Bad Bar Graph! Bad! No Pie for you! – And, not surprisingly, Fox News practices bad graphic design to, coincidentally, make a (false) point.
Money talks – An amazing proportion of SuperPAC money is flowing into our political campaigns from a tiny handful of individuals. They certainly think it’s a good investment …
My Google+ –> Blog stuff is still not working, dagnabbit. So here are some of the things I’ve been talking about that you haven’t seen live (not unlike NBC’s Olympics coverage).
I’ve been lax in doing this — sorry. It did give me a chance to do some thematic grouping, though.
Being ticked off at Chick-fil-A – I’ve been a dozen different threats on Google Plus discussing the whole Chick-fil-A thing. This post sort of summarized my opinions on the matter: it’s one thing to levy social punishment on CfA for their activities, but it’s another thing for the government to do so.
This is why I belong to the ACLU – Because they’re less about ideology than civil liberties. Which, I guess, is an ideoogy, but it’s one that cuts across all others.
Printing your own weaponry – That’s probably not a good thing, though the broader considerations of what you can do with that technology is fascinating.
Justice isn’t always served – Assuming that the person convicted in a crime is the person truly guilty might work as a generality, but always beware of thinking it’s a certainty in each particular case. Because the justice system is sometimes, sadly, more interested in winning than in justice.
So let’s be clear — this particular article came up in Newsmax, which is one of the zanier right-wing “news” sites out there. It’s sort of like WorldNetDaily, only less pervasively religious.
Wow! Sounds … dire. Let’s have a chat, then, with Senator Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky and Senate Minority Leader for the GOP.
* * *
Sen. Mitch McConnell, Dolt (R-KY)
Dear Mitch (can I call you Mitch?):
Sounds like you’re worried about something. Some great, existential threat to our nation. Some vast, horrifying conspiracy that threatens the very foundations of our way of life, our liberties, our deep-seated national beliefs.
What could it be?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell charged in an exclusive interview with Newsmax Thursday that President Obama poses the greatest threat to the First Amendment in “modern times” …
Yikes! Whatever could you mean? Are you privy to some secret administration plan? Are you concerned about the growing national security state, warrantless wiretaps, NSA scanning email, or drones watching our every move? Tell us more!
… and branded his administration “astonishingly left wing.”
Mitch, the only astonishing thing is that someone could consider Obama’s centrist-to-a-fault stance on most issues “left wing.” The real “left wing” sure isn’t very happy with him.
McConnell also accused President Obama’s re-election campaign of engaging in tactics eerily “reminiscent” of the Nixon administration’s so-called “enemies list” during the 1970s.
Wow. That’s two associations between Obama and Nixon in as many days. You with this, and Rush Limbaugh calling Obama’s new immigration policy “worse than anything Nixon did in Watergate.” Is that the new GOP campaign meme: Obama = Nixon? That’s … very odd, Mitch.
McConnell was flabbergasted …
Really, Mitch? Flabbergasted?
… by remarks made by David Axelrod, the president’s senior campaign adviser, who told an audience in New York on Wednesday that Obama would “use whatever tools out there, including a constitutional amendment” to turn back the Supreme Court ruling that opened the way for super PACs to play a prominent role in elections.
Gosh, I’m not quite sure what’s “flabbergasting” about that, Mitch. I mean, people have been talking about ways to reverse Citizens United since the ruling came down, up to and including any number of Quixotic constitutional amendment proposals to state that corporations aren’t people (no matter what, my friend, Mitt Romney says).
Certainly it isn’t that a president is talking about a constitutional amendment to deal with a SCOTUS ruling he doesn’t care for that has you so “flabbergasted,” Mitch. I mean, how many GOP presidents have given lip service to a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade? Or to outlaw flag burning? Or any number of other outrageous things the Supreme Court has ruled over the years?
What in particular about this flabbergasts you, Mitch?
“This has never been done before — in 235 years — to make it possible for the government to control political speech in this country — a truly radical, astonishing thing to say out loud even if you believed it,” said the top Republican in the Senate, who participated in a legal challenge that helped make super PACs possible.
We’ll leave aside the Alien & Sedition Acts, Mitch. Oh, and other actions in which the government has restricted political speech (from imprisoning labor and war protesters, especially during time of war, to preventing protesters from getting near official events). We’ll leave those aside, because I think we’re getting at the heart of your flabbergastment — the idea that opposing the Citizens United ruling means you want to have the government “control political speech in this country.”
“America was built on free speech — the most important part of the Bill of Rights — …
More important than Freedom of Religion, Mitch? More important than the Right to Bear Arms? More important than the Tenth Amendment? Careful — I suspect some of your followers would disagree.
… and so we need to defend speech we don’t like. And we certainly want to fight against those who are trying to shut us up,” McConnell insisted.
Wait … what? Who’s being “shut up” because we “don’t like” certain speech?
“America has many problems, but too much speech is not one of them — too vigorous speech is not one of them. And we don’t need the government — which is trying to control almost every aspect of our lives now — also telling us what we can and cannot say.”
What does a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and allow restrictions on now-unlimited campaign spending have to do with “telling us what we can and cannot say?” Is “too vigorous speech” a code for “too expensive speech”?
I find your lack of faith ... disturbing ...
The longest serving U.S. senator in Kentucky’s history has been dubbed the “Darth Vader of campaign finance reform” for his sometimes unpopular stand on campaign finance. It’s an image that he relishes …
Yes, of course, Mitch. Darth Vader is just the image you want to associate with the Senate GOP leadership. Well played!
Especially since Darth was such a big believer in free speech — except when someone’s lack of faith disturbed him. But, heck, you can’t trust folks who lack faith!
… based on a belief that all voices need to be heard in the political arena.
I was not aware that before Citizens United there were voices that were not being heard in the political arena. There were voices not being heard as loudly as they could turn up the volume to corporately speak, but that’s a very, very different thing. Isn’t it, Mitch?
McConnell is expected to reiterate his stand in a planned speech on Friday at the American Enterprise Institute.
Of course. Because the AEI is all about the “little guy” having a powerful voice heard in the political arena.
He accused the Obama administration of using government agencies like the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to “embarrass” and “silence” its critics.
“In other words, they’re using the power of the government to try to shut people up. It’s reminiscent of the Nixon administration,” said McConnell,…
Wow. Those are pretty harsh accusations, Mitch. Any specifics you care to associate with them? Anything you can actually point to the FEC, the FCC, the SEC, and/or the IRS doing to “embarass” and “silence” its critics? Sure you don’t want to throw in the National Weather Service, the Marine Corps Band, and Smokey the Bear while you’re at it?
… who couldn’t recall any other administration that had floated the idea of a constitutional amendment as in the case of Axelrod.
“Certainly in modern times,” he asserted. “I can’t recall anybody before just coming right out and saying we need to amend the First Amendment. Now they may have wanted to get around it in some way, but these people are just saying forthrightly ‘we’re going to change the Constitution.’ The most important amendment to the Constitution is the First Amendment. And free speech is right at the beginning.”
Despite the passing similarities, this is not a person.
In modern times I can’t recall any court coming out and saying that corporations were so worthy and person-like as to enjoy full and unfettered free speech protection, up to and including spending however many gazillions they choose to spend on elections.
What next? Will corporations be allowed to practice their own religion? Will they be able to keep and bear arms? When do corporations get to vote, and how many votes will they get (to cast, as opposed to buy)?
I am a profoundly deep believer in the First Amendment of the Constitution. I would be very leery of anything that directly affected its words. But I’m a believer in voting rights, too, and I don’t think that the amendments that “changed” those rights — giving women the franchise, for example — were some sort horrible weakening or perversion of the Constitution.
Despite widespread criticism of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision — based largely on a presumption that Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they come together in corporate entities or labor unions to speak collectively —
I don’t recall anyone ever saying that the CEO of ExxonMobil was not allowed to speak his mind under the First Amendment. I don’t recall any evil governmental conspiracy to gag the board members of J. P. Morgan. They all were allowed to speak, to op-ed … and to vote their conscience.
That doesn’t mean that ExxonMobil or J. P. Morgan (or the Teamsters or the AFL-CIO) should have the same right to “speak” (spend money) that their constituent individuals have, any more than they are allowed to (actually) vote.
… McConnell insisted that he is “absolutely” pleased with the role that super PACs are playing in the 2012 presidential contest.
Given that the biggest corporate and billionaire-funded SuperPACs support the GOP, that’s hardly surprising.
“I think it is really, really important now that it’s possible for all points of view in the marketplace of ideas to be expressed,” said McConnell, …
Which points of view were not being expressed in the marketplace of ideas before Citizens United, Mitch?
And when a gaggle of corporations are able to buy up all the aisles in the market, how free is the marketplace then?
… who was first elected to the Senate in 1984.
That seems vaguely fitting, as considering a corporate voice to be the same as an individual one, and defending that in the name of liberty, is more than vaguely Orwellian.
“The left for many years has tried to sort of micromanage speech — say that ‘you get to speak because you’re on my side. But you don’t get to speak because you’re against what I’m doing.’”
Really? Really, Mitch? Point out to me where the “left” tried to restrict people who were not on “their side” from being able to speak. Really, Mitch — I want to know.
(Need I point out that one of the architects of the campaign spending limitations that Citizens United overturned, Mitch, was one of your colleagues, Sen. John McCain — someone whom even you, Mitch, would have problems describing as “the left.”)
The senator said he is “proud of the decision in Citizens United” and added that “I hope I played a role by filing an Amicus brief in that case.”
The only thing more appalling than the decision, Mitch, is the idea that any of the Justices were actually swayed by your arguments.
A senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees of the upper chamber, McConnell also hoped that Senate Democrats would not succeed in passing a so-called Disclose Act, which would require corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to disclose their top donors if they participate in political activity, and to agree to other disclosures related to expenditures prior to elections.
He said such a law would be another way of undermining the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United.
“What the left is saying — okay the Supreme Court won’t allow us to prevent them from speaking, but why don’t we try to make sure everybody knows who’s contributing to those groups — and then we’ll harass them, and intimidate them, and try to quiet them, shut them up, sort of like a Nixonian enemies’ list. And some of it has already happened.”
If money talks, shouldn't we know who it's talking for?
See, funny thing, Mitch — when the Supreme Court majority in Citizens United were explaining their reasoning, they dismissed concerns that the gargantuan flood of corporate money into the election process would lead to corruption and damage to our democratic institutions. Why? Because Congress would be able to mandate transparency in donations, so that if ExxonMobil spend a million dollars getting someone elected, for example, at least people would know it and be able to act (and vote) as they then saw fit.
Clearly the Supreme Court was cleverly conspiring to undermine its own decision, eh, Mitch?
McConnell accused President Obama of helping to “go after an individual who contributed to one of the groups supporting Gov. Romney.”
Similar efforts are being waged through various government agencies, he said.
“So their idea here is ‘well if we can’t shut them up, then let’s embarrass them off the playing field. Let’s intimidate them. Let’s scare them. Let’s bring the force of government down on them and intimidate them so that they’re afraid to take us on.’ This is not appropriate behavior in America. And this needs to be stood up to.”
Really, Mitch? Because if there is official government harassment of opponents to the administration, I’d like to hear about it and have the opportunity to condemn it. Of course, it’s hard to believe the only way Goldman-Sachs can avoid being intimidated by the government is by secret donations, isn’t it, Mitch?
I’m going to leave off the rest of your screedy interview with NewsMax, Mitch, because while it’s equally doltish (even though job growth has been pretty steadily increasing in the private sector, you think the private sector is losing jobs; even though public sector jobs have plummeted because of local and state governments starving for funds, you think public sector employment is doing fine), it misses the point.
Opposing Citizens United is not opposing personal liberty and free speech. It’s opposing the idea that those who can afford the biggest microphones — especially major corporations showing record profits — are either deserving of the same free speech rights as actual flesh-and-blood citizens, or should be allowed to leverage their vast wealth in an “equal” way with the average citizen-on-the-street.
Proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and corporate personhood may or may not be a good idea, but it’s not an attack on your right, Mitch, or mine, to speak our minds in public.
And calling efforts to deal with the Citizens United decision a Nixonian dirty trick that constitutes the worst attack on the First Amendment in modern times is, at best, simply simply confusion, and at worst, deceitful demagoguery toward the American people. The real people, Mitch.
Having been a Listserv list moderator for some very contentious years (and a forum admin during some other contentious ones), I seriously understand the basic problems of dealing with the banning stick or how/when to moderate content (and how easily that spirals out of control). I can't imagine how to deal with it on a Google / Facebook / Twitter / Tumblr scale, except that EFF's quoted lesson below becomes more important the bigger a site becomes.
On the web, as in life, error correction is underrated but oh-so-important. #ddtb
Most sites that host third party content, sooner or later have to grapple with the problem of content moderation. How hard is it to put together and implement a fair and effective content moderation policy? Here are some lessons from Facebook and Tumblr.
"The simple fact is that there will be mistakes and misuses of any content review system, even if the companies invest in more training. As a result, it is not enough for companies to simply implement takedown rules—they must develop a robust, easy-to-use avenue for error correction, misuse detection, and appeal."
4 … 3 …Happy Birthday, Doctor. And your naked ladies are no more absurd-looking than any of your characters. #ddtb
Embedded Link
That One Time Dr. Seuss Published A Book Full Of Naked Ladies
Today is both Dr. Seuss' birthday (he would've been 108) and the release date of a rather lamentable adaptation of The Lorax (which is subliminally brainwashing your children).
But did you know that i…
So the state of Maryland can get a court warrant to Verisign to take down the domains of a non-US company that registered its .com domains outside the US.
Yeah, I don't see any risks there (rolls eyes). #ddtb
This article notes a couple of interesting things about the new Twitter policy:
– Tweets that get censored by requesting country X will only be censored in country X … the rest of the world will still be able to see them. – The censorship will be on a tweet-by-tweet basis, after a request by law enforcement for the specific tweet is presented and evaluated. – Twitter will inform the tweeter of the take-down. – Twitter will be reporting all take-downs at the Chilling Effects website. – Twitter won't censor (or automatically censor?) Re-Tweets,@Replies, or Quoted tweets. So in theory, even if tweet A gets pulled down, someone could have quoted or re-tweeted it already and it would still be visible (unless, presumably, a second request comes from the government). – Though a government may ask for an entire account to be blocked within their country, that person can still access their account and tweet from it, even if nobody in their country can see it. – Twitter will put the tweets back up if someone successfully challenges the take-down in court. Which doesn't seem too likely, given most of the countries liable ask for take-downs.
All of which puts a lot of holes in that censorship regime.
It's not clear, also, whether the policy allows takedown requests from country X to pull down tweets issued by someone outside of country X. If I say, "The Armenian genocide never happened," can France ask Twitter to take down that tweet? Presumably, since I'm not a French citizen, and not on French soil, I'm not subject to French law on the matter and there would be no legal basis for it. Maybe.
At any rate, as the article concludes:
_'This may be why — for all the reflexive hysteria online to the change — some online activists are actually praising Twitter for being much more transparent and frankly progressive when it comes to corporate user responsibility. As sociology professor Zeynep Tufekci wrote in a tweet: “It’s weird for me to defend a company so hard but If I were a govt I’d see [Twitter’s] policy as the middle finger.”'
Interesting. #ddtb
Embedded Link
Twitter ‘Censoring’ Doesn’t Apply To Re-Tweets | TPM Idea Lab
Twitter has responded to our questions about its new policy to “withhold” certain tweets on a country-by-country basis with some fascinating answers that make the accusations of “mass censorship” from…
I remain of mixed feelings on Twitter's recent change to better allow selective by-country censorship / take-downs of specific tweets.
On the plus side, it means that Twitter can operate more freely in countries that might otherwise have banned the whole service outright. There's a lot of positive good that Twitter can serve, even if one can't / can't talk about certain things on it in certain places (at least not without being a bit more circumspect).
That's it for the plus side.
On the down side, it does allow (and thus encourage) each country to impose its own fine tweaks of censorship. Turkey disallows any discussion of the Armenian genocide. France disallows any denial of the Armenian genocide. It's wacky, but now it's much easier.
And if Twitter has done it, all other similar services will be under the onus of the local governments to do the same.
Finally, it continues to break down the idea of the Internet as a unified global conversation. That's never been completely true, but it's growing less and less so. Once upon a time, if some country didn't like some tweets, its only option was either to ban the service from their country (which was crude and difficult to do until they built their infrastructure to chokepoint all internal traffic), or they had to convince the country in question to take down such tweets for everyone, which was a relatively high bar. Arguably, it's better that everyone in the world can discuss the Armenian genocide except Turkey, than that Turkey can try to black out that world conversation — but it's also then easier for Turkey to so restrict its own people (et al.) without drawing down the world's ire.
An imperfect solution, at any rate — but it's an imperfect world, sadly. #ddtb
Panel: Healthy men shouldn’t get prostate test – The Denver Post – Very, very interesting. The question is not whether folks have had their lives saved by PSA testing, but whether more lives have been lost (and others injured) by the follow-up activities from such testing.
Democratic Dolchstoßlegende by David Atkins – I got a call today from the Obama 2012 campaign, which started with thanking me for my support and invoking Karl Rove to trigger my fear response. And I cut off the nice lady and said, “I’m not giving anything right now, thank you,” and hung up. I have little doubt that, as things presently stand, I’ll be voting for Obama next year, and I’ll probably make contributions — perhaps even to the presidential campaign. But I also don’t mind letting the Obama campaign know that I’m not just automatically forking over the moolah and support just yet, and they can’t just assume my devotion to the cause.
KOA 2011“TIME LAPSE” | Don’t Panik! – If you always were wondering about that big campout we go on each June … well, here’s a better rendition than all of my posts combined. Thanks, Mark!
Can’t Emphasize This Enough – “The movement conservatives have all come out of the closet – even the ones on the federal bench. They smell a final victory: a return to Gilded Age America.” Which is great, if you’re one the lucky fractional percent who have the gilt.
Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Next Target in GOP Attack – “The Hyde Amendment may have prevented any taxpayers from paying for abortion services since the 1970s, Planned Parenthood may only spend less than three percent of its budget on abortions and hundreds of thousands of patients may depend on these clinics for their health needs, but conservatives will stop at nothing to have a pro-life talking point for their next campaign.”
Bovine Breakout – And in the morning there was a spider-web over her head that said “SOME COW!”. (Good stuff after 1:10 on the video.)
Ten Reasons Why BlackBerry Is Screwed – Gizmodo – RIM is the Palm of the decade — a once mighty trend-setter and market giant that sat on its laurels way, way too long, convinced it was in an unassailable position.
As Richest Pay Lowest Taxes In A Generation, Bachmann Would End Income Tax For 23,000 Millionaires – “Although it is impossible to surmise their exact intentions, it appears that Bachmann’s campaign is operating under the notion that the rich in America don’t have it good enough and that expanding the deficit is not a problem — as long as you’re continuing to cut taxes for the richest Americans.”
Bill O’Reilly: ‘I Don’t Think Vitter Should Be There. Absolutely Not’ | ThinkProgress – Give the man credit. Now, that said, I don’t think either man “sinned” enough to be forced out of office — that’s up to their constituents to decide. But if Weiner’s going to be hounded out for his conduct, the GOP’s welcoming embrace of Vitter is appallingly hypocritical.
Bryan Fischer, Dolt and Christian Whacko, argues that Christian Whackos that he claims to disagree with can and should be silenced by the government.
Justices Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas are all wrong in their ruling on the reprehensible Westboro Baptist Church protests at military funerals.
For the record, I confess that I FULLY AGREE that the WBC’s protests are reprehensible.
Alito alone is right.
That should be about all you need to know.
As he says, the First Amendment is “not a license for vicious verbal assault.”
Actually, yes, it is. I can call you a dolt, Bryan. You, Bryan, can call gays and Muslims demonic, evil, awful, treasonous, eaters of babies and kickers of kittens.
And, remarkably, neither of us can be silenced by the government.
Isn’t the First Amendment grand?
The gay-haters at Westboro have plenty of free speech avenues open to them – books, articles, video, audio, TV, radio, public forums, internet postings, emails etc.
Yes, if only they used your various media outlets, gay-hater Bryan.
But they do not have a right to “intentionally inflict severe emotional injury on private persons.”
If their intent is solely do so, I’d be inclined to agree.
But, then, the basis for the SCOTUS ruling was that their protest was making a political/ideological statement (“THE US IS CURSED BECAUSE WE DON’T KILL TEH GAYZ!!”), something I’m sure you can appreciate, Bryan. Sure, some folks might be offended, even emotionally injured by that. But if we jailed folks who offended or emotionally injured others, Bryan … where would you be?
The Supremes in this 8-1 decision have taken ugliness off its leash, turned it loose, and legitimized the most vile forms of public verbal attack. They have cried havoc and let slip the dogs of vitriol.
If the First Amendment does not protect the most objectionable and (subjectively judged) vile public discourse, what does it, in fact, protect, Bryan?
The free speech plank in the First Amendment was intended to protect robust public discourse, not vulgarity, profanity, obscenity or pornography.
Well, there’s the trick, Bryan — what’s “vulgar, profane” etc., and what’s public discourse. Frankly, I consider much of what you write to be vulgar … even profane … and, yet, I would never suggest that what you write should be censored or subject to civil penalties. Mockery, rejection, “vulgar and profane” rebuttal, certainly. But that’s public discourse for you.
Every state at the time of the Founding, for instance, had laws against public utterances of blasphemy, and no one considered for a moment that these laws were contrary to the First Amendment.
Yes. Every state, I believe, allowed slavery, too, Bryan, without considering it contrary to American principles and the Constitution. Would you agree with that, too?
Most states at the time of the Founding had established churches, Bryan. Many vigorously argued that the First Amendment only applied to the Federal Government establishing a church. Yet, within a few decades, most states disestablished their official denomination. What’s your take on that, Bryan?
Such utterances weren’t for one second considered to be protected forms of speech.
And today they are. So were people wiser in 1789 or in 2011? On what basis, other than personal preference, would you say so?
And there were enforceable laws against slander and defamation of character. Those weren’t considered protected forms of speech either. This latest and egregiously misguided ruling is wholly out of phase with the Founders’ intent.
Slander and defamation of character aren’t considered constitutionally protected today, either, even by SCOTUS. What’s your point?
The only upside here is that if the Supreme Court says it’s okay to say “God hates fags” …
Note that there is a difference between saying something is legal, or Constitutionally protected, and saying it’s “okay.”
… – something that’s not even true, since the truth is the God loves homosexuals enough that he sent his only Son to die for them – …
Which is, oddly, the most positive thing you’ve ever had to say about homosexuals.
… then it certainly must be okay for students in a classroom, for public officials, and for radio talk show hosts to express reasoned and rational criticism of homosexual conduct without any kind of penalty whatsoever.
It certainly is. Nobody’s suggested censorship against or legal penalties against a person expressing their opinions about homosexuality being wrong or sinful or harmful (“reasoned and rational” or not). And, by the same token, expressing “reasoned and rational criticism” of such doltitude is, similarly protected from legal interference.
Similarly, I might say that Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, or Atheism is reprehensible and socially unacceptable. And, similarly, people can call me an asshat and not invite me to parties.
We just need to tell heterophobes and Christophobes to get a grip, lighten up, back off, and read the Supreme Court’s Westboro ruling and go away.
“Heterophobes”? Pray tell, Bryan, who’s actually advocating a heterophobic position. Really, I want to know.
Christophobic, perhaps, to the extent that Christians position themselves as opponents of a particular group or belief.
But, then, SCOTUS would certainly suggest that the law or public officials cannot discriminate against personal political expression, as an individual. By the same token, they have upheld that, when speaking or acting as an agent of the state, discriminatory public expression (whether against blacks, gays, Christians, left-handers, the elderly, etc.) is not protected.
I understand it’s difficult to distinguish between “public” and “private” or “personal” and “government” actions, Bryan, but think about it a bit.
And it certainly must be okay for students in counseling programs to express their moral disapproval of homosexual behavior without getting bounced out of counseling programs and having their professional careers torpedoed before they even start.
Again, Bryan, it depends. A private counseling program can choose what it decides to adopt as a moral basis for whatever it wants. If it is public, though, or publicly funded, discrimination — based on gender, religion, race, national origin, or even, yes, sexual orientation (all of which have been defended by people on religious grounds) — is not acceptable.
If you are seeking to serve the public, you need to put aside moral approval or disapproval of the public’s actions.
—
Despite what you’ve heard, DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) is perfectly constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled in 1939 (Pacific Employers Insurance v. Industrial Accident) that “the full faith and credit clause does not require one state to substitute for its own statute…the conflicting statute of another state.” Q.E.D. States cannot be compelled to recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state if their own constitution and law prohibit recognition of such unions. http://ow.ly/47b2p
Note that DOMA has two components:
First, it says that states don’t have to follow what other states assert represents marriage (from a gender mix standpoint), even with the Constitutional “full faith and credit” clause. That’s kind of interesting, since it also suggests that if state X disagrees with state Y on the age of consent or of consanguinity, it can similarly decide that state X can declare a married couple as not-married for purposes of their state law.
Of course, that never happens in most cases. It did happen in the case of inter-racial marriages. And DOMA gave coverage for it to happen regarding same-gender marriage.
Frankly, whether it’s a full-faith-and-credit suit, or an equal-protection suit, I think such state laws are indefensible.
The second component is more interesting, as it says that the Federal Government will not recognize state-recognized marriage, in this particular instance, as marriage. As it currently stands, the Federal Government always recognizes marriage as whatever a given state recognizes. Age, consanguinity, racial makeup, whatever, the Feds respect a given state’s marriages.
Except in the case of same-gender marriage, in which case the Feds apparently are willing to disregard what a given state allows marriage to be.
Not very state-friendly, wouldn’t you agree, Bryan?
More confirmation that the Bible is right when it says that homosexual sex is “contrary to nature,” …
Which I’ve never quite understood as an argument. Are humans not part of nature?
… and that those who engage in it “receive in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Rom. 1:26, 27). There has been a rash of new HIV infections in Idaho, primarily among men having anonymous sex with men in city parks, highway rest stops, university libraries, and bookstores. In a park, you signal availability by how you park your car or what path you walk. There are websites and GPS phone apps devoted to arranging anonymous encounters. A health official says, “I don’t know what the future holds…if we don’t do something to help educate our people.” How about educating men to stop having sex with men? How about educating them that every act of homosexual sex could give them a death sentence? How about educating the public that we should not grant special rights and privileges based exclusively on sexually deviant behavior? That would be a logical, rational place to start. http://ow.ly/47cHH
Well, gee, Bryan. Maybe, alternately, if men who were seeking sex with men has the same social outlets as men seeking sex with women, you wouldn’t end up with a ton of anonymous, dangerous sex, either. There’s nothing about gay or lesbian sex that I’m aware of that is intrinsically promiscuous, save that it’s pushed to the shadows by our heterosexual culture. Anonymous, promiscuous heterosexual sex is pretty dangerous, too, even fatal. But we have paths that we socially encourage heterosexuals to pursue thatencourage responsible sexuality. If the same were true for gays, I suspect we’d have much less of a public health problem there, too.
—
Got your Religion of Peace update right here: a blond-haired, blue-eyed 13-year-old girl in California had to run away to escape a forced marriage arranged by her Pakistani father – to a dude in Pakistan. Her father wanted to take her on a two-month vacation to Pakistan, and I’m guessing he wasn’t planning on having her come back. Islam is flatly, utterly, totally and irredeemably in conflict with the values of a Christian nation. It must not be allowed to take root and flourish here. http://ow.ly/47bhj
Well, that’s certainly what she claims.
I’m certainly not going to defend a forced arranged marriage. But neither am I going to claim that this is a case of “Islam” (unless you’re willing to posit that arranged marriages have never taken place in Christian families).
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We’ve had to deal with Muslim pirates for 227 years. Jefferson finally stopped paying blackmail money and sent in the Marines “to the shores of Tripoli,” as the Marine hymn reminds us. It’s time to get tough on Muslim pirates again. Right now Muslim pirates from Somalia are holding more than 30 vessels and more than 600 hostages. They made hundreds of millions of dollars last year in ransom payments. International law permits us to execute them on the open sea when we capture them, and even pursue them into port. (Two UN resolutions, 1851 and 1897, allow “hot pursuit” of pirates right into port and onto land.) The Romans, by the way, used to crucify pirates and the Carthaginians used to flay them alive. Let’s just shoot ‘em in the head and dump ‘em in the ocean. http://ow.ly/478y7
Allow me to point out that piracy is not now, nor historically has been, a Muslim pursuit. Indeed, ostensibly Christian pirates were as much a threat in the early days of the Republic as those of Tripoli.
I hold no truck with pirates, but calling them “Muslim pirates” is no more appropriate than calling them “African pirates” or “Northern Hemisphere Pirates” or “Indian Ocean Pirates.” Sorry, Bryan, your Islamophobia is showing.
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If you want to see where we’re headed: Canadian doctors are now doing end-of-life discussions with patients in coffee shops because there’s no place else to do them. They’ve got gurneys double-parked in hospital corridors. More of the wonders of socialized medicaine. Answer? Repeal ObamaCare in its entirely. Don’t even attempt to reform it – it’s not possible. As C.S. Lewis said, no arrangement of bad eggs will make a good omelet. Repeal and replace. http://ow.ly/4787n
Um, the article you link to, Bryan, is so frelling ideological that it’s impossible to make any coherent sense of it unless you are already bought into its proposition.
And I’ll counter that in the American system, end-of-life discussions aren’t nearly as likely to occur, because ideologues such as yourself have made them tantamount to death panels and killing grandma. Instead, the discussions are held with insurance companies denying further services, doctors scared of law suits, and families unable to pay for further care. Not a very good trade-off, Bryan.
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Focal Point update: My interview yesterday with Gov. Mike Huckabee got some media mentions and a lot of traffic from the wingers in the blogosphere. For instance, the Washington Post referred to the interview. Salon mentioned it while calling me a “prominent conservative,” the nicest thing wingers have said about me, maybe ever. On the other hand, Little Green Footballs called me “the religious right’s most crazed fanatic.” Guess you can’t please everybody.
Would that be the one where you supported Huckabee’s proposition that Obama was fundamentally un-American, had an un-American, Kenyanesque, anti-British childhood? Yeah, I agree, nothing there newsworthy to cover, except that Huckabee (no matter how charming he is on The Daily Show) is a dolt, too.
Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
Cambridge university refuses to censor student’s thesis on chip-and-PIN vulnerabilities – “Cambridge is the University of Erasmus, of Newton, and of Darwin; censoring writings that offend the powerful is offensive to our deepest values.” Good show, sir (and a good poke in the eye toward “If you embarrass us over our known security lapses, then the terrorists and crooks win” types of weasels).
5 Downright Silly Sales Taxes – I wonder if that, beyond the environmental aspect, is why some local coffee shops I visit in Colorado (Ink! comes to mind) don’t automatically put a lid on the coffee they serve.
ACLU bristles over terror list | Chattanooga Times Free Press – If you create an information-gathering apparatus with no checks or balances or oversight, then it will gather all the information it can, including politically-driven information. It’s been demonstrated in this country, among others, time and time again.
Faking It – I would argue there is no value in faking respect for the validity of others’ opinions; the respect (fake or not) is for others to have their own opinions. Yes, there are in fact times when false claims, especially harmful ones, need to be challenged. But there are other times when we’re called to simply smile and nod and be polite and kind (and that applies to most all opinions on things religious and non-). But the key here is not respecting a “lie” or an “error,” but the person making it.
Comcast + NBCU approval likely in January with some strings attached – The problem with putting one-off regulatory bounds around the proposed merger is that they are subject to change and revision by future administrations, Congresses, and business conditions. I don’t see the value to society and the consumer of creating this kind of vertical oligopoly, vs. the potential risks, and that, to my mind, is enough to say No.
Scientists say extreme winter a result of climate change – This is why the term “global warming” is misleading (if, in aggregate, accurate). It’s not just that everything everywhere gets slowly, gradually warmer, but, in the short term, weather patterns get disrupted and, yes, you can get massive fronts of unusually cold (or hot) weather. Weather is not the same as climate, but when you have a lot of weather that is different, over a long period of time, then you have a climate that’s different.
Reid pushing ahead with filibuster reform – I hope this goes forward. The filibuster does provide a safety net at the extremes, but when it is so easily and repeatedly threatened (as it has been by the GOP this year), resulting in widespread obstruction of any governance, it clearly needs reform. And, yes, I say that realizing that someday it will be the Dems again the minority in the Senate.
Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
Sally Ann bans Harry Potter and Twilight toys | Canada | News | Toronto Sun – So it’s okay to give them toy guns, but not toy wizards. Well, that makes a load of sense. Not. (Also, note various inconsistencies as to whether the Evil Toys are passed onto other charities, or simply thrown away.) Now, that’s certainly the SA’s right to do — but it would be nice (and honest) if they were up front about it, so that people don’t waste their donations.
Silencing Wikileaks is silencing the press – “Just as past court struggles for the legal protection of free speech in America have sometimes involved characters or groups one might find flawed at best, and abhorrent at worst, so too is this an imperfect entity deserving of the full protection of law and due process. Wikileaks may be flawed. But Americans cannot allow the US to criminalize Wikileaks. If we do, the rights of all citizens are jeopardized.”
So WikiLeaks Is Evil For Releasing Documents… But DynCorp Gets A Pass For Pimping Young Boys To Afghan Cops? – The Powers that Be have done an effective job of turning public attention away from the revelations of the leaked documents, and onto (a) the Horrors of the Leaks! and (b) what a depraved pervert the guy who runs WikiLeaks is. Now, both of those may be true, but that doesn’t take away from what we’re learning is going on behind the curtain.
The War on Cameras – “Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public. When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation. ‘Sed quis custodiet ipsos cutodes’ (‘Who watches the watchmen?’).” Indeed. And remember, when security cameras and other privacy intrusions are put into the public square, the answer from authorities is always, “The innocent have nothing to hide.” Strangely enough, they stop saying that when the cameras are turned on them.
Star Trek Re-watch: “Spock’s Brain” – Okay, I don’t care what hesitations the review writer (and commenters) have, this is, IMO, the Worst. TOS. Episode. Ever. Yeah, there are plenty of other bad, awful, wretched, improbable S.3 eps, but this one is unrelentingly awful, except where it’s unintentionally hysterical, except where it’s both.
Paul Tobin Counts Down the 40 Greatest Comic Cover Artists – I don’t necessarily agree with all his choices, but it’s an interesting collection and an intriguing premise — not necessarily best artists, but best artists at making covers.
Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
Tim Lynch: Pot Shots at Prop 19 Fall Flat – The War on Marijuana has done little to reduce drug use, has cost tremendous amount of time and money in the law enforcement arena, and has crammed our jails with folks accused of possession or sale. It’s also been a huge money-maker for drug cartels. Will decriminalizing marijuana solve drug problems in the state of California? I doubt it — but it will certainly not make them worse.
What populism isn’t – “The Chamber didn’t even have to lift a finger — a deranged media personality told his audience, many of whom are middle-class and having a tough time in a struggling economy, to start throwing money at one of the nation’s wealthiest lobbying groups. And these folks did as they were told, voluntarily handing over donations to some of the country’s richest corporations. Why? So these corporations could elect candidates who will, in turn, favor policies that hurt the middle class, undermine workers and consumers, and boost these businesses’ profits.”
Quote of the Day – And in thirty years, Americans will be asking themselves, “How did we stop being the most important country on the planet?”
Limbaugh plays constitutional scholar – The “Left” has not been excluding religious people from government. It has been arguing, successfully, that using religion as the rule of law is unconstitutional. Ironically, the folks screaming the loudest about this (because it’s denying them the “right” to impose Christianity as the law of the land) also scream the loudest about how awful the prospect of Islamic “sharia” law becoming the law of the land is … even as they try to dismantle the constitutional provisions that would prevent that from happening.
‘This Isn’t The Lotto’: Sheriff Halting All Foreclosures Until Banks Prove Evictions Are Legal And Legitimate – “Cook County, Illinois Sheriff Tom Dart recently assembled a team to investigate the foreclosures in his area. His team found that out of 350 cases reviewed, ‘only 17 of them had the proper paperwork.’ Following the investigation, Dart announced Monday that he would be halting all evictions of homeowners — a step he took two years ago at the height of the financial crisis — and would not take part in any foreclosures unless the banks could provide the documentation to prove that the evictions were legitimate and legal.” Good for him. The sheriff should not be enforcing illegitimate and illegal requests.
Harry Potter and the Naked Cash-Grab – Not at all surprising … but I hope Warners’ earlier decision indicates they will make an effort to take the time to do it right. (For the record, I have no intention of picking up any HP3D flicks, but more power to those who do.)
Why Do Americans Have Yards? « Gambler’s House – I enjoy having a yard, to at least some degree — I could probably live easily with one half the size we have, but I do enjoy growing green things and adding some sparks of color to the neighborhood.
Virginia textbook claims blacks fought for Confederacy – Education – Salon.com – “Writers: Verify, verify, verify. Then verify some more. The Internet is not the ultimate source of human knowledge. Parents: Read through your kid’s textbooks and give them the old smell test. If something seems to stink, follow it like a bloodhound back to its source. And if it’s foul, raise hell.”
MEMO: Health Insurance, Banking, Oil Industries Met With Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck To Plot 2010 Election – There’s nothing wrong per se with people opposing governmental policies they feel hurt them, and pursuing that opposition through the ballot box. But it’s very worth-while for all of those “Hey, it’s us grass-roots Tea Party folk who are tired of Washington business as usual who are leading the charge against Obama and his crowd” crowd to consider whose deep pockets are helping fund all of this … and how … and why.
Why Fred Phelps’s Free Speech Rights Should Matter to Us All – Another example why the calumny that the ACLU is a “liberal/radical/leftist” organization is profoundly untrue. And, as loathesome as I find Phelps and his Gang of Family Idiots, if they don’t have the right to speak, nobody does.
The Original King of Irony Lives On – And yet, he seems to have made an amazing come-back in the GOP. what that says about the GOP I leave as an exercise for the reader.
Lou Dobbs’ Little Meg Whitman Problem – “The Nation also editorialized today that this latest revelation only adds more fuel to the arguments that immigrants, legal and undocumented, are so thoroughly integrated into our economy that those politicians who seek to scapegoat and demonize their work are almost alway engaging in hypocrisy. The piece argues that we must legalize and regulate this work, instead of demonizing the workers our society is thoroughly dependent on.” But … but … but … without evil, lazy, Welfare-sponging, American-decaptitating, job-stealing, anchor-babying illegals to demonize, we’d have to find someone else to demonize!
So that’s why Koch funded a major evolution exhibit – “The fact that we could be knocked back to a stone age level of technology without going extinct is not a point in favor of welcoming global warming.” But think of the money-making opportunities! Especially if you cunning corner the shell and bead market ahead of time!
Actually, from Saturday and Sunday both.
