Showing posts with label Huckabee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Huckabee. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

What are conservatives scared of today?


Fear is conservatives' drug of choice.

Conservatives always need to be afraid of something. They neeeeed that fear. It's the only thing that makes them feel alive. Whether they're scared of the Communists or the feminists or the environmentalists or the secular humanists, they have to be terrified of something.



Image result for jason voorhees machete 
Look out, an immigrant!

So what is the number one fear of conservatives at this moment?
If you guessed MS-13, we have some lovely parting gifts for you. See, MS-136 is actually pretty scary. I mean, they would be if you ever encountered them. Most of us will never encounter MS-13, much less run afoul of them, but they're scary in the same way that tigers are scary. There';s no need for any Americans to sit up at night worrying about tigers, but if you ever did see one, do not , and I can not emphasize this enough, do NOT fuck with it.


Anyway, the answer we were looking for was "transgendered people."  
.
Why are conservatives so pants-wettingly afraid of trans folk'? It's hard to say. I mean, they seem pretty harmless.

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Pretty easy on the eyes


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Pretty cool, really.

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And yet. . .


Mike Huckabee identifies 'biggest threat' to moral fiber of US
ANAHEIM, California — Redefining gender and sexual identity is the “greatest threat” to the moral fiber of America, said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee



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Oh, do explain, Governor!

“The biggest threat to biblical principles today is the failure to apply a biblical standard of maleness and femaleness,” Huckabee told The Christian Post during a sit-down interview last week in Anaheim, California. “We are creating this illusion that there is no gender, there is no identity."



Ah. I see. Because that is one thing that the Bible is completely unambiguous about. There must at all times and in all places be a bright line of demarcation between the male and the female.
Why, just look at this categorical statement to that effect from St Paul's letter to the Galatians:

28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Oooh. Sorry, Mike. Looks like maybe St Paul would disagree with you on that "biblical principle."  But what does Paul know about it, he's only IN the Bible!


The 2008 and 2016 Republican presidential candidate explained that California’s introduction of “no-fault divorce” in 1970 created the mindset that marriage “wasn’t really that important” and that one “could go in and out of it without a second thought.” 

Which of course has everything to do with gender-non-conforming people.

“That’s when we first started losing that sense of sacredness of what marriage meant,” he argued. 

Sure, 1970. I mean, by 1970, Elizabeth Taylor had been married five times and divorced four.
And Mickey Rooney was already on wife number seven.Jerry Lee Lewis was twice-divorced and married to his THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD cousin. But yeah, up until then, marriage was seen as a sacred unbreakable vow.


“So I'm not really that surprised that same sex-marriage has become in vogue because the Christian Church were the ones who essentially abdicated a strict responsibility about what biblical marriage should look like.”


Um. . . the state of California and the Christian Church are two very different entities. California adopting no-fault divorce had no effect on the various Christian denominations' stance on marriage and divorce. I mean, you can't possibly think that churches around the country saw California's new law and threw in the towel on the culture wars. "Well, if California says you can get divorced without showing fault, then I guess we'll just have to change our entire moral worldview!"


“Once you've destroyed that, why can't you have any and everything?” he continued. “The gender dysphoria we're seeing today is largely due to the fact that the Church has failed to present very clearly the words of Jesus and Genesis 5:2: ‘Male and female He created them.’”


Why can't you have. . . what the hell are you talking about? NO-fault divorce became a thing in 1970. Did that throw open some floodgates to every alternative lifestyle or. . . I don't even know what point you think you're making. Hell, it took over 30 years for same-sex couples to be able to marry.

Also, if you're going to say that because the first two people were one male and one female, which would have been pretty necessary for reproduction, that that means that there can now only be males and females and you're stuck with whatever you get? Oh, and also, the Bible does say that God created them male and female. But it also says that God did not "create" Adam, but formed him from clay and then had to go back later and take a rib out out of him because he had completely forgotten to create woman, so maybe Genesis isn't the most sound basis for gender policy?


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Huckabee pointed out that society today celebrates single parenting and posits the idea that fathers “really aren’t necessary” when it comes to raising children.
“There are some people who are in single parenthood, not because they want to be, but because they were forced to be. And we ought to give [them] all the support,” he clarified. “But we should never pretend that it is as good as a loving mother and father in a home where a child sees both genders play out their norms because that's the modeling of behavior that would be ideal for a child to grow up in.”
Yeah, like in the Huckabee household, where a male father and female mother managed to raise one child who tortures and kills digs and another who is a professional liar in the service of a pussy-grabbing cretin who takes children away from their parents.



Okay, we all know Huckabee is a moron. Let's let someone else have a try. What's so scary about trans people?



A Guest on Laura Ingraham’s Show Just Said Trans People Will Create a New Species That Is Part Machine

“They are truly taking our children from us. This is child abuse.”


Image result for um, what? gif jon stewart 
Um, what?

Seriously?

That can't really be what they said. Could it?

*sight* Now I guess I have to look.


“I think that the trans people have taken it one step further because by abandoning gender altogether, not simply rewriting it,” Nathanson said, “they’re basically trying to use social engineering to create a new species.”


A new. . . species? Do you. . . do you know what a species is? I mean, whether someone is male, female, neither, both, or whatever option you can think of, they would still be the same species. A person wouldn't become a cat. Believe me, I've tried. 
A mare, a stallion and a gelding are all members of the same species. If you took the parts you had removed from the gelding and surgically attached them to the mare, that new type of horse would still be a horse. A new species? Who the hell is this Nathanson imbecile?

Her guest, Dr. Paul Nathanson of McGill University 
Dr. Paul Nathanson, a gender relations professor and author of books including Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture


Oh for God's sake. Looks like I'm going to have to re-evaluate my opinion of McGill University.

Unlesssss. . . It's not Jimmy McGill University is it?

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Still inexcusable!


Nathanson then explained that he questioned his gender identity when he was a child but grew up to be a cisgender gay man. “I don’t look down on people who are confused about who they are,” he said. “I just think that the solution that many are choosing, to either mutilate their bodies in one way or another in order to effect a cosmetic change—because you can’t change your chromosomes, you can only change outward appearance—I think that solution is a misguided one.”


It wasn't the right solution for me and my specific life experience, therefore it is the wrong solution for everyone! I teach at McCill!


Ingraham then derided parents who allowed their children to undergo hormone therapy, referencing a “horrifying” situation in Washington state in which a child was allegedly taken from her mother because the mother had not consented for the child to receive hormone treatment.
“They are truly taking our children from us,” Ingraham said. “This is child abuse.”

I'm just going to go ahead and assume this "alleged" incident didn't actually happen. Although, even if it did, one child being removed from one home hardly constitutes "our children being taken from us." Although, to be fair, it does sound a lot scarier this way.
And I googled this story and I can't find it anywhere, not even in the fear-mongering stories about trans kids in outlets like the Federalist and The New American dot com.


During the episode, Ingraham and Nathanson discussed the “attack on masculinity” and some of the apparent hoaxes behind it.

Oh! That's surprising. I'm pleasantly surprised that they would admit that the "attack on masculinity" is a hoax. Or should I maybe read the next sentence?

The hoax that somehow sexes are all the same or capable of being bed into one continuum, that masculinity itself is toxic, terrible and poisonous, all of those things, and in fact has to be discouraged in many ways,” Ingraham said before introducing Nathanson.

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Okay, yeah. That makes more sense.


Nathanson told Ingraham that trans and non-binary movements have sprung up because “feminists challenge the notion of gender” and this has evolved into the development of feminist ideology.


Uh, feminists have challenged the notion of traditional gender roles. I don't think any feminists have ever challenged the idea of the existence of gender. If there were no gender, how would there be feminists?


“If masculinity is bad and men are inherently going to be patriarchal unless somehow we can train them, and beat this out of them—to be protectors and to be courageous, all these things that we impugn upon men—well if you get rid of all that, then the traditional family itself collapses and that's one last bastion of Western Biblically-centered morality that enveloping our, and has helped us prosper, frankly, for millennia and advance in millennia,” Ingraham said, as transcribed by Media Matters.


Mmm, that's good gibberish!

She does have a good point, though. Western Christian principles have led to so many great advancements in civilization. Why, just ask Galileo! Or Alan Turing!



“So the goal is really quite radical,” he added. “We're not talking about people who want to simply do a bit of reform here and there, add a new category. They want, they must, in fact, destroy whatever is in order to replace it with what they think should be. We're talking about revolution, not reform.”
Ingraham asks: "And the new species will be looking like what? Will be part human part animal?

Part animal? Where the hell do you come up with "part animal?" You think that the "radicals" who are suggesting that maybe not everyone fits into a nice neat male/female binary want to a: destroy the existing genders, and b: transform America into the Island of Dr. Moreau?



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That's furries. You're thinking of furries.



Nathanson said, "I think human and part machine," to which Ingraham replies "part machine, hmm."


"Hmm. . . Yes, doctor. You've given me much to ponder," replied Laura Ingraham, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "I had assumed we'd be looking at a Dr. Moreau scenario, but perhaps a Terminator situation is more likely."


Okay, we've just got a couple minutes left. Anyone else want to chime in? Anyone want to put zero effort into their half-assed objection to recognizing gender-non-conforming people?


Trump could become ‘first female president’ under new legislation, GOP lawmaker says



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Jeezus, Gaetz, I thought you'd at least try a little!


Rep. Matt Gaetz R-Fla., said Tuesday he will not support The Equality Act in part because its provisions that seek to prohibit discrimination of transgender individuals could hypothetically lead to President Trump declaring himself the first female president.
“[I]f President Trump were to say, ‘I’m am now the first female president,’ who would celebrate that?” said Gaetz in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the legislation. 


Honestly, so what if he did? Who would that hurt? It's not like there's prize money for being the first female president that should rightly be going to Elizabeth Warren. If you're going to try to be scary, you have to pretend that there's the possibility of something bad happening.
The bill being pushed by Democratic lawmakers would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the protections under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Gaetz said he would not support the legislation because of the possibility of people abusing the new protections in the bill.

How? How could people possibly abuse that provision?

I guess you're maybe thinking that cis people are going to pretend to be trans so that they can, what exactly, just act with impunity? You know, just like how in the sixties, after the original Civil Rights bill was passed, all these white guys pretended to be black so they could flout society's rules and get away with it? Is that what you think might happen?


“I strongly support the rights of transgender individuals,” Gaetz said. 

**Ron Howard voice** "He did not support the rights of transgendered individuals."
 “But I am concerned about the potential bad actors who would exploit the provisions for their own gain.”
**Ron Howard voice** "He was not concerned about that potentiality."

So, what have we learned today? Well, one thing really. If you want to terrify your FOX-watching relatives or co-workers, just show them a trans person!

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BOO!

Works every time!



Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Why I'm not laughing at Donald Trump (anymore)



Yes, I know, trump is a buffoon. He's an egomaniacal blowhard who routinely says bizarrely ridiculous things. And he talks like a 10-year-old playground bully. I know, his idea of highlighting the differences between himself and rival candidates is to say "he's a total loser" and "I'm very smart!" And of course, it's hard not to laugh every time this self-parody of a conceited dolt opens his weird fish-lipped mouth and spouts utter nonsense. And it's all the easier to laugh knowing that he has absolutely no chance of winning this election.

But I'm not laughing anymore, and I'll tell you why.

Recently, while flipping through the channels, I saw a couple minutes of an All in the Family episode from the 1970's. And someone asked Archie Bunker whether he had voted for Ford. Archie replies, "no, I wrote in Ronald Reagan." This gets a huge laugh. Huge. Because in the 1970's, Reagan was considered such a loony right-wing know-nothing figure that the idea of voting for him to be President seemed absurd.


http://cdn.meme.am/instances/57205388.jpg


 Well, fast-forward a few years, and there's Reagan in the Oval Office.

The limits of what is considered reasonable in American politics, what some call the "Overton Window," a phrase I enjoy because it sounds like a lost Robert Ludlum novel, is constantly, relentlessly, being dragged to the right.


 Remember Pat Buchannan in 1992 shouting "lock and Load!" and "Take back your culture?" Remember how the Republicans were so embarrassed by him that they banned him from the '96 convention? And the best line, as expected, came from Molly Ivins who said that the speech "probably sounded better in the original German." Remember how everyone thought Buchannan was a dangerous lunatic demagogue?

 http://cdn.thewire.com/img/upload/2012/12/20/RTXGY2K.jpg


Then remember how just a few years ago, the "liberal" MSNBC started inviting Buchannan onto its airwaves as if he was going to provide a reasoned counterpoint to it's left-leaning hosts? Remember Rachel Maddow calling him "Uncle Pat?" Like, sure he's eccentric and says outrageous things, but deep down, he's just a lovable old curmudgeon. Remember that? Remember how racist he had to get to finally be dismissed from their network?

Remember how up until just a few years ago, it wasn't a common sight to see prominent politicians waving around dangerous weaponry like a bunch of goddamm Ted Nugents?

http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/i/MSNBC/Components/Video/__NEW/f_dc_mccongun_140306.jpghttp://thedailyheadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/tedcruz.png

 http://www.texassportingjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/rick-perry-responds-to-obama-gun-control-620x348.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/Greg3/ARFcom%20Spring%202010/100_0909.jpg~originalhttp://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03426/guns_019_3426997b.jpg

 For that matter, speaking of Nugent, remember when it was considered beyond the pale to threaten the life of the President? Remember when that would get you a visit from some pissed-off Secret Service guys, not an invite to the State of the Union Address?


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Or a jam-session with a Presidential candidate?

So, no. I don't think Trump is funny anymore. Not that he shouldn't be mocked and ridiculed, of course he should. But 4 or 8 years from now, we're going to look back at him and think "that was when the Republican Party was still a little bit sane."
Buchannan was an outlier in 1992. Trump is basically doing Pat's schtick with a little "hey. look how awesome I am" thrown in for good measure and he's leading the Republican field. And the window is moving rightward a hell of a lot faster than it was back then.

Back in the 1990's, Social Security was still considered the "3rd rail of politics," no one would dare touch it. Now the discussion has moved to how much should we cut it, or should we get rid of it altogether?  And if it wasn't for Republicans' absolute petulant, infantile refusal to compromise a single inch, it would have been cut as part of the "Grand Bargain" that the supposedly lefty-liberal Barack Obama had proposed.

Also, in the 1990's, we had an assault weapons ban. Conservative hero Ronald Reagan gave us that, along with the Brady Bill.  Anyone suggesting that maybe we might want to re-instate Ronald Reagan's gun legislation these days is tarred as a "left-wing radical" or something. The idea that basic, sensible gun control would ever be considered an extremist left position would have been laughable a generation ago. As laughable as the idea of a President Trump is today. But I'm not laughing. Not anymore.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

On kids, moms, and dads


I saw a couple of articles about some horrible "March for Marriage, well marriage for us, not for them" rally they just had in DC, and I noticed a common theme that kept popping up:





https://sp3.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HN.608001725308011919&pid=15.1

it's the hat that does it


Yes, every child deserves/needs a mom and a dad.
Well, let's pretend for a minute that that's true. Let's pretend there aren't lots of kids raised by single parents that are doing quite well.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/President_Barack_Obama.jpg



Let's assume that the adorable daughter of my friends Mark and David is somehow being given a less-than-optimal childhood. Let's pretend that's all true. You know what causes a lot of kids to have to grow up without a daddy? War. Why aren't these pricks up in arms, so to speak, about the constant wars this country has to keep involving itself in? 5,000 American men and women and countless thousands of Iraqis have been killed in that 10-year hell-journey, do these people not realize that a lot of these late, lamented heroes had children? That's a lot of dead daddies and mommies just to pad the bank accounts of Halliburton and Blackwater , etc.

And what about those troops coming home with PTSD? I heard an interview with an Iraq War veteran who, shortly after returning home, left his wife and daughter because he was so afraid that he might hurt or kill the child. He had recurring nightmares about smashing the child against a wall and he couldn't trust himself to be around her. Now this little girl has no daddy because Dick Cheney just really really wanted a war. Not a peep out of the "kids need a mom and dad" crowd.

You know what else causes some children to grow up without a mom or a dad? Our steadfast refusal to do anything at all about our nation's gun problem.


Father found shot to death outside Clear Lake Home

Published On: Jun 20 2014 06:14:46 AM CDT

New father shot, killed during infant's homecoming

Officials in Panama City say a new father is dead after a neighbor accidently fired a gun into the family's home during a gathering to celebrate the infant's homecoming.

Family mourns dad shot and killed one day before Father's Day

Posted: Jun 16, 2014 8:04 AM EST
HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) – The search for a suspect in a deadly shooting continued Sunday after a father died from multiple gunshot wounds Saturday. Now, the family of Antonio Dexter Smith is searching for answers, and his two young children are spending Father's Day without him.


 These are just from the last few days.
Why aren't these assholes out protesting about this?
 Every day in this country, kids lose a father or a mother to senseless gun violence, yo'u'd think these people who care so much about the welfare of children would be demanding stricter gun laws.

Unless. . . .

Maybe they're just using the kids as an excuse? Maybe they just want to keep gay people being treated as second-class citizens? Maybe it's not about the kids at all? 

Nah, it couldn't be that! No one's that cynical, except maybe. . .


huckahunk

Oh, yep. It's just about the homophobia. Not about the kids at all. Now I get it!