Tag: freedom

Core liberal values

Freedom of (and from) religion is a core liberal value.  There are good reasons why core liberal values are fundamentally American values embodied in our Constitution deriving directly from Enlightenment philosophy.  The following anti-rational, blindly racist and stupidly insular sentiment (emotional outburst?) common to current right wing “thinking” is decidedly anti- or counter-Enlightenment in its expression on so many levels as to be automatically revolting to a modern, liberal mind:

“Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11”

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Liberalism defines modernity.  The exact specification of liberalism will vary between taxonomists, but some very general themes emerge from a period of time designated as the Enlightenment.

The Slaves’ Rebellion and Revelation



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How? That was always the question. How might the slaves rebel against their servitude and chains. How do people powerless and oppressed rise up against their Owners who have all manner of control available to them? The Owners had the power over access to food, water, shelter and safety. They had the Law established to protect them from the ambition of slaves to be free. Property was power and only owners could own. Slaves had to rent from the owners with the pittance of their slave wages. It wasn’t called Slavery, as it was a PR problem, so they called it Freedom.

But of course, it was the opposite of freedom. A society of owners and the owned.

Defense of the Realm:

This report about the Brits and their long history of military service and history, and want to dominate others in many cases, is a mirror into our own National Security and National Defense as these two occupations have stretched beyond the limits many issues connected to both.

We gave those that developed the hatreds from our long running World Policies towards them exactly what they wanted, that’s Guerrilla Insurgency, only on a world scale and fought with criminal terror from all involved.

The United States of Amnesia

It is nowhere written that the American empire goes on forever.

–Eugene Jarecki

Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki’s shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.

He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning “military industrial complex,” foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.



“Why We Fight”

99 minutes

The Swiss Minaret Vote – Now that some of the dust has settled…

As probably everyone has heard by now, the Swiss sovereign voted by about 57% of the popular vote and the assent of 22 of the 26 full and half-cantons (States) to write into our Constitution that the construction of new minarets is banned, and this despite opposition to this People’s Party-supported initiative from the government, from parliament, from all parties (except the People’s Party and the fringe Protestant Democratic Party), the unions, the churches, industry, banking – pretty much every establishmentarian institution.

I’m not happy about the ban – it was a pointless affront to a section of our population.  Swiss zoning laws are arbitrary and byzantine enough to stop virtually anything if the local population put their mind to it, so the ban was not necessary.  True, a minaret is not essential for a mosque, but it’s only the conservative fringe like the Wahhabis who are actually opposed to it.  The call of the muezzin is banned anyway (not consistent with noise regulations- and it would be drowned out by church bells).

The vote was in some elements misdirected, but in others it spoke to legitimate concerns.  Popular votes are a rum thing, and you’re only given the option of voting “yes” or “no”, there is no possibility of a nuanced response.  But I certainly don’t think it is any “crisis of democracy”, or “failure” of anything except the failure of the political elites to deal with the issues that led to the “yes” vote.  

On Giving Thanks The European Way, Or, Freedom: It’s The New Black!

I have a Thanksgiving story for your consumption that has nothing to do with turkeys or pumpkin pie or crazy uncles.

Instead, in an effort to remind you what this holiday can really stand for, we’ll meet some people who are thankful today for simply being free.

It’s a short story today, but an especially touching one, so follow along and we’ll take a little hop across the Atlantic for a trip you should not miss.

Dear Women and LGBT Americans, Please raise HELL and ROAR LOUDER!

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    This will be a short diary, because it is not about what I think, but about what you think, dear Women and LGBT Americans. Really, the title and diary is also intended for Latino Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Muslim Americans, beasically anyone and everyone who is having their equal rights denied has a stake in this fight, and everyone else who considers themselves a freedom loving American should be fighting for EVERYONE’S rights, not jjust their own.

     So I am asking, nay, begging that American Women, LGBT Americans and everyone else who values EQUALITY and Equal rights to RAISE HELL over the current sorry state of civil rights in America, and I’m asking you to not stop until you have gotten what our founding fathers and so many after them  have fought and died for, EQUAL RIGHTS.

    More below the fold, and a call to action.

Joe Wilson waxes Palinesque against Net Neutrality, invokes 9/11, Iraq and Iran

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Yesterday, South Carolina Congressman Joe “YOU LIE” Wilson gave a speech condemning Health Care Reform as a “Greater Control” on American lives. The video can be seen here, but the main event is below the fold.

      Fear mongering over health care reform is nothing new for Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC02), but the speech he gave on the House floor a few days ago that was mocked by Jon Stewart should stand in the Wingnut Hall of Fame of insane, disconnected rants that have nothing at all to do with the reality of the issues being discussed.

    It is, in a word, Palinesque.

    More below the fold.

stray freedom thoughts

So much effort extended here lately writing about how to free ourselves from tyranny.

That makes me happy, because a blog where that does not happen, is a blog full of frightened people who fear to bring up the subject, especially if it comes too close.

Yell louder! indeed.

Okay, now that we’ve done that, for this round; here we are. I really like it that we can just do that, and then here we are. No big repercussions.

We don’t get killed by yelling, we are still extant. We don’t go away when we yell louder.

It makes us stronger, being able to do that. It’s like engaging in calisthenics.

Well, not really. Bad simile, really. But this really is what freedom is about, being able to yell louder, without worrying that one will be taken away.

Anybody been taken away here lately?

I hope not. My plate is overfull, far as people being taken away goes.

Miep

On Bannings and Losing Your 1st Amendment rights of speech and assembly

Recently a good friend here on teh toobz was banned from public discourse in a private setting, a limitation of his personal freedom of speech in a private place. Though he was offered reinstatement, he refused it on principle. He stood by his perinciple. He defended his freedom.

   Personally, I think the whole situation sucks.

But MUCH BIGGER than that was the Police State RIOT SQUADS brutal response to PROPERTY DAMAGE in Pittsburgh, PA this weekend, when protestors without Government permission to exercisize.

   This is my point.

   If you have to ASK PERMISSION to use your rights, you never really had that right in the first place.

We the Lobbyists of the United States …

We the Lobbyists of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Profit, establish Pay-to-Play, ignore domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Media, promote the general lack of Welfare, and secure the Extractions of Payments to ourselves and our Clients, do now usurp and re-establish this Constitution for the United Elites of America.

HONORING THE FALLEN: US Military KIA, Iraq & Afghanistan/Pakistan – June 2009

Dover ‘Old Guard’



Dover ‘Old Guard’ team shoulders heavy burden

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