I wasn’t able to write my Shut-up Stupid Sunday last week because I was overwhelmed by the shear amount of stupidity in the news, so I will use today to have a stupidity round up.
THE GROUND ZERO MOSQUE.
Apparently New York City Muslims are planning on converting an old Burlington Coat Factory outlet into a community center just across the street from NEW YORK DOLLS strip club in Manhattan. Republicans say this is hollowed ground and it is a grave insult to workers at Male Striper Directory that is just three blocks away.
Correction: The Republicans say they are upset that is being built two blocks away from World Trade Center crater, an area that for the last 9 years has only been useful to New Yorkers as the best place to get the falafels in the city as there are two competing falafel stands next to the crater.
This outrage is stupid on so many levels I don’t know where to start. I’ll start with the idea expressed by Rand Paul the crazy teabagger running for Senate in my state, he commented that we don’t want people from New York City getting involved in zoning issues in Kentucky, so people from Kentucky shouldn’t get involved in zoning issues in Manhattan. He might be crazy but it’s a crazy issue so that makes him an expert.
The second part of this is more fundamental, The First Amendment states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
The only government power that can dictate where a church can or cannot be built is the local zoning board, period.
On a philosophical ground, the US is the most religious industrialized country in the world not because the government forces its citizens to be religious but because it keeps itself at an arms length away from religion.
ANCHOR BABIES
Another thing the Republicans are up in arms over is that it turns out that anyone born on US soil is an American Citizen.
They think illegal aliens will have a child in the US making it a citizen. Then when that child is 21 it can sponsor the government to allow its parents to immigrate a process that takes 10 years. This loophole allows illegal aliens to come to our country in a mere 31 years as opposed to just buying a fake ID and living here, or getting their Green Card and working in the US for ten years while they apply for citizenship.
Everyone knows that Mexicans are hard workers so they will naturally take the hardest most convoluted way of becoming a citizen possible, so we should change our constitution to stop that.
BUSH TAX CUTS VS SOCIAL SECURITY
The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% of the nation are set to expire, this will lower the budget deficit dramatically. The Republicans have a way to save this tax break for people who have so much money they can destroy an entire god damn ocean and then just write a check to cover the damage and write, “oops” in the memo line. They can grab the money from the old people who have put into Social Security all their lives.
According to Paul Ryan (R-WI) we have two choices, raise the income tax on the top 5% of wage earners by a whopping 3%, an amount that would have them paying almost the same percentage in taxes (not counting deductions) as someone making $95,000 a year. Or, grab the money from Social Security and let two-thirds of the seniors in this country live on catfood instead of living high on the hog with their $14,000 a year Social Security benefits.
How is this even a choice?
ALIENS
Looking at the news this last week I am reminded of Sigourney Weaver’s line in the beginning of ALIENS, “Did IQ’s drop dramatically while I was asleep?”
By Darrell B. Nelson author of Invasive Thoughts
