Religion, moral conscience and health care

The Washington Post has an article up concerning a new Bush rule winding its way through the government towards becoming the law of the land.

A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting health-care workers who object to abortion, and to birth-control methods they consider tantamount to abortion, has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients' rights.

You can read the article for more specific information on this, but the short of it is that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. under this new rule can refuse to provide services to patients who desire them based on their own personal religious views. In other words, if a pharmacist is personally anti-birth control, then he can refuse to sell the pill, condoms, etc. If a nurse is anti-abortion and considers "plan B" abortion, then she can refuse to administer it to a rape victim. If an ambulance driver does not believe in being exposed to a woman who was having her period when she was ill then he would not have to give care to that woman.

That, on the surface, sounds quite reasonable. Why be forced to do something that you find morally reprehensible personally? But here is the problem:

What do you do about a white person who refuses to give care to a black person? It was only a mere few decades ago that that moral reprehension was in effect. Do we bring that back for white doctors who refuse to treat black patients on moral grounds? The same goes for gay patients, patients of another religion which is found to be "satanic" in its origin?

Just where do you draw the line when it comes to personal religious morals and those patients who violate them? Do you say it is acceptable to not give plan B to a patient, but not acceptable to refuse treatment to a black man?

No, the only real solution, and the real rule Bush and Co. should be pushing through is this: If you are not willing to fulfill all your duties as a doctor/nurse/pharmacist by giving your patients all that they require, then you should consider another line of work.

Family Research Council Misses The Point Yet Again

Tony Perkins' Washington Update has this blurb:

Bench Pressing: Equality CA Urges Court to Strike Initiative

The clock is ticking on California's brief honeymoon with same-sex "marriage," and homosexual activists are doing everything in their power to make the court's May 15 verdict permanent. In a last-ditch effort to rob the people of their input in November, advocates of homosexual "marriage" are asking the high court to strike down the marriage protection amendment before it reaches the ballot. Using a tactic that same-sex couples test-drove in Oregon, the groups argue that the initiative "would change the state's Constitution so profoundly that it would amount to a revision." Unlike a simple amendment, a revision--as defined by California law--would require both voters' approval and that of the legislature. When liberals used this same argument to overturn the marriage protection amendment in Oregon last month, it failed. The court of appeals upheld the amendment, sending a powerful message on the effectiveness of a constitutional amendment defining marriage.

This week, Equality California is fine-tuning the strategy, suggesting that "if enacted, [the ballot initiative] would eviscerate the principle of equal citizenship for gay and lesbian people and strip the courts of their authority to enforce basic constitutional guarantees." (Translation: We recognize that the people of California oppose homosexual "marriage," and we'll use every possible loophole to circumvent the democratic process). Unfortunately for same-sex proponents, judicial activism may be common in California's courts, but the nullification of ballot initiatives is not. As the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out, justices seldom intervene once an amendment has qualified for the ballot. Obviously Equality California is more afraid of the people's verdict than the court's. Join us in making more Californians aware of what's at stake this fall. Log on to www.frc.org/marriage to order your free marriage protection kit!

Just how many falsehoods and scare words did you see?
To show you exactly how absurd this line of argument really is, let us take that first sentence and change its meaning a tiny little bit: "The clock is ticking on California's brief honeymoon with [emancipation of slaves] and [abolitionists] are doing everything in their power to make the court's May 15 verdict permanent." If the subject were changed to reinstituting slavery, and that lying on a popular vote then slavery can simply be made legal by a popular vote. You cannot simply vote and take away the equality and rights of one group of people just because they happen to be a bit different in some aspect. Yet this is exactly what FRC and the California initiative are doing. They are attempting to repeal the civil rights equalization of gays. It is no different than the Jim Crow laws of the south and their fighting the entire civil rights movement of blacks.

This sentence repeats the inanity: "(Translation: We recognize that the people of California oppose homosexual "marriage," and we'll use every possible loophole to circumvent the democratic process). " Let me translate the translation: If a majority of Californians vote to kill all the citizens of Los Angeles and burn them for fuel, then the democratic process rules! And cheap energy to boot!! Unfortunately that completely ridiculuous analogy completely shows just how brilliant our founding fathers were and how ignorant the FRC and Tony Perkins. For if you were to use Tony's "logic" regarding our true democratic process, then he would support the murdering of every Los Angelean for fuel if California voted for it. Our founding fathers put in a safeguard against that "majority rules" abuse and desecration of the minority. It is those very same "activist" courts!

What if 50.1% of Americans voted to permanantly ban Tony Perkins to some desolate area of Antartica permanantly? would he look to "activist" courts to stay the decision, or would he just shrug his shoulders and say ok?


Look, its all very simple. America will adjust to this just like they did when it came to the civil rights movement of the 50s/60s. Equality is inevitable in the psyche of America. Some fight it, but they are on the losing end, as American history has shown. Opposite-sex marriages are not in the process of losing their value to their participants. It is just that their next door neighbors who happen to be gay, now have the exact same rights as they do.

Same-Sex Marriage.. A Question

Considering the complete apoplexy of the Family Researh Council over the recent California Supreme Court decision to allow same sex marriage. One has to wonder the simple..


Just what is the reason to fight same-sex marriage? I have been waiting for years for an actual reason, but I have yet to hear even the most modest of excuses/reasons. So what is it?


I mean I hear some railing about 'traditional' marriage, but we all know that reality shows there is no such thing. "Traditional" marriage has changed so much over the centuries... We've had plural marriages, arranged marriages, same-race marriages, "shotgun" weddings. Then there is the issue of divorce; is it Mosiac? Is it Pauline? Is it Jesusian? Is it a product of the 19th century? Is it modern? Is it Catholic pre-Vatican II or post? There seems to be nothing in the standard vernacular of 'traditional' which actually is traditional. Even the man-woman thing is flexible in history. The Greeks and Romans had differing views on this. Even Judeo-Christian views are highly flexible on this; what represented same-sex protectorate companionship and what difference from this was marriage? Jesus and his disciples? Jesus and the one specific disciple "whom he loved"? Paul and Titus? There is nothing there either in terms of male companionship and wedded protectorship at all.


So just what is the fierce apprehension of fundamentalist Christians to same-sex marriage? How does it 'destroy' the institution of marriage for all those currently wedded opposite-sex marriages?

Sometimes I hear non-sensical posturings about it being "harmful/detrimental" to children. Or that it will cause sexual-identity problems in children. Both of these are are unfounded and fear-mongering to boot. If children of straight parents have no sexual identity problems, then there would be no gays at all. That is so bleedingly obvious, I cannot fathom that that excuse is ever even honestly made. Gay parents do not make gay children. Gay parents make children who take their own paths and respect those who take other paths, because they understand them. Gay parents raise more straight children than they do gay children.

But there is one argument against gays and same sex marriage that does make sense. Hatred of gays and the desire to keep them pinned down as second-class citizens not deserving of the same rights and priveledges as straights. How could I possibly argue against blind hatred?

I cannot. The hatred of gays will always remain among these people. There is no arguing that and no changing that. They hate and they struggle to make their hatred the law of the land.

They have that right. They can continue to hate on gays and actively try to keep gays from enjoying the very same rights and priveledges they benefit from. They can do that.

But the same is true of those of us who support gay rights. We can fight and proclaim as well.

So then, just what is the problem with allowing others to live their lives as they want and enjoy the exact same rights as we enjoy?

The answer seems to be, as always, that these fundie Christians want to force their personal beliefs on all the rest of us.

And do you think that will stop with same sex marriage?

Let them profess, proclaim, and pursue activism all they want. That is their right. Just don't let them write their views into all of our laws.

Really. I am interested in knowing why this is so bad.

Possible Republican VP Bobby Jindal

Over at Crooks & Liars, Nicole Belle shares with us a clip of possible Repub Veep Bobby Jindal. Head there for the clip. This quote is what interested me. As you know I am a scientist and love science in all its branches. Biology however seems to be the one singled out for attack by fundamental Christians (Republicans pretty much frown on all science...)

As a parent, when my kids go to schools, when they go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking. I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves. I want them to see the best data. I personally think that the life, human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator. I’m a Christian. I do think that God played a role in creating not only earth, but mankind. Now, the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want them to be–I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness. The way we’re going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also let them contribute to that body of knowledge.

I thought it would be fun to pick this apart line by line and show just how absurd (and often self-contradictory) it is. Idiocy seems to hold more value than fact and reality when it comes to Republican science policy.

As a parent, when my kids go to schools, when they go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking. Translation: School vouchers, baby! Send my kids to private Christian schools on public tax dollars and let all public schools die a starved death.

I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves. Translation: I want them to make the exact same decisions as me regardless of what they are taught. For example, no real sex education, only abstinence only edumacatin' for my kids....

I want them to see the best data. Translation: I want them to only see the data I approve of and not that of the real world. For example, they will only get abstinence only education; none of that safe-sex nonsense.

I personally think that the life, human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. Translation: All evidence to the contrary, they will only learn what I was taught to believe no matter what new evidence has arisen.

I do think that there’s a creator. Translation: Teach God in schools even if other parents do not want their children to have your own personal flavor of religion forced upon their own children; that is their tough luck.

I'm a Christian. I do think that God played a role in creating not only earth, but mankind. Translation: Forget all that factual sciency stuff. Teach Genesis in our schools! Just because there is a mountain of evidence and a working theory of evolution (just as --if not more so -- than gravity) means that I can ignore all the anti-gravity and other science flaws in the bible, if I can deny reality and teach biblical fantasy in classrooms in the form of creationism.

Now, the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. Translation: I want my kids exposed to the very worst non-science, but only if it can be called 'science'.

I don’t want them to be–I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness. Translation: Teach them any and all crazy theories and let their untrained newly-forming intellects defer all judgement to that of their equally uneducated and scientifically-illiterate parents. Hell, let's throw in geo-centrism and angels-pushing-down-on-all-objects as an alternative to gravity while we're at it -- oh and don't forget to throw in flat-earthism as well. Those are all also equally credible (to creationism) alternative 'scientific' theories too.

The way we’re going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also let them to that body of knowledge. Translation: Mix shoddy non-scientific junk in with the factual real-world premiere science, claim the two viewpoints are equal and on the same factual footing, then set these kids free to: build our airplanes, powerplants, and perform our medical research, of the future. Surely, God's laying on of hands and prayer has the same potency to cure diseases as bare-knuckle hard fact-based research does.

This is what you can expect from the creme-of-the-crop Republican thinkers

Redux: An Alternative Spending of the Iraq Money

A couple of years ago I wrote about what could have been done with the money spent on Iraq if it had instead been spent on energy research. Today we learn what the most current cost of the war is and also what the total projected cost will be. Just imagine where we would be as a nation, if we had spent over $600 BILLION on energy research and deployment from 2003 until today and were projecting spending a total of $2.7 TRILLION on energy research over the life of the program.

Just where do you think we would be if we instead of spending this money on a war in Iraq which killed over 4,000 Americans (more than died on 9/11) had spent it on energy research and implementation in our society? We would all be driving vehicles which had a zero carbon footprint, were cheap to operate, were more safe. We would be using electricity generated by zero carbon footprint sources; fusion and fission nuclear power, renewable resources, and our nuclear fuel cycle would be complete (no long term nuclear fuel storage problems).

On top of that, our social issues would be next to zero as well. Every single American would have the best and most thorough health care our children would be the best educated and science would be advanced to almost unimaginable levels. How much is a manned mission to Mars expected to cost, $1 Trillion? Done.

So spend this money on killing 4,000 Americans -- That is sane in the eyes of diehard conservative Republicans. But spending that same amount of money on making this great country a shining star of all that is good -- that is wasteful?? And anyone listens to these people? Instead of our children paying for a great and saving blossoming of science, energy and social salvation (if this pat I have laid out were to have been taken), our children and grandchilden are going to be paying for the deaths of over 4,000 Americans for what?? A halfhearted and despised liberation of Iraq? What sense does that make?

I really do cry when I think about just how wasted this monstruous sum of money has been. And I mourn when I think about how far along we would be as a society if it had been spent as I've outlined.

Evil does not even come close to describing these people who have guided our country for the last 8 years.

Should I bring back Dolly's version of Imagine again? Naw, I've used it too many times already...

A reason to Return to the Catholic Church?

Well, to be honest I'm only partly kidding. This is a priest who has a glimpse into reality, and could make a convincing case for Christianity -- If he were to remove all the miracle and supernatural stuff ala Thomas Jefferson.

These two clips have made the rounds on the internet. Here at Crooks & Liars and at BradBlog.
First here is what you saw on the O'Reilly Factor:



And here is the interview which actually took place:


It is clear to see that Bill O' is speaking as a completely hypocritical Christian and the priest as a true Christian. I don't know, but through all Bill O's ranting, he is coming close to placing himself in the role of anti-Christ (thanks to Rapture-Ready). Lying about men of God in the name of Jesus? Sounds pretty bad to me.

But again I have to give this priest many many kudos. He knows what is going on and what is true and real. Bill O' still does not.

Nekkid Ladies and Dick Cheney

There is a news story floating through the internets about a photo on the White House web site showing a reflection of a naked woman in Dick Cheney's sunglasses. (Example here).

(Link here to original)


The problem is this, it is not a person at all. It is a reflection of Cheney's hand holding his fly fishing rod.

While a good story and I am sure it will continue to make the rounds, it is nothing in reality.

Sorry.

(P.S. is there any reality, or space-time dimension, in which a woman would want to be naked in front of Dick Cheney?? The cost of that would dwarf anything Elliot Spitzer ever paid for sex....)

[Late, late update:] But I will say this much, what is up with his teeth? Are the millions he reaped from Halliburton not enough to get his teeth cleaned and capped?

Democrats and Religion -- Obama Edition

Before I begin, I want to apologize for drifting off on tangents in this post. But I think it will all tie together nicely in the end. That good ol' shuck and jive meister, Charles Krauthammer, has a column up concerning Barak Obama. (For the record, I think it is about time we had a president with a curiously foreign-sounding name...) Let see what Chuckles has to say:

Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented HIV "as a means of genocide against people of color"? Wright's claim that America was morally responsible for Sept. 11 -- "chickens coming home to roost" -- because of, among other crimes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Now first, we have this HIV myth. It has about all the merit of the rightwing myths of the banning of DDT or the fluoridation of our drinking water supply. In other words it is complete bunk so that can be written off by anyone with half a functioning brain (alas our poor Mr. Krauthammer does not measure up to this level of functionality.) But notice the second statement, that We, as Americans, deserved 9/11 becuase of our moral failings. Considering that Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell said exactly the same thing, I don't see how this guy can be singled out for this "crime" of anti-Americanism. If Wright is guilty then so is the entire Religious right -- There is not one single conservative/fundamentalist preacher in existence that hasn't blamed America for its lax moral attitudes towards gays, abortion, and sex in general. But we will see this is the very thing our good buddy Krauthead focuses on..

Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"
But that is not the question. The question is why didn't he leave that church? Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"? Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.

God Damn America is the point that really gets Chuckles' panties in a bunch. But what is the difference between saying that God damned America using 9/11 as the tool, which is what the Religious Right did, and saying "God Damn America" which is what Wright did? But the sinkhole of illogic does not stop there. For the Religious Right never stops once it goes too far. That bottomless pit of a hole it digs can certainly be dug deeper. They go on to say the same thing about Katrina and New Orleans -- God punished Americans because of moral failings. They protest funerals of American soldiers because these soldiers are defending America, and America deserves any punishment it gets because of its moral failings; so says Pastor Fred Phelps.


The "blame America first" crowd is certainly the entire collective Religious Right. Yet who gets spanked for taking their religion too seriously? Barak Obama. Not McCain, not Bush, not any Republican leaders in Congress, and not a single Republican politician across our great nation. No, it is Obama.


I can only find one distinguishing factor, that pesky 'D' after Barak's name. Apparently only Republicans can subscribe to fire-and-brimstone Christianity. No Democrats allowed.


Unfortunately, I am just a wee bit sympathetic to that sentiment. I am a believer in seperation of Church and State. I would like to think that my party, the Democratic party, also wants to adhere strongly to the Constitution, as well. Let the Republicans piss all over our founding document while simultaneously describing it as honoring the Constitution by "showering it with gold."


Democrats can be religious, I have no problem with that (yet I will still mock their religion, but they are free to believe anything they want.) I just wish that they would make their religion a personal and private thing; not incorporate it into their political character they play on TV.


Krauthammer is a vile human who has contorted reality to such an extent that if one is a conservative Christian who claims God damned America because of America's morality, that is ok, because it is the strong Christian morals speaking, not hatred of America. But if a liberal Christian utters "God Damn America" forget all about the underlying Christain morals, focus on the hatred of America.


I can only surmise that if you make your bed with Christian morality, then wherever that morality leads is fine, no matter what the consequences (America deserved it). but if you make your bed with the Constitution and holding dear the idealism that is America, then Christian morals lead you to violate your first, true calling, that is America.


Democrats need to remember this. Leave religion, like sex, at home in their personal lives. Let the Republicans force their religious views and sexual appetites into the public. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Republican's sword is sex and religion. Democrats sword is the U.S. Constitution.

Thanks to Sadly, No! for the heads up.

More on Smog -- Our President

In my last post regarding smog and pollution, I referred to nameless "conservative Republicans" as being the source. Today we have a name.. And that name is Bush.

The Environmental Protection Agency agreed to weaken an important part of its new smog requirements after being told at the last minute that President Bush preferred a less stringent approach, according to government documents.

I guess this is consistent with the Bush Doctrine: Make you safer by making you less safe (so many of you die and then there's less of you to make safe, making it easier -- or something like that. Yeah, I don't understand it either). Here's how it works:

The memos and documents indicate that EPA officials had wanted to make the public welfare standard more stringent than the health standard, although still not as protective as some scientists had recommended.But the White House insisted on making both standards identical, according to the documents. When EPA officials balked, the issue went to Bush, who sided with his budget office.
The White House defended Bush's action.
"This is not a weakening of regs (regulations) or standards," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday. "But it was an effort to make the standards
consistent. There's no question we have an interest in how federal regs impact communities."
Fratto said the new standards are the "most stringent smog standards in history" and that communities will have a hard time meeting them. He described the area where Bush intervened as 'a technical matter' and said he acted on the advice of the Justice Department.

So I see, the Justice Department and the budget office are making final decisions about public health and science. I guess they all stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. ...Not.

Our Wonderful Environment

Don't you just love waking up in the morning and stepping outside to the wonderful aroma of fresh air, flowers and --well-- nature? I sure do. But like so many others --and there are millions of us-- that is not what we actually experience in the morning, or daytime, or evening, for that matter. We get the wonderful smell of pollution. I live in Las Vegas. You may live in Los Angeles, Houston, the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, or wherever. But it is all the same.. A brown cloud that you can see when you move above or beyond it. It just looks disgusting from that distance. But is made even worse when you know that you actually live in and breathe it on a daily basis.

My hometown of Chattanooga, TN is a perfect example of turning the country's most polluted city into its cleanest. It can be done; it has been done. Most importantly, it has to be done, everywhere.

But what happens if conservatives are in charge and a state wants to clean itself up? You get this. Chattanooga is a perfect example of where progressive ideals lead to cleaner air, water, land and a stronger economy. But conservatives will have none of that. Its the status quo or no quo. Even the most casual look into the automotive industry shows just how screwed up the conservative mind is. Toyota turned an environmentally sound idea into a very successful and profitable product; the Toyota Prius. But the Big Three fought it. It was the same tired business model for them. And what happened? They got left behind and were faced with playing that most infamous of games, Catch-up. But it was easier for them to lobby the government to prevent any changes in their business practices than to make the changes that were inevitable (and that they are now doing to catch up with Toyota). Unfortunately for all of us, they had a willing ally: The conservative Republican machine.

So we see that things can change for the better if progressive ideas are used to help the environment, it can be good for people like we see in Chattanooga, it can be better in products like cars, and it can be better in other areas as well, like energy. In all areas of the environment and the economy, prosperity can occur if change and new ideas are allowed to reign. We see solid, concrete evidence all around us every day.

Only one thing stands in the way of real and massive economic growth, real and sustainable environmental protection, and a more widespread sense of health and prosperity. That is conservatism.

Just how many times have very prominent conservative writers or pundits publicly derided "global warming"? How many times have they fought against any sort of environmental stewardship at all?

All this makes me wonder why.. Why do conservatives fight against any sort of environmental responsibility even if it means better economic growth and better general populational health? Do they fear that what happened with Chattanooga and Toyota might just happen with all other cities and car companies? Do they fear that it may spread to all other industries as well?

I don't know. I could never pretend to understand the idea that things are best the way they are and could never ever be improved upon by using new ideas.

The question then becomes why is conservatism beholden to old ideas which cause such obvious problems? That question, I think, is easily answered. Those who hold the most to be gained by changing nothing are the ones who guide conservative principles. The best proof of this is the area of conservatism I discuss the most, conservative Christianity. But that is a tangent I won't go into here.

So, the moral of the story is simple, if you want cleaner air, vote against any and all conservatives, no matter what their political party.

Rudy Guiliani. What I would ask him if I had the chance.

This is not a political blog, per se. I often discuss conservative and liberal values, so in that sense I guess it is...

But today, I have to ask one question. While I direct it to Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! I suppose it should really be asked of all presidential candidates.

My question is simple: If you were president, would you desire that a microchip (if technology existed) be implanted in not just every American's head, but every person who entered America which not only gave the location of said person, but transmitted to the government the thoughts of that person, if, and only if, then there would be no chance of another September 11 ever happening again?

I think Rudy would say yes. His only campaign point is complete internal security. And to refuse this hypothetical 'Big Brother' society would make him look weak on terrorism.

Just a thought. And yours??

Why the Republican Establishment Hates Mike Huckabee

I should have added (And I Love Him) to the title. The core of the Republican party is only concerned with tax cuts and anti-government sentiment. This is the establishment of Republicanism. As a very liberal libertarian, I can almost --ALMOST-- understand that core sentiment. The real problem is that in reality it does not work. Just like people need laws to keep them from freely murdering, raping and stealing, big businesses, politicians and leaders of all stripes need regulation to keep them in line. The same goes for taxes. Taxes are needed for everything from roads to national defense to health and protecting everyone from tyranny. There is a balance in everything.

But at the core of republicanism is this need to destroy all that, no person should be abbiden to laws just as no corporation should be regulated. And taxes are evil because all they do is redistribute hard-earned wealth to lazy do-nothings who earned nothing. (A person should only have the priveledge to drive on a paved street if they are personally wealthy enough to pay for the entire paving of said street..) etc.

These core republicans find that because only about 1% of America can afford to carry those views, they need to fool many more Americans into voting for them and their views. As we all know this is accomplished by the whole "family values" platform. Get as many people as possible to vote for you because you will support their moralistic views (abortion, gays, anti-secularism, racism, and all other pro-Christianity stances).

But what happens when a politician comes around who is genuinely pro-values, and consequently weak on the true Republican positions?

You get a Republican candidate for president who is popular with the majority of Republicans but is hated by all the Republican elitists...

Welcome Mike Huckabee, to the real world (of the Republican Party). Surprising? Not to those of us who are capable of thinking. But to the Republican faithful, they cannot bring themselves to grasp the meaning of this perceived paradox.

Inspired by this post from the regular cast of characters of Sadly, No!.

P.S. I love Mike Huckabee not because I agree with him, or would even vote for him, but because he truly represents all that is wrong with Republicans; that and he could become their nominee. [Update: Wingnut Rich Lowry agrees with my premise... Thus we have to support the huckster!!]

Literature: Conservative and Liberal

PZ Myers has a great post up which should make anyone with an I.Q. greater than two digits stand up and take notice. In it he is humorously (well, not so much, as it is serious) commenting on the recent debate over over the books written by an atheist, Philip Pullman. The first of the trilogy, has now been made into a movie, "The Golden Compass."



Anyway, it seems that conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, want to simply ban books that they don't want anyone to read. Their current attack is preventing children to read books which may challenge the conservative's viewpoints. But we all know they also want to prevent adults from the same -- They want to prevent adults from viewing pornography, for example.



Is this really effective? Simply eliminating from public access books and material which they do not want be publicly known... But more importantly, how does the left handle books and material they do not want on the shelves, for public consumption?? The liberals of this world all have one thing in common, they will allow public access to all information, books, materials, etc. Their limit has to deal with only one thing: Delivering factual accuraccy to our children. Liberals only want to limit the direct teaching of anti-factual ideas, or at best, fact-less ideas. However, liberals do not support restricting access to books which support those same ideas. The perfect example is Intelligent Design. No liberal has suggested that the book, "Of Pandas and People" be eliminated from libraries despite it being full of factual inaccuracies. But teaching that same dreck to students should be completely eliminated from school science curricula.

I guess the simplest way to put the difference is this: Conservatives, especially conservative Christians, think that removing access to all books they don't like and preventing individual choice is the best route whereas liberals think that teaching only fact based classes and allowing access to non-factual hogwash for everyone is best.

And oddly enough this again boils down to whether or not one lives in a reality-based community, like liberals; or some fantasy land, like conservatives.

SCHIP and "Family Values"

At first glance any reasonable person would think the two are synomynous.. After all caring for and protecting children is the very basis of "Family values," isn't it?

No. We find out. All conservatives and fundamentalist Christians really mean by family values is that gays and abortions are not allowed. Everything else is not considered. Multiple marriages? OK. Wife beating? That woman deserved it. Sick Kids? Sorry, you should make more money; your failure to do so means death or severe pain to your children.

The party of "family values" has decided that making our very own children healthy and safe is not a True family value. Because a True family value is making money and paying for it yourself. Consider how the conservatives/republicans think on this:

Writing into the federal budget (which is the sum of our taxes) protecting children from sickness, disease and tragedy via paying for their medical expenses is bad: Republicans don't think we should be forced via taxes to pay for the health of children. Whereas they profess that charity; the free giving of money to churches is the only proper method for helping children. So what they are saying is that only those who are wealthy enough to give of themselves should be the ones who "donate" to charity to help all those poor unfortunate children. According to President Bush, lowering taxes puts money into the pockets of families who need it. But whose taxes are lowered? BINGO! the taxes of those who have the most money. So are they now turning around and donating more money to charity to help others? Sorry, the answer is no. But there are those who do: Ted Turner, Bill Gates, George Soros, etc. The funny thing being they are all liberal Democrats. Conservative Republicans who benefitted from tax cuts are not doing anything to protect our very own children. It is solely the field of the liberal Democrats. Have you heard about Ann Coulter donating a percentage of the proceeds of her new book to providing health care to the poor children? Neither have I.

So what we have is that everyone paying taxes to help make children healthier is bad, but allowing wealthy liberals to pay for children's health is acceptable (as long as it is voluntary). That way conservatives can spend their wealth demonizing liberals for making children healthy.

Family values are an anachronism to conservatives and fundamentalist Christians. They have nothing to do with protecting or strenghtening actual families. They only have to do with eliminating abortions and ostracising gays. Divorces, single parents, all that is irrelevant. If you are a single parent then you deserve to have to work twice as hard and find a third job to pay for health insurance. There is no value at all in conservative family values except for destroying gays and abortion. All else is expected to be provided either by the family itself of through the charity of wealthy liberals.

Wealthy conservatives are expected to provide "charity" to perpetrating the standard line: Only those who don't need or require any help, be it medical or food are deserving of charity: and that charity is making them more Christian. It is up to the liberals to be the ones to give them medical help and food.

Family values are a funny thing; making families stronger and healthier is not a "value" but demonizing gays and eliminating abortion is a value. Go figure.

ENDA and the Conservative Christians

It seems that just about every conservative Christian group has come out against the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA). The reason is simple, it gives gays the same protections everyone else already enjoys; Christians, race, gender, etc. This "special right" already granted to Christians is to be denied to gays at any cost.

Here is the funny part though. If they push for its defeat and it goes down (let's say because of a veto by Bush) the reason will have to be the "special rights" canard. What I want to know is if they will then finish the job and remove those very same rights from the groups that already have them, like say Christians?

The thing that amazes me is this is just one more piece of the puzzle that makes up the Religious Right. We just recently saw that they hate children -- or more precisely -- they hate children to be healthy (Bush just vetoed SCHIP). So I am left wondering, what do they really want this country to look like? For it is becoming more apparent that it is to be made up of only rich white Christians with a small underclass of sickly brown people (here legally) to tend the fields and do all the dirty work...

13 Months

We are exactly 13 months away from the general elections which will determine our next president, senators and congresspersons. It need not be said how I feel about those elections, I want Dems in, Reps out. But this is not a political blog, it is a blog of principles. So I will refrain from the political. I want to stress the values, the important issues, which make this great country strong. Clearly I believe that democrats are the true harbinger of those values. But that is, again, not the point. It is, after all, the values themselves which are important. For a briefest of explanations, I will simply state that Constitutional values and the values found in the Bill of Rights are what is important. (For the record, I even support the rights of the second amendment, the right to bear arms, but I think that with any right granted, it requires certain limits.)

So here we are a mere 13 months away from turning our great country back unto the right path (dare I say the "righteous path"?). And where are we?

We have an economic problem resulting from the "ownership society" philosophy of Bush and others. We have a major problem of "Bushism" in that we are embroiled in an untenable war in Iraq, and those supporters want to broaden it to include Iran. We have a values problem in that common Americans want liberty, but also want safety from terrorism. (I believe personally, that by maximizing liberty, we minimize terrorist acts against this country -- I merely offer this piece of wisdom: "By offering all groups in this country equal protection under the law, then outside groups cannot fault/hate us for belittliing/"demonizing" their groups.")

Who, in this country really offers this? The Republicans want to demonize so many groups that they almost cannot be counted; brown people, black people, red people, atheists, jews, hindus, buddhists, gays, "liberals", "foreigners", the poor, the sick, the elderly, the French, anyone deserving of Constitutional protections. They even mix up their protected groups at times; its ok for a Christian to own highly explosive weapons (even if they make threats towards other Americans) but it is imperative that brown "foreigners" who are legal citizens, cannot own those same weapons, because they might attend a Muslim mosque. They afford First Amendment rights to Christians, but deny them to Hindus or Buddhists (Christians can pray before our Congress, but they cannot).

Selectivity seems to be the hallmark of Republicans. Further evidence is the Craig/Vittner shakeup. It seems to be ok to search for sex outside marriage if it is with a member of the opposite sex, but it is completely wrong if it is gay sex.

Americans are fastly approaching the time when a real decision needs to be made. What do we want to be self-identified as? Do we want to be a country of liberty and freedom or the country of torture and world domination? Liberty and freedom requires, at a minimum, that all are granted those rights, not just Americans.

I do have good news though, the power of the religious right on the one hand, and the power of the industrial complex on the other, have both grown so enormous that they are now at loggerheads within the one party that embraces them both -- The Republican Party. Now the power of lower taxes and deregulation is butting up against the power of regulating people and the revenue necessary to do that. The Republicans are splitting apart now. James Dobson is railing against the leading candidates, yet the business establishment is rallying around those very same candidates.

All we really need to do at this point is not screw up. Stick to message, attack their weak points and we win. Here's the beauty of that. When we win, everyone wins. Liberty and freedom come back to this country en force.

I think America is starting to realize that.

Is Jonah Goldberg Too Stupid to Vote?

Already, so much has been written about Jonah's latest LA Times column regarding testing voters, ala Jim Crow, that I don't have much new insight to add to that. It was perfectly clear from his column that he lacks basic knowledge of civics, social studies and American History. So why focus on the obvious?

The underlying issue which he fails to breach is the real point of interest. That is, why are so many Americans (blissfully?) unaware of the details of our government and our history? The second point is, given this lack of knowledge, does this mean that Americans have no vested interest in electing politicians?

The answer to the first question is fairly obvious, not enough education in those subjects in school. Private schools tend to emphacize those subjects more than public schools, but by the same token, private schools also cater to wealthier students who are more likely to go into public life, be it doctors, lawyers, politicians or scientists. So then isn't what Jonah is really saying is that public schools have failed the public? Whose fault is that? Democrats and liberals have traditionally wanted to strengthen public schools, whereas Republicans and conservatives (like Jonah) have wanted to destroy public schools. So therefore, Jonah is really saying that policies that he himself endorses regarding public schools are the very reason for a lack of knowledge of adult voters of American politics and government. If Jonah had taken his obsewrvation to its logical conclusion, then he would have concluded that public education is failing to properly educate, and thus more emphasis on that problem be addressed. But no. He suggests that Jim Crow-like tests are the solution. It is once again an issue of "It's not my fault for my faulty policies, but the fault of others for ignoring what I believe."

The second question is more poignant. While given the fact that there are many Americans who lack knowledge in civics and history, does that mean that they have no vested interest in how this country is run? Especially since its operation directly effects their daily lives? Take something as "mundane" as wages. Voting Republican means that the poorest of the poor, those most likely to be uneducated (and most likely to fail Jonah's civics test) are those who are most affected by laws governing minimun wage. So they have the largest vested interest in voting Democratic rather than Republican. The ability to feed their families and provide healthcare are the greatest effects on the general well-being of their families; yet if they do nothing, or are prevented from voting (ala Jonah's proposal) then they suffer the most. So they have exactly the most to gain from opposing anything similar to what Jonah proposes. This also means that they are most likely to vote Democrat/liberal.

And that, I believe, is the real motivation behind Jonah's idiotic proposal. Those who most need liberal and demoratic policies are the very ones who would be discredited via Jonah's "new" policy. This would tip the balance of power towards those whom Jonah really wants running this country, Republicans/conservatives who could not give a crap about helping Americans, but only desire to enrich themselves.

Preventing people from voting in their own self-interests is the most Un-American of ideals. And it seems that this is precisely what Jonah wants: An Un-American America. I can only hope that so many people laugh at him that no one, including the LA Times will ever publish him again, excepting the wacky conservative rags whose only reach is like-minded idiots also know as Conservatives.