Re: my point last week that in some ways, anti-Muslim sentiments are worse now than they were after 9/11, in particular the open expression by the public as opposed to only private, back-alley-at-night outbursts. Take this excerpt from an article on the Tennessee mosque which has found sudden, forceful rejection from their community:

The mosque — which is still two years away from being completed — has sparked protests in the city of Murfreesboro. There have also been other acts of vandalism: A sign marking the site of the future building was spray-painted with “Not welcome,” and then later broken in half.

Sbenaty expressed shock over the atmosphere in a town he’s lived in for 30 years. For most of that time, he said, the community has been extremely supportive and welcoming. Even after Sept. 11, 2001, he said, neighbors came up to him and said, “Please do not feel scared. We know your religion has nothing to do with this.”

“It’s a wide shift, and a shock,” he told TPM. “It’s just mind-boggling.”

Sbenaty, who is also a member of the Middle East Center at Middle Tennessee State, pinpointed the shift to the 2008 elections and allegations that President Obama is a Muslim.

Interesting that the major shift was not the NYC mosque but the whole movement that preceded it; not too much difference, as the Obama Muslim thing and the NYC mosque Muslim thing are artifacts of the same political campaign and mindset. Of course, despite the shift happening with 2008, the anti-Muslim sentiments have exploded with the NYC mosque outrage, thus we got the arson and vandalism spree at the mosque site and against the company doing construction for it in Tennessee. And the NYC cab driver stabbing, and the turban-wearing man being punched out, and so on.

But hey, right wing, if it helps get votes this November, by all means, keep spewing rabid hate. Maybe you’ll get lucky and lynchings will start up again. Can’t make an omelette and all that, right?

A few thoughts, in part reflecting on comments to the previous post, in part expanding on some of the ideas.

“Freedom” and “Liberty” are interesting subjects to examine, as their definitions seem to be highly subjective. Looking up dictionary definitions of the two, one might see them as synonymous–the ability to act as one pleases without external restraints. The lines are blurred, the definitions shift.

“Freedom” describes the power to do what you want without others acting to restrain you; this is limited only by the potential of your actions to harm others, the classic “your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” In Benen’s example, gay marriage serves well to define this: two people of the same gender making a social contract to love, honor, respect, and support each other harms no one–in fact, only helps people, and serves if anything to strengthen society by strengthening the individuals. Others acting to thwart this act of love and support could serve as a classic example of the opposite of freedom. This exists in contrast to, and really completely externally to, what is allowed within past definitions of the institution–definitions which have changed so radically over time that any attempt to restrict marriage upon the basis of the past becomes a practice in hypocritical self-indulgence, of cherry-picking morality to suit one’s bigotry.

“Liberty” is often considered a natural right, the state of being free, but also is commonly associated with having rights to act freely in relation to the society in which you live. Certainly if there is a liberty we have claim to in our country, it is the liberty to believe as we will, to worship or not as we wish, and not be restricted or hindered by society or the state in the free expression of that belief. Again, Benen’s example is well-chosen; the people who wish to build that community center, mosque and all, should be allowed to do so even if it were directly across the street from Ground Zero instead of a couple of blocks away. They are at liberty to do so; trying to stop them is a restriction of that liberty. Allowing them to do so honors the victims of 9/11 at the highest order, as it perfectly exemplifies the principles upon which the nation is founded; but even that is a side point to the fact that liberty means they can believe what they wish and worship where they please. Again, the only restraint is where the expression of that liberty deprives others of theirs, by causing harm or restraining others, and the mosque does not do that. Any crass or slanderous analogies of harmful acts to this one would simply express ignorance and bias.

Where Benen seems to have reached not far enough is in exemplifying “opportunity”; certainly, having the opportunity to access affordable health care is one. Frankly, anyone who argues that private health care, health care for profit, which skims at minimum 30% off the top and works its hardest to deny and cheat and steal, is better, cheaper, or more ‘efficient’ (efficient in terms of serving the patient) is, to put it bluntly, a moron. Just ask any senior-citizen Tea Party member if they’d prefer private health insurance over Medicare; they’ll tell you which is better. They’re not morons, just hypocrites. But “opportunity” is much more than just health care. It’s a chance at the American Dream. Of owning a home–but that’s become a money game, filled with predators who, free of regulation and policing, have stolen that opportunity from too many of our number. Opportunity is the chance to get a meaningful, productive job for decent compensation–but the current conservative mindset is intent on maximizing profit for shareholders and depriving the worker of every opportunity possible. Opportunity means getting a fair and equal education–but the localization of education, not to mention its defunding at all levels and the skyrocketing costs of higher education, robs most Americans of what is considered one of our most fundamental opportunities.

The real and unavoidable conclusion here is that opportunities are best served when provided or regulated by the state, as ‘free market’ methods to key services simply throw the doors open to inequality, unrestricted greed, and savage predation. In this way, public health care is, in fact, one good example of a true American opportunity–being fought and quashed by the fearful throngs of the small-minded.

Benen’s example of “values” comes from a similarly rich field, but this one is an excellent choice. Separation of Church and State is one of our most fundamental values, essential to religious liberty and freedom. Only the most unobservant or intentionally ignorant could fail to recognize the fact that where a system of belief merges with state, religion suffers horrifically. For in the end, only one belief system will prevail, and it will then act to mercilessly quash all others. So many Americans are willing to see this marriage because it is their religion they see as married to the state, and they feel fine with quashing the rights of others in this regard. But ask any Christian if they believe that official state atheism under Stalin was a fine idea; I doubt they’d agree. My grandfather, a Spanish Republican, believed in the freedom of religious liberty, but had to flee Spain after the fascists elevated the Church of Spain to power, oppressing all other beliefs, including all other Christian beliefs. What the church-and-staters fail to recognize is that Christianity is hardly monolithic; which sect prevails? The answer: probably not yours. Prepare to suffer, like those who came to America roughly four hundred years ago to escape the persecution at the hands of their Christian brethren.

The claim is that separation of church and state has “gone too far,” but this is false victimhood; religion is everywhere and prospers just fine, it is only limited in very narrow confines seen as great only because they are wildly exaggerated and emphasized by those in evangelistic fervor, craving to fill every last crevice with a dominant faith, and refusing to recognize that entanglement of church and state is not a freedom, but a vital threat to that freedom.

James Madison, primary author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, made it very clear: “Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” Nor was this Madison’s only reference to the value; find here a long list of references to exactly this principle. However, the fundamentalist and right-wing crowds see history through a fog of their own bias. They quote statements of faith by various historical figures and equate them to professions arguing for the merging of church and state, as if Madison’s values were somehow false or non-existent. They belittle those who would fight even the smallest entanglements between church and state as spiteful pettiness, and then turn around and claim that these exact same incursions justify full marriage of church and state.

The fact is, as Madison wisely saw, perfect separation of church and state–secularism, not atheism–is the only true path to religious freedom. That is perhaps our most proud, honorable, principled, fair and priceless values. And it is being trashed by selfish hypocrites who aggrandize themselves in cloaks of fraudulent persecution, who ironically work to defeat themselves but are just too shallow-minded to realize it.

Benen’s example of sacrifice is also spot-on. Back in WWII, people sacrificed nobly and severely. They passionately collected materials to be used in the war effort, selflessly and patriotically went without meat or sugar so that these could be diverted to the troops, and did so much else to give to their country so they could secure the future of their children. But now we have despicable faux-patriots, people who clamor for war but will not serve; people who claim to support the troops but then mindlessly put them in harm’s way with inadequate provisions while cutting benefits to them and their families back home; people who drape themselves in the flag but do not even understand the sacrifices it represents. People who use debt and deficit as political weapons of the moment, who now scream about their danger, and yet cannot bring themselves to list what must be cut, and whine endlessly about how the super-rich deserve to inherit every penny of what they did not earn and remain free even from tax levels lower than at just about any time in recent history. Sacrifice means giving up a great deal so that all may prosper. But the current clarion call from the dexter is “I’ve got mine, so go fuck yourself.” The right wing today, the child of Reagan’s “greed is good” Me Generation, is the absolute antithesis of sacrifice.

And about truth? Let’s face it, the last thing the Tea Partiers and the right wing in general today are about is “truth.” They scream that the president is a communist, socialist, and fascist, without even the wit to understand that these descriptions are contradictory. They mock global climate change because it’s cold outside where they are, then go mute when heat waves cover the globe. They smear opponent after opponent with bald-faced lies and doctored videos, only shifting focus to new smears when the original lies are brought to light. They never, ever acknowledge when their lies are disproved, they simply move on to the next lie, often returning to ones repeatedly exposed as such. They sketch lurid and self-contradictory conspiracies on chalkboards, or else believe the most pathetically absurd of claims, so long as it suits their ideology. They condemn the president for doing things they themselves promoted only shortly before. The list goes on and on and on and on.

For the right, it’s about one thing and one thing only: power. That’s all that matters. The ability to control; and since they cannot win power honestly, they do it any way they can–and often state it exactly that way, we’ll do whatever works for us. Sadly, they have now latched on to the worst of realizations: the power to destroy a thing is the power to control it. And they are destroying with abandon. Truth is simply the first casualty.

Didn’t take long for me to switch Beck off. I tried, I really did. But it’s simply more of the same, only more extreme and even more draped in God and patriotism. I always come back to that speech penned by Aaron Sorkin, because it so deftly describes conservative tactics, today and yesterday, and likely for all tomorrows in the near future:

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.

Fear and hate. Phobos and Deimos. Tools of the conservative trade. Hallelujah, and pass the rifles. The black Muslim communist is destroying our country, time for a Second Amendment solution.

What do the Tea Partiers, the Beck fans, the Palin adorers, the new right-wingers, want? What are they about? What are their principles? Steve Benen, as usual, gets it spot on:

This is about “freedom.”

Well, I’m certainly pro-freedom, and as far as I can tell, the anti-freedom crowd struggles to win votes on Election Day. But can they be a little more specific? How about the freedom for same-sex couples to get married? No, we’re told, not that kind of freedom.

This is about a fight for American “liberties.”

That sounds great, too. Who’s against American “liberties”? But I’m still looking for some details. Might this include law-abiding American Muslims exercising their liberties and converting a closed-down clothing store into a community center? No, we’re told, not those kinds of liberties.

This is about giving Americans who work hard and play by the rules more opportunities.

I’m all for that, too. But would these opportunities include the chance for hard-working Americans to bring their kids to the doctor if they get sick, even if the family can’t afford insurance? No, we’re told, not those kinds of opportunities.

This is about the values of the Founding Fathers.

I’m a big fan of the framers’ generation, who created an extraordinary nation. But if we’re honoring their values, would this include their steadfast commitment to the separation of church and state? No, we’re told, not those values.

This is about patriotic Americans willing to make sacrifices for the good of their country.

That sounds reasonable; sacrifices can be honorable. But if we’re talking about patriots willing to sacrifice, does that mean millionaires and billionaires can go back to paying ’90s-era tax rates (you know, when the economy was strong)? No, we’re told, not those kinds of sacrifices.

This is about a public that, at long last, wants to hear the truth from those who speak in their name.

What a great idea. Maybe that means we can hear the truth about global warming? About the fact that health care reform wasn’t a socialized government takeover? About Social Security not going bankrupt? About how every court ruling conservatives don’t like doesn’t necessarily constitute “liberal judicial activism”? No, we’re told, not those truths.

The point is aptly made: this new political movement is not about values or principles, it is about narrowly defined values and principles. Narrowly defined so as to only apply to specific cases they wish to defend, otherwise screw it.

Take the Constitution, for example. They say that they love it, cherish it, defend it, want it to be valued and followed. But, when you get down to the details, only certain parts of it. Only the parts they like. And only in the way that they interpret it to be.

The First Amendment, for example, is vital, the way they read it: freedom of religion, but that part about “establishment,” and what Madison and Jefferson, two of the most significant figures related to the document, called a perfect separation, a wall of separation–screw that, that’s some fascist-liberal myth to attack religion. We’re sure they meant something else. And free speech, that’s what is infringed when people don’t like what we say, that’s what we’re being robbed of when our words have consequences. But only ours–when others say things we don’t like, we feel free to clobber them, because we have the right to speak back. But not them. That’s how it works–I read it right there, on the label.

The Second Amendment, holiest of all holies–this, to many of the Beck-Palin-Tea crowd, is the raison d’etre for the whole bill of rights, and aside from the religion part of the First Amendment, really the only thing worth paying attention to.

The Third Amendment they tend to ignore, not because it’s out of date, but because it shows that an amendment can be out of date, far too proximate to the Second Amendment for comfort.

The Fourth through Eighth Amendments? The bad aftertaste of the first two amendments. Criminal rights? (Never “rights of the accused”–we don’t arrest innocent people!) Best those be swept into the dustbin. Except, of course, until someone we like is found to have committed a crime, then they’re handy for getting them out of jail.

The Ninth Amendment? Dare not speak its name! That harlot of amendments, giver of substance to all kinds of civil rights we do not approve of! Privacy? What an abomination! How would we ever meddle with the rights of others if they have privacy?

And the Tenth Amendment? A handy tool to get issues we approve of handled at the state level when they don’t go our way at the federal level. Except, of course, when the states get uppity, and then the federal government rules all.

Yes, the Constitution and all of its amendments, we love it and believe in it, and damn that communist Obama for saying it’s not a perfect document! It is perfect!

Well, except for those parts we want to amend. Like the 14th Amendment. Oh yeah, and the 16th Amendment, Jesus, let’s not forget to repeal that one. And the 17th–what were they thinking, people voting for senators? And the 22nd, that’s no good when we have presidents like Reagan! For Democrats, we should keep it around, I suppose. And–hey, you know what? Just give us that thing, let us rewrite it to suit our current ideology, OK? Lessee, cross out those ones… add amendments to make sure those courts can’t stop religion from being in schools and courts and government, and to ban flag burning and gay marriage and abortion and income tax, and to ensure God stay in the Pledge and the classroom, an’ oh yeah, let’s not forget to add a whole slew of “Victim’s rights,” ‘coz they don’t have none, and that would really gut the 4th-8th in a way we like. What else is it we don’t like recently? Oh yeah, TARP! No government ownership of private companies. And let’s not forget Bread and Circuses, so how about making it harder to raise taxes, and letting people vote to override Congress because that worked so well with Prop 13, and presidents can’t sign international treaties because, Obama, damn!

Of course, by doing all of this, we’re actually protecting the Constitution, keeping it the way it’s supposed to be, not the way those crypto-fascist commie librulz want us to think it is.

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I was going to label the above as “snark,” but then I remembered, it’s not. This is pretty much what they’re saying.

I think there may be some link to the fundamentalist Christian lines of thought in here–the ones that allow a person to say that the Bible is a perfect document, every word from the lips of God himself, and then to proceed to selectively interpret and ignore various parts of that document so it just happens to come out saying what they, in the end, would like it to say. Forget its history, forget the mistranslations, forget the political, historical, and cultural background that got worked into the document.

This is pretty much how conservatives today approach the Constitution: romanticize, edit, ignore, and otherwise re-interpret the original intent; pay attention only to the parts that back up what we agree with, and otherwise ignore, deem moot, or amend the parts which say things we don’t like.

And then stand up and say that we are the champions of the “original” document as we say it is, using the coin of historical reverence to proclaim our mangled version of this document as holy writ that must be honored and obeyed.

As Benen pointed out, it’s not about values. It’s about picking and choosing.

Because if anyone can restore honor, it’s Glenn Beck.

Wait, didn’t somebody promise to restore “honor and dignity” some eight years ago? Oh yeah, him. Well, I suppose that if Beck is now trying to restore honor, then Bush must have only been able to restore dignity.

Don’t you just love it that in explaining his “Restoring Honor” rally, Beck lies rather transparently? His rally is not only being held at the Lincoln Memorial, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his historic “I have a Dream” speech, but it is being held on the 47th anniversary of that event. But Beck claims that it’s “only a coincidence,” and that the date was chosen to fit people’s schedules only. Yeah. And he claims that the rally, featuring him and Sarah Palin, with the Tea Party in large presence, is “nonpolitical.” Again: yeah. Very honorable there, Beck.

In the past, when atheist organizations put up ads, even ones which are positive in nature and do nothing to put down religion, the ads are seen as threatening, hostile, and unacceptable; numerous Christians pressure the organization hosting the ads, usually successfully, to take down the ads. Usually that is done under the pretense of open proselytization–although many of the ads don’t actually proselytize, and Christian groups often openly proselytize on billboards themselves.

One ad was so subtle that it required a bit of thought to see the message, and made a statement that was at the same time patriotic and nothing more than plainly secular–quoting the original text of the pledge of allegiance. Not to mention text that is more inclusive, not less. And yet this rather unserstated, simple display was considered so radical as to merit national attention.

These ads usually are relatively tame; for example, a common one asks, “Don’t Believe in God? You’re Not Alone,” and prompts people to visit the “Coalition of Reason” web site. They usually do not urge people to leave the church, but instead try to attract atheists who do not know of others who feel the same way they do. And yet, such messages often prompt Christians to angrily protest, demanding the ads be removed–this one was taken down after the billboard owner got death threats. (Islamic extremists do not, it seems, have a monopoly on that particular tactic.)

One can safely assume that these are often the same people who are offended by liberals who ask people to be sensitive about what names they call other people, attacking such “PC” sensibilities as “censorship” and “violating First Amendment rights.”

The FFRF (Freedom From Religion Foundation) is somewhat more aggressive, posting billboards and bus ads which directly criticize religion. Quotes from famous figures like Mark Twain, Butterfly McQueen, Clarence Darrow, Emily Dickinson, and Katherine Hepburn involve messages that are clearly critical: from Twain’s snarky “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so” to McQueen’s more pointed “As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion.” These ads, although done tastefully, do push the boundaries somewhat; and churches hit right back, with ads quoting, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”

However, imagine if the atheists put up signs going much further–say, an ad atop taxi cabs which screamed, “CHILD ABUSE VICTIMS,” and asked, “Is your church a threat to your children?” followed by the URL, “www.LeaveChristianityNow.org”. Not just commentary, but a smear–taking a restricted, unrepresentative scandal and using it as a front to break people from their faiths.

How do you think Christians would feel about that ad?

Actually, the question is academic: I fully doubt that any business or ad agency would allow such an ad to get past the preliminary stages. And rightly so; support ads and even proselytization are one thing; ads quietly critical of religion would be considered less kosher but within limits. But ads actively, underhandedly smearing a religion so stridently are another thing entirely. Even liberals would balk at that, and one might assume that conservatives would be livid at even the idea.

Unless, of course, it’s an anti-Muslim ad.

A few days ago people started hearing about ads placed atop taxicabs in Chicago which read, “HONOR KILLING VICTIMS: Is your family threatening you?” and displays the URL “LeaveIslamSafely.com”. Were this a women’s advocacy group trying to protect people, that would be different–but the URL makes it clear that the intent is to drive people completely from their faith.

The thing is–and I may be wrong on this as I am hardly an expert on the subject–I don’t even think this is related to Islam except indirectly. My understanding is that honor killings are a cultural, not a religious practice.

The ads are cleverly cloaked in an anti-violence support guise, but the real intent behind them is made clear when you understand that the ads were placed by one Pamela Geller, a strident, extremist anti-Islam whack job who revels in seeing lurid conspiracies of anti-American jihad under every prayer mat. Honor killings are not what she’s about, she’s completely anti-Islam. This suggests that the ads are less about saving lives and are more about demonizing Islam. Not that honor killings are not a problem, but they are hardly synonymous with Islam, just as child molestation is not synonymous with Christianity.

For better or worse, the ads are being taken down. One point, however, is that had they been equivalent ads targeting Christianity, they would never have gone up in the first place.

I must not be at all in touch with right-wing sensibilities these days; right-wing bloggers chose Jimmy Carter as the #1 Worst American in history. Barack Obama is #2, though one would expect him to be #1, considering how the right wing is so thoroughly vilifying him. But Carter? Really? What for, inflation? The Iran Hostage Crisis? Or is it just because he looks so bad being so proximate in history to the greatest shining beacon of awesomeness in all the universe, Ronaldus Magnus?

But then, this list has Ted Kennedy beating out Timothy McVeigh, and Margaret Sanger tied in infamy with John Wilkes Booth. It is, in essence, not a poll of the worst Americans, but a poll asking “which liberals do you hate and want to smear by mixing them with criminals and other miscreants?” Even at that, one has to wonder why these people despise Jimmy Carter so much. He may have been a less-than-ideal president, but certainly not as destructive as Bush–even by right-wing standards–and as a former president, has been one of the most decent and humane that we’ve ever seen.

Deservedly, this list has been getting slammed as being completely insane–by many on the right as well as the left.

I have written about Republican projection before–if you hear right-wingers accusing the left of something, you can be pretty sure that (a) it’s either exaggerated or untrue, and, more to the point, (b) either they or someone else on their side is doing it or wants to do it.

Not too long ago, some distorted conspiracy theory from the Bachmann/fringe/loon camp was being spread about how Obama was using census data to set up “internment camps” built by FEMA (and I’m sure ACORN fit into it somewhere too, I must have missed that meeting), all to put people he didn’t like–that is, Republicans foolish enough to openly admit their party affiliation to a census worker–into them.

Nutty, huh?

Well, in the latest round of “how will we deal will the immigration crisis” paranoia, guess what some right-wingers want to build? Yep: internment camps. Asked if what she wanted was something like the Japanese internment camps of WWII, she said, “Something like that.”

Good thing Obama built those FEMA internment camps–we’re pretty much ready to go now.

Senator and Vice-President John C. Calhoun

“States’ Rights” has been a buzzword in right-wing circles for a while now. The idea is that the individual states, within their borders, have the right to precedence over the federal government; that if a state doesn’t like a federal law, it can supersede it with a state law. Regardless of whether you agree with this idea–traditionally known as “nullification”–the right wing doesn’t practice it in good faith. To them, it’s a handy marketing tool, but certainly not a principle. When it comes to federal laws they don’t like, like legalized abortion or Obama’s health care plan, they trot it out for show.

However, when states start doing things they don’t like, the idea of states’ rights evaporates with astonishing stealth and speed. For example, under Bush, California instituted medicinal marijuana laws, but the Republican-led government overruled that and made a very overt point of enforcing the federal statutes in that regard. The same went for a right-to-die law in Oregon, which Bush attempted to override with federal drug laws. In short, the right wing doesn’t give a rat’s ass about “states’ rights,” they only care about their agenda, and “states’ rights” is an appealing election-year slogan that sounds good–but means only what they want it to mean, when they want it to mean it.

“Nullification” is beginning to see a revival, as is one of its historical champions, John C. Calhoun, who is not the most fantastic of icons to posit, considering that he also called slavery a “positive good,” and the issue of nullification was related to the South’s rebellion against the North on the basis of the states’ right to maintain the practice even if the federal government were to outlaw it.

Furthermore, they apparently were not aware that Calhoun later emigrated to the planet Beta III and started a idyllo-fascist society of Zombies under the alter-ego brand of “Landru.”

John C. Calhoun, a.k.a. “Landru”

Ok, all kidding aside, Calhoun still isn’t the best of role models here. But we are currently in a state where right-wingers are increasingly using terms like “nullification,” “secession,” and “Second Amendment solution” in regards to what are, in fact, very centrist policies of the Obama administration. This is more lynch-mob mentality than civic responsibility, more demagoguery than democracy. It is not about principle, it’s about politics.

I mean, seriously, health care? Who cares if it will save money in the long run–it’s a tax, and we have the constitutional right to pay double to insurance and pharmaceutical corporations in order to avoid paying any sort of fascist tax.

Let’s face it, this is not nullification of any unconstitutional tyranny, this is about right-wingers hating the fact that right-wingers don’t control the government any more, and so are throwing hysterical hissyfits right and left based on whatever flimsily-slapped-together rationalizations they can sell to an eagerly hateful mob.

This chart shows what is perhaps one of the most under-reported stories in D.C. today:

Remember when Democrats refused to confirm Bush’s most extreme judges, and right-wingers screamed about how the filibuster was unconstitutional, and all that crap? Yeah, I know, this is old news–the GOP is being hypocritical as hell, yet again. The filibuster was toxic and traitorous and so on, but now Republicans use it virtually all the time, breaking records year after year, so that now a 60-vote majority is virtually required for everything.

Republicans acted like confirming judicial nominees was even a more important matter, the courts were tied up and it’s the president’s right to get anyone he wants approved by the Senate, no matter what their politics, and (again) so on and so on… and now Republicans are blocking nominees like never seen before.

Right now, the Party of No is blocking pretty much anything coming down the pike–even a tax cut for small businesses, which Republicans claim is their forte, they voted against as a bloc. Health care for the heroes who worked at Ground Zero and now suffer? Screw them!

What excuses are given? The goddamned DemocRATs didn’t allow us to attach huge tax cuts to the rich and every other thing we ever wanted tacked on to these bills as amendments, they wanted to force us to vote on these issues up-or-down! After all those years WE were in power and let Democrats add as many amendm… uh, OK, well, we shut them down and treated them like they didn’t exist, but now they’re fascist bastards anyway!!!!

Stuff like this, in addition to the we-love-fat-cat-bankers, the we-love-BP, we want to give Paris Hilton billions but the jobless are lazy and don’t deserve relief, and the fact that the GOP is going even more extreme as time goes on… even with people hating incumbents this year, it is still astonishing that people cannot see who is causing the damage.

You want Congress to do something about jobs? If Republicans get more than 40 in the Senate (they won’t retake the majority, that’s for sure), then you can bet that the near-total filibuster marathon will become an all-out standstill, or worse, Democrats will start to cave and things will start to roll back to the Bush years.

They have made it clear: as long as the Democrats hold the White House and a majority, they are determined to grind D.C. to a halt and make the country fail.

What really astonishes me: the Democrats and left-leaning independents don’t see this as a clarion call to march to the polls in droves. The Stimulus, Health Care, the auto industry revived and profitable, Wall Street reform, credit card reform… all despite near-monolithic opposition from the GOP, the Democrats have managed to get through as much big-ticket legislation in two years and others get through in four or eight. If you’re a liberal, it would be hard to claim that they haven’t accomplished anything, or as much as they could have. But if you fail to get out the vote, you’ll see either nothing or a hard, sharp turn to the right.

The alternative, should the Left fail to do the right thing: Democrats scrap the filibuster. In hindsight, they clearly should have taken the GOP up on this when the “Nuclear Option” was being threatened a few years back–it would have made no difference then, but a huge difference over the past two years. And if the Democrats do toss out the filibuster, and hang on to a majority in the House and a 4- or 5-vote margin in the Senate, with the filibuster gone they could accomplish even more.

And the Republicans could not even criticize the Democrats, because they themselves vilified the procedure and came up with the whole idea of killing it off, so they would have to be silent.

Ha! Gotcha! Of course they’d be hypocritical and blast the Dems. But the Dems should have the guts to ignore them and push ahead.

The other night, Jon Stewart’s “Moment of Zen” was short and for a quick moment a head-scratcher–I wondered why it was particularly funny–but after a second of contemplation, it made me laugh out loud. It was simply this:

GLENN BECK: Mel Gibson is disturbed, and A Racist.

That should be added to the dictionary as the definitive example of “irony.”

The thing is, if Fox News is not transparently racist, then its opacity is certainly tissue-thin. Even before the selectively edited and defamatory Sherrod tape and the ginned-up Black panther revival, Fox was offensive to people of color. A statistic:

PERCENTAGE OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN VIEWERS:

20.7%CNN:
19.3%MSNBC:
  1.4%Fox News:

But it is possible that Fox is not exactly racist: it just happens that Democrats rather than Republicans address the needs of people who are downtrodden, thus making any such constituency a prime target of Fox News. I suppose that if Democrats were as overwhelmingly popular with soldiers in the military as they are with African-Americans, then soldiers would be a popular Fox target as well. They have certainly shown before that ideology comes before everything else, including love of country.

Note: an apology to those who see this post as scrambled or messy; I used the HTML5 video tag and a little CSS, and so if you use certain browsers (*#cough#* INTERNET EXPLORER 6 *#cough#*) it will probably render badly. Oops.

If it were not for the California Highway Patrol noticing that a man was driving erratically on i580, many people would probably be dead today. Byron Williams was armed to the teeth. More importantly, he was paranoid, angry as hell, and ready to kill–and Glenn Beck apparently made him that way.

We now know that Williams was on his way to kill as many people as he could at the ACLU and the Tides Center. The ACLU has been attacked everywhere, but the Tides Center? What’s that?

Most people have never heard of the organization. It’s goal is to give backing to a variety of projects, focusing on progressive initiatives with an emphasis on social justice and change. Among its projects are organizations which promote clean energy, further civil & human rights, encourage philanthropy, fight violence against women, create youth centers, making Internet service available for the poor, and other such maniacally evil schemes.

Actually, it’s a fantastic institution which has done a lot of very good work. But here’s the thing: it’s a progressive organization. And ever since the right wing set out to vilify and destroy MoveOn.org, they have realized that they can do a lot of damage to the liberal side by targeting its most productive and effective public works organizations, one by one. ACORN was simply one of their recent successes. But another target is the Tides Center. Not because they actually do bad things, but because they empower women, minorities, the poor, and the oppressed, and work to clean up business and promote Communist principles like truth, justice, fairness, and other nefarious and dubious principles.

So naturally, Glenn Beck hates them. Which is why, if you’re not a frequent Beck watcher, you probably never heard of Tides; but if you’re a Fox fan, they will definitely have been on your radar for a while recently.

Most significantly, Beck has been after them more than anyone else.

So, when this nutball from rural California sets out to shoot and kill as many people as he can gun down in the Tides Center in San Francisco, you have to wonder no longer who pointed the way.

If I were someone at the Tides Center, I would be sending lawyers to interview Williams right now, trying to get information from the guy about how Glenn Beck showed him who to target, and then start a lawsuit. It would likely fail, but it would nevertheless highlight what Fox is doing, and how irresponsibly they are endangering innocent people by driving their fringe to violence.

And if you think Fox is oblivious to what effect their hysteric harangues are having, think again. I am willing to bet good money that they know exactly what they’re doing–that it is a purpose, not an accident.

You don’t make omelets without breaking a few eggs, right?

From California:

(07-18) 17:59 PDT Oakland — A 45-year-old parolee, described by his mother as angry at left-wing politicians, opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers on an Oakland freeway early Sunday and was hit by return fire while wearing body armor, authorities said. …

[Janice Williams , the man's mother] said her son, who had been a carpenter and a cabinetmaker before his imprisonment, was angry about his unemployment and about “what’s happening to our country.”

Williams watched the news on television and was upset by “the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items,” his mother said. …

Janice Williams said she kept the guns because “eventually, I think we’re going to be caught up in a revolution.” But she said she had told her son many times that “he didn’t have to be on the front lines.”

Gee whiz, I wonder what “news” network he has been watching.

How many times do we have to see police officers shot at by right-wing loonies spurred into violence by the hysteric, crazed, wildly exaggerated extremism spouted by Fox before someone holds them responsible?

Free speech is free speech, but there is also a little thing called “incitement to violence.”

Someone remind me, during the worst days of the Bush administration, when we liberals were at our strongest fervor pitch, how many liberals snapped like this, armed to the teeth, and headed off to kill large number of people and went shooting at police officers? Because right-wingers are starting to build up the score pretty respectably on their side. Is it that liberals aren’t as predisposed to violence, or was it that the loonies on our side weren’t pushed over the edge by the “Liberal Media” as much as right wingers are today by Fox and others like them?

And, by the way, because the guy was a felon, not to mention because they won’t like the emergence of another right-wing crazed police shooter, countdown before right-wing bloggers start claiming he was really a liberal in three, two, one…

Update: According to recent news reports, Byron Williams was winding up 3 years’ probation following being released after a 6-year term for bank robbery, and has a history of violence. But the irony:

His mother, Janice Williams, said that her son, who had previously worked as a carpenter and a cabinetmaker, was angry at left-wing politicians and upset that no one would hire him because he was a parolee.

The irony, of course, is the the left-wing politicians are the sort who would pass laws making it easier for him to find a job. It’s the right wingers who tend to be more of the “throw away the key” types, and balk at anything which rings of reform or rehabilitation.

The Tea Party is currently trying to deny the perception that there is a streak of racism among its ranks. One of the more obvious clues is the classic Obama “witch doctor” sign, which the Tea Party organizers first dismissed as the work of “a few bad apples,” but later attributed to sabotage by a group called “Crash the Tea Party”–though that now-defunct (and never prevalent) group did not form until a year after the witch-doctor signs started appearing. (Though they did serve as a great excuse for the Tea Partiers to hide their extremists behind.) The problem is that there have been a good number of racist signs (not to mention Confederate flags) held up at Tea Party rallies, which neither the organizers nor the participants seem to mind at all.

This week, Mark Williams, the former chairman of and current spokesman for the Tea Party Express organization, got into trouble when answering an NAACP call to repudiate racist factions within its ranks. Instead of issuing such a repudiation, instead of even just denying that such elements existed, Mark williams thought it’d be clever to instead write a snarky fake letter from NAACP president, Benjamin Jealous, to Abraham Lincoln. The letter (now removed from his site) is as follows:

Dear Mr. Lincoln

We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the ‘tea party movement’.

The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.

And the ridiculous idea of “reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government.” What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!

The racist tea parties also demand that the government “stop the out of control spending.” Again, they directly target coloreds. That means we Coloreds would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

Sincerely

Precious Ben Jealous, Tom’s Nephew NAACP Head Colored Person

Got that? In an attempt to claim that neither he nor his group is racist, he publishes a letter claiming that the NAACP is a group of “colored people” who are lazy, shiftless parasites who live off the government dole, expecting white people to be taxed so they can buy wide screen TVs. In fact, black people like the idea of whites taking care of their needs so much, they want slavery re-instated because they don’t want to have to find jobs.

Yeah, that’s not racist at all.

Ok, shooting fish in a barrel, I know. Still, it’s kind of hard to see that and not wonder how far gone people like this are.

Keep in mind, also, that Williams not only believes that there is not a racist bone in his body, but that the NAACP is instead a whole bunch of anti-black racists. Just because someone claims or even thinks they’re not racist by no means indicates that they are not, in fact, flaming racists.

On the same day, Williams held that not only was the Tea Party not racist, but that the NAACP was; quote, “Racists have their own movement. It’s called the NAACP. ” He also took a hit at the NAACP, claiming it was racist because it is “an organization with the words ‘colored people’ in the title.”

Now, either Williams was being disingenuous, or he is woefully ignorant of recent history; at the time the organization was formed, the term was one considered a respectful replacement for the alternative–it was only after the term was abused in radically racist ways later on that it became uncivil. The name was kept for continuity, and, one might assume, as a reminder of exactly why the term fell out of use in the first place.

Williams, however, took it not only as a way to throw the accusation of racism back at the NAACP, but in his “letter to Lincoln,” he went all Rush Limbaugh and used the term excessively, as if it was OK because it was part of the name of the organization.

Williams also reiterated an excuse I have heard many times, including from commenters here, which is supposed to cover Tea Party organizers and leaders from having to take responsibility for their organization: “I am not a leader of anything. The tea party movement is a grassroots, bottom-up organization.” Interesting for an organization with chairmen, spokesmen, and highly-organized teams across the country which have combined into a federation setting up series of coordinated nationwide tours and events, issuing press releases and having leaders, spokesmen and other representatives make endless television appearances. But they’re not organized! And have no leaders who can make statements!

The whole “we’re just a bunch of folks who got together” meme is in part a way of claiming legitimacy via grass-roots origins (partly true), but is also used as a way to dodge responsibility. When Williams was asked to condemn racism in his group and at his rallies, he said he couldn’t because he (former chairman of and then spokesman for the Tea Party Express) was not a “leader.” He claimed, “I’ve been appointed a leader by the media apparently. Everybody who goes to a tea party is a tea party leader.”

Well, apparently this leader-less non-organization suddenly experienced some form of manifestation because the Tea Party Federation (not an organization, mind you!) kicked Williams and his Tea Party Express non-organization out of the non-organized federation of leaderless citizens, right after it (collectively, one may assume) itself accused the NAACP [PDF] of being racist for suggesting that the Tea Party has racist elements. So, I guess that by ejecting Williams and the Tea Party Express for… um… well, they didn’t say. But it’s clear it was for racism, and since the Tea Party has no racism, and they’re ejecting Williams and his group for (apparently) being racist, that means that the Tea Party Federation must be racist!!!

So we are to believe that the Tea Party movement, since it is not an organization and has no leadership, is incapable of making official statements or censuring its out-of-control fringes–even though it has just done exactly that, within a few days of the events that prompted such action.

Fact is, there has always been structure, they have always had leaders, and currently they have lots of spokesmen and representatives, and have always been capable of making statement and taking stands.

They’ve just been too afraid of alienating the mass of their membership by doing so. Until now, as Williams pretty clearly crossed a line, and being a leader and spokesman, could not be dismissed as “someone in the back of the crowd.”

William’s response to being booted? Get this: “That careless individual tea partier who assumed the mantel of ‘leadership’ did so long enough to turn a critical and serious movement and delicate peace with skeptical groups into a World Wrestling style personality conflict with me at the center.” So, the Tea Party Federation is in fact not an organization, and despite the federation’s spokesman issuing a press release from the federation’s web site after an organization vote was taken to approve the action, it was actually just one self-anointed, attention-seeking non-leader.

Somehow, I don’t think this whole “we’re just an unorganized crowd of folks” thingy isn’t working out for them so well in the long run.

But by all means, do please keep going. You’ve already practically handed Harry Reid his re-election (not that I think he’s the most capable Senate leader by a far cry), have caused Democrats to win safe conservative seats here and there, and stand as the best chance for Democrats to stem the loss of seats in the midterms after winning the White House.

Three years ago today, I asked this question concerning the right-wing assertion that it was highly improper to criticize a president while we had troops in the field, with my own short answer:

Let’s say that a Democratic candidate wins the 2008 election, and, for a while at least, we still have soldiers on the ground in Iraq. Will Republicans lay off criticizing the president, especially on war issues, during that time?

No, I don’t think so either.

Couldn’t have called that one more right, could I have? Of course, it was a no-brainer–anyone not completely fooling themselves could have answered that spot-on. Right-wing hypocrisy is one of the true constants in the world.

If anything, the question was far too mild; while the hypocrisy was a given, it was just as sure that no one could guess the degree. In the prediction above, substitute “lay off criticizing the president” with “refrain from hysterically vehement attacks on the president, calling him a communist, fascist foreign usurper and a traitor to America,” and you’re closer. But who would have guessed such bizarrely self-contradictory drivel would have been spoken aloud, much less used as the central themes in a consistent barrage of smears aimed at the president of the United States?

But I guess if you’re an American patriot who supports the troops and puts country first, then you gotta have priorities.

Liz Cheney tries to revive the 1990’s mindset where every single imagined impropriety, no matter how frivolous or unsupported, merited an independent prosecutor:

Look, I think there are some things that clearly rise to the level of needing independent investigation. And what you have had happen here, obviously is the White House put out a statement the Friday before Memorial Day announcing Bill Clinton was involved, which I’m sure was really not that reassuring to most Americans. There is not an impeccable record of integrity there on the part of the former president. Secondly, then you have Rahm Emanuel basically have his own lawyer, the White House counsel issue a statement saying ‘Hey, this is all fine, we’re good to go,’ with no analysis whatsoever. Clearly, you need somebody to come in and take a look at exactly what happened.

Hey, Clinton himself was involved–that’s reason enough for an investigator right there!

What Cheney is talking about is the fact that the Obama administration offered Joe Sestak a White House position in exchange for him not running against Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. Scandal!! Lawbreaking!! Why, no one has done that, except for perhaps every other single president in U.S. history!!

It’s not surprising that wingnuts want to smear Obama with something, it’s the sheer ridiculousness of their choice of vehicles. The offer Obama made is the same kind of political horse-trading that goes on every day in Washington, and is not even considered unethical by the more conspiratorially-minded. Even the Bush administration ethics lawyer said there’s no “there” there.

But Cheney seems to think that by singling out Clinton as a “cut out,” she can get an actual investigation started:

There is a lot here that just smells funny. If the White House thought what they were doing above board why did they go to Bill Clinton? Why did they need a cut-out for whatever they were doing? I want to know what he offered. I want to know what the president knew. The president said he didn’t know. I find it really hard to believe that the chief of staff would go to the former president to get him to try and get somebody out of the race without telling the president. And finally, this is very reminiscent of the campaign finance scandals back in the mid-’90s when they were selling the Lincoln bedroom. So I think the American people have a right to know here. We have Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel back engaged in this exactly what happened? Were any laws broken? Was an offer made?

Yes. Let’s not even think of investigating the massive, illegal warrantless wiretapping, or the near-infinite graft during the Iraq War in which billions simply vanished; let’s not have an investigator looking into Halliburton or the no-bid contracts, or the collusive policy-writing by oil company executives. And it’s traitorous to ask for an investigation of torture, or of the abandonment of national security leading up to 9/11.

No, let’s start a huge investigation because of an unsuccessful attempt at mundane, garden-variety political deals which cost nothing, harmed no one, and which happen all the time and nobody gives a rat’s ass about.

Ironically, if anything, Cheney’s blathering actually validates Obama’s ethics: if this is the worst someone like her can think of to charge Obama with, he must be pretty damned squeaky clean.

The conservative majority on the Texas state school board is pushing through a set of changes to History and Social Studies textbooks which present a view of these subjects more in line with politicized, right-wing thinking. The school board, made up of ten Republicans and five Democrats, is dominated by a conservative Christian bloc. None on the school board are experts in the field of History or Social Sciences, and have rejected the opinions given by those who are experts in those fields. The board is not interested in making changes across the board, but instead only in fields which have a political bearing. The changes reflect a definite bias toward conservative Christian biases. Therefore, it is blindingly clear that this is not a debate over balanced education, but rather the desire to dominate the education of children with political views rather than objective information.

Should you think this is exaggeration, then consider this board member as an example:

Board member Cynthia Dunbar, a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School and author of a book declaring that America’s founders created a theocratic government, opened the final board session with a prayer for “a Christian land governed by Christian principles.” She explained the ideology driving curriculum changes: “[N]o one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses. Whether we look to the first charter of Virginia, or the charter of New England … the same objective is present — a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”

Well, I’m glad the board members have no preconceived notions.

This will affect more than Texas: since so many textbooks are made for Texas’ large population, textbook publishers often apply these changes nationwide. This fact is not lost on the school board, the conservative members of which have obviously taken the cue from national conservative leaders and gone whole-hog with the now-popular out-and-out divisive wingnut strategy. That strategy is to claim a liberal bias which, if it exists, is mild, and “counter” it with such an outrageously one-sided bag of rabid right-wing polemics as to make one gag.

Among the proposed changes:

• increased emphasis on the ideas of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis;
• increased attention to Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich;
• new entries on the NRA and Phyllis Schlafly, replacing removed entries on Kennedy and César Chávez;
• requirements to study right-wing personalities such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, but no requirements to study left-wing commentators;
• critical analyses of “unintended consequences” of Title IX, affirmative action, and the Great Society;
• change in terms used–e.g., “capitalism” changed to “free enterprise,” “imperialism” where applied to the U.S. will be called “expansionism,” and references to a “democratic” society are replaced with references to a “republic”–not because of the meaning of the words, but instead because of their connections to political parties;
• slavery de-emphasized as a factor in the causes of the Civil War;
• “slave trade” now referred to as the “triangle trade”;
• insertion of critical analyses of Social Security and Medicare in the context of conservative critiques;
• increased scrutiny of the idea of separation of church and state;
• Thomas Jefferson’s role in U.S. history to be de-emphasized, while the roles of Christian personages such as John Calvin to be more prominent;
• lessons framing the United Nations as detrimental to U.S. sovereignty;
• watered-down coverage of the Civil Rights movement;
• insertion of lessons regarding causes and key organizations of the conservative movement, including the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority;
• major political ideas examined under the paradigm of “Laws of nature and nature’s God”;
• the image of Joe McCarthy will be cleaned up; and
• where President Obama will be mentioned, he will be referred to, unlike all other modern presidents, by his full name–Barack Hussein Obama.

Well, these are hardly political at all, wouldn’t you agree?

All of this, of course, is supposedly to “remove the liberal bias” from existing education standards. In short, to counter what is claimed to be a perceived liberal bias, make the whole shebang blindingly conservative, knowing that the nation will tilt toward you.

Welcome to Fox Education.

Something I’m hearing a lot is people excusing Republicans for the Arizona immigration law because a few Republicans are speaking out against it. For example, take this diversion by Jake Tapper from This Week:

To be fair, to conservatives, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a conservative Republican, and Florida Congressman Connie Mack have had some tough words about parts of this law … these are conservative Republicans, nobody would question Bob McDonnell’s bona fides as a conservative, and they are voicing serious concern about those laws.

Tapper, who leans to the right himself, said this as the conservatives at the table nodded sagely and voiced assent. But the whole claim is BS, frankly. Think about it: if a Democratic legislature in a Democratic state passed a bill banning guns, and a Democratic governor signed it into law while a large majority of Democrats across the country approved, would conservatives agree that Democrats were not responsible just because Brian Schweitzer and Jim Webb spoke out against it? Please.

Republicans thought up this law. They passed it, against a solid wall of Democratic votes. A Republican governor signed it. 75% of Republicans who have heard of the law approve of it, and are the only ones I hear defending it. That there are a few right-wingers who see the true ramifications of the law and object hardly make this not a Republican matter. This may be the right wing of the Republican Party, but it is the Republican Party which produced it, and most Republicans approve of it.

What we’re seeing is Republicans trying to disavow the more radical actions of what is frankly the majority of their party while not really doing anything to stop or reverse those actions, so they can appeal to a broader base and not be taken to account for what the party is as a whole. Good midterm election strategy, but not the truth.

Bill Maher, in that same round table discussion, made a few excellent points about the racism inherent in the law. Imagine a law, maybe based on militia activity, that would pressure the police to pull over white males in pickup trucks indiscriminately, asking them for their papers and jailing them if they fail to produce. Like they’d be OK with that, wouldn’t scream “reverse racism” or some government plot to oppress them, and create widely-believed conspiracy theories about Obama and this is what happens when you put a black guy in the White House. The Tea Party crowd would be in an uproar about that, unlike now, when we’re not hearing a peep out of most of them. No, only when it’s people of another color whose rights are trampled when 3 out of 4 of in the party as a whole give hearty applause. As Maher pointed out, if the large masses of hysterical, gun-toting radicals calling for government overthrow were almost all black, you think they would be treated like the teabaggers are? Would Fox News be organizing for them and upholding their Second Amendment rights? Hell no.

But, remember: IOKIYAR. And being white helps a lot. Not that the two are different data sets, mostly.

Boy, that brings back memories. Back in the 1980’s, it was very common for the police here in Japan to stop you and ask for your papers just for being non-Japanese while walking down the street. Happened to me a lot. And if you were caught without your papers (in those days, it was a paper booklet too big to fit in your wallet; today, it’s a credit-card-sized ID), then they would haul your ass down to the station. They would make you wait there until your papers could be produced. And if you were unlucky enough not to have someone to do it for you, they would take your keys and do it themselves, presumably searching your apartment for whatever they wanted in the process. And however you acquired your papers in the end, you would then be required to write a long and sincere letter of apology to the police (commonly referred to as the “gomen nasai”, or “I’m sorry” letter), explaining your grievous error and promising never to do so again. Presumably so that it they did catch you again, they could wave it in front of your face.

There were stories from people who got stopped by police in aggravating circumstances. A famous example was for a foreign resident of Japan to be on the street and see the bosozoku hot-rodders zig-zag down the street, violating half a dozen laws, like not wearing helmets, having illegal passengers, violating noise ordinances, having illegal modifications to the bikes, speeding, and running stop signs and traffic lights–but the local cop would ignore them and ask the foreigner for his papers. And while the police never needed a reason to stop you, riding a bicycle was always golden–they would simply accuse you of stealing the bicycle. This happened to me at least a half dozen times, once with a group of cops and a squad car deployed to check me out (while Japanese passers-by got a strong-yet-bogus reason to believe the stereotypes of foreigners being criminals). I was stopped maybe as many times on foot as well. Only once I can think of right now did I not have my gaijin card in such a circumstance, but I was lucky enough that the cop allowed me to walk the 100 feet to my residence to produce the ID–maybe the leniency was because I was coming back from the local bath house and was dressed in a yukata (kimono-styled robe), and so he understood why I might not have my ID on me.

One reason this was more prevalent back in the 80’s was because international tensions were worse back then, and anti-foreigner sentiment was at a peak. Also, Japan is rather notorious for being less civil-rights friendly than most industrialized countries, with police being able to incarcerate you without charges for several weeks, even extending that by releasing you and then immediately taking you back into custody. People held such have been known to suffer interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation and even physical assault which leaves little visible evidence, and false confessions are believed to be widespread.

The irony here is that Japan has eased up in recent years, and this kind of checking is rare nowadays in Japan–but looks like the U.S. might be picking up the mantle for most foreigner-unfriendly industrialized country. Of course, it’s very different in the U.S.–they will stop people who are potentially citizens, not just legal immigrants, who could also be jailed for not carrying their ID with them.

The best way to fight what we’re seeing in Arizona is what we’re seeing happen: economic boycotts. The public scorn is good too, but stop doing business with them, and they’ll reconsider right quick. Hopefully, in a year, this will be nothing more than an embarrassing footnote.

Postscript: I also should voice my agreement (again) with the sentiment: when is the Tea Party movement (not just a few individuals in it) going to lash out against the Arizona law which violates their stated core beliefs in the most outrageous manner yet seen? And if they aren’t, then why not? The answer is evident, of course, but one would like to hear them come up with some BS excuse.

The Bush administration thoroughly attacked the Constitutional rights of all Americans. They virtually killed off the 4th amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That administration essentially made it legal for the U.S. government to invade your privacy–your person, house, papers, and effects–without a warrant, without probable cause, without even a specific location and without anything more than a general category of what is to be searched for. After stacking the Supreme Court with justices just waiting for an excuse to place their stamp of approval on such practices.

And the Fourth Amendment wasn’t the only one shredded. You can be arrested without being informed of the charges and swept away to a foreign land without counsel–there went the Sixth Amendment–to be held without due process, and you can be tortured so as to testify against yourself–there went the Fifth and Eighth Amendments–and can be locked up for years without a trial, and never get a jury trial–there went the Seventh. That these rights are not violated daily against all citizens is moot; the foot is in the door, the camel’s nose is under the tent flap, and the precedent is set.

So it flabbergasts me when I see right-wingers going berserk about how the Obama administration is somehow responsible for depriving them of their rights, seemingly oblivious as to what went on under Bush, as if his bolstering of the Second Amendment made up for stripping most of the rest. Sure, the Obama administration gets the blame for perpetuating many of these practices, but the Republicans are the ones who did the damage, and the point is that once the damage is done, it almost never gets undone. Even more to the point, the right-wing protesters don’t even seem to be protesting the actual deprivation of Constitutional rights that Bush committed and Obama is being soft about, but instead they are outraged by some imagined theft of rights that Obama hasn’t even come close to perpetrating.

Consider Arizona: Republicans in control of the state senate just passed a bill which would allow police in the state to stop people just for looking like they’re not legal citizens, demand to see one’s “papers” like they were Gestapo or Soviet state police, and if you don’t have them, haul your ass off to jail. This is exactly the kind of crap that the Tea Party crowd imagines Obama is pulling and get outraged about it–but it’s the Republicans in Arizona doing it, along party lines (all Democrats opposed it and only one Republican joined them). The paradox is that the Teabaggers will probably love this because they imagine it will never apply to them–so it’s OK to violate the rights of Americans of color, even as it whittles away at the rights of everyone. It’s “no government-run health care and don’t touch my Medicare” all over again.

The stupidity dazzles, the irony blinds. Welcome to the Tea Party™.