Welcome to DU, nakocal!

Glad you're here! Sure looks that way, doesn't it? I don't want to be led around by ANYBODY's religion or religious beliefs (not even mine!) when it comes to public policy and the common good. OR when it comes to government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Particularly in this SECULAR society. Religion has nothing to do with it. Religion is beside the point.

I don't care what the bad guys say. This country wasn't founded as a specifically Christian nation. I do get some pleasure out of reminding people that Keith Ellison, the Democratic rep from Minnesota who's the first Muslim elected to Congress was sworn in, in January 2007 with his hand on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Koran. He asked for permission to borrow it from the Library of Congress and they hand-carried it over to him for his ceremony.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010500512.html

Interesting Congressional trivia: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, btw, told him her first swearing-in was done using a copy of the Tanakh (Jewish scripture).

SHEESH. We've got a LOT more going on in this country than just the extremist Protestant worldview. And our representation should rightfully reflect that, seems to me. I just realized you could direct to each of those pictured with mike pence and say - "Who died and made YOU God?" !!!!

Besides, even for those of us who believe directly in Jesus, even HE pointed out the need for separation of church and state. Anyone notice He was NOT quoted as saying "render therefore to Caesar and to God both the same together." Or "...for both are as one." He differentiated. If one follows That Guy, one would presumably want to differentiate the same way too.

Indeed. Ayatolla Pence.

Christianist Sharia Law.

I look at those religious figures, especially the Jesus-y ones. Didn't they study the same Scripture I studied in Catholic school? Didn't they study the words attributed to Our Lord? Only two Commandments - 1) "Love God." 2) "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Does this new law conform to that Holy Word - in ANY way? Did Jesus die on the cross just for straight people? I happen to believe that, just statistically, one of the 12 apostles was probably gay. Just by the numbers. Sheesh - there were other reviled people among the 12 apostles. Including at least one tax collector - which as I was taught, was an example of a really despised and resented member of that community back in that day. He told a parable about "The Good Samaritan." Samaritans were hated and looked down upon, as I was taught, yet Christ held a Samaritan up as the good guy in one of His best-known parables. He liked the down-trodden. He cited a poor widow hiding in shame in the shadows at the side of the Temple, embarrassed that she had only a couple of pennies to drop in the collection plate, while the bombastic show-off rich guy paraded down the center aisle to make sure EVERYBODY could see the huge bag of money he was handing in - I believe it was the widow's donation that Jesus said was far more pleasing to the Eye of God. He hung out with the poor and the outcast, the riffraff, the lepers - whom EVERYBODY avoided.

I DO NOT profess to know or understand the Mind of God, or the fullness of the Word of Jesus. However, I do find myself wondering if perhaps He might be hated by all these individuals in the photo if He were in our midst today.

I bring NO technical "brilliance" WHATSOEVER to the table. NONE.

I can barely use my iPhone. But I can help think up strategy maybe.

I do like the idea of a mobile app. Seems like everybody's tethered to some sort of iDevice these days. So it seems to me THAT would be where and how to reach them.

I am, too. On his watch, our party did a LOT better.

Seems to be sort of universal, doesn't it?

The tendency to recognize babies-of-species. Seems to be what's going on here, too. SHARED!

WOW! The dust storm and the geyser are amazing!

Imagine facing that dust storm, bearing down on your little boat. I'd be shivering in me timbers.

The prison photo in the link is horrifying on an entirely different level.

I remember that. Game. Set. Match.

What??? Even Angie's List? Criminy!

I thought Angie's List was more supportive of the CON side of the aisle. This stinks too bad even for THEM???

Color me stunned.

And what just makes me agonize is - our side is ONLY NOW figuring this out.

The action is all at the STATE LEVEL.

http://dlcc.org/news/dlcc-launches-advantage-2020-key-success-next-round-redistricting-70-million-plus-effort

That's where they get their infallible, unassailable majority in the House of Reps. That's where they get all the governorships, AND the secretary of state positions on their side of the ledger. That's where these shit laws are spawned. In these state legislatures - where the presumption seems to be - to set up the law, thereby setting up the legal challenge. Which they then can fight upward, step by step, through the court system from local to Whatever-th Circuit Appeals Court which is one level below SCOTUS. And then take it all the way up to the Supremes. Where, mind you, the GOP in the White House past has thoughtfully moved to pack the bench with a reliable majority of like-minded CONS.

THEY HAVE RIGGED THE GAME. PRETTY DAMN THOROUGHLY. And it just galls me that ONLY NOW is our side starting to get wise about this. Better late than never, I suppose. But I just hope to God it isn't TOO late.

I don't know why so many on our side remain so naive, still under-estimating their cunning, their shrewdness, their conniving, and their sneaky-ass fight-to-the-death skills, still think we have to try to be nice and compromise and be kumbaya about it with the other side. They certainly don't feel that way back toward us. WHERE IS OUR CUNNING? WHERE are OUR connivers? WHERE are OUR shrewd, even sneaky-ass operatives?

And I can hear it now ... "oh we CAN'T do that. We CAN'T go there. We CAN'T be like them. That makes us no better than they are. That makes us like them." Well, how do you like being locked out of power in those states? So few Dems in some of those legislatures that they can't even begin to fight effectively. Starting out against a foe that's built in such an obscene head start that our side almost cannot catch them. They've been at this for at least 30 years. They've built something pretty doggone powerful, and look what they've been able to accomplish - from "religious 'freedom'" shit like this to cutting the Voting Rights Act to Citizens United. And they're making hay with it now. How do you like LOSING? It's not just one state anymore. It's "something like 20 states." TWENTY states. How do you like being SILENCED? MUZZLED? Not even able to find the playing field and if you even do, it's so tilted you can't even stand on it anymore. And they win. AGAIN. And do MORE damage. Do you like THAT? Seriously?

STILL think both parties are the same? Still think it makes more sense to stay home on Election Day? STILL okay with just handing them yet another election win? Staying asleep? Thinking we're just overstating the problem or exaggerating and that in the end, everything will be okay?

ABSOLUTELY!!!!! Do NOT reinforce THEIR framing! Do NOT use their language.

DO NOT speak of it the same way they do.

It drives me nuts, for example, when our side uses "Obamacare" instead of the ACA or "The Affordable Care Act." When we say "Obamacare" all we're doing is reinforcing a bad meme, that attempts to use the very name of our President as some sort of negative or pejorative (you attach "Obama" to it and you can make it smell stinky that way - thereby adding stink to his name). I don't want to play with THEIR ball, by THEIR rules, on THEIR playing field. All that does is reinforce THEIR leadership, and let THEM sit in the driver's seat. I don't see the world by THEIR eyes or THEIR glasses or THEIR filters. I see it through MINE. I will call it what I see it to be. I will decide what to call it and what it's known by and what it's known as.

For the same reason that I will NOT use their label for us - the "Democrat party." Because THAT'S NOT OUR NAME. Our name is OUR name, the way WE say it, the way WE want it, how WE call it, how WE DECIDE it is. I don't give them that power. Or that authority over me that they are somehow entitled to label what's mine.

I'm just not gonna play.