Retraction of a previous thought….
Posted on | August 25, 2010 | No Comments
Over a month ago I posted a piece about this “mosque” that is being proposed near ground zero in New York City and had thought that I would leave the discussion at that. However, the other day I ended up engaged in a discussion (for the most part, civil) on a friend’s Facebook page on this very same topic. My friend started the conversation with by challenging those opposed to the mosque (which is in reality a community center) to just admit that their opposition is based upon fear and bigotry. Of course, that’s when the opposition tried to explain that it wasn’t about bigotry, but about decency and propriety.
I argued that while I don’t necessarily believe that all of the opposition is coming from bigots, the opposition is still wrong and that not only do the people who own the property have every right to build their center, they should be allowed to do so without interference and protest. I was wrong. After further consideration of this topic I have come to one very clear conclusion: this is all about bigotry.
What’s even worse about this than the “run of the mill” bigotry from the fanatic right is that this is public bigotry coming from not just the wingnuts, but even moderates and some considered liberal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) echoed the sentiment of the opposition:
“Just because they have the right to build it doesn’t mean that it’s right to build it.”
Never in my life have I heard a more ridiculous bit of bullshit.
The fact that the property owners do have the right to build their community center (and even a mosque if they so desire) means exactly that: that if they want to they should build it.
I expect such stupidity from mindless drones like Orrin Hatch, Jason Chaffetz, Mitch McConnell and the Tea Party wannabes hoping to cling to their pathetic existences. I didn’t expect it from Harry Reid, although as far as politicians go I rate him barely half a step above his cohort Nancy “Ambulance Chaser” Pelosi. What I also didn’t expect was that our president, a man elected by exhibiting an amazing amount of liberty and personal character, turned into such a spineless pandering simp. One day he made a bold statement that the property owners have every right to build what they want. The next day the spin control came out: “Just because they have the right to build it doesn’t mean that I think they should build it. I’m not going to comment on that.”
Let me put it to you like this: how would you feel if someone (government or private) decided to tell you what you can build on your property? The proposed project fits well within the established zoning requirements for that area and is being designed to meet all building codes. If you have property and you meet those requirements, nobody has the right to tell you what to do with your land. What makes you think you have the right to tell someone else what they should do with theirs?
At the end of the day this isn’t about sensitivity to those that died on September 11, 2001. What this is about is the continued perpetuation of fear among the sheep. Keep the population stirred up and afraid of those “Mooslims” in order to justify the ridiculous amount of money and lives that have been wasted chasing Osama bin Laden around the world.
How much money have we spent in the past decade fighting the wars of Bush/Cheney, Inc.? How many lives have been lost, and to what avail? How many personal liberties have we surrendered to the government in the pursuit of “security?” Fear perpetuates that state, and the bigotry we, as a society, feel toward Islam perpetuates that fear.
I was wrong, everything about the opposition to this center smacks of fear and bigotry. The only question is whether or not our society will ever come to that realization and learn to rise above it.
Tags: bigotry > community center > Ground Zero > Islam > Mosque
Making tough budgetary choices…
Posted on | August 24, 2010 | 6 Comments
This morning Senator Liljenquist was awarded Radio From Hell’s “Boner of the Day” for his comments about eliminating “elective” medical treatments like epidurals and C-sections for patients on Medicaid. While he’s going entirely in the wrong direction, he did say one thing that all of Utah’s legislators (and voters) should note:
“If you have a limited amount of dollars, how do you spend them? Do we fund Medicaid growth, or do we fund schools? Those are the trade-offs we’re making.”
My question for Senator Liljenquist and the rest of the legislature is this: why are we forced to make trade-offs between Medicaid and education when the state wastes millions of dollars annually on unnecessary nonsense? Three glaring examples of overblown government waste are the Departments of Transportation, Health, and Public Safety.
How much time and money is wasted by UDOT every year on unnecessary road and highway projects? Case in point: a new on and off ramp at 11400 South on I-15. On what planet is this multi-million dollar project necessary? How many schools could be funded by diverting that money? How many people could be provided with decent health care?
The Department of Health is next on my list of government waste. How much money is spent every year for the State of Utah to tell us that alcohol and tobacco are bad for us? Really, smoking can cause cancer? Holy shit! I never would have guessed that. People smoke and drink because they choose to smoke and drink, it’s not because they don’t know the risks. Yet every day we’re inundated by advertisements about the evils of alcohol and tobacco. The Department of Health wastes millions of dollars annually on anti-smoking and anti-alcohol programs that quite frankly don’t belong in the purview of government. These are dollars that could be used to address real issues within our state.
And on to the Department of Public Safety. We all know that drinking and driving, texting and driving, and driving without a seat belt are illegal. We don’t need advertisements on billboards, TV, radio, and the sides of a damn bus to let us know that police are “stepping up enforcement” of the law. Courts have ruled since the founding of this nation that ignorance of the law is not an excuse to violate it. How many additional law enforcement officers can be put on the job if we’re not paying for these stupid ads? If we don’t need additional law enforcement, perhaps we could use those advertising dollars to buy a few books for schoolchildren.
Liljenquist was right about one thing: we do need to make some tough choices and there will be trade-offs. The government can’t afford to fund everything for everybody, nor should it. Government has a role to protect the public and ensure that basic needs are met. Health care and education, in my opinion, fit into those basic needs, but a great deal of what Utah spends, especially on things like advertising, do not.
The line-item budgets of every state department need to be closely analyzed. Anything that isn’t absolutely necessary, like advertising, needs to be eliminated and then those funds allocated to more critical areas, like education and health care. We shouldn’t be looking at saving a few bucks by not allowing women to have epidurals, we should be looking to save a few million by eliminating stupid ads and unnecessary highway projects.
Tags: budget > Liljenquist > Utah Legislature
Utah’s ridiculously stupid conservatives
Posted on | August 18, 2010 | Comments Off
Apparently there is roughly $140 million in federal funds available for education in Utah. Our elected idiots, in conjunction with the religo-nazis at the Sutherland Institute, are now arguing that Utah should reject those funds in order to “keep the feds out” of Utah’s education system.
We live in a state with one of the lowest rates of per-pupil spending on education. We have schools that can’t afford books, are laying off staff right and left, and failing miserably at providing quality education to our children. Part of this can be solved with additional funding, but not all. The real solution is to adapt standards for both students and teachers, and to create performance plans that reward the capable educators and get rid of the dead weight.
I’ve downloaded Sutherland’s papers on why Utah should reject these federal funds, and started reading them. Over the course of the next few days I’ll be posting my responses to their obvious lies and religious hysteria. Stay tuned, this will get interesting.
“Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act” – Sandstrom’s pandering pile of shit.
Posted on | August 14, 2010 | 2 Comments
Over the past few weeks, Rep. Stephen Sandstrom (R-Orem) has been hyping up his immigration legislation, the Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act. On Friday the 13th, appropriately enough for the superstitious, he released it. Many suspected that it would be nothing more than a pile of nonsense, while there were apparently supporters that were hoping this would be the solution to our “immigration problem.” After carefully reading this proposed bill, a number of times, I can say with all certainty that it is not only nothing more than a pandering pile of shit, it has no hope of even coming near to solving the problem of illegal immigration in this state (or any other).
For the time being, we’ll ignore the obvious bit about immigration being in the purview of the federal government, per that silly little document called The United States Constitution. Of course, that document only matters when the fanatic right-wingers want to talk about guns, right?
The first part of the legislation creates a multi-agency “strike force” to combat violent and other major felony crimes under the Office of the Attorney General. Wow, I feel safer already. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but don’t we already have police departments that have jurisdiction over “violent and other major felony crimes?” Exactly what is to be accomplished by adding the Office of the Attorney General to this mix? Did the State of Utah not learn anything from the folly that occurred after September 11, 2001? In a rush to be seen as doing something to prevent and counter terrorism the federal government created the Department of Homeland Security and threw billions (if not trillions) of dollars at all sorts of agencies that were so busy tripping all over themselves to get more money that nobody actually bothered to see what any of them are doing. That’s what we’re creating here, a state-level office that overlaps with the responsibilities and activities of a number of police departments. Adding another level of bureaucracy has never, EVER, resulted in a solution.
The next bit provides police with not only the authority, but the duty, to question anyone they arrest, stop, or detain about their immigration status upon “reasonable suspicion” that they are in this country illegally. It also includes passengers in automobiles if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in violation of another part of the statute which bans transportation or harboring of illegal aliens. Sandstrom goes out of his way to make sure he includes a bit that bans racial profiling.
Here’s the rub, though: how does an officer have “reasonable suspicion” without profiling? If I get pulled over, being an average white guy, am I going to be asked to prove my citizenship? What if I put on a ridiculous fake accent and say “eh” alot. Perhaps I’m one of those sneaky illegal Canadians. Without defining what constitutes reasonable suspicion there is no way to protect the rights of the average American citizen or legal immigrant.
Here’s a part that attempts to make a bit of sense. Government agencies should check to ensure that benefits and assistance are only provided to citizens and legal immigrants. This I’m OK with, in concept, although I do believe the welfare system needs an overhaul nearly as much as immigration does. However, the bottom line is this: taxpayers fund those benefits for the purpose of providing a safety net to other taxpayers (again, theoretically) that fall upon hard times. Using those funds to support people who are in this country illegally and aren’t paying taxes doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me.
Here’s the fun stuff: “It is not a violation of this part for a religious denomination or organization or an agent, officer, or member of a religious denomination or organization to encourage, invite, call, allow, or enable an alien to perform the vocation of a minister or missionary for the denomination or organization in the United States as a volunteer who is not compensated as an employee, notwithstanding the provision of room, board, travel, medical assistance and other basic living expenses.” Yep, it’s OK to encourage and assist people coming into the country illegally, if God tells you it’s cool. Who are we pandering to there Steve?
Notice anything missing yet folks? Yep, nothing in here about employing an illegal alien. Did we not learn anything from the “War on Drugs?” As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. As long as American companies provide work for illegal aliens, those aliens will continue to cross the border illegally. Of course, one can’t expect that Utah companies act ethically or in accordance with the laws, that would be ridiculous, sounds like something one of those damn dirty libruls might want.
What’s even better about this is that Sandstrom knows it’s going to be challenged in court. He’s been all over CNN and Faux News touting his defiance at the federal government. Folks, this is your money that is going to be spent to drag this through the court system to its ultimate defeat. It is a violation of the United States Constitution and a serious breach of federal authority by a state government. It will go to court, and it will lose. In the meantime you’ll be paying the salaries of a bunch of Mark Shurtleff’s staff lawyers and probably his buddies over at Siegfried and Roy…errr…. Jensen to spend their time defending it. And it’s not going to be cheap. But what the hell, we get to tell the feds off, who cares if we can educate our children?
The immigration system is a mess, and the issues surrounding it are complex. This simplistic pile of nonsense does nothing to address the fundamental problems that exist, hell, it doesn’t even really treat the symptoms. If you want to really correct the problems with immigration you start first with offering everyone a chance to come to this country – if they can get a job. You then educate them on the rights of an employee to ensure that they’re not working under the table or for less than minimum wage, so they aren’t undercutting citizen workers. That will eliminate the bulk of the problems with immigration. For those that are still trying to come illegally, well, that’s what enhanced border security and enforcement is for, those people are probably up to something they shouldn’t be doing. Punishing the many for the acts of the few is just not the right way to approach it.
If you take the time to read Sandstrom’s proposal, you’ll probably come to the same conclusions I have:
- It will appease the racist fringe right – make ‘em think we’re serious about these damn illegals!
- It will appease his Patrick Henry Caucus buddies – way to snub that socialist Obama!
- It tosses a bone to his pals at LDS, Inc. – yep, your missionaries are fine.
- At the end of the day, it spends a great deal of taxpayer money and time and accomplishes exactly nothing.
Way to go Steve, you’ve done your constituents proud.
Tags: illegal aliens > Immigration > pandering > Sandstrom > stupidity
Sandstrom’s press conference is today, bring bigotry into the light!
Posted on | August 13, 2010 | Comments Off
Today is the big day, Utah. Today Representative Steve Sandstrom will be holding a press conference wherein he will unveil his proposal to fight the evils of illegal immigration in Utah. Of course, Sandstrom’s bill is expected to include a “ban on racial profiling” but will require that law enforcement check immigration status where there is “reasonable suspicion” that someone is in the country illegally. Can anyone explain to me how a cop can have “reasonable suspicion” outside of racial profiling?
I’ve been trying to avoid commenting too much about this legislation until it’s actually released, but the bottom line is this: our immigration system is a mess, and any legislation that increases enforcement at the state and local level will just lead to more problems. This is supposed to be the land of the free, a bastion of freedom and liberty for all. More and more, however, it’s becoming a bastion of freedom and liberty for uptight, straight, racist white folks. Is this the America we want?
Stay tuned, I’ll read what Rep. Sandstrom proposes and update later.
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