132 thoughts on “Noted without comment

  1. Personally, I think a civil war would be great!

    When you consider that, for the most part, the Religious Right lives in the poorest states and the Moderates, Liberals and Leftists live in the richest states, civil war becomes a more viable solution to our problems every minute! Let them have their “Christian Nation” full of bigots and teenage pregnancies while we have universal civil rights and full-disclosure sex ed. Lets see how Alabama and Mississippi and West Virginia, etc. fare when they are no longer getting federal tax dollars from New York and California and Massachusetts.

      • From an analysis of federal funding…money tends to flow out of the blue states and into red states (which tend to have large military bases on them).

        However, the blue/red divide is artificial…mostly the US is different shades of purple.

        • It’s fine to say there are moderates out there and “Not everybody is like that”, but look who’s got the political megaphone and the bully pulpit at this point and look how it’s being used and oh, by the way, those sort of tactics actually RESONATE with a significant chunk of the population. It’s pretty clear that the central, midwest states like us WAY less than we do them.

          I can’t think of how many times in this past election cycle I was told I wasn’t a “Real Americans” living in “Real America”.

          I think there’s a time and place to try to work out differences and co-exist peacefully and a time to realize that there IS, in fact, an “other side” that really does have it in for you.

          One of the only reasons I think we haven’t seen a Rwandan or Balkan-like uprising is that Kansas and Florida are a good 3 day drive from places like California and New York instead of just a couple hours.

          I’m trying here. I’m really trying hard to see that we can all get along and respect each other as a purple nation rather than red and blue states. 8 years of Bush and his hangers-on I think have pretty much purged that from me.
          I just find it really hard to believe anymore.

          • Actually, I’m not saying there are moderates out there (I’m certainly not). I’m saying the red state/blue state is too broad of a brush to paint with. The only reason why states go to one color or the other, and not a shade of purple is because the way the electoral college is set up.

            Obama may have “won by a landslide” with the electoral college vote, but that’s not the case with the popular vote. (I think “wins by a landslide” is something greater than an 80/20 breakdown.)

            But when it comes to individuals, there will always be some who hold dearly to some completely whacked ideas, and that’s ok. America is the land of the free, not the land of correct ideas. Freedom implies the right to be really, really wrong.

            Rather than try and correct people with whacked ideas (because certainly all of our ideas are infallible), I think we should make it easier for people to explore their ideas and see for themselves how it turns out. (This gets a bit more difficult when it comes to global warming and other situations where only one answer is possible.)

          • (This gets a bit more difficult when it comes to global warming and other situations where only one answer is possible.)

            Which is kind of the catch here isn’t it ?
            We have so many problems where a rationalist scientific approach is the only one that’s going to get us out of the soup we’re currently in. We can’t afford to be wasting time on “faith-based” approaches or be “really, really wrong”. It’s pretty clear that the only way we’re going to escape the worst of the effects of climate change is through a crash-program of conservation, renewable, sustainable energy sources and an end to a handful of industries. We really have to be allowed to pursue everything. Stem cells, GMO crops, nuclear power, everything HAS to be on the table or we’re screwed.

            This idea that we’re allowed to or are even commanded to have dominion over the planet and consume everything on it because God will just swoop down and press the giant reset button and make it all better is ridiculous, yet the National Association of Evangelicals just fired their VP of Gov’t Affairs for espousing a “Green” position.

            We historically have a lot of freedoms in this country that other people around the world didn’t/don’t have, but we’re entering a time where we’re going to be less free and less able to deliberate over answers to certain problems like climate change.

          • I don’t want to bomb anybody, I really just want to be left alone.

            I’m just saying that there seems to be a sizeable portion of the country that wants California to break off the continent and float away out into the Pacific and I’m wondering if granting that wish isn’t such a bad idea.

            Minnesota is okay in my book BTW, you guys have Garrison Keillor and PZ Meyers.

        • From an analysis of federal funding…money tends to flow out of the blue states and into red states (which tend to have large military bases on them).
          I think that’s probably more due to the fact that graduated income tax rates don’t take local cost-of-living differences into account. If you are single and make $50k here in Detroit, you’d be upper-middle class. In San Francisco, you’d probably have to live in a small apartment with at least one roommate. In rural Arkansas, you’re likely to be the richest person for several miles. You’d be paying the same tax rate, regardless.

          However, the blue/red divide is artificial…mostly the US is different shades of purple.
          If you look at it by state, probably, but there is a pretty sharp division between rural and urban areas.

    • Speaking as a lifetime coastal resident, a leftist, and a Californian, I gotta speak up from the buzzkill corner and say that is really not cool. :\ It reminds me of the people who wished death or property destruction upon the people in Texas who they viewed as too “stupid” to leave their homes during the storms.

      It’s clear classism, prejudice, generalizations (did all of Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia vote to make that sign?), and bewildering hate for strangers aren’t things that only the right is guilty of.

      Or I suppose we can go back to bashing the poor, the “ignorant,” and those who we don’t understand.

      • No, I’m just commenting on actual facts based on surveys that correlate those states with being both poor and part of the Religious Right.

        As to your correlation to the storms in Texas, it is inappropriate. I am not wishing them ill at all, I’m only wishing that they get what they want and the consequences to those things. I’m simply stating that if they want my tax money then they should accept that my opinion is valid.

        • Umm, who is this “they?” I don’t think “they” wanted civil war. I don’t think anyone wanted civil war. I think one nutjob or set of nutjobs used it in an ad they paid for as incendiary, hyperbolic rhetoric meant to demonize people they didn’t agree with.

          I’m pretty sure “full of bigots and teenage pregnancies” isn’t a statistical conclusion; I’m also wondering where these “universal civil rights” are that make the blue states so utterly superior, since I’m certainly not seeing them. I see states full of racism, sexism, homophobia and class divide — you know, like the rest of the nation.

          But you’re welcome to refute me.

          • Look up the statistics for per capita teenage pregnancy and percentage of sex ed paid for by abstinence-only education.

            Also, I’m not saying that the blue states are less prejudiced, just that they respect what Thomas Jefferson says more than the red ones do, you know, stuff like “…that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.”

    • I wouldn’t be for a civil war. Mostly it’s the wrong people that get killed in wars.

      Vigorous experimentation on a state-by-state basis, though…I’m all for that. Let’s have Texas adopt their hope-based sex ed plan, and really follow through on it. Have another state go gang busters on comphrensive sex ed. Let the experiment run for a decade and see how things turn out.

      • In theory that’d be great, the only problem is that federal tax dollars get redistributed to those states and I don’t want to have to pay for all those teen mothers and their unwanted children who will go on welfare.

        • Yeah, fuck those unfortunates and their insistence upon being unfortunate.

          What the fuck? Apparently the left’s swinging back around to the right these days, if you’re any evidence.

          • I never said I was of the left. I’m a Libertarian. I have no problem with charity, but no one should be OBLIGATED to pay for someone else, especially if there are no strings attached to that money.

          • Then you should probably get on the case of all those damn poor people of the blue states, too, drainin’ the tax dollars of hardworking proper citizens like yourself: ain’t only the rural poor who those dastardly welfare dollars go to.

            But I forgot, everyone’s enlightened in California and New York.

          • Who says I’m not? That just happens to not be relevant to this issue.

            Also, as a New Yorker, 90% of this state is rural and the #1 industry is farming. I know all about the rural poor, I grew up across the street from a corn field and 3 houses down from some cows. There are 5 apple orchards within a 20 mile radius from my parents’ house.

    • I’ve actually been saying this for a while. I’m really getting sick of my tax money going to pay for infrastructure of people who hate me, my friends, and how we live our lives and are politically dedicated to an agenda that does nothing but punish those who don’t live the way they want you to.

    • I find your views a bit myopic. What about progressives like me, temporarily confined to red states due to insolvency, familial obligations, or illness (like me)? Are we not granted the same rights and protection from the Tyranny of the Majority granted in the Constitution?

  2. Personally, I think a civil war would be great!

    When you consider that, for the most part, the Religious Right lives in the poorest states and the Moderates, Liberals and Leftists live in the richest states, civil war becomes a more viable solution to our problems every minute! Let them have their “Christian Nation” full of bigots and teenage pregnancies while we have universal civil rights and full-disclosure sex ed. Lets see how Alabama and Mississippi and West Virginia, etc. fare when they are no longer getting federal tax dollars from New York and California and Massachusetts.

  3. Speaking as a lifetime coastal resident, a leftist, and a Californian, I gotta speak up from the buzzkill corner and say that is really not cool. :\ It reminds me of the people who wished death or property destruction upon the people in Texas who they viewed as too “stupid” to leave their homes during the storms.

    It’s clear classism, prejudice, generalizations (did all of Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia vote to make that sign?), and bewildering hate for strangers aren’t things that only the right is guilty of.

    Or I suppose we can go back to bashing the poor, the “ignorant,” and those who we don’t understand.

  4. From an analysis of federal funding…money tends to flow out of the blue states and into red states (which tend to have large military bases on them).

    However, the blue/red divide is artificial…mostly the US is different shades of purple.

  5. Ok. I looked this guy up. He was a fairly well known Catholic priest, he paid for the billboards out of $$ he’d earned over his life. He did it from a nursing home shortly before his death in 2006, so sending letters to him would be pointless. He was also suffering diminished capacity at the time.

  6. Ok. I looked this guy up. He was a fairly well known Catholic priest, he paid for the billboards out of $$ he’d earned over his life. He did it from a nursing home shortly before his death in 2006, so sending letters to him would be pointless. He was also suffering diminished capacity at the time.

  7. No, I’m just commenting on actual facts based on surveys that correlate those states with being both poor and part of the Religious Right.

    As to your correlation to the storms in Texas, it is inappropriate. I am not wishing them ill at all, I’m only wishing that they get what they want and the consequences to those things. I’m simply stating that if they want my tax money then they should accept that my opinion is valid.

  8. I wouldn’t be for a civil war. Mostly it’s the wrong people that get killed in wars.

    Vigorous experimentation on a state-by-state basis, though…I’m all for that. Let’s have Texas adopt their hope-based sex ed plan, and really follow through on it. Have another state go gang busters on comphrensive sex ed. Let the experiment run for a decade and see how things turn out.

  9. In theory that’d be great, the only problem is that federal tax dollars get redistributed to those states and I don’t want to have to pay for all those teen mothers and their unwanted children who will go on welfare.

  10. Umm, who is this “they?” I don’t think “they” wanted civil war. I don’t think anyone wanted civil war. I think one nutjob or set of nutjobs used it in an ad they paid for as incendiary, hyperbolic rhetoric meant to demonize people they didn’t agree with.

    I’m pretty sure “full of bigots and teenage pregnancies” isn’t a statistical conclusion; I’m also wondering where these “universal civil rights” are that make the blue states so utterly superior, since I’m certainly not seeing them. I see states full of racism, sexism, homophobia and class divide — you know, like the rest of the nation.

    But you’re welcome to refute me.

  11. Well, it’s addressed to “lunatic atheists.” Maybe he’s distinguishing between lunatics who happen to be atheists and the more reasonable ones who thought things through.

    I can see why you’d feel annoyed. I’ve encountered a number of people who’d agree with this billboard, and I’ve found it pretty frustrating.

  12. Well, it’s addressed to “lunatic atheists.” Maybe he’s distinguishing between lunatics who happen to be atheists and the more reasonable ones who thought things through.

    I can see why you’d feel annoyed. I’ve encountered a number of people who’d agree with this billboard, and I’ve found it pretty frustrating.

  13. Look up the statistics for per capita teenage pregnancy and percentage of sex ed paid for by abstinence-only education.

    Also, I’m not saying that the blue states are less prejudiced, just that they respect what Thomas Jefferson says more than the red ones do, you know, stuff like “…that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.”

  14. Yeah, fuck those unfortunates and their insistence upon being unfortunate.

    What the fuck? Apparently the left’s swinging back around to the right these days, if you’re any evidence.

  15. I never said I was of the left. I’m a Libertarian. I have no problem with charity, but no one should be OBLIGATED to pay for someone else, especially if there are no strings attached to that money.

  16. Then you should probably get on the case of all those damn poor people of the blue states, too, drainin’ the tax dollars of hardworking proper citizens like yourself: ain’t only the rural poor who those dastardly welfare dollars go to.

    But I forgot, everyone’s enlightened in California and New York.

  17. Who says I’m not? That just happens to not be relevant to this issue.

    Also, as a New Yorker, 90% of this state is rural and the #1 industry is farming. I know all about the rural poor, I grew up across the street from a corn field and 3 houses down from some cows. There are 5 apple orchards within a 20 mile radius from my parents’ house.

  18. Civil war does not mean secession, but it CAN mean secession; just look at your example of our own past civil war, that was about secession.

    And I never said I was cool with shooting people because of their beliefs. I am, however, cool with shooting people if they choose to take up arms to impose their beliefs on others. Since denying civil rights to people based on sexual orientation is imposing one’s beliefs on others, I would not be opposed to a civil war based on that, or any other civil rights issue, for that matter.

    • Since denying civil rights to people based on sexual orientation is imposing one’s beliefs on others, I would not be opposed to a civil war based on that, or any other civil rights issue, for that matter.

      What’s interesting about that is that big-L Libertarians strongly disagree with you.

      One of the platforms of the Libertarian Party is that all civil rights legislation violates the free-association clause of the Constitution. Libertarians oppose government regulation that mandates separation of races (segregation) or discriminates against people for racial, sexual, religious, or ethnic reasons…but they also oppose government regulation forbidding these things. Libertarians believe that homosexuality should not be outlawed, but on the flip side of the same coin, if a business chooses to refuse to employ gays (or blacks or Jews), the government has no right to step in and mandate that they do. (Libertarian icon Ron Paul is the only Senator who voted against the legislation mandating the end of segregation.)

      So, the question becomes: is it still a denial of civil rights if it’s done by a business or a community rather than by a government?

  19. Civil war does not mean secession, but it CAN mean secession; just look at your example of our own past civil war, that was about secession.

    And I never said I was cool with shooting people because of their beliefs. I am, however, cool with shooting people if they choose to take up arms to impose their beliefs on others. Since denying civil rights to people based on sexual orientation is imposing one’s beliefs on others, I would not be opposed to a civil war based on that, or any other civil rights issue, for that matter.

  20. The South wanted to secede, in my opinion the North should have let them. If it had been amicable then there would be the same relationship between them that we have with Canada. In all probability they would have realized that they needed each other, with all the raw materials being in the south and all the processors in the north.

    I never advocated taking up arms; I said that it is a great idea. I am capable of acknowledging that something can be a good idea in theory, without it being one in practice, something you apparently are not capable of. Ever hear of DDT? PCBs? Great ideas in theory, not so much in practice.

    I believe that everyone should have the same civil rights but that doesn’t mean that I feel responsible in making that happen. In my country I pay taxes toward the government, therefore I have the right to vote on issues in this country, and to support causes that will affect this country, this does not mean I have the right to decide what happens in other countries. Remember the Tea Party and the whole “No taxation without representation” thing? Well, I believe it works both ways. You shouldn’t have to pay taxes if you’re not represented, but if you don’t have the right to be represented if you’re not paying taxes. I don’t pay taxes to the Middle East, therefore I have no right to determine what happens there.

    As a citizen of the United States, I do not feel that my country has the right to invade another country because it dislikes its politics (and forget the bullshit about women’s rights, if we were there for women’s rights we’d have invaded India by now). If another government has policies that ours does not agree with it doesn’t give use the right to overthrow that government just because we have the power to, that makes us terrorists, which many people in Afghanistan already think we are.

    So, you may ask, what do I feel is the appropriate response to demonstrate a disagreement with policy? How about a boycott, an embargo, economic sanctions? It worked pretty well with South Africa. Also, open up the borders with unlimited immigration for people that are being persecuted. If the Dominican Republic hadn’t done this for the Jews in WWII I wouldn’t even be here (it was, by the way, the only country that did, including the US). I would by no means force someone to stay in a situation where they are in danger.

    About “The War” (you know, since it’s been ‘officially’ over since 2003), I have serious doubts that any of the military presence in the Middle East has anything to do with civil rights; there has been a US Naval presence in the Middle East continuously since its formation. The war is about economics and payback for 9/11.

    Don’t get me wrong, I think it is horrible what happens in other places in the world, and I consider myself very lucky to be an American citizen. I’m just not so ethnocentric that I feel the right to impose my culture and politics on others who do not share my views.

    • You know, honestly, I agree with you. When the South wanted to secede, the North should have let ’em. We would today have two nations: the United States of America, a progressive and wealthy First World superpower, and the Confederate States of America, an impoverished Third World hellhole with a GDP that would likely be significantly less than Mexico’s. Honestly, that’d be okay with me.

  21. The South wanted to secede, in my opinion the North should have let them. If it had been amicable then there would be the same relationship between them that we have with Canada. In all probability they would have realized that they needed each other, with all the raw materials being in the south and all the processors in the north.

    I never advocated taking up arms; I said that it is a great idea. I am capable of acknowledging that something can be a good idea in theory, without it being one in practice, something you apparently are not capable of. Ever hear of DDT? PCBs? Great ideas in theory, not so much in practice.

    I believe that everyone should have the same civil rights but that doesn’t mean that I feel responsible in making that happen. In my country I pay taxes toward the government, therefore I have the right to vote on issues in this country, and to support causes that will affect this country, this does not mean I have the right to decide what happens in other countries. Remember the Tea Party and the whole “No taxation without representation” thing? Well, I believe it works both ways. You shouldn’t have to pay taxes if you’re not represented, but if you don’t have the right to be represented if you’re not paying taxes. I don’t pay taxes to the Middle East, therefore I have no right to determine what happens there.

    As a citizen of the United States, I do not feel that my country has the right to invade another country because it dislikes its politics (and forget the bullshit about women’s rights, if we were there for women’s rights we’d have invaded India by now). If another government has policies that ours does not agree with it doesn’t give use the right to overthrow that government just because we have the power to, that makes us terrorists, which many people in Afghanistan already think we are.

    So, you may ask, what do I feel is the appropriate response to demonstrate a disagreement with policy? How about a boycott, an embargo, economic sanctions? It worked pretty well with South Africa. Also, open up the borders with unlimited immigration for people that are being persecuted. If the Dominican Republic hadn’t done this for the Jews in WWII I wouldn’t even be here (it was, by the way, the only country that did, including the US). I would by no means force someone to stay in a situation where they are in danger.

    About “The War” (you know, since it’s been ‘officially’ over since 2003), I have serious doubts that any of the military presence in the Middle East has anything to do with civil rights; there has been a US Naval presence in the Middle East continuously since its formation. The war is about economics and payback for 9/11.

    Don’t get me wrong, I think it is horrible what happens in other places in the world, and I consider myself very lucky to be an American citizen. I’m just not so ethnocentric that I feel the right to impose my culture and politics on others who do not share my views.

  22. I’ve actually been saying this for a while. I’m really getting sick of my tax money going to pay for infrastructure of people who hate me, my friends, and how we live our lives and are politically dedicated to an agenda that does nothing but punish those who don’t live the way they want you to.

  23. It’s fine to say there are moderates out there and “Not everybody is like that”, but look who’s got the political megaphone and the bully pulpit at this point and look how it’s being used and oh, by the way, those sort of tactics actually RESONATE with a significant chunk of the population. It’s pretty clear that the central, midwest states like us WAY less than we do them.

    I can’t think of how many times in this past election cycle I was told I wasn’t a “Real Americans” living in “Real America”.

    I think there’s a time and place to try to work out differences and co-exist peacefully and a time to realize that there IS, in fact, an “other side” that really does have it in for you.

    One of the only reasons I think we haven’t seen a Rwandan or Balkan-like uprising is that Kansas and Florida are a good 3 day drive from places like California and New York instead of just a couple hours.

    I’m trying here. I’m really trying hard to see that we can all get along and respect each other as a purple nation rather than red and blue states. 8 years of Bush and his hangers-on I think have pretty much purged that from me.
    I just find it really hard to believe anymore.

  24. Actually, I’m not saying there are moderates out there (I’m certainly not). I’m saying the red state/blue state is too broad of a brush to paint with. The only reason why states go to one color or the other, and not a shade of purple is because the way the electoral college is set up.

    Obama may have “won by a landslide” with the electoral college vote, but that’s not the case with the popular vote. (I think “wins by a landslide” is something greater than an 80/20 breakdown.)

    But when it comes to individuals, there will always be some who hold dearly to some completely whacked ideas, and that’s ok. America is the land of the free, not the land of correct ideas. Freedom implies the right to be really, really wrong.

    Rather than try and correct people with whacked ideas (because certainly all of our ideas are infallible), I think we should make it easier for people to explore their ideas and see for themselves how it turns out. (This gets a bit more difficult when it comes to global warming and other situations where only one answer is possible.)

  25. If India had provided economic aid and intelligence support to people who flew 747s into office buildings, we probably would have invaded them, instead. But India doesn’t roll that way, and Saddam and the Taliban did. We have, by most historical standards, a perfectly valid reason for being in both countries. You really can’t imagine Hussein or the Taliban pulling this kind of shit on Theodore Roosevelt or Benjamin Disraeli, can you?

    Way to be totally misinformed. 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Why didn’t we invade them? Even President Bush has stated clearly that there were NO links between Saddam and the 9/11 hijackers nor between Saddam and al Qaeda in general. There is also the complete lack of weapons of mass destruction that the Bush adminisration was so sure were there.

    I’m not sorry Saddam is gone. But if we wanted to invade another country, we should have been more upfront about our reasons and motivations, instead of cloaking them under the “terrorists! terrorists! and weapons of mass destruction!” BS. Of course, it would have been a lot harder to get support and UN authorization for such a mission.

  26. If India had provided economic aid and intelligence support to people who flew 747s into office buildings, we probably would have invaded them, instead. But India doesn’t roll that way, and Saddam and the Taliban did. We have, by most historical standards, a perfectly valid reason for being in both countries. You really can’t imagine Hussein or the Taliban pulling this kind of shit on Theodore Roosevelt or Benjamin Disraeli, can you?

    Way to be totally misinformed. 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Why didn’t we invade them? Even President Bush has stated clearly that there were NO links between Saddam and the 9/11 hijackers nor between Saddam and al Qaeda in general. There is also the complete lack of weapons of mass destruction that the Bush adminisration was so sure were there.

    I’m not sorry Saddam is gone. But if we wanted to invade another country, we should have been more upfront about our reasons and motivations, instead of cloaking them under the “terrorists! terrorists! and weapons of mass destruction!” BS. Of course, it would have been a lot harder to get support and UN authorization for such a mission.

  27. I have just the thing for a billboard:

    “Dear reactionary Christian right fringe (that’s right, your views aren’t mainstream by a long shot):

    Live your life and I’ll live mine.

    No love,
    Everyone else”

  28. I don’t want to bomb anybody, I really just want to be left alone.

    I’m just saying that there seems to be a sizeable portion of the country that wants California to break off the continent and float away out into the Pacific and I’m wondering if granting that wish isn’t such a bad idea.

    Minnesota is okay in my book BTW, you guys have Garrison Keillor and PZ Meyers.

  29. (This gets a bit more difficult when it comes to global warming and other situations where only one answer is possible.)

    Which is kind of the catch here isn’t it ?
    We have so many problems where a rationalist scientific approach is the only one that’s going to get us out of the soup we’re currently in. We can’t afford to be wasting time on “faith-based” approaches or be “really, really wrong”. It’s pretty clear that the only way we’re going to escape the worst of the effects of climate change is through a crash-program of conservation, renewable, sustainable energy sources and an end to a handful of industries. We really have to be allowed to pursue everything. Stem cells, GMO crops, nuclear power, everything HAS to be on the table or we’re screwed.

    This idea that we’re allowed to or are even commanded to have dominion over the planet and consume everything on it because God will just swoop down and press the giant reset button and make it all better is ridiculous, yet the National Association of Evangelicals just fired their VP of Gov’t Affairs for espousing a “Green” position.

    We historically have a lot of freedoms in this country that other people around the world didn’t/don’t have, but we’re entering a time where we’re going to be less free and less able to deliberate over answers to certain problems like climate change.

  30. Since denying civil rights to people based on sexual orientation is imposing one’s beliefs on others, I would not be opposed to a civil war based on that, or any other civil rights issue, for that matter.

    What’s interesting about that is that big-L Libertarians strongly disagree with you.

    One of the platforms of the Libertarian Party is that all civil rights legislation violates the free-association clause of the Constitution. Libertarians oppose government regulation that mandates separation of races (segregation) or discriminates against people for racial, sexual, religious, or ethnic reasons…but they also oppose government regulation forbidding these things. Libertarians believe that homosexuality should not be outlawed, but on the flip side of the same coin, if a business chooses to refuse to employ gays (or blacks or Jews), the government has no right to step in and mandate that they do. (Libertarian icon Ron Paul is the only Senator who voted against the legislation mandating the end of segregation.)

    So, the question becomes: is it still a denial of civil rights if it’s done by a business or a community rather than by a government?

  31. You know, honestly, I agree with you. When the South wanted to secede, the North should have let ’em. We would today have two nations: the United States of America, a progressive and wealthy First World superpower, and the Confederate States of America, an impoverished Third World hellhole with a GDP that would likely be significantly less than Mexico’s. Honestly, that’d be okay with me.

  32. I never thought I’d actually *want* to quote Jack Black, but…

    You pick and choose!
    Well please choose love instead of hate!
    Besides your nation
    Was built on separation
    of Church and State!

  33. I never thought I’d actually *want* to quote Jack Black, but…

    You pick and choose!
    Well please choose love instead of hate!
    Besides your nation
    Was built on separation
    of Church and State!

  34. I find your views a bit myopic. What about progressives like me, temporarily confined to red states due to insolvency, familial obligations, or illness (like me)? Are we not granted the same rights and protection from the Tyranny of the Majority granted in the Constitution?

  35. …or minorities represented by people with money. People with money, and agendas, and the will to get out there and register ex-cons, and pay corporations to otherwise stuff ballot boxes.

    But hey, what’s the difference? Our vote makes no difference, it’s the electoral college who determines who will be the next president.

  36. …or minorities represented by people with money. People with money, and agendas, and the will to get out there and register ex-cons, and pay corporations to otherwise stuff ballot boxes.

    But hey, what’s the difference? Our vote makes no difference, it’s the electoral college who determines who will be the next president.

  37. From an analysis of federal funding…money tends to flow out of the blue states and into red states (which tend to have large military bases on them).
    I think that’s probably more due to the fact that graduated income tax rates don’t take local cost-of-living differences into account. If you are single and make $50k here in Detroit, you’d be upper-middle class. In San Francisco, you’d probably have to live in a small apartment with at least one roommate. In rural Arkansas, you’re likely to be the richest person for several miles. You’d be paying the same tax rate, regardless.

    However, the blue/red divide is artificial…mostly the US is different shades of purple.
    If you look at it by state, probably, but there is a pretty sharp division between rural and urban areas.

  38. I’d say go one step further. A billboard that reads:

    “If I want you to know something, I’ll tell you. That’s what being omnipotent is all about. Anyone claiming to represent me is a lying weasel. Now I’m going back to creating parasites that eat the eyes of poor children, and you get back to doing what you do. Love or whatever, God”

    In fact, it’s the idea of putting up billboards like this that make highway-side property sooooo tempting.

  39. Evangelical Christians can be bought — it just takes time and patience.

    But it’s easier to hack a site, buy your own readerboard, deface an existing sign, or manufacture “warning stickers” and slip them into hotel bibles.

    Ahem.

    Is this where I plug my stickers?

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