A Corporate Culture of Life Only A GOP'er Could Love

Thursday, November 03, 2011

I'm always hearing from Libertarians and Republicans about how bogged down and unresponsive government can be inferring that capitalist corporations can turn on a dime to help the customer in need.  Don't ask Californian Terri Weissinger to confirm that.  Since corporations are now "people" with rights I find it interesting that this corporate "person," in the figurative flesh known as U.S. Airways, felt the need to refuse a helping hand when it was their fault in the first place when Ms. Weissinger found herself between a rock and a hard place.  Oh wait, when they act like this maybe they are people after all.  Another example of Republican "culture of life" at work since they are the ones that insist corporations ARE PEOPLE.  I guess U.S. Airways was proving they are the GOP's kind of people.  How quaint.

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Guns, guns, and more guns....

History has a funny way of putting things in perspective, especially when it comes to American gun culture.  I guess today even the old west archetype of individualism, Wyatt Earp, would be a pariah in his own country since he was for restricting some places where guns weren't welcome.  I always find it interesting when conservative gun owners celebrate the facilitation of introducing more firearms into public and private domains without restrictions.  Since Gov. Walker of Wisconsin signed a new bill making the state one of now 49 that allow the carrying of concealed weapons into churches I'm inclined to ask  the age old sarcastic inquiry of "what could possibly go wrong there?"  When individual instances of just exactly what can go wrong take place its always a conservative mantra to utter something about the price we pay for freedom on some level even if that price is the life of human beings.  When I read about Walker's bill taking effect it dawned on me how a certain symmetry exists in the conservative matrix of what value they place on human lives.  I  now completely understand the American conservative movement and their insistence that human lives have a price in the context of accessible health care for any citizen that can afford it.  If you can't afford it you don't deserve it and you just die.  The corollary that seems to go along with that seems to be if you aren't carrying a firearm when somebody goes off for any number of reasons then that's just too bad and you made a poor choice.  Your life is expendable.  That's some "culture of life" they have going there.  And its so Darwinian of them. 

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Why We Pay Taxes

I'm not sure there is a parable here for the insane denizens that seems to make up Libertarians, Republicans and the so-called "Tea Party" but once in a while a teachable moment rears its head and makes a statement for the obvious even they should be able to understand. Taxes are for important community "stuff" that everyone shares in. This "stuff" enables sane people to continue being contributors to society at large by sharing the expenses that make it possible to be, you know, a community. But I guess the people of Highland Park, MI don't believe in safety for those who work at night or can't afford or chose to own personal transportation. I won't even go into the other things a community does to make life possible in a sane world. But paying taxes is one of the things one must do to make this possible. Whenever a red faced conservative shouts into a microphone, "its your money and you should keep it!" there is no doubt you made that "money" through the things that community makes possible by providing you with a way to to earn it like roads, police and fire departments, public schools that produce educated labor, [in some cases] trash pick-up, street lights, stop lights, and on and on. It's amazing to me how many people have forgotten that....

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