What would Jesus do?

"When I give food to the poor, I'm called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I'm called a communist." -Archbishop Dom Helder Camara.

What would Jesus do?

Good question.

My guess is that he would NOT steal the meager possessions of homeless people.

I’ll also go out on a limb and suggest that he wouldn’t bloviate on the “sanctity of marriage” and then say a man was justified in divorcing his wife forwithholding sex.

 

Tyranny, freedom, liberty and bloody hypocrites

Please refresh my memory. 

Those of you who've spent the last few weeks bleating hysterically about 'tyranny,' where were you when Bush and his cronies were ramming through the "Patriot Act"  and general ramping up of the national security state (admittedly with the craven complicity of Democrats)? If an armed populace is really supposed to protect us from governmental tyranny, what were you doing under the Bush regime? A few of you spoke up about this but most of you were silent or approving. Certainly no one entertained any 'Second Amendment solutions.'

Those of you who've spent the last few weeks going on about the Constitution, where have you been on the Gitmo kidnappees? What about all of Bush's skirmishes in the war against civil liberties? What about the avalanche of restrictions on voting rights (I'm pretty sure that's in the Constitution too)? A few of you have spoken up but most of you have been silent or approving.  

(Just an FYI: the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution applies to gun owners. Without question. But it also applies to non-gun owners. It applies to gays. It applies to Latinos. It applies to women. And it includes the 2nd Amendment but there's more... read it some time)

Those of you who've spent the last few weeks intoning about threats to freedom and liberty, what you were doing when fanatics demanded we turn the Middle East into a glass bowl or to round up all the Muslims and throw them into camps? A few of you spoke up but most of you were silent and some of you were even part of the frothing, bigoted mob.

Some of you are okay with tyranny and with infringements of liberty, freedom and the Constitution when it's others, but as soon as it *your* hobby/fetish/rights being affected, no matter how minimally, suddenly it's a deluge of indignant outrage.

But guess what. If  you're going to give the finger to everyone else's desire for freedom and constitutional rights, don't be so surprised if they give it right back to you.

From the wisdom of Facebook...

Joke seen going around the site:

A billionaire, a Tea Partier and a teacher are sitting together at a restaurant. There are 12 cookies in a basket on the table. The billionaire takes 11 cookies and then warns the Tea Partier, "Watch out, that teacher wants part of your cookie!"

Thoughts on yesterday’s elections

Green gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins got more than the 50,000 votes required to secure ballot status for the Greens for the next four years. This will allow Greens all across the state to run for all public offices much more easily and offer an alternative to the corporate Democrats and Republicans. It also established the Greens as the third party in New York state and the top non-corporate party. Thanks to all who voted for him and a progressive agenda and, by extension, for multipartyism in NYS.

Before 2009, the last time Democrats controlled all three of the governorship, Assembly and Senate was 1935. So it was entertaining to hear state Senate Republican leader Dean Skellos act like his party has had nothing to do with the mess that is NYS. The two corporate parties have run the state into the ground in that most sainted of manners: bipartisan. It's time for some multipartyism, courtesy of the Greens.

It was also amusing to hear Sen. Skellos say that we needed a GOP senate to act as a check on the corruption in Albany. A check on Joe Bruno-style corruption?

It was maddening to hear all these liberals rave about Andrew Cuomo. Do they even have a clue what he ran on? I mean, besides the empty “Change Albany” rhetoric. Guys who will act as a check on Wall St. excesses do not get oodles of campaign cash from Wall St. Guys who run on progressive agendas do not get endorsed by the far right New York Post. Remember that, more often than most people want to believe, you really do get what you vote for.

I went to vote and I saw a bunch of cameramen and photographers outside my polling place. So I was prepping myself for the red carpet walk which they obviously wanted me to do. But then this tall red-headed guy with his family comes walking out and all the paparazzi follow him instead. Some Congressman Murphy guy, apparently. I suppose that’s the modern media for you: all substance, no style.

I remember that when Tea Party candidates won primary elections, many liberals were gloating, sure that they would get slaughtered in the general election. As that famous Bard, Lord Dark Helmet of the movie Spaceballs, said, “Evil will always prevail because Good is dumb.”

I don’t think much of most Democrats but am still very disappointed at Russ Feingold losing. When the Profiles in Courage of the last 50 years is written (a slim volume to be certain), Feingold's lone vote against the Patriot Act in the face of post-9/11 hysteria will be one of the chapters.

I love how all the media outlets declared Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand the winners only a few minutes after the polls closed despite reported vote totals of 0 for all of them. Only in the punditocracy is 0 > 0.

If the only way you can get elected is to buy office with your own fortune or to buy it with corporate America’s fortune after they buy you off, is it democracy or oligarchy?

How come no one is demanding to see Marco Rubio’s birth certificate? Or for that matter, John Boehner’s?

Those running on the purported agenda of ‘smaller government’ and ‘less spending’ won big last night. I wonder what amount of the military budget, which by itself accounts for 52% of all discretionary federal spending, these principled spending cutters will slash.

You can't make this stuff up

If you support a progressive agenda, then support a progressive candidate.

Here's a great example of why we should be very skeptical when politicians try to legislate morality.

Two of the senators presently sponsoring the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment to the US Constitution are Sens. David Vitter and Larry Craig, both married and both recently humiliated in sex scandals.

Vitter was revealed as a client of a high profile Washington prostitution firm.

Larry 'wide stance' Craig was arrested for and plead guilty to soliciting oral sex from someone who was a male undercover police officer.

We certainly can't have two committed and loving men (or women) destroying the institution of marriage. It's a good thing we have fine, upstanding husbands like Sens. Vitter and Craig to lecture the rest of us on how to preserve a good marriage.

What's next? The pro-wars of aggression, pro-state murder President Bush pushing a Human Life Amendment? Oh wait...