Girl Fight!!!

The following diary was originally posted at DailyKos.com and at MyLeftWing.com — I’m sure the author won’t mind, as she wants as much circulation of her challenge as possible. Also, the diary is too damn funny to not share with as wide an audience as possible.

Wherein I Challenge Ann Coulter to Debate Me

Let’s Do It For the Troops!

Any and all funds raised by our debate will immediately be donated to DISABLED VETERANS! Whaddya say, Annie baby?

That’s right, Ms. Coulter. I hereby issue you a challenge: Meet me in St. Louis, or wherever you please � and let’s have ourselves an honest-to-goodness debate.

Now, I realise that the concepts of both �honesty� and �goodness� are foreign to you, but you can do the research, right? — you’re a big girl.

(Metaphorically and chronologically, of course — god forbid you take that phrase literally and make the panicky teenaged decision to eschew even the meagre sustenance you’ve allowed yourself thus far. By the by, Ann � may I call you Ann? � where on earth did you get the idea that heroin chic was still fashionable? My god, woman, that is SO 1993).

Where was I? Oh, yes � a debate. �Twixt you and me, Annie baby. We can find ourselves a suitably impartial moderator � say, anyone who hasn’t ever seen you or read you. I wouldn’t want the inevitable revulsion of any sentient being to your previous work to create a bias in my favour.

Now, you may be saying to yourself (no doubt with your trademark sneer pasted on your Botoxed visage � how DO you do that, by the way? Do you get the injections WHILE sneering, in order to preserve that look?), �Why the heck should I debate this nonentity? What do I have to gain?�

Weight, for one thing � but never mind that now.

If I were you, Annie darling, I’d be asking the same question. Let’s start with the purely superficial advantages to your accepting this challenge:

• I’m a good 40 pounds heavier than you � you get to look even THINNER!
  (Be still my heart! � I’d wish you the same, but I’m pretty sure yours has been still for at least a decade.)
• It’s one more chance for you to demonstrate your superior debating skills while looking as fabulous as you can. Perhaps it might even be televised, thus assuring you another chunk of film for your archives.
• If you DO manage to talk someone into televising it, you can get your roots touched up and call it tax deductible.
• Free publicity � now what media whore (and I use the term with every ounce of disrespect I can muster) could resist that?

I have absolutely no doubt you will reject this challenge, should it cross your unprincipled path. Cowardice and self-interest demand you never set foot near a podium facing anyone who has even the slightest chance of upstaging your shallow, venal vernacular. Your rabid right wing talking points wouldn’t do you a bit of good, Annie dearest, in the face of actual facts delivered by someone who actually outmatches you in obnoxiousness AND wit (granted, the latter is an unfair comparison, since you seem to have plagiarised most of what you try to pass off as wit, anyway).

And trust me � I have it on excellent authority that I not only outweigh you physically, but intellectually, as well. (That authority being, oh, everyone I’ve ever met.)

Nevertheless, I am compelled to issue this challenge to you, Annie, sweetheart; too often lately, I have accidentally been exposed to your risible claims as to the inferiority � nay, TREASON � of the average liberal, and it will not stand.

Accustomed as you are to the cushion of your Fox News berth; to the faux-gallantry of your fellow traveler in fascism, Sean Hannity; to the woefully inadequate foils offered in sacrifice to you like so much rotting meat to a vulture� it is high time someone who is your intellectual, moral and physical superior threw down the gauntlet and dared you to pick it up.

I dare you, Annie, dollface, sweetums, puddin’ � I double dog dare you. Debate me. All I need is a couple days’ notice to raise sufficient funds for travel and accommodations wherever you decide to meet me.

(Okay, it will take less than an hour to raise the funds — but I need the rest of the time to arrange babysitting and get MY roots touched up.)

Let’s see if my hunch about you is right; let’s see if you really are the craven coward your curriculum vitae evinces you to be…

“Separation of Church and State is Absolute”

I came across this on Talking Points Memo, via Andrew Sullivan :

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote — where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference — and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source — where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials — and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. — John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy was right then, and he remains correct now — and always.

It’s About “Separation of Powers” Stupid

Republicans, drunk with power, aim to remake the entire federal government into a tool serving conservative interests. As we’ve seen, since the conclusion of Mrs. Schiavo’s tragedy, Republicans are mounting an attack on courts, vilifying and even making veiled threats against judges. Tom DeLay, the majority Republican leader, released this statement regarding judges recently: “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.” Of course, we’ve also seen other Republican elected officials following Tom DeLay’s cue, and making similar threats of their own; and, now, it looks like we’re about to see an escalation of the attacks against judges and courts — that is, against the Constitutional principle of Separation of Powers.

According to the Washington Post (article -April 9, 2005), the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration recently organized a panel to discuss “Remedies to Judicial Tyranny” and to explore charges leading to the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy :

This was no collection of fringe characters. The two-day program listed two House members; aides to two senators; representatives from the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America; conservative activists Alan Keyes and Morton C. Blackwell; the lawyer for Terri Schiavo’s parents; Alabama’s “Ten Commandments” judge, Roy Moore; and DeLay, who canceled to attend the pope’s funeral.

The Schlafly session’s moderator, Richard Lessner of the American Conservative Union, opened the discussion by decrying a “radical secularist relativist judiciary.” It turned more harsh from there.

I suppose that Dana Milbank, the author of the Washington Post article, was recalling this:

[L]awyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, “upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law.”

And this:

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his “bottom line” for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. “He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: ‘no man, no problem,’ ” Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don’t recognize it, is “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.”

When he wrote that things “turned more harsh from there.”

Conservatives and their Republican minions are growing tired and desperate at their in inability thus far to fast track the implementation of their socially conservative agenda; and, therefore, their wails and veiled threats against judges are likely to grow louder over the upcoming months. Sure, the base of the socially conservative movement welcomes the attacks on judges, and don’t mind being portrayed as extremists — even radicals — because they believe that they’re doing it all for a good cause. However, moderate Republicans are, I think, beginning to realize that they made a deal with the devil when when they partnered with the fundamentalist faction of their party. So, the question for us is, how do we exploit this? How do we reach out to these so-called moderates, while simultaneous underscoring that while the Republican leadership sides with the extremist base of their party, the issues that we all care about — Iraq, Social Security, etc. — are ignored and pushed off of the Congressional agenda?

As Kos has already pointed out, I believe that our talking point on this issue is the principle of “Separation of Powers,” something we all learned about in high school history and understand from those days. We, Democrats and Progressives, stand in defense of the principle of “Separation of Powers,” while Republicans work to destroy the Constitution with their attacks on Senatorial proceedings (i.e., ending the long history of debate on the Senate floor) and, now, with their frontal attacks against the courts — a co-equal branch of government.

Senator Harry Reid, of course, has already framed the situation along the lines of protecting the principle of “Separation of Powers,” when the Democratic leader announced that Senate Democrats would vigorously defend the system of “checks and balances.” With that in mind, whenever there’s an opportunity the “Separation of Powers/Checks and Balances” meme should be repeated to reinforce Senator Reid’s point; because this is a way of presenting the fight over the judges in a way that people understand and get.

Fundamentalism at Home

Candidates of BOTH political parties often attend church gatherings and are sometimes invited to speak from the pulpit; however, when they do, candidates of BOTH parties do not use that opportunity to make a blatant political statement — that is, they don’t attack or advocate one policy position or another. Now, clearly, this is a subtle distinction, since it goes without say that if a candidate of a given party is up at a pulpit, then most congregants can reasonably assume that there’s some sort of tacit endorsement being made. However, as I posted earlier from this article, what some activist fundamentalist Republican legislators are proposing goes beyond merely giving the church the ability to make “tacit endorsements.” Instead, what these Republican legislators are seeking is to completely obliterate the Church/State divide that has served our nation so well for over 200 years — which is what’s made us the most successful pluralistic democracy on earth. More specifically, the proposed Republican legislation would permit the clergy to ACTIVELY endorse candidates, and to ACTIVELY engage in other common political activities.

Now, from our current vantage, it may seem alarmist to suggest that we’re in the brink of a Theocracy; however, as an example, let’s acknowledge, as many have already pointed out, that the only reason why the federal government intervened in Mrs. Shiavo’s tragedy is because Republican politicians deemed it necessary to satiate the demands from the religious fundamentalists base within their party. Again, it’s not just some lone voices in the woods that are opining this; Republican Representative Christopher Shays said as much:

“My party is demonstrating that they are for states’ rights unless they don’t like what states are doing,” said Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. “This couldn’t be a more classic case of a state responsibility.”

“This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy,” Shays said. “There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.”

Additionally, while we fight against Islamic terrorism, we’ve been engaged against fighting fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Iraq; and, too, our nation continually points at the perils of fundamentalism in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, it appears that while we fight abroad, some are perfectly happy and willing to institute our own brand of fundamentalism here are home. I, for one, cannot believe that the parallels are not being widely and publicly discussed. Finally, keep in mind that this is not about denying anybody their free speech right: the fact that our entire nation is enthralled by this tragic case is a clear example that no one’s free speech rights have been obstructed. Instead, the concern here is that adopting the fundamentalist tenets/values of one group puts in PERIL and UNDERMINES our pluralistic representative-democracy — basically, there’s a bunch of us living in our lovely country, with different religions, values, etc. and, if the arbiter between these groups (i.e., government) adopts one group’s fundamentalism over another’s, we run the risk of having a lot unhappy folks (running around questioning the legitimacy of the entire system). I’d hate to live in that type of society, and sincerely hope that we can avoid it.

Warning to “Moderate” Republicans

Terri Shiavo’s sad condition and subsequent intervention into it by the federal government (at the behest of the Republican leadership), should be extremely illustrative of what has become of the Republican party — and an indication of what faction of the social-conservative movement has taken control of that pary. Any moderate Republican, concerned with limited government, should be paying close attention at how social/cultural issues are being used by the social-conservative faction that’s at the helm of the Republican party to advance a narrow social agenda. Ladies and gentleman, what this faction of the Republican party is really after is imposing and codefying their brand of “morality” on us — and, to do so, the social-conservative wing of the Republican party is willing to enlist the full-weight of the federal government on its behalf; thus abandoning any long-held pretense of being the party of state rights and of limited government. If we — the citizens of this country — are not careful, we may very well see a federal government that is permitted into our bedrooms (i.e.,”Gay marriage”), is able to use surveillance on its citizens (i.e., expanded “Patriot Act”) and, now, it seems, the federal government is being urged to intervene into what should be a private of decisions — all because a certain faction within the Republican party deems it expedient to do so in support of their agenda and of ther base.

Again, I sincerely hope that so-called moderates everywhere are paying close attention to this case… because there’ll be more like it if we permit it.