Culture Warriors category archive

In a stunning reversal of the policy of his predecessor, Virginia’s new Attorney-General chooses to stop persecuting persons for being. A nugget (more at the link):

Newly-elected Democratic Attorney General Mark R. Herring said he would support gay couples who have filed lawsuits challenging the state’s ban.

“After thorough legal review, I have now concluded that Virginia’s ban on marriage between same sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on two grounds: marriage is a fundamental right being denied to some Virginians, and the ban unlawfully discriminates on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender,” Herring said.

Eight years ago, Herring supported Virginia’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but has had the courage to grow and change. I commend him for that.

Elections matter, folks.

The North may have won the war, but the South won the peace with masterful post-war propaganda, such as Gone with the Wind, that exploited the latent bigotry of white America.

The tide finally seems to be turning in the battle for the peace–maybe–but the Secesh fight on. In a recent skirmish, Daniel Ruth took on the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A nugget:

If anyone has more egregiously twisted the facts of time, it has been the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who would have you believe the Civil War was all about defending the rights to have juleps on the verandah.

On its website the group argues the Confederacy “personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution.”

And if you believe that poppycock wrapped in balderdash enshrouded in piffle, you probably also buy into the notion the nearly 4 million people owned as chattel by their slave owners at the start of the Civil War happily wiled away their hours, gleefully toting those barges and lifting those bails with their only care in the world centered around how to invest their 401k plans.

Full Disclosure:

I could qualify to be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, but I find even the fleeting thought repulsive.

State rape loses a round in court.

If she’s in a nightie, he’s not responsible for what he does.

After taking a drubbing in last year’s state elections, Virginia Republicans are debating whether their party has come to be defined by its extremists. But in a congressional district in Northern Virginia, one of the state’s main instigators of culture warfare, state Sen. Richard H. “Dick” Black, is running in the Republican primary to replace longtime GOP moderate Rep. Frank Wolf. And he’s guaranteed to ignite wedge-issue passion. Exhibit A: As a state legislator, Black opposed making spousal rape a crime, citing the impossibility of convicting a husband accused of raping his wife “when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie, and so forth.”

No self-awareness, no self-awareness whatsoever.

More Neanderthalism (with apologies to actual Neanderthals) at the link.

Aside:

I was living in Northern Virginia when Frank Wolf started to get national attention. He was not a “GOP moderate” then.

He hasn’t changed. His party has.

Colbert skewers David Brooks and Ruth Marcus for their self-righteous hypocrisy on marijuana. Listen carefully as he quotes their words, which embody the hypocrisy of privilege.

Privilege means never having to admit or even to realize that you are privileged.

Via Joe.My.God.

I have never been to a strip club.

Or to a “gentlemen’s club,” which, as near as I can tell, is a strip club with higher-priced drinks and better-dressed bouncers.

(There was the one bachelor’s party many years ago that almost got out of hand, but I was very young and just a spectator . . . .)

But I do think that this a good decision.

If you are going to exploit the girls, at least pay them fairly.

It is noteworthy how many persons define “freedom” as the right to restrict the behavior of others.

In the Bangor Daily News, Amy Fried tees off on the war mongers:

I’ll cut to the chase. There is no “war on Christmas.” It’s a phony, ginned up annual attempt for a small set of Americans to express their cultural grievances.

But you, dear readers, deserve more than that.

So I’ll offer some personal reflections and a bit of history.

As someone who celebrates Jewish Christmas — a movie and Chinese food — it seems beyond absurd to think Christmas is anything put pervasive.

Between the constant Christmas songs and crowded stores and many beautifully decorated trees and strangers who used to ask my kids what they thought Santa would bring them and others who tell me “Merry Christmas” (and, no, I’m not offended, although, even though I know they were meant with the greatest warmth and sincerity, the comments to my non-Christmas celebrating kids were kind of a bit much), Christmas is everywhere.

It’s a wonderful column. Please do read the rest.

The privileged are, for the most part, unconscious of their privilege, until something shakes them awake.

Ten years ago, when I started my career as an assistant district attorney in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, I viewed the American criminal justice system as a vital institution that protected society from dangerous people. I once prosecuted a man for brutally attacking his wife with a flashlight, and another for sexually assaulting a waitress at a nightclub. I believed in the system for good reason.

But in between the important cases, I found myself spending most of my time prosecuting people of color for things we white kids did with impunity growing up in the suburbs. As our office handed down arrest records and probation terms for riding dirt bikes in the street, cutting through a neighbor’s yard, hosting loud parties, fighting, or smoking weed – shenanigans that had rarely earned my own classmates anything more than raised eyebrows and scoldings – I often wondered if there was a side of the justice system that we never saw in the suburbs. Last year, I got myself arrested in New York City and found out.

Find out how the criminal “justice” system retaliated.

H/T to Thoreau.

When you build a television show on glorifying rednecks, don’t be surprised when the rednecks act like, well, rednecks.

Today’s QOTD comes alive.

Celebrate the Prince of Peace. Come upside someone’s head.

Kristina Vindiola says a woman hit her outside the Wal-Mart on 91st Avenue and Thomas Road after she said “Happy Holidays.”

“The lady looked at me,” said Vindiola. “I thought she was going to put money in the kettle. She came up to me and said, ‘Do you believe in God?’ And she says, ‘You’re supposed to say Merry Christmas,’ and that’s when she hit me.”

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

At Contradict Me.

Men are pigs.

Nothing promotes the holiday spirit more than a little Fox News style bigotry.

Apparently, it’s still a thing in North Carolina.

The bit at the 3:27 mark sums it up.

Via Raw Story.

Have we reached peak stupid?

The Booman wants to know.