No, I’m not about to break into a musical rendition from “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Instead, I’m commenting on a recent post from Juanita Jean at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc. where the topic was a recent rant by Bill O’Reilly, accusing the White House of “spitting on traditional Americans” by bathing the facade in rainbow lights after the Court ruled in Obergefell.
As Juanita Jean reminds us
Traditional Americans? As opposed to Untraditional Americans? Well, I’ll be damned, against all odds O’Reilly did in fact find another way to divide this country.
Just think, if this country had traditional people running it we would still have child labor,women without the vote, slavery, poll tax, and a helluva lot of muskets.
Exactly.
In that “traditional” America, women couldn’t enter into contracts or get credit without the consent of their fathers or husbands. Birth control was outlawed under “obscenity” statutes. Abortion for any reason was illegal. Women had no protection from sexual harassment in the workplace, and were routinely paid less than men. Gays were in firmly closed closets. Blacks “knew their place.”
It’s the passing of that “traditional” world, and the loss of those “traditional” family values that (old, white, heterosexual) men are bemoaning when they proclaim that they “want their country back.”
The next time Justice Scalia (“Get off my lawn, you whippersnappers!) goes into a tirade about the need to protect even those “traditions” that most of us now consider fundamentally unfair–“traditions” that violate important Constitutional principles of equality and autonomy–let’s think about the many ways those sacred traditions operated to cement the privileges enjoyed by un-self-aware, self-important (white, male) curmudgeons like Bill Riley and Antonin Scalia.
The most significant cementing of the ” sacred traditions” is their central place in the “MINDS OF MEN” at the deepest levels of America’s oligarchic political system. Unfortunately, those traditions are still firmly in place at that level of control.
An acquaintance was offended by the rainbow lighting on the White House walls, but
what she’s really offended by is gay marriage. “Why do they have to call it marriage”
is her lament.
Her prism is her prison. She can’t seem to break out of it.
The founding people put in “right to happiness” to oppose that anti worldly, go to heaven sentimentality that placated people who were used by the plutocracy of Europe to satisfy them as they went about the lifestyle of low wages. Jefferson, Adams and the rest wanted people in this world to be happy! I’m not anti heaven. I am anti utilization of heaven to make a hell here for others.
I suppose when one is completely focused rearward, on only the past, “traditional” is all one sees. And when one’s only goal is the power to impose on others one’s culture complete and unwavering, packaging that as religion is as good a way as any. And when one’s view of freedom is only for one’s self, at the cost of other’s freedom, one might well confuse freedom with power.
It’s way past time for Americans to reclaim America. You know, the traditional one. Forward looking, multi-cultural (remember the melting pot?), and free.
Don’t forget that Scalia has previously stated that he doesn’t think the 14th Amendment applies to women.
Bill O’Reilly, merely one of millions of disgusted Americans were right. Obama disgraced America with those idiotic rainbow lights; he directly attacked and insulted millions of Americans, including the Backbone Americans, and he embarrassed America on the world stage.
It will be difficult to see Obama as anything but America’s worst President.
Freedom sucks. As do all other cultures but most of all the future sucks. If only humanity could adapt to reality rather than being unable to even imagine it.
@Gopper
You’re funny. In the worst-devil’s-advocate-ever sort of way. If it’s intentional your act is brilliant. If not, then it’s febble. Regardless, very seldom do you fail to make me laugh. Or at least smile.
Michael, the 14th Amendment does not apply to women…or men.
The 14th Amendment solely concerns slavery. It’s disgusting what the judicial engineers have done with it in their running coup.
Gopper, soon you will be dead and it won’t matter to you. Soon (hopefully long after that, ha) I will be dead and it won’t matter to me. The average age of a Fox News viewer is 65-70 years old. I am pretty sure that in the minds of people who won’t be dead soon the memory of the worst president ever will be of a guy named W. Like it or not, your hatred dies with you, and that’s a good thing.
Geezer, America is at war, greater than any this country has ever seen, and if we don’t fight now to defeat the disgusting elements attacking this country, such as yourself, we will be cowards who shirk from the battle to save this country.
I just saw a headline where a U.S. Women’s Soccer player publicly kissed her “wife” after the game. What a horrible disgrace of one’s country. America has fallen into the lowest depths of immorality and indecency.
One of the spectacles that we used to be treated to reularly were films of great military displays by European and Asian armies, every individual indistinguishable from every other save for one ostentatious display. Rank.
This is what conservatives dream of.
On another freedom topic:
Debt is successful when the wealthy sell so
much of it to the middle class that it meets its only goal. The buying of future. Now the wealthy own the future of the middle class in Greece and the middle class is saying keep it. We’ll invent another.
The wealthy need the middle class. Not vice versa. And the wealthy feel the revolution approaching.
Gooper, some of your like minded folk apparently believe as you do and took it to the next logical, “war” step. Last Friday three of them (teenagers) went up on my gay neighbor’s porch, tore down his pride flag and when he confronted them they beat him up and stabbed him. They got away. My neighbor went to the hospital. Guess your side won that one. You need to watch what you put out there. Words have consequences.
I think somebody needs to re-read the 14th amendment, all 4 sections of it.
Otherwise, I think Thomas Jefferson had something to say about this subject. You can find this quote carved into the Jefferson monument:
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of the barbarous ancestors.”
Gopper: Seriously. You have never seen people kissing before? What’s disgusting about that? As far as immoral and indecent; is that more immoral and indecent than gun violence, millions starving in the country that is the beacon of freedom? It’s not homosexuals who make USA immoral and indecent; it’s others.
Gopper is at least partially right. The entire Constitution does not apply to men and women or slaves.
It applies to government. It is the by-laws of our government.
It has certainly had ramifications though for all of us.
One example.
“The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision that precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation, and for many other decisions rejecting irrational or unnecessary discrimination against people belonging to various groups.”
Greetings Gooper, sorry, Gopper, I don’t think you were old enough to see women draped in flag like banners marching to acquire the right to vote, nor was I. How do you suppose you would have reacted?
“Words have consequences.”
Precisely, Theresa. Now you’re getting it
Tell it to the Supreme Court.
The fact of consequences is the reason that we use words. Otherwise what would be the point?
Gopper and his kind always must have war. They always must be fighting someone or something. This aligns with psychopathic personality disorder.
Notice how they cry “culture war” while they are the ones continually lobbing the cultural bombs.
Gopper, I’m sorry for whatever happened to you to make you see the world as you do. You live in a larger, diverse society, like it or not. Clinging to outdated notions of superiority and privilege will not serve you well in the future.
“Gopper, I’m sorry for whatever happened to you to make you see the world as you do.”
You are really sorry that I don’t see the world through soft, weak, environmentally conscious, public-transportation, homosexual eyes?
You’re really sorry that I see the world as a Real American sees the world? You’re the different. You’re the eccentric. You’re the departure from the norm. There are only a few places you can go and act like you want. In most of America, you have to keep your beliefs under your hat.
Personally I think that we have a learning opportunity from this. If you’re interested in the effects of mass media on culture I don’t think that we need to look further than Gopper.
Advertising may seem someplace between benign and ridiculous but it’s a business with customers that insist on high returns for their investment. For consumer goods advertising is the art of making potential customers unhappy with what material goods they have. It’s no stretch to use the same art disguised as news to make people unhappy with the government that they have. The Kochs have used the same art to make people unhappy with their energy choices.
If the only effect was to make some of the people unhappy some of the time it would be merely an interesting footnote in history. But it’s much more pervasive and deeper than that. Like in pre WWII Germany the art of propaganda has consumed a significant portion of the citizenry.
The only question left is our recovery from it and how to grant immunity to future generations for it.
My sense is, as I’ve said before, that the great awakening has begun. But, I have to recognize the devil of confirmation bias in my own perceptions. Is the Internet and my media just selling me what I want to hear or is the shift underway? I fear that
my evidence may be incomplete.
What do others think? The end of the dark ages or the continuation of them?
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead.” MLK
Gopper, thanks for confirming my observations. It was not a joke or a bait when I said I am sorry that you see the world as you do. The world is better when you’re open to the possibility that you don’t have all the answers, and that your way isn’t always best just because it’s your way.
Incidentally, what makes you more of a “Real American” than me? Seems like if you had your way, I would not be an American at all. I already know that’s how you feel by the tone of your posts.
I agree that some traditions need to die. However, the one tradition that pretty much built the US to what it is today was that of the two parent family. Since that is dying, young people are suffering more and more. We have seen what out-of-wedlock births have done to the black community in urban areas of the country. We are now seeing the same issues in the white communities in more rural areas of the country. Now we have 30-something college educated women writing editorials about how it is horrible young college educated men are taking the same path and choosing to avoid marriage or commitment until well into their 30s, at least in cities like NYC, Chicago, etc… It was OK when the under class people were having kids out-of-wedlock, have kids with mental/behavioral issues (which could come from not having a good father/mother figure around), etc.. Now that this is affecting the middle and upper class “good” women, something must be done!
Well, the country gets what it sows. The old tradition of a young man treating a woman “right” and sex being saved for one or two partners, and sometimes only after marriage, is gone. Today young women are told to indulge in all sorts of sexual acts, if they so choose. Check out various websites aimed at young people, especially young college people, and t hose aimed towards young women. Now we have a lot of young people who don’t even know how to date, all they did through life was hook-up with someone else with varying levels of sexual activity. The comments I’ve read in articles about hook-up culture are sad, but understandable given how this society now views and pushes sex with the young people.
I have a belief that more and more marriages have to do with people aging out of their youth and a high desire to have kids before the 40s arrive. I don’t know if these marriages will last, as it seems they are more based on fulfilling a person’s own desires for a traditional family than true love for their spouse. It will be interesting to see divorce statistics 10, 15, and 20 years from now, especially for first marriages. I hear right now that stat is something like 30%ish of first marriages end in divorce, while 65%ish of second, third, etc. marriages end in divorce.
Real (Free) Americans?
Is that Sarah “Caribou Barbie” Palin spouting off again?
The only other countries that have not defeated discrimination (in order to eliminate it), make their women wear black burkas and not leave the house without a male escort. Is that the real ‘free’ people Mrs Palin? If you don’t follow those laws, what are the consequences? Death or stoning?
Just what century do we live in again?
I note that lights on the White House during Xmas is not noted as an offence. ( Things that make you go Hmmmm. )
The interesting question for the “traditionalists” on the court is — would Justice Thomas turn himself in for violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law that was so frivolously and improperly overturned by that previous liberal, anti-traditionalist court in Loving v Virginia?
As a single man, I praise and thank feminists for destroying marriage. Gays will finish off that most man-hating of institutions for good. There’s nothing I cherish more than my singlehood. Feminism and the acceptance of homosexuality make marriage completely optional and free of societal expectations.
Thank you feminists and gays. There’s nothing I fear more than the legal ramifications of marriage and/or committed relationships with women. If this were the 1960s, I’d be screwed (no pun intended). Nothing could have been better for men than the sexual liberation of women and women eschewing marriage. That alone freed men of their roles as providers and protectors; a fate – if you ask me – worse than death. The freedom for gays to marry makes the most gynocentric of institutions that much more optional.