Herman Cain: The American dream is under attack…we are on the attack

“The American dream is under attack, that’s the bad news,” said Cain while speaking at the forum. “The good news is we are on the attack. We have got to lead this nation from an entitlement society to an empowerment society. We must defend those principles this nation was founded on.”

Except that his party is the one that’s attacking everything America stands for and was founded on.

From religious freedom to voting rights to representational government, they have bills pending to set it all aside.

Michigan Set To Enact Sweeping ‘Financial Martial Law’ Bill

The War Against the Republic: The Battle Of Madison

Milwaukee Ald. Milele Coggs says bill would give Wisconsin the most restrictive voter ID law in the nation

Lawmaker Behind South Dakota’s ‘Justifiable Homicide’ Bill Defends Measure [UPDATE]

English-only bill could create civil rights problems, groups say

2011 Wis SJR10 – Continuity of state and local gov. operations

The republican party is aggressively terminating the Great Experiment, with strong support from people who don’t even know what the experiment is.

If the Tea Party really wanted to take back our country, they should be fighting the corporations instead of shilling for them.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Herman Cain: First Amendment ‘Doesn’t Say People Can’t Have Religion In Government’

Obama’s Soulless Obsession With Science and Math

Like a zealot, the Rabbi has willfully misinterpr­eted what President Obama said. What a sad little bunny.

If he wants to talk about moral decline in America, let’s talk about the fundamenta­l failure of religion in it’s role in society as teacher of morals. Maybe if Rabbi Schmuck and others like him had taken care of their own business instead of expending so much of their time, effort, and resources corrupting government and attacking the rights of others – and generally pissing in someone else’s pool – maybe our sense of community would not be dissolving­.

Maybe we would be making progress in the war on drugs. Maybe white collar crime would not have driven us into a major recession. Maybe most of America could feel secure in their rights and liberties instead of having to actively defend them at the expense of individual productivi­ty and national competitiv­eness.

Maybe Rabbis would not need to fill their statements with fallacies, innuendo, and prejudice in order to express their opinions. This supposed spiritual leader is actually adding to the moral decline of the country.

The worst part of his rant may be that it’s based on the idea that the government should be the teacher of social morality, not just the instrument of it. This is nanny-stat­e thinking. Education, including instructio­n in morality, begins in the home.

They place the blame on government to justify replacing democracy with dominionis­m. Not terribly American of them.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Nobody Should Need A Driver’s License – Or Civilization

Republican Georgia state legislator Bobby Franklin thinks that driver’s licenses impose undue restrictions on the right of citizens to travel. So he’s proposed legislation to stop the state from issuing them.

That’s not the only eyebrow raising legislation Franklin has introduced: he’s also proposed bills requiring the exclusive use of gold and silver as tender in payment of debts by or to the state; a bill seeking to eliminate crop management regulations; another bill banning forced vaccinations; a bill to stop the collection of the Georgia income tax; another to stop all property taxes and yet another to end eminent domain.

He has also sought to abolish the State Road and Tollway Authority, the Department of Health and Human Services and any social services Georgia provides.

In one bill that reads as his philosophical statement on the roots of government, Franklin laments the fall of religious and family authority. The bill — called the “Life, Liberty, and Property Restoration Act” — begins by acknowledging the existence of “an almighty, everlasting, creator God, the God of the Bible, the only God there is.” The bill then notes that God created “four, not one spheres of government”: self-government, family government, church government, and finally “the fourth, and least” — civil government.

I think that the last election may have brought batshit conservatism to critical mass.

This guy is in desperate need of deprogramming. He seems to have lost all understanding of how society works. It takes a real conservative to elect someone who has completely abandoned the Constitution even though he had to have sworn allegiance to it before taking his elected office.

His legislation is an insult to the dreams and hard work of the founding fathers, and the sacrifice of all those who gave their lives in the creation and defense if this country.
Georgia Republican: Nobody Should Need A Driver’s License

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Peter King: I’ll Hold Hearings On Radical Islam

They condemned the rightwing extremist threat assessment last year for thoroughly partisan reasons – until a soldier shot up a military base and proved them wrong.

I remember when innocent American groups were investigat­ed, even infiltrate­d, in the republican search for terrorists­.

Texas republican­s have mandated a rewrite of history to claim that Joe McCarthy was vindicated and a patriot instead of a politician who destroyed careers and ruined lives for the sake of power.

We need American Muslims to stand up and oppose the use of Islam as a tool of terrorism, but conservati­ves seem determined to alienate them in every way possible. American Muslims are treated with suspicion and distrust, investigat­ed, alienated, harassed and ignored. Mosque constructi­on is resisted, and efforts to bridge the understand­ing gap have been crucified.

Of course they are not jumping at the chance to aid their own persecutio­n. They are Americans, and deserve to be treated like Americans. National security is in their best interest too, let’s keep it that way.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Shimkus, GOP Rep. Who Denies Climate Change On Religious Grounds, Could Lead House Environmental Policy

Considering how often they talk about personal responsibility, republicans usually find a way to rationalize evading responsibility for their own actions.

This is one of the most mind-numbingly irresponsible assertions I have ever heard. After all the “personal responsibility” lectures, now they give us the “hell no to responsibility, God won’t let us fail” line? No wonder they are so cool to the START treaty.

Given the dangers of hydraulic fracturing and the growing demand for natural gas, and a public programmed to believe we have easy access to huge reserves if only the government would “get out of the way”, the republicans are poised to give license the the oil industry to literally destroy this country from the ground water up.

Republicans keep coming up with new ways to hurt this country beyond the wildest dreams of our worst enemies, and still make the ideas popular with the masses.

The more religious zealots strengthen their grip on their spiritual world and loosen their grip on the physical world, the more they fit the definition of insane.

How is John Shimkus any different from a suicide bomber, when it comes to personal responsibility and concern for consequences?

This is a prime example of why religion and government are incompatible.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The more they strengthen their grip on their spiritual world and loosen their grip on the physical world, the more they fit the definition of insane.

How is John Shimkus any different than a suicide bomber, when it comes to personal responsibility and concern for consequences?

This is a prime example of why religion and government are incompatible.

Michele Bachmann Raises Record $5.4 Million In Three Months

Her support has nothing to do with her qualifications as a Representative and everything to do with her notoriety. She is a standard-bearer and symbol for the far right, a leader of their extremism and embodiment of their ineffectiveness and irresponsibility in matters of true governance.

She believes that we should be a theocracy, and her success is a testament to the incompatibility of theocracy and democracy. Christian fundamentalist money loves her.

She wants to dismantle government of the people in favor of corporate domination, no matter how irresponsible and destructive that is. Corporate money loves her.

Her district has the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the state. Little of her money comes from actual constituents.

She has formed a Tea Party Caucus in the House, and effectively dared republicans to join or else. She is accumulating power without any real accomplishment behind it. She says and does anything for political gain. She is the embodiment of what is wrong with American politics.

Those who vote for her fall into three categories:
1) Those who share her extreme ideology. They will vote for her no matter what.
2) Hardline republicans who vote the party no matter the candidate. Long-time republicans are starting to defect in her case as she becomes too extreme for them to accept anymore.
3) Those who don’t pay attention to politics and just vote the party or the name they remember or the ad they believe. A few facts make all the difference for them.

Michele Bachmann is antithetical to our survival as a country. She is pro-religious persecution and pro-corporatocracy, and anti-everything else.

• Anti-worker
• Anti-consumer
• Anti-environment
• Anti-freedom of religion other than hers.
• Anti-civil rights that offend her personal prejudices.

Her economic policies have never worked, even for her, yet she clings to them like stone tablets.

She is exactly the sort of politician that we need to get out of government.

More on 2010 Elections
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Sen. Jim DeMint: Gays And Unmarried, Pregnant Women Should Not Teach Public School

While I believe that local school boards should be selecting their teachers, I also believe that they should not be selectively discriminating against qualified teachers on the basis of prejudice or religious intolerance. Not in public schools.

For those who disagree, there are private schools and home-schooling networks. Just do not expect the government to subsidize it with vouchers paid for with my tax dollars.

My tax dollars should not be used to fund the teaching of prejudice and intolerance.
My tax dollars should not be used to fund parochial schools.
My tax dollars should not be used to fund cult indoctrination through home school immersion.

My tax dollars should only go to public, secular schools. That is the only obligation I have, as a tax-paying citizen, to support the education of others.

New Rule:

They don’t teach religious doctrine in public schools,
and we don’t teach evolution, women’s suffrage, gay rights, reproductive rights, civil rights, science, English, math, social studies, history, astronomy, archeology, health, biology, physical fitness, art, literature, music, …, political science, constitutional law, or democracy in houses of worship.

“no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Article VI, U. S. Constitution

Oh, look. Public schoolteacher is a position of public Trust.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Texas Textbook Massacre: State Board Suggests Books ‘Tainted’ With ‘Pro-Islamic, Anti-Christian Distortions’

Liberals and moderates have had a hard time protecting our education system from theocratic indoctrination.

Kansas is infamous for constantly changing the definition of “science” to add or subtract religion from science classes. The value of their diplomas has been discounted by the unreliability of their educational basis.

And of course there was the case of Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al in Pennsylvania.

Then there is the cult-style home schooling by Christian fundamentalists, evangelicals, and born-agains who do not live in theocratic districts.

School vouchers that weaken public education by diverting public funds to private schools.

The failure of abstinence-only…

Do not pretend that liberals and moderates have had a free hand. The country would be better off if they had.

Texas is beginning the conversion of public education into a Christian version of Madrasahs. This reduction in standards and unconstitutional embrace of religion is a major blow to future American competitiveness.

Conservatives believe it’s a victory.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Atheists Erect Billboard In Oklahoma City, Critic Says It’s ‘Like They’re Poking A Finger In Your Eye’

The billboard is no different from any billboard inviting someone to visit a church. To protest this and not the other is to declare yourself opposed to true freedom of religion.

What concerns me most is the relentless march toward theocracy. Theocracy is based on blind faith in religious dogma. Democracy is based on reasoned policy and informed consent. The two are incompatible at best, and antithetical at worst.

The question becomes: Do we fight for government of the people, by the people, for the people – or do we submit to the religious doctrines of fundamentalist Christians?

This billboard is a signal that those of us who believe in true freedom of religion – freedom for all – are not prepared to go quietly into the night and render up one of the greatest ideals of the “Great Experiment” that is the United States to the whims of Christian fundamentalism – knowing that doing so would signal the end of the “last, best hope of Earth.”

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise leadership over them,” said our Saviour to his disciples, “but ye shall not be so.” The business of true religion is quite another thing. It is not instituted in order to the erecting of an external pomp, nor to the obtaining of ecclesiastical dominion, nor to the exercising of compulsive force, but to the regulating of men’s lives, according to the rules of virtue and piety.
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration.
http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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INTERPOL: Quran Burning Would Increase Global Terror Threat (2)

But it’s not just the Koran burners.
It’s the Dutch cartoon.
It’s the repeated Papal verbal faux pas.
It’s the soldiers shooting holes in a Koran with rifles that have Christian references inscribed on them.
It’s resistance to Mosque-building from Switzerland to California.
It’s resistance to Burqas and head coverings.
It’s Abu Ghraib.
It’s Guantanamo Bay.
It’s rendition flights.

How many westerners blame all Muslims for the actions of a small group of fanatics?
How many Muslims have died in a war they never sought?

This isn’t a small group of fanatics burning “their own property”, these are Christian religious fanatics burning Islamic Scripture in a deliberate act of pure malice. It is little short of declaring a Holy War. The average Muslim knows this will provoke a resurgence of violence from the violent minority in their own religion. Some will take offense at the burning, and some will be pissed off by the consequences of the burning.

There is nothing more dangerous than a religious fanatic – which religion is irrelevant. You do not have to believe in a religion, but you do need to respect the power religion has over some or you might as well live your life wandering through a minefield – figuratively speaking.

And yes, there have been years of anti-west propaganda, in their schools as well as their media.
In 2005, The Organization of the Islamic Conference tried to start an effort to unbias the schools. I do not know how successful it was.
More on Terrorism
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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