Alabama has done it again

[Trieste]

Just an aside, he's not 'from' Massachusetts. >.> He is from Michigan. And when he ran for governor of Massachusetts, he ran on a platform that included:

• Equal rights for all Americans regardless of sexual orientation (he didn't come out against gay marriage until about 04)
• The allowance of stem cell research, so long as the cells aren't obtained via the destruction of life
• Pro-choice support of Roe v. Wade
• Universal health care (MassCare is nicknamed RomneyCare in the same way that the ACA is nicknamed ObamaCare)

Does that sound like any GOP talking head you know? For that matter, does that sound like the Romney who ran for president this year? >.>

I didn't think so. >.>

[Callie Del Noire]

Just an aside, he's not 'from' Massachusetts. >.> He is from Michigan. And when he ran for governor of Massachusetts, he ran on a platform that included:

• Equal rights for all Americans regardless of sexual orientation (he didn't come out against gay marriage until about 04)
• The allowance of stem cell research, so long as the cells aren't obtained via the destruction of life
• Pro-choice support of Roe v. Wade
• Universal health care (MassCare is nicknamed RomneyCare in the same way that the ACA is nicknamed ObamaCare)

Does that sound like any GOP talking head you know? For that matter, does that sound like the Romney who ran for president this year? >.>

I didn't think so. >.>

I find myself wondering who would have won between the president and '04 Romney.

[Lux12]

I honestly don't trust the man.He's bounced around on issues so much and said such outrageous things about hardworking citizens I cannot trust him. I've found that he's more consistently towed the party line, but I cannot trust someone who won't own up to what he said. The many says whatever's necessary to get what he wants.I do not trust him let alone his many of his personal stances.

[Trieste]

I find myself wondering who would have won between the president and '04 Romney.

Well, he may have been GOP while he was MA gov, but it's hard to get elected if you stick to the GOP party line in MA. Look at Scott Brown - he distanced himself from the party a couple years ago and got elected. Then he did crap-all in office and posted on his site about his anti-choice, anti-gay perspectives and oh look - Elizabeth Warren.

[Callie Del Noire]

Well, he may have been GOP while he was MA gov, but it's hard to get elected if you stick to the GOP party line in MA. Look at Scott Brown - he distanced himself from the party a couple years ago and got elected. Then he did crap-all in office and posted on his site about his anti-choice, anti-gay perspectives and oh look - Elizabeth Warren.

True. I'm surprised the 'N-word' didn't get used by someone this year. 

[Trieste]

True. I'm surprised the 'N-word' didn't get used by someone this year.

It was on Twitter. "Silly n*er, it's called the White House for a reason!" 

[Lux12]

It was on Twitter. "Silly n*er, it's called the White House for a reason!" 

I wouldn't be surprised if it was Romney himself.

[Callie Del Noire]

It was on Twitter. "Silly n*er, it's called the White House for a reason!" 

I meant like a Jessie Jackson moment at a podium.  I don't see Mitt doing it but damn I could see some of these minion or Tea Party types doing it.

[Lux12]

I meant like a Jessie Jackson moment at a podium.  I don't see Mitt doing it but damn I could see some of these minion or Tea Party types doing it.

Definitely.I'd have to find the article, but I read somewhere that a group of them were harassing some African American politicians rather aggressively.

[Trieste]

I meant like a Jessie Jackson moment at a podium.  I don't see Mitt doing it but damn I could see some of these minion or Tea Party types doing it.

Yeah, it wasn't anyone associated with one of the campaigns (I think), just people on Twitter who apparently think racism is funny and/or acceptable.

[Torch]

One does not have to be much older to know when something is deeply wrong with a situation or to read.

No, one doesn't. If you are interested in social injustice, perhaps you should Google the Chicago Race Riots of the early 1900's, or the violence associated with the desegregation of the Boston Public Schools in the 1970's, or the rise and proliferation of neo-Nazi groups in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980's, or any other number of examples I could give you.

The South hardly has the monopoly on bigots and racists, and anyone who believes so is gravely misinformed.

[Stattick]

You know who was Southern? Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton too.

[TheWildcat]

Exactly. Just because there are people in this state that don't have electric lights and go to klan meetings and burn crosses and prefer to "keep it in the family" does not mean we're all like that. Birmingham started as the Pittsburgh of the south, overnight, and after the civil war was over. It is now considered one of the major medical and banking centers of the nation, shoulder to shoulder with the likes of New York and Chicago, if not smaller, and of course it has its own problems.

[vtboy]

Opposition to gay marriage was caused by State's Rights? Please enlighten me on that one please. Then explain how general discrimination,segregation, racism are caused by it.

Sorry.. you got it backwards. It is used to oppose these issues.. Ironically SUPPORT of Gay marriage has benefited from State's rights too. As has the actions to legalized marijuana.

So.. it's not a monster.. it's a tool. Used for good and bad.

As for the 'Southern states are evil and backwards and corrupt'. Please.  Stop.

Monster or not, on any objective view of history, the doctrine of states' rights has overwhelmingly been invoked as an impediment to social progress and a defense of some of our more reactionary practices and institutions.

"States' rights" was the clarion call for opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, public school desegregation, and the ACA (remember Mitt's schizophrenic position that adoption of compulsory health insurance was  fine for the people of Massachusetts but not for the people of the United States). The doctrine also provided the ideological foundation for Arizona's semi-failed experimentation with immigration law. And, the attempts to disenfranchise voters in the recent election were exercises in state, not federal, law (in some cases, invalidated by federal courts).

Further, a host of judicial guarantees of civil liberty, some very near and dear to the hearts of many on this site, have come only at the expense of significant incursions into state hegemony through the 14h Amendment. These have notably included the rights to abort a pregnancy, to use contraception, to require the police have probable cause to arrest, to require the police obtain a warrant before ransacking a home, to be free of religious indoctrination in public schools, to speak and publish without state reprisal, and to engage in homosexual relations.     

It is also worth considering that DOMA, although a federal statute, protects the rights of states not to allow same sex marriages or even to recognize those conceived in other states.

"States' rights" is one of those phrases, like "white man's burden" and "the Jewish question." which make my scrotum shrivel. Our states are an artifact of the rather balkanized approach of the British to colonization of North America without which I often think we would have been far better off. But, then, our only legislative body would be the House of Representatives. Perish the thought.

[Callie Del Noire]

Don't get me wrong.. i think that State's Rights are pretty much a recessive tool rather than a progressive one. I found that I disagreed with Barry Goldwater on that point, he felt that things like Civil Rights, and the rest of the stuff of his time was better done on a state or local level than a federal. On one hand, he was right.. a ground level change would be less resented than one enforced from on high.. BUT it would have taken much much longer. Some points he brought up on state vs federal changes and impacts were fairly point on.. BUT I think some things need a universal point of coverage.

That being said.. I think that some things are regional, though growing less so as we become more and more intermixed. The world of Barry Goldwater is shrinking with growth of the internet and other technical advantages.

Progressive movements can, and are, using tools like this to empower change.

Legalizing gay marriages/unions, legalizing marijuana and other issues that have been gridlocked on the federal level. This can be used to move reforms forward.