Head-Spinning Political Shit!

[Diva]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

This is what I don't understand.

People are running out of unemployment, so they vote for the party that keeps voting against extending unemployment.

People need jobs, so they vote for the party that has blocked jobs bills, has blocked small bank funds that would be used for jobs, and has declared that they will extend tax cuts to millionaires and take away health insurance, but has not mentioned one single thing that they would do to create one single job.

People are disgusted with Congress' inability to accomplish anything, so they vote for the party that filibusters everything, stalls judicial nominations (to the point of near-crisis in some places), and refuses, in the Senate, to act on hundreds of pieces of legislation sent over from the House.

And, as for DADT, is there anyone with two functioning brain cells in their entire head that thinks a Republican majority will lift even one little pinkie finger's worth of effort to repeal DADT?

I understand being frustrated, desperate, angry. But for fucks sake, you don't respond by giving more power to the people that are screwing you sideways.

I'm starting to think that some folks vote for the candidates who scrare them the most..............

[Diva]

Originally Posted by Diva

I'm starting to think that some folks vote for the candidates who scrare them the most..............

I was told to come back and fix "scrare".....


....so.....

scare.

I do what I'm told.....on occasion.

[Nat]

This is from a few years back. That anti-immigrant racist guy (Le Pen) ran for president 5 times in France. He's no longer running, but his daughter has taken the reins of his far-right-wing party:

What a Tea Party Looks Like in Europe

I find the tone of this newsweek article pretty unsettlingly complimentary of Le Pen even though it references him as "the man who for decades has played on the inchoate fears, xenophobia, knee-jerk racism, and ill-disguised anti-Semitism of many of his supporters."

[betenoire]

Sweet Jesus, Nat. I admit that I don't pay much attention to politics outside of North America...so I really had no idea.

How fucked up is it to hear someone ranting about "anchor babies" in that beautiful language? I hope this clown's daughter does not get a foothold.

[citybutch]

Thanks for posting Nat... gonna re-post elsewhere.... This is an important read!

Originally Posted by Nat

This is from a few years back. That anti-immigrant racist guy (Le Pen) ran for president 5 times in France. He's no longer running, but his daughter has taken the reins of his far-right-wing party:

What a Tea Party Looks Like in Europe

I find the tone of this newsweek article pretty unsettlingly complimentary of Le Pen even though it references him as "the man who for decades has played on the inchoate fears, xenophobia, knee-jerk racism, and ill-disguised anti-Semitism of many of his supporters."

[JustJo]

Hey...I was traveling and in and out of airports all night Friday and early Saturday, and kept hearing snippets of some crazy stuff about a push to prevent illegal immigrants from having "anchor babies" in the U.S. Since this would require a constitutional amendment, and is also just basically ridiculous, I'm alarmed....but I didn't hear enough to have the whole story.

Was anyone following this? Have more info? Know who's behind this insanity?

[MsDemeanor]

Originally Posted by JustJo

Hey...I was traveling and in and out of airports all night Friday and early Saturday, and kept hearing snippets of some crazy stuff about a push to prevent illegal immigrants from having "anchor babies" in the U.S. Since this would require a constitutional amendment, and is also just basically ridiculous, I'm alarmed....but I didn't hear enough to have the whole story.

Was anyone following this? Have more info? Know who's behind this insanity?

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

Oh yeah, conservatives want to change a lot in the Constitution! A lot of them think it just fine to interject the 2nd Amendment as a means to eliminate politicians they don't like either.

And we now have Rand Paul really wanting to go at the Constitution.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

It would also be a handy blow against the gays if they repealed the 14th amendment. The equal protection clause and the due process clause were both cited in the Loving vs Virginia decision which ended laws against interracial marriage.

A bit from the court's decision back then:

The Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.

...

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

These convictions must be reversed.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Oh yeah, I know about this. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section 1, first sentence, states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Conservatives love the Constitution, except for the parts that they want to change (and they want to change a lot). In this case, they want to repeal this part of the Constitution so that being born on American soil does not grant citizenship.

Ugh....thanks....makes me wonder what they think the "effective date" should be. After all, an awful lot of us could trace our families back to somebody who hid on the ship or didn't quite have their papers in order. Does that mean we're all getting booted out too? And, if so, where exactly do we belong? Craziness. If you're born here, you're an American in my book....I don't care if your mother was 2 feet on the other side of the line for a minute and a half before you arrived.

[theoddz]

Originally Posted by Diva

I'm starting to think that some folks vote for the candidates who scrare them the most..............

Fear is the tool, I think.

Of course, the folks most susceptible to fear are the ignorant and uneducated. Fear is such an effective weapon and it's worked extremely well for the Republican party in the past years. It lied us into a war and just about brought down the entire world economy.

I'm going to post something here from the script of Michael Moore's movie, Sicko, because I think it what it says applies to everything here about how people vote.

(Moore) It seems it benefits the system if the average person is shackled with debt.

People in debt become hopeless,
and hopeless people don't vote.

They always say
everyone should vote,
but I think if the poor in Britain
or the United States voted for people
who represented their interests,it would be a real democratic revolution.

So they don't want it to happen. So keeping
people hopeless and pessimistic...

See, I think there are two ways
in which people are controlled.

First of all, frighten people,
and secondly, demoralize them.

An educated, healthy and confident
nation is harder to govern.

And I think there's an element
in the thinking of some people:

"We don't want people to be
educated, healthy and confident,
because they would get out of control."

The top 1 % of the world's population
own 80% of the world's wealth.

It's incredible that people put up with it,
but they're poor,they're demoralized, they're frightened.

And therefore, they think
perhaps the safest thing to do
is to take orders and hope for the best."

-------------------------------------------------------------
....and that's all I'm going to say about that.

~Theo~