So I met Meg Whitman yesterday. It was a pretty small rally at a processing plant between Sacramento an Natomas. There were over a hundred people there. After the rally, lots of people were getting autographs, shaking Meg's hand, and sharing their enthusiasm. Meg was really nice, spending a good half hour just talking to people one on one and taking pictures with her. I handed Griff, Meg's husband, my camera so he could take a picture of Meg and I. Meg put her arm around me and smiled for the camera as Griff struggled to figure out how to push a single button.
I was standing there thinking, "Really? It's just a simple camera." Then he thought he had to back way up, so he did. And I was getting a little irritated. Just take the damn picture already! Other people were staring, waiting for their turn. Finally, the little red light flashes, and there... I got a picture next to Meg. She looked great. I looked really irritated and with half closed eyes. Damn it! What's wrong with me? Why couldn't I just relax and smile and be patient? Oh well. I'm a little bummed the picture didn't turn out well and a little irritated at myself for being irritated. I normally have a lot of patience, but when too many people are staring at me and I feel uncomfortable... well, anyways.
There's a lot at stake in this election. I've talked enough about Meg vs Jerry. Let's talk about the scariest thing on the California ballot - Prop 25. The spin: Prop 25 makes it so that the members of the State Legislature do not get paid their salary for each day that the budget is late. And the days of lost wages cannot be recovered. Sounds great, right? Oh, and by the way, it also makes it so the State Legislators only need a simple majority to pass the budget, instead of the 2/3rds vote. But don't you worry your pretty little heads about that part.
So the Democrats have controlled the State Legislature for the last 40 years. Regardless of what you might think of Republicans, I think all voices should be heard. The Dems are pushing Prop 25 pretty hard, because it would completely take Republicans out of the equation and mean that we, the Minority party in California, would no longer have a voice and that the Dems can do to us whatever they want. The mob should not rule. This Proposition would greatly aid in the decline of California.
Remember, we have one of the highest dollars per student education cost in the world, one of the lowest test scores of industrialized countries in the world, one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, the second highest sales tax in the country, and one of the highest state taxes in the country. Despite being one of the most resource intensive areas in the world, California is the shining, crowning achievement of failure on almost every measurable front. The central valley provides 20% of the food consumed by the rest of the country. We have redwoods and logging fields in the north, oil wells in the south, gold in the eastern mountains, and to the west, ports that trade goods from around the world.
My point is that California might be chugging along, struggling through the recession like the other states with half the resources and opportunities, but we should be leading the county. We're trailing behind. We need to radically change the direction we're on.
In either case, it's baffling that the Governor and jr Senate Seat is close at all. I don't get what there is about Boxer and Brown that there is to get excited about. This notion that Meg and Carly are only running to make their billionaire buddies rich... hmm. Rich people are going to get rich either way. If you took all the money in the world away from everyone, then gave it all back, evenly distributed: the formerly rich would be rich again, the formerly poor would be poor again, and the middle class would stay the same. This is fundamentally why I will always disagree with Moderate to Liberal Democrats. Lower expectations leads to lower results. Baby people long enough and they will eventually need to be babied. If you're so mad that rich people keep getting richer, then go to school, get a degree in business and go out and do the same. But don't sit there with your degree in something unmarketable like Philosophy or something, whining about people that have things you're too lazy to work for. Hey, I have a degree in Anthropology. I didn't do myself any favors either. But I'm not going to whine about it.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Last Debate
Considering the dismal showing Meg made against Steve Poizner in the debate before the primary, she's gotten considerably better. She stumbled a few places against Jerry Brown last night, but did well over all. She was clear and articulate which contrasted against Brown who got off on tangents and bordered on incoherent a few times. I'm not going to waste time bringing up the same talking points they'd said before. When they get into "did he raise taxes according to this source or cut taxes according to this source," I just start to ignore it. I mean, a politician can do nothing except pass a bill that directly lowers taxes, but have taxes still go up due to several other factors. That's why they can both be right about his record.
Let's start with what Meg did well. She dodged the Sarah Palin question. When asked if Palin would campaign for her, Meg said she would do her own campaigning. She was careful not to offend conservatives who favor Palin, at the same time, not aligning herself with a figure that's not all that popular with many independent California swing voters that Meg needs.
Meg had a great line criticizing Brown's promise to cut the Governor's, already tiny, budget by 10%, saying if that's Brown's big plan, California is in trouble. Brown was flat out stumped by that.
Where she stumbled. Brown made the irresponsible excuse that one of his staffers referring to Whitman as a whore is the same thing as Pete Wilson calling the State Legislators a bunch of whores. It's not the same thing, which Meg pointed out. But she didn't articulate why, instead making it seem like it's ok for her "side" to do it, but not Brown's. But here's why it's different. It's like if you called me(a white person) the N word, it's a whole lot different than using that word to refer to a black person. Why? Because the word is a weapon designed to tell a minority they're not good enough to compete with a member of the majority. It's an offensive term used in an effort to "keep women in their place." I don't like it when Conservative women are called that and I don't like it when someone I strongly disagree with like Nancy Pelosi is called that. Not cool.
But let's be adults here. People say all kinds of offensive crap behind closed doors. And it's also not fair that the leaked message got out in the first place, nor does it reflect on Brown. It's childish to think that Brown should seriously fire the staffer who said it. But my point is, it's not on the same level as what Pete Wilson once said, 15 years ago, about a group of mostly men who he felt was in the pocket of unions(which is why he called them whores). The word whores, was, in this case, not used as a weapon. This is a massive difference.
Also, Meg should not have interrupted Brown when he stumbled about having the backing of sheriffs. Meg stopped him to say Brown meant to say he was in their back pocket. It wasn't funny. It came off as childish.
For being a career politician, Brown surprisingly stumbled a lot and was fairly inarticulate. I was able to follow the points he made because I've been keeping an eye on things and I know the context. But I can imagine independents who only watched this one debate would have to conclude Meg was more polished. But for the most part, I liked what Brown had to say, though you certainly have to question if it's all talk or not. By that, I mean, for all of his talk about living within our means, and being a fiscal conservative, he then went on to praise the incredibly irresponsible and wasteful government spending of Obama's "Stimulus" bill. I just took that as meaning that Brown didn't actually mean anything he said about being responsible.
But, the biggest mistake Brown made was missing the opportunity to hit Meg in the one spot she's very vulnerable--to tie her to our current Republican Governor. He brought this up, passingly, in the last debate. And it was a great point, but he wasn't all that clear about it. Ok, so this is what I'm talking about. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a political outsider too. He looked at the unions, saw the corruption and how they're bleeding the state dry, and went after them. Corrupt organizations didn't get that way by playing nice. They fought back and the idiot voters in California sided with them, and rejected Schwarzenegger's Special Election propositions which is why we're in the budget mess we're in. Many of us California Republicans are disillusioned after sending the Terminator in against the Democrat Controlled State Legislators and seeing him come back in pieces. What is it that makes us think Meg is going to be any tougher?
At least Brown speaks the same language as his fellow Democrats and can possibly work with them better. After all, politicians are more likely to compromise with their allies than with their enemies. Now Brown made this point during the debate last night, but not in comparison with how Schwarzenegger has struggled. And of course, we've seen the disaster of the Obama administration when a Socialist President has a super majority in Congress to rubber stamp whatever he wants. Although Brown talks the talk of being a fiscal conservative, we have no reason to believe that's what he'll be after the election.
Let's start with what Meg did well. She dodged the Sarah Palin question. When asked if Palin would campaign for her, Meg said she would do her own campaigning. She was careful not to offend conservatives who favor Palin, at the same time, not aligning herself with a figure that's not all that popular with many independent California swing voters that Meg needs.
Meg had a great line criticizing Brown's promise to cut the Governor's, already tiny, budget by 10%, saying if that's Brown's big plan, California is in trouble. Brown was flat out stumped by that.
Where she stumbled. Brown made the irresponsible excuse that one of his staffers referring to Whitman as a whore is the same thing as Pete Wilson calling the State Legislators a bunch of whores. It's not the same thing, which Meg pointed out. But she didn't articulate why, instead making it seem like it's ok for her "side" to do it, but not Brown's. But here's why it's different. It's like if you called me(a white person) the N word, it's a whole lot different than using that word to refer to a black person. Why? Because the word is a weapon designed to tell a minority they're not good enough to compete with a member of the majority. It's an offensive term used in an effort to "keep women in their place." I don't like it when Conservative women are called that and I don't like it when someone I strongly disagree with like Nancy Pelosi is called that. Not cool.
But let's be adults here. People say all kinds of offensive crap behind closed doors. And it's also not fair that the leaked message got out in the first place, nor does it reflect on Brown. It's childish to think that Brown should seriously fire the staffer who said it. But my point is, it's not on the same level as what Pete Wilson once said, 15 years ago, about a group of mostly men who he felt was in the pocket of unions(which is why he called them whores). The word whores, was, in this case, not used as a weapon. This is a massive difference.
Also, Meg should not have interrupted Brown when he stumbled about having the backing of sheriffs. Meg stopped him to say Brown meant to say he was in their back pocket. It wasn't funny. It came off as childish.
For being a career politician, Brown surprisingly stumbled a lot and was fairly inarticulate. I was able to follow the points he made because I've been keeping an eye on things and I know the context. But I can imagine independents who only watched this one debate would have to conclude Meg was more polished. But for the most part, I liked what Brown had to say, though you certainly have to question if it's all talk or not. By that, I mean, for all of his talk about living within our means, and being a fiscal conservative, he then went on to praise the incredibly irresponsible and wasteful government spending of Obama's "Stimulus" bill. I just took that as meaning that Brown didn't actually mean anything he said about being responsible.
But, the biggest mistake Brown made was missing the opportunity to hit Meg in the one spot she's very vulnerable--to tie her to our current Republican Governor. He brought this up, passingly, in the last debate. And it was a great point, but he wasn't all that clear about it. Ok, so this is what I'm talking about. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a political outsider too. He looked at the unions, saw the corruption and how they're bleeding the state dry, and went after them. Corrupt organizations didn't get that way by playing nice. They fought back and the idiot voters in California sided with them, and rejected Schwarzenegger's Special Election propositions which is why we're in the budget mess we're in. Many of us California Republicans are disillusioned after sending the Terminator in against the Democrat Controlled State Legislators and seeing him come back in pieces. What is it that makes us think Meg is going to be any tougher?
At least Brown speaks the same language as his fellow Democrats and can possibly work with them better. After all, politicians are more likely to compromise with their allies than with their enemies. Now Brown made this point during the debate last night, but not in comparison with how Schwarzenegger has struggled. And of course, we've seen the disaster of the Obama administration when a Socialist President has a super majority in Congress to rubber stamp whatever he wants. Although Brown talks the talk of being a fiscal conservative, we have no reason to believe that's what he'll be after the election.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Book Burning
Will he or won't he? Rev Terry Jones announced he's not going to burn the 200 copies of the Quran after all. But the mere announcement that this pastor in a tiny little country church in a small Florida town was going to burn some paper and binding with the word "Quran" on it has sparked thousands of Muslims to riot in violent protests where over a hundred people have been injured so far. News media outlets are showing footage of Muslims burning the American flag and chanting in mass "Death to America!" Yet, we're told that most Muslims are moderates, that it's only the radicals that hate us. Sooo... while American leaders are condemning Rev Jones for what he *might* do, where are those moderate Muslims condemning the violence and burning of American flags?
And speaking of the Ground Zero Mosque. While everyone talks about religious freedom here in America, how would the Muslims feel about building a church or synagogue in Mecca? That's not going to happen anytime soon. Where's the tolerance there?
Newt Gengrich, recently put out a video called America At Risk about how Islam is incompatible with peace. We used to argue that building up nukes meant the world was safe. No one would ever start a war because we all fear "mutually assured destruction," which nicely makes up the acronym MAD. Remember that phrase mentioned a lot during the cold war? In the Muslim world where suicide bombers are heroes, MAD-ness isn't a deterrent, it's a bonus! With Iran building nukes, are we counting down the moments until the end of the world with madness? If Muslims will only accept everyone living under their repressive Sharia Law or the end of the human race then, like Newt says, we must end Islam out of self defense. Right?
Ok, now let me start chipping away at these arguments. First off, I really am a fan of Newt, and I was disappointed by his latest "Muslims are going to kill us, we're all going to die!" video he recently put out. I understand that fear mongering works really well and that's why it's done for tv ratings or votes. But this is over the top. We fear what we don't understand.
A big one, is we don't understand ourselves and how radical the idea of freedom of religion is. Our own culture is invisible to us because we think it's "the norm." But American culture is really, really strange. I can walk up to the leader of my country and insult him or her verbally and not go to jail for it. To a lot of people in other countries, that might mean Obama was weak rather than prove how strong the US is.
Now, let's look at American Muslims. Why are Arab Muslims coming to this country in the first place? Because they're escaping the oppression of their home countries. Consider the argument about the Ground Zero Mosque, "Why should we build one here if we can't build Churches in Mecca?" That's an incredibly stupid argument on several levels. It's Americans who want to build the Ground Zero Mosque in America, so we're talking about a completely different group of people. Americans building in America. Not people from Mecca building in America who are not letting Americans build in Mecca. If Arab Christians(and yes, they exist) living in Mecca, want to build a Church in Mecca, they will be denied because they don't have the same kind of freedom of religion there that we have here. Again, this is why many Arabs, and other foreigners, come to America in the first place.
For a counter to my counter argument, I've heard people bring up that the Mosque is a "whole 2 blocks away from ground zero." Um, no. A piece of one of the planes hit this building(that used to be a clothing store) and it's still damaged from that which is why it's not open now and doing business. That means it's not 2 blocks away from ground zero. It's in it.
Should the Mosque be built? I think we all agree they have the legal right to do so. But should they? New Yorkers should make this call. They know their neighborhood certainly better than I(or Obama) do. I don't feel like I have a good sense of things on the ground there to really form an opinion on this, so I leave this to them.
Speaking of Obama, he gave a speech the other day about Rev. Jones and the Quran burning that I thought was important. Many of our military personnel fighting in Afghanistan are American Muslims. As Obama pointed out, what kind of message are we sending to fellow Americans as we call some of them, including ones shedding blood and dying to defend our freedoms, our enemies? Picture an American Muslim soldier with his arm blown off from fighting for freedom in Afghanistan and call him our enemy simply because of his religion. I don't care what or who someone prays to, but I couldn't do that. Anyone who can should be ashamed of themselves.
I was happy that my conservative influences like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have condemned Rev. Jones' Quran burning plans. It upsets me to hear fellow Republicans get swept up in this ridiculous Islamaphobia trend, but glad that at least two prominent conservative pundits have not.
Ok, so why aren't moderate Muslims condemning the burning of American flags going on right now? Well, how do we know if they are or not? Are you going to their houses and asking them? I mean really, how do we know what they think unless we see it on the news or the internet or hear about it in person? And if we don't see it, it's not real? What kind of logic is that? Some Imams have been on the news opposing the Ground Zero Mosque. The father of the Underwear Bomber alerted authorities as to what was about to happen. So it at least happens on some level publicly.
Something that we need to understand about wanting Muslims to condemn acts of violence from "fellow Muslims." This seems logical to us because we're operating under the assumption that terrorists do what they do *because* of Islam. This is not so. Members of the KKK burned crosses as means of terrorist acts and they quoted the Bible when doing so, recited scripture in their ceremonies, etc. But they didn't hate black people and Republicans *because* they, the Klansmen, were Christians. They hated blacks and Republicans because they, the Klansmen, were scum. Christianity was just a backdrop. In Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants car bomb each other as terrorist acts but not because of religion. The Catholics in Northern Ireland do feel like they're discriminated against because they're Catholic, sure, but it's cultural difference, not a religious one.
So, if you accept this premise that Muslim extremists are not terrorists *because* of Islam then you can understand how odd it is to expect moderate Muslims who feel like they have nothing in common with terrorists to feel like they need to condemn them. As a Sacramentoan, I've never felt like I needed to come out and condemn the Uni-Bomber for killing all those people or for the band Cake who puts out such horrible music.
Maybe you don't accept this premise. After all, not since the KKK has a large group from one particular religion all conspired to attack the US with terrorism. But let's look at something else these Muslim Extremists have in common other than Islam. The Imam behind the Ground Zero Mosque said that the US is partially to blame for 9/11. This was a horribly stupid and insensitive thing to say way back when it happened, however he is right.
After all, who created Al Qaeda? We did. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we were so eager to the break the backs of the red army, that we trained and armed the Afghani freedom fighters to fight the Russians. These freedom fighters were successful, and this was a key part of breaking the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War. Yay us, right? Those freedom fighters we trained became Al Qaeda, and the Stinger Missile launchers that they're still shooting at our troops to this day are the ones we gave them decades before.
Most Americans believe that on 9/11 "they" attacked us first. This isn't the case. Clinton had been sending predator drones into Afghanistan during his administration. 9/11 was a counter attack. Now, we were attacking military targets in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda attacked the Trade Towers--a civilian target and that makes them scum, so by no means am I saying this is tit for tat. 9/11 was a despicable act. Unjustified, but not unprovoked. So please do not misunderstand and think I'm making light of the horrible and tragic attack on the Trade Towers and Pentagon. I think Bush was justified in sending us to war in some capacity, though in hindsight, I think we all wish that would have gone differently(not used WMDs as an excuse, for example) etc, but the better course of action was to not create Al Qaeda in the first place. Right now, we are training and arming a new generation of Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban. I'll bet you we're doing the same covertly, at least on some level, in Yemen and Somalia. We are, perhaps, creating our own future enemies.
I'm not a conspiracy theory nut. I don't believe the US does this on purpose so that we always have an enemy to fear monger about. I never assume malice when simple incompetence seems likely. I'm only saying the politics of temporary fixes to today's problems can cause new problems for tomorrow.
And speaking of the Ground Zero Mosque. While everyone talks about religious freedom here in America, how would the Muslims feel about building a church or synagogue in Mecca? That's not going to happen anytime soon. Where's the tolerance there?
Newt Gengrich, recently put out a video called America At Risk about how Islam is incompatible with peace. We used to argue that building up nukes meant the world was safe. No one would ever start a war because we all fear "mutually assured destruction," which nicely makes up the acronym MAD. Remember that phrase mentioned a lot during the cold war? In the Muslim world where suicide bombers are heroes, MAD-ness isn't a deterrent, it's a bonus! With Iran building nukes, are we counting down the moments until the end of the world with madness? If Muslims will only accept everyone living under their repressive Sharia Law or the end of the human race then, like Newt says, we must end Islam out of self defense. Right?
Ok, now let me start chipping away at these arguments. First off, I really am a fan of Newt, and I was disappointed by his latest "Muslims are going to kill us, we're all going to die!" video he recently put out. I understand that fear mongering works really well and that's why it's done for tv ratings or votes. But this is over the top. We fear what we don't understand.
A big one, is we don't understand ourselves and how radical the idea of freedom of religion is. Our own culture is invisible to us because we think it's "the norm." But American culture is really, really strange. I can walk up to the leader of my country and insult him or her verbally and not go to jail for it. To a lot of people in other countries, that might mean Obama was weak rather than prove how strong the US is.
Now, let's look at American Muslims. Why are Arab Muslims coming to this country in the first place? Because they're escaping the oppression of their home countries. Consider the argument about the Ground Zero Mosque, "Why should we build one here if we can't build Churches in Mecca?" That's an incredibly stupid argument on several levels. It's Americans who want to build the Ground Zero Mosque in America, so we're talking about a completely different group of people. Americans building in America. Not people from Mecca building in America who are not letting Americans build in Mecca. If Arab Christians(and yes, they exist) living in Mecca, want to build a Church in Mecca, they will be denied because they don't have the same kind of freedom of religion there that we have here. Again, this is why many Arabs, and other foreigners, come to America in the first place.
For a counter to my counter argument, I've heard people bring up that the Mosque is a "whole 2 blocks away from ground zero." Um, no. A piece of one of the planes hit this building(that used to be a clothing store) and it's still damaged from that which is why it's not open now and doing business. That means it's not 2 blocks away from ground zero. It's in it.
Should the Mosque be built? I think we all agree they have the legal right to do so. But should they? New Yorkers should make this call. They know their neighborhood certainly better than I(or Obama) do. I don't feel like I have a good sense of things on the ground there to really form an opinion on this, so I leave this to them.
Speaking of Obama, he gave a speech the other day about Rev. Jones and the Quran burning that I thought was important. Many of our military personnel fighting in Afghanistan are American Muslims. As Obama pointed out, what kind of message are we sending to fellow Americans as we call some of them, including ones shedding blood and dying to defend our freedoms, our enemies? Picture an American Muslim soldier with his arm blown off from fighting for freedom in Afghanistan and call him our enemy simply because of his religion. I don't care what or who someone prays to, but I couldn't do that. Anyone who can should be ashamed of themselves.
I was happy that my conservative influences like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have condemned Rev. Jones' Quran burning plans. It upsets me to hear fellow Republicans get swept up in this ridiculous Islamaphobia trend, but glad that at least two prominent conservative pundits have not.
Ok, so why aren't moderate Muslims condemning the burning of American flags going on right now? Well, how do we know if they are or not? Are you going to their houses and asking them? I mean really, how do we know what they think unless we see it on the news or the internet or hear about it in person? And if we don't see it, it's not real? What kind of logic is that? Some Imams have been on the news opposing the Ground Zero Mosque. The father of the Underwear Bomber alerted authorities as to what was about to happen. So it at least happens on some level publicly.
Something that we need to understand about wanting Muslims to condemn acts of violence from "fellow Muslims." This seems logical to us because we're operating under the assumption that terrorists do what they do *because* of Islam. This is not so. Members of the KKK burned crosses as means of terrorist acts and they quoted the Bible when doing so, recited scripture in their ceremonies, etc. But they didn't hate black people and Republicans *because* they, the Klansmen, were Christians. They hated blacks and Republicans because they, the Klansmen, were scum. Christianity was just a backdrop. In Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants car bomb each other as terrorist acts but not because of religion. The Catholics in Northern Ireland do feel like they're discriminated against because they're Catholic, sure, but it's cultural difference, not a religious one.
So, if you accept this premise that Muslim extremists are not terrorists *because* of Islam then you can understand how odd it is to expect moderate Muslims who feel like they have nothing in common with terrorists to feel like they need to condemn them. As a Sacramentoan, I've never felt like I needed to come out and condemn the Uni-Bomber for killing all those people or for the band Cake who puts out such horrible music.
Maybe you don't accept this premise. After all, not since the KKK has a large group from one particular religion all conspired to attack the US with terrorism. But let's look at something else these Muslim Extremists have in common other than Islam. The Imam behind the Ground Zero Mosque said that the US is partially to blame for 9/11. This was a horribly stupid and insensitive thing to say way back when it happened, however he is right.
After all, who created Al Qaeda? We did. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we were so eager to the break the backs of the red army, that we trained and armed the Afghani freedom fighters to fight the Russians. These freedom fighters were successful, and this was a key part of breaking the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War. Yay us, right? Those freedom fighters we trained became Al Qaeda, and the Stinger Missile launchers that they're still shooting at our troops to this day are the ones we gave them decades before.
Most Americans believe that on 9/11 "they" attacked us first. This isn't the case. Clinton had been sending predator drones into Afghanistan during his administration. 9/11 was a counter attack. Now, we were attacking military targets in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda attacked the Trade Towers--a civilian target and that makes them scum, so by no means am I saying this is tit for tat. 9/11 was a despicable act. Unjustified, but not unprovoked. So please do not misunderstand and think I'm making light of the horrible and tragic attack on the Trade Towers and Pentagon. I think Bush was justified in sending us to war in some capacity, though in hindsight, I think we all wish that would have gone differently(not used WMDs as an excuse, for example) etc, but the better course of action was to not create Al Qaeda in the first place. Right now, we are training and arming a new generation of Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban. I'll bet you we're doing the same covertly, at least on some level, in Yemen and Somalia. We are, perhaps, creating our own future enemies.
I'm not a conspiracy theory nut. I don't believe the US does this on purpose so that we always have an enemy to fear monger about. I never assume malice when simple incompetence seems likely. I'm only saying the politics of temporary fixes to today's problems can cause new problems for tomorrow.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Beck and Call
There's a lot of interesting things to talk about with the Tea Party rally in DC over the weekend. Interesting to me, at least. Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Alveda King were the most famous of speakers. I watched Beck's hour long speech, but I only saw clips of the others. None of what they said was particularly interesting to me. It was mostly about returning to the values of God and what it means to love this country. I did take note that Beck mentioned mosques along with churches and synagogues as places Americans should go to get back with God. Muslim Americans might face the most amount of discrimination lately, and are mistrusted by both major political parties.
It's easy to mistrust what you don't understand. There are some very hateful things in Islam. And two, the only terrorists we've seen in this country lately motivated by religion were Muslims. The word "terrorist" is nearly synonymous with "Muslim Extremist." But let's pick at this perception. There are hateful things in the Bible too. Deuteronomy says a woman who marries and is not a virgin shall be put to death. The Bible says the same about people that eat shell fish, approach altars while sick, or labor on the sabbath. What do preachers do for work? They preach the word of God on the Sabbath. So they're laboring on the Sabbath then... right? The Bible advocates beating your children into obedience, how to treat your slaves, that Lot did the just thing by sending his own daughters out into an angry mob to be sexually assaulted to spare his two male visitors. Horrible, vile stuff. But Christianity has changed with the times. In the recent past, the Christian group, The Klu Klux Klan burned crosses as acts of terrorism. We can easily recognize the KKK as an extremist group that doesn't represent Christianity. We can do that only because we are familiar with Christianity and American culture to know they are the exception. But since most of us do not know or understand Islam, all them Muslim folk seem the same to us.
I saw a political cartoon with an Arab American hopping on one leg. It was after some recent failed terrorist plot. And the guy next to the Arab American was saying something like, "...ok great, now condemn terrorism while hopping on one leg and touching your nose with both hands!"
I think it's sad the way Americans mistrust Muslim Americans. Yes, it's scary that there are terrorist cells. Yes, you never know if your Arab neighbors secretly hate you and want to kill you. But that's true of all neighbors. Crazy runs in all ethnicities, religions, and nationalities.
Anyway, when Beck mentioned it a couple times in his speech, it made me wonder if it was possible for the Republican party to reach out to Muslims. Muslims are mostly independents and feel rejected by both parties. I've heard a lot of disparaging comments about Muslims made from Conservatives. Rush Limbaugh had a link on his website to a ridiculous propaganda video about how the birth rates of Christian Americans and Europeans are slowing while Muslim Americans and Europeans are growing, meaning the Muslims are going to out breed us like cancer. It was a well produced propaganda video, which made it all the more unfortunate. I generally like Rush, and I think that 95% of the time when he's called a racist or hate monger is just plain wrong. But he does hint at playing on Islamaphobia.
While I'm on the subject of Rush and racism. I want to point out something I think is funny that Rush does. He loves pointing out hypocrisy of Liberals. Many Liberals are racist depending on how you define the word. Many believe that African Americans are racially inferior and thus need extra help. This is racist by my definition. But anyway, so Rush will play a clip or read a quote of a Liberal saying something racist. He'll do so in the beginning of his show. Then he'll take part of it out of context and repeat it in new context throughout the rest of his show. Like, with the Tiger Woods scandal. Some Liberal called Tiger a light skinned negro, or something like that. I don't remember exactly. So for the rest of the show, Rush referred to African Americans as light skinned negros. Rush wasn't trying to be racist. He was using the phrase to poke fun at Liberals and left minded people. But his critics, who don't listen to his whole show to hear what he's saying in context, will say, "See! Rush is using the term 'negro.' He's a racist!" not realizing that Rush is repeating what someone "on their side" said and that Rush is doing this on purpose to try and get this reaction. It does two things. The next day on his show, Rush can play reaction clips and read quotes from Liberals calling him a racist not realizing the original context that Rush was quoting someone else. Rush's fans, who do know the context, can then laugh at Liberals. Rush becomes more popular with his fans. Rush's enemies, who don't bother finding out the context, then hate Rush even more and thus perpetuate his notoriety. And when Rush's enemies look towards Rush's fans and calls them "sheepeople," it makes his fans laugh at them because they don't get "the joke." And thus, Rush becomes more popular with his fans. The worst thing Rush's enemies could do is say, "Rush isn't a racist. He just says silly things to get ratings." If Rush's enemies stopped hating him, it would be a career killer.
Wow, I'm really getting side tracked. So Beck organized this rally on the same spot and day in history that Martin Luther King, Jr gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. Civil rights activists, who have incorrectly decided Beck is a racist simply because he's a conservative, decided to plan a counter rally with the purpose of stopping Beck from being able to distort and rewrite history regarding King's dream.
This was a waste of time in that respect. Beck mentioned King a couple times in his speech, but those references seemed thrown in and out of place. Like he felt obligated to mention King and edited his speech last minute to do so. Otherwise, his speech had nothing to do with race or equality. I noticed that nearly every shot of the crowd during Beck's speech had African American spectators. I wondered if the camera crew did that on purpose to make the crowd seem more diverse. The Tea Party is overwhelmingly white.
In sharp contrast, Rev. Al Sharpton's counter rally was overwhelmingly black in crowd representation. Sharpton is dead wrong about his opinion of conservatives. Many of the things Sharpton said were propaganda and unfortunate. He said that "those people" at the other rally are the same people that thought of civil rights leaders are trouble makers. That's a pretty despicable thing to say.
Working out at my gym as I do on the elliptical with 10 different tvs hanging from the ceiling in front of me and a box to switch my headphone mix to which ever one, I can see how different news organizations covered the rally. The fact that King's niece, Alveda King spoke at Beck's rally really upset Liberals who want so desperately to believe Beck is a racist and see proof of it. I watched as several news reporters asked Alveda the same question, "Do you feel like you're being used by Beck and the Tea Party movement?" As if "You're being used by the Tea Party movement and disgracing your uncle. What do you have to say for yourself?" is what they really wanted to say. Alveda was gracious about it, no matter how many different reporters asked her that. Her answer was that we need to love each other.
I thought about that as I watched the speeches at Beck's rally. I had read about the counter rally. Sharpton's words were divisive, but many of the other speakers gave more conservative speeches about turning to God, doing more for the community, and of individual responsibility. It occurred to me how similar the two rallies must have been in content, and what a missed opportunity that happened. Rev. Sharpton has said a lot of things that I agreed with in the past. I mostly like him and think he's a smart man. He's just dead wrong about the Tea Party and Beck. What if he had gotten over that and combined his rally with Beck's? And what better day to do so.
Then it got me thinking about the civil rights movement of today in general. The Civil rights act granted all Americans the right to vote without facing intimidation and it ended segregation. The Community Reinvestment Act of the 70's prohibited racial discrimination of bank loans. Many other court case decisions and laws have come down since then to change the practice of overt racism. What more can the Civil Rights movement do?
Then that got my thinking should the Civil Rights movement end and we, as a society, focus instead on loving each other rather than dividing each other? It's an interesting question because, after all, the Civil Rights movement can not gather steam unless it has an enemy. Does Rev Sharpton and Jesse Jackson need Beck and Limbaugh? If the racist boogiemen aren't out there commanding their sheepeople, do Civil Rights activists have any reason to rally people? And if this is so, who is the real fear monger? I'm not suggesting racism is over. Far from it. Overt racism is over. Racism has gone into hiding and many Americans think it's gone. The Civil Rights movement looks like a relic from the passed now. True or not, has that perception undermined the movement's ability to change anything?
If the Civil Rights phase is over, what's phase 2? Like I said, racism still persists. The Curious Formula is still around. African Americans live, disproportionately, in poverty. Well, you can't ignore the fact that poor people go to poor schools and rich kids go to rich schools. So poor people stay poor and have poorly educated kids that stay poor. Republicans want school vouchers and Democrats fight it. Get poor kids out of the ghettos and into good schools and let the poor schools collapse or get taken over by better management. This, I think, is the answer. It isn't a perfect solution. It isn't going to do much in the short run. But I think it's a necessary step for a long term solution.
Until then, Alveda King is right. Instead of focusing on our differences, we should focus on loving each other.
It's easy to mistrust what you don't understand. There are some very hateful things in Islam. And two, the only terrorists we've seen in this country lately motivated by religion were Muslims. The word "terrorist" is nearly synonymous with "Muslim Extremist." But let's pick at this perception. There are hateful things in the Bible too. Deuteronomy says a woman who marries and is not a virgin shall be put to death. The Bible says the same about people that eat shell fish, approach altars while sick, or labor on the sabbath. What do preachers do for work? They preach the word of God on the Sabbath. So they're laboring on the Sabbath then... right? The Bible advocates beating your children into obedience, how to treat your slaves, that Lot did the just thing by sending his own daughters out into an angry mob to be sexually assaulted to spare his two male visitors. Horrible, vile stuff. But Christianity has changed with the times. In the recent past, the Christian group, The Klu Klux Klan burned crosses as acts of terrorism. We can easily recognize the KKK as an extremist group that doesn't represent Christianity. We can do that only because we are familiar with Christianity and American culture to know they are the exception. But since most of us do not know or understand Islam, all them Muslim folk seem the same to us.
I saw a political cartoon with an Arab American hopping on one leg. It was after some recent failed terrorist plot. And the guy next to the Arab American was saying something like, "...ok great, now condemn terrorism while hopping on one leg and touching your nose with both hands!"
I think it's sad the way Americans mistrust Muslim Americans. Yes, it's scary that there are terrorist cells. Yes, you never know if your Arab neighbors secretly hate you and want to kill you. But that's true of all neighbors. Crazy runs in all ethnicities, religions, and nationalities.
Anyway, when Beck mentioned it a couple times in his speech, it made me wonder if it was possible for the Republican party to reach out to Muslims. Muslims are mostly independents and feel rejected by both parties. I've heard a lot of disparaging comments about Muslims made from Conservatives. Rush Limbaugh had a link on his website to a ridiculous propaganda video about how the birth rates of Christian Americans and Europeans are slowing while Muslim Americans and Europeans are growing, meaning the Muslims are going to out breed us like cancer. It was a well produced propaganda video, which made it all the more unfortunate. I generally like Rush, and I think that 95% of the time when he's called a racist or hate monger is just plain wrong. But he does hint at playing on Islamaphobia.
While I'm on the subject of Rush and racism. I want to point out something I think is funny that Rush does. He loves pointing out hypocrisy of Liberals. Many Liberals are racist depending on how you define the word. Many believe that African Americans are racially inferior and thus need extra help. This is racist by my definition. But anyway, so Rush will play a clip or read a quote of a Liberal saying something racist. He'll do so in the beginning of his show. Then he'll take part of it out of context and repeat it in new context throughout the rest of his show. Like, with the Tiger Woods scandal. Some Liberal called Tiger a light skinned negro, or something like that. I don't remember exactly. So for the rest of the show, Rush referred to African Americans as light skinned negros. Rush wasn't trying to be racist. He was using the phrase to poke fun at Liberals and left minded people. But his critics, who don't listen to his whole show to hear what he's saying in context, will say, "See! Rush is using the term 'negro.' He's a racist!" not realizing that Rush is repeating what someone "on their side" said and that Rush is doing this on purpose to try and get this reaction. It does two things. The next day on his show, Rush can play reaction clips and read quotes from Liberals calling him a racist not realizing the original context that Rush was quoting someone else. Rush's fans, who do know the context, can then laugh at Liberals. Rush becomes more popular with his fans. Rush's enemies, who don't bother finding out the context, then hate Rush even more and thus perpetuate his notoriety. And when Rush's enemies look towards Rush's fans and calls them "sheepeople," it makes his fans laugh at them because they don't get "the joke." And thus, Rush becomes more popular with his fans. The worst thing Rush's enemies could do is say, "Rush isn't a racist. He just says silly things to get ratings." If Rush's enemies stopped hating him, it would be a career killer.
Wow, I'm really getting side tracked. So Beck organized this rally on the same spot and day in history that Martin Luther King, Jr gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. Civil rights activists, who have incorrectly decided Beck is a racist simply because he's a conservative, decided to plan a counter rally with the purpose of stopping Beck from being able to distort and rewrite history regarding King's dream.
This was a waste of time in that respect. Beck mentioned King a couple times in his speech, but those references seemed thrown in and out of place. Like he felt obligated to mention King and edited his speech last minute to do so. Otherwise, his speech had nothing to do with race or equality. I noticed that nearly every shot of the crowd during Beck's speech had African American spectators. I wondered if the camera crew did that on purpose to make the crowd seem more diverse. The Tea Party is overwhelmingly white.
In sharp contrast, Rev. Al Sharpton's counter rally was overwhelmingly black in crowd representation. Sharpton is dead wrong about his opinion of conservatives. Many of the things Sharpton said were propaganda and unfortunate. He said that "those people" at the other rally are the same people that thought of civil rights leaders are trouble makers. That's a pretty despicable thing to say.
Working out at my gym as I do on the elliptical with 10 different tvs hanging from the ceiling in front of me and a box to switch my headphone mix to which ever one, I can see how different news organizations covered the rally. The fact that King's niece, Alveda King spoke at Beck's rally really upset Liberals who want so desperately to believe Beck is a racist and see proof of it. I watched as several news reporters asked Alveda the same question, "Do you feel like you're being used by Beck and the Tea Party movement?" As if "You're being used by the Tea Party movement and disgracing your uncle. What do you have to say for yourself?" is what they really wanted to say. Alveda was gracious about it, no matter how many different reporters asked her that. Her answer was that we need to love each other.
I thought about that as I watched the speeches at Beck's rally. I had read about the counter rally. Sharpton's words were divisive, but many of the other speakers gave more conservative speeches about turning to God, doing more for the community, and of individual responsibility. It occurred to me how similar the two rallies must have been in content, and what a missed opportunity that happened. Rev. Sharpton has said a lot of things that I agreed with in the past. I mostly like him and think he's a smart man. He's just dead wrong about the Tea Party and Beck. What if he had gotten over that and combined his rally with Beck's? And what better day to do so.
Then it got me thinking about the civil rights movement of today in general. The Civil rights act granted all Americans the right to vote without facing intimidation and it ended segregation. The Community Reinvestment Act of the 70's prohibited racial discrimination of bank loans. Many other court case decisions and laws have come down since then to change the practice of overt racism. What more can the Civil Rights movement do?
Then that got my thinking should the Civil Rights movement end and we, as a society, focus instead on loving each other rather than dividing each other? It's an interesting question because, after all, the Civil Rights movement can not gather steam unless it has an enemy. Does Rev Sharpton and Jesse Jackson need Beck and Limbaugh? If the racist boogiemen aren't out there commanding their sheepeople, do Civil Rights activists have any reason to rally people? And if this is so, who is the real fear monger? I'm not suggesting racism is over. Far from it. Overt racism is over. Racism has gone into hiding and many Americans think it's gone. The Civil Rights movement looks like a relic from the passed now. True or not, has that perception undermined the movement's ability to change anything?
If the Civil Rights phase is over, what's phase 2? Like I said, racism still persists. The Curious Formula is still around. African Americans live, disproportionately, in poverty. Well, you can't ignore the fact that poor people go to poor schools and rich kids go to rich schools. So poor people stay poor and have poorly educated kids that stay poor. Republicans want school vouchers and Democrats fight it. Get poor kids out of the ghettos and into good schools and let the poor schools collapse or get taken over by better management. This, I think, is the answer. It isn't a perfect solution. It isn't going to do much in the short run. But I think it's a necessary step for a long term solution.
Until then, Alveda King is right. Instead of focusing on our differences, we should focus on loving each other.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
You're not a Republican
I've been thinking more and more about one of those goals I mentioned--running for public office. I looked up some things. You know, in 2008, a woman won an elected office in California with only 600 votes? It was for two positions. The guy that came in second with 500 votes, also won a seat. It was a member board seat for the Arhole Unified School District. I've never even heard of that place. I'm guessing there's not many voters in that area. But still, if I wanted to start out small, there's room for that. The dinky offices in Sacramento are a few thousand votes. Still, that's doable with a lot of campaigning.
I'd want to get a more appropriate education. A BA in Anthropology is cool and all, but not all that helpful for dealing with political issues. Yeah, I know. Most the people in lower elected office only have under graduate degrees, if that, and in less useful areas. You can tell because they just list "alumni" of the college they went to, rather than their degree in their bios. Maybe that means they didn't even finish school.
Well, I looked into what it would take for me to get into a Masters degree program in Economics at Sac State. Not much, as it turns out. Let's say I worked on my Masters in Econ at the same time I worked on my BS in Computer Science. That might be pretty cool.
But here's the big problem I face. Both political parties are basically controlled by outside groups. The unions control the Dems, and the corporations control the Republicans. The unions can organize votes for lower election offices. The big corporations can back the higher offices. Maybe this is why California tends to have Republican Governors, but has had a Democrat controlled state congress for the last 40 years. As a Republican starting out small, I'd have an uphill climb. I'm certainly not pro unions and not willing to pretend that I am. I like that being a Republican makes me an underdog, though here's another issue. I'm a social moderate. I could score big points with Republicans opposing gay marriage, but I don't oppose gay marriage. This sort of puts me in the worst of both worlds in terms of support. Dems might agree with me on social issues, but won't vote for a Republican no matter what. Republicans who really care about social issues might not see me as an improvement over the Dem, so might not bother voting. But if I did run, I'd have to run as me. I like who I am, even if it doesn't make me a politically viable candidate. I'm not afraid of challenge though.
Well, speaking of gay marriage, I want to talk about Prop 8 for a while since it got repealed. I've been pretty unhappy about the comments I've seen made by other Republicans on the various Facebook pages I frequent. Most of it has been despicable. Let's go through some of these comments.
-- "This Liberal activist judge over turned the will of the people!"
There's a lot wrong with this. Judge Walker isn't a Liberal, for one. He was appointed by Ronald Reagan. His appointment was challenged by, and fought against by Nancy Pelosi who labeled him a homophobe. She didn't know he was a homosexual. Dumb ass Nancy just assumed since a Republican nominated him, he had to be an intolerant hate monger. Dumb ass hypocrite Nancy, in turn, showed who really was the hate monger, but that's beside the point.
I find it offensive that too many Republicans call him a Liberal. Gay marriage is a civil rights issue. Calling someone a Liberal because they care about civil rights is a massive insult to the very many of us non Liberals who care about civil rights. If you don't care about civil rights, then you don't belong in the Republican party.
Ok, next "the will of the people." I want to remind people that the US has never been, and hopefully will never be, a Democracy. We are a Republic. That means the masses do not rule simply because we can. We have the Bill of Rights and the mob cannot take away rights from people just by out numbering them. Polls show that most Californians favor gay marriage. Prop 8 only passed by 52%. It barely squeaked by. Let's not get all high and mighty about the will of the people when the vote is about a 50/50 chance each time it's put up for a vote and polls show younger voters tend to overwhelmingly support gay rights... aka, as the older generation passes on, the polls shift more and more. It's just a matter of time before it's legal all over the country. Prop 8 supporters are on the wrong side of history.
--"Homosexuality isn't natural"
This is an opinion based on what "natural" means. Our closest cousins in the animal kingdom are bonobos(close to chimpanzees). Homosexuality is a lot more common in bonobos than in humans. Look it up. All you people that think homosexuality doesn't happen in the animal kingdom, you're dead wrong. Dead wrong. All sorts of things can be considered unnatural. Being born infertile, birth defects, mental illness, and The Icecapades.
--"For two thousand years, marriage has been between a man and a woman."
I don't know where this "two thousand years" comes from, but I've seen and heard a lot of people quote it. Marriage is a hell of a lot older than 2k years. As far as we know, the Neanderthals might have practiced marriage. That would make it hundreds of thousands of years old. But in either case, I don't understand what this is supposed to say and why it's supposed to carry any weight. Slavery has been around a lot longer than 2k years as well. Does that mean Lincoln was wrong and we should bring it back?
--"If gays can get married, what's next? People marrying their dog?"
This is the same argument you can make against interracial marriage. This does, perhaps make it easier for the people fighting for the rights to marry their pets. But I'd bet you can fit all of those people on a single episode of Jerry Springer. This just isn't a serious issue. If people want to marry their dogs, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. No one would be able to get enough signatures to support it being on the ballot. No politician would bring it up for a vote. No law maker would slip it into a bill. It's an incredibly empty argument that has no weight.
--"If gays can marry, I don't want to have to let my children be taught that homosexuality is ok."
Part of this is the incorrect idea that homosexuality is a choice. It isn't. No one would chose to be gay if it was. So if your kid is taught that homosexuals exist, it doesn't make your kids more or less likely to be gay themselves. You can't be recruited into being gay. Second, by saying this, you're not only condemning an entire group, but you're passing on your hate and ignorance to your children. I'd much rather my children know that some people are gay than be taught hurtful stereotyping and intolerance.
--"The point of marriage is to procreate."
One, says who? And two, not a damn person would tell an infertile couple they can't get married. This is the dumbest of the excuses.
Well, that's all the arguments I can remember seeing. As a side note, let me remind people that we Republicans are the party of Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves because it was the right thing to do. The Democrats are the party that fought to maintain slavery, that fought for segregation and that founded the KKK.
Republicans are the party of Teddy Roosevelt that fought for the 8 hour work day and to end child labor exploitation. Democrats are the party that fight to take freedoms away from us like if we have the right to pay for health care or not.
Republicans are the party that overwhelmingly supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1966 and 68 and President Lyndon Johnson could only get luke warm support from his own party on it--and ultimately lost any chance of re-election from his base because of it.
Republicans are the party that have fought for school vouchers to get poor kids out of the ghettos and crumbling schools and let the parents chose to send them anywhere they want to. Democrats are the party that exploits the poor and keeps them in endless cycles of poverty to keep them as reliable voters while convincing them it's the Republicans' fault.
Never forget that Republicans have had a very long history of fighting for the little guy. Homosexuals are the little guys. Fighting for their rights should be a Republican cause. You can't call yourself a Republican if you disagree.
If you don't think Republicans are the party that fights for the rights and freedoms of all Americans, then you're not a Republican.
I'd want to get a more appropriate education. A BA in Anthropology is cool and all, but not all that helpful for dealing with political issues. Yeah, I know. Most the people in lower elected office only have under graduate degrees, if that, and in less useful areas. You can tell because they just list "alumni" of the college they went to, rather than their degree in their bios. Maybe that means they didn't even finish school.
Well, I looked into what it would take for me to get into a Masters degree program in Economics at Sac State. Not much, as it turns out. Let's say I worked on my Masters in Econ at the same time I worked on my BS in Computer Science. That might be pretty cool.
But here's the big problem I face. Both political parties are basically controlled by outside groups. The unions control the Dems, and the corporations control the Republicans. The unions can organize votes for lower election offices. The big corporations can back the higher offices. Maybe this is why California tends to have Republican Governors, but has had a Democrat controlled state congress for the last 40 years. As a Republican starting out small, I'd have an uphill climb. I'm certainly not pro unions and not willing to pretend that I am. I like that being a Republican makes me an underdog, though here's another issue. I'm a social moderate. I could score big points with Republicans opposing gay marriage, but I don't oppose gay marriage. This sort of puts me in the worst of both worlds in terms of support. Dems might agree with me on social issues, but won't vote for a Republican no matter what. Republicans who really care about social issues might not see me as an improvement over the Dem, so might not bother voting. But if I did run, I'd have to run as me. I like who I am, even if it doesn't make me a politically viable candidate. I'm not afraid of challenge though.
Well, speaking of gay marriage, I want to talk about Prop 8 for a while since it got repealed. I've been pretty unhappy about the comments I've seen made by other Republicans on the various Facebook pages I frequent. Most of it has been despicable. Let's go through some of these comments.
-- "This Liberal activist judge over turned the will of the people!"
There's a lot wrong with this. Judge Walker isn't a Liberal, for one. He was appointed by Ronald Reagan. His appointment was challenged by, and fought against by Nancy Pelosi who labeled him a homophobe. She didn't know he was a homosexual. Dumb ass Nancy just assumed since a Republican nominated him, he had to be an intolerant hate monger. Dumb ass hypocrite Nancy, in turn, showed who really was the hate monger, but that's beside the point.
I find it offensive that too many Republicans call him a Liberal. Gay marriage is a civil rights issue. Calling someone a Liberal because they care about civil rights is a massive insult to the very many of us non Liberals who care about civil rights. If you don't care about civil rights, then you don't belong in the Republican party.
Ok, next "the will of the people." I want to remind people that the US has never been, and hopefully will never be, a Democracy. We are a Republic. That means the masses do not rule simply because we can. We have the Bill of Rights and the mob cannot take away rights from people just by out numbering them. Polls show that most Californians favor gay marriage. Prop 8 only passed by 52%. It barely squeaked by. Let's not get all high and mighty about the will of the people when the vote is about a 50/50 chance each time it's put up for a vote and polls show younger voters tend to overwhelmingly support gay rights... aka, as the older generation passes on, the polls shift more and more. It's just a matter of time before it's legal all over the country. Prop 8 supporters are on the wrong side of history.
--"Homosexuality isn't natural"
This is an opinion based on what "natural" means. Our closest cousins in the animal kingdom are bonobos(close to chimpanzees). Homosexuality is a lot more common in bonobos than in humans. Look it up. All you people that think homosexuality doesn't happen in the animal kingdom, you're dead wrong. Dead wrong. All sorts of things can be considered unnatural. Being born infertile, birth defects, mental illness, and The Icecapades.
--"For two thousand years, marriage has been between a man and a woman."
I don't know where this "two thousand years" comes from, but I've seen and heard a lot of people quote it. Marriage is a hell of a lot older than 2k years. As far as we know, the Neanderthals might have practiced marriage. That would make it hundreds of thousands of years old. But in either case, I don't understand what this is supposed to say and why it's supposed to carry any weight. Slavery has been around a lot longer than 2k years as well. Does that mean Lincoln was wrong and we should bring it back?
--"If gays can get married, what's next? People marrying their dog?"
This is the same argument you can make against interracial marriage. This does, perhaps make it easier for the people fighting for the rights to marry their pets. But I'd bet you can fit all of those people on a single episode of Jerry Springer. This just isn't a serious issue. If people want to marry their dogs, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. No one would be able to get enough signatures to support it being on the ballot. No politician would bring it up for a vote. No law maker would slip it into a bill. It's an incredibly empty argument that has no weight.
--"If gays can marry, I don't want to have to let my children be taught that homosexuality is ok."
Part of this is the incorrect idea that homosexuality is a choice. It isn't. No one would chose to be gay if it was. So if your kid is taught that homosexuals exist, it doesn't make your kids more or less likely to be gay themselves. You can't be recruited into being gay. Second, by saying this, you're not only condemning an entire group, but you're passing on your hate and ignorance to your children. I'd much rather my children know that some people are gay than be taught hurtful stereotyping and intolerance.
--"The point of marriage is to procreate."
One, says who? And two, not a damn person would tell an infertile couple they can't get married. This is the dumbest of the excuses.
Well, that's all the arguments I can remember seeing. As a side note, let me remind people that we Republicans are the party of Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves because it was the right thing to do. The Democrats are the party that fought to maintain slavery, that fought for segregation and that founded the KKK.
Republicans are the party of Teddy Roosevelt that fought for the 8 hour work day and to end child labor exploitation. Democrats are the party that fight to take freedoms away from us like if we have the right to pay for health care or not.
Republicans are the party that overwhelmingly supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1966 and 68 and President Lyndon Johnson could only get luke warm support from his own party on it--and ultimately lost any chance of re-election from his base because of it.
Republicans are the party that have fought for school vouchers to get poor kids out of the ghettos and crumbling schools and let the parents chose to send them anywhere they want to. Democrats are the party that exploits the poor and keeps them in endless cycles of poverty to keep them as reliable voters while convincing them it's the Republicans' fault.
Never forget that Republicans have had a very long history of fighting for the little guy. Homosexuals are the little guys. Fighting for their rights should be a Republican cause. You can't call yourself a Republican if you disagree.
If you don't think Republicans are the party that fights for the rights and freedoms of all Americans, then you're not a Republican.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The 4th Trusted Name in News
So, as I do about 2 hours of cardio a day at my gym, I spend those 2 hours watching CNN since that's the only 24 hour news station they have. I have to say, I thought their coverage of the Sherrod case was despicably one sided.
Ok, let's start at the beginning. The whole incident happened because the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the Tea Party for being racist, sparked over a racist post from a guy that wasn't even a member of the Tea Party. This, at around the same time mainstream journalists are caught through something like leaked emails(JournoList-gate), admitting that they falsely accuse Conservatives of being racists to try and protect Obama. I have to say that again. Mainstream journalists admitted to blatantly advocating lying about Conservatives... these are professional journalists admitting to lying about Conservatives and calling them racists without any justification.
So this one Conservative blogger, Andrew Breitbart, gets a tape sent to him by an unknown source of a woman, Shirley Sherrod, giving a speech at an NAACP event in which she justifies racially discriminating against white people. Breitbart posts the video on his website citing hypocrisy--ie, members of the NACCP shouldn't be calling others racist when people like Sherrod admit to racism at NAACP events. Did Breitbart take a clip out of context or did he trust his source and just pass on the video as it was sent to him assuming it was a fair summery of the event? We don't know. If Breitbart had the whole clip and edited it down to make it appear like something it wasn't, than he's an idiot. He should have known the full tape would get out and it would backfire. So he's either an idiot, or he was set up.
But the bottom line is, all the guy did was take a video recording of a publicly given speech and put it up on his website. Youtube has thousands of political videos where people have done the same thing. There's videos taken out of contexts of Obama "admitting he's a Muslim." Obama misspoke. Another video has Mrs Obama "admitting" Barack was born in Kenya. Again, those are taken out of context by people purposely trying to make these people look like they're saying something else. People, on both sides, do it to be cute, funny, idiots, who knows. But it's common.
The difference here is the Sherrod video went viral and the White House, NAACP, and Department of Agriculture of Georgia all reacted to the clip and made a bad decision based on it. Sherrod was forced to resign before the story even made it on the news. I realise some idiots are blaming Fox here, but let's not forget the facts here. She was asked to resign and had resigned *before* Fox ever aired the story.
Now, keep in mind, the NAACP had the full tape all along. The speech, after all, was given at their event and they, instead of retrieving that tape from their archives first, decided to throw Sherrod under the bus, THEN look at the full tape the next day.
So Sherrod got forced out, and has since been made into a hero of sorts by all the news networks trying to get a human interest story out of it. Obama and the NAACP screwed up. They wanted to kill the story before it even hit the news and they did so without all the facts. Mistakes happen, and they've since apologized in their own ways and tried to make things right. Cool. If Obama makes a mistake, and fixes it right after, I'm totally cool with that. So I have nothing bad to say about that part of it.
But this is not the story that CNN is running with. CNN is turning this into a story of Andrew Breitbart ruining the life of a good person and using lies and deception to do it. Over the passed several days on watching CNN coverage over this story--and they've been covering it non stop--not once have I seen them mention a single time that this was a result of a tit for tat war between the NAACP and the Tea Party. Don't you think that's kind of important? Don't you think painting this story as some crazy right wing conservative nut job that "randomly" targeted some poor innocent, saintly women who just wanted to help people, is pretty dishonest if you're not going to at least mention why it started? It gets worse.
Then they had on this guest author, Andrew Keen, talk about what legislative actions should be taken against conservatives that spread lies on the internet. At this point, the host, Kyra Phillips, should have reminded him that it's only in totalitarianist regimes that the governments crack down against people that speak out. That crap doesn't fly in America. We have something called freedom here. Tell 'em, Kyra! But no, that's not what she says. She went along with everything that nut job was saying. Then after this horribly one sides piece portraying Sherrod as this innocent, saintly woman who was victimized by some evil, malicious right wing conservative liar for no other reason than pure evil reasons, went on to say that it's only honest news stations like CNN and the mainstream media that present the truth and that the others lie(implying that Fox only tells lies). I'm thinking, ok, she's going to say something about what a ridiculous, childish statement that was. I mean, anyone that honestly thinks there are news stations that are unbiased or that it's even possible to be unbiased is an idiot. But no, she was completely onboard with everything the guy said. Then after she actually advocated the government should censor the internet(an incredibly frightening thought) because of those slanderous Republicans that slander the good name of our fine President(not the words she used, but you know she was blaming the Right), they actually had the gall to transition to the next story about Netroots. She actually had a smile on her face as she talked about the fine, good honest Liberal bloggers(the kind that invent lies about how the Tea Party is racist) that make up the Netroots community and their convention in Las Vegas.
Well, I was stunned. I can't believe all the crap I hear about Fox News not really being news when CNN pulls such irresponsible, one sided crap pieces like that steaming pile. Atleast when Fox News first covered the story, before the full tape came out, they had several panelists give opposing views like "maybe the tape is out of context." It was balanced. And that's a big reason why Fox has the highest ratings now.
I read an article on the Huffington Post recently that said that CNN has to stop using the slogan "The most trusted name in news," when their ratings have caused them to slip to 4th place among cable news. Ouch, 4th place. Uh, how many cable news stations are there anyways? Not that many.
In either case, this whole story is silly on all angles and it made everyone look bad. No one "won" this fight. Personally, we need to stop throwing around the racism insult. It gets misused and abused so much that it's beginning to not mean anything anymore. There generally are racist people, and they're in every political party and organization. Singling out the racists in "the other guys" is silly and leads us nowhere. Singling people out for being racists, is fine. But don't drag their organization into it if there's no link.
Ok, let's start at the beginning. The whole incident happened because the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the Tea Party for being racist, sparked over a racist post from a guy that wasn't even a member of the Tea Party. This, at around the same time mainstream journalists are caught through something like leaked emails(JournoList-gate), admitting that they falsely accuse Conservatives of being racists to try and protect Obama. I have to say that again. Mainstream journalists admitted to blatantly advocating lying about Conservatives... these are professional journalists admitting to lying about Conservatives and calling them racists without any justification.
So this one Conservative blogger, Andrew Breitbart, gets a tape sent to him by an unknown source of a woman, Shirley Sherrod, giving a speech at an NAACP event in which she justifies racially discriminating against white people. Breitbart posts the video on his website citing hypocrisy--ie, members of the NACCP shouldn't be calling others racist when people like Sherrod admit to racism at NAACP events. Did Breitbart take a clip out of context or did he trust his source and just pass on the video as it was sent to him assuming it was a fair summery of the event? We don't know. If Breitbart had the whole clip and edited it down to make it appear like something it wasn't, than he's an idiot. He should have known the full tape would get out and it would backfire. So he's either an idiot, or he was set up.
But the bottom line is, all the guy did was take a video recording of a publicly given speech and put it up on his website. Youtube has thousands of political videos where people have done the same thing. There's videos taken out of contexts of Obama "admitting he's a Muslim." Obama misspoke. Another video has Mrs Obama "admitting" Barack was born in Kenya. Again, those are taken out of context by people purposely trying to make these people look like they're saying something else. People, on both sides, do it to be cute, funny, idiots, who knows. But it's common.
The difference here is the Sherrod video went viral and the White House, NAACP, and Department of Agriculture of Georgia all reacted to the clip and made a bad decision based on it. Sherrod was forced to resign before the story even made it on the news. I realise some idiots are blaming Fox here, but let's not forget the facts here. She was asked to resign and had resigned *before* Fox ever aired the story.
Now, keep in mind, the NAACP had the full tape all along. The speech, after all, was given at their event and they, instead of retrieving that tape from their archives first, decided to throw Sherrod under the bus, THEN look at the full tape the next day.
So Sherrod got forced out, and has since been made into a hero of sorts by all the news networks trying to get a human interest story out of it. Obama and the NAACP screwed up. They wanted to kill the story before it even hit the news and they did so without all the facts. Mistakes happen, and they've since apologized in their own ways and tried to make things right. Cool. If Obama makes a mistake, and fixes it right after, I'm totally cool with that. So I have nothing bad to say about that part of it.
But this is not the story that CNN is running with. CNN is turning this into a story of Andrew Breitbart ruining the life of a good person and using lies and deception to do it. Over the passed several days on watching CNN coverage over this story--and they've been covering it non stop--not once have I seen them mention a single time that this was a result of a tit for tat war between the NAACP and the Tea Party. Don't you think that's kind of important? Don't you think painting this story as some crazy right wing conservative nut job that "randomly" targeted some poor innocent, saintly women who just wanted to help people, is pretty dishonest if you're not going to at least mention why it started? It gets worse.
Then they had on this guest author, Andrew Keen, talk about what legislative actions should be taken against conservatives that spread lies on the internet. At this point, the host, Kyra Phillips, should have reminded him that it's only in totalitarianist regimes that the governments crack down against people that speak out. That crap doesn't fly in America. We have something called freedom here. Tell 'em, Kyra! But no, that's not what she says. She went along with everything that nut job was saying. Then after this horribly one sides piece portraying Sherrod as this innocent, saintly woman who was victimized by some evil, malicious right wing conservative liar for no other reason than pure evil reasons, went on to say that it's only honest news stations like CNN and the mainstream media that present the truth and that the others lie(implying that Fox only tells lies). I'm thinking, ok, she's going to say something about what a ridiculous, childish statement that was. I mean, anyone that honestly thinks there are news stations that are unbiased or that it's even possible to be unbiased is an idiot. But no, she was completely onboard with everything the guy said. Then after she actually advocated the government should censor the internet(an incredibly frightening thought) because of those slanderous Republicans that slander the good name of our fine President(not the words she used, but you know she was blaming the Right), they actually had the gall to transition to the next story about Netroots. She actually had a smile on her face as she talked about the fine, good honest Liberal bloggers(the kind that invent lies about how the Tea Party is racist) that make up the Netroots community and their convention in Las Vegas.
Well, I was stunned. I can't believe all the crap I hear about Fox News not really being news when CNN pulls such irresponsible, one sided crap pieces like that steaming pile. Atleast when Fox News first covered the story, before the full tape came out, they had several panelists give opposing views like "maybe the tape is out of context." It was balanced. And that's a big reason why Fox has the highest ratings now.
I read an article on the Huffington Post recently that said that CNN has to stop using the slogan "The most trusted name in news," when their ratings have caused them to slip to 4th place among cable news. Ouch, 4th place. Uh, how many cable news stations are there anyways? Not that many.
In either case, this whole story is silly on all angles and it made everyone look bad. No one "won" this fight. Personally, we need to stop throwing around the racism insult. It gets misused and abused so much that it's beginning to not mean anything anymore. There generally are racist people, and they're in every political party and organization. Singling out the racists in "the other guys" is silly and leads us nowhere. Singling people out for being racists, is fine. But don't drag their organization into it if there's no link.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Keeping Up with the Chapmans
Vice President Biden was on Jay Leno tonight. In talking about sending the 10 caught Russian spies back to Russia, Jay asked Biden about the beautiful Russian spy Anna Chapman. Biden said it was not his decision to send her back. I was watching one of the tvs at my gym while on the treadmill and I busted up laughing.
Biden and Obama both are pretty funny and charismatic. I want to like them. They're just so horribly wrong with their political ideology. But speaking of the spies, is it me, or is it a little strange that we've been watching them for the last ten years, decide to finally arrest them, then almost instantly, hand them over to Russia? I feel like this is a massive cover up. What it could possibly be covering up, I have no idea. But they committed a crime against us. Shouldn't they get at least a little jail time first? I realize an American jail is like a resort compared to jails in other countries. To be honest, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Anna came back to the US and got her own reality show. Wouldn't you watch at least the first episode?
Speaking of reality tv show stars, Rod Blagojevich has been making some interesting claims lately. In the wake of Obama being caught offering bribes to other Democrats in exchange for them not running against his friends, Blago is claiming that Obama offered him a bribe in exchange for him appointing Obama's friend Valerie Jarret to Obama's old senate seat. It's either been confirmed or at least it's highly likely that Obama did ask Blago to appoint Jarret to the senate seat. Blago said that he wasn't going to give it up for nothing. Now if Obama made an offer, then Obama has broken the law. Blago is claiming Obama did, but it's my gut feeling that Blago is either lying or exaggerating to save himself. I think Obama dodges a bullet on this one.
But if it's true and somehow gets confirmed, we could possibly see another president get the "Nixon treatment." I think Obama is as arrogant as Nixon and feels he's above the law. I think it's likely that Obama did hint at possible bribes, but I think if Blago could prove it, he would have done so by now. So I think the story goes no where, but I guess we'll find out.
I don't know why, but I don't really want Obama to go down that way. I'd rather the country see socialism at "its finest," and decide never to vote in another Liberal ever again. It's sort of interesting that at the G20, Europe essentially said that Socialism has broken them, and they're going to reduce government spending. That would mean every country that's ever tried Socialism either fell into totalitarianism or reverted back to capitalism before it was too late. I guess all the rioting in Greece really scared people and they knew that could easily be their country next. We're speeding down the same path and will be until Obama gets voted out.
Hmm, what else? Oh, the New Black Panthers. Have you seen that video that's on the news? So these two members of the New Black Panthers stood in front of a polling place in a white neighborhood the day of the 2008 election. They're both dressed in the para military New Black Panther uniform. One of them named King Samir Shabazz pounds a billy club in his palms asking stuff like, "Where you goin, cracker?" when white people near in an attempt to intimidate voters. There's another video of him on youtube showing him with a megaphone at some black heritage festival telling people they have to kill white people and kill their babies to be free of white oppression. Nice guy, huh? Ok, so the KKK did (does?) the same thing. Racism is wrong no matter what color the idiot who spouts hatred and ignorance. And he was convicted of voter intimidation along with some white people doing the same against black people in a black neighborhood. They all need to go to jail. Democracy doesn't work unless people can feel safe voting.
Ok, so why is this in the news again, almost 2 years later? Because Eric Holder, Obama's incompetent Attorney General, decided recently to drop charges against the two New Black Panthers despite the many videos of them on youtube calling people crackers, intimidating people with weapons, and saying racist hate speech. The reason the charges were dropped? Not enough evidence. What the hell? The videos are all over youtube. How is there not enough evidence? Meanwhile the other people arrested in 2008 did not get their cases dropped. But they're not black either.
What's going on here? Well, the rumor is that it's the default position of the Federal Department of Justice to dismiss cases of voter intimidation if the victims are white and the perpetrators are black. Why? Because the Voter Rights Act was meant to protect minorities, not whites. At least that's what Former Justice attorney J. Christian Adams testified on after he resigned over this case.
In a decade or two, white people will no longer be the majority. I think it's important to recognize civil rights for all people, regardless of color, and do that now because soon white people will be minorities. You might think that even with white people in the minority, they'll still be able to hold the majority of power as we do now. This is unfortunately true. I say unfortunate because, although I freely admit that as a white person I do benefit from white privilege, I would rather such divisions of skin color not exist. After all, I'd rather my position in society be determined by my character, my ability, and my achievements, not my genetics. A society that operates otherwise breeds jealousy, mistrust, and hatred. My point, if civil rights is not enforced equally, it causes resentment which fuels discrimination which is ultimately counter productive. So by not prosecuting people of hate crimes because they're black, all that happens is more racial disharmony. A government that treats people equally is essential towards creating equality. We still have a long ways to go towards that goal.
Biden and Obama both are pretty funny and charismatic. I want to like them. They're just so horribly wrong with their political ideology. But speaking of the spies, is it me, or is it a little strange that we've been watching them for the last ten years, decide to finally arrest them, then almost instantly, hand them over to Russia? I feel like this is a massive cover up. What it could possibly be covering up, I have no idea. But they committed a crime against us. Shouldn't they get at least a little jail time first? I realize an American jail is like a resort compared to jails in other countries. To be honest, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Anna came back to the US and got her own reality show. Wouldn't you watch at least the first episode?
Speaking of reality tv show stars, Rod Blagojevich has been making some interesting claims lately. In the wake of Obama being caught offering bribes to other Democrats in exchange for them not running against his friends, Blago is claiming that Obama offered him a bribe in exchange for him appointing Obama's friend Valerie Jarret to Obama's old senate seat. It's either been confirmed or at least it's highly likely that Obama did ask Blago to appoint Jarret to the senate seat. Blago said that he wasn't going to give it up for nothing. Now if Obama made an offer, then Obama has broken the law. Blago is claiming Obama did, but it's my gut feeling that Blago is either lying or exaggerating to save himself. I think Obama dodges a bullet on this one.
But if it's true and somehow gets confirmed, we could possibly see another president get the "Nixon treatment." I think Obama is as arrogant as Nixon and feels he's above the law. I think it's likely that Obama did hint at possible bribes, but I think if Blago could prove it, he would have done so by now. So I think the story goes no where, but I guess we'll find out.
I don't know why, but I don't really want Obama to go down that way. I'd rather the country see socialism at "its finest," and decide never to vote in another Liberal ever again. It's sort of interesting that at the G20, Europe essentially said that Socialism has broken them, and they're going to reduce government spending. That would mean every country that's ever tried Socialism either fell into totalitarianism or reverted back to capitalism before it was too late. I guess all the rioting in Greece really scared people and they knew that could easily be their country next. We're speeding down the same path and will be until Obama gets voted out.
Hmm, what else? Oh, the New Black Panthers. Have you seen that video that's on the news? So these two members of the New Black Panthers stood in front of a polling place in a white neighborhood the day of the 2008 election. They're both dressed in the para military New Black Panther uniform. One of them named King Samir Shabazz pounds a billy club in his palms asking stuff like, "Where you goin, cracker?" when white people near in an attempt to intimidate voters. There's another video of him on youtube showing him with a megaphone at some black heritage festival telling people they have to kill white people and kill their babies to be free of white oppression. Nice guy, huh? Ok, so the KKK did (does?) the same thing. Racism is wrong no matter what color the idiot who spouts hatred and ignorance. And he was convicted of voter intimidation along with some white people doing the same against black people in a black neighborhood. They all need to go to jail. Democracy doesn't work unless people can feel safe voting.
Ok, so why is this in the news again, almost 2 years later? Because Eric Holder, Obama's incompetent Attorney General, decided recently to drop charges against the two New Black Panthers despite the many videos of them on youtube calling people crackers, intimidating people with weapons, and saying racist hate speech. The reason the charges were dropped? Not enough evidence. What the hell? The videos are all over youtube. How is there not enough evidence? Meanwhile the other people arrested in 2008 did not get their cases dropped. But they're not black either.
What's going on here? Well, the rumor is that it's the default position of the Federal Department of Justice to dismiss cases of voter intimidation if the victims are white and the perpetrators are black. Why? Because the Voter Rights Act was meant to protect minorities, not whites. At least that's what Former Justice attorney J. Christian Adams testified on after he resigned over this case.
In a decade or two, white people will no longer be the majority. I think it's important to recognize civil rights for all people, regardless of color, and do that now because soon white people will be minorities. You might think that even with white people in the minority, they'll still be able to hold the majority of power as we do now. This is unfortunately true. I say unfortunate because, although I freely admit that as a white person I do benefit from white privilege, I would rather such divisions of skin color not exist. After all, I'd rather my position in society be determined by my character, my ability, and my achievements, not my genetics. A society that operates otherwise breeds jealousy, mistrust, and hatred. My point, if civil rights is not enforced equally, it causes resentment which fuels discrimination which is ultimately counter productive. So by not prosecuting people of hate crimes because they're black, all that happens is more racial disharmony. A government that treats people equally is essential towards creating equality. We still have a long ways to go towards that goal.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
One of the Other 57 States
The Liberals would like to boycott Arizona, if only they could find it on the map. I'm talking about Supervisor Peggy West of Milwaukee County. Her and the county board voted on whether the county of Milwaukee should boycott Arizona or not. West's argument in favor? She claimed that since Arizona wasn't a border state, but rather was "a ways removed from the border" that the popular voter approved law was less justified. She went on to say that she googled the name of the bill, saw a picture of Obama and Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer, meeting, and thus this means that Brewer must already have the national guard sent to her state so there's no need for Arizona to pass such a law. To Milwaukee's credit, someone else on the board corrected Supervisor West immediately after, politely reminding her that Arizona is, in fact, a border state.
Ok, so most liberals are not this dumb. But, it is pretty frightening that an elected official in her second term(so she's been in office a while), shows up at a meeting on whether to contribute to an economically devastating boycott or not and... I mean, wow. Now, I realize there are people out there that might not make geography a high priority in their lives. Americans are notoriously bad at geography. It's nearly non existent in our school system--I know I never had to take it. But wouldn't you think if you were an elected official and you stepped up to the mic to speak on a subject to make an argument... don't you think you'd at least find out if Arizona was a border state or not?
Of course, it's not the end of the world if the county of Milwaukee has an idiot for a Supervisor. I don't even know what a County Supervisor does. But it wasn't that long ago after Obama appointed Attorney General Eric Holder admitted after announcing he would sue Arizona on the Constitutionality of the law on behalf of the White House, that he later admitted to Congress that he hasn't actually even read the bill. Hell, *I've* read the bill. It was only 14 damn pages! He later said that, although he didn't read the bill, he was going off what he heard about it in the media. In the media? What does that mean? Like Jay Leno made a joke on the Tonight Show and the top lawyer in the country that represents Obama on all legal matters decides to threaten Arizona with a lawsuit? This is all politics. The Democrats know that illegal immigrants have children born in this country so that they become American citizens, then they support Democrats. No matter how ridiculous the steps they have to take, the Dems know they need to make latinos happy to court their votes.
So I was staying fairly neutral about Obama's handling of the oil spill. But there's been increasing information that Obama is really screwing up. First off, there's the Jones Act. The Jones Act was something that the unions wanted. Unions, of course, are the financial backers of the Democrat party, so to be fair, the Democrats have to keep the unions happy much like the Republicans have to keep big business happy. The Jones Act makes it so that no boat can be used to clean up the oil spill unless the boat was made in the US and is piloted by a fully American crew--thus to protect American jobs. Obama could easily suspend the Jones Act, but he's not going to. He has to keep the unions happy, and they like it.
So instead, he's allowed a few boats here and there to apply for Jones Act waivers. They claim a couple have done so. These boats and their crew may spend weeks waiting for the paper work, so while a couple or more may have made it through, many have not. The statistics I've heard from numerous sources is that there's over 2,000 skimmer boats available to use to clean up the oil, but only about 20 are actually being allowed in. That's 1% capacity--not very good numbers. ABC, a news organization that certainly is a more pro-Obama news agency, even did a report interviewing a few frustrated managers on the ground saying that Obama's people are falsifying the number of skimmers going out and people involved in the clean up. So the real numbers could be that even less than 20 skimmers are actually out on the water. If I was BP, I'd look at Obama and say, "Screw you guys, we're going to put as many skimmers out there as we can and clean up this damn oil now instead of sitting around wasting money and fudging the books."
What else? So Obama recently attributed the failed Stimulus Bill to creating 600,000 jobs. I would have so much more respect for Obama if he'd just come out and admit that the Stimulus Bill was a colossal failure. I mean, with 48% of the Stimulus Bill money spent to create jobs, that means 600,000 job created cost $700,000 dollars for each job. If that's success to the mind of a liberal, I'd hate to see failure. I mean, $700,000 dollars for just one job... you should be able to hire 20 people for that. That's horrible efficiency. After all, it doesn't mean that the people hired made $700,000 dollars. It means someone got paid minimum wage or a little better, and the other 90% of the money went poof.
What if instead he waved taxes and start up fees for new businesses. How many more jobs would he have created for a hell of a lot less money? Wouldn't you bet BP is getting charged by the government for 2,000 skimmers operating a day but only seeing 20? That's government efficiency right there. And the Libs want to grow our government even bigger and they wonder why the American public rejects them.
Health care remains unpopular. The CBO announced that despite Obama promising over and over that you could keep your healthcare plan if you like it, most Americans will be unable to keep their plan. This is another in a far too long line of broken promises. This, coupled with the announcement months before by the Congressional Budget Office that HC will cost over a hundred million more than Obama promised--putting it well over the trillion dollar mark Obama promised it wouldn't exceed. That doesn't count the closing of the donut hole and the "doctor fix," that's getting tacked on later that will cost hundreds of millions more. The donut hole is the fact that Social Security doesn't pay enough to fully cover some prescription medication costs. The "Doctor Fix," is the compensation for the fact that Medicare and Medicaid doesn't pay doctors the same amount of money for their services--meaning that doctors make less money from treating lower income people. Since doctors can choose to stop seeing Medicare and Medicaid patients, less and less of such patients will be able to see a doctor--a growing trend now.
So far, out of the Stimulus Bill, the Health Care Bill, the Oil Spill, and Immigration Issue, Obama is 0 and 4, and on the wrong side of public opinion on all 4. I'd have to say this puts him at the level of complete and utter failure--made all the worse by the fact that his party, the Democrats, held a super majority in Congress for most of that time. A super majority! If Obama wanted to pass a law that we all had to wear speedos and do jumping jacks on our front lawn, he could do it. He could have done anything he wanted, and he's still 0 and 4. His approval rating is about 45%. Who the hell are these 45% of people? Do you all still really hate Bush that badly that Charles Manson could have been elected and you'd still going around saying, "Well, at least he's not Bush." I don't understand people, I guess.
So, you might be thinking, "Obama still has 2 and a half more years. He'll need more time than that to clean up the mess Bush made!" Of course, I'd bet you can't actually name a single policy Bush passed that "messed up the county." You're just going off what your friends say. I'm not suggesting Bush was a great president. I'm only suggesting that before you hate the man, you do some research and figure out what it is about him you think was bad and come up with a logical argument that's not one sided. Anyway, back to my point. Obama does have 2 and a half more years. He's already lost his super majority in the Senate thanks to the special election replacing Ted Kennedy with Republican Scott Brown. The Republicans will either take back both houses in Congress at the end of this year or at least come really close to it. In either case, the Democrat's ability to pass unpopular legislation against the will of the American people ends at the end of this year. Obama has already demonstrated his contempt for Republicans. Where as Bill Clinton pivoted and worked with Republicans for the betterment of the country, Obama will not. He will fight for his twisted and discredited ideas until the bitter end. No Republican will go along with his horrible and unrealistic ideas and he will get voted out in 2012. It's my hope, that Newt Gengrich takes his place.
Ok, so most liberals are not this dumb. But, it is pretty frightening that an elected official in her second term(so she's been in office a while), shows up at a meeting on whether to contribute to an economically devastating boycott or not and... I mean, wow. Now, I realize there are people out there that might not make geography a high priority in their lives. Americans are notoriously bad at geography. It's nearly non existent in our school system--I know I never had to take it. But wouldn't you think if you were an elected official and you stepped up to the mic to speak on a subject to make an argument... don't you think you'd at least find out if Arizona was a border state or not?
Of course, it's not the end of the world if the county of Milwaukee has an idiot for a Supervisor. I don't even know what a County Supervisor does. But it wasn't that long ago after Obama appointed Attorney General Eric Holder admitted after announcing he would sue Arizona on the Constitutionality of the law on behalf of the White House, that he later admitted to Congress that he hasn't actually even read the bill. Hell, *I've* read the bill. It was only 14 damn pages! He later said that, although he didn't read the bill, he was going off what he heard about it in the media. In the media? What does that mean? Like Jay Leno made a joke on the Tonight Show and the top lawyer in the country that represents Obama on all legal matters decides to threaten Arizona with a lawsuit? This is all politics. The Democrats know that illegal immigrants have children born in this country so that they become American citizens, then they support Democrats. No matter how ridiculous the steps they have to take, the Dems know they need to make latinos happy to court their votes.
So I was staying fairly neutral about Obama's handling of the oil spill. But there's been increasing information that Obama is really screwing up. First off, there's the Jones Act. The Jones Act was something that the unions wanted. Unions, of course, are the financial backers of the Democrat party, so to be fair, the Democrats have to keep the unions happy much like the Republicans have to keep big business happy. The Jones Act makes it so that no boat can be used to clean up the oil spill unless the boat was made in the US and is piloted by a fully American crew--thus to protect American jobs. Obama could easily suspend the Jones Act, but he's not going to. He has to keep the unions happy, and they like it.
So instead, he's allowed a few boats here and there to apply for Jones Act waivers. They claim a couple have done so. These boats and their crew may spend weeks waiting for the paper work, so while a couple or more may have made it through, many have not. The statistics I've heard from numerous sources is that there's over 2,000 skimmer boats available to use to clean up the oil, but only about 20 are actually being allowed in. That's 1% capacity--not very good numbers. ABC, a news organization that certainly is a more pro-Obama news agency, even did a report interviewing a few frustrated managers on the ground saying that Obama's people are falsifying the number of skimmers going out and people involved in the clean up. So the real numbers could be that even less than 20 skimmers are actually out on the water. If I was BP, I'd look at Obama and say, "Screw you guys, we're going to put as many skimmers out there as we can and clean up this damn oil now instead of sitting around wasting money and fudging the books."
What else? So Obama recently attributed the failed Stimulus Bill to creating 600,000 jobs. I would have so much more respect for Obama if he'd just come out and admit that the Stimulus Bill was a colossal failure. I mean, with 48% of the Stimulus Bill money spent to create jobs, that means 600,000 job created cost $700,000 dollars for each job. If that's success to the mind of a liberal, I'd hate to see failure. I mean, $700,000 dollars for just one job... you should be able to hire 20 people for that. That's horrible efficiency. After all, it doesn't mean that the people hired made $700,000 dollars. It means someone got paid minimum wage or a little better, and the other 90% of the money went poof.
What if instead he waved taxes and start up fees for new businesses. How many more jobs would he have created for a hell of a lot less money? Wouldn't you bet BP is getting charged by the government for 2,000 skimmers operating a day but only seeing 20? That's government efficiency right there. And the Libs want to grow our government even bigger and they wonder why the American public rejects them.
Health care remains unpopular. The CBO announced that despite Obama promising over and over that you could keep your healthcare plan if you like it, most Americans will be unable to keep their plan. This is another in a far too long line of broken promises. This, coupled with the announcement months before by the Congressional Budget Office that HC will cost over a hundred million more than Obama promised--putting it well over the trillion dollar mark Obama promised it wouldn't exceed. That doesn't count the closing of the donut hole and the "doctor fix," that's getting tacked on later that will cost hundreds of millions more. The donut hole is the fact that Social Security doesn't pay enough to fully cover some prescription medication costs. The "Doctor Fix," is the compensation for the fact that Medicare and Medicaid doesn't pay doctors the same amount of money for their services--meaning that doctors make less money from treating lower income people. Since doctors can choose to stop seeing Medicare and Medicaid patients, less and less of such patients will be able to see a doctor--a growing trend now.
So far, out of the Stimulus Bill, the Health Care Bill, the Oil Spill, and Immigration Issue, Obama is 0 and 4, and on the wrong side of public opinion on all 4. I'd have to say this puts him at the level of complete and utter failure--made all the worse by the fact that his party, the Democrats, held a super majority in Congress for most of that time. A super majority! If Obama wanted to pass a law that we all had to wear speedos and do jumping jacks on our front lawn, he could do it. He could have done anything he wanted, and he's still 0 and 4. His approval rating is about 45%. Who the hell are these 45% of people? Do you all still really hate Bush that badly that Charles Manson could have been elected and you'd still going around saying, "Well, at least he's not Bush." I don't understand people, I guess.
So, you might be thinking, "Obama still has 2 and a half more years. He'll need more time than that to clean up the mess Bush made!" Of course, I'd bet you can't actually name a single policy Bush passed that "messed up the county." You're just going off what your friends say. I'm not suggesting Bush was a great president. I'm only suggesting that before you hate the man, you do some research and figure out what it is about him you think was bad and come up with a logical argument that's not one sided. Anyway, back to my point. Obama does have 2 and a half more years. He's already lost his super majority in the Senate thanks to the special election replacing Ted Kennedy with Republican Scott Brown. The Republicans will either take back both houses in Congress at the end of this year or at least come really close to it. In either case, the Democrat's ability to pass unpopular legislation against the will of the American people ends at the end of this year. Obama has already demonstrated his contempt for Republicans. Where as Bill Clinton pivoted and worked with Republicans for the betterment of the country, Obama will not. He will fight for his twisted and discredited ideas until the bitter end. No Republican will go along with his horrible and unrealistic ideas and he will get voted out in 2012. It's my hope, that Newt Gengrich takes his place.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Poizning the Well
Well, I voted for Steve Poizner yesterday. I knew it wouldn't do any good. But it's just a primary. Looks like Prop 14 is going to pass. Maybe we can start voting out some of the radicals now in the state legislature. I don't know how I missed voting for Carly Fiorina. I realized after I turned in my ballot, I didn't remember voting for the senate. At least I still get to vote for her when it counts in Nov.
I'm luke warm about Meg Whitman. I think the only thing I like about her is that Condoleezza Rice supports her and she doesn't want to mess with property tax caps. I thought her negative ads against Poizner were highly misleading if not plain wrong. I don't take her as genuine, but considering the alternative, just about anyone with a pulse would be better. I have a feeling California will become the unemployment capitol of the world if Jerry Brown wins. His supporters are saying that things were fine when he was governor. Yeah, but Brown is a maintainer, not a fixer. The state seriously needs to cut spending, cut education for executives that make six figures but don't do anything, break the stranglehold the mafia / unions have on this state, and lower taxes so businesses stop fleeing the state. Brown's not going to do any of the things we actually need done. Will Meg? She says she will. But will she? I don't know. I'll vote for her though and hope for the best.
I'm a lot more excited about voting for Carly Fiorina though. Boxer has been a long time embarrassment for this state. Hurry up November.
I'm luke warm about Meg Whitman. I think the only thing I like about her is that Condoleezza Rice supports her and she doesn't want to mess with property tax caps. I thought her negative ads against Poizner were highly misleading if not plain wrong. I don't take her as genuine, but considering the alternative, just about anyone with a pulse would be better. I have a feeling California will become the unemployment capitol of the world if Jerry Brown wins. His supporters are saying that things were fine when he was governor. Yeah, but Brown is a maintainer, not a fixer. The state seriously needs to cut spending, cut education for executives that make six figures but don't do anything, break the stranglehold the mafia / unions have on this state, and lower taxes so businesses stop fleeing the state. Brown's not going to do any of the things we actually need done. Will Meg? She says she will. But will she? I don't know. I'll vote for her though and hope for the best.
I'm a lot more excited about voting for Carly Fiorina though. Boxer has been a long time embarrassment for this state. Hurry up November.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
The Love Boat
So Obama offered me a bribe if I'd agree not to post this blog, but I've decided to turn it down. But seriously, another one? Obama could make Richard Nixon go, "Wow, that's a little shady."
I read an article the other day that said that the Gallup Poll now shows the Republicans have the largest favorability over the Democrats at any point in the history of the Gallup Poll--since 1950.
It's not that Democrats can't govern. It's that they have in Obama, a radical, with radical ideas about the world, and instead of saying, "Wait a minute. This is not what the Democrat party stands for," the Dems just blindly go along with it. Healthcare remains unpopular and gets worse as more Americans lose their coverage because the bill causes premiums to go up, forcing employers to drop coverage. Now 70% of the country say they support Arizona's law and Obama says he opposes it and it will lead to racial profiling (hint: all laws can be used for racial profiling). Bush's approval rating shot up to a record breaking 90% approval with his handling of 9/11, but Obama's perceived handling of the BP Oil spill has caused his rating to drop. I don't really understand why, to be honest. But, Obama also has people that don't like him based on things that aren't true--secret Muslim, born in Kenya, closet racist, etc. And yeah, I'm embarrassed for all Republicans when idiot "birthers" demand to see Obama's birth certificate. Come on, really? Do you honestly think if there was even the slightest possibility that Obama was born in Kenya that it wouldn't be plastered all over the news constantly with hordes of journalists out snooping around? With all the actual real stuff to not like about Obama, people gotta make up crazy crap like this?
Back to bad stuff about Obama that's actually true... He had Bill Clinton bribe Joe Sestak with something they now claim didn't have tangible value, thus isn't technically a bribe. Anyone dumb enough to believe that? So now another candidate's come forward claiming Obama bribed him. Only this time, it was with a job that did have worth. Ah crap, how will they get out of this? So now they're spinning it that they didn't actually offer the jobs, only that they presented that the jobs existed. Huh, what?
So here goes. Andrew Romanoff applied for a job with the White House in 2008. He was turned down. Now, two years later, he decides to run against one of Obama's buddies for the senate seat in Colorado. The White House contacts Romanoff to let him know he can instead have that job he applied for. This is a federal crime to offer someone a bribe to drop out of an election for high political office. So the White House, having gotten caught committing another crime, is now trying to say that they didn't actually offer Romanoff the job. They just contacted him to make him aware of the job and that he could look into going for it... as if he wasn't aware of a job...THAT HE APPLIED FOR AND DIDN'T GET 2 YEARS EARLIER. These are terrible lies. They just insult your intelligence. Can Obama just go to jail now?
So I haven't been a big fan of Israel lately, but I'm cautiously on their side with this whole boat / blockage thing. New information could change my opinion, but so far, I agree with them. So here's the deal. Hamas took over Gaza a few years ago, and started firing rockets into Israel, right into the homes of civilians. So Israel invades, beats them up, takes their rockets, and leaves. Yeah, lots of innocent civilians got killed in the process, and that sucks, but that happens in war. So Israel blockades Gaza so no ships can get in. This means the people of Gaza would starve and die except that Israel gives Gaza massive shipments of food to keep them alive. Is it enough food, I don't know. But that's how this has been going on. Gaza is basically a large prison instead of a small country(well, it's not technically a country, but whatever).
So a bunch of activists decide to load up their boat and try and get through Israel's blockade to get "food and medicine" to Gaza. Israel offers to inspect the boat beforehand, and let them through if there's no weapons on board. The activists refuse and sail up to the blockade. So when Israel inspects the boat, the activists attack. Some of the activists admit to firing guns(there's footage to prove it and a few Israeli soldiers were wounded), but they claim they had to take the guns away from Israeli troops and fire the guns at them in self defense. This is complete bull.
The activists never had any intention of bringing aid to Gaza. They purposely tried to pick a fight with Israel in hopes of causing an international scene, which is exactly what happened. One activist was interviewed by Iran state run media saying he was ready to be a martyr.
Despite it clearly being a set up, even many European countries are condemning Israel. Obviously, nearly all the Muslim countries are strongly condemning it. Obama is in a bad spot here. He's made strides reaching out to Muslims, which I think is a good thing. But he's forced having to take Israel's side here. I'm not going to play arm chair president here. I'm glad I'm not president to have to make these hard and delicate balancing acts. I can't say I'm all that glad Obama is.
I read an article the other day that said that the Gallup Poll now shows the Republicans have the largest favorability over the Democrats at any point in the history of the Gallup Poll--since 1950.
It's not that Democrats can't govern. It's that they have in Obama, a radical, with radical ideas about the world, and instead of saying, "Wait a minute. This is not what the Democrat party stands for," the Dems just blindly go along with it. Healthcare remains unpopular and gets worse as more Americans lose their coverage because the bill causes premiums to go up, forcing employers to drop coverage. Now 70% of the country say they support Arizona's law and Obama says he opposes it and it will lead to racial profiling (hint: all laws can be used for racial profiling). Bush's approval rating shot up to a record breaking 90% approval with his handling of 9/11, but Obama's perceived handling of the BP Oil spill has caused his rating to drop. I don't really understand why, to be honest. But, Obama also has people that don't like him based on things that aren't true--secret Muslim, born in Kenya, closet racist, etc. And yeah, I'm embarrassed for all Republicans when idiot "birthers" demand to see Obama's birth certificate. Come on, really? Do you honestly think if there was even the slightest possibility that Obama was born in Kenya that it wouldn't be plastered all over the news constantly with hordes of journalists out snooping around? With all the actual real stuff to not like about Obama, people gotta make up crazy crap like this?
Back to bad stuff about Obama that's actually true... He had Bill Clinton bribe Joe Sestak with something they now claim didn't have tangible value, thus isn't technically a bribe. Anyone dumb enough to believe that? So now another candidate's come forward claiming Obama bribed him. Only this time, it was with a job that did have worth. Ah crap, how will they get out of this? So now they're spinning it that they didn't actually offer the jobs, only that they presented that the jobs existed. Huh, what?
So here goes. Andrew Romanoff applied for a job with the White House in 2008. He was turned down. Now, two years later, he decides to run against one of Obama's buddies for the senate seat in Colorado. The White House contacts Romanoff to let him know he can instead have that job he applied for. This is a federal crime to offer someone a bribe to drop out of an election for high political office. So the White House, having gotten caught committing another crime, is now trying to say that they didn't actually offer Romanoff the job. They just contacted him to make him aware of the job and that he could look into going for it... as if he wasn't aware of a job...THAT HE APPLIED FOR AND DIDN'T GET 2 YEARS EARLIER. These are terrible lies. They just insult your intelligence. Can Obama just go to jail now?
So I haven't been a big fan of Israel lately, but I'm cautiously on their side with this whole boat / blockage thing. New information could change my opinion, but so far, I agree with them. So here's the deal. Hamas took over Gaza a few years ago, and started firing rockets into Israel, right into the homes of civilians. So Israel invades, beats them up, takes their rockets, and leaves. Yeah, lots of innocent civilians got killed in the process, and that sucks, but that happens in war. So Israel blockades Gaza so no ships can get in. This means the people of Gaza would starve and die except that Israel gives Gaza massive shipments of food to keep them alive. Is it enough food, I don't know. But that's how this has been going on. Gaza is basically a large prison instead of a small country(well, it's not technically a country, but whatever).
So a bunch of activists decide to load up their boat and try and get through Israel's blockade to get "food and medicine" to Gaza. Israel offers to inspect the boat beforehand, and let them through if there's no weapons on board. The activists refuse and sail up to the blockade. So when Israel inspects the boat, the activists attack. Some of the activists admit to firing guns(there's footage to prove it and a few Israeli soldiers were wounded), but they claim they had to take the guns away from Israeli troops and fire the guns at them in self defense. This is complete bull.
The activists never had any intention of bringing aid to Gaza. They purposely tried to pick a fight with Israel in hopes of causing an international scene, which is exactly what happened. One activist was interviewed by Iran state run media saying he was ready to be a martyr.
Despite it clearly being a set up, even many European countries are condemning Israel. Obviously, nearly all the Muslim countries are strongly condemning it. Obama is in a bad spot here. He's made strides reaching out to Muslims, which I think is a good thing. But he's forced having to take Israel's side here. I'm not going to play arm chair president here. I'm glad I'm not president to have to make these hard and delicate balancing acts. I can't say I'm all that glad Obama is.
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Specter of Communism
So looks like Obama has committed a federal crime and even the liberal media are starting to take notice. Joe Sestak has repeatedly stated that the White House offered him a job if he would promise not to run against Arlen Specter for the PA senate seat. Senator Arlen Specter, of course, was a republican and Obama convinced Spector to change parties to become a democrat, giving the Dems a 60 seat super majority in the senate. That is, until the Democrat that was planning to run against then republican Specter, decided he still wanted to run against Specter for the seat, only now had to run against him first in the democrat primary since they were now on the same side.
Looks like Sestak was offered a bribe if he would change his mind. A bribe he turned down. This is a federal crime to offer someone a bribe for dropping out of a race for high political office. The Obama's people have completely dodged all questions, hoping the issue would go away. It didn't go away and Sestak defeated Arlen Specter in the recent democrat primary in an incredibly embarrassing election for Obama and his turncoat friend. Specter is now only the second democrat incumbent in US history to lose the primary for a senate seat. Now the Dems have a problem. Either let their guy(who they didn't want, but are now stuck with) running for the Senate to look like a liar, or allow Obama to be the liar. If Obama is lying and that gets out, the republicans can push to have a special investigator look into it, much in the way that republicans did the same to Bill Clinton for lying under oath about having sex with interns. Of course Clinton got impeached, but not removed from office, and the whole thing backfired on republicans by a public that saw it as a cheap political ploy based on something no one cared about. Well, and rightfully so. But Obama bribing a fellow politician is a little different than cheating on a spouse. Congress has to approve a special prosecutor. The Democrat controlled Congress will never vote for that, so it means the President has a free pass to break the law as he sees fit and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Or as Alcee Hastings, Democrat Congressman from Florida famously said earlier this year, "There ain't no rules around here. We make them up as we go along." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbHTJSu_2Lk& Why does it seem that only us "right wing nut jobs," care as our government moves closer to socialism and bothers less and less to even have the decency to try and hide it.
Speaking of Clinton, Sestak and Obama's people seem to have suddenly come out with the explanation that Bill Clinton was the one that offered "the bribe," and that it wasn't a bribe at all but rather an offer for an unpaid volunteer position on some meaningless board--thus a thing of no monetary value, therefore not a bribe. Come on. Anyone dumb enough to believe that? He said the White House offered him a job, and now the story is someone not affiliated with the White House offered him a non paying job. It insults our intelligence. So why is Sestak changing his story? Because he doesn't want to be going into an election as a democrat accusing Obama of a felony. All sides know it's a lie, but it's a lie that ends the debate. For now.
Speaking of Obama and lies, I've noticed more and more this repeated crap about blaming the recession on the republicans. Every economist on the planet agrees the recession was mostly caused by the falling of the housing market. The housing market collapsed because the federal government was paying private banks to gamble--give loans to people that had no clear means to ever pay it back. The federal government, unwittingly, directly worked to destabilize the banking industry. It had been slowly building for a decade and was bound to burst eventually. Imagine how different things would have been had to collapse happened in 2009 instead of 2007. Whose fault was it? A combination of people in both parties. But blaming all republicans... as if all of us conspired together to bring it down like we're all one people that all know each other, it's just so ridiculous and stupid. It makes me think that either Obama is flat out lying, trying to shift blame away from the fact that his "stimulus bill" turned out to be a colossal waste of money that accomplished very little as he tries to find a scapegoat. Or, Obama seriously has no idea what he's doing or how a capitalist system works. So liar or idiot. I don't mean "idiot" in the sense that I think the system is easy to understand. It's far beyond me in its complexity, but then, I'm not trying to run the country. I don't blame him for not being able to snap his fingers and fix everything. I believe he genuinely wants to fix everything. I just wish he'd stop the blame game and admit that Dems screwed up too. After all, they had control of congress for a year before the recession hit. They can't escape without blame on this. That's not reasonable.
Well, as a side note, it looks like Obama's approval rating is going down because of public opinion on the handling of the oil spill. While it's good Obama's numbers go down, I sure wish they were going down for the right reason like: socialism = bad, healthcare bill = job killer, big government = inefficient, opposing Arizona's right to protect itself = wrong. I have very little idea what it's like behind the scenes with everything that's involved there. My gut tells me Obama is probably doing all he reasonably can, and therefore should not be facing fallout for this. BP has massive financial incentives to stop the leak. No doubt they're doing all they can. Though, to be honest, BP's motivations are slightly different. Due to the laws passed after the Valdez disaster, BP can only be sued for up to 75 million in damages. The damages have already exceeded that. So BP no longer has motivation to stop the damage. Their only financial motivation is not in the mess, but in the loss of oil. Obviously, they can't sell spilled oil.
I've read that other countries have closed offshore, gushing wells by using explosives to plug the hole. BP doesn't want to do that because then they're have to drill a new hole to get to the oil again. And that costs money.
Now, to delve into the conspiracy side. BP has given more campaign contribution money to Obama than any other candidate in US history. How much "hardball" can Obama really play to keep his "boot to BP's neck" as one of his aids put it? After all, Obama is in BP's pocket. Well, there's probably nothing to that. Just enough to raise a brow of suspicion.
I thought it was interesting how many left leaning news outlets explored that side of the debate and pointed out that BP gave to the McCain campaign as well--though not as much. Does that really matter? Kind of a weird detail but more of the "Oh yeah, well it's the republican's fault!" mentality. I mean, McCain isn't president. Does it make any bit of difference how much bribe money BP gave to people that ended up not being president? Isn't that completely irrelevant? I can promise you that if McCain was elected instead and the issues was raised, no where in the news would anyone be saying, "Well, they gave Obama money too, and more of it!"
Healthcare is still making news. The CBO came out and said that HC was going to cost a couple hundred billion more than previously estimated. This puts it well over the "deficit neutral" claim Obama made that no one seemed to believe at the time anyways. Why the recent change? Well, because as employers decide more and more that it's far cheaper to pay the fine than to provide insurance, more and more people are losing their insurance and being pushed into government programs thus turning this into socialized medicine--exactly what the Dems in charge kept lying to us, claiming wasn't going to happen and now it is. Are they idiots that didn't see it coming or did they know exactly what they were doing and wanted to move us into an unpopular socialist system through lies and deception?
I hate injustice. And I hate knowing that we have politicians that can flat out lie and think they can get away with it. I guess we'll know in November how many people are still falling for it.
Looks like Sestak was offered a bribe if he would change his mind. A bribe he turned down. This is a federal crime to offer someone a bribe for dropping out of a race for high political office. The Obama's people have completely dodged all questions, hoping the issue would go away. It didn't go away and Sestak defeated Arlen Specter in the recent democrat primary in an incredibly embarrassing election for Obama and his turncoat friend. Specter is now only the second democrat incumbent in US history to lose the primary for a senate seat. Now the Dems have a problem. Either let their guy(who they didn't want, but are now stuck with) running for the Senate to look like a liar, or allow Obama to be the liar. If Obama is lying and that gets out, the republicans can push to have a special investigator look into it, much in the way that republicans did the same to Bill Clinton for lying under oath about having sex with interns. Of course Clinton got impeached, but not removed from office, and the whole thing backfired on republicans by a public that saw it as a cheap political ploy based on something no one cared about. Well, and rightfully so. But Obama bribing a fellow politician is a little different than cheating on a spouse. Congress has to approve a special prosecutor. The Democrat controlled Congress will never vote for that, so it means the President has a free pass to break the law as he sees fit and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Or as Alcee Hastings, Democrat Congressman from Florida famously said earlier this year, "There ain't no rules around here. We make them up as we go along." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbHTJSu_2Lk& Why does it seem that only us "right wing nut jobs," care as our government moves closer to socialism and bothers less and less to even have the decency to try and hide it.
Speaking of Clinton, Sestak and Obama's people seem to have suddenly come out with the explanation that Bill Clinton was the one that offered "the bribe," and that it wasn't a bribe at all but rather an offer for an unpaid volunteer position on some meaningless board--thus a thing of no monetary value, therefore not a bribe. Come on. Anyone dumb enough to believe that? He said the White House offered him a job, and now the story is someone not affiliated with the White House offered him a non paying job. It insults our intelligence. So why is Sestak changing his story? Because he doesn't want to be going into an election as a democrat accusing Obama of a felony. All sides know it's a lie, but it's a lie that ends the debate. For now.
Speaking of Obama and lies, I've noticed more and more this repeated crap about blaming the recession on the republicans. Every economist on the planet agrees the recession was mostly caused by the falling of the housing market. The housing market collapsed because the federal government was paying private banks to gamble--give loans to people that had no clear means to ever pay it back. The federal government, unwittingly, directly worked to destabilize the banking industry. It had been slowly building for a decade and was bound to burst eventually. Imagine how different things would have been had to collapse happened in 2009 instead of 2007. Whose fault was it? A combination of people in both parties. But blaming all republicans... as if all of us conspired together to bring it down like we're all one people that all know each other, it's just so ridiculous and stupid. It makes me think that either Obama is flat out lying, trying to shift blame away from the fact that his "stimulus bill" turned out to be a colossal waste of money that accomplished very little as he tries to find a scapegoat. Or, Obama seriously has no idea what he's doing or how a capitalist system works. So liar or idiot. I don't mean "idiot" in the sense that I think the system is easy to understand. It's far beyond me in its complexity, but then, I'm not trying to run the country. I don't blame him for not being able to snap his fingers and fix everything. I believe he genuinely wants to fix everything. I just wish he'd stop the blame game and admit that Dems screwed up too. After all, they had control of congress for a year before the recession hit. They can't escape without blame on this. That's not reasonable.
Well, as a side note, it looks like Obama's approval rating is going down because of public opinion on the handling of the oil spill. While it's good Obama's numbers go down, I sure wish they were going down for the right reason like: socialism = bad, healthcare bill = job killer, big government = inefficient, opposing Arizona's right to protect itself = wrong. I have very little idea what it's like behind the scenes with everything that's involved there. My gut tells me Obama is probably doing all he reasonably can, and therefore should not be facing fallout for this. BP has massive financial incentives to stop the leak. No doubt they're doing all they can. Though, to be honest, BP's motivations are slightly different. Due to the laws passed after the Valdez disaster, BP can only be sued for up to 75 million in damages. The damages have already exceeded that. So BP no longer has motivation to stop the damage. Their only financial motivation is not in the mess, but in the loss of oil. Obviously, they can't sell spilled oil.
I've read that other countries have closed offshore, gushing wells by using explosives to plug the hole. BP doesn't want to do that because then they're have to drill a new hole to get to the oil again. And that costs money.
Now, to delve into the conspiracy side. BP has given more campaign contribution money to Obama than any other candidate in US history. How much "hardball" can Obama really play to keep his "boot to BP's neck" as one of his aids put it? After all, Obama is in BP's pocket. Well, there's probably nothing to that. Just enough to raise a brow of suspicion.
I thought it was interesting how many left leaning news outlets explored that side of the debate and pointed out that BP gave to the McCain campaign as well--though not as much. Does that really matter? Kind of a weird detail but more of the "Oh yeah, well it's the republican's fault!" mentality. I mean, McCain isn't president. Does it make any bit of difference how much bribe money BP gave to people that ended up not being president? Isn't that completely irrelevant? I can promise you that if McCain was elected instead and the issues was raised, no where in the news would anyone be saying, "Well, they gave Obama money too, and more of it!"
Healthcare is still making news. The CBO came out and said that HC was going to cost a couple hundred billion more than previously estimated. This puts it well over the "deficit neutral" claim Obama made that no one seemed to believe at the time anyways. Why the recent change? Well, because as employers decide more and more that it's far cheaper to pay the fine than to provide insurance, more and more people are losing their insurance and being pushed into government programs thus turning this into socialized medicine--exactly what the Dems in charge kept lying to us, claiming wasn't going to happen and now it is. Are they idiots that didn't see it coming or did they know exactly what they were doing and wanted to move us into an unpopular socialist system through lies and deception?
I hate injustice. And I hate knowing that we have politicians that can flat out lie and think they can get away with it. I guess we'll know in November how many people are still falling for it.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Meg, Steve, and Me
I take voting pretty seriously, even though it's often a lost cause. California voters are dead set in this death march off the cliff. Decades of reckless entitlement spending has turned the state into a Liberal paradise. We have the third worst education system in the country, and yet also the most expensive. We have the second highest unemployment rate in the country. The highest taxes on businesses of any state in the country which is why businesses flee the state / are not hiring. The highest state and sales tax.
California is the posterboy state for why Liberalism does not work. And yet, you can't get the damn Liberals out of the state legislature to save our lives. I looked it up. The Democrats have controlled the State Legislature since 1970, controlling the creation of all bills and laws not otherwise voted on by the people. Now, I'm not trying to suggest that Democrats are bad in a general sense. Most aren't. But when one group stays in power too long, the radicals in their party--who would never get elected otherwise--start to creep in.
Had George Bush served a third term, and the Republicans not been voted out of congress in 2006, I'll bet you they would have seriously been working on a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, thus banning gay marriage at the federal level--for a very long time. Not cool. So see? I'm even saying is not good when my own party stays in power too long and the radicals from our side start to creep in.
Anyway, we get Republican governors, and every time I get my hopes up that they'll fix the mess in this state, but they go to take on the Liberal State Legislature and they cave. Schwarzenegger ended up being a fairly big disappointment. Still, he's a lot better than Gray Davis. Wow, he sucked. I think Jerry Brown has been an awesome Attorney General, but I would not want to see him be governor again. I'm too young to remember the last time he was governor, but I fear what would happen if he was, with no one to stop the Liberals from making our problems a lot worse. Arnold has atleast tried to stop the bleeding. I voted for his proposals during the special election. But he grossly under estimated the stupidity of California voters who prefer the march off the cliff.
Margret Thatcher once said, "The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." We've run out of other people's money, and when Arnold makes cuts that people fight like mad to oppose...I don't know what the hell is wrong with people, it's like they don't get that we can't keep spending. Like voters think, "I can't be out of money. I still have checks left!"
Look, I really hate the cuts in education. I was going to apply to Sac State, but I can't. They had to close their doors to people like me who already have BA degrees who are seeking another. His cuts affect me directly, and this really sucks for me. But I acknowledge that it has to be done. So I go to a JC for a couple years and hope things clear up until then. You make due without for a while.
I was hanging outside one of my classes talking to a fellow student. And this guy walks up to us asking us to sign a petition to increase spending for parks and libraries. The young woman I was talking to immediately took the clipboard and signed. I asked the guy how it would be paid for. He told me it was free. I pressed him on that and he told me this whacked out story about how drug dealers living in Columbia wanted to give back to the community so they were funding the bill. I really wanted to call the guy a moron for actually believing such an idiotic story. But you know, this woman I was talking to already signed it, and I didn't want to make her feel stupid, so I let it go.
But this in the mentality of people in this state. Tax dollars does not mean 'free money.' How many Liberals would have even asked the guy what the extra spending was going for? What if the petition was to pay for the state to pave all the parks in asphalt and turn them into dodge ball courts? Does it even occur to dumb ass Liberals to even ask these kinda of questions before volunteering to spend other people's money on crap we don't need?
Anyway, back to the governor situation. Putting aside the fact Steve Poizner has a really terrible last name, I'm leaning towards voting for him over Whitman. Whitman might be closer to my own political views--she's more of a social moderate like I am, but I get a sense that she's more likely to cave and side with Liberals. She also doesn't articulate herself well in "what I would do as governor" speeches. Most of what she says is meaningless "we have to get America back to work" bs fluff that they all say. That might not be an indication of the type of leader she would be, but it does make it more difficult to really judge the direction she says she will go versus how she'll really go. That, and I'm really not happy about the fact that, by her own admission, the only reason why she got into politics and registered to vote a couple years ago was because she didn't like what government policies did to her business.
Poizner is a lot more concrete in what he has to say in his speeches. Both seem to know the issues, but as much as people hate politicians, I think it really takes a politician to do a politician's job. Arnold is a good example of a non politician that means well, but just couldn't get it done. Alright. I made up my mind. I'm voting for Poizner in the primary even though he's way behind in the polls.
California is the posterboy state for why Liberalism does not work. And yet, you can't get the damn Liberals out of the state legislature to save our lives. I looked it up. The Democrats have controlled the State Legislature since 1970, controlling the creation of all bills and laws not otherwise voted on by the people. Now, I'm not trying to suggest that Democrats are bad in a general sense. Most aren't. But when one group stays in power too long, the radicals in their party--who would never get elected otherwise--start to creep in.
Had George Bush served a third term, and the Republicans not been voted out of congress in 2006, I'll bet you they would have seriously been working on a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, thus banning gay marriage at the federal level--for a very long time. Not cool. So see? I'm even saying is not good when my own party stays in power too long and the radicals from our side start to creep in.
Anyway, we get Republican governors, and every time I get my hopes up that they'll fix the mess in this state, but they go to take on the Liberal State Legislature and they cave. Schwarzenegger ended up being a fairly big disappointment. Still, he's a lot better than Gray Davis. Wow, he sucked. I think Jerry Brown has been an awesome Attorney General, but I would not want to see him be governor again. I'm too young to remember the last time he was governor, but I fear what would happen if he was, with no one to stop the Liberals from making our problems a lot worse. Arnold has atleast tried to stop the bleeding. I voted for his proposals during the special election. But he grossly under estimated the stupidity of California voters who prefer the march off the cliff.
Margret Thatcher once said, "The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." We've run out of other people's money, and when Arnold makes cuts that people fight like mad to oppose...I don't know what the hell is wrong with people, it's like they don't get that we can't keep spending. Like voters think, "I can't be out of money. I still have checks left!"
Look, I really hate the cuts in education. I was going to apply to Sac State, but I can't. They had to close their doors to people like me who already have BA degrees who are seeking another. His cuts affect me directly, and this really sucks for me. But I acknowledge that it has to be done. So I go to a JC for a couple years and hope things clear up until then. You make due without for a while.
I was hanging outside one of my classes talking to a fellow student. And this guy walks up to us asking us to sign a petition to increase spending for parks and libraries. The young woman I was talking to immediately took the clipboard and signed. I asked the guy how it would be paid for. He told me it was free. I pressed him on that and he told me this whacked out story about how drug dealers living in Columbia wanted to give back to the community so they were funding the bill. I really wanted to call the guy a moron for actually believing such an idiotic story. But you know, this woman I was talking to already signed it, and I didn't want to make her feel stupid, so I let it go.
But this in the mentality of people in this state. Tax dollars does not mean 'free money.' How many Liberals would have even asked the guy what the extra spending was going for? What if the petition was to pay for the state to pave all the parks in asphalt and turn them into dodge ball courts? Does it even occur to dumb ass Liberals to even ask these kinda of questions before volunteering to spend other people's money on crap we don't need?
Anyway, back to the governor situation. Putting aside the fact Steve Poizner has a really terrible last name, I'm leaning towards voting for him over Whitman. Whitman might be closer to my own political views--she's more of a social moderate like I am, but I get a sense that she's more likely to cave and side with Liberals. She also doesn't articulate herself well in "what I would do as governor" speeches. Most of what she says is meaningless "we have to get America back to work" bs fluff that they all say. That might not be an indication of the type of leader she would be, but it does make it more difficult to really judge the direction she says she will go versus how she'll really go. That, and I'm really not happy about the fact that, by her own admission, the only reason why she got into politics and registered to vote a couple years ago was because she didn't like what government policies did to her business.
Poizner is a lot more concrete in what he has to say in his speeches. Both seem to know the issues, but as much as people hate politicians, I think it really takes a politician to do a politician's job. Arnold is a good example of a non politician that means well, but just couldn't get it done. Alright. I made up my mind. I'm voting for Poizner in the primary even though he's way behind in the polls.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Words from the Otherside
This oil spill just plain sucks. It is interesting how political it's become. Sarah Palin is getting backlash for "Drill, baby, drill," and, although Obama recently flipped his long standing position on off shore drilling to now agree with Palin and others, he's mostly getting a pass on any backlash for it. What he's going to do now, I don't know. He's damned either way, I think. His environmental supporters on the left might not give him a pass if he still supports off shore drilling despite the accident at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. On the other hand, if he caves to populist pressure and announces no new drilling, he'll appear weak for flip flopping twice.
Keep in mind, there's over 5 thousand off shore oil rigs operating in the world right now. Thousands in the Gulf of Mexico alone. If *we* decide to stop drilling, the other countries in the area that are already drilling are just going to fill the void. So the drilling isn't going to stop just because we choose not to.
But if we could stop everyone from doing it, which we can't, what would the alternative be? Well, we can stop driving our cars and grow our own food. Yeah, that's not going to happen. We can continue to buy oil from the Middle East which means our money ends up in the hands of people that hate us. Or we can invest in nuclear power. We still need some fossil fuels to put in trucks to haul the food from the farms to the stores.
Some people think we can just build windmills and solar panels. Here's the problem with that. Both take a lot of energy to build. And the ratio of energy to create versus energy created, is not very good. It's a positive number, sure, but would be a massive undertaking. Windmills are also expensive to maintain. And since they cover a wide area, you need a small army of techs in gas powered jeeps driving around fixing them all the time. Still, it's a positive gain, so it's not a bad idea. It's just that the amount of wind power we would realistically create would end up being a drop in the bucket compared to what we need.
This brings us back to oil. There's a lot of misinformation floating around by different people spinning their propaganda for political gain. Why the hell is oil such a political issue? Why do people care so much? I've heard people say that we'll eventually run out of oil and if we haven't moved to solar / wind / nuclear by then, we'll end up in the dark ages. And yet, we find new reserves of oil all the time. There is a finite amount, sure, but we're not going to near the end of it for centuries. It's certainly not a bad idea to have a back up plan, but the obsession with hating oil is silly. This all goes back to some whacked out liberals who hate big business and want to break the back of capitalism. Same with the global warming hoax.
No blood for oil! Remember that? I was in high school when people were mad at GH Bush for going to war with Saddam after Iraq attacked our ally Kuwait. A few years before the invasion, Saddam was making news for using weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds. I remember reading about it. I used to cut class and go to the library and read news articles. Yeah, I was a weird kid. But I remember all the Liberals at the time mad about the human rights violations of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction and the US not doing anything about it. I saw a political cartoon--I don't know why I still remember it years later, but it had a picture of some arabs yelling out "Help!" and GH Bush shrugging, saying, "Sorry, I don't speak Kurdish."
So a couple years later, the Kuwait thing happens and we go to war. The Kurds, seeing us as liberators, rise up to help fight Saddam. But as soon as Kuwait is freed, we turn our backs on the Kurds, and leave. Saddam, weakened, but not defeated, vents his frustration on the Kurds for rising up, and we see one of the worst cases of genocide in my life time.
Fast forward a decade and this time it's GW Bush as president. The UN has since passed a resolution ordering Saddam to destroy all his weapons of mass destruction, and he claims he has. He stalls and plays games with UN weapons inspectors, not letting them verify it to be the case. Bush said he thinks Saddam still has his weapons and pointed to evidence that he was deliberately hiding them. I remember when this was happening too. I saw the photos on the news of the weapons taken with aerial photos and satellites. It made sense to me. I was right along with him saying Saddam should be stopped. GH Bush should have done it back when Saddam was using weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds. Now his son will finish the job.
Only, one problem. Saddam actually did destroy his weapons and was complying fully with the UN resolution. Huh? Why the hell was he hiding it then? Well, Saddam kept a sort of journal. And it turns out, he was scared of Iran--his enemy--finding out he didn't still have his weapons. After all, Iran has a more dangerous army, and the only thing that kept Iran from feeling like they could wipe out Saddam, was the fear of Saddam's weapons. Wow, the irony. So Saddam pretended to still have his weapons to scare Iran away from attacking, and yet that had the exact opposite affect on the US who did exactly what he feared Iran would do.
Of course, Saddam said at his trial, he complied completely with the UN resolution, and that Bush was the one that should be on trial. As much as this sounds like, "a simple misunderstanding," thousands of people died in this "oops." It's hard for me to defend W Bush for this, even though at the time, I was right on board with it. Saddam's death is a great thing for the world, and although Iraq has had a tough time of things during this period, they're better off now. Still, a lot of innocence people had to die. And was it our place to play God with which leaders live and which die? It's a hard question to answer even you believe the result was worth the loss.
As a side note, of course Liberals objected to the war in Iraq--including Obama. It is interesting that some Liberals were mad H Bush didn't go to war with Saddam after he used weapons of mass destruction. And ten years later, when W Bush goes in to finish the job, Liberals were mad. Come on guys. Which is it? Of course, Liberals are not some monolithic group that all think the same. But it's still sort of funny. Well, the war wasn't funny.
I was thinking about all this the other day because I recently saw another anti capitalism propaganda film. I've seen several of them. But it was another about how the US only goes to war over oil. This one guy on there even said Bush purposely lied as Saddam never had weapons of mass destruction in the first place. I couldn't help but laugh. Such blatantly wrong information for what looks like an otherwise big-ish budget "documentary."
It reminds me of people that finish watching a Michael Moore movie and think it's real. Just frightening. Of course propaganda is used by all sides of every issue. The times you spot it the most is when it's used by "the other side."
My counter to the no blood for oil thing, I'm not aware of too much oil in Afghanistan. But on the same token, when the Taliban violently took over major cities there a couple years before 9/11, no one seemed to care. I actually don't even remember seeing anything about it in the news at the time.
Oh, something else. And this might make people mad. But during Clinton's administration, he was using predator drones to attack Afghanistan--a country we were not at war with. These same people we were bombing, decided to put together the 9/11 plot. I really don't want to make people mad here, but it's not factually accurate to call 9/11 an unprovoked attack. They definitely took it up a notch, but the notion that they attacked us first isn't entirely true. The difference is we were trying to avoid civilian casualties. They sought to maximize them.
Keep in mind, there's over 5 thousand off shore oil rigs operating in the world right now. Thousands in the Gulf of Mexico alone. If *we* decide to stop drilling, the other countries in the area that are already drilling are just going to fill the void. So the drilling isn't going to stop just because we choose not to.
But if we could stop everyone from doing it, which we can't, what would the alternative be? Well, we can stop driving our cars and grow our own food. Yeah, that's not going to happen. We can continue to buy oil from the Middle East which means our money ends up in the hands of people that hate us. Or we can invest in nuclear power. We still need some fossil fuels to put in trucks to haul the food from the farms to the stores.
Some people think we can just build windmills and solar panels. Here's the problem with that. Both take a lot of energy to build. And the ratio of energy to create versus energy created, is not very good. It's a positive number, sure, but would be a massive undertaking. Windmills are also expensive to maintain. And since they cover a wide area, you need a small army of techs in gas powered jeeps driving around fixing them all the time. Still, it's a positive gain, so it's not a bad idea. It's just that the amount of wind power we would realistically create would end up being a drop in the bucket compared to what we need.
This brings us back to oil. There's a lot of misinformation floating around by different people spinning their propaganda for political gain. Why the hell is oil such a political issue? Why do people care so much? I've heard people say that we'll eventually run out of oil and if we haven't moved to solar / wind / nuclear by then, we'll end up in the dark ages. And yet, we find new reserves of oil all the time. There is a finite amount, sure, but we're not going to near the end of it for centuries. It's certainly not a bad idea to have a back up plan, but the obsession with hating oil is silly. This all goes back to some whacked out liberals who hate big business and want to break the back of capitalism. Same with the global warming hoax.
No blood for oil! Remember that? I was in high school when people were mad at GH Bush for going to war with Saddam after Iraq attacked our ally Kuwait. A few years before the invasion, Saddam was making news for using weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds. I remember reading about it. I used to cut class and go to the library and read news articles. Yeah, I was a weird kid. But I remember all the Liberals at the time mad about the human rights violations of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction and the US not doing anything about it. I saw a political cartoon--I don't know why I still remember it years later, but it had a picture of some arabs yelling out "Help!" and GH Bush shrugging, saying, "Sorry, I don't speak Kurdish."
So a couple years later, the Kuwait thing happens and we go to war. The Kurds, seeing us as liberators, rise up to help fight Saddam. But as soon as Kuwait is freed, we turn our backs on the Kurds, and leave. Saddam, weakened, but not defeated, vents his frustration on the Kurds for rising up, and we see one of the worst cases of genocide in my life time.
Fast forward a decade and this time it's GW Bush as president. The UN has since passed a resolution ordering Saddam to destroy all his weapons of mass destruction, and he claims he has. He stalls and plays games with UN weapons inspectors, not letting them verify it to be the case. Bush said he thinks Saddam still has his weapons and pointed to evidence that he was deliberately hiding them. I remember when this was happening too. I saw the photos on the news of the weapons taken with aerial photos and satellites. It made sense to me. I was right along with him saying Saddam should be stopped. GH Bush should have done it back when Saddam was using weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds. Now his son will finish the job.
Only, one problem. Saddam actually did destroy his weapons and was complying fully with the UN resolution. Huh? Why the hell was he hiding it then? Well, Saddam kept a sort of journal. And it turns out, he was scared of Iran--his enemy--finding out he didn't still have his weapons. After all, Iran has a more dangerous army, and the only thing that kept Iran from feeling like they could wipe out Saddam, was the fear of Saddam's weapons. Wow, the irony. So Saddam pretended to still have his weapons to scare Iran away from attacking, and yet that had the exact opposite affect on the US who did exactly what he feared Iran would do.
Of course, Saddam said at his trial, he complied completely with the UN resolution, and that Bush was the one that should be on trial. As much as this sounds like, "a simple misunderstanding," thousands of people died in this "oops." It's hard for me to defend W Bush for this, even though at the time, I was right on board with it. Saddam's death is a great thing for the world, and although Iraq has had a tough time of things during this period, they're better off now. Still, a lot of innocence people had to die. And was it our place to play God with which leaders live and which die? It's a hard question to answer even you believe the result was worth the loss.
As a side note, of course Liberals objected to the war in Iraq--including Obama. It is interesting that some Liberals were mad H Bush didn't go to war with Saddam after he used weapons of mass destruction. And ten years later, when W Bush goes in to finish the job, Liberals were mad. Come on guys. Which is it? Of course, Liberals are not some monolithic group that all think the same. But it's still sort of funny. Well, the war wasn't funny.
I was thinking about all this the other day because I recently saw another anti capitalism propaganda film. I've seen several of them. But it was another about how the US only goes to war over oil. This one guy on there even said Bush purposely lied as Saddam never had weapons of mass destruction in the first place. I couldn't help but laugh. Such blatantly wrong information for what looks like an otherwise big-ish budget "documentary."
It reminds me of people that finish watching a Michael Moore movie and think it's real. Just frightening. Of course propaganda is used by all sides of every issue. The times you spot it the most is when it's used by "the other side."
My counter to the no blood for oil thing, I'm not aware of too much oil in Afghanistan. But on the same token, when the Taliban violently took over major cities there a couple years before 9/11, no one seemed to care. I actually don't even remember seeing anything about it in the news at the time.
Oh, something else. And this might make people mad. But during Clinton's administration, he was using predator drones to attack Afghanistan--a country we were not at war with. These same people we were bombing, decided to put together the 9/11 plot. I really don't want to make people mad here, but it's not factually accurate to call 9/11 an unprovoked attack. They definitely took it up a notch, but the notion that they attacked us first isn't entirely true. The difference is we were trying to avoid civilian casualties. They sought to maximize them.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
My beliefs are rad
Obama gave a speech yesterday in which he insulted and denigrated Conservatives, and then asked for both sides to quit insulting and denigrating each other. Hypocrisy is nothing new in politics, nor is it something one side does any more than the other. But is this political spin, trying to reshape public opinion of conservatives into radicals, or does he genuinely believe his position is the mainstream and everyone else is the radical?
He said that he's concerned about the rhetoric of one side distrusting government or considering it inefficient or bad. I watched his speech in utter disbelief. There's a name for Republicans that trust government to solve our problems. That name is Democrat. His speech was about as stupid as me standing in front of a crowd and saying, "The problem with you Christians is you don't follow the teachings of the Buddha." How does someone as intelligent sounding as Obama seem to be so blinded by his own ideology that he not only cannot see the opposition side nor understand the justification of its existence?
He commented on a Tea Partier's sign that said something about keeping government away from medicare. Ok, so that is a little funny / ironic. That's sort of like asking to keep religion out of the Bible. But I'd imagine the person holding the sign is actually trying to say is that the government should not further alter Medicare from what it presently is and does. That probably doesn't fit on a cardboard sign on a stick as well, nor is it all that catchy in a protest chanty kinda way. Or, of course, maybe the person with the sign was just stupid. But in either case, the President using that instance to insult someone for a sound bite is childish.
I've heard a lot of liberals try and insult Republicans by saying things like, "If you're against Socialism, how come you use the Post Office, Social Security, Medicare, Public Transportation, Public Schools / State Colleges, Government funded roads..." etc. This is an argument based on pure demagoguery. It reminds me of the argument creationists use to say, "If we evolved out of monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"
The reason why Republicans are not against those socialist programs I mentioned, is because we're Republicans. There's a word for people that are against ALL socialist programs. That word is Anarchists. Republicans are not Anarchists. We believe that government should be as small as possible, while only providing the bare bones services that benefit the country. Now, you might say that also describes Democrats. And it does, but where that line is of what's beneficial and what's wasteful is different for everyone.
It's also interesting to think about what political party we ascribe to is influenced by what the country currently is. For instance, I'm a Republican because I think the government is currently too big. But if the country were to radically move towards the right--passed Republicanism and into the realm of Anarchy, I would have to become a Democrat at that point and argue for why we at least need basic law enforcement and roads. And in such a bizarre world, I might be called a Socialist by all the Anarchists for suggesting such a thing. Of course, I will never be a socialist, but to an Anarchist who doesn't know just how far to the left I would go, I could very well seem like one.
But for the most part, I think Moderate and Conservative Democrats are ok and not all that different from Republicans. Of course, I'm most definitely NOT a social conservative, and agree very little with most conservatives on social issues. That's probably more because of my religious beliefs. Conservatives are overwhelmingly also deeply religious(I'm one of the very rare ones that are not). As a side note, fiscal conservatism and social conservatism are radically different things--and even seem to ideologically oppose each other. For the life of me, I can't understand why they tend to go together in most people. Like, "I want government to stay out of my life, but I'm ok with people using the government to force their religious beliefs on others--as long as it's the same religious beliefs I value," and "I want religion out of my life, but I think government should tax and oppress us however a group of politicians see fit," seem to describe most people. These are radical combinations in my mind, but yet seem to be one of the two categories that fit the bulk of Americans. Libertarians are one of the few groups out there that are in nether camp, wanting to keep both out of our lives. In some ways, I'm more a Libertarian that a Republican.
I understand that being an Atheist makes me a radical. Not that I'm crazy or anything. In fact, my "radical status," has as much to do with what I believe as it does with what percentage of people believe something else. If half the religious people in the world were to convert to Atheism, I would no longer be a religious radical, despite the fact that I personally have not changed.
My point here(yeah, I get off on tangents) is that I don't have a problem with Obama for being a political radical. My point is that he's either trying to get the mainstream to reject the other side, or he's completely unable to understand the other side.
I'm able to understand Liberalism. On the surface, it sounds like it's about helping people, working for a cleaner environment, and building a stronger world. Who the hell would be against that? I would argue that Conservatism shares this goal, something Liberals would laugh at. I just don't agree that giving entitlements to people encourages them to work more efficiently. I believe the opposite is true, and decades of soviet rule has proven as such. People need to be challenged. It's unfortunate that Liberals like to think they've got the "caring market" cornered and that conservatives must be heartless bigots just because we've figured out free handouts don't always motivate people.
I do agree with Obama that people who listen to Glenn Beck should spend sometime reading the Huffington Post and vice verse. I've actually read a few articles there I agreed with. Most of the Huff Post is childish Republican bashing. Much of what Rush Limbaugh says is childish Dem bashing. But people really should at least listen to the extreme and middle views every now and then. Even if you don't agree with the other side, you can not understand what your position is unless you truly understand what your position is not.
I think this works for religion as well. If you don't understand the fundamentals on hinduism, buddhism, or islam, then you are not really a christian. Can you imagine the first time you ever fell inlove and thinking this was the person you'd spend the rest of your life with. Everything about her just felt right. Then after you break up, you think, "What the hell was wrong with me? She was horrible to me! Why did I put up with that for so long?" I've been there too many times. Sad to think that most religious people will only know and accept the first religion they're exposed to, think it's "the one" and never leave it no matter how silly or illogical it is. Bah, anyways.
Speaking of agreeing with Obama on a completely different topic, playing hardball with Israel might just pay off. If he can get Israel to stop construction in East Jerusalem, and hand it over to the Palestinians, then I think he'll be the first American since Dr. Martin Luther King, jr to genuinely deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm really hoping he succeeds there. I don't know if he's playing Iran the right way at all though. I guess we'll see.
He said that he's concerned about the rhetoric of one side distrusting government or considering it inefficient or bad. I watched his speech in utter disbelief. There's a name for Republicans that trust government to solve our problems. That name is Democrat. His speech was about as stupid as me standing in front of a crowd and saying, "The problem with you Christians is you don't follow the teachings of the Buddha." How does someone as intelligent sounding as Obama seem to be so blinded by his own ideology that he not only cannot see the opposition side nor understand the justification of its existence?
He commented on a Tea Partier's sign that said something about keeping government away from medicare. Ok, so that is a little funny / ironic. That's sort of like asking to keep religion out of the Bible. But I'd imagine the person holding the sign is actually trying to say is that the government should not further alter Medicare from what it presently is and does. That probably doesn't fit on a cardboard sign on a stick as well, nor is it all that catchy in a protest chanty kinda way. Or, of course, maybe the person with the sign was just stupid. But in either case, the President using that instance to insult someone for a sound bite is childish.
I've heard a lot of liberals try and insult Republicans by saying things like, "If you're against Socialism, how come you use the Post Office, Social Security, Medicare, Public Transportation, Public Schools / State Colleges, Government funded roads..." etc. This is an argument based on pure demagoguery. It reminds me of the argument creationists use to say, "If we evolved out of monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"
The reason why Republicans are not against those socialist programs I mentioned, is because we're Republicans. There's a word for people that are against ALL socialist programs. That word is Anarchists. Republicans are not Anarchists. We believe that government should be as small as possible, while only providing the bare bones services that benefit the country. Now, you might say that also describes Democrats. And it does, but where that line is of what's beneficial and what's wasteful is different for everyone.
It's also interesting to think about what political party we ascribe to is influenced by what the country currently is. For instance, I'm a Republican because I think the government is currently too big. But if the country were to radically move towards the right--passed Republicanism and into the realm of Anarchy, I would have to become a Democrat at that point and argue for why we at least need basic law enforcement and roads. And in such a bizarre world, I might be called a Socialist by all the Anarchists for suggesting such a thing. Of course, I will never be a socialist, but to an Anarchist who doesn't know just how far to the left I would go, I could very well seem like one.
But for the most part, I think Moderate and Conservative Democrats are ok and not all that different from Republicans. Of course, I'm most definitely NOT a social conservative, and agree very little with most conservatives on social issues. That's probably more because of my religious beliefs. Conservatives are overwhelmingly also deeply religious(I'm one of the very rare ones that are not). As a side note, fiscal conservatism and social conservatism are radically different things--and even seem to ideologically oppose each other. For the life of me, I can't understand why they tend to go together in most people. Like, "I want government to stay out of my life, but I'm ok with people using the government to force their religious beliefs on others--as long as it's the same religious beliefs I value," and "I want religion out of my life, but I think government should tax and oppress us however a group of politicians see fit," seem to describe most people. These are radical combinations in my mind, but yet seem to be one of the two categories that fit the bulk of Americans. Libertarians are one of the few groups out there that are in nether camp, wanting to keep both out of our lives. In some ways, I'm more a Libertarian that a Republican.
I understand that being an Atheist makes me a radical. Not that I'm crazy or anything. In fact, my "radical status," has as much to do with what I believe as it does with what percentage of people believe something else. If half the religious people in the world were to convert to Atheism, I would no longer be a religious radical, despite the fact that I personally have not changed.
My point here(yeah, I get off on tangents) is that I don't have a problem with Obama for being a political radical. My point is that he's either trying to get the mainstream to reject the other side, or he's completely unable to understand the other side.
I'm able to understand Liberalism. On the surface, it sounds like it's about helping people, working for a cleaner environment, and building a stronger world. Who the hell would be against that? I would argue that Conservatism shares this goal, something Liberals would laugh at. I just don't agree that giving entitlements to people encourages them to work more efficiently. I believe the opposite is true, and decades of soviet rule has proven as such. People need to be challenged. It's unfortunate that Liberals like to think they've got the "caring market" cornered and that conservatives must be heartless bigots just because we've figured out free handouts don't always motivate people.
I do agree with Obama that people who listen to Glenn Beck should spend sometime reading the Huffington Post and vice verse. I've actually read a few articles there I agreed with. Most of the Huff Post is childish Republican bashing. Much of what Rush Limbaugh says is childish Dem bashing. But people really should at least listen to the extreme and middle views every now and then. Even if you don't agree with the other side, you can not understand what your position is unless you truly understand what your position is not.
I think this works for religion as well. If you don't understand the fundamentals on hinduism, buddhism, or islam, then you are not really a christian. Can you imagine the first time you ever fell inlove and thinking this was the person you'd spend the rest of your life with. Everything about her just felt right. Then after you break up, you think, "What the hell was wrong with me? She was horrible to me! Why did I put up with that for so long?" I've been there too many times. Sad to think that most religious people will only know and accept the first religion they're exposed to, think it's "the one" and never leave it no matter how silly or illogical it is. Bah, anyways.
Speaking of agreeing with Obama on a completely different topic, playing hardball with Israel might just pay off. If he can get Israel to stop construction in East Jerusalem, and hand it over to the Palestinians, then I think he'll be the first American since Dr. Martin Luther King, jr to genuinely deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm really hoping he succeeds there. I don't know if he's playing Iran the right way at all though. I guess we'll see.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Migrating Headache
It's funny how online news pieces often have a section after where people can leave comments. This is so you can read about how dumb people are. Most of the comments are frightening. Originally, our founder fathers only allowed rich, educated, land owners to vote. I don't think we should return to that, but it does make you wonder if they were on to something.
I find it amusing how creative people try and get with their name calling in these comments. Names like "Libtards," "Repubithugs"--that one's kind of a stretch, "Democraps / dummycrats," and of course the "Tea Baggers." Although people throw around that last one so often, I don't think most people realize it's an offensive term.
Being a Republican living in California, I'm used to the dumbest people on the planet trying to pick political fights with me. I sometimes wonder if most people even understand the most basic principles of politics in this country. Case in point, the stupid "Oh yeah, well the Republicans ruined the economy!" argument. I'm a Republican. Did I ruin the economy? Political parties are not sports teams. The only thing that makes someone a Republican is because they say they are. Yeah, Bush wasn't exactly the greatest political mind of our times, and if I were to name Republicans I think personify the party, he wouldn't be on my list. But on the same token, Ted Kennedy murdered a woman. What if I said, "You can't trust Liberals. They kill people." Does that make any sense? That's just as stupid of an argument. Btw, the Republicans are not "the ones" that ruined the economy, though many of them had a hand in it(and have since been voted out).
The individual does not define the political outlook they claim to ascribe to. If George Bush wasted money, it's not because he was a Republican. It was because he was a poor leader. If a bunch of Republicans in Kansas vote to ban the teaching of evolution in the classroom, it's not because they're Republicans. It's because they're a bunch of idiots. There is absolutely nothing in the political ideology of Republicanism that dictates any thing that threatens the credibility of a particular religion should be banned. In fact, this position runs contrary to the Republican idea that government should stay out of our lives(including what our schools can teach our kids).
The Tea Party movement seems to be vastly misunderstood by most people--including the media. Tea Partiers are conservatives who are angry at Republicans who've turned their backs on conservative principles. They're also angry at Democrats who've caved to the Liberals in their party and stopped fighting for what they believed to be responsible governance. Of course, there's also people in the Tea Party movement that are just idiots and are along for the ride, but I think they're a small minority.
Obama recently said that the Tea Partiers should thank him. After all, if they care about taxes, he's lowered them for most people. The original Boston Tea Party was a protest on taxation without representation. But the modern day movement has morphed considerably since then into a protest against big government(sort of the opposite cause). Obama isn't stupid. This was a calculated statement--one he knows is highly misleading. Because the Tea Party has no leaders and can't fight back, many Liberals who see them as a threat would like to marginalize them and mischaracterize them into being a bunch of angry white people mad at a non issue. But while Tea Partiers are mad at Republicans and Democrats that haven't been representing their conservative wishes, they're even more mad at government spending. And although taxes haven't changed much, they're going to explode soon. Obama is talking about a national sales tax--something that has decimated the economy in Europe. In Obama's first year, he will have spent more than Bush did in his first term. At this rate, before Obama's first 18 months, he will have outspent Bush's entire 8 years. And don't forget, yeah Bush spent a lot of money fighting this war in Afghanistan. Obama voted to go to war there. This is as much Obama's unfunded war as it is Bush's. Everything Bush did wrong, Obama is doing several times over.
I've seen a few dumb people mention that Obama's health care plan isn't much different from Mit Romney's or Richard Nixon's, therefore, what are the Republicans so mad about? First off, "If Nixon thought it was a good idea," is probably not a very strong argument. After all, Nixon felt it was ok to bomb Cambodia--a country we were not at war with--and lie about to the UN when the Cambodian government complained. Second, bad ideas are bad ideas no matter which party the proposer is from. Not to mention, Federal mandates are contrary to Republican ideology. Having those ideas come from people calling themselves "republicans" doesn't change that. Bad ideas are bad ideas.
This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Over 40 of the biggest employers in the country have announced to their share holders(as required by law) they might start dropping health insurance for their employees. The bill that was supposed to lower premiums have instead caused them to rise--well duh, force insurance companies to take on high risk patients(pre-existing conditions) and they have to charge more to cover a higher risk of loss. And employers have done the math and determined that it's cheaper to pay the fines than it is to provide insurance. So the bill that was supposed to cover more people, might actually translate into less people covered. Obama's people are now admitting that the bill will not lower the deficit, but will actually increase it. So on all three fronts of controlling government costs, lowering premiums, and insuring more Americans, this bill might just make things worse for all three. The health care bill is Obama's only "accomplishment" so far. In a way I'm happy. 8 years of people bashing me because I voted for Bush, now it's the Democrats' turn. Not so easy, is it?
I guess the other big thing in the news is the immigration thing. When I first heard about Arizona passing a law allowing cops to stop anyone they felt like who looks like they might be an illegal alien, I wasn't happy about it. But then I did some more research on it. Turns out if a police officer stops you without probable cause, it's still illegal under this bill. So as Obama incorrectly said, police can't harass you as you go around with your kids to buy ice cream. The only thing the bill does is make it against the law to be here illegally. Huh? That wasn't already illegal? Apparently not. The law is now that police may not check to see if someone is an illegal alien until after they've committed another crime. Now with this new law, being here illegally is a crime in and of itself, and law enforcement can now deport you based solely on the fact that you're here illegally--something they can't do now. Now, if a cop pulls you over for driving while Mexican, you can still sue the state of Arizona for harassment and violation of your civil rights(racial profiling). This new law doesn't change that. I'm sure cops *are* pulling people due to racial profiling now, just because some cops are racist jerks. This law will not increase or decrease that. But you can bet the publicity will cause cops to be a lot more careful about it once the law goes into effect. It will still probably happen though, and will no doubt make the news when it does.
Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, has declared(out of ignorance) his city will be boycotting Arizona businesses. So some conservative states / cities have been talking about doing the same to SF. I'm all for civil rights. I think Cesar Chavez was an American hero for standing up for the fair treatment of migrant farm workers. But I'll bet you right now that Mayor Newsom's hasn't even read the bill. I haven't either. And my conclusion about it might be wrong. But then, I'm not a mayor putting my own ego above what's best for the people I represent.
I respect Newsom's fight for gay marriage equality in California. I've long been a supporter of civil rights on all fronts, but either the Liberals making a stink about this are alarmists or they're just trying to score cred with their Liberal voter base. Ignorance or posturing?
I find it amusing how creative people try and get with their name calling in these comments. Names like "Libtards," "Repubithugs"--that one's kind of a stretch, "Democraps / dummycrats," and of course the "Tea Baggers." Although people throw around that last one so often, I don't think most people realize it's an offensive term.
Being a Republican living in California, I'm used to the dumbest people on the planet trying to pick political fights with me. I sometimes wonder if most people even understand the most basic principles of politics in this country. Case in point, the stupid "Oh yeah, well the Republicans ruined the economy!" argument. I'm a Republican. Did I ruin the economy? Political parties are not sports teams. The only thing that makes someone a Republican is because they say they are. Yeah, Bush wasn't exactly the greatest political mind of our times, and if I were to name Republicans I think personify the party, he wouldn't be on my list. But on the same token, Ted Kennedy murdered a woman. What if I said, "You can't trust Liberals. They kill people." Does that make any sense? That's just as stupid of an argument. Btw, the Republicans are not "the ones" that ruined the economy, though many of them had a hand in it(and have since been voted out).
The individual does not define the political outlook they claim to ascribe to. If George Bush wasted money, it's not because he was a Republican. It was because he was a poor leader. If a bunch of Republicans in Kansas vote to ban the teaching of evolution in the classroom, it's not because they're Republicans. It's because they're a bunch of idiots. There is absolutely nothing in the political ideology of Republicanism that dictates any thing that threatens the credibility of a particular religion should be banned. In fact, this position runs contrary to the Republican idea that government should stay out of our lives(including what our schools can teach our kids).
The Tea Party movement seems to be vastly misunderstood by most people--including the media. Tea Partiers are conservatives who are angry at Republicans who've turned their backs on conservative principles. They're also angry at Democrats who've caved to the Liberals in their party and stopped fighting for what they believed to be responsible governance. Of course, there's also people in the Tea Party movement that are just idiots and are along for the ride, but I think they're a small minority.
Obama recently said that the Tea Partiers should thank him. After all, if they care about taxes, he's lowered them for most people. The original Boston Tea Party was a protest on taxation without representation. But the modern day movement has morphed considerably since then into a protest against big government(sort of the opposite cause). Obama isn't stupid. This was a calculated statement--one he knows is highly misleading. Because the Tea Party has no leaders and can't fight back, many Liberals who see them as a threat would like to marginalize them and mischaracterize them into being a bunch of angry white people mad at a non issue. But while Tea Partiers are mad at Republicans and Democrats that haven't been representing their conservative wishes, they're even more mad at government spending. And although taxes haven't changed much, they're going to explode soon. Obama is talking about a national sales tax--something that has decimated the economy in Europe. In Obama's first year, he will have spent more than Bush did in his first term. At this rate, before Obama's first 18 months, he will have outspent Bush's entire 8 years. And don't forget, yeah Bush spent a lot of money fighting this war in Afghanistan. Obama voted to go to war there. This is as much Obama's unfunded war as it is Bush's. Everything Bush did wrong, Obama is doing several times over.
I've seen a few dumb people mention that Obama's health care plan isn't much different from Mit Romney's or Richard Nixon's, therefore, what are the Republicans so mad about? First off, "If Nixon thought it was a good idea," is probably not a very strong argument. After all, Nixon felt it was ok to bomb Cambodia--a country we were not at war with--and lie about to the UN when the Cambodian government complained. Second, bad ideas are bad ideas no matter which party the proposer is from. Not to mention, Federal mandates are contrary to Republican ideology. Having those ideas come from people calling themselves "republicans" doesn't change that. Bad ideas are bad ideas.
This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Over 40 of the biggest employers in the country have announced to their share holders(as required by law) they might start dropping health insurance for their employees. The bill that was supposed to lower premiums have instead caused them to rise--well duh, force insurance companies to take on high risk patients(pre-existing conditions) and they have to charge more to cover a higher risk of loss. And employers have done the math and determined that it's cheaper to pay the fines than it is to provide insurance. So the bill that was supposed to cover more people, might actually translate into less people covered. Obama's people are now admitting that the bill will not lower the deficit, but will actually increase it. So on all three fronts of controlling government costs, lowering premiums, and insuring more Americans, this bill might just make things worse for all three. The health care bill is Obama's only "accomplishment" so far. In a way I'm happy. 8 years of people bashing me because I voted for Bush, now it's the Democrats' turn. Not so easy, is it?
I guess the other big thing in the news is the immigration thing. When I first heard about Arizona passing a law allowing cops to stop anyone they felt like who looks like they might be an illegal alien, I wasn't happy about it. But then I did some more research on it. Turns out if a police officer stops you without probable cause, it's still illegal under this bill. So as Obama incorrectly said, police can't harass you as you go around with your kids to buy ice cream. The only thing the bill does is make it against the law to be here illegally. Huh? That wasn't already illegal? Apparently not. The law is now that police may not check to see if someone is an illegal alien until after they've committed another crime. Now with this new law, being here illegally is a crime in and of itself, and law enforcement can now deport you based solely on the fact that you're here illegally--something they can't do now. Now, if a cop pulls you over for driving while Mexican, you can still sue the state of Arizona for harassment and violation of your civil rights(racial profiling). This new law doesn't change that. I'm sure cops *are* pulling people due to racial profiling now, just because some cops are racist jerks. This law will not increase or decrease that. But you can bet the publicity will cause cops to be a lot more careful about it once the law goes into effect. It will still probably happen though, and will no doubt make the news when it does.
Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, has declared(out of ignorance) his city will be boycotting Arizona businesses. So some conservative states / cities have been talking about doing the same to SF. I'm all for civil rights. I think Cesar Chavez was an American hero for standing up for the fair treatment of migrant farm workers. But I'll bet you right now that Mayor Newsom's hasn't even read the bill. I haven't either. And my conclusion about it might be wrong. But then, I'm not a mayor putting my own ego above what's best for the people I represent.
I respect Newsom's fight for gay marriage equality in California. I've long been a supporter of civil rights on all fronts, but either the Liberals making a stink about this are alarmists or they're just trying to score cred with their Liberal voter base. Ignorance or posturing?
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