Thursday, April 30, 2015

Last Call For Breaking The Curve

Everything you need to know about Jeb Bush and GOP outreach to black voters:




Oh, hmm.

That would be Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010, in which Murray explains how LBJ's Great Society and the Civil Rights movement didn't elevate black communities up to where white ones were, they just dragged white communities down (and dumped black ones into the abyss.)

Focusing on whites to avoid conflating race with class, Mr. Murray contends instead that a large swath of white America—poor and working-class whites, who make up approximately 30% of the white population—is turning away from the core values that have sustained the American experiment. At the same time, the top 20% of the white population has quietly been recovering its cultural moorings after a flirtation with the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, argues Mr. Murray in his elegiac book, the greatest source of inequality in America now is not economic; it is cultural. 
He is particularly concerned with the ways in which working-class whites are losing touch with what he calls the four "founding virtues"—industriousness, honesty (including abiding by the law), marriage and religion, all of which have played a vital role in the life of the republic.

He simply assumes that any communities of color are already lost, and that he's effectively writing a lifeboat manual for white America to try to save itself, very much at the expense of everyone else.

If George W Bush represented "compassionate conservatism"  where a rising tide lifts all boats, then Jebby represents "pragmatic conservatism" where the rising tide drowns the weak, so you'd better be willing to step on some heads to stay above water.

He perfectly represents the coming post-Obama GOP ideal of "Austerity will cull the weak". And a lot of poor white voters will correctly interpret that as "It's time to jettison anyone darker than ecru."

Operation Jade Moron

Things that are actually larger in Texas: cheeseburgers, state fairground mascots, and dangerous anti-government paranoia.

Gov. Greg Abbott is hoping to assure Texans that martial law will not be imposed during an upcoming military training exercise that has triggered a cascade of conspiracy theories. 
The Republican governor ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor the two-month-long Jade Helm 15 exercise that will take place in Bastrop County this summer, reported KUT-FM
A U.S. Army spokesman answered questions for about two hours Monday from concerned residents who voiced fears that the federal government would gather intelligence on them, confiscate their guns and other property, or conduct psychological operations on them. 
He also knocked down concerns that foreign fighters – such as Islamic State militants – would be brought in subdue the population. 
The spokesman tried to assure residents that the military has conducted similar exercises before without violating constitutional protections or U.S. law, but the overflow crowd remained highly suspicious. 
“I think historically, it’s much more common for governments to be tyrannical and infringe on other’s rights,” Daniel DuCloux, a Bastrop County resident, told the radio station. “So when you see a large military build-up like this, I think it’s our duty as citizens to question what’s going on and to find answers. I mean, if we don’t, then who will?”

Gotta love these guys. Because as we all know, when the New World Order UN mind-control invasion begins, it's going to start in Bastrop County, Texas, population 75,000.  On the other hand, if this is all true, that means the first major city they'll hit is Austin in neighboring Travis County. That should actually make these nutjobs happy, right?

If You Don't Love Yourself, I'll Make You See Your Own Heart

Notorious RBG vivisected the case against same-sex marriage during Tuesday's oral arguments, and it was amazing.

During Tuesday’s marriage equality arguments in the Supreme Court, several of the Court’s conservative members suggested that same-sex couples should not be given equal marriage rights because these couples have not enjoyed those rights for most of the past. As Justice Antonin Scalia summed up this argument, “for millennia, not a single society” supported marriage equality, and that somehow exempted same-sex couples from the Constitution’s promise of equal protection of the law. 
Not long after her conservative colleagues raised this argument, however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained exactly why marriage was long understood to be incompatible with homosexuality in just five sentences:

[Same-sex couples] wouldn’t be asking for this relief if the law of marriage was what it was a millennium ago. I mean, it wasn’t possible. Same-sex unions would not have opted into the pattern of marriage, which was a relationship, a dominant and a subordinate relationship. Yes, it was marriage between a man and a woman, but the man decided where the couple would be domiciled; it was her obligation to follow him.
There was a change in the institution of marriage to make it egalitarian when it wasn’t egalitarian. And same-sex unions wouldn’t — wouldn’t fit into what marriage was once.

Marriage has changed dramatically in the world over the last thousand years and even during America's relatively short history. Gender in marriage was all about financial arrangements: the man was the chief breadwinner, and the woman subservient.  That's complete changed in 2015.  The notion that marriage is about financial subservience, gender roles, or procreation is ludicrous, but that's the argument against same-sex marriage: "We've always done it this way."

Sure, and slavery, and women not being allowed to vote, used to be traditional law in America too. We got past that.  We'll get past this, as well.

StupidiNews!