Bleu Rhino Ravings

An Open Challenge to Republicans
by Josh Packard (jryanpackard@yahoo.com)

People went to the polls on November 2nd and elected George W. Bush President. As the full exit polls were released it became clear that Bush won because of “value” voters. When they left the polls, 81% of the people said they voted based on values, and most of them voted for Bush. But what does this mean? Let’s just agree right off the bat that when Bush supporters say “values”, they mean “Christian” values. The vast majority of Bush voters claimed to be religious and the vast, vast majority of those were Christian. The President even ran on an explicitly conservative Christian platform. However, Christianity as it is practiced by the majority in this country is a corruption of a religion. Here’s how we know.

No religion, including Christianity, touts hate and/or fear among its core values. In fact, almost every religion, including Christianity, preaches love, acceptance, and peace. What concerns me is that those voters who sided with Bush because of “values” did so largely based on “Christian values.” People reported being worried about stem cell research, abortion, and safe sex education policies. But mostly, people said they were worried about men kissing. They weren’t worried that they would be forced to do any of these things, they were worried that these things might actually be practiced in the artificial geopolitical boundaries established by stealing land from an entire population of people. In other words, and I want to be absolutely clear about this, the people who voted on “values” were voting to suppress the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of others. They were not voting to increase their own rights, or even to protect themselves from an infringement of their rights. There can be no arguing about this. “Value” voters voted to restrict the rights of those who pose no threat to them. Stem cell research does not require the cells of a living person in Lincoln, Nebraska. Safe sex education does not require your student to actually have sex. And believe me folks, marriage rights for gay Americans does not, and I truly cannot stress this enough, it does not require you to kiss a man.

All of these “values” were couched explicitly in the realm of Christianity, and this is what is most disturbing. If you want to keep women from being married to each other, that’s fine. As long as you recognize that it’s because you dislike gays. Don’t pretend that you’re doing some overall Christian good by voting against gay rights. History is not on your side. In the past people used the same rationale, along with passages from the Bible, to deny rights to blacks and other minorities. People even used this rationale to deny rights to a majority group: women. Future generations will not judge you kindly, just as we don’t tend to view slave owners too favorably. People came to understand that Christianity is about love, acceptance and equality for everyone in the eyes of God. In this election, people who said they voted for Bush based on values were using Christianity to justify long held personal preferences. They were not using Christianity as the basis for those personal preferences. Nowhere is this dynamic more obvious than with the people who claimed they voted based on something other than values.

This administration has asked for, and received, a check for 270 billion dollars to fight a war based on faulty intelligence. Saddam Houssain didn’t have any weapons of mass destructions, despite the fact that in a recent poll[1][1] 55% of Republicans claimed they had already been found. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another 1.4 million people fell into poverty last year, 4.3 million since Bush took office[2][2]. These two figures are stark contrasts for me because of the prominent lack of any evidence of the loving, caring, peaceful religion Mr. Bush and his supporters claim to operate based upon. Christianity is not, and never has been, about war, and certainly not a war based on fear. And conversely, Christianity has always been about loving your neighbor. In fact, these two things tend to go hand in hand. It’s extremely difficult to be loving toward your neighbor while you are killing him. It also nearly impossible to claim Christianity as your guiding force while the people around you go uncared for in ever increasing numbers.

Christianity has never been a safe religion at its core, and it never will be. It’s about being willing to love so tremendously that you become vulnerable. Vulnerable to the will of God, vulnerable to other people. Christianity does not have anything to do with stronger economic policies, or a safer, more secure America. In fact, the basic tenets of our great religion, love, compassion, kindness, etc., might even require a weaker economy and more open America. Christianity is not about fear. It is about loving everyone as God loves you. This is undeniable.

So if you think that you voted based on Christian values, then you have four more years of uninterrupted control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the majority of Governorships, and the White House. Prove it to me. Prove to me in the way you live every day that you didn’t vote for Bush because it will make you richer. Prove to me that you didn’t vote for Bush because you want to feel safer. Prove to me that you didn’t vote for Bush because you are afraid that men will kiss. Prove to me that you voted for Bush because you want to help the least of become the best of us. Prove to me that you voted for Bush because you want to love so completely and dangerously that you are willing to sacrifice all that you have to make sure that everyone in this country, regardless of race, class or creed, has the same opportunities. Because right now they don’t. Right now, after the first four years, the poorest of us are poorer, and the richest are richer [3]]. Right now, we live in one of the most unequal countries in the world[4][4]. So prove it to me. Volunteer in record numbers to prove to me that you don’t just go to the polls in record numbers. Fight for someone’s rights so we can believe that your interests don’t lie with oppression. Give money away in amounts so vast that it actually affects your daily life to show that you don’t just give money to campaigns. Work to change the structure of your local economy so we can believe that you get mobilized to change more than just voting districts for minorities. In other words, put your money, your time, and your resources where your mouth is. If you want people to believe that Christianity is the guiding force in your life, then do all of these things. Prove it to me.

[1][1] 06/09/03 Program for International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)

[2][2] www.factcheck.org 09/01/04

[3][3] ibid

[4][4] UN Human Development Report 2004-05

This morning I got an email making fun of a study that says that boys are struggling in school. The person writing the email ridiculed the study as another “ridiculous attempt by men to jump on the victim bandwagon as if they really have anything to lose in the world the way it is”. While I recognize the importance of still bandying about the “boy, do women have it bad in American society” banner, there is a underlying gender essentialism that suggests the opposite idea: that all/most men have it great. As a result, we lump minority men, poor men, gay men into the “they don’t need to be studied or supported” category as we focus our attention on women. Yes, women have it bad. But at the high school where I tutor, more black guys are in special ed than black girls. On my campus, black women outnumber black men. At my church, more black men died this year than black women. In my neighborhood, more black men went to prison than black women. That IS a problem for me. And trust me, these statistics are not just confined to black people.

Yes, fine, the seats of power are held primarily by men. Yes, there is still a glass and stained glass (have you been in a black church or mosque lately?) ceiling. Yes, girls haven’t been encouraged to do math and science. But I am seeing, albeit glacial, changes for women in all of these areas. But if we ONLY focus on the problems of being female, the problems of being marginalized men get lost. More research is showing that Sally IS doing more math and science, but Johnny still can’t read! I don’t see it as unreasonable or wrong for the media or academics to focus on men. Some of us hope to be more than just the “zero” gender control in regression equations studying how bad women have it.

I believe the media and academics are capable of intellectually chewing gum and walking across the street. I’ve seen and continue to see the stories you mention need covering. I have to say I’m pretty happy to see some “men as the weaker (weakened) sex” stories more often. I’m less likely to criticize it as men wanting in on victim status. In some/many cases, the story for the XY chromosome folks is a pretty scary one, especially down on the ground where most of us live. I’m less inclined to care what rich people (white, black, or otherwise) are doing or having access to. I think, right now, I’m more concerned about how the “Grand Theft Auto” videogame sitting under many progressives’ Christmas trees teaches my nephew that masculinity means, among other things, having sex with prostitutes and then kicking them to death. I’m more concerned with why I’m having a helluva time figuring out what schools will admit these boys at my church who’ve been sold the lie that the way to their future is in a ball rather than a book. I don’t have these kinds of problems with my sister and the girls at my church. So, any news saying that boys need help isn’t new(s) to me and I’m glad to see it!

One of my students commented that he went to a televangelist’s webpage to see if he could get some tapes of her sermons. When he got there, he was disappointed to find out that the minimum “gift” acceptable to take advantage of her ministry to him was $25. I told him that it is unfortunate that this particular woman’s “ministry” IS a media industry ministry. That’s the point. To access what she has to offer from God, you have to go to where she’s at or pay to receive them. Unfortunately, television ministry (like campaign advertising) isn’t given to people for free; they have to pay for them. At some level, most of those expenses are paid from “product” sales. It’s sad that that’s the way it is and that they have to be so gimmicky, but with a world of paid television . . . what else is one to do. What scares me most is that they use homosexuals as their way to make more money. What has happened to the “religious right” and conservatives is that once communism fell, they didn’t have a fundraising mechanism anymore. You can’t keep writing books and selling audiotapes about the pending assault on America by the commies if there ARE NO commies. So, at the same time communism was falling and they were looking for a new enemy, the gay rights and women’s rights movements were swinging into their view and feminists/homosexuals became the new “enemy” aimed at destroying America. The money started coming in as they told people to support this new war. Expect all of it to get worse now that, with the last election, they REALLY won the war . . they own the presidency, the legislature, and soon will own the judiciary. People don’t give money if they think the war has already won. That’s why we’ve gotten all of this recent over-the-top fear mongering about “liberals trying to destroy CHRISTmas”. They need something to put on their “send us money, buy our books” commercials. These little petty things (and the other strides that gays are going to try to make over the next couple of years) are all they have left. Sigh.

Ok, how bizarre is this? Notwithstanding the fact that the president (when he was governor) killed (while cracking jokes) Carla Fay Tucker after she got saved in prison and was probably no longer a threat to anyone (i.e., not the “wild animal” that “Christians” for the death penalty always use as their support for corporal punishment) . . . the amazing political hypocrisy from the President floors me. Apparently, one of the reasons for the Texas case is because hospitals did not want to continue sustaining the life of people in families who could not continue to pay the bills. How can the Republicans pass laws that take people’s life against the will of their parents and spouses (to save hospitals money) then grandstand “on the side of life” in the Terri Schaivo case? Mind you, the President is trying to say that he fixed the law by giving the families 10 days to find another hospital that will accept their family member pro bono; hmmm, that’s better. . Again, I can’t believe I voted for these people.

(From The Associated Press) . . . WASHINGTON — The federal law that President Bush signed early yesterday in an effort to prolong Terri Schiavo’s life appears to contradict a right-to-die law that he signed as Texas governor, prompting cries of hypocrisy from congressional Democrats and some bioethicists. In 1999, then-Gov. Bush signed the Advance Directives Act, which lets a patient’s surrogate make life-ending decisions on his or her behalf. The measure also allows Texas hospitals to disconnect patients from life-sustaining systems if a physician, in consultation with a hospital bioethics committee, concludes that the patient’s condition is hopeless. Bioethicists familiar with the Texas law said yesterday that if the Schiavo case had occurred in Texas, her husband would be the legal decision-maker and, because he and her doctors agreed that she had no hope of recovery, her feeding tube would be disconnected. “The Texas law signed in 1999 allowed next of kin to decide what the patient wanted, if competent,” said John Robertson, a University of Texas bioethicist. While Congress and the White House were considering legislation recently in the Schiavo case, the Texas law faced its first high-profile test. With the permission of a judge, a Houston hospital cut off life support for a badly deformed 6-month-old baby last week against his mother’s wishes after doctors determined that continuing life support would be futile. The baby died almost immediately. “The mother down in Texas must be reading the Schiavo case and scratching her head,” said Dr. Howard Brody, the director of Michigan State University’s Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. “This does appear to be a contradiction.”

I think it would have been lots of fun if one of these evangelicals had suggested (on the news) that God wouldn’t deliver Terry and couldn’t hear their prayers because Terry and the parents are all CATHOLIC. When did, from the evangelical perspective, Catholics become Christians? I thought all Catholics were going to hell and were members of the world’s largest and most insidious cult, the Bride of Babylon, and all that stuff? At least that’s what Chick tracts, the Chick webpage, and the Chick comic books I used to buy say. Doesn’t Tim LaHaye and his folks all STILL believe that the antichrist’s “False Prophet” will be a Pope . . . oh, no, I forgot, the Pope and Mother Teresa were both raptured in his book? I hate that I don’t know any evangelicals. I’d really love to ask them how they make sense of these inconsistencies. Really, sometimes the Evangelical Christian Church actually looks like a cult. They certainly don’t act much like CHRISTians. It’s just so weird.

Ok, if the antichrist is a a) secular leader who b) uses religion as a agent/function of state c) and brings short-term peace to the middle east . . . . wouldn’t it be hilariously ironic (or maybe insidiously planned by Tim LaHaye and other “let’s rush the rapture” folks) if George Bush were the Antichrist?

I just read your proclamation against same-sex marriage. Can you point me to the church’s other proclamations (based, presumably, on the same scriptures you list in this proclamation) against marrying divorcees; marrying formerly single-parents; and ordaining divorced deacons, elders, and bishops. While I’m no advocate for gay marriage, it confuses me that we get almost daily proclamations against homosexuality (because it “destroys the American family”) and not a word spoken against the biggest threat to families in America (particularly if marriage is primarily about COVENANT relationship, not childbearing): divorce.

Every year, more kids experience divorce or separation than are born out of wedlock. Did you know that kids of divorcees suffer loads more psychological trauma than kids adopted by or raised by gay parents? Probably not. Why? Because somehow the thing that is MOST destructive to the concept of marriage–our legal ability to end them on a whim–is overlooked in the church and by political conservatives. I can’t tell you the last time I heard a sermon against divorce. Mind you, my last four pastors were divorced and remarried, but that is beside the point. Apparently church folks (who get divorced at higher rates than non-church folks) don’t need to know that Paul went out of his way to say that it was the LORD’S COMMAND and not his that husbands and wives not divorce (I Cor. 7). I guess all of the young people encouraged over and over again to get married so they can give their parents grandkids don’t need to hear that the Lord God of Israel “HATES divorce” (Malachi 2). Hmmm, maybe it’s more important that we tell folks that God turned less than 4% of the population over to homosexuality “because of their hard and evil hearts” (Rom 1) than that we tell the remaining 96% that Moses only allowed few restrictions on divorce “because of their hard and evil hearts” (Matt 19:8). Adultery, as bad as it is, is only mentioned by Christ a couple of times. One of those is in Matthew 19 when he said the famous “let NO MAN divorce what GOD has joined together” line. He states that any man who divorces his wife (except if she cheats on him) and then marries another COMMITS ADULTERY. God seems to dislike divorce a whole lot, yet it’s rarely mentioned in churches, isn’t deserving of COGIC webpage proclamations, and never mentioned as a bad thing in conservative newspapers and talk shows . . . while we focus on stuff that is so rare in our society as to be irrelevant to the big picture.

If we Christians are so concerned about maintaining God’s Law when it comes to family values and how people should live their lives in this country, if we want laws based on the 10 commandments . . then I suggest someone start advocating an end to divorce laws in this country. I teach “marriage and the family” so I spend hours explaining the negative impact of divorce on both spouses, their kids, their extended family, the economy, etc.. It’s not a pretty picture and yet the church is SILENT about this. Why is that? Because it’s easier to look out into our megachurch audiences and offend a few homosexuals rather than risk shutting down our churches/programs when we offend all of the divorcees. If we’re going to say that heterosexual marriage is a type of the marriage between Christ and the Church, doesn’t divorce scare you? I know, I know. You can get a divorce (maybe) if your spouse cheats on you or abandons you (I Cor 7). Hello?! By being sinners, we all “cheated on God”. We do that every time we choose our way over his way . . love for ourselves over love for him. But did Christ say “oh well, that Church . . . I guess I should dump her and move on cause I’m hurt and offended”? Did he search through the scriptures to come up with rationales for why he shouldn’t reconcile himself to us? No, he was so serious about making this thing work, he DIED! Yes, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. But, it’s a shame Adam didn’t have our perspective on divorce or else he could have divorced Eve, not eaten the fruit, and God would have blessed him with an obedient wife. Jesus wouldn’t have had to come at all.

But Richard, divorce is becoming the norm. You’re crazy if you think divorce is wrong in this day and age. We’re not going to put anyone out because they’re divorced. We’re not going to tell someone who has been wronged by a spouse and divorced him/her that they should leave their sacrifice at the altar and go reconcile. You’re just a little ridiculous (old-fashioned) if you think that the church shouldn’t allow people who divorced to be pastors or get married again; that’s an OLD understanding of the Bible. We got it wrong and now the church is enlightened . . . we’ve changed with the times. Like blacks who wanted to marry whites, like women who wanted to preach, like divorcees who wanted to be able to remarry . . . . I think that’s what gays and lesbians are counting on.

One of the things that might be overlooked today as women celebrate the “right to choose” to kill children is the fact that the 40 million babies our country has killed since 1973 would have, as workers, been more than enough people to fend off the problems with social security. More importantly, given the census numbers, and our country’s obsession with racial parity in every institution . . . 13 million (33%) of those 40 million dead babies were BLACK. If we make up 14% of the population, why are our dead children overrepresented in these numbers and no one seems to care. We should all remember that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood (a leading proponent of abortion), was a eugenicist (like Hitler) who believed that black and poor women should be sterilized and their children should be aborted. Well, in a backdoor way, she’s certainly gotten her way. The thought of celebrating (two days after Martin Luther King day) our society’s right to have killed off more than 13 million black children depresses me. That’s almost a third of the total numbers of abortions. That’s more black potential doctors, sociologists, lawyers, teachers, etc. than will be killed in this upcoming war, are killed in the inner city, died during the slave trade, or are sitting in prisons . . and we want to celebrate? Today is NOT a day to celebrate. It is a day to mourn.

Let’s start with the disclaimer: I am NOT for the California recall. Um . . is anyone else offended by the ACLU using blacks and latinos as the reason they have to hold off on the recall? Are we, unlike white people all over America (except Florida of course), too incapable of following freakin’ directions and voting on cards that tell you to punch a hole next to the name of the person you want to vote for? In spite of the fact that blacks successfully elected Gray Davis governor TWICE using them confusing high tech punch card things, now we’re in trouble because “those people” [not MY word in this case, actually] won’t be able to understand how to use them and might accidentally elect that movie actor guy to be governor.

Is it evil racist conservatives saying “black folks are too stupid to be able to vote using a poker and a piece of paper with perforated holes in it”? No. It’s the same people who ALWAYS say that we can’t do anything without their help: white liberals. How many times do we see monkeys on National Geographic EFFECTIVELY using a stick to poke into those little holes in anthills to get food? Does the ACLU think that we, unlike monkeys, can’t figure out how to responsibly and effectively make our opposable thumbs and four fingers push a stylus into a hole so we can get what we want? The monkeys don’t even have directions. Oh yeah, I guess I should be fair. Directions won’t help us because, as the ACLU and California bilingual ed teachers told us years ago, the evil racists who run the state of California have the audacity to write those directions in a language black people can’t read . . . . ENGLISH! I thought I was offended enough by the ebonics controversy, but maybe there was some truth to that (note the sarcasm here, please!).

They (our white liberal saviors . . . thanks Tarzan!) actually use the “fact” that blacks and latinos are “unfamiliar with technology” as their rationale . . . . HELLO!? Do ELECTRONIC TOUCH SCREENS remove the bias against us po minority folks who can’t seem to understand even paper punch cards? Uh, we screw up using electronic touch screens 2.3% of the time. Did you catch that? Yeah, the remedy to punch cards (2.5% failure rate) is electronic touch screens (2.3% failure rate). And guess who funded the study that says that punch cards have this AMAZINGLY HIGH error rate . . yes, the study used by the ACLU to prove that black folks’ civil rights are at risk if we don’t immediately switch to some electronic system . . . SEQOUIA VOTING SYSTEMS. Gee, I wonder what THEY make.

But, there is some good news. We CAN use fill-in-the-circle ballots apparently. They only fail 1.8% of the time. And those lever things? Oh my God. We only screw up using those a whopping 1.5% of the time. But give us a stylus and a piece of paper with perforated holes in it and we’re stymied . . totally confused . . . lost without any kind of remedy . . . DISENFRANCHISED! Maybe that’s the answer . . get rid of the technology and just let us’es come in and point at a picture of the candidate we want. Those Bell Curve guys would be so proud.

The big problem with all of this Trent Lott stuff, as I see it, is that the President, Trent, and others are all now targets of a Jesse Jackson-style shakedown by black Democrat leaders who have far more allegiance to money groups (e.g., teachers unions, environmentalists, the white AARP) than to the Joe-Blow average black people they claim to represent. As a result, I worry that things that actually benefit black people (and that black people actually support when you ask us) are in danger because the Republicans (thanks to Trent who now believes in affirmative action, apparently. Go figure!) feel some obligation to kowtow to the whims of these people. While the CBC might dislike faith-based organizations (black churches will get a huge percentage of the money), vouchers and school choice (which disproportionately benefits black communities in a positive way), the manufacturing industries (whose pissed-off exits lead to urban blight), and changes to social security (which black men put money into but die before they receive anything from) . . . black people benefit from all of these things. Call me pissed.

This morning I happened upon this guy Solomon’s journal. He wanted to find out the meaning of life . . . how to make himself happy. This is what he said in the first part of the journal:

“I said to myself, ‘Let’s go for it–experiment with pleasure, have a good time!’ But there was nothing to it, nothing but smoke. What do I think of the fun-filled life? Insane! Inane! My verdict on the pursuit of happiness? Who needs it? With the help of a bottle of wine and all the wisdom I could muster, I tried my level best to penetrate the absurdity of life. I wanted to get a handle on anything useful we mortals might do during the years we spend on this earth. Oh, I did great things: built houses, planted vineyards, designed gardens and parks and planted a variety of fruit trees in them, made pools of water to irrigate the groves of trees. I bought slaves, male and female, who had children, giving me even more slaves; then I acquired large herds and flocks, larger than any before me in Jerusalem. I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and–most exquisite of all pleasures– voluptuous maidens for my bed. Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took–I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task–my reward to myself for a hard day’s work! Then I took a good look at everything I’d done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. Smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it. Nothing.”

In case you didn’t know, this guy was a king of Israel, the wisest man ever. Now, here is the wisest man in the world, trying out an experiment to learn what would make him happy and give his life meaning.. He got all of this stuff, amassed all of this stuff, and none of it made him happy. My question is . . . if he was so wise, why didn’t he know this in advance? What would he have said to someone else who came to him and said, “Oh king, what can I do to live a happy, meaningful life?” Would the wisest man in the history of the planet say, “Get lots of stuff”? I love that little part in verse 9 where he says “What’s more, I kept a clear head in all of this”. In the end, the only thing that worked was this slogan I’ve seen on bumper stickers and hats. . . . “Fear God“. Why wouldn’t his wisdom have let him see that from the beginning without the empirical approach he took here? The whole journal can be found in Ecclesiastes 2.

Ok, I can’t understand what the Democrats want . . . . do they want us to send more troops to Iraq or do they want us to bring the troops home? I’m not sure I understand what is behind their carping against the President’s assertion that we don’t need anymore troops over there and that we “have enough”. How can you have it both ways? No wonder America isn’t supporting the Dems. They really seem to waver back and forth just because it is in opposition to the Bush administration. If Bush says “up”, they say “down”, even if last week THEY said “up” too. I need to get out my flip flop sandals for both sides, I think.

Seriously, how hypocritical can you get?

‘L.A. Times’: Rep. Tom DeLay Took His Own Father Off Life Support in 1988
Published: March 26, 2005 11:00 PM ET

NEW YORK Exposing a previously unknown episode, the Los Angeles Times reported late Saturday that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who this week championed political intervention in the Terry Schiavo case, agreed to his own family’s decision in 1988 to take his father off life support and allow him to die. The DeLay’s father, 65-year-old drilling contractor Charles DeLay, was badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Tom DeLay was a junior congressman from Texas at the time. The patient was being kept alive by intravenous lines and a ventilator. “DeLay has denounced Schiavo’s husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls ‘an act of barbarism,’ in removing the tube,” the L.A. Times reported. “In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.” This account was assembled from court files, medical records, and interviews with family members, the paper said. Doctors advised that DeLay’s father would “basically be a vegetable,” the congressman’s aunt, JoAnne DeLay, told the newspaper. When his kidneys failed, the family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. “Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated,” said his medical report, citing “agreement with the family’s wishes.” His bedside chart carried the instruction: “Do Not Resuscitate.” On Dec. 14, 1988, the senior DeLay died. The Times noted similarities between the DeLay and Schiavo cases: “Both stricken patients were severely brain damaged. Both were incapable of surviving without continuing medical assistance. Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared life sustained by machine. And neither left a living will.”

As I listen to James Dobson and the other insane conservatives wail louder than ever that they’ve lost something because of this “compromise“, I am more frustrated than ever at their insane ability (need?) to claim that every win is actually a humongous loss. It really is like dealing with crazy people. Can someone explain to me how a) getting through the three most “vilified” candidates for an up or down vote, b) not having to have the president lose or be embarrassed on the other two who wouldn’t get a majority vote anyway in an up-down vote, c) having the bar for “exceptional circumstances” now, obviously, being HIGHER than Owens, Rogers-Brown, and Myers, d) essentially putting an end to filibusters on judges, and e) still retaining the ability/right/likelihood for these 7 Republicans and Nelson to STILL vote for cloture if the Democrats try a filibuster on a Supreme Court or appeal justice IS A LOSS FOR THE REPUBLICANS?

I’m stymied. I’m tired of looking at Ben Nelson represent the 7 democrats who fought for this compromise. He is in a red state and was planning to vote for all of these people anyway. In this case, they might as well had had Zell Miller up there talking. To watch Lindsey Graham and other republicans stand up there with a straight face and suggest that they have beat back the control of the religious right is laughable. Again, what did they lose again? The next candidate for the Supreme Court to replace Renhquist will have to be a conservative and may be a young, virulently conservative judge who can be nominated for both Renhquist’s place as a justice and as the top justice (what are they called?). Then you get two fights in one and not have to fight two separate battles smack in the middle of the president’s push for some of his other domestic . . . . losses. So, the big fight is going to happen whenever Stephens and/or Connor retire and, in the end, the cloture thing is still very much available. These people who think that we have a different president . . one who gives a darn what the Senate thinks . . . are under the delusion that somehow their telling the president that he should seek advice from them before nominations will make him do so “to protect the Senate”. Hahahahaha. Dictators who are trying to control the entire government (and have NOTHING TO RISK because they and, maybe, their VP aren’t running for office again) don’t care what happens to the Senate. Geez, why can’t I get “Revenge of the Sith” out of my head?!

The other thing that strikes me as interesting is that, in spite of the fact everyone is terrified about a James Dobson blowout/explosion when he doesn’t get his way, one of the Republicans said (when asked “what happens when James Dobson explodes?”) that the religious right keeps his phone ringing in Washington for 3 days or so and they get a million letters, BUT nothing happens in their poll numbers back home. All these hilarious people calling CSPAN from Arizona talking about how they’re going to vote against John McCain now when he’s up in the Senate. Hahahaha. Are you kidding me? Vote against John McCain and for whom?

“Do you think the Republicans are secretly running both parties or are the Democrats as stupid as they seem??? First they get Kerry to run for President and now when people refused to vote for him because he was too liberal and wishy washy, they have Dean running the party as a socialist basically and vilifying ALL Republicans as White Christians. Yeah, that’ll get all the White Christians (who by the way are in the majority in this country) to come running to the Democratic Party…..IDIOTS. The Democratic Party needs to move towards the Center but they are running further and further away from the mainstream, I don’t get it, DO YOU?????”