Holding hands? This state says ‘Wait until marriage’

Tennessee….always Tennessee.   

Tennessee lawmakers don’t want teenagers having sex, which is why Sex Education courses in Tennessee public schools teach kids that abstinence is the way to go. Concerned that telling teens to draw the line at sexual intercourse might not be getting the job done, however, the Tennessee State Senate recently voted 28-1 to prohibit Sex-Ed instructors, including any outside individuals or groups invited to address the students, from demonstrating or promoting “gateway sexual activity.”

The law itself is pretty vague about the meaning of “gateway sexual activity,” but the basic idea is that something less may lead to something more, the way some people believe that marijuana use leads to dangerous drugs or a cold beer on a hot afternoon is the first step toward weeklong benders in Tijuana. 

http://living.msn.com/life-inspired/the-daily-dose-blog-post?post=fd7d5ca9-968a-445a-90a3-2950de998073&_nwpt=1

Political View – Nurture AND Nature

I always thought your definition of your political stance stems primarily from your parents.  From how they instilled it and taught it, as much as what they taught.  Of course, a liberal viewpoint that teaches tolerance of other views is less worried about making sure their kids think/act/vote the same way then a viewpoint that tends to remain conservative and historically less tolerant (no source is needed (sources would be longer than the post)).

But recent research may spread even more light on that.  It may be the double whammy of your parental environment combined with the genes handed down by the parents.

It also definitely explains the day and night difference in conservative vs liberal broadcasts. Conservative broadcasts are almost by rule focused on spreading fear.  Recently, the policies of Bush and Cheney were frought with motivation through fear.  And fear-mongering was a basis for the McCain and Palin campaign.

Excerpt:

Life’s Extremes: Democrat vs. Republican

Researchers have long wondered if some people can’t help but be an extreme left-winger or right-winger, based on innate biology. To an extent, studies of the brains of self-identified liberals and conservatives have yielded some consistent trends, Schreiber said.

Two of these trends are that liberals tend to have more activity in parts of the brain known as the insula and anterior cingulate cortex. Among other functions, the two regions overlap to an extent by dealing with cognitive conflict, in the insula’s case, while the anterior cingulate cortex helps in processing conflicting information. [10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Brain]

Conservatives, on the other hand, have demonstrated more activity in the amygdala, known as the brain’s “fear center.” “If you see a snake or a picture of a snake, the amygdala will light up — it’s a threat detector,” said Iacoboni.

A study of British subjects earlier this year supported these past imaging studies with measurements of brain structure. The study showed that on average the amygdala is bigger in conservatives, likely indicating greater use of it in neurological processing. In contrast, liberals often possessed larger anterior cingulate cortexes.

Altogether, these findings suggest liberals can more easily tolerate uncertainty, which might be reflected in their shades-of-gray policy positions. In the U.S., those typically include being pro-choice and lenient on illegal immigration.

Conservatives, meanwhile, have a more binary view of threats versus non-threats. 

Adam Hadhazy, LiveScience Contributor

Date: 18 December 2011

http://www.livescience.com/17534-life-extremes-democrat-republican.html

That’s ‘so’ Conservative

The Kentucky Senate, reacting to a divisive comment by Republican Rand Paul, has adopted a resolution declaring any form of discrimination to be inconsistent with American values.

Neal, Kentucky’s only black state senator, said he took personal offense at the comment made last week by Republican Rand Paul, a U.S. Senate candidate, who was….(wait for it….wait for it)….criticizing the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
(Criticizing the Civil Rights Act.  Un….be….lievable.  Oh – he’s a Republican?  Well…it’s hard to argue that that’s believable.  Not all conservatives are like this.  But if you show me a white person who critizes equal rights regardless of skin color – and I’ll show you a conservative/Republican). 

Paul said in an MSNBC interview that the federal government shouldn’t have the power to force restaurants to serve minorities if business owners don’t want to.  (You suppose his grandkids want to stick to that belief as white people become a minority?)

Neal said Paul’s “extreme belief” has made Kentucky “a laughingstock”. 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/31/rand-paul-remarks-lead-ke_n_595215.html 

From the Civil Rights era – Here’s a liberal view on the topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWX_pjyIq-g  
Now let’s here from a conservative elected to the US Senate for a resounding 8 consecutive terms (1954 to 2003): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgH7WgtIU2k 

Lewis C.K. has a funny comment about going to the future (at 1:30): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

Supreme Court permits pollution by US businesses

More great work by the current conservative-led Supreme Court.  More great deregulation.  It worked out so well when we deregulated the financial systems.  Why not deregulate pollution? 

Some people ask why Congressional bills have to be 1,000 pages.  Here’s why: 

Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are now outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. 

As a result, some businesses are [happily] declaring that the law no longer applies to them [because they can go back to cheap process of dumping toxins into rivers]. And pollution rates are rising.

Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.

The Clean Water Act (1972) was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials.

About 117 million Americans get their drinking water from sources fed by waters that are vulnerable to exclusion from the Clean Water Act, according to E.P.A. reports. And even in situations in which regulators believe they still have jurisdiction, [Corporate America] has delayed cases for years by arguing that the ambiguity precludes prosecution. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35639472/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times  

Yes, Corporations and Businesses always have the citizens best interest at heart…

Making the USA a Theocracy

Texas wants to make the USA a theocracy and it’s starting by teaching school children that it already is a theocracy.  At least, it’s attempting to.  By teaching that it is a theocracy, it will pave the way for children to later create laws that re-

When the State Board of Education meets this week to tackle revisions to the social studies curriculum in Texas public schools, some of the most contentious public debate is likely to center on recommendations by two men who want more emphasis on the role of Christianity in how the nation was formed.  The ideas submitted by well-known Christian conservatives David Barton and the Rev. Peter Marshall could influence how social studies is taught in Texas for the next decade, teaching that the USA was built on “biblical principles”. 

“I’m an evangelical Christian, and I think David Barton and Peter Marshall are completely out to lunch,” said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, a Christian institution. “They are not experts on social studies and history. Neither of them are trained in history. They are preachers who use the past and history as a means of promoting a political agenda in the present.”
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/christianity-s-role-in-history-of-u-s-172516.html 

“When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” – Benjamin Franklin (from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780;)

Perhaps Republicans need to stop putting their hands out for the government.  They clamor for government employees to do things they don’t want to do.  They want government to teach religion to their kids, instead of doing what clearly should be doing with their children themselves.  If you want your kid to have more religious influence, take him to church more than once a week.  Take him to religious-based after-school programs.  Do Christian activities with him after school and/or on weekends.  If you really want it taught in school – enroll him to a private school.  These are your options.

But these options aren’t good enough. Probably because they require work, they require time, they require sacrifice.  So instead, they want Big Government to come their aid, to teach their religion to their kids.  Of course, religious experience varies greatly by individual.  Biblical interpretation varies greatly even within a single religion.  Much less than dozens of various branches of Christianity. 

Religion is a belief.  Every definition includes that word.  For a driver’s license, we go to government offices.  For education, we go to schools.  For beliefs, we go to a church.  You have to do the first two things (more or less).  But you don’t have to go to church, or send your child to religious after-shcool programs, or send him to private school.  There lies the problem. These Republicans want the choice removed from others.  Supporters want the responsibility lifted from themselves and placed in the hands of the government that they so repeateadly claim can’t do anything helpful and should stay out of private lives of citizens. 

Republicans should stop expecting government to parent their children.  If they want their child to have conservative Christian teachings, they can stop howling for the government, and do it themselves.  If they want to train kids to be soldiers, as Peter Marshall himself said to the Wall Street Journal,  “in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America”, they can do it themselves.  To me, it sounds similar to what the clerics in the middle east are telling their youth. 

Keep theocracy out of democracy.  Some quotes from our Founding Fathers:

“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.” – James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).)

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.” – Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” – James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785.)

Every man “ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.” – George Washington (Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia in May, 1789)

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.” – Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787)

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of… Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”– Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

“Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error
all over the earth.” – Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)

“Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?” – John Adams

“As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” – (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 – signed by President John Adams.)

More Republican Implosion

More implosion from the Republicans. 

 This is what Home Depot’s founder Bernie Marcus said on a conference call on November 18, 2008:

If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys,” Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers “should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.

That’s right – Disagree with the Republicans, the call goes out from the powerful that your life should be ended.  (Go to the wrong church and the powerful preach that your soul will be banished to hell). 

Enjoy shopping at Home Depot. 

 This is NOT the only call for violence against those opposing the Republicans. It’s been sent from the Bush white house and carried out by the people in the movie below who, on mainstream media outlets, call for violence against non-Republicans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGn9F1Jw24U&NR=1 
And in churches from the great white north to ole south (Alaska to NC), leaders in mainstream churches are preaching damnation from the pulpit.  These aren’t fringe churches with services in someone’s basement.  Of the two that come to mind for preaching damnation to non-Republicans, the first church is the fastest growing demonination in the US (Pentecostal) and the second church is the largest demonination in the US. 
 
The 2nd largest terrorist attack on US soil was carried out in 1995 by American conservative extremists who believed the ‘liberal’ federal government was taking away their 2nd ammendment rights. 

In July of 2008 a man opened fire in a church during a children’s performance saying “all liberals should be killed.”

It’s Time to Give Voters the Liberalism They Want
Don’t believe pundits who say there’s a centrist mandate

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705706314639537.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10025