While I do not agree with Pam Geller on everything she says, she has a right to say it. And she is right on saying that if the “trigger is so short” that jihadists object to a cartoon, they will attack on any perceived provocation. In other words, as I see it, they will attack. They will find reasons to attack. Period.
ISIS’s agenda is to attack anyone.
It is sometimes difficult to avoid an emotional response. But I am trying to stay rational. I don’t agree with Westboro, or their tactics, but they do have the right to say it. I don’t agree with the pseudo-cons, but they have a right to say it. I might wish they would shut up, but that doesn’t mean anything.
However… I am beginning to wonder if it would be a good idea to limit religious speech in politics. I’m tired of different Christian groups, each trying to force their perspective of Christianity onto me and legislation. I am tired of some Jewish groups trying to do that same. And then the Islamists.
The “separation of church and state” has become grossly exaggerated and twisted over the years. It simply states that the government won’t establish a state religion (other than bureaucracy, I suppose). Then again, perhaps people should be required to specify if their speech is an opinion or fact. But I’ve seen a number of evangelistas insist that their faith, or the words in their version of the Bible, are “fact”.
What’s the difference? Both statements of opinion and fact are protected. Opinion more so, actually, since you can be civilly liable for promoting something as fact that turns out to be false (e.g. defamation), but not for having an opinion which people do not like.
I suppose what I am saying is similar to what David Weber proposed: we need just as much “freedom from” as “freedom to”. Free speech should not be an excuse to force others to subscribe to the dictates of a religion that they do not follow themselves.
Yes, I know the strawman buggaboo of “well, what about people who don’t believe murder is wrong.” There’s nothing like backing up a logical fallacy with a logical fallacy, I suppose. Laws should be based on rational arguments, not knee-jerk emotional appeals and the gnashing of teeth.
The levels they are going to now, Environmentalism and some forms of humanitarianism have reached religion status. I’ve seen tons of things done “For the Environment” or “For the people” that have the opposite effect desired, but those things are done because that’s what you are supposed to do.
You give food and clothing to Africa (Make sacrifices to your God) to make you feel better and hope that they like you and bad things stop happening (The Sun rises/storm passes/spring comes/lepers go away).
If a spotted owl is found, you stop what everyone is doing, spend money researching the whole issue (Tithe to the priesthood), change the plan so something worse happens without worrying about it because saving the owl is enough. And then you go buy carbon credits (Get an indulgence)
The modern environmental movement is like the Catholic Church hundreds of years ago.
Oh, gee, SFPD officers stealing, breaking search and seizure laws, acting racist, sexist, and anti-gay, and generally just disrespectful of the poor in the city?
Yep. Free speech. And if somebody takes exception to him circulating such a petition, we’d have the “religious freedom” argument all over again, with every snake-oil preacher in the country bemoaning how the “extremists” are attacking Christianity.
This is not a free speech issue. This is deliberately, maliciously inciting the general public to commit multiple, horrific murder, which this man knows is illegal, and is also against the Constitution… How this man has not been disbarred is beyond me.
I can see part of his scheme, however. If Harris is forced to issue a title and summary, she (and probably the State) becomes an accessory to his crime. He can then sit back and force them to defend themselves, while he does nothing. And they could be forced to defend him as well, unless a court agrees to allow them to sever the case into separate trials (which is very rare, if memory serves).
It would be mildly interesting to compare the reactions of each of the states’ governments to this same suggested referendum.
Oh, the other part of his scheme is this “I will force you to put the referendum on the ballot without having to gather the needed signatures.” By forcing the Attorney General to refuse an illegal and unConstitutional proposal, he then sets her up for this “or else” ultimatum. Once again, this part is also illegal and counter to the state Constitution.
Frankly, I’d issue the title and summary, making sure both mention “unconstitutional and illegal”. He won’t gather many signatures, and when (not if) he sues over the language of the title and summary, he has to prove that his proposal is neither.
Come to think of it, this proposal also violates the common interpretation of “separation of church and state”, by tacitly establishing one religion over others.
Yeah, allowing people who are in the country illegally, and possibly giving them favorable treatment while we are downsizing the military is stupid. If there is any job in America that should favor actual Americans, it’s the military.
And to put my tinfoil hat back on for a moment. They aren’t fucking citizens, they are here illegally, and you want to put them in the very thing that’s supposed to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic? Who are they, where are they from, what are their motives? I know that joining the military has been a route to citizenship for ages, and I knew several people who did that, but they were here legally in the first place.
It’s not like we’re facing a shortage of citizens that want to pull a citizen’s duty right now.
Very sobering infographic, based ona report made to Congress.
It wouldn’t cost $6M to house 37 homeless for 10 years, even counting food, utilities, and health care.
Meanwhile, here in SF, the estimated number of housing units taken off the market and left vacant are nearly double the current estimate of homeless people, and that’s expected to sky-rocket as landlords turn to outfits like AirBnB to reap larger profits.
I would create more homeless as people decided to check out for the free ride. You get more of what you subsidize. How about if they identify those 37 people and stop arresting them for bullshit, then it costs nothing.
And you would do what? Force them to rent to homeless people? Take the property from them and disperse as you see fit?
Yeah, not so much. Again, it’s not the GOP that’s running a bunch of old white people. If a Log Cabin candidate runs the Democrats won’t even know how to campaign.
The results of many different programs say otherwise. The infographic came from an article about Utah’s program, which has moved many homeless off the street and into jobs or job training programs. Quite a few programs across the country are having the same effect. Unfortunately, “quite a few” isn’t as wide-spread as it might sound. Too many communities continue to treat the homeless as criminals, regardless of their actual behavior.
No, I would do better than that. I would remove their ability to claim any kind of deduction for those units, and prohibit the landlords from seeking any equity credit or grants, for any property in their name or in the name of an organization of which they are an owner, shareholder, member, employee or beneficiary.
While that wound seem a bit over-the-top, you would be amazed at how many rental units in the area are owned by “corporations” or “agencies” that are set-up solely to shield the property owners from taxes, laws, etc.
And yeah, that means that the law firm that employs John, who took his rental units off the market in hopes of driving the price up, from getting a bricks-and-mortar loan to build a new office building. Gee. Shucks. Darn.
There’s no such thing. There has never been a Log Cabin candidate. The Log Cabin Republicans were founded as an organization to support the GOP. Advocating for gay rights has never been their mission, as indicated on who they have endorsed in every election to date. They will never, ever have a candidate of their own. Period.
Didn’t say anything about advocating for gay rights. Doesn’t mean they can’t have a candidate.
I don’t understand why you would do this. Punish property owners for acting like they own their own property in order to force them to take prices lower than they would like for their goods. If there are so many penalties for property ownership that people are going to such extremes to avoid it then maybe the whole system needs to be looked at. The propery owners never pay those anyway, they are just passed along to the renter.
I wonder out of that 37 how long they’d been homeless. Do these programs get chronic homeless people off the streets? Is this like some of the prison programs that show good returns in the short term, but lose all effect beyond the reporting period?
My 2 cents on forcing property owners to rent to ‘homeless’ people:
I own a rental property. I took a lot of care and did thorough background checks on the people who applied to live in my rental property. I am renting the property for about $500-$800/month less than I could get if I rented it to a group of homeless people through the local COTS program, but I know that my renters will take care of my property, and that it will be in decent shape when they move out.
There is a house across the street from my rental property that is being rented by COTS for the housing of homeless people, and there have been many complaints about the tenants. They are destructive, they litter, they’re loud, they do drugs, they park in the neighbours’ parking spaces and swear at the neighbours when they ask them to move to give some examples.
Looking at the choice between the two types of renters, I’ll take the ones that pass the background and credit checks, thank you.
So throughout the worst of the debt crisis, “too big to fail” banks were manipulating the foreign exchange market. The market that sets the exchange rates of currencies. The exchange rates that caused devaluation of currency across the board, leading to crippling debt and a recession.
Can we please stop pretending that “bailing them out” was helpful to the economy? Because it has become apparent that bailout wasn’t necessary at all.
Part of the issue, the other part was the no job no income loans required to up the minority ownership of homes started by Clinton’s administration. Then the repackaging of those loans as AAA investments. Oddly enough, now that the home market is finally turning around the feds started pushing the banks a to loan to people more equitably based on their race and gender and less on whether or not they can afford the payment.
They should have let the banks fall, I read several articles predicting that allowing the banks to fail would have saved more middle class jobs and caused more executives to lose their jobs. It’s not like the buildings would be empty, someone would have bought most of the pieces and put things back together. And without the bailout GM and at least a couple more of the majors would have died, at least for a month or two. Might have problem selling Saab, but someone would have jumped at Chevrolet.
I’m not posting this because Clinton is wrong, I’m posting it because that line, whoever uses it, always sounds wrong.
There’s something wrong when the average American CEO makes 300 times more than the typical American worker.
In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there were 246,240 chief executives in the U.S. in May 2014 (a little less than 1 percent of all workers). The median annual wage of those executives was $173,320 (the average wage was $180,700). That’s a little less than five times the median annual wage for all workers, including chief executives, which was $35,540 then. (The ratio is closer to 4-to-1 if comparing the average wage of CEOs to the average wage of all workers, $47,230.)
A 4-1, or even 5 or 6 to one ratio sounds a lot more reasonable. And certainly arguable as deserved, especially when a lot of those are owner/operators. At a huge company you end up with tens of thousands of people making much smaller amount of money, which drives the average down, and the CEO can make or lose millions on a small decision, 300 times might be worth it if they make the company a billion dollars on a good deal. I don’t think golden parachutes should be as common as they are, and companies need to be smarter with their performance guarantees.
