All we have to fear is fear itself.

There are a lot of alarming things coming out of the White House this month. It is particularly alarming that this will go on the another 200+ weeks!

But today my focus is on fear.

There once was a time when Americans were born and bred into a form of national bravery. Bravery in some fashion was almost a national religion. We admired frontiersmen/women for their bravery in setting out to explore the unknown, we admired our military for their bravery in facing our enemies, and we built a national image of ourselves based on that admiration.

We faced down adversaries who were bigger than ourselves, who had bigger militaries and stronger national presences abroad. We invoked the Monroe Doctrine, which dared the much stronger and older European powers to face our ire if they meddled in the Western Hemisphere, and we did it at a time when we were not exactly a match for any of them.

We fought in WWI, sending our bravest into a war which literally changed the face of the world.

We used our tremendous industrial base, secure from foreign invasion by two immense oceans, as a powerhouse to allow us to fight and WIN against two opposing coalitions on the opposite sides of the globe, mobilizing the entire population to do so.

"Home of the Brave". That's what our national anthem calls it, this United States of America. We have made a national icon out of this.

We bolster our courage every 4th of July by parading this picture of ourselves through our streets and across our computer screens, patting ourselves on the backs for facing down our enemies.

Not any more.

For over thirty years, especially since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has capitalized on our fears. Fear of Big Government, fear of the different, fear of this, fear of that. Fear of anybody whose culture we don't understand.

Their constant mantra has been to stir fear about anything they could imagine that might in some way, change our country, or make something different happen. It is all touted as dangers to America, and threats to our Democracy, to The American Way of Life. Brown people, black people, yellow people, people with long hair, people who dress different. People who (gasp!) speak a different language! (GOD forbid we should have to select English with a tap of a button...)

Fear.

We spend more money, combined, than the next 7 highest spending countries on our military (including both Russia and China), and we brag about having the largest and strongest military in the world. We imagine that we are still capable of taking on two wars at once. We have seven aircraft carriers to project American power anywhere in the world in mere days, if not a week or so.

Our machinations around the world have resulted in our development and establishment of hundreds of military bases around the world, which we can use to project our air power and often, special forces power, just about anywhere we need to.

Those machinations have changed history.

...and yet, fear.

The Republican Party has managed to turn us into a nation of fearful little mice, scurrying to hide behind any convenient excuse - a wall, a blanket ban, an ocean or two, anything to protect ourselves from these foreign horrors. We hold our military in front of us, like a shield, anytime we feel challenged (which is almost constantly) in our Supreme Position of the Defenders of Pax Americana. We shake those sabers at those who frighten us, and at those who even seem to be thinking about challenging our Supremacy.

What, what has become of the Home of the Brave? Land of the Free?

What has allowed us to let this happen to us? Why are we afraid? Our parents weren't afraid. Neither were our grandparents.

Why us, why now?

Why do we let nasty little men cower behind the White House doors and under the Capitol dome and pronounce unAmerican edicts and orders that violate the very values and principles that this country was founded on?

Is this OUR country, or are we going to let these nasty little men undercut everything we stand for?

We should be standing tall, beside each other, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, opposing all who would undermine our democracy. All who would violate the principles of democracy and fairness.

Those who bring fascism to our shores. Those who wrap themselves in the flag and lift up that cross in an effort to DESTROY the freedoms that really made this country great.

That cross didn't make this country great. Neither did the flag.

The PEOPLE did. People from virtually every ethnic group on the planet. People from every corner of the globe, almost literally. 

Immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. If we allow these nasty little men to dictate to us who can come and who can go based on their nasty little prejudices and hatreds, we disgrace the memory of every person of every ethnic group who died to make this country what it is today. We disgrace the work and the blood, sweat and tears of the entire lives' work that went into what we have today.

Let's not let that happen.

Shed your fear.

Stand up. Face down the tyrants, those nasty little men.

Let's show them what real Americans are made of.

What a government is all about, including what public employees do and think.

This post was first posted a couple of days ago on my personal Facebook page.  At this writing, it has been shared 21 times, which I am honored to see.  I thought since Ophelia Benson had shared this also on her blog Butterflies and Wheels, I should probably put it up on mine, too!  (Thanks, Ophelia!  I appreciate it!)

So, (hopefully) enjoy.

A remark made on one of my posts, last night I think it was, caused me to stop and think about what your average American knows about being a government employee.

To start out, for those who don't know me or haven't checked my profile yet, I was a Federal employee for 42 years and 4 months. I served the US Army for four years, and the Food and Drug Administration the rest of the time, starting out as a mail & file clerk and ending up as a senior IT tech overseeing a group of contractors who kept the FDA desktops updated and secure.

Along the way, I worked with scientists, lab people, investigators, inspectors, medical personnel, lawyers, contracting officers, instructors, administrators, and in one capacity or another, others from almost every Center in FDA.

Many of those people had worked in other major Departments, including a supervisor who had once worked for the Justice Department, and a Branch chief whose former intelligence agency employer was so classified, he still was prevented by law from disclosing that to us.

As many of you know from the private sector, each organization, private or public, has its own culture. Much of that culture comes from the top down and is informed by its mission - what it does as a primary function.

But governments, whether local, State or Federal, are different than private companies, large or small.

Why? Because governments don't exist to make a profit.

Private companies do. That is the very reason they exist! If they cannot make a profit, eventually, they are forced to close and have their assets sold off to satisfy their debts.

Governments don't go bankrupt. At the worst, they have their credit ratings cut to nothing, forcing them to "live" and operate from cash receipts obtained through statutory incomes, like taxes or receipts from licensing activities, fines, etc.

Their mission is to provide for the safety, welfare, public peace and security of the American people.

That's a whole lot different from making filthy lucre to fill the bosses' pockets. That's why they operate differently, and that's why Republicans are wrong to try and make the US Government run like a business.

Because it isn't one.

That's why the culture of each governmental Department is different, and why each has its own take on transparency.

Yeah, Transparency. Believe me, that's a tightrope each and every supervisor in the government has to weigh on a regular basis.

Some agencies, by their mission's demands, cannot be transparent. Intelligence agencies are a good example. We cannot allow foreign governments to know if, when, or how we may or may not be spying on them. We want them to be guessing, constantly, and we want them to guess wrong, every time.

Others, like the military, have inherent activities and equipment that by their nature, need to be secret. Otherwise, their effectiveness in combat is greatly lessened. Enemies who have to guess about what you may bring to the table in a conflict will be cautious and very careful before committing themselves.

Civilian agencies which are by nature enforcing various Federal laws are bound to be secretive in some ways for two reasons: First, they are bound by law to protect proprietary information belonging to the companies they need to inspect as part of that law enforcement activity. Second, they don't want their enforcement activities to be publicly revealed, because sometimes a surprise inspection is what you need to catch someone who is willfully violating the law. Give them a chance to clean up, and you've got nothing for your efforts!

But other agencies have a tougher row to hoe regarding that word transparency. They have to balance letting the public know how they are operating in making policy vs. allowing either political opponents or foreign opponents know secrets that may allow them to counter those policies in ways harmful to the public.

Sometimes, getting that balance right is hard.

One of the things that turned me aside from being a republican early in my government career was their constant ragging on us for being lazy, or corrupt, or leaches sucking at the "government teat".

I've known hundreds if not thousands of people in my career, and with the exception of one or two, not a damn one of them was lazy, or corrupt or anything approaching the description of a leach. They all worked hard for their paychecks. Many of them could have gone outside and gotten much bigger paychecks working for large corporations.

But they stayed, most of them, and they do because they CARE. The mission of the FDA is, among other things similar, to keep your food, your drugs, your cosmetics, your radiation emitting devices, your medical devices, safe, effective and the best American companies can make them to be. Every single FDA employee I've worked with cared about that single mission, cared about how their job, whether it was leading a Center, running a computer, or inspecting Mexican produce crossing the border, and how their job impacted the primary mission of the Agency.

I cannot imagine anyone in any other governmental agency feeling any less, whether they are working for the Federal government or a State or local government.

So, folks, when you hear the Republicans continuing to belittle public employees, whether they are US Park Service Rangers, or EPA scientists, or federal Judges, remember this post. Remember that these people CARE - they care about you, me, and their neighbors. They are there, doing their jobs, probably making less money than they could on the outside, because they give a damn about OUR COUNTRY.

They each took an oath, which is very similar to the one Trump just took, to protect and defend the Constitution. Not an oath of loyalty to a President, or to an Agency, or to a boss. To the Constitution of the United States of America.

To serve YOU. That also includes Congress, by the way.

It's up to you to determine which of those public servants are upholding that oath.

And which are, very publicly, not.

What year is this, anyway?

I can't decide if I'm living in the USSR, Czarist Russia, North Korea, Medieval Europe, or some combination thereof.  Or at least in a developing something the designers can't make up their minds where they're going with it all.

It's bad enough that Dominionists have been trying to remake American History to show the US as a Christian country.  But now, Oklahoma's legislature is trying to ban AP American History and replace it with some crackpot version of a perfect Christian America.

It seems they object to the technique of learning from the past by pointing out where we went wrong so future generations won't make the same mistakes.

I can understand how seeing your most cherished values being pointed out in school as mistakes and wrong might be upsetting.  But as a past (but reformed) Republican, I can testify from personal experience that one can learn from one's past and one can move on to a better way of thinking.

It really doesn't hurt at all.  It's kind of liberating, in fact.  Oh, sure, one does get the odd pang of regret if current events smack you in the face with something you used to think was cool but was really harmful.  But I see those as reinforcing the initial lesson.  Kind of like reminders:  "See?  Weren't you stupid then?  But you're smarter now!"  In the end, they remind you that you've come a long way, baby!

But I guess some folks just can't get past it.

I can understand that, really I can.

What I can't understand is why you'd want to paint over those past mistakes by turning our lovely country into a totalitarian nightmare.  Remaking the past is something we accused the Soviets and the Maoists of doing.  You know, those dirty commies who painted out the totalitarian rulers of their countries' past and replaced them with monsters to contrast with their own "perfect" replacement?

In our case, the Dominionists want to replace the very real monsters on our own past with visions of lollypops, candy canes and unicorns farting rainbows so their kids will never question Jesus.

Probably because they want to keep making the same mistakes and call them "family values".  Or whatever.

But in so doing, they are destroying what they claim to love about our country.  Its liberty.  Its freedom.  Whatever happened to "Truth, Justice, and the American way"?  Somewhere, on the way to the forum, it got lost.  Or waylaid, or mugged or something.  Probably something, because it sure ain't what I was taught it was supposed to be when I went to school.

Nobody taught me that it was Ok to lie, cheat, and steal your way into office, and when we learned about politicians who did, it was never presented as an honorable way to act.

The one thing Conservatives always forget in their zeal to protect their way of life is that all things come to an end.  People change.  Countries change.  Societies change, often rapidly.  The one thing about American Destiny that Conservatives always are proud of (and justifiably so) is the huge number of technological changes America was responsible for in the 19th century.  We were instrumental in an extremely rapid advancement of humanity out of the horse and buggy days and the days of direct fire based energy into the 20th century where our transportation methods were advanced by hundreds of years in just a few decades, and we marched into the age of electricity almost overnight.

The problem for Conservatives is that such technological changes always - always - bring social changes as well.  Old technologies die.  Remember the old buggy whipmaker example?  As I typed that, Autocorrect wanted to change it to "chipmaker".  So old professions die, too.

A few hundred years ago, the very best swords you could ask for were made with Damascus steel.  A decade or so ago, some guys trying to relearn the old ways of the blacksmiths realized that the techniques for making Damascus steel had been lost.  Nobody knows today how those swords were made.  We have made guesses, but we don't know.  Not for sure.  We may never know for sure.

That's because we can kill people faster, better and from farther away with weapons using gunpowder.  You don't win a war by showing up with Damascus steel swords.  That's how you die.

These changes are not made in a vacuum.  The social changes that come from dying professions, new classifications of devices, better and faster ways of doing things are and have been immense and have caused the old comfortable Patriarchy to be shaken to its foundations.

Young people in America today are overwhelmingly progressive.  They accept and think little about the homosexual issues of the day and are accepting a more equal role for women in jobs, marriage, and politics.  Demographically, the old Conservative way of thinking is dying, and probably won't survive more than another decade or two.

Dominionists and Conservatives (especially the ones who are both) know this, and are doing all they can to stretch out the days before they lose power.  Education of one of their best efforts.

Unfortunately, their efforts are unAmerican and damaging to our democracy to an extreme degree.

We shouldn't really let them get away with it.

But which core values? Yours, or...yours?

Hermant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist, had a fascinating take on an incident that occurred a while back.  It seems that in a recent debate, a young man, Chad, challenged Mr. Marcellino (the Christian debater) about the fate of people who do not know Christ.

You know, the question of Hell, and god sending those unfortunates straight there for eternity.

First, though, Mr. Clifton had asserted earlier in the debate that he didn't think Hell was forever.

Then, later, he admitted, at Chad's questioning, that he is a believer that the bible is literally true.

Chad followed that up by questioning Marcellino’s claim from earlier in the debate that Hell wasn’t really forever — doesn’t the Bible say it is? 

Marcellino: … Forever doesn’t really mean forever.Chad: … you said it was all literally true.Marcellino: Well, yeah, it’s not literally English true. It’s Hebrew and Greek. So you have to get into the Hebrew and Greek.

Apparently, Chad has done this before, challenging Christian debaters and flummoxing them into stumbling and making idiots out of themselves.  The Friendly Atheist has covered these debates, so if you want to actually see the video, go to the link above and watch.  It's cool!

Go, Chad!

Great stuff!

But that's not exactly what this post is about, though it did spark the old noggin a bit.

I've seen a lot of debate lately about whether the Progressive agenda, including Atheism, is really progressing (pardon the pun), or whether the right wing backlash has got us on the run.  Certainly, the narrow polls in this election are cause for concern, as there is a very real possibility the Republicans could win the Senate.

Or so the pundits say.  I do remember that the last election surprised a lot of pundits and pollsters alike.  Anybody remember the epic meltdown of Carl Rove on Fox?  It was, truly, something to watch!

I am, quite naturally, an optimist, even though I do take the engineer's position about that proverbial glass of water - I still insist the damn thing is just not the right size... but I digress.

One needs to take the long view in these things.  Cultural changes do not take place overnight, even though we did manage to upend things in the 60's pretty quickly.  Today's backlash is a direct result of the 60's, and it is a doozy!  But, it isn't the end of the struggle.  Not by a long shot.

227 years ago, the United States Constitution was ratified.  That is, arguably, the greatest success for the men of the day in their struggle for the spread and the social acceptance of the principles of The Enlightenment.  But the road leading to that day was long and bloody.  Historically, the enlightenment began with the Crusades, believe it or not.

Before that time, Europeans were pretty much (except for merchants, mostly) confined to Europe, and didn't do much traveling.  Travel was hard, dirty, and dangerous, and getting anywhere really interesting took months, and often years.  The nobility of Europe were mostly interested in warfare, politics and religion, pretty much in that order.  Few of them were literate, as most of their time was spent in the practice of martial arts, if not actively engaged in real fighting.  The rest was often politics and such.  There was a day when learning to read was actually discouraged for the nobility, as it was considered beneath their position.  That's why they hired monks and learned priests to do their paperwork.

Much of that was the Church's fault, because really, they wanted the ability to read strictly in their purview, which allowed them to interpret Scripture.  If you couldn't read, you had to take the priest's word for what was even written there!  In fact, in the earlier centuries of what we call the Dark Ages, learning to read was actually forbidden by the church.

But when the nobles who answered the Pope's call for the Crusades got to the Holy Land, they didn't find barbarous savages as the Church taught, but very learned Muslim nobility, who had safeguarded many ancient writings over the centuries.  Documents in Greek and Latin, often predating the Church, many of which were long lost writings of Greek philosophers.  Histories, too, in both Greek and Latin;  a lot of these men learned those languages, and took some of these documents to Europe when they went home.

The principles they learned, the ideas the Greeks had struggled over and debated about changed European thought and culture forever.

Looking at European history since those times, one can clearly see the slow but long term steady change from a society dominated by the Church and theocratic rule to one ruled by secular authorities which eventually denied the Church any secular authority at all.

Today, Europe is even more secular than the US, with some countries boasting fewer than 20% of their populations claiming religious belief.

I am not going to dive into the whys and the wherefores of how this took place, I'm not an historian.  But it is sufficient to this discussion that it HAS taken place, and the progression of western culture from the conservative and the intolerant to a newer more liberal set of principles is easy to see.

It wasn't an easy road, and it wasn't a straight one.  There was much backsliding and a lot of blood was spilled along the way.

But as of today, the culture wars (as Ed Brayton puts it) are still slowly and jerkily moving us forward, even if it is like clawing your way up a steep hill in the mud, fighting gravity every inch of the way.

American culture has moved through the 18th and 19th centuries, forging a new set of unique values. Values built on the movement of millions of Americans across this continent which has cemented our belief in the worth of the individual.  Past migrations across places like Asia were based on mass population movement.  Entire cultures were displaced and forced to move into other parts of the world, but they moved as a people, in groups.

In the US, we did it often as individual families or small groups.  Sometimes one by one, these brave people made names for themselves and the stories of their travels are legend.  They depended, though, on each other.  On the frontier, the old traditions of breaking bread together around a fire were rediscovered, and the ideals of helping those in trouble were there to ensure that everybody had help when they needed it.

Individualism tempered by tolerance and charitable assistance where trouble struck has always been an American value.  We are, therefor, a proud people.  We pride ourselves on being independent.  On not being led around like sheep.  The watchword for early America was Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware.

We have a sense of fairness, of balance.  American frontier justice was swift, but fair, mostly.  It had to be.  Early communities depended on that.  Religion was an individual thing.  Preachers were rare, priests even more so.  With so few to preach at them and so much to do simply to survive, religion just wasn't very important in large part, until civilization caught up.

But by then, the principles were set, spread by the media and popular books and newspapers, extolling the "Manifest Destiny" of this country to spread west.  The exploits of the pioneers were read voraciously throughout the US and even overseas.  The principles of individualism and their liberty from authoritarianism were well set by the middle of the 19th century.

So, you say, just what does all this have to do with a young man named Chad and an embarrassed Christian debater?

Plenty.

The modern American Evangelistic movement likes to pretend it is a monolithic movement, spreading like wildfire and taking souls from Satan daily.

But it isn't.  There are at least three types of evangelicals.

The Fundies - committed believers.  Literal bible believers, they are the soul, if you will, of that movement.  They set the tone.

The Moderates - they talk the talk, but rarely walk that walk.  They make all the right noises, but really?  All they do is check the right boxes on those national polls, so jesus will win.  But they either stay at home Sunday or just pretend.

Then you've got The Cognitively Screwed.  Guys like the debater, Mr. Marcellino.  He knows the Scriptures by heart, he is admired by his peers and his fellow congregants.  He talks with Jesus!

But, deep in his heart, he is still imbued with those core American values.  The sense of fairness, the core belief in an individual's rights to his own mind, without being forced into a mold.  He is, in short, uncomfortable with the idea that anybody should be tortured forever for a short term sin.   Particularly if they never knew what a sin was!

His values aren't biblical.  His values are informed by The Enlightenment, as formulated by the American Revolution and forged in the heat of the American Frontier.

But he can't admit it.  He is also an Evangelical.  He MUST believe in the infallibility of the Scripture.  It is pounded into his mind every Sunday, but his American values are in his mother's milk.  His culture insists that America is the greatest country in the world, with the greatest values.

But those American values conflict with his Evangelical values.

So, when he gets confronted by someone like Chad, his mind cannot deal with that conflict.

There are millions of people like Mr. Marcellino.  Hard core fundies, until their core values are conflicted with their religion.  Then, they are confounded as to where to turn, what to think.

To me, that is encouraging.  The more we see people who are supposed to be very religious being confronted and failing to even reconcile basic beliefs, the more we will see those reconciliations being resolved in a way we will think of as favorable.  Many people doubt their religion.

It is our job to confront them and help them resolve those conflicts reasonably.  That way, Progressivism WILL win.

Just don't expect it to be overnight.

First they came for the Socialists...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist. 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Trade Unionist. 

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. 

Martin Niemöller

The original intent of this remark, given in speeches around Germany, was to point out that Germans—in particular leaders of German Protestant churches—had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people.

Today, in the United States, the Republican Party is responsible for the intensification of racial animosity against minorities - blacks and hispanics in particular - and are the cause of much of the violence against blacks now being acted out on the public stage by the growing militaristic police presence in this country.  White militia groups, openly carrying loaded weapons, now patrol the US-Mexico border against the "incursion" of hispanic children!

Recent stories in the press, such as the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and several additional instances of such violence have resulted in a growing unease in social media about not just official violence against blacks, but the increasing trend of police violence against any public dissent against that violence, regardless of the race or ethnicity of the protestors.

Additionally, numerous Stand Your Ground laws in various States have resulted in civilian violence against minorities which have allowed the perpetrators to walk away without fear of prosecution.  These laws have been promulgated by Republican legislatures over the loud and vociferous protests of Democratic and pro-gun control groups.

I am greatly troubled by these various developments.

While law enforcement violence against blacks and hispanics is nothing new, especially in the South, to see such violence pop into the public eye in places like Missouri and California is troubling, to say the least.  And to see the situation in Missouri escalate into such a state that the police turn the town into an armed camp, arresting both members of the press and a State Senator, is beginning to border on the absurd and the alarming.

I add here the recent execution of Troy Anthony Davis (October 9, 1968 – September 21, 2011), an American man convicted of and executed for the August 19, 1989, murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia.  In spite of the recantation of numerous prosecution witnesses and the admission of guilt by another inmate, the State of Georgia went ahead with the execution.

I can add several more, indeed, four out of the top 5 wrongful executions in the US were of black men.  It is well documented that the US justice system, nationwide, is stacked against minorities.

It is an interesting phenomenon that the only groups of pro gun demonstrators "exercising" their open carry rights are white.  There are no documented cases of groups of black men so demonstrating their "right" to open carry anywhere in the United States.

I wonder why that is?

I think the situation is getting out of control.

I think the fact that it is out of control is deliberate.

Republicans have been running on a platform which asserts that the "government" doesn't work and is a burden on the American people.  They have worked very hard, using every opportunity to ensure that their assertions work out to be true, sabotaging good government at every possible turn.

They have ensured that American police departments, under the aegis of the "War on Drugs", have loaded up with as much militaristic weaponry and equipment as possible using Federal money to finance that buildup.

Their campaigns of fear and uncertainty aimed at the poorest elements of white America have stoked the fires of racial animosity and hatred in order to ensure the re-election of Republican leaders at every level of government, using State and local powers to subvert Federal laws and regulations wherever possible to foil the increasingly liberal march of American social beliefs and morals and any influence that may have on US law.

The trust and confidence of the American people in our police, in the courts, and in the prosecutors who administer our system of justice is eroding daily.  When police concentrate on blacks and hispanics, ignoring whites, and prosecutors apply different standards of justice to minorities, public trust in these institutions begins to erode.

When the courts begin to allow these other groups to violate the rights of minorities without consequence, the erosion of public trust accelerates.

Sooner or later, the people of this country will decide that they've had enough, and Republicans hope that they can cash in on that decision.

Don't let them.  Speak out!  The best way to do that is to vote.  DON'T STAY AT HOME!

This November, get out and vote.  Vote Democratic!  Toss out the Republican Party and force them to go into exile, where they can hopefully restructure their party and relearn what it is to be an American.

I think they've forgotten completely.

American Democracy 101

After the post about Gitmo, I got to thinking.  (I know, that's dangerous, but I like to live on the edge!)

Besides the Gitmo thing, and the whole 1% vs the 99% thing and the NSA massively spying on our electronic communications thing (Hi, guys!), and well, all that other shit, there seems to be a pervasive, growing feeling among the American people that we've somehow lost control of our government.

No, I didn't just crawl out from under a rock.  I've been just kind of keeping my cool.

But now, I'm sorta over that.  My point of view is kind of specific, though.

Let's examine for a moment, what the basics of our form of government are.  I'm not a civics teacher, (but I did pay attention, Mr. Green & Col. Morehead!) so please bear with me.

I could go into the Constitution, and that would be theoretically correct, as it is the blueprint for the form our government takes, and governs the powers it has and is restricted from wielding.  It would be pretty instructive for a lot of people, but it would also take a while.

I'm not a patient guy.

So, let's talk about something else.  How about the Declaration of Independence?

That's a favorite of the Tea Party, isn't it?  Particularly the religious right's portion of it.  They love to point at the Preamble and the use of the word "Creator" that you find there.  Yes, it's there, and I won't bore you (again) with the well known point that it is there as a Deist term favored by the Founders who were followers of that particular philosophy.

I'm going to point to another well known but oft neglected phrase which comes later.  Right in the next clause, in fact, immediately after the terms "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" we all know and love:

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —

Emphasis mine, of course.  The Founders didn't think it would be necessary to embolden that one.

It is, in fact, in spite of its inclusion in a whole line of famous clauses, the very foundation of American Democracy.

It is the very principle upon which the Founders based their blueprint they called the Constitution of the United States.

Look at that phrase again and let it roll off your tongue.

"...deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"

That's us, in case you didn't realize it.  The American people.  You, me, Barrack Obama, John Boehner, every single one of the 350 million plus of us.

Not a word about deities, churches, religion or cults.

The People.  We, the People delegate the power to govern ourselves to a government which we have instituted under the Constitution - a document which contains exactly two references to religion. (if you count the First Amendment and not just the original document)  Both are restrictions on its power to affect religion, or to involve it in government activities.

One of the restrictions placed upon the government is to deny the use of a religious test for office.  The other is the famous First Amendment, which restricts the governments ability to pass laws which could govern religion, or in effect, make people obey specific sectarian religious rules, called the Establishment Clause.  It also prevents the government from passing laws which prevent religion from doing its thing. That is the Free Exercise Clause.

Together, they are intended to prevent religion from being a part of our government, either to promote it or to impede it.  The government is to remain neutral.   It cannot be partial, either for or against.

These are not just philosophical or esoteric ideals to be discussed in a classroom.  They are LAW.  A law (the highest law of the land - it says so, right there in the constitution) that trumps all others.

Anyone who would override these things is not a patriotic American.  They are not patriots at all, but are either traitors or seditionists.

You see, the First amendment is a protection for ALL Americans, even the most religious.

Imagine for a moment, the Dominionists win.  The Constitution is overturned, and Christianity becomes the Law of the Land.  ::shudder::

Which version?

The Roman Catholic Church?  The Southern Baptist Convention?  The Presbyterians?  Joel Osteen's group?  How about Billy Graham?  Would he get a say?  How about the Mormons?

Or the church of Scientology?

How are they going to decide?  Even the group known as Dominionists constitute differing versions of fundies.  Do ya think they're going to sit down nice and quietly after the Second American Revolution and just decide who get tossed under the bus like gentlemen?

Somehow, that scenario just doesn't sound exactly right.  Historically, religions don't share power very well.  When the Protestants and Catholics in Germany contended for power, it took thirty years and hundreds of thousands of dead to settle the issue.

Would the RCC take a Protestant takeover of the US sitting down?  Would the mainline Protestant churches accept a fundamentalist takeover gracefully?

The Founders knew what they were doing.  They'd seen what religious power in the hands of governments could do in recent European history.  Many of the previous generation of their families had immigrated to the US under religious pressure.  The strife regarding differing religions was intense even in differing States of the Colonies!

To prevent it from getting worse, their solution was to end it completely.  To keep government totally out of religion, and religion totally out of government.

Sounds about right, wouldn't you say?

Memorial Day rant

It was originally my intent to talk briefly about Memorial Day and remembering the people who have died in defense of our liberty.

But I have been increasingly discouraged by the increasingly evident lack of true caring on the part of our government and those who run it for maintaining that liberty and I really don't have the stomach right now for fighting that fight.

What happened?

Seven people died in California this week, victims of our patriarchal society and its misogynistic imbedded hostilities towards women.  There may not seem to be much of a connection, but look at it this way.

Our militaristic, macho-manly oriented society demands that the highest calling a man can aspire to is to be a warrior.  Doesn't matter if you are 4'10 and 110 lbs dripping wet.  Being a warrior is the highest possible calling you can have.

Of course, along with that is the "benefit" that women "love" a man in uniform!  The picture is clear, she'll tear your clothes off, IF those clothes are a uniform.  Because you deserve it!  You are macho, manly and risking your life!

Enter the Men's Rights Advocates.  The guys who maintain that men deserve it all.  Nothing should be denied them, especially love, sex and automatic adoration of the fairer sex.

Our society, from the basic separation of the genders by role and custom, demands certain actions, responses and roles of each sex, and woe be unto the individual who crosses the line.  These basic rules are pressed into the minds of our children from early childhood.  We dress them, give them toys and expect them to stick to the assigned roles, depending on the particular plumbing with which they may be equipped.

The thought that any child may not be hardwired to comply with those arbitrary roles doesn't enter into it.  You will get pounded into the hole you should fit in regardless of your shape.

The perpetrator of the massacre in California IS ultimately responsible for his actions, don't get me wrong.  It is still illegal to kill people for displeasing you, no matter how justified your chosen moral code may slant the facts.  But, it should be illegal for people to be enticed into a cult of moral certitude which denigrates and virtually enslaves half of the population to the point where a member of that cult feels entitled to kill people he imagines have insulted and rejected him in a manner which violates the tenets of the cult's imagined rights and benefits.

Society is as guilty here as he is.  This does not reduce his guilt.  It does not reduce the responsibility he has for his actions.  It spreads that responsibility to others, like a plague which infects any who support and encourage such insanity.

Which, if the truth be known, is all of us who fail to make our displeasure and repugnance known to those who try to perpetuate this attitude.  It is time for us all to drive this ugly patriarchal penchant from out of our society.   Educate your daughters to refuse to knuckle under, and educate your SONS so that they are also outraged by misogyny and hatred towards women.

It is fine and admirable to "fight for women's rights".  To fight for women's rights to health care and reproductive freedom.  To fight for equal pay for equal work.

But it is better and more effective to fight AGAINST patriarchy.  To fight those who hate women and perpetuate the culture of misogyny and rape, subjugation and control.

The other stuff will come automatically if we can defeat the misogynists at the core of the problem.

We need to stop treating the symptoms and start working on the real disease - patriarchy and misogyny.

When we do that, we will end the wars and the need for spending more money on defense than the next ten lower spending countries combined, and the need to add more dead vets to the list of those to remember and memorialize.

I can think of no better way to honor those who have fought for our freedom than by doing OUR part in fighting for that freedom and liberty, right here at home.  For all of us.

Nevada is not the new Concord or Lexington.

Everybody's talking about that rancher in Nevada, whose name I will not repeat, just to avoid giving him any more notoriety.

The guys I want to talk about are the militia nuts who came from other States to support him, and the political theories they are espousing in that support.

Now, these militia folk are real big on the Second Amendment.  They've gotten some support from SCOTUS in their contention that an individual has a right to bear arms for his or her own purposes, which were outlined as protection, hunting or recreation.  I've read that ruling, and a remarkable omission I've noticed is any mention of armed insurrection against the United States Government!  I'd guess that the Supreme Court Justices are kinda opposed to a group of angry, armed citizens bursting into their courtroom disturbing the proceedings.  I mean, a guy stood up - unarmed, I might add - and disrupted things a while back and got whacked with time served for contempt of court.  Plus banned from the court grounds for a period of time, like 90 days or something.  I'd bet adding guns to that mix might increase your chances of a longer jail time somewhere like Ft. Leavenworth in sunny Kansas, instead of a local jail in D.C.!!

In short, those milita nuts are, as usual, getting things mixed up.

Our founding documents include two very famous items - the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution of the United States of America.  (I'm gonna give the Articles of Confederation a pass here, since we dumped that one as unworkable after fewer than a dozen years.  So much for States' Rights.)

The militias like to expound on our Second Amendment rights, which they claim give us the right to defend ourselves against an unjust and oppressive government.  They use our Revolution as proof that not only is that why the Founders guaranteed us the right to bear arms, but why success is possible, if not a forgone conclusion.

But, hold yer horses a moment, pardner!  Her puttin' the cart waaaay before the horse here.

The Constitution came later.  First, came the Declaration of Independance.  It was a document that outlined the intent and goal of our revolution and our reasons for revolting against what we acknowledged as the rightful ruler of the America's colonies - the British Crown.  It noted, among other things, our repeated attempts to correct what we saw as intolerable obstructions of our freedoms as British subjects, resulting in our resolve to simply renounce our allegiance to the Crown and set up our own government.

It was a declaration of our intent to revolt and overturn the rightful governing entity of The Colonies, the colonial governors appointed by the British Monarch, King George.

What modern Second Amendment supporters ignore is expressed in that famous cry by a man the British hung for his disloyalty to the Crown, "Give me Liberty, or give me death!"  What he got was death.  They hung his ass about two minutes after he said that.

Which illustrates one thing about that Declaration we rarely note today - one may have the RIGHT to make revolution against an oppressive government - that right does not guarantee you freedom from the consequences of that revolutionary activity.

Another famous quote, this one by a survivor of the Revolution, Ben Franklin, is where he noted the wisdom of "hanging together, lest we hang separately!"  Meaning that our Founders were VERY aware of the consequences of their actions!

Bringing us to Nevada.

The "militia" groups coming to the defense of a man who is in defiance of the law legally promulgated by the Congress and signed by a famous Republican President are very vocal about how they are so bravely defending our freedoms (while one of their members suggests using women and children as shields) but forget conveniently that such actions do have consequences.

Fortunately for them, in this case, the government agency acting (again, legally in this case) to enforce court orders the mooching rancher lost was wise enough to defuse the situation instead of trying to arrest people it had every right to move against.

The next time, it may not be so lenient.

Taking up arms against your government may be your right, but the Constitution you so vociferously seem to worship also gives your government the right to shoot your silly ass for doing it!

You are not patriots, you are insurrectionists, and insurrectionists are fighting a government I spent over forty years supporting, defending and working for.  You do not have my respect, nor do you have my support.

You are defending a man who is a member of the top probably 2% of the wealthy of this country, and you are defending him for breaking the law and literally stealing from your government.  His interests are not yours, nor does he give a shit about you.  He will sit comfortably in his living room, watching your sorry asses get shot off on TV, while he and his lawyer disassociate themselves from you so they don't get legally involved with your ill-advised insurrection.

That is, if the government isn't so lenient on your undeserving butt the next time.

The more likely event will be that the BLM will wait till this blows over, and quietly round up his cattle the next time without the media attention and without prior notice, while waiting to jail his ass when he tries to stop them himself.

Thereby saving you from yourself.

Insurrection ain't pretty.  Revolutions are expensive, and require that a very substantial percentage of the population support you.  A majority of the American people do not support the modern milita movement, they are considered crazy gun nuts.

Most of us support the government blowing their silly butts away the next time.  It's a shame they don't understand that Americans do NOT admire men who use women and children as human shields.

Instead, we despise them, and consider them to be the cowards they are.  Believe me, there will never be a USS Bundy like there was a USS Lexington.

Patriotism

Tell me, what is your definition of Patriotism?

Mirriam-Webster defines it thus:

• love for or devotion to one's country

Pretty simple, huh?  But wait...is there anything in that definition that says one's patriotic songs can only be sung in a single language?  I don't see that anywhere on Webster's page for "patriotism".

I could - kinda - understand if one were talking about a country like, say, France, where there IS a single language identified with the country, and is, in fact, mandated as such.  In fact, France actually has a government department dedicated to ensuring the "purity" of French!

But America has no such mandate, and there isn't an office in the government here - at any level - ensuring the "purity" of English!  What an impossible job that would be!   Remember, English is the language known for following other languages into dark alleys and shaking them down for loose words and grammar.  Then manages to mangle the pronunciation, meaning and usage!

So, what is going on with this anger over the Coke ad using several different languages to have people sing America the Beautiful?  You know, the patriotic song written by a lesbian?

I am not an empath, nor a psychic.  I cannot read minds.  But, I did grow up in a very conservative part of the country, to conservative parents.  I do have a good idea what is going through these folks minds, and that is pure and simple racism, or if you prefer, xenophobia.  Hatred or fear of foreigners, of people who are different.

Not patriotism.

This is a country that was BUILT on immigration.  Every single person in this country who isn't a native American is descended from immigrants.  All of our ancestors made that long dangerous trek across the oceans of this globe to land, uncertain, homeless, and often owning no more than the clothes on their backs, but with hope in their eyes.  Hope that the future they could make for themselves would ensure the welfare of their children and grandchildren.

Which, in the long run, for all of us, ensured the future of this country to become one of the beacons of liberty and the hope for a better future - beaconing to the entire world.  Read again the words written on the plaque at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

So, no, we have no right, no reason, and no call to look down our noses at anybody, no matter how long or short their family's sojourn on these shores.   We should be welcoming them, because it is the infusion of new blood, new minds and new energy that makes this country great, in wave after wave.

Irish, Chinese, Italians, Germans.  All immigrants, and all despised in their day.  All of those ethnicities have built a place for themselves in today's America.  Blacks, Hispanics, Japanese, each, in spite of the very tough nature of their past parts in the American stage play, have built places for themselves, too. Each of these ethnic groups, and dozens more like them, right up to the present day, add their own flavoring of spice to the American pot.

We call it a melting pot, but it is really more like a mixing pot.  A salad, if you prefer.

I've seen a number of Conservatives use that term derisively, as if the fact that each group having generally stuck together through the tough beginnings of their immigration here is a bad thing.

As if the English speaking folks didn't - and still do - just that!  It takes a lot of guts to stand in your racist little tribal enclave and accuse others of being racist.

No.

This country is and was built on immigration.  I welcome every immigrant.  My mind soars at the sound of every differing language, every lilt of a foreign tongue added to the music of how the English language is spoken, and every foreign word we add to our vocabulary.

Ours is a rich culture, enriched from a past jammed with the differing traditions and customs of hundreds of foreign countries and a thousand ethnicities.  It is impossible to separate the customs of this country according to the lands and peoples from which they have been drawn.

This is the power of America.  Not the great aircraft carriers.  Not the intercontinental missiles, not the economic power of Wall Street.  Not the guns.

The people.  WE the People.  Together, living each of us with our own little versions of The American Dream.

The attempts of the right wing to stop or slow immigration would be the death of that dream.  What makes this country great is the very fact that all people everywhere can, should they wish, try to come here to build their own little American Dream.  Hundreds of thousands do, every year, from every corner of the globe, from every possible ethnicity, speaking every possible language.

Yearning to become just one more of that We The People spoken of in the Constitution.  Part of that great compact.

We should be in celebration of that desire.  We should welcome them with open arms, smiling faces.

They are our future.  They are the guarantee that this country will not lose its greatness, will not lose the energy that held that compact together for two hundred and thirty-eight years.

They are us.

Where the hell is the FBI?

Did somebody, while we weren't looking, repeal the U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 115 › § 2384, which is the part of the US Code which forbids sedition and criminalizes it?

I wonder, because I keep seeing articles like the one I saw today on the web site "Raw Story", entitled, "Fox News analyst tells Tea Party group he can lead a military coup against Obama".  This is at least the second or third such story I've seen in the last six months, and it makes me wonder, if the NSA has such an ability to screen US telephone and electronic communications, why hasn't this asshole (and the others I read about) been fucking arrested yet?

Or is all that stuff about surveillance just so much rubbish?

I'm sorry about the language, but this kind of thing just pisses me off.  Ok, no I'm not sorry.  This shit makes my very blood boil.

These people are the very first to spout off about patriotism and love of country, but they are also the very first to abandon all support of the Constitution as soon as their precious conservative sensibilities have been bruised by the election (TWICE) of a man the color of whose skin doesn't fit their worldview of who should reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and whose very existence threatens their sense of power so badly it shrivels their tiny dicks.

Arrest the bastards, lock the assholes into the lowest, dankest, darkest prison we've got and weld the frigging door shut.  Then lose the key to the front door AND the paperwork recording where they got lost.

I don't care if they are former military and claim some kinship with that good old boy network.  By even talking about the possibility of taking any kind of military action against the civilian government, they lose any claim to special privilege.  They show themselves to be fair weather patriots.

Good and solid supporters of the Constitution, until it begins to protect someone they dislike or detest.  Then all bets are off and the testosterone takes over.  Like Ole Judge Roy Bean used to say, give the bastards a fair trial then bury them under the fucking jail.  Or something like that.

Aaaarrrggghhh!

Revisiting the Holocaust.

On Facebook a while back, someone posted a link to this web page that advertises a broadcast of a documentary made after the liberation of Europe in 1945.

The Documentary, "Memory of the Camps", was produced with the help of (among others) Alfred Hitchcock, but was put on hold by the British before it was broadcast for political reasons.  It was recently re-discovered and restored, and is set for broadcast on British television in 2015 to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Europe.

The page includes a full length version of the film, and in spite of the horrific images it shows, is a must see for any thinking adult who gives a shit about the political health of his/her country.

Why?  Two reasons.

First is the lesson the film makers intended to teach - this can happen if evil isn't fought and thwarted.

Second is another one I'd like to talk about.  It is strongly related to the first, but is a bit more extensive in scope.

It is:

This can happen to YOUR COUNTRY.  It can and will happen if you and every citizen in your country do not pay attention and fight extremism at every chance and in every manner possible.

Nah, you say.  That can't happen HERE, can it?  My people aren't like that!  We'd never kill kids, never starve folks to death.  We'd never kill that many people in such a systematic way.

Huh.  Don't you just wish.  What about the USA?  The country that stands for individual freedom, for liberty and justice!

Estimates of native populations prior to 1500 CE range from as low as 7 million to as much as 54 million.  It is also estimated that as many os 50-80% of that population may have been killed upon contact with Europeans and subsequent infection by diseases they had no immunological protections against.

Native Americans were decimated by the subsequent warfare and pressure of relocation by the rapid and overpowering influx of white Europeans into the North American continent.  (This DOES include Canada!)  No reliable numbers of the affect of that on population numbers have been suggested.

But it must have been devastating.  Was that a genocide?  Or simply a conquest?  Does it matter?

The extremism manifested itself in the "Manifest Destiny" mantra that rationalized the conquest and massacre of natives on the basis of a supposed natural  inevitability of our taking the continent from those who had lived here for over ten thousand years.  That somehow, it was our "destiny" to engulf the continent and populate it.

Even if it did already have a population residing in it.

Could it happen here like it did in Europe?  Sure.  Extremism happens anywhere, and when we see headlines where American politicians justify forcibly keeping people in poverty by denying them an education or the ability to control their own procreation, it is obvious it IS happening here.

Republican Party politicians advocate policies that are hateful, discriminatory, and racist.  They advocate policies that are homophobic and misogynistic, hurting people on the basis of made up differences and ideological imperatives.

They advocate that States secede from the US in order to pursue that agenda, or at the very least, pass State laws nullifying Federal laws that set that agenda back.

Now, am I saying that Republicans WANT to take the same career track Hitler did?  That they intend to snuff out the lives of all who they see as different?  Of course not.  Certainly not the average Republican at the State or local level.  As a country, we see that as evil and bad.

But then, if you'd showed photos of the Holocaust to the average Nazi Party member in 1932, they would have thought of those photos of being the result of Communist activity.  They saw themselves as the savior party of their homeland.  Saving it from economic ruin and political suicide.  Saviors of the German way of life.  The belt buckle of every German soldier was inscribed with the inscription "Gott Mitt Uns", which means "God is with us".

Sound familiar yet?  Wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.  Exactly the same as the Republicans are today.

Saviors of America.  Defending the American Way of Life.  Saving us from economic ruin and political suicide.  Pointing at Socialists and Communists as the evil doers who threaten us.

Hitler, too, excoriated Darwin.  Hitler, too, outlawed abortion, to help continue the Master Race.  Hitler, too, was racist.  Hitler promised economic recovery and international power and respect for Germany.  Hitler, too glorified war and made military service seem desirable.  Hitler, too acted hand in hand with the economic powers of his country to put Germany on the course to war.

In the end, he brought ruin and disgrace and ended his life in an underground bunker at his own hand, too cowardly to face his crimes.

Is there an American Hitler?  Will there be?

Maybe not.  But, maybe so.

Is the slide into anarchy inevitable?  Are we doomed to repeat history?  Will we allow ourselves to be hoodwinked into voting for another National Socialist Party?

It doesn't have to be.

IF Americans who care go vote.  IF Americans who care educate themselves.  IF Americans - LIKE YOU - get involved.

VOTE this November.  VOTE to throw out the extremists, the political outliers who have contaminated American politics into something even traditional Republicans hate.

Throw the bastards out.  Throw them out so far they'll need to pipe in sunlight.

Change of plans! (No curses today!)

I was planning on running a piece on curses - how American culture uses curse words to support misogyny and rape culture - but I changed my mind.

Today is Veteran's Day.  The day we supposedly set aside to tell Vets that we are appreciative of their service to the country.

I remember the Vietnam War.  I entered the Army at the end of that war, and never had a chance to serve in a combat theater.  Too late for Vietnam and too early for the Gulf Wars.  So, as you read this post, remember that even though I AM a Veteran, I am not a COMBAT Vet.  Never fired a shot in anger nor had one fired at me.

It is gratifying to see so many normal folks now doing the "thanks, vets" thing, and the Vietnam vets finally getting the recognition they deserve.  You know, the ones who were really there and really got shot at, compared to the guys like me that sat around the barracks in places like Europe and watched some of our fellow "soldiers" getting high and doing drugs.

I get thanked occasionally, when someone discovers I am a vet, and I really don't want to throw cold water on their parade by telling them I don't deserve it, because I don't want to discourage them from saying it to the guys that really do deserve that thanks.  But, really, I don't.

I know.  Some folks would say that military service is inherently dangerous, because of the equipment we use, some of which is frankly, not safe to operate.  While I was in Germany, an M113 armored personnel carrier like I drove was involved in an accident.  The driver was going too fast, and untrained as he apparently was, pulled the left track brake too hard at too high a speed.  His intention was to make a sharp left turn by halting the left track, so the vehicle would spin around on its left side center of gravity.

But when we were trained at Fort Knox (Those of us with the actual specialty for driving those vehicles and were trained to do it), they taught us that to use that brake (instead of the normal steering brake), you had to be going UNDER 15 miles per hour, if I remember correctly.  I think this guy was going around thirty or so, so he flipped the vehicle onto its top.

They scraped the track commander (who sits with his top half out of the center hatch) off the tarmac with a spatula.  That vehicle weighs 11 tons.

So, yes, I am aware of the dangers of serving and using military equipment.  That doesn't, in my mind, put me in the same class with guys who were getting shot at.  So, it makes me nervous to have someone thank me as if I did.

Another reason I am not happy about the "Thanks Vets!" thing is that as far as the government is concerned, it is not sincere.

I mean, come on, Congress just allowed an automatic cut of $5 billion to the SNAP program (depended on by many vets) to occur, without lifting a finger to do anything about it!  (When I say "Congress" here, read that as "Republicans in the House")  Now we hear they are talking about an effort to cut more!

There is a laundry list of bills "Congress" has failed to pass that would have made life so much better for vets.  A long one.

So, until this country gets off its ass and votes these ungrateful bastards assholes out of office, please don't tell me thanks for serving - your thanks should come in the form of a vote to correct the terrible way we treat our vets.

Every vet should be guaranteed a job when discharged.  Job training should be available if he/she needs it.  Those wounded should be guaranteed medical care for life.  Those maimed should not only get free medical care for life, but should be allowed to get that medical care at the best civilian facilities available - at government expense - for life.

We asked them to serve, and they volunteered.  We should treat them like we truly appreciate it.

THAT is better than a thousand years worth of Veteran's Days.

Three stories, one point. American traditions under attack, but fighting back!

Today, I've got three stories for you.  One is totally nuts, one is crazy in a good way, and one has elements of both, plus makes a point.

The first is about the preacher of a church in North Carolina.  A perfect example of crazy.

Marc Grizzard, of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, says that the first King James translation of the Bible is the only true declaration of God’s word, and that all others are “satanic”.

Not only is he crazy, but he is ignorant, too.

 The New Revised Version Bible, the American Standard Version Bible, and even the New King James Version are all pronounced to be works of the Devil by Pastor Grizzard and his followers. 

Pastor Grizzard said: “I believe the King James version is God’s preserved, inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God… for English-speaking people. 

“We are burning books that we believe to be Satanic.”

 He is ignorant, because it is well known by biblical scholars - even the apologetic ones - that the King James version he likes so much is acknowledged to be the absolute worst translation of the bible ever.  If your objective is to know what the original authors of the books of the bible wrote and meant, it should be the last translation you'd want to pick up.

Oh, and the book burning part is pure idiocy.  Grandstanding at its worst.  This is pure ideology, not theology.

Second, a pastor in Mississippi, Dr Michael Minor, embarked on a personal odyssey to improve the health of his congregants after coming to his church (in 1996) and finding an epidemic of obesity so bad he was burying them at the rate of one a week!  His latest effort?  Pushing ObamaCare.

He has had marked success. "You can see the difference. People are much better sized, way better. And once they get it off, they want to keep it off," he said. 

Now he is taking on the much bigger task of trying to get the state's nearly 275,000 uninsured people to sign up for health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

With technology problems dogging enrollment on Obamacare health insurance exchanges, the roles of people like Minor are becoming increasingly crucial in determining the success or failure of President Barack Obama's healthcare law. 

His church is one of only two organizations in the state to get a federal "navigator" grant to help the state's uninsured sign up for policies provided through Obamacare.

Go read the article about him, it is a wonderful example of someone who truly cares, and puts his preaching into practice.

His understanding of his holy book is diametrically opposed to the idiot in North Carolina.  It is also opposed to the understanding of the bible of a women who runs a homeless kitchen in South Carolina you may have heard of.

This third story is about a humanist group in South Carolina who offered to assist at a homeless soup kitchen in Spartenburg.  They were rebuffed rather sharply.

… Landrum, executive director of the Soup Kitchen, told the Herald-Journal she would resign from her job before she let atheists volunteer and be a “disservice to this community.”“This is a ministry to serve God” she said. “We stand on the principles of God. Do they (atheists) think that our guests are so ignorant that they don’t know what an atheist is? Why are they targeting us? They don’t give any money. I wouldn’t want their money.“

It seems to me that it is that director who doesn't know what atheists are!  How did the group respond?

Despite the setback, the atheists pulled through for the people they were trying to help. On Saturday, they gave away over 300 care packages to the homeless, each package costing about $15 and including things like gloves, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, lip balm, snacks, etc.

They didn't get nasty, they didn't call names. they set up across the street to take advantage of the homeless gathered at the soup kitchen to provide further help.

The best part of this story, and why you should go to this link to read the whole thing, is that another soup kitchen, run by a different church group, has asked the humanist group to come assist at their facility!

“[the Greer Soup Kitchen] even wrote to us during the recent media frenzy to tell us how much they look forward to us coming.”

It seems that the media attention attracted the other group's attention, and they decided that the first was just doing it wrong.

I have a point to make about this.

The driving divider in all this is obviously people's differing interpretations of the christian bible.  Some see it this way, some see it that.  Some groups hate gays, others welcome them as just another christian.  Some will accept help without condition, others only think christians can meet the test.  Some folks see ObamaCare as another way to provide healthcare to the needy while others just see the needy as moochers.

While the godless are busy shattering people's ideas of what it is to be godless.  One CAN be good without the assistance of a deity.

Is that my point?  No.

My point is that without the divisions of differing interpretations of the bible, it would be easier to come together to solve this country's problems.  For over forty years, the conservatives (allied with the religious right) have dragged their feet, fighting every attempt by the left to weave a safety net for the needy of this country.  Today, more and more people are coming to see how the obscene amount of money we spend on the military could, all by itself, turn the problems of the poor in this country around and probably end poverty once and for all.

But we just can't overcome the opposition to it engendered by the propaganda pushed by the right wing, often spread in churches, large and small.  Lies about who the "moochers" are on welfare.  Lies about contraceptives and abortion.  Lies about health care.

Lies about Obama and his health care law.

It IS encouraging to see people like Dr. Minor who are willing to put ideology aside and do good for the sake of doing good.  It IS good to see the Greer Soup Kitchen step in and offer a place for the humanist group to assist in spite of their differing religious beliefs - to see them recognize that doing good is an end in itself, and not just an expression of religious belief.

That kind of changing attitude is going to make things better in this country, IF we can see more people put religious differences aside and come together as Americans.

As Americans.

As Americans, we have a system that was designed to allow differing religions and traditions to live side by side with a minimum of strife.  On the whole, it has worked remarkably well.  So well, religion has thrived here, without the artificial restraints other countries have put on its practice.

People from other countries with a history and tradition of animosity towards other ethnic groups or religious groups come to this country and often live side by side with their former enemies - peacefully!  That animosity becomes less of a necessity here, where religious freedom is itself a tradition and a way of life.

But our own tradition is under attack.  The right wing extremists in this country, led by the Dominionists, are trying to change people's ideas of history, trying to re-write that history to make it seem as if this has always been a christian country.  Their goal is to turn us into a theocracy, where only their brand of god worship is acceptable.

It doesn't need to happen that way.  We need to fight that attitude, and spread the ideals of tolerance and progressivism.

Whether you are a believer or not.

The Open Bar in the House.

Now I don't want anybody to get me wrong here. I am NOT a teetotaler and see nothing wrong with a drink now and then.  I happen to own more than a few bottles of one kind of alcoholic stuff or another, including some rather not-cheap bottles of good Scotch.  I like Scotch.  I like a beer every now and then and like a good wine with a meal occasionally.  I even have a glass of wine with the Cyber-wife very so often, too!

But if there is one thing I have learned in my life, it is that there is a time and a place for everything, and if there is one place and one time which is most certainly NOT meant for drinking, it is on the floor of the US House of Representatives during a gaveled in session considering a bill to keep the government open past the end of the current Fiscal year!

Yes, you heard me right.  Last Saturday night, while considering the Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government open into the 2014 fiscal year, Republican members of the House were on the floor, DRINKING.  It was so bad, members of the press in the gallery above the floor could smell it wafting to their level, and journalists outside the doors could smell it on the House members as they went in and out the doors.  One lady tweeted that she'd run into at least two of them in the liquor store!

The allegations by the press who witnessed this include the fact that it was Republican members who were guilty of this disgraceful behavior.

Now, in the last few years, we've seen and heard some awful things from the mouths of these people, and they've done some terrible things legislatively to some particular parts of the American people, especially gays and women.  But one can always claim that those are true differences of opinion based on differing political ideals.

Not this.  This kind of behavior betrays a contempt for the office they hold, for the Chamber of the Congress they belong to, for the government of which they are an integral part, and for the American people they have been elected to represent.  There just aren't sufficient words in the English language to express my utter contempt, disgust, loathing, outrage and simple abhorrence for not only the actions of these people, but for the men themselves who would dare to dishonor the sacred halls of our democracy and the traditions of this great country by such juvenile and contemptuous behavior in the very heart of where the laws of this land are created.

It shows their utter contempt for the democratic traditions of the process they are a part of and their complete lack of care for the people whose lives and well being they hold in their hands.  It shows the shameful lack of control which the leaders of the Republican party either inadvertently displayed or purposefully exercised on that occasion.  I tend to think it is an utter failure of leadership, whether purposeful or not.

This is outrageous behavior.  This is inexcusable under almost any conceivable circumstance.  I cannot possibly imagine what other countries must think of the United States after this display of complete and unbridled lack of not just decorum, but civilized behavior.

There was a time when, as an American citizen, I could hold my head up high, knowing that I was a citizen of the greatest and most honorable democracy the world had ever seen.  Knowing that our country was a shining light of what humans could endeavor to build in the way of governance and upholding human rights.

No longer.  After last Saturday night, this country has been demonstrated to be no better than a third world banana republic, unable to even maintain a minimum of civil behavior within the halls of its lawmaking body.

Today, I am ashamed to be an American.  Thanks, Republicans.  Thanks, a bunch.

To All My Christian Friends and Family.

Yesterday, there just wasn't anything that leapt out and grabbed me, so I posted a bunch of cool pictures.  It was a nice break.  I hope you enjoyed it!

Today, however, I am angry.  It isn't often I get this angry, so if I get a bit testy and even offensive, please understand my emotional state.

First, understand something.  I was born and educated in Texas.  In spite of its proud tradition of individualism, it is one of the more patriotic States in the union.  Yes, in spite of our obnoxious boasts about having been the only State in the union which was its own independent country (which, damn it, IS true...), we are also very proud of having willingly given up that independence in order to join the US.  Yes, and we also obnoxiously believe you guys got the better end of the deal, having obtained our beautiful State and our unswerving loyalty!  Ahem, sorry, got the better of me...

Part of that was a firm education in what this country was founded to mean:  religious freedom.

Read that again.  RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

That was NOT a lesson in Christian majority privilege, it was taught to every school child that the US was founded for the purpose of allowing Americans the right to their own brand of religion.  This crap about the US being a "christian nation" is a modern FICTION, and numerous quotes from the Founding Fathers proves that they also meant people of other religions besides Christianity, as well as Atheists too.

It is, in short, a tactic of modern fundamentalists to twist the conversation to assume something that isn't true.

What set me off?

This story, in Addicting Info, which talks about a story out of Tennessee.  It is a perfect illustration of what Christians, and not just fundies, will do once they get the political power to shut down the opposition, even if they have to do it illegally and ignore the basic rules of the game.

It is, in fact, an illustration of HOW they will ignore the basic rules and run roughshod over anybody who gets in their way.

"“This is people standing up for what they believe in,” said Steve McDonald, pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church. “We have a right to the democratic process and majority rule.”"

Yeah, and his message is that majority rule means that they can then manipulate the democratic process to ignore fairness and the basic Constitutional rules that are supposed to govern this country.

And this isn't even about anything really IMPORTANT.  This is just symbolism.  Just how bad would it get when they really get serious about something?

Really?  Since when is forcing your beliefs down everybody else's throat ok?

Why am I this angry?

Because these idiots have been spouting this shit for years now, and NONE of the people in this country who count themselves as Christian have yet to stand up and shout the bastards down.

I mean that.  When was the last time a man such as that Baptist minister, after having stood up and spouted such obviously unAmerican bullshit, got his ass handed to him by his congregation?

When was the last time someone like Pat Robertson, who spews such bullshit on a regular basis, lost viewers?

When was the last time that a man like that was admonished by the OTHER ministers in his town and told he was wrong?

Never, that's when.  Not only never, but the other good Christians in that town stood by and actually cheered and supported them as they willingly spent PUBLIC MONEY to violate the Constitution.

So, I will say this again:  What is wrong with you people?  Don't you know a violation of the Constitution when you see one?  Don't you see a violation of the very democratic process itself occurring, or is it ok because the guys doing it believe the same stuff you do?

THAT'S whey I am angry, because so many of you stand up on Facebook and tell me that these people are not being Christian and are acting unAmerican, but you never DO anything about it.  I don't see many stories about this being posted by the Christians I know.  They get posted either by me or other atheistic pages or groups, with little comment or support, mostly.

It is time, indeed, PAST time, for the moderate Christians in the US to stand up and put these fundamentalist bullies back in their place.  Take your conservative party back, throw the bums out and stop swallowing their bullshit.

Because, if you don't, once they take power, they will lump YOU in with ME.  Because you won't be conservative enough, you will end up being given the same choice I will.  Either worship in a fundie church or take the consequences.

Then you can see how it feels to be religiously oppressed.  Like atheists really are, not the fake oppression they like to whine about.

So, in the final analysis, what I mean to say is this.  If you don't have the will to stand up and MAKE THIS STOP, then you agree with it.

Really, that IS what it means.