the united american party

Where Do We Go From Here?

contributed by The Cranky Liberal;

To the left, or to the right.

That’s the debate being waged in liberal circles these days as we are trying to figure out how to “right the ship” and rebound after loosing the last two presidential elections. A lot of people are arguing that we need to embrace the middle ground and try to capture some of that moderate right vote – the people who may not be comfortable with the James Dobson’s and Pat Robertson’s and all the influence that they wield in the Republican Party these days. And, I agree we need to reach out to those people, but I don’t think we should do it by trying to embrace the “rights” policies. I think we need to do it by articulating our own policies. If we need to move more to the right, what does that say about all the issues that we’ve fought for and believed in for the last century?

That we’re wrong?

Now, I know some people out there would say that’s exactly it – we’re wrong, but think about that for a second. Is what we stand for wrong? What do we stand for? Equality; Tolerance; Freedom; Personal Liberty; Equal Opportunity. Those aren’t bad things. Those aren’t things I want to throw away just to pick up a few votes. I’m not willing to compromise on those issues because, THOSE issues aren’t mine to compromise on. They are fundamental human rights! You don’t get rid of equal opportunity to control the White House. You don’t trade away Civil Liberties to control the Senate. You can’t negotiate with those things because they are non-negotiable.

The problem isn’t our ideals; it’s our lack of cohesion. Right now we don’t have two equal combatants in this market place of ideas. You have a well funded, well organized “radical right” that’s spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to shape the messages we hear every day. Then you have a group of really smart and really smug individuals who all think they each have the right answer to the worlds problems – and if you don’t share their answer your just as bad as the idiot in the White House.

That’s the attitude we need to stop.

We need to start compromising, but it needs to be with each other not with “the right.” We need to come together and form a cohesive unit and realize that while I may not agree with everything you say, by working together we will be a lot better off than we would be alone. By working together we will be a lot stronger than we ever could be as individuals.

And we need to start now!

We can’t afford to waste any time. We need to use every opportunity we have to get our message across.

We need to come together, we need to work together and we need to go on the offensive. We need to quit being so timid that we’re even afraid of being called liberal. When they call us a “tax and spend” liberal, ask them what they are – a “big deficit” conservative?

When they say “You’re pro-abortion” tell them that no one is “pro- abortion” and ask what they are doing to cut down on the need to have abortions. Ask them to join you in supporting real sex education and access to birth control. If they’re not willing to do that, ask them who is perpetuating the abortion industry now.

When they say “You’re being divisive” tell them hell yeah you’re being divisive because it’s not your job to support stupid policies. It’s not your job to sale your kids down the river so that Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay and Dick Cheney can all get richer off of their backs.

And when they say “Your being unpatriotic” because you question the president” remind that America was founded by people who disagreed with their government. What could be more patriotic than that?

We NEED to stand together now and just say NO. We need to tell the radical right that we are not buying the bill of goods their trying to sell anymore. Now is the time for us to be Churchill and not Chamberlain.

We don’t need to move to the right.
We are Right.

cross posted at (The Cranky Liberal and Bring It On)

Activist Judge or Doing What He's Paid To Do?

Contributed by The Crank Liberal via Bring It On

Those damned judicial activists are trying to destroy "traditional American values" again. In San Fransisco today, California Superior Court justice Richard Kramer ruled that there didn't appear to be any "no rational purpose" for denying marriage to gay couples.

"Rational" conservative critics are already debating the merits of the judges case:

"This is a crazy ruling by an arrogant San Francisco judge who apparently hates marriage and the voters. Kramer has trashed the people's vote to keep marriage for a man and a woman and violated his oath to uphold the law instead of making new laws out of his own head. This is the worst type of judge. This case will be immediately appealed."

"As the majority of the members of the Massachusetts Supreme Court went, so went a loony leftist judge in...San Francisco, California."

"For the second time in the last month, an aberrant judge has launched assault on the bedrock of our society." Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council

Of course, what those same critics fail to mention is that Judge Kramer is both a Catholic and a Republican. They also fail to mention that this is the same judge Kramer that was lauded by conservatives when he granted full party status to Campaign for California Families. According to Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel who represented CCF:

"We are pleased that Judge Kramer granted full party status to Campaign for California Families to defend California's marriage laws. Judge Kramer clearly recognizes the benefit of hearing all sides of the marriage debate, not just those arguments advanced by the same-sex couples and the Attorney General's office."

This is also the same Judge Kramer that in January :

...refused to remove statements on reparative therapy from a lawsuit that challenges California law on the definition of marriage as a one-man, one-woman union. The judge has also refused to allow the city of San Francisco to add any statements to the lawsuit that are designed to refute the statements made by such experts as Dr. Jeffrey Satinover and Dr. George Rekers, both NARTH members.

Does that sound  like the workings of a crazed activist judge to you. Is that what you would call a judge that let all the parties speak, tired to keep the case to legal points and  made his  decision based after hearing all the arguments? No that sounds like what we elect our justices to do.

Ladies and Gentleman, this doesn't smack of judicial activism, it smacks of the conservative attack squad turning on one of their own when he doesn't tow the party line. The speed and severity of their attacks should come as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to their methods. They don't want free thinkers, only people who follow the leader in jack boot unison.

Their message is clear do as we say or suffer our wrath!

It's time to fight back and not accept this bullying and vindictive name calling without challenge. It's time to take the fight to those who want to discard facts and reason and substitute irrational diatribes in their place. It's time to look these blowhards in the eye and say Bring it On.

Oh yeah baby Bring it On. I dare you.

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The Perils of Wireless

This piece coming to you from the Cranky Liberal (yea, Republican or Democrat we all share the same compuer problems). It would seem Cranky had a modern day Watergate at his house this weekend. If only Nixon had this capability back then. Without further delay here is what Cranky has to say about wireless networking and your check book.

I’m a computer guy by trade. I know, I know, with my brilliant and insightful political analysis, you probably thought I worked for some huge think tank - but alas, so far I still have to work a real job to earn a living. Anyhow, I’m a computer guy, or more precisely a network engineer. I build networks, design security etc for a living. I solve hugely complex problems on a daily basis, some of which actually involve computer and networks. Because of this, I get really frustrated when I can’t get my own home network running properly. This weekend I was beyond frustrated - I was downright Cranky.

My home is wireless to the extreme. My computers network is wireless, my phones are wireless, my surround sound speakers are wireless. Hell even my headset for my Xbox is wireless. Aside from the fact that my brain is slowly being cooked from all the radio signals bouncing around my living room, the system works great. Or I should say did work great.

A few days ago I notices that my computers kept losing their connection to the network. It would reappear in a few seconds, but it was rather odd. I checked and rechecked everything. I rebooted all the devices (yes, that still fixes 90% of your problems) but it kept happening. The only thing I could think of was a hardware problem on the router. One quick trip to the store and $59.00 later I thought the problem was fixed.

When will I learn people, when will I learn?

I struggled for a few hours trying to get the router working. Every time I think I had it fixed, it would go start it’s maddening Up-Down, Up-Down routine again. Of course having my 4 year old try to discuss the intricacies of a Power Ranger plot while I’m trying to solve “Really Hard Daddy Problems” didn’t exactly make it easier. I was really starting to get pissed off when I noticed two things:

1. One of my neighbors had a new wireless network.

2. It had a REALLY strong signal (almost as strong as the router in my house).

Now, being the helpful neighbor I am, I took a look at their new wireless network. Amazingly, it wasn’t a secure network. In fact, it was completely wide open just inviting the neighbors to jump on and enjoy it. Which I did. Man they have a fast connection.

What they don’t have is any common sense. They hadn’t changed the password on the router. I know that because I logged into it using the default “password”. From there I was able to see how many computers were on their home network (2), what their names were, and how to access them. Even more amazing, when I tried to access the living room computer, I was able to see that my neighbor had his printer shared (an HP Deskjet 610) and his D: drive shared for all of us to look at. How friendly this guy must be to share his .mp3 collection (not to mention his Quicken files) with the world.

I really could have been a jerk and “fixed” the problem myself by turning his router into mush and changing the password (he could have reset it people, I’m not that mean) - but I didn’t. Instead I decided to send my neighbor a friendly little note telling him I was on his network, browsing his computer. I mentioned he may want to secure his rather LOUD wireless network (and gave him some hints) on how to do it. Then I printed it out to his printer (no name of course).

That wireless network was down within the hour. Can you imagine the look on Dad’s face when he saw that? I hope I scared the crap out of him. Maybe if this sounds like your house, I’ve scared the crap out of you too. When you play with wireless, you need to know what your doing, or the guy checking out your computer may not be as nice as I was.

Oh and after all that, I think my problem was an overloaded wall outlet and bad power. Once I fixed that everything seemed to be OK.

Go figure

Sen. Talent I Beg to Differ

Contributed by the Cranky Liberal via Bring It On

Sen. James M. Talent (R-Mo.), praising the [Church] report [on
prisoner abuse and torture] , said he did not "need an investigation
to tell me that there was no comprehensive or systematic use of
inhumane tactics by the American military, because those guys and gals
just wouldn't do it."

Oh?

Then I guess those 71 substantiated cases of abuse in Iraq and
Afghanistan just happened in a vacuum?

Or maybe it's because our guys
are so poorly trained and out of control that they have just gone wild
on their CO's? Maybe they just decided that they would disobey an
order to treat prisoners with at least the minimum of humane treatment
they deserve?

Well no that doesn't jibe with the fact that we have one of the best
trained, best run fighting forces in the world. Our folks don't often
disobey orders and start free lancing on policy.

Actually in a backhanded way I agree with Senator Talent. Maybe it
wasn't Senior Pentagon officials, but one step further up the chain of
command. The real culprit is the complete disregard for proper
protocol and human decency shown time and time again by this
Administration that led to these problems. Alberto and Rummie and
George all with their "ah a little torture never hurt no one" attitude
set a tone they filtered it's way down to the guys risking their
lives.

The Administration betrayed those captives. It betrayed the soldiers
who used torture as a tactic. Most of all, they betrayed us. No matter
how the report tries to obscure that.

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