REBLOG - GOP: We’ve been lying all along

David Sirota is not exactly a died in the wool, screaming from the roof tops Commie pinko liberal.   I'd argue on his best days he's a pragmatic centrist.  he's also a very articulate writer, who is now (finally) as willing to criticize republicans as he has Democrats in the past:

In practice, that means Wall Streeters and conservative ideologues citing the supposedly imminent crisis to successfully nudge the political establishment to endorse cuts to Social Security, even though the program has almost nothing to do with the debt crisis. It also means a GOP budget that targets most of its cuts at the social programs that the poor and middle-class most rely on (This, at the same time most of these same alleged budget hawks supported an extension of most of the deficit-expanding Bush tax cuts; decry any cuts to the defense budget; and either outright oppose a single payer system or support the Obama health care law that while certainly expanding coverage, nonetheless buttresses the private health insurance industry and, thus, arguably makes such a single-payer system more out of reach).

Read more at GOP: We’ve been lying all along

REBLOG: Liberal racial hypocrisy

When I read blogs like this, I cringe.  Clearly I have no reach in the internet, or I'd be listed on here as one of the flaming liberal exceptions to this rule.  So it goes I guess.

None the less I agree that most liberals ARE hypocrits regarding both race and foreign policy.  Afterall, they joyfully intone, we finally got our first black President elected.  But that fact, as compelling as it was in 2008, is not enough to banish both our own internal to the US racisist past, nor is it enough abrogate the destruction we so easily and equitably rain down on other nations in the name of our "security."

Read more on Salon at Liberal racial hypocrisy

a cold, crisp, sunny day for President Obama's inauguaratin. Saw it all from the Mall.

Another nail in the coffin - New York's civil liberties destroying new gun regulations

One of the bedrock principles of modern liberalism is that civil liberties - things like privacy, free speech, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly - have been and continue to be under assault from a variety of forces.  Liberals fought the most heinous examples of this in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's, though their successes in that cause continue to be stymied by the economic and social segregation and racism that seems to permeate the United States even today.  Liberals also lost many natural allies in the moderate Right by not equally defending other rights and liberties, most notably the one to keep and bear arms.

In the wake of the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. many liberals at first rushed to discuss mental health issues, breakdowns in community, and myriad of other issues that have allowed our violent, individualistic culture to keep using guns in what the media likes to portray as an ever downward civic spiral.  Some liberals jumped immediately to the bandwagon of another permanent assault weapons ban, in spite of scant to no evidence the last one did anything to dry up the weapons pipeline.

You can, I hope, imagine my disgust then when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed what would become the most restrictive state level gun laws in the nation.  From a civil liberties perspective, the most heinous part is the involuntary seizure of weapons from persons found to be on mental health watchlists or databases.  The seizure would apparently occur as the result of the person's diagnosis and condition, not any sense or history of activity constituting a threat.  The State Assembly is expected to pass the bill today, and the Governor is ready to sign it.

When did Democrats, as the political party supposedly representing liberal politics and ideas - decide it was appropriate to respond to acts of violence by further destroying our Constitutional Rights?  Just as it's important to protect Second Amendment rights - which will be severely (and IMHO inappropriately) restricted under this new legislation; it's also a requirement to protect Fourth Amendment Rights:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 Like it or not, Liberals and their Democratic politicians who support Gov. Cuomo's position and legislation are now in clear and extraordinary violation of this Right. 

What's more, it is the party whose members died in the 1960's so that African Americans could vote which has done this.  Again.

When do Liberals get their Party back?

What Would Jesus Do? The uncomfortable call to Christians in light of the Newtown massacre

What would Jesus do?  It’s generally seen as a trite marketing question, yet if you are a serious Christian, it is supposed be a strong guiding principle as you move through life.  The problem for many Christians, particularly the fundamentally oriented ones, is that the real answer – at least the Scriptural answer, isn’t always what they want to hear.

Such a question confronts me now as I begin to frame my response to today’s school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  As I wrote earlier today, my initial reaction is grief.  And there I had planned to stay for a time, as any parent would.

Unfortunately, Governor (and former Presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee roused me from that comfortable denial late in the day.  As reported on Facebook, Governor Huckabee apparently tied this tragedy to the lack of prayer in the schools.  This on a day when pundits on both the left and right tried to convince us that we shouldn’t talk about gun control.  No, they say, we have to wait and mourn properly.  Well apparently the Governor didn’t get that message.

But still, what would Jesus do?  Were He to be walking among us, how would He respond?  And what would His lessons mean for the grieving families in Connecticut tonight?

First, I have no doubt that He would rend his clothes in grief, and that the stream of tears would be almost unending from His eyes.  Time and time again in Scripture, we hear Christ talk about both the innocence of children, and how we most all return to that open, forgiving place in our hearts to truly experience the gifts that God give us.  No doubt He would both try to hold and support the many grief stricken parents as well as the many who responded to the scene, risking their lives to protect the survivors.  Christ would echo the word of the President, that we have seen this sort of thing too often.  He would also seek to welcome the dead home to God, for there is nothing they could ever have done to merit their lives ending in this way.

Second, Christ would have begun to teach us all, as he did in every time of tragedy recorded in Scripture.  Just as He threw the money changers out of the temple to drive home a point about how we should all treat each other, He would no doubt have taken our society to ask over this.  What, He would ask, would you expect in a a society which chooses to solve it’s problems by invading and occupying foreign countries, instead of bringing those responsible for the last attack on our soil to justice and punishment.  How, He would lament, can you expect young men to learn to deal with life’s tragedies and triumphs when you take fathers from their lives and remove the rites and rituals that define the transition from childhood to manhood.  And finally, in perhaps His greatest teaching, He would ask us what we have done for the least of those among us, no doubt pointing out along the way the least of these include those who suffer mental illness and psychological damage.  If we meet this heinous event only with restrictions on gun ownership, then we miss the greater need in our society, and we miss the second highest calling from Christ to His flock in America.

Perhaps His toughest lesson, however, would be the lesson of forgiveness.  Troubling though it will be for many, Christ would no doubt instruct all of us that if He could forgive those who hung him on a cross, if He could call to God for forgiveness even as His own body weight was slowly and inextricably crushing the life from Him, then we must, as part of our own healing, reach forgiveness of all those involved.  Forgiveness of the shooter will be the most challenging part of this, of course, and many will never be able to do it.  But if we who choose to follow Christ are to be completely true to His calling, we have to embrace ALL of His teachings, not just those which are most convenient or easiest to fulfill.

What Would Jesus Do?  It’s not a trite question by any means, and in Newtown tonight, it’s a question with nothing but tough answers.

A Father's lament - more innocent children died today in Connecticut

On that now infamous September 11th, I was working in a boat on Tampa Bay trying to help restore sea grass.  We saw the fighters scream overhead that we learned (Later) were to escort Air Force One away from Sarasota.  It was only when we got back on land that we were sucked into the maelstrom of the day.  That night I hugged my oldest daughters closer and tighter then I had in the days and months before.  I cried in front of them too as I tried to explain what was happening - and that was probably the first  time they saw their dad shed tears (my earlier divorce from their mom not withstanding).

My younger kids have seen me cry before.  When my close friend from college passed away earlier this year from cancer, the two littlest ones watch their daddy break down at the dinner table, Facebook having delivered that terrible news.  Mercifully for me, they both hugged and held on, perhaps not knowing why.

Tonight they may see their dad cry again, once I get them home and safe in our living room.  No parent can see the news coming out of Newtown Connecticut today and NOT want to sweep their kids up in a bear hug that lasts an eternity.  To be sure, we want to comfort them if they are scared - but equally we want to be comforted by their little faces, warm breath, and young and naive zeal for the world around them.  That passage of energy from young to old, child to parent, is the only salve that can hang upon our open wounds today.  For no matter what the FBI or police turn up, no matter how many warnings of this were ignored, no matter how irrational our gun control laws continue to be, it is the warm th of their smiles that will save us all.

Rest in peace small ones.  We can not know what you would have done in your lives, but we can be assured that your kisses, you hugs, your art projects, and your indomitable energy has already left its mark on the world around you.  Your cruel passing can not take that from you, or those who love, and now mourn, in your wake.

Approaching the Fiscal Cliff - a little panic might do us some good

In a piece today in Salon, Alex Setiz-Wald brings forth an important point about who, and how, our domestic security debate has been shaped by the psychology of fringe voices:

Psychological research has demonstrated that in times of crisis, people respond most acutely to emotionally strong voices, Bail explains. The media industry has long understood this intuitively and featured dramatic, colorful and emotional figures because they’re more compelling to readers. We’ve all seen this “fringe effect,” as Bail dubs it, from the Tea Party to the birther movement.

Yet I would humbly suggest that this observation is equally applicable to the “fiscal cliff/austerity bomb” debate currently raging in Washington.  Simply put, Republicans may be blamed in polling for causing the fiscal cliff, but their message is also likely to draw more resonance because they are using more emotional language, and actually displaying emotions, then President Obama.    The invective he raised when confronted by Republican attacks on his U.N Ambassador would be well suited to the fiscal cliff debate, yet his post-election speechmaking (and for that matter his campaign speechmaking)  is still fairly devoid of emotional content.

Does the fiscal cliff get “solved” or “fixed” if the President lets off a little steam?  No, but it does turn the narrative away from the raw emotion of the Republican position, and that may be the key to keeping both the government open, and the economy functioning after January 1^st.