I need my choir to be impressed with me … no matter who gets dissed.

It doesn't get any sillier than this ... and an example of why Christians have a lot of clean up work to do ... I wonder if 2000 years ago the first Christian (Jesus) accepted Jesus as his personal savior.

Yesterday: New Governor: Non-Christians not my brother, not my sister

He's known to be devout and once said that he felt he had been put in the position of Governor by divine will. He told the Birmingham News that "I don't feel obligated to anyone except the people who voted for me."
But his literalized attitude is merely a 19th and 20th century pentecostal notion.

That was yesterday. Today …
Well thank goodness for repentance, one of the hallmark Christian practices ...

I didn’t really mean what I said. I forgot that the governors podium is not a preaching pulpit.

The president of the national Interfaith Alliance, the Rev. Welton Gaddy, said Bentley went too far.

"I thought that with his statement he created two classes of citizens in Alabama, those that were his brothers and sisters in Christ and everyone else. As an elected official, he has the responsibility to serve all the people and treat all the people equally,'' 

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish group that fights discrimination, said it sounded like Bentley was using the office of governor to advocate for Christian conversion. ADL regional director Bill Nigut:

"If he does so, he is dancing dangerously close to a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids government from promoting the establishment of any religion,'' 

Christian supporters outraged that this evangelical fundamentalist politician would be challenged for his religious beliefs, might ask, "What's the big deal?"

No big deal so long as the wisest point of view in retrospect is that of  Retired University of Alabama political scientist William Stewart,

"I don't think the governor needs to get into things like who is going to be in the kingdom and who isn't going to be in the kingdom.''  

No matter the intensity of personal belief and desire that this be a country founded on Christian beliefs, it's not. The governor speaking as governor needs to talk government talk and avoid the mixing in the theology of his own beliefs that make him sound both devout and arbitrarily separating his constituency into two camps of differing worthiness.

That is not freedom of religion in America, but the very thing that early evangelical activists pushed Thomas Jefferson to work toward, a separation that does not permit the rise of one religious point of view "authorized" by a secular government.

 

 

You think Washington has problems? Texas's solutions to a larger gap.

 Seattle TImes:  Public education in Texas faces massive cuts 

Texas is facing a $15 billion revenue shortfall, and few corners of state government were spared in the draft proposal for the next two years. The Texas Constitution requires a balanced budget, and Republican leaders have vowed not to raise taxes.

Nope, no new taxes. However ... what's the difference between a "tax" and a "fee?"

• State employees and retirees who smoke would pay a $30-a-month "tobacco user monthly premium surcharge"  
• an "annual child support service fee," 
• a "monthly child support processing fee" and an "electronic filing of documents fee."

Nope, no new taxes. However ... wouldn't it be interesting to know how many voting skinflints are really out there and how many would agree with the reduction choices?

Now wasn't that big-mouth governor going on and on a while back about Texas seceding from the union? They're still taking federal money but want to reduce the amount of expense sharing they owe:

The proposal also would reduce reimbursement rates by 10 percent for physicians, hospitals and nursing homes that participate in Medicaid - a decrease that could eventually dry up participation in the health care program for poor and disabled Texans. In all, $2.3 billion would be cut from Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and other health and human services.

Republican party: We ain’t got a Health Plan but we’re taking away the one you do have.

Would you trust these guys to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity?

This from Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress

On Fox News Sunday today, conservative Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol could offer only the vaguest of promises about the replacement. When Fox News contributor Juan Williams challenged Kristol to explain “what are you going to replace it with?”, Kristol told Williams not to worry, because there would be hearings in a few months and Republicans would probably come up with something by then.

… The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein reports that “according to GOP House leaders, senior aides and conservative health policy specialists, Republicans have not distilled their ideas into a coherent plan”:

So Republicans want to get rid of the family cow and haven’t figured out where the magic beans are.

GOP Lacks a Clear Health Care Plan

On the cusp of undertaking this work, the GOP has a cupboard of health-care ideas, most going back a decade or more. They include tax credits to help Americans afford insurance, limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits and unfettering consumers from rules that require them to buy state-regulated insurance policies. In broad strokes, the approach favors the health-care marketplace over government programs and rules. [...]

In the absence of a plan, Republican leaders nevertheless are eager to convey that they have ideas about health care – and are not merely trying to knock down those of the Democrats. As a result, they have drafted a resolution to accompany the repeal legislation. It lays out broad, long-held GOP health-care goals, but no specifics, and directs four House committees to develop proposals. [...]

The range of current thinking in the House is not entirely clear, with 87 Republican freshmen and nearly half the members of the influential Ways and Means panel new this year.

Come on guys!!!

All that talk

… so little honesty

… so little wisdom

If they mean it ... then good on them ...

GOP Rep. Campbell Wants ‘Huge’ Cuts To Defense Budget Beyond What Gates Proposes: ‘This Is Just The Beginning’ - Think Progress blog

 

If Campbell and other lawmakers are looking for ways to rein in the defense budget, they can reference the Sustainable Defense Task Force (SDTF) report released earlier this year. The SDTF — which was chaired by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and staffed by some of the nation’s leading defense and budget experts — identified nearly $1 trillionin waste and unnecessary programs that can be cut from the defense budget over the next ten years simply by eliminating outdated Cold War-era programs. They could also reference a recent report by Center for American Progress experts Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley that lays out $108 billion in defense cuts in the current 2015 budget forecast.

A failed attempt to speak with maturity

Our President reminded us in Tucson this week that we as human beings can always strive to be better people.

The most prominent talk-show conservative donned his mantle of statesmanship and maturity and gave this response today on his radio show:

LIMBAUGH:

What I don’t like about this is the assumption that we are no good! The premise that we are no good! Yes that’s true. We really stink 

We have to work a lot harder to become better people. We are going to really have to work harder to become better than we are.

Who are they to castigate all the rest of us?! If they want to categorical some of us as not good enough, fine and dandy! But who are they? 

Why do we have to listen to these people tell us we’re not as good as we can be?

What message are we supposed to hear here? What’s the message that we have to – we’re all ready for improvement?

The GOP is supposed to capitulate? That’s how we get along with everybody?

Cinderella Seahawks headed for midnight and loss of glass slipper in cold Bear Ballroom

Next round of NFL playoffs up Saturday and Sunday
 8 teams in match ups worth watching.

Arthur's predictatory betting line (whatever that is)

Saturday 1-15-2011
TV: 1:30 PM CBS
Baltimore 12-4 at Pittsburgh 12-4

Pertinencies:
Bet experts say Pittsburgh by 3 1/2
Steelers beat the Ravens 13-10 on Dec 5 in Baltimore

These are probably the two meanest teams in the NFL with reputations for tough and timely playoff performances.
Baltimore is 7-3 in road playoff games. Steelers are 18-8 at home, 5-3 since 2001.
Every time I pick against the Ravens they win. I am not a Steelers fan.
Ravens to win by 3 in a game where total points will be no more than 30.
----

Saturday 1-15-2011 

TV: 5:00 PM FOX 

Green Bay 11-6 at Atlanta 13-3

Pertinencies:

Bet experts say Atlanta by 1 1/2

Falcons beat Packers Nov 28 at home 20-17

Green Bay has gotten better since the 28th despite losing to Detroit 3-7, the Packers pounded the Giants by 28 pts, defeated the Bears and lost a 27-31 game to mighty New England. Last week they beat the Eagles in Phillie.
Atlanta since 11/28 won three easy games (2 against Carolina and 1 against Seattle) by a combined 96-18. However the Falcons barely squeaked by Tampa Bay by 4 and lost to the Saints.
I have a bias in what looks like a tossup game.
If the Packer defense comes to play, Aaron Rogers will out duel Matt Ryan.
Packers 24-21
-----

Sunday 1-16-2011 

TV: 10:00 AM FOX 

Seattle 8-9 at Chicago 11-5

Pertinencies:

Bet experts say Chicago by 9 1/2

Seahawks surprised the Bears 23-20, Oct. 17, 2010 and last week took out the Saints at home.

Ain't no 12th man gonna help the Seahawks in the cold outdoor Chicago stadium.

Other than the 3-10 loss in Green Bay and a blowout loss at home against New England 7-36, the Bears have overpowered everyone else in the past month.

I'm still undecided on Pete Carroll's rah rah ways which reflect the hot-this-week-cold-next-week Seahawk pattern but the Hawks may be fired up enough to make this game competitive. If the defense can bother Cutler and limit Forte's running success they might win.

But I don't think so.

Bears 28 Packers 14

-----

Sunday 1-16-2011 

TV: 1:30 PM CBS 

NEW YORK JETS (12-5) At NEW ENGLAND (14-2)

Pertinencies:

Bet experts say New England by 8 1/2

Patriots beat Jets 45-3, Dec. 6 at home

I don't like picking against the Patriots who play at home for this game. 

In December the Jets beat Pittsburgh 22-17 but lost the following week to Chicago, giving up 38 points.

The Jets also smacked Buffalo but got smacked by New England and also lost in December to Miami 6-10.

Had to hang on against the Colts last week playing indoors to win barely by 17-16.

The Patriots over the five Sundays in December did the following:

Beat the Jets in a home game 45-3

Beat the Bears in Chicago 36-7

Beat Green Bay at home 31-27

Beat the Bills in Buffalo 34-3

Followed by a 38-7 home win over the Dolphins.

I'm not picking against the Pats

NE 35 NYJ 17

My disagreement with you makes you an enemy of my country.

If you convince enough people that an enemy of the American way is setting up a system that could kill them, the violent hatred will take care of itself.

All this talk about cross-hairs maps and 2nd amendment solutions is perhaps a matter of blame-throwing that actually misses the mark. In truth such charges fail to address the bottom line issue of civility in public discourse.

In retrospect in seems that  – going back 30-40 years – a change of political tactics, efforts more directed at personalizing differences of opinion has arisen. It’s a personalizing in most instances that deliberately avoids a discussion of issues in the interest of demonizing supporters of views opposed to your own.

Demonization: [Merriam Webster] includes the following: b : a source or agent of evil, harm, distress, or ruin

Our entrepreneurial honesty suggests that if we can provoke readers and listeners on the left and right in such a way as to get them to come back for more, we have found another way to make a living … to earn money. But does a free-market capitalism imply justification for the elevation of revenue and profit above the value of common good, common well being and of course common sense.

Lots of communicators have followed the money using as a tool, inflammatory charges that are pretended to be civic discourse. However, Civic Discourse seems to get  left standing at the starting gate after the bell has rung while Inflammatory Charges are running neck and neck into the final turn and already coming up the backstretch.

As author Robert Wright has said,

The point is that Americans who wildly depict other Americans as dark conspirators, as the enemy, are in fact increasing the chances, however marginally, that those Americans will be attacked.

… But the more incendiary theme in current discourse is the consignment of Americans to the category of alien, of insidious other.

So if I as an American citizen have a problem with other Americans or non-Americans who disagree with me, am I justified in consigning those who disagree to a status lower than my own civil-liberties protected life?

Am I justified in condemning those who disagree with me to a status of “less-than”, “not as worthy” and “deserving of destruction?”

Again from Robert Wright,

If you convince enough people that an enemy of the American way is setting up a system that could kill them, the violent hatred will take care of itself.

This is the core of the problem.

Contempt, rejection and advocacy of the termination of ideas as things viable in civic discourse is fine so long as it addresses ideas.

But can you personalize your contempt and rejection of what you believe are harmful ideas and transmute that personalization into a public advocacy of termination of persons who are the targets of your contempt and rejection?

The backbone of civic decision-making is compromise of ideas, plans, and actions … spiced with the attitude that the will of the people is not represented by any one political perspective or absolute.

The back-breaker is the notion that one perspective is holy, sacred and able to withstand any challenge to its ideology and that any other perspective – and it’s supporters – need to be eliminated.

We might take umbrage at the idea, but does not the recent violence make us look like someone other than who we think we really are and what we are about?

… protests were violent, in which death threats were issued to Salman Rushdie, including a fatwā against him by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on February 24, 1989.

“Arthur”, one might ask, “how dare you compare us to our most hated enemies?

One more from Robert Wright,

My own view is that if you decide to go kill a bunch of innocent people, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not a picture of mental health. But that doesn’t sever the link between you and the people who inspired you, or insulate them from responsibility.

Wright source: First Comes Fear

Death threat to Baird and Republican outrage

NOTE:  Republishing this blog entry which was first published here in August, 2009. I think it is topical and appropriate given current events.
Are you conservative readers tired of this yet ... tired of my harping or tired of the stampeders' public evasion of contributory negligence?

08/22/09
Is this the best we can hope for from the other half of a two-party system?

First Pacific County Republicans demanded an apology from Brian Baird for his remarks about lynch-mob mentalities at town hall meetings.

Although having offered no viable or sensible alternative health care reform plan, Republicans apparently have no time to create something like that. They are too busy resorting to political attack.

And now someone has actually made a death threat against Representative Baird for his town hall meeting scheduled in Vancouver.

What  constructive, helpful and civic-minded response was made by Clark County Republicans?
This is apparently what comes out of their brave new world from the Vancouver Columbian:

The death threat, delivered to Baird’s Washington, D.C., office in a phone message Aug. 10, said, approximately,

"You think Timothy McVeigh was bad, there is a Ryder Truck out there with your name on it,"

But after Baird alluded to the threat during brief introductory comments to the Rotary Club of Vancouver on Wednesday, Clark County Republicans denounced him for invoking the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

County Republican Party Chairman Ryan Hart called the reference to domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh’s use of a Ryder truck to deliver explosives to the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City "just unbelievable."

"You would think he would have learned a lesson or two over the past two weeks," Hart said.

What lesson is that?
The content of the threat?
A better health-care plan?
Appropriate civic participation?

We need a two-party system with real and viable alternative points of view.

Currently we have one party plus a noise and deception club that doesn’t have but one plan and one strategy

… neither of which is constructive nor has socially redeeming value.

How about them neighbors who don't speak English?

 

If you are thinking- challenged and haven't found something popular to be mad about, how about your neighbors who don't speak English?

There is nothing dumber than the statement that "My immigrant ancestors had to learn English and these are no better."

Those immigrant ancestors who managed to  learn English did so as a matter of expediency, need and genuine willingness to adapt and enter our society.

They did it as the wisest practical solution -  and not because candidate and pundit fat heads made tough speeches about forcing people to learn English and requiring the government to print no forms in anything but English.

It almost makes you wish that some particular immigrants - those whose descendants have become unreasonable jingoists or mindless bigots -  had not come here back then.

The American Dream might be more alive and well rather than a nation's biggest lie.

... as if speaking English then entitles immigrants to the total respect of all the angry white folks who think Fox News is fair and balanced

... as if those viewers - demands met - would then welcome anyone who is "not-U.S." to be with "U.S."

Those immigrant ancestors who did manage to learn English (and there were many more who never did) didn't do so because American jingoists (I know that's a big word for people entirely raised or entertained by four-letter English words) refused to talk to them.

I was asked to teach a conversational Spanish class for business and  health care persons in the local community college. Class never got held cause enrollers were too few.

Ten years ago, through my church, we started an ESL (English as a Second Language for all you English-speakers who get stuck after 4 letters) primarily aimed at local Hispanic families.

When the number of those who signed up reached 46 the college saw $$ in fed funding and actively started recruiting me to turn the class into a college-based course. They wanted to learn English but had to balance the demands of a local job market and economy where many English-speaking white folks refused to do the minimum-wage labor in seafood canneries that support the entire community.

More of the immigrant problem lies in hearts of sons and daughters - both elected and unelected - who are descendants from immigrants and who think that every one of THEIR particular ancestors learned to speak English as fluently as the liars on Fox News do now.

Shoe Still Fits

Cartoon is Steve Benson's, Arizona Republic

I’m just a liberal whiner … why Rush and the dittoheads are right and I am wrong

 I just flat out read too much.

It’s a problem I’ve been stuck with most of  my life … reading too much which is then followed up the equally destructive addiction of thinking too much about what I’ve been reading.

I’ve recently been given to more fully understand that the solution to all the problems in our country are essentially encountered in the simple (or was it simplistic?) minds of the simple (or was it simplistic?) followers of national conservative thinkers like Messers Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly and other members of that broadcast think-tank fraternity.

The key is in reducing complex issues into powerful straight forward but brief clarifications.

For example, unfounded concerns about climate change, pollution and ozone layers has been reduced to the straight forward clearing up of any confusion with Limbaugh’s  dismissal of my concerns as the “neurotic hand wringing of tree hugging ‘environmentalist whackos.’"

Can it be any clearer than that?

And how could I have ever forgotten those years in the 80’s when I too was a devout dittohead and when Rush dismissed female equality issues as mere notorious “feminazism?”

Is there not something irrationally appealing about living in a world dominated by black-white certitude; where such things as nuances have no impact? That’s the beauty and loveliness of simple (or simplistic?) life in Right Country,

There has to be security in that psychic foreclosure stuff ... what psychoanalyst Erik Erikson called the state of psychic foreclosure.

Foreclosed persons are easily attracted to the beguilingly simple, one-size-fits-all belief systems of powerful others that they adopt as their own so as to avoid the sometimes lonely rigors of personal searching. 

The foreclosed are the ready disciples of demagogues in every age. – Psychologist Paul Ginetty

It really isn’t about logic or common sense. 

It really isn’t “I just wannabe loved.”

It’s more of “I want to be singing in the same choir and on the same page as somebody who is simply (or simplistically) famous, influential and popular among my friends.”

No matter that I sacrifice my individuality and intellectual integrity so long as I am loved and respected by all my fellow sacrificers. We are they who willingly shout “Amen!” to the simple (simplistic?) profound declarations of the national blowhards - those talkers who willingly admit to never having read up on or pursued knowledgeable command of the topic they wish to deride.

It’s not about that kind of sacrifice … its about inclusion and a “brothers-in-uninformed-arms” intimacy with a voice on a radio.

As psychology professor Paul Ginetty wrote,

They get a chance to feel real smart when the master seems to agree with them, failing to see that it is actually they who are agreeing with him.

Yes, if I want to calm down and retire to a life of ignorant bliss I should repent, reconvert to dittoheadedness and join the Republican Party so that I too can enjoy a life of simplistic simple-mindedness.

… maybe even stake out a booth at the local Elk Snout Tavern where as a disciple I can spread the shallow gospel of simple arrogant ignorance