Nov

14

Anti-Gay Blacklist

Filed Under Free Speech | Comments

As I’ve stated before I’m opposed to the policy of Prop 8 but feel that the protesters need to use the legal system instead of the streets to fight Proposition 8. Now the protesters have finally lost all of my support. They have posted an anti-gay blacklist which lists donors to the measure and advocates boycotting their businesses:

How can anyone defend these kinds of actions? Just like you have a right to protest the measure, others have a right to support it. This is America, everyone has a right to vote how they feel, and that may mean going against your views. You are protesting hate, lost of rights, yet you create a blacklist and advocate people to take away other American’s right to own a business and profit? You force a man out of his job because he supported the proposition?

What you are doing here is exactly what you are protesting, the loss of rights. As Gandhi said “An eye for eye makes the whole world blind”. Instead of talking and having civil discussions, you shut out the opposing view and reject their right to free speech.

Nov

10

Nasty Protesters

Filed Under Free Speech | Comments

To all the people who fought back to my post on stopping the prop 8 protests, I’m sorry but I can’t support actions of protesters like this:

Nov

8

Stop the Protesting

Filed Under Free Speech, religion | Comments

I posted an article after the election telling people who didn’t like that Obama won to stop being sore losers and get over the fact that their candidate lost. I would be amiss for not doing the same for opponents to Proposition 8. It failed, and instead of accepting the fact that it did and move on, they decide to whine and protest in the streets causing issues and tie-ups. They harass Mormons, and label all of the State of Utah as bad and say we should boycott it.

While I don’t agree with the amount of money and support the Mormon Church put into the campaign, these actions aren’t going to change anything. Lets get something straight, while Utah may be the home of the Mormon Church (formally called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) not everyone in the state is a member of the church, and even if they are many have either expressed opposition or  simply don’t care. To have people boycott Utah does nothing more than take away money from the local economies when they need money the most.

Grow up, stop being sore losers. If you really want to do something use legal system, file lawsuits, file IRS complaints against the Mormon Church, but don’t take it out blindly on innocent people. Doing so is no better than what you are protesting against, ignorance. 

**My stance on the law itself is the government should allow any constenting adults to marry. Likewise the church shouldn’t care one way or another as the marriages are legal, and not religious. The church should have the right to deny marrying people but people shouldn’t be denied the right to marry. 

Oct

28

Assumptions

Filed Under Free Speech, campaigns, humor, roundup | Comments

We’ve all seen the videos of McCain supporters yelling racist or threatening things at McCain/Palin rallies. We’ve seen lead in speakers refer to Obama’s middle name of Hussein, in what seems to be an attempt to stoke fear and align him with the likes of Osama Bin Laden. I’m the first person to admit that the McCain/Palin ticket needs to stop this kind of behavior, and they need to stop using Race as an issue in this election.

But for all the bad of the republican party, there are millions more good, honest, hard working people who don’t care that Obama is African American or that his middle name is Hussein. The people we see and hear at these rallies are an incredibly small faction of the overall Republican party, and like any political party out there you’re going to get the nut jobs and the weirdos, but do their views stand as the views of the party?

Hardly, take for instance the fact that many registered republicans are voting Democratic in this election. Do they stand for the views of their party? No. The Democrats aren’t innocent either. There is a small group of Democratic supporters in the Philadelphia area who have showed up at McCain rallies with T-Shirts reading “Sarah Palin is a cunt”. They have even volunteered for the Obama campaign. Does Barack Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party believe in or condone actions like this? No.

The act of supporting John McCain or being a member of the Republican party is not racist, though many people have made it to be so. I voted for Obama not because of his race, race just like religion or sexuality should have no bearing on politics. I voted for Obama because republicans have had control for the last eight years and have milked our country dry. Barack Obama may not be the best candidate out there but we might as well give him a chance to run the country and possibly turn it around.

I’m a registered Democrat, but I don’t vote the party line. I vote for which ever candidate I feel is better suited to lead this country based on the ideals I feel are important, and if thats a republican so be it. Theres an old saying “Don’t assume cause you’ll make an ass out of you and me.” Don’t assume the views of a few are the views of all.

Oct

27

Hypocrisy in the Race

Filed Under Free Speech, campaigns | Comments

This election is going to be a historic election no matter who wins. If Obama wins it we will see the first African American elected President of the United States, and if McCain wins we will see the first woman elected Vice President. Given Obama’s race and Palin’s gender, the election has been riddled with allegations of Sexism and Racism. We have seen effigies of Obama hung in a front yard in Ohio and on the campus of George Fox University in Oregon, we have seen people attack the 150,000 dollars used to clothe Mrs. Palin. Yet the one issue not covered is the issue of hypocrisy.

There is currently a simulacrum of Sarah Palin hanging from a house in West Hollywood under the guise that its all in the spirit of Halloween and its suppose to be spooky and it should be taken as art. The couple that did the display also say that they understand that if it had depicted Obama it would be a totally different story, because of the history of African Americans in this country.

Lets set something straight, no matter what the race, gender or sexuality of the person being depicted is, the image is pure hatred. If they wanted this display to be spooky or scary or in the spirit of Halloween it should have goblins, ghosts and demons. This isn’t a Halloween decoration its a politically motivated message masquerading as decoration.

People attacked the people who hung Obama effigies and the people who laughed or joked about them. Many conservative talk radio hosts where attacked when they joked about Obama images on their shows, yet now when one of Palin shows up, the same people who attacked the Obama representations see nothing wrong with the Palin represenation. If you endorse or find this image of Mrs. Palin funny you are endorsing hatred toward another American, and you lampooned the Obama representations and laugh at this one you are nothing more than a hypocrite.

The line of common decency and respect isn’t a one way street. It isn’t a line simply defined by race, or party alliance. This line applies to everyone and every situation, and effigies of any candidate no matter what party they are in, or what the current month is, has no place in politics. Continuing to do actions like this on both sides of the fence will only provoke anger and hatred. Follow the actions of Barack Obama who when sponsors booed Senator McCain told them “We don’t need any of that”.

**Update Keith Olbermann on Countdown sums it up nicely with his worst persons in the world:

Oct

16

KKK Fliers End Up in Newspaper

Filed Under Free Speech, campaigns | Comments

Just shows how backwards parts of this country still are. Saddened to know that it was in Oklahoma too.

Oct

9

Palin’s Pallin

Filed Under Free Speech, campaigns | Comments

Oh sure you’ve heard Sarah Palin talking about how Obama sitting on a board with former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers constitutes him “pallin around with terrorists”, but did you know Palin and her husband Todd have done a lot of pallin themselves? Palin’s husband Todd was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party for 7 years, a party whose founder stated “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.” More from Salon:

…party founder Vogler preached armed insurrection against the United States of America. Vogler, who always carried a Magnum with him, was fond of saying, “When the [federal] bureaucrats come after me, I suggest they wear red coats. They make better targets. In the federal government are the biggest liars in the United States, and I hate them with a passion. They think they own [Alaska]. There comes a time when people will choose to die with honor rather than live with dishonor. That time may be coming here. Our goal is ultimate independence by peaceful means under a minimal government fully responsive to the people. I hope we don’t have to take human life, but if they go on tramping on our property rights, look out, we’re ready to die.”

Hmm….the best part of this whole story? Their sponsor:

Vogler’s greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States “tyranny” before the entire world and to demand Alaska’s freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.

So a party that Palin’s husband was a member of (and Palin sent them a message this year), is endorsed by one of the countries Bush calls “The Axis of Evil”, one Palin and McCain have berated Obama for saying he would hold negotiations with, one McCain said “bomb bomb bomb” to? Yea that one.

I wonder how all the McCain supporters who yelled Obama was a terrorist at the McCain rally would see this.

Palin’s Video to the Convention

**Update: Salon seems to have another article I missed, including a video with an ex-chairman of the Party

Some quotes from the article

..he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol — once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops — out of his glove compartment. “I’ve got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement,” he said, clutching the gun in his palm.

[fring party] ..that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South

And not to leave the old man out of it, Politico has an an article on McCain:

As a freshman congressman in the early 1980s, John McCain did not disclose his connections to a controversial group that was implicated in a secretive plot to supply arms to Nicaraguan militia groups during the Iran-Contra affair.

Oct

1

Politics From the Pulpit

Filed Under Free Speech, religion | Comments

Over the weekend a group of 33 Pastors from 22 states came together to do something that has been against federal law for nearly half a century, they were going to endorse candidates for president. The campaign was called “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” and was organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group based in Arizona.

In a statement, Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for ADF said:

ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit. Churches can decide for themselves that they either do or don’t want their pastors to speak about electoral candidates. The point of the Pulpit Initiative is very simple: The IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church tax-exempt status. We need to get the government out of the pulpit.

The original law was introduced by Lyndon Johnson in 1954, and it prevents Pastors from endorsing candidates while in their official capacity as clergy. Should they choose to endorse a candidate they can lose their tax-exempt status. All of the pastors who took part have sent their speeches to the IRS in hopes of sparking a legal fight over the law.

All of these pastors examined the candidates on the basis of moral qualities, usually in regards to the stance on Abortion and gay rights. In a time when we are fighting two wars, and in one of the worse economic disasters in the country’s history, is a candidate’s stance on two seemingly small issues all that important in hindsight?

All this campaign is doing is bringing the obvious out of the closet. Given the values of the church and the relatively minimal changes in party stances over the last decade or so, its not hard to determine what candidate is the “more morally right” candidate.

Mass is suppose to be a time to pray and reflect on what you’ve done and what you can do to improve yourself. Its not a time for politics. Its a time for healing. Keep the politics for another time and place.

An interview with one of the pastors

The Website of the campaign can be found here. It includes a video and mp3 radio ads

Pro-Life groups have already filed complaints with the IRS over the campaign.