Mocking History

I’ve a cousin who proudly proclaims her conservative views. She knows who she is. Anyway, at the reunion the other day she told this joke: Do you know why the North won the war? Well, the South threw dynamite, the North picked it up, lit the fuse, and threw it back.

Now, I’m not saying the joke is funny (it’s all a matter of taste, after all). But, and I think this is important, it’s the first time I’ve heard a joke mocking the South’s loss of the civil war. Having been in the Navy and been to all four corners of the Continental United States, I can say for a fact that the North was mocked on a regular basis, but not once did I hear the South get mocked.

This, by the way, is from Balloon Juice:

………. The other day Dr. Mrs. Dr. F. was sitting in traffic in the university part of town behind a lifted pickup flying that huge rebel flag. A couple of college kids, chatting on the crosswalk, stopped and did a double take. The black guy told the other guy, who was maybe south Asian, something about the flag and then he started laughing. The spouse watched him call out to the rock-still white kid in the pickup cab, (roughly) “Really, dude? It’s the twenty first century”. Then he shook his head, laughed again and walked off before the light changed. Now having people hate your symbol and fight against it, that is more or less the point. Hating something is just another type of respect. But nowadays ol’ Dixie is clearly in retreat (again), the reddest of red legislatures have started abandoning it and people who should feel intimidated just laugh in your face.

The Civil War was just the start of the overall battle about slavery, race, and bigotry. I think we’ve started to see the final loss of the South. They no longer have the ability to claim heritage, they get mocked and ridiculed openly on the streets, and even the most Southern of states have removed the flag.

Will ol’ Dixie ever completely disappear? No. Like an infectious virus it will linger in out of the way places, dormant, waiting for a chance to spring forth. However, the vaccine to combat this infection is going strong (despite some peoples’ claims otherwise) and the struggle to inject it into the populous has finally worked; it is self-replicating. All men are created equal.

Dude, Where Are My Voters?

Way to have the pulse of the electorate.

(Bloomberg Politics) “If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it,” Christie, a Republican campaigning for the 2016 presidential nomination, said Tuesday during a town-hall meeting at the Salt Hill Pub in Newport, New Hampshire. “As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws.”

The nation has moved on. The war on drugs is a war on American Citizens. How, exactly, does he plan on winning an election by declaring he would resume the war on the vary voters he hopes will vote for him?

One Big Party

From Mustang Bobby I’ve learned that Fox News is going to let the entire Republican presidential field take the stage in their two debates.

(CBS News) Fox News announced another change to its August 6 Republican presidential candidate forum on Tuesday, removing the requirement that candidates clear at least one percent in an average of national polls to qualify for the second-tier debate.

To what end? Is this because their core audience was threatening to turn off the TV if the entire Republican Clown Car wasn’t allowed on stage? Is their core audience even in the economic range needed to adequately support higher ad fees? Does the “get off my grass!” crowd even leave their homes to buy stuff for fear their lawns will get trampled? Or perhaps it’s an effort to get the younger, more hip, and more loose with their money crowd to watch the Keystone Pols?

You know, it just doesn’t seem to be a viable commercial move on the part of Fox.

Oh, wait. Fox ain’t commercial, they’re propaganda. My bad.

Okay, I’ve Got Other Plugins

A while ago I installed a Gallery Plugin that helps with organizing pictures for posts. Specifically, it does a side show. I’ve just not gotten around to playing with it. I’m thinking I just might do that today. So, hopefully, pics to follow!

Okay, it’s a bare basics, time intensive plugin. It’s going to get removed.

Just A Test

Looking to see if the Facebook plugin I installed on my blog is working. If it is, I suspect it should post to Facebook automatically! I have my fingers crossed.

Update: Well, I finally got the Facebook links to show up on the posts! I still don’t know if it automatically sends a post from this blog onto Facebook.

What David Atkins Said.

 

From Political Animal:

Frankly, that reaction is getting more than a little tiresome no matter what one’s religious beliefs might be. When terrorists used airplanes as missiles against the United States in 2011, we didn’t just pray for the victims: we changed our entire airline security system, spent billions on a new homeland security bureaucracy, and invaded not one but two countries at gigantic cost to life and treasure. When the Ebola virus threatened to break out in the United States we didn’t pray for deliverance from the plague; we went into a collective public policy and media frenzy to stop it from spreading further. When earthquakes prove our building standards are inadequate to save lives, we don’t beg the gods to avert catastrophe and pray for the victims; we spend inordinate amounts of [money] to retrofit so it doesn’t happen again.

On every major piece of public policy in which lives are taken needlessly, we don’t limit ourselves to empty prayers for the victims. We actually do something to stop it from happening again.

But not when it comes to gun proliferation. On that issue we are told that nothing can be done, and that all we can do is mourn and pray for the murdered and wounded, even as we watch the news every day for our next opportunity to grieve and mourn and pray again–all while sitting back and watching helplessly.

I’ve heard and read any number of times that with God anything is possible. How than, is it not possible to do something about the killing of innocent people because of guns? And don’t give me that bullshit about people kill, not guns. Guns were designed to be efficient killing machines. If that logic escapes you, then go back to your booze while beating your fist on the bar, because I’ve got better things to do than argue with a brain dead chem-zombi. And if you don’t drink I’ll not argue with a religo-zombi. Both are dead to the world around them.

Praying for God to do something is laziness. He’s given us paths. Those who’ve made the effort to get into positions of power are just too chicken shit to actually walk them. They are too worried about not getting their money from the (wholly owned and operated by the gun manufacturing lobby) NRA to actually do their job and protect their constituents.

Cross-posted at The Agonist.