When Religious Freedom Means Religious Intolerance

To read this hate screed, click on image to enlarge.

By (O)CT(O)PUS

The above advertisement appeared in two consecutive issues of our local newspaper.  Two years ago, a controversy disturbed the peace of this sleepy beachside community.  The mayor refused to let a member of the Ethical Humanist Society address the Town Council. Why? EHS members are scorned as atheists.  As George Orwell once said, some citizens are more equal than others, and City Hall is filled with animals.

In response to the above advertisement, I wrote an opinion letter that will be published in our local newspaper next week, as follows:

Our national debate on the role of religion in our public life has taken a troubling turn. Clerics and politicians alike have upped the ante on rhetoric by mischaracterizing opponents with inflammatory language intended to dehumanize, disenfranchise, and silence stakeholders holding opposing viewpoints.

Recently, a paid advertisement called “Religious Freedom?” appeared in the pages of this newspaper. Ostensibly a plug for a book, the advertisement blames the worst atrocities in modern times on the evils of atheism and secularism: “From 1917 to 2007 approximately 148 million people were killed by atheist run countries.” The author employs a cherry-picking fallacy that weaves selected historical events, although true, into a subjective and self-serving narrative that is decidedly untrue.

Ninety years of modern history is a false equivalence compared to a millennium of Crusades, Inquisitions, apostates burned at the stake, forced conversions under penalty of torture, ecclesiastical corruption, simony and the selling of indulgences, the Reformation culminating in the Thirty Years War – all are examples of unrelenting violence in the name of religion that ravaged Europe for a thousand years.

Appeals to prejudice are another fallacy that equates atheism and secularism with Nazism and evil. Was Adolph Hitler an atheist, as implied by the author? In fact, Hitler attended a monastery school, and his vaunted 'Wehrmacht' bore this inscription: “God is with us.”

The worst atrocities always begin with words – incendiary words that deprive people of their citizenship, their human rights, and ultimately their lives. Frankly, I am concerned when a religious leader employs the same techniques of propaganda -- used by demagogues and despots -- to advance a sectarian agenda.

Free speech is not free without the right of reply, nor is it a platform from which others must only listen. In demonizing people, the goal is to shut down democratic discourse and bully those who stand in opposition.

Constrained by a 300-word limit, there is a lot more I could have said.  I could have mentioned the anti-establishment clause in our Constitution, the one that keeps the peace between denominations and ensures religious freedom for all.

I could have mentioned this statement spoken by Pope Francis two years ago, the one that said:  All good people, including atheists, are redeemed in Christ and go to Heaven.  Apparently, the message has not yet reached these humble shores.

Needless to say, I expect flack.  Angry villagers brandishing pitchforks will write letters and demand my neck in a noose.  My next letter will be short and sweet:

Atheists are voters. Baptists are voters. Buddhists are voters. Catholics are voters. Episcopalians are voters. Ethical Humanists are voters. Evangelicals are voters. Jews are voters. Lutherans are voters. Mennonites are voters. Methodists are voters. Mormons are voters. Muslims are voters. Presbyterians are voters. Seventh Day Adventists are voters. Unitarians are voters. Have I left out anyone?

Who among you shall love your neighbors less by depriving them of their right to vote? Who among you shall revoke your neighbors’ citizenship and violate their human rights? Who among you shall vilify and persecute a neighbor on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, partisan affiliation, or sexual orientation? Who among you shall cast the first stone?

Sophistical Refutations and the Supreme Court

It's too early to predict the Court's ruling on gay marriage, of course, but it's tempting to look at what's been said so far. Perhaps it's impossible to resist it. 

Chief Justice John Roberts:

"You're not seeking to join the institution, you're seeking to change what the institution is. The fundamental core of the institution is the opposite-sex relationship and you want to introduce into it a same-sex relationship."

"If you prevail here, there will be no more debate. I mean, closing of debate can close minds, and it will have a consequence on how this new institution is accepted. People feel very differently about something if they have a chance to vote on it than if it's imposed on them by the courts."

"If Sue loves Joe and Tom loves Joe, Sue can marry him and Tom can't. And the difference is based upon their different sex. Why isn't that a straightforward question of sexual discrimination?"

(on the question of forcing states that ban same-sex marriage to recognize those unions formed in other states.)

 "It'd simply be a matter of time until they would in effect be recognizing that within the state, because we live in a very mobile society and people move all the time. In other words, one state would basically set the policy for the entire nation." 

Justice Samuel Alito:

"Suppose we rule in your favor in this case and then after that, a group consisting of two men and two women apply for a marriage license. Would there be any ground for denying them a license?"

Justice Elena Kagan:

"It's hard to see how permitting same-sex marriage discourages people from being bonded with their biological children."

Justice Anthony Kennedy:

"The word that keeps coming back to me in this case is millennia, plus time. ... This definition (of marriage) has been with us for millennia. And it's very difficult for the court to say 'Oh well, we know better.'"

"Same-sex couples say, of course, we understand the nobility and the sacredness of the marriage. We know we can't procreate, but we want the other attributes of it in order to show that we, too, have a dignity that can be fulfilled."

We have to allow that some questions that seem to show a negative attitude may simply be of the Devil's Advocate variety, challenging the proponents to present their case differently, but we have to suspect that the preponderance of the Argument from Tradition, generally classed as a fallacious one is being used as a cause to restrict what many if not most see as part of an assumed right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well as equal protection under the law.  "It's always been done that way for a long time and who are we to question it?"  

It doesn't take a wit or a historian to suggest the traditional practices of slavery and segregation or debtor's prisons (or worse if we want to look at the Western World of past millennia) persisted mostly because of such arguments.  The difficulty of ruling against tradition is hardly an excuse and in my opinion explains the need for an independent court: a court independent of politics as well as of tradition and religious bias.  "you're seeking change" is hardly an argument for the status quo.  

What about two men and two women?  Well what about it?  Is this the time-worn slippery slope fallacy?   

Roberts argues that recognition of marriages made in other states is likely if not inevitable, which is equally an argument for a positive ruling as a negative one.  Is it like claiming that because murder is on the decrease we don't need to forbid it. That's a fallacious argument and once was used to argue against the emancipation of slaves.  Nobility and sacredness? Are these matters for the courts or for preachers?  What about the nobility and sacredness of the "Rights of Man" that we once defined ourselves as defending?  God is not a citizen, has no Human Rights or rights as a legislator or judge allowed under our laws. God has as many opinions as people put in his mouth and cannot be relied on in questions of law and government. 

People don't like court rulings, says Roberts as though that were an excuse for not making them.  Indeed a constitutional amendment would be one possibility, but it's very difficult and has at least once required bloody war to bring about. But the case is being made on existing law and it would seem to some that the ball is in the other court - the Supreme Court. The question is "why not?" and perhaps the answer has to be better than "Tradition."  All the great advances in liberty have required unpopular, bold and difficult decisions; have involved all sorts of legalistic and casuistic debate, but if the manifest destiny of us all is to advance the cause of personal liberty against the bulwarks of ecclesiastical tradition -- and I think it is -- it's time to just do it.

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Rea

Bonfire of the Vanities

Private morality does not seem to me to be the state’s business unless it compromises the public welfare.

-Bishop Shelby Spong-

____________________

It's not the sort of thing that demands a reasoned response, but a local Catholic priest has been buying a lot of ad space in the local papers to excoriate Humanists, Atheists and free thinkers for being the main reason for the world's wars, persecutions and acts of genocide. Heretics and unbelievers you see are attacking "freedom of religion."

I used to say the ability to feel shame was the first victim of  authoritarianism but the ability to see irony obviously rides the adjacent horse. Religious freedom is under attack from those who would extend it to all, he says, quoting the party line. Why put forth such fraudulent history and demented reasoning, why demand that we persecute good people for their thoughts and beliefs by stripping them of their guaranteed rights and protection under the law? Why now?

The Beast is running scared now that 36 states recognize the right to marry whomever we wish and the fear is that freedom of  worship will be broadened to protect those with any beliefs at all, including the belief in reason alone or a belief in the dignity and freedom of mankind.   It takes a certain kind of mind to see freedom as the enemy of freedom, but as I said, shame and irony, those two things that can lead one towards legitimate morality have left the building -- or left the Church if you prefer.

But here I am, leading up to the obviously useless argument from reason and fact.  As any  historian should know, it takes violence and threats of violence to convert us, there being no valid arguments for what they've been selling for so long. The appeal to the ignorant and tribal mob, to the tinhorn crusaders against the fulfillment of the promise of liberty is of course an attempt to bypass the Supreme Court, which is scheduled today to hear a case that could result in a decision to extend marriage rights to all, regardless of  one's State of residence. I can smell the desperation and fear and it smells like burning witches.

The argument that the Federal Government does not have the right to overturn state restrictions on personal choices would seem to have been rendered moot or at least Stare Decisis after the 1967 Loving V. Virginia ruling but the persistence of ugly, irrational and often vicious tyranny is the nature of churches as Thomas Jefferson and his friends often and emphatically noted. They will not give up if they have to cut a swath through the law and decency itself to get at the devils they see everywhere and the demand that states be able to nullify Federal Law ad libidum  or according to their Bibles will not disappear any time soon.

Religious leaders are urging "liberal" members of the court to recuse themselves from hearing today's arguments in a move that seems unique to me. Asking a judge to refrain from using the law as a basis for decision is arguably bizarre if not shameful and ironic, Demanding that the courts not be able to allow sin and heresy is illegal, shameful and ironic, but as I said. . .

The Restrain the Judges on Marriage Act of 2015 -- The Protect Marriage from the Courts Act: bills to forbid "Liberal" judges from ruling on cases that might lead to decisions unfavorable to the dictates of  certain Christian churches have been introduced in the Senate and the House by the usual religious wackadoodles like Ted Cruz.  Evidently it isn't only the job of President they wish to take over by fiat.

No, I'm not trying to argue with madness, it would be madness again to do so. I'm only begging you to write your senators and congressmen and demand they respect the letter and spirit of the US constitution and vote against turning over the reins of government to would-be tyrants, waving flags, carrying Gospels and shitting on Liberty.

Criminalizing Childhood

Are we living in a virtual police state?  My question goes beyond recent news accouts of brutal force meted out by law enforcement officers.  My question refers to less publicized reports of official bullying inflicted upon children and parents by schools and government agencies that exceed all reasonable standards of common sense.  Apparently, we have engendered an attitude of law-and-order so severe, we have consigned ourselves to “behavioral modification hell.”  Here is one example, Autistic Eleven Year Old Arrested and Handcuffed:

When Kayleb Moon-Robinson, an eleven-year old diagnosed with autism, kicked a trashcan in frustration, his school issued a new rule that required him to wait for other students to vacate a classroom before he would be allowed to exit.  When he violated the rule, the principal sent a ‘school resource officer’ — their euphemism for a police officer employed by the school — who arrested him. 

Kayleb was not only charged with disorderly conduct, but also felony assault on a police officer.  His mother, Stacey Doss — herself the daughter of a police officer — was shocked by the callous treatment of her son.

This case is not unique.  The state of Virginia leads the nation in treating students with disciplinary problems as law enforcement matters.  The school-to-prison pipeline is filled with special needs students who do not conveniently conform to the assembly lines of public education - children with AD/HD, children with developmental disabilities, children with learning disabilities, and far too many minority children from hardscrabble backgrounds.

A qualified teacher should know the stereotypic signs of childhood autism - agitation, irritability, and frustration – and know how to deal with them.  We should not be turning developmental disability disorders into a criminal offense!  Postscript:  A juvenile court found Kayleb guilty on all counts charged against him. Next: Free-range kids and our parenting police state:

In a bizarre war over how much freedom children should have outside the home, the youngest combatants are Rafi and Dvora Meitiv - a pair of siblings age 11 and 6 respectively.  The siblings were 2 1/2 blocks from their home when local police received an anonymous call that reported them - walking together.

The children insisted that they knew where they were, knew their way home, and had the permission of their parents.  Undeterred, the officer ordered the Meitiv siblings into the patrol car.

“The police … kept them trapped there for three hours, without notifying us [my bold], before bringing them to the Crisis Center and holding them there without dinner for another two and a half hours,” their mom said. “We finally got home at 11 pm, and the kids slept in our room because we were all exhausted and terrified.”

In the small rural community where I grew up, my parents often sent me on errands.  Since my playmates lived on farms far from town, long walks and even longer bicycle rides were routine.  Today, families no longer have the easy freedoms of a bygone era, and parents no longer have authority over their own kids.

Postscript:  A Montgomery County Court found the parents guilty of ‘unsubstantiated’ child neglect. Next: Eighth Grader Arrested and Charged With Cybercrime for Changing Desktop Wallpaper:

Eighth-grader Domanik Green, 14, of Holiday, Florida, was arrested and charged with unauthorized access of a computer system - a felony offense.

The County Sheriff's department took action after the boy used an administrative password to log onto a school computer. While accessing the machine, he changed the background wallpaper to an image of two men kissing.

Eighth-grader Green discovered the password by watching his teacher. The password was easy to remember, the boy admitted, because it was the teacher’s last name.

Originally suspended from school for three days, Green was later arrested when the school filed additional charges. The computer contained state standardized test questions, although they were encrypted. The police say Green did not access them.

In other words, the boy was punished, not for the childish prank he did commit, but for the crime he didn’t commit.  Kids have always been kids, and most reasonable adults recognize these growing pains.  These days, however, callously insensitive officials are abusing their authority by imposing strict conformity - thus turning normal kids into felons.

Are you as outraged as I am?  Not enough?  How about this incident: Police Taser Ten-Year Old Boy:

A ten-year old boy attending a Career Day event at his local school expected it to be educational and fun.  Instead, the boy ended up in the emergency room.

According to papers filed in Federal court, police officers drove onto the school grounds, where one of the officers asked a group of boys to clean his patrol car.

When one of the boys refused, the officer said:  “Let me show what happens to people who do not listen to the police." He then fired his Taser gun at the boy's chest. The officer claimed his Taser gun misfired accidentally.

Instead of calling paramedics, the officer took it upon himself to yank out the wires imbedded in the boy’s chest, which required emergency medical care.  As a result of the battery, the boy now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

This is what we get when we let brutal authority take control over our lives. Are you angry enough now!

Deeply Troubling...

Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

Here we are, held spell bound by the nuttery and irrationality of a Tea Party and Evangelical favorite.

If this is even remotely representative of the intelligence and mentality of a large number on the right this nation is in deep doo-doo should it ever get control of all three branches of government.

Think a Christian Theocracy, one every bit as dangerous to individual liberty and religious freedom as any theocracy anywhere on the globe.

These people are a serious threat to the enlightened principals and ideals this democratic republic was founded on.




Read MORE HERE.

Obama makes voting mandatory!

Or not.

I'm waiting in line for a hot dog. To me, it's the best of times.  I'm at an annual event put on by Amateur Radio enthusiasts with seminars and a flea market selling all sorts of things only understood and desired by techno-nerds like me. But it's the worst of times too of course, and you can't go anywhere where people congregate without seeing people with pamphlets and bumper stickers, whispering and nudging about the bad news:  "Obama is going to" do this or that or has already done it.  Some of it is distorted truth, much of it, nearly all of it is unadulterated bullshit.

So this raggedy looking guy wearing a filthy Yaesu hat is chatting up the woman handling the cash box.

 "Did you hear that Obama is going to make voting compulsory? The next step is universal military service and. . ."

"Bullshit" I said.  "He doesn't have the authority or any reason to do either of those and he isn't running for office or starting any wars."

" Executive order!" he replied. Yaesu boy seemed taken aback to have anyone fail to answer, "yeah, that Obama. . ."  Not in these parts, not in rural America.

I seem to remember Rush once telling us that the president had arranged to allow only black people to vote in some town or other, but hey. . .

Last week a flatbed truck passed me on the Interstate and yes, I was doing just under 90.  It had a large plywood sign across the tailgate declaring that THE BIGGEST DANGER TO OUR FREEDOM IS THE WHITE HOUSE. The word 'white' was printed in red. Get it?  Red, 'cause ya see he's a Communist, hahaha. . .

Somehow the building at 1600 Pennsylvania seemed less immediately dangerous than a filthy truck full of angry and deranged rednecks weaving through traffic at nearly a hundred.  The quick eye could see the rear window bearing vinyl letters saying " Muslims killed 4 Americans and he went over there and apologized to them"

Of course he didn't nor did he seriously declare a mission to make us vote or to draft us into the military but facts never matter, do they?


Wednesday's paper had a political cartoon showing something that looks like Daffy Duck declaring that Obama's desire to force us to vote stemmed from the truth that the only people who would vote for him were lazy, shiftless parasites. I know what it would have said had the editor not balked at the n word.  Was he elected twice by a majoity of voters who DID turn out?  Bullshit heaped on bullshit, smeared with racism and served on a steaming bun of self-contradiction. Think Obama would want these people to vote? Get it? 'Cause they're psychotic idiots!

Want some Freedom Fries with that?

All Lives Matter

There was a thing called the Niagara Movement.  Founded over a hundred years ago to make a case for a confrontational approach to the problems of segregation and against the idea of negotiation, accommodation patience and compromise that the movement's leaders associated with Booker T. Washington.

In a way, it's typically American and we can look at the way we sing "Bomb Bomb Iran" on one day and try to negotiate a rational outcome on the other and seem not to be successful either way except to argue about what can be said, and how and by whom.

There is another thing called the Niagara Principle, according to which a single episode implies widespread occurrence. Movements of all sorts use it, to cherry pick examples and make them the paradigm and usually without statistical support. Having become cynical in this age of warring movements, I'm tempted to distrust them all and see a nest full of baby birds, mouths open and competing for attention.

So it is with war, revolution, genocide and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in a world shuffling toward armageddon, the question of which puppets and patsies and spokesmen for which warring movements will be selected to be our next president?  -- we're not going to hear about it for another period of time.  A black man was shot in the back by a South Carolina cop and the national passion play will begin anew. Entropy increases and in America, so does partisanship. When those things increase, so does the power and influence of those who profit by it.

We'll be told the call and response  is a "conversation" but anyone attempting to make it one may well be called a racist and have to tearfully retract such an eminently Humanist statement as "all lives matter" because it does not fit the mandated terminology of some movement dedicated to promote one problem and one view of it over another. Stick to the slogan. That's all, and it's not a subset of a greater, nobler and more enlightened principle.

I'll be blunt. We have a problem with over-armed, under-trained and fearful police. It's compounded by the fact that the police have to deal with a high percentage of poor and minority criminals and that leads to prejudice. We have a problem with indigent populations having inadequate opportunity for advancement or even the will to hope for it.   But it isn't enough to recognize this or to attempt to improve it, we have to use prescribed language, we have to ignore, forgive or explain away crime insurrection, rioting and violence and we have to stress that any picture must have a prescribed frame.  We can't call it prejudice, it has to be racism and we can't call it that unless we dictate who the target is. Shut up  -- we're having a conversation here.

We have a problem with every moral and legal and political principle and the language we use to describe it being hijacked by self-appointed authority. We have a problem with honesty and zeal and distortion and hyperbole and tunnel vision and  partisanship and  most of all, we have a problem separating the cause from the leaders and the institutions. Stating the case isn't making the case and the case we state isn't always more than a small part of a great Niagara washing us all to hell and oblivion and chaos.

If all lives don't matter, then life doesn't matter, yours or mine.

Iran: So What's the Big Deal?

It is interesting to compare the opinion pages of Aljazeera and Haaretz for non-American perspectives on major headlines.  This Op-Ed from Aljazeera mirrors a similar view from Haaretz - thus representing a convergence of views from two prominent news sources in the Mid-East, reprinted here in full:

There goes Netanyahu's Iran bogeyman

By Rachel Shabi

Long before a historic deal was finally agreed upon, we might have guessed what the Israeli government would make of it. Having warned about the perils of any rapprochement with Iran for some years - going to the US Congress, twice, and to the UN, with the same doom-laden messages - it was probably safe to assume that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reaction to any agreement would be: We hate it. 

Indeed, days before this ground-breaking framework agreement was reached, days before the marathon negotiations finally broke through and Iranians broke out onto the streets in celebration, Israeli officials loudly heckled from the sidelines, proclaiming that the imminent deal was set to be even worse than had previously been thought. 

Netanyahu warned of a "Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis" - referring to the war in Yemen and the Swiss city hosting negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries: the US, UK, France, China, Russia plus Germany. 

The looming deal, he said, was "dangerous for mankind and must be stopped", while Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, described Iran as "the greatest danger to world stability" and accused the country of "lying without blinking". 

And so, as others marvelled at the historic diplomatic achievement and a rare bit of positive news from the Middle East, the Israeli government issued its dismay. 

Officials described the freshly sealed preliminary agreement between Iran and those six world powers as a "bad framework that will lead to a bad and dangerous deal". 

The economy minister (now eyeing up a defence or foreign portfolio in the new coalition cabinet) said: "The world's most radical Islamic terrorist regime received today an official kosher stamp for its illicit nuclear programme." 

And according to Politico, Netanyahu swiftly "trashed" the deal, telling US President Barack Obama that the agreement would "threaten the survival" of Israel. 

The reality is that the depiction of Iran as a great existential threat hasn't terrified Israelis in the way that its right-wing government might have hoped. That might well be because Israel's security chiefs ... have repeatedly disagreed with Netanyahu's position on Iran. 

The agreement provides for limits on Iran's nuclear programme, with the country cutting its nuclear infrastructure while opening itself up to an unparalleled level of monitoring, in exchange for the removal of all sanctions. 

Obama has signalled to concerned allies in the region - Israel is top of that list, but it also includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - that he will be consulting closely with them in the coming months ahead of a final agreement scheduled for June. Along with those Gulf States, Israel has voiced concerns not just over Iran's nuclear ambitions, but also its perceived ambitions in the region. 

But the reality is that the depiction of Iran as a great existential threat hasn't terrified Israelis in the way that its right-wing government might have hoped. That might well be because Israel's security chiefs - often perceived as more credible and trustworthy than the nation's politicians - have repeatedly disagreed with Netanyahu's position on Iran. 

'Messianic politicians' 

Back in 2012, when the prime minister and his then defence chief, Ehud Barak, were ramping up talk of unilateral military action against Iran, the former chief of Israel's security services described them both as "messianic" politicians who could not be trusted. 

The former head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, meanwhile, described the government's mooted attack on Iran as "the stupidest idea" he had heard of. The view from the former security chiefs seemed to be that, while negotiations with Iran might be problematic, this diplomatic path was the most preferable. 

At that time, some Israelis responded to the ministerial war cries by love-bombing Iran on social media: "Israel hearts Iran" messages that flooded Facebook and were met with responses in kind from Iranians. 

And during the last election in March, only one in 10 Israelis said that Iran was a factor affecting their vote. The former chiefs came out in force again, with 180 retired generals and security officials warning that Netanyahu's speech to US Congress was a bad move, while tens of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv at a protest event headlined by ex-Mossad head Meir Dagan, who described the prime minister as "destructive to the future and security of Israel". 

Even commentators fearing Iran's nuclear intentions noted that negotiations in Lausanne, while perhaps worrisome and gappy, did not represent a "sword at the throat" for Israel. One writer for the right-wing Jerusalem Post last week pointed out that, even in the worst case scenario of Iran having nuclear capacity, Israel's far superior weaponry and deterrent power was the reason that: "There is no existential threat to the Jewish state. Not even from Iran." 

'Not a bad deal' 

Now, Israel's media still doesn't seem to be on-message with the government. In the liberal daily, Haaretz, diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid says that the agreement with Iran is "not a bad deal". 

Over at the popular Ynet news website, security correspondent Ron Ben Yishai describes the breakthrough as "a better deal that we expected", and urges Netanyahu to use the coming months to join the process, to help close any loopholes in a final agreement. 

So perhaps the emerging reality is that Netanyahu has lost his regional bogeymen-in-chief. The international community has moved to rehabilitate the country that the Israeli right insists should be kept firmly out in the cold. 

The threat posed to Israel - whether perceived or real - is thus defanged. And at the same time, those former security chiefs still assert that the real threat to Israel is in its continued occupation of Palestinian territories and the avoidance of a negotiated political solution. Now, it seems that the Iran issue can no longer be used as a distraction.

To the Flag. . .

Adam Crapser is an American, but like John McCain or Ted Cruze, he wasn't born within our borders. But he's had a rough life, unlike those men who consider themselves legal and potential Presidents.  An abandoned child, he was adopted from Korea by American parents who apparently were abusive and neglectful and failed to fill out the citizenship papers.

I pledge allegiance to the flag. . .

The reason I can't force myself to regurgitate that fulsome and illegal oath of allegiance I'm prompted to do at every turn these days isn't just the "God" bit but the Liberty and Justice for All. Today may be April Fools day, but we're a nation of fools all year. 

The damn government wants to send him back after 36 years of living here, marrying and trying to support a family -- to deport him  to a country he doesn't know or belong to or speak the language thereof because he's "illegal."  Because he's "illegal" he's found it very hard to find employment in the land of Freedom and Justice and when they send him back to an alien country, his wife and children will find out the hard way, what a sham American Liberty is.

Small minded, bigoted, petty, afraid -- perhaps. All too willing to hide behind walls and punish people who say a word in some language other than English or Starbucks. The free and brave have no compunctions about tossing anyone on the trash heap because of some paperwork he was too young to fill out.

And it's likely to stay this way because of the mean-spirited bastards who call themselves a political party, call themselves "Christian" and demand protection for morality and decency and humanity because of their "faith" and "family values."  By mean-spirited bastards I mean, for the most part, the Republican Party, but their opposition has to share some blame for the bickering, parochial, short-sighted behavior. We're against this or that, but only after you agree it's only our subset, our group who is the victim of this or that, that our particular problem is the one and only and most important, or that our most dire and pressing issue is this or that or the other thing to the exclusion of all else and we won't support candidates who don't agree, who aren't obsessed with our obsessions.

When someone comes here involuntarily as an infant, is educated here, speaks English as a first or only language and is part of our culture, what does it cost us to treat him better than a dog - to allow him to work, pay taxes, start a business, educate his kids and contribute to our society?  What do we gain by sending an American to Mexico or Korea to perish there?  Nothing at all is the answer and God might as well damn any country that acts this way, for we've damned ourselves.

Wacko Birds

Ted Cruz is now, by his own admission, a candidate for President. Can we safely say that the right wing of the right-wing party is still Conservative except in it's vague longing for something vaguely related to a mythologized and phantasmagoric past?

As he said in his announcement at Liberty University, which students were compelled to attend or be fined, he wants to restore the constitution that Obama, not the color of man we traditionally select, has "stolen" and restore that "shining city on the hill" our former President-in-dotage liked to dream of.  Whether or not you consider him to be a conservative, or a "Wacko Bird" as John McCain called him, the guiding light behind the delusional wing of the GOP is that old Will O' the Wisp, or Ignus Fatuus common to such diverse cultures as Sumerian Mythology, Judaic Mythology, and the Tea Party: the lost paradise we can only regain by abolishing liberty and the pursuit of happiness in favor of  authority and returning to the past. Freedom is Slavery?  We don't ask, our faith (meaning greed) is all we need. Of course, to the wackobird, the notion that we can abolish the IRS and yet receive tax payments voluntarily and honestly through the altruistic and enlightened grace of the public is never questioned. Faith.  They're people of Faith.


Of course the shining city was founded on a purloined hill rooted in genocide, slavery, corruption, conquest, despoilation and oppression, but none of the traditional Wackobird constituency will tolerate any measure of truth when looking at the past or the present. Evidence and anyone who points at it is the enemy.  The insurgent Bloggers are already shouting "NO - YOU'RE the wacko, McCain!"  Nolo Contendere.

Of course If you're reading this you're probably all too aware of his pandering to the werewolves, zombies, ogres and other things that bump around the crepuscular forests of the night. I see it as pandering because Cruz after all, went to schools I couldn't get into with a battering ram and presumably graduated.  So I have to suspect that he wears his prophet's robes like sheep's clothing ( or Halloween lunatic costume if you prefer.)  But what strikes, and scares and disgusts me for that matter is the crazy credo that  "Little Black Barack" is tyrannically ignoring the constitution, assuming illegal powers, spending and taxing and all that nonsense that so adequately describes his predecessor.  We've had a 6 year bull market, deficit spending has been strongly reduced, energy independence is at record highs and unemployment is at near Clinton levels.  There couldn't be a more striking reversal of Bush's disastrous results.

Religious leaders have never had a problem with telling us that things are worse and worse and only a "return" to the past can save us and neither do Cruze or Rand Paul or other birds of that flightless feather throughout the red end of the political spectrum.  They get away with it because so many Americans are simply oblivious and unwilling to be otherwise. They go on howling about Obama not being eligible for the presidency, but not about how Cruze was born in Canada with only one American parent. Making foreign policy and negotiating with foreign countries is only "tyranny" when Obama does it and only a short time ago the loudly stated position was that "if the president does it, it's ipso facto constitutional and if some of us complained, we "hated America" and were collaborating with the enemy. 

Double standard?  Not so much as a totally ad hoc and shifting standard that can contradict itself without contradiction.  Is this the stuff of  all the tyrants of the past, real and fictional? Of course! A style that enlists the disgruntled, delusional, angry and yes the wacko into the battle against their liberty and prosperity and health.  I don't think you can reach them and our future as a free and influential country depends entirely on our ability to get off our asses, stop squabbling, having national "conversations" and staying away from the polls.