political linkage, all in one place

[swan_tower]

I've had various things open in tabs for a while now, but the truth of the matter is that I probably won't have the brain-power to say anything substantive about them until, oh, November. So screw it. I'll just toss them up in a single post, and leave it at that. If you aren't interested in politics, cruise on by.

New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit -- Bill Maher, expressing a lot of my concerns about what happens when the profit motive becomes the governing principle of various fields.

Touching back to principles -- Abi Sutherland on the need for the government to protect the individual against the corporation.

The GOP's Misplaced Rage -- pretty much a classic case of "I didn't leave my party; my party left me." Bruce Bartlett, long-time Republican economist and old-school developer of supply-side economics, on the ways in which our current problems are the GOP's fault. I don't necessarily agree with his ideas on how we could and should fix the problems, but this guy is exactly what I see lacking in the face of the Republican Party today: an intelligent, principled man whose views I can respect even when I disagree with him.

An Officer's Experience in Our Christian Military -- this worries me. A lot.

Comments

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

"He told me that I could eat the pork or eat nothing."


As a Jewish woman, I literally teared up at that, because I saw myself being forced to go hungry, just for observing my faith.

"the Army is not in the business of catering to people like you."

People like me. Sigh, makes me feel like I'm imposing just by living quietly.

[jsbangs.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'm a Christian, but even I'm pretty outraged by the idea that a Jewish soldier was ordered to eat pork. I mean, WTF?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

makes me feel like I'm imposing just by living quietly.

That's exactly it -- for people such as that. Their worldview demands conformity, or they cannot rest.

It boggles me, and it scares me, and it makes me very sad.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I've felt it from those nutcases. An evangelical church group camped out in the local park on the Jewish Sabbath and terrified the kids in the neighborhood, and when I asked one why can't they respect our religion? Or how evangelical Christian guests at the Holocaust museum loudly wept (in front of survivors and family of survivors) that all those poor Jews were in hell and how sad they felt for us poor people?

Seriously, it's like they're big brother wannabes.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That's appalling.