Values

1. To be progressive is to have hope for America and for Americans. Progressives believe that the best way for America to be great is for America to be good, but don't make the mistake of thinking that America is as good as it can get. We want to make America even better, and closer to the values upon which it was founded. A progressive President won't slouch down into what's convenient. A progressive President will seek to lift America up by doing what's right.
   
   
2. There were some awfully peculiar consequences of the recent gay marriage ban that was passed by voters in Ohio in 2004 - and when I say "awfully peculiar" I put emphasis on the "awful".

   A public defender in Ohio has used the anti-gay constitutional amendment there to request the dismissal of domestic violence charges against unmarried defendents. The legal logic is that unmarried couples cannot have the same rights of married couples in Ohio - even if those unmarried couples are heterosexual. The ban on gay marriage proves that. (National Law Journal, January 31, 2005)

3. One of the critical values in the progressive political ethic is the ability to distinguish wants and needs. Progressives know the difference between what we really have to have and what we just like to have. It is this knowledge that enables progressives to realize that almost nobody actually needs a sport utility vehicle.

   In response to this progressive claim, the voice of SUV owners rises in uniform protest: You liberals just don't get it! I really do need my SUV!

   Is this true? Are the right wingers right?

   Let's think back a few years now, to the 1980s. Back in the 1980s, very few people claimed that they needed sport utility vehicles. They didn't know what a sport utility vehicle even was, and if you had told people you had an SUV, they might have thought you were talking about the latest music video channel on cable TV. Back then, the only people who had SUVs were people who made nature documentaries in remote places without good roads, like the plains of Africa.

   In spite of this lack of SUVs, we got along. We didn't need SUVs back then.

   Thousands of years ago, before they knew about reading and writing, and before they even had metal tools, the people of Western Europe erected tens of thousands of megalithic structures using stones that each weighed many tons. They didn't need SUVs to do it.

   Ah, but you need your SUV to carry things, right? Well, do you? What do you carry home in your SUV that you couldn't put into a car? You new big screen plasma digital HD television set? Is that a need?

   I have a theory about TV sets. Televisions are like goldfish. Goldfish grow to fit the size of the body of water they live in. Keep a goldfish in a 5 gallon aquarium, and it will remain small. Put that same goldfish in a backyard pond, and it may grow ten times as large.

   Television sets, in the same way seem to expand to the size of the vehicles we have available to carry them home in. I remember when people thought of a 19-inch television set as large. Now, this size is regarded as small. We've developed 40-inch television sets as the new standard of big just a few years after we developed the SUV to carry it home in.

   Coincidence? I don't think so.

   Right wingers say that people need SUVs to carry home big things like large plasma screen television sets, but progressives have a long enough memory to realize that big screen TVs, and the vehicles that can carry them into America's driveways, are wants, not needs. We need a President of the United States who has this kind of historical memory as a check to the latest faddish ideas about reality. That's why, in 2008, America needs to elect a progressive president.

4. The progressive creed: Allow everybody to think and say what they want, so long as they understand that they may be criticized for it, but do not allow people to dictate to others how they must live their lives, so long as what they're doing doesn't injure anybody else in a material way
   
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5. Right wingers are using your tax dollars to support right wing fundamentalist Christian sermons about religion.

   The Northwest Marriage Institute has received approximately $100,000 from the federal government. That money is being used to promote a program that instructs couples to comply with fundamentalist theology, and promotes the Christian Bible as the ultimate authority on how married couples must behave. The Northwest Marriage Institute's program promises to seek to establish "Christian marriages, to "provide faith-based education in marriage and other related subjects", and to "promote successful biblical principles for everyday living." The goal of the program is to preach fundamentalist Christian religious beliefs about marriage to people who choose not to attend church - to proselytize to nonbelievers. The program's outreach efforts include marriage retreats at which couples are lectured about "how God made you", and seminars where couples are preached to about "God's plan for a healthy marriage".

   Think all of this is just means to a positive end? From a right wing Christian fundamentalist attitude, it might seem positive, but many Americans would disagree strongly with the Northwest Marriage Institute's use of government money to promote the belief that wives must allow their husbands to dominate them because "the Bible says that the wife should submit to the husband". Many Americans would also be disturbed to discover that the American government is now funding a program that instructs people that God does "not allow couples to be involved in pre-marital sex." That's a faith-based belief if I've ever seen one. If God, supposedly the all-powerful ruler of the universe, doesn't allow pre-marital sex, then how come so many people are doing it?

   Keep in mind what the phrase "faith-based" really means. "Faith-based" means "religious". These are religious agendas that the government is funding, and not just programs that support religion in general, but particular, narrow, religious beliefs that are not held by large numbers of Christian Americans, much less non-Christian Americans. The government is using the Office of Faith Based initiatives to promote right wing religion over other beliefs about religion, and that kind of activity is explicitly forbidden in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

   The right wingers believe that your tax dollars ought to be used to help fundamentalists preach their religion's repressive values across America. Progressives believe that it's not the business of government to fund religious culture wars. Progressive values hold that Americans have the right to decide what they believe about religion on their own, without government interference. That's why we need to vote to elect a progressive President in 2008.

6. Batman Begins is a popular movie for people who are seeking a little escapism. However, Batman Begins just doesn't seem to fit the prevailing mood across America right now. What kind of movie would be more appropriate for 2005? How about Batman Gets Bogged Down?

   The really pathetic thing about Bruce Wayne is his idea that if he just gets more and more power, he'll finally be able to vanquish evil and make up for the death of his parents. Of course, it never works. Batman never gets happy. When does Batman put on a happy, sunny yellow suit and sip a lemonade. It doesn't happen. Batman gets stuck in his cave. President Bush is making all America live in a bat cave. I, for one, am sick of the dank mold and stinky piles of guano.

   President Bush is seeming more and more like Bruce Wayne, obsessed with violent vengeance against his enemies, and unable to see that the more he goes around the law to attack criminals, the more criminal he becomes himself. Like Bruce Wayne, George W. Bush seems to think that if he just gets enough power, and overcomes the liberals who stand in the way of his power grab, he will finally be able to eliminate all evil from the world in one massive war against every corner of the world where people are doing bad things. It's no wonder that Bush is trying to build new nuclear bombs. They're just his own megalomaniacal version of the Batmobile.

7. Just as my discouragement reached a high point, I received a phone call from an outfit called Citizens United, with a "one-question research poll."

   The "one-question research poll" turned out to be a recorded message from the president of Citizens United, which calls itself "America's premier conservative research organization." In this recorded message directed against the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens United made the claims that the ACLU supports "man-boy sex" and that the ACLU is trying to "protect the civil rights of the terrorists at Guantanamo."

   The first claim is, of course, a lie. The American Civil Liberties Union does not support "man-boy sex." The ACLU supports the speech rights of groups of citizens, even when the message of those groups of citizens is unpopular and considered distasteful to most of us.

   The second claim pulls a slick trick, referring to those held at Guantanamo as "terrorists" when that has not been established, either in a court of law or in any public governmental hearing. They are not even "alleged terrorists" because no legal charges alleging anything have been brought against these people. They are, perhaps, "assumed terrorists," but that they are terrorists has not been proven. As a matter of fact, hundreds of detainees have been released from Guantanamo, presumably not because they are terrorists. Even Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has acknowledged that not all Guantanamo detainees are terrorists. Should people have their civil rights taken away from them because some powerful person decides to assume they are a terrorist? The conservatives say, sure, why not? Progressive knows why not - America's traditional values of law under the Constitution are at stake.

   I have to give some back-handed thanks to Citizens United for slapping me out of my discouraged stupor. They've helped me to remember the central issue: that the United States of America, the most powerful and heavily armed nation in the world, is in the hands of a band of no-account, immoral, ignorant, aggressive, hubristic, out-of-control, downright dangerous people. If we want to keep this nation and this planet safe and free, then those of us in America who give a shit and who've got a say in how things are done are going to have to keep speaking up, keep raising uncomfortable questions, and keep making it difficult for the conservatives to dismantle our constitutional democratic republic.

8. Real moral values don't have to do with abstract ideas about invisible supernatural beings, or adherence to rules set down thousands of years ago on moldy scrolls. Real moral values have to do with the way that we actually behave in the world. Progressives are making practical headway in the political struggle over the environment not just because their arguments are grounded in scientific facts and logic, but also because their cause is rooted in the moral value of environmental self-responsibility.

   The right wing tries to convince people that we can have it all, that we can do whatever we want to, without paying any price. Progressives, however, look at the environmental consequences of our actions, and then ask us to do what must be done to protect the integrity of the Earth's biosphere for future generations. Right wing spin says that our environment is beyond our control. Progressives say that we have the power to change our world, and the responsibility of dealing with the consequences of the change that we create.

   Andrew Myers, Senior Editor of the Ocean Conservancy's magazine, Blue Planet, writes,

   "The issues of global climate change are very much in the media these days, a daily drizzle of reports shows this or that outcome tied to rising atmospheric and oceanic temperatures. After almost two months of focusing intensively on the issue, what I learned is that very few scientists dispute global climate change is occurring and, if we don't do something soon, serious consequences will result... In the end, what I learned most is that each of us - you, me, and the next person - must absorb these stories then look into the mirror and issue a resolute, 'Mea culpa.' No more praying for a panacea. No more waiting for science to save us from complacency. No more passing the buch. Then, we must each turn from the mirror and accept the personal sacrifices it will take to get us out of this mess."

   The moral value of environmental self-responsibility, as exhibited in what Andrew Myers has written, challenges us to stop blaming everyone else for the environmental crisis we now face, and to make sacrifices in our own lives to make up for our own blame. Our survival demands that we meet that challenge. (Source: Blue Planet, Fall 2006)

9. Under the leadership of right wing politicians in the Republican and Democratic parties, the United States become more intolerant than South Africa, the nation which ended apartheid less than a generation ago. The nation of South Africa now embraces racial equality, but it doesn't stop there. In November of 2006, South Africa's Parliament voted in favor of a Civil Union law that gives same-sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples.

   Here in the United States, our Congress has refused to grant equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. Even that refusal isn't nasty enough for them, though. Right wingers are seeking an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America that would override the right to equal protection under the law and make it a crime for same-sex couples to get married.

   It used to be known that the United States of America was known around the world as a nation that valued equality for all people. The growing power of right wing Republicans and Democrats, however, has led us into moral decay. For the sake of America's traditional progressive civic values, we need to elect a progressive President who will promote the restoration of the ethic of equality in American culture. (Source: Reuters, November 15, 2006)

10. Right wing religious groups are so afraid of anyone who deviates from their narrow cultural vision that they're lashing out against cartoon characters. The American Family Association has accused the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants of secretly promoting a homosexual agenda. The main character of that cartoon is a sea sponge. Can sponges have homosexual agendas? (Source: MSNBC, January 21, 2005)
    
    
11. In early 2005, the officials in the Bush Administration quietly let it be known that the President has it in for science. George W. Bush plans to completely remove all funding from a scheduled repair and upgrade of the Hubble Space Telescope, a piece of scientific equipment that has been dramatically successful at promoting human knowledge. Under the Bush plan, the Hubble Space Telescope will simple be allowed to fall apart, and the scientific research being conducted with the telescope will be put to a stop.

    What does the Bush Administration plan to do with the money it will save by allowing the Hubble Space Telescope to fall into disrepair? Well, a big chunk of that money is scheduled to be redirected to the Catholic Church in California, to pay for the repair of its churches.

    Catholic dioceses in California are going on the government dole because they're having hard financial times. This religious welfare from the Bush Administration will help the Catholic leadership in California make up for the big losses from payments the Church made in order to keep little boys and girls from reporting sexually molesting priests to the police. In one California County alone, the local diocese paid one hundred million dollars in settlements to keep its priests out of jail for sexual assault.

    It's all about values, they say. Well, what kind of values destroy successful scientific research in order to provide taxpayer money to enable California Catholic churches to stay out of bankruptcy after paying hush money in order to cover-up a huge conspiracy of the sexual molestation of children?

    I don't know what James Dobson calls 'em, but they're not family values, that's for sure. The best description I can come up with for the Bush Administration's version of morality is medieval values. (Sources: CNN, January 21, 2005; Americans United for Separation of Church and State)

12. When it comes to party politics, progressives are proudly disloyal. It isn't that we progressives value disloyalty in itself. Rather, we progressives value loyalty to our principles over our loyalty to politicians.

    Right wingers show the opposite kind of values. They value authority for the sake of authority, regardless of whether people in positions of authority do what's right. The way right wingers see it, people owe loyalty to powerful politicians above all else. This strange, backwards perspective on the relationship of morality and authority in politics is revealed by the likes of Fred Meyer, the former chairman of the Republican Party in Texas, when he proclaimed to a gathering of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, "Not supporting the president on the high percentage of issues would be a mistake, because people value loyalty."

    People value loyalty? Well, I suppose that's true, but not in such an abstract sense, so divorced from the reality of what people are being asked to be loyal to. The right wing Southern Republican Leadership Conference demands that people support powerful leaders just because of their power. Progressives, on the other hand, value speaking truth to power when those in power are in the wrong. Electing a progressive candidate to the White House in 2008 would help to change the political culture in Washington D.C. from one in which power is valued for its own sake to a rejuvenating position in which people are encouraged to remain loyal to what they believe in, whether or not people in power agree. (Source: Washington Post, March 12, 2006)

13. Maggie Gallagher is a conservative welfare queen. Not content to write fawning essays about the Bush Administration at the ordinary rate of pay for a syndicated columnist for the United Press Syndicate, Gallagher apparently signed a couple of juicy contracts to get tens of thousands of dollars straight from the Bush Administration - to do what she was already doing.

    Conservative newspaper columnists like Maggie Gallagher have complained for ages about ordinary Americans getting any kind of assistance from the government. They say that when people get help from the government, they turn lazy. Yet, Americans are quickly learning that many conservatives have been paid taxpayers' money to write articles praising Bush Administration policies.

    In the case of Maggie Gallagher, the Bush Administration paid over 41 thousand dollars. What did the Bush Administration get? In return for a government check, Gallagher signed a contract that obligated her to promote a Bush Administration pro-marriage plan.

    There's irony all over with this story, but here's the peach that really catches my eye. The policy that Maggie Gallagher was paid by the Bush Administration to promote was centered around a program through which agents of the federal government would nag poor people to get married. This policy comes after a generation of Republican ideology that held that poor people are ruined by checks from big government entitlement programs. So, under the program that Maggie Gallagher was paid to write about, the government stopped helping out poor people, but now comes to their doorsteps to tell them how to lead their private lives. It's an odd thing that Republicans like Maggie Gallagher always complain about big government, but think it's a really good idea to have federal bureaucrats telling Americans when they ought to get married. (Source: Editor and Publisher, January 27, 2005)

14. In November, 2006, Plan B emergency contraceptives finally became available over the counter to anyone who is over the age of 18. This end to restricted availability came only after years of resistance from Bush Administration appointees on the FDA. In 2004, the FDA voted to deny over the counter availability of Plan B, even though a special FDA advisory committee had recommended the increased availability.

    So, the White House has opposed emergency family planning. It's all gung ho, on the other hand, in support of family emergency planning. A couple weeks ago, the Department of Homeland Security released a new series of advertisements promoting "family emergency planning." The idea is that families ought to be holding conferences and assembling kits just in case some unpredictable emergency strikes.

    Such planning is all well and good, I suppose, but it doesn't make much sense to prepare for unpredictable, unlikely emergencies while at the same time trying to block access to supplies people need to deal with predictable, likely emergencies like unwanted pregnancy. Yes, let's have family emergency planning, but we need emergency family planning too. (Sources: Department of Homeland Security press release, November 14, 2006; Washington Post, January 5, 2004; Journal of the American Medical Association, January 5, 2004; Associated Press, November 25, 2006)

15. The moral difference between right wingers and progressives was illustrated by comments made by Religious Right activist James Dobson after the revelations that evangelist Ted Haggard had been hiring a male prostitute and buying methamphetamines. "Those again on the liberal end of the spectrum are those who have no value system," Dobson declared.

    Well, that's just plain silly. As our list of reasons to vote for a progressive President in 2008 based on progressive values shows, liberals have plenty of moral values. The difference between us and right wingers is that we don't claim that our political opponents have no moral values. We just claim that our political opponents have the wrong moral values, and we work to explain why.

    We cannot afford anymore to have a government that follows James Dobson's policy of denying the moral focus of its political opponents. That's why we need to elect a progressive President in 2008. (Source: Rocky Mountain News, November 23, 2006)

16. Why vote for a progressive president in 2008? Because the allies of our regressive president are really, really, really scary when they tell you what they really, really, really think.
    
    There's a spurt of right-wing pundits out there writing "lemme tell ya what I really think" pieces, in a wave of frustration leading from the losses of the 2006 elections. Spouting the Republican Party line for years, and all for nothing, must be maddening. It's like selling your soul, and then finding out that you're getting paid in Monopoly money. So as a purgative, Bush's allies are trying out sincerity. They're telling you what they really think. And what they really think betrays the unAmerican agenda of this country's regressives.
    
    Take, for instance, Dennis Prager, radio host and newspaper columnist syndicated through Townhall.com. In his latest column, Prager reflects on the election of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress:
    
    "Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.
    
    He should not be allowed to do so ? not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization. First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism ? my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.
    
    Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress?.
    
    When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization. If Keith Ellison is allowed to change that, he will be doing more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11. It is hard to believe that this is the legacy most Muslim Americans want to bequeath to America. But if it is, it is not only Europe that is in trouble."
    
    Dennis Prager really, sincerely believes that the job of government is to maintain Christianity's advantageous position. Dennis Prager really, sincerely believes that "American values" is equivalent to "Christian values." Dennis Prager really, sincerely believes that "America is interested in only one book, the Bible."
    
    Dennis Prager really, sincerely doesn't care that the Constitution's First Amendment prohibits the use of government to establish an advantaged state religion. Dennis Prager really, sincerely doesn't care that Section Six, Clause three of the Constitution reads, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Dennis Prager really, sincerely doesn't care that nowhere in the Constitution is the Bible specified as the object upon which members of Congress (or, for that matter, ANY member of government) will swear their oath of office.
    
    Dennis Prager doesn't care about the Constitution because he doesn't believe in the value of the Constitution as a foundational American document. Dennis Prager claims that the Christian Bible stands above the Constitution as a foundational American document. Dennis Prager is a real, sincere theocrat, and he exemplifies "the base" pundits refer to when they talk about regressive American presidential candidates. If Prager's vision for America isn't your vision for America, then it is important for us to support candidates who stand up for the Constitution. To prevent theocracy, we must vote progressive. (Source: Dennis Prager column of November 28, 2006: America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on)



17. Ever since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Republicans have been pushing Americans to wallow in the memory of that day's suffering. Helen Keller had better advice: "Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world." It is time for America to stop moaning and feeling sorry for itself, and get back to the work of doing good in the world.
    
    
18. You may be making a choice in your mind between voting for a progressive candidate whose values you believe in and a candidate whose values do not match yours, but who you've been told "can win." This is an appeal that DC insiders often use to promote their "pragmatic" candidates. The election of 2004 should be instructive in this regard. The experience we all had with John Kerry shows that sometimes, candidates who "can win" actually cannot win. And George W. Bush's victory demonstrates that voters are willing to elect someone with an ideological agenda (albeit a misguided one) so long as it is promoted by someone who can project the appearance of resolve and confidence in that agenda. A lot of Americans want a leader who sets the agenda, not a sheep who follows the wind.
    
    Do you hold your progressive values with confidence in your heart? Do you show that confidence, or do you cloak it? Throw off the cloak. Be who you are, and don't be afraid to show confidence in your progressive ideals. It takes both moral and interpersonal courage sometimes, especially for those who espouse a value set that celebrates the right of people to express different opinions. But people includes you; you get to speak up just as much as those who disagree with you. So speak up in this new presidential election season and let people know in forums large and small just what matters to you. Then expect the same of your presidential candidates. Let's look for someone who knows what she or he believes, can articulate those beliefs, and doesn't spend all day bending over backwards and apologizing for holding them. Let's do what we can to support an honest, forthright and robust progressive candidate for president.



19. Republicans keep pushing the idea that Americans all need to be alike, that our nation will fall apart unless we maintain uniformity. A more wise American, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, offered the following thought as an alternative: "America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered." Progressives believe that Justice Brandeis was correct, and that our prosperity and progress comes from our diversity not bland conformity.
    
    
20. We need to put a progressive in the White House as a matter of pure competence. The regressives in and around the White House have been awfully busy trying to stop people because they aren't the right category of person. John Kerry, operatives said, "looks French," and a reporter breaking a news story was not to be trusted because he was a "Gay Canadian." While it fusses about the wrong sort of person tracking in on the political carpet, America's regressive White House has let its attention slip from matters of actual substance, like the economy and two certain wars in south central Asia. Wouldn't it be nice to have some actual policy wonks in the White House again? Progressives are itching to implement a range of policy solutions to actual substantive problems facing the nation. Let's give them a chance to get to it. (Sources: Washington Post, March 22, 2004 and the Toronto Star, July 19, 2003)
    
    
21. Progressives favor using human life instead of throwing it away in a manner that helps no one. That's a fundamental moral value that counters the absurd conservative religious contention that the only proper things to do with frozen embryos are either to implant them to become babies in the wombs of volunteers who want to become the mothers to other people's children, or to throw the frozen embryos out in the garbage.

    The clear truth is that there are not anywhere close to enough women to become mothers for all the frozen embryos in the United States. Developmental biologist James Thomson explains, "The bottom line is that there are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States, and a large percentage of those are going to be thrown out. Regardless of what you think the moral status of those embryos is, it makes sense to me that it's a better moral decision to use them to help people than just to throw them out."

    There are not 400,000 women in the United States volunteering to become mothers to these frozen embryos. Even according to the anti-stem cell research group Embryo Adoption Campaign, the most successful organizations that work to get frozen embryos implanted in volunteer women's wombs only manage about 40 embryos per year. So, the genuine moral choice for dealing with the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos that exist and continue to be produced as a by-product of in vitro fertilization is between throwing them away like garbage or working with them to develop and implement therapies for people suffering from grave illnesses.

    Right wingers ignore the reality of that moral decision. Progressives, on the other hand, have the wisdom to accept the reality of an imperfect situation and bring the most help to the most people out of it. Presidents must deal with constrained moral choices like this everyday. We need a new President with the flexibility to accept that abstract moral concepts do not always fit the reality of our world. We need a new President who has the wisdom to make the better moral choice, even when a perfect moral choice does not exist. (Sources: Embryo Adoption Campaign Legal FAQs; MSNBC, June 25, 2005)

22. Since the turn of the 21st century, Christian fundamentalists have been dedicating extra energy in their effort to infuse public school science curricula with religious teachings. They succeeded for a time in places like Dover, Pennsylvania and the entire state of Kansas. Under the umbrella of the Republican Party, they've been running candidates for state education offices who have promise to put Creation teaching first. It is only through the dedicated efforts of scientists and their progressive pro-science allies that religious teachings have been turned back. As religious fundamentalists strive to gain theocratic control over our children's education again, we need a progressive in the White House who can use her or his powers of office to shape policy and start national conversations about the value of and rationality and observation in education. (Sources: New York Times, November 15, 2005 and The Daily O'Collegian, November 3, 2006)
    
    
23. Bill O'Reilly and other authoritarian media personalities have taken to using the term "secular progressives" as a pejorative term. If you listen to Mr. O'Reilly long enough, you might be forgiven for thinking that "secular progressives" -- that is, people who value the principles of the Constitution, believe religion should be kept out of government, and think that government can accomplish positive things in America -- are out to eat your children, burn your grandmother, and invite terrorists to tea. A new president can counter the fearmongering by showing the country the real, highly effective, not at all monstrous face of secular progressive politics. (Source: Bill O'Reilly Talking Points, December 24, 2004)
    
    
24. George W. Bush comes from a powerful oil industry family, so it's worth taking note when a respected energy analyst declares of President Bush, "He's just beng told what to say by his minions."

    This short statement, made by Charley Maxwell, a senior energy analyst for the investment firm Weeden and Company, shows how out of touch with progressive values right wing politicians have become. First of all, we progressives don't believe in the idea of minions. A minion is an obsequious, grovelling subordinate. We progressives prefer to build teams composed of confident, competent people who are willing to contribute without fear or sycophantic behavior.

    Progressives also value politicians who can think for themselves. We don't like figureheads who are told what to say and do by teams of toadies who prefer to stay behind the scenes.

    We progressives are tired of seeing a White House filled with cringing, manipulative schemers. We want a progressive President because we want a White House that works above the board. (Sources: On Earth, Winter 2007; American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition)

25. Dick Cheney's daughter, Mary, is unmarried and pregnant, and doesn't even know who the father of the child is. She's in love, but Republicans where she lives won't allow her to get married.

    Psst. It's because she's a lesbian.

    There's no problem being a lesbian parent, in itself. There is a lesbian couple down the street from me who have a three year-old little girl and are soon going to give birth to a new baby. Across town, there's another lesbian couple who has adopted two young boys, one of whom is the playmate of my son. Both couples want to be married, but they aren't allowed to be, by laws that are preserved by right wing Republicans.

    Right wingers are preventing single mothers from getting married, even when those single mothers are in committed, stable relationships with people who love their kids. What kind of screwy moral values are those? They're anti-family moral values, that's what they are.

    They're also unconstitutional moral values. The Constitution explicitly states that all people must have equal protection under the law. It is therefore clearly unconstitutional to deny some families the legal right of getting married just because right wing activists don't like who they want to get married to.

    True progressives are not afraid to support the equal legal rights of lesbians and gays to marry the people whom they love, and with whom they have children. (Source: Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2006)

26. While many American right wingers value women who are silent and subservient, progressives have a different kind of moral values. We think that the right thing to do is to establish societies in which women are regarded under the law as the equals of men, able to enjoy the same freedoms as men.

    Therefore, we progressives are disturbed to discover that, as a result of the Iraq War started by American right wingers, women in Iraq have experienced a substantial degradation in their freedoms. One Iraqi woman, describing the new attempts to restrict the rights of women in Iraq, explains, "I try to avoid leaving my home, and when I do, I always cover my face. Several of my friends have been threatened or beaten by these Shia militias who insist we stay home and never show our faces."

    We deserve a President who won't support wars that result in the degradation of the rights of women. The Iraq War's tragic impact on the lives of Iraqi women shows that we cannot trust Republicans and pro-war Democrats in this regard. (Source: Inter Press Service, December 5, 2006)

27. "Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic."
    
    Former CBS newsman Dan Rather is credited with this quotation, although I am unable to find any reference to a definitive source, which means this quotation may be apocryphal. But it doesn't matter whether Dan Rather really said these words or not. What matters is that enough people agree with the sentiment behind statement to have transformed it from words that someone said to the immortal status of the quotable quote.
    
    Prove them wrong. Follow your dreams, and don't put up with your nightmares any longer. Vote your hopes, vote your ideals. Vote progressive in 2008.
    
    
28. The right wing has led the USA into a position in which we Americans are now receiving lectures from the leader of the United Nations on the need for a return to moral virtues. On December 11, 2006, Kofi Annan gave a speech in Independence, Missouri in which he gave the following advice to the American government:

    "Human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, "We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might." That's why this country has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism. When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused.
    
    And states need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not inconvenience. It is doing the right thing. No state can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose - for broadly shared aims - in accordance with broadly accepted norms.
    
    No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little - and the international community is among them. This we must change.
    
    The US has given the world an example of a democracy in which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint. Its current moment of world supremacy gives it a priceless opportunity to entrench the same principles at the global level. As Harry Truman said, "We all have to recognize, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please."

    The right wing has become the voice of allowing the government to do whatever feels good at the moment. We progressives are now the moral conscience of America, calling upon our leaders to restrain their self-gratification in order to do what's right. (Source: United Nations Secretary General, Office of the Spokesman, December 11, 2006)

29. Progressives value diversity not just because it's the right thing to allow freedom of conscience. We also value diversity because a world in which diversity exists is simply more entertaining. It's no fun to live in a world where everyone is the same. It's like what Mark Twain once wrote in his novel Pudd'nhead Wilson: "It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races."
    
    
30. One essential difference between progressives and non-progressives is that progressives don't believe in the magical power of rituals of human sacrifice. Many non- progressives do.

    Oh, non-progressives don't say that they believe in the magical power of rituals of human sacrifice. They phrase it differently. They say that holding executions has a special power to make the world a better place.

    The clear reality is that killing prisoners doesn't make the world better. The prisoners are already held prisoner, after all, and are already rendered incapable of inflicting further harm on society. The crimes that the prisoners have been convicted for are already in the past, and can never be undone.

    Yet, people who support the idea of the ritual of executing prisoners don't seem concerned with the obvious lack of tangible benefits of the executions. They claim that there are extraordinary benefits from the rituals that are so unconnected with reality that they can only be explained as a kind of magic.

    George W. Bush's celebration of that the ritual killing of Saddam Hussein is a prime example. President Bush claims that hanging Saddam Hussein from a noose will transform Iraq into a secure, stable democracy, saying, "it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror." The reality is that hanging a person until dead has no power to make an undemocratic nation into a democratic one.

    It is as if George W. Bush and other non-progressives like him believe that the psychological power of killing another person can magically be transformed into a tool for improving society. It is as if they believe that by taking away the life of one person, a government can add that person's power to its own.

    Progressives don't believe in this kind of magic, and don't support ritual human sacrifices. Progressives recognize the simple truth expressed by Sophy Haynes, mother of Schuyler Haynes, a soldier killed in Iraq. Commenting on the execution of Saddam Hussein, Sophy Haynes stated plainly, "It has no meaning. We went into a place that I don't believe we had any business going into."

    Progressives don't support using the power of government to conduct rituals of dark magic such as public executions. Progressives oppose human sacrifice to an invisible God of Justice. (Sources: New York Daily News, December 31, 2006; Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, December 31, 2006)

31. It took only 31 minutes for the Republicans to start the racist attacks against Barack Obama. At 7:27 PM on January 27, 2007 we published an article at Irregular Times about a leak from Senator Barack Obama's staff indicating that Obama will be running for President of the United States in 2008.

    At 7:58 PM that same evening, an anonymous reader left a comment at that article stating that Barack Obama's campaign for President is just "typical black behavior trying to 'move up' in the world before he knows better to really do it".

    The right wing shows us, by their hateful, outdated, knee-jerk attacks against Barack Obama exactly why it is so important to elect a progressive President in 2008. Opponents of progressive policies are ready to appeal to the most ugly aspects of human nature in order to hold onto their power. Progressive values are firm on this matter: Ethnic hatred is morally wrong.

32. Progressives don't just believe that activism is a good thing. We believe that, in time of need, activism is essential. Our regard for action against unjust authority is represented in the words Mark Twain wrote in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: "The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor."
    
    
33. Some people ask what the progressive vision for America is. I have a simple image for them to consider: Replacing weapons of mass destruction with wild animals.

    That's what's happening in Colorado, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. Where there once was a factory at which the United States government manufactured chemical weapons, a small herd of bison has been released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There, they will help to restore the land to something close to its former productivity.

    We don't need weapons of mass destruction. We do need our land to be rich and productive. The progresisve way is to restore America's lands and provide refuge for free and wild creatures instead of crafting poisons to kill in new, gruesome ways.

    It isn't just America's prairies that can benefit from this healing approach favored by progressive. All America, city and countryside alike, is in need of rejuvenation. Let's turn toward a program of renewal in 2008, and elect a progressive candidate for President. (Source: Reuters, March 17, 2007)

34. Right wing politicians like to talk a lot about moral values, but when it comes to putting the values they claim to have into action, their talk turns out to be empty. Let's take the basic value of honesty, for example.

    Right wing political appointee Stephen Griles was Deputy Secretary in the Department of the Interior for years under President George W. Bush. During that time, he kept a secret. Stephen Griles was an associate of Republican Jack Abramoff, a corrupt lobbyist who bribed government officials to help his clients, many of whom had dealings with the Department of the Interior.

    When the United States Senate's Indian Affairs Committee asked Stephen Griles whether he was connected to Jack Abramoff, he lied. On five separate occasions. Griles said that he had no association with Abramoff. Griles said that it was "outrageous" to suggest such a thing.

    Eventually, when the facts came out, it was clear that Griles had a very close relationship with Jack Abramoff, and that Abramoff was using that relationship to promote his corrupt schemes. In March, 2007, Griles agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice. (Source: Associated Press, March 23, 2007)

35. On Halloween Day back in the year 2000, the Dallas Morning News proclaimed, "Bush will restore honor and integrity". It was a standard line of the Bush for President campaign, and one dutifully echoed by Republican-aligned newspapers.

    Bush and his Republican allies were right to criticize Bill Clinton's sexual affair with a White House intern. That affair was not honorable, and showed a lack of integrity. The problem is that many of George W. Bush's Republican allies in the White House have done much the same as President Clinton.

    Paul Wolfowitz is a good example. Bush didn't follow through on his promise to restore honor and integrity when he put Paul Wolfowitz in positions of power.

    George W. Bush appointed Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary of Defense, and then got Wolfowitz the position of President of the World Bank. But Paul Wolfowitz has admitted that he abused his authority within the Bush Administration and at the World Bank in order to arrange for pay raises and automatic positive evaluations at the United States Department of State for his lover, an official at the World Bank. Wolfowitz also acknowledges that he used his power to get her a promotion at the World Bank when she went to returned there to work under Wolfowitz. Other people at the State Department and World Bank didn't get this preferential treatment, because they weren't sharing a bed with Wolfowitz. (Sources: Washington Post, April 12, 2007; Dallas Morning News, October 31, 2007)

36. Newt Gingrich likes to portray himself as a thinking Republican, someone who studies the situation and comes up with intelligent solutions. It was in this vein that Gingrich proposed the idea that government would work better if people stopped saying no to politicians' ideas, and found ways to say yes and all work together nicely.

    If we can get people to say, ñYes, you could do that ifî instead of ñNo, that will not work becauseî it changes the psychological dynamic of the argument. If you present a new idea and someone says ñNoî, you instinctively lose energy. Now youÍve got to win an argument over the ñNoî before you can get to the argument over the ñBecauseî before you even get to start talking positively. However, if someone says ñYesî you automatically gain energy and immediately start thinking of creative ideas to answer the questions posed by the complexity of new ideas.

    Let's skip over the fact that when he held political power in Congress, Newt Gingrich was not known for working well with opponents or coming to win-win situations. Let's evaluate the Gingrich Republicans' idea of reforming government by replacing no with yes in terms of a practical example: The decision to go start a war in Iraq.

    Would things have turned out better if the Democrats in Congress had responded to George W. Bush's proposal to go to war in Iraq with a message saying Yes, Mr. Bush, you could invade Iraq if...?

    Come to think of it, that's not a hypothetical question at all. Democrats in Congress could have stood up to President Bush. They could have said no to war. They could have prevented this whole mess if they had had the courage to say no to what was, even at the time, an obviously flawed idea.

    Instead, many Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and John Edwards, were afraid to say no to President Bush. So, they said yes. They said that yes, George W. Bush could go to war, if only he would go through a few token gestures first.

    The idea of starting political negotiations with yes is a great idea if all you care about is pushing an idea through and getting it accomplished. If you care about making sure that the proper action is taken, and bad ideas like invading Iraq are weeded out, starting with yes just doesn't work.

    Newt Gingrich and his right wing allies would love to have an American public that reacts to every one of their proposals with an automatic yes. They would love to have a Congress that works with the presumption that the President can do whatever he wants, with just a few adjustments here and there.

    We progressives, however, see things differently. We believe in the value of saying no. We believe that when the President of the United States proposes radical action, like going to war, the automatic reaction of the Congress and the American people ought to be to say no. We believe that the burden of the argument rests with those who propose extreme, violent shifts in policy.

    I'd like to have a new President who understands this attitude, and is willing to work harder to gain the trust of the American people. That's why, in 2008, I am looking for a good progressive candidate whom I can support for President. (Source: WinWithYes.com, 2007)

37. The alternative to voting progressive is pretty dismal. An anti-progressive reader wrote in to us at Irregular Times with his ideas about why Americans should not vote progressive:

    my comment could go on for days but i'm gonna make it real short and real sweet.the very last thing this country,my country needs,is a nigger or a dyke as president.the thought is so absurd and so grose it makes me wanna puke.somehow the normal people of this country just laid down and died and allowed the FREAKS to take over!honestly,do we really need to see another reality show full of nothin' but FAGS and freaks???we need to take this country back and put a muzzle on the niggers(domestic terrorists),the gays,the muslims,the illegal spic immigrantsÉ..we need to get sick and tired of being used and abused by the scum of the earth and what we need more than anything is a PRESIDENT WITH BALLS and if we don't get a president with balls WE ARE SCREWWWWWWWED !!!!! I hate niggers,i hate fags,i hate the muslims and i hate the illegal immigrant spics.i hate it that we have a justice system with no balls.you could be a serial killer and not get the chair.you could be a CHILD MOLESTER and not get the chair.you could kill your wife and lie about it on tv and that's entertainment.you could drown your kids in the bathtub and that's ok because you have post partem depression.you could be a fag congressman and go to the airport to get a bj,get caught,confess,take the confession back,get away with it,keep your job,that's ok.bottom line is we need a leader,a real leader.not a whimp,a leader.someone with balls and that doesn't mean a LESBIAN !!! wake up people.we're in big trouble.if this country doesn't grow some balls real soon we're not gonna be a country anymore.stop whining and worrying about all the bullshit and open your eyes!!this country is disgusting and weak,full of murderers,molesters,gangsters,immigrants and terrorists.we're finished.period.end of story."

    Do you really want to cast your vote aligned with this?

38. Progressives aim high, even as they realize that their ideals may never be realized. We don't believe that one day's failures justify an abandonment of our efforts to succeed in creating a better society. We agree with the words of Aldo Leopold, who urged the consistent striving for improvement even in the face of corruption and defeat. Leopold wrote, "We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive."

    In these times, when the right wing forces of violence, exploitation and authoritarianism are destroying so much of the progressive foundation of the United States of America, it is tempting to conclude that all is lost, that we have been defeated, and there is no more use in trying to resist. The truth is that we will never achieve perfection, but, as Aldo Leopold reminds us, we can move toward a society that is more perfect.

    We can progress. To be a progressive is not to engage in an all-or-nothing struggle for utopia. True progressives do not give up when they meet powerful opposition. Being a progressive is about working, as much as we can, to make things better. We know that reliable progress comes from persistence. (Source: Round River, Aldo Leopold)

39. It's bad enough that right wing politicians in government try to force abstinence-only sex education on our kids, restricting information in public school classrooms to only the ideas that religious right wing zealots believe in. It's even worse that abstinence-only education has been demonstrated not to work, and that right wing politicians keep on pushing it anyway.

    How could it get worse than that? Try this on for size: It seems that right wing politicians don't even believe in the abstinence-only morality they use government power to force on everyone else.

    Randall Tobias, the head of the US Agency for International Development and former coordinator for AIDS to foreign countries, has admitted that he hired the services of a woman working for Deborah Jeane Palfrey's erotic escort agency. Tobias made it his job in those positions to discourage prostitution, promote sexual abstinence before marriage, and encourage married couples to avoid sexual infidelity. The work Tobias did was part of the Bush White House's plan to promote a right wing religious sexual agenda through domestic funding and international aid programs run by the federal government.

    Tobias who is married himself, doesn't seem to have been able to abstain from stepping out on his own wife, even while he pushed foreign nations to amend their educational and family planning programs to insist upon such abstinence. It doesn't appear that Tobias actually believed in the need for sexual abstainence, marital fidelity, or avoidance of prostitution - except when it came to other people.

    In all fairness, Randall Tobias claims that he didn't pay for actual sex with the escort from Deborah Jeane Palfrey's agency. He says he just paid hundreds of dollars for an erotic-themed backrub. Hundreds of dollars for a backrub, huh?

    I'll let you be the judge of whether that statement can be believed. But, even if Randall Tobias is telling the truth, and he didn't have sex with the erotic escort he hired, what does even that statement say about the consistency of the right wing Bush Administration doctrine of sex education and family planning? Are the Republicans in government now proposing that people around the world pay escort services for erotic massages instead of having extramarital affairs or teaching kids how to have sex without transmitting diseases like AIDS?

    If they were to be morally coherent, that would be the position of Randall Tobias and others like him. Of course, these right wing politicians are not morally consistent. That's why we can't support another right wing presidency. In 2008, we need to vote for a progressive alternative. (Source: 365Gay News, April 29, 2007)

40. With which set of values do you stand? ----------

    Set of Values A

    Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to be free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
    

    -- Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"

    Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

    Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?"

    The King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

    -- Matthew 25:34-40

    ----------

    Set of Values B

    While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the LORD's anger burned against them.

    The LORD said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD's fierce anger may turn away from Israel."

    So Moses said to Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor."

    Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of themÑthrough the Israelite and into the woman's body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

    The LORD said to Moses, "Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites."

    The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

    The LORD said to Moses, "Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them, because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor."

    -- Numbers 25: 1-16

    Resolution opposing Satan's plan to destroy the U.S. by stealth invasion

    Whereas, "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Revelation 12:9)

    Whereas, in order for Satan to establish his "New World Order" and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the Scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S. There are ways to destroy a nation other than with bombs or bullets. The mostly quiet and unspectacular invasion of illegal immigrants does not focus the attention of the nation the way open warfare does, but is all the more insidious for its stealth and innocuousness.

    Whereas, Americans will have to make a choice: either close our borders to illegal immigration, which is now vastly greater than any time in the past, or witness the passing country. The proof of this statement is the record of history. It is a history littered with the gravestones of great nations and civilizations which allowed invaders to overrun them. If we fail to learn from the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them.

    Whereas, all polls show that the American people overwhelmingly want limited immigration, reform and control of our borders as mandated by the Constitution. But many do not realize the extent of the dangers ahead because of the lack of accurate media coverage and public debate. An important reason for the lack of understanding is that the powerful commercial, political, ethnic, and the godless globalist elites who control the major media do not want the issues of illegal immigration to come to national attention.

    Whereas, it is obvious that most promoters of massive immigration and open borders do not like the ideas of patriotism, national identity, sovereignty, our Christian culture and freedom. Many consider themselves cosmopolitans or world citizens. Their religion is atheistic humanism. They are found primarily among the elite of foundations, universities, big business, left-wing politicians, Hollywood, ACLU (Anti-Christian Lawyers Union), CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), the American power elite and the liberal media. They prefer a world without borders ruled by a one world tyrannical government.

    Whereas, we cannot benefit the world by eliminating our borders and sovereignty as advocated by Satan's "axis of evil", if we do, the world will pull us down to its lowest common level and we will have committed national suicide. In that case, the U.S. will no longer be a free and prosperous land or light of liberty for all nations. Once he has destroyed the U.S., Satan will be able to establish his "Satanic New World Order" and destroy the freedom of all people.

    Whereas, the national security and the future of the nation and the American people depends upon how well we do our job and defend our borders. We must control our borders to illegal immigration, have a well regulated temporary worker program, as needed, or face extinction. The destruction of the U.S. by the forces of evil is a top priority of Satan.

    Now therefore, we (delegates) are obligated to support the Utah State and Utah County Republicans Platforms regarding the mandates to support the "Rule of Law" and the Constitutional mandate to protect and secure our national borders.

    Now therefore, because we support the "Rule of Law," the Constitution and the principals that made America the greatest and freest nation in history, the Utah County Republican Party supports the closing of our national borders to illegal immigration to prevent the destruction of the U.S. by stealth invasion.

    -- Resolution submitted to Utah Republican Convention of 2007 by Don Larsen, District 65 Chairman

    ----------

    With whom do you stand? If you are religious, the Bible is not going to help you here. There are Biblical passages that stand in favor of welcoming the aliens among us into our homes and to our very dinner tables. There are Biblical passages that stand in favor of slaughtering the male members of an alien people and taking the female members of an alien people into sex slavery. No, the Bible won't help; you'll have to think for yourself.

    With whom do you stand? If you are a Republican, you find yourself sharing space under the party umbrella -- not just with Republican District Chairman Larsen, but with the assembled Utah Republican Convention which booed and jeered those opposing Larsen's resolution. (Sources: Rolling Stone, May 9, 2007; Daily Herald (Utah), April 29, 2007)

41. When we say that we support electing a progressive President in 2008, one of the reasons is that we're deeply disturbed by the mental contortions that Republicans will go through to support the kind of nasty behavior that anyone with a shred of honest moral values would find shocking and reprehensible.

    As an example, consider Molly, a Republican reader of Irregular Times who, responding to one of our articles, at first expressed outrage that we accuse Republicans of supporting torture. She wrote, "i dont believe people should be tortured.. you are making a stereotype about republicans simply because we have different views on politics than yourself. THAT is something to be ashamed of."

    In response, Molly was asked by another one of our readers why she supports Republican politicians who support torture, if she doesn't support torture herself. Molly's response was to write, "i do so because those people who are tortured most likely tortured many others before themselves. i believe in KARMA."

    Molly has constructed a rather convenient twisted little mental justification for herself. She supports torture, as she's clearly explained. She regards torture as justifiable moral payback, because she surmises that the people that the United States government is torturing have probably tortured other people themselves. But, when confronted by someone who points out that she supports torture, Molly can get all outraged herself, and deny that she supports torture at all. It's just that she supports other people who support torture. It's a safe moral distance Molly has made for herself, one that helps her stay in denial of the real, bloody consequences of her choices.

    There are a couple of kinks in Molly's sadistic alternative moral system that she hasn't got quite worked out, though.

    First, Molly hasn't really bothered to check that the people who the American government is torturing are themselves former torturers. Molly doesn't have the names of the prisoners that are being tortured. She doesn't know their personal histories at all, and she's never been shown any evidence that these prisoners have ever tortured anyone. She has only been told be her government that the prisoners are bad. People with a mature sense of justice understand that governments have a long history of making false accusations against people, and that a governmental say-so is not sufficient basis for punishment.

    Then there's Molly's rather selective belief in karma. If people who do bad things deserve to have equally bad things happen to them, then there's going to be a never-ending string of bad things happening to people forever, in a never-ending chain of unforgiving moral causality. Molly says that some people kept as prisoners deserve to be tortured because those prisoners tortured people themselves. If that's true, however, then don't the Americans who torture those prisoners deserve to be tortured in turn?

    Furthermore, if payback karma is really morally just, then doesn't Molly deserve to have someone else call for her to be tortured? After all, she is calling for other people to be tortured.

    We progressives reject the cruel system of revenge-based morality. We believe that it's more important to end violence and cruelty than to get payback. We also believe that people accused of crimes deserve to have the allegations against them examined carefully in a reasonable court of law.

    In short, progressive morality is simple and straight forward, seeking to foster a good life for the most people possible. Right wing morality, however, takes pains to twist and turn in violent angles in order to justify the continuation of pain and suffering in the world.

42. When looking at all the plans proposed back in 2002 for what to do with the site of the former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, I was struck by only one thing (otherwise the proposals were predictable and unexciting): all of the buildings proposed for the site were significantly shorter than the Twin Towers were.

    Now, I know that all the security experts have said that it would be foolhardy to erect new towers as tall as the Twin Towers were, but isn't it remarkable that the United States of America is now allowing the speculation of security experts to restrain the physical expression of our society's vitality through monumental structures?

    To rebuild the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centers would be an act of resilience. To build a single tower on the site stretching even higher, to be the tallest tower in the world, would be an act of non-violent defiance and a reassertion of the power of democratic, cooperative construction.

    On the other hand, to replace the mighty Twin Towers with a collection of smaller, low-profile buildings in order to feel safer from future attacks that might take place demonstrates just how much destruction the attacks of September 11 have caused to the confidence of Americans in strong democratic leadership. Where once we were proud in our freedoms, now we are holding ourselves back, making our country less proud and less free, just in order to protect ourselves from an attack that probably will never come.

    After the attacks, Americans are building smaller, living smaller, thinking smaller. We're willing to accept less freedom in order to feel a little bit more secure.

    We have lost the war against terror.

43. We've had a funny feeling about Republicans for quite some time. It's more than just the policies, although Republican policies are truly beastly these days. No, there's something about the Republican lifestyle that's disturbing as well - a weird mixture of medieval values and a fetish for industrial technology and artificial conveniences.

    It's that strange combination that allows George W. Bush to run some policies on ideas that are thousands of years old, yet steamroll the traditional ways of living on Earth in favor of diets saturated with heavy metals, PCBs, mercury, and arsenic, all washed down with a glass of drinking water blended with undertreated sewage - for the sake of economic efficiency. It's this creepy synthesis of the worst of old and new that makes the Republican leadership defenders of an economy run on fossil fuels, even while they cater social policies to fundamentalist extremists who believe that fossils are a trick of the Devil to tempt God's children into skepticism.

    Republicans are champs at trying to have it both ways, and this schizophrenic approach to life is exemplified in a new survey, which finds that Republicans are more likely than other Americans to talk on cell phones while driving their cars. Driving one direction while trying to hold a conversation with someone in another direction - that's a pretty good metaphor for the Republican elites' technique for holding onto power, isn't it? (Source: Capital Times, February 12, 2005)

44. Since 1998, Michael E. Baroody has been senior lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers, a job in which he represents the interests of companies who are subject to regulation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The CPSC is the office that keeps your kid from being killed by electrical hazards from her Bratz Beauty Salon toy, leaving her instead to linger on into her old age with the strange feeling that her eyes aren't large enough and she really would look better without a nose. NAM is so strongly bothered by the work of the CPSC that it has a special task group dedicated to organizing opposition to the CPSC. NAM spent $9,600,000 last year alone just on lobbying the U.S. Congress.

    George W. Bush has nominated Michael E. Baroody to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

    After learning that Bush had nominated Michael E. Baroody to head the CPSC, the National Association of Manufacturers awarded Baroody a $150,000 bonus.

    Do you remember how you reacted to politics in the year 2001, when George W. Bush took office? Do you remember the huge brouhaha that occurred when Vice President Dick Cheney said he wouldn't tell us who he met with when formulating energy policy? Since then, the Bush administration has so strongly eroded divisions between corporate interests and government action that we hardly even notice when Bush tries to pull off a shenanigan like this.

    We've become numb. We need our sensation of righteousness to be awakened again. It's time to elect a progressive president. (Sources: New York Times, May 16 2007; Senate Office of Public Records)

45. Officials at the Justice Department met at the White House with Vice President Dick Cheney in March of 2004 to tell him that the program of wiretapping people without a warrant was illegal. Dick Cheney told them they were wrong, and that it was all legal. The next day, two White House officials were sent to the hospital to get reauthorization from an incapacitated Attorney General anyway.

    Overruling Justice. Browbeating the hospitalized.

    Are those your moral values? If not, it's time to realign your moral values voting. (Source: Washington Post, June 7 2007)

46. A big deal was made earlier this year about Arnold Schwarzenegger's purchase, in Canada, of a cigar made in Cuba. You see, it's not only illegal to possess a Cuban cigar in the United States, American law makes it illegal for any US citizen to buy a Cuban cigar even outside the United States.

    Why? Well, the United States accuses the government of Cuba of abusing its people.

    That's all well and good, but if it's illegal to buy Cuban cigars because they're related to the abuse of the Cuban people, how come it's perfectly legal for Americans to buy products made by children working in sweatshops under coerced, brutal conditions in countries, just so long as the factory isn't in Cuba?

    Progressives think that this double standard is morally wrong. Right wingers think it's just fine. Which attitude would you rather see in America's next President? (Source: Associated Press, June 1, 2007)

47. Why elect a progressive President in 2008? Do it in order to stop the torrent of legitimate condemnations of the crimes committed by the American government, such as British high court judge Sir Andrew Collins, who said, "America's idea of what is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations."

    Elect a progressive President in 2008, and we won't have to hear any more of this kind of difficult, dead-on accurate, description of how far the United States has fallen. (Source: Village Voice, March 3, 2006)

48. The following is from the partially declassified government document DOJFBI 003237, released to the American Civil Liberties Union:

    When [Ñ-censoredÑ] was turned over to US authorities, he was beaten by the US military forces. [Ñ-censoredÑ] was turned over to US authorities [Ñ-censoredÑ]. He was taken by helicopter to an unknown location where he was beaten. While his eyes were covered, he was kicked in the stomach and back by several individuals. He noted American English accents.
    
    After being moved to an unknown facility in Bagram, his head was placed against the cenment floor and his head was kicked. As a result of other beatings in Bagram, [Ñ- censoredÑ] received a broken shoulder. During one evening, [Ñ-censoredÑ] was left outside of the facility where he was being held. The ground was wet and it was snowing. He was wearing only pants and a ragged shirt. As a result of being out in the cold, he became unconscious.

    Right wingers liken this sort of treatment to a lighthearted prank. Progressives, on the other hand, don't take satisfaction in hearing that people are being abused in this manner. (Sources: Department of Justice Document DOJFBI-003237; American Civil Liberties Union)

49. What if I told you that there is a legal loophole through which individuals and businesses are able to bribe the President of the United States and make sure that no one knows about it? If you're like most Americans, you'd want that loophole to be closed. If you're like Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo, however, you'd work to keep that loophole open.

    Fundraising has already begun for the future George W. Bush presidential library. A presidential library is a place that holds official records related to a former President's term in office. Presidential libraries also hire people to do "research" that depicts the client former President in a positive light. In essence, a presidential library works as a public relations firm for a former President, trying to put a positive spin on the former President's term in office. A presidential library is as much a tool of political propaganda as it is a repository of historical documents.

    For that reason, someone who makes a donation to a President's future presidential library is going to put themselves in the good graces of that President, and that's a very useful thing to do, especially if the President is still in office. If a person makes a donation of one million dollars to the fund to build the George W. Bush Presidential Library, and then asks to talk to the President's staff about a particular piece of legislation that needs to be passed, what do you call that? It looks like a bribe to me.

    The thing about donations to presidential libraries is that they are unlimited and anonymous, except if the donor is from a particularly restricted organization, like a political action committee. So, even if a person or organization made a payment to George W. Bush's presidential library fund for 50 million dollars, the public would never find out about it. In fact, the planned cost of the George W. Bush Presidential Library is 500 million dollars. That would be quite a bit of money for donors to give to George W. Bush, just out of the goodness of their hearts. Of course, it's quite likely that the donations now being made to the George W. Bush presidential library fund are being made for quite different, and quite profitable, motives.

    Congressman Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, could see the many opportunities in the presidential library scheme for corrupt dealings between the President of the United States and wealthy power brokers, and so he introduced the Presidential Library Donation Reform Act of 2007 to the floor of the House of Representatives in order to try to end the corruption. The Presidential Library Donation Reform Act would require all donations above the size of 200 dollars to a presidential library fund to be made public. The legislation would also outlaw the practice of a donation being made to a presidential library fund by one person on behalf of another person in an attempt to circumvent the disclosure requirement. With this law, the public could see which organizations and individuals are making big payoffs to the President of the United States.

    The Presidential Library Donation Reform Act of 2007 was passed by the House of Representatives back in mid-March. Most members of the House of Representatives voted for it. Only 34 members of the House voted against the anti-corruption legislation. These included Republican presidential candidates Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo. It seems that Tancredo and Paul are more interested in protecting the people who are paying off President Bush than they are in preserving open and honest government.

    Unlike Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich voted to end this backdoor bribery of the President of the United States. Thanks to Representative Kucinich for that vote. The Presidential Library Donation Reform Act has yet to come up for a vote in the United States Senate, but I'll be keeping watch to see how the various senators running for President vote on this bill when its time comes. (Source: Library of Congress)

50. When evaluating the intellectual nature of Fred Thompson, it's instructive to look at his thoughts on the impeachment of Bill Clinton, on which he voted in favor. The following opinion from Fred Thompson, about the grounds that make a President impeachable, was entered into the Congressional Record on February 12, 1999:

    "Clearly, a President's offense or offenses must be serious and/or have serious consequences. Also, while they do not have to be crimes, my own opinion is that in most cases they will be crimes. They must be crimes against the state, but we cannot adopt an unreasonable restriction of that term... while it is true that the founders meant to cover 'public' behavior, I believe they also meant to cover behavior that has a negative effect on the public if it is of sufficient gravity. Furthermore, if the President's conduct poses a threat and danger to a country, that certainly is a legitimate (though not exclusive) consideration. If that same conduct serves to undermine the President's credibility and moral authority, that could also pose a danger to the country and is similarly a legitimate consideration. And, again his conduct does not necessarily have to deal with his office."

    Here's a summary of what Fred Thompson is claiming in this statement:

    1. A President can be impeached just for being immoral or having low credibility even if no crime is committed
    2. The conduct a President is impeached for need not have anything at all to do with his duties as President, but can be merely a personal fault
    

    According to these lax standards for impeachment developed by Fred Thompson, a President could be impeached for lying to his mother.

    Why would Fred Thompson argue such a ridiculous thing? Well, back in 1999, Fred Thompson was one of those Republicans who was so hungry to get Bill Clinton that he would twist and turn the law into the most elaborate knots.

    No one argues that Fred Thompson is stupid. The issue is not Fred Thompson's intelligence, but rather the motivations with which he applies his intellect. As his contorted interpretation of the grounds for impeachment shows, Fred Thompson's motivations are unrelentingly partisan. Fred Thompson seems to come up with his conclusions, like the need to impeach Bill Clinton, based upon political motivation. Only then does Fred Thompson apply his intelligence, in an attempt to justify his partisan political agenda.

    In 2008, we need to elect a President who has the opposite approach from that displayed by Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson's style of government twists the law to absurd extremes in service of a political purpose. We need a President who uses his or her intelligence to arrive at sound policy, and then finds a way to fit that policy into the political climate of the day. (Source, Congressional Record, February 12, 1999)

51. Evidence of the quality of conservative thought comes out in the quality of conservative criticism of their opponents. The quality, to be frank, isn't overwhelming. Unable to respond effectively to his "Hope" meme and apparently unwilling to or incapable of responding to his policy platform, conservatives are coming up with a series of personal insults against Barack Obama - insults that appeal to various prejudices and reveal the obsessions of the conservative cause.

    "Hussein Odumbo" has been making the rounds for some time now - religiously incorrect middle name, see, and big ears. But the new fun name for Barack Obama among conservatives is apparently "Bacrack" - because, see, he's black, and therefore he's a crack-head, ha, ha, ha.

    Ha? If you're not laughing with the bigots, why would you vote with them?

52. I am still trying to wrap my brain around comments made earlier this month by Ken Ham about Republicans, evolution, and political affiliation. Ham said,

    "Because after all, if there is no God and there's no absolute authority, who does decide right and wrong? Who does decide good and bad? Those on the other end of the spectrum who believe in moral relativism, of course, wouldn't want to be accountable to God and would want to believe that everything evolved by natural processes. So you'd more suspect that those people would say they believe in evolution."

    Ham seems to lay it right down on the line here: for Ham and those who follow him, a view of scientific, religious and political reality comes from a psychological need for an absolute authority, for an absolute moral certainty, and for an escape from personal responsibility for moral choices. First comes the psychological need, and assertions about the nature of reality follow from that need.

    Putting people in charge who begin by basing their conception of reality on their psychological needs for reality to be a certain way, and who follow up on that by trying to mandate that everyone else pretend along with them, seems like a pretty dangerous idea to me. (Source: OneNews Now, June 14, 2007)

53. For adherents of right wing ideology, worth is determined by financial value, not by our human values. They propose that unregulated financial markets be allowed to determine the structure of our society.

    Progressives believe, to the contrary, that the highest worth is often exercised in defiance of financial pressures. Conservationist Aldo Leopold proposed a form of this vision when he wrote, "Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation's character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us."

    To be a progressive is to believe that the greatest values can never be measured by the coin of the realm. (Source: Aldo Leopold, A Plea for Wilderness Hunting Grounds, 1925)

54. Notice to Americans who support Ron Paul because of his purported stands against international trade agreements that he says threaten American sovereignty: You have been cheated.

    When it comes to Ron Paul's positions on international free trade agreements, Ron Paul is a phony. The truth is that the Ron Paul for President 2008 campaign uses sweatshop labor made possible through those trade agreements. The Ron Paul 2008 campaign gets its message out by selling t-shirts that are made in sweatshops in foreign countries, by workers who have taken outsourced jobs that once were held by American workers.

    Don't believe me? Go ahead and have a look for yourself. Go to the Ron Paul for President web site and look up in the upper lefthand corner. You'll see a link there that says "store". At that store, the Ron Paul campaign sells shirts through CafePress. A few of those shirts are made in the USA by American Apparel. However, most of the shirts that Ron Paul sells are made by companies with a history of using factories in foreign countries that abuse workers and pay shamefully low wages.

    Ron Paul is able to sell these t-shirts at low prices because of the international trade agreements that make the garment sweatshops in foreign countries possible. On his campaign web site, Ron Paul calls these international trade agreements "a threat to our independence as a nation." However, Ron Paul turns right around and sells items, using the very same international trade agreements to do so at a low price!

    Does Ron Paul have no shame? Did Ron Paul really think that we wouldn't notice? Does he think the American people are that stupid?

    It gets worse. You know what motto the Ron Paul campaign puts on those shirts made in sweatshops by underpaid foreign workers made available through international trade agreements? He uses the motto "Hope for America".

    Apparently, Ron Paul thinks that hope for America lies in sending American jobs overseas. Apparently, Ron Paul thinks that hope for America lies in factories that abuse their workers and evade environmental protections. Apparently, Ron Paul thinks that hope for America lies in international trade agreements.

    If that's really Ron Paul's agenda for America, he ought to just come out and say so.

    If that isn't Ron Paul's agenda for America, then he ought to stop being a hypocrite, and stop selling foreign-made sweatshop shirts on his campaign's CafePress shop.

55. Before America elects a new President in 2008, we would all do well to examine the way in which the candidates treat the less powerful among us. Some candidates don't stand up well to this test.

    Take the story of Mitt Romney's dog as an example. In 1983, Mitt Romney took his family on a trip to Ontario, a 12-hour ride from their home. When packing, Romney put the suitcases inside the car. He put the family dog, however, in a cage up on his station wagon's roof.

    The dog was terrified, but off drove Mitt Romney, and he wouldn't stop until the dog's diarrhea started flowing down the back window. After stopping to hose the car down, Romney drove off again, with the dog still on the roof.

    That wasn't just cruel. Mitt Romney broke the law. It is against a crime in Massachusetts to transport animals in a manner that is cruel or could endanger the animals.

    Don't let America become Mitt Romney's new dog. Vote progressive in 2008. (Source: Boston Globe, June 29, 2007)

56. George W. Bush has made his upside-down regard Ñ compassion for the rich and powerful, no mercy for the poor and powerless Ñ crystal clear today with his clemency for consummate White House insider Scooter Libby. When the poor and powerless receive excessive sentences after their convictions, George W. Bush does nothing. However, when Bush's rich and powerful friends are convicted of grave crimes, Bush regards even a short sentence in prison as excessive, and insists that his friends receive mercy.

    Lax standards for the powerful, and harsh punishment for the poor. How are those Republican moral values for you? (Source: Washington Post, July 2 2007)

57. Watch George W. Bush bragged on his 2000 campaign website about how he had engaged in the following tough-on-crime actions as Governor of Texas:
    • Lowered to 14 the age that most violent juveniles can be tried as adults and streamlined the certification process;
    • Expanded determinate sentencing options Ð the toughest juvenile incarceration penalty Ð for serious and habitual juvenile offenders;
    • Enacted new mandatory minimums for length of stay at the Texas Youth Commission;
    • Made juvenile records freely available to law enforcement officials;
    • Expanded the use of fingerprinting and photographing of juveniles;
    • Adopted a Progressive Sanctions Model sentencing system of incrementally more intrusive sanctions for juvenile offenders;
    • Created zero tolerance policy for juvenile drinking and driving. In 1997, Texas enacted a zero-tolerance policy for those under 21 who are caught drinking and driving.

    George W. Bush showed a different side when he commutated the sentence of Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. In that instance, he said,

    "I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison."

    That's Bush Republicanism for you: Give draconian punishments for children who have done wrong, but protect the lawbreakers among your high-placed friends and underlings. We need a new President who believes that Washington D.C. insiders should not be let off the hook for their crimes while children are given longer mandatory sentences for their juvenile mistakes. (Sources: National Public Radio July 3, 2007; Bush for President 2000 campaign; LA Weekly January 13, 2005)

58. George W. Bush justified the vacating of the prison term for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby by calling it "excessive":

    "I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison."

    Was the sentence really excessive? A review of sentences for obstruction of justice, the crime of which I. Lewis Libby was convicted, shows that three out of four people convicted are sent to prison. Libby is typical in this regard, or was until his sentence was commuted by the president. The average prison sentence for people convicted of obstruction of justice is more than five years; Libby actually got off easier than average.

    What did Bush have in his mind when he referred to I. Lewis Libby's sentence as "excessive?" Is it that a man of Libby's position as a Bush pal and White House staffer deserves a lesser sentence because of his exalted position?

    A more generous interpretation of Bush's motivation is that perhaps he was not trading insider favors, but simply applying a general understanding of his that sentences for obstruction of justice are overall too harsh. But if that were true, where is the action on behalf of the many other Americans snared by such supposedly unjust sentences and sitting in prison without presidential intervention? Even if the president does not commute their sentences, he might if truly motivated by a sense of injustice promote a remedy through legislation, or establish a commission to review obstruction sentences and make recommendations, or at least give a speech about the subject.

    George W. Bush hasn't done any of this as president, leading us to this mystery: is Bush an insider favor trader, is he an elitist who only cares about the injustices that afflict powerful people, or is he too lazy to act even on issues he says he cares about?

    Meanwhile, Republican Party politicians are either voicing their support for the commutation or even suggesting that Bush didn't do a big enough favor for his insider pal. And how many Democratic Party politicians would be so outraged if Scooter Libby were on their team? If you want different forces in government, you'll have to look for people who are motivated by some kind of underlying principles, and who act based on them. Look for a presidential candidate who rejects the idea that a prison sentence for the obstruction of justice is excessive. (Sources: National Public Radio July 3, 2007; Columbus Dispatch July 4, 2007; San Francisco Chronicle July 4, 2007)

59. The State of Florida, controlled by Republican fundamentalists, has used its big government power to decide that a 13-year old girl, although she has clearly, repeatedly and cogently expressed her wish to have an abortion, cannot. Why? Because, regardless of what she thinks is best for her, the Republican-controlled state has decided it knows better. Read on:

    "Why can't I make my own decision?"
    
    That was the blunt question to a judge from a pregnant 13-year-old girl ensnared in a Palm Beach County court fight over whether she can have an abortion.
    
    "I don't know," Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez replied, according to a recording of the closed hearing obtained Friday.
    
    "You don't know?" replied the girl, who is a ward of the state. "Aren't you the judge?"
    
    Against a backdrop of state and federal efforts to pass a parental notification law for teen abortions, the exchange was typical of L.G.'s pluck as she argued that she had the right and capability to make her own decisionÉ "I think if I want to make the decision, it's my business and I can do that," she told the judge.
    
    The DCF is the teen's legal guardian after she was taken away from her parents for abuse or neglect. State law allows minors to have abortions without notifying their guardians. Experts say the law extends to wards of the state, raising the question of why this girl's decision has ended up before a judgeÉ
    
    L.G., who told Alvarez she had run away at least five times from her youth shelter, maintained, "It would make no sense to have the baby."
    
    "I don't think I should have the baby because I'm 13, I'm in a shelter and I can't get a job," the girl said as Alvarez and her guardian ad litem, assigned to shepherd her in the legal system, questioned herÉ
    
    She also questioned the health risk of carrying the fetus to term.
    
    "Since you guys are supposedly here for the best interest of me, then wouldn't you all look at that fact that it'd be more dangerous for me to have the baby than to have an abortion?" she asked. Alvarez called that "a good point."

    >

    The Republicans, through their legislative and executive actions, have made it clear they want to tell you who you can and can't love, what sexual positions you can and cannot use when you're in your bedroom, what sort of medical treatments you can and cannot get, what books you can read, and even what you can and can't do with your own body.

    Republican "morality," in short, is the imposition of government theocrats' decisions on your own private life. Republican "freedom" is government theocrats' freedom to shove their own parochial standards down your throat. (Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 30, 2005)

60. It's bad enough that Republican Fred Thompson is seeking to become President of the United States after three decades of working as a lobbyist, hiring himself out to promote politicial policies in return for fat paycheck. What's worse is that it isn't just Fred Thompson who is using his former position in government in order to gain personal profit.

    Fred Thompson's sons, Tony and Daniel, started their careers as lobbyists after their father gained a seat in the United States Senate, getting work based on the perception that they had access to powerful people in the government through their father.

    The Thompson family has a long history of using their influence in the government to enrich themselves. There is no reason to believe that this unethical exploitation of political access would stop if Fred Thompson were to become President. (Source: New York Times, July 2, 2007)

61. The more we hear about Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, the more it seems that his political career has been defined by a history of unethical dealings for the sake of personal profit. The latest example of Fred Thompson's unethical business deals comes in the form of a promotional deal for a company called LifeLock.

    Fred Thompson has been getting on the radio and promoting LifeLock through a series of paid advertisements. People who tune into Fred Thompson's radio broadcasts have heard Thompson promoting Robert Maynard's LifeLock scheme, just as if he was promoting a political policy. A listener turning on the radio might not know the difference.

    The problem is that Robert Maynard has been caught by the Federal Trade Commission engaging in crooked scams. Maynard has agreed to be banned for life from engaging in businesses that claim to help people clear their credit records. The reason: Maynard used fraudulent advertisements to get people to give him their bank account information, and then stole money out of their bank accounts. In other words, Robert Maynard used dishonest advertisements engage in a form of identity theft.

    Now, Fred Thompson is helping Robert Maynard engage in a new advertising scheme - claiming to protect people from identity theft, in return for information that enables Maynard to access their financial accounts.

    When confronted with his involvement in the scheme, Fred Thompson would not speak to reporters directly. Thompson's spokespeople gave reporters the following excuse: Fred Thompson agreed to help Robert Maynard promote his new scheme, no questions asked. Thompson never bothered to investigate the scheme he was being hired to promote. He just got on the air and told the American people that they ought to get involved in Robert Maynard's new scheme.

    Fred Thompson agreed to take money in return for lending his name to Robert Maynard's latest scheme without even bothering to check whether the company was on the up and up. It seems that all that Maynard needed to do was offer Fred Thompson a check, and that was enough for Thompson. He didn't care enough to check whether what he was saying was true.

    That shouldn't surprise us, really, given that Fred Thompson has spent most of his adult life as a corporate lobbyist and second-rate movie actor. Thompson is used to reading his lines without really thinking about what he's being told to say. All that matters to Thompson is that he gets paid.

    If Fred Thompson is elected as the next President of the United States, which business leaders will be handing him his scripts? The American people would do best never to find out the answer to that question. In 2008, American voters would be wise to elect a progressive candidate instead - someone who cares about the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the profits of the companies who send him the most money. (Source: Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2007)

62. The revelation that Fred Thompson has worked as a paid lobbyist in favor of efforts to reduce restrictions on abortion earns the Republican presidential candidate a new nickname: Flip Flop Fred.

    It's a flippant nickname, but a serious critique. Given the way that Fred Thompson has tried to play both sides of the abortion issue, how can either side of the debate trust him?

    If Fred Thompson really believes that restrictions on abortion ought to be loosened, that's no reassurance for Pro-Choice voters. After all, Fred Thompson is now campaigning on a platform on increasing restrictions on abortion. Thus, even if Pro-Choice voters believe Fred Thompson's earlier position, they have every reason to believe that Thompson will play politics on the issue, and betray them if he becomes President.

    If Fred Thompson really believes that restrictions on abortion ought to be increased, as he now claims, that's no reassurance for Pro-Life voters. After all, Fred Thompson promoted Pro-Choice policies for the sake of a paycheck. Thus, even if Pro-Life voters believe Fred Thompson's current claims about his beliefs about abortion, they have every reason to believe that Thompson can be bought off through the influence of money in politics, and will betray them if he becomes President.

    The underlying reason no one can trust Fred Thompson is that he has such a long history of promoting political policies regardless of whatever his own personal moral values might be. As a professional lobbyist, Fred Thompson seems to recognize the value of the dollar above all else.

    In 2008, Americans deserve the opportunity to vote for someone more reliable, someone who has a consistent record of promoting progressive moral values, even when it hasn't been the most profitable thing to do. (Source: Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2007)

63. It's a disgusting example of how far self-described Pro-Life right wing politicians will go to gain power for themselves: Sam Brownback plans to use a dead woman to help promote his campaign for President this summer.

    It wasn't enough for Republicans to use Terri Schiavo as a political prop when she was lying in a hospital bed in a vegetative state. Even now, long after Terri Schiavo died, and an autopsy showed that she was, as medical doctors had said, incapable of reachieving consciousness and human thought, they're still using her.

    Sam Brownback will be touring America this summer, trying to gain attention for his presidential campaign by rallying the right wing base around Terri Schiavo once again. What does Senator Brownback propose to do for Terri Schiavo now? Ressurect her?

    We need a new President who has true respect for the dignity of human life, not a President who uses human suffering to score political points with religious extremists. (Source: Associated Press, July 13, 2007)

64. On the first of March, 2005, George W. Bush shocked his supporters from the religious right when he called for an American national love-in. Bush even went so far as to propsed that federal money be used to help single people hook up for some good loving. "Government has got to find ways to empower those whose mission is based upon love, in order to help those who need love find love in society." Apparently, Bush thought that if you can't be with the one you love, you ought to love the one the government hooks you up with. A dating service run by the federal government - who but George W. Bush would have had the bold imagination to propose such a thing?

    OhÉ Wait a minuteÉ

    It turns out that President Bush was not trying to help Americans find sex partners after all. No, it turns out that Mr. Bush was really talking about the need to allow organizations that receive taxpayer support to fire people who don't belong to the right religion.

    Well, jeez! Why didn't Bush just say so? HmmÉ

65. Mitt Romney's new presidential campaign commercial, Ocean, is one of those ads that kind of floats easily past you, if you're not paying close attention to it. If you actually listen to and think about what Mitt Romney says in the commercial, however, you realize that Romney is, in many ways, a strange, strange man.

    Consider what it really means, for instance, when Mitt Romney declares at the end of the campaign commercial "I'd like to keep pornography from coming up on their computer and I'd like to see less violence and sex on TV and in video games and movies, and if we get serious about this, we can actually do a great deal& "

    Mitt Romney isn't just expressing his personal opinion about the kind of entertainment he'd like to see. He's speaking as a candidate for the position of President of the United States of America, and promises that if he's elected, "we can actually do a great deal".

    What does Mitt Romney plan on doing as President of the United States to control the pornography we can see on line, and to censor the content of television, video games and movies? Romney doesn't get specific in this advertisement, but we all deserve to know how far he plans on going as President in limiting our right to free speech and freedom of the press.

    When Mitt Romney tells me that he would like to see less pornography coming up on my children's computer, he's being arrogant and presumptuous. First of all, it's absurd of Mitt Romney to presume that my children are looking at pornography on a computer. They're not. My children don't even have a computer. When they use a computer, they use one of mine, and I don't let them go on line without me being present. Secondly, it's not Mitt Romney's place to start snooping at what my children are looking at on a computer in my home. In the same way, it is not Mitt Romney's business to tell me what movies, television, and video games my children will be allowed to see.

    What Mitt Romney doesn't understand is that it isn't the job of the President of the United States to raise everyone else's children for them. It's my job to raise my children, and to watch over what media they are exposed to. I choose the movies my children watch, and I don't get television reception in my home, because I don't want my children to be exposed to the high content of junk that's on television - including the kooky religious channels and Fox News. That's my business. I'm the parent of my children, and Mitt Romney is not. He ought to butt out and spend his spare time taking care of his own family instead of trying to control how I raise mine. In 2008, America needs to elect a President, not a patriarch. (Source: MittRomney.com)

66. Of all the weird ideas embedded in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign commercials, the one that perplexes me the most has to do with the medium itself. One of Romney's earliest campaign commercials makes strident complaints about how televison is an awful thing, full of too much sex and violence, and dangerous to children. Yet, the commercial is being played on television.

    If Mitt Romney is really so upset about the kind of material that is broadcast on television, how come he is directing his campaign to direct immense amounts of money to advertise on television? Every time the Mitt Romney for President campaign puts a commercial on televison, Romney is pumping money into the very same television system that he complains about.

    If Mitt Romney really wanted to make a powerful statement about the quality of television, and wanted to do something to force an improvement in that quality, he would refuse to place any campaign advertisements on television.

    Sadly, making that kind of statement is the last thing Mitt Romney wants to do. You see, most of all, Mitt Romney wants to win the election, and he'll do whatever it takes to win, even if it means betraying the moral values that he says he holds dear.

    Mitt Romney's Ocean commercial is far from a genuine political statement about moral values. It's just an empty pose from a politician who has gotten so far away from the the values he espouses that he is incapable of understanding that he has become part of the problem. (Source: MittRomney.com)

67. Someone in the pre-selected and sifted pro-Bush audience at the Gaylord Opryland Resort asked George W. Bush an honest-to-goodness question, not the typical "Why are people so unfair to you?" or "How do you think you will judge your legacy? pseudo-question. It was a question based in conservative advocacy, to be sure, but it was within the Republican tent a challenging question nonetheless:

    Question: "My question to you is this: There are two border guards presently in jail. The Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution, with 91 votes in the House and 30 in the Senate, asking our Tennessee delegation to support, to go to you asking for a pardon for these two men that were tried, where information was left not with, was kept back from their trial. And there's also a resolution in the House, H.R. 40, with a number of our Tennessee delegation signed on to that. Will you pardon these men that are unjustly imprisoned?"

    George W. Bush: "I'm not going to make that kind of promise in a forum like this. Obviously I am interested in facts. I know the prosecutor very well, Johnny Sutton. He's a dear friend of mine from Texas. He's a fair guy. He is an even-handed guy. And I can't imagine, you've got a nice smile, but you can't entice me into making a public statement on something that requires a very, I know this is an emotional issue, but people need to look at the facts. These men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend, Johnny Sutton, presented them. But anyway, no, I won't make you that promise."

    So let's work out George W. Bush's Friend Principle of Justice:

    1. If your friend is a prosecutor, then you don't issue a pardon to convicted felons, because "these men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend& presented them."

    2. If your friend is convicted of obstruction of justice by a jury of his peers after listening to the facts, as was the case with Scooter Libby, then you not only give your felon friend a commutation, but you refuse to rule out a pardon in the future, and insist that a pardon remains on the table.

    If you've got friends in the right places, then the Bush system of justice is very good for you. If you don't have the right friends, or if your enemies have better friends than you do, then you're out of luck.

    Does that kind cronyism work for you? If so, vote for another well-connected right winger like George W. Bush. (Sources: White House Press Release, July 19 2007; The Nation, July 3 2007)

68. On July 24 2007, Bush Administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the United States Congress in sworn testimony that when he tried to get a bedridden John Ashcroft to reauthorize a program of wiretapping against people in the United States without so much as a constitutionally-mandated warrant, and then when a bunch of Bush administration lawyers threatened to resign in protest, the whole thing had nothing to do with warrantless wiretapping (or, as the Bush administration has named it in a splash of Orwellian flair, the "Terrorist Surveillance Program").

    On July 26 2007, FBI Director Robert Muller testified to the United States Congress that yes, indeed, the whole affair did have to do with the Bush administration's program of wiretapping people in the United States without a warrant.

    According to Muller, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has lied in testimony to Congress. The only exculpatory possibility left to Alberto Gonzales is that FBI Director Robert Muller is himself lying to Congress, behavior which if true would hardly leave the Bush administration sparkling clean.

    All this from the administration that promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Funny, but I never hear Bush or his compadres using that phrase any more. (Source: New York Times July 26, 2007)

69. In a report published by UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2007 publication, United States is comparable in performance to Poland, and outdone by Portugal when it comes to deaths of children under 5 years of age. That puts the USA down toward the bottom middle of the pack for the rate of child deaths. The UNICEF analysis within the USA shows that the relatively high infant death rate in the United States is due to the fate of the poorest families among us that do not receive adequate health care for their children.

    This sort of performance should be a badge of national shame, and to some politicians it is. On August 2, 2007, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to reauthorize and expand health care coverage for children from poor families through the SCHIP program. Every single Senate progressive voted for the program. 31 Republicans, conservatives every one, voted to deny America's children health care without which America's children will die at a rate that belongs in POLAND. Why? It's not because these children somehow deserve to die. It's not their fault. They haven't done anything wrong, except to by chance be born into poor families.

    Sometimes, political issues can be complicated. But sometimes, they're pretty darned simple. Conservative Republicans voted against legislation to save American babies' lives. Progressives voted for it. If you want to save the babies' lives, vote progressive.(Sources: UNICEF State of the World's Children 2007; U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote 307 in the 110th Congress; Text of H.R. 976)

70. A confused man who calls himself "Steve" left the following message on Irregular Times yesterday, in response to an article about the Republican presidential candidates' refusal to participate in a debate sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation: "The case for governmental validation of potentially socially destabilizing, biologically illogical sexual behavior is non-existent."

    What I love about this comment is that it exposes the lack of foundation for the right wing's hatred of homosexuality even while it attempts to justify that hatred.

    First of all, "Steve" acknowledges that the most the right wing can actually claim about homosexuality is that it is "potentially socially destabilizing", not actually socially destabilizing in the present. In other words, "Steve" acknowledges that something significant would have to change in order to transform homosexuality from its present non- destabilizing nature into a nature that would be destabilizing. Even as "Steve" attempts to describe a threat to social stability, he accepts the idea that homosexuality really isn't a threat to social stability at all.

    Then there's this idea that the government should not validate "biologically illogical sexual behavior". Strange idea. First of all, and most importantly, the government has no business validating or invalidating private sexual behavior between consenting adults.

    Beyond that, there's the mystery of what biological logic might possibly be. Logic is the process of careful consideration of ideas through the use of rational structures of thought. How, then, could the biology of sexual organs, which are not part of the nervous system of any animal as far as I know, be at all logical or illogical? They weren't designed according to logic, after all, but evolved according to natural, non-thinking processes. No one ever sat down and said, animals will go extinct unless they reproduce, and sex is way that animals can reproduce, therefore I can prevent the extinction of animals by inventing a way for them to have sex. Biology is not founded upon logic, but "Steve" and his right wing antihomosexual allies don't seem to understand that basic point.

    Besides, what does "Steve" really want? Does he want the government to go around interfering in Americans' private lives in order to promote logical sex? That sounds dreadfully boring. My wife and I have illogical sex all the time, and we like it that way. If right wing activists like "Steve" want to be restricted to having just logical sex, then it's their right to choose that restriction voluntarily, I suppose. They ought not to use the power of government, however, to impose their logical, boring approach to sex on the rest of us.

    Preserve the right to fun, illogical sex. Vote to elect a progressive President in 2008.

71. Tens of thousands of children stood to receive health insurance under the expansion of the S-Chip program passed by Congress in the summer of 2007.

    This distressed George W. Bush so much that he threatened to veto that legislation.

    On August 17 2007, George W. Bush implemented an administrative order to block the delivery of funds which would have ensured that those tens of thousands of children had health insurance. Now, thanks to Bush's right wing ideological opposition to government funded health-care, huge numbers of American children do not have insurance to protect them in case of illness or injury.

    Those children have become victims of Republican moral values. (Source: Bloomberg News August 21, 2007)

72. America would be much better off if only the leaders of the Republican Party would have listened to Isaac Asimov when he advised, "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right."
    
    
73. On June 7, 2006, Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho voted to approve an amendment to the United States Constitution which would have specifically made marriages between same-sex partners unconstitutional. It's a good thing that others in the Senate showed the necessary resolve, understanding of liberty, moral compass, and general good sense to vote this amendment down, because Sen. Craig failed to do that job himself. Instead, Senator Craig voted with the minority of Americans who believe that equal protection under law is a real drag, who believe that civil rights should exist only for some people and not others, who believe that gay Americans should be classified under the constitution as second-class citizens.

    On June 11, 2007, Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho is alleged to have stared through a crack of the door of a men's room stall at an undercover police officer, and then to have played footsie with the same undercover police officer as each sat in adjacent men's room stalls. Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge stemming from the incident and is currently serving a year's probation.

    Whether Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho is actually gay or not may matter for the tabloids, but I don't think his sexual identity is really what matters. What's striking to me is that Senator Craig has been caught in the trap of prurient and obsessive sex policing set up by his own political party. If Senator Craig's political career comes to an end, it will be thanks to the system of unequal treatment under the law for gay and lesbian Americans that he himself has worked to erect and perpetuate. It will take someone with more courage than Larry Craig to end that unfair and unjust system. (Source: Los Angeles Times August 27, 2007)

74. In 2005, Republicans the Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill saying that doctors and other health care providers can opt out of treating a person because of moral, ethical, or religious objections. Since when do health care providers get to not treat someone for any reason, much less because of religious reasons? Encouraging doctors to refuse to provide medical care doesn't seem like the kind of health care reform America really needs, but right wing activists seem to think it's just the thing for what ails us.
    
    
75. The Larry Craig sex hypocrisy scandal became a test of decency for politicians associated with him. Would the Republicans who once supported Larry Craig and were supported by him remain as his allies, or would they turn against him now that he has become politically weak?

    Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney fails the test of decency. It seems that Romney's campaign is working as hard as it can to cut all ties with Larry Craig. Before the news about Larry Craig's run-in with the sex police over in Minneapolis came out, the Romney for President campaign proudly displayed a video of Senator Craig endorsing Romney's campaign. As soon as the Romney for President campaign found out about the allegations, the campaign pulled the endorsement of Romney by Larry Craig down from its YouTube web site.

    Why? Well, one line spoken by Larry Craig in that pro-Romney video seems to have been particularly embarrassing to the Romney campaign: "Knowing Governor Mitt Romney is knowing somebody who first and foremost has very strong family values. That's something I grew up with and believe in."

    Why is that line embarrassing to Mitt Romney? Well, it exposes the right wing lie that a politician who says that he or she supports family values actually does support family values. The truth is that neither Larry Craig nor Mitt Romney really support family values. They oppose marriage equality, and try to block many loving couples from forming families.

    What the Mitt Romney campaign didn't count on is that people would be able to grab the video of Larry Craig before it was deleted from the Romney YouTube site. If the Romney campaign had just left the Larry Craig endorsement video online, there wouldn't have been much of a story about it. It's really no big deal that a Republican presidential candidate might be endorsed by another Republican politician who just so happened to be mixed up in a sex scandal.

    It is a big deal, however, that Mitt Romney has turned against his old friend Larry Craig so quickly, just because evidence is mounting that Craig has engaged in homosexual behavior. The insight into Mitt Romney's values is clear: Mitt Romney will turn against his friends and political allies the minute that they are no longer useful to him.

    The Idaho Statesman reports that Mitt Romney ordered one of his sons to cancel a trip to Boise because of Larry Craig's sex scandal. Apparently, Mitt Romney believes that it's just too dangerous for his son to even be in the same city as an associate who is known to be homosexual.

    Those are