Stupid Republican idea of the day

[Evil_Captor]

@silenus

You’re going to have to explain that word to them.

Probably it will take a rolled-up newspaper to do the job. Or maybe a baseball bat …

[BrainGlutton]

@elucidator

We need them. We need them cleaned up and with their noses wiped, but we still need them. If the Dems totally won everything, then . . .

. . . eventually the progressive and DLC wings would split into two parties and each of those would take its turn as the loyal opposition. There’s no downside to a result which permanently marginalizes movement conservatism as such.

[Sterling_Archer]

@adaher

That’s more a case of not appreciating what we had. Much as Bush made Democrats appreciate Reagan more, Obama has made Republicans practically love Clinton. Some say we always look back more fondly at past Presidents, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. Clinton wasn’t just better than Obama, he was better than Carter and LBJ too. Republicans probably knew it on at least some level, because they actually worked with Clinton pretty well legislatively after losing the shutdown fight.

Anyway, if Hillary becomes President, that will test my hypothesis. I do think she’ll get along with Republicans far better than Obama has.

So it’s your position that the democrats are the ones who have become more extreme?

I can’t wait to revisit this quote when it is Hillary negotiating the next government shutdown.

[Revtim]

Some argue that Hillary is as bloodthirsty as a Republican, so they might bond over that. But yeah, her skin reflecting more light than Obama’s is likely a bigger reason for them getting along.

[Buck_Godot]

@Fear_Itself

Anti-Choicers Must Oppose Gay Rights Because Gay Rights Cause Abortion

I don’t know about this. It may not win me many friends on this board, but I will stand up and say that I am opposed to allowing gay men to have abortions.

[silenus]

@Buck_Godot

I don’t know about this. It may not win me many friends on this board, but I will stand up and say that I am opposed to allowing gay men to have abortions.

Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

[Frodo]

@silenus

Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

[sugaree]

@Rick_Kitchen

Thanks for the laugh. But I think you’re in the wrong thread.

He’s also in the wrong reality.

[BrainGlutton]

This is what Texas Pubs are doing to every state’s public-school textbooks. (“Every state’s” because Texas is so huge that national textbook-publishers give the Texans what they demand and they are even more demanding than Californians.)

Digging into the textbooks themselves, it becomes clear that one major theme is trying to trick students into believing that America was founded as a Christian nation and that there’s no real separation of church and state, despite the fact that this idea is found in the First Amendment to the Constitution. One textbook claims, falsely, that “the biblical idea of covenant” is what the nation’s founders based their concept of democracy on, even though the Bible is full of kings and princes but makes no mention of democracy. (In reality, the founders based their idea of democracy on the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers.) Another book argued that the founders drew inspiration from Moses, on the grounds that Moses created the idea of a “written code of behavior.” Needless to say, the concept that nations need laws has existed in all civilizations throughout recorded history, and as the Texas Freedom Network points out, the constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion comes in direct conflict with many of the 10 Commandments that require you to believe in God.

As the Texas Freedom Network report writes, “the Founders were reacting against several of the crucial elements of the moral, legal, and political tradition associated with Moses and the Ten Commandments.” That’s stating the case gently, as Moses explicitly set out to create a theocracy, whereas Thomas Jefferson argued that there should be a “wall of separation between church and state.” The fact of the matter is that these books are lying, bald-facedly, about the history of this country for the purpose of hoodwinking students into believing that ours is not a secular county and that it’s okay for the government to force Christian rituals and beliefs on the citizenry.

The attempts to indoctrinate children into the belief that America is basically a Christian theocracy are bad enough, but that’s not the only conservative agenda item the books are trying to trick students into buying. The books also try to subtly discredit the civil rights movement by implying that segregation wasn’t so bad, with one book arguing that white and black schools had “similar buildings, buses, and teachers,” which the researchers argue “severely understates the tremendous and widespread disadvantages of African-American schools.”

Researchers also found that the books were playing the role of propagandist for unregulated capitalism. One textbook argues that taxes have gone up since 1927, but society “does not appear to be much more civilized today than it was” back then. It’s an assertion that ignores the much reduced poverty and sickness, improved education, and even things like the federal highway system, all to make an ideological point. Another book argues that any government regulation whatsoever somehow means that capitalism ceases to be capitalism, a stance that would mean capitalism has never really existed in all of history.

That these books are stuffed full of lies and propaganda is not a surprise. From the get-go, the State Board of Education made it clear it was far more interested in pushing a right-wing ideology on students than actually providing an education. In July, the Texas Freedom Network reviewed the 140 people selected to be on the panels reviewing textbooks. Being an actual expert in politics or history practically guaranteed you couldn’t get a slot, as “more than a dozen” Texas academics with expertise who applied got denied, while conservative “political activists and individuals without social studies degrees or teaching experience got places on the panels.” Only three of the 140 members of the panel are even current faculty members at Texas universities, but a pastor who used to own a car dealership somehow got a spot.

[Rick_Kitchen]

Republican candidate for Congress thinks we should go to war with Mexico.

[Steve_MB]

@Trinopus

Total agreement. Democracy can only work with a Loyal Opposition.

In California, for a while, we’ve had a Democratic majority in the State House of over 2/3 in both houses. I’m loving it…but it isn’t right. It’s bad democracy. The opposition should have enough power to perform the basic necessities of obstructionism.

Meh. Democracy will be just fine in twenty years, with a Progressive Democratic Party and a Democratic Leadership Party taking turns in power, occasionally agreeing on a few essential reforms such as increasing the signature requirements if the Republican Party gets dangerously close to gaining a line of the ballot.

[Rick_Kitchen]

John Boehner: “This idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think I’d rather just sit around. This is a very sick idea for our country."

[C3]

@BrainGlutton

This is what Texas Pubs are doing to every state’s public-school textbooks. (“Every state’s” because Texas is so huge that national textbook-publishers give the Texans what they demand and they are even more demanding than Californians.)

Eh, that’s okay. Here in North Carolina, the education budget has been cut so much by the Republican legislature that the schools can’t afford textbooks anyway.

[elucidator]

I’m entirely opposed to war with Mexico. Every time we have a war with somebody, we get a whole bunch of their restaurants. Italian restaurants, Japanese, Vietnamese. Now, think how it would be to have a whole bunch of Mexican restaurants all over the place!

[BrainGlutton]

@Rick_Kitchen

Republican candidate for Congress thinks we should go to war with Mexico.

Richer yet:

. . . over allegations undocumented immigrants are tied to the drug trade . . .

Yeah, a little war will fix that problem right up, you betcha. Why, since we took out Manuel Noriega, not one gram of cocaine has been shipped through Panama and ended up in the U.S.!

[Fear_Itself]

@elucidator

I’m entirely opposed to war with Mexico. Every time we have a war with somebody, we get a whole bunch of their restaurants. Italian restaurants, Japanese, Vietnamese.

Not to mention all the German restaurants, reeking of hassenpfeffer. Hassenpfeffer!

[BrainGlutton]

@elucidator

I’m entirely opposed to war with Mexico. Every time we have a war with somebody, we get a whole bunch of their restaurants. Italian restaurants, Japanese, Vietnamese. Now, think how it would be to have a whole bunch of Mexican restaurants all over the place!

Yeah . . . Say, isn’t it about time we taught those damned French a lesson?!

[Steve_MB]

@Fear_Itself

Not to mention all the German restaurants, reeking of hassenpfeffer. Hassenpfeffer!

Still worth it, though. After all, since we taught them a lesson in 1918 they’ve hardly bothered us.

[E-DUB]

Boehner to the contrary, there are plenty of alternatives to “just sitting around” for the unemployed as long as they have adequate income. I’ve been retired for a few years now and don’t spend all day in the holodeck. Society could benefit from more people being unemployed. I support a full-unemployment economy, the post-workers paradise. Someday people will look back and see the wage system as simply another form of slavery.

[elucidator]

@BrainGlutton

Yeah . . . Say, isn’t it about time we taught those damned French a lesson?!

We probably still have the maps somewhere, roads will be pretty much the same. No problem getting Cheney, McCain, and Cruz on board. Bonus: still got a few thousand of the original Normandy guys, plenty for the surrender ceremony.