Do you still think that Christians can govern unbiased?

This story came out of Alabama and frankly truly upset me.  I face a lot of people that say I unjustly stand against "born again" Christians and the religious right.  I get accused of just grouping people together.  Whenever I make a comment about "Christians" in general I am often called to the floor for it.  Funny thing is that I rarely see anybody stand up to people that make those of us that are secular in our religious views feel like we are second class citizens.  When a Christian group puts up a sign decrying Islam few people say anything, most just nod their head in silent agreement or stand mute in silent permissiveness. And those that say something get muted local coverage while those that oppose the sign placed by atheists get national coverage on national networks for a week's worth of time.  Are there people that oppose the sign below?  Absolutely.  Are there Christians that oppose the sign below?  Of course there are.  But they get muted local coverage while haters like Newt Gingrich get massive coverage nationwide.  It is not equal in any way shape or form.

(sign on I-26 in SC)

However, let an atheist group put up a sign that questions the premise of the Nativity fairy tale and all hell breaks loose across the networks and atheists are reminded in no uncertain terms that they are to mind their place and realize that freedom of speech only applies to you if you are part of the Christian persuasion.  Muslims, atheists and those of other faiths, beliefs or outlooks are not covered in that clause.

(billboard sign in NYC during Christmas)

I have upset some people by saying that I would not and could not vote for people like Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin (beyond her obvious and usually unusual insanity and idiocy) simply because as members of the religious right they would put their faith and their Christian beliefs over the well being and will of the people.  The religious right is firmly set in bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, ethnic and religious prejudices.  It defines them.  Yes there are exceptions.  Yes there are Christians I respect and hold in high esteem.  But they are Christians that the majority of OTHER Christians would reject as liberals.

I live with a woman that is a professing and practicing Christian, but understands that religious beliefs (or lack thereof) is a personal matter that does not affect, for better or for worse, the worth of the person.  My future mother in law and brother in law are the same way and I respect all of them for it.  We discuss, we disagree and we still discuss and respect each other.  But overall they are the exception rather than the rule.  

Coming out of Alabama is the story that brought on this blog this morning.  New governor Robert Bentley in a statement on his inauguration day  made it clear who he considers family, whom he holds in respect and who is not on his list and what they need to do to be on that list.  He stands, again, as proof of what I have said all along, the more intense, dedicated and committed to church, faith, religion and the Bible a person is the less qualified they are to govern.  I am not saying that Christians cannot govern, that would be as simple minded and prejudiced as the Christian right  I simply believe that the more dedicated a person becomes to their faith the more they will have to choose if they want to lead or be missionaries.  In this country you cannot be both.  Simple as that.  Your faith is YOUR faith and YOURS alone.  

With as much respect as I can muster for Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and others like them...this is NOT just a Christian nation.  We are a nation of different faiths, different views and different ideologies and while the rest of us may be going to hell (according to your faith) we are not there yet so you will just have to realize the reality of the fact and learn that it is liberty and justice for all...not just Christians, not just your brothers and sisters....but rather ALL.

November 2, 2010: A Rant about Bullshit, Chicken Shits, Bat Shit and Dumb Shits

Ok....so let me first start with acknowledging that it has been a while since I have blogged....I am aware of this and would apologize if it weren't because...life is good...and I don't have as much desire to blog as I used to.  There is also the fact that I am very frustrated with the current political situation and most of my blogs would be basically outrage and venting...and I am TRYING to avoid doing too much of that.  Having said that, I will start with a warning that this blog is a little off the cuff.  This blog is a little bit of a rant mixed with a lot of disillusion.  This blog is a dirge for what is coming and an ode to what might have been.  It is a disparaging look at the two primary parties in the upcoming election mixed with a barely disguised look of disgust at the poor alternative that we are being offered...namely the Tea Party.  This blog is equally a kick at the Democrats as the Republicans.  It is a kick in the ass and the elephant in the room....and a sincere hope that they all choke on their tea concoction.

I want to emphasize that this is a little bit of a rant.  Take it for what it is worth...which isn't much.  I will start with a prophecy of doom.  We, as a nation, are headed for disaster.  Things are bad but they are about to get worse.  The Republicans have their sights set on the White House for 2012 and they do not have much to offer, so the only way they can be competitive is to drag down the current administration...and it is about to get dirty.  Mark my words, our government is headed for a two year shutdown, the economy will only worsen, the recession we are just pulling out of will come back and it will be worse than it has been.  Disagree all you like.  Call me a nay sayer.  Accuse me of being partisan all you like.  just mark my words, write them down...and remember I told you so.

As a country we have all played a part in this mess that we are in.  Politicians are more concerned in keeping their jobs instead of actually doing their jobs.  I am ranting against four groups in particular....

1. Bullshit...The Elephant in the room.

Now I make no bones about it.  I was raised Republican.  I was raised a devout Christian.  I was raised as right wing as you can possibly get.  I lived this way for most of my young adult life.  In my late twenties I began thinking for myself, re examining my beliefs.  I am now an atheist.  I am a liberal politically and align more with Democrats than I do Republicans.  By saying that I am acknowledging that this post, and almost every post I write leans left and towards the Democrats.  So you may freely disregard everything I am about to say...simply because you are as partisan to the right and the Republicans as I am to the left.

The GOP has raised the bar on the well developed art of bullshit.  They have run a campaign on lies, fears, hate, homophobia and xenophobia.  And they have done so successfully.  Some might argue that the ends justify the means and for the GOP (for any politician, regardless of affiliation, for that matter) winning is all that matters.  Let us look at the facts.  The economy, believe it or not, is actually on the rise.  True it is slowly but in actuality the numbers are improving.  Americans, this last year, paid the lowest taxes that they have paid in over a decade, despite the fact that Democrats, historically known for raising taxes, were in power.  Illegal immigration is at its lowest mark in over a decade...a decade in which Republicans were in power for the largest part of.

However, to hear the GOP, the economy is not recovering at all (as I heard on the radio a few weeks ago it is the Democrat's fault.)  Americans are paying more taxes than ever and the Obama Administration is not being tough on immigration and as a result the illegal immigration is at a high point and crimes committed by these "fererners" is also at a high point.

In short, republicans are winning the election and they are doing so running on out right lies and gross exaggeration.  The GOP has found a way to tap into the prejudices, the fears, the hate, the homophobia and xenophobia and the darkest, ugliest emotions of the human nature and as a result they are winning.   They have presented us with all the problems...and don't get me wrong, we have a ton of problems...yet they present no real solutions.  After two years of chomping at the bits, they are eager to take the reins again and just salivating at getting back to the same old policies that put us here in the first place.  I look at the GOP and its bastard child, the Tea Party, and I am afraid.  I am afraid because there is no voice of reason.  All I hear or the Boehners, Gingrich's, Palins, O'Donnells, Pauls, and a myriad of other fools and all I see are radicals.  All I see are right wing nut jobs that have no voice of reason, no sense of responsibility.  They only care about winning.  Don't worry...I will be getting to the DNC soon enough...

The Republican Party has allowed people like Bachmann be the face and voice of their party.  If these are the people that will be leading the country...then we have reason to be afraid.  Bachmann has made it clear that the top of their agenda is a series of Congressional Inquiries.  They will bog down the legislative branch for the next two years in a clear and intentional attempt at keeping the President so tied up that he will not be able to get one single thing done, thus opening the way for Republicans in 2012.  I know...I am just being Mr. Negativity.  I know, I need to have more faith in the system.  Well...bullshit.

2. Chicken Shit...The DNC...and ass without balls....

In the movie "Pure Country" the old guy looks at Dusty, played by George Strait (who notoriously will only wear a white cowboy hat), and says, "The funny thing about that little white speck on the top of chicken shit. That little white speck is chicken shit too. "  The Democrats may try to play innocent in this whole mess but frankly they are a large part of the reason they will lose control of Congress on November 2nd.  In my opinion, the biggest fault of the DNC is being chicken shit.  The Democrats have sat on the sidelines for two years and let the Republicans and their FOX News control the entire conversation.  Their cowardice has been almost criminal.  When the Republicans throw out their blatant lies and exaggeration the Democrats have failed to speak up.  They held a confidence in the American peoples ability to see change for themselves that was grossly unwarranted.  When change is slow you have to make it clear where the change is happening.  While the Republicans have played their homophobia and xenophobia cards the Democrats sat on their asses stuttering and stammering their useless, senseless and non committing replies.


When the controversy of the Islamic Cultural Center in NYC blew up nationwide the spineless chicken shits stared wide eyed into the cameras like bloated road kill and yammered the same bullshit rhetoric right along with the radical, fascist GOP.  What they SHOULD have said is, "It's the Constitution stupid! There are no ifs ands or buts about it.  There are no maybes.  There is no "no fly zone" for our Constitutional rights."  There is no excuse for the blatant fear mongering the GOP actively used in there campaign of Islamaphobia; just like there is no excuse for the piss yellow Democrats not standing up and saying firmly that there is a right and there is a wrong and singling out a group of people based on their religious affiliation and attempting to restrain and restrict their rights is wrong.


The Democrats, as I have already mentioned, have been slow, timid and just plain chicken shit when it came to calling republicans out on their bullshit and proving them wrong with the numbers.  I will agree, change has been slow.  You cannot correct eight years of bad policy and reckless spending by a war mongering administration in two years.  Hell, you can't change a toilet in two years in DC.  The change has been slow, but it is the difference of a landscaper doing a work of change and a tornado carving a path of destruction.  Change takes time.  But in a day and time when people get married, have kids and live happily ever after in two hours we don't get that and we are angry that the President has not fixed this country in two years even thought the Party of NO has fought every step of change at every turn.


So the economy HAS been slow in recovering, but the greater point is simply this...it actually IS recovering.   new jobless claims are bouncing up and down as opposed to the consistent downward spiral we have been experiencing for a couple of years.  Reform has come to the reckless, out of control banks on Wall Street.  For those of us with liberal leanings we have seen some progress on the health care reform.  I know...you immediately bristle because I said for those of us of a liberal leaning...well shove it up your ass...this is our country too.  the debt is a real issue, one that began with the former administration and certainly has not been helped by this administration.  But the very people that want the deficit cut want other people's benefits cut, not their own.  In a recent poll people were very concerned with the deficit and wanted it cut...as long as they didn't lose their Medicaid, their SSI, their Social Security.  


Another area that highlights the DNC chicken shit, yellow livered, spineless tendency is the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy.  Because the radical religious right has managed to lay siege to this country, the politicians want to appease both sides.  But much like the Civil Rights movement, much like the woman's suffrage movement this is an area where there is no middle ground.  Somebody is  going to go home unhappy.  And if we are going to remain a free people that protects the rights of free people then without a doubt, the people that HAVE to go home unhappy are the biased, hate mongering, homophobic radicals that see it as their patriotic and god given duty to oppress a group of Americans and restrict their rights.  Our President claims to oppose the policy yet appeals the ruling of the court that states it is unconstitutional.  After the ruling he changed his underpants stained with the chicken shit he spewed out at the thought of the Dobsons, Limbaughs and Robertsons that were going to come for him in the middle of the night and like a true coward immediately filed an appeal.  Don't give me the bullshit that he HAD to.  He did not.  He could have let it stand.  But he chose not to.  Why? Because he wanted to appease the right wing nut jobs that hate him any way, irregardless of what he does.   When will this administration realize that these people hate him and will continue lying about him?  When will he realize that a great number of them would thank their God the very next Sunday morning if he were to meet an untimely demise?  When will he realize that there is nothing he can do to appease them, appeal to them, convince them that he is even an American, much less the duly elected President of the United States?  What will it take for him to realize this, take the gloves off and finally be the President some of us know he can be?


After the beating the DNC has taken during this election the President FINALLY came out swinging.  But it was too little too late and by then the candidates he was campaigning for were to chicken shit to even acknowledge it.  Instead many of them have distanced themselves from him and his message; a message that simply says, yes, change has been slow, yes we have made some mistakes.  But we are fighting for you and look what we have managed to accomplish in just two years despite all the partisan conflict and childish behavior and if you fire us now, in the midst of change then look at how little will be accomplished if you send these big business whores back to Washington.


3.  Bat shit...and as proof that fear trumps common sense...enter stage right...the Tea Party.


The Republicans created a monster.  Their bastard child has come back to bite them in the ass which would be amusing if it were not for the probability that we will all have to deal with these bat shit crazies.  The tea party claims to be a true grass roots movement, despite the big money that has been traced to big business, with no leaders.  This movement is long on bitching and short on solutions.  They are quite adept at pointing out the problems, and trust me, I am well aware we do have a lot of problems, but they are incredibly incompetent at offering real, sensible and tangible solutions.


And when they DO come up with solutions we come to realize how really bat shit crazy these people are.  Tea Party candidates' solutions have ranged from eliminating Social Security (as long as we don't take away their SSI or their own parent's Social Security as in the case of Sharon Angle in Nevada) to repealing Equal Opportunity (as in Rand Paul in Kentucky) to an outright armed uprising (as in the case of the again truly batty Sharon Angle.)


These people have no official leader and no official message.  The fact that they have no leader means they are not accountable to anybody.  Allow me to explain.  When the Democrats make a mistake you will find that immediately it is President Obama, Pelosi and Reid that are called to the carpet.  When the Republicans make a mistake it is their leaders that are called to the floor, usually their favorite scape goat Michael Steele.  In the case of the Tea party, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint and others can gain rock star popularity without suffering the repercussions of the idiots running under their name.  Nobody is held accountable for their actions.  This party runs from reporters out of incompetence.  They demonize the only means that the nation has of knowing what they are running on.  These cracked tea pots want to blame the questions without taking responsibility for their answers.  These candidates want the people to vote for them without even telling them why they should vote for them.  they fail to realize that harassing, demonizing and even arresting (as in the case of Joe miller in Alaska) just makes us all feel they have something to hide...in most cases their idiocy.


This movement is nothing more than an outlet for the angry white man.  It is a movement born in true frustration with a system that is truly not working for anybody except the actual politicians.  I will give them that much.  But rather than helping, they have become a part of the problem by becoming little more than a leaderless mob.


4. Dumbshits...the American voter of today is, in general, a product of an impatient, selfish and proudly ignorant fast food, soap opera morons.  They are, in short, a merging of Stewey and Bart Simpson.


Now allow me to clarify.  While that statement may seem to be a blanket diatribe, a stereotypical accusation of all voters, that is not my intention.  I am well aware of the fact that there are a lot of smart, savvy and intelligent voters.  People that vote after much study, research and thoughtful analysis.  I am privileged to be in a situation where I am surrounded by people that are smart, intelligent and much more restrained than me and my hot headed tendencies.  But let us face it...for every voter that truly prepares out there there are a dozen that vote (or don't vote for that matter) for Palin or Clinton just because they are women.  Likewise there weree an unbeliveable amount of voters that voted for or against Obama just because he was black.  American voters are lazy and ignorant.  These dumbshits will go to the polls November 2nd armed only with the quasi intelligence bestowed on them by Ed, Hannity, Olberman, Limbaugh, Maddow, O'Reilly or Matthews.  They did no research on their own, they did not spend one iota of effort or time.  They will go into that booth feeling proud of themselves as they enter and vote for who FOX News, MSNBC, CBS or CNN told them to vote for, information imparted to them as they listened in passing while stuck in traffic, cooking or eating dinner, yelling at their kids, screwing their wife or a half a million other things that were more important to them than the destiny and well being of this great country we call home.


When I speak of dumbshit voters I am referring to the idiots that think it is possible to correct in two years what took nearly a decade to screw up.  They fail to realize that the bullshitters that want to return to power were the ones in charge when all hell broke loose in the first place.  Not only did they steer us here in the first place but fought like crazy every step of the way in the progress that has been made the last two years. 


This country deserves what is coming.  The GOP will take control along with their bat shit crazy cousins in the Tea Party.  They will shut down government.  They will send bills to the President's desk that they know damn well he would never sign.  The Democrats will prove over the next two years that they are just as capable of childish behavior as the Republicans are by dragging the filibuster along painfully on every issue.  And when it is all said and done, like Rome of antiquity, it will be the politicians that we voted into office that damn us to our own self destruction.

A Banner Week for Bigotry and Hate...

So it is Sunday night and I look back over this week at some of the news this week and suffice it to say that this week was one where the media pandered to the hate and bigotry of the Republicans and to the radical religious right that has taken over the GOP.   And as if the GOP and it nutcase teabaggers were not enough the cowardice of the Democrat Party Leaders was in all its glory as Harry Reid and a few of the others did not hesitate to side with the religious right (in regards to the ‘Mosque’ in NYC but we will get to that eventually).  So just a quick recap…

California…so let us start in the land of fun and sunshine.  Prop 8 was declared unconstitutional and since a gay judge ruled that made him biased, nevermind the fact that he made solid arguments all the way around on why it was not constitutional he was an “activist” judge…because obviously being a heterosexual judge would have made him unbiased!  

Prop 8 defenders, however, stay on message that the gays and lesbians are destroying the family institution as seen by the 50%+ divorce rate and soaring teen pregnancy.  Just as an ironic side note, teen pregnancy is highest in the more rural, less educated but more religious “Bible Belt” South.  Despite the fact that they have no economic, social, psychological, physical, logical or even practical reason other than the superstitious, bigoted, malevolent, archaic and religious nonsense they insist on spewing and regurgitating they have managed to discriminate against the rights of a minority group in our great lan of freedom and liberty and justice for all.

The right insists that this is a matter for “the people” to decide…but is it?  Consider the following two questions:

1.      

Is   Is marriage a civil or religious matter?

This question is significant because if it is a religious, dictated by the religious realm, then other issues can ostensibly become a part of the regulation process (i.e. adultery, fornication, divorce, etc.) and a much more stringent rule would be applicable. If marriage is, however, a civil matter than to important issues become a part of the consideration:

a.       Legality.  If this is a civil matter then it an issue that is affected by law not the mob.  What these nut cases don’t understand is that today you are voting on somebody else’s rights and fifty years from now they will be voting on yours.  It is at moments like this that these people prove they miss the message of “Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.”  I was just discussing this last night with a good friend and he was saying that marriage should not be a state sanctioned thing then it would not be an issue.  On the surface I would agree with this. BUT, as I was thinking about it afterwards I was thinking, where would we be today if the state had not ordered desegregation?  Sure eventually it would have happened but we would be years, even decades, behind where we are now.  If you left this marriage issue to people it would never happen.  People are too deeply entrenched in their superstitions, phobias and irrational bigotry to have made this change or even accepted this change with anything less than a fight.

b.      Civil rights.  If marriage is a civil matter then, as in all things civil, civil rights apply.  There was a time when a black person could not marry a white person.  Heck, not too long ago, like last year, a judge was forced to retire because he refused to perform a mixed race marriage.  Marriage is a civil union between partners committed to a lifetime of mutual dedication and as is the case in all other civil matters, that right cannot be infringed upon due to race, religion, age or gender.  The Constitution does not define marriage, neither implicitly nor by implication.  Now there are those that would argue that the founding fathers would have clarified it if they had felt it necessary and if they had seen where we would be today.  And they may be right, but like it or not they did NOT define it and that fact does not leave it open for the right to speak for the Founding Fathers and define it for the rest of the country.  The religious right, who seem to think they are the Elite of Americans and the only true Patriots, were not given some divine right, passed on by George Washington to dictate to the rest of the country what the Founding Fathers “meant” to say.  Where there is no definition outlined in the Constitution it falls under the individual freedoms of the citizen, a freedom that no other citizen has the right to infringe upon.

2.       Is this a theocracy or a Democratic Constitutional Republic?

Are we run by the law of God or the laws of Man?  And if the answer is by the laws of God then, which God?  This may come across as sarcastic but the theocratic Republican Teabagger Sarah Palin is so fond of pointing at the now defunct Soviet Union and nod sagely an remind us that socialism does not work.  Ok.  Allow me to point at Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Kuwait and a slew of other countries as examples of the simple fact that theocracy does not work either.  These people are not interested in the rights and freedoms of the American people.  These people are only interested in their own rights and liberties and then in forcing the rest of us to line up with their twisted, distorted and bigoted view of the world, adhering to their ideals and beliefs.  We are free country governed by the laws of society, laws made by men to govern men. (And by “men” I am referring to the human race.)  I do not acknowledge the right of you or your God telling me or my family or my friends how we can live our lives.

Now let us take a cross country ride to the other center of bigotry, hate, racism and idiocy…

New York City…The last place I would have thought to have been a bedrock of conservatism, NYC is now the place of the most heated controversy.  A couple of city blocks away from Ground Zero in Manhattan there are plans to build an Islamic cultural center and this has started an uproar that is being played by the political leaders, eager to drum up anything they can to get the base livid enough to get out and vote in November so they can be back in power .  I would blame this on the Republicans if it weren’t for the eager whimpy ass Democrats lining up to sell our freedoms and liberty for their preservation of power. 

It has been ten years since the horrible disaster that claimed so many lives and even now, despite the fact that, between Afghanistan and Iraq, we have exacted more than our share of bloodshed and revenge we still show fear, we still show cowardice and hate in the face of a religious system that at worst is just as violent, oppressive, bigoted, divisive, hate filled and archaic as the one this country espouses.  Christians often point at the Koran and select passages that speak of violence as proof that it is a religion of violent control unworthy to exist in our great country while ignoring the Book of Joshua where their God ordered the complete genocide of an entire region including women, children an even the animals of people whose only crime was worshiping a different God and happen to make the mistake of living on a piece of real estate they wanted!

The point is that we have, as a nation, allowed a group of extremists make every religious movement a political movement.  At what point did we allow our fear of a religion dictate our freedoms and liberties?  At what point did the First Ammendment get assigned a “no fly” zone?  At what point did ANY acreage, any real estate fall under an exemption to the freedom of religion?  At what point did we decide that the Constitution only protects certain religions?  At what point did we say it is ok to put a chapel on sacred ground where the Christian God could be worshipped but a Mosque (which this is NOT a Mosque but so what if it were?) would not be allowed for people to worship Allah? 

Somebody called the radio station here and made a comment stating that building a Mosque near Ground Zero would be like the Catholic church building a church near a playground!  Truth is that there is no room for this kind of foolishness in our country.  There was a time we would have defended this basic right.  But it became ok to be a bigoted, hated filled  and ignorant fool as long as you could hide behind patriotism.  Make no mistake, there is not a damn thing patriotic in standing against the rights of your fellow Americans. 

And now the call is going out to “denounce” the President as a Muslim.  And so what if he were?   John F. Kennedy was a Catholic and they swore he could NOT be President because he would be a slave to the Pope.  Our Constitution very clearly states in Article VI that religion is irrelevant when it comes to holding office.   Why are we so ready to sell off our rights, freedoms and liberties to these fear mongering idiots in the name of National Security, Patriotism and propriety?  Why are our leaders Republican and Democrat so ready to betray all we revere and love about this country in order to pander to a group of people that are nothing more than the squeaky wheel that the media seems to insist on giving too much air time to?  Have we come that far that we have forgotten what it truly means to be America? I shudder to think what these right wing nut jobs will do once they have the votes in November…

They Came for me...but there was nobody left to speak up...Keith Olberman's amazing take on the "Mosque" in NYC

I DARE you conservatives to stomach this from beginning to end so I can watch your vile venom spew out of ears as you ignore every shred of common sense in order to support your hate, bigotry and xenophobia...I DARE you!  I have never been a big fan of Keith...but from beginning to end...this rocks!