Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue of North Carolina raised some eyebrows in the South when she not only lashed out at her own citizens for an anti-same-sex marriage ban but adding that the measure made the state “look like Mississippi.” People in Mississippi were understandably put out by the notion that they are now an interchangable synonym with “backward,” “prejudiced,” and “frighteningly homophobic.”
The marriage ban vote was not close in North Carolina — passing by an overwhelming 62-to-38 percentage points. Perdue proclaimed
“It’s wrong for North Carolina, clearly, clearly and simply . . . People around the country are watching us, and they’re really confused. To have been such a progressive, forward-thinking, economically driven state that invested in education and that stood up for the civil rights of people, including the civil rights marches back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s — folks are saying, ‘What in the world is going on in North Carolina?’ We look like Mississippi.”
That last comment did not go over well with Mississippians from both parties and frankly I thought was rather uncivil for a sister state. However, the defense from Ole Miss was almost as off-putting. It is notable that Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves did not try to defend his state as committed to equal rights of any kind. Instead, he insisted that Mississippi is better for business because “[w]e are creating an environment which encourages the private sector to invest capital in Mississippi, and I would invite any North Carolina-based company wanting to move to a lower-taxed, less-regulated state to look at our business-friendly opportunities.” That sounds a lot like, we come for the lack of equal rights but stay for the lack of environmental protections and taxes. Notably, Mississippi has the lowest per capita income of any state as well as the lowest level of health care protection for its citizens. It has secured the top spot for most obese state, however. Yet, Reeves wants people to know that the state is also a leader in lacking environmental protections for its citizens.
I am not sure which is worse: the comparison by Perdue or the defense by Reeves.
Source: New Observer
This reminds me a lot of comments made in Minnesota about the Dakotas. Yes they are backwards, yes they get more money FROM the Federal government than they pay in while Minnesota pays more than it gets back, yes they lack many of the services you might expect from a modern state – but woe betide the pol who brings that up!
They will use their Federal largess to pimp their crappy public services, poor worker protections and blind eye regulation to try and poach companies away from the civilized world. They don’t realize that they can be easily one-upped by any 3rd world country in this race to the bottom.
“It’s wrong for North Carolina, clearly, clearly and simply . . . People around the country are watching us, and they’re really confused. To have been such a progressive, forward-thinking, economically driven state that invested in education and that stood up for the civil rights of people, including the civil rights marches back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s — folks are saying, ‘What in the world is going on in North Carolina?’ We look like Mississippi.”
Follow the money around the evangelical right, the fundamentalists who are politically active, and you just might find the fountain, the source.
What Frankly said. The truth hurts sometimes.
“frankly I thought was rather uncivil for a sister state”. Oh, c’mon, it was only “uncivil” because it was said out loud, in public, by someone who gets attention. It is what get’s said all the time among the more “enlightened”. On the hypocrisy/civility scale (I know, its a non sequitur), I’d say the gov gets many more props than barbs for setting out in a few words the disconnect between being supposedly economically progressive, and being socially reactionary.
Well you know you’re from Mississippi when your husband, wife, brother, sister, son and nephew are riding in the same corvair……..
I don’t know what the folks in Mississippi are upset about. It’s not like they’re not the most obviously backward thinking, anti-progress, red neck embarrassment this country has. They’re proud it. When state governments work as hard as they do in North Carolina or Arizona to restrict people’s rights based solely on archaic superstitions, they deserve to be called out for propagating and imitating the worst of America. Mississippi is what all of America would function like if Republicans had their way.
A bit of correction. Ole Miss is the nickname of the University of Mississippi. I have never heard of the entire state referred to as “Ole Miss.” Mississippi State is also a university in Mississippi.
When I was growing up in South Carolina in the late 1940s and 1950s, our state ranked next to last in various categories, including education. We used to say “Thank God for Mississippi.”
Actually Texas has surpassed MS in most public welfare and status categories so we used to say thank God of MS too. Now folks can say thank God for Texas since we lead the nation in the most uninsured for health care and other such categories.
I hardly think that being against gay marriage is an indication of bigotry or lack of progressive outlooks. I am opposed to gay marriage, but I am not for criminalizing homosexual acts nor treating gays differently in most things. Just because I don’t think that we get anything out of gay marriage, hardly means I hate gays. That is like a child complaining that if it doesn’t get what it wants, you hate the child. Grow up! I guess too that we are hating Mormons and Muslims if we don’t let them have more than one wife.
“I am not sure which is worse: the comparison by Perdue or the defense by Reeves.”
Seems to me that the defense by Reeves confirms the comparison by Perdue.
“frighteningly homophobic.”
I’m stealing this. By far the best way I’ve heard described the bigoted attitudes of those who wish to discriminate against gays.
I applaud Governor Perdue for her political courage. I also must say that I would never voluntarily go to Mississippi for any purpose, it scares me and yes I admit that is prejudice on my part.
ARErb, “Just because I don’t think that we get anything out of gay marriage, hardly means I hate gays. That is like a child complaining that if it doesn’t get what it wants, you hate the child. Grow up!”
So, because gay marriage does not BENEFIT you (we? does that mean society) then it should not be encouraged?
Gay people will disagree with that, obviously. They get a lot out of marriage or they would not be lobbying so hard for marriage. And I think society benefits from gay marriage, think of all the small businesses it will support, all the children who will be adopted, and all the great parties one can go to.
Seriously, giving basic civil rights to gay people should not be an issue in America in the 21st Century. Some people are just stuck on 1950 when white hetero men reigned supreme.
To MS. I go there a lot and it is a nice place to visit and Morgan Freeman thinks it is a nice place to live. At least MS has a good excuse for having so few state services since it IS a poor state. Texas has NO such excuse since it is FAR richer than most states in the US.
AY,
And all of them have married cousins. First ones. And a little incest when we get the time over.
Food stamps? Of course, but you don’t think I change ‘em in at the same store as the blacks, do you?
Marriage is a legal contract granted by the state for ITS benefit and reasons as well as the couple. Gay marriage is NOT a right and to stretch the Loving decision to encompass that is beyond absurd since homosexual acts were criminal back then and such laws were upheld by the same SCOTUS.
The state has every right to grant subsidies to businesses that it finds serve a public purpose. Denying such a contract or subsidy does NOT mean that others are denied their “rights”. In fact in my area of work, the airlines get government subsidies in the form of mail contracts. They were actually brought into existence by outright standards to make them profitable. At one time the early airlines employed people to mail the Sears catalogues via air mail to places because the government paid them by the pound for mail carried. The cost of airmail stamps were so low that it did not come close to meeting the cost that the airlines charged the post office.
Adopting children, starting a business, and all the other things you mentioned is NOT dependent on gay marriage. They do that all the time. It is not discrimination to not grant a marriage license for same sex marriage since there is NO gayness test to get a license. Gays can and DO marry others of the opposite sex, and the marriage laws apply evenly to all. Just because you want to change the legal definition of marriage does NOT mean they have no rights or are discriminated against. The proper place for gay marriage is in the state legislature to make such changes in accordance with the will of the people.
If gay marriage is a right, then why did we ever need the 19th Amendment? Voting is a far more fundamental right and it is explicitly mentioned in our Constitution too. If the 14th is controlling for our rights, then why were the amendments needed to give women the right to vote or 18 year olds?
Dear Friends,
As a Carolinian, North, there is no other worth mentioning, let me inform you that Beverly Perdue has been righting her Republican legislature sincethe voters went right wing crazy.
Of course, one of Kochs best men, a descendant of a major figure in black Raleigh since ages, is a very prominent political boss figure. He fought the good fight to keep
the Republicans in the Wake school board recently, so “neighborhood schools” would get permanentized.
In the meanwhile, we have a commission which examines jury verdicts on the basis of statistically based suspicion of prejudice. Do any others have that`
A valley of humility between two mountains of conceit, our modest motto. Tennessee we don’t mention in polite society.
Poor Mississippians are going to be even worse off once Cochran leaves office. His position on Appropriations has brought a whole lot of earmarks their way.
Mississippi is one of the three states where the 20-year (1990-2009) transfer exceeded 200% of their annual GDP (more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes). The figures are taken from calculations based on tax figures provided by the Internal Revenue Service and federal spending numbers provided by the Census Bureau.
I’ve been warned many times to stay out of Mississippi if the car I’m driving has a northern state license plate. One of Tex’s friends visits family there and rents a car in Tennessee before crossing over the border into Mississippi. He claims it gives him piece of mind and works out cheaper in the long run in that he doesn’t have to pay bogus tickets.
Gov. Perdue is right … no state wants to “look like Mississippi.”
AR Erb, Gays have the right to pursue happiness. If that means they want to be able to marry the person they love, wtf difference does it make to YOU? It does not affect straight people in ANY way.
When you deny this basic human activity to a minority group, all you do is cause unhappiness. Marriage has protections under the law that gays should be able to enjoy like everyone else.
ARB,
Why do you think MS is such a poor state. It is not due to the lack of oil, no, the lack of sense. Ask any white trash food stamper who the President is. He’ll say, “it’s Reagan, isn’t it. It’s been so long since I voted last.
Now a handicap is nothing to laugh at, particularly one this serious. So stop cackling.
And when you say MS is a nice place to visit, then I wonder where you live. Should I guess and say something not known by most: the thunderstorm capital of the USA. Crack that nut, those who can.
But where you live must be like Winnemucca, any place is up from there.
You’re really a progressive man, that’s reactionary spelled backwards.
Actually your cousin told me you were a sweet guy. On her, she said. When’s the marriage? I’d like to send a bouquet. Of white lilies. Will that do?
I agree that the state should not regulate private sexual matters unless it has a compelling state interest. Thus we got rid of law against co-habitation and fornication, or they are not enforced. I had a white friend of mine in Hartford, CT who was arrested for fornication because he was living with a black woman to whom he was not legally married. Likewise we have not made adultery a criminal offense as it once was, Homosexuals acts have been decriminalized properly.
In fact one can have a harem as long as one does not ask the state for a license to marry more than one of the women. Once you ask the state for something, it ceases to be a private matter and becomes a public matter. Gays can live together, have sex together, have an orgy as much as they please and it makes no difference to me or the state.
Thus once you wish to involve the state, THEN I and we all have a say in it.
I live in North Carolina. The are some people around here in one particular suburb who use the N word. They are all transients from New York or New Jersey. They talk funny too. Tirdy turd and a turd. My pal is a blind guy with African roots and I stand up for him. So when the New York bigots talk too loud, me and my buds from the dog pack poop in their trashy New York style yards.
AR Erb, you know the marriage of President Obamas parents was illegal in 22 states when he was born? Just saying.
The state was on that side too. But I have heard that the people who gay bash the most may themselves be gay.
idealist707, thanks for showing us all what a bigot is all about. I also did not know you had been appointed commisar of progressive thought, at least you should know how to spell better if you think progressive is reactionary spelled backwards. So it seems your ignorance is a match for those you decry in MS.
I love the MS Gulf Coast and I have visited the Vicksburg battlefield which I found very interesting. You also should check with a black man such as Morgan Freeman who loves MS and lives there. I guess it is not as bad for blacks as you would think. By the way, I love the fact that the state capital airport is now named after one of my heroes, Medgar Evers, the murdered head of the NAACP in MS. So I suggest you become a little less ignorant and bigoted, since MS has enough of that to go around.
“Thus once you wish to involve the state, THEN I and we all have a say in it.” (Arthur Randolph Erb)
And there is the real root of the problem in a nutshell.
And there is the real root of the problem in a nutshell.
So as citizens WE should have NO say in what the state says or does? RIGHT! So much for your commitment to democracy and freedom! I guess we should just let appointed judges rule us and TELL us how to live.
The Supreme Court ended the discrimination for mixed race couples.
It had nothing to do with the states
“It had nothing to do with the states” (shano)
Exactly
ARB,
Your argumentation powers are fortunately just as weak as your dedication to progress. And you still haven’t told us where you live. Ashameed of it?
Shall I take a wild guess and answer my previous riddle of
where is the thunderstorm capital of America?
Why Lake Charles, LA. The air baee there lets you put on fake camouflage fatigues and buy cheap beer in the BX. You should see the line of pickups on a Saturday morning. The military pop has increased by 50 percent overnight.
Is that you there in the red one with Confed flags flying and the chrome tooters on the hood? Oh that’s your wifes?
Your third? Oh, fifth. Sorry.
You know that the only place badder that LC? That Winnemucca. If it wasn’t so far away, you could go there, just to feel superior for once.
Ohhhh, that’s why you go to MS, you say. Now we know.
Y’all know Winnemucca, right. Well lemme tell you, that it’s a one-horse town in the deserted state of Nevada.
What they got the horse for? To draw the wagon full of drunk Mormons back to Salt Lake. They spent it all (double entendre) in the whorehouses across the tracks.
They are the only decent houses in that town. Got the cleanest bed linens too. I can vouch for that.
By 12AM, and long from closing time in the bars on the other side of the tracks, the guys get tired of paying the bar girls drinks. and head “over the railroad” for something more promising.
As you can understand from this, Winne, I call her Winne, cuz she’s so nice, is a two industry town. Both dependent on men’s sins. But the Mormons don’t mind sinning (look at Mitt). Just as long as their wives don’t.
What they don’t know is that their wives fly to Lake Tahoe then and do some “service” at the whorehouses there just for action, and some cash of their own. And all pretend ignorance about the others doings.
So if someone says you that Nevada is only Vegas and the Grand Canýon. You can tell them you’ve seen bigger ones in Winnemucca.
Hext time I’ll tell you about the hoosegow.
Compared to Mexican ones, it is a winner.
ARB,
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment 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 which precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in United States education. In Reed v. Reed (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that laws arbitrarily requiring sex discrimination violated the Equal Protection Clause. [from Wikipedia]
States prohibiting same sex marriage are violating the Equal Protection Clause in that they are based on sex discrimination. There is benefit to the state and to all people within the state when all people are treated with fairness and equity.
swarthmore mom,
great video clip. It is amazing that the Mississippi Republicans are all for regulations when it comes to the right to choose, but it is a mortal sin to think banks need more regulations! Remind to stay out of Mississippi.
“Marriage is a legal contract granted by the state for ITS benefit and reasons as well as the couple. Gay marriage is NOT a right and to stretch the Loving decision to encompass that is beyond absurd since homosexual acts were criminal back then and such laws were upheld by the same SCOTUS. ”
That is one twisted paragraph. Laws criminalizing homosexual acts are based on the same bullshit from the same Bible as those banning same-sex marriage. There is no logical, medical or legal reason to ban marriage equality. It’s only basis is Taliban-esque adherence to a book made up largely of fiction as being more important than our seculkar Constitution.
To suggest the state or society needs to get something out of a marrage is equally absurd. My brother and my brother-in-law have each been married for over 25 years with no children. One for medical reasons and one by choice. Folks in retirement communities who marry after being widowed hardly produces children either.
Marriage IS a right for all Americans who choose to marry because this country is based on equality for all, not just for some. We all understand that because of the First Amendment we have to endure speech we may not like to hear. So it is with same-sex marriage. Only the bigotry of religion has prevented gays from the full exercise of their Constitutional rights.
amen rcampbell! The bigotry of religions is exactly correct. If there is no medical or societal issue, it has to be religion.
Gay marriage has been a social good in Massachusetts:
Let’s compare Massachusetts to its peers on three basic measures of success: education, social well-being, and economic strength. Some Americans believe good results on these metrics are the goals of responsible government, and others believe they’re the happy consequences of free markets. But however we get there, these are desirable outcomes for all Americans.
And most of the world. According to a 2011 Harvard study, while reading proficiency in Mississippi is comparable to Russia or Bulgaria, Massachusetts performs more like Singapore, Japan, or South Korea. Often better: Massachusetts students rank fifth in the world in reading, lapping Singapore and Japan, and needless to say, every state in the union. In math, Massachusetts slots in a global ninth, ahead of Japan and Germany.
What about social well-being? Above all, we want kids to have a healthy start in life. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Massachusetts has the nation’s highest level of first-trimester prenatal care, and the third-lowest infant mortality rate (Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Missouri are about 50 percent higher). It also has the second-highest rate of child access to both medical and dental care, the nation’s lowest child mortality rate, and the lowest teen death rate.
It goes without saying that Massachusetts has the lowest percentage of uninsured residents—5 percent compared to 16 percent nationally, and a whopping 25 percent in Texas. On life expectancy, Massachusetts ties for sixth-highest, about five years longer than the worst-performing states. In another political universe far, far away, you might describe a place like this as pro-life.
A few other metrics of social well-being: The Bay State has the second-lowest teen birth rate, the fourth-lowest suicide rate, and the lowest traffic fatality rate. The birthplace of Dunkin’ Donuts has the sixth-lowest obesity rate. And depending on the source, the first state to legalize gay marriage has either the lowest or one of the very lowest divorce rates in the country.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/05/massachusetts_is_the_best_state_in_the_union_.single.html
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/05/14/482200/lankford-fired-gay/
LANKFORD: Well, you’re now dealing with behavior and I’m trying to figure out exactly what you’re trying to mean by that. Because you’re dealing with — race and sexual preferences are two different things. One is a behavior-related and preference-related and one is something inherently — skin color, something obvious, that kind of stuff. You don’t walk up to someone on the street and look at them and say, “Gay or straight?”
KEYES: But you think that even if you can’t see they’re that way, you don’t think someone is born gay necessarily?
LANKFORD: Do I personally? No. I don’t. I think it’s a choice issue. Are tendencies and such? Yes. But I think it’s a choice issue.”
Being gay is actually not a choice, according to the American Medical Association, the American Association of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and all other accredited medical organizations. A large percentage of LGBT workers have experienced discrimination at work and many have been fired because of their sexual orientation”
shano,
please refrain from using facts to confuse those folks in Mississippi.
I just want them to stop following Louisiana down the wrong path:
The US is the incarceration capital of the world. Our numbers exceed even China yet that’s acceptable. What exactly are we getting in return for this investment, dare I ask? Someone out there is profiting from this system but it’s not the country.
How’s that prison system working out for you, Louisiana?
Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.
The hidden engine behind the state’s well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.
Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations.
Shano,
I said previously that you are cooking on both burners.
Now you are incandesceent.
You are leading the beat’em to death with statistics league.
Here is the big challenge. How can the other states play catch up? I know that is another ball game, But maybe you who has been different from the beginning here, can offer some novel or proven ideas.
But don’t let me distract. Take it under consideration if you like.
Maybe it might lead to the start of something useful.
Be proud, Massachusets (sp) has reason to be.
But being useful is good too. Am sure you agree.
Thank you Id707 for proving that you have no capacity for rational thought or argumentation. While I find your flights of fancy amusing, it hardly means that they are true. It also means you have no power of memory since you would know where I live and what I do for a living if you are here very often. It also shows that you have no idea of who or what the NAACP is and Medgar Evers was. Again, you fail to answer why it is that a well known black actor Morgan Freeman has chosen to live in MS since you think it is racial hell for blacks. You also like to make the irrational jump that if you do not support gay marriage you are a bigot.
Since I was an active participant in the civil rights movement, I know who our heroes were. One of them who died recently was Rev. Shuttlesworth who ramroded the protests in Bombingham as it was called back then. He was vehemently opposed to gay marriage and homosexuality. Again, the airport in BHM is named after him which I rather like. I do not agree with his stance against homosexuality, but he came at that topic on a religious basis. I do agree with him on his stance about gay marriage, but from different reasons, and I am not quite so rabid as he was on the subject. Think he was a KKKer too?
rcampbell,Please give me some reason that the state has no right to set conditions on legal contracts it grants. That is the point. Gays are fully able to join in marriage as any other citizen since there is NO gayness test for getting a marriage license. If there were such a test, THEN I would agree that it is discrimination and unconstitutional.
If the equal protection clause applied to marriage, does it also apply to the vote which IS mentioned in our Constitution? I think it does apply to the vote. In which case, why was it necessay to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote if the 14th already protected that right? Why then did we need a constitutional amendment to give the vote to 18 year olds, if the 14th applied to them as well. In fact, I would think that if you want gay marriage to apply to the US,you will need a constitutional amendment as well. The right to vote is FAR more clear and fundamental than a supposed “right” to gay marriage.
If gay marriage is a right, then the same holds true for polygamy as well. At least Prof Turley is consistent in advocating that too. I think that he is wrong on this score, but I know that the advocates of gay marriage in the main also disagree with Prof Turley and deny that gay marriage also means state sanctioned polygamy. If you are for gay marriage, there is NO logical reason to deny polygamy too.
Gay marriage has been a social good in Massachusetts
shano I see that you did not go to school in MA since you would have benefited from that good education. Those stats are hardly the PRODUCT of having gay marriage. That is such a logical absurdity that I can question your sanity. Let me school you in how to present a good logical agrument on this. Compare the stats for before gay marriage became law and after. That is just a start. THEN state WHY gay marriage would have any effect on education and health care coverage. For example, MA had nearly universal health care BEFORE gay marriage, so it is illogical and absurd to state that gay marriage caused that!
I thought that there were intelligent, well educated people here, but I see that there are a few who are dedicated to proving the opposite.
Nina Simone sings “Mississippi goddam” (may be offensive to some):
ARE, at least I can leave an internet thread largely insult & assumption free.
Mass as a society decided gay marriage would benefit its already fine social structure. Just the icing on the already good cake.
Marriage is a legal contract granted by the state for ITS benefit and reasons as well as the couple.
Arthur,
So, what benifits does the State get from marriage between two people of different sexes that it doesn’t get from one of two people of the same?
idealist, just want to try to explain why this Governor felt embarrassed about this.
In a civilized society all people have the same rights. Civil rights.
So, what benifits does the State get from marriage between two people of different sexes that it doesn’t get from one of two people of the same?
Children! Duh. Future taxpayers/slaves. Then again, this example requires a cross reference of the cost of biologically producing a child versus the cost of adopting. Without doing any research, my initial thought is that biological would be more costly, which would mean more revenue to be taxed.
Also depends where the child would be adopted from- a local US orphanage, all of whom are likely to grow up to be taxpayers anyway- or an out of country rescue type- increasing our taxpayer potential to even greater heights.
All this rests on the assumption you wait until your married and established before you take on the responsibility of children.
Given the demands placed upon diminishing natural resources by increasing population, an enlightened state would encourage same-sex marriages since they do not contribute to the overpopulation problem.
Given the likelihood that poor orphan children will not experience a loving home environment or receive a good education — thus leading to a less productive, if not an incarcerated life for them — an enlightened state would encourage same-sex marriages because these would increase the adoption of otherwise unwanted children.
An enlightened state would also encourage same-sex marriages because an enlightened state would cherish and defend each citizen as the equal of any other citizen — and would wish to prove it to the world.
On the other hand, we have that portion of America that wants no part of enlightened government, preferring instead a corporate oligarchy mixing updated versions of fascism and feudalism. Doubtless some citizens of Mississippi and North Carolina do not wish to live under such an unenlightened regime, but with President Obama disinclined to do anything to assist them, the homophobic majority of brownshirt serfs will probably carry the day. Too bad. When state majorities decide what rights minorities cannot have, then minorities will not have them.
This is the same governor who seriously suggested that the forthcoming election be ‘cancelled’ to allow our law-makers to finish their jobs. The Governor’s Office quickly backtracked and said that Gov. Perdue was only joking. I’ve heard the audio of the comment, recorded at a Rotary Club meeting in Cary, NC, and my assessment is that Perdue’s comment was made in utter sincerity. I was going to actively work for her opponent in the forthcoming election, but she decided not to run again – I suppose because the people wouldn’t hand her an extra, unelected term. Good riddance.
After her comment in Cary, I cannot take seriously anything she says.
Shano,
you wrote:
“In a civilized society all people have the same rights. Civil rights.”
I wish it were so, Shano. IMHO, rights were more egalitarian, ie equal, when there was a nomadic structure.
Or even better, when we were not even pastoral, but simple buthunter/gatherers, who owned practically nothing.
Don’t want to get off thread, but refer you in
f interested in study of the subject. Property rights, whether it be animals or land, and thus power and inevetibly inegalitarianism, has incrreased as we have advanced towards civilization. Civiliizatioon gave advances, you know them: labor specialization, a flexible work group who could be called upon on need, gathering of resources to clear ev. famine, and a HIERARCHY OF POWER. ARBITRARY POWER IN THE MAIN.
And there begins the problem: Giving/Seizing of power and its use is what we are still fighting about today.
I can give a horrific example by referring to Soviet Union in 1934. A top level power person said in reply to a statement saying that all people need health care, regardless of position. “And why should I be given the same care as a charwoman+ Ridiculous, I am much more valuable to the SU and deserve better care.
Our position today is chearly similar. We don’t have an egalitarian society. Society is so formed to favor the rich, not all equally, in terms of health care.
We have a clear split running through all parts of the American system, including the blindfolded justice system, where being rich means to have an advantage clearly visavis the poorer.
I sit in egalitarian paradise, where th idea is well-accepted, and well-practiced. but that’s another subject.
How long the rich can decide, although they are the one percent is up to all of the citizens.
And am glad you are working for the majority.
May I recommend the egalitarianism as to the life and liberty guarantees which is fought for by Malisha, a clear and excellent exponent. We don’t even need a constitution if we follow the spirit of those key concepts.
Some would contend, based on statistics*** of previous post-WW2 recessions, that somebody is dragging their feet on recovery.:
“As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put it three weeks ago:
Consider, if you will, the current state of our nation. Despite hints of economic progress, we’re still in the midst of an immense disaster, in which unemployment and underemployment are devastating millions of American lives. And none of this need be happening! There has been no plague of locusts; we have not lost our technological know-how. Americans should be richer, not poorer, than they were five years ago. Yet economic policy across the board has become almost passive, has essentially accepted this disaster instead of trying to end it.” End quote.
Well, MS is MS, and has its own special handicaps.
But even it is effected by a common plan to use steering of the economy by corporations so as to achieve political goals,
And if there are any politicians not on board their trains, the convincing will be both brutal and effective. They will say to them: “We’re gonna bankrupt you, ruin you and your constituents. Whaddaya say?”
“Where do I sign?”, will be the reply.
MS is not alone in its miseries. And it’s together we have a chance to change things. So let’s take MS, it is acutely bad there, a miracle will be most apparent there.
***Want statistics, look here:
https://grayson.salsalabs.com/o/30019/images/PercentJobLossesPostWWIIRecessions.jpg
Source: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/
“The chart has been featured regularly at Daily Kos, but it comes from the Calculated Risk Blog. It graphs job losses during and following each post-WWII recession, month by month, as a percentage of total employment.
As you can see, the job losses in America since 2008 are not only the worst in postwar history, but also feature the weakest “recovery.” In every single other recession, employment returned to peak levels in less than four years. (In fact, leaving aside the Bush Recession of 2001, employment returned to peak levels in less than three years.) Yet here we are, four years after the Great Recession started, still almost four percentage points under peak employment.
Which is five million jobs. Five million people who can’t find work. Five million people with no income.”
Quote text sources: Alan Grayson email, 14 May 2012