The Exceptionalism of the United States of America

Tags

2nd Amendment

I’ve been having a hard time of it lately. If you’ve ever seen Key and Peele the comedy due, you know about Luther, the anger management guy who speaks for the always calm and cool, Barack Obama. I think I need Luther to speak for me, because when I start to write, my fingers start jabbing the keys so hard I think I’ll go through the board.

It’s all well and good to disagree on things, but when lives are on the line, well, stupid really gets on your nerves.

You can imagine the fun I’ve had arguing with gun nuts. Always the same story.

GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE.

Hello? This means exactly what?

Guns provide the mechanism for killing people for people hell bent on killing people. Especially if they want to kill a lot of people very very fast. Your stupid notion that the gun is the not the problem, is just that. . .stupid. You can’t discern the difference between a person who kills someone with a knife and someone who uses a semi-automatic weapon to mow down twenty people.

THE ANSWER TO A BAD GUY WITH A GUN IS A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN.

Yeah? Except that isn’t really true.

See this photo? A good six of the men around Reagan were armed. Hinkley pulled a gun and started shooting. Not one of the armed defenders shot their weapon. Hinkley was wrestled down.

Pulling a gun during a shootout doesn’t work well especially if you are not in a uniform that designates you as a good guy. People don’t want to be mistaken for the shooter, so guess what? They don’t pull their guns much.

WE THE PEOPLE ARMED WITH THE 2ND AMENDMENT ARE ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN US AND TYRANNY.

This little gem comes direct from the NRA, who have rewritten history in an attempt to turn an amendment meant to insure state militias, turned into a personal right to have any and as many guns of lethal force as you wish.

Read Steven’s dissent in Heller if you want to know the truth. The purpose of the 2nd amendment is made clear by the opening clause: A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA BEING NECESSARY TO THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

We are hear talking about the rights of a state to insure its own security by being able to raise a militia of local citizens to BEAR ARMS for the state. The first time the amendment was invoked was by President Washington to put down a local rebellion of citizens against paying a whiskey tax. They were with violence prohibiting the federal agents from collecting the tax.

Washington called upon the governors of a few state to call up their state militias under the second amendment and to enforce the collection of the tax.

In addition, REGULATION is in the text. regulate means that the government can quite obviously pass laws and and rules as to how the amendment actually works.

Madison in a earlier draft of the amendment, included a “conscientious objector clause for those who object on religious grounds to doing military service. Of course Scalia didn’t care about such things.

THIS IS JUST THE FIRST STEP TO TOTAL CONFISCATION.

No it’s not. You have no evidence of this whatsoever. The NRA doesn’t even believe this, but it’s proven to be a useful tool to sell more guns.

Buy them now, before we run out. A local gun store owner in Oregon happily informed us that she had just placed another order for the gun owner favorites: the AK type weapons that are beloved by the nuts. She noted, there is only a small window after one of these shootings and they must take advantage.

One fool explained that when the President pointed to both Australia and Britain as places with no mass shootings like ours,  he was hinting at his intent to confiscate “all our weapons”. I was invited to be one of those who will come knocking and demand your guns. How would I like that job, he deflected.

¶¶¶

It’s all so awful. You ask them for their solutions. They have none, except to buy more guns and wear more guns, and caress more guns. A new tack is to round up unemployed vets and send them into schools to protect the littluns.

Really?

We want vets, many who are suffering from mental issues of their own to work the hallways of our elementary schools? DO WE REALLY WANT OUR BABIES TRYING TO LEARN IN SUCH AN ENVIRONMENT? Do we want weapons in our classrooms? Do we want to accept the ensuing accidents that must happen?

Is this the best YOU can do?

It’s not the best I can do by a long shot.

I once lived in Detroit. I had windows covered with bars, and an alarm system. I looked around carefully before I went out after dark. I did not dally going to my car in the driveway (I stopped parking in my garage when I opened it one more and four teen boys ran out, I having interrupted their theft).

When I moved out of Detroit, I realized quickly that fear was not normal.  I no longer had to lock everything. I no longer had to jump at the “wrong” sound at the “wrong” time of the night. I was no longer subject to sirens and helicopters with search lights. Police running down my sidewalk happened no more.

And I discovered something.

Living in fear under lock and key, was no way to live. Moreover, it was not the way that MOST people lived. I’ve lived nearly twenty years in four different locations since then. I have lived without fear. I live normally.

IT IS NOT NORMAL AND WE SHOULD NEVER ALLOW IT TO BE NORMAL TO HAVE ARMED CIVILIANS WANDERING AROUND “TO KEEP US SAFE.”

The facts are simply this. Crime in the US is at an all time low. We all can recall some anecdotal story that suggests that we are not safe, if we go back enough years. But the reality is that what was once common (the house break-in) is a fairly rare occurrence today. For instance, in 1970, the rate of burglary was about 1,085/100,000. That was down to 670/100,000 by 2012.

You probably don’t need a gun at home to defend it. And if you did, more than likely you would be so excited, scared, and confused at the time that you would not use it successfully anyhow. Why? Because you are not trained to handle such a situation.

Something like 2/3 of the American population doesn’t have a gun. But there are more than 300 million guns. The statistics are clear, those who have guns (white men, over 55, high school graduate only, once married at least, are the most likely to be involved in gun violence. More guns means more violence essentially.

Yes, we are exceptional all right.

In all the ways that no one wants to be.

Whose Freedom?

Tags

1st Amendment, free speech, Paris

This whole Charlie Hebdo thing is pretty deep if you stop to think about it. Of course most don’t treat it as such. It has become a knee-jerk reaction for most. Jon Stewart pointed this out when he suggested that some countries who have championed free speech and press, actually arrest plenty of speech in their own countries.

We are all in danger, it seems to me, of being hypocrites, myself included. I confess right now that I have participated in at least two attempts to squelch the free speech of others when it came vile bigoted hate speech against the President.

It’s not nearly as easy an idea as it might appear to be.

A friend of mine posted a link to statements made by the Pope. He suggested that free speech must be protected, but that,   “You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.” Francis did not expound on what should be the consequences of such inappropriate speech, but he warned that the attacks in Paris can fairly be expected from such talk.

I tend to disagree with Francis here, at least insofar as he claims that the ends justify the means. If he suggests that we should ban hate speech vis-a-vis religion if it would engender violence, then this leaves us under the thumb of every radicalized person about any issue he or she defines as “religious”. Where would it stop?

I am aware that all speech is not protected. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said in Schenck v. United States, 249 US 47 (1919), you are not free to yell fire in a crowded theatre. Forever after we have lived with the standard of “clear and present danger” as the bellwether of when speech crosses a line to incite lawlessness.

To succumb to the threat of violence if you “say those things” invites the standard (a difficult one at best) to be flipped to be defined by the one threatening the violence. I have no doubt that the Pope spoke in the general, and as he put it in a friendly manner not meant to be a papal statement of substance.

Yet, of course, those inclined to think little and shallowly about the subject go off the deep end. In the wake of the Paris shootings, Oxford University Press, certainly one of the more respected publishing houses in the world, announced that it would no longer use the words pig, sausage, or pork-related products in its children’s literature. This as a means to not offend Jewish and Muslim readers.

They have been not only roundly ridiculed for such a decision, but criticized as well by the reputable press.

In the post I cited at the beginning, one read the expected Christian whine, “The only ones we have to be kind to are the militant, extremist muslims who might behead us. All the other religions are fair game.” Such rhetoric is of course, both nonsensical and off point.

In fact the world community has stood up very clearly and said, as offensive as Charlie Hebdo is to most people at one time or another, they have he right to say what they wish about Muslims or anybody else for that matter. In a country that is overwhelmingly Christian, (Pew estimates that 78.4% of all Americans define themselves as Christian) it is predictable that the religious right will complain that it is a victim of persecution!

This all suggests that at least some of the Je suis Charlie is nothing more than acclamation that the “right” religion is being attacked. Should Charlie Hebdo attack, (as they of course have done and no doubt will continue to do) Christianity, these self-defined freedom proclaimers will be calling for Charlie’s head.

Some things it seems to me need to be cleared up.

Speech is speech, and unless it reaches the “clear and present danger” standard, ought under no circumstances be prohibited. Westboro Baptist must be allowed to spew it’s hate, as well as the KKK and various right-wing evangelicals and their “burn the Quran”. Atheists who call believers names fall into the category as well.

Speaking against a religion is not persecution of that religion. Persecution involves state action to suppress a religion because of its existence. That does not mean that it is right or to be championed. It is to be marched against, spoken against, and shunned in the most clear way. But it must not be prevented.

When we speak of “not offending” another religion, we are again talking about state action. It is improper to set up creches in public places such as town property, because that is the government speaking then. It is quite proper for a private establishment decorate as it wishes. This is I think where people get most confused.

When a store decides to use the phrase “happy holidays” they are not persecuting Christians, they are choosing to respect all their patrons, Christians and others as well. Similarly if a store chooses to say Merry Christmas or Happy Kwanzaa that is their choice as well.

While I see Oxford Press’s point, I think they have stepped over the line. Some attempts at political correctness are simply absurd. Small children have no clue the point being made, and who are really addressed are parents, who are surely capable of explaining to their young if they think it necessary.

We simply begin down a dangerous path when we start deciding that certain types of speech are not allowed. In Germany for instance, I believe it is still a crime to speak out in denial of the Holocaust. While there might have once been reason to do such a thing in the raw years immediately after WWII, I’m not sure it is still valid. Many countries have liberal prohibitions of speech that attacks the state. These too are wrong, as most of us would agree.

We must never forget that at one time, the most innocuous of things today was then blasphemous. People were arrested for speaking about all sorts of things that threatened the state (religious or secular) either directly or indirectly. We have come a long way, in most of the civilized world. If we resort to making it illegal to speak our minds about anything beyond what threatens life itself, we run the risk of turning backward down a path that leads to dictatorship, repression, and tyranny.

Those on the Right, who so vociferously espouse “our freedoms” should be the first in line to defend speech. But of course, they have are not. But then, true patriots reside elsewhere on the spectrum, as we all suspect.

 

Turn the Page or Another One Spits Out the Stupid

The Contrarian made a bold statement yesterday.

“I’m done,” he announced.

I nodded without paying much attention. If you ain’t there yet, you will learn as a sane woman that much of what men say is not worth listening to, so all that waiting with baited breath (what the hell does that really mean anyway?) has long passed me by and I automatically search for certain key words to hear before I engage fully in “listening” to my spouse.

“No more news for me. I don’t care. I don’t care what the Republicans do, I don’t care what Congress does or doesn’t do about anything. I’m done with it all. Today was it.”

This brought me to attention, since I just barely, through the usual fog of interfamily discourse, sensed a certain turning point in life issue here.

“What’s up?” I cautiously inquired.

“Fox is in a fit because the president has come out against Christie and Cuomo and their plans to quarantine aid workers returning from Ebola-stricken nations.” (actually he said something like Fox is having a fucking melt down because Obama said they were nuts for locking up people because they MIGHT be sick). Call it poetic license or anything else that suits ya, I’m writin’ it the way I wanna.

I nodded, since I would assume Fox to take no other position. The equation is simple enough. President says X, Fox says, FOR SHAME YOU BASTARD! Nothing new here.

“Ya see,” he says, “if Obama had been the one to quarantine these people, they would be screaming that he is locking up innocent Americans and depriving them of their rights, and FEMA camps, HELLO, just like we been tellin’ ya.”

“Yep, you are probably right,” I mused. That would be true too.

“Well, it’s the last straw, the camel’s back is broken. I’m no masochist. I’m 64 years old. What is this government going to do to me that I can’t live through at this point? Why pollute my mind and peace of mind with such crap? I read WorldNewsDaily every day, and watch the crazies throw poop at each other from inside their cages and call it entertainment. I read Townhall and Daily Caller, and Blaze for the same reason. I’m constantly overwhelmed by how stupid these people are, with few of them even capable of understanding the most basic of arguments on anything. Why they all take oxygen I’m sure, because not a one of them has sufficient brain cells to engage in breathing without help. So I’m done! This is pure torture to the human soul.”

He blinked.

I frowned.

I write about politics and I basically argue that it is a basic requirement of a citizen to be informed and to vote. So I was forced to confront the issue of whether it was really okay to be a low-information citizen or not. Certainly I argue that more knowledge is better, but I can sympathize with the concept that politicians as a rule today are a rather seamy sort of lying blood sucker. That said, can we expect anything better if we don’t participate?

One is faced clearly with a dilemma. On the one hand it is said that Tea Baggers are rather more “informed” than the average person about political issues. But on the other hand, plenty of reputable studies indicate that Fox watchers are by far the most misinformed of citizens. While it may seem that this is contradictory, it truly isn’t.

It’s quite one thing to know that a subject exists in the world, and quite another to know any truth about that subject. Case in point. Fox viewers (aka typical tea imbibers) know that we have no Surgeon General presently occupying the post. In that respect they may be among say only 30 percent of Americans in general. But if you were then to go further and ask, why don’t we have an SG, you would get from the Tea Fool that it is because Obama’s nominee wants to destroy our 2nd Amendment rights, and therefore the GOP has blocked his nomination.

That is patently false. The nominee has evinced an opinion that gun violence is a proper study of health care in America. There are a volume of doctors and other scientists in the field who agree with him. Congress has for several decades explicitly denied the the budgets of the SG or the CDC for that matter as to an studies on the subject. End result, the SG has zero ability to either “take away”  anybody’s 2nd Amendment rights, or even to investigate the issue. Thus it cannot be a REASON to block his appointment.

Thus we can see that in some cases, it would be much better to have no information than purposeful disinformation of which Fox News and it’s ilk are so famous for.

As to the average person, I would suggest, that most are exceedingly low information citizens. While the most prominent “political” party is now “Independent”, that is just a label that means in essence, “I have not thought even enough about any issue to decide on a party.” At least the Green or Socialist, Libertarian, or even Anarchist has done that.

However, it cannot be said from this analysis that people shouldn’t vote unless they can present a modicum of basic knowledge (as some Fox commentators are now arguing). Although their targets are always the poor and brown skinned, there are I suppose some on the left that bemoan from time to time that people who are essentially Tea Party stupid are out there electing their political equivalents to state and federal office. On the whole, the low information voter does reach the right result, even though they may not know why.

Basically, by one’s twenties, one knows what kind of person one is. One is either a citizen of the world and sees us all in this together with the need to work together for the benefit of all, or one sees oneself as part of a tribe, whose only concern is with others of their kind. Most anybody with a few brain cells can tell which party is which based on that simple analysis.

So I have no fear that the Contrarian will falter in his allegiance to the basic principles he has always espoused and vote accordingly. He will continue to read the paper and no doubt will pick up more than enough from me to ensure that he is still wildly above the average when it comes to political knowledge.

And he points to a real issue for me. It is painful to do what I do. My heart is wrenched again and again at what I see as wonton disregard for the rights of others and a very real turning away from helping with basic issues of food, housing, education and health care as basic rights entitled to by all. It hurts deeply to watch the GOP demand that people have a job before they can eat when there are not enough jobs. It is all well and good to create a worldview, and a religious one to back up to that world, as a means to make you feel comfortable with who you really are. It’s quite another to foist that twisted worldview on the rest of us and demand we live by it too.

I am sick to death of so-called religious people (who are not in the least) misusing MY faith as means to justify their own selfish fears about the world and their own inadequacies. If you are unable to handle your homophobic fears that deep down if unleashed you too might harbor a “crush” on someone of the same sex, or once did, hey, deal with it. Don’t re-interpret texts in a sacred book so that you can feel okay in your repulsion at your own “tendencies”.

So I get the desire to dump it all in the nearest trash can and spend the remainder of one’s thinking life pursing things that make one happy and peaceful. I do. And I think that a person has the right to opt for that. And some days I do opt for it.

But politics is as are most things,  a jealous lover. She calls me back. Perhaps one day too, I shall be able to resist her siren calls. But it is not today.

Peace out.

 

It Wasn’t THAT Long Ago. . . .

Tags

abortion, contraception, fundamentalism, GOP, Hobby Lobby, Women's issues

A little history seems in order.

Okay, so before we start, let’s get this straight. This is not an anti-male diatribe, much as you may think it is. There are damn well plenty of stupid women out there who have drunk the kool-aid and think women’s place is in the home, tending the kitchen, children and pets, in that order. The trouble is, the women who tell you that are ANYTHING BUT stay-at-homers themselves and even if they are, they are writing blogs, books, and preachin’ on social media that YOU should not be like them, but rather like the fantasy women they envision–pampered, protected, cared for, and wiper of runny noses all wearing that crisp peter pan-collared cotton frock and perfectly shined respectable two-inch pumps and pushing the vacuum with a free hand.

Whew. . . .

No this is against paternalism and all its ugly underbelly of psychological signals that tell the female gender that they are all they can be just by primping in front of the mirror and making very sure that that eyeliner is on straight and that lipstick is the latest fashion color of the season.

Ya see, I grew up in that tween place, on the cusp, able to see both shores as it were.

Women got the vote in 1920. My mother was born in ’26, so she grew up having it, though I must say, she pretty much used is as far as I can tell, as her husbands explained to her was right and good. But her mother came into her adulthood without it, my grandmother was born in ’01, so it impacted her most. I knew these women for whom the vote was a “new” thing,  but grew up knowing that voting was no different for me than for any guy I knew.

It was not until the 60’s, during the general period of awakening that lots of minorities were going through, least of all white males who were being conscripted to be the fodder in another war, but one this time that seemed to merit no one’s patriotic fervor, that we women began to learn of our own deeper oppression. We began to learn that it was not okay that our bodies were not our own to control, that we were not by “nature” relegated to certain types of jobs, and paid less in others simply because we were women.

We learned that there was much more to do in this journey to equality.

And we secured our right to control our bodies–in other words–to make mistakes just like men do with theirs.

And we worked hard to break through glass ceilings that prevented us from being fighter pilots, (if that’s what we wanted), neurosurgeons, police officers, firefighters,  and corporate CEO’s. And then we discovered that even when we got the jobs we didn’t get the pay, and we began that fight too.

Always with a certain segment of scared men and the women they controlled telling us that we were going against God, country, and well, nature itself.

Always with those who believed that as we gained our power to control our lives, theirs would somehow be diminished. Sharing is a hard lesson to learn.

They argued of course that women would become “just like men”, or worse, punish men in some Amazonian-driven lust for power themselves.

They argued that we would cry during tense negotiations with a Khrushchev and rain down upon America the nuclear holocaust that permeated the Cold War era.

They called us atheistic feminists and the spittle trickled down their chins, catching and rerouting through grizzled stubble, that they wiped away with grubby fingers still clutching ragged signs with misspelled words echoing their hate: Back to the kitchen you sluts!

But while these battles went on quietly across America with thousands of dedicated women, all the clamor died down, and life didn’t change a whole lot. We figured we were still on the journey, but life as we know it hadn’t stopped, and someday we would reach our goal of full integration and equality in America. Most of us thrived in a world that seemed increasingly equal to us.

And then along came the “IMMORAL MINORITY”  waving their bibles, and explaining to middle-aged white men who had failed in the great American dream to be great achievers, that women were the problem and not corporate greed. Women were and always were the problem ever since that bitch picked that apple off that tree and seduced God’s great creation Adam into sinning. Women were the problem.

And as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the great middle started to age and find that damn they weren’t much better off than their parents, some thing had to give. Corporate America became adept at focusing the blame on minorities, takers all. Suddenly, feminism became a dirty word again. Our enemies are mostly aging white men who feel left behind (damn that Rapture, where are you?). The feel and it’s certainly palpable at this point, emasculated by articulate, educated women.

Ask me about it. I belong to a forum of my old high school, and my wars always end up being against these male types (one of which actually said that he ended up calling me names because “I drove him to it.”), and women who believe that women were created to serve me according to their fine uneducated reading of certain pseudo-Pauline texts.  And invariably they block me, so I can read the their comments and they don’t have to respond to mine. Except that there are men on the forum who are just as liberal as I am, just as knowledgeable, and just as “in-your-face”, and they don’t get blocked. Why? Because men can argue with men, but women must be very careful to be properly respectful lest they be branded as “stupid” and “a troll” and “self-defined intellectual”. (I was once told that educated people were “pissants” all, by one tiny-penised patriarchal dope.)

So along comes Hobby Lobby and it’s claim that its corporate religiosity is being assaulted by requiring it “pay” for certain contraceptive methods it in its utter stupidity deems abortifacients, and the Feds have no right to make them offer same to their employees. There is so much wrong here that it’s sick. First, HL provided all these methods before they were picked as the “plaintiff” and then told, “damn, guys, you offer this stuff already!” Hobby Lobby owner Green claims “shit, I have no idea”. Hobby Lobby gets I would guess 80% of its inventory from China, a nation that makes abortion a national policy and until recently required it after one child. Hobby Lobby has a 401K retirement benefits package which includes owning shares of various big pharma companies which, you guessed it, manufacture all the abortifacients that HL moans about.

So the SCROTUS decided that corporate religious well-being trumps women’s rights to good health. Along with that, they decided that there can be no buffer zone between women trying to enter clinics that offer contraceptive care along with abortions and those who want to scream at them demanding that they “think again”.  Women seeking treatment at a PPH clinic must be within “spittin’ distance” of those who seek to turn them away.

Across America, Republican led legislatures make it hard if not impossible for poor women to get reproductive care of any kind by loading down clinics with regulations (aren’t Republicans against business regulation as a matter of principle?) that are so burdensome that they have to close.

And all this in the name of NOT ABORTING. When all of these restrictions do exactly the opposite.

Republicans in Congress vote down equal pay for women.

There is a line.

It has now been crossed.

We will not go back.

Vote in 2014 as if you life depends on it, because control of it is surely at stake.

 

 

 

 

What’s Up With That?

Tags

1st Amendment, dominionism, teabaggers, Ted Cruz

Never let it be said that a college education isn’t a good thing.  But it does not mean, gentle folks, that everyone that secures one comes out, well, . . . educated.

Some come out with better talents at manipulating the world they hope to rule one day.

Case in point is Canadian Ted Cruz, that stalwart Haaaavard educated douche from Texas whose daddy is still quite certain that President Obama was born in Kenya, which apparently is something less good than being born in either Canada or Cuba as the case may be.

It would be inappropriate to compare Ted to another well-known demagogue, so we won’t, but gosh Ted could give any of a host of world ogres a run for their money when it comes to using white-hot rhetoric in attempts to raise the blood of the great stupid hoards.

Truth? Not so much. Truth is not the providence of a demagogue; not that truth has no place at all in propagandizing. It does, but a minor part at best. Truth becomes the kernel which is then popped all out of its original proportions in order to reach the goal of making black white and thus creating the “new” rallying cry of the duped.

My very own Senator, Tom Udall recently introduced a constitutional amendment before the Senate which would try to put a stop the abuses that stem from Citizens United. As you recall, the SCOTUS held in that case that corporations were “people” for purposes of the 1st Amendment and that they could spend unlimited money denouncing or supporting various candidates for office.

This led to the creation of “super Pacs” which collected millions of dollars which were funneled to various campaigns supporting various candidates. The one run by Karl Rove controlled over $300 million dollars.

Of course, we all agree (or at least most of us) that such behavior amounts to actually a very few people being able to buy elections for candidates who we must conclude feel rather beholden to their benefactors. Money has become “speech”. Indeed in the McCutcheon case, limits on the total amount an individual could spend on election campaigns were removed. All agree, that the average person, as a result has less and less a voice in these matters, being unable, even collectively to meet these staggering amounts of money, all designed to elect those who will be favorable to one’s desires.

One must remember that Citizens United involved a film, one made about Hillary Clinton, which was in all respects nothing more than a campaign tool used by the Right to smear Mrs. Clinton. That was the argument made, that the film was funded by corporate funds for one reason and one reason only, to affect the election against Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Ted has used this one fact, that it was a film to make the grandiose argument that the Democratic party intends to vote to eliminate the 1st Amendment.

He argues because this was a film (which has nothing to do with the decision at all, but is merely the vehicle for the principle embedded within it), that the very next thing to happen will be that Democrats will decide that you can’t read this particular book, view that particular movie, or go to that particular play.

Watch the video, and listen to the audible gasp by his Family Values audience as he announces this draconian fairytale. He then goes on to tell the audience that government wishes the authority to “muzzle you” if it doesn’t like your speech.

Of course this is not true at all. It is directed solely at the concept that a corporation can be a person with a political agenda, free to spend millions to do exactly what Ted decries as the eventual outcome–muzzling you. In fact it’s to keep your voice valuable, that the amendment is offered.

This all becomes the more sweet when we recognize that indeed Cruz is arguing that corporations are people in his view, a concept he shares with Willard Romney, who found that people were not really happy with his refrain, “corporations are people too, my friends.”

Indeed the irony is delicious here.

Ted is a dominionist by religious flavor, another of those Christianist offshoots that create their own theories about “what the bible means”. Ted’s daddy is a preacher who preaches this stuff through his ministry Purifying Fire International.

This ideology calls on anointed “Christian” leaders to take over the state and make the goals and laws of the nation “biblical.” It seeks to reduce government to organizing little more than defense, internal security and the protection of property rights. It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism.

Note that the ideology calls for “anointed Christian leaders”. Well as you may have guessed, Ted is one of those “anointed“. And if you are at all unsure about that, you need but ask his daddy:

Rafael Cruz indicated that his son was among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as “kings” to take control of all sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the “Seven Mountains” mandate, and “bring the spoils of war to the priests”, thus helping to bring about a prophesied “great transfer of wealth”, from the “wicked” to righteous gentile believers.

So what we have here folks, is a man who is lying and making ridiculous claims about the Democrats being Fahrenheit 451 Democrats, determined to gut the 1st Amendment right to free speech, while at the same time, declaring that he has every intention of gutting the separation of church and state, and the right to freedom of religion, from the very same Amendment!

It pays to know what both hands are doing.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that perhaps the son doesn’t follow his father’s beliefs. He does folks, he certainly does.

Now, I recognize that normal people get Ted Cruz. The see him for what he is, and I have little or no doubt that he will fail miserably in his attempt to gain the GOP presidential nomination. You simply cannot hide all this stuff. It’s too well attested to by video alone.

But the antics of Ted serve to continually stir the pot of the crazy element in this country and that is a dangerous element, and becoming more so. One has only to examine the insane “open carry” nuts in Texas who even looked crazy finally to the NRA. Of course the NRA backed down, and that is even more worrisome. There is a level of crazy in Amerika that is increasingly willing, or so it seems, to use violence to achieve their goals however they articulate them beyond, “we don’t wanna pay for that” and  “we don’t want them people around us”.

Most will mess their pants at the first shot fired. But I’m afraid all too many are just nuts enough to bunker down and begin a “war”, one that will take no prisoners, but will mow down anyone who appears to be “not one of them”.

To the degree that Cruz and his ilk continually rile these folks up with blatant propaganda lies, we must all be very afraid.

 

 

Weeping For Joy

Tags

1 st Amendment, judiciary, tea party

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

There are times in life when the universe slaps you in the face, not out of spite or meanness, but to be most sure that it has your attention.

This is a good thing.

Such a thing happened to me.

It often does, I have to admit.

This, I ponder, may not be the case with most of humanity, it’s hard to say. I can only speak for myself. But it is a regular occurrence for me, I assure you.

If one believes, as some do, that the universe is a vast sea of intelligence, and we are but threads in the great tapestry that is the universal brain, then one is required, or so it seems to me, to respond promptly to its nudge, or slap as the case may be. Perhaps to the more aware it is a nudge. As I said, to me it seems a good healthy slap, one that stings for a few seconds, leaves a pink echo upon my cheek, but no lasting imprint.

The prompting today seems directed at reminding me that there is much to this thing called humanity, this thing of being human. In fact, there is so much diversity along the spectrum of human to not so very, as to suggest that some of us many not be exactly of the same species at all. This of course could figure quite prominently in those circles where UFO’s and alien meddling are believed to be involved in so-called human evolution. A helping hand to Darwin so to speak.

What I mean to say is that, well some of us seem not to play by the normal rules of logic. You know the drill. Two plus two equals four. Rain falls down unless carried by wind in some not gravity direction. You know, basics.

It is undoubtedly what makes it nearly impossible for rational normal people to get facts across to people of the TeaSwillin’ party. Which is a whole failure of logic in and of itself, since of course said party is not really known for its tea swilling at all, rather for its Bud delight I would generalize. Yet it clings to an appellation, their collective minds conclude,  that suggests  a willingness to “give the last full measure” for an America they have dreamed up at back yard barbecue meets during lazy Saturday nights.

The following is but an example.

There was a time, long ago and in a universe perhaps far away, when the public at large looked up to those of great learning. Such were judges, who were given a reverence seldom accorded politicians at least. Wearing archaic uniforms of flowing robes, they dispensed justice from on high. They did this by reasoning from old and rather dusty tomes of ancient writings which consisted of “precedent” or the honor given to past pronouncements from similar men dressed similarly.

But I must say, that no longer can we accord such men, or women if they exist, with this presumed pedestal right.

Alas, they too have proven to be of mere clay.

Fine you say, the likes of Thomas, Alito, Scalia have made that case  for some time now.

Yes, you would be right, but, no I speak of one so low as to commune with pond scum.

That man would be Chief Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, a state always in the running for title as location of the world’s stupidest people.

Yes, THAT Roy Moore, the fool who refused to remove the 10 commandments from a courthouse under order from a Federal Judge. For that he was unanimously removed from the bench by other jurists of that state. But, yes, you remember don’t you? The good but stupid people of Alabama sent him right on back.

Roy was no doubt a stellar student at Alabama University but must have slept through most of his Constitutional law courses. This seems plausible, since Roy admits that his tenure as company commander of a MP unit in Vietnam was, shall we say, problematic. Known for his strict adherence to rules and interpretation, he became known as Captain America. This was not an endearing name, and poor Roy took to sleeping upon sandbags should his men decide to lob a grenade under his cot. So he might well have been in need of sleep during those years after in stuffy constitutional law classes.

In any case, Roy has developed a rather unusual interpretation of the First Amendment in its entirety. It seems, or so Roy says, that the darn thing only applies to Christians, since as he says, Buddha did not make us, and he is unaware of any copy of the Koran having come on the Mayflower.

If you don’t know this, then Roy invites you to “get back and learn your history”.

Roy expounds on life itself, saying that it’s clear that life begins “when the baby kicks, not when it’s head comes out!” Common sense found at the bottom of a cracker jack box folks.

Now if all this sounds somewhat different from what you learned, well, you don’t inhabit Roy’s jello brain.

See the universe is trying to tell ya something here folks. Not all humans are created, well quite human. Some of us are imposters. Roy proves that.

Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Alabama?

Get out there and look for the aliens among us…If you smell tea, you are on the right track.

Source: The Raw Story

Roy on vacation

Exactly How DO You Manage to Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time?

Tags

1st Amendment, free speech, religious freedom

The Extremist Right has its panties in a twist once again.

Just once I wish they would actually think through their objections and place them side by side their other objections and make sure all that shit lines up. Cuz it never does you see, for the Extreme Right have brains that are rather odd. Cognitive Dissonance is well, their best friend.

See in the Extreme Right mind, beliefs and ideas are fairly free-floating. They may bump into each other, but they are like tea cozy meetings–a blind teapot meeting a blind tea-pot. They politely say “S’cuse me” and careen off to bump into another idea, unaware that these two ideas are in grave conflict and by rights they should throw off the cozies and fight it out. And this would be a war to the death, since both cannot co-exist in the same mind without craziness creepin’ into the skull and reducing the occupied persona to a pile of whimpering snot.

Since having some thirty million or so folks collapse into whimpering piles of snot would be messy, unattractive and a huge drain on the psychiatric community, happily such realizations do not often happen to the Extreme Right brain. Lucky for them. Unlucky for the rest of us folks who have to contend with people WHO MAKE NO FREAKIN’ SENSE.

Case in point.

The Duck Dynasty. I won’t bore you with the history. Suffice it to say there are four relatives of some sort or other, who designed a duck caller that swept the nation and resulted in them becoming millionaires. Never heard of it? Well in fairness, it seemed to have only swept those establishments that cater to duck hunters. How that could give rise to anyone being a millionaire is beyond my comprehension, but apparently there are more nasty quacker shooters that I thought.

Any the ways, one of the relatives, the so-called patriarch of the family (such things being amusingly relevant to these types of folk), one Phil Robertson, was interviewed by GQ, a magazine you wouldn’t immediately think of when you think of duck hunters to be sure. But they did. And Phil talked his little sad brain off. And he talked about things having zero to do with duck callin’ which was a sure mistake if he had the brains to think of it.

But he talked about things he has no familiarity with, by his own admission: gay folks and Black folks. And well, he said things like this:

When asked what he thought was sinful, Robertson replied: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”

But homosexuals aren’t alone, Robertson said. “Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers — they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once,” he told GQ. “Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field. … They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word!

“Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues,” GQ quoted Robertson as saying.

Now, A & E, the network that shows Duck Dynasty, replied by puttin’ old Phil “on leave”, claiming that Phil’s remarks are not at all in line with A & E’s corporate morality.

Well the old Extremist Right blew a teabag, screechin’ at the top of Sarah perky lungs: How DARE they do that. Why they are discriminating against Phil’s religious rights and that free speech thing too!

“Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us, . . .”

So, what we have here is a dilemma, at least to this brain of mine which regularly alerts me when two of my ideas collide in a nuclear explosion of contradiction.

Let me put it this way.

Ms. Palin and others of her ilk deny the right of the corporation A & E to register its moral shock at an employee of theirs by placing him on suspension, whereas the corporation Hobby Lobby is perfectly within its right to register its moral shock at employees of their by imposing a financial burden upon them. In both cases, the corporation has moral views dissimilar to the employee.

But Ms. Palin and other Extremist Right think it just terrible that corporations like Hobby Lobby should be forced to allow their insurance carrier to do what it wishes (cover contraceptive care) and demands it be stripped out of the policies because Hobby Lobby is offended by this for religious reasons.

According to the Extreme Right, the corporate sensibilities of A & E do not count, while those of Hobby Lobby do.

I can but scratch my head in confusion.

Now, that is not to say that I agree with A & E here. And that should make even the most hardened of Extreme Right folk pass out from the vapors. I’m not alone in claiming that A & E are wrong.

Phil has every right to spout his odious ideas publicly and GQ has every right to print them.  However, the proper (IMO) way for A & E to respond is to put out a statement that Mr. Robertson’s beliefs and opinions are not reflective of A & E, and in fact are contrary to their moral position. However, A & E recognizes the right of people to believe what they choose, and they will be motivated by their customers desires in watching the show or not in determining future contractual obligations with the Duck folk.

In the same vein, Hobby Lobby “corporate feelings” can be whatever they are, but they are not allowed to force them on their employees. They do not extend making their employees live under their religious strictures.

That’s the way I see it.

And you?

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