Friday Shakedown

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) took to the House floor on Thursday arguing for the repeal of Obamacare.  The House GOP has put this up for a vote, and failed, so many times now.  It was funny for a while, but now it's just a waste of time.  They should try to do something more constructive, like trying to solve the sequester problem.

BACHMANN: That’s why we’re here because we’re saying let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. Let’s not do that. Let’s love people, let’s care about people. Let’s repeal it now while we can.

First of all, Obamacare does not kill anyone.  Oh I get it, affordable healthcare kills people but not guns.  If she really cared about keeping people alive, she would support the gun legislation being talked about on the Hill.

Speaking of guns, has-been musician and gun nut Ted Nugent wrote a column for a birther website.  In his column he claims that "leftist stooges" are at fault for gun crime.  Here's what he said:

The left has lied for decades about guns because they hate guns, despise the Second Amendment and blame the NRA families for crime and violence in our cities.

Truth is, it is the socialist stooges who are responsible for violence. It is their policies that prevent good guys from arming and protecting themselves and creates the big lie of "gun free" slaughter zones.

It isn't just anti-gun leftist policies that have enabled thugs to breed and prosper. The violence on America's streets is the result of a number of other leftist big-government policies that have worked to destroy families and entire communities by discouraging accountability and rewarding dangerous behavior.

That's the turbo destructo modus operandi of the socialists: Intentionally destroy something and then claim the solution to fix it is always more government, more laws, more control and less freedom.

Good people want to protect our children. Leftist stooges want to create conditions for evil to flourish. They don't care one bit about protecting kids.

Never trust leftist goons. They will put you and your children at risk to advance their socialist, anti-freedom agenda.

All he is doing is perpetuating gun advocate arguments that do not have facts behind them.  Believe it or not, states with more gun laws actually have less gun violence.

And lastly, out of Arizona, a bill which the local media has dubbed the "Show Me Your Papers Before You Go Potty" bill.  This is a reference, of course, to their controversial 2010 immigration bill.

The bill is targeted at transgender people and would legally require you to use the bathroom that corresponds to your gender as listed on your birth certificate.  

With more people identifying as transgender, state and local governments are increasingly banning gender-identity discrimination to ward off legal battles, but opponents and proponents alike complain the laws don't explicitly demand businesses provide equal access for transgender people, creating confusion over how governments, restaurants, clothing stores and other establishments must act.
It's been a crazy week, next week will likely be more of the same.

Simple Thinking Conservatives

There is a lot going on that I could talk about.  

Semi-rocker and all chicken hawk, Ted Nugent, a man that has threatened the president multiple times was invited by a member of Congress to attend the State of the Union yesterday…nah, maybe later.

Wayne LaPierre is spouting some of the most paranoid nonsense we have heard so far in the current gun control debate, but that can wait for another day.

The NRA helped distribute a small newspaper that stokes the reactionary far right.  It feeds on their fear of government and strokes their infatuation with American myth.  Maybe another time.

The special education teacher that has been vocally supporting Indiana high school students in their quest to bar their homosexual classmates from attending prom has been called out over her claim that gay people have no purpose in life.  I’m just not feeling it right now.

But what do these all have in common? 

They all really demonstrate how separated from reality these conservatives are.  Whether they should be called spokesmen for the political right or not, I don't know, but they sure act like it.  There was a study that was released last year that stated that conservative thinking was "low effort" thinking.  They did not mean that as an insult, though unsurprisingly conservatives were upset.  I really don't blame them.

This just means that conservatives have a hard time seeing the "big picture" and thinking through what the end results of policies might be.  Some advocate deporting every undocumented immigrant in the country but they don't think it through.  These immigrants contribute to the economy and we would definitely feel it if they were all gone.

It is simple to fear those different than you, whether it is LGBT folks or other minorities.  Hate is simple.  Understanding that these people are just like you, with maybe a slight difference is not as simple.  They have similar goals and similar feelings.  Empathy, catch it.

Sometimes hearing all this ignorance and simple thinking makes me sad.  I'm sad because I don't know what the answer is.  Is it more education?  Is it simply exposing hateful people to what they hate in the hopes that they see similarities?  Do we simply ignore them?  I truly don't know.

These people vote, and elections have consequences