I mean, I get this. You work with a bunch of people you don’t agree with. They give you crap, a lot of it. Someone gets shot and they start making cruel jokes. Political ones, maybe sexist ones. Racist too perhaps.

You get pissed and refuse to work with jerks like that anymore.

But!

You are the only one on that team that has the proper motivation to do the job well. The only Democrat on a fire force that actually wants to save those shot. Why the hell would you NOT go on that call?

Tucson brought some ugly things to light. Most having nothing to do with the event but on the hatred and bile against others we all harbor to some degree. But to not save those affected because the men you work alongside are Republican bigots? That’s not an excuse. Ever.

I really want the hateful crap the other fireman said to be published for the whole world to see. I do. I want to see what could make a man refuse to work with that ilk.

That, however, in no way excuses Ekstrum’s behavior. It might explain how he came to the decision but it will never justify it.

Conservatives have a plan to divide us Americans, if only to stop us from looking their way while they bankrupt the nation. So far, it seems to be working.

Here’s what the fight is about:

Republicans Hate Worker’s Rights. End of story.

In the main I think most Americans are glad to see the people of Egypt (and Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, and Iran) stand up for their rights and demand greater freedoms.

The only folks I can imagine who do not are those who hate Muslims (though not everyone in those nations ARE, not that i should matter) and those who hate all brown people (the same folks presumably). Oh, and all those who get rich from the suffering of others.

As Bob Herbert reminds us, while we champion freedom in other nations, we are letting our democracy slip away.

We already have one political party – the Republicans – who actively advertise that the United States is NOT a democracy. Granted, they do this to childishly avoid anything tying our liberty to the Democratic Party (which gave you civil rights, Social Security, the weekend, etc.) but there is a much more evil lesson there. The party mostly known for bombing brown countries, bombing black churches, and torturing people they don’t agree with, not to mention taking their votes, health care, etc. away is actively working to kill democracy. Corporations are now people. You can’t run one over with a car, but they have “rights”, maybe more than you or me.

Yes, some of this is dogmatic. It smells of scare tactics. But it exists and this nation is growing less free because of it.

The Sons of the Confederacy in Mississippi thinks it’s a great idea if that state issues a commemorative license plate honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest.

In short, they want to honor a traitor, racist, and terrorist. A man who led armies against the United States, who butchered black soldiers who surrendered at Fort Pillow, and the man who created the Ku Klux Klan.

The very fact that evil bastards like this are held up as heroes to many in this nation 145 years after the Civil War is a dark stain upon every citizen in this country. We should not stand for this. We should call it out for the evil that it is. We should quit apologizing to people proud that their ancestors committed treason and that some were slave owners. What the hell could be possibly have to apologize to them for?

Call it the evil that it is. Call it the pride on unpatriotic sedition. Call it un-American for that is what it most surely is.

My favorite – and most unhelpful – comment on this came from this related story:

I wonder how they’d feel if OH, birthplace of General W. Tecumseh Sherman, proposed a license plate depicting Sherman on a horse with a torch in hand and a silhouette of Atlanta in the background?

– commenter Tinsk

From everything I have seen or read growing up, the more racist your party is, the more it hates the idea of one man, one vote.

First it was the Democrats in the South with poll taxes and literacy tests. Once those racists went over to the GOP in the 1960s, it has been nonstop ever since.

Now the GOP is at it again. Apparently there were like sixty-odd cases of suspected voter fraud in the last presidential election. You know, out of 100 + million votes. No ACORN fraud ever proven. No “New Black Panther ” goon squads. They lied. They made shit up.

And still too many minorities, women, and elderly vote for their comfort. So they are trying to make it even harder for folks to vote.

Here is more on the odious plans here in Minnesota.

As Republicans like to tell you: this nation is not a democracy. And they are doing everything they can to prove it.

Some jackasses in South Dakota want everyone to own a gun.

Okay, maybe they don’t want everyone to own a gun but there point is that it is the same as making everyone buy health care. They’d have a point, if they weren’t idiots.

One, the price of a gun won’t go down if everyone buys one. In fact, the reverse might happen. But if everyone is getting covered by health insurance, our collective rates will probably decrease since we won’t be paying for those who aren’t covered and do health care through the ER, which affects the rates of those of us who DO pay.

But that’s too difficult for most folks.

How’s this? If a bunch of white, racist jagoffs have guns, they speak about the Second Amendment and being (non-military service) patriots. But what if we followed their lead? Not to be all Tom Paine here, but what if we DID do as they propose in South Dakota. Lets make a deal with our paymasters the Chinese and buy about 100 million Kalashnikovs and send them to the inner city. Or the South. Let’s form a hundred thousand “well-regulated militias” worth of brown and black and Asian men and women.

Let’s see them drill and prepare to combat those against our liberties. Against those who take rights from gay Americans, who don’t let women control their bodies. Against those who take away the right to vote from the elderly and anyone who served their sentence for a felony. Who want to take citizenship away from children who are born to immigrants.

Let’s get behind this one. I mean it. George Soros can pay for a battalion of armed inner city youth. The only thing propping up the GOP is rich businessmen and racist politicians pushing the fear of brown people and gays. If the gays and minorities are armed to the teeth, the numerical advantage alone is going to shut the mouths of those blowhards.

Then what?

Truth be told though, this idiocy they propose is actually already law. George Washington himself made it so. He wanted a fledgling American experience armed against all enemies and mandated home gun ownership back in the day.

Be careful what you wish for….

More stunningly brilliant political observation from Rachel Maddow.

She’s right, of course. The whole damned country has gone conservative to the point where the GOP wouldn’t recognize Eisenhower as one of them. Not even Nixon, and probably not even Reagan.

We live in a country where one party speaks patriotism but practices violent division. Where they speak of freedom but deny it to gays, minorities, and women and try to strip the citizenship away from children born and raised here.

Well said. Give this a read.

Often, I find Colbert’s shtick to be too close to accurate.

This one hits the ball out of the park, however.

Comedy Central video link