There is a huge misconception about our first amendment right to free speech. For the most part, we all get that yelling 'FIRE!" in a crowded theatre for the purposes of inciting a riot is illegal. That's not free speech. Speech that maliciously maligns, libels, or defames is a civil crime that can cost you lots of money and it's not free speech either. Beyond these instances, Americans can run their mouths all they like. But, not without consequences.
Consequences? If you're free to say stuff, why should there be consequences? Because, other people have freedom of speech too. And if they disagree with the stuff you say, their free to say so.
Gosh...Freedom is so complicated.
I've always thought about it like this, you are free to swing your fist; but, that freedom ends at the tip of my nose.
Carrie Prejean believes her free speech rights have been abridged because of the public backlash she has received after stating her opposition to same-sex marriage and aligning herself with the radical conservative movement. She believes it is unfair that people, who also have freedom speech, disagree with her and call her a hypocrite. Of course, no one made her pose for half naked pictures and no one made her make a sex tape, as a minor, of her diddling herself to send to her then boyfriend which, technically, means she traded in kiddie porn. People are completely free to disparage her based on the image she put out there, which, as it turns out, is not quite as wholesome as she would have us believe. To hear her talk, she was punished just because she exercised her freedom of speech. If by punished she means having the things she says challenged by other people, who are free to do so in the marketplace of ideas, then tie the bitch to a post and bring me a whip (figuratively speaking, of course).
Another victim of oppression that has emerged in recent days is a fellow in Boston who got fired from Brookstone for freely expressing to his boss, a lesbian about to marry -gasp- another lesbian, that, as a christian, he was very uncomfortable and that she should take her lesboness somewhere else.
This goes back to that swingin' yer fist thingy.
When you are an employee, and there is an HR policy that says what you can and can not do or say with regard to your fellow employees, and you agreed to that policy when you took the job, don't be surprised when your employer fires your ass when you fail to follow the policy.
Our first amendment rights address how the powers of the state are restricted with regard to our liberty. You can't be picked up off of the street and thrown in jail by the state for standing on the street corner and calling the president a bum. At the same time, someone else may be across the street, on the other corner, calling you a bum for saying what you're saying. They, too, are free to do so. That doesn't make you a victim.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Carrie Prejean: From Right-wing Golden Girl to Tacky, Hypocritical Twat
It was during the Miss USA pageant that Miss California, the golden-haired Carrie Prejean, became a national figure. Upon her response, when asked about her feelings about same-sex marriage (by really gay celebrity blogger, Perez Hilton), the right had found its wholesome, fresh-faced beauty queen. Miss Prejean stated that she felt marriage was something meant for the opposite sex - men should only marry women, and visa versa, women should only marry men. It is likely that Prejean's answer cost her the Miss USA title, though we will never know, or care. But, she told the 'marriage is sacred' crowd what they wanted to hear and they immediately kissed the 'holier than thou' ground she walked on.
The National Organization for Marriage founder, Maggie Gallagher, became Miss. Prejean's advocate and enlisted her in her self-righteous crusade to save traditional marriage. Ever the opportunist, Prejean signed on. The directors of the Miss California pageant, owned by Donald Trump, said, "Hold on a minute, Carrie. You have duties that your title obliges you to fullfill." Pageant directors maintained Carrie was in violation of her contract for, among other things, aligning herself with a political organization, namely NOM., and missing scheduled appearances. After a series of back and forth bickering, Carrie Prejean was stripped of her Miss California crown.
NOM, and Greater Wingnuttia, had their martyr. Miss Prejean fit the image of the good, godly christian woman who was torn down by the vile homosexual agenda. But that image, it appears, is a veneer as thin as cheap fingernail polish.
My eyebrows perked when the Miss California Pageant countersued Carrie Prejean for the cost of the fake boobies it had bought her after she had filed a $1 million suit against the pageant for libel and religious discrimination. Which brings us to a recent meeting between the two sides, at which Miss California USA's lawyers dropped a bomb wrapped in brown paper.
__________
From TMZ:
We have more info on Carrie Prejean's abrupt about-face during the settlement negotiations with Miss California USA lawyers -- when they showed her the X-Rated version of Home Alone ... starring Carrie herself. When the video started playing, Carrie's first reaction was "that's disgusting" ... and Carrie denied it was her. Then, the camera angle changed ... and panned up to her face. She was caught red-handed ... so to speak. Carrie was rendered speechless and immediately began talking with her lawyer. We're told it took about 15 seconds for Carrie to drop her $1 million dollar demand.
___________
It's a great day when a hypocrite gets her comeuppance. That Carrie Prejean will 'go down' as a humiliated laughing stock is justice served cold, and just what she deserves.
She could parley this into a bright future as a 'solo' artist by setting up a pay-per-view channel over at X-Tube.
Just a thought, Carrie.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Some Awesome Witches For Halloween
The Wicked Witch of the West
Jadis, The White Witch
The Scarlet Witch
Rhiannon, The Welsh Witch
Maleficient
Michelle Bachman, The Witch of Minnesota, a really bad witch.
Jadis, The White Witch
The Scarlet Witch
Rhiannon, The Welsh Witch
Maleficient
Michelle Bachman, The Witch of Minnesota, a really bad witch.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
On The Continuing Irrelevance Of Ann Coulter
The Rude Pundit has an entertaining piece on what it is like to read anything by Ann Coulter these days. Here's the best part:
"But it's pathetic, really, truly, in a "Look at the rabbits, Lenny" kind of way, how now, with Ted Kennedy dead and the Chappaquiddick arrows gone, Coulter's quiver of reference points is getting emptier and emptier. All she's really got left is passive aggressive Bill Clinton sex remarks. Reading her columns these days, now that she's been out-batshitted by Glenn Beck and out-babed by Sarah Palin, is not unlike listening to a toothless meth addicted woman at a bar tell you how hot she used to be and won't you please let her suck your dick for a dollar."
Oh Ann, don't go changin'.
"But it's pathetic, really, truly, in a "Look at the rabbits, Lenny" kind of way, how now, with Ted Kennedy dead and the Chappaquiddick arrows gone, Coulter's quiver of reference points is getting emptier and emptier. All she's really got left is passive aggressive Bill Clinton sex remarks. Reading her columns these days, now that she's been out-batshitted by Glenn Beck and out-babed by Sarah Palin, is not unlike listening to a toothless meth addicted woman at a bar tell you how hot she used to be and won't you please let her suck your dick for a dollar."
Oh Ann, don't go changin'.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Some Things Never Change
While visiting with an aunt, my dad's sister, over this last weekend at my parents' house, something happened that has been on my mind ever since. My aunt is from small-town, rural Indiana, where my dad is from, a place that used to be supported by well paying, unionized factories that have long since disappeared. In their absence, the economic fortunes of the area's inhabitants have suffered and unemployment in the county is near the highest in the state.
We were watching an NFL game, and at half-time, a report aired on Rush Limbaugh's failed attempt at becoming part owner of the St. Louis Rams. Rev. Al Sharpton played a roll in quashing Rush's dream by coming out publicly against it, based on the racist utterings Rush has belched forth on numerous occasions. The moment Rev. Al's picture appeared on TV, the tone of the conversation in the room turned south, like about 1954 Alabama-type south. You can pretty much guess the sort of epithets aimed at Rev. Al.
Now, I was the only liberal in the room, and greatly outnumbered, so I decided to focus on my beer and the game. It was a no-win for me as I've found out in the past while arguing politics with these folks, my dad and his sister. They are republicans. Oh, my dad, a UAW member, will say he is independent, but he been voting republican since he could pull a lever in a voting booth, and that is not likely to change. My mom, also a union member, holds her cards a little closer to her chest, so I can't say for sure about her voting booth habits.
At any rate, after the usual examples of white grievances, like affirmative action and politically correct speech when referring to black people get their airing in the conversation, which was becoming quite animated, as it often does with my dad's side of the family, my aunt said, "...and to top it all off, we've got a nigger for a president." It was at that moment it occurred to me that I was seeing a gestalt of GOP success in working-class, middle America.
What makes a person walk into a voting booth and, time after time, vote against his or her own best interests? Fear and loathing, that's what. The GOP discovered it 40 years ago during the Nixon administration. Capitalizing on the concerns of white, working-class people and outright racist southerners, the GOP knew it could parlay middle class America's fear and loathing of black people, who were doing a little better economically, competing for jobs in factories, and threatening white people's hegemonic sense of themselves, into political victories.
That strategy gave us Ronald Reagan, aka the Great White Hope. Reagan immediately went about busting unions and dismantling the manufacturing sector in the name of his supply-side economic policies, which were pure nonsense. It was under Ronald Reagan that Wall Street began its usurpation of America's political system. It should be no surprise, 25 years later, that we are where we are economically.
And yet, Saint Ronnie is still a hero to many people, including the people I was watching a football game with, the people who can't get past the fact that we have a black man as president. I wonder if my aunt, and those like her, will ever understand, when they wonder what happened to the ghost towns they live in and where all those good jobs went, that they played a role in their own fate. They were sold a bill of ideological goods that were, in fact, snake oil, though they'll never admit it.
Some things never change.
We were watching an NFL game, and at half-time, a report aired on Rush Limbaugh's failed attempt at becoming part owner of the St. Louis Rams. Rev. Al Sharpton played a roll in quashing Rush's dream by coming out publicly against it, based on the racist utterings Rush has belched forth on numerous occasions. The moment Rev. Al's picture appeared on TV, the tone of the conversation in the room turned south, like about 1954 Alabama-type south. You can pretty much guess the sort of epithets aimed at Rev. Al.
Now, I was the only liberal in the room, and greatly outnumbered, so I decided to focus on my beer and the game. It was a no-win for me as I've found out in the past while arguing politics with these folks, my dad and his sister. They are republicans. Oh, my dad, a UAW member, will say he is independent, but he been voting republican since he could pull a lever in a voting booth, and that is not likely to change. My mom, also a union member, holds her cards a little closer to her chest, so I can't say for sure about her voting booth habits.
At any rate, after the usual examples of white grievances, like affirmative action and politically correct speech when referring to black people get their airing in the conversation, which was becoming quite animated, as it often does with my dad's side of the family, my aunt said, "...and to top it all off, we've got a nigger for a president." It was at that moment it occurred to me that I was seeing a gestalt of GOP success in working-class, middle America.
What makes a person walk into a voting booth and, time after time, vote against his or her own best interests? Fear and loathing, that's what. The GOP discovered it 40 years ago during the Nixon administration. Capitalizing on the concerns of white, working-class people and outright racist southerners, the GOP knew it could parlay middle class America's fear and loathing of black people, who were doing a little better economically, competing for jobs in factories, and threatening white people's hegemonic sense of themselves, into political victories.
That strategy gave us Ronald Reagan, aka the Great White Hope. Reagan immediately went about busting unions and dismantling the manufacturing sector in the name of his supply-side economic policies, which were pure nonsense. It was under Ronald Reagan that Wall Street began its usurpation of America's political system. It should be no surprise, 25 years later, that we are where we are economically.
And yet, Saint Ronnie is still a hero to many people, including the people I was watching a football game with, the people who can't get past the fact that we have a black man as president. I wonder if my aunt, and those like her, will ever understand, when they wonder what happened to the ghost towns they live in and where all those good jobs went, that they played a role in their own fate. They were sold a bill of ideological goods that were, in fact, snake oil, though they'll never admit it.
Some things never change.
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