Published Sunday, December 16, 2012 @ 12:10 AM EST
Dec162012
Hey, t-shirt person.
If the "loving" god who demands your worship isn't bright enough to
correctly interpret the establishment clause of the United States
Constitution, and is so petty and vindictive as to turn his back and
allow the slaughter of 20 innocent babies, then I have no use for either
of you.
If you don't think teachers should be unionized but they should be
armed, cancel basic cable. -@LOLGOP
If more guns made things safer America would have the lowest murder rate
on Earth.
The NRA reminds you their right to shoot more
clay pigeons without reloading is just a bit more important than your
life.
Welcome to America, where some of you will have an
easier time buying an assault rifle than marrying who you love. -John
Fugelsang
Once, millions of Americans correctly argued the Constitution gave them
the right to own other human beings, too. We changed. -Jason
Cochran
If the reason to have a thing is to protect yourself against people with
the same thing, maybe that thing is a bad thing. -@TheTweetofGod
It took two minutes, between 9:36am to 9:38am to kill 26 children and
their teachers. How many hunters encounter 26 deer in two minutes? -Roland
Scahill
Too many conservatives refuse to regulate assault rifles, but they're
fine with regulating the female reproductive organs. Because liberty. -Bob
Cesca
Sorry, but prayers and giving your kids hugs fix nothing; only having
the balls to stand up to our insane selfish gun culture will. -Bill
Maher
Published Saturday, December 15, 2012 @ 7:00 AM EST
Dec152012
Happy Bill of Rights Day, commemorating the ratification of the first
ten Amendments to the United States Constitution on this day in 1791.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first declared its annual observance
on December 15, 1941.
Should unfortunate circumstances place you in the presence of someone
pontificating on the manner in which the first and especially the second
amendment really should be interpreted, do what I do. Ask the
delusional pedant to recite all ten Amendments.
"You can't? Gee, a real Constitutional scholar, ain'tcha Skippy?"
Published Wednesday, October 17, 2012 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Oct172012
Quotes of the day- Arthur Miller:
Arthur Asher Miller
(October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and
essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas
that include plays such as All My Sons (1947), Death of a
Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the
Bridge (one-act, 1955; revised two-act, 1956).
Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s,
1950s and early 1960s, a period during which he testified before the
House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for
Drama and the Prince of Asturias Award, and was married to Marilyn
Monroe. (Click
for full article)
A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away
from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.
A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
A suicide kills two people... that's what it's for.
An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.
Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is
without value.
Few of us can surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense.
The thought that The State has lost its mind and is punishing so many
innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally
denied.
He's liked, but he's not well liked.
I believe in work. If somebody doesn't create something, however small
it may be, he gets sick. An awful lot of people feel that they're
treading water- that if they vanished in smoke, it wouldn't mean
anything at all in this world. And that's a despairing and destructive
feeling. It'll kill you.
I figure I've done what I could do, more or less, and now I'm going back
to being a chemical; all we are is a lot of talking nitrogen, you know...
I love her too, but our neuroses just don't match.
If a person measures his spiritual fulfillment in terms of cosmic
visions, surpassing peace of mind, or ecstasy, then he is not likely to
know much spiritual fulfillment. If, however, he measures it in terms of
enjoying a sunrise, being warmed by a child's smile, or being able to
help someone have a better day, then he is likely to know much spiritual
fulfillment.
If I have to be alone I want to be by myself.
Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in
the middle of July.
It is time, I think, that we who are without kings, took up this bright
thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly
lead in our time- the heart and spirit of the average man.
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.
The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin
to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more,
not less.
The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge
of embarrassing him, always.
The enemy is within, and within stays within, and we can’t get out of
within.
The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home
to roost.
The wedding of Christianity or Judaism with nationalism is lethal.
The world is an oyster but you don't crack it open on a mattress.
There might be a dragon with five legs in my house, but no one has ever
seen it.
Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.
When any creativity becomes useful, it is sucked into the vortex of
commercialism, and when a thing becomes commercial, it becomes the enemy
of man.
When the guns roar, the arts die.
Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise
but the absence of any need to choose this action?
Why is betrayal the only truth that sticks?
Without alienation, there can be no politics.
Work a lifetime to pay off a house- You finally own it and there's
nobody to live in it.
You can quicker get back a million dollars that was stolen than a word
that you gave away.
You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away- a man is not a piece
of fruit.
You specialize in something until one day you find it is specializing in
you.
Published Monday, September 10, 2012 @ 3:11 AM EDT
Sep102012
How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened
Column A
Column B
I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.
I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my
religious community blesses my marriage.
Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on
marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.
I am being forced to use birth control.
I am unable to force others to not use birth control.
I am not allowed to pray privately.
I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith
publicly.
Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal
recourse.
I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with
impunity.
I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or
material.
Others are allowed to have access to books, movies and websites that
I do not like.
My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the
establishment clause.
My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and
resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.
Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my
country.
My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of
my country.
My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in
my community.
A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of
worship in my community.
I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our
faith at home.
Public school science classes are teaching science.
If you answered "yes" to any of the questions in column A, perhaps your
religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have
every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law. But just
remember this one little, constitutional, concept: this means you can
fight for your equality- not your superiority.
If you answered "yes" to any of the questions in column B, then not only
is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance
that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others. Please review
the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.
Rev. Emily C. Heath Clergy, United Church of Christ
Again, one must ask- why are the clearest, most direct interviews
performed by a comedian on a fake news show?
Stewart probes Huckabee's support of radical evangelical minister and
discredited historian David Barton, who claims- despite incontrovertible
evidence to the contrary- that the Founders intended the United States
to be a Christian theocracy. Stewart also questions why Huckabee- who is
always reasonable and self-effacing during his Daily Show
interviews- promotes Barton's extreme ideas when addressing his
conservative base.
This is part three of three of the interview; consider watching them
all. It's one of Stewart's- and Huckabee's- best efforts.
It also features two Stewart observations that made it to my quote
database:
"As someone who is not Christian, it is hard for me to believe
Christians are a persecuted people in America... maybe, God willing, one
of you will rise up and get to be President of this country; or maybe 44
in a row."
"We need religion to give grace and comfort to a world torn apart by
religion."
"Fox (News) tells us the terrible thing about this Kingdom Foundation...
it's a very bad guy, but they never mention this fella's name. And they
never showed this fella's picture. And they certainly never mentioned
the fella they're talking about is part owner- of their company! Did the
gang at Fox and Friends genuinely not know the head of the
Kingdom Foundation's name and the fact that he is one of their part
owners, or were they purposely covering it up because it did not help
their fear-driven narrative?"-Jon Stewart
"If they're not as stupid as I believe them to be, they are really
******* evil."
"And if they're not as evil as I think they are, they are stupid."
"Tragedy has been and will always be with us. Somewhere right now, evil
people are planning to do evil things. All of us will do everything
meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it. But each horrible act
can't become an ax for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights
that binds us. America must stop this predictable pattern of reaction.
When an isolated, terrible event occurs, our phones ring, demanding that
the NRA explain the inexplicable. Why us? Because their story needs a
villain... That is not our role in American society, and we will not be
forced to play it. If you disagree, that's your right. I respect that.
But we will not relinquish it, or be silenced about it, or be told 'Do
not come here, your are unwelcome in your own land.' "-Charlton Heston
"Thank you, Charlton Heston. Of course, he was speaking out after
another tragedy, when people on the left had demanded that the NRA, out
of respect to the recent victims of Columbine, not hold their scheduled
NRA convention in Denver, near the site of the tragedy. And by the way,
I'm sure that I would have been one of those people: painting too narrow
a picture, connecting irresponsibly the actions of two psychotics to an
entire group of reasonable people expressing their Constitutional
rights... the point is, I was wrong and Heston was right. And if you
replace NRA with Muslim community and second amendment with first
amendment, he's still right."-Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show,
which is, inexplicably, still the best source of unbiased news and
cogent commentary on cable.
The Daily Show clip above reminds me of what I wrote when Heston
died two years ago.
Charlton Heston initially made his mark portraying Moses and Ben Hur.
Most recently, he's remembered for his tenure as NRA president and the
comment about prying his rifle from his cold, dead hands.
That's unfortunate.
Heston was a man who did not wear his beliefs like seasonal sportswear.
He did not parrot the official party line or mindlessly repeat the
neocon talking points du jour. His famous sound bite overshadows his
true legacy: a conservative whose dedication to dignity, manners and
reasoned discourse should be adopted by those of all ideological
leanings.
Whenever I heard him speak at length- not the snippets pulled out of
context for cable news, but in full conversations with qualified
interviewers- he accomplished something that very few conservatives have
been able to do. He made me think about my position, review the logic
that he used to arrive at his different viewpoint and- in some cases-
reconsider my stance. He rarely, if ever, actually changed my mind. But
in eloquently stating the opposing view, he made me respect it and seek
potential areas of compromise.
He didn't accomplish this with ad hominem attacks, alliterative or
rhyming jingoism, macho bluster, or any of the other quasi-intellectual
blunt instruments typically employed in what passes as discourse these
days. And no one would have been better at it. Who else but Heston, True
Lies director James Cameron noted, could play someone "who can
plausibly intimidate Arnold Schwarzenegger?"
Read and listen to Heston's famous Winning
The Cultural War address to the Harvard Law School Forum. While you
may not agree with everything he says, you must agree it is a
quintessential example of what free speech and political discourse should
be in this country."
I don't know whether he would have backed the Tea Party movement given
the suspect nature of its "grassroots" support. But I suspect the group
would gain a lot more credibility if it followed Heston's advice:
"Well, the answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr.
Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.
"You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course.
Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or
how to behave, we don't. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and
stigmatizes personal freedom."
Heston was a gentleman and an American. We've lost a great guy.
"Political correctness is just tyranny with manners. I wish for you the
courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history's pocket change. Courage
is history's true currency." -Charlton
Heston
When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. -Thomas Paine
One of 17,757
quotations
from the KGB Quotations Database, selected at random.
Click here to search
for words, authors or phrases. Search page design and software contributed by Rafal Sulejman.
"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any
Office or public Trust under the United States." ‑U.S. Constitution, Article VI,
paragraph 3
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