No Man's Land in the political war

I'm not sure when taking the middle ground became such a horrible thing. Actually, that's not true. Taking the middle ground has always been a horrible thing for the loud-mouth extremists on either end of the political spectrum. I wonder when the loud-mouth extremists became so loud that they drowned out any reasonable discussion of a topic. Sometime recently, I suspect, since the rise of 24-hour "news" networks and talk radio and the Internet. And that's the way the world is, now. And it's a damned shame.

The latest kerfuffle here in Phoenix in which the loud-mouth extremists are setting the agenda has to do with Julie Erfle. You may not know who Julie Erfle is, but that's okay. Julie Erfle's husband, Nick, was a police officer killed in the line of duty almost a year ago. He was killed by ... an illegal immigrant.

Oh dear. Nothing brings out the extremists in Arizona like illegal immigration. And that story really made them nuts. Well, until Julie Erfle went to Washington with Phoenix's mayor, Phil Gordon, to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. Oh dear, again.

Erfle's trip put a bug in the butt of Bruce Jacobs, a morning talk show host on a local radio station in Phoenix. KFYI claims that Jacobs is their "resident right wing ranter," but this station carries both Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, so it's not like they have a lot of NON-right wing ranters, but whatever. Jacobs tore into Erfle, claiming that "comprehensive immigration reform" is really amnesty (and it's always funny how conservatives, while they acknowledge Reagan's famous amnesty of 1986, never seem to take that into account when they lionize the Gipper) and that Erfle should be ashamed of herself. More to the point, he claimed her dead husband would be ashamed of her for taking this stance and that he would put part of the blame on her the next time a police officer is gunned down by an illegal immigrant.

Wrap your head around that for a moment. Bruce Jacobs has no idea what Nick Erfle's political stance was about illegal immigration, yet he knows that he would be ashamed of the woman whom he married and had two kids with. Now, as he's in law enforcement, maybe Nick Erfle was completely on board with the "deport them all and build a mile-high brick wall along the Rio Grande" attitude that many conservatives have. But Bruce Jacobs doesn't know that. Plus, now he's going to blame a grieving widow raising two small kids for any other killings of police officers? Classy, Bruce. Well done.

As many reasonable people have pointed out, there's a difference between criticizing Julie Erfle for going to Washington and advocating for a position you don't agree with and ripping into her personally and claiming she'll be to blame for more deaths. Jacobs is an idiot for saying that, but that's his right (there are calls for him to be fired, but how about people stop listening to him, for crying out loud!). Julie Erfle became a public figure when she went to Washington, so go ahead and disagree with her position. I'm not sure why opponents of someone feel the need to insult people personally when they don't agree with them. It's sad. Of course, people who show up to comment in posts like this one and this one show that a lot of people think it's okay to insult people for their beliefs, because everyone thinks they're right and will never admit that they might be wrong. I guess that's what passes for political discourse in the country these days.

I was listening to Laura Ingraham this morning, and she was making fun of the attendees of the Democratic convention. She said they were given flags and it appeared they needed to be told how to wave them so they could act patriotic. She was having a good laugh at her lame joke. Why did she feel the need to do that? If she doesn't agree with Democrats (and she doesn't), can't she just point out where she disagrees with them and leave it at that? I think the attendees of both conventions look like idiots, but we'll see if Ingraham makes this point when the RNC fires up. Probably not - they'll all be heroes dancing around and weeping because they love their candidate and their country so much. It's beneath people to insult others just because you don't like their beliefs, yet extremists from both sides act like they're in grade school all the time, and nobody calls them on it.

Illegal immigration is a serious problem in this country, but no matter what the conservatives say, it doesn't have a simple solution. You can call it amnesty all you want, but there's no way we're deporting 12 million people (the estimate of the number of illegals in the country). We definitely need to secure the border, but we're not deporting those who are already here, and Bruce Jacobs and his ilk need to recognize that. Even if they don't, insulting a woman who knows the cost of illegal immigration far more than Bruce Jacobs does is idiotic. How will we ever get anything done if we're reduced to insults? I guess that's why we're not getting anything done.

Let's destroy the United States!

I read a lot of conservative blogs, some for their humor value, because the people writing them are so insane that they make me laugh; some so I can keep track of how serious these people are when they talk about a war on Christians even though, what, 80% of the country is Christian, or how the liberals run things in the country when the Republicans control all three branches of government and homosexuals still can't get married and South Dakota is telling women they aren't in control of their bodies; and some because they're truly scary.

And then there's T.

T. is conservative. T. pisses me off, because he posts very intelligent, articulate, interesting things and he always has something insightful and honest to say about it. He comments a lot over at Comics Should Be Good, too, and he has very good thoughts about the heroic ideal and how DC and Marvel are killing it.

So why does he piss me off? Because he posts these really interesting things, and I disagree on almost every single thing he writes. It's bizarre. He seems like a nice guy, he obviously has a lot on his mind, he backs up his arguments - and I disagree with his opinions pretty much all the time.

Like for instance, this post. T. offers no commentary about the link (I'll get to that), but I have to assume, from his other posts and the fact that he doesn't rip this guy a new one, that he agrees with it. Then I read the article at the link and I almost rip out my own eyes in frustration.

Here's the link. Go read it; it's quite interesting. I'll wait.

...

...

This is a speech that was given in 2004 by Richard Lamm, the former governor of Colorado. He outlines eight methods on how to destroy America - "they" are working on it, according to Lamm. Who "they" are is unclear, but because it's a conservative, it doesn't matter - "they" are probably dope-smoking hippies who force Christian women to have abortions while they televise porn during the family hour on network shows as they sodomize each other and invite illegal immigrants into the country. Bastards!

Lamm says that first we need to turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual or bicultural country, because history shows that no country can long survive this horror. There are a lot of examples of countries that have failed at this, but I would like to point out that the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire, two of the most successful states in world history, were multi-lingual and multi-cultural.

Second, "they" invent multi-culturalism and claim that all cultures are equal. Then he says that "they" say there are no cultural differences and that minority dropout rates are solely because of discrimination and any other explanation is verboten. Do you like what he does there? "All cultures are equal" and "there are no cultural differences" are not antonyms - not necessarily. What conservatives want to do is claim that white American culture is better than any other culture, not different. Of course cultures are different, but "equal" is a loaded term, because it implies a scale of goodness and badness. All cultures are equal in that no one culture is better than any other. Every "culture" has horrible things that should be eradicated from it. White American culture thinks tying gay people to fence posts and beating them to death is okay. White American culture thinks that if you're not Christian it's okay to kill you. White American culture celebrates movie stars, athletes, and performing artists over teachers, scientists, and doctors. Are these things okay? Maybe Lamm thinks so. "Culture" by itself has no value judgment attached to it. So saying that "they" encourage immigrants to maintain their culture is not a bad or a good thing - it's neutral. Lamm, like Lou Dobbs, must want to end all St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Can't have those damned Irish immigrants maintaining their popish culture!

Lamm also says that if we encourage all these various cultures to keep their own languages and that if we emphasize our differences rather than our similarities, that will destroy America. I hate to tell Mr. Lamm, but Americans have never assimilated people very well. Any immigrant group that came here did not necessarily give up their culture of their own accord - they were brutalized until they did. Lamm mentions this, and thinks it's a damned fine idea. Lynchings of Mexicans will commence until they start speaking English, damn it! Sure, the other groups assimilated eventually, but it took a while. Lamm wants it done today!

His fourth point pisses me off to no end, considering I used to teach. He thinks that in order to destroy America, "they" should make our fastest growing demographic our least educated and create a second underclass of "unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our population." "They" would then have that underclass achieve a 50% dropout rate from high school. I've said this before, and I'll say it again - achievement in school takes a commitment from the federal government, the state government, the local government, the community, the parents, the administration, the teachers, and the students that we simply do not have. Don't simply blame the students. When the damned liberals and their hippie ways take over our government, blame them. Right now, I blame the ruling party - the idiot conservatives. My students were no more antagonistic toward the United States than any other angry, pissed-off teenagers are. They were far more antagonistic toward authority figures, because they were kids. And those authority figures were failing them.

He moves on to the culture of the "victim," and that we should teach minorities that it's not their fault that they're kept down, that it's the fault of the majority. I get so angry at people who think that there is nothing keeping blacks and Hispanics from achieving. It's the same thing with Barry Bonds - there's no failed drug test, but everyone knows he used steroids. There is very little institutional racism anymore, because it's against the law. What's not against the law is a cop pulling over a Hispanic kid for speeding instead of an older white man. He has to choose, right? There are plenty of people speeding on the freeway, and who should he choose? Of course there is prejudice and discrimination in our society, and of course it's leveled against minorities. I used to ask my kids (the good ones, that is) if they ever shoplifted. They said no, and for the most part, I believed them. I then asked them what they had to do with their backpacks when they went into 7-11, and they answered without hesitating, "Leave them outside." That's discrimination, because they were teenagers. To say that discrimination doesn't exist is idiotic. Of course it's not an excuse, and I would hope that my students would work hard and prove the racists wrong. But it's there. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

Lamm then claims that "they" want to celebrate diversity over unity (anyone else notice a theme?) and stress differences rather than similarities. He again claims that no society in history has been successful when celebrating differences rather than unity and that people who celebrate diversity end up killing each other. Well, yeah, but a lot of cultures that were united failed too. Where's the condemnation of unity that brought about Hitler's Germany? Pol Pot's Cambodia? Stalin's Russia? We can go back further into the past, but those three societies were pretty damned culturally united, and that didn't stop them from slaughtering everyone who disagreed with them. Again, I'm not trying to make the point that one culture is better than another. It's all about how you live in that culture and how you interact with each other. Al-Andalus, the Muslim regime in Spain, lasted more or less 700 years, and they welcomed other cultures to share what they had. I know we're not supposed to praise anything those filthy Muslims achieved, but that state lasted longer than the United States has, and they were pretty culturally diverse.

"They," of course, must then censor any talk about this "problem." Anyone who brought it up would be labeled a racist and a xenophobe and "they" would make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. Again, where do we place the blame for that? At the feet of our federal government, which is run by conservatives. Lamm finishes by saying he would censor Victor Davis Hanson's book Mexifornia, which is apparently about immigration reform. I haven't read it, so I can't speak about it, but apparently banning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn wouldn't destroy American, but banning this book would.

This kind of idiotic shit makes me angry, because I doubt if Lamm is, actually, an idiot. Have you ever noticed that the things that are destroying America are the things that one person just doesn't like? Other things that could have destroyed America: giving blacks equal rights, giving women the right to vote, demon alcohol, television (TV is still working on it, so give it time), electing a Catholic president, allowing American citizens of Japanese descent to wander around during World War II, and the Democratic-Republicans of Thomas Jefferson during the 1790s. Oh dear Lord, the horror!

Here's what I think is far more likely to destroy "America" as we know it than "celebrating diversity": Apocalyptic Christians hell-bent on converting everyone to their own brand of Christianity before the Rapture comes; giving a president dictatorial powers and allowing him to continue with them even after it becomes clear that it's a bad idea; making sure that women are once again second-class citizens; ignoring science that says we're killing the planet in favor of accumulating more insignificant green pieces of paper; allowing companies to merge into super-companies, thereby ruining our free-market economy, which was one of the things that made us "great" in the first place.

I'm sure I've missed some things, but the point is that I think those things are a lot more significant than the fact that a bunch of Mexicans don't want to learn English. Listen, countries fail. They always have and they always will. One of my favorite authors, Robert Kaplan (a conservative, by the way), wrote in An Empire Wilderness that he wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. fell apart quite soon. He made the point that Portland and Seattle have much more in common with Vancouver than they do with the rest of the country, and that it would be logical for the Northwest and the west coast of Canada to combine to create a state that was much more Pacific Rim than North American. The point is not that we need to keep the United States together at all costs, but that we need to reach for the ideals of the Constitution at all costs. That doesn't necessarily jive with keeping the country together. The ideals of equality among men is an eternal concept, while the U.S. is an ethereal thing.

People like Lamm make me angry not because I disagree with him, but because he presents his arguments in such apocalyptic terms. We disagree - fine. But how can you debate someone who uses this kind of language? It's the same thing on the left, and I agree with Lamm on that point - how can you debate immigration reform with someone who simply calls you a racist? But in condemning this, Lamm falls into the same trap, and all debate is squashed. It's a shame.

T. is black, by the way. Or at least I'm pretty sure he is. I seem to remember him mentioning it once. I would LOVE to see him do a post on racism and what he thinks about it. I'm sure I'd disagree, but at least it would be thought-provoking!

King George takes charge, Dave Grohl's lullabies, superannouncements, boob jobs, and of course, Britney Spears giving birth - all in the links!

I was inspired this week and had some time, so I managed to troll the dark corners of cyberspace and find the wackiest stuff out there. I hope y'all enjoy the weirdness and such.

POLITICAL BUFFOONERY. We're living in the great age of it!

In case you didn't notice, Bush is trampling on the Constitution again. I found this at Through the Looking Glass.

Speaking of Our Supreme and Glorious Leader, he and his cronies have come up with a sneaky way to get a law passed. I found this at Mah Two Cents, who found it at Peter David's blog.

The logical consequences of making abortion illegal. Pro-life people never want to talk about that.

Speaking of abortion, here's a story about an Oglala Sioux woman who plans to open an abortion clinic on reservation land in South Dakota. That should be interesting and get into all sorts of stuff about sovereignty. This is from Bitch Ph.D. via Ahistoricality.

Here's a story about a teacher who quit his job because of the poor pay. Sad, but true. Teachers make no money.

Here's a nice, long post about why the war on drugs continues to be stupid.

Ahistoricality links to a dissection of the Kansas FAQ brochure discussing the new science standards. One of the gems: teaching evolution "is scientifically controversial because it is an historical science, and therefore very subjective." "Historical science"? WTF?

John McCain, our wonderful senator from Arizona, the guy who once bashed religious extremists, including "Christians" like Jerry Falwell, is going to speak at Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell. I guess votes mean more than principles, eh, John? I found both these links at Andrew Sullivan.

IMMIGRATION RANTING. Keep America pure and white, people! No white person has ever committed a crime, so we must be the best!

Here's an interesting article with many links that says undocumented immigration doesn't increase crime rates. More stuff to shove at people who want to close the border!

A very novel way to solve our illegal immigration problem. My God - it's so simple! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

Here's an open letter to CNN about the immigration coverage. She's not happy, but she is insightful. She links to story about all the illegal immigrants ... who live in Boston and happen to be Irish. Where's the rage???? I found this at Kung Fu Monkey.

This is a very interesting (and very long) post about illegal immigration and the issues surrounding it.

Here's a fun quote from Generalissimo Bush: "The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way." Um, what? Does he even know what those words mean? I found this at Echidne of the Snakes.

FUN STUFF. After the political junk, it's good to have a laugh.

Oscar Madison shops at Target. Oh, the horror!

Discovering an unfortunate truth at a young age.

Greatest T-shirt ever? You be the judge! I found this at Dave Barry's blog.

Mrs. Montesano's third-grade class thanks Columbia Pictures for inviting them to the world premiere of Basic Instinct 2. They wrote notes:

More at the link. Those kids - so precocious these days!

My pal the Mad Monk Barbarossa shows us something we all need:

Crucial in today's political climate!

Nik lists his worst neighbors of all time!

Remember Jaws: A Love Story? Who doesn't? This is from Welcome to Blog.

Here are thirteen things not to do on the final version of a term paper. It's sad that students do these things, but they do.

With the Final Four in NCAA basketball upon us, we find out all about the real George Mason.

Dave Grohl is apparently going to write lullabies, and here are some suggested titles.

Scott introduces himself like V would, but with 'S' words. Clever!

You're not getting older, you're diffracting.

ALL ABOUT RELIGION OR LACK THEREOF! Doing my part to spread the love.

A two-day "Christian" summit yields one excellent idiotic quote after another. My favorite: "Whenever your husband wants sex it is your duty to say 'yes.'" Awesome. This is from Echidne of the Snakes.

Prayer does not affect heart surgery patients in any way, and may have an adverse effect when people the patient knows prays for them. They needed to do a scientific study about this, people! Welcome to 21st-century America.

I know it's not nice to make fun of other religions, and this isn't really making fun of one, but check out this Muslim marriage site. It's not a dating site, because Muslims don't date! There's nothing really that funny about it until you look at the pictures the women submit. Now that's some bold stuff! How can a man resist??? I found this at Ace of Spades.

Chris McLaren links to this survey, which says atheists are the biggest threat to America. Bigger than terrorists, mind you. Bigger than queers and their weird desire to marry! Holy crap! Does anyone want to still say we're not moving quickly toward a theocracy?

And in case you're wondering how this translates from vague feelings into policy, atheists are discriminated against in custody cases. How nice!

COMIC BOOK ODDITIES. Not that there's anything odd about comic books!

Things Mike Sterling never hears at his comic book store.

Sarcasmo points us to Superheroes on the toilet. No, it's not a euphemism.

The Comic Treadmill makes a good point: this would be the greatest school field trip ever.

Lots of other comic bloggers have mentioned this, but I saw it here: Marvel is developing a series of graphic novels aimed at the international market, including one about the women of the X-Men written by Chris Claremont. The artist? Milo Manara, a famous Italian erotic artist. Apparently, the kids in Europe can handle erotica much more than the kids here can! Here's some of what I can only assume is his "tamer" work, stolen from Heidi's link above:

Nice-looking art, but way to make comics even more like porn! Go Marvel!

When Scipio did his weekly haiku this week, he included a wonderful out-of-context panel:

I don't know, but more and more, I'm convinced that Fredric Wertham was right.

Chris points out this story about Jeph Loeb and Rob Liefeld teaming up to do a series about Onslaught. For those of you who don't know the names "Loeb," "Liefeld," or "Onslaught," count yourself lucky. The darkest of the dark days of the 1990s at Marvel! And they're bringing it back!

Special Superman Family Subset Of Links!

Lois Lane: suicide counselor!

Speaking of Superman, Jake has been having way too much fun over the past couple of weeks with the Big Blue and Supergirl. First, he showed us the comic in which Superman announces Supergirl's presence to the world. He was impressed that Superman could simply break into television programming all over the world, and for something as inane as telling everyone that a person exists, so he decided to have some fun with Superman breaking into programming to make announcements. And what announcements! Here they are: the first one, the second one, the third one, the fourth one, the fifth one, the sixth one, the seventh one, the eighth one, the ninth one, the tenth one, the eleventh one, and the twelfth one. Phew. With the tenth announcement, he started added a panel to show what Superman was interrupting, like so:

Jake is having far too much fun with photoshop, I think. Check out his whole blog, too, because he's having a lot of other fun with Supergirl!

Marionette points out something rather interesting: Superman feels the need to rescue Jimmy Olson from girls. Hmmm ...

Oh, dear, Bruce and Clark, what now:


Will Pfeifer finds the idea of a "super horse laugh" funny, and so do I:

Superman comics are weird.

CENSORSHIP NEWS! We must protect the (Chinese) children!

The Anonymous Lawyer just found out that his blog is blocked in China. I shudder to think what they do to mine, as he does not often publish gratuitous photos of scantily-clad women or curses.

GEOGRAPHICAL MISCELLANEOUS. Because no one knows where to find the United States on a map.

A few weeks ago I noticed this post by Chris Cope, in which he tells us about Sark Island, which still maintains a feudal system. How excellent! Where is Sark Island, you may ask? It's one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel, very near France but part of England. Now that you know about it, I'm sure you'll want to visit.

This is an interesting article about Centralia. It's in Pennsylvania, in case you're wondering. It's pretty weird - Silent Hill, anyone?

This is an interesting article about digital manipulation, specifically this picture:

I found the link at 2 Blowhards.

CHICKS ON THE WEB! Because we certainly don't appreciate treating anyone like objects around here.

Women with boob jobs may be banned from Virgin's space shuttle flight. Because they might explode, you know. I like the picture they posted with the news article. Check it out - apparently we don't know what breasts look like.

Yes, it's ... the brassieres of the future!

This wonderful site comes from Dave Barry's blog.

I'm sure you've all heard about the Britney Spears sculpture of her giving birth done by a pro-life artist. If you haven't go read about it! And gaze on the glorious monstrosity!

It really doesn't get any better than that, does it?

Why can't celebrities wear underwear? Is it really that difficult?

Apparently, fake euros with naked people on them were passed off as real. Behold!

The story comes from here, which Roger linked to a few weeks ago. He also linked to a very funny Chinese menu, so check it out if you feel like it.

Here's a nice little story about a porn star turned vintner:

She said she made the transition because she wanted her parents to be proud of her. You mean they weren't proud of her starring in porn movies? Shocking! I found this at one of my new favorite blogs, The M Zöne.

It's the worst album covers of all time! But it includes this one, so how can we claim it's accurate?

Whitesnake RULES! I found the list at Ace of Spades.

SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE. It's closer than you think ...

A true sign of the Apocalypse. I found this at Dave Barry's blog.

Words fail me:

This is from the BEAST blog.

INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT MISCELLANEOUS. This is for Ashley.

A man divorced his wife while he was asleep! Those Muslim men, you know, can divorce a woman just by saying "I divorce you" thrice, and this guy muttered the word in his sleep. The fun thing about religious law is: the Muslim elders said they were divorced, even though the guy doesn't want to be, and the couple has to remain apart for 100 days and she has to sleep with another man, who then has to divorce her, before they can remarry. And yet some people think we should have religious law as the basis of our legal system. Yeah, that's a good idea.

This comes from Pakistan, where surgeons recently operated on a two-month old baby girl with two fetuses inside her. Oh sweet Jeebus. Apparently this sort of thing happens once every 500,000 births. Read with amazement and horror!

NEWS FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. Who doesn't love our furry friends?

A Swedish court has fined a kennel owner who refused to sell a kitten to a lesbian. I'm with the kennel owner on this one. I mean, when we got him, Smokey had been turned into a raving Republican by his previous owners. It took us years to turn him! So I wouldn't want this "woman" turning that poor kitten gay! Who's on board?

This web site is devoted to "hidden" animals. You know, like giant anacondas! I found this site at Overcompensating, where the accompanying comic strip is really funny (and has nothing to do with hidden animals).

A tortoise that was well over 200 years old has died. So sad!

LES BEAUX ARTS. It's all about culture here at the blog!

Here are some random photographs of a very old, very beat-up Charlie's Angels lunchbox. Why? Why the hell not?

They're making a stage version of Xanadu. They're making a stage version of Xanadu! If God isn't dead already, this will surely kill him. I found this fun nugget here.

John Rogers explains how to save the movie theater industry. One word: Ushers.

There's a new edition of Shakespeare coming out with all the sexual innuendo footnoted. And there's a lot of it! This is from Dave Barry's blog.

I BELIEVE THE CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE! Can't we build a time machine and send some of them there?

What's an "indigo child"? Find out and marvel! I'm with the writer - sounds like a "brat" to me.

Education Wonks links to this story about using mild shock therapy on children to treat psychological disorders. I'm not going to comment, since some parents like it and others hate it, but it's just weird that we're still doing this sort of thing in America.

FINALLY, SOME LEGAL IDIOCY. Because it deserves special category all its own.

T. points out that someone is suing eHarmony for $12,000. They won't let him join because he's married. Okay, legally separated, but it's all the same to them! I'm just puzzled because he spent two hours filling out the application and somehow he should get paid $12,000. I wish I could make six grand an hour!

That's all for this week. As usual, I can never say week-to-week when I'm going to have time to do these, so I hope you enjoy them today!