Just when I thought that I could not get more depressed about humanity, Fortune Magazine released its second annual list of the “extraordinary men and women.” The greatest female leader? Taylor Swift. Not German Chancellor Andrea Merkel. Taylor Swift. She was just two below Pope Francis.
Fortune Magazine selected those people who “are transforming business, government, philanthropy, and so much more.” The list was (1) Apple C.E.O. Tim Cook, (2) European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, (3) People’s Republic of China president Xi Jinping, (4) Pope Francis, and (5)India prime minister Narendra Modi. Then at 6 comes Taylor Swift according to Fortune.
Fortune based its ranking on the fact that Swift “the highest-paid woman in the music business.” After all what has Merkel done? She does not have a single POPS song to her credit.
Oh, and on topic, I’ll take Taylor Swift over dozens of other female “leaders” … even though I’ve never listened to any of her songs end to end. That said, her proximity to leaders like Merkel is a bit puzzling….however you cut it. Kind of like comparing RFRA to the other serious & lethal matters in the world today. Go figure.
Since we’re way off topic anyway, here’s something I recall recently: A whole bunch of people here disagreed with my opinion that the Oklahoma student(s) should be expelled. It was really very simple, the chant included a line about N-word’s may be hung (that’s okay?) but they can never be SAE. It wasn’t the N-words that bothered me, it was the allusion to hanging a black man or woman as a real potential act. As I have mentioned before, I am old and I was around during the Jim Crow era, and no one ever should espouse such an act, however cute in a ditty. Hanging back then was not funny,nor is it now, so screw the fools who chanted that ditty. Let them pay for that idiocy. Life does go on, even for the expelled, who can re-build their lives if they choose to do so. Otherwise, they deserve the loss of opportunity they get. I will always despise anyone who thinks, even just “chants” a line that says “hanging” of N-words is tolerable. Let them earn back their respectability….if they can. It’s not like I haven’t made mistakes and had to climb past them….the poor babies who can’t deserve what they get.
And do NOT even try to tell me that this current RFRA is equivalent to the horror or real ugly violent lethal discrimination. My gay friends happen to agree with me. What’s wrong with them, eh? None of them would engage anyone who had objections to their life styles, so what is the beef? They know I don’t have one, the raging hetero that I am. Invented is what I’d call it. Now that Al Sharpton has weighed in on the “racist” tint, you can be sure of it.
Never mind the elections in Nigeria with Boko Haram fighting everyone else, and murdering many they disagree with brutally, and now joining ISIS…let’s all go all Kumbaya about the RFRA. Yawn….
Squeeky at 2:36 PM today….you’d be right about my appreciation of that piece.
However the rest of this thread’s systemic effrontery is boring.
@ Jim
We are car people too! (-http://i.imgur.com/BvF3TpB.jpg-) My collector car. Hubby has his own cars as wells. Delinked in case no one else wants to see.
Our local NAPA is fondly referred to as No Auto Parts Anytime, since they rarely have even the most basic parts that we need.
Actually, I agree with you that you should not be forced to do business with or associate with anyone you do not want to. However, we do have the anti discrimination laws on the books about serving people when you are in the public arena and have to deal with this law being the law of the land.
I was trying to illustrate that there can be an exception to the current anti discrimination laws by accepting that the First Amendment protects your religious freedom and gives the right to make a religious exception to providing service.
This is what the law that some people object to is trying to accomplish.
DBQ, I really don’t distinguish between the two examples and I think adding artistry only muddies the water in this argument. I consider engineers artists while others would not. To me a business should just be allowed the freedom to choose who to serve based on anything they want. Religion shouldn’t be used as the scape goat here since it shouldn’t be the focal point, freedom and liberty are. Gays, people who drive only Fords etc. should feel free to open their own store up and serve only the people they want. It’s really hard for me to understand why this is scarier than forcing people into things they would rather not do. But on the other hand, I might not go to a diner that does serve anyone. I am a car guy, but I will not go to my local Napa since they constantly use foul language. They are still in business and good for them, they must have enough people who enjoy that type of experience.
In the end, I love the idea that something like “The Soup Nazi” form Seinfeld could exist. No soup for you! Be cause he feels like it.
@Ingannie
Here is what you said, “Oh my oh my, what hoops people jump through to disguise their bigotry. It’s in your face bigotry. Hide behind religious freedom till the cows come home. Most people know it when they see it.”
See, once again you are just engaging in BS name calling. No answers, No discussion of the issues. No addressing of any valid concerns. No treatment of competing legal rights. Just the same old Ingannie “blah blah blah you’re a racist, you’re a homophobe and I’m sooo tolerant and smart” nonsense.
Come on, you are 60 years old, have raised a couple of kids, and seem basically literate. Take a stab at making an actual response in the here and now. I bet you can do it if you try.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Jim
The difference is that there is not (or should not be) a religious component to just doing ordinary business. Selling cookies. Serving a hamburger. Renting a motel room. Ordinary day to day business that you do transactions with everyone without a religious component and without regard to race, creed, or (now) sexual practices.
But, when you are asked to create something to celebrate a religious ceremony that is objectionable or against your own religious beliefs you are being asked to in a way participate or support this offensive belief. Selling a generic cake is one thing. Even just selling a wedding dress that you would sell to anyone else is something that is the ordinary course of business. Being FORCED to use your creative talents to create a wedding dress for a homosexual marriage ceremony or FORCED to create an artistically designed cake is a violation of your right to practice your religion and not be FORCED to participate in someone else’s religious ceremonies.
The making of any creative work of art is in effect a type of speech about the subject. If you can force people to make speech supporting that which is abhorrent to them or which violates their religious freedom, then the First Amendment doesn’t mean anything.
THIS is what the religious freedom act and law is about. Protecting your right to speak, not speak, practice your religion and not be forced to participate in one you do not want to participate in.
DBQ – I was watching the Cake Boss and he as asked to make a cake with an erotic top on it. Until then I did not realize that mama still own the shop. So, they made the top but hid it from mama. Of course, she finally found it and raked them over the coals. Their store did not do “those kind of cakes.”
Now, let’s raise a really interesting problem that arises in the LGBT community. A certain amount of lesbians and gays do not accept the bi lifestyle because they feel they should be either lesbian or gay. And some lesbians do not accept as lesbian woman who have been married and then become married and some gays do not accept some men who were married and then become gay. And nobody is sure what to do about transexuals, expecially pre-op. So, you are one of the LGBT owning a bakery and they type you don’t like comes in for a cake for their wedding. Can you refuse?
Oh my oh my, what hoops people jump through to disguise their bigotry. It’s in your face bigotry. Hide behind religious freedom till the cows come home. Most people know it when they see it.
Inga – you are a religious bigot and everyone who follows you knows it.
@jim22
True. Ingannie not only doesn’t get it, she doesn’t seem to be able to discuss it. It is like there is a string in her back, and you pull it, and here comes the canned talking points.
Public accommodation laws have a long and interesting history, and the issues that arise are things that continue to arise. As an interesting aside, see this older law review article:
http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2418&context=mulr
Things are not as hard and fast in this area as some people seem to think. For some realistic examples, Gay George walks into Mom’s Cafe and orders a meal. Should Mom, a devout every-word-in-the Bible-is-literally-true Christian be able to deny Gay George a meal. Probably not by both law and common decency.
Scenario 2, Gay George walks into Mom’s cafe wearing a bondage outfit with his nipples exposed and clamps on them and an open back end to his leather outfit, where his Master may spank him. Mom tells him to get the F out of her cafe. Probably acceptable both legally and morally acceptable.
However Gay George sues, claiming that people with his sexual orientation often wear such outfits, and thus he should have been served. Mom replies she does not let people without shirts or shoes eat in her place and she sure ain’t letting this freak eat there.
It is a legitimate legal question. Some cities, like San Francisco, may have laws which do not allow Mom to throw the freak out, which is why sooo many freaks move to San Francisco.
The upshot is, people can have different opinions. There is a lot of interaction between the laws, permissible or reasonable conduct, and reasonable religious accommodation. Which the Gaystapo and its toadies ignore.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
This is precisely the problem of the “American” experience.
Taylor Swift is a free, private sector entity. Angela Merkel is an artificial, affirmative action construct. Along with Apple, Taylor Swift represented the free, private sector victory over the doomed protagonists of dictatorship and mysticism who refuse to embrace freedom due to their obsession with its consequences.
If people are free, innovation will occur and wealth will be created in an effort that pleases people who are purchasing products they want. If people are dictated to, the only success that exists is a cheap, false imitation – failure with makeup.
The dynamics of America were intended to exist in the private sector while the government played a limited, supporting role. The Founders provided FREEDOM over DICTATORSHIP. In their era, the dictator was the King. Contemporarily, the dictator is the “proletariat.” After overthrowing the King, Americans were intended to enjoy freedom. Any “consequences” of that freedom had to be borne or naturally resolved by the free private sector. The morality of individuals would shape the consequences of freedom.
To assuage, alleviate and appease every person and minority with a complaint is destructive and terminal to freedom. Self-reliant people adapt to and cope with their lives and all of the aspects and characteristics of their lives. Perfection of and in every life is not possible.
Freedom and Self-Reliance is the American thesis.
Taylor Swift won in American Freedom.
Taylor Swift is the Conquest of Freedom over Dictatorship and Mysticism.
DBQ, I don’t see the difference between your two examples. Either one should be able to refuse service to anyone they want. They should also reap the benefits or bad publicity of doing so. To me, this concept scares the crap out of progressives who want to control the population.
The purpose of the religious freedom law is to protect people’s beliefs and your right to practice your religion.
There is a world of difference between refusing to sell a doughnut to someone because they are homosexual and being forced to participate in a religious ceremony (even vicariously) that goes against your religious beliefs.
The first one, refusing to sell the doughnut is illegal and discriminatory. The second is your right to your religious beliefs and not being forced to participate in someone else’s beliefs.
Merely providing a generic cake, a dozen roses or cooking a luncheon for a group of gay people is NOT a religious event and the provider must give the same level of service.
Catering a gay wedding, being forced to bake a cake celebrating a gay wedding, arranging flowers for a gay wedding…..all make the artist or provider a participant in the wedding and their religious views should not be violated.
Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter,
I can’t remember where I recently heard this. It went something like this, what makes America great is not forced inclusion but the ability to opt out and be left alone. This includes healthcare, religion, voting, selling your goods to whoever, etc…. This is a concept the likes of Ingannie will never understand.
epitomizes the irrational ideology of secular progressive media.
@Aridog
I think you will enjoy this blog post by J H Kunstler, and our American obsession with trivial nonsense:
http://kunstler.com/clusterf**k-nation/kicked-to-the-curb/
I really like these two paragraphs:
You will have to take out the ** in the link and put in “uc” for it to work. The filter won’t let the naughty word in the link go through.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – is Kuntsler still alive?
Max-1 … I suggest you read, if you haven’t, a piece written by Mark Esposito on FFS. It was linked here a while ago. A lot to be absorbed in that article and it isn’t all hysterical like so much elsewhere about inane, compared to the world’s issues in general today, subjects like the RFRA in one state within our borders. As I have said before, YMMV….
@Ingannie
Maybe maybe maybe what if maybe maybe what if. Try to deal with your ADD, and answer the frigging question. Do you really think it is proper, and do you desire, to force a 60 year old devout Christian baker who has been going to church 3 days a week for 50 years, to make a wedding cake for a couple of yahoos that she thinks are the epitome of an abomination???
If you really want to FORCE this person to bake the cake, then just say so! You aren’t going to shock anybody. We all probably have experience with bullies and tyrants, sooo you aren’t going to surprise any of us.
You obviously think the whole darn world is supposed to instantly evolve or change their minds about something just because somebody like you takes on sodomy as a protected right??? Plus, you haven’t addressed any of the questions or concerns that I have raised. You just keep repeating some silly talking points.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Max-1 …nice try. Do you really think we’re revisiting 20 years ago. How about 55 years ago? I was there way back then and today is nothing, even remotely like those times, and this flap is a minor tidbit asserted to be the same, for publicity more than substance. Trust me, based upon my first trip through the south in 1961 it is NOT…but it still seems to be a “money game.” Today’s headline news on all media, including Fox was all about the RFRA while elections are being held in Nigeria and the P5+1 talks with Iran seem to be at an impasse over nuclear proliferation. The only station locally that covered the violence at our door was Al Jazeera-America. That is rather sad IMO.
Homosexuals aren’t “REAL” people Squeeky? How do I know that their religion is REAL, or their GOD is real? Maybe Muslims will claim a religious exemption because they don’t want to serve Christians. If we circumvent the freedoms in the Bill of Rights due to religion, we have basically combined religion and state. That is a violation of the Seperation Clause.
@Ingannie
You asked, “And Squeeky the bullying that just got backfired on was this RFRA. Why do you think so many corporations threatened boycotting Indiana? Most people loath bigotry, it’s a slap in the face of Democracy.”
Uhhh, it’s called a BANDWAGON, and they are jumping on it. It gets you an instant Brownie Point for being a wonderfully tolerant individual. Plus, I would bet that some of the CEO’s are as weird as three dollar bills.
And as pointed out, Tim Cook slams Indiana while doing business with countries that openly kill gays.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter