Currently viewing the tag: "Fear"
Good post by Jim DePiso on the Republicans’ war on the EPA. I’ll say this: the Koch brothers and their compatriots in the oil and gas industry were stunningly effective in turning what was the mainstream Republican position (McCain’s, Gingrich’s and Romney’s in 2008, among others) into radioactive anathema for Republicans in 2010. Inevitable Republican overreach against the EPA might help spark a backlash and turn the tide the other way again. Let’s hope so since, given the state of global warming, sooner is better than later.
Blame it on the racialist thugs who continue to terrorize lower Manhattan with unhinged fear-mongering about some Muslims setting up a community center in an old Burlington Coat Factory, or blame it on a meth-addicted paranoid tooth fairy, it really doesn’t matter.
What does matter, however, is the fact that widespread hyberbolic demonization of always-evil government and the tens of millions of stealth Muslim jihadis in our midst really does drive crazy people to do crazy things:
Roger Stockham, a 63-year-old Army veteran from California who was reportedly angry at the U.S. government, was arrested by police in Michigan and charged with allegedly threatening to blow up a Mosque in Dearborn.
Dearborn police allegedly found Stockham inside his vehicle outside the Islamic Center of America with a load of M-80s in his trunk and other explosives, the Detroit News reported.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Counsel on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the newspaper that police told him the suspect was drinking in a Detroit bar on Monday and threatened to do harm to a mosque in Dearborn. An employee at the bar followed the man outside and wrote down his license plate, which he reported to police, Walid told the newspaper.
The 63-year-old grandfather is charged with one count of a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of possession of bombs with unlawful intent, according to the newspaper.
Let us always be wary of the threat that Decoy Muslims pose to America:
I really love following the new statistics for how people perceive the relative prevalence of violent crime.
The FBI’s semiannual uniform crime report shows that reports of violent crime dropped 6.2 percent from January to June and property crime reports were down 2.8 percent.
The dip in reported crimes follows a three-year trend of decreasing crime rates despite a sagging economy.
According to the FBI, murders dropped 7.1 percent in the first six months of 2010 while robberies decreased by 10.7 percent. Reports of vehicle thefts also dropped by 9.7 percent.
The murder rate is now half of what it was in 1980. There have been reasonably steady increases decreases in virtually all measures of property crimes and violent crimes since 1992. Yet Gallup polls show that in every year in that period except for 2001 and 2002, the majority (and usually the overwhelming majority) of Americans believed the crime rate had gone up over the last year.
Above all other canards, the public’s continual inability to dispassionately learn the facts and come to the appropriate conclusion on this issue helps to explain a lot of what goes on in the average Fox News viewer’s mind.
It’s not just that people are too busy to learn the truth (as most of the punditocracy would have you believe).
In reality, most folks derive far too much spiritual comfort from living withing a familiar, fixed worldview that has calcified around them over time. In order to satisfy and cultivate this comfort, these people actively avoid any news, opinion, facts or studies to the contrary. Far too many people have been conditioned to derive a sick sort of pleasure from seeing themselves as wounded victims. Regardless of the root cause, this sort of sociological persecution complex all too often leads these spiritual masochists to seek out fear-peddling outlets like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck because they provide an easy channel of self-validating anxiety.
Are the New Black Panthers going to come to Podunk, USA and harass my virginal 18-year-old daughter? Of course they are.
Is our President really a secret Al-Qaeda sympathizer dedicated to the elimination of American Christianity? Of course he is.
Is the tidal wave of illegal immigration going to spill over my small town outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming and result in beheadings and kidnappings? Of course it is.
Are we experiencing the worst wave of violent crime and lawlessness in decades? Of course we are!
One thing I like to say is: America is great, not because of our genetics. We’re great because we created a place and space where people can be free. And they can choose Christ, they can choose to be faithful. They can worship, and they find their way to the Lord. And — or some of them don’t. We sure want them all to, but some of them don’t.Part of that freedom — when you take a government and you impose, and take away all your choices. One of the choices you take away is to find the Lord. And to find your savior.
And that’s one of the things that’s most destructive about the growth of government. It’s this taking away of that freedom. The freedom — the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation. And to find Christ, for me and you.
And I think that’s one of the things that we have to be very, very aware of. That the Obama Administration and Congressman Carnahan are doing to us.
I know you’re all gonna slam me for my child-like naiveté on this but are there really so few good, decent politicians out there with any shred of integrity or responsibility?
Are there any depths to which most any politician will not sink?
Are there simply no limits to what these greased-up sociopaths will say to the ignorant masses to stoke up their animal fear-based instincts to get themselves elected?
Disagreeing with Obama on health care policy is fine.
Saying that Obama wants to take away “all your choices” and your choice to “find the Lord“? That’s serious danger talk.
Remember the days when we had a few responsible Republicans who batted shit like this away? No longer.
Jeebus wept for the future of our polity.
It turns out that all the paranoid screeching by people like Michelle Bachmann about the evil census-takers who will secretly register you at nefarious government donkey-rape camps is going to have some delicious side effects:
WASHINGTON — Texas is counting on the 2010 Census to deliver four new congressional districts, four new Electoral College votes in presidential elections, and millions of dollars in additional federal aid. But, as some elected officials are starting to worry, Uncle Sam can’t deliver anything to the rapidly growing Sun Belt state unless Texas residents deliver their forms back to the government.As of Friday afternoon, only 27 percent of Texas households had filled in and returned their census forms — well below the national average of 34 percent — according to computer data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In Harris County, the response rate is 23 percent. Houston’s returns are running at 21 percent.
Contrary to historical trends, some of the toughest challenges facing the agency responsible for measuring the nation’s population are not from counting the traditionally undercounted groups such as African-Americans and Latinos. Instead, a new and growing threat to an accurate national head count is coming from anti-government conservatives who may not fill out their forms to protest against “Big Brother” in Washington. [...]
“People are concerned about the apparent intrusive nature of the census,” said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble. “People are very concerned that the government is going too far.” [...]
What’s more, he added, “it’s very important for people to fill out the census because of reapportionment and redistricting — and Texas stands to gain four (House) seats.”
But Texas can only get those seats, and the congressional clout that comes with it, if Texans stand up to be counted. Any conservative revolt would only reduce the representation in conservative areas of the state, such as rural Texas and the outer rings of suburbs surrounding its largest cities. [...]
[A]n under-count in Texas could cost the state more than just representation.
For every Texan missed, the state will lose an estimated $12,000 over the next decade in federal funding for transportation, agriculture, health, education, and housing, said Frances Deviney, director of Texas Kids Count, a nonpartisan group in Austin.
Deviney says Texas could lose “hundreds of millions of dollars in lost opportunities” because of uncounted residents.
“We’ve got that hard-to-count element, along with these fringe (anti-government) groups that are advocating resistance,” she said. “They think they are hurting the government. They are really hurting themselves and their communities.”
Good job shooting yourselves in the foot again, fucktards.
Do us all a favor and, next time, aim for the head.
THE GRAPEVINE
