Friday, November 06, 2015

I Didn't Say It ...

Paul Ryan, newly elected Speaker of the House, on his demand for more personal family time, while voting against paid family leave legislation:

“I don’t think people asked me to be Speaker to so that I can take more money from hardworking taxpayers to create some new federal entitlement, but I think people want to have members of Congress who represent them, that are like them. Don’t you want your member of Congress to be a citizen legislator who lives with you among you, who has your own kinds of concerns, who wants to spend time with his children on Saturdays and Sundays? I’m going to keep living in Janesville, Wisconsin where I’m from, where I raise my family. I’m going to keep going back and forth to D.C. If you’re asking me, because I want to spend — I want to continue being the best dad and husband and Speaker I can be, getting that work-life balance correct means I should sign up for new unfunded entitlement, that doesn’t make any sense.”

It makes perfect sense to anyone with a brain who wonders how you can demand this entitlement for yourself as a precursor to taking your job, but vote against it for other hardworking Americans ... you know, the ones who work more than 200 days a year.
Dan Savage, offers a unique perspective on the loss of Houston Equal Rights Ordinance:

“The haters insist trans women aren’t women. They’re men. Men who fake being women because they wanna enter women’s restrooms to ogle women and girls. So they’re saying trans women are actually straight men. Straight men who pretend to be women specifically to enter women’s restrooms to ogle (or worse) women and girls because opportunities to ogle women and girls are so scarce in our porn-saturated culture … so of course straight men will fake being trans women (and risk the violence, discrimination directed at trans women) to get an eyeful of women washing their hands after peeing. Okay… So the haters in Houston argued — successfully — that straight men are terrible. Right? They argued that trans women are actually straight dudes who are attracted to women. So the haters won yesterday by convincing a majority of voters in Houston that straight people suck.”

Like I said, it’s a unique perspective, but it’s still the same fear-based propaganda the right throws at the LGBT community.
Gus Kenworthy, newly out athlete, on his Native American Halloween costume:

“I didn’t think for a second when I did it that I was being offensive. I would’ve never done anything that I thought was going to offend anybody. I went on my phone and I Googled — like an idiot — but like, ‘Is it racist to dress up like a Native American?’ And, I guess the answer is yes… It’s sort of a vague line, because if you’re a character, then it’s not really racist but if you’re just, like, an Indian, then it’s sort of racist. But at the same point, even a character, like Pocahontas … is still sort of based on a racial stereotype and sort of a misinterpretation of a culture. I felt guilty that I had done it. I also feel that sometimes people do really overreact. It’s Halloween. It’s a night to dress-up. But I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable or feel like I was being rude or insensitive. So I took it down… I feel like, lesson learned and I won’t do it again.”

He does go around and around the issue, but I do believe that when you know better, you do better.
I just worry that some people will never know better.
Rand Paul, future failed Republican presidential candidate and certifiable loon, on free higher education for all Americans:

“The main thing I would say is that nothing’s free. If someone offers you something for free, treat it as if they’re offering you heroin and think about the repercussions of what is free and what is a drug, an addicting drug like heroin and the ramifications of that. There’s nothing free. It just means somebody else is gonna pay for it, you don’t see them. So the plumber, the welder, the carpenter, the people who don’t go to college are being asked to pay for your education.”

Education is like heroin, y'all. So Rand Paul must have been high as a kite when he said that.
Rick Santorum, future failed presidential candidate, on Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance [HERO] being dangerous for the children:

“I don’t know why children at that age — why this is even an issue, the idea that we are introducing this type of real dangerous confusion for young people at this early age, do we really care about what we’re doing to millions of children who don’t have gender confusion and basically introducing the subject and saying, ‘maybe you should, maybe this is something you should start thinking about at age seven.’ I mean this is really dangerous and it’s going too far because it is having an impact on not just folks who may be in a difficult situation at an early age but many who would never have been in that situation but now are being confronted with it.”

First off, this law was never about children, it was about allowing trans people being accepted as who they are in society.
And if Santorum thinks that seeing trans people in bathrooms — and how would you even know — would make a seven year old want to be trans, then please to explain why a seven year old Bob isn’t straight because that’s all I saw growing up.
Rick Santorum isn’t as smart as a seven-year-old.
Justin Trudeau, the newly elected liberal prime Minister of Canada, on why his cabinet is young, ethnically diverse and gender-equal:

"Because it is 2015."

Following on the heels of those three quotes above by American politicians, all I can say is:
Watch and learn America. This is how it should be done.

5 comments:

  1. Dan Savage = interesting take! :-)

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  2. Savage's reply was funny and clever, but the truth is that a resident of Houston can be fired or denied an apartment simply for being gay. The opposition made it all about bathrooms. Ironically, Houston has a lesbian mayor. Two steps forward, one step backward (though I fear it may be the other way around.)

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  3. I'd do justin trudeau in a montreal minute!

    I wish the currently-running-for-prez candidates were as open minded as trudeau is.

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  4. Everyone should have free education, not just those going to uni; plumbers and electricians should have free training ad certification to be the safest and best plumbers and electricians they can be.

    ReplyDelete

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