Racial Politics: Illegal Alien Costume

Ok, here is a little of my conservative side coming out (I know, it's very rare).  So apparently there is a big controversy right now over an Illegal Alien Costume that has come out for Halloween.  The costume is a orange "prison like" jumpsuit, with an alien mask and a green card.  Hownestly, when I saw this the first time I laughed a little.  It's funny.

I recognize that some people might find it offensive because it is meant to satyre an entire group of people, but I don't think this version does, because you aren't really satyring the group, you are making fun of the concept.  Now, there were versions that I found offensive.  When the alien has a baseball cap or sombrero and a handlebar mustache, I think that was tasteless.  If the image were clearly a mexican man/woman then it would also be wrong, but it's not.  It's of an alien, and its funny.

I suppose my main reason for not finding it offensive is that, while there is a clear connection with the politically hot topic of illegal immegration, it's poking fun at the concept not the people.  One person remarked that he thought it was meant to suggest that illegal aliens aren't human.  That is a stretch and you might be a little over sensitive if you come to that conclusion.  I think it is funny because it suggests that maybe our immegration policies are silly in that we might even call an actual alien an illegal immegrant.  That might be a little stupid huh?

Anyway, I don't think it's that bad, but since I'm not an illegal immegrant, I will leave the decision of whether it should stay or go up to those individuals.

Common Sense

Leave the Ivory Tower Alone: Religious Freedom on Campus

In this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, which I "borrowed" from my boss (hehe), I found a rather disturbing advertisement.  Check it out:

So, basically, they are suggesting that speech codes protecting against hate speech, speech zones, student fees, and non-discrimination policies are unconstitutional.  Ok, these people must be stupid.  Let's find out!

I decided to visit the website, and guess what I discovered!  It's a religious freedom website.  Not just that it is a christian website.  And who is sponsoring it?  None other than the Alliance Defense Fund.  Normally I would say, "whatever this is just another rediculous ploy by religious groups to get more special privileges that no one else gets, but what really bothered me is the scare tactics they used on the main page.  Including an image of the Supreme Court house claiming that "Administrators are facing a sharp increase in costly constitutional litigation as students challenge unlawful policies." 

The attorney in charge of this organization is David French (pictured right).  David has been a practicing lawyer since graduating Harvard Law in 1994 and is the author of A Season for Justice: Defending the Rights of the Christian Home, Church, and School (2002).  Clearly, a Harvard education does not guarantee intellectual ability.  Or perhaps religion is to blame for corrupting what might otherwise have been a very sound mind.  As if his book were not bad enough, Mr. French has also authored a number of reports for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a religious extremist group that advocates religious indoctrination in higher education.  Take a moment to notice how both Mr. French's organization and FIRE attempt to cloud their true efforts under the disguise of protecting individual rights, when what they mean is individual rights for christians.

Now, since I'm thoroughly annoyed by this garabage, I'm going to take a moment to tell you why they are wrong.

1) Non-Discrimination Policies - Non-discrimination policies are the same as those found in legislation such as ENDA, Hate Crimes, etc.  They protect individuals from discrimination, not speech.  A religious nut can stand in the middle of the quad and say whatever he/she wants and no one is going to cite a non-discrimination policy.  However, if a religious group rejects a person from membership, leadership, or some other activity, they have violated the terms of the university's non-discrimination policy and the law.  So, it's not about speech at all, you are welcome to have your opinion, you are welcome to voice that opinion, and you are welcome to complain all you like, but you still have disciminate in your actions.

2) Speech Codes - these are a little more difficult to defend, and for the most part, the courts haven't really liked them.  However, the problem is in the wording, not the concepts.  Speech codes are meant to stop violence from breaking out on campus.  Religious groups love using fighting words, probably even more so than any other group, and it's probably because religions are violent organizations.  So, it is perfectly acceptable that campuses should want to prevent these groups from inciting massive riots or fights in the middle of campus.  When a religious nut calls someone a "fag" that is NOT protected speech, and no sane person can argue that "fag" adds anything to the "market place of ideas" view of the educational setting.  it is meant to incite conflict and that is NOT protected speech.

3) Student Fees - I'm curious what campuses are denying any group access to student activity fees.  Again, religious groups should not have privileged access to funds, but nor should they be denied.  It's not surprising though that these groups would want to get more than others and then claim they were getting less.

4) Speech Zones - This is where the religiously inclined kill their own arguement.  50 people screaming outside a classroom window adds nothing to the "marketplace of ideas" and would in fact distract from that mission.  It seems like the obvious response by students who don't like religious groups would be to use this stuff against them, stand in their meetings yelling and screaming, or join their clubs and vote out their leaders.  And according to them you'd have this right because of free speech.  I think they might start singing a different tune.

Religious students on campus are given privileges far beyond those enshrined in the constitution.  And considering religious belief is, by its very nature, anti-thetical to the intellectual and academic mission of the university to open the mind to critical thinking, I think they have enough privileges and don't deserve anymore.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Mainstreaming Extremism

Here is an interesting article I found today.  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was asked at the Western Conservative Political Action Conference whether he agreed with the impeachement efforts of Floyd Brown (a truly nutty neo-conservative extremist).  Floyd has been arguing that President Obama is a very dangerous man who is threatening our liberties and should thus be impeached.  What exactly is he guilty of you ask?  why, the high crime of being "liberal" of course.  (for anyone with half a brain it should be obvious that this is a far FAR cry from the required "high crimes and misdemeanors" required by the constitution for an impeachment to happen.

Anyway, the Republican congressman from California was asked what he thought and he responded that while he did recognize Obama's "Marxist background," he did not think this was enough to impecah the guy.

Watch:


So, here's my problem with this.  Everyone calls out people who are more extreme than themselves, but what happened here is that when you ask an extremist to comment on an ultra-extremist, you make the extremist look more moderate than they really are.  Everyone is jumping off the deep end talking about how EVEN this nut job thinks Floyd Brown is crazy.  Well, no one is talking about that little justifier Rep. Rohrabacher snuck under the radar.

Obama is NOT a Marxist, nor has he ever been, nor will he ever be.  Any person who truly in their heart of hearts believes that Obama is a Marxist should go back to their high school and demand a refund of their tuition or tax dollars because you are an idiot.  The most liberal of all democrats in this country don't even come close to Marxism.  Even our ONE socialist in the House of Representatives would be a VERY conservative Marxist, if he was at all.  Why?  Because Obama is not killing off all his opponants and the wealthy people for their money.  Obama is not advocating a revolt by the working class.  He is recommending that maybe rich people should go back to paying their fair share of the tax burden.

So here is a quiz on your knowledge of Obama's economic plan:
Option A (Liberalism): Obama raises taxes on the top 5% of Americans by no more than 10% so that rich people are paying 1/3 of what they used to pay in taxes instead of 1/4 like they did under Reagan and Bush 2.
Option B (Socialism): Obama takes ALL of your money no matter who you are and redistributes it according to need.
Option C (Marxism): Obama sparks a working class revolt, where the working class rises up and takes the money from the rich and then takes over the government.
Option D (Communism/Lenonism): Obama kills off all Republican politicians and any person who advocates republicans ideology will be killed by the Obama death squads or sent to Alaskan labor camps.  Obama then kill off all liberal democrats who disagree with him and installs himself as the sole ruler of the country instituting a massive suppression of anyone else who dissagrees with him.  He then dictates to the people what jobs they will work and how much they will get paid based on need and job skills.

If you chose anything except "Option A" you are an idiot who needs a history lesson.

I find myself continuing to ask, how can anyone be so stupid and uneducated as to believe that Obama is anything further left than a traditional American Democrat?  Once again I can only assume it is the result of the neo-conservative campaign to destroy education and further scare people into voting for them.  Un-american would be an understatement I think.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Giving Credit Where Credit is Due?

Ok so here is an interesting progression that's been happening on a certain disreputable news channel.

Since Obama has taken office the Fox News Channel has used the following sound bites to try and keep the blame off of Bush.

First, You can't blame Bush for the recession, blame Wall Street!

Then, You should blame Clinton!

Next, You should blame Obama because he's fighting with Wall Street, and what's good for Wall Street is good for Mains street, so Obama is hurting you! (anybody noticing the convenient reversal?)

Here is the most recent theory out of Fox News:




So, it's ok to blame Bush now, just as long as we give him credit for fixing it too.  Because it's all or nothing.  Either Bash screwed it up and fixed it, or Obama screwed it up and we should vote him out.


Well, let me just throw out a third option.  Bush screwed up the economy, and Obama is fixing it.  doesn't that seem like the most likely answer.  The economy fails after 8 years of Bush's borrow to spend mentality giving us two trillion dollar wars, massive tax cuts that helped rich people, and serious deregulation that allowed lenders to balloon their profits by basically creating money out of thin air.  There is some evidence that WE as consumers are also at fault, I mean it's not like our credit card lifestyles were a great choice.  But in the end Obama is fixing stuff.  He could afford to speed it up a little, but things are going in the right direction.


I think I might be right, and I think Mr. Cavuto might be full of cow poop.


Common Sense

You Might Be a Racist: Louisiana Justice of the Peace Denies Interracial Couple Right to Marry

Consider, for a moment, the following story.

A Louisiana justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell (left picture), has decided he has the right to deny an interracial couple (right picture) their right to marry.


As if that were not inflammatory enough, he attempts to explain away his decision as not racist on the following grounds:


"I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves," Bardwell said. "In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer."


Basically he argues that he marries white couples and black couples, but wont marry interracial couples because neither community accepts the children. (because he totally has the right to make that decision)


A quick note on why he is stupid.  As I've said before, your religion or personal beliefs are indeed protected by the constitution, but you are NOT allowed to act on them!  so it's fine if you believe this couple's children will be miserable, but you are not, under any circumstances allowed to deny this couple their rights, just because you believe that, because then you will have infringed on their rights.

my only consolation on the supreme stupidness of this man is that knowledge that:
1) He does not, in fact, have this right.  The 1967 Loving case will be brought up and he'll be smacked down and likely have to pay civil damages as well.  sucks for him.
2) he'll be fired from his job for breaking the law, negligence, incompetence, or some combination of these three things.
3) most of society seems to recognize that this guy is in fact a racist.


P.S. is anyone noticing a striking similarity to gay/lesbian marriage here?


Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Congressional Gay Bashing (Round 2)

You know, it really sucks when people do their jobs.  Kevin Jennings (pictured to the left) is under fire again from neo-con extremists.  This time Rep. Steve King (R-IA), pictured to the right, and 51 House Republicans have signed a letter urging President Obama to fire Jennings.  Their reasoning?  Because he is gay and he handled a situation many years ago in a professional, developmentally appropriate way.  (In their continuing commitment to push a radical right wing agenda, Fox News is the only station covering this story)

Republicans are whining that Jennings is pushing a "Homosexual Agenda" in schools and that his actions in the incident many years ago were tantamount to supporting statutory rape (I've already debunked these accusations in a previous post).  But it seems that the neo-cons are back to their old tricks and are just pissed off that someone wont allow abuse and neo-con indoctrination in our schools.

Keep up the good work Mr. Jennings.  If these guys are after you, you know you are doing something right.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: The "New" GOP(.com)?

This was just too good to pass up.  When the news of the new RNC website came to my attention a few days ago I avoided it because it sounded like a pathetic (and failed) attempt to reach younger voters.  Here were some of the initial problems:

#1 - Michael Steele's Blog was called "What Up?" - I am personally offended by this.  not only am I offended because this is a national figure advocating improper english, but mostly because he is attempting to reach out to a younger generation that has no interest in republican politics.  Younger people are liberal, not because they are indoctrinated, but before your party is about 20 years behind the times.
#2 - No Future Leaders - The party has no future leaders because no one wants to be Republican
#3 - Jackie Robinson is a GOP Hero? - The party, in it's effort to protest their racist image, has declared that Jackie Robinson is a GOP Hero.  I'll talk about these issues later in this post, but for now lets just say, this isn't really true, he was actually very critical of their racial tactics.
#4 - Iraw War was the ONLY accomplishment? - Nope, I was not the one who misspelled that, the website misspelled it.  Spellcheck?  and doesn't it make sense to wait to launch a website until it's finished?

Alright, so now it's been a week, and I decided to go check out this website.  I figured I would get a good laugh and maybe, just maybe, I'd find something interesting.  Let me try to describe to you what I found.

Front Page:
I went looking around the front page.  Aside from the extremely irritating faces that replaced the "O" in GOP on the title bar, I found it to be quite pleasing to the eye.  There is a misleading video titled "Trillions in new spending" and a blog called "Sound Reasoning" that made me giggle a little bit at their hilarity, but then I stumbled on something very interesting.  You see I had recently caught up on my CNN Ticker reports, and found out that the insurance industry is now on the offensive against the Democratic health care bill.  Then, on the new RNC website, I saw this from the Facebook feed on the left hand side of the screen:

Realistically only one of them can be right, which leads me to believe that again, the RNC is deliberately misleading people...AGAIN!

Heroes:
So, I wanted to go see what all the fuss was about on this heroes page.  It does still include Jackie Robinson.  What really shocked me is that their heroes (aside from Reagan) are predominantly historical figures.  This is very smart on their part, because it's impossible for someone to claim with any certainty that Susan B. Anthony was NOT Republican (this assumes that they have no responsibility to prove that she IS, which seems to be that accepted assumption).

Steele's Blog:
Most likely as a response to the uproar of criticism (and outright mocking) that followed his first Blog "What Up?", Michael Steele's blog has been renamed, "Change The Game."  Nothing particularly surprising about this.  Once again Steele screwed up.

Accomplishments:
Alright this was the section that kinda pissed me off.  Why?  because it completely lacks a historical perspective and it does so for the purpose of misrepresenting history.  Is it factually correct?  Yes, but as any good historian knows, thats rarely the whole story.  In the Accomplishments section the GOP takes credit for all of the following:
The first hispanic governor
Freeing the slaves
Extending voting rights
The 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments
Opposing Plessy v. Ferguson
The first African-American Senator
The Civil Rights Act 1875
Women's rights
The first women mayors
The first jewish cabinet secretary
The first hipanic Senator
The first asian Senator
Wrote Brown v. Board (Justice Warren)
The interstate Highway System
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Ending Segregation in Little Rock
Opening Relations with China
-----------------------------------------------------
Tax Cuts (Reagan)
"Tear Down This Wall"
Contract with America
Welfare Reform
Operation Enduring Freedom
More Tax Cuts (Bush II)
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Vouchers for DC Schoolchildren

I could go on for HOURS about how each of these is somewhat misleading (like how the Republicans actually openly HATE Justice Warren), but I'll focus more on the big picture and why you should think hard before you vote Republican because of all the good stuff they've done.

History lesson: I purposefully added the line between "Opening relations with China" and "Tax Cuts (Reagan)."  I did so because this represented a major shift in the Republican party.  Yes, republicans up until that point had been extremely supportive of equal rights (notice how they have been silent on the matter for the past 30 years), however, that was a different party than the one we now know as Republicans.  When Reagan came to power, he did so by casting aside the old (racially diverse) republican party and bringing in three new (Neo-Conservative) interest groups: War Hawks (Political Conservatives), Free  Marketeers (Economic Conservatives), and the Religious Right (Social Conservatives).  This was Reagan's "Big Tent."

This process was made easier by the recent loss of minorities and women to the democratic party, who had become champions of equal rights in the courts.  "Liberalism" was championed by Earl Warren, whose leadership on the court is celebrated as a golden era for equal rights.  The only way that Republicans could regain their position of power was to incorporate the three extremist elements that had been left out.  Notice how ALL of the "accomplishments" since 1980 represent one of the three interest groups in the "Big Tent."  Tax Cuts for the rich (Free Marketeers), Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (War Hawks), Contract with America (Religious Right).  The Republican party has become the party of extremists and they have done so by implementing a populist propaganda campaign, while pushing and extremist agendas behind closed doors.

The current party has no right to claim pre-1980 Republican accomplishments as their own, because it's no longer the same party.

I give this Website an F, and I refer them to the office of judicial affairs for having perpetrated academic dishonesty

Laugh a Little: John Stewart Roasts CNN's "Fact Checking"

Ok, I died laughing when I saw this. It's funny because it's SO true.  Yet no one bothers to fix it.  I love CNN, but they do need to get it together.

Enjoy!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Common Sense

Laugh a Little: Ban Divorce in California

This is a truly amazing mock-ad.  It's the argument we've all made before.  If you want to protect marriage, how about you start with divorce.  Enjoy!




Common Sense

Practice Non-Religion: Conservative Bible Project

So, I've decided I'm an atheist.  It took me a while to just come out and say it, but this next post pretty much just made it clear to me that religion is not a good thing.  I also thoroughly enjoyed Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, so I figure, it's time to just come out with it.  Rather than label these posts in a negative way like "Religion sucks" or "religiously wrong" I've decided a more positive tone.  Instead I will simply advocate the "Practice of Non-Religion."

So the extremists of the religious right have set their sights on a new liberal icon.  The bible.  Wait, the BIBLE?!  WTF?  no, you heard me right, the wingnuts on the right have decided that the bible, the root of social conservatism and guidebook to all things illogical, was too liberal.  They provide 10 goals (or reasons) for this re-write.  They are as follows:

1) The Bible is Too Liberal - liberal bias has changed the "thoughts" in the text and we need to return to a "thought for thought" translation of the bible.

2) The Bible Should be Sexist! - liberals have translated the text using "gender neutral" statements, and it is up to the god-fearing conservatives to replace those with their original sexist meanings.

3) The Bible Should be More Complicated - Apparently the current bible is written at a 7th grade reading level and needs to be enhanced with the intellectual force and logic of Christianity.  (Does it present a problem that christianity is based on people being too stupid to question and thus, if you made the bible more complicated, people would be too stupid to understand what they are not supposed to question?)

4) The Bible Needs to Include MORE Conservative Terms - Like "volunteer," "peace," and "miracle." (So, lets take out the liberal bias and introduce conservative bias, Yikes! and since when are those conservative terms?  wouldn't conservative terms be selfishness, greed, war, and ignorance?)

5) Combat Harmful Addiction - use current political terminology to explain things like using "gambling" instead of "cast lots." (wait wait, so we are selectively correcting words back to their original meaning now?  Sexism is ok, but heaven forbid we should call it "casting lots")
6) Hell is REAL! - Hell and the Devil are real and we need to say so.

7) Express Free-Market Parables - We need to connect the bible to free market principles. (Even though the church doesn't actually agree with this because capitalism and the free-market are built on the profit motive, i.e. greed *which is a sin if I remember correctly*)

8) Remove Liberal Passages - So, apparently that pesky story of the adulteress was really a liberal plot to make Jesus look like a good guy. (I guess he was actually a fire breathing dragon who was as spiteful as the ancient jewish god Yahweh)
9) Credit the Open-Mindedness of the Disciples - Supposedly they were very open-minded.
10) Use Concise Words Rather tha Liberal Wordiness - We are going to switch all references to "Yahweh," "Jahova," and "Lord God" to just plain old lord.  Because it's weird talking about the "Lord" by all those other names that make him sound like a bad guy.  you know, like when Yahweh said "Jews, I give you this land and you should go out and slaughter (murder) all these tribes in the area, then rape their women to their blood lines will die out (genocide), and then burn down their homes (arsen), then take all the gold and silver and put it in my churches (theft).  Yeah I wouldn't want to be associated with that guy either.

Sometimes I wonder where it will end.  These people are already so crazy that they SHOULD be completely ostrocized by society, yet we continue a policy of religious "tolerance" when that tolerance has lead to centuries of ignorance, violence, and hate.  How insane must they become before someone steps up and says, enough is enough, go back to the caves.  What if they tried to indoctrinate your children in schools you pay for?  What if they tried to convert you?  What if they tried to kill you?  What if they flew planes into your office buildings?  What if they took over your governments and used it to oppress you?  What if they killed everyone like you?

Common Sense

*to all those who have a healthy relationship with "God," you have my respect and admiration for being able to maintain your faith despite all the people around you going crazy.  I hope that you will continue to blaze your own personal relationships with whatever "God" you believe in and tune out the hate-mongers.  I simply can't intellectually justify being a believer."