The Children’s Defense Fund has come out with the 110th Congress’ scorecard on who supports children’s legislation. You can read all of it in the link to this posts’ title. The report also provides a listing of the best/worst Representatives and Senators.No surprise that all 25 Senators who received 100% were Democrats and all 13 Senators who were 30% or less were Republicans. 173 Representatives received 100% and all 173 were Democrats and 132 Representatives received a score of 30% or less. Yep. All 132 were Republicans. And the Republicans want us to believe that they really support compulsory pregnancy laws because they love little babies? I think they really really love the votes they get from the crazy religious zealots on the right. Those who support compulsory pregnancy laws voted against SCHIP and providing health care to children without health insurance. And of course the really big news of this story is that presidential candidate Senator John McCain was scored at the very bottom of the US Senate in voting to help children. So if any conservatives out there doubted Senator McCain’s conservative credentials, go and doubt no more.Also, Reps. Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo take honors for having a score of 0%. Neither one of these libertarian candidates for president voted even once to support children in the first session of the 110th Congress.I do not know how conservative evangelicals can call themselves believers in Christ with this voting record.Peter Nuhn
hoom = Whom
Fucking duh! I’m familiar with spell check, I just wish there was an idiotic mistake checker.
excellent point.
Sorry about the block-quote faux-pas.
cry4turtles,
The only reason I have personally seen someone refuse a pay raise, was because they didn’t want the increased responsibility that came with the raise.
AT,
Yes, I realize that is anecdotal and not indicative of anything other than my own personal experience.
The ad at the bottom of the page says, “Let The Rethink begin: Common-Law Conservatism”
Is that where you don’t marry the conservative ideology, you just live with it and raise a family, and after seven years, you are automatically married to it?
OMFG, I think we are all married to George Bush, by default. I believe I am going to go huck-up dinner, now. Excuse me.
The biggest error in thinking on the part of the secular movement lies in confusing society with government.
I am an atheist. I believe I and we have an obligation to humanity and the earth. But
I do not believe in using the power of government to force everyone else to support my causes.
A moral person or society acts voluntarily to address those issues he, she or it deems of importance.
Utilizing brute force (Geo. Washington’s description of government.) to compel “moral choices” seperates us little from those who seek to do likewise utilizing the threat of eternal damnation.
Both the GOP and Dems safely ignore the secular movement because both know how we will vote in advance. The GOP can do nothing (other than embrace Moveon.org) to curry our favor, and the Dems need do nothing…we belong to them.
The knee-jerk politics of most secular folks may be in actuality an enabler for the attitudes of both major parties.
And no…I’m not. I’m a Libertarian.
I can imagine that people do this too, but no, in this case the refusals were directly tied to losing govt. benefits. I was the secretary for the company so I ensured the employees got paid, did all the computer entry, and listened to sob stories. These folks would have me change their withholding information as often as the govt. allows. It was a low-paying job, but it was a part-time job too. There wasn’t anything physically or mentally wrong (as far as I could tell) with them, they just did the least amount of work they could to support themselves and maintain govt. benefits.
AT,
No disagreement there. What about supporting laws that protect people from business?
To be fair, your mind ? in many instances ? is no more open to others’ opinions than those you accuse.
So too it seems is the ?persecution complex?.
AT, I enjoy reading your well-reasoned posts. I also enjoy debating those points with you ? you?ve changed my mind on a number of issues. But I do have to say, it seems as of late you spend an awful lot of time whining (for lack of a better term) about people on this blog misrepresenting you. At least to me, these posts seem a bit of a childish response. Maybe just defend your positions and move on?
jsuey
Do you vote? On whose behalf are you voting if not your own? What are “causes”?
I’m merely defending my angry responses. Normally I don’t let things get under my skin, but the crap that Peter (and several others) likes to say really irks me.
I, like AoL have a memory for this kind of stuff. It’s hardly a complex when some are out to deliberately misrepresent my side. And if comparing Libertarians to John Galt (in a roundabout way, which will be likely denied) isn’t making a monster out of me, I don’t know what is. If calling me a Ron Paultard makes him feel better about his own position, let him have at it.
I just don’t want newcomers/lurkers/etc. that have missed comments like these to take the lack of response on Peter’s part to mean that I’m conducting an unprovoked attack. These are merely return volleys of the vitriol given in kind for what I’ve received.
AT, thanks for the response. Quite the difficult position you were in. I imagine that these people were also in a difficult position.
It must be like standing on the edge of the grand canyon. Where you’re at you get paid, and the gov’t supplies medical benefits (huge bonus), some relief with heating bills, and maybe some food stamps. On the other side of the canyon is better pay with the ability to stand independantly, and to provide their own insurance, heat, etc.
But there’s no bridge; you gotta fall in the (middle class) canyon first. And it’s hard as hell to get out. I guess that adds up to a lot of people teetering on the edge, clinging to their low pay and gov’t bennies.
AT,
I certainly understand your frustration. I would just say that as a reader of this blog, I would find it difficult to condemn you based on others’ posts misrepresenting your positions simply because your posts are so well articulated. Someone capable of communicating that well deserves the benefit of the doubt until their posts show otherwise ? in my opinion.
Also, I wanted to address how I as a reader interpreted the examples you gave because I like to believe that the even-minded readers here might feel the same about them…
I find this comment more insulting to my sense of democracy than to my personal political views. Our system is one man one vote, not vote for who’s popular or your vote doesn’t count. I don’t see it as an attack on libertarians as much as an attack on American democracy.
As a reader, I find this statement sensationalist and absurd. I didn’t even take it seriously, and I believe most people reading it wouldn’t either. This is the kind of post that really doesn’t need a response because it comes off as the ranting of someone not thinking clearly.
Although this statement is filled with disapproving language, it seems to me that if it is a true statement, there shouldn’t be anything offensive about it. I write posts with disapproving language all the time, that doesn’t invalidate the information contained in the posts. And when I see others do the same, I can read past their personal bias’s and take the information at face value. I think most people reading these posts do the same.
DVanWechel,
The problem that I have with it is that some make Libertarians sound enough like a cult that people refuse to take us seriously. I wouldn’t have to tell you very much about the Heaven’s Gate cult to convince you that it was a cult, and if I were to do the same with an organization that isn’t, how many would do their due dilligence and find out for themselves? We live a world that people get their inspiration from television and maybe something semi-witty on the side of their Starbucks cup that they quoted from someone long dead. Look at how many fall for the “news” that Fox “reports.”
For many people it’s either Republican or Democrat, Coke or Pepsi. Whatever their parents believed, they believe. There’s not an awful lot of introspection going on with a great many people.
And as for my posts being articulate, to use your term, that is nearly as often a turn-off to people. I’ve had people become angry (red-faced, finger pointing, full of bluster) with me merely for my vocabulary. It’s hard to get someone to listen to your point of view when they feel you’re “talking down” to them. I’ve had all of the accusations before “oh, you must think you’re so smart using words like [whatever word I used].” It makes me a lot more defensive than I probably need to be, but c’est la vie, I suppose. I attempt to be bold, to assert myself and to not become too aggresive. In a way, I feel I must explain my anger to fairly justify it as righteous anger.
As a good many atheists probably know, having a minority opinion about something can make some otherwise pleasant people very unpleasant to you. I won’t even put a Darwin fish on my car for fear of vandalism.
I was truly disheartened when watching one of the episodes of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit where they were collecting signatures from people on a petition to disallow public protest in front of the Capitol building and other Washington D.C. monuments because the protests are “disrespectful.” What has become of our country? That episode ended on a very positive note – they did show footage of the people that absolutely refused to sign the petition and proudly told them why it wouldn’t get a signature.
Few things make me feel patriotic, but when an American “gets it”, and truly understands what our country was founded on, what rights our revolutionaries bled and died to retain for “We the People” I get a bit choked up. Maybe there’s hope for us after all. I hope I won’t feel like I have to apologize for being a cynic, or a Libertarian, forever.
AT,
You know, I have had the same problem virtually my whole life. I have admitted repeatedly that my level of formal education is limited, but I love the English Language and I happen to have a broad vocabulary.
I get accused of being ‘uppity’ all the time. I am not trying to impress anyone with my ten penny words, they are just part of my lexicon and I feel no reason to dumb myself down for the sake of someone else’s ego.
I speak the way I do, because that is the way I speak. I do not put on airs. I am proud to be well spoken (for the most part) and I am usually assumed to be more intelligent than I really am because of it.
Now if only I could learn how to spell, and use punctuation correctly, I would really be onto something.
Sie allein nicht, mein freund.