And there is the Donald giving rise to a new definition of Birtherism. Seems like he always does a pre- primary look at me stint. The guy just loves the camera.

It will interesting to see who the GOP actually nominates to run against Obama from their field of idiots. There have got to be more moderate Republicans that are plain embarrassed by this group.

And there is always Newt to justify his passion for America by cheating on his wife!! Do people really buy what he says??? His ex-wife's book is a good, honest read.

Mind Boggeling. If you don't think organized religion can be political.......
 

April 18, 2011

Vatican: Gay Rights Opponents are Real Victims Catholic bishop says the real victims are those who oppose the rights of LGBT people.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi reveals his subtle theological mind.

Joseph M. Palacios


Dr. Joseph M. Palacios is an Adjunct Professor of Liberal and Latin American Studies at Georgetown University and is the director of Catholics for Equality Foundation.

Last month the Catholic Church voiced strong opposition to a UN Human Rights Council resolution naming the protection of LGBT persons against discrimination and violence an official human right. The reason, according to Vatican representative Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, is that ending discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgender persons would make those who oppose such human rights the real victims.

During a debate on the resolution (officially called the “Joint Statement on Ending Violence and Related Human Rights Violations Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”) Tomasi unequivocally stated that the Council, the UN, and other state bodies cannot base law on sexual orientation since “the ordinary meaning of ‘sexual orientation’ refers to feeling and thoughts, not to behavior.”

In clarifying this, he stressed that if sexual orientation were to carry a behavioral component it would be a false premise, because such a definition would be contrary to natural law morality. According to this logic the recognition of LGBT identity would “undermine his/her ontological dignity” — meaning that since gays, lesbians, and transgender persons are by their nature “intrinsically morally disordered” claiming sexual orientation identity is, by nature, false.

Tomasi then likened homosexual behavior to pedophilia and incest: “But states can, and must, regulate behaviors, including various sexual behaviors. Throughout the world, there is a consensus between societies that certain kinds of sexual behaviors must be forbidden by law. Pedophilia and incest are two examples.”

To add fuel to the fire, he turned the debate away from violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity to “a disturbing trend in some of these social debates: People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behavior between people of the same sex… they are stigmatized, and worse—they are vilified, and prosecuted.” He never addressed the reality of actual violence (killings, torture, rape, criminal sanctions, violence, bullying) against gays, lesbians, and transgender persons taking place around the world.

Natural Law vs. Social Justice

Given that Tomasi is the leading spokesperson for the Catholic Church in international bodies, his words take on significant weight regarding the Church’s refusal to accept sexual orientation and gender identity as human rights categories. Since the early 1980s and the ascendency of Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the moral theology of the Church has become increasingly locked into a framework of natural law anthropology, which is a logic based on male and female roles as pro-creators in the natural order of a biologistic social order emphasizing the nuclear family as the first cell of society.

This logic also simplistically views a natural order to the human body, meaning that each part of the body has a function that is connected to the whole person and humans cannot change these natural functions—particularly sexual functions. Natural law anthropology does not take into account anomalies in nature that might account for homosexuality and a variety of functional variations that can occur in different humans.

More problematic in Tomasi’s understanding of sexual orientation is the non-recognition of LGBT persons resulting in the Church’s negation of the social, psychological, cultural, and political realities in which they live. The fact is the perpetrators of violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity do recognize this identity and base their anger, rage, hate, and revenge on people’s external identity and not on the “feelings and thoughts” of the victims. For the Vatican to not acknowledge this is a denial of social reality and the behaviors and attitudes reflective of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Prior to Ratzinger’s emphasis on natural law anthropology as foundational to contemporary moral and social issues, the Church’s social justice doctrine might have had tremendous influence in the creation of a positive Catholic LGBT human rights agenda. Such an agenda might emphasize the following dimensions of human life and pertinent social justice doctrine that have been developed since the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, of 1891:

• Social-Psychological: Dignity of the human person; Human development of the whole person
• Social Rights: Option for the poor and marginalized in society
• Basic Human Needs: Right to employment, housing, health care
• Cultural: Freedom of participation and association in civil society
• Political: Human rights protections; Right to migrate
• Religious: Religious freedom; Separation of church and state
Because the Vatican denies sexual orientation and gender identity recognition the above tenets of Catholic social justice doctrine cannot be legitimately actualized by priests, religious, lay leaders, teachers, catechists, and others within the Church itself. The natural law arguments of sexual morality and ethics have long been discounted by clergy and laity—especially natural law deductive arguments against birth control, in vitro fertilization, masturbation, male sterilization, stem cell research, same-sex civil marriage and adoption. Yet the longer Catholic tradition of connecting faith with reason and the doctrine of primacy of conscience has empowered many Catholics to look at the social reality of gays, lesbians, and transgender persons and connect the more compassionate aspects of the biblical tradition and Catholic social justice teaching.

Through a more comprehensive inductive logic Catholics use reason to see and analyze empirical injustice and then apply biblical principles and social justice teaching to the social context of injustice—a bottom-up approach to justice in the world. Not surprisingly, the international scope of the clergy abuse scandal has diminished the teaching authority of the hierarchy on sexuality. Catholics recognize that they do have gay, lesbian, and transgender brothers and sisters in their families, among their friends, in their communities and workplaces. Many recognize their difference and accept it in the same positive way they accept ethnic, gender, cultural, and age difference—as part of one’s external identity that should be respected and accorded full human dignity, even if one doesn’t fully understand the difference in one’s life.

Faith that Does Justice

Social justice-oriented Catholics have been able to utilize the positive aspects of social justice doctrine as a “faith that does justice” in civil society and politics, particularly through organizations like Catholics for Equality, Catholics United, Dignity, and Call to Action—as well as in their local parish and diocesan social justice ministries and in faith-based community organizing. Recent polling by Public Religion Research Institute shows that U.S. Catholics are the most progressive Christian body with 63% supporting civil marriage for same-sex couples and 69% believing that homosexuality is not a moral issue. The Human Rights Council’s recent statement was signed by all of the Catholic countries of Europe and Latin America. Civil marriage for same-sex couples has been ratified in the Catholic countries of Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Argentina, and Mexico. Acceptance of LGBT persons is not just an American phenomenon, it’s a broadly international one with a strong Catholic character.

Of course, is precisely these trends that are most disturbing to the Vatican, especially as younger Catholics around the world are even more accepting of homosexuality and the legitimacy of sexual orientation and gender identity than their parents and grandparents. Sadly, in the fight against LGBT rights the Vatican and the U.S. hierarchy is throwing its hat in the ring with some of the most powerful and well-funded voices of religious fundamentalism in the U.S., Africa, and Latin America.

There is an easy solution to the hierarchy’s increasing distance from the laity and ordinary clergy: just as the Church finally acknowledged slavery and racial segregation to be wrong and finally recognized full equality for black people, it can acknowledge that homophobia and sexual orientation discrimination and violence are wrong and recognize that sexual orientation and gender identity are social realities in our complex world. Otherwise, the Church lends legitimacy to violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Church is not the victim.

Politics have always been intrinsic to the Catholic religion, but is no means exclusive to them. The truly dangerous part of any religious involvement is the ability of that institution to "evil-ize" that of which they do not approve.

Of the prohibitions in Leviticus (Old Testament of the Christian Bible) in which the prohibitions against homosexuality are included, many are no longer considered necessary or important. Pork is not prohibited to Christians, nor are shellfish. We are not restricted to a small number of steps to be taken on the sabbath, and no one has been stoned lately for adultery (well at least not in Christian oriented nations.)

Yet, selectively, for reasons more political than religious, the horror over the "abomination" of homosexuality is still in fashion. Persecution of homosexuals (and other sexual variants) is still justified by various religious institutions. "God hates homosexuality" is a phrase you will find written on protestors signs at any gay function. Many other groups; disables folks, welfare recipients, unemployed people, homeless people, and poor people in general face religious predjudice which seeks to marginalize them.

Religion as politics is dangerous, damaging, and destructive.

Smooches,
Keri

Warning: This post has a pro Democrat bias
 

My head has been spinning again over this Congressman Weiner sex scandal (if you can dignify it with that name.) I have always liked the congressman. He is pretty liberal, and her doesn't mind getting into it with conservatives. When the story first broke I was pissed at his stupidity. And of course I figured his first version was a lie, so I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. So far the only thing to drop has been more like a fuzzy sock. The worst they have on him so far is the belief that he sent a picture of his pee pee out on the internet to adult women with whom he was already being overly friendly. He will neither confirm or deny, because it is rumored to be the picture of a rather large (and attractive?) peepee, and he doesn't want to give up the "rep". The Democrats are calling loud and long for his resignation (Of course the Republicans are doing the same, but they are the opposition, that makes sense.)

What the man did was stupid, but certainly not unusual. (nor illegal per se) Almost all of my straight women friends have received an unsolicited pee pee picture from some man they are communicating with online.

Personally I think he should not resign. We need the liberal vote in congress, and I don't want to lose this representative who can push the Republicans around (a little anyway.)

Anyone else have a take on this subject?
Smooches,
Keri

I'm pissed at the democrats and their race to see who can throw him farthest under the bus. It's between him and the people who voted for him. The only appropriate response for a democratic representative to "do you think he should resign" is "when Vitter goes then I might consider it". As for the new republican scum tactic of demanding that democrats give back/away money that Weiner donated to them, the only appropriate response to the republicans is "let's take a look at your donations first".

IMHO, of course.

The next time someone looks at you askance when excoriating the Democratic party for cowardice remind them of this--this isn't about principle. If it were about the principle of not cheating on spouses then the congress would be so completely denuded of men that both houses would put and observer in mind of the Michigan Women's Music Festival. This isn't even about political exposure because if the Republicans bring up Weiner's stupidity (and what he did was stupid, not the cheating but the thinking that he could get away with lying about the Twitter pics) the Democrats have six simple words they can use. They are: John Ensign, David Vitter and Larry Craig. No one called on them to resign and Vitter is still serving. No, this is simple cowardice. It's the only reason. What Weiner did is between him and his wife and has no bearing, what-so-ever, on his ability to conduct the Peoples' business.

Cheers
Aj

I will go even further to say that I think the democratic response should be, "I (we) support Weiner. He is a Democrat. He is one of us. We all make mistakes. He has been legally elected by the people of New York. That's good enough for me (us). I (we) believe the situation will quickly be resolved in his favor. Now lets get back to solving important problems like balancing the budget without detroying medicare"

That's my 2 cents worth.
Smooches,
Keri

Interesting perspective from a long time Republican politician in Florida:

http://www.chronicleonline.com/conte...-you-may-think

She is a Republican of the type and kind I remember prior to the religious right buying off the GOP.

I agree unless there was contact with a minor and an exchange of sexual banter, etc. A story is floating around that one of the women he engaged in this behavior with is 17. If true, it really could blow up on a whole new dimension. Hopefully, not any criminal charges. From what I could discern from Wasserman-Schultz's appearance on Meet the Press yesterday, this new bit of information about a minor sent her to the side of asking him to resign.

Yes, like MsDemeanor, I am outraged at any GOP member even saying one damn thing about Weiner while Craig & Vitter remain in Congress. And it does look like his actual district constituents remain behind him to represent them. They are the ones to decide if they want to re-elect him. He does their district business- if they are happy with his work, he will remain in office. Sounds like he wants to run for NY CMayor- have no idea if this would really hurt his chances. NYC is a liberal city- who knows.

I do think that there is a possibility of Weiner having a form of a sex addiction- and I get really tired of people not recognizing that this can really mess up someone's life- no matter what they do for a living. His entering a treatment program might be a political ply, but maybe not. And if he is dealing with a sex addiction and wants to work through it, I say good for him.

I don't have any problems with sexting, phone sex, sexy or suggestive pics, etc. as many, many couples engage in this behavior. Consequently, doing so outside of marriage or a relationship could be a form of infidelity. Depends on the couple and how they set-up their relationship boundaries. On the other hand, it can be a very sexy way to interact with the one you love- especially when you have long absences. I am also tired of the right-wing “moral police” making this kind of sexual expression sound creepy and "abnormal." It isn't- but doing it as a high risk behavior that might ruin your marriage or get you fired, is the same as an alcoholic losing everything due to alcohol addiction. Again, I have no idea if Weiner is dealing with addiction. However, just his not thinking about the possibility that engaging with women online in social network sites COULD lead to interacting with someone under 18- IS risky behavior and not what I would expect of a someone with Weiner’s intelligence. Does not compute to me.

I think the Dems could have dealt with this differently and just stuck with "no comment." I didn't like that some were pouncing on Weiner before facts were uncovered. I keep reading tid-bits that some of this is due to Weiner not being all that well liked by his colleagues. He isn't much of a "team player". Actually, that is one reason I have always liked him- he would shake things up from a more progressive viewpoint.

I don't want to see the more progressive thinking House (or Senate) members leaving- Kucinich may be forced out due to re-districting and he is another very out spoken progressive member that we need in the House.

If there is no truth to the interaction with a minor, I think this will blow over and Weiner will remain in his seat. 2012 is far enough away that this won't have some of the effects that the whole Mark Foley thing did on the GOP during a general election.

Yes, whatever he and his wife have determined within their marriage to be OK, is their business. But he is a public figure and they ought to know that there are right-wing zealots all over the internet just waiting to catch a liberal or progressive member of Congress in some kind of scandalous behavior. This is where I see a lapse in judgment.

This was a fantastic article! It doesn't articulate why I left the Republican party--to understand that one need do no more than look at how the GOP has increasingly used racist language and imagery to win election and how they have used anti-gay rhetoric and imagery to consolidate their political gains--but it does articulate why there is nothing that the Republican party, as currently constituted, could do to regain my vote.

As long as their electoral coalition is based upon nativism, xenophobia, coded appeals to racism, overt appeals to anti-gay bigotry, and theocratic leanings that give aid and comfort to the partisans of anti-science and anti-reason in society, the Republicans can't win my vote. The problem, of course, is that the very people who could get the GOP to rethink their current doom-ridden course have been expelled from the party.

Cheers
Aj

If Weiner sent a text to a minor then he's committed a crime and should, of course, resign and then be sent to trial. However, provided that he sent pictures to women who were of the age of majority in their location then what he did was his own private concern and the less I know about it the happier I'll be.

Two words, Rudy Giuliani---if Weiner runs for mayor, he'll be fine.

Certainly, bully for him if he is sex-addicted. I am, however, a little less sanguine about the claims of sex addiction for every third pol who gets caught with his pants down. Just once, to break up the monotony, I'd like to see a politician admit the mistake and move on. No invocation of sex addiction, no talking about how he needs to get right with this or that god, just "I messed up. I let down my wife, I'm sorry. I let down my kids, my apologies. I let down my constituents who trusted me to keep my nose to the grindstone and not make stupid mistakes like this--and this was a stupid mistake" and then move on with their lives. It probably won't happen in my lifetime but it would be nice, just to break things up a bit mind you.

Weiner is definitely the kind of liberal I think we need more of in elected office in that he is not afraid to actually stand up for something. It helps that he and I are on the same page on a number of issues.

While I have no desire for the Democratic congressional delegation to get smaller, Kucinich is not my favorite liberal. I find him unrealistic on foreign policy--not just that I disagree with him, I can disagree with someone on foreign policy but still think they are realistic--in that he seems to be dealing with a completely different species of humans on a completely different planet.

Cheers
Adrienne

They sure have been!

And all of the areas you speak of in terms of the overt appeals to anti-science and anti-reason rings so true for me. When Limbaugh went after Romney the other day because he believes that the state of our eco-system is in such a mess due to human beings and science indeed, demonstrates this, I just wanted to scream. I support Obama's re-election, so Mitt's conversion won't move my vote, but Liombaugh's power over the GOP is amazing.

Although, lately, Limbaugh's popularity seems to be decreasing in terms of his radio audience. Who knows, maybe some people in the GOP are getting their heads out of their butts.

Yes, sometimes Kucinich can be out there.

Yes, I think Weiner sticks to his guns and like that about him. And YES, to a point I agree with what you say about him just saying "I did it, I apologize"- which I wish he had just done at the start of the whole matter. But, I guess the behavioral scientist in me wants understanding of sexual addiction and its negative effects in our society. It seems that most people just pass it off as psycho-babble when it is a real addiction and can really ruin someone’s life. There is some good neuro-physiological work in human behavior concerning propensity for in risk taking that might shed a lot of light on sex addiction behaviors.

But, I do understand how annoying it can get that so many politicians and celebrities get caught in some scandal, then say "I'm sorry, I have an addiction and I'm going into treatment for it." It has become standard operating procedure for damage control- which contributes to the proliferation of the general population simply hearing "I'm going into treatment" as "the big gun consultants tell me this will work in getting the public to forgive me."

Thus far, the claims of his involvement with any minor seem to be false and quite possibly a product of the very same right-wingers that police social network sites in hopes of catching liberals and progressives at something they can project as immoral in some fashion. I’m sure liberal/progressive folks do the same thing to uncover any conservative/far-right folks, too. The internet has changed the campaigning in may ways- some good, some ugly. I would exercise the utmost caution as a politician online.

Dennis Kucinich is a personal hero of mine and has been since he was the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio where my parents lived at that time. I do not find him unrealistic. To me he is a perfect example of a good old fashioned knee-jerk liberal. Also He is fiscally responsible.

I do think redistricting is a tool the Republicans willl use to their advantage (as do Dems when they are in control) Liberals will be targets whenever possible. Weiner is a target for being redistricted out of office. As he has plans to run for Mayor, I will not be too bothered by it. Things wax and wane. If Kucinich is districted out of office, it will feel to me like losing a good friend. During the Iraq war he used his one minute speech EVERY DAY to speak out against the war, to talk about the financial cost, and to call out the names of the service members who were killed. His voice is needed in Washington.
Smooches,
Keri

I keep hoping that at some point some political consultant will realize that there is a large group of Americans who want what I will call, for lack of any better term, reality-based politics. By that I mean simply this, your ideology follows the dictates of reality and not the other way around. To take just one example, global climate change is an empirical question amenable to observation. Our policy should follow the dictates of the empirical questions.
To see how this works (and why I find the idea that we're still treating the propositions advanced by either side as if they are equally true maddening and baffling) let's deconstruct this a bit.

So, according to the theories advanced in climatology IF the Earth's climate is heating up THEN we should be able to make certain kinds of observations. Those observations include--but are not limited to: melting of polar ice caps at one or both poles, rise in average temperatures with more record highs being set, increased precipitation in certain places, more intense storms for those storms driven by either heat or water vapor or both (here think hurricanes and tornadoes). These are just a partial list. Now, do we have any observations that match the predictions (each of the items above is based upon actual predictions)? If so how're the predictions holding up?

Melting of polar ice caps? Check. In fact, the Arctic is set to be ice free during the summers within five years. Has this happened before? Yes. The last time we know, with any degree of confidence, that this happened was ~125,000 years ago. Prior to that you have to go back to a time when dinosaurs still walked the planet--dinosaurs. Rise in average temperatures with more record highs being set? In the United States, the 10 hottest summer periods on record have all been in the last 10 years. So we'll add that to the 'yes' column. More intense storms driven? Yes for *both* hurricanes and tornadoes. Now this should give us a serious moment of pause because hurricanes, particularly, are sensitive to temperatures in the oceans. The frequency of power hurricanes (3+) are increasing and the number of category 4 and 5 storms have increased. I have not taken the time to chart this out (yet, I probably will this summer) but I suspect that if one looks solely at cat 4 or 5 storms starting with the middle of the 20th century (have to see how far records go back) one would see a, more or less, random distribution of storms until the mid-seventies. Then the distribution will become less random. If one looks at the trend of the last 15 years I suspect (I'll let you know either way) that we'll see a clustering of 4s and 5s after 2000 that is far less random than the pattern from, say, 1950. More precipitation? Yes, again, we are observing this. In places like the Pacific Northwest we see a longer rainy season and in places where it gets a lot of precipitation in the form of snow, we are seeing more of that as well.

The snow problem brings up an issue with the cheeky games that pass as critical analysis in modern US politics. Note that I said we should see increased precipitation, not increased rain. That was deliberate. More moisture in the air will come down either as rain or as snow depending upon the season. People use increased snowfall to argue that 'global warming isn't happening because it snowed so much in Buffalo, NY last year'. This is like saying that my house can never get above 90 degrees because it hasn't been above 90 since last August.

I harped on this issue to give an idea of what I think we should be counting as evidence. In science if your theory is not in agreement with observation and there is reason to believe that the observations were accurate then it’s the theory that is wrong. Right now our politics is being driven by exactly the opposite ethic such that if your ideology is not in agreement with observation then it is your observation that is wrong, not your ideology (to be fair, neither liberals or conservatives are particular great on this issue but right now conservatives are worse than liberals on this in more areas--liberals are primarily not reality-driven about foreign policy and certain aspects of criminal justice policy, while conservatives are not reality-driven about a whole raft of policy issues).

It doesn't matter if you *believe* that cutting tax rates actually *increases* the amount of taxes that flow in. The actual revenues taken in by all government levels are an empirical question for which there is plenty of empirical data. If we look at the tax rates over time and compare them with actual revenues over time we should be able to determine if, in fact, cutting tax rates increases revenue (hint: the theory is not in agreement with observation). At the point that your ideology is found wanting by reality, you should modify it or, if necessary, abandon it completely (this is why, for instance, I find Marxists to be a little sad now). Failure to do so in a timely fashion should come with a high political price but, at present, it doesn't.

The party that figures out that reality-based politics are not just viable but a winner both electorally and ideologically will be in a very good position.

Cheers
Aj

I don't find him generically unrealistic, simply unrealistic on foreign policy (and then only in certain areas, I agree with him, for instance, on Kyoto). He seems, to my mind, to take the opposite position that some prominent conservatives do that also drives me nuts.

Some conservatives treat other international actors as if they are obliged to be insane or stupid or both and thus make of them cartoon villains. Some liberals treat other international actors as if they were nothing more than misunderstood lambs who, if not for either the United States or Western civilization, would be pacifists and only even know of violence because it has been imposed on them by the US and/or the West. Both are wrong and I find Kucinich to be indicative of the latter.

This is not to say he was wrong on Iraq (he obviously wasn't) merely to say that I do not find him credible on foreign policy. Domestically, I rather like Kucinich and I’m sure he was a fine mayor and that he does a good job for the citizens of his district. That doesn't mean I would vote for him for President, I wouldn't. In fact, I would want to make sure he didn't get the nomination just as I'm sure that even now there are people in the GOP who hope that Sarah Palin doesn't get their nomination.

Cheers
Aj

Watching the Republican Presidential Debate on CNN. It's like watching some strange cult in action. The answer to every economic question is "get the government out". Romney, in response to the question of whether the government should be doing catastrophic disaster relief is talking about the private sector doing disaster relief. Imagine that. Disaster relief as a product.

Cheers
Aj

I like your use of cult here- they all are under a form of hypnosis, I think. Oh yeah, private sector disaster relief, Uh, huh....

The unemployment rate has got to fall during the next year. Just has to- and Obama's re-election people need to find a way to demonstrate how his policies have been responsible for what recovery we have had. I believe in the need for building our infra-structure for long-term economic stability, but see why so many people just can't wrap their heads around this when they have been out of work for months and months. At a certain point with so much distrust of all politicians no matter the party, I think many people will vote more about what they see as not working than future ideological policies that fit for them.

And those young college student voters that helped get him elected are now among the many that have degrees and can't jobs and owe student loans. Hopefully, the younger of this population will support him- I think there could be a high level of dissention among voters 18-22 during his 2008 election and his re-election.

Although, among POC I think he will carry a majority, especially Latino voters. But, I really see that this will be no shoe-in re-election for Obama. Which makes me nuts in some ways as he has gotten some very important policies through Congress that have had little or no movement for decades and decades.

The communication gap has got to change. I am just not as confident about his re-election as I once was. Bring on the "pictures of a thousand words" Re-Elect Obama people- bring it on NOW!!

Dread
I so agree with you regarding reality based politics. This lack of reality at least on the part of the republicans is a direct outgrowth of bible based politics. The world was created in six days by god - four thousand years ago. Nothing happened 125,000 or a million years ago, so we can not use information from that long ago for comparison, BECAUSE THE WORLD DID NOT REALLY EXIST THAT LONG AGO!

There is no reason to conserve our natural resources or keep our air and water clean BECAUSE THE WORLD WILL END SOON IN THE APOCALYPSE!

God put humans in charge of the world. Anyone who wants to protect trees or who respects animals as fairly equal to humans is ridiculous and anti-god.

The poor will always be with us is another fave of the repubs, and they aim to have as many poor people as possible to assure that rich people get more money. As reflected particularly in the old testament, rich people are natural rulers, so it is god's plan that rich people get richer so they can be in charge.

Too bad they are ignoring "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you," and "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Get religion out of politics.

Smooches,
Keri

Empirical evidence driven political policy would be quite refreshing!

I remember in H.S History something about the seperation of church and state..now I could be wrong because history was after lunch and well I wasn't always 100% after lunch (haha) but as I grew up I kept hearing this phrase...but if America was founded on the seperation of church and state and if America was founded to get the hell away from European dictatorship and religion then why in sam hell are we still pulling laws from the bible?? And wha gets me is the selectivity of it all...we shall pull the Marriage Equlaity from the bible or laws such as te one stated in the previose posts....but when it comes to people that break laws lets just house them and pay their way...screw the fact that the bible says an eye for an eye...
I'm an all or nuthin gal...don't tell me I have to live with Jesus's followers and thei idealistic country based on religiouse beliefes and then tell me I cant shoot someone who killed one of my family members...
On the island where I grew up thats what happens..we don't have jails or overcrowding...if you kill someone we kill you back...if you rob someone you then have to support that family for 10 years.
Polotics is a bunch of shananagans(sp?) and a crap ton of lies...I hate it! and yes I vote!

Hmmm...I'm not sure that we want to return to a society wherein if you shoot a member of my family, I kill a member of your family. In the Balkans there are interfamilial feuds that have been going on so long that there is no longer a single person alive who has even ever met the originally aggrieved party. Someone's distant ancestor did something to someone back in the early 18th century whose family took their vengeance. The family of the perpetrator, though, felt that their family member was justified so they took their vengeance. This continues on until such time as we get to, say, WW I where atrocities were spread around quite liberally. Two decades later people are still getting their revenge during WW II. Then the Cold War happens and things get squashed until the Soviet Union collapses at which point Bosnians, Serbs and Croats take up their historical feuds again. This latest round of atrocities are just fuel for the next group of feuds. As one British biologist put it "The human mind has two great sicknesses; the tendency to carry vendetta across generations and to view people as groups and not individuals". As convoluted as our system of laws may appear to be I'll take that over the system where feuds and dueling were considered reasonable ways to resolve disputes.

I'm curious, what would you replace politics with? Given that we are very diverse societies where your enlightened self-interest may not be in complete agreement with my enlightened self-interest, what other system other than politics do you suggest?

I think our problem is as deep if not deeper than you state. We have a stone age brain, using a set of moral precepts created in the early agrarian period, to handle problems of modern societies. I was thinking about your post on my drive to work this morning while listening to a chapter of a book where the author was talking about worldwide demographic changes brought on by technology. What follows is dove-tailing off of both.

Take a look at our sexual mores. There is no more poignant example of the mismatch between our biology, our religiously based moral and ethical systems and modern reality. Our bodies are operating off a program where we enter puberty around 13 or 14 on the expectation that we'll become sexually active and start having babies. For all but the last 100 years that program has worked very well. Our moral systems, conceived when agriculture was relatively new and birth control was, at best, inconsistently effective, assume that people will only be sexual inside of marriage, that women will have lots of children and spend most of their lives taking care of those children, that men will control property and resources and relationships will only end because of death. Yet the lives of most of the people reading this thread have not fit that pattern and for those of us who have kids or grandchildren it is vanishingly improbable that our offspring or descendants will have lives that approximate that pattern. From gay marriage--which makes perfect moral sense in our current moral context where any *necessary* link between sex, marriage and reproduction has been broken--to our laws about abortion or birth control what is taken as the default moral position is horribly out of date. The average age of marriage in the industrialized world is now creeping up toward thirty but people are still entering puberty around 12 - 14. It is simply unrealistic that people are going to spend the next two decades being celibate, it isn't happening for vast majorities of people. Nor does it make sense for two 20 year olds who are both undergraduates to start having children until both of them have *at least* gotten a bachelor's if not an advanced degree. We need to retool our laws and moral expectations to reflect reality. The problem is that we can only do this with a stone-aged brain that will tend to be more in agreement with our Bronze Age religious systems than with our modern lifestyles.

Cheers
Aj

It's bizarre. I understand that politicians speak in generalities but this has gotten elevated to something creepy. It's not quite as bad as what's below but I'm not really stretching things too badly:

Moderator: So, Ms GOP candidate, do you think that hospitals should be able to turn away the same-sex partner of a patient because that doctor or nurse doesn't consider them family?

GOP candidate: I believe in strengthening the traditional family which is a man and a woman.

Moderator: What specific proposals do you have for ameliorating the trouble in the housing market?

GOP candidate: We don't need government in the housing business. If we let the free market drive the housing business then it will work out the best solution.

Moderator: Do you support non-discrimination laws in housing or employment?

GOP candidate: I believe that the free market will reward companies that behave well and punish companies that behave badly.

Moderator: Are there any military bases you would close or weapon systems you would like to see the Pentagon not purchase?

GOP candidate: America is free because we have the best and strongest military in the world. I support our troops.

Moderator: Are there any non-military functions you think the government should be involved in?

GOP candidate: Throughout American history we've seen that we do best when we embrace free market principles.

Moderator: What place do you think religion should have on public policy and law?

GOP candidate: America was founded as a Christian nation and our rights come from God.

Now, is there anything above that you think is too over-the-top to come out of the mouth of some GOP pol when asked one of those questions? I took some of those answers, nearly verbatim, from the GOP presidential debate last night. Those answers are empty. They are mantras not responses. One would not be stretching the matter too much if you were to imagine a GOP call and response chorus

"Jobs?" "Free market!" "Pollution?" "Free market!" You get the idea. The GOP has become a party of theology. By that I mean that they have completely divorced their ideology from the real world. It simply does not *matter* what the empirical facts are any longer. All that matters is that they believe it to be true and that is enough for them. Anyone who does not believe is an infidel.

Cheers
Aj

Actually, Jesus didn't say "an eye for an eye" that was in the OLD testament. In the New Testament that old law was removed and was replaced with:

""You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also"
Matthew 5:38-29

I have no idea what island you grew up on (I can't tell if that was a metaphor or not?) but it doesn't sound like somewhere that I would want to be, if you really do get to just run around killing people for doing you wrong.

Revenge sucks.

(Also - overcrowding in prisons has NOTHING to do with not getting to just willy-nilly kill all the bad guys. It's got everything to do with a fucked up legal system that locks people up for stupid shit (drugs, really?) and locks some (not white) people up faster and for longer than others.)

well here's a funny thing........read the whole article just for fun...the article is dated May 23, 2011

http://www.thecalifornian.com/articl...ates-by-33-000


The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that California must drastically reduce its prison population to relieve severe overcrowding that has exposed inmates to increased violence, disease and death.

The decision, however, doesn't mean the prison gates will swing open in an uncontrolled release.

The high court's 5-4 decision calls on the state to cut the population to no more than 110,000 inmates. To get there, state officials have two years to either transfer some 33,000 inmates to other jails or release them. California has already been preparing for the ruling, driven as much by persistent multibillion-dollar budget deficits as by fears for the well-being of prison inmates and employees. The state has sent inmates to other states. It plans to transfer jurisdiction over others to counties, though the state doesn't have the money to do it. <snip>

Ike always said beware the military-industrial complex. It has become the prison/military/industrial complex.

I also wanted to add that the prison system is a HUGE money maker for some people. So long as there are for-profit privately run/owned prisons there will -always- be overcrowding and people locked up for no good reason.

Whenever I hear someone talking about how much better it would be if we just shucked the messy legal system (with its rights of the accused, etc.) in favor of a more ad hoc and informal system (read vendetta) I am always brought back to a familial story on my mom's side of the family. One of her brothers had up close and personal experience of this kind of 'justice'. To put it bluntly my uncle was lynched for bumping into a white woman in small town Alabama in the 1920s. From the point of view of the people in the town at the time, my uncle had 'done something' to this white woman and he had to pay for his life. There was no trial, he was not 'charged', he ran home and later on some people came to my grandfather's farm, surrounded it and threatened to put the house to the torch if he did not give up his son. Here was 'justice' as done by people who get to determine when a crime had been committed and what punishment there should be for that crime.

Now, some might argue that this isn't what they mean when they talk about frontier 'justice' but it is rarely said what is actually meant. Since the whole idea behind the ethic of taking an eye for an eye is that there are no *laws* to be obeyed there is nothing to prevent some family from deciding that, for instance, the Hispanic family next door *must* be criminals and therefore burning them out of their home. Another objection might be raised that my family could have taken revenge on the people who lynched my uncle. However, that would only have meant the absolute obliteration of my mother's family. So a world of ad hoc 'justice' is a world that favors the powerful over the powerless and defines powerful as whoever can have the most guns still held by people with breath at the end of the day. Justice, then, becomes 'whoever won the gunfight'. It reminds me, a bit, of the story of Kaiser Soze in 'The Usual Supects'. After his family is murdered, Soze kills the perpetrators and then goes after the families of the perpetrators, people who live in the same neighborhood as the perpetrators, people who owe the perpetrators money, etc. This leaves no one to take revenge against Soze.

You make a great point. So why on Earth would I, a black woman, defend the criminal justice system over a system of vendetta-based 'justice'? Because legal systems have rules--I understand that we're supposed to find those rules distasteful because it gets in the way of engaging in emotionally cathartic but cruel behavior--we can't torture people and we can't just shoot people without trial--but *at least* those rules offer up the prospect of fairness and redemption. For all its flaws, if reasonable doubt can be established in my trial then I go free. Even if I was mistakenly convicted, if new evidence comes to light then I will be exonerated. I won't get my years of incarceration back but if I'm dead I can't even be exonerated. It is also demonstrably the case that the *sole* reason for prison overcrowding is the inconsistent application of drug laws in our absolutely insanely stupid 'war on drugs'. When the only other countries that are in the same neighborhood as you when it comes to locking up prisoners (and I don't mean absolute numbers, I'm talking about percentages) are nations that are either totalitarian dictatorships (China) or theocratic dictatorships (Iran) you *know* you are doing something seriously wrong.

Cheers
Aj

There is some huge ass number of folks in CA prisons and jails who have been convicted on non-violent drug offenses (many of them male POC). How about, they ALL get to go free and we end the stupid fucking 'war on drugs'.

That would be a good start. You know what drives me to distraction about this ill-conceived policy? We've seen this movie. We *know* it doesn't work. It was called Prohibition. There is absolutely no reason to make narcotics illegal. There is no more logic behind it than there was making booze illegal. But it certainly 'feels' good in that it makes us believe we're doing 'something'.

What's even more disturbing is that this undermines our criminal justice system in a very profound manner. Think about the differential fates of the following people:

1) Young middle-class black woman gets caught with a pipe and a quarter ounce of green bud. She is going to go to jail, possibly prison for a few years.

2) Young, upper-middle class white woman gets caught with an eight-ball of coke. She gets community service and maybe rehab.

3) Young, poor black man gets caught with three or four rocks of crack cocaine. He's going to prison for a decade.

4) Young, upper-class white man does a sophisticated three-card monty game on the stock market, brings three or four companies to their knees, causing a couple of thousand people to be thrown out of work, ten percent of those folks lose their homes. He winds up a hero with his face on the cover of Business Week and a billion dollar bonus in his pocket.

Do those fates--and it is very difficult to argue that this sketch isn't realistic--seem reasonable to anyone here given the magnitude of effects these actions have in the real world?

I would argue that, in fact, the severity of punishment should be almost precisely the *opposite* of what you see above. The stock market con artist should be looking at spending most of the rest of his natural days behind bars, the middle two drug offenders should be given the option of rehab if they have a problem and otherwise let go and the first person should never even find her day disturbed by the police at all.

Cheers
Aj

I wish I could remember who said this, because it was the most sensible one-line argument against the "war on drugs" I've ever read.

Why do they feel they have the moral high ground? All they’ve done is make bad people rich. (Talking about supporters of the war on drugs)

Thank you. The number of non-violent offenders in prison nationwide who are there purely for drug offenses is insane.

As a society it would be far cheaper (not to mention more humane and sensible) to provide rehab services.

Prisons are big business...big, profitable business. That's scary.

Hey, AtLast! :-)
 

Two quick things to clarify...unless there has been an update to this information (which there certainly could have been):

1) Weiner did not say what he was going to treatment for and I don't believe that he has claimed sexual addiction.

2) The 17 year old was from Delaware and supposedly told "authorities" (whatever that means) that she did have contact with Weiner, but that he did not say anything inappropriate (meaning, sexual) to her at any time.

Did anyone hear anything different from the above today (don't want to give misinformation)?

There is some assumption that if you are in jail for drugs, you are a drug addict. I do not buy it. Not everyone who does legal or illegal drugs is addicted or needs rehab.

I am a believer that ALL drugs be made legal. Yep...legal heroin, coke, crack, other white powder and smoke. Regulated, taxed and safe ways to get safe product. It's a frigging waste of money and time and resources to keep them illegal.

It'd be safer for the people who are using the drugs -and- for everybody else if it were legal.

Seriously. Splash out a zillion safe-injection sites and watch the HIV rates drop. And the death rate. And the fucked up forever rate.

I fail to see how saying we should provide rehab services implies in any way that everyone who uses drugs is an addict. Providing does not equal requiring....it simply means making them available to those who need them, yes?

Yes, infidels, every one!

What you speak to in terms of mantras and empty GOP cheerleading resonates with me. I see it with the Dems at times during elections as well and it just plain angers me. Say something often enough, it gains truth status- even in the face of solid research data that refutes it. This is the dumbing-down of the general voting public rhetoric within politics today that leaves me seething.

Believing that the free market system will self-correct to the benefit of anyone that is not wealthy is just plain false. In fact, this very free market system is at the root of our economic strife right now for the general US population. And the very people that shout out the perils of government regulation and size live totally outside of the same reality of middle, lower-middle and working class people.

I can struggle internally about some of government restrictions on small business- and I am talking about real small businesses- not S status businesses that make tens of millions of dollars in profit each year and enjoy tax exemptions that if applied to median income people would make a very big difference to them. Some regulation does get in the way of small businesses being able to keep their work force employed- but the big, multi-national S corps making record profits in the billions are withholding job creation in the private sector and are the ones that profit by relocation in other countries. Franchisees like, your local Ace hardware, for example, do have a hell of a time staying afloat these days in paying an inordinate amount of taxes as compared to giants of industry like Shell Oil, etc.

The free market system benefits a very small group of elite corporations at the top- not the businesses most of us interact with in our everyday lives.

But, I digress.. yes, the mantras prevail and for the life of me, I did not see one thinking human being on that stage Monday night that had a substantive proposal to actually create more jobs that the US can look foreword to having in the future in a very different time than post-WWII. What worked economically then, will not now and we have to face this truth.

Without keeping talent that gets educated in the US only to return to another country due to our insane immigration/citizenship policies along with accepting that science and technology is the present and future economic road to advancement- we are not going to get out of this economic rut. Our educational system is very broken and we are the laughing stock of the world in terms of this. We can't allow mediocrity to prevail in our schools- we do need the best and the brightest teaching in our schools which means much higher standards and pay for our educators. And this is going to take much more in early childhood education bolstered with quality supports for at risk kids. Trying to change things later in schools is just stupid- start from pre-school ages (the least respected and paid educators in the US). And we need to face the fact that not every kid is “college material” and there is nothing wrong with this- but build trade education and apprenticeship programs up.

When are we going to call out the mantra cult-like state of our politicians and say ENOUGH? I don't believe this will change, however, until or unless we have publically funded election systems and stop all private contributions. Silly me. I can’t help but think about what the billions of dollars spent on elections in the US could mean for building a state of the art educational system that actually is equal in opportunity and addresses the skills and potential contributions of all children. I know, I’m a dreamer.

I can not believe that F++++++ Anthony Weiner resigned!!!

I can not believe that the F++++++ Democrats pushed him to resign!!!

One of the strongest liberals in Congressed has been forced to lay down his cudgel and go home.

Seems I remember when Democrats were liberals. What the f+++ happened?

So now the f++++++ Republicans have yet another weapons to use against the Democrats. Amazing how those family values a+++++++ hold other people to higher moral standard than they hold themselves.

S+++!!!

Can you tell I'm upset?

Smooches,
Keri

I love how I can sit here and read so many different posts written so many different way and a lot of them say the same thing. Politics is a twisted game. I cant remember a single time when I remember hearing the truth...the first time around...It's always Oh I diddnt do it then...oh yea I did! It cracks me up. As far as republicans and democrats and liberals and the tea party (wich just the name cracks me up) they all have one common goal and thats their own agendas! Gay rights, abortion, the markets, the economy these are all touchy subjects, I think they just try to find the touchiest of them all, wich seems to be sexting latly, find the biggest affected crowd and then side with them! It's like a sick cat and mouse game...under what egg will the attention fall today?
Prisions are overcrowded, hell yes they are...rehab services?? I have known a lot of people that went to rehab and well they diddnt turn out so great!
My idea..in all my infinite wisdom...PUT THEM TO WORK!
give them tents and stick them someplace where there is work to be done! build something, clear something hell for once in your life do something that the tax payers are paying for anyways!
I love that guy in AZ that stuck them all in pink and made them work for a living!
I'm just sayin!