You may recall my post about why I think Ron Paul is a bad choice for secular voters and the horrific responses I got. So did this hippo. I could set it up more than that, but why? Everyone should watch this. It’s amazing.
Posts Worth Going Back and Reading
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Atheist Karaoke and Ashley Learns the Ukulele
On Wednesday night, I’m hosting a “Godless Karaoke” event in Columbia, SC. What does being godless have to do with karaoke? Absolutely nothing. Except that I know a lot of super awesome people in the skeptic and atheist movements that really love music and karaoke. I think there’s some sort of connection there, I’m going to figure it out. Anyway, we definitely need to start some sort of atheist band.
About a month and a half ago, I obtained for Christmas a ukulele with the thought that it would be easier and nerdier to learn than the guitar, something I had failed at a couple of years ago. I was listening to an old CD I found in my car, which has this wonderful song by the Nerf Herders, “Mr. Spock”, which I adore and I thought to myself, “If I could play this on the ukulele, that is about the most dorky thing in the universe, I love it.”
I have now recorded five songs on the ukulele on YouTube and here they are in reverse chronological order, starting of course with “Mr. Spock”. If you’re looking for nostalgic, may I recommend the Kermit the Frog number at the bottom. If you need additional nerdiness, we’ve got Tom Lehrer’s elements set to a possibly recognizable tune. And if you need more Gaga or Stevie in your lives, there’s a little bit of that as well.
Boobaversary: In Defense of Plastic Surgery
Two years ago today I got a boob job. I feel like blunt is the best way to start this conversation.
Plastic surgery is usually the butt of jokes, it’s what celebrities do to themselves that makes them look like aliens. Sure, there are burn victims and cancer victims who get cosmetic surgery, but that’s just to make them look “normal”. If you’re a “normal” person who gets plastic surgery, it’s probably because you’ve got too much money, are incredibly vain, or have no self-control when it comes to weight. If a woman gets plastic surgery, she is stupid and skanky. If a man does, he’s kind of gay.
If you’re a feminist, you are betraying your sex by succumbing to the cultural pressure of normative standards of beauty.
I am admittedly biased, but I think plastic surgery is great, why shouldn’t we be able to do whatever we want to with our bodies? Tattoos, piercings, hair dye, nose jobs, whatever… why isn’t this a great thing? My reduction is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
I introduced my procedure as a “boob job” for a reason, because it was a more aesthetic and emotional choice than a medical one. Even though reductions seem to be more culturally acceptable than augmentations, the difference is simply the direction I moved on the size scale.
I was a 32H and it was making me miserable. They were uncomfortable, there were no clothes that fit me, I always felt like people were staring at them, and the bras I had to wear were incredibly painful. I would get sores on my shoulders from where the straps dug in.
I hated my breasts. Loathed them. In fits of pique I would daydream about getting breast cancer so that I would have a reason to get rid of them entirely. Let’s just say I didn’t have a healthy working relationship with them.
I was already a D cup in 6th grade. By the time I was in high school, there were no local stores that actually stocked bras in my size. Open stares were not uncommon. And then there were the comments, shouts, and open groping from strangers. I was a freak.
It took me nearly a decade from when reduction surgery was suggested to me and actually going under the knife. It turns out surgery is really scary and you find that people are going to think less of you if you have plastic surgery.
I can usually weasel out of it because I had a reduction and not some other procedure. I still feel obligated to emphasize just how much I had to get removed, to try to justify it. I feel the need to tell you all that there was almost no fat in what they removed, so having more control over my weight wouldn’t have made a difference in my breast size. I feel obligated to assure you that it was absolutely necessary, that I had macromastia, but in reality, I would have been fine without it. Just not as happy, not as confident.
And while getting smaller breasts wouldn’t generally strike people as trying to fulfill the normative beauty standards, I immediately looked as though I’d lost 20 pounds. I think I look way more conventionally attractive now, which means that I’ve engaged in a hateful act that some people think is morally equivalent to female circumcision.
“Slicing up the body to conform to a societal ideal is inherently a woman-hating act, whether the offending body part is the clitoris or thigh fat.”
On the other hand, I no longer look like I’m smuggling party balloons under my shirt. I can run. I can buy bras that cost less than $150, or I can even just not wear one! I can wear normal clothing and I am not immediately perceived as slutty for having enormous tits.
I recognize that there are a lot of cultural specifics to what we consider beautiful, but I wasn’t trying to please anyone except for myself. I’m still a freak, but now it’s for reasons that have nothing to do with my appearance.
Columbia women, afraid their husbands will be recognized, ban in-town sex shop
The first sex shop in the city of Columbia, SC may be shut down after members of the City Council voted to effectively ban sex shops from the city.
Unhappy wives had been appealing to the council for weeks after the “adult superstore” got its business license on December 4, citing their fear that having an adult store so close to their homes rather than on the outskirts of the city would lead their husbands to frequent such establishments more often and risk their friends at the Country Club seeing their cars.
Shelby, a conservative Christian and devoted mother of four, asks how she is supposed to explain it to her children.
Despite the fact that my children have never once pointed to a store and asked me what it was, what am I supposed to tell them when they do? Do they really need to know that mommy met daddy when she was paying her way through college as a stripper? Do I really want them to talk about it when playing tennis at the Club?
The store, located in one of the busiest and ugliest corridors within city limits, is further off the road than anything nearby, but this is not enough for many of the anti-sex women in the town. Ann, a retiree who lives nearby, is worried about her grandchildren.
I realize that there are nothing but shoddy buildings and fast food restaurants on the street, but there are some good American businesses, like check-cashing places designed to take advantage of the poor. We don’t want a business supporting healthy sex lives, that’s not what Columbia is about. Now, a gun store would be just the thing for that location.
Not everyone is against the store, however, and a few voices have come out in support, including Ashley, a local student.
Retroactively changing the law to punish a specific business makes these prudes much bigger a**holes than the ones undoubtedly on full display inside the store. Think of the children? What exactly do these people think they had to do to make their children?
A member of City Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “If they’d only given us free vibrators like we’d asked, it never would have come up for a vote.”
My Vagina is Destroying America or Love from Ron Paulians
Gross Comments from Around the Web!
The overall sentiment is that I am an idiot typical woman who takes money and support from unsuspecting, trampled upon men, an uninformed cunt, a mentally retarded liberal arts failure, a really ugly troll, I should either be raped or kill myself and I should definitely never reproduce.
Egregious Comments from My Site (with contact info!):
ashleylmillerhasapenis
[email protected]
76.28.34.59
Guys, seriously this mental midget ashleyfmiller isn’t going to understand. Her points have no validity and is basically taking everything RP’s said and turning it on its ass with no rational, realistic, thought-provoking evidence. She is a troll, which is evident by her appearance as well as her “points”, if you can even call them that. We are wasting our time on our page. Ron Paul has 30 years of consistent service to us and she only has this tiny webpage designed to piss people off, so if you’re going to post, just post “Fuck you ashleylmiller” and be on your way. Spread Ron Paul’s message because he is the last hope for the American people, and anyone tha disagrees with that can eat shit. The part that upsets me the most is the people that most vehemently protest Ron Paul’s popularity will also reap the social and economic benefits Ron Paul will produce if he becomes president.
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ashleylmillerhasapenis
[email protected]
76.28.34.59
ashleyfmiller, you are a sad, pathetic excuse of a human being. Do the world a favor and get a hysterectomy so you can’t weaken the gene pool anymore than it is. You’ve taken every one of his points out of context and clearly have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. People like you RUIN this country and any real chance at change. He hasn’t violated his own philosophies, but sometimes I feel like someone should violate your civil liberties and lock you up for being a lying, hate mongering piece of scum that you are. Final note: you’re a cunt.
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garvan
[email protected]
99.226.81.106
Submitted on 2011/12/12 at 9:49 am
Why do we support Ron Paul?
Because people like Ashley F. Miller are perfectly happy with the status quo.
But hey, I don’t have a vagina, so it’s not like I can get my rich banker boyfriends to pay my way through college like Ashley F. Miller.
Congrats Ashley F. Miller! Enjoy the payoff while you can.
The “basically youngish white men”, you denigrate tend to remember the treatment they get from the little “white girls” like you while you use shame and blame to turn us into slaves, just to sell yourselves up for a piece of one of the members of the 1%.
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mari dejun
[email protected]
84.134.109.185
full of shit – full of lies – fuck you ashley f. mliler.
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GFRED
[email protected]
98.73.61.29
I was going to watch some of your films to verify they suck but judging by your article I wont waste my time with a mike Moore disciple. You Hollywood guys and gals obviously dont realize that this is a republic not a democracy. we have a constitution which is the law and everything in this world is not free you have to take from one person to give to another and the mandate of that is a mix of socialism/communism the opposite of the “civil rights” that you advocate
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chris
[email protected]
98.73.61.29
Ashley F. Miller
Filmmaker, Writer, Editor and mental retard
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Obama
[email protected]
71.59.13.26
ugly cunt. no guy would ever fuck you. you’re a 3/10 a best in your hideous picture. go kill yourself.
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Gary
[email protected]
78.42.173.93
Ashley F Miller!
Wow, you really are a piece of liberal shit !
Just do the world a favor and kill yourself.
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Prophit.
[email protected]
75.227.134.107
in the name of Mike Mazzone
get raped
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Taylor
[email protected]
71.158.165.178
Why does anyone like a clueless c*nt? It’s not hard to understand. There are lots of clueless c*nts around, thus the disastrous state of this country. There’s not enough intelligence to make up for so many deluded, brainwashed idiots like you. You win – and everybody loses.
I’m Ugly!:
I can feel her cold dead eyed stare expanding throughout the multi-verse.
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Let’s talk about the most important topic here.
That chick looks like a ginger version of Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter. I’d give her a drunk 5.5.
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“I’d give her an [EXTREMELY] drunk 5.5”
Minor correction needed.
My Degree is Stupid:
“Ashley is currently getting her PhD in Mass Communication from USC, with a focus on social media and film.”
Enough said.
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And what on earth can you do with a a PhD in Mass Comm?
Teach writing at some podunk community college somewhere in California, write critical articles about “Deconstructing Transgender Stereotypes in Scooby-Doo” and the like, and complain to your friends that no one will even look at your screenplay | novel | whatever until you have succeeded in driving all but your most similarly embittered friends away.
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And what on earth can you do with a a PhD in Mass Comm?
Purchase a frame?
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And what on earth can you do with a a PhD in Mass Comm?
Teach other liberal atheists how to generate propoganda?
My guess
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What do you mean? She has an MFA from the FSU film school, which clearly makes her qualified to make judgments about political theory.
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When the time comes you need not worry. Anglos will industrialize the slaughter to new found heights. That’s what amazes me the most about the multicult. They think the likes of Paul Krugman and Nancy Pelosi have tamed us. I suspect it will look like some old episode of the X Files with the monster just below the surface bursting through the thin veneer of the multicultic skin. Silly white girls with “PhDs in Mass Communication from USC, with a focus on social media and film” will wet themselves in terror and excitement… at least for a while. Latin women will be filled with admiration… at least for a while. Then everyone will want it to end… but it won’t.
Girls are cunts!
Whether she gets your completely rational response will depend on how she feels in the moment.
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She’s a complete and total cunt whose main problems with Paul are the usual inaccurate tripe “he’s a racist fun die-nutbag”. Please, what bullshit.
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It upsets her that a part of what she considers her dating pool doesn’t share her political catechism. It’s tough to date outside the faith.
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by spreading your legs, you give implicit permission for a child to become dependent on you.
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This blog posting would be more compelling if it didn’t read like some lit chick trying to come to grips with something O-so-hard-to-understand.
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This is why it’s nearly impossible to have a conversation about politics with or give any real consideration to the political sentiment of, generously, unmarried women, probably more accurately – any women who aren’t all the way through menopause yet. It’s a shame they are allowed to vote, but that’s part of the death-spiral of the republic.
The delightful and scintillating commentary of local snowflakes excepted, of course.
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Well, of course you don’t get why millions of conservative Americans support RP, Ashley. It’s because you’re a raging left-wing socialist, man-hating femmetard, reverse-racist, pro-distopian, overly-artsy-fartsy, overly-idealistic, anti-logical hollywood retard. Stop trying to understand the policies of Ron Paul, give your brain cells a rest and go back to your laweekly and your bong.
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I feel the same way about child molesters that you feel about the unborn (they’re not really “human,” so please, by all means, waste the scumbags).
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Stupid bitch. There’s only one good thing about the coming economic collapse and it’s that this type of clueless c*nt will be too busy staving off starvation to blather her inanities.
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Anyhow, I read Ashley twice and still can not figure what she hates about RP… unless she just hates men.
Racist what?
It’s funny how the Jews always want to remind us of the Holocaust …
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It’s absolutely absurd. The closest thing to a fascist in the room is the black guy with the big ears and funny name.
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What’s she got against straight, white, single, young, non-religious men? Once again, the diversity crowd is all for diversity as long as it agrees with them. That must be why so many aesthetically challenged women buy into it. Gives them the opportunity to exclude people from the groups in the same fashion as they were excluded from the in groups in high school.
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But, thee are reasons that Jews have been hated for hundreds of years, even though it is most likely just a subset of the Jewish population that is the cause of the hatred.
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This open borders business is my biggest problem with libertarians. It is anti-nationalist and pro-globalist, like marxism and communism. I know libertarianism is the ‘in’ thing this year but it does not serve the interests of the white race which is more than just the top 1% country club set.
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Non-whites don’t love and worship the jews like dumb whites do.
STUPIDHEAD!
you really can’t talk about the libertarian’s voting record, since no one will give them a chance to prove how they would vote.
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Thank you for your article. Even though I think it is a load of inaccruate, fear-mongering, democratic tripe, I accept your RIGHT as a free-thinking American to express such ignorant views.
I hope you dig-in-your heels and vote for either Obomb-a or Newt World Order/Romney. That way once these candidates of your choice pass the NDAA, Patriot Act II and strip away your RIGHT to criticize anything about the government for fear of being labelled a terroritst, we shall all be spared your delirious rantings.
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By the way, MOST doctors don’t believe in evolution. Probably because they can see the complexity of biological systems (that demands a designer), but aren’t a slave to research grants.
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In reference to your commit……. “I’ve been trying to understand why smart people I know support Ron Paul and I just can’t get my head around it.”……well Ann Miller……..Maybe the reason you cant understand is simple ……YOUR NOT AS SMART AS YOUR SMART FRIENDS …….and psychological studies show that it is often difficult for people with greatly varied IQs to communicate………you said it your friends are smart and you cant understand them well said ann well said…….in the future listen to your “smart friends”
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You should try reading a book before posting shit on the internet as if you actually know what you are talking about.
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What a ridiculous article. Absolutely disgraceful, and it’s depressing to know that she is a human and has a brain and STILL is that stupid.
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My vague and drunken point was that I’m pretty sure Ashley knows a lot more about Adam Lambert than she does Ron Paul.
The difference between people like her and the retarded is that the retarded don’t pretend that it is superior to be stupid.
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I read that little pea brain’s screed, and the level of hypocrisy is amazing. She thinks Ron Paul is anti-science (because he has doubts about evolution) but she has a problem with Paul’s stance that life begins at conception. Seriously, how can one believe in evolution, yet deny when science says life begins?
Vague Death Threat
If logic and truth had any meaning, she wouldn’t be an atheist liberal. Only a piece of lead can have any impact on such a twisted, brainwashed brain.
TL;DR
It is clear to me that I missed the most important reason not to vote for Ron Paul: the people who are going to vote for Ron Paul.
Atheist vs Christian Billboard: Let’s Be Friends
Nearly a month ago, I introduced you to the Columbia Coalition of Reason, which had put up a billboard inviting local non-theists to contact us. The reaction from Christians was predominantly negative, but we also received a lot of very positive responses from both non-believers and believers.
This week, a local church decided to put up a billboard in the same location in the digital rotation along with our billboard as a direct rebuttal.
This is fantastic. One, it means we’re in the news again, and two, it means we’ve opened a dialogue with local people of faith.
Dustin Tucker, the guy who has coordinated the billboard effort, was interviewed by local TV station WLTX and spoke to how great it was that the opposing view was speaking up and expressed hope that the atheists would be able to do some sort of joint charity effort with Park Street Baptist Church, something that’s already in the works.
Unlike the responses to the previous news stories, the ones to this seem much more level and reasonable. Here are my two favorites:
Wow…if the billboards can co-exist..perhaps the believers and non-believers will find a way to co-exist as well.
If one wants to see God look into the eyes of a child and you will see Innocent little angels. Those who choose not to believe live very empty lives.
I love kids, don’t get me wrong, but they are definitely demons.
If you’d like to know more about the billboards you can go over to Friendly Atheist, where the president of the Pastafarians at USC has done a nice write up, go listen to the podcast I did at A Matter of Doubt, or:
TUNE IN TONIGHT! (Sunday, 12/18) at 8PM EST to Reason Podcast where someone from the group will be chatting about it live!
Podcast Part II: Winning the War of Attrition
After we completed the main hour of the podcast, we continued our conversation and the guys over at “A Matter of Doubt” have been kind enough to put it up as a bonus clip. This is where we get into the things that I am most interested in, LGBT issues, argument, and humanism. I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about occasionally in here, even.
Yes, I’m pretty vitriolic online, and I am willing to call people wrong and be kind of… we’ll go with “emphatic”. Somewhat dogged. Win the war of attrition. But in person, in real life, in real interactions, people are worth more than ideas. People deserve to be treated well, people deserve to be loved for who they are, they deserve to be accepted. You can have any opinion you want about their beliefs, but at some point you have to be willing to say, you know, I disagree with you and that’s not the most important thing about you. We’re all worthy, we’re all equal, we’re all human. And that’s the foundation of equal rights, that’s the foundation of why we care about the LGBT issues, it’s the foundation of why we think atheists should be treated the same. And at some point you have to be willing to stop arguing.
Why does anyone like Ron Paul?
I’ve been trying to understand why smart people I know support Ron Paul and I just can’t get my head around it. I get the sense that maybe the Ron Paul People I know just don’t realize what Ron Paul’s all about. That or they just don’t care.
The Ron Paul People I know are almost all straight, single, relatively young, non-religious, white men. Available demographics suggest that this is an accurate picture; there are others in Ron Paul’s camp, but it’s basically youngish white men.
They do not consider themselves to be Democrats or Republicans. Some of them hate the idea of rules, many of them hate the idea of having their money taken away in taxes, but none of them are stupid or without the resources to learn more about their candidate. And none seem to care about any of Ron Paul’s policies outside of cutting spending, regulations, and taxes.
Every Ron Paul Person I know comes out of the woodwork any time anything negative is said about the guy, no matter how true the statement and no matter how much that individual disagrees with Ron Paul’s position or behavior. I get the sense that libertarians are so excited to have someone on the national stage that they don’t want to see anything problematic with the guy, but he’s transparently a bad deal.
So, why are these people supporting a crazy, racist Christian fundamentalist?
Why People Love Ron Paul:
- He believes in reduced military spending
- Less taxes, less rules, less government
- He wants to end the “War on Drugs”
- He is “philosophically consistent”
That last one seems to be big — people seem to think that Ron Paul offers a coherent philosophy to deal with politics and that’s why they like him.
He’s very consistent on the whole taxes idea — he wants to get rid of the income tax, which apparently makes us all the property of the government, and his voting record shows this. I can see the appeal, even if I totally disagree.
Ron Paul is Anti-Free Market:
But if we take this libertarian personal freedom thing to its logical conclusion, Paul would also be all for open borders and a completely open labor markets, right? Yeah, but not so much — he’s very anti open borders.
The toughest part of showing any compassion or tolerance to the illegal immigrants … is the tremendous encouragement it gives for more immigrants to come illegally and avoid the wait and the bureaucracy.
So, bureaucracy good when it keeps the brown people out? Taxing the insanely rich is slavery! Letting foreign people work in America should be illegal!
He voted for building a fence on the Mexican border, reporting illegal aliens who go to hospitals, and for banning student visas from “terrorist nations”. He’s all about reducing the military and allowing the free market, except when it comes to this for some reason.
Oh, it’s also great that he wants to get rid of the fed, I love this. You know who made the fed what it is today? A guy named Alan Greenspan. You know, Alan Greenspan, the most famous and powerful libertarian ever to work in the US government. He was a disciple of Ayn Rand and was part of the inner circle of her cult. Alan Greenspan almost single-handedly caused this recession. By all means, let’s fix the fed, but let us also acknowledge it was a libertarian that got us here!
Ron Paul Doesn’t Support Minorities:
He thinks the Civil Rights Act of 1964, you know that whole equality thing, was a violation of people’s rights and wouldn’t have forced anyone to lift the Jim Crow laws. He called MLKJr day “hate whitey day”. According to Ron Paul supporters, this is OK because he wants to legalize drugs and end the death penalty, both of which would disproportionately go to help black men.
I don’t even want to go into all of the sketchy things that he’s said, I’ll just offer you this link and be done with it. Suffice to say, the guy’s said some unkind things about minorities.
On top of this, he wants English to be the official language of the US and thinks government shouldn’t offer services in any other language. How’s that for federal bureaucratic overhead?
A lot of people respect his position on gay marriage, which is that it shouldn’t be the federal government’s business even though he personally is opposed to it. It may not be the federal government’s business, but he’s certainly voted to enshrine homophobic behavior in federal law. He voted against including “sexual orientation” as a protected class in ENDA, meaning he thinks it’s OK to fire people for being gay, and he voted to ban gay adoptions in DC.
Ron Paul is Against Church/State Separation:
Ron Paul has a 17% rating with the AU, meaning he almost never votes in favor of a bill that would be promoting the separation of church and state.
The guy is crazy fundamentalist, no lie. It informs most of his political positions, including right to life stuff that I’ll address in a minute. But it also includes something that maybe some of my libertarian friends agree with. Ron Paul is one of the few politicians in DC willing to say anything negative about Zionism or Israel, and I know a lot of libertarians think that we shouldn’t be Israel’s protector anymore. But do you know why he doesn’t support Israel?
Despite the fact that many Fundies, known as Premillenialists, support Israel because their end-time theology tells them that it is necessary for the return of Jesus, Christian Reconstructionists like Paul have a different view, basically that the Israeli government isn’t the right one for the end of days and the right sort of Christians are now the chosen people of Revelations.
“I think of the Israeli government as different than what I read about in the Bible. I mean, the Israeli government doesn’t happen to be reflecting God’s views. Some of them are atheist, and their form of government is not what I would support… And there are some people who interpret the chosen people as not being so narrowly defined as only the Jews — that maybe there’s a broader definition of that.”
He and Sarah Palin can get into a fight over whose Christian end of days attitude towards Israel is the right one!
He often gets accused of being anti-Semitic because he’s anti-Zionism, and he may well be, but his position on Israel is all about religion. He’s generally isolationist anyway, so it works with the rest of his shtick.
And, while his faith isn’t his number one talking point, he sure does have a statement of faith on his website and includes a reference to it in his debates.
And, despite the fact that he thinks the education department should be dismantled, he also thinks that public funds should pay for private Christian educations and supports a constitutional amendment in favor of school prayer. Again, not a libertarian stance at all.
Ron Paul is Rabidly Anti-Choice and Anti-Science:
This goes hand in hand with the crazy religious stuff, it’s all related.
This man, who is a doctor, does not believe in evolution.
This man, who is a doctor, believes that life begins at conception.
He has a somewhat complex view on abortion in that he believes that it, like murder, should be tried and controlled at the state level, not the federal one. That said, he has voted repeatedly for national bills that promote the pro-life cause and introduced a bill that would say that life begins at conception.
He voted not to authorize embryonic stem cell research multiple times. He has a 0% by NARAL, meaning he votes 100% against abortion rights. He voted yes on the Stupak Amendment to prevent health insurance companies from offering abortion coverage. Voted to prevent funding from going to schools that make the morning after pill available and to provide funding for abstinence only education.
He cosponsored a bill to take funds from a needy family benefit program to go to support non-governmental groups that counsel people not to have abortions.
Again, how is this not federal interference?
Ron Paul Helps Billionaires Not the Poor
This section, I know, is where a lot of libertarians are going to agree with his votes, but I have to say I think they don’t reflect well on him.
He is completely against environmental regulation and trying to find alternative energy sources. Despite his claims that he’d rather have unions control the market than a minimum wage, he voted for legalizing union busting more than once. Despite his supposed belief in the free market, he voted to ban shareholders from weighing in on executives’ compensation. Extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, expanded them, and undermined Social Security by changing the standards.
Voted against the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act to feed children and voted against a measure to ensure children had health insurance.Voted yes on a measure to prevent federally funded laborers to be paid the prevailing wage of the area, so that people making less than a living wage could be reduced even further into poverty!
Ron Paul is a Hypocrite
He is completely inconsistent, not just philosophically as a libertarian, but also on very specific issues like federal funding to local areas. Which brings us to his response to Katrina. You’d think someone who was so waffley about his own philosophical convictions when it comes to women’s rights and immigrants would be willing to waffle a little to save lives, after all he’s all sanctity of life, right?
Is bailing out people that chose to live on the coastline a proper function of the federal government?
But at least his congressional district in Texas doesn’t rely on tons of federal funding, right? Oh, no, it’s one of the top in Texas. Federal government using money to save people’s lives is apparently not OK, but him earmarking funds for his district is cool. More important than Katrina victims? Removing a sunken ship from a harbor and sending a few million dollars to Texan shrimp fishermen.
Ron Paul is a Little Nuts
But of course, my favorite part about Ron Paul is that he thinks the executive branch shouldn’t have very much power. The problem with that is that if you elect Ron Paul, he can’t do anything without violating his own philosophy because he would be the executive branch of the federal government. Ron Paul just doesn’t make sense for anyone.
He thinks we should go back to the gold standard, which I think is pretty crazy, but that’s hardly the only place he goes a bit weird. On The Daily Show he said the following, I guess suggesting that he’s for regulations after he’s against them:
The regulations are much tougher in a free market, because you cannot commit fraud, you cannot steal, you cannot hurt people, and the failure has come that government wouldn’t enforce this. In the Industrial Revolution there was a collusion and you could pollute and they got away with it. But in a true free market in a libertarian society you can’t do that. You have to be responsible. So the regulations would be tougher.
And then there’s this:
I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one.) The Bohemian Grove–perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr. New Money. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica.
If people know this about Ron Paul and still want to vote for him, that’s obviously their choice, but I can’t help but feel like the only way you could vote for him would be in ignorance or denial of these facts.
A Matter of Doubt Podcast: Starring Yours Truly
A local very cool podcast about atheism and all things philosophy had me on to talk about atheist activism and the SC billboard campaign. It’s got my deconversion story, horror of childhood religion, and limited occurrences of me going “um, like”. If you’re into podcasts, you should give it a listen! I have my super sexy horrible cold voice and everything.
Why Miley Cyrus is Cooler Than You Think: The Progressive South
When people meet me, even here in South Carolina, they almost always are surprised to learn that I am from the South. I don’t have much of a Southern accent and I am not demure or interested in playing dumb. There is, unfortunately, a prejudice that exists, even in the South itself, against people who are Southern. There is an assumption that everyone here is stupid, poorly educated, and a redneck.
It’s not that the South hasn’t come by its reputation honestly. There are Bible Thumpers, Tea Partiers, Second Amendment Freaks, and an education system that is more broken than not. There are rural areas that don’t even seem like America to anyone who has lived near a town, and the problems and poverty that come with that. But, while a Democrat may never win the state of South Carolina, 40% of the population votes for a Democrat. You may be able to paint the South itself with a broad brush, but you lose a lot if you also paint individuals from the South with that same brush.
I have struggled over the years with embracing that I am from South Carolina, but I really am about as Southern as it gets. I was a debutante, I was sent to cotillons when I was growing up. My father hunts and fishes and collects rifles, my mother worked for Lee Atwater and George HW Bush. When I was young, I spent most of my days with my babysitter/nanny who lived in a trailer park and we watched NASCAR, drank Mountain Dew, and occasionally I missed my nap and watched The Bold and the Beautiful. The first time I ever got on a plane was to go see Graceland.
And, even more embarrassingly, the thing I most wanted to be when I grew up was a country music singer. I’ve never lost my love of singing or a (not so) secret desire to be a rock star, but I did lose my fondness for country music over the years. But yes, there was a time when my favorite song was “Achy Breaky Heart” and I dreamed of being Dolly Parton.
I suspect many people reading this would think that this was a major handicap, something that I had to overcome to be the erudite, snarky, witty, and progressive person that I am today, but I think it was actually completely necessary for me to get here. I only wish that I was better at embracing it and not being embarrassed by it. In an attempt to embrace being Southern, I’m offering a paean for Miley Cyrus.
Miley Cyrus is a lot cooler than most people realize. I’ll be the first to admit that her devotion to her faith is not something that particularly appeals to me, but the fact that she is Southern Baptist and still open-minded is something we should be celebrating. And I confess that her music isn’t exactly my thing, as most of the teen music I like was written by people now in their sixties. But the really cool thing about Miley Cyrus is that she’s a bona-fide red-state American who depends on red-state Americans for her career and she hasn’t let that stop her from speaking out against what she perceives as injustice.
She is a vocal supporter of marriage equality and LGBT rights. This past May, she bashed both Urban Outfitters and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum for being anti-gay. She is so in favor of gay rights that she got it tattooed on her body — an equal sign for “equal love” on her ring finger. And when someone disagreed with her stance on Twitter, she posted, “Where does it say in the bible to judge others? Oh right. It doesn’t. GOD is the only judge honey.” Hell yes!
She fights in favor of reasonable body images for women. When people try to shame her for her weight, she says that her accusers are part of the reason there are so many women with eating disorders and states quite clearly that she has no intention of buying into it. “I love MYSELF & if you could say the same… I don’t wanna be shaped like a girl I LOVE being shaped like a WOMAN & trust me ladies your man won’t mind either.” That’s a feminist message about body acceptance, and an important one for the age group that she appeals to.
It’s easy to look at Billy Ray flag waving for Republican candidates, how very Southern they are, how vocally Christian they are, and assume that they are stereotypical, uninformed conservatives. They are not. Her grandfather, Kentucky Colonel Ron Cyrus, was a Democrat and a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives for 21 years and he was the secretary-treasurer for the AFL-CIO. It turns out that Southerners have a wide range of political beliefs.
The inspiration for this post was a video in support of the Occupy movement that she posted this week on YouTube, as part of her celebration of her 19th birthday. Most of the response among my friends on Facebook has been shock and a little bit of poking fun at her music and at the irony that she, of all people, was the big musician to support the Occupy movement. But actually, it is not ironic and, if you’ve followed her, it is not surprising. It is, however, marvelous.
Their surprise I can understand, not everyone is as obsessed with LGBT activism as I am, but it is when people dismiss her entirely that I get upset. There is an article in the National Post that made my blood boil. The writer describes Miley’s birthday party, which apparently included a unicorn, and then goes on to discuss the Occupy video:
At the very least, it seems Cyrus is interested in showing a more socially conscious side of herself now that she’s entered the twilight years of tween stardom. Like many people, 19 or otherwise, Cyrus has apparently been following the Occupy movement, and together with Rock Mafia (the production team helmed Cyrus hits including 7 Things and Can’t Be Tamed), she Tweeted a link to a video montage featuring footage of Occupy protesters around the world. Titled “Don’t Give Up – It’s a Liberty Walk,” a remix of the pop star’s 2010 track Liberty Walk features in the video, which Cyrus posted to YouTube with the following message: “This is Dedicated to the thousands of people who are standing up for what they believe in.”
This, we can only assume, includes unicorns.
That may be the most dismissive thing I have ever read. I’m not going to go into a rant about how wrong it is to dismiss people for being young and female, because I might explode, but that’s exactly what’s going on here. “Oh, she’s interested in politics and unicorns, how sweet.”
Miley Cyrus is now a player in progressive politics, not because she is a politician, but because she has a voice that is heard by millions. This young woman isn’t part of the “Hollywood Elite” — she is from “Real America” and her fans are all from “Real America” too — she is an ambassador to the red states. But because she is young and because she sings pop and because she is from the South, many people are tempted to dismiss her out of hand. Her conservative critics are wise enough to be afraid that her influence will lead young Christians away from the intolerant values of their parents, perhaps we should be wise enough to be very grateful to have her on our side. Embrace her or not, she has influence with the people progressives have the hardest time reaching.
Maybe being from the South isn’t a handicap, maybe it makes our progressive voices that much stronger.