How many times do we have to say this? The First Amendment does not mean that you are free from the consequences of your speech.
Friend and scientist Yvette d’Entremont (read her guest blog here!) started a new Facebook page called “Science Babe” a month ago. Recently, she pointed out that “actor” Rob Schneider was doing insurance company commercials while arguing against vaccinations. 
Others picked up on this and soon Schnedier was fired as a spokesman, because insurance companies like vaccinations — they save lives and save insurance companies lots of money.
Of course, people who do not understand how the Constitution works are screaming that his rights were violated and blah blah blah. It happens every time some celebrity loses their endorsement or, as I blogged about recently, when a bank teller was fired for lecturing customers about her religion during worktime.
You have every right to say whatever the hell you want to about vaccines. You can spout nonsense about the world being flat if you want to. No one has the right to stop you from doing that. In fact, Schneider can continue to spout his idiocy forever if he so chooses.
What you don’t have is the right to a job or a platform for your speech. A newspaper doesn’t have to print your opinion. A TV show can fire you if you are saying things that they disagree with (especially if it hurts their ratings). A school can fire you as a science teacher if you’re trying to teach your students creationism. Your freedom of speech is not violated in any of those incidences. You can continue to say whatever you want, just not with an audience provided by your former employer.
By the way, I’m thrilled for Yvette. We first met at a convention where we were both guests on a panel about science and how it is used and abused in court cases. According to various anti-vaccination blogs, she’s now part of the “pro-vaccine lobby”. Not bad for a Science Babe.
They really don’t get it, do they?
Despite losing the popular vote in five of the last six Presidential elections, some conservatives still think that the way to win the White House is to be even more radical and to lean even farther to the right.
Are there any Democrats who are that deluded? OK, maybe a few who think that Bernie Sanders would be the best candidate, but they are few and far between. (I think Sanders would be a great President but a terrible candidate, by the way, and I want to win.)
Maybe 40% of the voters will always vote for their party, leaving 20% in the middle who really decide elections. The way to win is to appeal to the middle, not the extremes. The liberals on the left will never vote for a Republican and the conservatives on the right will never vote for a Democrat, so the way to win is to get the ones between those two extremes.
That is why the GOP keeps losing the big elections. In a gerrymandered district full of people just like you it’s easy to win, but when you look at an entire state and then at the entire country, they have a real uphill battle (especially when the majority disagrees with them on almost every single important issue).
So to those conservatives who think that Palin is our worst nightmare: Oh yes indeed. I am so afraid of Palin being your candidate. Oh, please, do not nominate her. I beg of you. It will make me so unhappy if you do so.
The craziest state in the union just did something sane.
A Federal judge has ruled, like all 18 cases that came before this, that prohibiting gays and lesbians from getting married is unconstitutional.
That’s a 100% success rate, for those of you keeping score.
Admittedly, some of these are on hold because they are on appeal, and eventually the US Supreme Court will have to deal with it. Yes, that scares me a little bit, because there members of that body that literally think that the honest-to-God devil is influencing people to support gay marriage. I am not making this up. Fortunately, since all of these decisions have been based on the Supreme Court decision knocking down the Defense of Marriage Act, I am hopeful that the same majority will hold.
Here’s Texas Governor Rick Perry, heroically defending our border against unarmed children.
He’s so macho, squinting into the sun — too bad he doesn’t have one of those baseball hats that has a rim to keep the sun off his face. He patrolled the border like that for at least ten or fifteen minutes — until the photographer had enough good shots — so you know we won’t be bothered by any refugee kids coming over here, taking our jobs and voting for Democrats all willy-nilly like the election was a pinata. Or something.
Perry knows that we have to stop these kids from coming here because (1) they’re illegals (duh); (2) we can’t just care for every single child that is unwanted (embryos excepted); and (3) Uh. Let’s see. Hm. I can’t remember the third thing.
Oops.
Many people claim to love America while hating the vast majority of people in it. They threaten to commit violence against our government if they don’t get their way. They moan about how immigrants and minorities are ruining our country and how, when whites become the minority, we will no longer be America. And they think that these positions make them patriots.
That’s not patriotic. That’s the opposite of what America is all about. Remember “all men are created equal”? 
Patriotism doesn’t mean loving your country unconditionally. It’s not “love it or leave it” it’s “love it or make it something you love.” It means working to change it when you disagree with it.
Part of the problem we have these days is that there are many people who hate government. They love America and hate government. They have poisoned the minds of many people into thinking that the government is the enemy, while forgetting that we are the government. We, the people. Those guys in Washington are just there to represent us, and if we actually get out and vote and participate, we can change them.
Often the loudest complainers are the ones who never vote, never write their representatives, and never lift a finger to make things better. But when it comes to whining about how government doesn’t represent their interests, they’re right in front.
Other complainers are like religious fundamentalists — they are convinced that their interpretation of the (insert one: Bible / Constitution) is the only one and everyone else is not only wrong but evil. These people will often use violence to enforce their narrow views in the mistaken belief that they, and only they, are (holy / patriotic). They, too, are anything but.
Politicians will sometimes point to farmlands and small rural towns as perfect examples of our “heartland” where true patriotic Americans live. I feel patriotic when I walk down the streets of Manhattan, surrounded by people of all races, religions, and backgrounds, all living together in relative peace and harmony. Interracial and gay marriages aren’t a sign of the downfall of America — it is the best example of how the American dream is being achieved. Where all are created equal and treated equally and where we can set the stage for the rest of the world to see how it is possible to live together.
That’s patriotism to me. Bringing us all together is patriotic.
Those who want to divide us are not supporting America.
A while ago, I worried that Senator Bernie Sander’s eye on the Presidency would ruin the Democrats’ chances in 2016. We don’t need another Ralph Nader-like spoiler.
But he’s said recently that he would never run as an independent, which calms me greatly. He would use the race as a way to make sure the issues he cares about are discussed, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I think his presence in the Presidential race as a Democrat would be beneficial. He won’t win, of course, but he certainly could make sure that the party follows a more populist (and winning) message, rather than looking like just another traditional status quo race. (OK, yes, Hillary breaks the mold by being a female candidate, but her views are pretty moderate and traditional.)
Seriously, why are they allowed to set the agenda so often? Why doesn’t the rest of the news media just ignore them instead of taking the stories they create and making them appear as something?
Fox News gets better ratings, but the average age of its viewers is 71. I am not making this up. It’s the network for old retired people who sit at home, angry at the world, holding onto biases and prejudices thrown out by the generations that followed them. Why are we letting a bunch of cranky 71 year olds dictate our media policies?
Fox has consistently been found to be promoting lies and disinformation. The watchdog web sites have called them out many more times than they have the real media. It’s hardly “fair and balanced” (in fact, that is one of their biggest lies).
They post misleading charts that their gullible viewers believe. They push rumors as if they were facts. They continue to insist that conspiracies exist behind every door, despite being called out over and over again about their lies.
And they don’t care, because they’re not a news network — they’re a propaganda machine. So why do rational news reporters feel like they have to cover the same stories just because Fox does? Why don’t they just ignore Fox when it says outlandish things about our veterans or when they say that Hillary Clinton has brain damage and so on?
That’s the mystery.
They certainly give political satirists like Jon Stewart plenty of source material, though.
(And no, just to cut off the inevitable bitching that “MSNBC is just as bad!” there are huge differences between the two.)
“The people who do these mass shootings are crazy!” the NRA says. “It’s not the fault of the guns! It’s not our fault!”
Yes, if only there were some way to try to prevent crazy people from having access to guns. Some sort of, I dunno, background check system. Oh, really? That has been proposed? Well, gee, who would be against something as sensible as that?
The NRA? They’re the ones who are against that?
Clearly I am missing something. Tell me again how this isn’t at least partially their fault?
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