Weekly Address: Sandy Hook Victim’s Mother Calls for Commonsense Gun Responsibility Reforms | The White House

Weekly Address: Sandy Hook Victim’s Mother Calls for Commonsense Gun Responsibility Reforms | The White House

Right vs. Reason

RNC spokesman Sean Spicer comparing voter ID laws to locking the doors to your house at night, "You do it not because it has a history of being broken into, but because you regard your property and your personal well-being as something precious and you want to protect it."

If the rate of break-ins in the US was as low as voter fraud, we wouldn't have locks on our doors...

Reason vs. Right Cartoon Debut

The first one!

McSkeptic's Election 2012 Images

What Is The Sound Of A Non Sequitur Clapping?

The above cartoon, titled Non Sequitur (not the serial comic strip, Non Sequitur, by Wiley Miller), by editorial cartoonist David Horsey, came across my Facebook feed; the comment below was the most recent. I've disguised the picture and blacked out her name. I'll call her Darla.

I had to ask myself a few questions, since there is an obvious disconnect happening here.

Does this comment mean:



1) The White House is also a penitentiary?



2) The White House has been moved to a penitentiary?



3) White House staffers can appear in two places simultaneously or Doppelgangers are afoot?



4) Some convicts can appear in two places simultaneously or are projecting holographic images of themselves into the White House?



5) Obama has a white house?



6) Is a person by the name of "Check Who" a White House staffer? If so, they're most likely a Chinese plant named "Hu Kai Chek," what with the lax security at the White House.



7) English composition and critical thinking skills aren't required to be a right winger?



8) Unbelievable hatchet jobs..these conservative guys will do anything..can't debate so make up facts…Hey, hey, hey! Don't accuse me of jackwelching, I'm just sayin' -- you know, I really should have put a question mark on that...



9) White House staff = convict = cheater = tax dodger = offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland = Mitt Romney = White House staff? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa…wait just a doggone minute! Is Darla saying Willard Mitt Romney is a staffer at the White House? Ouch. I seem to. Be suffering. Severe cognitive. Dissonance must. Find relief. Soon or. Else brain. Will explode.



10) All of the above?

The juicy irony of Darla's out of far-right field comment, on a comic with the title "Non Sequitur" is just too good to be true. Maybe she was trying to employ irony or be sarcastic? We may never know. I had way too much fun writing this -- at poor Darla's expense. However, it's not really about Darla; it's about how the right wing's infinitely repeating echo chamber makes it impossible for those inside the chamber to hear anything except their own incessant rantings building on one another. How loud are those echoes? So loud that Darla could not hear the sound of a non sequitur clapping.

The Happily-Angry Republicans

Several years ago, before I came to my senses, I resided on the happily-angry far left -- a place where conspiracy theories and delusions abound, including those about skewed polls and cooked government numbers. We were laughed at by mainstream Democrats. Now that I'm part of that majority, I look back and laugh at my previously credulous self.

Comparing that to what is happening now -- Republican political and punditry theories of skewed polls and government job number machinations -- you might ask yourself, as I have, "Why are mainstream Republicans doing this? Why are they engaging in such detrimental delusions?"

The answer that I've accepted didn't surprise me, I've suspected it all along, however, this latest bizarre behavior from Republican politicians and pundits has really reinforced this realization for me: the Republican mainstream is now one and the same with the far right.

Maybe, someday, the happily-angry Republicans will return to the open majority -- that position where compromise isn't curse -- look back and laugh at their earlier credulous selves.

Why I'm An Atheist.

It seems that many people who tell us stories of why they're atheists describe a childhood of being allowed to read any books, ask any questions, and that by so doing, they were able to come to the realization, quite early on in some cases, that the idea of god, heaven, Santa, etc., were false -- that only science could explain the workings of the Universe.

I wasn't such a child. Yes, I was allowed to read pretty much what I wanted, and was given books about dinosaurs, astronomy and many other scientific subjects. However, I wasn't inspired to ask deep, precocious questions about life, the universe and everything; rather, I was inspired to become a dreamer.

The culture of the ‘60s seemed to have intensified that part of me; I was exposed to mind-expanding ideas presented by fascinating, rebellious characters, and I dove in with all abandon. ESP, pyramid power or ancient aliens? Sign me up. Visiting other planets via astral projection? Beam me up.

Over the years I tried many different “paths.” Eventually I settled down into a comfortable, albeit somewhat boring, acceptance of karma and reincarnation. Life was simple. We’re born, we live our lives doing the best we can, we die. Then we do it all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. All the while, however, my early exposure to science was humming in the background: evolution, the Big Bang, the orbital mechanics of planetary bodies.

At times I did believe that we were seeded by an alien race -- as Dan Bern sang, “Aliens came and fucked the monkey”; after the aliens blasted off it was evolution all the way down. Eventually, near the end of my spiritual quest phase -- my entire adult existence until about two years ago -- I dropped the alien intervention idea and put all my money on Darwin and his academic descendants.

Ultimately, it wasn’t seeing the light of god, experiencing past lives through various means, or living a life of karmic balance that saved me, it was my childhood exposure to science. Maybe, after all, my being allowed to read whatever I wanted did make me an atheist. Just not quite as quickly as others.

A page from one of my childhood books, Whitman World Library - Astronomy