The Hand of God God is among the Founding Fathers of the United States. Indeed, forget what you might have heard about James Madison, unless James Madison is God; that is, the Lord wrote the Constitution. Well, so says former House Majority Leader and convicted money launderer Tom DeLay. The Hammer, as he was known in his Congressional heyday, recently sat down with Matthew Hagee of Texas Cornerstone Church: "I think we got off the track when we allowed our government to become a secular government," the Texas Republican explained. "We stopped realizing that God created this nation, that He wrote the Constitution, that it's based on biblical principles." And, apparently, this isn't the first time he's said such things. Shadee Ashtari reports: In October of 2013, DeLay made similar remarks in an interview with Matthew Hagee's father, John Hagee, in which he claimed that after “a conference call with the Lord," God instructed him to write a book advocating for the urgency of a constitutional revival. "Jesus died for our freedom," DeLay, who became a born-again Christian in 1985, said in October. "And Jesus destroyed Satan so that we could be free and that is manifested in what is called the Constitution of the United States. God created this nation and God created the Constitution; it is written on biblical principles." We need not wonder at being born again in order to become a money-laundering conspirator; the Lord works in mysterious ways. To the other, we also find an example of what's wrong with politics in these United States. That is to say, religious faith in making decisions is one thing, and we need not take DeLay seriously, as such. Except, of course, there is also the proposition that plenty of people do take this sort of thing seriously. It is not the viability of the argument that secures a place at the table, but, rather, sheer numbers. ____________________ Notes: Ashtari, Shadee. "Tom DeLay Claims God 'Wrote the Constitution'". The Huffington Post. February 20, 2014. HuffingtonPost.com. February 21, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/tom-delay-god-constitution_n_4826503.html
Inevitable Inevitable Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! For the record, Meredith Shiner notes, "Yes, I came up with that headline but I'd deny ever having written another headline before". ____________________ Notes: Shiner, Meredith. "Harry Reid's War On Koch". At the Races. February 26, 2014. ATR.RollCall.com. February 27, 2014. http://atr.rollcall.com/harry-reids-war-on-koch/ —————. "Yes, I came up with that headline". Twitter. February 26, 2014. Twitter.com. February 27, 2014. https://twitter.com/meredithshiner/status/438809758515335168
Are you also an American, Tiassa? Even the nuns at my Catholic school as liberal as some of them were (teaching us in high school later on in my twelve years under their caring tutelage to say "No! to Gallo" and to meditate in the Far eastern style) - were prejudiced enough that I think it wasn't until the fourth grade that I realized The Chosen People that they were forever going on about in Religion class were actually the Hebrews, and not us Americans, as I had assumed until then. Maybe it was because we always had to recite The Pledge of Allegiance immediately after The Lord's Prayer every morning. I'm all for using ethics founded in Christianity to make political decisions. Seems only natural and right to me, although personally I stop way short of trying to bring about Armegeddon. God will see to all that in His own good time, or may ultimately choose not to go through with it. Who am I to say? Americans can be Christians if they like, but I agree with you that Tom Delay is just hypocritical and a nutbag. Under the American system the man does have the right to express his views, no matter how stupid. The beauty part is we have the right to tell him to put a sock in it, and that he is indeed, as I've said, a nutbag.
Something else to think about: If Shadee Ashtari married Matthew Hagee. She would be Shadee Hagee. Hmm, I suppose that's why she keeps turning the poor fellow down. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
People forget America used to be a melting pot of all cultures. It was not just one cultural clique, with hundreds or thousands of years of historical baggage, like most of the world. Rather it was a place where all cultures were part of the blend of a clean slate. This made it very flexible for the future since it was not steered by thy rudder of a long past. The melting pot approach was used, which was very similar to natural selection, in that all ingredient could enter the pot. This was not possible with a long establish culture. But with America being so young and new, all ingredients could enter with the best ingredients rising to the top. With American culture based on the best ingredients, taken from all the cultures of the world, a new culture formed. Religion was part of that melting pot and natural selection. Liberalism is not based on natural selection, but rather artificial selection. Instead of the free competition of the melting pot, they changed the rules to support the lower quality ingredients of diversity, not subject to the traditional selection process. This is why they need to teach revisionists history. Truth would favor the melting pot results, with the revision needed to place more stress on the illusions. It is like two foods on a table with most like A. But if we only show picture of people eating B, this can make it appear this was better. As an example of the melting pot, if we look at food, all cultures have their own ethnic foods. The melting pot would put all these dishes all on a huge buffet table and allow everyone to try them all, and then we would take votes to see what the majority like the best. The result was Italian, Chinese, Mexican, French, in the top tier. The new American culture, without baggage from the past, gets to eat from the best, allowing all the cliques of old to enjoy this quality, unrestricted by the pressures of any one clique. With diversity, the result is not the same. Cliques are told to stay within their cliques, with all food as good as the next. In a free society based on the ethics of truth, this would not hold water. It needs a culture of liars and con artists. Christianity was an important part of the natural selection of the melting pot having been the religion of many world empires for centuries. It has a strong track record. But it is not optimized to the needs of liars and con artists who are trying to lower the average and bot allow diversity to rise up. If you had 1000 people from a first world culture and 1000 people from a fourth world culture, there is a reason for one group will be higher and the other we remain lower. It is not the people, but rather the cultural assumptions that each cultures uses. The melting pot was designed to maximize the assumptions for all 2000 people, since they are all equal. This means better assumptions for the fourth world people. Diversity does not do, that but retains the cultural assumption that restrict people, and tries to give this more weight so its does not change. Instead of raising, the goal is to lower. Christianity and religion do not help with the goal of lowering the bar, so these are not popular with liberals and atheists.
Well done Wellwisher! I won't repeat your post in one long quote as it is just above. I have several comments, if you please. First of all, matters are not quite as simple as you would have them (They never are, right?). Starting with your final remark: "Christianity and religion do not help with the goal of lowering the bar, so these are not popular with liberals and atheists." Well, Christianity is popular with me, as I am very liberal (far too the left of Chairman Mao), and yet I am a Christian. And believe me, I am offended by idiots like Tom DeLay more than an atheist can imagine. So I am an exception to your generalization, although I do acknowledge your general thesis and see what you mean. I just want you to appreciate that there are devoutly religious people out there who aren't self-righteous republican pricks. Next, I believe terms such as 'fourth' or even 'first' world are considered to be obsolete. They became so with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc - the so-called 'second world'. Nowadays we speak of 'developed' and 'developing' nations. And then there are the cases that are termed to be as 'baskets'. in any case such terms address economics and availability of technology, not culture. Who is to say that the !Kung in Namibia or their tribesmen who somehow have taken jobs and apartments in Manhattan are any less anything than native-born Americans or their German immigrant neighbors with PhDs in nanotechnology? Now if I understand you correctly, you are using 'diversity' and 'liberalism' as synonyms. That's fine. I think you have every right to coin your own terms for the sake of this discussion, as long as what you mean is clear, and I believe it is clear enough. However, I think you are giving too much weight to the promotion of diversity. True, we Americans are taught from our youths to respect differences, e pluribus unum and all that, but I don't think this promotion goes so far as to financially support ethnic restaurants or do anything particularly helpful to any one ethnic group. I realize you are only making an analogy of culture vis food, but the reason Chinese restaurants succeed and Inuit ones do not, is that most Average Joe Americans would prefer pork and carrots with noodles to whale blubber and maggots. No one is artificially promoting Chinese food. People vote with their feet. They walk past The Eskimo Eatery and sit down for a good tuck in at Chow Mein Charley's. And showing pictures of people eating blubber will change few minds. Ethnic food popularity is very much so 'natural selection'. So I don't think there is some grand master plan to promote anything over anything else in America (Other than that we should all drink Coca Cola). It's just a chock-a-block conglomerate and a new nation without cultural baggage, as you say, and the people just pick and choose as they will. I can't quite work out if you are down on Christianity or not, but the founding fathers, and most rank and file Americans back in 1776 were from Western European cultures and therefore nominally or even sincerely Christians. So it turns out upon examination, that they did in fact bring a few pieces of cultural luggage with them. Even if many of the founding fathers were not particularly religious, they could not have helped harboring some suspiciously Christian-based sentiments that were learned at their mothers' knees. Hatboxes for Christ, if you will. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Your 'culture of liars and con artists' does indeed exist. They are our good friends on Madison Avenue who stir up 'cola wars', but I like to think people are more intelligent than to take them seriously. I like to think that I, for one, am. In fact , I deliberately don't buy products I see being flogged in advertisements, if I can possibly help it, and it is hard! But I remember the late, great Mark Twain of our modern age, George Carlin, who said he always votes for the guys in presidential elections that the polls say are going to lose. he figured the winner would see that he got one less vote than he thought he would, and pause to consider that he is not quite the hot commodity he thought he was in a certain borough of New York City.
Logical Faith Aye. I didn't do Jesuit school until high school, and therefore got merely the secular version of America as God's Favorite. I don't object to the basic principle of faith in making political decisions. However, the activist evangelical bloc of the hardline right wing in the Republican Party makes the point well enough: It needs to be logical faith. And perhaps the idea of logical faith might seem like a paradox or oxymoron to those not so religiously inclined, but if you attend the theology and epistimology of the American evangelical right closely, Christ Himself is curiously absent. Look at the discrimination bills that just blew out in the states; perhaps one will pass and make it to the courts, but these advocates would not render unto Caesar, or care to answer the question of what they did or not unto the least of Christ's brethren, pluck their eye, or, when you get right down to it, even bother with not endorsing adultery while accusing their neighbors. The Old Testament and Paul, sure, but Christ Himself is absent from their pantheon. And this is an example of how mixing faith and politics gets problematic. Theirs is an illogical faith, entirely neurotic, and largely employed as a sublimated ego defense striving toward earthly empowerment.
Let's not call it 'logical faith' then, but 'sensible' faith. Not to get off the subject but the whole homosexuality as abomination is a good example. We all know what the Old Testament has to say on the topic, but I know that 10% of all fauna are homosexual. What I don't know is why God set it up in such a way. His mysterious ways again. Another thing I know is that in our modern world the homosexuals demand respect and rights, and I can more or less see their point. Similarly, in the New Testament, there is Saint Paul's notion that women should be quiet in church, and ask their husbands at home if they have any questions. Ain't that a hoot? Paul may have been an evangelist extraordinaire but the man was no prophet. He did not anticipate the 20th and 21st century woman. Yes, you're right though. Mostly they're just self-centered bullies who can't imagine they are wrong about anything. They need, we need to put the Christ back in Christianity.
A Couple Ways to See It I would consider two responses here: 1. No, They're Not This would simply disagree point-blank. It's largely anecdotal, as I cannot identify my specific "clique". The failure of various social circles to intermingle, at least in my life, is simply one of setting. It's not that one is not welcome, but that one chooses to not undertake that mingling. I could cite my mother as an example; it's not that she is unwelcome in a particular circle of mine, and it's not even the notion of (ahem!) "partying" with her son. She knows at least three of the people at these events, but she also feels like a fish out of water. The small talk is obscure to her; the regard these alleged nanny-staters (as some would describe their political outlooks) afford their children is, by her regard for children, nearly alarming. But it's true; with no guns in the house, all the knives secure, outlet covers in place, and all that, they're free to bump into stuff, fall over, or whatever, and get a more grown-up sense of sympathy. It's weird to say, but the idea that nobody is talking down to the children seems really, really strange to her. It's not that the hostess is a lesbian, or two of the children half-black, or the amount of dark skin in the room. It's just that this is a set of customs that she has never really adjusted to. And they're not ethnic or religious or even generational customs. That is, we aren't the first generation to act like this, and we certainly won't be the last. Nor are we defining of anything about our generation, or the various pockets in our communities that happen to see the world in similar terms. But these customs have never appeared logical to her. It's not that she must stay in her clique; indeed, her clique has changed dramatically over the years. I can't say why there are certain perfectly civil and useful outlooks that seem somehow too abstract or perhaps even surreal for her to adjust to, but that's how it goes. We're human beings. There are certain outlooks familiar and perfectly civil to her recognition that I can barely tolerate, and that only because I can try to psychoanalyze the structures. The armchair version is that I see things dialectically, whereas it cannot be ascertained whether or not her outlook even recognizes the proposition of the dialectic. How this contributes to her visceral discomfort in certain settings is its own question, to be certain, but it's a long discussion of the complexity of neurotic matrices proscribing the conditions recognized as acceptable while one is unable to define or express the basis of unacceptability. In other words, she chooses to avoid that discomfort. 2. The People Who Say That Are Invariably the Ones Who See Cliques Everywhere It's not that I don't see the general components of what you're talking about; I simply don't perceive their arrangement as obligatory, nor their definitions static.
Tiassa The high price of prejudice and division, this involves anti-immigrant legislation, but similar stories can be found for anti-gay marriage or rights, anti-abortion legislation, anti-healthcare...well, just the whole reactionary, oligarthic, authoritarian, money besotted, religiously biggotted(and hypocritical)Republican party and their war on anyone in the 47%. Just 85 people now own as much wealth as EVERY OTHER PERSON ON THE PLANET EARTH, how much more of the middle class's hard earned money do the rich need to feel satisfied? The rest of us are suffering, but the rich and Wall Street pay less taxes than I do, and I'm RETIRED and DISABLED. And that's just fine with the Republicans. In fact they are making our economy worse, though lawyers are making out like bandits. (Hey, aren't most politicians lawyers?) http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cost-being-kris-kobach-s-guinea-pig I couldn't say it better. GrumpyPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
While I agree with the overall sentiment of your post Grumpy, I thought those numbers couldn't possibly be right even today. The actual numbers are still pretty staggering though... As the World Economic Forum begins in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam International has released a new report called, “Working for the Few,” that contains some startling statistics on what it calls the “growing tide of inequality.” The report states: Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population. The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population. The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world. http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurash...ve-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/
Randwolf You are correct, I let my hyperbole get in the way of my argument, 85 people own more than the lower half of everyone on Earth. And those 1% are acting like selfish children. GrumpyPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Something, Something, Dark Side Presently one of my favorite jokes ("it's funny because it's true ...") is to remind that the political party so deeply invested in promoting the idea that government just doesn't work is now hell-bent on proving their point. Think of the three million or so that BLAG spent fighting gay rights; at one point Republicans were paying attorneys to argue against marriage equality and other civil rights, including that same-sex marriage should be illegal because heterosexuals can have unplanned pregnancies. It is one thing to make a point about incompetent governmental endeavors, but our Republican Party, in criticizing state dysfunction, also seems to be a major source of it. Consider Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ). I can't say I have much respect for her politics, and she does not seem like the sort of person I could have an easy, relaxing conversation with, but there is no question she did the right thing for her state and party in vetoing SB 1062. The alternative would have been to spend a couple million dollars losing in court while companies like Apple, Delta, Intel, Petsmart, and Yelp—even the National Football League—followed up or not on their stern warnings to pull some or all of their business out of the state. And other Republicans, sympathizers, and surrogates are furious. On a slightly different track (i.e., not lawsuits), but thematically relevant (i.e., poor governance), I would note one of Rachel Maddow's better rants on how Republicans govern: Look. One Mississippi, your health insurance exchange. One site fits all. See, here's the logo for it. It's the one that's overlaid with the map of the state of Mississippi, One Mississippi, the only place you'll need to look, your one-stop comparison shop for health insurance. One site fits all! Also, they've got one that says, "With one, it's done, an easy-to-use online marketplace to one-stop comparison shop." "Search it, find it, buy it, your one-stop comparison shop for health insurance you can count on." Get it? You can count on it? One Mississippi? The idea was to do that ad campaign on buses in Mississippi and on billboards and on ballpark signage specifically, better way to play the game, One Mississippi. All the advertising would be directing you to this good-looking Web site, One Mississippi. And all of it, all this stuff that they designed and tested and developed for the Web and went so far as putting up online in Mississippi, all of it is fake. If you go to shop and compare on the One Mississippi Web site—look at this, you go to shop and compare. See the button there? It turns like it's going to work, but you click on it, you click through, and oh, look at that! "This web page is not available," sad face. Page not found. The great state of Mississippi built this whole campaign, they built all this stuff, they built this Web site for themselves for the state. The state insurance department, they prototyped it, they tested it, put it up online, they came up with this clever counting thing, One Mississippi. It turns out when they put that Web site up, the health exchange, it works, it works well, even before doing any big advertising campaign, hundreds of people started signing up for health insurance through this very memorable, very well done, One Mississippi Web site. And so, it had to die. The Republican governor of the state, Phil Bryant, killed it. He wrote to the federal government and told the federal government, in effect, "Please shut down this thing in my state." He said he did not want his state to have a Web site where people could get health insurance. He said he did not think it was within the authority of the state Insurance Department to even try to do this Web site thing. He said he would tell all other parts of state government to not comply and not cooperate with this effort from the Insurance Department. And then he told the federal government that if they did certify this Web site as Mississippi's official place where you can get health insurance under federal regulations, he said that he as the governor of the state couldn't promise that at some point he wouldn't just declare the whole effort null and void, and they should consider that and close down the Web site. Mississippi built it. It was working, and then they shut it down. The Web site is still there now. You can go to the front page of it still. That's how we got that screen cap today, but it's just a ghost. You click on anything and it's "page not found." It's the old joke: A Democrat will tell you he can make you richer, smarter, more handsome, and he'll even get the chickweed out of your lawn. A Republican will tell you what's wrong with government, and then he'll get elected and prove it. I have no idea whose bit that is, originally; of course, it took me forever to figure out that "Beer as a Food Group" was Denis Leary, so ... right. Where prejudice and division play into the legal expenses, they also—perhaps in slightly different contexts—are vital to the Mississippi sort of poor governance. But this is a much more diverse mosaic of negative attitudes; some are about racism or sexism, but a lot of it is also the judgmentalism reserved by the good, decent folk of Middle America. And come on, that sort of judgmentalism is common. However, there seem to be some particularly consequential strains running through many of our American communities; to wit, I have no idea what to do with Emily Cohn's "These 9 Maps Should Absolutely Outrage Southerners", in part because the headline misses the point. Sure, by a perspective Ms. Cohn and I can consider generally common, I can see the point of why these statistical outcomes should outrage people in the American South. But many of these undesirable outcomes are self-inflicted. Psychologically, it's a trap of its own. The deeper the perception of crisis, the stronger their protestations blaming everyone else. Thus conditions continue to deterioriate, the perception of crisis deepens, and the ego defense sharpens its protestations blaming everyone else. You know—women, ethnic minorities, northern liberals, atheists, homosexuals, Muslims. As an abstract thesis, the social contract would oblige the elected powers to act in the best interests of the people they represent. In practice, however, that sort of thing gets a politician drummed out of office. It was, apparently, remarkable that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) contradicted a conservative voter during the 2008 presidential election, trying to tamp down the Birtherism that one need not be a cynical, calculating pol to not want associated with your campaign. And in a way, yes, it was impressive. To the other, why does that seem like setting a low bar? But what politician is going to stand up in these Middle American communities and say, "You know what? The abstinence advocates already know their program doesn't work, so, no, we aren't going down that road. And, you know, the social science is pretty clear about gay parents, so, no, we're not going down that road. The fact is that we have real issues to worry about." What Republican would try to argue that it's true, our take on capitalism inevitably leads to bust cycles, and we either have to deal with that or find another way? Is that going to play in Texas? Mississippi? Practically speaking, our social contract makes the winning of votes something akin to financial profit. Just as the good, family-values folks of West Virginia and North Carolina are finding out about what happens when your energy company tries to boost profits through bad practices, it seems almost inevitable that the good, family-values folks throughout our conservative states are amid some sort of demonstration of what happens when their politicians try to boost their vote count through bad policy and practices. As a society, I am uncertain whether we can dig our way out of this without a paradigmatic transformation of priorities. Then again, that's a bit broad. And we might also note generally that anyone who wants to point out that Democrats take similar gambles is free to do so; I've long said that voting for the Big Blue (Formerly Red) D is my concession to conservatism. And we might be able to nitpick matters of form and scale, but in the end the problem remains. We settle for unsound compromises, and at some point we need to be able to say, "I'm sorry if good health and financial security hurt your feelings, but it's time to get on the trolley, because we've waited long enough." ____________________ Notes: Maddow, Rachel. The Rachel Maddow Show. MSNBC, New York. December 2, 2013. Television. Video.MSNBC.MSN.com. March 6, 2014. http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/53720265/#53720265 ― Transcript. NBCNews.com. March 6, 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/53927095/ns/msnbc-rachel_maddow_show Cohn, Emily. "These 9 Maps Should Absolutely Outrage Southerners". The Huffington Post. March 6, 2014. HuffingtonPost.com. March 6, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/06/maps-of-the-south-bad-place_n_4855191.html
P. J. O'Rourke? "The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove it." —P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnyquotes/a/Famous-Political-Quotes.htm http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/p_j_orourke.html
Randwolf's comments above remind me of the explanation of the difference between capitalism and communism. Capitalism is a system in which Man exploits his fellow man. In communism, it's the other way around.
Arne Saknussemm Hate to tell you this, but Jesus was a Socialist, not a Capitalist. In fact he taught that a rich man cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We are expected to be our brother's keeper. Communism is a religion of the state, Socialism is a behavior of the state and Capitalism is just greed and selfishness codified in the law and Fascism is corporate greed imposed in collusion with the government. Republicans today and their corporate sponsors are approaching Fascism right now, the gays, blacks, the poor, liberals and women who expect to control their own bodies have replaced the traditional targets, but it's still Fascism. That's what you get when you get addicted to Koch. GrumpyPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
What you just said, Grumpy, will always be the big irony of the unholy wedding between Christianity and Republicans, given, of course, that even in isolation of the political fray there is a 'working class' twist in fundamentalism (esp. the 'white' churches) which equates poverty with that wicked demon, indolence. And of course I'm thinking of the same backward churches that were practically ringing their bells when Gov George Wallace stood there, in proxy for all of them, to keep black students out of 'their' white schools. Obviously MLK proved that black fundamentalism had found a strong message in Christ's 'turn the other cheek' doctrine, enough to stir the guilt of centuries of religious rationalization for racism. In recent years the 'white wing' has been more focused on directing their intolerance toward Hispanics, from the construction of perhaps the only prisons in the civilized world which incarcerate children and elderly for alleged border violations to of course the frenzy over putting up a Berlinesque wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, and policing it like some new Stazi. I suppose in their wet dreams they imagine machine gun turrets and expert marksmen, perhaps even land mines. And yet the official policy is to put on the sackcloth, wash the feet of the lepers, and to recognize that whatever they do to 'the least of these' -- the folks who sheltered in Ellis Island for centuries, who they seem to think were exclusively blue eyed -- they do to Jesus himself. And still they are so determined to justify intolerance in the name of some twisted belief that they, the heirs to lands passed down by their Anglo immigrant ancestors, are God's chosen people, when that distinction was given to a Semitic tribe of nearly entirely brown eyed folks who are more closely genetically matched to the Moorish blood that runs in the veins of Mexicans of Spanish descent than any typical Protestant. There is so much stupidity and meanness sold under the banner of righteousness. This is the danger of religion in the modern context. It's bad enough that they wage war on science merely because its sets all the evidence of the truth of our natural origins at their feet. What is happening now is deepest form of denial perhaps in all of history. Even slavery was rationalized on a belief that indigenous people must have no soul. As incredibly hateful and moronic as that was, it was at least colored by the mistake of superstition. Here all the cards are on the table, everything is out in the light of day. They can't turn to an educational channel, a school text, or any science website without colliding with the Good News about evolution, or of the chosen primates of random mutation, who underwent a fusion of two chromosomes. This almost daily experience, which must be for them like racing a car at top speed into a brick wall, is producing an entirely new species of religion which can hardly be thought of as purely superstitious anymore. Now the operative attitude is denial. At all costs they must retake America, re-institute prayer in the classrooms, burn the science books, put the white women back in the kitchen with their hair pinned up, to serve as their baby makers -- and of course the black women back at the washing boards -- and somehow a rainbow appears with a pot of gold at the conclusion of their efforts and their universe is in harmony again. It's pathological, plain and simple. There is not an ounce of empathy in it for anyone but the same old selfish 'pot bellied bug-eyed bastard' so brilliantly portrayed as Archie Bunker nearly half a century ago, when we thought we had finally thrown them off. How and why they keep coming back, like the zombies who just won't die, speaks to the insidious harm of indoctrination. If I were king for a day I would make it a punishable offense to knowingly and willing pervert the mind of any person under the age of consent, or below a nominal IQ, with any willful lies contradicting the evidence of nature, and I would tax the churches for the cost of enforcing any such law, and regulate them against propagating mental illness the way meat packers were regulated against propagating intestinal diseases. I would convene a constitutional convention to prepare for ratification of those bills which would bring the US bill of rights into step with the modern world, particularly paying attention to the rights of self-determination of women and all people regardless of sexual orientation, and reinforcing not the freedom of religion, but the freedom FROM religion. I would reinstate that the only time a person is allowed to possess a firearm is when in military service and make it a felony when the person with the gun is determined to be operating under the delusions of religious psychopathy. I would send federal marshals and the National Guard into the recalcitrant churches and send the worst offenders to the immigration prison camps those churches helped create. Upon their release I would give them a couple of years of duty in the soup kitchens of the Little Mexicos, and as orderlies in the emergency rooms where destitute people of every race still huddle for protection from the ravages of poverty. I would imagine that then an only then would we see that rainbow of a promised land appear on the horizon, perhaps 50 years from now, maybe longer, long after most of us a gone. But at least we might be known as the first generation that finally cleaned up its own mess.
Dick Pens Ode to Assad Dick Black Strikes Again We all remember Dick Black, right? The carpetbagging Virginia state Senator who thinks there's no such thing as marital rape? Well, he's back, and with a whole new candidate for Dick's Greatest Hits. Chris Gentilviso of Huffington Post explains Black's ode to Assad: Days after penning a letter commending the Syrian government, Virginia state Sen. Richard Black (R) is standing by his views. In an interview with Politico published Thursday, Black explained that he sees the situation in Syria as a choice between President Bashar al-Assad's regime, or terrorists. “I'm deeply concerned that if we oust President Assad then we will evolve a jihadist regime associated with Al Qaeda,” Black said, according to Politico. In the initial letter, which was featured on Assad's Facebook page, Black thanked Assad's forces for "heroic" actions and “extraordinary gallantry" in protecting Christian and Jewish interests. “You have followed the practice of your father by treating with respect all Christians and the small community of Jews in Damascus,” Black wrote. “You defended their churches and the Jewish synagogue and you have permitted them to worship freely according to their beliefs. I am grateful for that.” Black's comments arrive as the U.S. inches closer to a decision on training Syrian rebels. According to the Politico report, it “turns" Black's "stomach” to think that aid could be given to those groups. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!____________________ Notes: Gentilviso, Chris. "GOP Lawmaker Stands By His 'Heroic' View Of Syria's Assad Regime". The Huffington Post. May 29, 2014. HuffingtonPost.com. May 29, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/29/richard-black-syria-assad_n_5411381.html
Pitching Jus' a Li'l Tent When Conservatives Pitch a Tent Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Dana Milbank reports on the latest fiasco from the Heritage Foundation: What began as a session purportedly about "unanswered questions" surrounding the September 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Libya deteriorated into the ugly taunting of a woman in the room who wore an Islamic head covering. The session, as usual, quickly moved beyond the specifics of the assaults that left four Americans dead to accusations about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the Obama administration, President Obama funding jihadists in their quest to destroy the United States, Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton attempting to impose Sharia blasphemy laws on Americans and Al Jazeera America being an organ of "enemy propaganda." Then Saba Ahmed, an American University law student, stood in the back of the room and asked a question in a soft voice. "We portray Islam and all Muslims as bad, but there's 1.8 billion followers of Islam," she told them. "We have 8 million-plus Muslim Americans in this country and I don't see them represented here." Panelist Brigitte Gabriel of a group called ACT! for America pounced. She said "180 million to 300 million" Muslims are "dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization." She told Ahmed that the "peaceful majority were irrelevant" in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and she drew a Hitler comparison: "Most Germans were peaceful, yet the Nazis drove the agenda and as a result, 60 million died." "Are you an American?" Gabriel demanded of Ahmed, after accusing her of taking "the limelight" and before informing her that her "political correctness" belongs "in the garbage." Gabriel's tantrum apparently "drew an extended standing ovation" from the audience: The panel's moderator, conservative radio host Chris Plante, grinned and joined in the assault. "Can you tell me who the head of the Muslim peace movement is?" he demanded of Ahmed. "Yeah," audience members taunted, "yeah." Ahmed answered quietly, as before. "I guess it's me right now," she said. As for the rest, it seems the usual litany of conspiracy theories: General Ham was arrested in order to prevent him from deploying troops to Benghazi; reports of how Ambassador Stevens died are a cover-up; the trouble with Huma Abedin; that sort of thing. Indeed, the "Just the Facts" conference thrown together by the Benghazi Accountability Coalition, Judicial Watch, Traditional Values Coalition, and the now infamous Heritage Foundation, would have been just another pep rally for angry, deluded bigots, except that given a chance to change that image, it would seem pretty much everyone in the room except for Saba Ahmed agreed that an anti-abortion, Republican woman was not welcome simply because she is a Muslim. They're pitching some kind of tent, but it sure as hell ain't big. Steve Benen offered some perspective: It's easy to forget, but the Heritage Foundation used to characterize itself as a flagship of the conservative movement, home to the right's preeminent scholarship and academic research. Its panel discussions were intended to highlight the right's brightest minds and most insightful thinkers. And now, it's become … this. Also note, while one might expect such a display at an event like CPAC, let's pause to acknowledge that CPAC banned anti-Muslim extremists like Frank Gaffney – but Gaffney was on yesterday's Heritage panel. In other words, we've reached the point at which fringe figures too extreme for CPAC are now welcome to share their bizarre ideas at Heritage. What's more, the Muslim woman taunted at yesterday's event? She's an anti-abortion Republican (via Robert Mackey). I'm reminded of something Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told msnbc last fall. "Heritage used to be the conservative organization helping Republicans and helping conservatives and helping us to be able to have the best intellectual conservative ideas," he argued. "There's a real question in the minds of many Republicans right now, and I'm not just speaking for myself: Is Heritage going to go so political that it really doesn't amount to anything anymore?" As we talked about at the time, this is a specific kind of criticism that shouldn't be overlooked. Hatch, who's no doubt worked with Heritage many times during his nearly four decades in the Senate, isn't complaining about the organization's position on a contentious issue; he's questioning whether Heritage even matters anymore. There is an interesting marketplace dynamic occurring here; it's true that the decline of Heritage's intellectual value under Jim DeMint has been striking, but the question remains whether Heritage will reel itself in to accommodate the market, or is playing to hold its ground and bring conservative consumers to them. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Jim Morin, Miami Herald, December, 2012. The question for Republicans and other conservatives is whether or not this is how they want to be viewed. If not, it's up to them to force a market shift toward a more responsible, educated, and useful sales pitch. ____________________ Notes: Milbank, Dana. "Heritage's ugly Benghazi panel". The Washington Post. June 16, 2014. WashingtonPost.com. June 17, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...bd423c-f5a3-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html Benen, Steve. "The crumbling of the right's intellectual infrastructure". msnbc. June 17, 2014. msnbc.com. June 17, 2014. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-crumbling-the-rights-intellectual-infrastructure
