Thursday, April 30, 2009

Political semantics

Some words have had their meanings changed over the past few years in the political world, but as far as I can tell, this is what they really mean.

BIGOT - Someone who disagrees with me.

CONSERVATIVE - Someone who believes in the Constitution, and that the individual is more important the government. And didn't vote for Obama.

FASCIST - Someone who disagrees with me who wants to pass laws about it.

HATE - The only emotion of people who disagree with me.

HITLER - The guy who holds views opposite of mine. And if your views are opposite of mine, guess who you then, by default, agree with?

HYPOCRITE - Someone who reacts one way when their guy does it, but completely opposite when the other guy does it. See also: pundit, reporter, spokesman, talking-head.

INTOLERANCE - How those who disagree with me plan to proceed.

KNUCKLE-DRAGGING - An action reflective of those who disagree with me.

LIBERAL - Someone who believes in the Constitution, and that the individual is more important the government. And voted for Obama.

MODERATE - Someone who believes in the Constitution, and that the individual is more important the government. And would switch parties if it helped him get re-elected.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Perez Hilton vs. Miss California

The Miss USA Pageant, which has received more publicity off this than anything that's happened to them in over a decade, can go down two roads. One road is to warn contestants in advance that all of their opinions must be politically correct or they will be disqualified. The other road can be to no longer invite misogynist judges. It'll be interesting to see what road they take.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Janeane Garofalo hate-mongering again

First, part of her interview from the Austin Chronicle publicizing Ratatouille:

What I took most from the film … was respect for those that are different. Do not react with fear and anger at “the other.” Do not try to eradicate the other, and don’t rob them of their dignity. You can work much better together than you can apart. The rats were afraid of the humans and had many myths built up about their evil, and the humans were afraid of the rats and had many myths built up about their evil – most of which were untrue on both sides. As they overcame their fear of one another, they focused quite peacefully in order to [create] something better than they would have on their own.


And now some of her quotes from Countdown with Keith Olbermann regarding the April 15 tea parties:

“This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks.”

” … the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring.”

“I didn’t know there were so many racists left. I didn’t know that. I — you know, because as I’ve said, the Republican hype and the conservative movement has now crystallized into the white power movement.”


So... rats deserve more understanding than non-Air America listeners, and if you think the government spends too much, you're a subhuman skinhead.

Why the bias against tea parties?

Personally I don't get why there's such animosity by a few against Barack Obama. Just as the hate against George W. Bush escalated to mouth-foaming fury by some, there's a handful who've let their rhetoric get out of hand for Obama. Seriously, had I gone to a tea party, one thing I would have done there is make sure there weren't any extreme signs up.

1) I'd point out to them that comparing Obama to Hitler would be the only sign that would make the news, and therefore make everyone look crazy.
2) I'd suspect some might be liberals trying to make the tea parties look bad.

The extremes are what's going to make the news. I believe the same reasons Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington are left-wing icons coincide with the success Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin make with their over-the-top rhetoric. Huffington summed up the tea parties as an excuse for hate-mongering. But I'd expect no less from her. I'd expect no less from David Shuster to use the tea parties as an excuse for junior-high jokes about tea-bagging. And I applaud Joe Scarborough for calling out his own network on it.

I didn't expect as much coverage to tilt left-ward from the mainstream media as it did. CNN acted like it wants to be MSNBC2 with this story, and maybe it's because they're now fourth in the cable-news ratings. There is very little news left. If you want to know events with a Republican spin, you go to Fox News. If you want to know events with a Democratic spin, you go to MSNBC or ABC or CNN or CBS or Comedy Central. (Jon Stewart's research team is only rivalled by Meet the Press). Headline News still has some good straight stuff, Lou Dobbs and Nancy Grace aside. And while I thought Tim Russert was the best, David Gregory may yet grow into the role of attack-dog to both sides.

So the "media" - this giant shadowy thing - is coming to Obama's defense. And since the tea parties were largely grass-roots, there aren't effective spokespeople to underline three times the point, that spending grew to an all-time high under Bush, then the Democrats took Congress and it went even higher, then Obama got elected, and spending will quadruple.

I think the point should be yelled loud and clear that Congress is the problem, that the only way to truly get change in Washington is to change your representation in Washington. All 50 states should look long and hard at their senators and congressional reps. I'm in Utah's 3rd, and we now have a rookie (Jason Chaffetz) in there. We have two GOP senators in our largely Republican state, but Sen. Bennett, running to serve a fourth term in 2010, is going to get challenged in the primary because we can only reform the system by starting in our own house. It is my hope that the good people of Massacusetts and Connecticut can find some Democrats to run against Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, get some of these entrenched, cynical politicians out of there.

No, I didn't go to a tea party. Byzantine as the tax system is right now, I have a disabled daughter, and my family would have been in a galaxy of financial hurt without Medicaid. No one should have to choose between bankruptcy and keeping their child alive, and thanks to Medicaid, we don't need to have that discussion.

P.S. - is it just me, or do the extreme right-wing and left-wing have a lot more in common with each other than centrists? Stalinist communism is considered the ultimate left-wing nightmare and Mussolini fascism is considered the ultimate right-wing nightmare (even though Jonah Goldberg would argue that's left-wing too), but don't they have a ton more in common with each other than with a Democratic Republic?