NOTE: this is a topic with very heated opinions on both sides. The title is meant to provoke, not anger, but thought. If this upsets you, sorry, but it is my right to exercise my 1st amendment rights to free speech.
After an another school shooting, this time hitting not teenagers, but 20 grade school children (ages 6-7) and six adults, it is time to think about the gun culture of America.
Now I wasn’t sure what to call this post, I had a couple of thoughts along the lines of What Would Jesus Carry, What Would Jesus Shoot, or most offensive of all Who Would Jesus Shoot. Now you may think, what the heck? Why is this atheist who doesn’t own a gun bringing Jesus into this gun issue? Well, I could say because religious people did it first, see Mike Huckabee who said,
“We’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools have become a place for carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, responsibility, accountability?”
But that isn’t the reason I am asking Who Would Jesus Shoot? The reason I am asking is because most of my friends outside of work tend to be more liberal, and less religious. In the greater community of my workplace is where I experience more religious people, many who are more conservative.
What I am trying to understand is how my conservative religious friends support very little regulations on guns (size of clips, assault rifles, tracking the sales of guns, etc…) and the Bible pursing an eye for an eye solution.
I have seen people talk about how guns will help keep the government in check. How more people die from smoking, drunk driving, etc… How there would be less death if the principal, custodian or other school officials had been packing. That last one is what lead me to this question of WWJS? The idea that packing law-abiding citizen would put down this murderous madman is the solution.
But what would Jesus do in this situation? Would he be packing? Or would he follow Matthew 5:39 “But I say unto you, That ye resist evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” or Luke 6:29 “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other;…” If Jesus was in the school when the shots rang out, WWJS? Would he even have a gun?
Tomorrow in Minnesota we get to vote on whether to amend our state constitution to “protect” marriage as only between one man and one woman. What do they mean by protection, is gay marriage an attack on straight marriage? Is it a scarce resource that must only be allocated to straight people? I don’t get this “protect” language.
When they don’t say protect, they say traditional marriage. But what is traditional marriage, and who defines it? For many societies, the traditional was polygamy, but they aren’t fighting for that. Here is what the bible says about marriage.
Now why are they trying to amend the constitution to limit the rights of people, that aren’t even rights yet? Well I think there are a few reasons here in Minnesota.
State politics – Republicans didn’t have veto proof majority, so they only way to get it past Democratic Governor Dayton was to put in an amendment.
Turnout–as in 2004 in other states, putting an issue like this on the constitution amendment will help rally the turn out of the more socially conservative members of our society. And could help in other elections, like the Presidential one.
Constitutionality–the writing is on the wall, the discrimination is clearly unconstitutional because it flies in the face of equality.
That is why the agents of intolerance must put this in the constitution, because that is the only way it will pass a constitutional challenge. I don’t know much about constitutional amendments throughout the states, but when I think of federal constitutional amendments, I know that one got repealed. That was Prohibition, and it was about limiting our freedoms and it didn’t last.
Now some other arguments that proponents of the amendment of intolerance make are about pro-creation and religious freedom.
One of the biggest lies is about pro-creation, oh it is a sneaky lie, because it sounds kind of rational, but it is a lie. You will hear that the purpose of marriage is about pro-creation, about having kids and then raising them with a father and mother (research supports two parents are better households on average, but I know a lot of amazing single parents). Yet, I don’t know of anything that requires married people to have children. We let infertile (whether they are aware or not) to marry and we allow people (including post-menopausal women) to get married. How about we amend the constitution to say that to get married folks must show they are sufficiently fertile to have children (mandatory fertility tests), and we put a clause in their marriage license that they must have a child within 5 years or the marriage is annulled. And what about adoption, is that good enough or is it really pro-create only?
What about religious freedom, should churches be forced to marry same-sex couples? No, of course not, and they won’t be. We can’t make a church marry anyone it doesn’t want to. But just because the Catholic church doesn’t want to marry same-sex couples (at least the Pope and US Bishops don’t) doesn’t mean the Universal Unitarians don’t. When the Catholic church tries to imposes it’s religious beliefs on Unitarians, they are limiting religious freedom. So that vote yes actually is limiting religious freedoms, not protecting them.
I have heard a lot of talk about being on the right side of history and I think that is a very lame description. I don’t want votes out of a cool trendy reason, I want votes because people know that my friends Joel and Troy should have their marriage recognized by the state not just their church. That is a country that was founded on the idea of equality and slowly we are actually working towards that ideal. When straight couples that were of different skin tones (races) could marry each other, we expand the rights of all Americans. This amendment won’t grant gay people the right to have a marriage recognized by the state of MN, but it does allow challenges to laws that limit marriage to straight couples to go forward.
So Miami-Dade Fire Fighting Captain Brian Beckmann proves that he can be a real jerk with this comment on his Facebook page:
“Listening to Prosecutor Corey blow herself and her staff for five minutes before pre-passing judgment on George Zimmerman. The state seeks reelection again, truth aside. I and my coworkers could rewrite the book on whether our urban youths are victims of racist profiling or products of their failed, shitbag, ignorant, pathetic, welfare dependent excuses for parents, but like Mrs. Corey, we speak only the truth. They’re just misunderstood little church going angels and the ghetto hoodie look doesn’t have anything to do with why people wonder if they’re about to get jacked by a thug.”
I suspect that Mr. Beckmann’s being part of a union may protect him from being fired out of hand.
Ironically in the same state of Florida, 14 non union workers were fired for wearing orange to coordinate for TGIF post work Happy Hour.
So, arbitrary firing for wearing orange on a Friday with your co-workers.
Saying things that show a real class bias (and proving you are a total jerk) about part of the population you are to serve, not immediately fired, and probably won’t be, likely because of union representation.
Last week Rick Perry had his famous brain freeze on which departments he would eliminate from the federal government.
Commerce, Education, and oops. He is offered Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which he says needs to be reformed. Later on he comes up with Energy. As a Republican from Texas, I am guessing he hates the EPA, and he is pro corporations in the energy sector (oil industry is huge in Texas). Why wouldn’t he get rid of the EPA and keep Energy? That just doesn’t make sense!
Thanks to Think Progress we get to learn of more craziness from Michele Bachmann.
I suspect that this doctor is hanging out with the mom’s whose daughter became mentally retarded after taking the HPV vaccine, and also with Paul Bunyan and the Loch Ness monster.
I am also confused about how the doctor is prohibited from asking a person for their residential status, but have to get wait over 2 hours to get a number from the IRS to see someone. So can’t ask one thing, but must have number to even see someone.
And a doctor would assign staff to wait with the IRS for the number. If the part about the IRS was true, which it isn’t.
Maybe it should be in search of sanity or reality.
In the last few years two terms have come to creep into discussions about taxation in the US. These ideas are definitely being driven by the right wing echo chamber. So today we are going to examine what they are, how they are used, and the reality of people at different income levels.
Lucky ducks–these are the folks that file income tax returns, but whose income after deductions and credits owe no income tax. The Wall Street Journal editorial pages started this term, and have been using it since 2002.
Job creators–in the past few years this term has been thrown around to describe the wealthy, and defend the lower tax rates that they deserve. You may have heard something like this, “you don’t raise taxes on job creators during a down economy.”
Why are these terms being used, basically to convince people that the Republican’s economic agenda isn’t class warfare, but fairness.
So let’s breakdown the myth of the Lucky Ducks, these folks don’t make enough to pay federal income tax. Sadly in the down economy, the percentage of the population that falls into this category has been rising. As average employees wages have stayed stagnant, this is an inevitable result.
However, when Lucky Ducks is talked about, it is a not used to point out the stagnant wages for the majority of Americans. It is used to make tax payers think that there are a bunch of freeloaders that aren’t paying taxes. That those who aren’t Lucky Ducks have been supporting those lazy freeloaders.
But are they lazy freeloaders? While the statistic that is used is the number of people who file federal income taxes (those with an income) who don’t owe federal income taxes. People who have no income don’t have to file taxes, so this is measuring people with income, generally workers, who aren’t generally lazy or freeloaders.
In the US working people have to pay payroll taxes, 6.2% to Social Security and 1.45% to Medicare (or 7.65%) and double that if you are self employed as you are paying employee and employer shares. While these Lucky Ducks are not paying income tax, they are still paying payroll taxes on their income. Not as Lucky as they want you to think, and be angry about! That doesn’t get into state income, property or sales tax that these folks likely are paying too (double taxation!!!).
What about the myth of the job creators? For a few years, I have been hearing this statement, “no poor person employed me!” In the last few years as the Bush tax cuts were set to expire, and Democrats were looking to let the tax rates go up on the wealthiest Americans the job creators became the endangered species of the Republicans. To paraphrase a familiar line, “Won’t somebody please think of the Job Creators?”
But I want to think about this for a moment? They are trying to say that wealthy American tax payers, individuals or couples, are job creators. Now I believe that wealthy people do hire other people directly, maybe a housemaid, butler, driver, nanny, exercise coach, dietitian, publicist and so on. But how many people do they hire? Does a change in 3% marginal tax rate mean they go from hiring 3 people to 4? To that 4th person, that is huge, but I don’t call these people Job Creators.
I think we need to start asking Republicans, do you consider yourself wealthy (Mitt Romney), if yes, how many people do you employ. And when I say employ, you pay the employer share of payroll taxes! If you hire a service who employs a person who provides a service for you, the service is the employer, not you. If you create a company and that later employees people, than I will agree you are a job creator, but that isn’t a ton of the wealthy.
I have been thinking about this a for a long time, because we are all job creators if we are actively involved with the economy. When I go shop at Target or the grocery store I am buy products, along with the other customers. Our demand for those products are creating jobs for the people extracting the resources that are manufactured (more jobs), then transported (jobs) to a store (jobs). My demand along with my fellow consumers are creating that demand and those jobs.
Not only that, but the average consumer probably creates more jobs than the super wealthy in most sectors (not Lear Jets). Think about this, you have a wealthy family that makes $5,000,000. Maybe they have a principal residence and two vacation properties, a housemaid and a driver. Then you have 100 families who make $50,000 (same as that $5,000,000 wealthy family) who don’t directly hire anyone and just have one home. Now those 100 families are going to buy more toilet paper, more toothpaste, food, etc… than the multi millionaire with their 3 homes and 2 employees. For the people who make toilet paper or toothpaste, those employee’s jobs are based on the demand (job creation) of all them, but it is the demand of the average family collectively that is creating more jobs than the multi millionaires.
It is time for us to think past the language that is being used to support tax policies that benefit the ultra wealthy. Average Americans are struggling enough in the current economic climate. We need jobs, not class warfare, but we have been getting attacked for years and usually don’t even realize the Black Ops/Psy Ops that have been waged against us workers.
Lucky Ducks who may not pay any federal income tax definitely pay taxes, and usually are pretty hard workers. All of us that are buying things are job creators. The ultra wealthy may create jobs in the luxury industries, but they are not the only job creators and for a large part of society create less jobs (collectively) than the average American, including those who are not working, but still consuming.
I have been re-reading old Marvel comics as PDFs. GIT Corp published large runs of X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Avengers, Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man comics on DVDs (as well as Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, and Star Trek comics).
Thinking back to these early comics, most of which started in the 60s, we can see how, with the comics as an example, society really celebrated the scientists. Fantastic Four has Richard Reed, Avengers had Hank Pym (Ant-Man and later names), Hulk is Bruce Banner, Iron Man is Tony Stark, and Spider-Man was teen scientist Peter Parker. Now many of these scientist, especially Bruce Banner and Tony Stark were serving the nation and their battle on the Red Menace of communist Soviet Union. Back then, our society saw science as leading the way forward to developments for our society and winning the Cold War.
Yet today, what was once seen as the part of the solution to winning the battle for democracy in the free world and not so free world is now viewed very differently.
The theory of evolution is to be challenged by intelligent design (aka backdoor creationism). Note: a scientific theory can not be proven, but is basically undisputed as explaining how things work, you may have heard of another theory, the theory of gravity
Climate change science is challenged because it threatens corporate profits of the dirtiest and most profitable industry in the world, Big Oil
We need to take value of our science, we have to fund research and development. We need science to lead to all those discoveries that help humanity, not just further enrich corporations with patents on the fabric of nature, like seeds. On issues like stem cell research we need to have honest discussions of moral and ethical implications of research. But equally those discussions must encompass all viewpoints and not be driven solely by those with a religious agenda that may be trying to silence voices of progress and truth like Galileo was for saying the earth revolved around the sun by the Church.
This is a little more catty than I usually post. But I really think that Kim Jong-il is hoping that Donald Trump runs and wins the US presidency in 2012. Why? Well because then he wouldn’t be the world leader with the worst hair. Lets face it, I think Trump has success because people are focused on his hairpiece and it distracts them from tough negotiations. Maybe Trump would be a strong world leader, although I do worry about him trying to fire other word leaders he doesn’t like and that would be a diplomatic faux pas.
Of course the Kim Jong-il was really hoping for Don King, but he is less likely than Trump to be a candidate.
Apparently the Elk River (MN) Chamber of Commerce were having a fundraiser based on the prediction of when a car would break through the ice on Lake Orono. The MN Gaming Enforcement Division put a stop to the fundraiser.
What I don’t get is how they thought this is a good idea. Why would anyone want a car to end up at the bottom of the lake. And if that car isn’t drained of its fluids (which would probably still leave some residue) you are creating a source of pollution in that lake. Even if they drain the fluids and then get the car out of the lake, it is a stupid and wasteful idea.
As focus has shifted from protests in the Middle East to protests in Madison, we need to think about one of the underlying issues of this debate, employee contracts.
For those of you that think this is all about the state budget crisis and that alone, you are very mistaken. This is about destroying the last institution, the last guardian for middle class and poor Americans from the ruling elites. This is about destroying unions, so there is a weakened support organization for the Democratic party. Not that the Democratic party has been the best friend of unions, I often think that many Democratic politicians play them lip service, but it is better than the outright hostility that they face from Republican politicians.
Remember in the spring of 2009 and 2010 when we heard about the on-going obscene bonuses going to folks on Wall Street? We had funded the bailout of their industry, keeping them employed. But that wasn’t enough, they had their contracts and we had to pay them bonuses. But when the outrage over the bonuses came out, I didn’t hear from Republicans asking to make them re-adjust their contracts because of the bailout. No, they said it was dumb for Wall Street to give huge bonuses, tried to lay blame on Democrats (many which are as beholden to Wall Street as Republicans), but never once pushed for a clawback on bonuses.
Yet, when it comes to bailing out a union industry like big auto, they ask for union members to take a cut. When they are facing state government deficits, they ask public government unions to alter their contracts and take a cut.
It is not because unionized employees have more income in which to give, no that is what you find on Wall Street. Wall Street can give more, but are not asked to because they are special, they represent the wealthy class that has an exaggerated importance in our country. They demonstrate the lie that is supposed one person one vote democracy with their lack of sacrifice and exaggerated importance.
Republican hatred of unions is very clear to those who are willing to listen. Their willingness to violate contracts in some circumstances and say they are inviolate in other cases shows that they have a political agenda, destroying unions. As Rahm Emanuel has said, and Governor Walker and his fellow Republican state politicians are taking to heart, “don’t let a crisis go to waste.”
