. Most I have had rational discussions with don’t give a crap about marriage or gays in the military. Their issues are more over legal rights such as hospital visitation rights, inheritance, insurance benefits and the like. They view the public issues as stirred up by professional agitators not necessarily having the best interests of the gay community first.

Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/19/2013

In all honesty I have a pretty limited amount of exposure to out-of-closet gays to chat with. You’re absolutely right that they seemed more concerned with tangible legal effects like those you mentioned. A couple (which is half of my sample) were also hopeful for gay marriage if Obama were reelected.

My thought wasn’t too far from what you’ve said. I think people should think about our true best interests. By listening to serial agitators in the media and the academy, we have been divided up into little interests groups to demand various and endless social justice from new government initiatives. Everyone’s in a group. Seniors, gays, minorities, women, veterans, victims, allies, students, disabled (which almost seems like everyone who wants to be now), etc.

If we define ourselves by our group, we miss the forest for the forest. We don’t realize that we’re all in a sinking ship.

What’s in the best interest of gays? A balanced budget, low taxes, and federalism so the states can have different social arrangements without needless national tension. Funnily enough, that’s also in the best interest of everyone else.

You make a very interesting point that all the tangible things a gay marriage advocate offers could be relatively easily without redefining marriage. Of course, the problem with that approach is that the democratic party’s end goal is not gay marriage, but the political power it gains from those voting for them in long term hope of getting it. In a sad way, the democratic party needs to keep its devotees in need as long as it can.

The perverse effects of this can be seen wherever democrats have total power. You cannot find a worse result for the ultra stratified victim class than Detroit or DC or Chicago.

Anyway, everything gets twisted around and around.

fly little americans

be free!

http://www.soopermexican.com/2013/01/19/flashback-how-liberals-used-dubyas-daughters-and-insulted-his-mother-to-bash-their-dad/

Does that mean happyfeet is a liberal? He has to be, because to be resentful about social-cultural conservatism in the context of today — and not in the context of, say, 60 years ago (when Hollywood, no less, ostracized a famous actress for having a child out of wedlock, or NBC thought it was controversial when their late-night talk-show host said “water closet” on the air) — indicates one has to have fairly leftwing gut reactions in certain major ways. Even more so when such a person likes using the word “gay” in a non-positive manner.

MD, what drives me up the wall about liberals like Obama is that they truly epitomize “limousine liberalism.” They try to sound so populist, generous and benevolent, and they love to think their s*** don’t stink when it comes to compassion and humaneness. But ultimately, too many of them not only aren’t as advertised, too many of them are no better than the slicksters described below.

http://www.spiegel.de, August 2012:

Black police officers had mowed down black workers, just as the apartheid police had once fired on black demonstrators. The bloodbath is a disaster for the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed the country since 1994. But the party of national hero Nelson Mandela has already been losing authority and credibility for years. Nowadays, it is primarily viewed as corrupt, incompetent and arrogant.

[A] large share of the black majority still lives in corrugated metal huts. South Africa’s schools are just as miserable as the health care system, and youth unemployment exceeds 50 percent. The gap between rich and poor is now even wider than in the days of white rule.

Moreover, corruption is practically built into the structures of the ANC. “It’s eating up the nation,” says a union member. The South African economy is weakening as chaos, high crime rates and the arbitrary behavior of officials scare off investors. South Africa runs the risk of sliding into the status of a developing nation despite the fact that four of the world’s rising economic powers — Brazil, Russia, India and China — had just accepted the country into their club in 2011.

[M]any ordinary workers haven’t felt represented by the ANC in a long time. Its top officials live a life of obscene luxury. Embroiled in their intrigues and power struggles, they seem to have forgotten the well-being of ordinary ANC supporters long ago.

…As if it still had to protect itself from spies, the party’s meetings are closed to the public. Lists of candidates are drawn up behind closed doors, for example, and sometimes the meetings turn violent. At the last ANC convention, security officers had to use pepper spray to separate delegates who had come to blows.

The violent clashes come as no surprise because privileges and a lot of money are often at stake. Since it governs alone, the ANC is free to distribute government offices and other perks as it sees fit.

Many ANC officials are derided as “tenderpreneurs,” a word coined from the words “tender” and “entrepreneur.” A “tenderpreneur” is awarded government contracts and pays for them with his or her political loyalty. An investigative committee of the state court of audit concluded that, in 2009, three-quarters of all government contracts in Eastern Cape province were awarded to companies owned by government officials or their relatives.

Ironic that a buzzfeed editor is in tepid water for telling GOProud to suck a dlck

Even more ironic because I’m guessing that editor is the type who deems anti-gay imagery (eg, the “bleech” vision of a dude being fellated by another guy) as RACIST! Or BIGOTED! Or HOMOPHOBIC!

so I been begrudging the grocery store my attentions

I’m sure I’ll adjust at some point I think in the meantime I should run over and get the 20 piece roasted chicken plus 3 salads deal at pollo loco

either that or I need to get a wife

111. I’ve read where in the past the NRA was actually active in helping both black and white southerners learn to handle firearms to defend against the KKK. Somehow I doubt the NRA is getting much credit for that.

Comment by MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/19/2013 @ 6:52 am

And you can read about it in the present:

Amazon: Negroes with Guns

The publishers description is a bit skimpy (fpr a reason we’ll get to shortly).

First published in 1962, “Negroes with Guns” is the story of a southern black community’s struggle to arm itself in self-defense against the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups. Frustrated and angered by violence condoned or abetted by the local authorities against blacks, the small community of Monroe, North Carolina, brought the issue of armed self-defense to the forefront of the civil rights movement. The single most important intellectual influence on Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, “Negroes with Guns” is a classic story of a man who risked his life for democracy and freedom.

You really have to get to one of the reader’s reviews to understand why:

There is much being said about gun ownership and the Second Amendment. Robert Williams book clearly illustrates why even in out “civilized” age that the protection of you and your family depends upon you.

Williams found out about this the hard way when the police refused to assist him against a racist onslaught, but also when the NAACP turned on him too and revoked his NAACP charter for using a gun to save himself from being lynched!

Who would have thought that it would be the the NRA that would come to the aid of Williams and his beleaguered people?

Not exactly the image that the media would like us to have of the NRA, or the NAACP for that matter.

Please do not let the injustice that this man and his family suffered or the painful lessons learned here go to waste!

Read this book and take it’s lessons to heart

Danny Glover and other idiots/liars would have you believe the NRA is like the Klan. Actually, the NAACP was aiding and abetting the klan while the NRA was helping to fight it.

I’ve used the phrase “oldie but goodie” to refer to magazine articles a few months or a couple of years old. Well, here’s a real oldie but goodie:

Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, June 20 1866

The former Confederate states were trying to get Senators and Representatives readmitted to Congress. The report took up the question of whether they were ready to be readmitted or not.

From a typical post-bellum, Reconstruction state constitution (pages 539-541 of the report):

CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

We, the people of the state of Arkansas, having the right to establish for ourselves the right to establish a constitution in confirmith with the Constitution of the United States of America, recognizing the consequences of the existing rebellion….

Article II

Sec. 21: That the free white men of this State shall have the right to keep and bear arms for their common defense.

One of the reasons why the 39th Congress was not only convinced that it was absurd to admit the southern states but also that the 14th Amendment was necessary were the systematic attempts, whether by law or force, by the former Confederacy to denied freed slaves their 2nd Amendment rights.

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The 2nd Amendment, and later the NRA, were securing the rights of blacks from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights era (MLK applied for a concealed carry permit and by some reports his house was an arsenal). As the Report of the Joint Committee observed it was only by exercising their right to keep and bear arms could freedmen exercise any of their other rights.

For Danny Glover and his ilk to claim the 2nd Amendment and the NRA to be racist is either the height of ignorance or the depth of mendacity.

take the pledge!

oh god help us

go AWAY from the light Paul Ryan do NOT go into the light