Random Politics & Religion #00

It's cute when you guys think you have something. And you still don't fully understand your own link.

So, you still are denying that you are a hypocrite. You are even trying to change the meaning of the word in your mind now, that's how desperate you are from being associated with the word.

When you can't defend the person against a specific accusation, argue about the usage of the term. Works like a charm.

King and I aren't even deniers, that's the funny part. I mostly just found it interesting that even a heavy climate change advocate thinks that people on her own side suck at arguing about it because they cherry-pick their facts

It's cute when you guys think you have something. And you still don't fully understand your own link.

Highlighting a portion of a link (much as you did) that pertains to cherry picking data for climate arguments doesn't make me a hypocrite since, hey!, I wasn't arguing climate data! Ta-dah.

Ah the ramblings of the truly devout. How much did you tithe in carbon credits this year Pleebo?

Don't forget that while you're burning those candles this earth hour, you're actually contributing MORE co2 to the cause than you would if you just used a CFL.

Hope you don't attend a... CAMPFIRE ... this summer either.

Can't tell if sarcasm or if you really don't know how all this works.

We've finally gone bananas!

Get your entitlements off me you damn dirty ape!

Ok so not sarcasm.

...and there's the dodge.

Officials are investigating a shocking video that purports to show a U.S. marshal destroying the phone of a recording bystander.

The video was uploaded to YouTube on April 19 in South Gate, California, within Los Angeles County. In the clip, recorded from a building across the street, a bystander appears to be filming and talking to uniformed officials responding to a report of a biker gang meeting. A man wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a weapon then grabs her phone, slamming it to the ground before kicking it down the street.

The U.S. Marshals Service identified the man as a U.S. marshal, but his name has not been released.

“The U.S. Marshals Service is aware of video footage of an incident that took place Sunday in Los Angeles County involving a Deputy U.S. Marshal," a spokesperson for the Marshals Central District of California office told The Huffington Post in an emailed statement. "The agency is currently reviewing the incident."

It's unclear whether the individual recording was affiliated with six people arrested during the police response, according to NBC Los Angeles. But it's perfectly legal to film officers in all 50 states as long as you don't interfere with their work.

“There are First Amendment protections for people photographing and recording in public,” Mickey Osterreicher, an attorney with the National Press Photographers Association, told HuffPost after several journalists were arrested during last year's Ferguson protests.

Intentionally blocking or ordering an individual to cease recording constitutes a First Amendment violation.

...and there's the dodge.

hypocrite
noun hyp·o·crite \ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\

: a person who claims or pretends to have certain beliefs about what is right but who behaves in a way that disagrees with those beliefs
Full Definition of HYPOCRITE
1
: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2
: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
— hypocrite adjective

sarcasm
noun sar·casm \ˈsär-ˌka-zəm\

: the use of words that mean the opposite of what you really want to say especially in order to insult someone, to show irritation, or to be funny
Full Definition of SARCASM
1
: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2
a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual
b : the use or language of sarcasm

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.