Ignorant Speech Inciting Violence Hardly “Free”

. . .much less godly or patriotic. More like “punished by rewards.”

Continuing from ongoing discussion of Nance’s post, A Sad Day, here’s the latest of doughy white male conservatives (Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh e.g.) who barely finished high school and did not serve in the military or government, yet made their fortunes with withering and relentless incitement against extraordinarily well-educated and high-achieving American leaders (the Obamas, Powell, Sotomayor) who are of color and/or female.

Editorial cartoon from the Oklahoman, June 3, 2009

From HuffPost’s story on Hannity interviewing Limbaugh:

Limbaugh claimed that Obama was doing such a good job of destroying the country that: “If al-Qaeda wants to demolish the America we know and love, they better hurry, because Obama is beating them to it.”

Limbaugh prefaced those remarks by saying that he had thought carefully about that statement in anticipation of his interview with Hannity.

He also bashed Colin Powell, who bucked the GOP to endorse Obama and criticize Limbaugh, by asking rhetorically: “What has Colin Powell ever done for the Republican Party that makes him so valuable?”

Limbaugh repeated his claim that Sotomayor is a racist over her 2001 comments about the unique perspective of a Latina woman – “It’s a racist thing to say and it’s bigoted,” he said. Limbaugh added that if she comes down on the “right side” of the abortion issue, “he might look past this racism” and support her nomination.

Whoever said free speech isn’t free, had it right. This speech is coming at the cost of everything it claims to value.

It’s Just a Piece of Paper, Right?

Quoting Gene Hackman as a judgmental religious-right US Senator in the reality-bending comedy about two gay men living as man and wife: “I feel like
I’m going insane.”

Next thing you know, conservative Christian homeschoolers will be
arguing that all marriage certificates must receive the same weight,
rights and privileges?!

Tenn home school diploma bill becomes law
Associated Press – June 1, 2009 7:15 PM ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A proposal to give home school diplomas the same weight as those given by public schools has been signed into law by Gov. Phil Bredesen.

The law requires all state and local governmental entities to recognize
diplomas issued by home schools and church-related schools as having the same rights and privileges of diplomas issued by public school systems.

The law exempts home-schooled students from having to obtain an
accredited diploma from local school directors or take the General
Educational Development test.

Read SB0433.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

From a classic (old) Culture Kitchen essay, What Color Is Choice?:

Long ago in a galaxy far away, Princess Leia had advice for sociopathic powerbrokers everywhere: “the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

It’s time to trim some of the biggest branches thrusting out from private enclaves and obscuring our vision and safe transit along the public’s right-of-way. . .

Freakin’ control freaks.

A Sad Day

So a doctor is murdered. A doctor who helped many is gunned down by a madman.

And I tune into the progressive, liberal blog to get a good dose of “oh, isn’t that too bad” and I am hit with an argument about religion — Christ and Christianity and, finally, Satan.

Who is a real Christian and who is not and now Satan.

A crazed man posts his intentions online and follows through and the discussion is about mythology?

President Obama, could you hurry up on that business of bringing science and compassion back to this country? We need it!

Nance