The Red Line

Ever since this war in Syria has escalated, the right has been ridiculing President Obama for sitting back and doing nothing. They have called him weak for allowing Assad to slaughter his own people without stepping in and doing something. They said, how could the greatest nation in the world stand idly by and allow this atrocity to continue?

Obama said that the use of chemical weapons was a red line. It may have taken a while (maybe they wanted to confirm without a shadow of a doubt that it actually happened after the whole Iraq WMD debacle, maybe there were second thoughts, I don't know), but it seems that Obama is now prepared to offer some sort of support to the rebels. And what is the response to this decision?

"Biggest F'ing mistake by the Admin so far. I don't want American blood, sweat, or tears, spent on anything to do with either side in this civil war. Let the EU handle it if they must, but keep us the hell out of it."

"we need to take our own country back.
this is NOT what the American people want."

"Do they remotely care about the American people want?!! We need to stay out of this! This is a sectarian, civil war. There are atrocities on both sides. Neither side is our friend. If the Syrian people want this war to end, they simply have to stop shooting at each other. This isn't our concern!"

"The US decides to arm terrorists once again?"

"More of our boy's [sic] being sent to a place we don't belong to fight a fight that's not our own."

(Quotes taken from the comment section of this Yahoo! article.)

I'm pretty sure that these comments mostly come from the same side of the isle condemning Obama for ignoring Syria.

I understand that Obama has made mistakes, I am more than willing to admit that. No one is perfect. But how can someone possibly succeed when EVERY option is apparently wrong?

Taxes Are Not Evil

This is addressed to all those conservatives who seem to think taxes are evil.
I actually wonder if the people who complain about paying taxes have any clue what they're talking about. How else is the government supposed to function? Funding for roads, schools, farms, Congress, etc., has to come from somewhere.

I'm not saying that many tax dollars aren't misused. There are a LOT of places where tax dollars could be used more effectively, and we should be actively trying to make sure the dollars are used in the best way possible. But "I don't like the way that dollar was used, therefore I shouldn't pay taxes at all" is NOT a valid argument. No person is ever going to agree with everything the government does, it just isn't possible. Get over it.

I see a lot of people who get angry with the "poor people" who get upset about rich people and companies dodging taxes. I saw someone comment that we "shouldn't get mad because the rich know how to play the game". These same people ridicule the poor for getting away with not paying taxes. This doesn't make sense to me; if you applaud the rich for doing whatever they can to avoid taxes, shouldn't you also have to applaud the woman who has 9 kids just to collect the government benefits and avoid paying taxes? I don't personally agree with either situation; I'm just saying it seems a bit hypocritical to support one and not the other.

Rich people seem to have such a hatred of the social programs. Some people misuse them, and we should do all we can to identify these people; however, the majority of people are on these programs because it is legitimately needed. Do you really believe that everyone who is on government assistance is "living the good life" without having to work? Is this REALLY how you envision the life of someone who is on public assistance? If so, I encourage you to visit a family who needs this help. I encourage you to try to live on the amount of money these people have to live on. There are many HARD working people who need assistance because their full-time job doesn't give them enough money to live on.

Furthermore, many "patriots" love to complain about how countries like North Korea, Russia, Cuba, etc. let their people starve because of the way their government operates. The comments, though, would seem to prefer that we do the exact same thing with our people here in the USA. I, frankly, would not stand for it. I don't live on public assistance; at the same time, I'm a student who works very hard to get by. The fact that I am more likely to give a couple bucks to a person in need than someone who makes millions of dollars a year is very saddening to me.

I find it amusing that these are the people who claim to be bigger "patriots" than everyone else. These are the people who claim to love America the most, who say that America is the best country on the planet. These are the people who say that the liberals and the Democrats are trying to destroy America. Yet, they'll leave the country and denounce their citizenship in a snap if it means saving a few bucks? I guess what they really mean is that they love America, as long as they, and ONLY they, can benefit from it. Personally, I wouldn't feel comfortable calling a country that lets its citizens and poor children starve to death the greatest country on the planet. And somehow, this is precisely what these people want. They just don't realize that if they let the poor and middle class all die off, their stream of income would stop. Whose hard work are you going to ride to the top if there isn't anyone left who needs to work for a living? Who's going to buy your products if the only people left already have everything? Who's going to be left on a "lower" level than you to give you that feeling of superiority that you so DESPERATELY need?

A Not-So-Civil View On Civil Rights

civil rights (n): Personal liberties that belong to an individual, owing to his or her status as a citizen or resident of a particular country or community.

With that out of the way, I'd like to direct you to Ann Coulter's comments on who deserves civil rights.

I'll give you a moment to recover from your shock.

.......

Ready? Okay.

While there are many good choices, I think this was my favorite quote:

"We don't owe the homeless. We don't owe feminists. We don't owe women who are desirous of having abortions or gays who want to get married to one another. That's what civil rights has become for much of the left."

So it seems that, in Ann Coulter's mind, a certain class of people deserve equal rights only if they have been enslaved in the past. I could go on a diatribe explaining why this is categorically ridiculous, but I'm not sure Miss Coulter leaves anything to be said. The fact that she thinks rights are some sort of currency to be doled out based on the degree to which a class was repressed is nonsensical. Whether or not this is more crazy than the fact that she seems to believe that immigrants, women, and homosexuals have never been repressed is debatable. Miss Coulter's ignorance of who deserves rights is surpassed only by her blatant disregard for current and historical events.

I don't think it possible for anyone to defend Miss Coulter's remarks. Whether or not you are pro-choice, whether or not you agree with gay marriage, no matter your beliefs on immigration, you cannot possibly believe that personal liberties and freedoms should be bargaining chips to be used as payment to bury the past. Shame on Miss Coulter for her remarks, and I believe that she should apologize: not to women, or gays, or immigrants, but to all Americans who should be offended that a woman who claims to be an American can have this sort of view on civil rights.

Kansas Bans Islamic Law

......really?

Really?


Sam Brownback, the Republican governor of Kansas, has signed a bill that "makes it clear that Kansas courts will rely exclusively on the laws of [their] state and our nation when deciding cases and will not rely on the laws of foreign jurisdictions".

I'm sure Kansas, like most of the country, has its own share of pressing issues facing it. I would guess that an alarming amount of judges suddenly choosing to throw out the US Constitution and abide by sharia law isn't one of them. This is nothing but pandering to the Islamophobic segment of the GOP base; what else could make the lawmakers think that this was really necessary?

Did it really need to be made clear that the US abides by US law? I think not. This law can only be harmful. The only time sharia law is allowed to be referenced now is in very special cases, such as divorce cases between Muslims, where both parties consent to sharia law being used. This is no different than prenuptials going around what the law would normally require and acting out the agreement that was consented to by both parties.

This reeks of racism and hatred. Now, some members of the GOP will probably call me "un-American", or say that I would "choose Muslims over Americans" or something ridiculous like that for taking this position, but that's hardly surprising. If the GOP wants people to stop viewing them as racist, maybe they need to stop doing things like this.

Let's Ignore The Issues... That We Keep Bringing Up

Mitt Romney, campaigning in Colorado, stopped for an interview with CBS Denver. After being asked about a variety of issues, Romney made it quite clear that the only thing he wanted to discuss was the economy. He answered questions about marriage equality, but a question about marijuana was just too much, apparently:

“Aren’t there issues of significance that you’d like to talk about? ...The economy, the economy, the economy. The growth of jobs. The need to put people back to work. The challenges of Iran. “We’ve got enormous issues that we face, but you want talk about, go ahead, you want to talk about marijuana?"

This sentiment seems to be echoing throughout the GOP politicians in the House and Senate. When asked for comment, Speaker Boehner said "The president can talk about it all he wants. I’m going to stay focused on what the American people want us to stay focused on, and that’s jobs."

So I suppose the GOP wishes the Democrats would stop bringing up social issues in legislation across the country. Except... the GOP themselves are the ones that tend to keep bringing it up. Earlier this week, the GOP-led North Carolina government was successful in adding Amendment 1 to the state constitution, defining marriage between one man and one woman as the only legal partnership. Also, the state of Tennessee, with a Republican governor and majorities in both the state House and Senate, Friday signed into law a bill that says teachers can no longer condone so-called "gateway sexual activity", whatever that means.

Time and again, it seems that the Republicans are the ones who are trying to legislate social issues; the ones trying to tell people by what values they should live their lives. If Romney and Boehner want the focus of the party to be on the economy, maybe they need to tell the other lawmakers in their own party first.

Why The Right Thinks The Main Stream Media Is Biased

Sometimes it's nice to be able to sum something up into a nice little package, in just a sentence or two.

Why do those on the right think the MSM is biased? I think much of the main stream is pretty fair (with the obvious exceptions of places like Fox News and MSNBC). It's just that it is those on the right, Republicans, religious extremists, etc, that tend to say more ridiculous and newsworthy things than anyone else.

You want the media to stop focusing on you? Stop saying and doing crazy things.