I like the idea of having a blog. However, there a millions of them out there. Many of them are like mine: nobody follows them. So, for now at least and probably for good, this is my last post.
If you are reading this, thank you!
Conservatives believe in less government, less regulation. That is, unless you want to take contraceptives, get an abortion, marry the person of your choice, or get hired for menial work without a lot of extra documentation (to prove you’re a citizen).
Conservatives believe in the sanctity of life, but favor capital punishment and want to be sure your right to carry a gun is unrestricted. News flash: The more guns in circulation, the more people will get killed by guns.
Conservatives think the deficit is an abomination, but they don’t want to spend one dime more than they already are to help with this huge problem. In fact, their solution to everything seems to be cut taxes for the rich.
Conservatives rail against the “liberal” media, yet 90 percent of political talk radio is conservative. The right-wing propaganda network, Fox News, claims to be “fair and balanced.” If anyone believes this, it might explain why they think everyone else has a liberal slant.
Conservatives think our present health care system is fine. After all, they have health insurance (or enough money not to need it). They are also very good at convincing the masses that 30 million more Americans getting health insurance coverage is a terrible, terrible thing.
Conservatives were very good at blocking the President’s job bill, and then later blaming the current administration that unemployment is still too high.
Say what you will about Bristol Palin, she’s a quick study. It didn’t take her long to master the ways of her elders on the censorious right and decide that personal circumstance and past error needn’t prevent someone from claiming righteous leadership. Uncle Rush must be proud.
Soon after President Obama stated support for same-sex marriage, Bristol publicly weighed in. Because, you know, the world was on tenterhooks.
In a blog post she focused on the reference that Obama made to his daughters — and to the same-sex parents of some of the girls’ friends.
“It would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends (sic) parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage,” wrote Bristol, making her heady debut as the new Dr. Spock for a nascent millennium. She added that “in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview.”
Fathers like … Levi Johnston? It’s with him that she conceived her child — out of wedlock, at the age of 17 — and by most accounts, his relationship with her and the Palin family isn’t any warmer than Juneau in January. A mother/father home is not what he and Bristol have succeeded in creating.
What’s more, she has made sure that their son, Tripp, will at some point be treated to a worldview-shaping image of Dad as something akin to a date rapist. That’s the description of him immortalized in her memoir, one of her many efforts to monetize her surname. It recounts the loss of her virginity as a result of getting drunk and blacking out in the company of Levi, who pounced. What a gift that narrative is to Tripp, now being hauled into a TV reality show, “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” already in production. Little children are known to thrive in such environments.
I hesitated before picking on Bristol because she’s an easy target. It’s like shooting moose from a helicopter flying low over the tundra.
But she so perfectly distills the double standards and audacity of so many of our country’s self-appointed moralists and supposed traditionalists: hypocrites whose own histories, along with any sense of shame, tumble out the window as soon as there’s a microphone to be seized or check to be cashed.
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FRANK BRUNI, writing in the New York Times, “The Right’s Righteous Frauds.” Read the whole thing. (via inothernews) |
Years ago, some very well-meaning people set about to protect “American values.” They stood up to those trying to change the way things were because these changes were a threat to them and to all they believed. In the end, they were defeated. Civil rights became law. And while these people thought their intentions were good, even righteous, history has judged them poorly—judging them as misguided at best and as bigots at worst.
Today, the same thing is happening. We have “well-meaning” people who are trying to protect their values but this time their target is gays. Several states have passed initiatives to block gay marriage. Republicans in the Colorado legislature stalled a bill that would have allowed civil unions, effectively killing it.
I truly don’t get it. Why do so many feel the need to put down others? Obviously, nobody is asking you to participate in a gay marriage, or even to support or to believe in gay marriage—simply allow it.
It’s interesting how many people in our country fear and loathe extreme religious fanatics in other cultures for wanting to inflict their extreme beliefs on others, yet they don’t see the very same quality in themselves.
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Richard Mourdock, fresh off of defeating Dick Lugar in the Indiana Senate primary, hit the ground running with a quote everyone is talking about this morning. Richard Mourdock and the GOP’s idea of bipartisanship. (via wilwheaton) |
