Category Politics

Colbert Endorses BillDo?

Secular Sabotage
This will not come as news to some of you, but ε-Clueful Reader Fez pointed out the blurbs on Bill Donohue’s new book, Secular Sabotage.

The most surprising one is the last one, by none other than über-pundit Stephen Colbert:

“Wake up, America! The secular minority has cut the brake cables on America’s In-God-We-Trust-Mobile™! Not even all 43 of our Christian presidents can save us now.”

Which raises a question: does BillDo not realize that Colbert’s act is just a act, or whether he’s catering to those of his readers who don’t realize that it’s just an act?

At any rate, BillDo hasn’t always been so friendly with Colbert: his 2005 Annual Report of Shit He Got Upset About includes:

February 17
New York, NY—The Comedy Central program, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," ran a segment entitled "This Week in God" that mocked the Catholic Church and its teachings, while poking gentle fun at Muslims and Orthodox Jews. For example, Stephen Colbert, the segment host, after reporting that the Vatican teaches that condom use is immoral, exclaimed, "What would high Catholic Church officials know about immoral sexual conduct?" The segment also featured a wheel with religious symbols on it, one of which was labeled "the Immaculate Contraption known as the God Machine."

(Actually, the segment aired Feb. 15, but who’s counting?)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
This Week in God – The Pope
www.thedailyshow.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:120257
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Health Care Crisis

and

June 6
On "This Week in God," a recurring segment on the Comedy Central program "The Daily Show," Stephen Colbert commented that the Vatican traditionally waits five years after someone dies before the cause of sainthood commences. He noted, however, that Pope Benedict XVI waved it for Pope John Paul II, adding, "what are you going to do about that, bitch?" Colbert then said that the reason why Mother Teresa’s canonization has been held up was due to a film, "Mama T Goes Wild 6: Calcutta Nights." When he said this the program showed a picture of Mother Teresa made to look like she was flashing onlookers.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
This Week in God – The God Trough is Empty
www.thedailyshow.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:120703
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Health Care Crisis
A New Republican Strategy?

Just saw this in my RSS reader:

GOP Uses Job Data to Attack Stimulus

Wall Street Journal

Republicans are using data now? Did they decide that the old strategy
of yelling at town hall meetings and making shit up *cough*Michele*Bachmann*cough* wasn’t working
anymore?

RIP Ted Kennedy

As you’ve no doubt heard,
Ted Kennedy has passed away.
My earliest memory of him is from my college days, when he and Bob
Dole had a five-minute debate program on WTOP that I enjoyed listening
to on my way to school.

He was also the guy who, every year, introduced a bill to raise the
minimum wage. Every time, it got shot down, and every time, he
introduced another one, until one finally passed.

Last, and certainly least, he spoke with a true New England yankee
accent. In an age when it seems that American regional accents are
being eroded, Kennedy’s speech had a certain exotic quality about it.

Some Bloody Obvious Observations About Health Care

In all the recent talk about US health care reform, one comparison
that hasn’t been made enough, IMO, is with public schools.

Yes, US public schools have their share of problems (don’t get me
started on students who can’t find the US on a map), but they do serve
two important functions: they’re a backstop and a floor.

Backstop: if, for whatever reason, you can’t send your kid to a
private school — perhaps your school of choice is too far away,
or too expensive, or the uniform clashes dreadfully with her hair, or
whatever — there’s always the public school option. That is, you
never have to choose between education you can’t afford and no
education, only between education and better education.

Right now, too many people are having to choose between health
insurance they can’t afford, and no health insurance.

Floor: private schools can remain in business only if they suck less
than public schools. If you’re of the “government can’t do anything
right” school of thought, this sets the bar low enough that it
shouldn’t be a problem.

But on the whole, public schools haven’t driven private schools out of
business, any more than public libraries killed off Blockbuster or
Netflix. the US Postal Service has killed off UPS and FedEx. In fact,
those two came along after the USPS, and thrived because USPS
was widely seen as being sucky.

So a government-run health insurance plan would define the lowest
level of quality that a plan would have to achieve. If your insurance
company sucks more than the federal government, you don’t deserve to
remain in business.

Backstop again: a lot of jobs that the government does are ones that
are unprofitable, but ought to be done. When No Child Left Behind
required schools to show how much bang they were giving for the
education buck, a lot of private schools tried to dump their special
needs students, simply because kids who need special attention or
staff training are less profitable than average kids. Public schools
don’t have that option. Again, by analogy, a public plan should cover
those people too unprofitable for private plans (I’m thinking Stephen
Hawking without the wealth and fame).

Now feel free to leave a comment saying how fucking obvious all of
this is.

Skeptics Easier to Control than Republicans?

On Thursday, Max Pappas boasted on Hardball how his organization, FreedomWorks, mobilizes right-wingers to go to town hall meetings. These are the loudmouthed WATBs whose only aim is to disrupt these meetings to shut down any discussion of health care reform.

Then on Friday, on C-SPAN, he said that there was nothing he could do about how his members were behaving.

The passions are so deep about this issue that we can’t send out an email that says “calm down.”

In contrast, the Student Secular Alliance recently organized a trip down to Ken Ham’s Hebrew Mythology “Museum”. The group included PZ Myers and over 300 atheists, freethinkers, and skeptics — people notoriously hard to organize.

Before the trip, PZ posted this:

Here’s what I expect: EVERYONE in our group will be firm, rational, and will not shy away from asking hard questions. You will feel free to wear some distinguishing clothing — a scarlet A, a Darwin fish, a t-shirt, something so that we can tell we are members of the same group. You will discuss the material on display with your peers, but with other visitors to the “museum” if and only if they invite it.

There are a number of things you will not do, however.

Do not show up wearing obscenities or particularly abusive articles of clothing. Dress casual, but look good — you are setting an example. Pro-science t-shirts are excellent, t-shirts with naked lesbians masturbating with bibles will give them an excuse to throw you out, so don’t do it. The SSA won’t even give you a ticket if you show up looking like you want to brawl.

You will not be disruptive. This is an information gathering mission that will make you a better informed individual to criticize bad ideas. Do not interfere with other visitors’ ability to examine the place. Ask questions only where appropriate. Collect questions that you can ask of any of the real scientists who will be in our group. Do not get into loud arguments. If a discussion starts getting angry on either side I want you to be the ones to back off.

Remember, if you are calm, civil, and well-behaved, and you tour the “museum”, we win. If you are calm, civil, and well-behaved, and the security guards throw you out because they don’t like the fact that you’re an atheist, we win. If you are angry, rude, and cause trouble that gives them a reasonable excuse to throw you out, we lose, and I will be very pissed off at you.

(bold added.)

The result? The Inside Science News Service published a story with the telling headline “Tour of Creation Museum Quieter Than Expected“.

In the most noticeable moment of noticeable conflict, Derek Rogers, a computer science major at Dalhouise University in Nova Scotia, Canada, was detained by guards for wearing a shirt with a slogan recently plastered on buses by activist groups that read “there’s probably no God, so get over it.” He was escorted to the bathroom and ordered to flip the shirt inside-out.

“One family of religious people told me that I had ruined their trip, and they drove all the way from Virginia,” said Rogers.

As far as I can tell, that was the one and only “disruptive” event. And if it really did go down as described (and it probably did, since it’s mostly confirmed by Answers in Genesis), 300 skeptics and freethinkers can make it through a palace of lies without causing a scene. (Hell, even I managed to sit through one of Kent Hovind’s performances without bursting into laughter.)

But Max Pappas can’t send a message to his mailing list explaining the whole “moral high ground” thing.

Way to go, wingnuts. Way to show the country that you’re a bunch of whiny crybabies with no ideas. The sooner you run off into the woods to await the Rapture, the happier we’ll all be.

I Am the Very Model of a Single-Issue Demagogue

On Monday, in a post entitled
“Surgeon General Pick Is Excellent“,
BillDo wrote:

President Obama picked the right person to be the new Surgeon General. Dr. Benjamin is a hero to all those victimized by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Her tireless and selfless efforts are a model for all physicians.

Dr. Benjamin is an African-American Catholic public servant who has been recognized by Pope Benedict XVI: the Holy Father awarded her the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal for distinguished service. When the pope celebrated Mass in Washington, D.C. in 2008, Dr. Benjamin was there to receive his blessing. Moreover, she has also received the National Caring Award, an honor which was inspired by Mother Teresa. “Church was always a very important part of my life,” she told Catholic Digest. “I believe I am carrying on the healing ministry of Christ. I feel obligated to help continue his works.”

Kudos to President Obama and congratulations to Dr. Benjamin. She should sail through the Senate.

Of course, that was then, before he knew what evil roiled in the
depths of her damned soul. The very next day, he
posted:

at the same news conference that the
president used to announce his choice of Dr. Benjamin, he pushed hard
for a new health reform bill. […] A central issue is whether
abortion services will be mandated as part of the plan.

[…] a new Advisory Committee will decide which services will be covered. And who is in charge of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee? The Surgeon General.

Dr. Benjamin should not wait until the Senate considers her
appointment to let the public know where she stands. As a practicing
Catholic, she cannot chair a committee that would support mandated
abortion coverage in employer insurance plans. There is no “common
ground” on this issue.

Don’t quote me regulations. I co-chaired the committee that reviewed the recommendation to revise the color of the book that regulation’s in.

So there you have it. BillDo is explicitly mixing religion and
politics. And telling Dr. Benjamin what she needs to believe, and how
she’s supposed to practice her religion. Not only won’t he allow her
to have an abortion, or support the right of others to decide whether
they should get one, he also can’t allow her to serve on a committee
that regulates the rules for paying for abortions that other people
might or might not choose to have. Have we reached six degrees of
separation from the real issue yet?

Pointless Photo Op Not So Pointless?

I tend to be rather cynical about events like the
United We Serve kickoff,
in which cabinet secretaries let themselves be photographed doing
community service type jobs, such as Trade Representative Kirk feeding
homeless people at a soup kitchen, HUD secretary Donovan helping to
rebuild a home destroyed by hurricane Katrina, and so forth. I always
imagine them tossing their apron or gloves on the ground and rushing
off the moment the cameras have left.

But then there’s Rep. Tom Davis’s
advice
to a radio show caller who said she couldn’t get health insurance
because she’s 60 years old and has diabetes. He started by saying that
he sympathizes with her, because hey, his 401(k) took a beating as
well.

So maybe the sorts of photo-ops I mentioned above can be good, in that
they force people at the highest levels of government to mingle with
the hoi polloi and at least look like they’re doing something
approaching manual labor, for as long as the cameras are rolling.

And while they may be and remain patricians who will never have to do
another hour’s manual work in their life, and who will never want for
money, at least they may gain enough of a clue to realize that there
are people out there with real problems, ones that they can’t fix just
by finding a better stockbroker or cutting down on how often they eat
out.

I hope that’s not too much to ask.

Should There Even Be Hate-Crime Laws?

Congress is currently considering the
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act,
also known as the
Matthew Shepard
Act.

On the face of it, hurting someone for being
gay/black/left-handed/whatever is a terrible thing, so it should be
illegal.

But hurting people is already covered by other laws. And should
beating someone up for being gay be considered a worse crime than
beating up a random person on the street? It doesn’t seem so to me.
Yes, motive comes into play during criminal proceedings, but usually
it’s to determine things like whether the defendant is guilty of
murder or merely manslaughter. But being a homophobe isn’t a crime.
Just look at Fred Phelps. So why should a crime motivated by bigotry
be worse than the same crime, committed for some other reason?

The Human Rights Campaign presents
a possible answer:

A hate crime occurs when the perpetrator of the crime intentionally selects the victim because of who the victim is. Hate crimes rend the fabric of our society and fragment communities because they target an entire community or group of people, not just the individual victim.

In other words, the people who killed Matthew Shepard commited two
offenses: one against Shepard, obviously; but also a threat to the gay
community: “Look out, homos: you’re next!”

But that, too, would seem to be covered by other laws. If someone
killed a stockbroker — specifically sought out a finance worker
because he wanted to punish someone for the economic meltdown —
should that be prosecuted the same way as a hate crime? In both cases,
a person has been harmed, and a class of people has been threatened.
In fact, didn’t AIG have to take down the signs on some of its offices
because its
employees were being threatened
by people angry over the bailout? So why limit this sort of
legislation to those groups that have been discriminated against and
harassed in the past?

The Matthew Shepard act has some other provisions:

The Act provides the DOJ with the ability to aid state and local jurisdictions either by lending assistance or, where local authorities are unwilling or unable to act, by taking the lead in investigations and prosecutions of bias-motivated, violent crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury. The LLEHCPA also makes grants available to state and local communities to combat violent crimes committed by juveniles, train law enforcement officers or assist in state and local investigations and prosecutions of bias-motivated crimes.

Why is this necessary?:

The Laramie, Wyoming Sheriff’s Office had to furlough five deputies in order to cover the more than $150,000 that it cost to investigate Matthew Shepard’s murder. Yet when Jasper, Texas investigated the lynching of James Byrd, Jr., it received $284,000 in federal funds because Byrd’s murder was motivated by race, rather than sexual orientation.

(via
Human Rights First
and
Think Progress)

Providing federal assistance to state and local police departments
that don’t have the resources to investigate a crime seems like a good
idea. But the Shepard Act seems to be adding more special cases when a
more general solution is needed.

The problem isn’t that that the law addresses one unfairly-despised
minority and not another. The problem is cops not having the money and
manpower to do a good job and bring those responsible to justice. If
someone shoots up a post office in Smalltown, Indiana, and the
Sheriff’s department can’t conduct a proper investigation, will they
be denied federal assistance because no one thought to include postal
workers in this bill?

Maybe I’m wrong, but ultimately the Shepard bill seems to be trying to
solve real problems the wrong way. It’s not that I don’t think hurting
and threatening gays should be a crime. I just think that it shouldn’t
be limited to any one minority or handful of minorities; that it’s
just as bad to hurt and threaten anyone.

And if local police departments can’t bring criminals to justice
because they lack the resources to investigate properly, by all means,
let’s help them. But let’s not do this in a hate-crime bill simply
because the last time this problem came up, it involved a hate crime.

Why Gay Marriage Is Exclusionary

The reason I read Catholic League releases is that BillDo’s stage persona, that of the hypersensitive apoplectic paranoiac stamping his little feet is amusing. Lately, though, he’s been in a bit of a slump, his tirades not quite over the top enough to be funny.

So I was pleased to see this item from last week:

For all the happy talk about inclusion, gay marriage is positively exclusionary in its effects. How so? Next month we will celebrate Mother’s Day. How do two men tell their legally acquired children that they are excluded from celebrating this special day? How do two women tell their legally acquired children that they are excluded from celebrating Father’s Day?

Stop teh gays from marrying, won’t you? Do it for the children. And for the gay parents who don’t want to explain things to their kids.

NOM Ad Parody

$NOM_ad =~ s/gay/interracial/ ==

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC4B4LknF90&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

I think this perfectly illustrates what’s wrong with the
original NOM ad.

(HT Cyde Weys.)

(PS: Amusingly enough, the song that was playing when I got this link was Foreigner’s I Want to Know What Love Is.)