Some Thoughts on the Death of Tony Scalia

Happy Sunday, dear readers! I hope you and your loved ones had a wonderful Valentine's Day.

The infamous justice. Pic found here

As I'm sure you're all well aware by now, at least if you live here in the US, the illustrious Supreme Court justice Antonin "Tony" Scalia died yesterday at the age of 79. Widely revered as a conservative icon, his death from natural causes (or a heart attack, depending on which news source you're reading) at a hunting resort in rural west Texas could not come at a more polarizing time. This being an election year, the Republicans are gonna stall and fuck around with anyone Obama nominates to succeed the late justice until after the elections are done, at which point a successor may or may not be appointed at all.

I admit, I was a little surprised to hear of Scalia's passing. Growing up in a very Republican family, Scalia was my favorite Supreme Court justice. I admired his judicial ability to interpret the Constitution in an "originalist" fashion, his old-school Catholicism which he wore proudly on his sleeve, and his defense of conservative principles. As I got older, I moved away from the conservative political sphere because it became too consuming and was beginning to take a toll on my sanity. Meeting my husband had a lot to do with this shift in worldview, as my husband's pious Catholicism put him at odds with much of the protestant-based conservative positions. As such, my admiration of Scalia waned. I didn't hate the man, but I didn't care for his fascist politics or the government he served. I didn't appreciate his rulings against Obamacare because it was only through Obamacare that my husband and I were able to afford quality health insurance or on issues of civil rights. I strongly disagreed with his view of the death penalty because I believe one cannot call themselves "pro life" and be in support of the death penalty which takes the lives of others, as well as his many refusals to recuse himself from cases where he had a personal connection to one of the parties or other conflicts of interest. I agreed with his rulings against abortion and gay marriage because I myself happen to agree with those views, but agreeing with this asshole on two issues does not make us allies. It didn't matter if he called himself a "traditional" Catholic and went to daily Mass every morning at a TLM church or that his son became a Latin Mass priest. That's all fine and dandy, but the fact that he so ardently adhered to the Constitution, a document rooted in European freemasonry, made him an insincere believer at best and a hypocrite at worst. Numerous popes, Pope Leo XIII in particular, have condemned freemasonry and Americanism for being the heresies that they are. It's amazing how many so-called "traditional" Catholics neglect to notice this little inconvenient detail as they stumble over themselves to lick the shoes of the Republican Party...

A similarly-styled hat doeth not a martyr make, Your Honor. Pic found here

Against my better judgment, I cruised through the comment sections of a number of Catholic websites I follow on Facebook. Many of these websites I'm sad to say, given the unholy alliance between the Republican Party and no small number of influential Catholics, are quite right wing. Thousands of commentators were posting their messages of mourning for the death of Tony Scalia and calling for the mercy of God on his departed soul, as well as prophesying the impending doom of America that will happen in the wake of his death. Some people were even calling for the canonization of Tony Scalia as though he were a latter-day St. Thomas More! Needless to say, a comment I left on one of those sites reminding people that Antonin Scalia has a lot to answer for in the next life did not go over well. Don't forget, St. Thomas More served as prime minister to a government headed by a duly-appointed monarch and was put to death for refusing to recognize his king as his pope. Unlike Tony Scalia, St. Thomas More did not serve and defend a government of freemasons, for doing so would have made him anathema.

Despite the many disagreements I had with Tony Scalia and his politics and the justified temptation I feel to do so, I won't dance on his grave. To be put in a position of power and influence is a heavy cross to bear because your example can either lead people to salvation or straight down the road to hell. I really do hope in those last moments of life that the Last Rites given to Tony Scalia at least washed him enough to get him to Purgatory. Also, in spite of myself, I did say a few prayers for the fool during church today. God does not will the death of sinners, no matter how rotten they may be. It's not a bad idea to pray for him because we all will have alot to answer for at the end of our earthly lives, him included.

Giving God conniptions on the Heavenly Twitter feed. Pic found here

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The Republican Debate, Round 4

With great reluctance, I watched the shitshow known as the Republican debate. It's been their umpteenth debate this year, which is appropriate cuz they have to weed out the worst clowns of the bunch. I loaded up my browser window to the Fox Business website, poured myself a tall frosty glass of beer, and sat down to watch.

Republicans, always lurking, ready to steal your soul

As I expected, it was a shitshow. The moderators did as good a job as Fox anchors could, bringing up issues on the economy. Trump the Chump was his feisty New York self and Ted Cruz had no idea what he was talking about. Rubio was his usual dumb-fuck self, and Kasich was the best sounding one on the stage, even beating out Ben Carson who should have stuck to the operating room, not a political stage. Everyone talked, but no one had any answers-just like Republicans are wont to do.

Why did I torture myself with this clown cavalcade? Mostly to stay informed of the other side. If you don't know your enemy, you can't fight them effectively. Plus, I bought a fresh bottle of Captain Morgan 100-proof rum for my birthday tomorrow. I needed to break it in with a shot, in addition to my usual beer.

Good night everyone! See you all tomorrow

The Republican Debate, Round 3

In what was a fortuitous bit of programming and availability, I was unable to watch the shit show known as the Republican debate. My liver rejoiced at this bit of news, since the beer stayed in the fridge and my trusty mug stayed in the freezer.

Pennywise the Donald, my official image for anything having to do with Republicans this election season

In a classic display of capitalist hubris, CNBC, the network tasked with airing the clown show would not carry a live stream of the debate for anyone who didn't have a paying TV package. Upon reading this, I breathed a sigh of relief and loaded the ESPN radio browser so that I could listen to the World Series. While I am a White Sox fan and the Royals are our division rivals, I hate everything from New York with a passion-especially their sports teams! Also, with the exception of the chaotic year of 2012, I have not missed a World Series since 2003 and plan to keep that tradition going for as long as possible.

Go Royals! 

The Republican Debate, Round 2

Against my better judgement, I decided to watch the second Republican debate this evening. CNN had it streaming live on their website, so I poured myself a tall frosty glass of beer and loaded up the browser window.

This will be my official image for anything having to do with Republican presidential candidates

There was not enough beer in the world for me to deal with this debacle. This shitshow was an insult to anyone with a functioning brain cell in their head. It was all the usual blat-blat, right-wing fascist talking points with some invocations to St. Ronald Reagan (in whose presidential library this clown caravan was held). And even the ones like John Kasich and Chris Christie, who showed some tiny semblance of humanity (Kasich with Medicare and Christie with a slightly more comprehensive view of "pro-life") can't help but be overshadowed by the other turds on the stage. It just served to highlight their own sanctimonious hypocrisy.

I'm convinced that Donald Trump's whole deal with declaring himself a presidential candidate is just to troll the Republican Party. His campaign run will either publically tear down the facade on our plutocracy when Jeb Bush gets nominated, however the books have to be cooked to get that result; or send the Republican Party going down in flames when he does get nominated. My husband thinks that Trump is pulling a Ross Perot to split the vote and ensure whoever the Republican nominee is doesn't win.

Whatever the way, the end result is clear: say hello to President Hillary Clinton.

I've never been so glad that I shredded my Republican voter card when I returned to Arizona.

On The Republican Debate

So the big story of the day was the clown show known as the Republican Presidential Primary Debate.

This picture pretty well summed it all up

I initially had not intended to listen to the debate, as listening to Republicans and rabid Randrian right wingers has a tendency to infuriate me. But then I figured "meh, why not". It'd be laughing material, despite the fury raising factors. Plus, my husband's tablet was handy and had the TuneIn radio app open. So I poured myself a tall, frosty glass of beer and set the app to the station carrying the debate.

I'd only listened to about 20 minutes of the debate before (perhaps fortuitously) the stream froze and hung up the tablet so bad that a reboot was needed to fix it. By the time I got the tablet booted back up, I couldn't bring myself to restart the stream. Besides, I knew where this carnival of fools was going.

Now that the shitshow is done for the night, I have two things to say based on what I heard during those 20 minutes I'll never get back. One: the Republicans have predictably shit themselves on TV in front of everyone and have pretty well handed Hillary the presidency. Two: thank God I live 2 hours away from Mexico. Border regions like mine are pretty well shielded from the chaos in DC.

Hello Mexico. I think we'll be getting to know each other pretty well over the course of the year...

On the Right

Having just returned to the world of blogging, I've had an opportunity to look at my past posts and see how I used to be. There is a most definite right-wing bent to my past posts.

My impression: What in the HELL was I thinking?!

The answer: I wasn't.

I grew up in a rabidly right-wing home, with family who treated Rush Limbaugh's words as Gospel and who never failed to malign anyone who was not conservative or who supported causes that were anything other than conservative ones. And even certain conservative causes, like the pro-life movement, were viewed with suspicion. Naturally, I fell right in step with such devotion. What reason did I have to think different?

Then while on hiatus from blogging, I did what most people never achieve in their lifetimes. I grew up.

And, in the process, I discovered how full of shit right wing America is. Xenophobia is one thing, disenfranchisement, military worship/warhawkism, and straight-up ignorance encouraged by festering Bible-thumping and apocalypse fantasies are other notable traits. But as if that wasn't enough, then came the insane claim that lowering taxes on the wealthy will magically produce jobs. I believed that lie until I began my working life a few months after I'd done the good deed and graduated from college with a degree. Despite having a degree, the only work I could find was a slave-level job in a call center, doing customer service for a major wireless provider.

A good Republican would say, "well, it's better than nothing! You need to work hard and find a better job or better yet, take a second job! Or, better yet, go back to school and get a degree that will earn you money!"

A person with a brain in their head says that there is something very wrong with this picture.

There is nothing like working in a dead-end industry like customer service to see just how bad capitalism, the rabid right with their insane cult-like devotion to Ayn Rand, Israel, and the super wealthy; and the castrated moderate right that calls itself left wing, have failed us. The best and brightest are maligned, while the mediocre and the conformist are held up as ideal; all the while singing in three-part harmony about how wonderful supply-side economics is and you better fucking support the troops!

The result has been a severe uptick in income inequality, more people turning to welfare and food stamps in order to survive, a spike in the cost of living, and two entire generations (mine and the one prior to mine) of working-age people who will never know what it was like to have job security and the income to sustain a middle-class existence.

But of course, nobody in the the government, both the rabidly right wing and the moderately right wing that characterize the Democrat party, will do a damn thing different. Their patrons stand to lose alot of money and influence if any of that should happen.

But now what about those poor people? You know, the ones who need food stamps and Section 8, and Medicaid? Fuck those leeches! CUT CUT CUT! If people die of starvation, who gives a shit-this is AMERICA where you don't need a handout from the government! You pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do it yourself!

By the way, unless you have a means of supporting yourself, it's a wee bit hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Try it sometime.

The funny thing is, you look around Eastern Europe and Latin America, and you can clearly see where the politicians are bought and sold, where there's a tin-pot dictator calling the shots, where crony capitalists hijack the economy, where income inequality is extreme as all getout, where you're constantly under surveillance and the police act with impunity, and think "what a shithole that place is".

It's never occurred to you that we're right on par with those very shitholes you were observing. Perhaps even worse so because our media has done so well hiding what a plutocratic police state America has become.

I can see it right now. Someone from the right will read this post and go "this lazy, brainwashed liberal here is  bitter cuz she doesn't wanna work hard and would rather be a Communist!"

LOL. Communism is just the flip side of your beloved capitalism. One uses material goods for social control, the other reduces humanity to just a commodity to be bought and sold as needed. They both make material goods into god, treat economic activity as a mystical force, and assert itself as a religion (albeit a "secular" one).

I can also see said right winger go "if this communist here doesn't like Amurrika, she should leave".

A thought, I will concede, but a full-on revolt would be alot cheaper and involve less paperwork than moving internationally. Poverty has a way of keeping one tethered.

That, my friends, is why I shredded my Republican registration card and said to hell with you people. Now that I am free of the clutches of the right wing's idiot machine, I will not hesitate to speak out against the right for what they are-the REAL enemies of the state.

tamtam

all about me

dear readers,

i just finished my 3rd test in 3 days. i'm exhausted, so thats why i havent written for a few days. i suppose you'll want to know more about me. well, first of all, i'm conservative.

as a conservative, i believe that our government is too big and greedy, AND i don't believe in global warming either. my outright denial of global warming gained me alot of notoriety on myspace, and if i feel like it, i'll post some of my most controversial myspace entries on global warming.

as a conservative, i also am strongly pro-life. as an orthodox christian, i believe that life begins at conception and ends at death. this may seem strange, given my age and social demographic (young, white, from a semi-middle class background, college-educated), but im different and proud of it.

maybe you're wondering what i aim to do with my life. aside from pissing off the democrats and liberals, i aim to become a pharmacist. i'm already a pharmacy technician and i want to go the next step up. its a lucrative sleeper career. not too many people know about pharmacy's hidden benefits.

my favorite sports are football and baseball. my favorite football team is the chicago bears, but i have favorite players on other teams as well.

my favorite baseball team is the chicago white sox. not only are they good, but i love the players on the team itself. my favorite sox players are carlos quentin, aj pierzynski, mark burhle, i used to like little nicky swisher too but he's no longer with the team, and alexei ramirez. i know its obvious that i really have a thing for chicago sports, but because chicago is my home city, i'm partial to my city's sports teams.

yeah, i really love carlos quentin :). he's hot and really really good at baseball. only too bad he's married and i'm such an uptight person cuz i would bang him in a heartbeat :D. dont worry, its merely wishful thinking-im not a homewrecker hooker groupie.

thats all for now. if i think of other things, i'll post them here

bye!

tamtam