Nope

So, I was browsing Facebook today and found this odd meme:

jesus

OK first, I guess it goes without saying that Jesus the man (assuming he didn’t summon any godly powers at the time) would have, if he existed, fallen a time or two as he made his way up to Calvary, but this meme asks users to affirm that they would, indeed, help Jesus get back on his feet. So, from the Christian standpoint, if you answer “No,” you are an asshole, or worse, an atheist, and if you answer, “Yes,” you are admitting that the master of the universe, who in previous episodes fed 5,000 or more people, walked on water and claimed to be the direct conduit to God Almighty, can’t manage the physical weight of a cross, even though in his “human” form, he was still, technically speaking, a god. Makes perfect sense.

The failed Tea Party experiment

I’ve been writing about the Tea Party’s lunacies on here since the spring of 2009 (Here is my first substantive post about it). As I’ve tracked the trajectory of this experiment in political unrest, I think it’s safe to say the party is all but toast at this point, and here’s why.

Tea Party members have essentially corroded the GOP from the inside out, and in a sign that more moderate, “establishment” Republicans are pulling back the reins on these folks, House Speaker John Boehner and GOP leaders announced recently that they were going to support a “clean,” no-attachments increase to the debt-ceiling, despite some leaders in the party insisting on a list of demands. Attaching demands to the legislation did not have enough support, it died and the actual “clean” bill passed the House on Tuesday.

The Atlantic’s Molly Ball has an excellent article up about the Tea Party’s evolution these last few years, and its eventual acceptance of typical machinations in Washington. As she traces the changes in the party, which as we know is the ultra-conservative, borderline libertarian fringe of the Republican Party, members swept into Washington riding Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber’s popularity and were ready to pounce on and destroy every single one of Barack Obama’s goals, with some conservatives talking heads even wishing that Obama fails at everything he tries to accomplish in the White House. In short, Ball said, the Tea Party came into Congress in 2011 on a “wave of denial and anger.”

teapartyflag

The nation came close to disaster in 2011 when Tea Partiers nearly destroyed the concessions Boehner was planning to make with Obama to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its loans. This would be one of the first in a series of numerous showdowns between more moderate House Republicans, like Boehner, who at their core understand that in some cases, compromise is a necessity and tough decisions have to be made for the betterment of the nation — even if they won’t say this publicly — and the lunatic wing of the GOP.

As Ball put it:

The 2011 showdown was revealing. Previously, the idea of default was so unthinkable that observers and markets didn’t consider it a possibility. But the confrontation showed how far the new House majority was willing to go. They weren’t looking for compromise; they wanted the whole loaf. They weren’t just mad. They were convinced—erroneously—that they had the power to undo Obama’s agenda entirely from their perch controlling one-half of one-third of the federal government. They were in denial.

And in late 2013, the conservative camp forced the nation into a government shutdown, causing undue hardship on the Americans they claimed to care about back in election season. They then proceeded to eat a shit sandwich by subsequently accepting a deal to reopen the government, as Ball points out, that was actually worse than the one they were going to get previously. Now, as the GOP bullheadedly forced the government’s hand, took a sizable ideological step against the grain and managed to somehow make the public even less trustworthy of government with their asinine denials of reality, the only thing left for the Tea Party is acceptance, and well, dissolution.

Ball concludes:

This is how Washington works: Certain things have to get done, and you try to get the best deal you can, and then move on to the next thing. This is basically what Boehner has been trying to tell his caucus for the last three years, but they had to figure it out for themselves. Now that they’ve achieved acceptance, will Boehner’s job get easier? Or will a new wave of mad-as-hell representatives rise up in protest?

If Tea Partiers would have had the brains to realize all this from the start, they could have saved us all, and the nation, a lot of heartburn. They played a dangerous game that took the nation to the brink, and now, with absolutely nothing to gain from it except more angry constituents and some dusty lapel pins, they will more than likely be forced henceforth to ride the bench.

Michael Sam Sr.’s hypocrisy

So days after Missouri Tigers defensive lineman Michael Sam became the first openly gay college football, making the announcement Feb. 9 to ESPN and The New York Times, news has come out that his father, Michael Sam Sr., was apparently distressed when he received a text from his son. His father was at Denny’s celebrating his birthday, but upon receiving the text, he left to go get drinks. As reported by The Times:

Last Tuesday, Michael Sam Sr. was at a Denny’s near his home outside Dallas to celebrate his birthday when his son sent him a text message.

Dad, I’m gay, he wrote.

The party stopped cold. “I couldn’t eat no more, so I went to Applebee’s to have drinks,” Sam Sr. said. “I don’t want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment.

“I’m old school,” he added. “I’m a man-and-a-woman type of guy.” As evidence, he pointed out that he had taken an older son to Mexico to lose his virginity.

On Sunday night, just after Michael Sam announced his intention to make sports history, his father was still struggling with the news.

To apparently prove this, he recounted a story in which he took one of his other sons to Mexico to lose his virginity.

I’m not even sure where to start. Why would a father actually take a proactive measure to ensure that his son has sex for the first time and in Mexico no less? Why would a father even really be that interested in the minute details of his son’s virginity? Was this arrangement set up beforehand or did this noble fatherly act take place in a brothel down in some barrio?

Second, he said he doesn’t want his grandchildren to grow up in that environment, when everything that I’ve seen about Michael Sam Jr. is that he is an upstanding young man with a bright future and a good head on his shoulders. Shouldn’t a father be proud that his son had the courage to make the announcement and that he wants to live an honest and open life? Shouldn’t a father want his son to be happy and not have to sneak around and live in constant fear of embarrassment and rejection? No, instead Michael Sam Sr. seems to prefer the environment of intolerance and bigotry, where a person merely drinks their problems away and can’t be real about who they really are.

Stephen Colbert opined on the issue last night:

 

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

 

 

Preachers peddling prosperity, mainly for themselves

This is disgusting:

So much for:

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” — Matthew 19:23-24

And this:

20 Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. — Luke 6:20

And this:

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” — Matthew 5:5

And especially this:

21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. — Mark 10:21

When in Russia …

Although Russia received heavy criticism ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi about the nation’s ban on homosexual propaganda, eight states here in the U.S. have similar bans on the books, as reported last week by The Washington Post.

Utah’s residents are apparently not allowed to advocate for homosexuality, whatever that might mean, and in Texas and Alabama (bastions of progressivism as they are!) sex education teachers must make the point that homosexuality is “not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public.” Even more stunning, according to two professors who analyzed these backward laws existing in our own country:

… the Alabama and Texas statutes mandate that children be taught that “homosexual conduct is a criminal offense” even though criminalizing private, consensual homosexual conduct has been unconstitutional since 2003.

Here is a map showing the states that have these laws on the books:

Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network

Thus, isn’t it kind of hypocritical for people in this country to be criticizing Russia for its anti-gay sentiments when most of the South and even other parts of the United States chafe at giving equal rights to gay and lesbian couples, which represents just another pox on a nation that began by boldly declaring “all men are created equal.”

Eight U.S. states have policies similar to Russia’s ban on gay ‘propaganda‘.

Map credit: Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network