Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

9/12 Open Thread

Today crowds of protesters have gathered in Washington, DC to voice opposition to the current administration.  Early reports show a large turnout.  The event is primarily related to TV talk-show host Glen Beck and the “9/12” movement that he has encouraged.  

No doubt this event will be the catalyst for significantly heated commentary from both ends of the political spectrum.  For my part I will be interested in both the actions of the more extreme protesters as well as the (hopefully common) more average folks.

On CNN those interviewed have so far stated that they are primarily concerned with the rate of spending by the government.  One could, I believe, fairly ask where they have been for the previous eight years, but to be fair the combined spending in response to the economic collapse that began in 2008 is in fact of a scale to raise even moderately conservative eyebrows.

Honestly, all but one of the “principles and values” stated as the mantra for the 9/12 group are inarguably good characteristics.  It is only Principle 2 – “2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.” – that stands out oddly in an American political context.  The heavy-handed implication that only religious individuals – and let’s be honest, only ‘orthodox’ Christians – can be Good Americans makes an otherwise fundamentally benign statement uncomfortably Orwellian.

The Nine Principles

1. America is good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

12 Values

Honesty

Reverence

Hope

Thrift

Humility

Charity

Sincerity

Moderation

Hard Work

Courage

Personal Responsibility

Gratitude

Thoughts/observations?


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 39 Comments

39 comments

  1. Chris Blask

    Lots of anti-government messages:

    Evil Government is a Cancer Killing Our Country

    Lots of invocations of “God”…

    Lots of simply financial messages (“Stop Spending My Future”…).

  3. hubiestubert

    America is NOT always good. It never has been. America is only as good as its people, and its government is only as good as its people.  America has gone through some rough patches.  Slavery. Jim Crow. Internment. Lynchings. Union busting with axe handles, and with the tacit support of Sheriffs and even Governors. HUAC.  America goes through periods of not being very nice, and it’s up to us to remind our leaders, and often our fellow citizens of that.

    The promise that America represents is a fine one.

    The reality sometimes falls short, and this sort of unfettered, unbridled nationalism is dangerous. You can love your country, and be critical of her. In fact, that is sort of what being an American is about.  Asking us and our nation to live up, and even beyond our expectations.

    Secondly…

    Putting God in there is another part of it. Jahweh, Jehovah, Allah, whatever you call that Divine, still supposes that someone worships, and more, worships with the People of the Book.

    I have no problem with the People of the Book. I do have a problem with a few of their followers.  Those who insist on trying to get folks to violate that very First of Amendments to our Constitution. Freedom of religion, means freedom from your religion.  It means free practice, and not everyone worships the God of Moses.

    While you may believe that your family is sacred, and hold to some divine right, not everyone does. See the previous statement about the God of Moses.

    What’s odd, is that these principles invoke the right to dissent, but doesn’t really recognize the right for others to dissent on what the role of government, or a God or Gods has to play in America.

    This is exactly why we have the freedom of religion, and why that in order to have such freedom, we have to separate religion and government in order to keep that freedom for everyone.  Believer in your God, or not. Especially the not part.

    This brand of nationalist populism that finds fault with the current order crops up from time to time. It is, in part, a heady endowment of the legacy of Martin Luther and his Reformation. But, it tends, when it binds to nationalist movements, to assume to know what’s best for everyone, and not really bother to ask.  It is a sin of assumption.

    Worse, it’s not real. It’s an opportunistic feeding to borrow power from those who feel disenfranchised because the world is moving, and they haven’t been able to keep up. It isn’t a conservative sort of philosophy, it is a sort of intellectual Neo-Luddism, and people LOVE to throw around words that make them seem like old fashioned folks, when the very message that they have is radical and antithetical to the principles that this nation was forged upon.

    /I’ll get off my soapbox now

  6. anna shane

    only hard work and me first?  

    I know you’re not supposed to notice, but Americans aren’t known for diligence in thinking.  Even taxi drivers in Paris know politics and they have great health care.  Americans are proud to be ill informed and shortsighted?  

  7. Hollede

    rethug governor. We have much higher voting turnout than most other states during Presidential elections, but our governor race is in the ‘off season’. Repugs have been able to organize better and get a long line of pugs in office.

    Oh and Jesse Ventura, but that is another story. Or is it the actual point?

  9. Kysen

    On 9/12, people in New York (and DC) did not feel as “great” as Glenn Beck. They just felt like shit. They felt scared and confused and depressed… And only an idiot or an actual terrorist would want to always feel like it was 9/12/01. And eight years later, normal people, with brains and souls, have decided that some emotional distance from that disaster is healthier and wiser than trying to recapture the dread.

    So thank fucking christ that the Commander in Chief is no longer subjecting the nation to death porn.

    No, this year it’s limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into fear.

    Glenn Beck is an actual terrorist, and the people attending his rally in DC tomorrow are al-Qaeda in America.

    –Alex Pareene via Balloon Juice.

    Photobucket

    By not distancing themselves from the lunacy of the Tea Party asshats, the GOP has acknowledged them as their own. So, imo, today the nation got to see the GOP showin’ its ASS live on tv.

    There really are times where it is an embarrassment to share the same Planet with such festering ass boils…let alone the same Country.

  10. Jjc2008

    1.  America is a place, not a person.  America is as good or as bad as the actions its people take.   Supporting and propping dictatorships around the world, like the Shah in Iran in the 1950s, the many Central and South American dictators from the 1950s up through the present, including the ouster of Allende, and the years  support for the murderous Pinochet, made America a nasty place.  America is a country, and its citizen sometimes do good.  Sometimes they do bad.

    4. This group has a narrow definition of family.  No spouse of the opposite sex, no family that matters.  Apparently the authority of a spouse was discounted as they cheered government interference in the Shaivo case.

    5. They give a pass to the republicans, to their radio heroes, to the military, to the rich.

    7.  Contradicts their #2. “Love thy neighbor as thy self” or “whatever you do to the least of me, you do to me.”  They can’t have it both ways.

    Lots of contradictions and lots of hypocrisy.

  11. Jjc2008

    Otherwise why continue to have human beings involved.  We have the technology, so let Artificial Intelligence make the conclusions.

    Stealing is wrong. Therefore it does not matter if you are Bernie Madoff or Jean Valjean.  The law says so.  

    I don’t believe in absolutes…..

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