Obvious

From An unchristian response to torture, by William Pitts, Jr.

You’d think people who claim connection to a higher morality would be the ones most likely to take the lonely, principled stand against torture, writes Leonard Pitts Jr. But you need only look at history to see how frequently Christians acquiesce to expediency and fail to look beyond the immediate.

Between 1933 and 1945, as a series of restrictive laws, brutal pogroms and mass deportations culminated in the slaughter of 6 million Jews, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

Between 1955 and 1968, as the forces of oppression used terrorist bombings, police violence and kangaroo courts to deny African Americans their freedom, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

Beginning in 1980, as a mysterious and deadly new disease called AIDS began to rage through the homosexual community like an unchecked fire, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

So who can be surprised by the new Pew report?

Specifically, it’s from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, and it surveys Americans’ attitudes on the torture of suspected terrorists. Pew found that 49 percent of the nation believes torture is at least sometimes justifiable. Slice that number by religious affiliation, though, and things get interesting. It turns out the religiously unaffiliated are the “least” likely (40 percent) to support torture, but that the more you attend church, the more likely you are to condone it. Among racial/religious groups, white evangelical Protestants were far and away the most likely (62 percent) to support inflicting pain as a tool of interrogation.

I think it’s obvious why Christians support torture. Fundamentalist Christians are more likely to vote Republican, and during the George W. Bush years, W. argued for having unchecked power to fight terror (and torture falls under that). Also, Christians are by definition followers–they’re less likely to be critical thinkers on any and all issues. They vote with the pack*. If the pack of sheep they happen to reside in seems to prefer torture, they’ll blindly support it without question.

*This behavior, obviously, is not unique to Christians. Humans in crowds will riot when others riot, for instance.

Wish

I wish this was a joke, too:

Afghanistan’s Karzai picks warlord as a VP candidate

Your eyes deceive you

I thought I was dreaming for a second there. Then I thought this was a joke. It turns out, people apparently do like Karl Rove. (Note: not smart people).

Greg Nickels pursues fruitless gun-ban

Seattle Mayor Greg ‘Fuck-The-Constitution’ Nickels wants to ban lawful carrying of self-defense weapons on city property:

Nickels Pursues Fruitless Gun Ban | Seattle Times

Nickels, if you can hear me, seriously, please spend your time and energy on some worthwhile endeavor instead of wasting our Supreme Court’s precious time and making enemies. Choose your battles carefully.

Txt Convo

(918) XXX-XXXX: Can’t talk. I’m at the Tulsa Sheriff’s office with a bunch of rednecks. I bet I’m the only one that voted for Obama.
(515) XXX-XXXX: I bet you’re the only one who could read the ballot.

Txt convo @textsfromlastnight.com

‘A Series of Tubes’ Has Competition

“We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today.”

—outgoing Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan on the party’s Internet strategy, The Washington Post, January 5.

Silvio Berlusconi, Hero to Families Everywhere

If it wasn’t already clear to you that Silvio Berlusconi is the devil (or your new hero, depending on how you look at it), here’s something to chew on:

Yet again, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s wife has written a public letter rebuking her 72-year-old husband for consorting with young and chesty women who are not her. Among them is a business associate’s daughter who has posed in underwear revealing most of her bottom and whose 18th birthday party Mr. Berlusconi recently attended in Naples.

“This surprised me,” Veronica Lario, 52, Mr. Berlusconi’s wife said tuesday “because he never attended the 18th birthday parties of his children, even if he was invited.”

Awesome.

Premier’s Roving Eye Enrages Wife, but Not His Public – NYTimes

McCain’s First 100 Days As President

I imagine this article was written to poke fun at what a McCain presidency would be like.  After reading it, I wish John McCain was my President:

Just Imagine: The First 100 Days of John McCain – Politics Daily

Unions Are Backwards

Kevin: f***ing union is striking outside my building
making a F***-TON of noise
I want to eat their throats
Cameron: what union?
Kevin: construction
Cameron: lol what do they want? a bigger untenable debt bubble so we can construct more housing units that nobody can afford to buy?
Kevin: they are bitching about being replaced by non-union labour
Cameron: ahahahaha rofl
“They took our jobs! Mu’f***az willin’ ta work fa less!”
Kevin: Once again, the unions make a nuisance of themselves.

“I quite honestly feel that current labor unions in the United States are an absurd bastardization of a once useful social construct. Where there once was a need for strong unions to protect workers as the industrial revolution introduced health and safety issues never before seen to the world, their current incarnation is often nothing but an mere shimmer of their earlier intentions. The 19th century brought worker protection against unfair and unsafe labor practices into the realm of government legislation, which is where it should stay.”

thats what f***ing minimum wage is for
and all those ass-backward safety requirements
Cameron: yeah
Kevin: also, I personally feel that employers are over-responsible for workplace injuries. If you are a dumb-f*** and fall off a building, that’s your own damn fault, your family shouldn’t be able to sue the company into the ground. However, on the other hand, employers should be responsible to provide adequate safety equipment if requested.  It’s like the f***ing seatbelt law, if you dont want to wear the f***ing thing then don’t! The only person you’re going to injure is yourself.
Cameron: you’re preaching to the choir here, haha

Osama bin Laden = Emmanuel Goldstein

If you didn’t know my stance on the subject before, I think it’s clear that Osama bin Laden has been dead since at least 2004. Pakistan’s president potentially agrees:

Pakistan president: Bin Laden dead? – Seattle Times

Sadly for empiricists, there is no body as proof. Once he turns 100 (in 2057), I think it will be safer to say that he is indeed dead.

Emmanuel Goldstein – Wikipedia

Horrible News

Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, a move [...] that will push Democrats within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.

One-party hegemony is nearly assured. F***.

Specter is trying to play this off like he won’t automatically be the Dems’ 60th vote, and that he won’t change his stance on unions, for instance.

Centrist Republicans Lindsay Graham and Olympia Snowe spoke out in support of Spector’s decision:

Snowe said the party’s message has been, “Either you’re with us or you’re against us.” 

Her frustration was shared by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), who slammed right-wing interest groups for pushing moderates out of the party. 

Specter says he’s switching from GOP to Dems – Seattle Times

A Small Tent for Big Government Conservatives?

Pants Off

“Mr. Speaker, I suggest that we will need to take our pants off. We’ll need to take our pants off and buy a pair that is about three sizes smaller. This is not a sufficient belt tightening bill, Mr. Speaker.”

-Washington State Representative Gary Alexander

Is Obama attacking Fox News where it hurts?

Barack Obama has made a calculated move. During sweeps week–the most important week for television networks that will affect ad rates for an entire year–Obama will be holding an hour-long press conference. And he’s doing it to hurt Rupert Murdoch where it hurts: his pocketbook.

During the last primetime Presidential press-conference, broadcast nationally on 8 networks simultaneously, Fox’s broadcast garnered a paltry 4 million viewers. Compare that with the 13 million viewers that normally tune in to its popular Lie To Me during primetime–precisely when Obama’s press conference is scheduled for.

It’s a simple choice for Fox. 13 > 4: they should stick to their regular broadcast schedule, and snub the President’s broadcast. That’s exactly what they’ve said they’ll do. But other networks will reap the bounty of those four million viewers at Fox’s expense. Fox won’t put up viewership numbers anywhere close to what they expect because even a new episode of Lie To Me can’t compete with such an important Presidential address. Fox will be like a desert island, the only major broadcast network not broadcasting the President’s speech.

This may not be the last time Obama strikes at a media organization critical of him.

Fox won’t air Obama’s prime-time press conference – CNN Liberal News Network

Letter To ‘Washington Bus’

Email to political organization Washington Bus regarding their (in my opinion) misguided goals:

From: Cameron Newland
to: info@washingtonbus.org
Mon, Apr 27, 2009, 5:08 PM
subject: Issues: What We Stand For

I went to a WashingtonBus event last week at Moe Bar, and my friend and I enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. People there who knew what The Bus was (I didn’t) said it was a sort of non-partisan organization that advocated young people getting involved in politics. I just checked out your website, and upon looking at the Issues: What We Stand For page, I saw some things that I believe need correcting (lest someone else like me comes to your site looking to join and reads some things that they don’t agree with and promptly leaves your site without dropping you an email detailing their concerns).

First, the Issues page looks very partisan. In fact, it sounds really socialist/liberal. You don’t want it to look like that, because that limits your audience as an organization. It will turn people off who don’t agree, and they won’t ever join.

The Health Care blurb was brief, nondescript, and perfect. Everyone can agree with what you said there. Kudos.

The Environment statement is something I would definitely advocate changing. Why? It seems to suggest that pollutants/emissions are the only enemy when it comes to environmental stewardship. That’s not true at all, in fact, the real driver of environmental change is population, not pollution. More pollution is a byproduct of more population. Pollution can certainly be reduced, but if you were serious about decreasing our footprint on the planet, you’d advocate reducing population before you advocated stricter emissions laws. I suggest you either broaden the list of enemies to the environment by adding ‘untenable/irresponsible population’, or otherwise rewording the Environment statement so that it doesn’t single-out emissions/pollution.

The Economic Justice portion should be stricken from the manifesto completely. Why? Equality is never going to happen, ever. It’s a romantic idea, but it can only come with communism (also a romantic idea), and communism fails in practice. What you should replace Economic Justice with is something like ‘Equal Opportunities for All’ with regard to education/jobs/advancement. That would indicate that you’re pro-fairness and not pro-pipedream, which is currently the case (when you seek vaguely-defined ‘justice’, a noble aim that is impossible to attain).

On the Equal Rights portion, kudos! I couldn’t have said it better myself! Ditto Election Reform. Pat yourselves on the back.

The A+ Education statement needs work. The biggest problem with it is that it advocates ‘better funding’. I don’t know what ‘better funding’ is. Your readers probably don’t, either. If ‘better funding’ is federal/state/local money to support innovative charter schools, then I would say I support ‘better funding’. If, by ‘better funding’, you mean more funding, then I would say you’re absolutely wrong. Throwing money at a poorly-designed, antiquated system is money wasted. The biggest issue today with primary education is that we don’t really have free choice. There is a Soviet-style government monopoly on education (tax money for schools only goes to government-administered schools). Our public schools, unable to thrive in a competitive environment, fail to innovate and fail to educate our children up to the level at which they could be. The future of education, the way we can improve our children’s education, is to make our primary education system function like our thriving higher-education system (which, I might add, is the envy of the world). If government money supported the best-performing schools instead of only government-run schools, our children (and our economy) would be much better-off. I attended Bellevue High School and the UW, and had an AMAZING, SUPERIOR education (100% in public schools). Most pupils in public institutions are not so lucky–I’m the exception to the rule, and I know it.

My last critique is that there is nothing on there about liberties. Rights, yes, but not liberties. Our freedom from undue regulation is what makes our country so great and so productive. Government shouldn’t stand in the way of any of us. In fact, government’s only reason for existence is to 1) arbitrate between people when one is being wronged (ensuring fairness with a justice system), 2) to maintain order, and 3) to build things that we might not build on our own, like roads, or a national defense. Because the group’s manifesto seems so liberal (definitions of liberal include favors political philosophy of progress, reform, protection of civil liberties; and a broad array of related ideas of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal) you should surely include something in there about freedom from undue regulation, essentially favoring no government action unless it’s absolutely necessary to protect fairness/maintain order/provide something that we wouldn’t on our own.

I’d love it if any or all of this could somehow make it into the Issues page. Reflect on it, at least. Remember, for every thoughtful letter you receive, 100 have come and gone thinking the same, yet wrote you nothing.

-Cameron Newland

Sincerely, Your Friend Iran

Salman Rushdie has reported that he still receives a “sort of Valentine’s card” from Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him.

Salman Rushdie – Wikipedia