Quote du jour--wow!

This applies to the rise of blackshirts in the USA so well. And Faux News.

"The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." ~ Gustave Le Bon

Quote du jour--wow!

My favorite political posts

With today's news about Indiana Congressman Mark Souder, family values candidate and 18th-century moralist extraordinaire, getting caught screwing a staffer (hehehehehe) and having to resign (hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe), I thought I needed to write something about the stupidity of one of Souder's favorite hobby-horses, that being abstinence-only education. Nope, turns out I already did 3 years ago when we were suffering from the Bush Administration's beknighted view of the world.  Turned out there were a few thoughts that I wanted to expand upon in the original post (which I did), and that in turn prompted me to write this post now. 

In the last couple months, I've been aiming people at several of my political posts, so I thought it might be relevant to highlight them in a single post that's easy to get to. (This will have to do until such time as I get around to adding indexing keywords to the zillions of posts that are here already for easier reference.)

• Reagan, the Great Communicator (and how he got that way)
• Some hard numbers on health care reform you haven't heard before
• Why abstinence programs don't work

There will be the occasional bit of bad language here and there so if you work in a place where the occasional bad word will trigger the corporate bunny-shit filters (whoop! whoop! whoop! sorry, you probably just got busted), be aware that these may not be entirely SFW. But otherwise, I figure that you're an adult and can deal with this handily.

Addendum, 6/5/10: I'm adding labels to a bunch of posts and spotted these posts to add to the list:

• The consequences of gay marriage
• "Socialists! Socialists! Run for your lives!!"

Addendum, 3/19/2011: I've added a post about Sarah Palin:

• Something you may not have known about Sarah Palin

My favorite political posts

Health care isn't just a Democratic idea

I'm pleased we have a start on universal health care and that Obama was able to bring it forward. But, despite the noise from the aptly-named teabaggers, any number of presidents, Democratic, Republican, and Independent, have been trying to get universal health care passed for the last 100 years.  Nixon was one of them.  Yeah, he was a little weasel as a person and suffered from some truly impressive personal failings, but he actually accomplished a lot of good things in his presidency: he founded the EPA, he opened diplomatic relations with China, he proposed a national basic stipend, and a number of other things.  One of his proposals was universal health care.  

Thanks to @faircher on Twitter, here's the text of Nixon's initial speech on universal health care.  Note how similar this sounds in general intent to the current health care plan that just passed.  The point is not that this was originally a Republican idea vs. a Democratic one (or vice versa), but that this is an idea that has not gained traction in this country for over a century until just now. 

Health care isn't just a Democratic idea