June 29, 2009
· Filed under Culture War · Tagged dazed and confused, depressing, douchebaggery, hypocrisy, LGBT Issues, morality war, real america, religion, republican party, same-sex marriage, Sanford, stupidity, war on marriage
Thank you, Mark Sanford, for protecting the institution of marriage for us, the American people, against those evil homogays who want to destroy it. You, like many other Republicans, have been working hard over the past decade to prevent the full enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment — especially those parts about “liberty” and “equal protection under the law”.
I think my favorite part about the Republican Party platform is that it has nothing to do with, say, the evils of cheating on one’s wife or divorce. No, apparently the only — or at least the biggest — threat to marriage is same-sex marriage. But here’s the funny thing. The divorce rate in the United States is estimated to be 40-50%. Estimates vary, but the most conservative put the infidelity rate at about 20%. So, basically: not only is who I marry none of the Republican Party’s business, not only does it have no effect on anyone else’s marriage, but even if neither of those things were true, divorce and adultery would still be the biggest threats to the institution of marriage.
But I guess none of that matters to the Crazy Crusaders for Marriage. Let’s take a look at the hypocritical douchebags who go on at length about the “protection” of marriage against “them evil homosexuals”. In only the past five years, we’ve had Mark Foley — the crusader against internet predators who was actually a predator himself; Ted Haggard — fundy-wingnut-in-chief who apparently was down with hiring male prostitutes and doing crystal meth; Robert Allen — member of the Florida Statehouse and state chairman of the McCain campaign; Larry Craig — the Republican senator from Idaho with the “wide stance”; Bill Clinton — the “Democrat” who signed the “Defense” of “Marriage” Act while doing naughty things with a cigar with his intern; Glenn Murphy — the national chairman of the Young Republicans who got another Young Republican drunk to take advantage of him; John Ensign — senator of Nevada and fellow adulterer; the list really does go on and on.
You’d think that the massive hypocrisy of the Republican Party might reflect somehow on the legitimacy of their rantings about “protecting marriage”. You know, considering that they themselves are responsible for more damage to the institution of marriage than anything else. Well, I suppose that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s a totally legitimate argument to say that the 24-hour Britney Spears marriage and the other shenanigans which go on in Las Vegas are far more harmful to the moral fabric of this country than anything that gay marriage could wreak.
In conclusion: if the Republican Party leadership wants to prevent the “decay” of the institution of marriage, they should do a number of things: (1) pass tougher divorce laws; (2) stop cheating on their wives; (3) come out of the closet already.
June 15, 2009
· Filed under Culture War, Internet · Tagged bullshit issues, dazed and confused, funny, gay rights, homosexualists, lgbt, morality war, proposition 8, real america, real american, same-sex marriage
June 14, 2009
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged barack obama, Defense of Marriage Act, depressing, douchebaggery, gay rights, lgbt, proposition 8, ralph nader, real america, religion, republican party, same-sex marriage, wtf
According to AMERICAblog, Barack Obama’s legal team — likely on instructions from the White House — filed a motion to dismiss a legal challenge to the “Defense” of “Marriage” Act (DOMA). The full-length, fifty-four page rape of the Constitution and queer constituents can be found here. Among some of the claims the team makes are:
* Homosexuality is comparable to incest and pedophilia. Maybe if the Obama administration lawyers had a basic understanding of reality, they might comprehend that since children aren’t able to consent (unlike adults, the persons in question in same-sex marriage) the comparison to homosexuality is not a very good one. They might also understand the fact that incest has been scientifically linked to genetic problems in offspring, whereas homosexuality…not so much.
* DOMA is fine because it saves the federal government money. (Funny, I don’t recall that being a concern of the Obama administration.) Besides, aren’t our rights priceless? Or something? Maybe?
This shit goes on and on; I encourage every person who voted for Obama to read this in full and then seriously reconsider voting for him again. You can’t write this off as simply him doing “his best” for gay people in today’s political climate: this was a relatively minor proceeding (i.e. whether the case would be able to go to court or not) and Obama would have been perfectly capable of distancing himself from the actions of his legal team. Instead, he chose to aggressively seek out and destroy the rights of same-sex couples.
I was happy to see that a number of gay-rights groups, including the ACLU, GLAD, Lambda Legal, and HRC, among others, wrote a letter to the Obama administration complaining about his desertion of gay Americans. This shouldn’t be shocking to anyone who even vaguely recalls the Clinton administration. In fact, the Democratic Party has a strong tradition of trying to screw gay people, even though we’re way out of their league.
To me, the recent actions of the Obama administration, combined with his announced refusal to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for a long time, are merely a vindication of my belief that an Obama White House wouldn’t mean anything for gay rights.
Barack Obama should be absolutely ashamed of himself.
June 10, 2009
· Filed under Basic Decency, Culture War, Insanity · Tagged depressing, douchebaggery, good on-goings-on?, morality war, race, real america, real american, republican party, stupidity
This is exactly the kind of person that really pisses me off. In an unfortunate turn of events for my IQ, I came across his MySpace blog while doing a Google search for someone on the far-right with whom to have a rational debate. Not surprisingly, I suppose, such people don’t seem to exist: all of their blog pages seem to be exactly like this.
Does anyone else notice how the self-prolcaimed “patriot” — like many of his brethren — has the flag of the Confederacy in his background? Apparently there are more people than I’d care to believe who are stupid enough to think that one can be both a neo-secessionist and “pro-America”.
According to him and the rest of the far-right, the only way to prevent the “encroachment” of “inferior cultures” is through “intelligent and traditionalist conservative dialogue” (how many contradictions can you fit into one sentence, really?).
In his status updates, he claims that, “Obama = Lenin = Stalin = Hitler… What is that spook doing?” According to Godwin’s Law, he loses. At everything. Unfortunately for thinking people, it seems that it’s not just him who buys into this kind of whackjobbery perpetuated by right-wing pundits — like Limbaugh.
I could go in-depth about the not-at-all subtle differences between the Democratic Party (on the center-left) and Marxist-Leninism (on the far-left), and the differences and outright hatred between Communists and Nazis, but this douche is clearly a gigantic waste of time.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 10, 2009
· Filed under Basic Decency, Culture War, Insanity · Tagged controversy, debate, depressing, douchebaggery, entirely uncalled for, FIRE, First Amendment, free speech, Liberty University, morality war, real america, religion, republican party, stupidity, wtf
In his last post, Tim makes a number of legitimate points, but seems to have missed the last couple of paragraphs of my original post:
Admittedly, their right to freedom of association does cover their right to be total dicks. Undoubtedly, the fact that they are on private property shields them from the righteous fury of First Amendment scholars everywhere. However, that doesn’t preclude me from: 1. exposing them as total dicks; 2. urgings others to do so; and, most importantly, 3. calling for their tax-exempt status to be rescinded.
I’d take issue with anyone who said otherwise (imagine what would happen if we had to let the Klan into shabbos services!). I suppose this would be a more serious matter if “Liberty” “University” faced any other destiny than to embarrass itself into irrelevancy and oblivion.
However, since I think it’s fun to play with ideas (even those with which I disagree), let’s explore some forum analysis.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 9, 2009
· Filed under Basic Decency, Culture War, Insanity, Politics in General, The Supremes · Tagged 'soft fascism', debate, depressing, douchebaggery, entirely uncalled for, God, morality war, stupidity, wtf
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Congress (admittedly, a while ago) reauthorized the Higher Education Act with a (non-legally binding, unfortunately) amendment:
‘(2) It is the sense of Congress that–
‘(A) the diversity of institutions and educational missions is one of the key strengths of American higher education;
‘(B) individual institutions of higher education have different missions and each institution should design its academic program in accordance with its educational goals;
‘(C) an institution of higher education should facilitate the free and open exchange of ideas;
‘(D) students should not be intimidated, harassed, discouraged from speaking out, or discriminated against;
‘(E) students should be treated equally and fairly;…
With this values in mind, let’s take a look at “Liberty” “University’s” “On Campus Living Guide”:
Curfew
Students are to be in their residence halls each night by curfew. Everyone is asked to be courteous at all times concerning noise. No one is permitted to do laundry after curfew. Curfew hours are:
• Sunday through Wednesday – 12:00 a.m. (midnight)
• Thursday – 10:00 pm
• Friday and Saturday – 12:30 am
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June 5, 2009
· Filed under Columbia University, Culture War, Insanity · Tagged bullshit issues, columbia, Columbia University, depressing, economics, entirely uncalled for, good on-goings-on?, new york, recession 2008, selling out, wtf
Last year, I walked in to one of my classes about five minutes before class, got settled in, and waited for the professor to call the class to order and start teaching. He did the former, but he didn’t start the latter right away.
Instead, a representative from Kaplan — the standardized test corporation — was allowed to give a brief presentation about how awesome the Kaplan classes are (I think it was for the LSATs) and, while he did that, the TAs handed out Kaplan fliers.
Apparently, this wasn’t an isolated incident, either. A number of people I’ve talked to about this — as well as a reader who e-mailed us about this growing problem — have also experienced this invasion of our classrooms. You see, what I found eminently frustrating about this was not only that I was essentially part of a captive audience and that I had to deal with seeing even more advertising (I get more than enough living in NYC and on the internet, thanks): the money that I paid to take that class was being used to foist a product upon me.
But what was even more outrageous was the use of University employees (the TAs) to participate in the advertising. When I came to Columbia, I never expected the lifetime of debt to which I acquiesced to pay for the distribution of what I am sure the University administration would describe as “vital” “educational” “materials” or some nonsense. In all fairness to the TAs, however, I am sure they never expected to be the pack mules of Kaplan when they took the job. Probably, it wasn’t even in the job description.
While the University administration might try to justify this obscenely obnoxious practice with the claim that they’re trying to keep the University above water by trying to raise more money, that claim is just laughable (for example, it’s been going on since before the economic crisis). While we’re being forced to pay to watch advertising from corporations such as Kaplan and RedBull (as our reader says), the Spec points out that the athletics department is still raking in millions and millions of dollars.
Keeping dorms open on the weekend (Wallach is now closed Friday through Sunday. Apparently it was also too costly to inform students about the change beforehand.) or our classrooms free from annoying advertisements? Apparently that’s just a luxury. But God forbid that we should cut our athletics spending or PrezBo’s ridiculous salary.
June 4, 2009
· Filed under Basic Decency, Culture War · Tagged free speech, Leonard Law, Liberty University
For those who don’t know, the Leonard Law provides the same First Amendment rights to students at private universities as those who attend public universities. This has ensured an expansion of free speech rights throughout California at private universities while nonetheless allowing them to maintain a modicum of dominion over school policies et cetera. Organizations, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, seem rightly pleased with the law as it allows for them to go after universities which violate the rights of their students.
Yet the law brings up an important issue: doesn’t the law violate the rights of association of California private schools just as much as forcing Liberty University to recognize the College Democrats would? No such action taken by a California private school would be countenanced under that law. And though it does provide an exception for religious schools, why should only religious schools be exempted if the institutional rights issue at hand is over the expressive mission of the university? Once you get to this point, you’re essentially forced to make concession after concession until the law means nearly nothing at all.
One wonders, then, why those who so vehemently hail the right to private property and instituational rights of association would possibly support the Leonard Law, no matter how much they support free speech otherwise.
condron.us
June 4, 2009
· Filed under Basic Decency, Culture War, Election 2008, Insanity · Tagged barack obama, biden, depressing, douchebaggery, entirely uncalled for, good on-goings-on?, morality war, wtf
This post originally appeared in the Columbia Spectator’s Commentariat.
Recently, one of my friends sent me a terrifying YouTube video. What was it? A Russia Today news report on what’s going down in the US regarding our copyright laws.
Apparently, the Obama administration is moving to criminalize illegal music downloading. While it may sound like this has already happened, this isn’t the case at all. In fact, while downloading copyrighted music is “illegal”, it has been almost entirely a civil matter. In legal terms, this means that organizations such as the RIAA have been free to go after whomever they catch downloading music, sue them for ridiculous amounts of money, and leave them a crying mess with no money left. Now, it seems that the US government wants to get in on the deal.
Of course, this shouldn’t come as any surprise to us — it wasn’t that long ago that the Obama administration publicly took the side of the RIAA in approving ridiculous monetary awards ($150,000 per song) in civil cases. That’s right, folks. If you downloaded one song from any major artist, the RIAA can sue you for your entire graduate education. Or, they can threaten you by suing you just enough for your family to sell their house and move to a cardboard box.
Oh, and Vice-President Biden hasn’t exactly had a wonderful record on net neutrality, file-sharing, or even online privacy either. According to the afore-linked article, Vice-President Biden has been “anti-encryption” (because, as the article asserts, encryption makes it hard for the FBI to read your e-mail), and supported making it a felony for playing an illegal version of a game. In other words, if Vice-President Biden had had his way, if your younger brother has played your illegally-downloaded version of Starcraft, he won’t get to vote when he turns 18. Awesome, right?
To be fair, I’m still looking into some of these things further. I haven’t be able to find anything to confirm the Russia Today story, so it may have been a hoax or perhaps simply some bad publicity being put out by the Russian government about the US (something that hasn’t been entirely unknown to happen).
If there’s anyone else who has some additional information about what’s going on in the ever-expanding and ever-more-complicated world of copyright law (which also seems to become more and more relevant to the lives of college students everywhere by the day), please let me know so I can check it out.
