More clear than ever, every political issue is about campaign finance reform and media reform. The fossil fuel industry (The American Gas Association (AGA) is in the process of gutting Section 433 of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). Section 433 requires new federal buildings and major renovations…
At Salon.com, Nicholas Buccola explains that a true democracy does more than merely count the votes. It is more than mob rule. The context is Justice Scalia's dissent in United States v. Windsor.
While the right to govern ourselves collectively is part of the “the beauty of what our Framers gave us,” it is not the whole of it. This right exists alongside the rights of individuals to be treated with dignity and respect. In his Windsor dissent Scalia all but mocks the majority’s concern for the “personhood and dignity” of individuals and contends that not only should the government be free to exclude same-sex couples from the institution of marriage, but he reminds us repeatedly that he believes the government should be empowered – if the majority wills it – to imprison homosexuals for making love in the privacy of their own homes. What one cannot detect in Scalia’s Windsor dissent is an appreciation for the idea that true democracy entails not only collective self-government, but respect for the right of the individual to govern his own conduct. Scalia’s dissent has all the markings of a brand of democracy too shallow to accept. Genuine democracy – like the conception of democracy defended by Frederick Douglass – is far more worthy of celebration this Fourth of July weekend.
There is a lot of ignorance of the U.S. Constitution out on the streets. Consider this video made by a driver who committed the crime of asserting his Constitutional rights at a DUI checkpoint. The written account of the incident is here. More on motor vehicle checkpoints here and here. It's clear from videos like this (there are many) it is clear that there is a big difference between the law on the books and the law on the streets.
And then I decided to redo my eyes. I use Photoshop Elements 10. It's a baby version of Photoshop, yet so packed with options that I probably only understand half of it, even after working with it for years. All of this was done with layer masks, and much of this strangeness was inspired by Sean Sharboneau.
If you'd like to have some fun with your DSLR, check out his ebook and website.
There are 35 of these inconvenient quotes at Addicting Information. Here are the first five:
1. “If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” ~George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789 2. “Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.” ~George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792 3. “We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition… In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.” ~George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793 4. “The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.” ~John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” 1787-1788 5. “The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” ~1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by John Adams