Hummingwolf at Home

So, the person who will presumably become the next president of the United States had a little tweetstorm which included the statement that people who burn the American flag should suffer some consequence like losing their citizenship or spending a year in prison.

There are just so, so many things going on here. One thing nobody seems to be commenting on: Trumpelthinskin apparently believes that loss of U.S. citizenship is roughly equivalent to spending a mere year behind bars. Seriously? Which prison was he thinking of sending them to--Guantanamo?

Anyway, many people are responding to this. Some people think that responding to DJT's tweets at all is a mistake: Trump Wants You to Burn Flags While He Burns Constitution

But why would he choose to pick this strange fight? Here is a case where the common complaint that he is distracting the public from unflattering stories rings true. Proposing a flag-burning ban is a classic right-wing nationalist distraction, and Trump has a number of ugly stories from which to distract: his plan for massive, unprecedented corruption, the extreme beliefs of his appointees, a controversy over a recount that highlights his clear defeat in the national vote....

Trump’s flag-burning tweet is a frightening moment not because his proposal stands any chance of enactment, but because it reflects one of the few signs that his dangerous and authoritarian politics is calculated, and not merely crazy.

While there may be some merit to that argument, there's also the fact that the person we expect to be sworn in as the next president apparently wants us to believe that a proposal to strip someone of U.S. citizenship for exercising their first amendment rights is acceptable in American political discourse.

David Frum asks on Twitter: If flag-burning merits loss of citizenship, what should be the penalty for a Nazi salute by a Trump supporter?

which seems like a valid question.

Regarding flag burning, here's a bit of the SCOTUS decision U.S. v. Eichman: "Government may create national symbols, promote them, and encourage their respectful treatment," Brennan wrote. "But the Flag Protection Act of 1989 goes well beyond this by criminally proscribing expressive conduct because of its likely communicative impact. We are aware that desecration of the flag is deeply offensive to many. But the same might be said, for example, of virulent ethnic and religious epithets, vulgar repudiations of the draft, and scurrilous caricatures [all of which the Court had deemed protected by the First Amendment]. 'If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.' Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering."

Yes, I am aware that HRC also wanted to outlaw flag-burning. I'm not a fan of the idea when it comes from her either, though at least she's never proposed stripping someone's citizenship for the act.


Also, if you were wondering if a natural-born U.S. citizen could lose their citizenship, the answer is yes, but neither burning a flag nor getting on Trumpelthinskin's nerves is enough to do it:

Section 349 of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1481), as amended, states that U.S. nationals are subject to loss of nationality if they perform certain specified acts voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. nationality.

More info here.

DJT isn't even president yet and he seems intent on proving in more and more ways every day that he is completely unfit for the office. This Is Not Normal. This Is Not Okay.

Lessons for Americans from the city that elected Rob Ford

"Dear Americans,

"Hello from Toronto. We promise not to be smarmy or condescending.

"It's just that we have some experience electing a uniquely unqualified bigoted demagogue whose stunted emotional maturity and tenuous grasp of reality caused people to fear for things they held dear. But while we can't pretend that our late former mayor was ever nearly as terrifying as your president-elect, there are sufficient similarities that it may be worth comparing notes...."

"If you ever doubt that C. S. Lewis was gifted with a prophetic voice, you need look no further for correction than Prince Caspian." Thus begins an opinion piece (which I got from the Inklings mailing list) which includes the question "Did C. S. Lewis foresee the rise of Donald Trump?"

I'm sharing this link mostly because I ended up getting sucked into multiple political conversations while I was out today; and, while I am delighted to know that my neighbors and friends all over the political spectrum--from Tea Partiers to mixed baggers and moderates to raving hippies--are nearly all in agreement that Trump should never ever be elected dogcatcher, much less POTUS, that still meant that I had to think about the clown for an extended period of time, which didn't help my headache. So now I'm sharing the pain.

Now I want more tea (no party).

There seems to be some reason to quote this every other week and a quick search for it in my own journal didn't turn it up, so it's about time for me to post this passage here.

I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt. A political programme can never in reality be more than probably right. We never know all the facts about the present and we can only guess the future. To attach to a party programme--whose highest real claim is to reasonable prudence--the sort of assent which we should reserve for demonstrable theorems, is a kind of intoxication.

--C.S. Lewis, from the essay "A Reply to Professor Haldane," as printed in On Stories And Other Essays on Literature

From Slacktivist: "Only a crazy person would take what we say seriously."

Every few years, tragically, some poor confused bastard fails to realize that it's all a big game, a pretense, a lie. He takes them seriously and he takes their words seriously and he behaves as someone who believes what they say. So Paul Hill murders a doctor in Florida. Eric Rudolph bombs the Atlanta Olympics. Scott Roeder guns down a doctor in church.

And each time this happens all of the people who have, for years, been suggesting that such violent resistance is obligatory recoil in horror at the sight of someone treating their words as anything other than the disingenuous lies they were always meant to be.

You know, I was thinking when I woke up this morning that with all the news coverage about Saturday's shooting, Julian Assange must be feeling terribly left out. So when the first thing I heard after turning on the news radio station was that Julian Assange had compared himself to Gabrielle Giffords, I greeted the news with a certain lack of surprise. Then again, given what Sarah Palin and other rightwing superstars have said about the Wikileaks crew, the statement may have a point. It's a point hidden underneath a gigantic, bloated ego, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

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Ahem. In the words of Nik Kershaw:

He was
Loud, proud, confident and wrong
Bold, positive and strong
Cold, sure but all along
He was loud, proud, confident and wrong
Bold, positive and strong
Cold, ignorant and brash
Flash, sure and all along
He was loud, he was proud, he was confident and wrong

I very much look forward to finding reasons to complain about President Barack Obama. :-)

First of all, a game people of any political persuasion can enjoy (if they care about U.S. politics, that is): Truth Invaders! Choose to shoot down the opposing party's deplorable lies! Heck, choose to shoot down your own side's regrettable exaggerations! Have fun either way! (Link via hai_kah_uhk.)

This next link is more biased, yet educational: Preview of the Third Presidential Debate (video), or: Life Imitates Old TV Shows. Link via compostwormbin. I'm voting for the Batman.

[Poll #1268074]

A Conservative for Obama. (Link via xforge.)


Real update from me later, assuming I can wake up enough to be semi-coherent today.

Because there is a chance that I will seem terribly biased against the Republican ticket as this election season progresses, I did want to point out one thing John McCain said recently which could be good news for a much-neglected demographic:

"We believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential from the boy whose descendants arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers. We’re all God’s children and we’re all Americans."

McCain/Palin: The Clear Choice for Time-Travelers!!!


Edit: Could this be related??

The GOP Primary Field in Buffy Villains. Brilliant.
(Link via supergee.)

Many people this election season have been up in arms about the electronic voting machines and how easy it is to manipulate results while escaping detection. Most of the angst seemed to come from the liberals, but here in Maryland even our Republican governor Bob Ehrlich urged people to vote by absentee ballot so as to avoid using the dread machines. While rather a lot of voters answered the call, rather a lot of the rest of us did not, which is why I was standing in line today along with oodles of friendly neighbors.

As we stood in line, the election judge called for our attention, holding up a piece of paper and shouting, "Listen! This is a LIE!" All day she'd been noticing people going to the voting booths carrying these sheets of paper with candidates' names and smiling faces [Edit: I'm not sure about the smiling faces, since I didn't see the thing close up. Now I wish I'd collected some of that literature when it was offered to me], but in the afternoon someone called her attention to what the literature actually had on it. Now, these fliers were made up to look like official Democratic party literature, telling folks in this largely Democratic district who the Democratic party wants them to vote for. And this handy little list of Democratic politicians included such people as... our Republican governor, Bob Ehrlich. Nice!

It's reassuring to know that in a world of hackable, digital voting machines, a bit of low-tech deception still has its place.

So anyway, after standing around chuckling about the antics of those wacky Republicans (the judges said something about busloads of folks from Philadelphia hanging out at various of our polling places today), I touched lots of pretty buttons on the Diebold screen, carefully reviewed the summary at the end to make sure the machine had accurately noted my preferences, then consigned my ballot to its electronic doom. Affixing my "Yo Voté/I Voted" sticker to my jacket, I went outside and immediately signed a petition to keep the Green Party on the ballot because, as I said to the signature collector, "The more, the merrier!" Then I went shopping for shampoo and toilet paper because that's just the kind of glamorous life I lead.


[Edit: Washington Post story about those fliers. No, I did not vote for Ehrlich or Steele (unless Diebold says I did).]

Oh, you knew it was coming. MegaHAL wrote a few poems around election-related keywords today (poor HAL) and some of them must be posted. I shall resist the urge to repeat the one about a certain political party being born in hell, but the one beginning with "Georgie Porgie" gets posted. (Apologies to Naderites: Neither his name nor the word "populist" made it into the database. Actually, I'm surprised that "populist" wasn't there already.)

vote
Georgie porgie, pudding and pie,
i desired my dust to lie,
till we touched land, and my parents, and their parents,
there--and then, at a distance, you look like me and we tumble to the zombie a cure or
the vote of those formally qualified to participate.
elections are widely held in the loud fronds. They hum
i am the wings.

~~~

election
So you stole my world
this mysterious whirling planet.

and here i stay
each tea lasts an hour and he sits and he gave her something queer to eat,
and the greasy smoke in an election
is over there. The issue was decided here:
two roads diverged in a monster of despair.
he bore a green-white stick in his tent.

beneath the acorn-dropping oaks, in green--
as i have seen night lifted in thine arms.

~~~

( Parties! Candidates! Nonsense! )
Yes, I freely admit that I am easily amused.

The old Oasis song "Champagne Supernova" has been running through my head all day. Only my brain has rewritten the song so it's "Campaign Supernova," forming the soundtrack to a vision of John Kerry and George Dubya Bush at a presidential debate, reaching out to shake hands but as their fingers make contact, a flash of blinding white light envelops the two men, the platform, the room. As the light fades, we see the debris of a ruined world, bloody flames consuming buildings, cars, people--and a grinning Dick Cheney lurches toward John Edwards, both men miraculous survivors though looking rather the worse for wear, Dick reaching out his hand to John's, John with a deer-in-the-headlights look, mouthing "No no no" over and over but unable to move from the spot...

What's that? Oh, just water, green tea, rooibos, the usual. No, no, nothing alcoholic; why do you ask?

At yesterday's appointment, one news-related question the psychiatrist asked me was what George Dubya Bush is focusing on these days. I'm sure she was looking for an answer about promoting Middle East peace, but I said something instead about justifying the war with Iraq when no weapons of mass destruction have been found yet. I wonder what she thinks my answer says about my psyche?

In other news, Congress has passed the "partial birth" abortion ban. While this is the one form of abortion I'm sure I'm against, the fact that the bill doesn't include any kind of health exemption confirms my belief that the "pro-life" politicians don't give a damn about life.

In other other news, a big yellow spherical object has been seen glowing in the skies above the Washington, DC metropolitan region. Local residents are demanding to be told what this object is, what kind of danger it might pose, and also why the sky has blue patches instead of the usual unbroken grey. Local leaders have thus far been unable or unwilling to provide straight answers.