Tag Ted Cruz

Weird Al-lection

Dusty Leave a comment

I think we’ve probably all (And by “all” I mean the very small percentage of people who actually listen to Weird Al, filtered through the even smaller percentage of people who are still willing to think about the election) seen Weird Al Yankovic’s song about the debates. If not, here it is:

 

This is, of course, excellent. But I am prejudiced: not only can I talk about politics forever, but I have been a dedicated Weird Al fan for his entire career: my dad played me “Yoda” when I was about 9, and I bought “Weird Al In 3-D” soon thereafter. I have been a fan of his longer than any other band, any other musician, any other genre. I know pretty much all of his songs, most of them by heart.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that as I listened to this, I realized that it wasn’t the only Weird Al song that was appropriate for this election.

In fact, Weird Al has created the theme song for the whole thing. I mean, all of it. Every candidate — and for some of them, two or three.

So, in honor of a man I do honestly consider a musical genius, who can do anything at all, from reggae to heavy metal to rap to country, and in hopes of adding a wee bit of levity to our long national nightmare (Which will end soon! Only a week! Don’t forget to vote!), I hereby present The Weird Al-lection.

 

Starting with the Republicans:

Governor Jeb Bush: For the third Bush to run for President, who based all of his policies on “Well my brother did this, so I think it’s a good idea,” and his appeal on, “Hey, aren’t a lot of you folks white men? So am I!” This is the only song:

 

 

 

Dr. Ben Carson: Sometimes it’s too obvious. Though I like how absurd the lyrics are, and if you imagine this parody of a surgeon actually doing this job on you, that’s pretty much how I feel about Carson being president.

 

Governor Chris Christie: Now, this seems like a cheap shot; but actually, the connection to the New Jersey governor is more about the attitude in these lyrics: “Just watch your mouth, or I’ll sit on you.//If you see me comin’ your way, better give me plenty space; If I tell you that I’m hungry, then won’t you feed my face!”

 

Senator Ted Cruz: This one bothers me because this is one of my favorite songs, and Cruz is one of my least favorite organisms. But it’s perfect.

 

Carly Fiorina: 1. It’s about computers, like Ms. Fiorina; 2. it’s a parody of a song about money, also like Ms. Fiorina; 3. While the song is a good parody, it is vastly annoying. Like Ms. Fiorina.

 

Governor Mike Huckabee: I know he wasn’t in the race long, but Governor Huckabee’s mixture of devout Christianity and political incompetence makes me think this would be the result of his election. Rick Santorum can share this song.

 

Governor John Kasich: Since his pitch seemed to be, “Well, you can’t vote for Jeb Bush any more, so how’s about me? I can swing Ohio!” he gets this:

 

Senator Rand Paul: My impressions of Senator Paul: he is a strange derivative version of his father. He is frequently angry for very little reason. He is extremely white. There are actually some things about him that I like, but overall, I can’t stand the guy. Which is how I feel about polka. I’m sorry, Mr. Yankovic; I find them amusing when you do them, but — it’s just such a terrible musical form!

For Senator Paul: The Angry White Boy Polka.

 

Governor Rick Perry: For the man who can’t count to three:

 

Senator Marco Rubio: Again, this seems like a cheap shot — and a racist one, at that — but I thought this fit because Senator Rubio tried to take advantage of his heritage while also trying to appeal to all the honkies in the GOP; that reminds me of someone who speaks only food Spanish. Hence this song. Plus the original is all about trying to be smooth, which Rubio tries but can’t pull off; and the singer, Gerardo, is only appealing on the surface. Like Rubio.

 

Governor Scott Walker: The man is nothing but a front for corporations. He is an empty suit stuffed with dark money. So, he gets to have another of my favorite Al songs — one that says a lot about our culture, while saying nothing at all. Like Governor Walker.

(I’m adding a second song because Gov. Walker’s treatment of teachers in Wisconsin makes him pretty much The Most Hated Man On My List. Other than the Big T, that is.)

(By the way: if you’ve never seen this first video, it is brilliant, as is the song, if you’ve ever worked in a corporate environment.)

 

Finally, in honor of the forgotten candidates, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Jim Gilmore, and George Pataki, none of whom anyone can remember, because nobody cared about their incredibly short runs for the Big Chair, I present my favorite completely absurd Weird Al songs. Because these people, like these songs, make no sense whatsoever.

(The video for this one also makes no sense.)

 

 

Now we finally get to the Dems.

 

Governor Lincoln Chafee: The guy’s so cool. And so utterly not.

 

Governor Martin O’Malley: You know, I don’t have much to say about Governor O’Malley. He seems like a pretty reasonable centrist Democratic candidate. I think this just wasn’t his year. Maybe that means it won’t ever be his year. So, he gets this one:

 

Senator Bernie Sanders: Such a mensch. Just listen to the first ten seconds, and you’ll see why this song. But the rest of it fits, too.

 

Senator Jim Webb: Senator Webb strikes me as being pretty much the guy who yells at kids to get off his lawn, if his lawn was a national debate stage.

 

Now for the big ones: those actual nominees who will be getting our votes in a few days. Please understand this post is not intended to endorse any particular candidate; please vote your conscience, wherever that leads you. Just please vote.

Don’t vote for Trump.

 

 

Dr. Jill Stein: I particularly like this one, because Dr.  Stein seems reasonable and logical and appealing at first — but the longer you listen to her, the less rational she seems. Let’s just cancel college debt? Anti-vaxxers have a point? Here you go, Doctor:

 

Governor Gary Johnson:  Mr. “What’s Aleppo?” gets two, one just because he was the governor of New Mexico.

 

Hillary Clinton: First, for all the promises she’s made, particularly the ones she’s made in exchange for a check:

And then, just because one song about mail is not enough for Hillary Clinton (Best thing about this is that the gist of this song is that people keep sending the same crap around the internet, and that people believe complete bullshit without any evidence. Perfect.):

 

Donald Trump: This is the way Mr. Trump actually lives. No exaggeration. It’s beautiful. Bigly beautiful.

And this is how we all feel about him.

 

The Party’s Over

Dusty 1 Comment

“Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king. That’s why I did this: to protect you from yourselves. –Sideshow Bob, “Sideshow Bob Roberts”

(This is the third installment of my political corruption series, and the last. For now.)

Let’s be clear (If you read my stuff, it’s probably already clear): I am a lifelong Democrat. I am the child of two lifelong Democrats: my parents voted for John F. Kennedy, for William McGovern, for Walter Mondale, for Michael Dukakis; I voted for Clinton, for Gore, for Kerry, and for Barack Obama, twice. I don’t understand why people can vote Republican: the wealthy, for whom it makes personal sense, have to be callous, I feel, in order to refuse to maintain the social safety net for those less fortunate than they, or unbelievably greedy in order to agree to destroy the regulatory state so that they can make even more money at the expense of our very world; the poor and middle class are voting for social causes, not for personal gain (Unless they believe in trickle-down economics, but in that case they are deluded), but I see two problems with that: first, they are on the wrong side of most social issues – anti-choice, anti-equality, xenophobic, and parochial – and their candidates don’t ever deliver on their promises. So if you’re wealthy, how can you stand to vote Republican? And if you’re not, why would you ever think to vote Republican?

I read an excellent book by Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter With Kansas, in which Frank examines how Kansas, his home state and, through the 1800’s and early 1900’s, one of the most radical and progressive states, became so very staunchly, unflaggingly, self-destructively conservative. What happened was that Republican candidates around the early 90’s started pushing a pro-life agenda as the only issue that mattered – you know, the usual “40,000,000 murders,” “Culture of life” stuff – and when elected, every Republican proceeded to lower taxes, kill social services, remove regulations on business, make sweetheart deals with corporations, and basically ruin life for the average person; and then go back to election yelling “We have to end the scourge of abortion!” Which got them re-elected, into majority after majority — and yet they continued to fail to do anything about abortion, simply pushing their pro-business agenda on the state to its steadily growing detriment. But the pro-life agenda, whipped into a frenzy every new election cycle, was so compelling that nothing else seemed to matter to the voters, who kept voting Republican until it put their state where it is now – essentially hollowed out, unable to provide even the most basic elements we expect of our governments, like schools – not that Kansas schools teach anything other than creationism and abstinence, according to the campaign promises of the Republican candidates.

That’s how I see Republicans: selfish, deluded, misguided, and absurdly optimistic– or, less kindly, willfully blind to the fact that their politicians don’t ever deliver on the things they promise that won their constituents’ votes: on the national scene, we still have Obamacare, we are still giving foreign aid to dozens of other countries, our veterans are still dying on the streets, abortion is still legal, gay marriage is now legal as well, and there still isn’t a wall between the US and Mexico. So why would anyone vote Republican?

Here’s the thing, though: why do I continue to vote Democratic? It was Clinton who ended the Glass-Steagall Act, which, more than anything else, precipitated the economic crash that happened ten years later, under George Bush but not – I repeat, not — because of him. It was Bush’s fault that our government wasn’t in a better position to help after the crash, because he gave away Clinton’s surplus in tax breaks and war spending; but the crash was because of the Democrats. Democrats who I voted for. And of all of my other causes, the most important to me is the reduction of violence and misery, and the improvement of equal opportunity for everyone; the largest obstacle to all of that is income inequality. Which Democrats conveniently ignore, not wishing to appear – gasp – Socialist. (I know, I know – Bernie Sanders. But he’s also pro-gun.) We have Obamacare, but without the public option, it is more of a burden than anything useful; my costs for health care are still going up, every year, while my wages are going down: I make less now than I did ten years ago. Unions are still dying, and women still don’t make the same wages that men do, and Guantanamo is still open and still incarcerating prisoners of war who have never been to trial, and guns remain unregulated, and schools remain unfunded, and everyone is still driving Hummers while we drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

So who’s really the fool, here?

I think the answer’s pretty obvious: we all are. We have all been sold a bill of goods that doesn’t match what the grinning faces behind the counter are putting into our baskets.

This is the last form of political corruption I want to write about, and that I think I have a solution for: this one is the corruption of the entire system, through partisanship and self-serving deception. This political corruption is the two-party system.

I would love to go back now to when the two-party system made sense and worked well for Americans; but in all honesty, the two-party system has always been about helping itself. Having a clearly defined and well-known political party makes it easier for candidates affiliated with that party to get elected: the party label offers a certain legitimacy, and even loyalty, in that people often vote the “straight ticket,” picking the candidates affiliated with their party without knowing anything about them. The party also offers a political apparatus that makes it easier to get heard and therefore elected; you need staff, you need volunteers, you need access to media and to debates and the like, you need a platform that people can hear and understand and support. The political party that exists before and beyond one’s own candidacy offers all of that; unless you’re a billionaire loon like H. Ross Perot, bless his wrinkly, big-eared heart, you wouldn’t want to form your own party just for your candidacy, and you almost certainly couldn’t afford to. So political parties are useful, and they aren’t going away – more’s the pity; because by far the easiest solution here is just to ban them entirely. But then it would be too hard for anyone not an incumbent to mount a national political campaign, or even a serious state-wide one, and that would not be any better, as those in power – who already have political staff, legitimacy, and access to media – would get re-elected even more often than they do now. So okay, we’ll keep political parties.

Now, if that party represents a certain set of values that the voter supports, then well and good: but because there are only two parties with any real legitimacy in this country, those two parties become too large and unwieldy, their umbrellas too wide and encompassing such extremes, that voting for the party doesn’t really mean supporting one’s specific causes: is this Republican candidate an evangelical Christian who wants to put the Ten Commandments on the American flag and mandate both creationism and prayer in schools? Or is he a Libertarian seeking the end of the income tax and government reduced to only two services, international commerce and the military? Is this Democrat in favor of a path to citizenship, but also supports private prisons, or is she looking to legalize marijuana and strengthen the Second Amendment at the same time? We can’t tell based on party affiliation.

Now, the two-party system theoretically serves the middle: because the two parties have to have such broad appeal, they tend towards the center. And thirty or forty years ago, I think that was probably true: but it isn’t now. And before that – say, eighty or a hundred years ago – it also wasn’t true. Way back when it was formed, the Republican party was single-mindedly abolitionist, which was an extreme (albeit correct) position; the Democratic party, in response, was for decades staunchly segregationist and pro-states’-rights. Also not moderate positions. Today, we have one party – I’ll let the reader guess which one – that has discovered that it can motivate its base through extreme and inflexible positions on social issues; in other words, the more extreme and zealous and inflammatory the party gets, the more votes they turn out. The entire party is moving away from the center, and at the same time, becoming more successful, because of it. More successful, that is, at winning elections: they are certainly not more successful at governing, a profession they seem to have cast aside in favor of demogoguery. Meanwhile, the opposition party is trying to maintain its foothold in the middle; but as the other party keeps going farther and farther to one side, the middle drags in that direction – and rather than hold their ground and make the extremists come back, the moderate party is moving with them, and thus also becoming less moderate: while surrendering entirely the side of the political spectrum they were supposed to be watching. I feel like, any minute now, the Democrats are going to turn around and see that a Republican has captured their flag while they were all on the other side, trying to keep an eye on the Republican team – who were having a dance party around their own flag, completely ignoring the Democrats and the entire game, but subtly distracting their whole team so that no one was left to play defense. And somehow, Vince Lombardi was behind it all. Or Ronald Reagan.

The two-party system is also supposed to provide stability: because the parties are predictable, and centrist, and inclusive, and effectively share the electorate, they are forced to compromise, which isn’t terribly hard because their positions aren’t far apart, and so they can respect and agree with each other on most things; any one politician also realizes that his opposition is not going away, and so he has to work with them. Except our parties aren’t providing that, either: instead we get hatred and bile and petty partisanship that blocks everything useful, even stuff that shouldn’t ever be a question, like raising the debt ceiling, or providing for the 9/11 First Responders. Honestly, any government that can’t give those guys health care and a pension that would choke a horse is no kind of government at all.

So that’s what we have: no kind of government at all. The parties have lost their way: rather than improving our democracy, they are hurting it; because their goal is no longer to represent the will of the people, but rather to maintain and expand the power of their party. As long as their party wins, nothing else matters. Politics is become a team sport. The propagandists (You know – the cheerleaders. Though I can’t think of anyone on this Earth who looks less like a cheerleader than Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove.) have taken over, and they have realized that they don’t need to steer their parties towards what the people want; they can make the tail wag the dog, and the party can tell the people what they want. As long as they say they are in favor of what the people are in favor of – this side will ban abortion, that side will close Guantanamo and ensure that women make equal pay for equal work – they don’t actually have to do those things in order to maintain power. And as long as the person says they are a Democrat or a Republican, that’s a win, even if they don’t actually act like it: and so the Republican party will support Donald Trump if he wins the nomination, and the Democratic party will support Bernie Sanders, even though he is a Socialist independent.

I don’t even have to argue that the political system is broken: the race for President – which has already been going on for a full year – will likely come down to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. Bernie Sanders will likely not be in the running. (And I have to say: in that scenario, I almost wish that Ted Cruz would win, so that Mitch McConnell could stand up in the Senate and say that his first goal is to ensure that Ted Cruz is a one-term president. I want to see how well Mr. Cruz can do when he can’t blame things on Obama. Although of course he’d keep blaming Obama for everything, anyway.) If the system worked, then Sanders would run as a Socialist, Trump as the head of the shiny new Trump-Solid-Gold Party, Hillary Clinton as a Democrat, Ted Cruz as a member of the Inquisition, and probably Marco Rubio as the Republican. And then we’d have a race, by God. You’d have two actual centrists, Rubio and Clinton, one on the left in Sanders, one on the far right in Cruz, and Trump off on a tangent, somewhere far out in Nutsville.

So how do we change things to achieve that glorious outcome in the future? Well, there are a couple of ways. The first thing is we can bring back the Fairness Doctrine, which required opposing viewpoints to be presented on any television station that aired political views; that, with a certain minimum percentage of votes – say, 5% of the popular vote in any one election cycle – required to gain status as an opposing viewpoint, would allow alternate parties to gain media access, publicity, and a voice in the system. That would be the best thing: allow parties a chance to gain their own foothold, and stop this nonsense where everyone other than a Democrat or Republican is a “third-party candidate,” which is seen almost universally as a wasted vote.

We could also eliminate the one-winner-takes-all election system, and the single-representative system with it. Depending on whether we want more representatives in Congress, it could look like this: the Congress members from a certain state would all run in one general election, with up to as many candidates as there are seats from each party – so in a state with ten Congress seats, there would be ten Republicans, ten Democrats, ten Socialists, etc. – and the popular vote would be divided by percentage. So if 50% of the state voted Republican, 30% Democrat and 20% Socialist, then the state would get five Republican congresspeople, three Democrats, and two Socialists; you could either have the parties choose their reps by caucus, or have a run-off within the party for which candidates get the slots. Alternately, you could run the same system but with multiple candidates from the various parties winning a single “seat,” that is made up of several actual members; though that would greatly increase the number of Congresspeople, and still allow for districts to be gerrymandered. I like the state-by-state bloc voting, personally.

And one other thing is critical: term limits. It is absurd that we don’t already have these in Congress when we have them almost everywhere else, including the Presidency. I’d suggest about a decade for each seat: four two-year terms in Congress, two six-year terms in the Senate. Maximum twenty years in the legislature. And anyone currently past that is out at the next election.

All of us are unhappy with the partisan politics. I have seen this meme several times of late, and I expect to see it even more between now and November.

Screw the Demopublicrats

We need to fix the system, because the people who are breaking it aren’t going to turn around and fix it, and breaking it even further is not going to magically bring it back around to a good place. Too be specific: Donald Trump will not make America great again. No Republican and no Democrat will.

We the people can. We will. We just have to do it. Now, please.

Responding to Comments

Dusty Leave a comment

When I started up this blog, I decided that I was going to try to reply to every comment I get (I’m waiting for the spam to start. I hope I get good spam.). It hasn’t been too onerous, of course, as only a few folks are reading as of yet (Thank you, by the way, to those out there included in that number.) — but this week, there’s a certain someone who replied to my last post who deserves and needs a response.

Mr. Ted Cruz of Texas.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reiterated his support for Indiana’s controversial religious freedom law Wednesday, despite a fresh push by that state’s governor to “fix” the measure.

Speaking in a stuffy, cramped auditorium at Morningside College here, Cruz said that religious liberty is not a “fringe view.” Cruz staked his claim to the right of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who signed the law but said he wanted to see “a fix” to the law that makes clear it does not give businesses license to deny services to customers on the basis of sexual orientation, and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R ) who asked lawmakers Wednesday to recall or amend a religious freedom bill.

“We’re seeing in the news right now a lot of noise because the state of Indiana bravely stood up and passed a law defending religious liberty. I’ll say this: I will commend the state of Indiana for doing the right thing,” Cruz said.

When asked by Tyler Brock, 41, what he would have done if he were in Pence’s shoes during the past week, Cruz refused to bite, saying that he doesn’t want to second-guess the Indiana governor.

“I admire him for standing up and signing the legislation,” Cruz said, not mentioning Pence’s request for a modification.

Before I address Mr. Cruz’s argument, let me say this: I appreciate the irony in commending the state for “doing the right thing,” while simultaneously backing away from denouncing the governor’s next action, which would, according to the statement of a second ago, be the wrong thing. Does that mean, Mr. Cruz, that you can hate the sin but love the sinner? Why does Mr. Pence get that much consideration, that you won’t throw him under the bus despite disagreeing, vocally, with his altered stance — but anyone whom your faith teaches to be wrong can become the platform on which you hope to become President?

Let me also appreciate the irony in this sentence: ‘Speaking in a stuffy, cramped auditorium at Morningside College here, Cruz said that religious liberty is not a “fringe view.”‘ Right: the crowd you gathered in that “cramped” auditorium at a college I’ve never heard of is clearly the majority view.

Now let’s get to Mr. Cruz’s comments.

Cruz’s comments on the Indiana law and his denouncement of same-sex marriage was well-received by the audience, which interrupted him with applause when he spoke about religious freedom.

The Texas Republican said that, unlike many other Republicans, he was unafraid to take on same-sex marriage and the religious freedom bill.

“A whole lot of Republican politicians are terrified of the issue,” he said. Cruz also castigated Fortune 500 companies for condemning Indiana’s passage of the bill, telling the crowd that they are “running shamelessly to endorse the radical gay marriage agenda over religious liberty.”

Cruz pined for a time when there was bipartisan consensus where people “defend the civil liberties of Americans. Even those we disagree with.” Now, he argued, the Democratic Party elevated partisanship over the issue of gay marriage.

“This is all part and parcel over the fight over gay marriage. And because of their partisan desire to mandate gay marriage everywhere in this country they also want to persecute anyone who has a good faith religious belief that marriage is a holy sacrament, the union of one man and one woman as ordained as a covenant by God,” Cruz said, to loud applause.

All right: in the bigger picture, this is actually helpful to my intention to try to understand the conservative stance. Because I want to mock the claim that the desire to mandate gay marriage is partisan (though I will mock that particular phrase: because I don’t know anyone who wants to require gay marriage; the idea is to insist on legal protection for the civil rights of citizens, not to “mandate” anything). And I want to do it by saying that what he is arguing for is actually the partisan thing; calling the fight to legalize gay marriage a partisan fight is arguing that, first, there are no Republicans who would support gay marriage, and second, that there are no Democrats who would oppose it, and that’s ridiculous.

But if there are people in both parties who are on opposite sides of the issue (and of course there are), then I shouldn’t call his argument a partisan argument, either. I can’t assume there are reasonable Republicans and then castigate the Republican party for being unreasonable. Hell, the GOP in Indiana backed away from this whole argument. So this should probably be seen, at least on the local level, as an attempt by the Indiana legislature to represent the desires of their constituents. Because if they held this view themselves, strongly enough to write and pass the law solely because they believed it as Cruz claims to, they wouldn’t back away from it. And even though serving the fickle masses is one of the things that today’s politicians do wrong, it is also part of their job: they are elected representatives of the will of the people. It seems that they wrote the law because they thought people wanted it, and then changed it to disallow discrimination because it turned out that people wanted that. Wishy-washy? Sure, but also representative of the will of the people. So I won’t castigate the Indiana legislature for doing the wrong thing, since they followed it up with the right thing, regardless of why. Forgive and forget, right?

So back to Ted Cruz.

The Texas Republican said that, unlike many other Republicans, he was unafraid to take on same-sex marriage and the religious freedom bill.

“A whole lot of Republican politicians are terrified of the issue,” he said. Cruz also castigated Fortune 500 companies for condemning Indiana’s passage of the bill, telling the crowd that they are “running shamelessly to endorse the radical gay marriage agenda over religious liberty.”

I love that you turn this into a matter of courage, sir. Because what a handy way to cover up the fact that your stance is stupid: doing a stupid thing, especially when you know it is stupid, is indeed seen as a courageous act in this country. Just ask my students about Truth or Dare. They have a thousand stories about the ridiculously foolish things they do, which they tell with pride. Of course a lot of Republican politicians are terrified of this issue; look what happened to the small(ish) and generally unobtrusive state of Indiana when they took up this issue. They got the crap knocked out of them by the public. Who all disagree with them. And why is it, may I ask, that Fortune 500 companies should be defending religious liberty? Shouldn’t they be, I don’t know, conducting business and making profits and such? How is it you think that companies should feel shame about not supporting religious political positions?

Oh, right. Because corporations are people.

Hey: if corporations are people, doesn’t that mean that a merger is like a marriage?

Do you think that two companies in the same business — like, say, Comcast and Time-Warner — would be essentially the same gender?

Does that mean that corporations are carrying out legalized gay marriage right under our noses?

“And because of their partisan desire to mandate gay marriage everywhere in this country they also want to persecute anyone who has a good faith religious belief that marriage is a holy sacrament, the union of one man and one woman as ordained as a covenant by God,” Cruz said, to loud applause.

As I said in the last post, people do not have the right to have their opinions defended by the government. By the same token, enacting laws (or in this case, opposing laws) that go against your opinion is not actually persecution. You are free to continue believing in your definition of marriage; you simply have to accept that this country has a legal definition of marriage that does not match your religious one. But since the country is not a theocracy, that’s exactly as it should be. May I also point out that in no way should it affect a devout Christian’s beliefs about marriage to sell a wedding cake to someone with a different belief. Your product, despite the marketing world’s views of branding, does not represent your ideas: selling your product does not represent an approval of the buyer. It represents a profit.

But again, I suppose that doesn’t gel with the view that corporations are people, and that their products and customers (and the specifics of employee health benefits — right, Hobby Lobby?) actually do somehow represent an adherence to the religious beliefs of those corporate persons; who you sell your products to is a function of your loyalty to your faith. In that world, your products are in fact your children, and if you hand your children over to the gays, you are allowing them to be corrupted.

My question here is: what does that say about a company that makes food, that makes wedding cakes? Are they selling their children to be eaten every time they have a customer? Is their entire continued existence as a corporate person predicated on the creation of children solely to be devoured? Jonathan Swift, move over.

“Religious liberty is not some cockamamie new theory that the Indiana legislature just figured out yesterday. It was literally among the founding principles of our nation, and we have to be able to explain that cheerfully and with a smile,” he said.

I just wonder about this one. Why do we have to be able to explain this cheerfully and with a smile? Who are “we” and who are “we” going to be explaining this to? And just as I question how the rights of another person somehow infringe on religious liberty, especially when the interaction between those people is the exchange of money for goods and services, I question how the lack of this law somehow makes it harder to explain, in this strange, hypothetical conversation, the First Amendment. How does Cruz see this conversation going?

“We have a legal protection here for people’s religious beliefs.”

“Why, are those threatened?”

“Historically, they have been, when a government uses religion to help control the masses, as in Henry VIII’s England or Catholic Spain; there is also a potential threat when a government uses religion as an identifier when persecuting a group of people, as has happened to Jews around the world.”

“What kind of legal protection do you have?”

“Our most fundamental laws include the statement ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or restricting the free exercise thereof.’ The first part is how we are protected from the creation of an American church which would impose a specific belief, and the second part is protecting us from the intentional persecution of any specific belief.”

“But what if it offends you that people you disagree with want to give you money? WHAT ABOUT THAT?!?”

“. . .”

That would, indeed, be hard to explain with a smile.

 

 

As a writer, I know that I should stop here. I’m at 2000 words or so, which means I’ve used up my readers’ attention for this topic; I have thoroughly addressed the Senator’s comments, and I found a good way to wrap it up with a joke. But the thing is, you see, when I was looking for an article to reference with this “rebuttal,” (The one I used is here, by the way) I found this other one, about an interview Mr. Cruz gave this week on this same issue. And — I just can’t let it go. So if you’ve had enough, thank you for reading, go on and have a lovely day. Come back again sometime.

If you are up for more, hold on to your butts.

 

Here’s the headline:

Ted Cruz: Banning Anti-Gay Discrimination In Public Services Like Forcing A Rabbi To Eat Pork

(source)

In an interview with Dana Loesch on Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz praised Indiana’s new “religious liberty” law, which goes even further than similar measures in other states to allow businesses to discriminate against customers in providing services.

Deliberately obfuscating the history of the bipartisan federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was skewed by the Supreme Court in its Hobby Lobby decision, Cruz claimed that Democrats have recently “decided that religious liberty is disposable, that it is unnecessary” and “accordingly, we have a vilification of people who are engaging in acting out their faith.”

Cruz declared that a “partisan leftist group” is now “demonizing the state of Indiana for acting to protect religious liberty there.”

Here’s the audio from the interview:

 

Now, it’s the same argument. He uses the same phrase about the bipartisan support enjoyed by religious freedom “not too long ago,” which still makes me wonder what he’s talking about, because I don’t recall a time when religious liberty was genuinely under threat in Congress. Somehow he sees refusing to provide a service to a specific customer for a specifically religion-based bigoted reason as just people “engaging in acting out their faith.” Which I don’t understand: I’d understand if he was claiming that stoning adulterers is acting out faith, and defending that act; but I don’t believe anything in the Bible states that a company should not sell wedding cakes to heathens, nor that a company (since he talks about Hobby Lobby and that convent [And I love how he tries to spark outrage by talking about how that big mean Obama is going after nuns. NUNS. Clearly Mr. Cruz has never seen The Blues Brothers.] who also wouldn’t provide birth control to employees) should not pay for hormonal birth control for their female employees. Once again, I think the law is trying to protect people’s opinions, not their rights, and Cruz is all for that.

Here’s the good stuff.

Laws preventing businesses from discriminating against LGBT people in public services or requiring them to offer full health care coverage for female employees, he implied, are as much as an infringement on religious liberty as forcing a rabbi to eat pork.

“Nobody in their right mind would force a Catholic priest to perform a Protestant wedding. Likewise, nobody in their right mind would force a Jewish rabbi to perform a Christian wedding or, for that matter, to violate kosher and go consume pork,” he said. “We have long had a tradition from the beginning of this country of respecting religious liberty and accommodating and respecting the good-faith religious views of our citizens.”

“And it is only the intolerance of the current day of the far-left that views with which they disagree — the far-left is such a radical proponent of gay marriage that anyone whose faith teaches to the contrary, anyone whose faith teaches that marriage is a sacrament of one man and one woman, a holy union before God, the far-left views that religious view as unacceptable and they’re trying to use the machinery of the law to crush those religious views. And I think it is wrong, I think it is intolerant, and I think it is entirely inconsistent with who we are as a people,” he added.

– See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-banning-anti-gay-discrimination-public-services-forcing-rabbi-eat-pork#sthash.qfdOBEJU.dpuf

Audio:

 

This is a slippery slope argument. The argument here, based on this comment that “the far-left views that religious view as unacceptable and they’re trying to use the machinery of the law to crush those religious views,” is that the opposition to a law allowing people to discriminate based on religious beliefs is only the first step (along with this war on the Catholic Church which he keeps talking about, which I suppose can only be the fight to keep abortion legal; though he might be including everything that Catholics historically haven’t liked, like divorce and contraception and evolution and Halloween and Friday night meatloaf. And Jews.), and that next the “far-left” will start banning religious holidays, and then closing down churches, and then putting Christians into concentration camps. Because apparently refusing to allow legalized discrimination is an attempt to crush religious views.

I can’t argue with that (Not that it’s right, I just can’t argue with it). There is no logic here, so pointing out the numerous flaws in the logic means nothing. This is an argument based on fear-mongering, the promotion of a paranoia that allows people to be bigoted and irrational because they believe they are defending something that is in danger, namely their faith and their right to practice it. Somehow, refusing to allow people to be intolerant is now intolerant. (“You won’t tolerate my intolerance! You toleranceist!” [There goes the meaning of THAT group of letters.]) The goalposts have been moved out from religious freedom and into the freedom to persecute others because of a religious belief, and now if we don’t allow that, we are persecuting them. Just as if we forced a rabbi to eat pork.

It is not in any way like forcing a rabbi to eat pork. Forcing a religious person to act against the specific tenets of their religion would be forcing a Catholic to have an abortion, or forcing an evangelical Christian to have homosexual sex. I don’t believe discrimination is one of the tenets of the Christian faith, therefore forcing someone not to discriminate is not forcing a rabbi to eat pork. And if discrimination is one of the tenets of the Christian faith, if in fact selling a cake to a heathen is actually banned in the Bible, then there is still a flaw in the argument: because this is a business we are talking about, and this is a customer. So the government would have to be forcing the baker to make the cake, for it to be similar to forcing a rabbi to eat pork. It’s not. It’s saying that if you offer to make someone a cake, by opening a cake-making business, you can’t turn them down when they ask you to do exactly what you said you would do, simply because you don’t like their sexual preference (or something else similarly none of your damn business.). That’s not forcing a Catholic priest to perform a Protestant wedding, or even a gay wedding; it’s asking a Catholic priest to perform a Catholic wedding. It’s asking someone for the service they specifically, intentionally, voluntarily offered. Don’t want to make cakes for certain people’s weddings? Don’t open a business providing wedding cakes to the public. Do the wedding cakes as a favor, out of your home — or maybe through your church — and sell cupcakes to anyone who walks in the door. If a customer comes asking to pay you for the service you offer, and the government doesn’t allow you to say No because of your bigoted, discriminatory opinions, that’s not forcing a rabbi to eat pork. That’s offering him a sandwich with bacon on it  — when he asks for a bite of the bacon sandwich. He can turn it down (or not ask, rather). You can refuse to provide wedding cakes if this is a problem for you. You just have to refuse to provide them for every customer. And if the government came into your bakery and required you to make wedding cakes against your will, or tried to strap you down and force you to eat bacon sandwiches, I would oppose them. Me and Ted Cruz.

Free To Be . . . You And Me

Dusty 1 Comment

So I was trying to figure out what to write about tonight. My dog, Sammy? Who is adorable, sweet, quirky, and entirely mystifying in terms of his breed? How about the sulcata tortoise we got recently, whom we named Neo? Or I could continue with the book reviews, as I also recently read “Stiff,” by Mary Roach, which is about what happens to the bodies of people who donate themselves to science?

I could write about school, of course. About the observation I recently had. Or the news stories I’ve been seeing about the problems with teachers and with schools. I had an idea for an essay analyzing King Lear (I’ve been grading those recently), and blaming Cordelia instead of the usual  villains, Goneril and Regan or Lear himself: after all, why the hell couldn’t she just tell her aged, semi-demented father what he wanted to hear? Is it so wrong that he wanted her to say how much she loved him, and lie a little?  Who doesn’t lie to their parents? Who doesn’t pretend to feel more affection for family members than they actually feel? How the hell is it virtuous to enrage your 80-year-old father in order to — what, protect your honor?

I could write about Trevor Noah taking over for Jon Stewart. Maybe about the breakup of One Direction. Or about the infuriating way that Cox refuses to put the new episodes of The Amazing Race on demand in any kind of rational way. I could talk about everything that’s wrong with The Voice, which should be an excellent show, and instead is just okay.

So many possibilities. But see, I have been wanting to follow the 2016 Presidential campaign, especially the Republicans. I want to understand the conservative stance. I want it to be rational. My wife, who is perfect in all ways, tends to see Republicans as dangerously stupid lunatics whenever she and I discuss politics, which we do pretty regularly. And hey — considering that the GOP is represented by people like George Bush and Dick Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and Mitt Romney and John Boehner — and people in our own new state like Jan Brewer and Doug Ducey, and the people who tried to mandate that everyone join a church or tried to gag teachers and school officials who disagree with them — Toni has a valid point.

And in the interests of pursuing this conservative campaign project, I really should write about Ted Cruz. The first Republican to officially declare his intention to run for President, despite being grossly unqualified, grossly unsuited, and basically just gross. I’m sorry: I don’t mean to rip on Republicans just because they’re Republicans, or conservatives; I’m serious about wanting to understand why people believe what they do and why they vote the way they do. But this guy? This guy?? THIS GUY?!?

How am I to take this man seriously?

I will try. I promise. But while I was looking through Ted Cruz’s website tonight, looking for information and an angle I can take on him, I checked out the Cruz News! link. And found this:

CRUZ: I’m proud to stand with Gov. Mike Pence, and I urge Americans to do the same

03/30/15

Issues Statement on Religious Freedom Restoration Act

HOUSTON, Texas — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, issued the following statement today in support of Governor Mike Pence’s effort to defend religious liberty and protect against the government forcing individuals to violate their deeply held beliefs:

“I want to commend Governor Mike Pence for his support of religious freedom, especially in the face of fierce opposition. There was a time, not too long ago, when defending religious liberty enjoyed strong bipartisan support. Alas, today we are facing a concerted assault on the First Amendment, on the right of every American to seek out and worship God according to the dictates of his or her conscience. Governor Pence is holding the line to protect religious liberty in the Hoosier State. Indiana is giving voice to millions of courageous conservatives across this country who are deeply concerned about the ongoing attacks upon our personal liberties. I’m proud to stand with Mike, and I urge Americans to do the same.”

source

There we go. Something at least for tonight’s blog.

Let’s start with Indiana and the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” First, you can’t restore a religious freedom that didn’t exist in  the first place. And while religious folk do have the right to think what they want about anyone they wish, and the right to say whatever they want that isn’t directly defamatory or libelous (the same right we all have, with the same restrictions), they do not have the right to treat people differently because of a religious disagreement. That’s called discrimination, and it is a violation of civil liberties. In other words, my right to freely patronize your restaurant overrides your right to throw me out of it, barring dangerous or harmful actions on my part — a category which does not, unfortunately for religious bigots, include thinking sexy thoughts about Charlie Hunnam.

(Sorry if  the reference is obscure — we’ve been watching Sons of Anarchy. Allow me just to say this: Mmhm.

)

The moment a business — or a church –opens its doors to the public, it grants the public the right to come through those doors. The minute you offer a service to that public — including sermons and ceremonies — the public has a right to make use of those services, if their use falls within the same guidelines offered to other people. So if you let a Christian man use your bathroom, you have to let a Muslim man use your bathroom. Or a gay one.

Them’s the breaks. That’s the way America works. I do understand the objection, honestly: there are students that I would much rather throw right the hell out of my classroom, and sometimes it has been because I disagree so strongly with their views — particularly, in my case, religious ones. (Especially some of the self-righteous holier-than-thou pro-life zealots I have been sorry to come across in the last fifteen years of teaching persuasive essays) But I don’t have that right, and I wouldn’t even if I weren’t a public school teacher. You know what I do with those people? I argue with them, when I can; I hate them on the inside — and I treat them like my other students, and I grade them fairly. I gave an A to the guy who argued that white people really were better than blacks or Latinos. Because he wrote a decent essay. No — I think I gave him a B. He didn’t cite sufficient evidence. Probably because he was full of crap.  But it really was a pretty good piece of (disgusting, appalling, and downright distasteful) writing.

Patronizing a place of business is not, in any way, by any stretch of the imagination, an imposition on the proprietor. You are offering money in exchange for goods or services; this is not asking something unreasonable, and it is not an infringement on private space: the business owner invited the public in. But refusing services, for a reason that is based on a personal opinion, most definitely is an imposition, especially if this must be done publicly, by asking the person to leave or refusing to serve them. Someone being gay in your vicinity is not a harmful act, and therefore you have no reason to throw them out of the restaurant.

Therefore, this act is not protecting the freedom of the business owners. It is protecting their opinions. I do not think anyone has the right to have the government protect their opinions, other than keeping someone from wrongfully stealing and profiting from those opinions, through plagiarism or copyright infringement. And I do not believe that a lot of people are going to steal “We don’t serve homos” from some deep-fried pork rind joint in Indianapolis and put it on a T-shirt. The government should protect the right to express those opinions, and any business owner who wants to write a letter to the editor saying that they don’t like homosexuals is welcome to do so. They deserve what they get.

They just don’t get to tell people they can’t buy a cup of coffee.

On a final note, let me address this specific piece of the Senator’s statement:

There was a time, not too long ago, when defending religious liberty enjoyed strong bipartisan support. Alas, today we are facing a concerted assault on the First Amendment, on the right of every American to seek out and worship God according to the dictates of his or her conscience.

When, Mr. Cruz? When did defending religious liberty enjoy strong bipartisan support? When has religious liberty ever been threatened — genuinely threatened — in this country? As for the “concerted assault” on the First Amendment, what the hell are you talking about? Concerted by whom? Who is calling the shots, coordinating the efforts, to — what? Force bigots to look homosexuals in the eye and say “You want fries with that?” Allow me to point out that the freedom to “seek out and worship God” is in no way threatened by insisting that people treat others fairly, and with dignity. Not unless you belong to the church of Don’t Sell Gel-Sole Shoe Inserts To Homosexuals.

Which, in this genuinely wonderful country of ours, is totally a church you could found yourself. And you can even become a reverend through the Universal Life Church, and gain tax-exempt status for yourself. No shit.