Category Archives: Conservatism

Jonathan Turley: Sarkozy Proposes To Arrest People Who Visit “Terrorist” Websites

Posted on by
Reply

. . .[I]n the wake of the recent killings by a Muslim extremist, the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy is proposing a new law that would jail repeat visitors to extremist web sites. It is a measure that strips away core free speech rights of citizens and gives the government a new ambiguous power to arrest people for the things that they read. . . .

Sarkozy’s Internet law would leave it to the government to determine what sites are espousing “terrorist” viewpoints. Authoritarian governments have long defined critics as criminals and terrorists from China to Iran to North Korea. . . .

It is a pattern that is all too familiar to Americans. After an individual or group commits a heinous act of terror, the government immediately uses the attack to limit freedoms of all citizens and to expand its own ill-defined powers.

Read more . . .

What Are Conservatives [i.e., Reactionaries] Trying to Conserve?

Posted on by
2

About a month ago, Jonathan Chait published an important article in New York Magazine arguing that demographic changes in the United States will before too long spell doom to the political influence and hegemony of conservatives [i.e., reactionaries], and that conservatives [i.e., reactionaries], well aware of these changes, regard the 2012 elections as their last, best chance to reverse the course America is on. “Conservative America,” Chait writes, “will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests.” The Republican [i.e., Reactionaries] Party, Chait explains, had over decades found itself increasingly confined to white voters, “especially those lacking a college degree and especially rural whites.” Meanwhile, Democrats have increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, secular whites and racial minorities. . . .

Continue . . .

Paul Krugman: Paranoia Strikes Deeper

Posted on by
Reply

Stop, hey, what’s that sound? Actually, it’s the noise a great political party makes when it loses what’s left of its mind. And it happened — where else? — on Fox News on Sunday, when Mitt Romney bought fully into the claim that gas prices are high thanks to an Obama administration plot. . . .

. . . [T]he president of the United States doesn’t control gasoline prices, or even have much influence over those prices. Oil prices are set in a world market, and America, which accounts for only about a tenth of world production, can’t move those prices much. Indeed, the recent rise in gas prices has taken place despite rising U.S. oil production and falling imports. . . .

As Richard Hofstadter pointed out in his classic 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” crazy conspiracy theories have been an American tradition ever since clergymen began warning that Thomas Jefferson was an agent of the Bavarian Illuminati. But it’s one thing to have a paranoid fringe playing a marginal role in a nation’s political life; it’s something quite different when that fringe takes over a whole party, to the point where candidates must share, or pretend to share, that fringe’s paranoia to receive the party’s presidential nod. . . .

Read more . . . 

When They Say Government They Mean You

Posted on by
Reply

I’d like to talk about government. The conservative [i.e., reactionary]/corporate propaganda machine has turned “government” into a bad word. Conservatives [i.e., reactionaries]  portray our government as some kind of enemy of the public. We have all heard the scare stories about the harm done by meddlesome regulations from intrusive big government programs run by government bureaucrats.

Let’s step back from reacting to the word as we hear it today and think about what the word really means.

Read more . . .

How Religion’s Demand for Obedience Keeps Us in the Dark Ages

Posted on by
1

. . . [W]hile the secular arguments for dictatorship have been greatly weakened, the religious arguments for it have scarcely changed at all. Religion is very much a holdover from the dark ages of the past, and the world’s holy books still enshrine the ancient demands for us to bow down and obey the (conveniently unseen and absent) gods, and more importantly, the human beings who claim the right to act as their representatives. It’s no surprise, then, that the most fervent advocates of religion in the modern world are also the most deeply inculcated with this mindset of command and obedience. . . .

In sharp contrast to the religious and conservative worldview of obedience and submission, the worldview of freethinkers and progressives at its best is one that exalts freedom and liberty — freedom to make our own choices, freedom of the mind to travel and explore wherever it will. These are our commandments: Think for yourself and don’t blindly bow down to the claims of another. Exercise your own best judgment. Ask questions and investigate whether what you’ve been taught is true.

Read more . . .

Walking While Black: The Killing of Trayvon Martin

Posted on by
1

On the rainy night of Sunday, Feb. 26, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin walked to a convenience store in Sanford, Fla. On his way home, with his Skittles and iced tea, the African-American teenager was shot and killed. The gunman, George Zimmerman, didn’t run. He claimed that he killed the young man in self-defense. The Sanford Police agreed and let him go. . . .

So, while the police and State Attorney Norm Wolfinger have defended their inaction, a democratic demand for justice has ricocheted around the country, prompting a U.S. Justice Department investigation and leading Wolfinger to promise to convene a grand jury.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has called for the removal of Sanford Police Chief Lee. NAACP President Ben Jealous, recounting a mass meeting in a Sanford-area church Tuesday night, quoted a local resident who stood up and said, “‘If you kill a dog in this town, you’d be in jail the next day.’ Trayvon Martin was killed four weeks ago, and his killer is still walking the streets.”

With his gun.

Read more . . .

Dan Savage Responds To Rick Santorum’s Promise To ‘Pray For’ Him

Posted on by
Reply

GOOGLE SANTORUM

“Rick Santorum thinks that women who have been raped should be compelled—by force of law—to carry the babies of their rapists to term, he thinks birth control should be illegal, he wants to prosecute pornographers, etc., etc., basically the guy wants to be president so that he can micromanage the sex lives of all Americans…and I’m the one with issues? Because I made a dirty joke at his expense eight or nine years ago and it stuck? I’m the one with issues?”

Savage concluded, “Rick can pray for me. I’ll gay for him. And we can call it even.”

Read more . . .

Poll: Fewer Americans Than Ever See The Supreme Court Positively

Posted on by
Reply

[F]ewer voters than ever view the high court positively. . . . The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows that 28% give the Supreme Court good or excellent ratings. Nineteen percent (19%) rate the highest court in the land as poor.

Admittedly, this poll was conducted by Rasmussen Reports, a conservative polling firm with a history of inaccuracies. Nevertheless, Rasmussen’s finding is consistent with other polls showing that Americans increasingly believe that, despite the fact that the justices’ very legitimacy stems from their ability to apply the law fairly and independent of partisan concerns, the Court’s decisions are driven in large part by politics.

Certainly, the Supreme Court’s five conservatives have done nothing to disabuse the American people of this unfortunate perception. To the contrary, the Roberts Court has consistently pushed an ideological agenda from the bench — often despite decades of precedent to the contrary:

– Citizens United
– Forced Arbitration
– Divide and Conquer
– War on Workers

Read more . . .