Category Archives: Social studies

The costs of slavery

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Until the American Civil War ended, slavery was a common institution in the United States. Often portrayed as cheap, it still had costs associated with it. These included:

1. Obtaining the slaves: They were often kidnapped from Africa and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean under cramped conditions. That cost money. The slave trade was eventually abolished long before slavery ended, but that had the effect of making the slaves already in America more valuable.

2. Buying the slaves.

3. Giving the slaves food, water, clothing and shelter.

4. Treating the slaves of illnesses and injuries.

4. Guarding the slaves to prevent them from revolting or escaping.

5. Burying or cremating the slaves after they died.

Now compare that with people who work today at minimum wage. If you can only afford food to feed yourself and your children, a place to live at, medical expenses, and to pay for your funeral when you die, how are you any better off, materially speaking, than slaves 200 years ago?

And if you wonder why some want the minimum wage increased, that is why!

Why did the Democrats lose this year?

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It seems that everything that could have gone wrong this election cycle, did go wrong. Texas elected yet another Republican governor, Greg Abbott (I am so tempted to tell jokes about the comedy duo Abbot and Costello), Kentucky re-elected Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republicans will control the Senate next year and the House of Representatives actually INCREASED its majority for next year! And that begs the obvious question: WHY?

You see, the Republicans these days have literally NOTHING to offer the American people but bigotry and have nothing to do but express HATRED for President Obama based on that bigotry. Over the past two years, the Republicans running the House tried dozens of times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, even while knowing those attempts would fail in the Democratic controlled Senate. Now they may try again next year, but President Obama will simply veto such attempts. As the old saying goes, “To repeat the same action, and expect different results, is madness!” The Republicans may even attempt to impeach and remove Obama from office like they tried to do to President Clinton, and that will most likely fail too.

So why did the Republicans win so massively this year? Because, quite simply, many people assume that anything bad that happens to America must be the fault of the President, so they blame him for those bad events, then they vote for the party that opposes the President, even though he had nothing to do with the issues involved. For example, President Bush Jr was not responsible for the screw ups of federal agencies that followed the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005. Likewise, Obama was not responsible for things like the ebola scare this year right before the election.  THAT WAS THE MEDIA’S FAULT! Hmmmm….

Part of the problem is that the Democrats as a party are much more diverse than the Republicans. Obama originally ran as a dedicated liberal but over time due to Republican opposition has moved toward the right, but that alienated many liberals who also consider themselves Democrats, resulting in them being reluctant to consistently support the President.

In fact, I would say the only reason Obama got elected at all was because the previous Republican President was so TERRIBLE! If Bush Jr had been half the President Bill Clinton had been, we would have elected McCain in 2008.

And maybe that is just the real issue, sadly. America as a nation just was not ready for an African-American President. We are still mostly racist bigots!

The ultimate discrediting of Libertarianism

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Over the past several years I have gone from being sympathetic to the ideals of Libertarians because of their opposition to the Iraq War and their support for drug decriminalization, to being highly skeptical of some of their claims and dogmas because of practical experience. But now, I am ready to publicly declare that Libertarianism as a political force has been completely debunked and should be abandoned as unworkable. It should not be contained in either a political party called the Libertarian Party, nor in the Republican Party. And here is why: http://www.viralnova.com/walmart-turned-library/

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How NOT to rape someone

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Here are some rules for men who do not want to be accused of raping a woman:

1. ALWAYS ask the women directly during a date in a private setting, “Do you want to have sex with me?”   If her response is anything other than, “Yes,” drop the issue and do not bring it up again until she does.

2. Never talk about the experience of having sex with anyone other than a licensed therapist, your parents or other guardians (if you are underaged), or a clergyperson in a counseling session. PRIVATE MATTERS MUST REMAIN PRIVATE. Other men do not need to know how you “banged that hot chick last night”.

3. The claim that women claim to be raped because they regret having sex with a man long after the fact is simply self-serving bullshit. Do not repeat that claim, ever.

4. Even if you use protection or any form of birth control, PROMISE the woman that if she gets pregnant, you will either support the child or pay for an abortion, whichever she decides.

5. Do not merely be a woman’s sex partner…..be her LOVER. Be willing to share in anything she does or is involved in or ask her to share in things you enjoy. If you do not want a complete relationship with a woman, you can always masturbate by yourself.

6. Unless your partner is a porn star, you do not need to take or possess nude pics of her. And NEVER post them online!

That is all for now.  If I think of more, or if you have your own suggestions for rules, this list will be added to.

Pamela Geller, pathological liar, hypocrite and bigot

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As opposed to radical Islam as I may be, and as offensive as I find many Islamic dogmas to be, I would never lie to try to either discredit Islam or attack Muslims or people who do not hate Muslims. But Pamela Geller, a right-wing extremist who would have been at home in the John Bitch [pun intended] Society of the 1950s (when it accused President Eisenhower of being under Communist influence), would lie and in the worst way.
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What if the American Civil War had never been fought?

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The election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States in 1860 triggered the succession of most of the southern states where slavery was legal, because the wealthy whites who dominated those states feared that the federal government would force them to give up slavery. The result was the four bloodiest years in all of American history. But what if cooler heads had prevailed and the Civil War had never happened? What if instead the South had remained in the Union?

For one thing, the fact that so many young men had not died in battle meant that the USA would have been able to conquer the western regions much faster than it actually did, and the Native American tribes living on those lands would have been even more brutalized in the process. Anti-immigrant sentiments would have been greater in the late 19th Century then they were, since there would be no perceived need for more people to come to the USA from other parts of the world. States that entered the Union after the 1860s might still have had slaves if they were in the southwest, but the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th Century would at the same time had made slavery largely unprofitable. Both northern abolitionists and European states opposed to slavery might have succeeded in putting enough pressure on the United States for it to pass a Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery, but the southern states would have been able to block amendments granting citizenship and voting rights to freed blacks. As a result, the Supreme Court of the United States would have had no legal basis to condemn the Jim Crow laws and procedures of the South, resulting in racial segregation continuing to this very day. Many aspects of American culture, such as rock & roll and hip/hop music, would never have become popular among white youths. The United States would have regarded Mexico as an invader due to so many of its people coming undocumented across the border between them and this might have eventually led to another war with Mexico by the end of the 20th Century. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union would have lasted much longer and been more damaging to the interests of the USA around the world because most other nations would see the Soviets as more enlightened and honorable than the racist Americans. Most black Americans would have been far more supportive of Communism and this in turn would have made capitalist supporting whites hate blacks even more.

.So the ultimate result would have been an America that was even MORE racist than today!

The downfall of Eric Cantor

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A lot of ink (and pixels) has been used in reference to the stunning upset of a Tea Party challenger defeating House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor. Some thoughts of my own about that:

1. No politician should ever take his position in office for granted. You should be willing to fight tirelessly for your office against any challengers.

2. It really does not matter how much money is spent on your campaign. If your constituents have lost faith in you, then you should go down to defeat. So maybe there is hope for us after the Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, even though it is still one of the worst such decisions in its history.

3. David Brat, the professor who defeated Cantor, is a Tea Party activist who is a hard-liner against immigration reform, and claimed that Cantor was too willing to compromise on it. Of course, that only means Brat is a bigoted @$$hole who does not deserve to be in Congress. Damn him!

4. Remember this I wrote years ago? I love being proven right!

5. Primaries of political parties tend to be dominated by hard-line supporters of that party, but then the winner of those primaries must then appeal to the general population, perhaps resulting in flip-flopping on certain issues.  All Democrat Jack Trammell, who will face Brat in the general election, has to do is present a moderate stance on the issues he supports from start to finish and thus come across as the candidate who will represent the most people in his district, as well as someone who is NOT A HYPOCRITE!

Adam Buckley

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This is a Canadian DJ and radio personality who I have gotten to know from his YouTube videos rather than from his radio programs, which I have never heard. I happen to agree with almost everything he says, for he presents a well-balanced and enlightened view of almost everything. The only drawback is his tendency to use a lot of profanity, which has caused me to label him, “Sir Swear-a-Lot”. But if that is the worst thing about him, I will gladly overlook it, for he deals with a lot of the subjects I have covered on this blog for years.
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Wayne Christian and Todd Staples, libeled!

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Texas politicians are overwhelmingly Conservative and Republican, which as a liberal often makes me feel like an alien in my own state, despite being born and raised here. In looking at the candidates running for office in Texas, I stumbled upon some propaganda against them. Specifically, Wayne Christian and Todd Staples. Continue reading →

Is this Justice?

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Consider the following scenario:

An African-American restaurant owner in New York City learns that one of his white employees was born in Alabama.  He calls that employee to his office.

Owner: “Is it true you came from Alabama, a southern state?”

Employee:  “Yes. But I moved to New York four years ago.”

Owner:  “Then you are FIRED!  I won’t have racists working for me. More than half of our customers are African-American and I won’t risk you offending them with racist remarks.”

Employee: “What?! But have I done anything wrong?  If I was a racist, I would not be here!”

Owner:  “I used to live in the south. And virtually every white person I dealt with there was racist, constantly looking down on me and other black kids. I finally got out of that situation, and I’ll be damned if the bigotry follows me up here.”

Employee: “Well, don’t you think I am also sick of the bigotry of my fellow whites? I also left the south to live here because of the culture. YOU are the one being racist against ME because of both my skin color and where I was born.  I’m not responsible for either of those things!”

Owner: “You still benefited from the racism you grew up in, just as I suffered from it. Now you are going to learn how it feels to be discriminated against!  GET OUT!”

Rape Apologists!

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I would occasionally see the term “rape apologist” thrown around by feminists and I assumed for a long time that this was merely hyperbole. What man, in his right mind, would publicly defend the act of forcing a woman to have sex with him? Instead, I figured the only proper definition of a rape apology would be a rapist saying to his victim months or years later, “I’m sorry that I violated your dignity as a fellow human being and I promise I will never do that again to anyone.”

Boy was I mistaken! Continue reading →

Celebrating Black History Month, Stupidly

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Read this embarrassing article:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/black-history-month-inspired-school-lunch-menu-cau/ndGPD/
Black History Month inspired school lunch menu causes outcry

menuNoelle Walker and KTVU.com

CONCORD, Calif. —

A student effort to come up with a special menu for Black History Month backfired at Carondelet High School in Concord.

Interim President, Sister Ann Bernard, said students who were members of the Black Student Union club at neighboring De La Salle High School planned a special lunch to celebrate the month.  The menu included fried chicken, corn bread and watermelon.

“They thought this was a very clever way, in their own way, of celebrating Black History Month. It was as simple, and naive as that,” Sister Bernard explained.

On Thursday Bernard publicly apologized for the event she said was planned without following procedures to get staff approval.

“It was the parents who thought, rightfully so, we were being insensitive to African American culture, which is not who we are or what we profess,” Bernard said, shaking her head.

The first staff or administration heard of the proposed menu was when it was announced over the loudspeaker Monday morning.

“Most people were laughing, but they were laughing nervously because they knew it wasn’t right,” said sophomore, Dom Carpenello.

While Carpenello admitted the menu sounded tasty, she admitted, “The menu really doesn’t have anything to do with black history.”

The chief curator at Oakland’s African American Museum and Library, Rick Moss, agreed.

“I guess there’s an impression that all black people eat this kind of food, which of course is false,” Moss said.

He said the menu came from a place of ignorance about what Black History Month means, but says the reaction to the students’ misstep was also wrong.

“So this is wonderful opportunity to actually inform people, not something to react to,” Moss said.

Carondelet High School is using the incident as a “teachable moment,” Sister Bernard said there will be teacher sensitivity training and a student assembly this month.

“There’s education needed on every single level, not just for students, but also for faculty and staff,” she said.

As for the menu, Bernard said, “I can assure you that fried chicken and the rest of it is not part of it.”

I cannot believe the sheer ignorance being displayed here! This issue is about misrepresenting the culture of an entire race. Fried chicken, corn bread. and watermelon are not and have never been “black” foods, but were among the cheap foods served to the enslaved ancestors of most African-Americans by slaveowners. It would be like showing pictures of Nazi concentration camps as part of celebrating Jewish History Month!

For more details on the incredible stupidity of it all, read this:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/02/07/fried-chicken-lunch-black-history-month-really/

Economic Abuse of a Little Girl

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Read this article:

http://gma.yahoo.com/cupcake-business-run-11-old-shuttered-illinois-health-202621307–abc-news-topstories.html

HT_cupcake_girl_1_jtm_140205_16x9_992
Cupcake Business Run By 11-Year-Old Shuttered By Illinois Health Officials

By ALYSSA NEWCOMB

The cupcake empire Chloe Stirling built out of her home kitchen has come crumbling down after Illinois health officials said the sixth-grader wasn’t in compliance with local laws.

Chloe, 11, said she was told by health officials in Madison County, Ill., that if she wants to continue selling cupcakes she will need to buy a bakery or build a separate kitchen.

“It bummed me out because I wanted to keep baking,” Chloe told ABCNews.com. “I had a bunch of orders and they said I had to cancel them all.”

Stirling, who is in sixth grade, has operated “Hey Cupcake” out of her family’s kitchen in Troy, Ill., for the past two years. And it appears her success may have invited the scrutiny of regulators.

The cupcake mogul said she’s raked in some serious dough for a kid her age, charging $10 for a dozen cupcakes and $2 each for the more elaborate treats, such as cakes that look like high heel shoes.

“It felt good because with all my money I could buy stuff I wanted and didn’t have to wait until my birthday or Christmas,” Chloe said, adding that she was also saving money for a car.

Her mother, Heather Stirling, told ABCNews.com she’s meeting with officials from the health department and the state attorney next week in hopes of finding a way to help Chloe re-open Hey Cupcake.

“This is her niche. You have kids who are good at baseball and soccer and this is what they pursue,” Stirling said. “Chloe is one of a kind. No one else does this at her age. There are a lot of hoops we’re going to have to jump through.”

Toni Corona, a spokeswoman for the Madison County Department of Health, told ABCNews.com in a statement that the laws are “applied uniformly and without discrimination.”

She said the department “applauds the entrepreneurial spirit” of Chloe and “joins with her many fans in hoping she will find a location for her cupcake enterprise that complies with state laws.”

Do you see something missing in this article?  How about any evidence that anyone was sickened by any of the products produced by this girl’s baking business?

Shutting down her business for failing to comply with state health regulations even with no complaint from customers about her products serves one purpose:  Eliminating competition with the corporations that dominate our economy and both force people to work for them instead of working for themselves and force them to buy their products instead of creating their own. This is bullying of the worst sort and it goes against our legal standard of “innocent until proven guilty”. The State of Illinois and the officials of Madison County should be ashamed of themselves!

Insanity on the Telephone

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One of the most hilarious videos I’ve ever seen is this:

In only 1 1/2 minutes, this caller spits out plenty of bullcrap. What is really ironic is that there is also so much bullcrap out there that is Republican party dogma, such as that President Obama is a Socialist, that socialism is bad for America, that Obamacare must be repealed, that ultra-high military spending is good for Americans instead of spending more on our infrastructure, and that keeping taxes low on the rich helps our economy. ALL of those claims are baseless too! So why tolerate any of it?  Just because a lie is popular does not make it any less false!

How to Fight Gerrymandering

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Gerrymandering is the unethical process by which one party which is currently dominant in a state attempts to maintain its dominance by drawing districts for state legislators or Congressmen to favor that party and its candidates. It is the very antithesis of democracy, in which the people are to elect their leaders and representatives; instead, in gerrymandering, the representatives choose what people they want to have voting for them. This allows certain extremist nutcases like Rep. Michelle Bachmann to be elected over and over again without fear of losing their seats to a more moderate opposing candidate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

Illustrated in that Wikipedia entry are some particular examples of gerrymandering, but the most obvious one of all seems to be:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_4th_congressional_district

GerrymanderingThere is simply no excuse for this, no matter what party commits it!  If Republicans filed a lawsuit to change or eliminate this district, I would support them too.

I have come up with an idea on how to identify gerrymandered districts.

CircleUsing the circle and the point indicating its center, I propose that any district that touches at least three points 45 degrees apart from each other and also contains the point at the center of the circle may be considered a fairly drawn district. By this test, the 4th Congressional District in Illinois would certainly not qualify. Nor would:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_12th_congressional_district

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_23rd_congressional_district

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27_17th_congressional_district

All those districts should be opposed. I would lobby for a bill to be passed by Congress and in every state legislature mandating my standard for all congressional and state legislative districts. I would also ask for the federal courts to intervene. Indeed, I would strongly recommend that only federal courts, not state legislatures, be allowed to draw districts. Otherwise, it is like the fox guarding the hen-house.

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Rape, School Sports and Small Town Insanity

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P Z Myers put the spotlight on a teenage rapist yesterday:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/10/14/matthew-barnett-sleazebag-and-rapist

The story is sadly typical of small towns and their pathetic bigotries, but what really drew my attention later was a comment below it. (Emphasis mine.)

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/10/14/matthew-barnett-sleazebag-and-rapist/comment-page-1/#comment-705351

39
MarkM1427

15 October 2013 at 1:04 am (UTC -5)

Anonymous? That scumbag will wish he only had the cops to deal with. If only they’d go after the media for not calling this shit what it is: an inexcusable, unforgivable act of violence against another human being. I didn’t see a word of this until ThinkProgress shared it on Facebook. I wonder why no one else seems to give a shit about the actual victims here. Ever since I first read this story it’s been stuck in the back of my head. It obviously pisses me off, but it also hits close to home in several ways for me.

As outraged as I am about this, I’m not at all surprised. It’s not the first time I’ve heard about a small town demonizing the victims who dared to put the town through the trauma of dealing with the fact that a heinous crime happened in their neighborhood instead of, you know, the actual criminal. A similar story of what happened to my grandmother has stuck with my family for nearly 50 years. (I’m not going to derail the thread with the whole story, but a small town covered up the murder of her mother since the guy who did it was close to powerful people in the town.) Why can’t this shit ever change?

And this has finally done it. I thought I would never say this, but I can’t go on believing that athletic programs are a positive influence for students. Even though I benefited from sports myself, I can’t support them anymore. I was an athlete in high school, and to this day I believe that being part of the football team did a lot to make me more social then. I have Asperger’s and I might not have as much as spoken a word the whole four years if I didn’t join one group or another. For so long I defended these sports programs as something that could be a great influence on the athletes if the coaches actually gave a damn about that like the ones I had did.

But no more. I now see that my experience was the exception, not the rule. School sports, much like religion, corrupts the adults who are involved in it, you know, the ones that are supposed to ACT LIKE ADULTS. If sports programs warp peoples’ minds to the point that they are consistently willing to enable rape by athletes in the name of winning a fucking ball game, they are toxic to society and we should cast them out of schools.

I don’t intend to derail the thread with the tangent I know I went off on, but this story has had my mind spinning faster than a centrifuge ever since I read it. I can’t wait for the town to finally have the wrath of the rest of the country descend on them for the scumbags they are.

And that led me to ask what, if anything, do sports programs have to do with the actual process of education? Nothing that I can see. Yet almost every school and college out there has a sports program which no doubt costs money to maintain. Perhaps it is time to start putting pressure on schools to eliminate funding for sports programs before they even think of eliminating anything else from a school’s budget!

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An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

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To Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America:

The Affordable Care Act is the LAW OF THE LAND, passed by both Houses of Congress (yes, even the Republican controlled House of Representatives), signed by you, and affirmed as constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court. Therefore, attempts by Republicans in Congress to DEFUND what is federal law is criminal behavior, just as disobedience to any other law is criminal behavior. We should allow no exceptions here. By engaging in criminal behavior, the Republicans sitting in Congress, even going so far as to shut down the government rather allow what is federal law to be funded have forfeited their right to be representatives of the people, like anyone else who commits a federal crime. I call upon you, as the elected Chief Executive of the United States, to direct the Department of Justice to issue arrest warrants against every Republican in Congress and charge them all with CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT SEDITION! END THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN BY REMOVING THE ONES RESPONSIBLE FROM OFFICE NOW!

Dale Husband, the Honorable Skeptic

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Racism among Atheists too?

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Jen McCreight, author of the blog Blag Hag, now finds herself having to confront the ugly issue of racism among her fellow atheists after she and other women dealt so much and for so long with sexism among them. I will provide links to her blog entries in question along with excerpts from them.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2013/08/on-silencing-anger-to-silence-minority-voices/

My favorite thing to wake up to in the morning is white straight cis men insisting they get to decide who your allies are and that you should not ever get angry, but rather calmly explain basic topics to hostile questions from every person that wanders across your path as if it were your personal duty on this earth. Continue reading →

An Open Letter to the American People

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August 3, 2013

To the concerned citizens of the United States of America,

The Republicans in the House of Representatives have tried dozens of times to repeal Obamacare and every time they have failed. They will always fail as long as the Democrats have a majority in the Senate and Obama, or any other Democrat, is President. So why do they bother?  If anyone else was caught wasting as much time at their jobs as the Republicans have, they would be fired. So the obvious solution is to vote at least some of the Republicans out of the House next year.

The truth is that the Republicans are living on borrowed time. It is a given that they will never capture the Presidency again; George W. Bush will be the last Republican ever to hold it. But once Obamacare is fully implemented and its benefits become obvious, the insane opposition the Republicans have shown to it will cause them to never be able to hold a majority in either chamber of Congress and their status as a major party in the United States will be finished.

If you really want limited government, vote for Libertarians. Most of them are not hypocrites. They are indeed the only true followers of the U S Constitution left. No, not even the “Tea Party” bigots among Republicans. The Tea Party was just another right-wing scam to get votes from people who were scared out of their wits by the election of a black man to the Presidency. Ironically, I think Obama has not been liberal enough and that we need to push government even more to the left over the next few decades.

Indeed, if we were true to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence (“we hold there truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…..”) there would be absolutely NO place in American politics for Conservatism. Why? Because Conservatism by its very nature is based on trying to maintain some sort of social inequality; some traditionally privileged class seeking to maintain its exalted status as opposed to some other disadvantaged class. It could be rich vs. poor, whites vs. blacks, men vs. women, Christians vs. non-Christians, or heterosexuals vs. homosexuals. Conservatism works by constantly appealing to the irrational prejudices of those who are in power and seek to keep the power to themselves rather than share power with those who do not have it. Both the Democrats in the late 19th Century and the Republicans in the late 20th Century to today were infested by Conservatism.

The Republicans today have caved in so deeply to bigotry that they are not even capable of representing the real needs of the people anymore; they are controlled by giant corporations that have been holding most of our economy hostage for decades and own media outlets like FOX News to lie to the American people constantly. These same corporations that outsourced so much of our manufacturing to China, but blame illegal immigrants for taking jobs from real Americans. Those same corporations that make vast profits from wars overseas and a military budget at least six times greater than that of any other nation while causing us to drown in public debt. Hypocrites! They are the real parasites and traitors to our nation, not welfare recipients or those who dare to blow the whistle on the corruption and abuses of our government!

So let us destroy the Republican Party! The madness must end!

Sincerely,

Dale Husband, the Honorable Skeptic

 

Random thoughts about the George Zimmerman/Treyvon Martin case

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1. Since both the victim and the defendant in the case were male, why was there an all female jury? How is that different from an all-white jury judging a black person having killed another black person?

2. It does not matter who attacked whom first, the fact remains that Treyvon Martin was unarmed and George Zimmerman had a gun, giving him an overwhelming advantage. The fact that Martin was shot in the heart shows that Zimmerman meant to kill him, rather than merely disable him to stop the fight. He should have been convicted of manslaughter, at least.

3. “Stand your ground” laws might as well be called “permission to use violence as a first option rather than a last resort”. What do we call societies in which that is commonly accepted? Barbaric anarchies, which America should be anything but!

4. The jury probably did not want to convict Zimmerman of anything because doing so would have been a virtual death sentence for him. He’d go to a prison, and prisons across the USA are known to have a disproportionate number of African-American men, most of whom would be more than happy to kill Zimmerman. A possible solution would have been to sentence Zimmerman to house arrest for many years instead of prison. Indeed, why not sentence most convicted felons to house arrest instead of prison?

5. Neighborhood watch groups are supposed to call the police and alert them to possible crimes being committed as they occur, not take the law into their own hands like Zimmerman clearly did!

6. I was just as outraged when O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of those murder charges he faced. It makes NO difference to me whether a person of any race gets off after killing a person of any race.

7. Treyvon Martin’s family could still sue Zimmerman for wrongful death of the victim. Unlike criminal trials where the prosecution is expected to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, civil court cases are decided based on how much the evidence is weighed on each side. By that standard, Zimmerman should lose badly, just as O J Simpson did.

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No, Marion Bartoli is not a Barbie doll

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When an average looking man wins a major sporting event, how often do you see anyone commenting on his looks? Yet if a woman wins one, that’s all some sexist jerks can think of!

http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/54864863081/womens-wimbledon-champion-marion-bartoli-deemed

Does this woman look “fat” or “ugly” to you?! WHY? She looks NORMAL!

marion-bartoli-5http://tennis.si.com/2013/07/07/bbc-commentator-marion-bartoli-not-a-looker/

WIMBLEDON, England — The BBC apologized after one of its commentators criticized newly crowned Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli’s looks.

The Telegraph reported that after Bartoli defeated Sabine Lisicki in Saturday’s final, John Inverdale asked listeners on BBC Radio, “Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little, ‘You’re never going to be a looker? You’ll never be a [Maria] Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight.’”

The comment created a firestorm on social media and the BBC was inundated with complaints. Inverdale attempted a halfhearted apology, according to The Telegraph, saying, “We poked fun, in a nice way, about how she looks … but Marion Bartoli is an incredible role model.”

Yeah, that’s not an apology.

The BBC later issued a statement apologizing for Inverdale’s remarks.

“We accept that this remark was insensitive and for that we apologize,” a spokesman said.

Bartoli’s father, Walter, who served as her coach from childhood until this year, was told of the remarks and responded with class.

“I am not angry,” Bartoli said, according to The Telegraph. “She is my beautiful daughter.”
<snip>

As for Inverdale, he appeared to face no immediate sanction from the BBC. Later Saturday, he was back hosting the BBC’s nightly Wimbledon wrap-up show.

UPDATE: Inverdale said Sunday that he wrote Bartoli a letter of apology. In response to his on-air comments, Bartoli reportedly said: ”It doesn’t matter, honestly. I am not blonde, yes. That is a fact. Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. I’m sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes. And to share this moment with my dad was absolutely amazing and I am so proud of it.”

Look, I am in favor of freedom of speech as much as anyone else, but when you are on a public broadcasting outlet and you make sexist remarks that millions of people can hear, you should face some consequences. Inverdale should have been fired. I’m sure a lot of people out there never want to hear from him again and the BBC needs to clean up its tarnished image.

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