SCOTUS And Gay Marriage

Call me old fashioned, but I believe that America is supposed to be the Land of the Free.

Maybe that's a rather conservative value to be held by someone as admittedly non-traditional as myself, but these United States were founded upon the idea that individuals may pursue happiness in their own way, without government intervention.

So you'll forgive me if I'm just plain sick and tired of same-sex marriage even being an issue anymore. Yes, I appreciate everyone on Facebook putting up pink pictures with equal-signs on them as a show of solidarity, but it shouldn't be necessary by now.

So you think it's against God's law?  Fine.  So then it's against the law - IN YOUR CHURCH. There's just plain nothing that necessitates that it be made the government's business, except some idiotic religious imperative which insists that those outside of said religion must conform to that creed's moral edicts. And if this isn't enough to make a sane person vomit, the aforementioned religion serves up an ipecac cocktail by dragging the government into it, as if what goes on in a person's private life is ever the government's damned business. You want to prevent gays from getting married? Here's how you do it Mr. or Mrs. Christian: You go out and  preach the gospel to the gay people. And when they've been brought to the Lord, they can repent. That's your job! How DARE you ask Uncle Sam to do your evangelizing for you!

Look, I know that our government loves assholes. That's no reason for it to get so jealous when certain assholes get fucked by someone other than the usual politician. Okay, maybe you happen to be someone who thinks that homosexuality is icky. Okay, fine. But then so are nose piercings. So are Speedos worn by fat people. So are those ridiculous pants which hang three feet down off the asses of inner city ghetto punks. But these gross and disgusting things are perfectly legal, and none of the government's business. And that's the way it should be.

Let me illustrate something about gay behavior, because there is a genetic component. Oh, not always, and not each time to the same degree, but most gay people are born, not made. I could go into detail here about what science says about homosexuality and genetics, but that would take too long. Just be informed that genes play a role in our sexual tastes, and that being the case, nearly all animals show occasional homosexual tendencies. Go look it up. A volume titled, "Biological Exuberance" is an excellent resource.

The puzzling thing comes with how homosexuality manifests itself with humans. A much larger percentage engages in this behavior in our species than in other animals. Why might that be? Part of the answer might lie in the occasional straight person who turns to homosexuality as a means of escaping the foibles of the other gender. More than one lesbian has told me that she prefers men, but can't stand male shit. But this is a minority within the gay community. The real answer comes from evolution.

If a person is born in a society where homosexuality is repressed, perhaps to the point where gays are killed on sight, a person born gay has a real dilemma. How do they survive in a world where they are outlawed? The answer is obvious: pretend to be straight! For centuries, this is exactly what took place. Gay men married and fathered children because that's what they were expected to do. Gay women didn't get a vote in the process. But that meant that the gay genetic code survived, multiplied and thrived! Today, the result is that this genetic tendency has reached a kind of critical mass, where there are too many to be kept silent any longer.

In other words, if the religious right wishes to condemn the homosexual rights movement, it has only itself to blame for creating that movement in the first place!

Oh, religion could have done the smart thing by not condemning homosexuality.  You see, gays do not breed naturally, meaning that gay people born with that tendency would have, in ages past, simply died childless. But that age has passed, and the Internet and medical science has made certain that gay people can propagate. In a world ridiculously overpopulated, having a percentage of people who don't breed naturally isn't such a bad thing.

But for the religious, it's too late. They went and took a huge dump right where they eat. Too bad. The debate is over. It's only the die-hards who will continue to fight over it. But rest assured...

...the day is soon coming when it will be the Christians who must stay inside the closet for fear of being ridiculed!


Eric

*

The 2nd Amendment

Well, I've been away from this blog during the eight or so weeks it's taken me to complete a machinist training program, and I'm glad to be back. Hello, people! I've missed you! And a few things have taken place over that stretch of time, not least of which is the slow strangulation of the outrage over the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.  New gun control legislation has gone from a near certainty to an almost certain impossibility, demonstrating the principle that if it wasn't headlined in the news yesterday, it won't get legislation passed today. Outrage, it seems, only lasts until the next episode of How I Met Your Mother goes on the air, and the empathy of the general public dries up almost as soon as the blood on the pavement does.

It also demonstrates the overwhelming power of gerrymandering - oh, excuse me, I meant to say vote stealing. Enough members of congress are more scared of what their illegitimately twisted districts will think than of what the people in their state think overall. Thus, something with overwhelming public support, such as the regulating of gun show sales, gets much less support than it deserves because the buckshot-redneck minority gets a disproportionately loud voice. Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I really don't think the founding fathers of this great nation intended to give veto powers to the NASCAR crowd.  It's time the hicks took their thumbs off the scales.

Let me clarify what the 2nd amendment truly means, because as usual, most people miss the point. Yes, it's true, the 2nd amendment does protect a citizens' right to buy and own firearms. The intention at the time was to make sure states had well-regulated militias comprised of volunteer fighters, but that's both ancient history, and beside the point. The right to own guns is ours, period. That much is settled.

How-EVER! The second amendment also says nothing, nothing regarding the re-sale of said gun to another party. In other words, while the second amendment may protect your right to buy and own a firearm, it does not protect your right to turn around and sell that gun to someone else! So, if the government insists on all re-sales being brokered through it's own, little bureaucracy, can it do so?

The answer is, hell yeah! Not only is the government entirely within its bounds, but I argue it has an obligation to do so!

The NRA can claim many things about regulating re-sales at gun shows, but it cannot claim protection of 2nd amendment rights. The right to re-sale just plain not in there! It can claim that it's a bad idea on moral principle, or it can argue that regulating gun sales in an infringement on free trade, or it can argue any number of other angles - but it cannot argue 2nd amendment!

The regulation of gun re-sales is absolutely Constitutional!

So back off, NRA! Stand down, Sarah Palin! And Ted Nugent? Fuck off, will ya buddy? You're just a musician, after all!

So, you want to own a gun? Fine. You want to sell that gun? Go get a license!

Either that, or wait until your local municipality's next gun buyback program.


Eric

*

Okay, YOU Balance The Budget! (Part II)

Two years ago, I outlined what it's like to be the one to balance the nation's budget.  Back then, the government was threatening shutdown over increasing the debt ceiling.  It was overwhelmingly clear then that it was impossible to balance the national checkbook without cutting spending AND raising taxes both.  Now, with the sequester underway, and with various areas of government all feeling the pinch, it seems relevant for me to re-visit the idea.  Republicans have drawn a line in the sand regarding spending cuts rather than tax increases.  Is this even possible?  Or is the current situation similar to the one of two years ago?

Indeed, the situation is exactly the same.  Here are the projected numbers for 2013, courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office:

2,902 billion in revenues (that's incoming taxes).
3,803 billion in outlays (that's government spending).
901 billion in deficit (that's the amount we're spending too much of and putting on the nation's credit card).

That means that balancing the budget would involve raising our current tax revenue by one-third of today's levels (31%), or else slashing about one-quarter (23.7%) of national spending.


2,293 billion is mandatory spending, while 1,510 billion is discretionary.  In other words, one would have to jettison two-thirds of our discretionary spending in order to balance the budget.


That's not as bad as two years ago, when balancing the budget meant dealing with a deficit which was half the nation's income, and nearly all discretionary spending.  The numbers are moving in the right direction.  Obama kept his promise of cutting the nation's deficit in half by the start of his second term (it just happened after the election was over, that's all).  But we're still in dire straits.

And it's still impossible to balance the budget without cutting spending and increasing revenues both!

The one number which is worse is the national debt.  It now stands projected at $17.5 trillion for 2013, up from $14.8 trillion in 2011.  The debt increase is leveling off, which is good, but is still increasing and that's bad.  Plus we're paying interest on all that, and that's even worse.  This, more than anything else, makes the need for increasing revenues of paramount importance.

What part of "no choice" do Republicans not understand?

Any lines in the sand which have been drawn over not increasing revenues are just that - lines in the sand; the transient, shifting, impermanent, wind-blown dust. Increasing revenue is not off the table, as Republicans will insist, but is rather welded to the table!  Any chin-boogie to the contrary is nothing but monkey-chatter.

Now here's where it really gets interesting: The entire 2012 presidential campaign was predicated on balancing the budget through closing loopholes in the tax code. Over and over again, Mitt Romney insisted that the budget could be balanced through tax reform, and this became the official Republican stance: closing loopholes did not constitute increasing taxes.

So why are they even bothering to fight over this now?  All Obama wants to do is close the tax loopholes that Mitt Romney wanted to close!

Ah, but the nation doesn't have a tax problem, say the so-called conservatives, it has a spending problem.  Bullshit! It has a spending AND a tax problem!

So, let's recap: Republicans are fighting over an issue they themselves campaigned in favor of in their attempt to unseat Barack Obama, one in which they have no choice but to capitulate upon, and they're willing to throw the entire nation under the sequestration bus in order to accomplish this.

Fucking really?

Peter Segal of NPR's news-quiz show, 'Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!' said it best: "Barack Obama set up the sequestration agreement on the premise that Congress would have to be crazy to allow it to happen.  Well, right there, you can see the flaw in the logic."

Indeed. Congress is bat-shit crazy!

Now, here's where my rant reaches a fever pitch: Why in frakkin' Hades did Newt Gingrich get to sit his smug fat-ass in front of David Gregory for twenty fucking minutes without having to confront ANY of this?!


Eric

*

In Praise Of Mark Kelley

In recent testimony on Capitol Hill, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords drew praise and applause for the speech she gave in support of Obama’s proposed gun legislation.

“We must do something,” she said in her halting, child-like voice. “You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you. Thank you.”

Couldn’t have said it better, Gabby. You’re a true American hero. But I’m giving the loudest applause for your husband. You got lucky in him, babe!

Check this out: This man, Mark Kelly, is an astronaut! He has an M.S. in aeronautical engineering. This guy flew jets during Gulf War I! He’s exactly the guy all us boys wanted to be when we grew up. And to top all that off, he got to go to the International Space Station! He flew four shuttle missions, including the final launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor.

He was married once before. His former wife apparently wanted more of a stay-at-home dad who would spend more time with his two daughters instead of a guy who was almost never home because he had to constantly be moving beyond the speed of sound.

When he met Gabby, he must have known that he’d found in her the type of woman who was a perfect match. He could continue his light-speed career, while she could pursue her fast-paced career in politics. The two could both live the amazing lives they both craved, see each other occasionally for intense moments of intimacy, and then go back to full throttle again. It was the kind of relationship where you didn’t have to sweat the small stuff. When they were married, former labor secretary Robert Reich, who attended, offered them a toast: “To a bride who moves at a velocity that exceeds that of anyone else in Washington, and a groom who moves at a velocity that exceeds 17,000 miles per hour.”

All that changed on January 8, 2011, when Gabby Giffords was shot in an assassination attempt by Jared Loughner. The dummkopf botched the job, but successfully shot and killed several other ancillary targets, including a little girl.

The focus here is on the fact that Mark Kelly, a man who never wanted to sweat the small stuff, now had nothing but small stuff ahead of him to sweat out. He wasn’t home enough while his two daughters were little. Now he has what is essentially a baby girl to look after forever. He married a beautiful woman for her brain, and now that brain is damaged goods.

Yet amidst all that, he hasn’t yet missed a stride, nor has he complained. If anything, he’s more determined than ever. Instead of getting bogged down, and instead of letting Gabby fade into obscurity, he’s picked her up, carried her, and the two have rejoined the marathon. The only difference is that this time, her career is now also his.

Now that’s MY definition of a “real man!”

So there they are, testifying in front of Senators in Washington, D.C., making sure that gun laws are responsible. Mark Kelly and Gabby are what’s known as Blue Dog Democrats – people who have conservative values but joined the Democratic Party anyway because they’re sick of the Republican Party’s extremist bullshit. Mark is a soldier, and a gun owner. He respects citizens’ rights to own firearms. He’s fired them in battle. Hell, if the shooting of his wife proves anything, it’s that ordinary people should be able to carry defensive weaponry in case of just such a situation. But Mark and Gabby want us to be responsible about it. They know what they’re talking about.

"We are simply two reasonable Americans who realize we have a problem with gun violence, and we need Congress to act,” says Mark. “Our rights are paramount, but our responsibilities are serious and as a nation we are not taking responsibility for the gun rights our founding fathers conferred upon us."

File that one under “D” for ‘damn straight!’

Mark goes on to say: "Closing the gun show loophole and requiring private sellers to require a background check before they transfer a gun…I can't think of something that would make our country safer than doing just that,"

Maybe NASA stands for, ‘Not Another Shooting Again!’

Yes, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. But, according to Mark, that’s no excuse for us going out of our way to make sure as many criminals have as many guns as possible.

And if you actually disagree with that one, I’ll join Mark Kelly in shoving a NASA rocket up your ass.


Eric

*

Christian Mingle

ChristianMingle.com. What a concept!

Here, Christians can find other Christians for matrimony, mating, and more. But why? Why on earth is this at all a successful online business? Why isn't Match.com or e-Harmony enough? I have some thoughts on this, and you Christians out there are not likely to appreciate them.

First, there has always been a traditional method for meeting Christian singles. It’s called “church.” A person would go to church, join a singles group, and meet other single people. Or, if his/her church doesn't have a singles group, that person could give a discreet word to the Pastor about hoping that The Lord would provide a spouse, at which point said minister might occasionally drop hints about someone being single at the next Bible study or church picnic. Isn't this enough?

Well, no. Bottom line is, a lot of congregation members just plain don’t attend church anymore. In a world where Christian ministers constantly say how their religion is under attack, their armies are not even bothering to show up. Even serious Christians find services difficult to endure sometimes. What does it say about a religion’s following if even die-hard members find it difficult to endure one more sermon, just one more week, even on the promise of potentially finding a sexy single person? And, if you happen to be Catholic, Lutheran, or Episcopalian, then it’s even worse. The old-fashioned format serves only to offend the senses. All the non-elderly don’t bother being there, and so going to church means hobnobbing with the little old biddies running this year’s bake sale, and that’s not exactly a place that’s likely to kindle romance.

Enter the Evangelical Megachurch! Here, they bring in some decently modern music, complete with electric guitars, drum-sets and synthesizers, and project the lyrics to sing on a giant projection-screen (because they at least realize that people typically can’t read the music charts in the hymnal anyway). Plenty of single-and-looking people here!

But apparently, this isn't enough. I once attended a singles group at Elmbrook Church many years ago (before I realized I was an atheist, you see). Elmbrook is the largest church in Wisconsin, so you can’t get much more of a Megachurch than that. Sunday services require dozens of police cars just to direct traffic! But when I went there and attended the singles group, I found… Well, let’s just say there’s a reason those people are single. Good looking people take on lovers and file for divorce in order to marry them. The ugly and/or ones with significant baggage get dumped and join groups.

Still, that shouldn't prevent nice, attractive Christian singles from meeting each other, should it? I mean, there are plenty of other avenues, aren't there? Indeed, there are. There are Christian conferences, festivals, galas and shindigs of all sorts. There are Christian bookstores to hang out in, Christian rock concerts to go to, and Christian Bible Colleges to attend. (In fact, the joke at any Bible College is, “A ring by spring, or your money back!”) Isn't all this enough?

The answer is, no. The reason for this is because these things are just fine if you want to meet someone who is really serious about his/her religion. And let’s face it, if you’re male and serious about your religion, you’re a hot commodity. Single fundamentalist women outnumber single fundamentalist men by a significant margin. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but the number might be as high as a 5 to 4 female to male ratio. For Christian women, that’s bad news. For atheist men, that’s a statement in itself – we unbelieving males are turning down an awful lot of potential hoochie by rejecting your silly, little creed! (You’d think people would realize that we’re damned serious about it.) But for Christian men, that might be good news. Can’t a man name his own ticket in such a target-rich environment?

Well, no, that’s a problem, too. You see, the main problem with church dating is that it leads to inter-congregational politics and gossiping. If a Christian man wants to date a particular Christian woman, he’d better pick right the first time, or else all her Christian friends at that church are going to write him off. And if he dares date more than one, he gets pegged as “that type of guy.” If he dates only one different Christian woman per year, and it doesn't involve sex, that might seem to be prudish, but the gossip-mill among the Christian women is, “He dated three different women in three years! Don’t go out with him.” That’s totally unfair to the poor guy, but that’s the reality of it. And if it’s a big church, the effect is even more devastating – all those extra women are now denied to him. Bigger isn't necessarily better.

For the single Christian women, a reverse effect takes hold. The other single women notice a newly single guy attending the service. He immediately tries to date the cutest of the single ones available. The date is a dud, and the guy is politically out of luck. But when the other women see the pretty one getting rejected, they say to themselves, “Well, geez, if even SHE can’t get a husband, what chance have I got?” Despair settles in for both sexes.

As such, Christian men often decide not to bother dating women who go to their own church, especially after they've been burned by the experience once or twice. They turn to other outlets, and there are many. The women, in turn, decide to turn to other outlets, too. This causes more men to do the same, which causes more women to do the same, and before you know it, none of the single people in church are dating each other. For them, that’s just as well. When they’re at church, they’d just as soon concentrate on The Lord. It seems inappropriate to go to church and be constantly thinking about the woman or man over in the next aisle. That’s not just sinful, it’s distracting!

So, it seems that if a seriously Christian woman wants to get married, she’s better off meeting a guy who belongs to another church. Either that, or one who is Christian, but isn't quite so rabid a fan club member. Certainly, there are a few women out there who try (literally!) to be “sluts for Jesus,” using her, um attributes to bring men to The Lord. (They call it “gal-vation.”) For other women, they might decide to trade their sexual favors for religious influence only after the fact, and only for a more moderately religious male. (More on that, later.) For many Christian women, aiming for a moderately Christian male makes more sense. He’s serious enough to appreciate her faith, but not serious enough to cause her any inter-congregational headaches. Also, there are a LOT more men available to her that way! But where can she find such a man? For that matter, where can the men who have been burned by church-dating go to find other women outside their particular clique?

Enter online dating! It’s been around for decades, and seems to work fairly well as a solution. Christians select “Christian” as their religious preference, and manage to weed out all the prospective mates who don’t meet that criteria.

Or do they? The Internet is a treacherous place, and with women outnumbering men in the fundamentalist department, many “players” find themselves in a plentiful harvest field. They put up their profile, pretend at religion, then lure some nice, Christian lady into a few dates, and then into bed. For a Christian woman, finding herself in a situation where the man wants sex before marriage when she does not is disturbing. But she’s caught between a rock and a hard erection. If she stands by her principles, she saves her honor but dies a spinster. If she compromises, she’s a secret slut, but finally gets herself a husband. For most such women, the secret slut option is the better of two evils, plus it finally has the benefit of letting her get her rocks off. His too. Every once in a long while, this tactic works. But typically, the man finds some excuse to leave, and then she’s been screwed twice. It’s understandable that she might be frustrated.

For men, the experience is somewhat different. They go online hoping to find a nice, Christian woman, and inevitably get at least one “hit” from a remarkably pretty girl who is (I so hate this term) “spiritual but non-religious,” whatever the hell that means. He’s smitten by her, and they might even end up getting into bed, but when he proves to be much more serious about religion than she is, or argue about politics, planned parenthood, or some other such difference of opinion, she dumps him, and he is devastated, knowing that he’ll likely never score that high on the girlfriend scale again.

The semi-solution? Christian Mingle! Because it loudly advertises a “Christians only” type of message, it wards off the casual people on the faith-scale. It also is more serious about dumping the “players” from the roster list. One complaint from a Christian woman, and the guy’s membership is canceled. For the guys, it means that every pretty woman they see is his type, and that means the world to him.

So! Happily Ever After? Not a chance! Oh, this solution will have a benefit, and it will help bring more Christian babies into the world (which is the most effective method of evangelizing – always has been), but even this will eventually fail. It doesn't ward off the serious fake Christians who are players - it attracts them!

All this is only half the point. You see, Christianity is dying. Part of the reason why Christian Mingle is such a successful business is because the number of available single Christians is getting smaller and smaller all the time. In our grandfathers’ era, one did not dare even marry a Lutheran if one were Catholic, or a Presbyterian if one were Baptist, etc., etc. But today, Christians are blissfully grateful just to find another Christian to marry, and to hell with denominational affiliation! The endorsed evangelicalism of the Christian Media Empire is pretty much becoming the de facto denomination of all America anyway.  Today, evangelicals have fallen to less than 50% of the nation’s populace. Not coincidentally, conservatives lost with a vote of 47%. This downward trend will continue. That’s good news for Christian Mingle, as more people will be willing to pay more for their services in seeking a commodity which is becoming rarer and rarer. But it’s bad news for Christianity as a whole.

I have a unique perspective in all this. As an ex-Christian, I have observed much of this first hand. The rest I have been able to glean from Christian magazine articles and blog entries. As an atheist, I am able to observe all this without bias. For the same reason, I am also able to laugh my ass off at the whole thing. But I stop laughing when I remember that there is yet one more reason for Christian Mingle to exist. Namely, the intense desire of the Christian community do wall itself off from anything secular. Any online dating service will have a feature which lets Christians match only with other Christians, but even this isn't enough. Today’s Jesus Freaks don’t even want to encounter the same electrons as non-religious people. Thus, to avoid “secular cooties,” they set up their own singles website, and thus thicken the plastic bubble they dwell in.

As an example, I need only point to any Christian bookstore where mountains of products are sold to insulate the Faithful from Satan’s temptations. There are Christian games, Christian movies, Christian rock artists, Christian action figures, Christian children’s shows… the list goes on and on. My head hangs in utter disgust when I see something like “Bibleman” hanging on such a store’s display hook. I simply cannot fathom how someone can actually spend money on something like that.

Christian Mingle is not as silly as "Bibleman," but it's done for exactly the same purpose. And as any Christian bookstore owner will tell you, fundies will buy anything!


Eric

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REVOLUTIOOOOON!!!!

The number one reason we hear from the National Rifle Association about why we need assault rifles is that, should the government become oppressive, and take away our rights, we need the ability to revolt against said government, and remove it from power.

Now's  your chance! NOW!

Yes, now's the time when the revolution you've been hoarding your gun for has arrived! Now is the time when you must aim your gun at every Republican who wants to take the majority vote away, and SHOOT TO KILL!

No, no! PLEASE don't kill anyone based on what I'm saying! I only espouse defensive weapons. But my logical point is sound. If an oppressive government is the reason for assault rifles, then there should not be a single assault rifle not fired at this point! Hey, YOUR standard, not mine!

Oh, you think I'm KIDDING? Well, I'm only using YOUR OWN rhetoric - the one you've been using for YEARS, where you have said, over and over again, that if the government attempts to thwart the people's voting rights, that it's time for the people to rise up and strike back at the oppressors.

Well, the Republican Party is now saying that it wants to extend gerrymandering - a form of (what goddamned SHOULD be) illegal vote-tampering that has been inexplicably in existence for 200 years - to permanently affect the election of our next President of the United States.

Yeah? Well, some of us believe that the majority vote matters!

HERE! NOW! THIS IS YOUR CHANCE FOR YOU NRA MEMBERS TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN!  This is your opportunity to show that you mean what you say - that you want guns, not just for the sake of shooting people you don't like, but for the sake of PROTECTING AMERICA!!!!

Do you? Do you  care about America? Then you have NO CHOICE, if you are an NRA member, but to point your gun at EVERY REPUBLICAN WHO ESPOUSES THE MAD DOCTRINE OF GERRYMANDERING THE PRESIDENCY and, IF, they don't reform, PULLING THE TRIGGER!!!

No, I don't want you to actually pull the trigger. But I DO want you to aim the barrel at their heads! If you fought for the right to have a barrel to aim with, that was the whole point of why you wanted it, RIGHT?!

And if you don't back up your words WITH YOUR OWN STANDARDS, then everything you say is nothing more than piss in the wind!

No, this is not the same, mad hypocrisy of stupid fuckers like Ted Nugent. Ted's (oddly uncharacteristic) stupidity rests only on a hatred of Socialism, assuming that Barack Obama espoused such, which he clearly does not. (What, you Republicans want him to change parties? He's practically a Republican already!) But this time, the Republican party has openly, and brazenly, said that they intend to take away the majority vote and hand it to their own minority, just so that they don't have to deal with the realities of a secular, insured, more realistic world.

This is not just naked evil. This is naked evil, with a long, strong hard-on, shouting to the world, "We intend to RAPE democracy until she screams for mercy!"

Fucking really?! Well, FUCK YOU TOO! AND FUCK THE IMAGINARY UNICORN YOU RODE IN  ON!!!

IF YOU ARE AN NRA MEMBER, NOW IS YOUR TIME!!! SHOOT NOW, OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE!!!!


(Excuse me while I catch my breath!)


Eric

*

Three things:

Part 1.) Screwing With The Vote (Again!)

Well, back on January 11^th, I argued very strongly against gerrymandering.  And before that, on November 9^th, I pointed out that Republicans had to make serious adjustments if they wanted to have any chance of winning future elections.

Put those two ideas together, and you have what the website RedState.com is currently promoting.

Unfortunately, they’re going a slightly different direction. You see, my idea of Republicans making adjustments was removing or altering one or more planks in their outdated political platform. After some analysis, I concluded that the likeliest areas for this to happen would be either immigration or the drug war. But no! I forgot, these are conservatives we’re talking about, here. They would rather dig out their testicles with a grapefruit spoon than change their minds about one, single thing. Hence, their “adjustment” comes in the form of extending their gerrymandering to include presidential elections instead of just congressional ones.

As an example, consider Ohio. What Republicans are deciding to do there is take their gerrymandered districts and apply them to the electoral college representation for that state. In other words, electoral college representatives from Ohio would be decided based upon congressional districts rather than a state-wide victory in the popular vote. Were this method to have been applied during the 2012 election, Mitt Romney would have carried Ohio, even though he lost the popular vote 51% to 47%.

Have we really sunk this far? Has our respect for Democracy sunk so low that we are willing to piss all over the will of the people so thoroughly? Well, apparently we have.

What boggles my mind is how obviously evil this is. It's as though Republicans just don't give a damn that they just don't give a damn about voter rights. (Nope, that wasn't a typo. It's like saying they are careless and couldn't care less.) They're determined to win, by rook or by crook, and it's becoming more crook by the minute! Loudly and without shame, Republicans are saying, "We don't care if you're in the majority, we're taking your voice away from you." And what's odd is, they could conceivably get away with it, too! Two states, Nebraska and Maine, have electoral college structures based on Congressional district already. There is precedent. 

The second thing about this that boggles my mind is how thoroughly it is guaranteed to backfire! Let’s just say they succeed in making congressional districts determine the electoral college. It practically begs for Obama and the Senate to step in and propose legislation which will force states to hand the drawing of districts over to independent, non-partisan entities! To which I say, GOOD! That's the way it SHOULD be! But even if this legislation doesn't manifest, the demographic will then almost certainly shift beyond the point where even this level of gerrymandering won't affect a favorable outcome to the Democratic Party. At that point, state elections will also go Democratic, and Republicans can kiss their gerrymandered districts goodbye. Either Democrats will make the districts balanced, or (and this is far more likely) the Democrats will gerrymander things back in their favor. That puts states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida in the Democrat column, permanently out of reach forever and ever.

Part of me wants to say, screw ‘em! If they’re so goddamned dumb, let their failure be that much more complete! But on balance, no. I don’t want the vote gerrymandered toward my own view any more than I want it gerrymandered toward theirs. I want a goddamned FAIR vote, even if it goes against my own opinion. So, I say again, a federal law must be enacted which requires all states to turn their districting process over to non-partisan entities.

Independent Districting! Take up the cry! It’s 200 years overdue! Let’s get it done!

No, seriously! Sign every petition! Write your representatives! Do it TODAY! Independent Districting!

Part 2.) Ron Johnson’s Colossal Screw-Up

I was writing stuff on FanStory.com while listening to Hillary Clinton’s testimony on Benghazi, so I wasn't watching the faces of the people on the television while that bit of news was going on. What an interesting day! At one point, I heard some dickhead spouting off about how it wasn't true that the attack was made by a mob, but rather was by an organized group of militants. Hillary rightly smacked that jerk down by yelling, “What does it matter at this point?!” And then went on, quite sensibly, to point out that the important part was that four Americans had been killed, and we need to bring the perpetrators to justice. Indeed, the mob vs. militant argument is quite obviously splitting hairs, and such minutiae is not where the focus needs to be. Hillary knows so, and so she was right to bitch-slap that shit right back up the asshole it came from!

The legislator who attempted to argue that idea to Hillary’s face was obviously a patsy who was chosen to attempt a lame justification for the phony witch-hunt which had been aimed at Susan Rice. And THAT witch-hunt was seeking, not a witch, but a special election in Massachusetts to re-elect Scott Brown (by means of forcing John Kerry to be the new Secretary of State). Now, with even that ill-conceived plan in total disarray, some fool had to volunteer to do damage control by throwing that conspiracy theory in front of Hillary Clinton in hopes that it would stick well enough to seem credible. But Hillary would have none of it.

“What a dumbfuck!” I thought. The Republicans actually found some moron who was willing to run that play against Hillary’s formidable defenses? Must have been one very green fool.

Only later did I learn that the idiot was none other than Senator Ron Johnson of my own Wisconsin.

Mother fucker! That asshole has gone and embarrassed our state yet again?!

Oh, yes, Johnson has thrown coffee on Wisconsin’s white dinner jacket before. He was one of a few dozen senators who blocked an international treaty to protect people with disabilities. The treaty was based on America’s own Americans With Disabilities Act, so no national sovereignty was at stake. Even nations like China and Russia passed this treaty, but for the rat-bastards of the Tea Party, even that’s not enough. The vote embarrassed not just Wisconsin, but all of America in the eyes of the entire world. When I wrote Johnson chiding him over this particular vote, I received a polite reply, laced with the kind of grassy-knoll stuff which let me know that he’s the type of man who is penny-wise, but pound foolish.

But even that wasn't enough for him. Not content with embarrassing himself in front of Hillary Clinton, he went and made the same, damned mistake in front of John Kerry. He insisted on knowing the truth of what happened in Benghazi, but when Kerry informed him that we already know the truth, and was he present at the briefing where the truth was plainly shown on surveillance video, Johnson was forced to admit he wasn't even there. Fuck! It seems Johnson is bound and determined to make an ass out of himself no matter who happens to be Secretary of State.

And for the last, fucking time, Susan Rice made an honest mistake! She sincerely passed on the only information which she had been given during a very tumultuous situation. There was no deliberate deception!

Heloooooo? Ron Jooooohnson? The witch hunt is oooooover! Susan Rice is goooone! There's no more need to be phooooney! You can put down your burning cross noooow!

Jesus Christ, I knew he’d be bad, but I had no idea he would be this naïve! I mean, is politics just a hobby for this noob? (Yes, "noob," gamer slang for "newbie.") Did he listen to nothing but talk radio for years while a businessman and then decide to go into politics knowing only what Limbaugh knows?

No, wait, that’s not quite fair. Johnson’s a good, smart businessman, and he’s well educated in that particular field. But as anyone who’s read Dilbert knows, being smart in business often means being stupid in nearly every other field. An MBA teaches almost nothing about national-level economics (outside of macroecon-1), and business schools exist in an insulated, politically conservative bubble. I give Johnson all the credit in the world for working his way up in his education. He did well in that regard. But what excuse does he then have for being duped by people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, both of whom are college dropouts?

I suppose this comes from Johnson’s style of education. He clawed his way up. Good for him. But all he ever saw while going up that side of the mountain was taxes and regulations blocking his way. He’s probably never tried the other side of the mountain, where science and the humanities so clearly illustrate the necessity of a progressive slope. As such, he only got half the picture, and now he’s acting like he has half a brain.

He doesn't have to embarrass himself, or the Dairy State, in this way. He has the brains to overcome his initial blindness, if he really wants to. It is possible to know business and reality at the same time. Herb Kohl illustrated this. But was Kohl so balanced because he went to Harvard instead of a local night school? Was Kohl more progressive because he was Jewish and Johnson is Lutheran? Or is it more that Kohl was born into money? Certainly Herb had a liberal youth, then turned conservative when he took over the Kohl’s business, and then became so rich he turned more liberal again. Ron, by contrast, married into a little money (not an interstellar amount), but largely worked his own way up, building PACUR in the plastics industry. Or perhaps one has to be more balanced if one’s business is in retail rather than in manufacturing? (Greater emphasis on public relations.) Does all that color one’s perspective? Or is it impossible to be successful as a businessman without adopting a tycoon’s mentality?

Regardless, one thing is clear: Johnson is, once again, learning on the job. Nothing wrong with that per se, except that it’s given Wisconsin one hell of a black eye in the meantime! We might well endure these growing pains of Ron’s long enough for him to become as capable as, say, William Proxmire, but first he needs to back off and take notes for a couple of years. If he doesn't, and he continues, stubbornly, to try swimming in the deep end of the pool without water wings, then we’ll have to quickly yank his ass out after one term before he drowns – as a kindness to both him and us.

Hey Ron! Welcome to the Big Leagues! Jerk!

(Yeah, I’m a Monday-morning quarterback. But I’m still right.)

Part 3.) Obama’s Gun Proposals

Pop quiz: How many assault weapons did the assault weapons ban of 1994 (you know, the one Obama wants re-instated?) actually ban?

Answer: Almost none.

That’s right, the assault weapons “ban” did almost nothing to ban any assault weapons. Gun dealers easily found ways around the provisions. What was actually banned was the manufacture and import of assault weapons, with the exception of law enforcement and military contracts. But assault weapons manufactured before the ban was put in place were still available for sale and resale. This, of course drove up the price of these kinds of guns (supply and demand), but one could still get them.

That higher price destroyed the gun-running business. With the price of assault rifles so high, there was simply not that much profitability in arming thugs in Mexico. Drug lords below the border were slowly becoming disarmed between 1994 and 2004. By 2005, that progress was completely undermined.

So, here’s my question: If the “ban” on assault weapons doesn't really ban anything…

WHAT THE FUCK IS THE NRA SO UPSET FOR?! THEY DON’T HAVE A HORSE IN THIS RACE!!!

The buck-naked truth, told here for fucking once, is that nobody is coming to take away anybody’s gun! Second amendment rights are not in jeopardy, and all law-abiding Americans will be able to own and carry small firearms as a deterrent to crooks.

Is the NRA defending Mexican drug cartels? Because that’s surely what it looks like!

Actually, I should re-phrase the citing of the name, “NRA.” It should be “NARA” – the National Assault Rifle Association. Because that’s closer to the truth. They’ll defend weapons that kill en masse, but when it comes to sensible defensive weapons, such as tasers, well, you’re on your fucking own!

So don’t hand me this shit about ‘self-defense!’ It’s ‘self-offense,’ and you goddamned well know it!

The other aspects of Obama’s gun-control proposals, universal background checks for everyone, including those at gun-shows, banning high-capacity ammunition clips, banning armor-piercing bullets, increased policing of gun-trafficking and more funding for mental health programs, are all measures which make so much sense that opposing them is nothing short of wild-eyed extremism. Those who block it might get money from the NRA next election season, but they won’t get any votes. Just wait.

Did I say the NRA has no horse in this race? Correction, they're defending a dead horse. No, correct that, too. Because the horse isn't even there. They're defending a dead unicorn!

Well, that’s it. I left it all on the battlefield. Cheers!

Eric

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