I don't get these "religious freedom" bills

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/north-carolina%E2%80%99s-terrible-anti-lgbt-law-even-worse-we-thought
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/08/civil-rights-groups-mobilize-against-mississippis-religious-freedom-law/82804786/

I am not an expert in the law, but when you open a business, I think there is the assumption that you will encounter undesirable/offensive patrons now and then. But most enterprises will still accept their money, because the bottom line is often more important than principle. Sure, if people are blatantly violating your code of conduct or basic decency, you can refuse the right to serve (and call the authorities on them). But $1 from Jack or Jill or Ahmed should be accepted equally, otherwise you are biased.

For equal opportunity employment, there are federal laws and it's pretty clear. If Jack is qualified to do the job, and you hire him, then you must give equal consideration if Jill (or a person with some sort of differentiating feature like age, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) has equivalent qualifications. And you can't retaliate against workers who complain about prejudicial treatment.

For a private business, I'm less clear. But if these MS and NC style laws spread, it sets a dangerous precedent. I know we give special protections for religion, and Christianity is the dominant faith in the US, but we all are entitled to equal protection under the law, even those without a faith. Anyone can come up with some sort of reason to refuse service to a patron because they disagree with some element of their behavior/persona (or are "offended" by it). But I'm sorry, in the US we have the right to offend, just not harm. You are guaranteed to life and liberty (tell that to poor urban black youth though), but not an offense free life.

The MS law narrowly states (according to USA Today): "The denial of certain services to the LGBT community based on any of three religious beliefs -- that marriage is between a man and a woman, that sex is proper only within such a marriage, and that people are male or female based on their genetics and anatomy at birth."

So are those the only considerations that matter? Why not expand it to Jews, who after all, rejected Jesus' teachings and condemned him? Would America be OK with that? Plenty of heterosexual (and Christian) couples engage in sodomy/anal sex. Do you need a questionnaire to screen those folks out of your establishment too? Would such a business be sustainable?

What if I am a Satanist and I am offended by Christians, so I refuse to serve and hire them? Supporters of the law have to be OK with that, right? Selective beliefs/outrage always tick me off; so John Q Baker doesn't want to bake a cake for a gay wedding (sinful abomination), but he is OK to sell pastries to a clearly obese person (gluttony, deadly sin)? And just because he refused to bake that wedding cake, did he stop those 2 men from getting hitched? Likely not. So what was the point, that he can go home with a clear conscience? Well he can tell St. Peter, and also admit that he refused to act with compassion and love that day. If Mr. Baker cares so much, why not take some time to talk to the gay couple and use your wits/morals to convince them to change their ways? Nope, it's just easier/lazier to discriminate. And even that is flawed - I am sure some gay customers slip through the cracks and still get service. So you let down your god! How can you live with yourself?

I am not too concerned about these laws because I think they are poorly thought out and destined to be struck down by a higher ruling. It's probably hasty backlash against the recent SCOTUS rulings about gay marriage, gay adoption, employer covered contraception, etc. Religious conservatives feel like their belief system (and "traditional American values") are under attack, yet I bet most of them never even encounter a gay couple in their daily affairs, so is their life so much worse now? Even if I was against Obamacare, I would have to admit that I don't feel its effects at all in my daily life, so I can't claim any harm, apart from "feeling offended."

Grow up. Sometime you don't get your way, and sometime you don't approve of what others are doing. That is compromise and living in a mixed society, and Christians are still the majority faith with the most sociopolitical power. We should strive to protect everyone's freedoms as much as possible, but not at the expense of discriminating another group. Because then who gets to decide who wins and loses in each case? I thought conservatives were opposed to the gov't picking winners and losers? Just another display of hypocrisy. I don't even know why I wasted 30 min of my life writing about this issue. It's so ludicrous it's almost comical.

The peculiar and hilarous Fox, GOP, and Trump dynamic

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/11/9130075/Megyn-Kelly-response-Fox-Trump

I was impressed with the tough and direct questions the FNC moderators asked of the kiddie-table and prime time GOP candidates (addressing and not ignoring their glaring liabilities). That makes sense, as I suppose it's in the GOP's interests to thin the (huge) heard as early as possible so they don't waste resources/political capital for the coming war vs. Hillary.

Personally, I don't think Kelly's sexism question was journalistically or politically out of line. Trump has not held office and has not behaved like he deserved to hold office in the past (esp. vis-a-vis women who are >50% of voters), so why should America elect him now? He of course felt that question was unfair and "impolite" (teapot, kettle anyone?), but Kelly never forced Trump to say/tweet those disparaging things in the past. You make your bed, you lay in it man. Nothing is off limits when you're running for president.

Anyway, I thought that exchange would really hurt Trump and the GOP, who have already suffered from major rejection by many female demos. But strangely the opposite happened. Trump's numbers held steady or maybe even rose, and FNC got blasted with angry viewer feedback defending Trump and criticizing Kelly and her network. Trump did a "genius" thing and flipped the issue from one of his sexism/rudeness/unstatesmanship to one of media bias/political correctness (stuff that is hurting America) - the latter really resonates with his supporters and some conservatives.

He must have prepared for that, and you have to give him credit for delivering it so persuasively. His daughter Ivanka allegedly urged him to tone down the racist/sexist/offensive tone of his campaign, but he dismissed her because every time he did something outrageous (even the McCain comment that I thought was going to sink him - but it turns out a lot of conservatives don't really like establishment McCain anymore - esp. for losing to Obama), his numbers held steady or rose. I guess it's like saying, "Why should I reform and get a legal job when I'm making so much money selling dope, and not getting caught by the cops?"

The FNC base is a little weird. They hate and distrust the (elitist, liberal-leaning) mainstream media, yet still watch FNC (the top TV news property in the US by far). So Fox has to straddle that fine line of being the MSM (being part of the institute of journalism) and hating on the MSM (mocking and rebelling against the institution of journalism). This is problematic at times because from segment to segment, you never quite know what you're going to get. Certainly their opinion shows are more of the latter.

To wrap up, the business-first, politics-second Roger Ailes saw the reaction to the Trump-Kelly spat and was worried that defending Kelly (and her legitimate question) would piss off many viewers and hurt the company. This is probably why most of the other candidates (sans Paul, who is desperate to stay relevant) didn't take the opportunity to go after Trump on national TV. They talked crap at their lightly-covered campaign events, but not on the big stage because (1) more Trump feuding only seems to benefit Trump and (2) they risk a Kelly-esque backlash and don't want to be labeled as establishment cronies (the part of the GOP that Trump has called "stupid" and blamed for losing to the Dems - maybe that is accurate).

So Ailes personally talked to Trump to smooth things over, and probably invited him on the network soon (he has had many interviews in the past). Kelly had to deliver a highly sanitized closure statement and was even subtly congratulating Trump for his recent political success (gotta throw his Jupiter-sized ego a bone). That must have sucked for her. So once again, score one for money/sexism/cynicism at the expense of decency/women/journalism.

PS - it's pretty telling that on Trump's web page, there is ZERO CONTENT regarding his political platform and policy ideas (oh yeah, because they don't exist beyond his sound bites). He makes Rick Perry look like a wonk in comparison.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/

Oh the "tragedy" of the IRS scandal

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=188699174
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-may-23-2013-morgan-freeman (the 2nd segment, Jason Jones piece)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlQ5xWAo89w

First of all, is it wrong for a gov't agency to act with prejudice? Certainly. Should some people be fired or jailed? Yes if the proper evidence is available. Should we have an investigation to see how high it goes? Probably. But the outrage and tear-jerking by the right over this is worse than comical, it's enraging. NPR reported on the Congressional hearings, and it was like an episode of Maury. One Tea-bagger testified that she couldn't sleep because she could only imagine what evil the gov't would inflict on her next. Give me a break. She and others got her apps delayed and had to answer some annoying questions. Not right, but not the end of the world either (and the same thing happened to some liberal-sounding groups during the Bush years, and that was pre-Citizens United). Did they get shut down and their assets frozen? Did baton-wielding brutes launch tear gas and kick their teeth in? Were they detained for hours without charge or rendered overseas to be tortured? Because that stuff happened to Americans, and I didn't hear a peep out of the Tea-baggers then.

I would be more outraged if the wronged parties were like Mormons or soybean farmers or bugle players. But these are fundamentalist conservatives here, frankly with un-American ideology. They were still wronged, but they don't get to bitch about oppression and abuse when they are the ones advocating policies that marginalize gays, Muslims, people of color, women, the planet, and people with common sense. If they are all about keeping the vile gov't out of our lives and protecting our god-given rights, then why do they want to dictate who you can marry, what you can smoke, where you can build a mosque, what official language we should speak, and when life begins?

And if they distrust/criticize the gov't so much, then why do they expect to get swift, fair, and competent processing of their 501(c)4 status as a tax-free, non-profit, "social welfare" org? They claim to love America, yet hate the gov't. Well the gov't is America too. What are they, bipolar? America is not just a 200-year-old parchment with some old edicts. It needs agencies and people to carry them out. I think over 10% of our workforce is public sector. Maybe that is bad, but those people are your neighbors and family and they mostly mean you no harm (unless they work for DHS or CIA). In fact they help you in so many obvious and subtle ways that you should show some freaking humility and gratitude. Wasteful bureaucracy sucks, but unfortunately it's the easiest way to have a society, unless you trust the free market and for-profit corporations to "run your life" instead. And by the way, there would be no functional market without the government. Well there may be a market, but it would be like a giant craigslist swap meet cluster F.

We know that our system of political finance/influence is broken and corrupt (yes, other nations are much worse but we'd like to think that we're better than Iran or Italy). Citizens United really re-wrote the book and most Americans can't directly experience/fathom the effects. So you now can have orgs where million-dollar donors can be totally anonymous. And you can have some orgs that don't have to pay taxes because they claim to do just enough community service to go along with their 95% narrow political advocacy. Tea-baggers don't like the debt? Then before you cut off a poor working mom, why don't you pay some tax on the collections you reaped at your BS worthless rally? Why don't your employees have to pay into SS and Medicare, yet a literally job-creating company has to (even if it's in the red this year)? The nation is subsidizing your stupid beliefs and advocacy. Yes, you are constitutionally entitled to hold and propagate your stupid beliefs. But don't tell me you should get special treatment and a free ride. Doesn't that make you a taker? And yes, I also believe that religious orgs (that don't do enough REAL social work) and liberal orgs should pay taxes too. The Bugle Players of Alameda County are not the Red Cross. Neither is the Tea Party, any Tea Party.

It's ironic because the bad people that the Tea-baggers claim to be saving America from actually resemble them a lot (apart from being rich, old, and white). And it's strange that the majority of Americans do not hold the same beliefs as these Tea groups. Only in this crazy age do self-proclaimed patriots get financial assistance to advocate for policies that are clearly damaging to the country and its values. And then when they are slightly inconvenienced in the process, it's the worst tragedy-scandal since Benghazi (which is the worst tragedy-scandal in history... their version of history where Republicans like Cheney, North, and Nixon never existed).

KQED stories about political switchers

http://blogs.kqed.org/election2012/2012/10/31/political-switchers-raised-a-democrat/
http://blogs.kqed.org/election2012/2012/10/31/political-switchers-republican-since-childhood/

Dear KQED,

I was disappointed by your November 1 story about the Marin County lady who switched to the GOP after 9/11. I know that she is entitled to portray her personal political evolution as she wants, but I think your coverage was softball and misleading. The take-home message seemed to be, "Don't just blindly follow the political views of your family or community; form your own opinions." That is fine, but she seemed to imply that Marin County people need to "wake up", think for themselves, and then of course they would choose to be conservative. I don't think that is an accurate characterization, especially because many Marin County liberals are much better informed (and get their info from much less biased sources) than Mrs. Wolters.

Like many Americans, 9/11 changed Wolters' worldview. But a decade later we know that many Americans (and our government) felt so fearful and vulnerable after 9/11 that they over-reacted and embraced controversial policies that weakened America, made the world more hostile, and could actually compromise our future safety. She recounted extreme cases of ostensibly liberal Bay Areans making insensitive comments after 9/11, and that somehow validated the GOP claim that the left despises America? Wolters admitted that she was politically uninformed prior to 9/11, so maybe if she researched US foreign policy history in the Middle East, she would realize that the US is not the only victim of foreign terrorism.

She then started to listen to "talk radio" (I assume she is referring to right-wing radio?) and Bill O'Reilly. So it's no surprise that she turned conservative if those were her only sources of info, without exposure to counter-arguments. Was she truly persuaded by superior conservative views, or was than the inevitable outcome of her exposure to those media?  

I am sorry that she felt alienated by her political beliefs, and I commend her for becoming politically active, but I disagree with her implicit dismissal of those who see things differently. I don't think that she should complain about political intolerance against her when she is not really empathizing and extending the olive branch either. Contrast her to the other political switcher, Mr. Patrosso. Biased media didn't persuade him to "wake up" and realize his "true beliefs". He was a die-hard Republican for most of his life, but his party left him - straying from its fiscal conservative traditions and embracing religion-fueled intolerance. Unlike Wolters, Patrosso wasn't speaking ill of conservatives as people, and made his decision to switch based on facts and the conduct of GOP leaders.

Why do people want to vote for Romney?

All this being said I've been curious.  What are the legitimate reasons for voting for these guys?  Clearly we are a liberal bunch, some of us more so than others.  And whenever I watch daily show I see some pretty ridiculous out takes of the GOP placing feet directly into their mouths.  Am I in so deep I can't see it?  Did I literally drink all the kool-ade?

I mean, the BEST i can offer to Mitt is that I can find a reasonable seed for his statement but that the statement itself is undeniably wrong, offensive, and stupid.  Who is voting for these guys?

 

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Let's exclude the super rich and libertarian extremists for a moment, because they constitute so few votes. Who are the Republican base? White, Christian, suburban & rural people in the Midwest and South (more men than women). Why do they not vote Democrat? Forgive my Romney-esque generalizations, but many are following the narrative carefully crafted by GOP strategists, right wing media, and others. Liberals are not real Americans. They want to take away our god, our guns, our success, and our freedoms - and let the "un-Americans" take over - illegals, gays, lazy welfare people, other minorities, etc. Before, the story was the liberals wanted to give the country to the commies, but since then we've beaten the commies, so just hate the liberals directly instead. Liberals want America to be weak and let our enemies win. They want to reverse all the things that they believe made America great. So when that's your opponent, even a douche like Romney looks like your savior. The facts don't even matter at this point.

Romney keeps asking, "Are you better off now than in 2008?" The answer should be a resounding HELL YES! We actually have an economy today. Obama doesn't deserve all the credit for averting depression (and we can blame him for many unmet expectations), but I'm just saying that question is ridiculously rhetorical. Unfortunately for many in the GOP base, they can't directly feel or perceive how good they have it now vs. how bad it could have been with a different leader (can you imagine what would have happened if Romney-Ryan were elected in 2008?). How can having it good hurt this bad? Well compare it to the 1930s. However, the GOP base can perceive that this recovery has been terribly disappointing. I don't even want to call it a recovery because only Wall St. has recovered - it's more like disaster averted, and we're in limbo on where to go next - up or down? The GOP base (and most Americans) saw their savings and home values shrivel, their employment situations become more precarious, the futures of their kids looking more dim, and the country and culture they love ostensibly deteriorating.

And all the while, this popular, cool half-black dude is running the country (into the ground apparently). Some people seem to be winning during the last 4 years, or so Fox says: corrupt Democrat politicians, gays (repeal of DADT), illegals (Dream Act), China (their GDP growth is shrinking severely BTW, but most voters can't define GDP), the Muslims (despite Al Qaeda nearly wiped out and Iranian nukes set back for years), and lazy deadbeats (Obamacare, loosening of welfare eligibility that in fact never happened). So not only is the GOP base hurting, they think the un-Americans are winning. And they can't stand that - some of that backlash, intolerance, and xenophobia fueled the Tea Party.

As we commented in a previous thread, the GOP base feel like the real Americans aren't getting what they are entitled to. They are good, Christian, patriotic, and hard-working - but why is their life so hard and their country so unimpressive? They're doing everything right, but not getting ahead and actually losing ground. Ironically, Obama has said the same thing about the plight of the US middle class and the American Dream. So both must be onto something. Many metrics show how the middle-class has really taken a beating since the 1990's. But what are the root causes of that? We've already discussed the liberal side of that question (what I would like to think of as the "likely explanation"), and I guess the conservative side is: blame Obama and his supporters.

So when someone like Romney comes along with a seemingly polished business background, conservative Christian values (apart from his time in Mass.), and talking about restoring America to greatness, American exceptionalism, never apologizing for America, cutting regulations, creating jobs, lowering taxes, kicking our enemies' asses, strengthening the military, cutting off the deadbeats and tax-and-spend liberals, protecting our freedoms, putting god everywhere, yadda yadda (totally devoid of facts and reality), well that is fairly appealing to the GOP base and some frustrated, desperate voters. Romney wasn't their first choice obviously (the long, ugly GOP nomination process is evidence), but "any Republican" is better than Obama at this point (just as any Dem was better for many fed-up voters in 2008).

The GOP's disenfranchisement efforts

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/15/
158869947/do-voter-id-laws-prevent-fraud-or-dampen-turnout
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-
04-28/politics/scotus.voter.id_1_voter-impersonation-voter-id-laws-voter-fraud?_s=PM:POLITICS
http://www.npr.org/blogs/
itsallpolitics/2012/08/17/158982853/federal-court-reinstates-early-voting-days-in-parts-of-florida?ft=1&f=1014

Of all developed democratic nations, the US is probably the one where it's hardest to vote. In the last few elections, conservatives have tried to make that process even harder (presumably for some voting blocs that lean Democrat). They claim that it's meant to prevent fraud and tampering, but there is pretty much zero evidence of in-person voting fraud in the last couple decades (most fraud cases have involved mail-in ballots). They respond to that by saying one fraudulent vote is one too many. But in order to stop that one fraudulent vote, how do you justify disenfranchising dozens or even thousands of legit voters? Faux News and others have done a great job implanting the idea in Americans' minds that voter fraud by the left is rampant. Dead people, illegals, and felons are on the voter rolls, etc. Well as we saw in FL 2000, that wasn't the case at all, and in fact authorized voters were being mislabeled as felons.

What are they so afraid of? If their candidates are better, and their ideas are superior, then no need to play games - the voters will validate their cause. Or if they think the voters are dumb and don't know what's best for them, then spend the corporate billions to blitz the airwaves with propaganda and get out the vote as insurance. Both parties are doing that plenty. But now they have to go one step further and block unfriendly voters from exercising their American rights? That is unacceptable. The GOP is supposedly the party of freedom, liberty, and small government. Then why are they so hardcore about enacting these new bureaucratic laws that undermine some people's liberty? They want to be the populist party instead of the elitist party, but moves like this reveal their true colors. Heck we have so much gerrymandering and don't even allow winner-by-popular-vote in many cases, precisely to be undemocratic. But is  this a gov't "of the people, by the people, and for the people" - or something else? By the way, that quote was from a certain Republican president during the Civil War.

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Can you imagine who would be elected of we didn't have a system that disenfranchised voters? That's why the Republicans are so afraid. They complain about fraud and want to require govt issued ids but they can't point to any cases where this has been a problem.

Also, why not vote on Sundays (like in France which has much higher turnout) or make election day (at least for presidential) a holiday?

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Yeah I agree. Voting is already so inconvenient here (and many Dem-leaning voters like students and the poor don't participate as it is), that the voter ID stuff is almost a joke. In some nations voting is mandatory (that probably wouldn't fly here). But at least in other places, the voting window is like a month, and/or voting day is on a weekend as you said. There is NO good reason voting should occur on a Tuesday (in the winter) here, with so much at stake. I know there is some law stating that employers must give workers unpenalized time off to vote, but that is probably not practical for many hourly lower-wage jobs (again, poorer minorities who may lean Dem). So the system is already so whack and undemocratic as it is, these new laws are just salt on the wound. I don't understand why there isn't more outrage over this. If only the ACLU and NAACP speak out, then the issue appears liberal and partisan, not a matter of rights and liberty that it truly is.