Truth is the Kindest and Most Benevolent Force in the Universe

Speak Truth to Power.

I vote my interests not party. George Washington told us not to do Politics and Citizenship as a team sport. 

Dems made sure I got the vaccine. They seem to trust Science somewhat. 

Dems do not want to shove a stick up my hoohah for Jebus and family values, and make me pay for the rape, if I want or need an abortion.

Dems do not plan to report my children for gender nonconformity in behavior to the authorities. Or examine their genitals. 
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Dems are not working to disenfranchise my City and take my vote away.

Somehow it ultimately turns out I vote Dem most of the time. You think that might be because I detect a difference in party stance?

Authoritarians and Abortion

The thing to do with these Folks, if you want to remove them from your own life and from the body politic, is call them on their strange habits.

Authoritarians think their opinion about my sexual life should be relevant and potent. I do not even talk to my Mother about my sexual life. My sexual life is private and not subject to public or religious review. 

Authoritarian Anti Abortion Zealots, many of them religious, suffer from a paraphilia that seems to combine symptoms of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and sexual sadism. Think about what they do. They carry snuff porn around shopping centers.  The snuff porn is offensive to women who are opposed to abortion. It is also offensive to others whose beloveds cannot avoid looking at the snuff porn while driving down the street or prevent their beloveds from being attacked by fetus fetishists. Malignant scrupulosity is so ugly. 

These ForcedBirth folks sing, dance, pray and pinch women outside the offices of women's health care providers. They shout things like "The blood from your crotch will rise up and kill you, you Whore!" Normal folks simply cannot take it anymore.

And yet, one does not find these Forced Birth Folks picketing fertility clinics, where implanted embryos are "selectively reduced." Those embryos are not attached to a woman they feel they can stalk, insult and intimidate. They might get arrested. If you are a pervert or nuts, that takes all the fun out of picketing evidently.

Watch these Folks in action. The video below is long and the narrator's contempt for the protestors is obvious. It is still worth watching to get a flavor of the real American Circus. To quote Vonnegut: And so it goes. 

The second video has the 'regular guy' protestors, for the sake of fairness. They do not think I should be using birth control. They picket women's medical clinics that do not even do abortions. They want to be sure to let me know they hate condoms. Really, it is too much information.

Womb Sniffers, my term for the really earnest category of Religious Authoritarians, assassinate and maim people they don't agree with. And they assert that God approves. Their site comes complete with martyrs for the cause. 

Tell me, do you want ANY of these people in charge of your family, your sex life and your body functions?  Or those of your Daughter, your Wife, your Sister or your Mother?  Do you want them assassinating your gynecologist at the women's clinic? Why is it that an American woman cannot walk unmolested down any street and enter into any building she chooses to without harassment and intimidation in the USA?

I do not get it. If a strange person came up to me on a bus and started talking to me about my sex life, tried to show me weird pictures and/or pinched me, s/he would get arrested. If the strange person did that in a public thoroughfare, a boardroom, a meeting, or a public building, the strange person would get arrested.

Could an exhibitionist (or assassin or a voyeur) of ordinary stripe avoid arrest by pleading "You can't touch me or stop me, Cop, because I am religious! Stalking that woman while I show her the (penis, gun, snuff porn) is what God wants me to do."

When I discuss this issue, I feel like the kid pointing to the Emperor's nakedness. Religious Authoritarians do not occupy the moral high ground. They have not clothes on. Point it out. Okay, rant over now.

The NRA's Two Second Amendment Lies

J Nagarya:

The NRA's Two Second Amendment Lies

The gun industry political front NRA tells two lies about the intent of the Second Amendment.  

1.  That the Second Amendment protects an "individual" "right" to possess guns.  

Comparison with the several prior Supreme Court decisions, and the legislative history -- the Congress' Debates of the writing of the Amendment, which are LEGAL AUTHORITY -- shows that Scalia's "Heller" decision is an outlier.  In "Heller" he falsely held that the Amendment protects an individual right -- for which he was excoriated by legal experts across the political spectrum for ignoring this adjudicatory standard:

When a conflict over the interpretation of a law cannot be resolved within the text of the law, one reverts to the legislative history of the law -- in this instance Congress' Debates of the writing of the Amendment.  

The facts from those Debates:

The subject of the Amendment is well regulated Militia, and its purpose to establish a National Defense, relying on that Militia.  The Militia is not an individual, and is a public institution, regulated under both Federal and state constitutions and laws; thus the Amendment is irrelevant to the issue of private, individual gun ownership:

James Madison is called "the father of the Constitution," and the gun industry/NRA claims that Madison wrote the Second Amendment.  If both of those are facts, then the word "people" is consistent in meaning from beginning of the Constitution to the end of the first 10 Amendments.  The first three words of the Constitution are "We the people," not, "We the individual".

This is the first draft of that which became the Second Amendment, which the gun industry/NRA calls the "Madison" Amendment -- but which it never quotes.  [Here I clarify it for the logic-impaired]:

"The right of the people [PLURAL] to keep and bear arms [this phrase is the well-regulated Militia, and was drawn from four state constitution Militia Clauses] shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person [INDIVIDUAL] religiously scrupulous of [AGAINST] bearing arms [in well-regulated Militia] shall be compelled [INVOLUNTARY] to render military service [in well-regulated Militia] in person." 

Source: Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Paperback, 1991), Edited by Helen E Veit, et al., at 12.  (This volume is readily available from Amazon.)

Note the word "compelled": Militia service was a DUTY -- not a "right".  And note the words "people" and "person": if a person -- individual -- claimed "religious" exemption from that DUTY, his case was scrutinized individually. 

The only "individual" "right" Congress debated was that last clause -- "but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service" -- and it was obviously dropped from the proposed Amendment before it was ratified.  Thus the Second Amendment obviously does not protect "individual" ANYTHING. 

Only by ignoring the legislative history -- Congress' Debates of the writing of the Amendment, which are LEGAL AUTHORITY -- could Scalia falsely hold that the Amendment protects an "individual" "right".

2.  That the purpose of the Amendment was to establish a "right" to "take up arms" against the gov't -- which is refuted by the Constitution itself:

Art. I., S. 8., C. 15. The Congress shall have Power To provide for calling forth the Militia to . . . SUPPRESS INSURRECTIONS.

The Founders themselves twice established the precedent on the point:

Under the Articles of Confederation, "Shays's" rebellion was suppressed by the state's legitimate well-regulated Militia, and the rebels charged with, tried for, and convicted of, TREASON, and sentenced to death.

And under the Constitution, AFTER the Second Amendment was ratified, the "Whiskey" rebellion was suppressed by Federalized Militia, lead by George Washington, and the rebels charged with, tried for, and convicted of, TREASON, and sentenced to death.

The Congress, as a co-equal branch of gov't, has the authority and power to overturn Supreme Court decisions.

Overturn "Heller".

PLEASE CIRCULATE INTACT.

        Posted at 8:13 5/19/2022 - I pay for this publishing service monthly. Disqus where are you? It is now 8:47.

I like this guy for Pennsylvania Senator.

Working Class Hero

Fetterman understands that the only legitimate role of government is to 'provide for the general welfare.'

Fetterman walks the walk; he does not make 'talk talk talk' and do nothing. I like that in a person. I especially like that in my Senators.

Toomey is a tool. And Toomey is majorly responsible for the last terrible train crash in Pennsylvania near my home in Frankford. Toomey also voted to defund Planned Parenthood. That made it personal. I have daughters.

In an interview on Hardball, Toomey said, “I think that Roe v. Wade was wrongly defined, wrongly decided and I think states should be free to restrict abortion and I would support legislation in Pennsylvania that would ban abortion and I would suggest that we have penalties for doctors who perform them if we were able to pass that law.” [MSNBC, 8/5/09]

Sestak is boring but acceptable progressive. Nothing to dislike about Sestak except he lost to Toomey. Can he win? Be good if he did. Katie McGinty seems good. I feel John Fetterman. Hmmm. Maybe I got the hots for John Fetterman. Desire never dies.

Fetterman is the real creative energized caring deal. He has the fire. Fetterman is the working class hero. My kind of guy.

ART BY TERRY BRADLEY.