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Topic Review (Newest First)
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| Dec 6th, 2004 05:03 PM | |||||||||
| El Blanco | There goes Shakespeare. | ||||||||
| Dec 6th, 2004 04:58 PM | |||||||||
| FS | That's insane, but it would be a comforting thought that men like these could be desintegrated by showing them the picture from goatse.cx. | ||||||||
| Dec 6th, 2004 03:50 PM | |||||||||
| Cosmo Electrolux | well, Living in Alabama with all of these right wing idiots really fucking sucks....THEY probably think it's heaven....... | ||||||||
| Dec 6th, 2004 01:33 PM | |||||||||
| Emu | I wonder what it's like to be an Alabaman Republican and to be perpetually afraid of everything. | ||||||||
| Dec 6th, 2004 01:26 PM | |||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
From politics1.com: "Alabama State Representative Gerald Allen (R) -- emboldened by the recent spate of ballot victories for state bans on gay marriage -- has a new idea. He announced last week he will introduce a bill in the next legislative session to ban novels with gay characters from all public libraries, schools and state universities. The proposed law would prohibit books and materials "that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen told the Birmingham News that -- as he envisions his own bill -- all novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed. "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," boasted Allen. When asked about works of fiction like Tennessee Williams' classic Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Allen told the newspaper that universities would not be allowed to perform productions of the play, use the book in classrooms, or carry copies of the book in libraries under his law. Allen also agreed that the ban could extend to works of fiction like The Color Purple, Brideshead Revisted and The Portrait of Dorian Gray, as they all have gay characters. Wait, folks, 'cuz that's not all! According to the newspaper, the bill would also "ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama." Allen explained that books with heterosexual couples committing those acts -- things like adultery or engaging in oral sex -- also likely would be banned. "Our culture, how we know it today, is under attack from every angle," said Allen." |
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| Dec 1st, 2004 03:42 PM | |||||||||
| Cosmo Electrolux | I read in a local paper that the Alabama constitution has nearly 79,000 pages and over 400 amendments...the longest document of that type in existance. | ||||||||
| Nov 30th, 2004 05:00 PM | |||||||||
| Preechr |
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We could stage that conversation, but I'm pretty sure you can already imagine my points and your own objections, and I'm quite certain doing so on a public board such as this one would only help me reinforce the whole southern stereotype. Let's either do that over the phone sometime or wait until I feel less like crapping all over everything south of the Mason-Dixon, Ok? Quote:
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The reason your red/blue dichotomy is so darn overly simplistic is because the mover and the shakers behind that which defines red and blue are essentially the same: Straight White Guys and Gals hoping to pander successfully to a certain demographic slice of the American societal pie. Quote:
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That's what's got you pissed, Betty. Your side's claims were recently judged to be less believeable than those of the opposing side. The answer's in the somewhere... I'm sure of it. Maybe the solution to your grief might be to start supporting a political movement that only wants whatever votes it can accumulate on the basis of agreement, rather than deception. The time has obviously come where the "too complicated to explain" positions of the political left might actually need to be explained to those that are doing the majority of the voting. Just a thought... |
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| Nov 30th, 2004 02:09 AM | |||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
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But the point I want to highlight is that nobody has a patent on morals. I think MANY folks in more conservative states (whether it be Alabama, Mississippi, or Alaska) buy all the crap about rich, liberal, elitist celebrities plotting to encroach on their lives, using there eViL powers over the media and the entertainment industry....! muwahahaha! They will let Jerry and Steve wed, while at the same time killing your daughter's unborn baby, and using YOUR money to do it!!! Grrr!! So, in order to compensate for this, in order to best combat the ivory towers of "blue," they often perceive themselves to be on the moral high ground. Liberals in NY and San. Fran. are "out of touch" and hate God. The GOP brilliantly turned a handful of issues into what classifies as morality in America, and I'm here to say that there's a lot more to it. Perhaps this is a bit cheesy, but I'd like to quote Senator-elect Obama's speech from the DNC: "The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq." I am a Catholic, and I oppose abortion. I oppose embryonic stem cell research, and I supported Bush-backed legislation like the Peterson Bill. I also, however, opposed the war in Iraq. I opposed the tax cuts, and I also am opposed to the idea of disregarding the international community in world affairs. I support the occupation of Iraq, and you could probably convince me that invading Syria would be a good idea. I'm certain there are many like me, those who can't be simply placed in a "red" vs. "blue" dichotomy. So, when I see assholes like this douche bag from the Christian Coalition in Alabama fighting to protect racist language in their state constitution, and doing it in such a shameful fashion (right, it'll raise your taxes, and *gasp* entitle everyone to an education!  ), I get a little pissed off, to say the least.
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| Nov 30th, 2004 12:10 AM | |||||||||
| Immortal Goat | Dammit, Blanco, he isn't saying all red states are like this, only that they have the gall to say they are more morally inclined than blue states, and then they pull this shit. | ||||||||
| Nov 29th, 2004 08:20 PM | |||||||||
| El Blanco |
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| Nov 29th, 2004 03:17 PM | |||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
Right, for "tax purposes." 
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| Nov 29th, 2004 03:07 PM | |||||||||
| Cosmo Electrolux | Just so you know, The Alabama Chapter of the Christian Coalition recommended that it's members and all "right thinking Christians" vote against the amendment....... | ||||||||
| Nov 29th, 2004 01:38 AM | |||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
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But you're missing the point. I don't really care what Alabamans (?) do with their constitution. Do I wish they would move into the 21st Century and amend the language in their constitution? Certainly. Would I be happy if they had a racist constitution, while at the same time properly funded their schools? Yeah, I could live with that. And as much as I'd love to attack the overly simplistic dichotomy of "red" and "blue" states, the fact is that there are distinctions there. Has it become a cliche to call the south ignorant, racist, and backward? You bet it has. But sometimes you gotta call 'em like you see 'em, and this happens to be IGNORANT, RACIST, AND BACKWARD. I think my problem is that I was all too often willing to attack the disconnected arrogance of the "blue states," while at the same time being apologetic for the "red states." But ya know what? I've grown pretty fucking tired of hearing about the Godless, latte drinking elitists in the "blue" states. I think if my "morals" as a Liberal living in a liberal state are going to get called into question because I didn't vote for the guy who was anti-abortion, then it's open season on these bitches! Quote:
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If a Democrat's morality can constantly be called into check, if a liberal has "lost touch" with "average" Americans, then what the heck is this? If Alabama is "average" America, then please, leave me to ponder in my ivory tower!!!!! |
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| Nov 28th, 2004 11:57 PM | |||||||||
| Immortal Goat | But did you vote for him for MORAL reasons? I sincerely doubt you did, because you seem intelligent. However, people that claim they stand for moral principles and then do this shit HAVE no morals, and you know it. The general concensus of red state citizens (being that I live, unfortunately, in a red state) is that blacks are inferior. Even here in Ohio it is a problem. And my county was one of the few that had the sense to be blue. | ||||||||
| Nov 28th, 2004 10:02 PM | |||||||||
| El Blanco |
Kevin, the way you are phrasing your arguments makes you look real petty. You took an example of something horrible happening in Alabama and are trying to say how this makes "red states" (I'm really begining to hate that term) all evil. What do you seriously want? Want us to say this is awful? Its horrible and arcaic. Want me to say it should be repealed? Yes. Want me to make a federal case out of it? I already pointed out why I don't think thats nessacery. Want me to fall over lamenting I voted for the same guy as that state? No dice. |
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| Nov 28th, 2004 08:59 PM | |||||||||
| Preechr |
I think it would probably be easier to just pass a federal law that allows the Evil Red States to be walled off from the rest of the country, since they're all so damn evil and beyond all hope. We should probably leave some holes in the walls though, so we can still poke at them with sticks. We all know that the only way to get evil, stupid people like... well, southerners... to get along with black folks is to force them to do it. The only effective solution to any problem, in the south at least, is to pass laws from 1,000 miles away and threaten to shoot anyone of the ignorant hillbillies that don't like it. Ignorant facts such as that schools are still segregated by choice or that slavery would have naturally died as much as the Civil War killed it with the invention of mechanized agriculture anyway shouldn't stand in the way of anyone that understands the need we all have for a properly subjugated and economically oppressed subrace of Americans we can blame stuff on... Like when we have to defy France, who supported the Confederate south, in our best interests and whatnot. Old grudges from best-forgotten mistreatments by oppressive nations only matter in other parts of the world, like Palestine or Tibet or Vancouver or Iraq or Thailand or all of Africa or... well, all those other very different portions of the planet. Here we just call them ignorant sissies that don't know how to think right and abrogate their rights to decide for themselves in their own time. This always works out for everyone invovled, never making anyone resentful. [/ignant-n-boisterous] |
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| Nov 28th, 2004 08:17 PM | |||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
That's not the point, and you know it. The fact that there is even a question as to whether or not those things belong in their state constitution is absurd, and the pathetic argument against the amendment (supposedly to protect the state from educational taxation) only makes those who opposed the amendment look worse. I want to take every opportunity I can get to smack down this so-called "morality gap" that exists between "red" and "blue" states. I think any state that would allow their children to remain amongst the poorest and least educated, while at the same time stand up to preserve an institution of racism, is severely lacking in any kind of moral integrity. |
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| Nov 28th, 2004 08:00 PM | |||||||||
| El Blanco | Does it really matter what their state costitution says since the national Constitution specifically states that the Equal Rights ammendment takes precedentr over any state law? | ||||||||
| Nov 28th, 2004 06:12 PM | |||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
The article alludes at this point, but this is coming from the very same state that voted in 2002 to maintain a regressive system of taxation, despite the fact that Alabama schools rank roughly dead last in almost every national education standard. :capital |
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| Nov 28th, 2004 06:00 PM | |||||||||
| AChimp | HOORAY FOR ALABAMA! | ||||||||
| Nov 28th, 2004 05:37 PM | |||||||||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
Red-State America at her finest :capital http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6596687/ Alabama vote opens old racial wounds School segregation remains a state law as amendment is defeated By Manuel Roig-Franzia The Washington Post Updated: 9:22 p.m. ET Nov. 27, 2004 TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - On that long-ago day of Alabama's great shame, Gov. George C. Wallace (D) stood in a schoolhouse door and declared that his state's constitution forbade black students to enroll at the University of Alabama. He was correct. If Wallace could be brought back to life today to reprise his 1963 moment of infamy outside Foster Auditorium, he would still be correct. Alabama voters made sure of that Nov. 2, refusing to approve a constitutional amendment to erase segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for "white and colored children" and to eliminate references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks. The vote was so close -- a margin of 1,850 votes out of 1.38 million -- that an automatic recount will take place Monday. But, with few expecting the results to change, the amendment's saga has dragged Alabama into a confrontation with its segregationist past that illuminates the sometimes uneasy race relations of its present. The outcome resonates achingly here in this college town, where the silver-haired men and women who close their eyes and lift their arms when the organ wails at Bethel Baptist Church -- a short drive from Wallace's schoolhouse door -- don't have to strain to remember riding buses past the shiny all-white school on their way to the all-black school. "There are people here who are still fighting the Civil War," said Tommy Woods, 63, a deacon at Bethel and a retired school administrator. "They're holding on to things that are long since past. It's almost like a religion." Tax fears? There are competing theories about the defeat of Amendment 2, the measure that would have taken "colored children" and segregated schools out of Alabama's constitution. One says latent, persistent racism was to blame; another says voters are suspicious of all constitutional amendments; and a third says it was not about race but about taxes. The amendment had two main parts: the removal of the separate-schools language and the removal of a passage -- inserted in the 1950s in an attempt to counter the Brown v. Board of Education ruling against segregated public schools -- that said Alabama's constitution does not guarantee a right to a public education. Leading opponents, such as Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles, said they did not object to removing the passage about separate schools for "white and colored children." But, employing an argument that was ridiculed by most of the state's newspapers and by legions of legal experts, Giles and others said guaranteeing a right to a public education would have opened a door for "rogue" federal judges to order the state to raise taxes to pay for improvements in its public school system. The argument plays to Alabama's primal fear of federal control, a fear born of years of resentment over U.S. courts' ordering the desegregation of schools and the creation of black-majority legislative districts. "Activists on the bench know no bounds," Giles said. "It's a trial lawyer's dream." Giles was aided by a virtually unparalleled Alabama celebrity in his battle against the amendment, distributing testimonials from former chief justice Roy Moore, whose fame was sealed in 2003 when he defied a federal court order to remove a two-ton granite Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court. They were joined by former Moore aide Tom Parker, who handed out miniature Confederate flags this fall during his successful campaign for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court. Arguing that the amendment could lead to higher taxes is a potent strategy in Alabama, which is one of the nation's most lightly taxed states and which resoundingly rejected a record $1.2 billion tax increase proposed last year by Gov. Bob Riley (R), a conservative, to pay for school improvements and lessen the tax burden on the poor. But many blacks view the Amendment 2 opponents' tax pitch as a smoke screen. Education concerns As the vote results sink in, the deacons and the Bible-toting ladies at the Bethel church here have spoken of dark conspiracies, of sinister agendas. They speak from experience. Vertia Killings, 72, was riding on a bus that had to be rerouted because of the commotion at the University of Alabama on the day Wallace -- who eventually renounced his segregationist past -- made his stand. Her father, Benny Mack, paid a $45 poll tax and "ate a little less" because of it, she said. Others chose to eat instead of vote. Killings does not see the amendment's defeat as a matter of mere symbolism, even though Alabama's constitutional ban on integrated schools was trumped -- then and now -- by federal law. She has watched school testing results with growing uneasiness. Black students in Alabama have struggled on some national tests, with 73 percent of black eighth-graders rated below basic competency in math, compared with 32 percent of white eighth-graders. Killings also frets about Alabama schools -- just as schools in many other parts of the country -- steadfastly resegregating. This phenomenon, which is getting increased attention among national education experts, is attributed to a kaleidoscope of factors, including the suburban migration of white families, private school expansion and the rising popularity of home schooling among white conservatives. "It seems like we're having a reversal," Killings said. It matters not at all to Killings and her friends that the amendment's opponents say they want to remove the segregated-schools portion of the constitution but cannot abide by guaranteeing a public education and fear mandates for higher education taxes. The people who are most affected by poorly funded schools are the same people who were affected in another era by poll taxes: poor blacks and poor whites. "I don't know but a few black folks who can afford to send their kids to private school," said Charles Steele Jr., a former Democratic member of the Alabama legislature who lives here and is national vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 'Loony laws' This is not the first time that Steele has tangled with Alabama's constitution, a gigantic document that has more than 740 amendments and more than 310,000 words, making it the world's longest, at nearly 40 times the length of the U.S. Constitution. Four years ago, voters repealed a constitutional amendment banning interracial marriage. The state constitution, which most historians agree was written to protect large landowners and to disenfranchise blacks, is so riddled with antiquated wording that some high school students in Birmingham make an annual trip to the city library for a project known as the search for "the loony laws." Yet the constitution, with its racist past and its racist present, only grows. On Nov. 2, it was amended three times -- numbers 743, 744 and 745. Giles has said he would support taking out the passage about separate schools for "white and colored children" as long as the part about not guaranteeing a right to an education is kept. Ken Guin, the Democratic House majority leader who wrote Amendment 2, is talking about trying again. Next time, he said, he might do it Giles's way. © 2004 The Washington Post Company |
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