SquareState - Bigotry

Right-Wing New-Speak

Steve Harvey — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:12:11 GMT

(Cross-posted on http://coloradoconfluence.com/)

It's not possible to fully understand American politics without understanding the language that is employed in political discourse, and how the terms are defined by those who use them. Interestingly, one American political faction has come to define all terms as precisely the opposite of what the rest of us have long understood them to mean.
Whereas some people, for instance, think that the word "liberty" refers to a lack of infringement on freedom of thought and action, and lack of intrusion on privacy, careful observation of how those on the Right use it reveals that we have all been mistaken all these years. Apparently, it really means:

1) allowing members of the dominant race, ethnicity, religion, and sex to impose their will on all others and to protect the privileges inherited from a history of oppressing and exploiting others;

2) facilitating the displacement of political power from the people, through their elected representatives, to private corporations unhindered by democratic processes or public accountability;

3) ensuring that individuals are as unprotected as possible from the greatest threats to their well-being, posed by organized others in service to an obscenely inequitable distribution of wealth and opportunity, while simultaneously ensuring that we react as vindictively and counterproductively as possible toward the impoverished and destitute;

4) fetishizing both privately owned instruments of violence and nationally organized acts of violence (as long as the perpetrator of the latter is one's own nation); and

5) insisting on policies that have led to the incarceration of the highest percentage of any national population, and the highest absolute number of people, of any nation on Earth, bar none (making the United States, in the most literal sense, the least free nation on Earth).

More specifically, "liberty," apparently, is a value which dictates that

1) Adherents of Islam who have engaged in no crimes nor done anything to draw suspicion should be placed under covert surveillance and have dossiers dedicated to them in order to ensure that any crimes they might commit in the future are pre-empted (otherwise known as "Ethnically and Religiously Exclusive Liberty," or, more simply, "Police State Liberty");

2) Impoverished people who migrate toward greater opportunity without governmental permission, or the children of such people who migrated with them as infants, should be rounded up and placed in detention centers, often subjected to poorly maintained facilities and poor treatment, until such time as they can be forcibly removed from the "land of opportunity" to which they migrated (Otherwise known as "Geographically Exclusive Liberty," or "Fortress America Liberty," or "'If You're Lucky' Liberty");

3) Women should be reduced to the legal status of human incubators, with no rights over their own bodies once they become impregnated, whether by their own choice or by force (otherwise known as "'You're a Toaster' Liberty"); and

4) People who are sexually attracted to people of the same sex should be denied the kinds of legally and socially defined relationships that those who are attracted to people of the opposite sex enjoy, because it as an affront to the ideal of "liberty" not to discriminate against those who are different from you in any significant way (otherwise known as "'Liberty as long as we white Christian heterosexuals are okay with how you use it, but otherwise, not so much' Liberty").

This imaginative definition of "liberty" is reminiscent of how this political faction's historical predecessors used the word. For instance, John C. Calhoun, the famous Antebellum Southern politician, used the word "liberty" to refer to the freedom to own slaves, and "minority" to refer to those who believed that they had an inalienable right to own slaves, and was very strongly committed to protecting the rights and liberties of that embattled minority. In other words, to these neo-nullifcation-doctrine adherents, liberty means "my freedom to screw everyone else."

Similarly, the venerable phrase "United States Constitution," which to most of us means that document drafted by a group of very intelligent but historically contextualized propertied white men in 1787 in order to strengthen the federal government and overcome the disintegrative dysfunctionality of The Articles of Confederation which had preceded it, and which is the foundation of our rule of law, in reality refers to the complete disregard for the actual provisions of that document or to the rule of law established in accordance with those provisions. Rather, it refers to a strange, incoherent combination of Fundamentalist Christian theocracy, corporate oligarchy, and indifference to gross social injustices produced by current and historical distributions of privilege disproportionately favoring the racial, religious, ethnic and sexual orientation categories to which those who adhere to this imaginative interpretation of the phrase "United States Constitution" coincidentally belong.

For instance, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, which grants Congress the power to tax and spend in service to the general welfare, in reality prohibits Congress from taxing and spending in service to the general welfare, the rest of us failing to understand that the Founding Fathers meant that Clause tongue-in-cheek, and that a literal, non-judicial-activist reading of the Constitution requires us to realize that it means the exact opposite of what it says.

Or, the First Amendment, which protects the right of each to adhere to and practice the religion of their choice, and ensures that the government does not favor any religion over any other, really means that the government must assiduously favor Christianity over all other religions, and decline to extend the same permission and accommodation to, for instance, adherents of Islam practicing their religion, because to do so would be to force good, all-American white Christians to endure people of other religions practicing non-Judeo-Christian religions in "our" country (not "their" country, because, of course, if they're Muslim, then they're not American..., right?).

"Liberty," in Right-Wing New-Speak, means indifference, injustice, predation, violence and mass incarceration. "Freedom of religion" means Christian Theocracy and intolerance of any disfavored religions. The provision granting Congress the authority to tax and spend for the general welfare means that Congress is prohibited from taxing and spending for the general welfare. You almost have to admire such an impressive commitment to the complete inversion of reality.

So, if you find yourself driving a car with a right-wing ideologue riding shot-gun, and he or she shouts in a panic "Floor it!" ...don't. Hit the brakes instead. The wayward gay Muslim Hispanic pedestrian who wandered into your path will thank you for it.

Bigotry, Prejudice and CO's Civil Unions Bill

peacemonger — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:36:14 GMT

When I was a little girl living three miles outside of Detroit in a small house with eleven residents (my parents and nine children), my Dad had regular poker games in our garage. The garage was a working garage with a grease pit to fix cars (a 6 foot deep rectangular hole), which he covered with several layers of plywood on weekend evenings, in order to have his regular poker game on top of it. (Ever seen the Roseanne show? It was just like that, only our kitchen was much smaller than theirs.)

Dad was deaf from a childhood accident, but he heard the language of the streets through beer, cigarettes, cars, and frequent "gut checks". Everyone from the shop was invited to poker night, no matter what their faith, color, ethnicity, language, bank account, religion, etc. The only rule to be invited to poker night was you couldn't drive a foreign car. (I talked a lot about that here.)

We had one television, one telephone, and ten people fighting over them, so I read often, and listened to Canadian public radio, where my liberal curiosity was nurtured. I loved meeting all my Dad's friends from "the shop" -- each had a different accent, a different smell, a different look. When I studied Native Americans, my Dad had a friend who was a Native American Chief, and my Dad asked him to teach us. Chief Red Bird, a local volunteer at a state park, brought his daughter and some friends, and had a mini-Pow-wow in our living room. He even made us leather slippers, which we wore when we visited him at Detroit Metropolitan State Park.

Dad didn't discriminate, at least not in the usual ways. Although my father quit school in the eighth grade and only later went back to finish the eleventh grade (there was no special education offered for poor deaf kids in the forties), he was an expert at people. Dad made friends with everyone -- literally everyone -- and he brought them all home for poker. Jewish friends, Italian friends, Greek friends, African-American friends, German friends, Asian friends -- didn't matter. As long as they didn't drive a foreign car, they were all his friends.
At our local drug store, there was a woman with numbers tattooed on her arm, and when asked, she told us in a very thick accent how she had escaped Nazi Germany. My mother would not have approved of me asking such nosy questions, but when I was alone, I asked them of everyone I met. Ethnic Detroit in the 70s was the perfect place to learn about the world.

I remember being intrigued by one of my Dad's poker-playing friends, "German Joe". Joe's wife was the best baker, and he frequently brought over German anisette pastries. He also had an adorable schnauzer named Snoopy that did tricks and followed commands in three languages. I was about eight years old when I blurted out to Joe, "Are you a Nazi?" My Dad's friend became very serious and quiet, kneeled down to be eye level with me, and said (something like),

"When I was sixteen, I joined Hitler's army because I loved planes and they said I could fly them. I did not hate Jews. I did not hate anyone. I just wanted to fly planes. I worked for Hitler until I escaped and came to this country. Every day of my life, I pray to G-d to forgive me for being on the wrong side." With tears in his eyes, Joe continued, "When you grow up, remember to ask a lot of questions... because if you don't, you might end up on the wrong side, like me. Sometimes I wish I died in the war. You should never live like Old Joe."

I sensed Joe's deep shame, and never forgot it. I also never shared Joe's secret with my parents (my Dad was deaf, remember). Many of my father's nine brothers fought the Nazi's in World War II -- it wouldn't have gone over well. How could someone who appeared so kind have been part of something that was so unspeakably cruel?

Later, as a teenager, I started attending a synagogue and eventually converted to Judaism. In shul, I heard many more horror stories about the Holocaust, and often thought of Joe -- Joe with the sweet dog, the delicious cookies, and the horrible secret. Joe the Nazi, who flew planes for the most murderous regime in human history.

I learned as a kid, to talk to everyone, to assume nothing, and to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to hate people; it's much more difficult to understand them. I studied Psychology in college for this reason.

I was thinking about all of this yesterday at the CO State Senate Judiciary hearing on Civil Unions. A young woman representing the Anti-Defamation League testified that people who opposed Civil Unions were motivated for many different reasons, but among them were bigotry and prejudice. A very tense exchange between the young woman and Senator Lundberg went something like this:

Lundberg: "Are you saying that anyone opposed to Civil Unions is a bigot, or is prejudiced?"
Woman from ADL: "No, I am saying there are many motives to oppose equality for gays and lesbians. Among those reasons is bigotry and prejudice. That's why I'm testifying on behalf of ADL".

Lundberg repeated his question in slightly different words, and the woman repeated her answer in a similar fashion. As the proverbial saying goes, you could cut the tension with a knife.

I thought about German Joe, and I thought about the woman with the numbers on her arm. I thought about Rosa Parks, whom I met when I was sixteen; my high school social studies teacher invited her in to speak to our class. I remembered her saying how important it was to the civil rights movement that white people joined the cause, too. I thought about one of my best friends who killed himself while struggling with his sexuality and the homophobic world around him, and I thought about Senator Lundberg.

When it was my turn to testify, I said,

"I'm sorry Senator Lundberg is out of the room..." (he and Senator King left the room frequently during the hearing, each missing approximately half of the testimony. Even while there, Lundberg rarely looked up from his laptop or Ipad, apparently doing his taxes, or something else equally more important than listening to the pain of gays and lesbians for hours). I continued, "because I wanted to tell Senator Lundberg I do not believe every person who opposes gay marriage or Civil Unions is a bigot, or is prejudiced".

On the break, I gave Senator Lundberg a copy of my testimony, shook his hand, and told him the same thing. And I meant it. I don't believe he hates gays.

In my testimony, I spoke of being homophobic while in high school. When I heard gay jokes as a kid, and laughed at them, I meant no harm to anyone. Like my Dad, I didn't hate gay people, or Jews, or African-Americans, or Italians, or anyone else. Hate has never been a part of my heart, even a little.

And yet, by not speaking up, by not showing up, by not standing up, I was part of the problem. When my friend Bret killed himself, and left a note, I found that I, too, in high school, shared something with German Joe.

Never again. Never again. Never again.

I will listen to all sides. I will strive to understand. I will assume everyone has good intentions unless I can prove otherwise. And I will never, ever stop asking questions. I will never stand quiet when those around me are persecuted. I owe it to the woman with the numbers on her arm. I owe it to Rosa Parks. I owe it to my friend Bret, and to many other millions of people who have been persecuted because of the (literally) thoughtless actions, or inactions, of others.

Senators Lundberg and King gave their reasons for not supporting civil unions. For King, he essentially believes civil unions are a veiled attempt at gay marriage, and defining marriage is the right of the church. To quote King, "Separation of church and state is there to protect the church".

Lundberg's argument was similar. He believes the Civil Unions bill is no different than the gay marriage attempts of the past. Because of the fact Lundberg only actually listened carefully to a few minutes of the five hour long Senate Judiciary hearing, he managed to avoid hearing all the reasons why the Civil Unions bill is very different from earlier gay marriage legislation (I sat immediately to his right in the completely packed chambers and watched him surfing the net for five hours -- that is, when he was even in the room).

"Ask questions", Senator Lundberg. "Listen. Engage. Understand." That's how we'll know you are not a bigot.

And to those who will conclude with a knee-jerk reaction to this piece that I am comparing Senators Lundberg and King to Nazis, please go back and read this again... carefully.

Jethro Bodineism Watch - Rand Paul Edition

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:53:19 GMT

To my great chagrin no one in the national media has picked up the Bodineism meme, but they are starting to get the picture that there are some elected officials, particularly Republican elected officials, are about as dumb as sack of hammers.

The particular Jethro that I am talking about today is Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Of all the folks that I have compared to Jethro Bodine, Sen. Paul is probably the closet to the mark. By all accounts he is a pretty genial guy with a good smile and a nice manner. He is also so clueless as to be a text book (given that all books are printed in text, wouldn't that make them all text books?) example of self-satire.

Most recently Sen. Paul (gods greater and lesser that gives me chills just writing it, ugh) has managed to trample the 1st Amendment with his "ideas". Some of us on the Left side of the Blogasphere were more than a little happy that he was holding up the PATRIOT act renewal, by wanting to insert some amendments that would lessen the ability of the government to spy on its own citizens.

That was a good thing, but it does not mean that he was doing it from a deep understanding of the Constitution. You see after his ploy failed he went on Sean "The Manatee" Hannity's radio show and said the following:

I'm not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they've been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they've been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn't be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that's really an offense that we should be going after - they should be deported or put in prison.

Peel your palm off of your face. Yes, Sen. Paul, a man sworn to uphold the Constitution, just like every other elected official, seems to have an abject failure to understand the meaning, intent and workings of the 1st Amendment.

Since good ol' Sen "Jethro" Paul seems to have forgotten with the 1st Amendment says let me remind all of you:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Where the junior (so very, very junior) Senator form Kentucky gets into hot water is the part that says "right of the people to peaceably assemble". It does not matter what is said when they assemble, as long as the assembly is peaceful it is constitutional and it would be a violation of the Constitution to have any law that would deport or imprison people who attend such a gathering.

It does not matter if it is Billy Graham or Malcolm X or Britney Spears, if you are going to a gathering and the speaker does not say something to the affect of "Let's burn down City Hall, right now!" it is inside the protections of the free speech and the peaceful assembly grant of the 1st Amendment.

You might think that a supposedly Libertarian like Paul would be zealous in defending all rights, especially the ones that limit the ability of the government to prohibit actions of citizens. Instead this Jethro of a Senator wants to expand the ability of the government to arrest and imprison those who just attend speeches that are inflammatory.

This is not just dumb on a constitutional level either. It is a political hot potato on the Right. There are more than a few rightwing groups that preach the violent overthrow of the United States. The KKK has been known to do it, so have the so-called Sovereign Citizens groups. Militias pop up all the time with this as their main goal (though they never get close to it) and then there are the Dominationist groups that want to make the United States a theocracy and they are not shy about the idea of violence to achieve it either.

If Sen. Paul had his way all these groups would be in big trouble and so would anyone attending one of their rallies or speeches. These are groups that are part of his base. I know that is strong accusation, but if you want some back up, take a look at the efforts of Stromfront, a White Supremacist group to raise money for Paul's election campaign. You can find it at this link.

One has to wonder how far Sen. Paul really wants to take this? After all is there a lot of difference between taking violent racists money and listening to a speech advocating overthrowing the Obama Administration? Should we be putting a sitting United States Senator on the No Fly List or warming up a jail cell for him?

Of course Sen. Paul does not think this should apply to him. In fact it is really just a smoke screen for Islamaphobia. He is clearly thinking only of dark skinned men who happen to be Muslims for this special exception to the Constitution, but again being a Jethro he does not get that the Constitution applies to everyone.

Conclusive diagnosis of Bodineism is a difficult thing. There is no blood test or even MRI imaging. However when folks like Jon Chait and Alex Pareenee say things like "Rand Paul, Americas Dumbest Senator" and "He's not only an ideological fanatic, he's not even a terribly bright one." We can be relatively sure that Sen. Paul is a Bodineism suffer.

It is amazing to me that people even listen to the rube at all. Yes he is one of the more powerful people in the nation, since he is one of only 100 senators. Still when someone is so wrong so often on so many issues we have to say "Okay, Jethro, why don't you take a dip in the cement pond?"

I don't know about you, but if I were a Libertarian I'd be hanging my head in shame that this is the most high profile member of your movement. Someone that thinks the government giving doctors money to treat people is enslavement, someone who thinks that a pretty crappy writer from the 1950's has the last word on a problem that was not even recognized when she wrote and someone who does not understand the basic rights that Libertarians are supposed to be all about.

Having Sen. Paul as a standard bearer for your cause is about the same as having the original Jethro Bodine as your pilot; it'll be a ride with a lot of attention paid to it, but in the end you are likely to wind up in a crater.

The floor is yours.

Bigoted Ex-Bush Official Sues HRC And Karl Rove Under RICO

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Wed, 11 May 2011 13:31:05 GMT

What do you do when you have been caught breaking civil service rules left and right as a Presidential Appointee and consequently been forced out of that job? Why of course you sue everyone in sight under the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act. Which is exactly what the former href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-special-counsel-bloch-sues-rove-davis-and-others-for-202-million/2011/05/10/AFuKHtkG_story.html">Office of Special Counsel chief, Scott "I got no clue" Block is doing.

Let's back up a little bit so everyone can remember the facts about Mr. Block. The Office of Special Counsel is charged with protecting federal whistleblowers. That is actually the mandate of this office, to make sure that when someone notices illegal or improper acts happening in the federal government and comes forward, this office looks into the it and they make sure that the person reporting the misdeeds is not retaliated against. Or at least that is what they are supposed to do. This is also the office that is supposed to enforce the Hatch act, which prohibits using government resources for electioneering purposes.

Now you have to remember that this was the criminal Bush administration, so they were not really keen on having any kind of actual enforcement neither of the Hatch Act nor, for that matter having whistleblowers come forward. This was the Administration filled with John Yoo and Monica Goodling after all. It was a place where Karl Rove went to Executive branch departments and gave Power Point presentations on helping Republicans win new seats and defend old ones.

So, there is good ol' Scotty at the helm of the office that would get any complaints. He was, until recently that is, a "good Bushie" and did what you might expect. He started out purging his office of anyone who disagreed with him on summary dismissal of whistleblower claims. He is also started to retaliate against people in his own office for disagreeing or complaining about his actions. Real nice from the guy who was supposed to protect whistleblowers.
He had a particular thing against gay citizens and went out of his way to hire a deputy to deal with whistleblowers in that area who had written extensively against the so-called "Homosexual agenda". He also ordered any mention of href="
sexual">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... orientation nondiscrimination removed from the Offices literature and website. Not exactly the kind of evenhandedness you'd expect, eh?

It got so bad that outside groups called for an investigation of block for breaking whistleblower laws, including the Human Rights Campaign. That presented a Catch-22 since he was the chief of the office that would normally do it. Instead the Office of Personnel Management was tasked with looking into it.

At this point Block pulled what can only be called a blockhead move. He had his work computer and the laptops of several deputies subjected to what is called a "seven layer" scrub of their hard drives. What makes this even more suspicious is that instead of using the DOJ IT department, he called the Best Buy "Geek Squad" to do it.

This is where he got into deep trouble. He wound up testifying to Congress and lying (by his own admission) about the erasure of e-mails and files on those computers. When he plead guilty he was sentenced to one month in jail, the minimum sentence. Block has since appealed on; get this, the basis that he did not know that a guilty plea would carry 30 days in the Crowbar Hotel.

Now he is also filing this civil RICO suit. He is suing a laundry list of folks, from the href="
Human">http://www.washingtonblade.com... Rights Campaign to Karl Rove to the Government Accountability program. He is claiming that these disparate groups acted to get him fired from his job. And all he wants in compensation is 101 million, plus another 101 million in punitive damages to make sure this unlikely rouge's gallery never gets together to do it to anyone else in the future.

What makes this fun, in that watching a drunk guy clean a pool kind of fun, is that Scott Block is representing himself in this matter. As you may know, I grew up in a family full of lawyers. Think of it as being raised by wolves but without all the cuddliness that wolves bring and you'll have a good idea of my childhood.

The flip side of that is I have learned some of the legal profession axioms. One of the most famous is "The man who represents himself has a fool for a client". The point there is that you should never be your own counsel because you are too close to the case. By hiring an attorney you get someone else who can be more dispassionate and can argue your case without being emotionally invested in the outcome. That is really important when it comes to the law.

If that were not bad enough there is the fact that civil RICO cases brought by individuals have a horrible record of success, as in almost never. There is a ton of background information that needs to be collected to prove a conspiracy and even with a judge who is incredibly liberal on discovery it is almost impossible for a citizen suit to do the ground work.

Part of the RICO law requires proving that there is a ongoing criminal enterprise and that it was through that enterprise that whatever crime you are suing for was committed. Block is trying to claim that the Federal Government was the criminal enterprise, and his firing was the crime that was conspired and committed.

There is also the problem of what he is trying to defend. It is more than a little clear that he was such a homophobic zealot in his time as Chief of OSC that even Bush administration officials could not stomach his actions. After all it was the White House that ordered, in the Gonzalez DOJ an investigation of complaints against him. Think about how bad it would have to be for them to take that kind of action!

Basically he was being forced out for being a bigot and not having enough sense to talk in code or keep his mouth shut. Now he is going to claim that it was illegal for them to investigate him and subsequently demand his resignation.

In the words of a lawyer friend of mine, he is going to get creamed in court. It might be the reason that he is representing himself, it is completely likely that he could not find any attorney who was willing to waste their time and reputation on a case that has no chance of being successful.

My Dad always made a point to remind me that just because you go to law school and can pass a bar exam does not make you a good attorney. In fact his said that a lot of his success was based on that fact alone. We knew that the Bush administration was filled with bad lawyers, from Harriet Miers, to Alberto Gonzalez to Monica Goodling to John Yoo, but it seems that Scott Block, having earned the distinction as a bigots bigot is going to try for another crown as the absolutely worst.

The floor is yours.

No Depths Too Deep For Bryan Fisher Or His Republican Guests

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:05:14 GMT

Yesterday one of the questions that we though was for the ages was answered. Was there anything that you could say on Fox "News" that was too far out there, too crazy even for the propaganda arm of the Republican Party? Now we know the answer is yes, but you have to do it for nearly two years before it has an affect.

There is a question that is a corollary to that one; is there anything that Bryan Fisher of the American Family Association, and a radio personality on the Right, can say that is so crazy and offensive that Republican presidential hopefuls won't go on his show?

The answer to this one is; apparently not. For those who really don't have time to follow abject assholes like Fisher he is one of the Terry Jones and Fred Phelps type of Christianist. He has insisted that there be no more Mosques built in the United States, he believes that American Muslims don't have First Amendment Rights and that the U.S. military is run by homosexual and Muslim activists.

You know, just your average foaming at the mouth Religious Right Conservative. It is possible that he has gone too far this time though. Recently in a rant against the War on Poverty he said (From RightWingWatch) :

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

Now, I already considered this guy a bigot, but he is getting into open racism with this stuff, and as we found out with Glenn Beck when you do that, you are probably a bridge too far.

In recent months his show has hosted many of the 7 dwarfs of the supposed Republican field. Fisher has hosted Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour and Newt Gingrich on his show. It would be great to think that they would understand that Fishers brand of toxic crap against Muslims and Muslim Americans was enough to keep them away, but we all know that the Right is not going to punish you for bashing Muslims.

However, folks like Gov. Barbour have enough race issue problems already without being tied to someone who is comparing poor African Americans to rabbits and saying that they are willing to be paid to fornicate.a>
It is true that the Republicans have pretty much written off the African American vote for this cycle anyway. It was not like they have done much to improve their image with that community in the last few decades, but there is a cost in Independent votes when you are seen to be cuddling up to virulent racists.

It kind of amazes me that they are not learning the lesson that there are no backwaters of political speech these days. There is nowhere to go and speak just to your base in the sotto voce way where you can let your hair down and let your freak flag fly.

Mike Huckabee learned this lesson recently with his over the top acceptance of Birtherism. He has been rescued a bit by Donald Trump using Republican politics to try to keep the Apprentice on the air, but it is still a lesson every politician should no by now, there is nothing you say to any media outlet that won't be found and exposed. If you want to be a Birther or a racist or a religious bigot, you might as well wear it on your sleeve.

I wish I could say that I thought the Republicans would disavow this hate filled bigot and his organization. Sadly I don't think that is going to happen. It would probably actually make any of them who do more viable as a national candidate if they did. It would a "Sista Soljah" moment for them, but it is not going to happen.

The modern Republican Party is build on a total lack of remorse, a pathological inability to admit a mistake and a psychotic hate of anything to do with civil rights. As a result they will probably only try not to appear on Fishers show again and claim, fairly, that they went on before he took the swan dive off the high board of racism.

All of which means we should hang this around their necks as closely as we can and as often as we can. There might be less policy difference between the Democrats and Republicans than we like (that is an argument for another post) but there are differences in things like being willing to accept bigotry and racism. That alone should show who is a better choice in any election.

The floor is yours.

The Bigotry Shuffle - NPR To Fox

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:00:25 GMT

Sometimes it worthwhile to examine the language we use and what it really means. English, as it is spoken in the United States, is wonderfully malleable and thus common words can be open to interpretation. However there are some words that should be clear in their meaning, bigotry being one.

My parents were Liberals with a capital L. They both came from places and times when the N word could be used and nothing would be thought of it. This was anathema to them, and they were not going to pass this kind of thing down to their children. The rule in our house was that you could hate someone, but you could only do it if you knew them personally and they had done you wrong. There would be no painting with a broad brush, no assumptions put on one person because of the actions of another person like them.
Bigotry is doing exactly that, assuming that there is a monolithic set of actions or attribute to a large group of people. It does not matter if the set is wrapped around sexuality or religion or ethnicity, if you assume that all of group X does action Y because one or some of them does action Y then you are bigoted in your opinion.

No one likes to be called a bigot. Former NPR news analyst Juan Williams certainly does not want to be called on. He even prefaced the statements that got him bounced from NPR with "I am not a bigot, but".

Here is the thing, any time you start a sentence with "I am not a bigot, but" then you are about to prove you are indeed a bigot. It is the same as when people complain by saying "I don't want to complain, but". It is a social convention of cowardice, where the person saying it wants to be able to get away with a bigoted statement without having to own the bigotry.

Mr. Williams said that he feels nervous when he sees people in traditional Muslim garb on an air plane. It is not uncommon to feel nervous if you see someone in clothes that you don't recognize, a kid dressed in all in Raiders gear with his hood pulled up can be menacing for a second. However to assume that all people with hoods and Raiders gear are somehow a threat is downright silly.

The statement was bad enough but the real problem with this is it is code. The 9/11 hijackers were not dressed in traditional garb, they were dressed in everyday clothes for the U.S. So this "Muslim garb" becomes code for people who look like they might be from the Middle East. It is bigotry based solely on appearance.

This is what the Fox personalities and the Right Wing Politicians are defending, the right to voice your bigotry without having to own it. Mr. Williams is welcome to be a bigot (though it is unfortunate that we have to deal with this in the 21st century) but he is not allowed to escape the consequences.

NPR was probably looking for a reason to get rid of this tiresome and troublesome analyst. He had been making Fox News look more credible by trading on NPR's reputation for a long time. But, as with most bigots, the action that gave NPR clear cause was all his own. He was the one that made it clear he was going to judge all Muslims by the actions of a few murderous twerps. Even to this point he has not retracted his bigotry or apologized for it. He instead says he was misinterpreted, the last refuge of bigots everywhere.

It is hard to understand how saying that what someone wears makes you question their loyalty to this country can be misinterpreted. When it is connected to religion it is impossible to see it as anything other than rank bigotry.

Still, it is not all bad for Mr. Williams; he has signed a multimillion dollar contract with Fox News, which has been clearly willing to support the spouting of bigotry, especially against Muslims for a long time. That Fox and Williams have the right to their bigotry is uncontestable. It is hoped that more and more people will start to realize that any so-called news network that allows this kind of speech, hell, even encourages it is in no way credible nor should be given any voice in discussions of policy in a nation that strives for diversity and plurality as an ideal which makes it stronger.

It becomes more clear all the time that Fox News is pandering to silent bigots among us. My parents thought that they could be part of the last generation that would have to have outright bigotry as a problem. They worked to raise children that would judge people on their individual actions and not the myths that are created when one group is considered "other". They were idealists clearly, and they were not a big enough majority to make that ideal a reality.

It falls to my generation and the ones behind me to keep working to see a day when the race and religion baiting that is so prevalent on the Right is no longer acceptable, even in the privacy of ones home. We seem to be sliding backward on this, but you never get to pick the challenges that face your generation, you can only pick the way you respond to them. In the case of the Bigotry Shuffle being played out on Fox, I intend to call it what it is.

The floor is yours.

Arson And Reported Gun Shots At TN Islamic Center Site

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:45:23 GMT

The anti-Muslim whirlwind continues to be reaped in the United States. For all that the Sarah Palins and Rudy Giuliani's of the world think that the fight over the Park51 Islamic Center is confined to Manhattan the reality is that it is spreading and getting more and more violent. This weekend the site of new Islamic center outside Nashville was fire bombed. No one was hurt but some very expensive construction equipment was destroyed. Then when some of the members of the group building the mosque were looking at the site, they heard shots fired and reported it to local police.
Liberals (like myself) often worry about the slippery slope. We spend a lot of time telling folks that if we go down path X it could lead to result Y. Some of the time we are flatly wrong about it but not always and sadly not often enough. The growing fervor about the construction of Islamic community centers and mosques is a good example of where we seem to be right about the slippery slope.

It has always been the case that when this nation is at war we have dehumanized our opponents. In the North the Southern soldiers were Rebels, during WWI the Germans were called Huns, and then in WWII Kruats; the Japanese were called Nips; the Vietnamese were called Gooks or Slants. These were probably terms that were used by a minority of racist or bigoted folks already, but in a time of war they get pressed into service. All of this makes it easier for young men to go and kill other young men. If they are "other" then they can be assigned all kinds of heinous traits which justify the actions of our soldiers.

The problem with this tacit is in long wars it bleeds into the general population. It spreads and can become mainstream in the national consciousness. After all, even Doctor Seuss drew racist cartoons during the Japanese interment period. Take a look at this one below.

To his credit, he did express regrets about these cartoons later in life. Still at a time of war this was acceptable enough to print in the LA Times.

Which brings us to the problem of anti-Muslim fervor today; the Right in this nation has been told by Talk Radio and its radical hate mongers that we are at war with all of Islam. That 1.5 billion practitioners of that faith are constrained by their religious tenets to bring Islam to whole world by any means necessary. The fact that this is not true, has not stopped them from purveying this slime. As an atheist is rather galling to me to have to defend any religion, but this meme of monolithic intent is so ridiculous that I have stand up for Islam right now. There are many, many points of view as to what the requirements of the Qu'ran are. Just as there is interpretation of the Bible (all versions), Torah and the Bhagavad Gita there are differing schools of thought on the holy book of the Muslims.

Still it does not matter to those who have internalized the message of war with Islam. They are willing to use terms like "rag head" and "camel jockey" to demonize their fellow citizens, who happen to be Muslim.

Hate is a very dangerous emotion. It is possible for it to start out rationally, but it almost always progresses to the irrational. Once you hate a person or group of people it is easy to be intellectually lazy and accept any negative stereotype presented about them. In this way hate grows and consumes those who engage in it. After the 9/11 attacks and nearly a decade of constant war in predominately Muslim nations it is easy to see how some of our less mentally rigorous citizens have come to the place where their hate has overrun their reason.

Acts of bigotry or racial violence almost always include a component of praise seeking. The number of people who will say racist and bigoted things is always going to be larger than the subset which will act out on those ideas. However the more socially acceptable bigoted speech is the higher the percentage of those who think they will be praised for their violence becomes.

This is the slippery slope we find ourselves on today. As many of the national figures on the Right find it acceptable to compare Muslims in general to Nazis (I am looking right at your pudgy face Newt!) and even some leading Democrats fall for the bogus sensitivity argument and say so on national TV the Overton window on acceptable bigotry against Muslims grows. This means the size of the population who might act out violently grows as well.

The issue of the Park51 Islamic Center and the other buildings is not one that we can just shrug on and look away. It goes to basic freedoms in this country. When churches of Christian religions are fire bombed there is a serious outcry. As it should be. However when a minority religion like Islam suffers the same fate you can find comments in local news story praising the action and telling American citizens to go home. It is good that the newspaper removed these comments and there are those that argued against them but the fact that there were folks who would advocate further terror in public is a sign of how far the window has moved.

There are those among us who will never be tolerant. They do not want a pluralistic nation where many cultures are welcome, as long as they respect the rights of other cultures. They can't be reached and I would not spend a minute trying to do so. However there is a large group of Americans who can be reached. Standing up for the rights of Muslims to build wherever zoning permits is not about liking or disliking their religion, it is about standing up for one of the founding ideals of this nation. The premise that everyone should be able to be as involved in religion as they choose, whether that is deeply or not at all.

More importantly it is the core principal that democracy can only function when it protects the rights of disliked minorities. If we start to give in on that issue then we truly are on a slippery slope, where your Constitutional protections are only as strong as the majority group you happen to belong to. This is not what the Founders wanted. They were clear about the importance of all people having the same protections. The whims of a King, even a King mildly restrained by a Parliament taught them what being on the wrong side of the majority was like and they insisted that their descendants would not suffer it.

Standing up for the rights of Muslims is the right thing to do, not because I am of their faith or even like their faith. It is the right thing to do because it is the American thing to do. Standing up for those who would be oppressed by the majority is about as American as it gets.

The floor is yours.

Will Muslims Be Able To Rent Space In The Freedom Tower?

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:22:21 GMT

The issue of the Park51 community center is about more than just this one religious affiliated building. It would be one thing if it were just at this one place, where there is some heartfelt if misguided feelings about the site of a national tragedy a few blocks away. Sadly this is just the most visible of fights about the construction of Islamic religious buildings, whether they be mosques (which in the Islamic faith must be reserved for prayer alone) or community centers there is a push nation wide to prevent them from being built. Take a look at what they are saying in Temecula CA or in Tennessee.

Gov. Dean has taken a lot of heat from the Left for his idea that there can be come kind of dialog with the families of the 9/11 victims who object to the Park51 community center. He is making a stand on ideals, though not the ideals that many of us would like. It is a good idea to reach out and find common ground, but we can not do so with those who want it all their own way. This is exactly the same kind of situation the Democrats in Congress find themselves in. They want to find common ground with Congressional Republicans, but the Republicans insist on it being all there own way or nothing. There is no way to compromises with those who won't bend.

It is all very well for Gov. Dean to say that we will exclude those who demagogue this issue, but this ignores the fact that it was the demagoguery that made this an issue in the first place. For the sake of argument lets say the Imam and the Cordoba Foundation does meet with the protesting families and agree to move the community center. Where does the precedent end?

What happens when the new towers are built at Trade Center Plaza? If a Muslim organization wants to rent office space there will there be this hue and cry about disrespecting the families? Will our politicians talk about the need for sensitivity then? Will there be calls for them to find office space somewhere else? If the Community Center is forced to move, I think it is fair to say you can bet your butt that there will be.

This is the issue that the "sensitivity" proponents and the many folks who believe the community center somewhere else miss. They are insisting that a minority group bow to the will of the majority, to willingly give up their rights because some (many) of people feel that they are somehow at fault for the actions of Al Qaeda. If this group shows the insisted upon sensitivity, it does nothing to reduce the bigotry and political expedience that started this controversy. It only hands a win to the forces of intolerance and bigotry.

In backing down from this plan, the Imam and his group would be validating the idea that all Muslims bear some responsibility for the actions of 9/11. This pernicious meme would and the example of Park51 would then be available to be used in other places. After all if all Muslims are culpable at some level, then it would be just fine to try to deny a Muslim charity office space in the new Freedom Tower. It would bolster the case for Temecula to deny a permit to build, it would make every other project that a Muslim community wants to build that much harder to do so.

Let's be very, very clear here. The Cordoba Foundation and Imam Rauf did not pick this site in order to put their thumb in the eye of anyone, especially the families of the victims of 9/11. The fact that there were Muslims working in the Trade Center that day and among the first responders who died seems to indicate that this group was doing nothing but trying to serve its religious community, in lower Manhattan. The people who did pick this fight are those on the Radical Right who wanted one more bite at the 9/11 apple for electoral purposes.

The history of this nation is littered with the bigotry against minority groups. On my mothers side I am in the first generation born in this nation. The bigotry against the Irish was just as virulent as the anti-Muslim bigotry seems to be today. I have a sign that I found from an old hotel here in Denver. It reads:

Rooms $.05 A Night
No Negro
No Irish

I gave it to my mom because I thought it was a mildly shocking example of how far the acceptance of the Irish had come. Would they have come as far if they had not insisted on their rights as citizens? Would our citizens of African descent, the descendants of slaves and others have come as far as they have towards equality if they had just been sensitive to the feelings of the white bigots in the South?

Ideals are important. The use and defense of ideals is what moves a nation forward, the striving for the perfect, even if it unattainable pushes a society closer to perfection. The reverse is true as well. The accommodation of bigotry, racial or religious intolerance moves a nation in the wrong direction, towards more intolerance. The idea that Gov. Dean puts forward is to be applauded for its belief that there can be reasonable accommodation with those who, for whatever reason, find that the entire 1.5 billion Muslims world wide are at fault for the 9/11 attacks.

I am all for talking to our opponents. It is important to keep communication open, but it is also important to defend the ideals of our nation with idealism. We can not allow public fervor to push us closer to a point where there is a religious test for renting office space at the Freedom Tower. Yet this is the path the sensitivity argument leads. Who is being sensitive to the needs of the lower Manhattan Muslims? Why is it that they must pay the price for the acts of others? This is the problem with the sensitivity argument, it is all based on feelings, not reason.

I am an atheist, I find it insensitive when believers say "God Bless You" should my sensitivity to this trump their right to say what they like? I don't think so, yet the Muslims of lower Manhattan are being asked to put the sensitivity of others (including a lot of out of town political vultures) over their own?

If something is fair, it can be turned around and still be fair. Would the Sarah Palin's of the world be happy about protests against a Baptist Church School (a non-religious but associated building) being built near the site of Native American massacre because the Native Americans were sensitive to the fact that some Baptists murdered their ancestors? The only difference here is the time frame. The wounds of 9/11 are still very fresh, but other than that it is a close parallel.

The issue of this community center is more than just this location. It is about the ideal of religious freedom in the United States. Religious freedom can be chipped away at just like all other rights. It does not have to be legislated against to be weakened. The loud insistence of the majority is all it takes to reduce the protections that all Americans enjoy in regards to practicing their faith or having none at all. In this we all have a stake in the Park51 community center going forward. Even those who are arguing with out thought to the consequences that Muslims should be "sensitive" to those objecting.

If the worst comes to pass, the Imam caves, the forces of intolerance win and the discrimination against Muslims citizens goes as far as denying them office space at the new towers, will we really be able to call one of them a Freedom Tower?

It is axiomatic that it is controversial to defend the minority against the tyranny of the majority. However it is the best part of our history that we as Americans do it and it has always made our nation better for the attempts and successes. This is one of those times when we must stand on our ideals and not back down to the tyranny of the majority.

The floor is yours.

The Final Nail For Birtherism? If Only

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:21:14 GMT

When a person becomes convinced of a conspiracy, it is often impossible, short of total confirmation of the theory, to get them to give up on it. This is due to the nature of conspiracy theories. They are often based on the idea that all the facts are actually facts and are know able. Any trial lawyer will tell you that the facts are not always knowable, that even the most sober of people will edit their memories in the way that is favorable to their point of view. Sadly reality is not as neat and tight as we would like to pretend.

The fact that Hawaii is invoking the Act 100 clause of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) combined with the Republican Governor of that state saying that she has viewed the presidents birth certificate would be enough to kill the beast that is Birtherism. Sadly Birtherism is a hydra, when you cut off one head, two more grow back.
While the door is slammed shut on FOIA requests, that is not going to stop the law suits by people like the crazed Orly Taitz and Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, who is in the process of being court marshaled for his refusal to follow a deployment order to Afghanistan, based on the premise that President Obama is not actually president.

They will be basing their insistence on the original document being produced on the rules of discovery. I am unclear as to whether a judge will grant this kind of discovery, since the president has been sworn in, after the Supreme Court had a chance to consider if it would hear a challenge to his legitimacy to serve as president. To grant the discovery would be tantamount to challenging the Supreme Courts finding that there was no basis for this challenge.

This will not stop the Birthers though. They will continue to argue that other items point to the president's lack of legitimacy. The big one, after the birth certificate, is the fact that his Social Security number has the prefix for Connecticut not Hawaii. Like all of this insanity, it is easy to explain. The prefix on the SS number represents the state where you were living when it was issued. Being just a little younger than the President, I can tell you that most people my age or older did not get a Social Security card when we were born. I did not get mine until I was 17. For many people this means they have the prefix for the same state they were born in, but given the peripatetic nature of the Presidents life, it is hardly surprising that his was not issued until later in his life.

However this is all beside the point. Even if the president was in fact born in Kenya or some other country, the law provides for his qualification to serve. Like many things in the conservative world view, the Constitution is not the end of the matter, there is also the law. The Constitution itself in Article One, Section 8, Clause 4 grants the Congress the right to develop laws which govern all naturalization, which includes citizenship.

The controlling law, Title 8, Section 1401, defines the following people as "citizens of the United Stats at birth" :

• Anyone born inside the United States (except children of diplomats)
• Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
• Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
• Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
• Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
• A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

As you can see from the bolded section, President Obama qualified as a "natural born citizen" under the law no matter where he was born. His mother was a citizen who had lived in the United States more than five years. That should be the end of the story.

The Birther conspiracy theory is not really about where our president was born. It is about bigotry and racism. The fact that he has a middle name which is common in the Arab world and the color of his skin are driving this insanity. We can often lose sight of that in the freak show that is Birtherism.

Sen. John McCain was actually born outside the United States. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone, on a military base. Yet not a single person has questioned his ability to serve as the president. He falls under the same set of laws that provide for President Obama to be qualified, if he were not born in this country, which, of course he was.

It is time to stop enjoying the freak show and start calling it what it is, racism. It is hardly surprising to see the Republican Party as the home of this kind of talk. It has become more and more comfortable, at an institutional level, with overt racism. Their embrace of tokenism in the form of RNC Chair Michael Steele and other African American Republicans is not a move towards diversity but a cynical ploy to ward off critics pointing out the obvious, that the Republican Party is, at best, a tacitly racist organization.

To keep enjoying the Birther spectacle and ignore the implicitly racist motivation of it is to give a level of approval that no person who cares about equality should condone. So instead of debating the facts, which the Birthers will not listen to in any case, let's start debating the motivation. It is still uncomfortable for people to own racism in polite society in this country. Let's do our best to make the Birthers own their racist motivations.

The floor is yours.