that were not so fortunate. Over time, the better abled might well push out or “cause” the extinction” of the less abled.

Some (so they thought at the time) smart intellectuals (the very ones no doubt that the knuckledraggers of Trailer Town USA, so loathes today, thought it wise to slap Darwin’s species “survival of the fittest” onto ONE species, that of humanity. They posited that those humans most able would naturally rise to positions of power and wealth because of their superior survival abilities–abilities they believed were inborn.

Well, here is the ironic part.

The Republican intelligentsia  and their followers are to an inordinate degree not believers in Darwin per se. A goodly number agree with their uneducated mob that Darwin is an atheist nightmare and belief that we “came from monkeys” is some satanic plan to destroy us all. Darwin and his “theory” is only just that–a theory–a barely workable working hypothesis that is so full of holes and “gaps” that we can relax, read a much easier tract (read Bible), with a much much shorter story, and rest happy in our salvation.

Except that juxtaposed along side this treatise of idiocy lies their other chief tenet–survival of the fittest, which is nothing much more than the hidden framework for the much touted and Godly “Protestant work ethic.” You see, the reason that the likes of Rubio, Ryan, Perry, Bachmann, and all the other swill (read Republicans) are so against such things as social security, medicare, welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and so forth is because they think it makes us “weak” as a people. We aren’t striving to survive which is what insures our evolutionary dominance. Oops, did I say evolutionary?  

I wonder do they catch themselves making that mistake? How do they live with the contradiction? I mean I know how the masses live with it. They aren’t smart enough to either realize it or if they did, make any sense of it. But some of the Republican intelligentsia must get it. I suspect they do, but they aren’t really creationists either–just for the masses.

Ironic isn’t it?

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Ever thought about walking? In our house it’s a topic of conversation now and again. The Contrarian is not a walker–he will get in the car to drive 100 yards. He saw nothing so awfully wrong in Chris Christie’s taking a limo to drive him the twenty yards from helicopter to baseball seat. 

I have a love-hate relationship with walking. I like to walk on flat ground, not so much uphill. We gotta lot of uphill crap here. I’m hoping for more flat in the neighborhood I will inhabit in Las Cruces.

Once upon a time, walking a few miles a day was fairly ordinary. I recall reading about Henry Ford walking from Dearborn to Detroit to work every day. I lived in both, so I have some sense of the distance. We see refugees on long marches across often inhospitable territory in the hopes of finding safety. They often walk for days, even weeks.

Walking is great for thinking. As one writer says, you need to walk because it slows down the brain. We need the time and space. Nothing else quite gives that to us.

We walk to get from place to place, and we walk to make statements, and to raise money. We walk for health, and for penance. We walk because we can. Do we walk as a reminder of one of the things that makes us unique in the world? We walk to discover that which cannot be seen or appreciated by driving or riding in some vehicle.

Sit down with this article this week-end. Not so long.

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Ya know I noticed something the other day. The Contrarian and I were headed to the VA for his yearly check-up and we were on a main thoroughfare through the city of Cedar Rapids. One that once was probably a more pleasant and quiet neighborly street.

Near the urban center, the houses were large with two stories, and wide wide porches, open or enclosed. Some were clearly not being used, others had the obligatory furniture of chairs and plants, making the house look cheery and welcoming.

As we progressed farther from the heart of the city, the houses abruptly changed. Gone were the wide and long porches, and porches became nothing more than a small platform from which one launched to the driveway or into the house. One couldn’t fit A chair on the “porch” and still open the door.

I’d say the first section were homes built in the 30’s and 40’s, and the porchless houses were circa 1950+. Times change, nobody sat out on the veranda and chatted with neighbors passing by in the evening any more. By the 50’s socializing with a family affair, conducted out in the back yard, privately.

Funny, that I just noticed that very physical transition the other day.

Everything I Say is a Lie. . . .I’m lying

Tags

atheists, civil rights, creationism, Darwinism, David Barton, Dawkins, evolution, MLK, Obama, renewed Darwinism, Rick Perry, rightwing nuttery, teabaggers

Note that the cartoon pictured at left carries the “Answers in Genesis” website. I believe that these are the same people who bring you the “Creation Museum” in Kentucky and are building the Noah’s Ark as their next “reality” project.

I am generally not a big fan of atheists, at least the mocking types. It’s all well and good to conclude that there is no proof of God and that you are content to let it be, living your life by perfectly good standards of conduct, without resort to any religious faith. I tend to be in agreement with atheists who take on the fundamentalists, because they don’t represent any kind of believing that I can understand nor accept and their actions are damaging for the most part.

I do tend to get rather pissy with atheists who lump all believers, of ANY faith into the same basket and make fun of them, such as referring to their belief in “faeries” and boogie men. It tends to belie your own faith in your own beliefs of “there is no God” when you are so insecure as that.

So, I’m not, generally speaking, a great fan of Richard Dawkins, though I certainly have no quarrel with his evolutionary statements. I find them compelling and utterly credible, as the entire field of evolution seem to be to me. But recently, Dawkins had some words for our new pal Ricky Perry and the field of GOPers who adhere to the “safe” haven of “it’s ONLY a theory.” (By the war, Al Gore points out in An Inconvenient Truth, that “it’s only a theory” is the intentional plan of attack of those who wish to confuse any issue, be it global warming or evolution.)

My thanks to Joe.My.God for the quote:

There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.” – Famed atheist Richard Dawkins, responding to Rick Perry’s denouncement of evolution.

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Speaking of evolution, there is a rather fascinating book published in 2010 about what the author calls RD or “renewed Darwinism“. Paul Lawrence area of expertise is in business, and he was near retirement from the Harvard Business School when he became dissatisfied with the “agency model” of business leadership, finding that it seemed to relate only to making stockholders happy. He began to investigate other fields and found in Darwin his answer.

Lawrence posits that man is evolutionarily driven to four things: acquisition, bonding, defense, and comprehension. We are, he suggests, constantly engaged in the activity of balancing these four things. He claims that things appear out of whack now because a “few bad apples with an outsized drive to acquire and no moral conscience” have prevailed, because they have no apparent need to bond.

So far, studies looking at Lawrence’s model of leadership tend to confirm it. Those companies who exhibit a healthy balance of all four things, tend to show good results, those that don’t, don’t.

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I must say I’m good. I read this headline in my reader: “Perry retreat co-host MLK deserved no credit on civil rights.” Well, I knew it could be none other than our ubiquitous TeaNutz® faux historian David Barton. Yes, Perry continues to double down in his unity with all things wingnut crazy, alienating all non-Christians and not a few Christians, and now African-Americans.

It seems that Barton is of the belief, that while MLK is a deserves a “place” in history, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Barton is almost too stupid to attack. I mean, dude, seriously, your “analysis” is childish.

Barton and others have done their level best to rewrite history books for Texas schools, seeking to minimize such folks as Thurgood Marshall and César Chávez. This all in an attempt to glorify white Christians, to the exclusion of all others in the history of the US.

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Ya know, Jebby Bush warned ’em when he was last interviewed on Faux Noise. He said, it’s fine to criticize the President’s policies, but hey, lay off challenging his motives. But of course, no, that would not be cool would it? The National Review, long since sunk in a cesspool of what else? poo, has decided that the President’s VACATION READING FARE is not appropriate! Angry Black Lady Chronicles has the story (Not sure if they got it from Think Progress?) 

 

Related articles

• It’s a Theory That’s Out There (sydiot.com)
• The strength of Dawkins, and the murk of accommodationism (scienceblogs.com)
• Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact (chasdarwin.wordpress.com)

“THE American People” Think You Are All NUTZ

Tags

Constitution, government, political philosophy, representation, US

We hear it from all quarters: “The American people. . .” We want and don’t want tax raises, we do and don’t want universal health care, we do and don’t believe in global warming at the hands of ourselves, we do and don’t believe in creationism, evolution, this or that war, this or that light bulb.

It’s enough to make you wretch.

The fact is, it’s pretty unclear whether anybody speaks for me at all, most of the time. I seem to be yelling out my instructions and positions to a mostly deaf government.

We have individuals who believe they have a mandate to do X simply because, often by only a few thousand votes, a minority or bare majority has voted them into office. They seem to believe that everyone voted for the exact same reasons. They shrug off concerns for minority opinions (which our Constitution was developed exactly to protect!), and pontificate about what they are going to do, giving it that stamp of imprimatur every few sentences, “The People of the US want us to . . .”

Which of course begs the question. What do we have a right to expect? Should our representatives run on a platform and then if elected, even if only by a plurality, set about putting it in motion? Or should they be forced to “compromise” to include their minority position. At what point does an individual “win” be so overwhelming that the minority can be ignored? Are there moral considerations that make this wrong on some issues no matter how small that be?

Of greater question is just what type of representation are we expecting? Was that different at the countries political inception than now? Should it change? Why? For both Houses or just one?

Philosophically, there have been two general ways of representing one’s constituents. In the first, the elected official, by way of town halls, questionnaires, office hours, and such makes every attempt to discern the general desires of the majority of his district or state. He or she then acts according to those perceptions. Kind of like a referendum on every issue approach.

This probably worked pretty darn good in the 1800’s when we weren’t so darned diversified by occupation, religion, ethnic background and all that. Today? Is it truly possible to know? Are you not simply gauging the “very very interested” who participate in polling, questionnaires and town halls and e-mails?

Is there anything special about the representative? Does she have some greater knowledge on issues, or at least certain of them, that make it unwise to trust in the mob?

This brings us to the second method. This theory claims that implicit in the election is the acknowledgment that the official is in fact specially informed, and thus is in a rare place to make the “best” decision for the “most” people. And certainly only she has the special knowledge reserved for “high clearance” information and certainly the relative merits of tradeoffs with other representatives. Shouldn’t this count?

This also worked pretty darn well in the 1800’s where your Senator might well be the rancher on the spread next to yours and a person you might reasonably share similar interests with.

So it all comes down to what do we expect? Do we know? When is the last time you had THIS discussion with yourself or anyone else? Does it matter what the answer is? If is doesn’t then heck, I’ve just wasted your time. If it does, then we are wasting our time arguing until we determine just how many believe what.

We haven’t even got to the question of K Street and it’s influence. We pretty much all agree it shouldn’t exist. I think we do at least. If our politicians are owned already by another entity, than what kind of representation we believe in is pretty much a dead issue, until we have plucked off the parasite clinging to our elected official.

I have no answers. I seldom do. Do you have an opinion? Let it fly.

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