Here we go again.
Another teacher is in trouble for demanding that a student participate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but this time it’s the teacher’s response that makes me giggle.
The student refused because the pledge contains the words “Under God” and stated (correctly) that it is illegal to force someone to say the pledge. The teacher replied, “I don’t care about the law.”
The Justice League saying the Pledge of Allegiance from a comic book in the 40s. Notice something missing?
Got it? The teacher wants to teach respect to our country and wants everyone to pledge allegiance to that country while at the same time ignoring the very laws of that country.
The teacher then called her “disrespectful.” Let’s see — which one said that people should ignore the laws of this country? Was it the student?
Such a patriotic attitude this teacher has! (Insert comic German accent) “You vill obey und salute the government. Ve do not allow individual thought here!”
This is America — where we don’t force people to love the government. After all, of what use is a forced pledge? If someone forces you to say something against your will, what’s the point? How is it meaningful? Does the irony not hit people? “We are forcing you to pledge against your will — for freedom!!!”
The United States Supreme Court held that no one could be forced to say the pledge over fifty years ago in a case involving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who persuasively argued that such a pledge violated their religious beliefs concerning worshiping objects or something.
I am always amused by patriots who want to force Americans to do things like this — which seem to me to be one of the most unAmerican thing you can do. Say the pledge because you mean it, and not because you have to. That’s true patriotism.
Much of the debate against the pledge would be neutralized if we could just remove the “under God” part that was added in the 50s. (I personally just remain silent whenever it comes to those words.) Wouldn’t it be nice to have a pledge that includes all Americans? Isn’t that what America is supposed to be about?
Many people are criticizing Bernie Sanders for being a “democratic socialist” without having the slightest idea what that term means.
cartoon by Matt Weurker
Let’s try to simplify things.
There are two sets of terms to know: economic and political. A government has both.
Economic
Capitalism. This is where the market decides and government stays out of it. No minimum wage, no health inspections, no laws against discrimination, no regulations on business at all. This doesn’t work, because you end up with the powerful running everything, destroying the economy, and keeping people in poverty.
Communism. This is where the government runs business. The idea is that we should all live together in peace and harmony and share everything, and the President earns the same amount as the guy who sweeps the street. This also doesn’t work, because it completely destroys initiative and any reason to try to improve yourself.
Socialism. This is where most countries are, somewhere between the two extremes. Here, the government regulates business to prevent the abuses capitalism can bring, and provides many services (libraries, hospitals, parks, fire departments, social security, unemployment, etc.) that pure capitalism would have private businesses provide (if they felt like it; pure capitalism would never require a business to provide something it doesn’t want).
This is the tough balance to meet. You don’t want to go too far in either direction, and most of the debate in the US is over how far to go — but honestly, even the most conservative politician agrees with some socialism (they’ll never admit that, though).
Political
Democracy. This is where the people decide, usually through representative democracy or republicanism.
Totalitarianism. This is a dictatorship, whether individually controlled (North Korea) or committee controlled (China). Once more, there are degrees here as well as various types (monarchy, fascism, oligarchy). But the key thing they all have in common is that the decision-making power is not with the people.
What usually happens is that people confuse the economic with the political. The Soviet Union was a communist country but was also a totalitarian country, and people started associating the two. This is wrong. You could have a democratic communist country. And despite what the Soviet Union would have had you believe with their propaganda, Karl Marx supported democracy.
It’s even more confusing when countries lie about themselves. Just because you call yourself “the Democratic Republic of Vietnam” doesn’t mean you are a democratic republic, any more than China is the “people’s republic.” The Soviet Union was indeed a communist country, but it was a corrupt one because you know perfectly well that not everyone shared equally in that society.
So when Bernie Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist” he is making it clear that politically, he agrees with democracy (the people decide) and economically, he agrees with socialism (government works for the people).
Disclaimer: This is a really quick and simple explanation and is meant to be a guideline and a start for conversation. And it’s also mostly from an old post I did about two years ago, so if you have a long memory, it may be familiar.
It’s one thing to be a dishonest person; it’s quite another to be proud of that fact.
For many Republicans, they revel in their dishonesty, partially because they think they’re so clever for getting away with their evil schemes.
I’m serious here. Forget about all the “death panel” lies and other crap they’ve said in the past about Obamacare — just look at a few examples from the last few months.
Take Kevin McCarthy, who admitted that the Benghazi hearings were indeed not meant to find out the truth, but were just partisan attacks on Hillary Clinton in an attempt to knock her approval ratings down. Oops! He lost his chance to be Speaker of the House not because Republicans were upset that he said this, but instead that he admitted that their stated reason for the hearings was a lie.
Then there’s all those movements to make it harder for Democrats to vote. “It’s to prevent fraud!’ they say, despite the fact that your chance of finding voter fraud is less than your chance of being hit by lightning. Every once in a while, a Republican will slip and admit the real reason. The Republicans don’t then come out and say, “Okay, you caught us, our bad, we really were lying all the time.” Nope, they double down and hope that everyone forgets the Man Behind the Curtain.
Even the Planned Parenthood attacks aren’t just about abortion — sometimes it’s just plain old Christian puritan ethics. There have been plenty of Republicans who blame the problem on “loose women” (it’s never the men’s fault in these situations; apparently the women are getting pregnant all by themselves). They lie by fabricating fake videos (and then double down and repeat the lie when the truth is exposed) and at a recent anti-abortion rally, the guest speaker admitted that they were fighting against sin: “The kind of sexual ethic that Planned Parenthood promotes is sex for recreation, sex for mere pleasure.”
And that’s what it’s about. At today’s Benghazi hearings — one of many that have produced absolutely nothing yet spent millions of taxpayer dollars — we’re seeing more of it.
The good news is that the public knows this. 75% of Americans know this is just a Republican witch hunt. People can see through the lies.
But the Republicans don’t care.
Hillary currently has 48% nationally and Sanders has 25%! Might as well name her as the Democratic nominee now and save us all some time! Or so the articles on the major news sites seem to say.
This, of course, ignores a few major things:
First, according to most polls, Sanders is ahead in New Hampshire — a very important state since it holds the first primary. A win there can change the landscape tremendously, as we have seen in previous elections.
Second, it’s 2015! There’s not even a primary for months.
Let’s look back at the last time Hillary ran. On October 20, 2007, she was at 47.5% in the polls. Way, way behind was this upstart Barack Obama guy, with only 21.7%. What a loser! That’s even lower than where Bernie Sanders is now!
A month is a lifetime in politics. Polls can change and waver hugely within a week.
So maybe we should stop declaring winners and losers before a single vote has been cast.
Obama and Hillary are so responsible for the attack on Benghazi wherein four people died. Pay no attention to the fact that Republicans gutted the budget for security at the embassy — the people at the top are responsible!
Just for comparison
Unless they’re Republicans, of course. When 3000 people died on 9/11 under Bush’s watch (even though he had been warned by both outgoing President Clinton and his own internal memos that this was bin Laden’s plan), clearly he can not be held responsible for such a thing.
At least Trump, for all his many faults, understands this basic concept. He’s caused another rift in the Republican campaign by pointing this out, and George W. Bush’s brother Jeb!* isn’t going to take this lying down!
But geez, don’t you dare ask him why then Obama and Hillary are responsible for the Benghazi attack, because then he’ll stare at the camera for a very long period, like a deer in the headlights, before rambling on for a few minutes about how security is important.
Seriously, watch this and look at his body language, because he’s being forced to say something that he knows in his soul isn’t true — that it is completely hypocritical to absolve blame for one incident while foisting blame in the other.
Squirm, baby, squirm.
*I believe he has added the ! to his name in much of the same way Prince changed his name into a symbol.
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