Joe Barton would like to apologize

Joe Barton proves yet again what a corporate tool he is.  Via IndecisionForever...

http://joebartonwouldliketoapologize.com/

Zero Tolerance

Tolerance, empathy, reason, compassion, diversity.  Growing up, I'd always believed these to be good things.  Apparently, I was wrong.  I've been trying to assimilate everything that has happened over the last couple of years.  In that, I've failed.  The hope, however fleeting, I felt when Obama was elected is a distant memory.  Tea parties, corporate malfeasance, firearms at Presidential speaking engagements, threats of violence from public officials, more corporate malfeasance, an unconstitutional immigration law, a vendetta against education by public officials...

This goes on ad nauseum. I've felt all along that all this nonsense had a ring of familiarity about it.  The anti-immigration sentiment, especially, reminds me of Nazi Germany, just after they took power.  People hate that comparison, but it is valid.  The Nazis were in power for over a decade before their "final solution".  They started off small, too.

I recently read an article at Metafilter, regarding the American Third Position, yet another white supremacist group that is trying to gain a foothold here in Arizona.  A comment made on that article stated it more eloquently than I ever could:

This is the pattern. There are always a small percent of people who blame somebody, and somebody will always be someone different. Skin color and religious symbols are easy targets, but ask the Irish how much good being white, christian and english speaking did them.

In good times, these idiots get little traction. In bad times, however, people get depressed and angry, and when someone comes up with something along the line of "You'd have a job if it weren't for those fucking Martians...." and suddenly, they start getting traction.

The worse the economy, the more traction it gets -- more people are depressed and angry, and they're more depressed and angrier as it gets worse. Now, add in hopelessness -- they become convinced that things won't change, so they don't really care if they survive. Now you have angry people who are willing to fight because they don't really care if they die.

Then we get the fucktards, now flying high, with the "If we just kill all the fucking martians, and the fucking government who supports the fucking martians" and suddenly, things get very ugly very quickly.

This is why the extremist's first target is the moderate. Moderates provide moderation and rationality, which directly cuts the fuel off from the extremist. The extremist goal is to remove the moderates -- force the opponent to one extreme, and get rid of those in the middle. Suddenly, the *only* message is "Kill the Martians, and we're just the government you need to kill the Martians."

Oh, I mean Jews. Or Slavs. Or city dwelling Cambodians. Or any number of minorities in the past. This is an old trick, killing the people who don't look like you in bad times goes all the way back to ancient Egypt, if not further.

Hitler and Pol Pot were just reading a script that has been read hundreds of times before -- and, it seems, we're now in rehearsals for the next big production of Kill The Minority.

I read a great suggestion recently regarding the immigration law.  Enforce it to within an inch of it's life.  Make everyone show proof of citizenship.  No exceptions.  You show it when you check out a library book, or pay a water bill.  Let's see how long it lasts, then.

I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
                                                              -Ulysses S. Grant

It's been a year...

Almost a year ago, I wrote about Neda Agha-Soltan after I, and most of the rest of the world saw a video of her murder.  A video that went so viral that it is now said that it is the most widely witnessed human death in history.  At the time, I knew little about her.  I've since learned a little more.  She was an aspiring singer and musician, who was studying violin.  She had ordered a piano, which had yet to arrive.  She was studying the Turkish language, and worked for her family's travel agency.  She had a fiancé, and in all other respects, a bright future.


She was murdered by a Basij gunman, who had been hiding on a nearby rooftop.  He was later captured, then freed.  Aside from hardships imposed on her family and those close to her, little has changed in Iran since then.  Ahmadinejad is still in power, and will hopefully only be remembered by history as the murderer and madman that he is.  Neda's grave has been desecrated.  Dr. Arash Hejazi, who tried in vain to save her life, was later accused of her murder by the state and has since fled Iran.


History keeps repeating itself.  Oh, the roles change.  The oppressed become the oppressors, but nothing is learned.  But on June 20th, and every year until it's time for me to go, I will light a candle.


And remember.

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Nuts

The following two quotes, to me, illustrate our time in history better than anything else I've read recently.

"I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."  --John Wayne, after the election of John F. Kennedy, 1960

"I hope he fails" -- Rush Limbaugh, after the election of Barack Obama, 2008

As a liberal, I never thought I'd say this, but I miss William F. Buckley. Remember him?  To me, he represents a time when Americans were still able to iron out their differences with reasoned discourse.  A time when the losers of those debates were willing to accept the will of the people.

On the other hand, politics -- American politics in particular -- has always been a dirty business.  President Obama noted this in a recent speech to graduates of the University of Michigan:

But I think it's important that we maintain some historic perspective. Since the days of our founding, American politics has never been a particularly nice business. It's always been a little less gentile during times of great change. A newspaper of the opposing party once editorialized that if Thomas Jefferson were elected, "Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced."  Not subtle. Opponents of Andrew Jackson often referred to his mother as a "common prostitute," which seems a little over the top.

Sound familiar?

I haven't written in a while because recent political events in my home state of Arizona (yeah, I know) have had me curled up in a fetal position for the last few weeks. It's legislation that concerns me on both a political and personal level.  I worry that someday my wife will be out shopping, and end up at INS because some over-zealous cop decides that a driver's license and social security card aren't proof enough of citizenship.  It's ill-conceived, poorly thought-out legislation that my state is famous for.  One can build bigger and better fences, or station troops on our border, but it will only provide the illusion of security.  True immigration reform won't happen until the same opportunities are available on both sides of the border.  That is a noble endeavor and, as such,  will take hard work.  Unfortunately, too hard for some.

I've just ordered a book from Amazon: Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.  Give it a read.