First Reaction: Gun Control Edition

Soo... if the Government tells me they're going to tear down my house to build a highway,

who do I shoot? 

Snagged from Facebook: Always Been A Liberal

A friend forwarded this on Facebook:

“I've always been a liberal, but that doesn't mean what a lot of you apparently think it does.

Let's break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: Not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. Period.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all." This is not the case. I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" or "if you can't afford insurance and you get sick you have to declare bankruptcy" a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone. It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly. If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize everyone’s right to live according to their own individual beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" -- I'm offended that someone is trying to force people to live by their own religion's rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on others. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don't force it on others.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally). I'm not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It's not that I want the government's hands in everything -- I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

11. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege -- white, straight, male, economic, etc. -- need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is sensible policies, including background checks, that just MIGHT save one person’s, perhaps a toddler’s, life by the hand of someone who should not have a gun.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

17. Just because I am Pro-Choice doesn’t make me “Pro-Abortion”. It’s a woman’s body and it is her choice. I also believe that since abortion is so frowned upon, that birth control should be available to anyone who needs it.. it should be covered. Just as in many instances ED meds are.

I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I'm a liberal, because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

So, I'm a liberal.

Shawn Patterson

The Pencilsword #10: On A Plate

From the RNZ (Radio New Zealand) website, three and a half years ago.

Fascist Things My Friends Post On Facebook: Native Americans

Bill Mahar Lists All The Ways Trump Is Like a Dictator

Midterms

The midterm election is tomorrow.  I don't recall ever seeing so much attention paid to a midterm.  That's a good thing.  In the past the importance of midterms was often ignored, like in 2010, when few people went to the polls and Congress wound up being filled with freshman Congressmen who used their new offices to codify their personal prejudices.



State elections this year are getting a lot of attention, particularly because one party is trying so hard to cheat through historically effective methods - gerrymandering and voter suppression - while accusing the other party of cheating through voter fraud, a rare and certainly less effective tactic. As Brian Klaas says,

Democrats fear voter suppression. Republicans fear voter fraud. The data show suppression is widespread; voter fraud is not. George W. Bush's DoJ studied voter fraud and found it occurs on 0.00000013% of ballots. A recent study found 31 cases out of a billion ballots from 2000-2014.

The voter fraud/voter suppression debate is one of those frustrating "partisan" issues that we can answer with data. It is not partisan to show that, empirically, voter suppression often influences the outcome of US elections; voter fraud does not. Facts shouldn't be partisan.

Here in Oklahoma, we're electing a new Governor.  Our current Governor and most of our State Legislature believe that tax cuts create growth, and many Oklahomans believe that taxes are an unnecessary burden.  We have a Constitutional Amendment that states that taxes cannot be raised without a 3/4 vote in the Legislature or a vote of the people, which has happened only once since 1992. The predictable result, of course is that hospitals are closing, schools are losing teachers and going to shortened weeks, and the State Government has trouble providing basic services.  Efforts on the part of the majority party in the Legislature to raise revenue has met with opposition from the minority because the proposals generally raise taxers on the poor.

Both primary elections required run offs, and on the Republican side, the two candidates were Mick Cornett, whose economic policies during his time as mayor of Oklahoma City helped turn the city from a ghost town into a thriving community, and Kevin Stitt, whose ads complained that Cornett wasn't Fascist enough. This being Oklahoma, Stitt naturally won. Now in his race against Drew Edmondson, his claim is that he's the better candidate because, unlike his opponent, he has no experience in government. If you want to know what his actual policy ideas are, you have to hunt for them online. Basically, however, they are familiar Republican policies. His ads, however, speak of the "career politicians that got us in this mess," while not mentioning that the career politicians that got us in this mess were all Republicans who legislated familiar Republican policies.

Again, he is heavily favored to win.

I read a book a while back with the rather misleading title of "The Republican Brain," which was actually about studies done on the comparison between the ways conservatives and liberals think. It did not, as I think the title suggests, advocate for one ideology over the other. On the contrary, it says that we need both parties, as one is the mind and the other is the heart of the country. I agree: one party rule is bad regardless of which party it is. The book says that if you want to convince a  liberal of something, you should get out the spreadsheets and show him the data. If you want to convince a conservative of something, you appeal to his values. But I've been on Facebook for the last nine years, and what I've seen is that if you want to convince a conservative of something, you stoke his prejudices by filling him up with bogus information and scare the crap out of him. This is not a good way to govern the nation. This does not make for a good society. It does, however, make an effective way to justify Fascist policies.

Nate Silver's statistics webpage FiveThirtyEight estimates that the Republicans have a five in six chance of keeping the Senate - partially due to voter suppression efforts in North Dakota and elsewhere - and the Democrats have a seven in eight chance of taking the House. However, Democrats have a traditional problem: regardless of what the polls say, voters who lean Democratic often fail to vote. But social injustices inflicted by the current administration and currently serving Republicans have energized voters. Will that translate into actual votes?  We'll find out tomorrow.