) affirms that his sect of Athiesm does indeed reject the idea of an "absolute morality" and is, indeed, rather alarmed by the whole thing.  |
| Courtesy Derp.com |
"UNBELIEVABLE - Don't you people understand this is just what everyone expected and were waiting to happen!!!," one upset tea partier commented to Cucci's post. "Now everything we have fought so hard to accomplish will be wiped out by one headline 'Tea Party in Maine Eats It's Own'"None dare call it "Jesuetical."
A Catholic "scholar" attempts to create an algebraic proof of the inferiority of homosexual marriage.
In the entry, "Counterexamples to Relativity," the authors (including Schlafly) write:
The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.[1]
To what does that reference lead? Why, a note by Schlafly:
See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-foldMeanwhile, somewhere on the Road To Damascus...
"How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse."
GOP Politician Confirms What Was Long Suspected: Republicans Intentionally Feed the Racism, Anger, and Paranoia of the Far RightAnd then there was the digg censorship scandal and the increasing drumbeats for war against Iran, against all common sense and military wisdom.
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| I disapprove of chromefishtians. I call them that to set them apart from people that have read, understood and follow the things Christ actually said. |
Yep, I do adore it when people who stand foresquare against doing one single damn thing Jesus ever said to do, in regard to the poor, the suffering, the orphan, the widow and the stranger at your gate promanently label themselves so you can quietly choose to do business with someone reputable.To paraphrase Louis CK – it’s true, people are just different in Oklahoma.
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| A Canadian Icon, the world around. Photo Credit: Mrs Logic |
Senior RCMP members have complained about Commissioner William Elliott to some of the highest levels of the federal government on two separate occasions in the past seven days, CBC News has learned.Now, I'm sure there are many problems and I'm equally sure there is more than enough blame to go around. However - and of all people, Mr. Harper should understand this - how you go about dealing with a problem, and how your approach is perceived by the people and institutions you see as being problematic may well make it impossible to do anything useful whatsoever.
Senior RCMP members have complained about Commissioner William Elliott to some of the highest levels of government on two separate occasions in the past week. (Canadian Press)
The complainants, possibly as many as 10, include some of the force's top officers, including deputy commissioners Tim Killam and Raf Souccar.
They have accused Elliott of being verbally abusive, closed-minded, arrogant and insulting. One complaint described Elliott, who became the first civilian to head the Mounties in July 2007, in a rage, throwing papers at another officer.
The Prime Minister's Office didn't deny the complaints were made but declined to comment Monday. Neither Elliott nor the deputies would comment.
"The RCMP is a very hierarchical organization, where people respect the rank," said Linda Duxbury, a professor at Carleton University who wrote a study on the Mounties and their command.
For members to go outside the force with "a complaint against the head of the RCMP means that many people have been pushed beyond a point where they're willing to tolerate it," she said.
Fate rests with PM
The apparent protest against the commissioner comes a month after Canada's top spy, CSIS director Richard Fadden, made comments to CBC News that the agency had two provincial cabinet ministers and a number of municipal politicians under surveillance for their relationships with foreign governments.
Both Elliott and Fadden were appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and their fate rests with him. The CBC's Brian Stewart, who has followed the Mounties for decades, said the RCMP protest is unprecedented.
Harper will have to sort out whether this is a valid protest by top RCMP staff or whether Elliott has made a lot of enemies trying to reform the organization, he said.
"That's what the prime minister is probably going to have to sort out very quickly and then decide, I think, which force is going to have to go: either the commissioner or the group protesting against him," Stewart said.
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two earlier films. In Poppy (1936), he tells his daughter, "If we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you just one bit of fatherly advice: Never give a sucker an even break!" he tells a customer that his grandfather's last words, "just before they sprung the trap" were, "You can't cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump." |
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| Infographic by The Big Picture |
"Goldline International is under investigation by the Santa Monica City Attorney’s office, jointly with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, as well as being the subject of a separate investigation by Congress into the possible criminal practices. The firm has been the subject of an ABC Nightline News Exposé, as well as an investigation by NY Congressman Weiner).Goldline is not selling gold bullion. It's selling gold coins with some (debatable) collector's value, at a mark-up that would make an ordinary coin dealer gape in envy.
Want to annoy Fox News' Glenn Beck in five minutes or less while simultaneously making sure your community gets its fair share of federal money? Fill out and return the 2010 U.S. Census questionnaire when it arrives in your mailbox.Few other issues seem to whip media conservatives into a frenzy of misinformation and half-baked conspiracy theories like the decennial count of Americans.You see, for the world of "conservative journalism," the census is a manifestation of everything they fear. Put yourself in their shoes: Obama's administration is hell-bent on imposing a socialist-fascist-communist-totalitarian-Marxist police state, and now he's sending us all mail! Even worse, Obama's thugs may show up at your door to get a more accurate count.Why wait for the third installment of the Twilight franchise when you've got these scary bloodsuckers wanting to ... gulp ... count you?To hear Beck tell it, the Census is just part of the "modern day slave state." Hardly surprising for a man who has called President Obama a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people" and claimed Obama's policies in general are driven by little more than "reparations" and a desire to "settle old racial scores."
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| Given the way politics have been drifting in the direction of NeoConservatism and NeoFeudalism, I think Edmund Burke himself would consider crossing the aisle. |
Since I don't let an ideology do my thinking for me, I don't really care what positions fall under which label. I really, just DON'T CARE. I'm not trying to Liberal here, I'm just trying to be RIGHT. (As in "correct," not "wing.") And the way I see our modern discourse going, there are really only two groups:
One is very strictly and narrowly defined, and I've written about them here here here and here, for example. And to be with this crowd, you must accept EVERY bit of Dogma, even the ones that contradict other ones, you must swallow every lie, accept every bit of obviously questionable evidence, and utterly reject ANY evidence or argument to the contrary of ANY point. What's more you must accuse your opponents of committing all of the sins you do, and you must HATE them, because they are out to destroy this country. You must believe in your own perfection and the perfection of your positions and that you have a mandate from God that justifies this belief. At worst, the weakest in this camp merely keep quiet, fail to criticise the big-talkers, and silently tell themselves that it will all, somehow be OK, since at least the OTHER GUY'S not winning.
Then they're are people who can't abide this kind of insanity. And almost regardless of what positions they actually hold, the people in the first camp call them "Liberals" and demonize them.This is rather what I was thinking when I wrote Crossing the Aisle in Defense of the the Social Contract over at Politicususa..
So, from my POV, there are really on two school's of thought: Radical, Right-Wing Reactionary Authoritarianism... ...and those who reject it.
They have robbed the words "conservative" and "liberal" of any real meaning. Not that I care... I don't really buy into labels... ...which apparently makes me a Liberal.
There's been a good deal of musing online about what truly is meant by freedom and liberty. As the Tea Party sorts quite reasonably point out, the whole movement was started by Libertarians. And whatever you may feel about Libertarians in general, it is indisputable that Libertarianism places a great deal of emphasis on individual liberty. An excerpt from this wonderful article, Conservatives v. Libertarians: the debate over judicial activism divides former allies, illustrates the tensions within what often seems to be a monolith of "No."...[T]hey founded both a nation and established a Constitution that was, indeed, a codified social contract, remarkably well-annotated as to it’s intent, as perfect as the times permitted and designed to allow amendments as times and and need required. It was a recognition that the individual was the foundation of and the entire rationale for the state, that all justice and all rationale for governance flowed from them. When that essential truth is lost, when position and power depend upon the whims of a foreign court or personal fortunes, there is no such thing as liberty; merely degrees of licence, of increasing expense and exclusivity.Granted, these ideas were indeed Liberal. Scandalously so. But that was more than 200 years ago and in general, it has worked out well. The principles of the American Revolution – it’s foundational ideas – have taken root worldwide, and not so much due to might, but due to the fact that it works. And as a person of reflexively conservative nature, I assert:“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”All that is required is the acceptance that all people are of inherent worth, that each is due individual respect from their peers and their governments and that each person is to be presumed, unless otherwise demonstrated, capable of moral agency, and that the principle duty of government is in fact to safeguard and expand that liberty.I once thought this to be the great common understanding of Conservatism. For that document is foundational to the social compact that is the United States. The principles it’s based in are basic to what every other Conservative who does not dismiss the Enlightenment as a brief aberration are the essence of Western Civilization. The rule of law, the concept of the inalienable rights of man and, yes, a sharp separation between Church and State, lest the two be come one thing that serves neither end at all well. That, if you might recall, casting back on most of human history, is a nearly unavoidable conclusion.At any rate, if a Social Contract is Liberal while ditching the Constitution and the New Deal is Conservative – I guess it’s time for me to cross the Aisle.
One of the first libertarians to challenge the conservatives' pro-government stance was the political scientist Stephen Macedo, who wrote a short book for the Cato Institute in 1986 with the provocative title The New Right v. The Constitution. Macedo argued that Bork, Meese, and their allies had turned the American system on its head. As he put it, "When conservatives like Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."Now, of course economic liberty is an important concept. But economic liberty is not the only form of liberty; indeed, if it's restricted only to the concepts of income and property, it essentially defines most people as being relatively un-free. This is why more left-leaning Libertarians take the seemingly surprising step of supporting collectively-funded, single payer health-care and indeed, something along the lines of a Guaranteed Annual Income. After all, if you do believe that economic freedom is fundamental - then obviously it must cost something to ensure.
It would be difficult to overstate the role that the Cato Institute has played in critiquing Bork's majoritarian conservatism and in pushing the conservative legal movement in a more libertarian direction. In addition to publishing Macedo's book and producing numerous widely read articles and studies, Cato hosted a seminal October 1984 conference devoted to the topic of "Economic Liberties and the Constitution" Among the participants were the University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, who argued that the judiciary should play an active role in defending economic liberty (much as it did in Lochner), and Antonin Scalia, then a federal appeals court judge, who advanced the Borkean view that the courts should defer to the political branches on such matters. "The Supreme Court decisions rejecting substantive due process in the economic field are clear, unequivocal and current," Scalia declared. He added that "in my view the position the Supreme Court has arrived at is good--or at least that the suggestion that it change its position is even worse."
In response, Epstein argued that under the Scalia-Bork interpretation, "it is up to Congress and the states to determine the limitations of their own power--which, of course, totally subverts the original constitutional arrangement of limited government." The Scalia-Bork view, Epstein said, ignores the Constitution's "many broad and powerful clauses designed to limit the jurisdiction of both federal and state governments," such as the Commerce Clause, which authorizes Congress to "regulate commerce ... among the several states." He said the Borkeans also ignore clauses "designed to limit what the states and the federal government can do within the scope of their admitted power," such as the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause, which says private property may not be taken for public use without "just compensation," and the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause (on which Lochner relied) and Privileges or Immunities Clause, which says states may not "abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens." Taking those provisions seriously, Epstein argued, requires "some movement in the direction of judicial activism" on behalf of economic rights.
This debate brought the conservative-libertarian divide into the spotlight. "That's why the conference was so important as a benchmark," Roger Pilon says. "For the first time, libertarians threw down the gauntlet."
Even if every single thing D.A.R.E. and the various "drug warriors" said about slippery slopes and inappropriateness for medical use were factual (a matter of some considerable dispute between those who care more than I, one way or the other), the unregulated consequences predicted by the pearl-clutching nannies would still be less severe than the current state of affairs.Arguably, that could be described as what the situation is, in the Untied States - an evident lack of meaningful, effective government, at vast expense, to contrary ends, with no respect for either the economic or personal liberties of any person. And I do honor the Tea Party folks for initially recognizing the issue... but at the moment, their reflexive policy is not political, it is cultural. And their culture - akin to many on the Left, like the Black Bloc - is to simply smash shit they don't like.
This is leaving aside the entire question as to whether people should be "permitted" to use drugs - since it's clearly failed to change drug usage in any detectable way, it's my presumption that the war is exactly what it seems to be - an ongoing war against people, and that the violence and repression is not a means to an end, it is the entire point.
I refer to it as the "Bigger Hammer" theory of governance. If things don't go as you desire, if people don't behave as you think they should, pull out your biggest hammer and hit them as hard as you can. I'm quite certain I've referred to it as the Gallagher School of Public Policy. I had no actual idea at the time that it is also Gallagher's idea of Public Policy. Go figure.
So like I said above, the whole point is to smash shit. That's the whole act. Smash shit, say something viciously stupid, and the audience laughs nervously. Confuse that with approval, and carry on.
Libertarians and the censusBut that's a policy wonk blog. Very perceptive - indeed, perhaps too perceptive to quite grasp the Harper government's essential thinking... to be charitable about it.
The announced reasons for making the 2011 census long form voluntary is that it is 'intrusive' and that it is 'coercive' to make it mandatory. If this were the the position of a principled, reality-based libertarian government, then it would be a powerful argument. But it isn't.
while many voters won’t notice or care about what happens to the census, “it will resonate deeply with certain swathes of voters by communicating to them that this government shares their suspicion of stats and the pointy-headed, out-of-touch academics who analyze them,” he writes.Of course, a conservatism that depends upon being insulated from reality and which takes steps to gut meaningful review of it's policies is barely distinguishable from an autocracy.
Because, for conservative activists and intellectuals, what is “truly infuriating to them is the suspicion that these types of knowledge play a role in actively cultivating non-conservative values and a public philosophy that acknowledges a role for government in addressing and reducing certain structural inequalities of society,” Prof. Saurette writes.
“The less visible these structural issues are, the less likely it is that advocacy groups will be able to persuade Canadians that government programs are necessary. The less government programs seem necessary, the less government itself seems valuable. And the less government itself seems valuable, the more likely it is that conservative market-oriented values and principles can flourish.”
For the media-savvy Breitbart, it’s an unalloyed triumph—even better than last year’s redacted videos of a fake pimp and prostitute seeking business advice from ACORN, which resulted in Congress voting to defund the community group. But lest anyone think he’s savoring his moment in the sun, he says think again.
“I hate this!” Breitbart told me Wednesday morning. “I feel bad for this lady.”Well, as they say, sincerity is the key to success. Once you can fake that, the world's your oyster. Grove continues, apparently capable of processing such an enormity with a straight face.
“[Breitbart's source] told me about this back in early April—he said ‘I just heard a really sensitive speech, where this lady recounts this story and the entire audience affirms it,’ ” Breitbart said about the unidentified man who provided the video of Sherrod’s March 27 speech, adding that he can’t explain the highly selective editing. “I don’t know this person. I can’t divine what that person’s motivation was. I don’t know.”
In the full video—which Breitbart has since posted as well—Sherrod tells NAACP members about her experience decades ago as a case-worker for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund helping a financially strapped white farmer, and how she overcame her own prejudices to embrace the notion that whites and blacks share common interests and problems. “When I made that commitment, I was making that commitment to black people and to black people only,” Sherrod tells the crowd. “But [with God’s grace] you realize that the struggle is really about poor people.”
I asked Breitbart if he regretted posting the redacted video: Wouldn’t the full context of Sherrod’s words be considered exculpatory? “’Exculpatory’ is in the eye of the beholder,” Breitbart answered. He stoutly defended his redacted video, claiming that the audience’s approving response to Sherrod’s confession—of initially not wanting to help the white farmer more than minimally necessary—demonstrates that the NAACP is guilty of the same racially charged attitudes for which the civil-rights organization recently slammed Tea Party activists.
Within hours of Breitbart’s post, Fox News stars such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity were inaccurately presenting her remarks as though they reflected the current policy at the Department of Agriculture, and demanded her head on a pike. Weirdly, the NAACP, which had access to her full remarks, joined in calling for Sherrod’s resignation—and Vilsack followed suit.Oh of COURSE it's a triumph! Yep. If that's what you need to tell yourself. And of course, by the way, the full version of the tape PROVES that "reverse racism" is a terrible, terrible problem, and that black people are out to get "whitey." Didn't people applaud when Shirley Sherrod revealed that she hadn't "gone the extra mile" for a white farm family? Well that proves she's a racist!
In the full video—which Breitbart has since posted as well—Sherrod tells NAACP members about her experience decades ago as a case-worker for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund helping a financially strapped white farmer, and how she overcame her own prejudices to embrace the notion that whites and blacks share common interests and problems. “When I made that commitment, I was making that commitment to black people and to black people only,” Sherrod tells the crowd. “But [with God’s grace] you realize that the struggle is really about poor people.”
I asked Breitbart if he regretted posting the redacted video: Wouldn’t the full context of Sherrod’s words be considered exculpatory? “’Exculpatory’ is in the eye of the beholder,” Breitbart answered. He stoutly defended his redacted video, claiming that the audience’s approving response to Sherrod’s confession—of initially not wanting to help the white farmer more than minimally necessary—demonstrates that the NAACP is guilty of the same racially charged attitudes for which the civil-rights organization recently slammed Tea Party activists.That's the message the people who like Breitbart want to hear. But, you know, they really don't need him to tell them. They can pull it right out of a Media Matters interview. The truth is irrelevant.
timeisnow (The Daily Beast Forums)
She is a racists, the tape was not edited, which would mean the tape was tampered with. When she refers that she gave the white guy to one of his own kind, that is sooooo offensive to a white person, who are you kidding.
The fact in Media Matters interview she was very Racist shows how racist she really is. She also admitted she didnt help him the best she could have, again thats racist... pay attention and stop making excuses, thats the double standard Breitbart is talking about.Breitbart - and Beck, and Limbaugh and Boortz and quite a few others make quite a nice living serving up the stupid for those who want to be told what they want to hear. I'm starting to think that there ought to be some recourse, beyond economic pressure, for those who feel the public airwaves are being abused for private profit at the expense of the Social Contract. This clearly exceeded the bounds of protected speech; it was a deliberate and malicious ploy, performed with the clear intent to do grave, personal and unjust harm; disrupt the administration and deprive it of a surprisingly poised and competent civil servant.
"We were snookered," [into believing that Ms Sherrod made racist remarks] Benjamin Jealous, the NAACP president, noted ruefully.Apparently nobody considered the source, and there were those involved who should know very well that Brietbart is in fact a committed political enemy - a propagandist, not a journalist.
Industry Minister Tony Clement has dismissed growing calls for him to reverse his decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census, saying he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are on the same page on the issue.
"There's not a micron of difference of opinion between myself and the prime minister on this," Clement told the CBC's Rosemary Barton in an interview on Power & Politics with Evan Solomon.
During the interview from London, Clement said the government has taken a "compromise position" between privacy concerns and ensuring usable data from the next census in May 2011. Clement's comments came a day after Munir Sheikh, the head of Statistics Canada, the national statistical agency, resigned in protest over the move to scrap the mandatory survey.
The Conservatives have been on the defensive since Clement announced at the end of June that the long-form part of the 2011 census would no longer be mandatory because of privacy concerns. Canadians who receive the long form would be able to refuse to fill it out.
The furor escalated after Sheikh cancelled a planned town hall meeting with Statistics Canada staff, then announced Wednesday evening on the agency's website he was resigning over the issue.
In his statement, Sheikh insisted a voluntary survey cannot be a substitute for the mandatory form.I'm philosophically opposed to pandering to our tin-foil party fringes. And that is all this seems to be about. Considering how well things have gone south of the border with that strategy.
Let me make this utterly clear: What you see on Fox News, what you read on Right Wing websites, is the utter and complete perversion of journalism, and it can have no place in a civilized society. It is words crashed together, never to inform, only to inflame. It is a political guillotine. It is the manipulation of reality to make the racist seem benevolent, and to convict the benevolent as racist — even if her words must be edited, filleted, stripped of all context, rearranged, fabricated, and falsified, to do so.
What you see on Fox News, what you read on Right Wing websites… is a manipulation. Not just of a story, not just on behalf of a political philosophy. Manipulation of a society, its intentional redirection from reality and progress, to a paranoid delusion and the fomenting of hatred of Americans by Americans. And nearly every last word of it is never, in any tangible sense, true. Ask Shirley Sherrod.
But this evil has not become institutionalized just because of the hard, soul-less work of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes and the scum Breitbart. Our society has not bought into the premise of this 24-hour parade of feces dressed up as news just because of a clever marketing plan. The assassins of the Right have been enabled on the Left.
The legitimate media didn't first look at the whole videotape. We didn't first ask if the doctored clip perverted by the scum Breitbart didn't seem to be leading up to a "however." We didn't, even today, when even this network let this pornographer of propaganda Breitbart come on and spew his lies and his venom and his fraudulent self-defense like a quack doctor attending a life-or-death surgery, we didn't once…consider the source.
I will take a liberal over a progressive or communitariast any day. Too bad the liberal party has been taken over by radicals who used to live in communes, wear flowers in their hair, hate the establishment, call the military baby-killers, call the police pigs, burned their brains with acid, pot, and cocaine, and said that you should never trust anybody over the age of 30.Yep. Those people, who protested the war, marched with MLK, campaigned for Bobby Kennedy, worked their asses off to pass the Equal Rights Amendment; those who bled and puked during the Stonewall Riots; those who stood up intending only to mildly assert out that rivers should not catch on fire all by themselves, that air should not be poisonous, that water should not be toxic, that equal access to education is a damn right, and if it ain't, it ought to be; those that championed the rights of the disabled, those that spoke up against racism... hell, those who fought and died side by side under the bombs of the Stukas, the first to die in hopes of arresting the Fascist tide - these are YOUR people, Sir!
Great group.
