Exhaling Out the Last Four Years

I feel lighter than I have in…four years. And I’m trying to be ready to just dismiss all the conspiracy theorist, Cult 45 nutbags, and stop allowing them to bait me, to stop trying engage them with logic they clearly don’t care about. Because for the next four years at least, I no longer HAVE to acknowledge them. They can scream their displeasure into the void for all I care. That said…

I keep seeing comments and posts from conservatives, Trumpers specifically, talking about all the awful hateful things they hope for Biden voters now, how they hope we lose our pensions or our homes, or whatever, now that Biden’s in office. These are the same people that expected us to accept Trump as president. They spent four years calling us snowflakes, libtards, and saying fuck our feelings. But as shortly as a few days, ago after the attack at the Capitol, many of them were calling for unity, and yet now I’ve already seen the phrase “not my president” in regards to Biden. The thing about Biden is, you don’t have to like him, but he’s not going to waste 4 years of his presidency trying to only help himself, trying to rile up his base, or pad his pockets and the pockets of his lobbyist friends. Biden’s going to implement programs that are going to benefit the environment, education, international policy, and everybody, Democrat and Republican alike, and try to undo some of the damage Trump has done to our country and its reputation in the world stage. But the fact that there is so many supposedly grown ass self-proclaimed Christian adults walking around telling people that they wish bad things for them is disgusting, and it’s ubiquitous. I’ll admit, I initially felt that way when Trump got elected. I was angry, but NOT because he was a Republican. It was his character, or lack thereof, because I knew what it would mean for the US, specifically minorities, if he got elected. And here four years later we’re ALL reaping what Trump voters sowed.

But honestly, I’m just glad that he’s finally gone, and I want all of us to move forward and benefit from Biden’s tenure. The worst part is no matter what good Biden does in office, these people will never see it, because they’ve never been capable of admitting the damage that Trump did. You know what I wish? Now the only people I wish to suffer for what happened the last four years are Trump and his predatory enablers in Congress. And what I want for them is ACCOUNTABILITY with the law, in full view of the public. I want accountability for the media that fed lies that encouraged and resulted in the capital insurrection. Finally I suggest if you have any friends that are saying hateful things like this that you reevaluate your friendship with them, because clearly they’re bitter and mean spirited. It’s highly probable that after they cool off in a few weeks or months they might go back to being the semi-normal people you thought you knew and they’ll try to downplay their role in this divisiveness. I can’t speak for you but while I won’t say I wish them hardship, I sure as shit am not going to forget how they acted, and what they allowed to happen.

*Edit: I have nothing but respect for people who can grow and learn and realize when they’ve made a mistake. For anybody looking to leave hate and extremism behind, here’s a resource a friend shared with me.

https://www.lifeafterhate.org/exitusa

Us VS. Them VS. the US (a.k.a Feminism is not the Enemy)

This. I hate that “feminism” has a acquired a taint because of a few militant feminists. When people make the argument “why is it called ‘feminism’ and not ‘equalism'” (or whatever name they think is more appropriate) if it isn’t skewed towards women, it’s  because HISTORICALLY, all the rights women have now are relatively new (DUH!). We never started on equal footing, so the movement to give us the same rights men have always had probably did seem female-centric. The beginning of feminism is basically when we started sticking up for ourselves.   And a lot of rights we now enjoy, we take them for granted because we have lost touch with the women (and in some cases, probably a few men)  in our history who had to fight for us to get those rights.

It bugs me that even today, some WOMEN refuse to identify as feminist. It’s sorta sad, because it shows not only a gross misunderstanding of what feminism is, but also that in some ways, that the old social patriarchal programming is still in some ways in tact. They actually DISDAIN “feminists.” To me that’s like a mother of many, who hates kids.

And speaking of kids, what if you’re a woman who doesn’t want children, and especially not before you’ve had the chance to finish school…or go to college.

or marry the person you love instead of someone who is chosen for you by family or religion or politics…

 

Thanks to feminists, you have access to birth control.  You also have the right to divorce and leave a marriage that isn’t healthy or is not working out.

If you are assaulted, you have the right to accuse your attacker.  If you have been impregnated by a rape, you have the choice to terminate your pregnancy.

You even have this option under normal circumstances, if you are just not ready or willing to have a child…you get to make decisions about what you put your body through.  And there are people who want to take away that right, in the name of “religion” and their morality.  Personally, I don’t see anything moral about taking rights away from a living, breathing, autonomous woman, and giving them to an nonviable fetus.

The point is, as woman in America, we have access to tons of things we haven’t always historically been “allowed,” all because of feminism, and yet, sadly, in this country as of late, we are seeing a push to deliberately regress in social progress.  And not just for women, but for minority peoples, people of color, non-Christian people, immigrant people, and queer people (who are STILL fighting for all their rights.)  But all people are people, and they deserve the basic amount of respect and freedom to live their lives if they see fit.  We can NOT afford to be silent or apathetic to what is going on now.  Not to us, not to our other marginalized brothers and sisters, and not to our planet (because Mother Earth is suffering at the hands of the plutocrats too.)

I know I sound wacky, (and that’s what the people in power want you to think, because that narrative makes me the bad guy) but let’s be real… We all want comfortable lives, but more than that, we want comfort and happiness for future generations, specifically our kids.  OUR children, and America’s children.  But before we can get back to that, we have to reconcile our own fears and insecurities.  I know you’ve probably heard it before; Equality is not a pie.  There is not less for you if you share it with others.  We have to get over this competitive adversarial attitude towards our fellow Americans.  We can care about our own interests without feeling like other people need to suffer for it, but we need to start asking the right questions.

There are a handful of very powerful and rich people in the US who only want MORE.  They want to have obscene amounts of money and power- to acquire it and to grip it in a death spiral, only the death isn’t theirs…it’s ours, it’s our future’s, it’s our planet’s.   I am sure I could expound upon this all day, but I will wrap up by suggesting you watch this short non-partisan video on corruption in America.  This video not only details some of the failings in our system, but ways we can start to address them I say “non-partisan,” but my guess is the people in power see it as very partisan; Us VS Them, and they use fear and insecurity to bait us into blaming each other instead of them so they can stay in power.  But it doesn’t have to be Us VS Each Other.  It is so hard, so,so hard, when we’re surrounded by bad news and hate and strife every day. I am just as guilty as anyone of feeling angry and adversarial at times.  But I want to try to do better too.   Let’s do better together.  Blessed be.

 

Edit: 3/16  I mention American a few times in here, us needing to be unified, etc.  I’m not trying to push any sense of overblown nationalism or “America First” BS here.  It’s just that this is where I live and I feel like under this administration, we’re actively imploding as a nation.  I don’t feel like we should be at odds or ‘comparing’ and competing with hardships of anyone, including refugees, immigrants, people of other faiths, etc.  All suffering matters and I just wish the people most likely to trot out the ‘all lives matter” phrase would start SHOWING it in their actions and their voting choices.

 

“Divisive” Politics

I have a lot to say.  Well, I have a lot on my mind, especially with this latest revelation, bringing us one step closer to imminent Trump-ocalypse; a leaked audio of a deeply disturbing variety.

Just as expected, Trumps supporters are falling all over themselves trying to soft-peddle and down play what essentially amounts to Trump caught on a live mic bragging about using his social position to sexually assault women with ease and impunity.

Frankly it’s astonishing the number of people dumb enough to equate forcible sexual assault with someone’s chosen participation in leisurely kink or porn consumption.  You are making the rest of us more stupid simply by breathing our air. Go away.

It’s like I said to someone earlier today, I don’t even know how to relate to some of these people anymore.   Like, I am not trying to be a dick, but when, in the face of behavior like this, people are still making excuses, still defending this “candidate,” still insisting Hillary is “just as bad,” I just don’t know how their inner logic works.  So instead of going into all of that, trying to lay out arguments and reason with these people and understand them, I’ll just get straight to the point.

People talk about how “divisive” this election is, how divisive bipartisan politics have become, as if it’s some great conspiracy to “distract us from more important things.“

First of all, it will always BE divisive, so long as you have a group who feel that their “traditional family values” and religion should dictate legislation for EVERYONE. When you attack people on a fundamental level for who they are and threaten their identity and bodily autonomy  by forcing them to live by your “values”, it makes for “divisive” politics.  When you have a group that uses legislation to attack minorities and queer folk, penalize immigrants, citizens, atheists, Muslims, control  woman’s bodies in regards to reproductive decisions (or any decision), you are creating a very antagonistic and divisive situation.  You are attacking people’s fundamental state of being.

Now, you have a Trump, a man who has taken all of these divisive sentiments and magnified them. He disdains blacks, he disdains Mexicans, he disdains immigrants, he disdains (and abuses) women. And he’s making campaign promised based on these divisive ideas.  He is unashamed to say it! He is actually galvanizing all of the hateful people in this country, making them less afraid to be loud, self-righteous bigots .

What defense will the rest of us have from discrimination and injustice and hate if the person in our nation’s highest office can say these things with impunity?

So, yeah, this election is “divisive.”  It’s divisive as shit, and the more people who try to close their eyes and ears to the hate being heaped on the rest of us, the more divisive it’s gonna be.

The Privilege of Selfishness

Sitting safely behind your computer screen, pissed about someone sitting for an anthem, while simultaneously supporting the vote to block refugees from other countries who are just trying to escape terrorists and war…

The epitome of American and white privilege.

The other day a friend posted about an alleged Bureau of Land Management decision to slaughter over 65000 wild horses to make more room for cattle. Whether or not this is true, what struck a nerve for me (that is putting it waaaaay lightly) was the person who commented on the post bitching about how our government should be spending money to save those horses “instead of the Muslim scumbags” coming over from Syria, because the horses “actually deserve it.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

America, a “proud Christian nation.”  Does the previous comment sound like something you’d want to be associated with as an American?  Does it sound very “Christian?”  Disgusting, is what it is.  I love animals, I do, but clearly this person’s love for animals is not as strong as their hate for other people.

How very progressive…Nope. No problem here.

Bear with me, because I am coming back around to Koepernick.  You may not like how he protested, but it’s his right as an American and he isn’t hurting anyone.  I wish the same Americans pissed about a man sitting during a frickin’ song, signing petitions to get the player kicked off the team, put half as much energy into speaking out against the George Zimmermans and the Brock Turners of this nation.  Maybe some of them do, but for most of them, I doubt it.  And the rest of us who can see past our own fucking noses can’t even speak out against the Zimmermans and Turners for you without having to hear all the apologist ( and at its core, racist/sexist ) victim blaming and being called “libtards” or some other equally uninspired epithet.  The bottom line is Americans are becoming selfish (or maybe they are just more vocal about being selfish now that they have that great orange baboon’s ass for a mascot.)

photo source Union Thugs

You may not like how Koepernick protested, and that’s your right… but it’s his right, as an American, to do it, and he isn’t hurting anyone.  Unlike Brock Turner or George Zimmerman.

I suggest you people (you know who the fuck you are, because even you don’t believe your pseudo-patriotism, deep down) get your priorities straight and get your fucking head on straight.   People need to stop acting like America is the only civilized nation, the only “great” nation, because to others outside looking in, we look like a bunch of gun-toting bullies.

I’m not gonna lie.  I love the idea of America, what it represents, but right now, we are moving farther away from that ideal, not closer, and it’s only when we defend the rights of those fundamentally different from us that we realize that ideal.

Related Links:
The American Reality Vs. The American Ideal

 

*As always, please feel free to comment, but please peep the comment policy. 😉

 

 

Why Trump is not “The Lesser Evil”

To people who consider Trump “the lesser of two evils…”

Let me say this passage was initally written in response to a friend’s “reasons” for supporting Trump over Hillary.  Some of the statements address remarks that she made specifically, so, I may paraphrase some of my friend’s remarks to provide context, but I feel like even without specific context, my reactions are applicable to common reasons you hear Trump supporters express.

Here goes…

I understand you don’t trust Hillary.  I don’t 100% trust her myself.  She’s a politician, for one, and sometimes she seems sneaky.  But that said, I don’t see how Trump is the “lesser of the two evils” by any stretch of the imagination.

It just seems like Democrats want to railroad Trump, but forget every single one of Hillary’s transgressions for the last 40 years.

I think this is a gross generalization born of emotion, not fact. Democrats don’t need to railroad Trump because to us, he does a fine job himself.  Every time he opens his mouth, he betrays his bigotry, playing to other people’s hatred.

Well, what about Saul Alinsky, the child rapist that she laughed about getting off because she made the girl question her own story?  That girl was 12!

You talk about Hillary “laughing” about a man getting away with a pedophilic crime, yet you’re willing to support a man who likely commited one ? It makes no sense. At any rate, that statement is not strictly factual either. Hillary defended him, because that’s what a defense attorney’s JOB is. She did not volunteer to be the his lawyer, she was appointed. Even if she made a plea or helped get him acquitted, I doubt she found anything funny about it. She didn’t try to smear the victim, but again, as a lawyer, it is her job to question the veracity of the accuser.  Yet Republicans are willing to believe this portrait of her as a soulless advocate for a pedophile just to justify voting Trump, who may actually BE a pedophile, and has had more than one allegation of sexual assault.

What about when she called black men “Superpredators?”

The black “superpredator” thing is funny to me because it’s something Republicans seize on while simultaneously defending and making excuses for officers like the ones who murdered Alton Sterling.  Even people who claim not to be racist make apologist remarks, saying that if these black men didn’t “live the life they do” or they “weren’t criminals” they wouldn’t be dead.

Also, this statement, that was like 20 years ago. Is a person not allowed to grow in 20 years? I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, I am not the person I was in my 20’s. I was a lot more Conservative in my 20’s.  In fact, I used to be one of the those apologists. I didn’t know better. I certainly do now.

Well, what about taking money while Secretary of State for the Clinton foundation, from countries that kill gays and Christians and oppress women and then doing favors for them?

Firstly, all of a sudden, Republicans, as a party, care about gays? This is news to me.  I guess they care more when they are using them as an excuse to justify hating Hillary, than when they are trying to keep them from getting married or eating in restaurants run by Christian people.  And women.  They care about women?  The same women whose healthcare they don’t want to pay for and whose bodies they think they have the right to legislate?  Trump actually mentioned how women who get illegal abortions should be punished.  I know on the surface, it seems benign enough.  You break a law, you get punished.  Only to me it’s more akin to saving a person who attempts to commit suicide only to charge them for the “crime.”  Now you have people who continue to attempt to strip Planned Parenthood, to take away many preventative options for health and unwanted pregnancy  (options they may not personally need, so they assume no one should need them,) and then take away options for dealing with said unwanted pregnancy, all the while bitching about “supporting poor welfare bums with too many kids.”  Well, fuck those people very much.

Additionally, I wonder how many abortions Trump has personally paid for over the course of his life and how many illegitimate Trump spawn are running around out there.  Just speculating…

As to the favors to these “gay and women hating” countries, do you honestly think Hillary is the only politician that makes deals with the devil? Shit, Reagan helped fund the Taliban! Every single one of them make questionable deals, often based more on economic reasons than moral ones . Every.  One.   And Trump would be no different.

In fact he’d proabbly be worse. For me the bottom line is that Trump is inciting more violence and race hate (something the Republicans accuse Obama of again and again,) all the while voting in policies that uphold social race and sex disparities.  Some people think Trump will be good for the country because he’ll “run it like a business.” Trump is not even a good businessman, so if he ran the country like he runs his businesses, we’ll be in the toilet in short order. Nevermind the fact that a fundamental point to remember about business is that most businesses do not really care about their employees, they care about the bottom dollar. If America is run like a true business, most of us middle and low class scum (speaking of things candidates said a long time ago) are expendable assets.

I say all this as respectfully as possible, but regardless of how you feel about Hillary’s classified documents issue, the government is not pressing charges. In the case of the alleged rape of the minor (Trump), the statute of limitations for criminal charges is passed, but child rape is a crime of morality I can not overlook. If it’s a choice between a hate preaching pedo and someone who was  wreckless with classified documents , I’ll take the second. Every time.

Readers, please feel free to comment respectfully.  Trolling (especially by Conservatives :p) will not be tolerated.

See the below article for all sorts of other facts and shit…

Related Articles: (edit: added 9/17) 
The Moron’s Case For Hillary Clinton…because some of you really are that stupid.

The Bern VS Corporate Socialism

omg yasss…

Can we please start putting the blame where it belongs? Most of the poor aren’t lazy welfare bums. Being poor isn’t fun, and if some poor people “game” the system, it’s because you have to be SO poor to qualify for help that if you make a tiny bit “too much” money or you work a few extra hours to get ahead, you are actually penalized for it by losing benefits, thus you can actually still be too poor to live properly but “not poor enough” to get any help.

 

Being barely above poverty level ourselves, I can say I am extremely grateful for the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare (sorry if that pisses off some people). The poor are not the problem. The problem is not “liberals and socialists.” The problem is that the capitalism (the “innovation that made America great?”) Ayn Rand wrote about is now out of control in this country.  The American Dream is defunct.  Big businesses, including drug companies and insurance companies, charge insane markups on necessary commodities and the rest of us have no choice but to pay them or go into hock trying.  People die for not being able to afford proper healthcare.

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (Democracy, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity, and Equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adamsin 1931, “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.  (source)

It’s cute that some people still believe this is possible for everyone.  In my personal experience, it’s the put-upon white “middle class” that are the worst about this.   They aren’t rich enough to live in comfortable denial like the 1%, but they have had just enough white privilege in their lives (which they almost never acknowledge as such) to not be aware how hard it is for other people.  The crux of the issue is the last phrase… “regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.”
I say this in full realization that I, myself, was born into a white middle class.  All my life I had the idea of go to college—> get good job—> live comfortably pounded into my head.   I used to also believe that welfare was for lazy bums and Ebony magazine was “racist.”

And then I had all the self-righteousness of my twenties knocked out of me when my husband and I lost just about everything in 2009.  At the time, I had a double BS…and couldn’t find anyone willing to pay me more than eight dollars an hour, even for work related to my hard-earned degrees.  I was bouncing back and forth between waitressing jobs, but my husband was working, making great money, at a powerplant.  And then it all imploded.
I know how fast it can happen, and it can and does happen to people who work hard, “climb the social ladder,” and then get jackbooted off the ladder by some higher-up who wants to hire a newbie they can mold for half the salary.  A friend once asked me, why shouldn’t an employer want to pay someone less to do the same job?  It makes fiscal sense for their business.  Maybe it does, but that basically means also acknowledging that company loyalty and “working your way up” mean nothing, and loyalty to employees is often non-existant.

In many ways, we are moving backwards in this country.  The very unapologetic racism of Donald Trump, an actual “serious” candidate for our nation’s highest office, is evidence of that.  He has given back the voice to the bigots of this country.  Now they are still bigots, but unapologetically so, and they call the rest of us “bleeding heart liberals” and the like.  They don’t even feel the need to hide their hate anymore.  They don’t care about the poor, refugees, minorities, or anyone else that affect their bottom line or would require they no longer have the social upper-hand in this country.  Frankly, it’s embarrassing.

Anyway, I’m almost sure some angry right winger will stumble across this and want to argue, tell me I know nothing, decry my “silly liberaism.”  I really no longer care what these people have to say.  I am sick of the “whataboutme?” attitude in this country.  I am sick of the mean-spiritedness and lack of compassion and empathy.   This is me venting about it.  Please feel free to comment, just don’t expect a reply.  I haven’t the energy to argue today.  Rather, I guess now that this is out of my system, I have better things to do.

Peace.

See? We already ARE socialists…just not the right kind. 

 

The Potty Politic

Alternate Title: “In Which I Somehow Manage to Mush Politics and Some Funny Kid Shit Into One Post”

I have been hopping mad ever since this thing with Paris and a huge faction of Americans have gone on social media and essentially outed themselves as xenophobic and/or ignorant jerks in regards to the potential influx of Syrian refugees.  There have been remarks ranging from simply expressing fear of potention terrorists coming in with refugees, to callous statements of the variety of “Just blast them all and let God sort them out.” Yes, I literally saw that one somewhere.

Some people trot out the good old self-serving whataboutisms to justify denying the refugees sanctuary, like “we can’t even take care of our own homeless and veterans…”  which brings me, in a round about way, as is my usual style, to today’s little post.  In my experience, many of the people who are fond of the “homeless veterans” cliche are the same people who would vote against most social welfare programs, including those that many veterans would benefit from.  So you see, they really don’t want to take care of Syrian refugees OR our people on “their” dime. I had literally just finished complaining to my husband about this little bit of shameless hypocrisy when I left the room to retrieve something from the bathroom.

My kid says from her place on the toilet, (and I have no idea how long she has been sitting there) in her now customary sassy-like manner, “I didn’t say you could wipe me; I said Daddy could!!!”

Not to be outdone by the five year old, I counter with some sass of my own… “I didn’t come in here to wipe you anyway, so Nyya!” or some such thing…

And suddenly her tone changes and she goes plaintively, “But whhhhy?”

.  .  .

And then I call out to hubby, “Honey, we have a little republican in here!” And he’s already laughing.

 

 

House to Sue the Prez…(We the People, Still Ignored)

Talking Points Memo Headline: 

House Votes To Sue President For The First Time In History

Here’s a purely rhetorical question, because it makes too much common sense for the government to actually acknowledge the hypocrisy and give us a direct, non-convoluted answer:

WE the people– the constituents– can’t sue the government:

“Sovereign immunity has carried over to modern times in the form of a general rule that you cannot sue the government — unless the government says you can.” (source)

In the United States, the federal government has sovereign immunity and may not be sued unless it has waived its immunity or consented to suit. See Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490, 507 (D.C. Cir. 1983). The United States as a sovereign is immune from suit unless it unequivocally consents to being sued.  (Wikipedia)

Well, these douchebags would never consent to us suing the collective pants off of them, (I mean, these are the same guys who get to vote on their own paychecks)  but they can sue the President? Doesn’t he get “sovereign immunity?”  Well, Congress, especially the Republican party, has done their best to block his every move in regards to this healthcare debacle anyway.  But regardless of whether or not you support the healthcare bill, these jokers in Congress do not have best interests of the majority of their constituents in mind.  (Those interests were already bought and paid for by the lobbyists and 1%.)

I call bullshit.  I think the whole lot of them should be kicked out on their overpaid keisters.  Or maybe the President can counter-sue for Treason.  The whole congressional process is a is a fucking joke now anyhow.

*grumble grumble*  I’m going to go eat some damn ice cream now.

 

Bad Manners, Bad Meme, and Bad Grammar….

Some brilliant person has done it again…another bad meme on Facebook, and people are passing it around…

Tea Party United/faithfamilyfreedom.com

I’m not offended at all by people saying “Under God…”

I’m offended that some of them are being such assholes about trying to shove it in EVERYONE else’s faces. Yet they resent having the same thing done to them.

They will try to defend this aggressive (and grammatically challenged) piece of crap by claiming we are a “Christian nation,” and that there is a so-called “war on Christianity.”  Even if it were once true that our forefathers were Christian, it doesn’t mean things don’t change over time.  Even if one religion is a majority in a certain country, it shouldn’t mean they get to shit on other people, and this meme basically says “I don’t give a shit about your feelings, but you better recognize mine!”

But boy don’t they hate it when people do it to them… Suddenly it’s the “war on Christianity!”

And yet, you don’t see me making an aggressive meme out of my opinion or beliefs, all the while indicating that the feelings of others mean nothing to me (“You’re offended?  Too bad…”) and then prompting people to “share it.” Why does it have to be the whole nation under YOUR God?  Are you that insecure?  If you wanna believe it, fine.  You wanna include it in your pledge (it wasn’t in the original draft, by the way...)?  Go ahead.  Just stop your bullshit with trying to make everyone else do things your way.

Awww….you’re offended that not everyone in the country is Christian and therefore may object to being forced to say “Under God?”

Too bad…

A word on tolerance…

A friend of mine made an eloquent point on Facebook today (how’s that for irony; eloquence on Facebook!)

HE said:

Don’t be intolerant of my conservatism and ask me to be tolerant of your liberalism.

While I do agree with this, especially in light of the whole Phil Robertson debacle, my take on it is this:

I personally do not feel I am intolerant of conservatism, so much as I am intolerant of the almost compulsive need many conservatives  have to try to legislate their beliefs. In other words, it’s not enough for them to live by their own beliefs and rules; they want make their rules apply to everyone. I mean, for instance, if liberal policy allows gays to marry, a conservative does not need to “be gay” and/or get married if they don’t agree with it.  A liberal will not try to pass a law forcing a straight person to get “gay married.”  However, conversely, many conservatives feel the need to actually try to keep OTHERS from getting married and living the life they want…. See what I mean?

Also, as pertains to Phil, I do feel sorta bad he got fired. CQ essentially laid a trap by asking him questions to which they already knew the answer, and A & E then punished him for his honest opinion.  Personally, I think A & E has hitherto cashed in on the brash, unapologetic nature of the Robertson family, only now distancing themselves when it becomes too “controversial.”   That said, Phil should have know better.  The best answers to questions like the one he was asked are usually as short as possible.  Admittedly I do not watch the show; I’ve heard about it and had little desire to see one more reality show where people are rewarded with fame and money for acting like dicks, and Robertson’s remarks just seem to validate my decision to skip this particular show.

Open mouth, insert duck call…