//Politics

This “Liberal Experiment” Sounds Like a Real Blast

I recently got an email from my mom, who has been under assault by some conservative friends who are deeply worried about the downfall of the empire. These emails have grown more common of late, and in her latest missive, she asked for my two cents on the recent news from The Drudge Report that President Obama has enlisted ABC news to help him with a massive PR rollout of his health care plan on the evening of June 24th. Her conservative friends warn that this is evidence that “The Liberal Experiment” is upon us. I think that makes them sound petty and bitter. Her email (re-printed with permission), and my three cents follow:

Adam,

Hi.  Any comments on this?  My conservative friends are “terrified that the liberal experiment has begun.”  Hmm.

Hope your day is going well!

Mom,

1) Obviously the president has no obligation to present the opposing view to his plan and cannot be faulted for successfully convincing ABC to cover the issue thoroughly.

2) Since Ronald Reagan abolished the fairness doctrine in 1987, no broadcast entity is required to present equal time to opposing opinions. Is this a good example of journalistic integrity? I’d say no, but it is certainly ABC’s prerogative to cover the issue however they please. If the RNC has a problem with it, the proper recourse is the one they appear to have chosen, which is to take it up with ABC.

3) None of the above can be interpreted as anything other than a very media savvy president doing whatever he can to get the message out on a very important issue. I’m not even sure what “The Liberal Experiment” is, but maybe the folks worried about it could find some more constructive ways to lend their voice to our national troubles.

The “Socialism” argument was bunk, and so is this.

[ Topic Media, Politics, Politics, Etc., Ridiculosity | No Comments ]

How about about a history lesson?

I’m not going to tell people that their vote on Prop 8 was wrong or right. I’m just going to point out a couple of parallels in history that today are universally understood to be very dark times for civil rights in the US, but at the time were seen as justified just as Prop 8 may seem to some people now.  

My hope is that people will look beyond their personal agendas, justified as they may seem, and see the bigger picture. 

First up, denying marriage for one segment of the population:

In 1913, 30 states enforced laws banning marriage between whites and non-whites. In 1924, Virginia joined them when its legislature made marriage between white persons and non-white persons a felony. These laws remained in effect until 1967, when the US Supreme Court found them to be contrary to the guarantees of the US Constitution. 

In 2007, 26 states had constitutional amendments explicitly barring the recognition of same-sex marriage, 18 of them prohibited the legal recognition of ANY same-sex union, and 19 more had legislation narrowly defining marriage to exclude same-sex partners. On Nov. 4th 2008, California, Florida, and Arizona joined the list, bring the total to 48. 

Further back in history, another uncanny parallel:

Prior to 1835, the Supreme Court of North Carolina upheld the constitutional right of free men of color to vote; in response, the people voted in an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution removing this right by a majority of 55%. 

On May 15, 2008, the Supreme Court of California overturned an unconstitutional ban of same-sex marriage; in response, the people voted in an amendment to the California Constitution removing this right by a majority vote of 52%. 

It took until 1870 (a generation later) for government endorsed discrimination to be overturned by the 15th amendment, and another century before equal rights for all were guaranteed by law. Those ideals are once again under attack, the Constitution that once protected all Californians from discrimination and granted all people the same rights has been rewritten to single out one group of people for discrimination. 

In both historical instances mentioned above, the justifications seemed reasonable to the majority at the time but are now universally seen as wrong.  

Will America find a way to embrace equality once and for all, or must we leave it to future generations to prove us wrong once again? Will our children look at what this generation of voters has done in the name of tradition and hang their heads in shame? 

Regardless of your religious beliefs or your personal feelings about your fellow Americans, equality is equality, is equality. Protect equal rights under the law in ALL THINGS for ALL PEOPLE. 

You can help make a difference, do a little research and make your own choices:

Lambda Legal Defense Fund: http://www.lambdalegal.org/

Equality California: http://www.eqca.org/

Human Rights Campaign:  http://www.hrc.org/

[ Topic Diversity, Politics, Politics, Etc., Religion, Society | No Comments ]

President

Hey, so maybe the whole “Bradley Effect” was kinda bullshit.

[ Topic Politics, Politics, Etc. | 2 Comments ]

Because I Am A Petty Bitch With Naught But Tar In My Heart

I just have to take this two seconds to get up on my high and mighty, self-righteous horse and then I shall shut it and shut it good.

It is fantastic that everyone is going out and voting. I could not be happier about it.

However, many people who have not bothered to vote since perhaps the last presidential election (if that) are telling me how hard it has been to vote today. I do not mean waiting in long lines or encountering technical problems. I mean they do not know where their polling place is or whether they are registered or other such stories of this strenuous and bewildering thing called ‘voting’.

Can I just say, as someone who has made an effort to vote in every election, even the local ones, since I came of age: I sympathize with long lines or technical problems, but not with figuring out where to vote or whether you’re registered. Please do not make yourself out to be this heroic martyr because you just now figured out how to fulfill your civic duty.

When you register, they mail you your polling information. And then they send a follow-up card before the Primaries that lists your polling location and your Election District number.

Sorry to be so petty and bitchy, but you would think from the griping that these people had to climb Mt. Everest.

Thank you thank you thank you for voting. Thank you for making a difference. But please do not think you are now eligible for sainthood.

[ Topic Politics, Politics, Etc., Ridiculosity | No Comments ]

Don’t Let the Despicable Prop 8 Pimps Win

Just a couple final thoughts before election day:

Just Stop Thinking About It 

And Care of Samuel L. Jackson Himself 

[ Topic Politics, Politics, Etc. | No Comments ]

Totally Might as Well Be a Racist

As Bad as Nana 

[ Topic Diversity, Politics, Politics, Etc., Ridiculosity, Society | No Comments ]

Vote NO on Prop 8

Two things have NOT happened since gay people started getting married in California back in June of this year: 

1) The apocalypse has NOT occurred, despite what your friends working on Wall Street might have told you.
2) People have gotten exactly 0% smarter. Or to put it another way, while all people are probably getting stupider each day, there are other people actively working to hurry the process along.

The result of the above pair of incontrovertible facts is Proposition 8. This is the latest endeavor by mostly out-of-state interests to codify discrimination under the California Constitution. They offer no apologies, no arguments of any believable substance, nor do they really try to disguise their Proposition as anything more than what it really is: An effort to deny constitutional rights and freedoms to a specific sub-section of our populace simply because supporters of Prop 8 woke up one day feeling like fucking assholes. 

Oh shit. Excuse me. Pardon the expletive. It just slipped out. I totally did not mean to brand my fellow Californians (and also the Floridian and Utah Mormon financial backers) as total assholes. And yet…um…yeah…I sorta did. Don’t Mormon’s have enough damned discrimination to worry about? And after 8 years of Bush, frankly I think it’s time we took a long, hard look at why we’re listening to people from Florida at all anymore.

Proposition 8 is indefensible. If you’re not against it, please try to drag yourself aboard the train headed towards modernity where we all try to treat eachother with some basic human respect and don’t waste our time trying to Constitutionally discriminate against people just because they’re different. I have this feeling that it won’t even take you a trip to Wikipedia to refresh your memory as to why this is a shitty idea.

On November 4th, Vote NO on Prop 8. Don’t be a douche.

3rd Grade Gay 

Gay Speakeasies 

[ Topic Diversity, Politics, Politics, Etc., Ridiculosity, Society | 2 Comments ]

Our Socialist Future

After the multitude of recent apocalypse-level meltdowns on Wall Street, followed by the subsequent bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then AIG shortly thereafter, it seems our Democracy has found itself desperately wanting for some reliable economic expertise and guidance. Suddenly, as the government is “forced” to wave it’s magic wand and single-handedly usher in the largest socialization of private interests since The Great Depression, it seems high time Americans take a good, hard look at our core economic values. It’s time to stop assuming “the professionals” know what they are doing, and to begin evaluating the situation on our own.

For at least 30 years, Republicans and Democrats have drawn their economic lines-in-the-sand according to some pretty basic differences: Republicans have espoused a belief that freeing up businesses through market deregulation and lower taxes, will lead to more efficient markets, and in turn, a more profitable and successful economy. Democrats, long-branded as big fans of social programs and high taxes, have largely failed to present a compelling alternative to this argument.

Today, it appears, we stand at the brink of an entirely new brand of economy. After years of Republican-backed deregulation efforts, which have no-doubt marked many successes, we now seem unwilling to fully trust the principles which make up the core of our economy. The current brand of corporate bailouts ostensibly amounts to allowing businesses the luxury of privatizing their profits, while simultaneously socializing the risk. To even the casual economist, this should serve as an indictment of free market theory, at least so far as we seem willing to put such principles into practice. Furthermore, this sounds NOTHING like the economic principles by which Republicans have claimed to stand, and after last week, there is certainly no shortage of Republicans and Libertarians who would be more-than-willing to agree with that assessment.

Given the above, it bears consideration that if one studies a little history, it’s easy to conclude that since the rise of the nation state, socialism has been a bit of an inevitability. This isn’t to say such a fate is necessarily good or bad, but clearly as our own country has advanced, we have identified numerous ways in which we saw fit to employ some rather socialist programs in an effort to protect those who we deemed unable to protect themselves. So now we have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, a nationwide system of public schools, and then on statewide and municipal levels, the list continues. In sum, for a country so committed to commerce and the free market, we’re looking more and more like a Socialist country every day. And what’s wrong with that? Well, what’s wrong is that it isn’t doing us any damn good.

America suffers from an identity crisis: As we become more like a Socialist country, our inability to admit as much and find solutions appropriate to our problems, makes us worse off. Not only are we not a true free-market economy, but we’re not a true Socialist country either. Meanwhile, in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark — true bastions of Socialist principles to be sure — we find they surpass us in numerous virtues such as education, health, public generosity, per capita aid to the developing world, and low rates of violent crime and infant mortality, just to name a few. 

The net result of this identity crisis doesn’t appear to benefit the “Average American” by any metric. Though this shouldn’t be construed as an endorsement of Socialist ideology, I will admit to being generally at a loss to explain how, exactly, we have it better off than them. I’m no longer so sure that our system is the better one. And at the very least, I think we might have a bit of an irrational fear of Socialism that, in the face of recent events, isn’t entirely supported by the facts at hand.

[ Topic Politics, Politics, Etc. | 1 Comment ]

When in Doubt, Resort to Mockery

Republican campaign tactics have seemed to lack a certain gravitas of late, but it wasn’t until they began to resort to outright mockery that said tactics began to look particularly desperate. It honestly seems as if McCain’s camp has been able to find so little with which to hang Obama, that they’ve opted, instead, simply to employ easily refutable arguments premised, apparently, on the hope that no one will watch or read the news. Ever.

It’s just brilliant.

[ Topic Media, Politics, Politics, Etc. | 1 Comment ]

Supreme Court Rules: Get Offa My Lawn!

So unless you’ve been living under some sort of judiciary rock, then  you know the Supreme Court ruled today 5-4 in favor of overturning the  28-year-old Washington D.C. ban on hand guns. This, of course, is a wonderful day for gun enthusiasts, proud NRA members, and the  generally ornery. As for the rest of us, it seems much remains to be  seen. While the NRA begins filing law suits all over the country to  overturn past judicial rulings which imposed limits on gun rights, it seems worth considering, just from a general common sense perspective, exactly why the court ruled in this manner, and just what it means.

First of all, the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. Without  delving too deeply into the history books, we can, at least, recall that a number of realities of daily life have changed significantly since that time. Most notably, perhaps, the fear amongst individual  states that the Federal government would overstep their bounds and violate the basic tenets of Unification. This stark reality was reason enough for Americans to seek and secure the right to own guns in some manner, whether or not you understand the Second Amendment to be referring specifically to a militia or not. Desperate times demand desperate militias.

In 2008, the above seems at least overly romantic, if not downright  preposterous to my lily-livered arse. The government has systematically overstepped it’s bounds a legion of times in the intervening 207 years, and yet the only offense ever deemed worthy of revolt was when they tried to put a stop to slavery.  Props to the North for having some guns of their own lying around!

Still, since the Civil War ended in 1865, most of us seem to have  begun expressing ourselves through political mechanisms or largely  peaceful resistance. Though we certainly faced our share of struggle throughout the late 19^th, 20^th and now 21^st centuries, that  revolutionary spirit now seems, for the most part, like something from  a bygone era.

The difference today is that there are now two types of gun owners: 1) Hunters and enthusiasts who live largely in the south and the west (this also includes bourgeois politicians who are predisposed to accidentally shooting their friends in the face).  

2) Criminals.

Everyone who doesn’t fall into the above two categories, which by current estimates amounts to roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population, for some reason fails to arouse the sort of fundraising enthusiasm evident in the National Rifle Association (or even your average criminal defense lobby). The experience for this population at the center is a rather murky one, and it is sadly rather hard to quantify the effect of the American love affair with guns as it relates to them.  

Certainly gun deaths affect family members and friends who don’t fall into categories 1 or 2 above. Certainly the facts support the notion that guns make violent encounters more violent and more potentially life threatening. Certainly in neighborhoods where gun violence is prevalent, the climate of fear for non-gun-owning residents is also a very real phenomena, though it is probably one of the toughest realties to quantify. Given this, it’s no surprise that average folks will opt to draw some anecdotal conclusions about the recent Supreme Court decision. My conclusions follow:

1) Washington D.C. is and was a very violent city. 2) Between 1976 and yesterday, it was, at least, safe to assume that anyone carrying a gun in D.C.  was a criminal. 3) Many other cities throughout  the country have not outlawed handguns, yet they continue to enjoy demoralizing crime rates. In most of these cities, by my last check, the gun-owners, have not mobilized and brought their firearms to the aid of the innocent citizenry in their municipalities. 4) D.C. will now join those cities where it is NOT safe to assume that a person carrying a gun is a criminal. Also, it will be safe to continue assuming that there will not be an armed citizen revolt against criminals in any city. 5) Maybe this all adds up to a net wash, but I think policing gun crimes just got a little more difficult, and it will just get worse.

To sum up, while I would love to pick a fight with the NRA, that is not my intention. In fact, based on my recent NPR listening, it sounds like the guys (yes, only 10% are women) who love their hunting rifles and home protection pistolas, are really not the key problem. Still, while I’m no Antonin Scalia, I find ZERO resemblance between the current pro-gun movement and the early Americans for whom the Second Amendment was written. Instead, the public face of the NRA appears to pursue their agenda with a dogged selfishness which seems to come at the expense of the safety of ALL Americans. 

To co-opt a little quote from George W. Bush, I say, if you’re a gun  owner who is not part of the solution, then you are either anecdotally or implicitly part of the problem. I say, the Second Amendment  addresses the rights of militias, so why the hell aren’t you guys mobilizing your guns and man-power and working for us? I say, as long  as your Second Amendment rights are being re-affirmed and expanded,  then you owe the rest of us something in return.

You’ve been granted a great victory on this day, so get moving! Get out there and kick some ass with those awesome  guns of yours! I’m sure we’ll all feel safer knowing you’re out there.

Either that or I suppose we can dredge up the tired-old argument that a conservative Supreme Court might actually have some dilatory effects on society as we know it.

[ Topic Politics, Politics, Etc. | 4 Comments ]