Posts tagged wtf
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 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
Read the rest of this entry »
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, 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.
June 3, 2009
· Filed under Basic Decency, Culture War, Insanity · Tagged douchebaggery, wtf, depressing, stupidity, morality war, social conservatism, democratic party, Basic Decency, ideology, secessionland, Liberty University, free speech, right of association
An Open Letter to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
I was disappointed to discover FIRE’s rather relaxed stance on the infringements on the rights of the Liberty University young Democrats. As a long-time supporter of FIRE, soon-to-be-intern, and free speech absolutist, I was surprised to see that FIRE seemed to view Liberty University’s blatant admission of its willingness to abridge basic rights of students as somehow ameliorating its conduct.
I was surprised not only because I so frequently see my own views espoused by FIRE, but also because of what I had read in the Guide to Free Speech on Campus, in which a number of passages had led me to assume that such blatantly undemocratic conduct would not go without excoriating denouncement by FIRE.
First, FIRE declares that “freedom and moral responsibility for the exercise of one’s freedom are ways of being human” (FIRE Guide to Free Speech on Campus, 2). One would assume that openly admitting to one’s atrocities would make them no less acceptable, especially when the things upon which the ironically-named Liberty U. infringes go to the very essence of its students’ humanity.
In fact, only a few pages later you urge students to make both philosophical as well as legal arguments in favor of their free speech rights — noting John Stewart Mill’s essay, On Liberty. Interestingly, I had to read that same essay this past year for one of my courses, and both enjoyed and agreed with it thoroughly. In that essay, Mill makes a number of convincing arguments. None of them, however, have anything to do with whether the government, or individual (interestingly, Mill — along with Tocqueville — was one of the first to identify possible harm to individual rights coming from non-governmental sources, such as society and other individuals) is blatant or covert in its attempt to abridge the rights of those whose rights it wishes to abridge. In fact, one imagines that would make it only more nefarious. If, then, free speech rights are about, well, rights — not, instead, the status of the institution — then why isn’t FIRE raising Hell about this?
Read the rest of this entry »
November 13, 2008
· Filed under Basic Decency, Election 2008, Internet, LGBT Issues · Tagged depressing, douchebaggery, election, Election 2008, fox news, gay rights, mormons, proposition 8, same-sex marriage, wtf
In one of FoxNews.com’s latest columns, Greg Gutfield demonstrates a remarkable ability to be a gigantic assclown. I’ll quote some of the most offensive sections:
Any moron who remembers Eddy Murphy’s stand-up routine knows that blacks haven’t always warmed to gay causes. They probably also don’t enjoy comparisons between their civil rights struggle and gays not being allowed to marry. Yeah, I know gays have been treated like crap over the years, but they were never slaves, unless it was requested on Craigslist
I’m not arguing that gay people have been more oppressed in the United States than blacks have (though internationally is another matter), but this paragraph was nonetheless pretty offensive.
Furthermore, while this guy wonders why gay people have been “venting their rage at white churches, but oddly, not the black ones,” he totally ignores the possibility that there might be gay black people.
He then goes on to say:
And remember, it was David Geffen who helped picked Obama and it was Obama’s main supporters who voted for Prop 8. So blame Geffen, not the Mormons.
Why shouldn’t I blame the Mormons? These are the same people who didn’t believe that black people have souls until 1978. More topical, these are the people who donated 22.8 million dollars to Yes on Prop 8. They mobilized their members to travel to California to campaign against it. They had statements made in every single one of their churches. So why shouldn’t I be pissed at them?
Did the minority votes put the yes on prop 8 vote over the top? Yes, they did. But if it hadn’t been for the rampant douchebaggery perpetrated by the Mormon Church, they — and millions of older white voters — wouldn’t have been duped into voting in favor of it.
October 24, 2008
· Filed under Basic Decency, NY State, Poll Analysis · Tagged aids, douchebaggery, nanny state, nannygate, new york, ny state politics, SEX!, STDs, wtf
On the website from which I pulled the “Nannygate” story (i.e. the topic of the previous post), there is a poll relating to the article. The question posed to readers is this:
Should people be banned from using an MP3 player, cell phone or Blackberry while crossing the street in New York City?
An overwhelming majority of people opposed the measure. 73% of respondants (1595 of them) agreed with the option “No, it’s a free country”; an additional 11% responded “No, there’s no real risk for anyone”. This puts the percentage of people in opposition at 84%. This is compared to the 17% in favor (responding 11% for “Yes, they’re putting themselves at great risk” and 6% for “Yes, they’re putting drivers at great risk”).
I find the wording of these options to be particularly interesting. While, thankfully, 84% of people apparently recognized that this legislation is ridiculous, there’s still 17% of the population that seems to believe that either “putting oneself” or “putting others” at “great risk” warrants legislation by that fact alone.
Granted, the belief that putting others at “great risk” is far more valid than the notion that legislation should be enacted to prevent an individual from putting his- or herself at great risk, it’s still somewhat disturbing. Perhaps the best example of why this is silly is this: sexually transmitted diseases — including HIV, the virus which leads to AIDS (AIDS isn’t communicable, it’s a condition; HIV, the virus which precipitates the condition, is communicable) — are on the rise in the United States. Since having sexual intercourse without wearing protection greatly enables the transmission of these diseases and putts both individuals and others at “great risk”, should the government either prohibit sexual intercourse before marriage or mandate the use of condoms during sexual intercourse? Of course not. Anyone who proposed such a ridiculous measure would (likely) be laughed out of any legislature.
Obama Doesn’t Care About Gay People
November 23, 2008 · Filed under Basic Decency, Commentariat, Election 2008, LGBT Issues · Tagged barack obama, bill clinton, congress, democratic party, DOMA, don't ask don't tell, douchebaggery, gay rights, proposition 8, same-sex marriage, wtf
This post originally appeared in the Commentariat, the opinion blog of the Columbia Spectator.
Obama To Delay Repeal of DADT
Sound familiar? It sure does. After Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 he “agreed to postpone for six months his plan to suspend the military ban on gays.” Instead, we got Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act.
I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with this — DADT is far less important than same-sex marriage, queer youth homelessness, and AIDS — if it weren’t yet another indicator of Obama’s complete apathy regarding queer people.
The fact that he barely whispered his opposition to Prop 8, his (and Biden’s) particularly vocal opposition to same-sex marriage, and his seeming inability to muster the courage to squeak out a few phrases about other queer issues in general (even Edwards spoke out about queer youth homelessness) does not augur well for America’s gay rights movement.
Lastly, I think that anyone who was expecting major changes to come once Obama takes office will be forced to do a reality check very soon. Like I mentioned elsewhere, he doesn’t have a single representative of labor amongst his economic advisors — they’re all upper-class white men (except for one upper-class white woman).
Obama is not the socialist so many people painted him to be.
Bill Clinton didn’t care about gay people, and neither does Obama. It may be time for queer people to look to the Green Party as the next champion of full equal rights.
Comments (9) »