Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
My conservative friends, on Facebook, love posting articles mentioning how much labor unions HATE Obamacare as if that is enough to demand it be repealed. Some Unions did send a letter asking for an exemption to the Affordable Care Act. Friday the White House announced it had denied the request. There is more to the story than you will see on Fox ‘News’ or read in the Wall Street Journal.
Those zany conservatives at the Heritage Action and FreedomWorks groups complained that the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act is unfair to men. Besides the claim that men would lose their right of due process, the groups also complain that domestic violence is redefined into something vague where name calling would be classified as violence toward women. Like all zany conservative conspiracy theories, this one is also false and is only being used to raise money.
One part of political debate I like is using images to make a point. Whether it is a chart or a quote image, these graphics hold on to the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. They are also easy to share in social media. However one still needs to be careful one isn’t sharing inaccurate information. Don’t post or share any graphic unless you can confirm the accuracy of the information.
Earlier this year this chart was making the rounds of the blogs I read:
A friend of mine posted a story of the “A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson” told by FOX “news” talking head John Stossel. He claims that because the colony tried to operate as a commune there was a famine and so to save the colony the Pilgrims ditched socialism. Like most Libertarian fantasies, Stossel’s story is 99.9999999% made up.
Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn’t happen.
Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.
That’s why they nearly all starved.
When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.
The real history tells a different tale:
Historians say that the settlers in Plymouth, and their supporters in England, did indeed agree to hold their property in common — William Bradford, the governor, referred to it in his writings as the “common course.” But the plan was in the interest of realizing a profit sooner, and was only intended for the short term; historians say the Pilgrims were more like shareholders in an early corporation than subjects of socialism.
“It was directed ultimately to private profit,” said Richard Pickering, a historian of early America and the deputy director of Plimoth Plantation, a museum devoted to keeping the Pilgrims’ story alive.
The arrangement did not produce famine. If it had, Bradford would not have declared the three days of sport and feasting in 1621 that became known as the first Thanksgiving. “The celebration would never have happened if the harvest was going to be less than enough to get them by,” Mr. Pickering said. “They would have saved it and rationed it to get by.”
The first Thanksgiving or harvest feast was held in 1621 not 1623. The Native Americans were invited because they helped support the colony with food and teaching them how to grow their crops in New England during their first year when half the colonists died.
So socialism did save the colony and the Libertarians/Tea Party/Conservatives are full of stuffing – and not the good kind.
Jon Husted is running for Ohio’s Secretary of State office. In the first TV commercial I’ve seen, he hits the usual conservative talking points even if he has to use strawmen to do it.
Husted is currently a State Senator for the 6th District.
Jon Husted campaign commercial
First of all Husted didn’t “stand up to liberal ACORN to prevent election fraud” since there was no proof or charges of fraud perpetrated by ACORN in Ohio in any election.
Rights are not given to us by God. They are written into the US Constitution.
I am still not sure what “immoral government debt” I need to be worried about or it will hurt my children.
It is obvious that Husted is not a fan of the separation of church and state – see the example about the prayer in the state house – but he also supported exemption for priests involved in pedophilia back in 2007 under Senate Bill 17.
This is just the beginning and it already seems Husted is wrong for the job.