Tea Party Schizophrenia: A true mental disease

In a recent poll, it was found that supporters of the Tea Party movement were likely to support the Christian Conservative agenda.

"While the loosely organized Tea Party movement has focused largely on shrinking the size of government and other fiscal issues, its backers are more likely to support government restrictions on gay marriage and other social issues, the Public Religion Research Institute found in its American Values Survey."

This is, in a nutshell, just more proof of how bat-shit crazy these people are. It's not that they want less government, it's not that they want their concept of "moral values" forced upon the citizens of these United States, it's that they want both. They want to have their proverbial cake and eat it too. Except, the cake is a lie. It's always a lie.

They want less government interference in regulating things that keep us safe. They want more government meddling into the private lives of homosexuals, wanting the government to pass laws to keep them from being able to marry or share their partner's insurance benefits, some going so far as to say that laws should be passed making homosexual acts/partnerships illegal. They want less government funding of education (wanting to dismantle the Department of Education and quit funding college loans and grants, because ask any slave master from the 19th century about the best way to keep people as chattel). They want more government interference with the bodies of women, to tell them that they must have children, whether they want them or not, whether they are mentally and emotionally fit to have them or not, whether they've been raped and abused or not.

It's really a complete schizophrenia, to sit there and say that the government should have no influence in the corporate lives of businesses but at the same time that same government should be in our bedrooms telling us what to do, who to be with and forcing women to carry a pregnancy they don't want, or is dangerous to their health, to term. I'll call it for what it is. It's goddamned fascism, pure and bleeding simple. It's so Orwellian, it's almost un-fucking-believable, for these ass-hats to sit there and scream that they are the denizens of freedom and democracy, and at the same time wanting to put their jackboots at the throats of their fellow Americans to make them follow their own twisted version of "morality".

Christian Flag Taken Down in North Carolina

In North Carolina, a flap is going on over the Christian flag flying at a veterans' memorial. The local citizens are upset that the city removed the flag that was flying on public property after a veteran of the war in Afghanistan complained about it.

In response the local citizenry has decided to fly the flag themselves in protest, which of course is their right on private property. They are calling for the flag to be put back up, it being lost on them that, not only is it against the separation of church and state for a single religion to be promoted by the State, but that it's just plain rude and a slap in the face of all those who died so that we would all have the right to believe (or not) whatever we want.

But you know what, I have a great idea. Let them put it back up, and then let them put up all other religious flags too, one of every kind the city can find. Because I guarantee that the second a flag with a pentagram or star and crescent goes up there, they'll decide that it's best to not have any religious flags flying there at all.

You have an Idiocracy, if you can keep it...

You may have heard recently that a Pew Forum poll showed that atheist/agnostics scored higher on questions about religion than others. The press has been talking about what it means, etc. yaddy yadda yadda. Well, you know what I think this poll shows? That Americans are stupid. The highest average score (which was among the atheists/agnostics) was a 62%, which when I was in school was a big fat F. That means a bunch of people didn't know crap about religion and few knew a whole lot.

And Diane Winston over at the Huffington Post declares that it's really not important to know these things.

"But really, how important is it to know that Jonathan Edwards was an 18th-century revivalist or that nirvana is the Buddhist experience of freedom from suffering? The focus on factoids obscures a central challenge of the 21st century: negotiating the absolute conflict of multiple religious absolutes."

Well, it's kind of difficult to "negotiate the absolute conflict[s] of multiple religious absolutes" if you don't know shit about any of it. I find that a lot of people in this country are willfully ignorant and make it a point to say that they "don't need to know" anything. Yes, perhaps it is true that you don't need to know any of this stuff to go down to Wal-Mart and go shopping, and stop in at the McDonald's on the way home and stuff your face with a Big Mac and fries (mmmm, fries...). Anyway, it's kinda important when dealing with other people that you have some inkling of what they believe and why and what has happened before now.

In fact, only 2% of people got what would average to an A on it. The questions aren't hard either, they're things that one ought to know from just reading crap on the internet. Or should have learned in a general history/sociology class in college or high school.

You know, you gotta wonder about these things, either that or the intelligence of the people who take them. Only 28% of white evangelicals knew that Protestants teach salvation through faith alone. Only 57% of Jewish people knew that Maimonides was Jewish. I mean, come on, I knew that, he's one of the most important Jewish scholars ever. They did say that the higher the education, the more questions people got right, with college grads getting an average of 20.6 correct while people with a high school diploma or less only got an average of 12.8. Again though, those are averages, and a 20.6 is still an F.

What's funny is only 94% of atheists knew what an atheist is. I mean, that's really, really simple and 6% of self-professed atheists got it wrong. Maybe they just didn't bother reading the questions? I suppose that's a possibility.

The survey also apparently included general knowledge questions. Only 59% of people could name the Vice President. What's scarier than that, is that most of them probably vote...

Let Them Eat Cake

So, on BookTV they're going to be talking about a book, "Generosity Unbound: How American Philanthropy Can Strengthen the Economy and Middle Class". Whenever I hear something that sounds like it's advocating making the filthy rich, richer, alarm bells go off in my head. Now, I obviously have not read the book, and to be honest, probably wouldn't waste my time now that I have looked up who the author is. Or rather, who she's affiliated with. Her name is Claire Gaudiani, and she's a senior fellow at a non-profit, the 'Institute for American Values' (guess who's probably paying her money to say that there should be no regulation of non-profits, you get three guesses). They don't want divorce, they want "traditional values" (again, I say alarm bells go off in my head every time I hear these words), and they have a 'Center for Marriage and Families' that promotes such homophobic people like Maggie Gallagher. They say that gay marriage isn't good for children, and I think, imply that it would be better for a woman to stay with a husband who's beating her "for the sake of the children." Bull shit. Absolute utter tripe.

I don't need to say that the last thing we need to do is make the uber-rich, richer is it? What is this? Serfdom? In America? So that the poor can go and ask for alms at a church service like our ancestors did in Europe seven hundred years ago? What's next, are we going to have to swear fealty to some overlord? Really?

This shit is the antithesis of everything democratic. Making the rich, richer, does NOT strengthen the middle class. A lack of regulation means that those with the money get away with things they shouldn't, and they trod all over the poor. No middle class means no more democracy. No middle class and you have France prior to the French Revolution (gee, how did that turn out for the uber-wealthy?) or Mexico today. And they're trying to pander to the Center and Left by saying that it's "for everyone". Bull shit. I call it a bunch of lies. They can take their right-wing, facist tendencies and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.