Jon Henke = Moron

Perhaps the headline is unfair. Perhaps I am unfair. (Editor’s Note: Perhaps the whole damn system is unfair?) But if this Jon Henke fellow is going to claim with a straight face that Democrats have never had their patriotism questioned by Republicans, you have to wonder.

For instance:
1. George W. Bush said, famously, “You’re either with us or against us in the war on terror.” He was clearly referencing domestic opposition to his proposed policies.
2. Here’s a book purporting to document the Hate America Left, a phrase thrown about at every turn to discredit any criticism of Republican policies enacted between 2000-2006.
3. Here’s a leading light of the conservative movement, Dennis Prager, saying the same thing in column form.
4. Here’s an elected representative questioning Barack Obama’s patriotism.
5. Here’s former elected representative Tom Delay writing an article called DeLay Questions Dems’ Patriotism.
6. Here’s a Republican candidate for office questioning an elected Democrat’s patriotism.
7. Here’s Barack Obama, forced to defend his patriotism after it was questioned because of his refusal to wear a flag-pin.
8. Here’s a column purporting proof that Democrats are less patriotic than conservatives.
9. Here’s a Vice-Presidential questioning Barack Obama’s patriotism.
10. Here are Republican supporters questioning John Kerry’s patriotism by mocking his earned Purple Hearts in the Vietnam War.

Need I go on? A favorite attack of Republicans has been to question the patriotism of anybody that disagrees with them; to act as if that hasn’t happened ever is positively beyond absurd. Idiot.

Technorati Tags: Jon Henke, Patriotism, Republicans Democrats

John Cole’s Rage (Auto Bailout Fails)

Maybe I like John Cole because he’s a fellow Morgantownian, but I think it has more to do with his fury at Republicans. Once one himself, on the subject before, rightly observing that all of these contracts were legally signed and agreed to. For Republicans to claim now that the problem is the unions - when their own supporters, the management, agreed to the freakin’ contracts - is stupid. But of course, it seems clear that elected Republicans are determined to remind everybody that the only substantive ideas they’ve got involve hammering their usual bad guys: gays, blacks, unions. It is a party apparently bereft of ideas.

Well, almost bereft of ideas. Obviously, it had no problem making sure that the richest Americans got a $700 billion bailout. Because god forbid those folks not have their money; the real crime is when a union worker is paid a wage commensurate with the contract that was agreed to by his management. That’s what this comes down to. The Republicans bailed on the auto bailout because union workers wouldn’t immediately sacrifice their salaries, before the end of their contracts.

You won’t find any of the same rage from Republicans for AIG’s planned retention bonuses, which amount to millions of dollars for some employees. Incidentally, that money for AIG is coming straight out of our pockets. But again, the only important sacrifice is the one that can be made by a union member; we couldn’t possibly ask our whatever-the-hell AIG does professionals to sacrifice even a little bit.

Technorati Tags: Bailout, John Cole, Republicans, Unions

Bobby Jindal To Launch Culture War

I see with interest that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is apparently planning to run on a culture campaign in 2012. Specifically, he mentioned his attempts to shield his children from a - cue the scary music - coarsening culture.

The other day, I woke up early and was feeding my son while Mom and Trusted Source Alex remained asleep. He and I watched Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion. This was early in the morning on a weekend, and yet, there was the swearing and the innuendo. But what did I do? Nothing.

Had I actually been offended - instead of mildly taken aback - I might have changed the channel myself. But again, I wasn’t particularly peeved, and besides, the film is entertaining. Also, my son is shy of six months old; I can say or do anything I want in front of him, and as long as I’m making eye contact, he’ll giggle.

Eventually, the competing political parties will find a way to bridge the gap between their insanity on these issues, but ultimately, we individuals are, and should be, responsible for ourselves and our families. If I don’t want my daughter watching or listening to something in particular, I’ll prevent it from being in the house, either by not purchasing the offending material for her, or by growling at her to change the channel, “Because dammit, I’m sick of the madcap zaniness of Drake and Josh!”

The point isn’t that culture isn’t coarse, but rather that I’d prefer to be making the decisions about what and what isn’t shown in my house. (That was my attempt to wedge as many uses of “isn’t” into a single sentence. Impressed?) Bobby Jindal’s welcome to campaign on a need to wage war on a coarsening culture, but he’s going to have to overcome the American desire not to have personal decisions mandated, and he’s going to have to offer us an alternative. One of the foolish things cultural conservatives frequently do is suggest that American culture has gotten progressively coarser as we’ve moved forward in history, which means you have to accept the reverse logic that, going back in history, you’ll find less vulgarity.

That claim is absurd…well, unless you can watch Mad Men and find something to like about the people. But there is no way that Mad Men is a favorite of anybody remotely aligned with the Bobby Jindals of the world. Even if you consider the Mad Men example unfair (editor’s note: is is a modern day representation of life in the middle of the 20th century, rather than documentary footage!), the unbelievable way that women, blacks, and gays were treated by our culture is hardly worth revisiting. Anybody suggesting that we have a lot to learn from a decade like the 1950’s is implicitly suggesting acceptance of that particular time’s myriad of evils. Jindal should remember this, lest he run a hilarious campaign advocating for a culture in which he himself would have been expected to sit down, shut up, and tolerate whatever came his way from his alleged betters.

Technorati Tags: Bobby Jindal, Culture, Social Conservatism

Gay Marriage Again

Mitch the Killer has recently pointed out, “You’re writing about the same stuff.”

It was a good point. I have been writing about the same stuff. I acknowledge that it has to get boring after awhile, and I’m happy that so many of you keep stopping by, even though it’d be easy enough to say, “Should I read Sam’s site today? Naaaaah. He’ll just be angry about gay marriage again.” Admittedly, until gay marriage is legal and recognized in every state in the nation, I’ll probably still be fired up about it. However, let this post be the last I write on the issue until the next time it raises my hackles.

But I can’t help by be infuriated whenever I see someone having the audacity to give thanks for the social repression of a minority, as the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez happily does here:

It was the top of the month when the majority of voters in California approved a proposition that would protect the traditional definition of marriage in the state, in the face of renegade courts’ past struggles to redefine this fundamental building block of society. I’m grateful that even voters who most likely helped elect Barack Obama president can see the value in sacred, age-old institutions. I’m grateful that there are people like my friend Maggie Gallagher, who heads the National Organization for Marriage, and fights the good fight for the traditional idea of family, despite viciously unfair enemies and defeatist colleagues.

(An old website I had - www.insulted.org - used to house my attempted holy war against Maggie Gallagher. She just a horrible human being, happily dressing up her viciously anti-gay rhetoric in some of desperate attempt to save the American family. That she is routinely eviscerated by people whenever they examine her nonsense arguments is fantastic.) Let’s ignore the obvious: traditional marriage does not mean what she claims it does, and it never has. Let’s also ignore more obvious: that Kathryn Jean doesn’t advocate for the sorts of things that really would “protect” marriage, like Constitutional amendments banning divorce. Let’s focus briefly on that “unfair enemies” claim.

What in the hell does she mean? Is it unfair to point out that those opposed to gay marriage must hate gays if they’re going to legally ensure their second class citizenship? Is it unfair to oppose people when they attempt to impose their religious views onto nonbelievers? Is it unfair to fight back against nothing more than hate speech hidden behind Jesus’s robes? The answer to these questions is obviously no, there’s nothing at all unfair about fighting back against the sort of bile that Kathryn Jean Lopez and her cronies are responsible for. These people are setting America back, and no reasonable citizen of this nation should tolerate such offensive behavior.

Incidentally, Lopez is one of the many social conservatives who inexplicably believes that the response from gay marriage supporters to the Mormon Church has amounted to unfair behavior:

I’m grateful to live in a country where, although there are people who may run to TV news cameras bearing hateful, anti-Mormon signs and call in threats to Mormon temples because many of the Latter-day faithful supported the proposition, there are also those who will fight for religious liberty, like the folks at the Becket Fund. There are politicians who will speak in its defense, like Mitt Romney. He may get attacked unfairly, in some cases because he is Mormon, but he has a genuine moral core and ethical calling that sets him above petty criticism.

Ignore that crap about Mitt Romney; Lopez was in the tank for Romney for President since he first hinted at it, and she never dropped the torch for her “moral and ethical” candidate. If Lopez can’t figure out why people are pissed at the Mormons - a persecuted religious minority for the majority of their time in America, chased to Utah because nobody wanted to deal with their then racist and polygamous underpinnings, that turned on another minority that threatened the institution of marriage, while at the same time openly tolerating polygamy as long as nobody gets hurt - then she’s dumber than a sack of hammers. The Mormons deserve everything they’ve gotten so far, and hopefully, everything they’re going to get in the future. Eventually, the only thing that will be remembered about that particular church was its pigheaded opposition to gay marriage, not that it illegally demanded its adherents drop $20,000,000 into a state other than Utah in an attempt to “protect marriage.”

As I said earlier, I’ll drop this issue now. Until the next time somebody decides to act like a total moron. So…Monday, probably.

Technorati Tags: Gay Marriage, Mormons

You’re Misunderstanding The Freedom Of Religion

Apparently, there are social conservatives who have managed to turn the Constitution’s First Amendment promise of a Freedom of Religion into the Freedom To Get Whatever Policies We Want Whenever We Want. You can read this egregious misunderstanding here. The essence of the claim is simple enough: if laws are passed allow for things that (Some) Christians don’t personally approve of, they then are the victims of an infringement upon their religious beliefs.

And so we end up with the ludicrous claim that by allowing gay marriage, you have somehow infringed upon the religious freedoms of those who oppose gay marriage. This is obviously stupid, but it didn’t stop the National Review from claiming precisely that. Here’s the money quote (which is burning up the internet today):

Given their cavalier disregard for the freedom of conscience, it’s little surprise that the gay lobby is equally disdainful of democracy: They began pursuing legal challenges to Proposition 8 practically before they were done tallying the votes. Lamentably, the state attorney general defending the will of the people will be former Jerry Brown, the liberal former governor who was an open opponent of the measure and tried to sabotage it. The legal challenges will be heard by the same state Supreme Court that overturned California’s previous law forbidding gay marriage back in May. There’s a real possibility the will of the people will be spurned a second time, democracy be damned. They’ve already burned the Book of Mormon. The First Amendment is next.

There is a lot to respond to in that concluding paragraph. For example, it is a bit much to claim that the gay lobby is disdainful of democracy when every democratic mechanism that had previously allowed for gay marriage in California was described as being, at best, fascistic. Second, there’s no evidence that the people who burned the Book of Mormon did so because of gay issues…seriously:

Last week in a Denver suburb, someone lit a Book of Mormon on fire and dropped it on the doorstep of a Mormon temple, presumably as a statement about the church’s support of Proposition 8 in California, an initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

I went ahead and bolded the important word there. Third, what the editors mean by the First Amendment being “next,” is merely that gays are campaigning for something that (Some) Christians don’t approve of. But (Some) Christians aren’t being oppressed if they don’t get their way. The only thing that would happen if Proposition 8 were to be overturned is that these (Some) Christians wouldn’t be getting their way. You’ll excuse me if I don’t shed tears for the people hellbent on gay oppression losing.

American Family Association Demonizes Gays, Loses Voters

The American Family Association is worth supporting, because it’s one of the only American organizations focused on the real threat facing our nation: the homosexuals, their agenda, and their plan to take over your town. In case you’re not taking this threat seriously, read this:

Residents of the small Arkansas town of Eureka Springs noticed the homosexual community was growing. But they felt no threat. They went about their business as usual. Then, one day, they woke up to discover that their beloved Eureka Springs, a community which was known far and wide as a center for Christian entertainment–had changed. The City Council had been taken over by a small group of homosexual activists.

The Eureka Springs they knew is gone. It is now a national hub for homosexuals. Eureka Springs is becoming the San Francisco of Arkansas. The story of how this happened is told in the new AFA DVD “They’re Coming To Your Town.”

One of the first actions of the homosexual controlled City Council was to offer a “registry” where homosexuals could register their unofficial “marriage.” City Council member Joyce Zeller said the city will now be promoted, not as a Christian resort, but a city “selling peace, relaxation, history and sex.”

AFA’s “They’re Coming ToYour Town” documents the story of how and why this happened. And how homosexual activists plan to do the same in other towns.

That’s right - gays snuck out of the woods one night, overthrew a town, and turned it into the San Francisco of Arkansas. And they’re coming for you next. So stop worrying about threats like Islamist terrorists; the real threat is that guy down the street who has a really nicely maintained home, and the woman a few blocks over who’s a hell of a softball player.

Predictably, something this utterly stupid is absolutely burning up the internet today, and the concensus response seems to be twofold:

1. These people are idiots.
2. These people are marginalizing themselves and their political goals by tying conservatism and Republicanism to what amounts to nothing more than rabid gay hatred.

I obviously agree with 1. And 2? Americans are insular, and protective, and sometimes, we act like total morons, but eventually the right people win. The same people today who publish this kind of video were telling us fifty years ago that interracial marriage was an abombination, a hundred years ago that women voting was an abombination, and a hundred and fifty years ago that slavery was a very good idea. To put that another way, Kevin Drum argues about the fundamental damage that this socially conservative extremism is doing to the Republican/conservative brand:

There will always be plenty of votes for a culturally conservative party. That’s not the problem. The problem is the venomous, spittle-flecked, hardcore cultural conservatism that’s become the public face of the evangelical wing of the GOP. It’s the wing that doesn’t just support more stringent immigration laws, but that turns the issue into a hate fest against La Raza, losing 3 million Latino votes in the process. It’s the wing that isn’t just a little skittish about gay marriage, but that turns homophobia into a virtual litmus test, losing 6 million young voters in the process. It’s the wing that isn’t just religious, but that treats belief as a precondition to righteousness, losing 2 million secular voters in the process. It’s the wing that isn’t just nostalgic for old traditions, but that fetishizes the heartland as the only real America, losing 7 million urban voters in the process. It’s the wing that goes into a legislative frenzy over Terry Schiavo but six months later can barely rouse itself into more than a yawn over the destruction of New Orleans.

You’d think numbers like that would concern the party; you’d think numbers like that might compel the party to change course. You’d be right. Maybe not immediately, but as the Republican party continues to have less and less to do with small governments that don’t leave you alone, and more to do with massive governments that manage every aspect of your private life, they’re going to be progressively marginalized by American voters, especially if all the party is capable of doing is demonizing very small minorities for no good reason.

Briefly on Gay Marriage

-One argument that you’ll occasionally see from (Some) Christians is that the government does just as much to them, as a group, as those (Some) Christians do to gays. So for instance, you’ll hear, “Well, we banned gay marriage, sure, but they want our children to have sexual education classes in school.” The implication here is that we’re having some sort of tit-for-tat, and that for every aggression visited against these (Some) Christians, they get to visit some sort of aggression against whomever the threat is.

This is nonsense. Even if you are going to apply eye-for-an-eye thinking to the nation’s social debates - and God only knows why you’d want to do that - that sort of tit-for-tat thinking implies an equal exchange. But clearly, sexual education classes being made part of a school’s curriculum is light-years away from banning gay marriage.

If we were really having a genuine back and forth, gays would studiously work to ban Christians from getting married, and after accomplishing this goal, would see their own right to marry assaulted by Christians. Telling certain groups that they can no longer have access to particular civil rights isn’t the equivalent of sexual education being available.

In fact, nobody proposes any laws that reduces the aggregate freedoms of (Some) Christians. Even in the sexual education example, the parent can take their child out of public schools, or merely opt their child out of the specific classes. But nobody dare launch an assault against the freedom of Christians to marry, even if they’re responsible for the majority of American divorces and infidelities.

All gays want to do is receive the same legal protection from their government that straights can get for theirs; in other words, treat them fairly and otherwise leave them alone. It’s the same thing that any reasonable person asks for from their government. Pretending that this isn’t so, that gays owe (Some) Christians something because (Some) Christians have occasionally not gotten everything exactly the way they’d prefer them is silly in the extreme.

-I listened to Sufjan Stevens’ “The Transfiguration” to write this post, and then the song “Halleleujah.” Both are religious songs. They helped to get me in the mood.

Reasonable People To Sarah Palin: *Slap*

I’d be anxious for the response from any McCain supporters regarding this. Sarah Palin claims, outrageously, that Obama represents a socialist state, ignoring the last eight years and the downright socialist behavior of our current administration. Of course, what else can we expect? These people have radically different standards for themselves than they do for anybody else.

The Rules For Us and The Rules For You

Republicans have always been very, very clear about the following: there is one set of rules for all of us who don’t agree with them, and there is a radically different set of rules for themselves. There are two excellent examples floating around the internet right now.

Douthat’s Pathetic Take on Joe the Plumber
Graeme Frost was a 12-year-old child who was featured in advertising supporting the SCHIP program, which was basically a program designed to provide health insurance to children. Offended that a child would dare cross them, the conservative blogosphere investigated the Frost’s life, decided that the child didn’t need health insurance, and called the kid’s parents all sorts of names. Read about it here.

Cut to Joe the Plumber, a guy on a ropeline who asked Obama a question. The candidate’s answer, taken wildly out of context from the get go, lead John McCain to mention Joe the Plumber fifteen thousand times during the candidates’ final debate. So what does the left-wing blogosphere do? They give Joe the Plumber the Graeme Frost treatment. Ross Douthat finds that appalling.

“They’re totally different!” He argues. “Joe the Plumber didn’t volunteer like the boy did! He just asked a question! And even though John McCain’s at fault for bringing up twenty-six thousand times in one debate, he deserved better. Even though he was basking in the temporarily warm glow of the media spotlight. But more importantly, he supports a conservative candidate for office, so you can’t treat him as disrespectfully as my side treated the boy and his family! There are different rules for us!”

Douthat’s behavior is as shameless as it is predictable. (For real fun, go dig up Michelle Malkin’s destruction of Graeme followed by her first class hissy fit about Joe the Plumber.) Different rules. That’s what this comes down to. These people want to be able to slander, slam, criticize, unbraid, and eviscerate anybody they please, but expect to be left alone whenever they stray beyond reason. Different rules.

But there’s a better example of this Republican mindset:

John McCain’s Empty Soul
Remember the evil of the robocalls in South Carolina that suggest McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually the product of…dun, dun, DUN…a interracial fling he’d had? Remember how offensive it was that George W. Bush’s campaign would slime another candidate like that? Well forget whatever sympathy you had for McCain on that one, because his campaign, employing the same people who ran the robocalls against him, are doing precisely the same thing to Barack Obama.

It’s gotten so bad that Fox News - Fox News!!! - questioned the Senator’s behavior. Predictably, he punted, claiming that the questions his robocalls were asking voters to think about - like the we’re-not-quite-sure-we-need-to-think-about-this-some-more, “Barack Obama is a terrorist!” phonecall - is the sort of thing that voters need to know about. Seriously, here’s the transcript:

WALLACE: But Senator, back — if I may, back in 2000 when you were the target of robo calls, you called these hate calls and you said…

MCCAIN: They worked.

WALLACE: … and you said the following, “I promise you, I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic.”

Now you’ve hired the same guy who did the robo calls against you to — reportedly, to do the robo calls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robo calls. Will you do that?

MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful, and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that — things that this is — this is dramatically different, and either you haven’t — didn’t see those things in 2000…

I went ahead and bolded part of that for you. You know why robocalls are tolerable to McCain now, but they weren’t in 2000? Because they’re working for him. He’s clawing his way back into the race, and if it means throwing away every shred of respectability he ever once had, it doesn’t bother him a bit.

Some people argue, including Douthat, that Obama supporters should stop whining, that everything’s fair in politics. But its only fair if both sides get to do it; whinging whenever its done to you while wholeheartedly embracing it when you’re doing it to the other guy is hypocrisy beyond all reason. There’s no reason to pretend otherwise.

Douthat meanwhile…he can pretend he’s different, but unless he starts facing up to his party’s worst instincts (like everything they’re busy doing right now) instead of blaming his opposition for them, he’s more of the same, in a somewhat younger frame. Big whoop.

McCain’s As Classy As Ever

John McCain, responding to Obama’s staggering $150 million haul during September fundraising:

“History shows us where unlimited amounts of money are in political campaigns, it leads to scandal,” McCain said…

Who says this guy isn’t classy? He just insinuated that Barack Obama is getting his money via illegal means. Between that and alleging that Obama’s trying to perpetrate the biggest fraud in American electoral history, what won’t this sad old man say? Absolutely pathetic. Everybody supporting this guy owes us an explanation for their support of this disgusting candidate and his pathetic attacks.