Another special election has occurred that, more than anything, shows what is building for the upcoming November election.

In the soon to be redistricted out Pennsylvania 18 th district, Conor Lamb won the seat as a Democrat for the first time since 2002. Representative-elect Lamb (results are not certified yet) showed that if you match the district to the candidate, you can win. But he needed help along the way.

Republicans gave him that help. Repeatedly.

Republican Help

First by having the former Congressman have to resign due to not simply having had an affair (practically de rigueur [foreign words and phrases should be italicized] for Republicans these days) but
pressuring the woman to have an abortion. As is the norm with anti-choicers, only abortions that don’t affect them are bad. So his pressuring her caused him to have to resign because her abortion didn’t affect the rest of the Republican caucus. That leaves voters distasteful of Republicans to start.

Then they nominated a fairly boring uninspiring candidate which would normally have won the race because he followed the party line to a T(ea party, yes he was a tea partier first running in 2010 where he barely beat his Democrat opponent twice). When your opponent comes off looking like a dynamic, fresh, and talented guy you would like to see marry your daughter, well, it doesn’t help.

The Pelosi Boogeyman

They tried to tie Lamb to Nancy Pelosi. Lamb said he wouldn’t vote for her as the leader (most likely with the party’s blessing). Pelosi’s no fool; she knows Republicans use her as a boogeyman like they have anytime there isn’t an equally competent woman *cough* Hillary *cough* around to bash.

Then the Republicans in the House passed the ACA repeal. Among the many things it did was show how precarious the state of health insurance for people was. Lots of voters didn’t like that.

“Hey! We Lowered Rich People’s Taxes!”

Then the Republicans passed a giant tax giveaway — The Great Tax Scam Bill of 2017 — to corporations and the rich that took money from the middle class in the form of higher health care premiums.

The Great Tax Scam Bill was designed to be signed in 2018 so it would make it politically unfeasible for the Democrats to reverse anything. Instead, the mentally failing Cheato signed the bill right away — in 2017. This caused automatic cuts in popular spending programs like Medicare, which (unsurprisingly) ticked off all the old people.

The House Says Trump Is Honest

Finally, in the days leading up to the final vote, the Republicans in the House released the “final” report on the TrumpRussia issue. To no one’s surprise, they freely admitted they are trying to cover up what happened by saying nothing occurred between Russia and Trump’s campaign. Democrats then released a comprehensive list of what the Republicans refused to do. (Now many of the Republicans on the committee are backtracking.)

You could say that the final factor was actually Cheato himself. But he’s an eternal problem that was there back in the early days of special elections.

Democratic Help

Additionally, Lamb benefited from the rage that is still in many Democratic voters who realized that they were too complacent in 2016. We know, now, that the election was likely stolen. The party has started instituting quiet reforms. And there is a great deal of effort to register, ID,verify, and vote among Democratic activists. All of the Democratic committees and subcommittees are working to get our likely voters registered and verified to vote.

We also are donating in small but consistent amounts. While Lamb had plenty of large contributions, 50% of his financial support came from small donors of $200 or less. There are over a thousand candidates generating excitement (in the case of California, too many candidates because of its “top two” voting system) in the congressional races.

The Takeaway

It’s hard not to see Lamb being helped more by the Republicans than the Democrats. Lamb’s opponent, Republican State Representative Rick Saccone, ran as “Trump before TrumTrump before Trump was Trump.” This might seem like a stupid move, but Sacone didn’t have much choice.

The Republicans have put themselves in a bad situation. Trump is extremely unpopular. But in the Republican Party, he’s very popular. So if Saccone had abandoned Trump, a bit chunk of his Republican voters would have abandoned him. That’s especially true in a special election where it is very easy to decide to stay home.

But this is a problem that Republicans face everywhere. And it will be just as true November 6, 2018. And the Republican Party is freaking out.

This article is cross-posted at Humorless Rants.

So the Senate is set to pass S.2155, basically a gutting of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. And it is doing it with 17 members of the Democratic caucus. Not only will S.2155 make another financial crisis (and you and I will have to pay for) more likely, it does other things like make discrimination in lending easier. Good job by 17 political “Allies.”

But don’t get me wrong: I understand what’s going on — probably better than the Democratic politicians themselves. First, Chuck Schumer is allowing this. He’ll vote against it, but all the lobbyists will know that he set up the situation so that he can say to his constituents that he was against it, while being the most important person who is allowing its passage. What’s more, many of these Democrats are owned by the banking industry. They are voting this way because it is what they believe. These are the kind of Democrats we desperately need to rid ourselves of.

Protective Voting Never Works

And then there are those who are voting for it because they are in a conservative state. And they think that voting for S.2155 will make them more likely to get re-elected. There are a few problems with this idea.

The first is that most conservative voters are fairly liberal when it comes to economic issues. So they won’t hold a parade that Democrat X voted for this bill. If they want to get in good with conservative voters, they should vote against abortion rights or make a racist comment. This bill will be hated by Democratic and Republican voters alike.

Second, they won’t get any credit for it. The president will get credit for it. The president is a Republican. They are Democrats. So any credit that is given will go to their Republican opponent, not them.

Trump Will Get Credit for S.2155, Not These Idiotic Democrats

I would have thought that all national politicians would understand this. In 2002, the Democratic Party decided to work with President George W Bush after 9/11. (I still find it amazing that a president can allow the worst attack on American soil in history and his approval ratings go through the roof. I wish I could get a job where the worse I do the more my employers like me.) Anyway, as a result of working with the Republican President, voters thought it meant Bush was great, the Democrats were savaged in 2002 — a year that the Democrats should have gained many seats.

The truth is that Senators who are less popular in their states than Trump, are going to lose re-election. Voting with Trump 100 percent of the time will not change that. The only thing that would have changed that is if they had switched to the Republican Party in January of 2017.

Democrats Are Making an Economic Crisis More Likely for Nothing

So now we are going to get a really bad bill. And even if it were a good bill, there is no time pressure; it could be put off for a year with no problems — except that huge banks would be less likely to destroy our economy again. But in return for this really bad bill, the Democratic Party gets — wait for it — nothing. Even the individual members will get nothing for it. And it will hurt other Democrats because it will make Trump look more like a competent leader, which we all know he is not.

It’s Hard to Say Republicans Are Worse Than Democrats

But this also bugs me on a personal level. Whenever I have an argument with a conservative, I know I’ve won when they get to the point of saying, “Well, both sides are useless.” Or whatever: corrupt, stupid, any pejorative that fits. When over a third of the Democratic Party votes for a bill that only billionaires want, it’s hard to say to these conservatives, “No, both sides are not the same. The Republican Party really is bad. The Democrats have their problems just like any party. But the Republicans are destroying this country.” Because now they can just say, “What about S.2155?”

Ever since the publication of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in their new book, How Democracies Die, I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about how Trump isn’t the cause of the death of our democracy but merely a symptom.

What Makes a Democracy?

This is undoubtedly true and certainly not a keen insight. Although I must admit that the acceleration of our democracy’s demise has been so great the last couple of years that even I’ve been surprised. I used to tell people that we didn’t have to worry about democracy dying in the US because democracy was not about voting. It was about the institutions of democracy that would keep the ship on course. I should have known better.

Republicans Figured Out How to Destroy Our Democracy

I did not reckon for the modern Republican Party which has absolutely no interest in democracy or even the country. I don’t consider myself terribly patriotic, but modern Republicans aren’t patriotic at all! As I have said too many times before: all they care about is power. Power so that they can enrich themselves and their rich friends.

This all really started in 1994 with Newt Gingrich. He’s the man who really changed the Republican Party from a bad but normal political party into one that cared only about power.

The Real Witch Hunts

And it was because of the Republican caucus that he created that started the actual witch hunt of President Bill Clinton. In fact, I find myself extremely angry when Trump mentions that there is a witch hunt after him. He’s gone through nothing the Bill Clinton went through! He’s not even gone through anything that Hillary Clinton went through. And they were both innocent of any wrongdoing. Day by day it looks like Trump is more guilty than Richard Nixon was.

Hillary Clinton Witch Hunts

As of 2015, there had been 7 Benghazi probes by Congress. Each one of them found the same thing: not only did Hillary Clinton do nothing wrong, no one did anything wrong. The 2012 attack was a tragedy. But the Republicans went on a witch hunt. They just knew that Hillary Clinton had to be responsible for the deaths of Christopher Stevens and three others. And when they found nothing, they started the whole thing over again. It was one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen in American politics. But it wasn’t surprising in the least.

Bill Clinton

And then there is Bill Clinton, but let’s not forget that these were also attacks on Hillary Clinton.

People remember Monica Lewinsky. But they tend to forget about how we got to her. Ken Starr, the special prosecutor for Bill Clinton was determined to get him regardless of what the facts where. He investigates the death of Vince Foster. That’s right! The death of Vince Foster. And after billing the US government for ungodly amounts of money, they produced a 100+ page report that determined what others had found: Foster had killed himself.

(I have a certain affinity for Foster, because I believe that I would have done the same thing that he did. And in the end, in death, he was used in the same way that made him kill himself. Vince Foster was a good man — better than our society deserves.)

And Then Monica Lewinsky

When that went nowhere, Starr just threw the investigation open and looked at everything: Whitewater, the travel office, I assume even Clinton’s supposed drug running when he was governor of Arkansas. But in the end, Starr got him! He knew that any husband would lie about an extramarital affair. And that’s how we got to Monica Lewinsky.

The problem was, the people didn’t care. They could see what the Republicans were doing. Their lives were good, and whatever problems Bill and Hillary had in their marriage, that was their problem.

This, my friends, is a witch hunt. Both of the Clintons have been the subjects of witch hunts. Donald Trump has not. To him, anyone questioning him about anything is a witch hunt. Because Donald J Trump is not the kind of man you question. He’s the kind of man you protect. So if the FBI isn’t protecting him, it must be corrupt!

December 2000

But the day democracy truly died was late in the year 2000. That was when we saw that even the Supreme Court was more interested in having their guy win than seeing the law properly applied. It’s truly amazing that it is conservatives who constantly talk about our legal system being out of control when it is the conservatives who are doing it.

Equal Protection for Our Man Bush Jr

Once that happened all bets were off. There was no democracy. What was the point of even voting if your vote didn’t count. If 9 unelected justices could just say no we’re going to decide who’s president and we’re going to use the precedent we hate and say it only applies to George W Bush.

So don’t ever try to use this equal protection thing to protect poor people. It only applies to George W Bush.

From 1994 Onward, Republicans Will Protect Their President Regardless

The real issue we’re having in this country right now is that the Republican Congress will protect Trump no matter what. And I don’t believe that is any different than it was in 1994. Newt and company would have done the same thing. I just wasn’t paying attention. Few of us were.

Would a Parliament Help Us?

I tend to think that a parliamentary system would have fewer problems of this nature. That’s because it is so hard to get a majority in a parliamentary system. Thus most governments are made up of two — sometimes even three — parties. Thus, getting a government who would protect a man as unfit for the job as Donald Trump wouldn’t happen.

You certainly wouldn’t see what’s going on with Trump right now in a parliamentary system. Because you wouldn’t have enough people in one party who would do anything to protect him. His party might stand behind him, but his coalition partners wouldn’t.

What About Hitler?

But even there we still have the example of the Nazi’s rise to power. And that was in a parliamentary system. But that was very hard. The parliament simply could not form a government. My understanding is that this is no longer a problem.

The winning party gets the first shot at forming a government. But if they are so vile like the Nazis were and like the Republicans are then the second place party gets to see if it can form a government.

More Parties Would Help

I tend to think that if the United States had five or six major parties the Republicans would not be able to get more than about 20 percent of the vote. In a parliamentary system, a party would rise up that would offer the current Republican voters a real populist party: one that was socially conservative and economically liberal. And this would force the current Republican Party to be less just a party that offers oligarchy and one policy (anti-choice) that they like.

But it doesn’t really matter because the truth is when you get that many people who care only about power, democracy is dead. And it’s not like the United States started at a high level.

The Anti-Democratic Foundation of the United States

Remember the Three-Fifths clause? Slaves who were in every other way property gave the slave states 2/3 of a vote for each slave or rather their master’s. And also we have the Senate which is incredibly undemocratic. And finally, we have gerrymandering.

We have the technology to do this. It’s the same technology that we now use to make are congressional districts as unfair as possible. Use exactly the same tools and you could have a fair and Democratic country. But we don’t.

Gerrrymandering Is Bipartisan

And that’s not just the Republican Party’s fault. The truth is that every elected official has a stake in the current system because it is the current system that got them elected. But I truly believe that the Democrats would be in favor of fixing the system.

Look at California: the bluest of blue States. It passed a law and pretty much got rid of gerrymandering. But you don’t much see that in red States. And the reason for it is that Republicans are not popular. They understand that in order to gain power they must the system.

Our Broken Judicial System

What I find truly amazing though is that conservatives complain about how Obama abused the Constitution. I remember no such thing.

He was extremely careful. There were many things that he did that I don’t like. But he did not trample the Constitution. The truth is that we have a constitution that is over 200 years old. It might have been state-of-the-art then but it is not today. There are much better constitutions. But that’s not Obama’s fault.

People Think Trump Is Saving Our Courts

At the same time, the people who think that Obama destroyed the Constitution think that Trump is saving it. And while I don’t think that Trump has done much damage to the Constitution because he’s so incompetent, it’s true that he knows so little about it that his general instincts are to run roughshod all over it.

He thinks like an authoritarian. He thinks that everyone in government is there to protect him. He seems to think that people join the FBI and pledge to protect him and not the Constitution.

I would be shocked to find out that Donald Trump has ever read the Constitution. He doesn’t understand it and he doesn’t understand our country. That’s really the biggest problem with him. How can you love America when you know nothing about it?

We Will Survive Trump, But…

So I think we’ll get through Trump. And I think the next president will be a Democrat. And they will do a lot of cleaning up. They will also do some bad things but let’s face it: the Congressional Democrats won’t let them get away with much.

This has been one of my complaints about the Democratic Party. They are not loyal to their own. The Republicans have the opposite problem. They are so loyal to their own that they will see their country destroyed before they will turn on a president like Donald Trump.

The Next Republicans

So we’ll get another presidency and things will go back to the way we thought they were. But I assure you the next Republican president will be even worse than Trump. Remember how bad George W Bush was? Remember how we couldn’t imagine someone worse? Welcome to president Donald J Trump.

So the next Republican president will be like Trump but he will be far smarter. He might even manage to dismantle our democracy completely without anyone even noticing. He might be rather well-liked — even by Democrats! Our problems don’t stop with Trump.

I don’t expect to live that long. But if I live to be 90, I know I will see a country that is unlike anything I ever thought possible when I was 30 years old. Things just get worse and worse.

The Real Fault: No False Equivalence

And I will not play any false equivalence here. There are many problems with the Democratic Party. But they are a normal political party. They are not the reason that our democracy is dying. Our democracy is dying because of the Republican Party. That’s all there is to say. And if you are Republican voter, you’re voting for the death of democracy in America.

I don’t want to be cute about this. You need to read some books. You need to pay attention. You need to see that the Republican Party is something more than just the party that will install anti-choice judges.

Because that is the real question for you. Does getting a few anti-choice judges on the court enough? Because they will also, by the way, always vote against individuals and for large corporations and basically vote against you in every way except on this one issue. Is that an acceptable exchange for the end of democracy in the United States?

Because there are already countries you can go to where abortion is completely illegal even to save the life of the mother. Many of them are authoritarian. So if that’s what you want go there. Why destroy our flailing democracy here?

Sean Illing interviewed Stephen Mansfield who is an Evangelical Christian but one of the few who does not support Donald Trump.

I must admit I didn’t read the interview. I only read the introduction. Because I don’t really care. There’s only one thing I do care about and that is that 80% of Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump. You remember Donald Trump: the guy who’s on his third marriage, who plays around, makes money from the gambling industry, believes in money above all else, lies as though would get a price for it, and admits proudly to molesting women. That Donald Trump. You’d think that Evangelical Christians would be against a man who Jesus would hate. But what do I know?

Christian Trump Apologetics

You see, I don’t see Stephen Mansfield as an actual researcher of the Evangelical Christians who voted for Donald Trump. I see him as an apologist. I see him as a man who is trying to justify why these people would go against everything they claim to believe in to vote for this man.

For example, Mansfield thinks that Evangelical Christians voted for Trump because they thought that he would put people on the Supreme Court who would be anti-choice. Well as you know if you read my article Religious Right: Racism Not Abortion, you would know that the religious right’s absolute focus on abortion is something that was created. It was just a cover to allow religious schools in the south to continue to be all white.

So okay: I have little doubt that the 80% of Evangelical Christians who voted for Trump told themselves that they were voting for him because he would appoint anti-choice judges. But the truth is that it wasn’t really hard for them. Donald Trump’s major appeal was that he was a racist. And so are they. So they voted for him without much thought. He was just the kind of President they wanted!

(Data on the subject is hard. But in general, we know that anti-abortion laws don’t decrease abortions by much if any. Instead, they lower legal, safe abortions. There has never been any question in my mind that anti-choice laws, and the increasingly popular anti-contraceptive laws, are mostly about limited women and punishing them for the act of sex. Christians are a particularly vile group when it comes to this — especially when you consider that Jesus never brough the subject up.)

Early Christians and How Different They Were

I read a lot about Christian theology and about the early Christian sects. And this is clear: they would never have voted for someone like Donald Trump. Because they believed in something. They believed in the word of Jesus Christ. Modern Christians, at least the modern ones here in America. have very little interest in the word of Christ.

In America today, Evangelical Christians are overwhelmingly a group of white people who don’t like anyone else. And that’s really all you have to say about them. You can take a white Evangelical Christian and a white non-evangelical Christian and you will find nothing that separates them. They are just the same with the same bigotries. And if Christ is in their heart there is no indication of it outside of it. They are some of the vilest and intolerant people in the world.

No Christian Terrorists Because They Are in the Majority

The funny thing is that they hate Muslims so much. Because the truth is that if they were not a majority in this country and if they were not constantly pandered to, they would be just like the most extreme Muslims. They would pick up guns and kill people. They would create suicide vests. The Prince of Peace? That’s a joke to these people. The Christ that most of us think of is so different from the Christ that they think of.

To them, Christ is more like Rambo than St Francis. And they are proud of it!

I’m not just talking out of thin air here. I’ve talked to a lot of them. And they have no idea of Christian theology. All they have is the idea that they are the chosen people. They are the people who God loves. And anything they can do to hurt other people who are not chosen by their God is great.

So, of course, they would be for Donald Trump. That is about as surprising as the fact that if you let go of a ball from your hand in the air it will fall to the ground.

Modern Christians: Thugs

It’s funny but I’ve spoken to a number of business owners and they have all told me the same thing. The Christians are the ones they have to watch out for the most. They are the ones who will try to skim a buck here and do other things that people who do not have the supposed Lord in their hearts would never do.

It’s really amazing. Think about it. The early Christians were known for their moral rectitude. And today Christians think that their belief in God allows them to act like common thugs. It’s truly amazing. I’m no more interested in what modern American Christians think then what the insane homeless man has to say. Remember: the Italian and Irish mafia were extremely religious.

So let’s not waste our time wondering why the followers of the Prince of Peace would follow Donald Trump. I’ve seen their shirts. They’re very common! They say, “JESUS Died for You, TRUMP Lives for You.” If you don’t see how heretical this is then you know nothing about Christianity. For these people, Christian isn’t a religion; he’s a social signifier.

There are certainly good Christians. But in general, if American Evangelical Christians got to set up the government that they wanted it would be worse than the Nazi government. I don’t say that to shock. That’s simply a fact of life. These people are vile and evil.

The Modern Christians I’ve Known

I know lots of modern Christians here in America. Not one of them volunteers their time for the poor. All they do is give some money to the church. And they figure that’s enough. They don’t like the poor. They wish the poor would go away. They’re a very disturbing group. Most of them have never read the Bible. The only thing they know is what their pastors have told them. And in most cases that is just what their pastors told them. And in general, it’s really sick and twisted.

There are liberal Christians of course. Bruce Coburn is a famous example of that. He’s a man who cares about people.

But that’s not what American Evangelical Christians are. They are just people in a power struggle. That’s why they hate Muslims so much. They like Jews, but only because they are part of their end of times. And during that end times those Jews that they now like will all be killed. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. (Look at the pictures of the people in the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ pamphlets — but make all the people white.)

And if that sounds familiar it should because that is the philosophy of the current president of the United States. And that’s why they want to limit legal immigration. In fact, they would prefer to have no immigration at all. Because all that does is bring over people who are not white Protestant Christians like themselves. You know: the people who made up the KKK. A land not fit for the KKK is not fit for the Evangelical Christians!

I’m Not Overstating: Evangelical Christians Are Horrible People

Am I being harsh? Certainly not. These are horrible people. The best thing we could do is find them an island somewhere to put them on so they could be all together in all their Lily whiteness. And they wouldn’t have to worry about people who don’t believe exactly what they believe (whatever that is other than, “We good, you bad”).

Let’s go through this once more. In the last election, 80% of Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump. And if you are surprised by this it is only because you have not been paying attention. These people are exclusionary. All they want are other white people who are Christians in the same way that they are. And they want to get rid of everyone else.

In other words, and it’s unfortunate I have to say this, they are Donald Trump. They are his people. They hate everyone who is not like them.

Will Evangelicals Regret Aligning With Trump?! Hehe!

In the interview with Stephen Mansfield he says that they may come to regret aligning themselves with Donald Trump. This is nonsense. They will not. All they care about is power. That was clear with Billy Graham and it is even more clear with Franklin Graham. But if you look it’s clear of all of them.

All they want is to see Christ coming back to the world on a horse with a sword killing all the infidels. This is what you get when you worship a 2,000-year-old religion. Then they’ll care about anything but the power of their people. So obviously they are Trump’s people. In 2020 I expect that Trump will get 90% of the Evangelical vote.

Because Trump has already done so much damage to the people that are not white Evangelical Christians that they can only love him more.

American Evangelical Christians Don’t Love Christ

They think they love Jesus Christ. They think they worship him. But in fact they worship Donald Trump. Because really what has Jesus Christ done for them lately? On the other hand Trump quite recently has gotten rid of many of the infidels that they hate so much. And their belief is based on hatred, not love. It is not based on any love that I know.

So can we stop being surprised that Evangelical Christians support Donald Trump? He is everything they want. He is power. He hates everyone who is not like him. He offers no love, no forgiveness, and no mercy to anyone not on his “team.” He is the opposite of Jesus. But Evangelical Christians don’t care about any of that any way. They’ve never been that into the Gospels. They’re into Revelation. They’re into the time when Jesus comes back and kicks ass. Until then, they have Donald Trump.

But they’ve waited a long time. And now here is Donald Trump doing it for them so they worship him. These are vile people. And they will only love Trump more as he does worse and worse things.

Don’t be fooled. Christian Evangalism is just an old name for a new cult: the Cult of Donald Trump. And they are all very dangerous.

America is an almost comically racist country. I use the word “comically” because most people are extremely racist, but they have no knowledge of it. Oh yeah, they’ll admire those who fought against slavery 150 years ago. But they’ll also admire those who fought for it without seeing any contradiction.

It is mostly because of this that I find it hard to love this country very much. Of course, there is so much more. I admire intellectual endeavor, and more Americans hate it unless it results in something they can beat their chests about like going to the moon. Of course, the two things are related. If you think, then you know racism is wrong. That’s why our president is a such a proud racist: he doesn’t value thinking.

The Long Road to Martin Luther King Jr Day

On this day (kinda) in 1993, Martin Luther King Jr Day became an official holiday celebrated in all 50 states. The history of this is bizarre. It became a national holiday starting in 1986, even though Ronald Reagan signed the law in 1983. The holdout was Arizona, which actually lost the hosting of Super Bowl XXVII, because its people just couldn’t manage to support it.

There were two ballot measures in 1990. One (301) would have replaced Columbus Day with MLK day and the people hated it — voting it down by almost 51 percentage points. The other (302) would have just created a new state holiday, and it lost narrowly by 1.6 percentage points. Finally, in 1992, the people of Arizona approved Proposition 300 that combined Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays into President’s day and created “Martin Luther King Jr/Civil Rights Day,” by a wide margin of almost 23 percentage points.

Interestingly, the difference was not the specifics of the measure or that the people had had a change of heart. The difference was that Propositions 301 and 302 took place in 1990 — an off year. Proposition 300 took place in 1992 — a presidential election year. If you look at the numbers, you will see that roughly the same number of people voted against 300 as voted against 302. It’s just there were a whole lot more liberals who showed up to the polls to vote for Bill Clinton (who still lost, but only barely).

It still kind of bugs me that in the state of Arizona, Martin Luther King Jr Day is “Martin Luther King Jr/Civil Rights Day.” It isn’t the only state to do this. Idaho and New Hampshire do similar things. Now understand: I am in favor of turning Martin Luther King Jr Day into Civil Rights Day. I am in favor of this because I don’t like these celebrations being about specific people. King is a symbol for a wider movement and that is the thing that we should be celebrating. But I think that adding “civil rights” or “human rights” to the name is meant to diminish Martin Luther King. And that is not my wish, as King would always be an important part of any such celebration.

Robert E Lee Day?!

But I can deal with that. What I cannot deal with is what we find in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Virginia. In each of these states, they combine celebrations of Martin Luther King with Robert E Lee. We can forget that Lee was a slave owner whose military brilliance doubtless cost hundreds of thousands of extra America lives in the name of maintaining the enslavement of African Americans. Let’s just make it simple: Robert E Lee committed treason against the United States of America. He should have spent the last five years of his life in federal custody. He certainly shouldn’t have holidays named after him. The southerns who can’t understand that are unpatriotic America-haters who should be shamed at every chance.

To have Robert E Lee day is like having Slavery Day — the day we celebrate the hundreds of years that slavery made America so much money!

Why I Admire Martin Luther King Jr

I appreciate MLK for his work as a civil rights leader. But I most appreciate him because he was a humanitarian. Everyone with half a brain knows that King was in Memphis, Tennessee to support a strike by the mostly white American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union. There was certainly a racial component to it. But the fact is that King didn’t hate white people, even though he had every reason to. He was a humanitarian — something too few Americans are.