To Be A Republican

You have to believe that some people are better than others and that those people deserve to be handed things while the rest of us have to work for them.

You have to believe that Democracy is a great idea on paper, but all governments are evil and that the only thing that they do right is handing out tax breaks for the wealthy and sweetheart contracts to corporate contributors.

You have to believe that this country was founded by people who subscribed to the exact same religious beliefs that you currently hold, and that those religious beliefs were actually written into the Constitution, meaning everyone in this Country should hold those same exact religious beliefs--or leave the country.

You have to believe that it is in your best interest to vote against your best interest.

You have to believe that corporate entities are people, just like you and me, with the same rights and freedoms as any other citizen.

You have to believe that corporations have your best interests at heart, work for the greater good, are always run efficiently and responsibly and that it is better if they run our government rather than letting the people have control.

You have to believe that evil government liberals are out to destroy your freedoms while brushing off the fact that your current Republican administration is taking away your rights one by one.

You have to believe that your religious beliefs are the only “true” ones and that the world would be better off if everyone was Christian like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.

You have to believe that George W. Bush has heard the voice of God, has followed His commands and that God supports our war in Iraq.

You have to believe that guns, violence and war are the best and only way to solve disputes, that if everyone was packing a pistol there would be no crime and that if we have a bigger stockpile of nuclear weapons than China and Korea, that will make us safer.

You have to believe that teen-agers will not have sex if you make them promise not to, that they never did before the sixties, but that if you tell them about birth control they will immediately run out and have sex with everyone that they can find.

You have to constantly look at the world from your singular, selfish, narrow point-of-view as if your experiences and beliefs are the same as everyone else’s or are the only ones that are meaningful.

You have to believe what your preacher tells you to believe over what scientists can prove with evidence and facts and you have to demonize the scientists and attempt to demoralize anyone that agrees with them.

You have to believe that ATM fees can never be too high (especially if YOU can afford them), that usury is an antiquated notion and that taxes should be done away with completely because citizens have no need of government services (maybe the corporations can just pay your elected officials directly instead of under the table?).

You have to believe that corporate managers deserve exorbitantly high salaries but that government workers should do their jobs for free.

You have to believe every piece of corporate or government propaganda you see on television or heard on your radio (what will you do with all that plastic and duct tape??)

You have to believe that George W. Bush is intelligent, (he did graduate from a prestigious college) and reasonable and that people in other countries really do hate us for our freedom.

You have to believe that a “Free Market” exists and that corporations aren’t propped up with taxpayer dollars in the form of subsidies, tax credits and laws that give them the ability to hide their assets in ways that would be illegal for regular citizens.

You have to believe that Mel Gibson made “The Passion of the Christ” and then pimped it to every church in the country because he wanted to LOSE money (and that people tried to suppress his film because Hollywood is full of Christian-hating JEWS, but that Mel is not anti-Semitic).

You have to believe that racism and sexism do not exist, that it is just a coincidence that the prisons are packed with minorities and that most of the wealth and power in this country is held by white men. (What did Condi mean when she said that being black is a birth defect?)

You have to believe that forcing children to take standardized tests is the answer to equality and quality in education; not teaching them how to learn and think for themselves. (Who needs analytical skills; someone else will tell us what we should think and believe.)

You have to believe that Socialism has never worked anywhere in the World and that Socialist Democracies are the same thing as Communist Dictatorships.

You have to believe that Democracy means the same thing as Capitalism.

You have to believe that only Democratic administrations should ever be questioned, but that it is unpatriotic to question the motivation of a Republican administration.

You have to believe that it's okay for Rush Limbaugh to be sddicted to prescription opiates that he obtained illegally, but that crack addicts are dangerous criminals that should all be in prison.

You have to believe that pork barrel spending, unbalanced budgets, and soaring deficits are all things that the Democrats will do, and that Republicans will fight against and that everything that has gone wrong in the past eight years is Bill Clinton’s fault.

You have to believe that capital punishment is an effective deterrent against murder.

You have to believe that the government has the right to make a woman bring a child into the world, and that if she does have children, the responsiblity is solely hers and the government has no responsibility to assist in the care of that child.


You have to believe that it is good to trade with Communist China, but not with Communist Cuba or democratically elected governments that don’t conform to our religious beliefs.

You have to believe that Communist China does not own the debt that George W. Bush has racked up over the past eight years, that there was a budget deficit left to him by Clinton, and/or that China will never, ever call in our loans or that loans don't need to be repaid because they disappear, as if by magic.

You have to believe that it is offensive for two gay people to marry, but it is a temporary lapse of judgment for conservatives to have public sex in airport bathrooms and that, if they do, it doesn’t mean that they are gay, and that people can be “cured” of homosexuality if they pray hard enough.

You have to believe that there is no difference between legal marriage and religious marriage ceremonies.

You have to be unable to grasp the difference between enforcing equal rights for gay people to marry each other, and having the right to use taxpayer dollars and community-owned property to promote any one religious belief. (Thomas Jefferson believed in the separation of church and state and believed that he had written those beliefs into the Constitution, which must make him some kind of liberal or something).

You have to desperately hold to the belief, no matter how many times it has been proven false, that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, that our army found his weapons of mass destruction and that it isn’t that important for us to get Osama Bin Laden because all of the "Al Quedas" are in Iraq now.

You have to believe that the Republican Party is made up of and operated by moral, ethical, principled people who haven’t lied, slandered, wrongfully accused and prosecuted their political enemies, suppressed minority votes, cheated, broken the law multiple times, subverted the Constitution, committed war crimes and broken both our democracy and our military and that they always act for the greater good, not for the economic gain of wealthy friends or corporate contributors (GW calls them his “Base”—How’s that war in Iraq working for Haliburton and OPEC?)

You have to believe that people would rather collect a pittance from welfare and live in abject poverty than work and live a decent life, especially if they are black or illegal Mexican immigrants.

You have to believe that Mexicans risk their lives crossing the border illegally to take the jobs that Americans don’t want and believe that they are stealing jobs from American workers (at the same time).

You have to believe that it is better to punish illegal workers rather than the businesses that hire them for cheap labor, because companies that hire them illegally should not be held responsible for those actions, but that the impoverished people who come here looking for work and a better life for their families are criminals who should be punished harshly.

You have to believe that the Republican Party is the party of “Accountability,” but that 9/11, the mess in Iraq, runaway budget deficits, the mortgage crisis, rising unemployment, crime, lack of affordable health care, soaring tuition rates and a growing class or working poor are not their fault or the result of any policies that they may have put in place.

You have to believe that it is okay to lie about torture, government leaks, subverting the constitution, political dirty tricks, breaking the law and breaking the faith of the citizenry, but not about having extra-marital sex in the oval office.

If you believe that it is acceptable, even admirable, to pretend that you will not negotiate with terrorists when you are secretly making deals with them, hide those dealings and deny any knowledge of them in a court of law, illegally use funds that you illegally gained through your illegal deal with terrorists to support an illegal war in Central America, illegally using American military personnel, subverting the Constitution that you took an oath to defend;

If you believe that it is ethical and/or morally justifiable to lie about your involvement in the Arms-for-Hostages deal, aid in the overthrow of Democratically-elected governments, encourage relationships with cruel dictators and then initiate war against them or have them jailed when they are no longer politically useful; encourage the Sunnis in Iraq to rebel against Saddam Hussein and then abandon them to be slaughtered when retaliation comes;

If you believe that it is proper, maybe even patriotic, to lie repeatedly (and continue to lie) in order to gain support for a war in Iraq for personal, financial and political gain, authorize the use of torture by our military, then suppress the truth about ordering torture, then punish whistle-blowers and underlings that carried out your orders, to order the leak of the identity of a government agent for political gain and in order to suppress the truth, then to shield liars and law-breakers from justice, to spy on the citizens of this country and your political enemies and dissenters using government agencies paid by taxpayer dollars, to regularly subvert the Constitution that you took an Oath to defend and to lie about it, hide the truth, and let others take the blame;

You were either a Republican President during the past twenty-five years or you supported one or more of them.

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Kansas- As Dumb As You Think

If you are looking for small-minded thinking and a laughable lack of common sense, Kansas Senators seldom disappoint.

I got this email today regarding a Kansas Senate vote on the issue of Illegal Immigration. It was from Donald Betts (never heard of him). Apparently he is a Kansas Senator from Wichita. It is usually hard for me to open and read these emails, because I seldom agree with the excuses they tend to offer for the lack of intelligent leadership in the State. Reluctantly, because this is such an important topic to all communities, I opened it anyway.

A snippet:

“Members of the Kansas Senate worked until nearly 1 a.m. on Thursday, March 27th to find a reasonable solution to illegal immigration issues facing our state.
Senate Bill 458, which was approved by members of both parties will enact the Kansas Illegal Immigration Relief Act. The Act includes several initiatives to help protect employees, businesses, law enforcement, and those who have been exploited or abused.”

This produces an initial titter at the thought that businesses and law enforcement might be lumped into a category of those who need “protection” under the law regarding this issue. Businesses and law enforcement --victimized by illegal immigration?! My, my.

“An amendment introduced by Senator Phil Journey would have closed the doors of local businesses found to have hired illegal employees. Under the amendment, a business that has been found to knowingly hire illegal workers three times would permanently lose their license/s and status as a corporation.
The amendment failed 27-12 on a roll call vote. I agree that fines and restrictions for businesses that knowingly break state laws should be tightened, but such a provision would hurt the business economy and our ability to attract new businesses to Kansas.”

God help us!!!! What kind of fuzzy-headed logic is this? (And this is a Democrat?!) This sounds like the parents who have a party in their basement that serves booze to minors—hey they’re going to do it anyway, let’s make it safe for them to do it where we can see them. The Kansas Senate is serving up the illegal immigrant to Kansas businesses with the logic that they’re going to do it anyway, so they may as well do it here.

This amounts to tacit approval by the Kansas legislature by inferring that if we passed this law, business in Kansas would come to a standstill and no new business would want to relocate here. If this is truly the case, it serves as PROOF that the real problem behind the whole illegal immigration crisis is business itself. Businesses that lure illegals to come to Kansas to work. It amounts to collusion with corporate interests that are using illegal immigrants to drive down the wage for all Kansas workers.

“Another amendment would have denied all state and local benefits to illegal aliens, including retirement benefits, welfare, heath care, disability benefits, housing, post-secondary education, food assistance, and unemployment benefits, among others. Because state agencies already have citizenship requirements in place, the amendment was found to be unnecessary and failed on a 12 to 26 vote.”

Okay, so this sounds like something sensible (as such totally out of character for the Kansas legislature). I must give credit where it is due. This is the kind of thing that the fear-mongerers are always harping on; welfare for illegals. They love to make it look like governments LOVE to give money away to lazy immigrants. This is proof that it simply is not true; illegals are not offered government assistance. It is brave of the legislature to vote against this amendment, because you can just bet it will be used against them future misleading campaign literature. And just when you think that the Senate has become a reasonable body…

“A controversial amendment introduced by Senator Karin Brownlee will fine labor unions $2,000 for each membership due collected from an illegal immigrant. Several Senators spoke out against the amendment, citing that fines were much harsher for unions (which members join voluntarily) than for large corporations. Unions also have no reasonable means of verifying the residence of members, and therefore, won’t have a way to prevent members from lying about their citizenship status. The amendment was narrowly passed on a 19 to 18 vote.”

Hello Whack-A-Doos! I just knew they couldn’t be sensible for long. Kansas is SUCH a big UNION state, anyway. This amendment is going to affect REAL CHANGE and protect Kansas workers from those terrible nasty unions that are…what?? Protecting the immigrant worker right alongside the naturalized worker? Ohhhhh, those vicious unions!! This will teach them to protect worker’s rights! Unions are really the heart of this whole immigration issue from which we need relief.

Congratulations Karin Brownlee; you win the knee-jerk moron of the month award! And let the Kansas Senate share the glory, since they didn’t have the sense God gave a worm to realize that this is a WORTHLESS law that unjustly penalizes what few unions may exist in Kansas (the Right-To-Work-For-Peanuts State).

“The House of Representatives will debate the immigration issue today. The Senate will then have the option of concurring with the House’s version of the bill, or can choose to appoint a conference committee to iron out a compromise bill.
Should a conference committee be appointed, it is likely that we will have yet another immigration debate before a final bill is sent to the governor for approval.”

Which leaves us open for future legislative idiocy. Great. Kansas: As Dumb As You Think

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