fearlesshistory

The Conservative mantra espoused by GOP party leaders is to “tighten” governmental belts and that “earmarks” are the devil incarnate. No self-respecting Conservative GOP would be caught dead placing the dreaded “e” word into the recently passed stimulus bill, we’re told. Also, self-respecting GOP governors, such as Bobby Jindall, would refuse the “pork” being doled their way by an irresponsible Democratically-controlled Congress and populist Democratic President.

To prove their point, some of the GOP’s most prominant and conservative members voted against the stimulus bill; obviously the GOP has stuck to their guns and won the moral high ground in a time of financial irresponsability. To support the worth of their rhetoric, Slate.com has posted a list of the top ten (10) worst porkers in the most recent bill, using evidence provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense:

1. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.: $474 million
2. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.: $391 million
3. Mary Landrieu, D-La.: $332 million
4. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa: $292 million
5. David Vitter, R-La.: $249 million
6. Christopher Bond, R-Mo.: $248 million
7. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.: $235 million
8. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii: $225 million
9. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.: $219 million
10. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa: $199 million

Way to put your money where your mouth is GOP. Also, it should be noted that while Bobby Jindall - in the great tradition of keeping Louisiana stuck at the bottom of the list of most educated states, most improved states, most employed states, lowest crime rate, and other hallmarks of civilization - “refused” bail out money in a fit if fiscal conservatism, GOP governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist have both accepted (and even devised ways to get more) “bailout” money. Wonder why? If California was a separate nation, it would be the #6  in the world. Florida makes more money - and employs more people - than 70% of the countries in the world. If Louisiana were a separate nation, it’d ranks below Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala.

If the GOP wants to vote against the economic stimulus bill, fine. They should do so and retain the moral high ground. But to say you vote against it after putting your own pork barrel earmarks in it is duplicitous in the extreme.

What the GOP refuses to face is that their jobs are on the line; they got drubbed in the last two election cycles and are looking like a party led by a drug-addled windbag so they need to bring home some money to their respective states and districts.  It’s time for the GOP to come clean about their secret lives where they don dark glasses and a trench coat while accepting the money they denounced in broad daylight.

—————————Resources———————–

“Why the GOP should shut up about earmarks ” Slate.com

Bureau of Labor Statistics “Florida’s Economy at a Glance “

_______ “California’s Economy at a Glance “

_______ “Louisiana’s Economy at a Glance “

Taxpayers for Common Sense

Mitch McConnel’s website “McConnell votes against the Democratic spending bill “

Is it ethical to freeze a living human being against their will? I mean putting them in suspended animation where they can not grow and can not experience life?

Is it a sin to place six or seven people in a room far too small to hold them, knowing that many of them will die because of lack of nutrition, overcrowding and the stress related to such circumstances?

Much brouhaha is being made over President Obama’s rescinding of the Bush-era restrictions on stem cell research. To many critics, the nub of the problem is that stem cell research destroys a “human life” because it uses cells withdrawn from a fertilized egg and the fertilized egg is thus destroyed. Here’s the problem with these objections;

No equivalent hue and cry is made over fertilization processes. Aside from the approbation directed at Nadya Suleman (mostly because she is single and has no visible means of supporting a family; i.e. a husband), there is never any ire aimed at the irresponsible use of drugs, in vitro fertilization, and other artificial means of forcing a pregnancy onto a woman who - for lack of a better term - “God” has engineered to be “barren.” During the process of artificial insemination - a technique used by the McCaughey family in addition to fertility drugs - eggs are removed from the mother’s ovaries and sperm is “donated” from the father (in a process of self pleasure which many conservative Christians still believe is a sin; strike one!). The different cells are then introduced to each other in a medical setting, not inside the mother’s uterus and literally dozens of cells are fertilized at once (instead of maybe one or two which can occur naturally). A select few (about 6 is the maximum) are the implanted into the mother through the use of medical syringes while the rest are frozen in a liquid oxygen bath.

If these cells are “living beings” and a “human soul” from the instant of conception, do they not have a right to expand, grow, and be born? Evidently it is because millions of fertilized eggs are frozen in clinics across the country.

After the mother and father who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to experience “God’s” miracle of birth (via science) are happy with their litter of squalling, developmentally-challenged, premature-weight children, what happens to the rest of the fertilized eggs?

They’re destroyed. Yes, they are taken out of their bath and burned in a medical waste disposal facility. They are, to borrow from the warped logic of these alleged protectors of the sanctity of life, “murdered.” But there is no objection over this portion of the process, is there?

So in summation, it’s okay to “waste” and “murder” these fertilized eggs because “God” blesses a married, mentally-unstable couple with the “miracle” of multiple births that are the result of scientific inquiry and thin or nonexistent medical ethics. But the idea that instead of destroying these “lives” needlessly and without gain, that a portion of their body be used to heal the sick and the paralyzed who are already born is a sin.

Hypocrisy (hĭ-pŏḱrĭ-sē):

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.

All teleology, historicism, and interpretations aside, the whole purpose of history as a discipline is two-fold; first, to show change over time and second, to explain why that change occurred. Unfortunately, while many historians - both professional and amateur - can agree on the data that proves change over time, there is furious debate over exactly how or why that change occurred. So, in an effort (ongoing at Fearless History) to show change over time in our collective history, I am presenting some data on America’s culture, economy, and other aspects that are from reputable sources and I am interested in hearing how others interpret that data. I am therefore extending an invitation to all you who visit the site to explain the changes I am producing below. Thank you in advance and I look forward to hearing from you.

NB: All dollars are given in real amounts, not adjusted for inflation. (*) “HC is an abbreviation of “Real Dollars;” this is a measure of inflation in that a baseline of $1 worth of goods in 1900 is measured against what a similar amount of goods would cost in that decade’s dollars.

Median Salary | Median Housing | Cost of RD*

1900: $676           |  $3600                      |N/A

1910: $750           |  $6900                      |1.00

1920: $1236         | $11600                     |2.02

1930: $1368         | $12200                     | 1.69

1940: $1299         | $10000                     | 1.41

1950: $2992         | $24900                    | 2.43

1960: $4743         | $29000                    | 2.99

1970: $7564         | $26600                     | 3.92

1980: $15757       | $47000                     | 8.32

1990: $27809      | $83900                     | 13.20

2000: $55714      | $119,600                  | 17.39

2006: $55238      | $225,300                 | 20.18

———————Resources————————

Historical Archives (online), Lone Star College, Kingwood, Texas

“Average U.S. Income Showed First Rise Over 2000 ,”New York Times, 25 Aug 2008

George W. Pasdirtz’s “A State Space Dynamic Modes Model of Health Care Prices, 1900-1950 ” University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Robert M Williams “The Relationship of Housing Prices and Building Costs in Los Angeles, 1900-1953 ” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 50:270 (1955)

“1970’s Flashback “, price index

The People History, decade index (1970 , 1980 , 1990 , )

Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, Housing Price Index (2000 Q1, 2006 Q1 )

“Real Estate Cools Down ” CNN/Money, 16 May 2006

“The Shrinking Value of a Dollar ” Infoplease