Stupid Republican idea of the day

The BBQ Pit
19582

I advocate diversity in who we elect to office. The highly educated, the not-so-highly educated(but still accomplished). Those with experience in government and those with experience in the private sector. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, physicists, businessmen, pizza makers(but only the best pizza makers:D).

I’m happy that we got some different types of people in during the Tea Party wave. There have certainly been some downsides to it, but I like the fact that now you can’t trade local spending projects for votes, and things that were routinely renewed year after year without question, like the Ex-Im Bank, now have to be justified because the new guys are against corporate welfare.

In other words, I’ll take a little stupid if it forces the powers that be to have to explain their actions to the public. I think another upside is that it seems that more people are interested in politics than before. When all you get is professionals trying to say as little interesting as possible, people tune out. When you’ve got politicians saying whatever comes to mind, whether insightful or absolutely preposterous, it gets ears perking up. If you want more voter participation in the political system, one way to get there is for voters to be able to hear politicians speaking plainly and be able to relate to them. “Hey, that guy sounds just like the dude I work with!” which can be a good thing or a bad thing, but is definitely an interesting thing.

19583

“Interesting” is the salient word in an ancient Chinese curse, I’ll remind you.

19584

This is a SRIOTD, but I don’t know if it angers me so much as depresses me. Long rant incoming, sorry

It seems that a group of Texas lawmakers got together the other day to celebrate, yes celebrate the 10 year anniversary of a law that passed. As unusual it might be to go back and celebrate old legislative victories, the cause of it was even weirder. They got together to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Texas passing a gay marriage ban. With cake.

You know, in this thread, I’ve been long desensitized to some cruel, evil things. But luckily, my reaction typically is one of anger or shaking-my-head disgust. And fortunately or unfortunately, those committing the SRIOTD are usually doing it from fear, anger, ignorance, or religion. The point is, we know where they come from and its eminently mockable.

But for some reason, the casual cruelty of celebrating (with cake!) the denial of rights to a group of people struck me as nothing more than souless, monstrous, cartoonishly evil. The fact that they would equate stripping away the dignity and rights of people to a birthday or holiday seems to me that this form of hatred is so ingrained into their pea-brains that they are absolutely immune to seeing just how evil it is. I mean, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had acted like those people who protest every Roe v. Wade day in front of the SCOTUS, with righteous anger. These lawmakers could have stood on their state capital steps to reaffirm marriage and denounce the evils of gays. Or if it would have been a solemn, dignified affair, where they put out a statement praising Texas for holding back that line against encroaching gay marriage (but seriously, fuck you guys, it’s coming and there’s nothing you can do about it) and extolling the good of Texas morality, I would have understood that too

But cake?

Look how happy they are, they are literally cutting up a cake while saying “Fuck You!” to a group of American citizens denied their rights. No remorse, no “this was the only way”, just happy smiling faces. Am I out of line for thinking this way, that such ordinary, pervasive, and deeply-ingrained madness is just so out of place? To be honest, I don’t even know if any of those guys in the picture were actually around 10 years ago. If they weren’t, its even more sad, they are celebrating something that’s not even a personal accomplishment but they are making it personal.

People like these lawmakers allow and encourage hate to spread. In another time, they’d be the ones taking their kids to watch lynchings, or tossing kindle on pyres to burn witches, or raping slaves. They have absolutely no concept that there is a thinking, feeling, human being on the other side actively being hurt by their decision. I mock a lot of conservatives, but I’m not happy about it, I’d rather they weren’t so stupid to mock, I’d rather get along with them. And when I’m happy about a legislative or court victory like gay marriage or healthcare, the happiness is usually for the people it will help. Are any of these people simply happy for all the souls they think they’ve saved? Are they going to go to a church right after this to hug all the “good Christians” who benefited from this law? Are they going to find a gay person and congratulate them for being able to make it to heaven? Or are they going to go home, take off their shoes, change into a comfortable shirt, watch some TV, play with their kids, and beat a gay person they have tied up in the basement? They have absolutely no empathy at all, I would not be surprised if any of these so-called people drowned puppies in their spare time or set fire to mosques. Fuck them all

19585

Forget it, Yog. It’s Texas.

19586

I’m surprised they didn’t use a wedding cake.

19587

But there are certain things we shouldn’t have diversity, right? We shouldn’t have diversity in intelligence and critical thinking – idiots like Louie Gohmert and Steve King shouldn’t be in office. We shouldn’t have diversity in acceptance of science. We shouldn’t have diversity in bigotry – we shouldn’t have any bigots at all, IMO, in office.

To me, those seem like incredibly minor “benefits” when compared to the harm the Tea Party has done (with voter suppression, abortion restrictions, Sharia law silliness, homophobia, Obama derangement syndrome, white and Christian faux-victimization, jingoism, etc.).

19588

the way those guys have their hands all over each other is creeping me out

19589

But bigotry is in the eyes of perception. To people, the folks on the other side are the bigots, not them - either that, or, they’ll think the other side is getting away with more bigotry in office.
You’ll have a complaint of, “Why is their bigotry allowed but not mine?”

19590

I’m too lazy to dig up a link, but one of my Facebook friends posted a link to a right-wing screed, claiming that there is no drought in California – it’s all a scam by radical environmentalists to … something something Profit!

The Sierra snowpack, from whence California gets its water, is at 19% of normal. In January, the recorded rainfall for the entire month in San Francisco was 0.00" for the first time in recorded history. But yeah, no drought.

The screed also said that we wouldn’t have a problem if we weren’t allowing billions of gallons of fresh water to pour, wasted, into the ocean. Apparently the solution is to build enough dams and reservoirs so that every drop of rainwater gets filtered through somebody’s kidneys.

19591

I coach at a high school with a dirt track. Every year, when practice starts in early Feb., the track is unusable due to flooding from the winter rains, Except the past two years. Bone dry.

19592

Except they don’t. It’s always excuses. The media is out to get me! I’m going to punt on that one!

19593

There are actual, real, no-shit bigots in this world. They shouldn’t be elected to higher office.

I know that some Republicans think that Democrats or liberals are anti-white bigots, or anti-Christian bigots, but that doesn’t make it so (and neither are Republicans as far as anti-black and other forms of bigotry, except for some fraction, the extent and size of which is debatable).

But we really do have bigots in office in the US. Not all of them, and not all tied to one party, but they’re there. They pop up in the news every week or so due to some idiotic email or statement on camera they made.

19594

Mediocre people deserve representation too!

19595

False equivalence.

19596

Curiously, the first piece I read after searching “there is no drought in california” turned out to be from Earth First Journal, which is kind of the opposite if a right-wing site. Their position is that the big valleys are a natural desert, that California has recently been in an anomalously wet period for the past century or two, that the water diversion schemes are aimed at protecting the revenue of corporate farms.

So, there may be more than one way of looking at the “no drought” argument. But no way of looking at the situation translates to “lots of water”.

19597

In what fucking reality does that make sense? Are you trying to make the asinine point that those that oppose bigotry are themselves bigots for doing so?

19598

I’m simply pointing out that every side considers the other side to be bigoted.
If you don’t believe me, run a poll some day.
Ask 100 Republicans, “Who’s more bigoted, Republicans or Democrats?”
Ask 100 Democrats, “Who’s more bigoted, Republicans or Democrats?”

19599

Bigots are the way they are, they cannot help being bigots any more than negroes can help being black. We are supposed to respect that and not use offensive terms like “cracker” or “trailer trash”.

19600

The problem is, one side is right about that, the other is not.

And before you say, “well how do you know which side?”, we have a thing call science and facts that any one of us can look up and feel free to try out ourselves to see which one is correct.

To me, anyone denying evolution, denying global warming, pretends that there’s no inequality amongst the sexes or minorities, who wants to deny rights to gays, etc. Those people are BAD people and bigoted. People can claim all they want that I’m just like Hitler or whatever, but in the end, facts and reality win out. Those are just tactics. I don’t give a shit what they think, I give a shit to what they can prove. And they have nothing.

19601

Well, not quite. I’m sure they would make an exception to allow teachers to use the bible.