A Sense of Perspective on Liberty? Part 3

A Sense of Perspective on Liberty?

Part 3,

or, "Abusive ad Hominem in Partisan Politics,"

by Liviana (Giovanna L.)

Earlier this afternoon, in an internet chat group which I founded, someone criticized something based on the source of the something.  To him I replied, "Even Hitler did one or two good things, [REDACTED NAME]."

After some preliminary reactions, I continued (the following has been expanded for this blog post, but most of these points were covered in my discussion):

Nobody here denies that he was a horrible, horrible person, and did all manner of wrong.  What I'm saying is that the source of the request shouldn't matter, if what they call for is a good thing.  Kinda like how when the Democrats do something the Republicans would have liked if a Republican had done it, if it's good, it's good, regardless of who did it.

Remember all the hell they gave Clinton over Bosnia?  But if Reagan or Bush the Elder or Bush the Lesser had been CiC at the time and got American troops involved, it would have been another great example of Murkans wavin' our dicks in ever'one's faces, because MURKA!

And look, they elected Mitt Romney to be their candidate for President last go around, and he's the guy who did Obamacare before it was 'Obamacare.'  And even though popular opinion is against them on the question of the Affordable Care Act, they continue making the untenable claim that 'most Americans' are opposed to it, and they continue to waste time trying to overturn it.

And that's not all!  If you order now, you also get the dying gasps of inequality, in which they claim that they would use the military to prevent women from exercising freedom of choice guaranteed by the Supreme Court, call for laws to enable citizens to shoot anyone they merely suspect of being Gay, and gerrymander voting districts in an effort to disenfranchise minority voters, while praising the fascist bully boys for shooting yet another unarmed kid who happened to be non-Caucasian.

And they'll also throw in a bonus of astoundingly anti-American theocratic rhetoric and posturing, in which they argue that they have a "right" to decide what individuals in their communities can and cannot do (in spite of the evidence that so-called "dry counties" do not prevent residents from purchasing alcohol elsewhere, and in spite of the evidence that the same situation actually promotes driving while intoxicated), attempt to legalize discrimination under the guise of "religious freedom," advocate (in direct violation of Jesus' teachings in Matthew VI, 1-6) for public-led prayer in public schools, and pretend that science is a lie from the devil, so that they can justify allowing the petroleum industry to continue destroying our lives, prohibit the teaching of evolution in public schools, and continue to ignore the evidence which says, 'Yes, Virginia, Homosexuality and Transsexuality are no more matters of choice or alternative lifestyles than Intersex conditions are.'

And the list goes on, and on, and on.  I'm not sure if they actually believe the lies, irrational horseshit, and blatant insanity they're spouting or are merely engaging in showmanship in an effort to win more support from the ignorant and prejudiced, but that ship has sailed.

But they're still fighting FDR over Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, 80+ years later, all because FDR was a Democrat who did the things that their sorry asses would not do because they were too busy pimping the citizens out to the corporatists.

'AMG, Soshulizm!'  Yeah, so?  It saved your beloved Capitalism from dying the death it so richly deserved, after it attempted suicide in the 20s with all the voodoo economics, anti-labor policies, tax breaks for corporations, encouragement of bubble economies, opposition to any help for the workers, and so on.  The same shit, by the way, which the Republicans have been trying again ever since Reagan.  Verily, Santayana was right.

More to the point, the so-called 'socialism' which FDR brought to the table was the right thing to do for the people, whether he were Democrat or Republican.

But even causes which the Republicans embraced in the past have now been abandoned by the Republican Party, because Democrats got on board.  Teddy Roosevelt and Ike Eisenhower believed in protecting the environment.  Ike Eisenhower opposed racial inequality.  For Mike Huckabee to speak of using the military to prevent abortion is an insult to heroes of the nation like Ike.  I like Ike.  (Hell, I'm even somewhat fond of Barry Goldwater, Dick Nixon, and Gerry Ford.)  I loathe the Right Wingnuts, Would-be Theocrats, and Social Reactionaries, just as I loathe ignorance, prejudice, superstition, and irrationality.

Chris Christie's Vision for the United States?

From Rolling Stone:

... Camden is just across the Delaware River from the brick and polished cobblestone streets of downtown Philadelphia, where oblivious tourists pour in every year, gobbling cheese steaks and gazing at the Liberty Bell, having no idea that they're a short walk over the Ben Franklin Bridge from a full-blown sovereignty crisis – an un-Fantasy Island of extreme poverty and violence where the police just a few years ago essentially surrendered a city of 77,000.

All over America, communities are failing. Once-mighty Rust Belt capitals that made steel or cars are now wastelands. Elsewhere, struggling white rural America is stocking up on canned goods and embracing the politics of chaos, sending pols to Washington ready to hit the default button and start the whole national experiment all over again.

But in Camden, chaos is already here. In September, its last supermarket closed, and the city has been declared a "food desert" by the USDA. The place is literally dying, its population having plummeted from above 120,000 in the Fifties to less than 80,000 today. Thirty percent of the remaining population is under 18, an astonishing number that's 10 to 15 percent higher than any other "very challenged" city, to use the police euphemism. Their home is a city with thousands of abandoned houses but no money to demolish them, leaving whole blocks full of Ninth Ward-style wreckage to gather waste and rats.

It's a major metropolitan area run by armed teenagers with no access to jobs or healthy food, and not long ago, while the rest of America was ranting about debt ceilings and Obamacares, Camden quietly got pushed off the map. That was three years ago, when new governor and presumptive future presidential candidate Chris Christie abruptly cut back on the state subsidies that kept Camden on life support. The move left the city almost completely ungoverned – a graphic preview of what might lie ahead for communities that don't generate enough of their own tax revenue to keep their lights on. Over three years, fires raged, violent crime spiked and the murder rate soared so high that on a per-capita basis, it "put us somewhere between Honduras and Somalia," says Police Chief J. Scott Thomson. ...

Read more:
Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch From America's Most Desperate Town

See also:
The Bankruptcy and Privatization of Detroit Is a Terrifying Preview of What Republicans Want to Do to the Rest of the Country

Police in Miami Gardens Abusing Authority?

From the Miami Herald:

Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years.

He’s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times.

Despite his long rap sheet, Sampson, 28, has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana.

Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing.

Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.

But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.

So how can he be trespassing when he works there?

Read more (several videos are also available here):
In Miami Gardens, store video catches cops in the act

Happy 47th Anniversary!!!

NCC 1701 U.S.S. Enterprise

To boldly go ...

Main crew of the Enterprise in TOS (the original series)

Happy 47th!!!

Another shot of some of the main crew from the TOS Enterprise (Sulu and Nurse Chapel have been left out, for some reason;  notice also that Yeoman Janice Rand is in neither photo, although she was a recurring character, rather than a member of the main crew -- but she was in the very first episode ever broadcast, "The Man Trap").

Yeoman Janice Rand in the second episode ever broadcast, "Charlie X."

Forty-seven years ago today, on the 8th of September in the year 1966, the most amazing television series ever broadcast, Star Trek (usually called "Star Trek - The Original Series," or "ST:TOS," but which I prefer to call "Star Trek Classic," or "Trek Classic") debuted on the NBC television network in the USA.

Sulu gone wild, from the episode "The Naked Time."

This series took on pressing social concerns of the day, including racism, sexism, intolerance of dissident opinions, cultural imperialism (the famous "Prime Directive" forbade cultural contamination by Starfleet officers), the possibility of progress without the naïveté of utopianism, etc.

Spock of the Mirror Universe, in the episode "Mirror, Mirror."

The first interracial kiss ever broadcast was in the Star Trek Classic episode "Plato's Stepchildren," as seen in this scene:

Worth noting is that the first episode of Star Trek:  The Animated Series was first broadcast also on the 8th of September, but in the year 1973.

When the new Trek series began in the 1980s, Star Trek:  The Next Generation, it continued the pattern of addressing assorted social concerns, ranging from racism and sexism to homophobia and transphobia, the perils of a police state, cultural imperialism, etc.  Subsequent series have likewise followed this model, taking on social, political, economic, religious, and cultural issues and providing a progressive perspective, showing us what we could become if we strive for such betterment by promoting education and seeking liberty, equality, and justice for all -- and warning us of what we could become if we instead choose to glorify and perpetuate ignorance, intolerance, prejudice, superstition, and irrationality.

More pictures follow, starting and ending, appropriately, with Romulans and their vessels (in an era before the Tal'Shiar had polluted the Romulan Star Empire with their fascist police state mentality).

The "Romulan Mini Skirt Commander," as many have called her, unnamed in the original episode ("The Enterprise Incident"), but named Di'on Charvon in non-canon literature.

A fleet of Romulan D7 vessels (given to the Romulan Star Empire by the Klingons during one of their periods of alliance with the Klingon Empire), commanded by Commander (that is, Fleet Commander) Di'on Charvon, surrounding the NCC 1701 U.S.S. Enterprise in the episode "The Enterprise Incident."

 

The same non-canon literature which names her as Di'on Charvon says that she changed her name after the events of "The Enterprise Incident," taking the name Liviana Charvanek.  Here she meets Kirk and Spock for the first time, on her ship, and under her own terms.

The Klingon-built D7 Flagship of Commander Di'on Charvon, in the espisode "The Enterprise Incident."

Marta, an Orion woman played by Yvonne Craig (Barbara Gordon / Batgirl in the 1960s Batman TV series).

Spock of the Mirror Universe with his bodyguards and the Prime Universe Captain Kirk (masquerading as the Kirk of the Mirror Universe)

Commander Kang of the Klingon Empire, from the episode "Day of the Dove"

Klingon D7 from the episode "Errand of Mercy" (Remastered)

Lieutenant Uhura of the Prime Universe (masquerading as her Mirror Universe counterpart), engaged in psych ops versus the Sulu of the Mirror Universe

Mark Lenard (who also played Sarek, the father of Spock in several other TOS episodes, and likewise appeared as Sarek in subsequent series and movies in the franchise) in his first Star Trek role as another unnamed Romulan Commander (Fleet Commander, or "Riov" in the Rihan language later developed by Diane Duane, a rank equivalent to a Starfleet Captain, if not a Starfleet Commodore), from the episode "Balance of Terror."  Non-canon literature names this character "Keras" (which is "Sarek" spelled backwards).

The Romulan Bird of Prey commanded by "Keras" in the episode "Balance of Terror"

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