Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
The other day a conservative friend of mine posted a John Adams quote that was a rant about letting people who didn’t own property the right to vote. My friend tried to use to support his argument about our current government system. While Adams did write the words that were posted, taking his words out of context to support your fantasy view of the world could be dangerous.
Here is the quote in question:
Former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel was nominated by President Obama to be the next Secretary of Defense. His confirmation hearing lasted almost nine hours and during that time the Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee decided to throw Hagel under the bus to score points on national security and Israel. Since they won’t block his confirmation this is the only way the GOP can thump their chest and act all indignant outside the usual reasons.
Here’s an example:
I remember watching the CBS show “All in the Family” when I was a kid. It ran from 1971 to 1979. One of the main characters, Archie Bunker, was a white middle class bigot and the show highlighted his bigotry for comedy. Bunker usually was shown to be wrong and he would seem to change his ways at least until the next episode. I was reminded of him when thinking about the current members of the Republican party and one of my conservative friends who likes to call me names even though he is wrong all the time. They don’t see the farce they’ve become by irrationally holding on to ideas that are no longer valid.
Here is how Archie Bunker is described in the Wikipedia entry for the show “All in the Family“:
Back in my hometown of Findlay Ohio, voters, this November, will be asked to pass a renewal of a 0.25 percent income tax that was passed three years ago as a result of the great recession of 2008. The battle for the passage of the tax highlights how wrong Republicans are about taxes and economics in general. It mirrors the failures of trickle down economics on the national level.
The go to talking point on the campaign trail for Republicans is to blame President Obama for the state of the economy as if the President is the only person who had a chance to deal with the broken economy he got when he took office in 2009. What Republicans don’t do is point out their party was the party of NO! blocking many of the President’s initiatives to better the economy. If the economy is not doing as well as it should be, the fault rests with the Republicans in Congress.
Here is what was seen in a recent Romney Super PAC ad: