shamelessly taken from Balloon-Juice because it’s too good to lose.

In the American rightie blogosphere, we find the usual reaction: claims that Secretary Clinton said something that she didn’t actually say.

The first time in over 60 years a United States President imposes a “gay rights” speech on the UN

and
Clinton Says Obama Wants Gay Rights Over Religious Freedom in Key Speech
and
Liberty Counsel, Family Research Council Enraged by Move to Consider Gay Rights in Foreign Aid

Go and read the post there to understand what I have written here. My first clue as to the blogger’s take on things was found in his blogroll where he includes Glenn Beck, Drudge and David Barton.

The years leading up to the creation of the Constitution with the influence of the various churches upon the governance of the colonies were exactly why the men who wrote that document intended to keep religion, of any nature, out of the government, not out of civil society but certainly away from the halls of legislation.

Thomas Jefferson was justly proud of three actions he had undertaken during his political career, so proud of them that he had those three acts placed on his tombstone:

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.”

from Jefferson’s autobiography, writing about the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom

Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.

When Jefferson wrote, “priest-ridden people” he was not writing about the Roman Catholic Church as some revisionists would have you believe, but of all religions that demand the presence of a person with ‘special knowledge’ to lead any group of “believers”. Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Alexander von Humboldt (6 December 1813)

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

Explaining to John Adams as to why and how he came to create what we know today as the “Jefferson Bible”, Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, on Christian scriptures (24 January 1814)

The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

Were the Founding Fathers as religious as David Barton and others would like you to believe? Certainly those who were lived closer to their time didn’t think so -

…the proceedings as published by Thompson, the secretary, show, that the question was gravely debated in Congress whether God should in the Constitution or not, and after solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it: … the men whose arguments swayed to vote God out of the Constitution, to declare that there should be no religious test, and that Congress should make no law to establish religion, were atheists in principle; that among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was professor of religion, at least not of more than unitarianism;

a quote from a sermon given by Rev. Bird Wilson in 1831, to be found in Discussion on the existence of God and the authenticity of the Bible by Origen Bacheler, pgs 230-231

So I’m looking at the picture and can see that it is three guys making fun of a Renaissance-era painting but I can’t understand why it is “Blasphemy”. Two – three minutes pass before I get it – am I getting slow? Is my brain not what it once was? Could this be a result of all those ‘fun’ days and nights?

“tax reform and revenue enhancement”

Tax reform = cut taxes for that percent of the population which has benefited most greatly from recent “tax reform” and raise taxes on those who have not received such benefits.

Sweeping statement but hey! that’s the game that is played. Serious tax reform would not start with tax cuts but with actual study of how groups, corporations, individuals have benefited from government subsidies and then the economic result of said subsidies and regulations. In almost every case, there are pro and con arguments, the difficulty lies in determining overall benefit and negative of any single provision for our society.

Revenue Enhancement = raise tax rates that most adversely affect low and middle income Americans.

Of course there is waste and duplication in government. “Government” is bloody huge and it is made up of human beings, therefore – targets of opportunity for those ideologues who know little of history and prefer to claim the Truth supports them – no matter what the facts are.

For some reason, some seem to think that any regulations on capitalism and governmental actions beyond national defence leads quickly to Communism. On the other side there are those who think their opponents would prefer to live in a state of near anarchy where the wealthy all live in fortified manor houses with private security armies – kind of mediaeval society – like modern day Somalia.

Extremism in belief and actions with the resultant refusal to listen objectively to one’s opponents have led us to the present situation in Congress where a significant number of elected representatives of the people are following the orders of a minority in opposition to the wishes of the citizenry.

My only hope for the future is the (slim) possibility that one day, the concept of “corporate personhood” is made non-existent. At this time, it does seem the idea of having more money gives one the right to more influence in society – more dollars = more votes.

Senate defies veto threat in terrorist custody vote

Defying a veto threat by President Obama, the Senate voted Tuesday to give the U.S. military first crack at holding al Qaeda operatives, even if they are captured in the U.S. and are American citizens, and also reaffirmed the policy of indefinite detention.

“We’re no longer going to have an absurd result that if we capture you overseas where you’re planning an attack on the United States, we can blow you up or put you in a military prison indefinitely, but if you make it to America, all of a sudden you get Miranda rights and you go to federal court,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has fought the Bush and Obama administrations on treatment of suspected terrorist detainees.

Tuesday’s 61-37 vote to buck Mr. Obama and grant the military dibs exposed a deep rift within the Democratic Party. Sixteen Democrats and one independent who caucuses with them defied the veto threat and joined 44 Republicans.

Sounds good, right?  Well, Senator Ron Paul (R-KY) doesn’t think so

Senate Votes To Let Military Detain Americans Indefinitely

“I’m very, very, concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the Senate’s most conservative members.

Paul’s top complaint is that a terrorism suspect would get just one hearing where the military could assert that the person is a suspected terrorist — and then they could be locked up for life, without ever formally being charged. The only safety valve is a waiver from the secretary of defense.

“It’s not enough just to be alleged to be a terrorist,” Paul said, echoing the views of the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s part of what due process is — deciding, are you a terrorist? I think it’s important that we not allow U.S. citizens to be taken.”

Bet you never thought you would see Rand Paul agreeing with the ACLU, did ya?

This should make for some interesting discussion, not only here but also in the media and on the campaign trail.

Do you believe in the rule of law?

OR

Do you think threats to your safety and security call for negation of basic rights conveyed upon us by the Constitution?

What happens the day an American citizen resists an attempted arrest by US military personnel?  Well, that citizen would probably end up dead but his family might be able to use the argument laid out in Runyan v. State (1877) 57 Ind. 80, 20 Am.Rep. 52 in which the Court ruled

When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justiciable.

Or maybe the argument in John Bad Elk v. U.S. (1900) 177 U.S. 529, 44 L.Ed. 874, 20 S.Ct. 729 would be more relevant

Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.

Ceding Liberty to Terror: Senate Votes Against Due-Process Rights

Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics.

It took a bit of the googling to find the complete version of the truncated bit (1:50) shown on Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller site

Here’s the  link to the full 4min 51sec video from the Matthews interview

In it, you will see Chris’s characteristic style of talking over other people when they are trying to ask questions.  He has a rather large ego to say the least and often I find him unwatchable because of his habit of talking over others, even when I agree with what he is saying.

The full video gives a bit of context to the shortened version linked to in the original post – it comes across as the “political insider” giving advice to the President.  Some of it strikes me as Chris wanting people to think that he has some super special inside connections and some of it as heartfelt.  Matthews feels the President, as others on the left have also noted, has failed to live up to his promises of Change in America by not promoting the more left-leaning aspects of the program.  When those on the right accuse the President of being too radical, of being a Marxist – people on the left just shake their heads over the delusion.

So yes, many who supported the President have lost their enthusiasm that helped Barack Obama win in 2008 – BUTT, they sure ain’t gonna vote for any of the clowns presently running for the Republican nomination.  They’ve lost enthusiasm because the President hasn’t gone far enough in promoting those actions that would bring the country’s economy back; they feel he hasn’t stood up to the blatant obstructionism of the right. Obstructionism exemplified by Minority Leader McConnell’s stated goal, “Making Obama A One-Term President Is My Single Most Important Priority”

When one party is more concerned with regaining the Oval Office than it is with working toward improving the economy and the other party has way too many members who care more about personal income and power than they do about holding to any principles – well, we have the present situation of negativism inside and outside the Beltway