The Facebook thread started innocently enough… I guess:

OK, I’m just throwing this one out there and see what comes back…maybe Steve is too busy on his honeymoon but let me see who else will respond. Can someone give me a definition of what it means to live a conservative life? Is it strictly a pol…itical view? A religious view? or the ever popular…a combination of them both?

But like anything political, it attracted the wisdom of two passionate politicos - the before-mentioned Steve and yours truly.

Steve: Conservative political thought is based on fact, logic, and common sense. Liberal political thought always seems to be based on feelings and emotion. Many Christians are conservatives but that doesn’t mean all conservatives are religious freaks like many liberals want people to think. There is no such thing as living a “conservative life”. That makes it sound like it’s a religion. I honestly do not understand liberal thought. To me, the way they approach most subjects is like building a bridge without doing any engineering work. “Hey, we really need a bridge here right now! We have to get it done immediately!” unfortunately, no time is taken to see how feasible a bridge is and how strong it needs to be. And in three months the bridge is destroyed by the elements. But that’s okay, our heart was in the right place..

Conservative political thought is based on fact, logic, and common sense?   History is ripe with examples of conservatives NOT using fact, logic, and common sense.   The Iraq war, for example, certainly wasn’t undertaken with a command of the facts.  And when consideration is given to the long list of American accomplishments that conservatives have opposed (See A Short History of Conservative Obstruction to Progress), one wonders why Steve thinks his political ideology is based on logic and common sense.

I’m not sure what point he was trying to make with his bridge analogy.  I can say that most legislation liberals have passed or attempted to pass (Health care, civil rights, clean air and water laws, etc.), conservatives have often tried to stall with the old “this  needs to be studied more” canard. And in all cases, the “engineering work” was years, sometimes decades in the making.  Health care reform, for example, has been on the table since the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, and since then no less than five Presidents have tried to pass some sort of program.

Of course, the character restraints of Facebook wall posts don’t allow such detailed responses, so I tried to answer the question briefy:

Me: Conservatives are more binary in their thinking: Good/bad, right/wrong, black/white. Liberals see the shades of gray. Everything else flows from that.  The following is broad and there are always exceptions, but…

Conservatives believe in “rugged individualism” until they need the government’s help (then they’re not too proud to take a hand out.) Liberals believe a government safety net should be in place before help is needed.

Conservatives believe government should control a person’s personal and social life. Liberals believe the government should control things that affect the collective community.

Conservatives have a problem with the First Amendment. Liberals, the Second one.

“What is conservativism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?” - Abe Lincoln

“A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.” - Al Wiggam

“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.” - FDR.

From this point on in this post, I’ll be quoting Steve and commenting throughout.

“Conservatives believe in “rugged individualism” until they need the government’s help (then they’re not too proud to take a hand out.)”…expand on this. When have conservatives needed government help? It goes against our principles.

How else can I put it?  Conservatives have long railed against government social programs but are only too happy to use them when they need them.  How many senior conservatives do you know who would give up medicare?  Social Security?  How about Police and Fire protection - both “socialized” government-run institutions.

Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston (very conservative) was recently passing out federal stimulus dollars without mentioning the fact that he voted against those same dollars. Rep. Phil Gingrey blasted the federal stimulus program before voting against it in February, predicting its chances of success were “slim and none” and that it would worsen the national debt.  But that didn’t stop the Republican from presenting an oversized check for $625,000 in federal stimulus funds to Cedartown officials this month for new downtown sidewalks, landscaping and other streetscape improvements.

“Conservatives believe government should control a person’s personal and social life.”…I take it you mean in the bedroom and illegal drugs.

Actually, I mean the bedroom, illegal drugs, and social wedge issues like gay rights and a woman’s right to choose.

I feel that most non-Christian (there you go again) conservavtives feel that the government should stay out of the bedroom of consenting adults.

How many “non-Christian” conservatives lead the conservative movement?  I can’t name one.  How many are speaking for “non-Christian” conservatives?  It’s difficult to separate “Christian” from “Conservative” in American politics.

Taking a look at the 2008 Republican platform is a section titled “Ensuring Equal Treatment For All.”  Of course, conservatives don’t really mean that because there is something missing from their elaboration:  “We consider descrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin to be immoral.” Is “sexual orientation” missing there?  Of course, because Conservatives have don’t believe gay people should have the same rights you and I have.   There feelings on this are so strong that conservatives have tried unsuccessfully for years to pass an amendment to the Constitution that would define marriage as being between a male and female.  How many people realize only once in our history has a constitutional amendment been passed to outlaw what was a right before?  That was the 18th amendment that prohibited alcohol, passed by conservatives (another example of the long history of conservatives meddling in our private lives.)

One only has to hear the ignorant rantings of a conservative on “the homosexual agenda” to understand just how deep their hate runs.

When liberals talk about drugs being legal, what they really mean is pot. I have no problem with medicinal marijuana.

How about for social use?

As far as other illicits, they’re illegal for a reason

What reasons?

and aren’t abused anywhere near how bad presription drugs are now abused. There are many strong arguments on both sides of that issue, though. But I don’t feel like the government should control a person’s personal and social life. That’s a wreckless statement.

No, it’s a true statement.  Alcohol consumption.  Civil rights.  A woman’s right to choose.  Gay rights.  Conservatives have a history of trying to use the power of the Federal Government to curb the social and private lives of American citizens.

“Conservatives have a problem with the First Amendment. Liberals, the Second one.”…Joey? Seriously? The liberals are the one’s trying get Fox News off the air along with Rush, Hannity, and anybody else that disagrees with them.

Actually, I was referring to the first part of the First Amendment, the one that established the wall of separation between Church and State.  Again, conservatives have a long history of using Christianity as a battering ram on issues like crime, health care, economics, foreign policy, etc.  “Five of the Republican Senators who were unseated 2006 received whopping scores of 100% from the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family Voter Scorecards. Those Senators are: Conrad Burns (R-MT), George Allen (R-VA), Rick Santorum (R-PA), James Talent (R-MO), and Mike DeWine (R-OH). Rick Santorum was the number three ranking Republican in the party. (link)  There is even a move within the Republican party to make Christianity the official state religion.

But who and how is anyone trying to get Fox News off the air along with Rush and Hannity?

Ever hear of the “Fairness Doctrine”?

Yes

That’s simply a liberal plot to get conservatives off the air because liberal radio shows like “Air America” fail so miserably.

Actually, the Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949 and required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters.  It only applied to the public airwaves.  Being that the airwaves are publicly owned and private companies only lease them from the Federal Government, it’s certainly understandable that both sides of an issue be presented.  FOX News, being a cable channel, is not governed by the FCC and would not be affected by provisions of the Fairness Doctrine.

I do agree that liberals have a problem with the Second Amendment, though. It’s because they fear what they don’t understand.

Actually, the problem stems from those who interpret it to0 broadly.  At the time it was written, our most powerful “arms” were single shot muskets and cannons.  It’s disturbing that 2nd Amendment adherents today believe they should have the right to carry automatic rifles into schools and other public places.

I like your quotes from the great liberals in history. They’re funny and childish and should be treated as such.

Yes, Abraham Lincoln - first Republican president, funny, and childish.

Here’s a couple of my favorites:

“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.” - Ronald Reagan

“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.” - Ronald Reagan.

“A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man and looks to pay that debt with someone else’s money.” - Gordon Liddy

“They’ve got a big target on there: ATF. Don’t shoot at that because they’ve got a vest on underneath that. Head shot, head shots.” - Gordon Liddy, telling people to shoot at the heads of American Federal Agents.

I’m not much a movie goer these days.  Not only are the tickets just too expensive, the cost of hiring a babysitter for my wife and I to go out is often cost prohibitive.  We sometimes sneak off individually to catch a flick but we really prefer going together so it takes a really special movie for us to fork over the bucks.  Star Trek is such a movie.  Nine hours later and $40. poorer, I’m in awe of JJ Abrams’s take on the sci-fi classic.

Let me just say up front I’m a genre geek.  I’m not quite a fan boy but I do enjoy most anything that is science fiction, super hero, fantasy, or horror related.  I spent many hot summer days in my youth running around in red and blue sweats, a red towel tied around my neck, pretending to be Superman.   I once even thought he must be related to Jesus, not realizing the character was originally conceived as a Christ figure.  When Star Wars debuted, I totally got the underlying yet simple “good shall overcome evil” premise.   Star Trek, though, was another animal completely.  The late afternoon hours my father and brothers were glued to the TV watching reruns were misery for me.  It was too cerebral for a kid.  I just didn’t get it.  I would have gone to a friend’s house but all my friends were watching it, too!  And when they were done, they were folding pieces of notebook paper in such a way as to resemble a Federation-grade communicator and ruining perfectly good blue and yellow (never red!) t-shirts by trying to draw the Star Trek insignia on them with permanent markers.

By middle school, though, something clicked.   A civics teacher remarked how the series had pushed the boundaries for television in the 60s with social commentary on the war in Viet Nam and civil rights.  By then, I was already watching it passively but started seeing it in a new light after the fateful day in Coach Danielly’s class.  Already somewhat of a political junkie and history buff at 14, Star Trek may have shaped my political views just a bit.   The show existed in a universe where poverty had been eliminated, there was no hunger, no racism, and everyone had jobs.  People worked to better themselves and society.  The world of Star Trek was militarized for sure, but the Federation was never the aggressor.  Earth, and all the worlds that make up the United Federation of Planets, was a bold glimpse of what the United States of America could be - the last best hope, the shining beacon of light, for everyone everywhere.  And that’s how Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, envisioned it.

Of course, the comparisons with Star Wars couldn’t be avoided.  Trek’s better financed and more profitable rival was good science fiction to be sure, but lacked the underlying meaning of Star Trek.  Years later a friend of mine was making the case that Captain Kirk was a cold-war era New Deal liberal (Truman-Kennedy), and that the Federation represented what our society could be if liberals finally win the war of ideas.  Conversely, he contended, the Star Wars universe was a gloomy place where conservatives ruled the roost, where poor people still haggled to get the best deal for life saving droids and power converters, where the divide between the rich and everyone else was wide, where fundamentalist religion (The Force) played a large role in society, and where big brother was looming just over your planet’s horizon waiting to make you comply with the Empire… or else.

In the coming years, Star Trek became like pizza - even when it was bad, it was pretty good.  The Next Generation was also grand commentary of the times.  Debuting in the late 80s, the cold war with the Klingons, I mean the Soviets, was over, and America, I mean the Federation, was looking to the future and spreading it’s diverse culture far and wide.  Each series thereafter, Deep Space 9, Voyager, and Enterprise, suffered dropoffs in quality but every now and then you’d catch a glimmer of Star Trek’s vision.  And the movies?  Pretty much the same.  They range from good (Wrath of Khan, First Contact) to bad (Final Frontier) and all points in between.  But even the bad ones had a thought provoking and often positive message.

But trekkers dreamed of a new Star Trek that would finally put the series on the level it deserved to be on.  We lamented the fact that Paramount Pictures simply didn’t want to sink the money into a Star Trek project that would put it on the same commercially successful level as Star Wars.  We openly laughed at Star War fans who tried their damnedest to spin the last three prequels as anything other than total crap, secretly envious that 20th Century FOX was still making serious bank with an obviously inferior product.

Then news of a reboot started surfacing - even way back in the late 90s.  The premise was Kirk, Spock, and company during their Star Fleet Academy days.  Immediately the fan boys panned the idea, labeling it as Star Trek 90210.  A couple of scripts were even written - damn good scripts and even better concepts.  (here and here.)  But Paramount wouldn’t bite and instead chose to try to wring a little more blood out of an old turnip and gave us Star Trek:  Nemesis with the Next Generation cast - a movie I still contend was not that bad but clearly personified the proverbial last guest at a party who just doesn’t realize his welcome has been worn out.

So Trek fans waited and argued and debated with as much passion as I’ve ever seen - even on political message forums - about the best way to save the Star Trek franchise.  Glen Oliver over at IGN films wrote it best:  “Star Trek is not dead, but the ability of its shepherds to properly protect the flock may be irreparably compromised. Whether or not there are more Star Trek stories to tell is not an issue – such potential is as vast as the universe itself. Whether or not the people in charge can tell such stores IS a concern. This attrition has been happening for a long time, but only now is the full extent of Paramount’s remiss complacency becoming evident. Give Star Trek its balls back. Take chances. Think out of the box. Put some color into the shows – good God, who wants to look at murky gray tones every week? Add visual dynamic and kinetics. Pump-up the sound. Above all, let the characters be human, and unpredictable. Let them make mistakes, and compromise their ideals – because Trek is about humans, and humans can be inconsistent. Let our characters not always do the right thing, and let us not always agree with them. Make it…well…real. Let Star Trek be a youthful child, filled with energy, quirkiness, driven by a sense of experimentation, exploration, and wonder. Something needs to be done here – bravely, and with extreme prejudice.”

A couple of years back, rumors started circulating that Alias and Lost creator J.J. Abrams had been handed the reigns from Paramount to reboot the Trek universe.  You might think this would have been met with wild applause by Trek fans, but there was a subtle hesitation.  We’d been down this road before.   Stuart Baird, a well respected producer and director worldwide, who’d worked on such films as Superman, the Die Hard series, the Lethal Weapon series, and who’d won on Oscar for his work on Gorillas In The Mist was announced as the director of Star Trek:  Nemesis.  Even better, John Logan - who’d been nominated for an Academy Award for writing Gladiator - was tapped to write it!  Awesome!  And the final result?  Leftover room-temperature pizza.

So excuse us if the Abrams announcement elicited a certain collective yawn.

Boy, are we pleasantly surprise.   When stories surfaced over the last year or so from people who’d seen clips of the film and were gushing uncontrollably over it, we all secretly thought, “eh, they were just shown the best parts.”  When groups of people were shown sneak previews of it over the last month, we all thought, “eh, they’re die hard trekkies, they’d wet their pants over anything tall, dark, and pointy eared.”

But then the mainstream press started flooding newspapers and the internets with reviews.  About 95% positive.  I mean, you have to really look hard to find an outright negative review from even the harshest movies critics in the industry today.

It seems odd to say, but say it I will.  Star Trek is a masterpiece.

Does it have it’s weak points?  God yes!  Some of the plot devices are just too damn convenient.   Seriously, Kirk gets stranded on a planet and Spock and Scotty just happen to already be there?

Has it borrowed heavily from other sci-fi series?  Uh huh.  You can see the Star Wars influences (enough of the cute cuddly mascots, please!) and the rebooted Battlestar Galactica influences - like how  some of the more violent space battle scenes were given dramatic boosts by understated music.

One scene I looked forward to, and was not disappointed by, was Kirk beating the Kobayashi Maru test.  The looks on the faces of Uhura and Spock when his plot unfolds in the testing simulation was priceless.  And the resulting debate between Kirk and Spock in front of the academic council was one of finest moments in Trek’s 40+ year history.

The opening scene is dramatic… heart wrenching, even.  If you have children, imagine them growing up without you.  Once you see this film, you’ll know what I mean.

The actors are spot on - sometimes eerily so.  Karl Urban’s Dr. McCoy is a carbon copy of the original.  He delivers the lines, the demeanor, the mannerisms of DeForest Kelly perfectly.

Simon Pegg’s portrayal of Montgomery Scott can be a little over the top.  Fortunately he doesn’t make his appearance until mid-way through the movie.  I’m not sure I could have taken two hours of his shenanigans.  But then again, James Doohan’s original portrayal of the character, especially in a few of the movies, could wear a little thin, too.  Some reviewers found Pegg to be a delight, so don’t take my word for it.

John Cho and Anton Yelchin, in the characters of Sulu and Chekov, really play minor roles in the movie but they each have their moments.  Again, perfectly cast.

Zoe Saldana as Uhura  - well, I’m trying not to be such a guy about her.  She’s hot, yes.  She’s the perfect fan boy fantasy.  A party girl with a sharp wit who can still discuss xenolinguistics and warp drive theory when she gets in at 2AM.   A worthy edition to Trek’s long line of Stiletto Feminists - just as smart as the guys but about 100 times sexier.

Zachery Quinto as Spock was a marvel.  You might catch yourself forgetting you’re not watching Leonard Nimoy.  But the added element of the character constantly fighting his human emotions - and I mean really being in conflict - made this character.  Hats off to the writers.

If Quinto is a marvel as Spock, then Chris Pine is a miracle as Captain James T. Kirk.  If  Saldana serves as sex on a plate for the guys, then Pine is pure candy for the girls.  Though he doesn’t look much like William Shatner,  he carries himself with the same swagger and brash boyish confidence.  There’s one scene, near the end of the movie, when you’ll say, “Oh My God!  THAT is Captain Kirk!”

Star Trek is not a perfect movie.  But it’s about as perfect as a Star Trek movie has ever been.  Four Stars!

Torture is bad. Let’s get that straight, immediately and clearly. But the issues created by its use in the Bush administration are exceedingly murky to anyone not on the absolutist right or left. Fortunately we now have a president who is doing exactly the right thing when it comes to dealing with the mess George W. Bush and Dick Cheney left behind — certainly politically, and mostly morally.

Today’s front page of the Washington Post has a fascinating insider’s account of how President Barack Obama arrived at his decisions to release secret memos that had sanctioned brutal interrogation tactics, and to reject the push for a “truth commission” to apportion blame and perhaps punish those responsible. Even discounting self-serving spin (SuperObama “dictated on the spot a draft of his announcement that the memos would be released”), the story shows in terrific detail that we got the guy we thought we were electing back in November: coolly rational, centrist, welcoming of dissent, yet decisive. (Another important point is that the story shows Obama placing great trust in the thinking of holdover Defense secretary Robert Gates.)

The short-term result of the process is close to perfect. Obama has stood firmly behind truth and transparency, opting to disclose what happened under Bush. He knows the country was damaged by torture, and that allowing the designers of that repugnancy to walk away leaves many fair-minded people queasy. Airing the torture memos is the morally correct thing to do, but there’s a substantial amount of political calculation to Obama’s choice to not go further.

He may know that Cheney, perversely, is right, and that torture did in fact reveal some useful information; whether the moral damage was worth the national-security gain is the stuff of endless debate. But it would undermine Obama to have Cheney win even one round. So Obama isn’t falling into the Republican trap of endorsing a divisive, ultimately unsatisfying investigation that punishes middlemen, if anyone, and sucks up all the political oxygen while diverting energy from addressing the current crises in the Middle East and on Wall Street.

Disclosing the details of the waterboarding ugliness directs more outrage where it belongs, with Bush and Cheney, and sates some of the left’s appetite for revenge. And it gives Obama room to dodge calls for a “truth commission” — and, more important, to sidestep Cheney’s attempt to bait him into that old-school Republican specialty, a draining diversion from the fact that two wars are still being fought and an economy is staggering.

Unfortunately, the truth-commission clamor isn’t going away completely. Obama’s putative Democratic ally, House leader Nancy Pelosi, continues to advocate for hearings, if not a full-blown show trial. Perhaps she’s posturing to deflect some of the anger on the left. But everyone would be better off to follow Obama’s lead, and allow any pursuit of the evildoers to work its way through the court system. Because we are, thankfully, back to being a country of laws.

Chris Smith is a political columnist for New York Magazine

If conservatives don’t want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.

It’s been a week now, and I still don’t know what those “tea bag” protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who’s going to win “American Idol.” But it wasn’t tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that’s when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?

It’s sad what’s happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they’re the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.

The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, “Bill, that’s just the fringe of the Republican Party.” No, it’s not. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that … Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I’m not sure exactly what Perry’s independent nation would look like, but I’m pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.

I know. It’s not about what Obama’s done. It’s what he’s planning. But you can’t be sick and tired of something someone might do.

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota recently said she fears that Obama will build “reeducation” camps to indoctrinate young people. But Obama hasn’t made any moves toward taking anyone’s guns, and with money as tight as it is, the last thing the president wants to do is run a camp where he has to shelter and feed a bunch of fat, angry white people.

Look, I get it, “real America.” After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You’ve come home to find your things out on the front lawn — or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You’re not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.

That’s what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him — obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.

But it’s been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She’s found somebody new. And it’s a black guy.

The healthy thing to do is to just get past it and learn to cherish the memories. You’ll always have New Orleans and Abu Ghraib.

And if today’s conservatives are insulted by this, because they feel they’re better than the people who have the microphone in their party, then I say to them what I would say to moderate Muslims: Denounce your radicals. To paraphrase George W. Bush, either you’re with them or you’re embarrassed by them.

The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don’t need to. They already beat you in public.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.

It wasn’t quite the firing on Fort Sumter that launched the Civil War. But on April 1, your Georgia Senate did threaten by a vote of 43-1 to secede from and even disband the United States.

It was not an April Fool’s joke.

In fact, Senate Resolution 632 did a lot more than merely threaten to end this country. It stated that under the Constitution, the only crimes the federal government could prosecute were treason, piracy and slavery.

“Therefore, all acts of Congress which assume to create, define or punish [other] crimes … are altogether void, and of no force,” the Georgia Senate declared.

In other words, in the infinite, almost unanimous wisdom of the Georgia Senate, Michael Vick is being imprisoned illegally, Bernie Madoff should serve no time for stealing $60 billion and the Unabomber must go free. In fact, the federal penitentiary in Atlanta should be emptied of its inmates.

But wait, there’s more.

The resolution goes on to endorse the theory that states have the right to abridge constitutional freedoms of religion, press and speech. According to the resolution, it is up to the states to decide “how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged.”

The resolution even endorses “nullification,” the legal concept that states have the power to “nullify” or ignore federal laws that they believe exceed the powers granted under the Constitution. That concept has a particularly nasty legacy. It helped precipitate the Civil War, and in the 1950s and early ’60s it was cited by Southern states claiming the right to ignore Supreme Court rulings ordering the end of segregation.

Finally, the resolution states that if Congress, the president or federal courts take any action that exceeds their constitutional powers, the Constitution is rendered null and void and the United States of America is officially disbanded. As an example, the resolution specifically states that if the federal government enacts “prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition,” the country is disbanded.

In other words, if Congress votes to restore the ban on sale of assault rifles, the United States is deemed to no longer exist.

This, your Georgia state Senate voted 43-1 to endorse.

Now, to be fair, the resolution passed because it was snuck unnoticed onto the Senate resolution calendar on the 39th day of the 40-day legislative session, when senators were trying to handle dozens of bills and scores of amendments. Most did not have an opportunity to read the six-page resolution, which in its description claimed to merely affirm “states’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.”

However, those who introduced and sponsored the measure have no such excuse. Presumably they read and understood what they asked their fellow senators to endorse. And those sponsors include some of the most prominent members of the Senate —- Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock, Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams, Transportation Committee Chairman Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga, and Chief Deputy Whip John Wiles of Cobb County, among others.

The resolution they sponsored is part of a radical right-wing national movement —- a similar resolution was introduced in the Georgia House but not voted on. It has been introduced in legislatures all over the nation, and has passed in both chambers in Oklahoma and one in South Dakota.

And while the Georgia resolution is legally meaningless and was passed without debate or even knowledge of most senators, it has had an impact. It has been hailed by, among others, those fighting the conspiracy to create a single North American country, by the Confederate States Militia, by the John Birch Society, and the League of the South, which still pines for the cause of an “independent South” and believes that “Southern society is radically different from the society impressed upon it by an alien occupier.”

You have to question the judgment of those who would have any truck whatsoever with such nonsense, and who would jeopardize the reputation of the Georgia Senate to lend aid and comfort to such radical causes and fringe groups.

By Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal Constitution

The Web is buzzing with information about how to throw an anti-Obama Taxpayer Tea Party, something organizers hope will be held today from Santa Monica to South Carolina. But no need to burn up your bandwidth reading complicated instructions. Here’s a simpler recipe:

Go to a hobby store. Buy a scale model of a U.N. One-World-Government Black Helicopter and a tube of glue. Toss the model kit. Sniff the entire tube of glue. You’re all set for the party.

I can recall only a few outbreaks of such collective insanity as these tea parties in recent years. There was that time in the mid-1990s when a $19.95 video proving Bill Clinton was some sort of serial killer went viral. And then, a few years back, there was that chilling, televised midnight seance from the floor of the U.S. Congress aimed at reviving the long-brain-dead Terri Schiavo.

And now this. Whip out your Lipton and don your tinfoil hat and join the protest against … against … against what exactly?

The original Boston Tea Party was caffeinated by a very simple injustice: American Colonists refused to be taxed by a government that lacked any popular representation. That was remedied a few years later in a heroic struggle that stretched from Concord to Yorktown.

So, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor, what’s the beef behind today’s protests? The Obama administration is cutting taxes for all except the very richest of Americans. Reduced withholding is already showing up in millions of paychecks.

Then again, this rash of tea parties is being organized not only by the pseudo-journalists at Fox News (with Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto and Sean Hannity actively stoking the flames) but also by FreedomWorks, a conservative lobbying outfit headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. I suppose it was Armey’s constitutional if morally dubious privilege to have built an entire political career out of defending the wealthy.

But are common folks actually going to dump Earl Grey into Santa Monica Bay because they are outraged, simply infuriated, by the marginal tax rate rising 3% for millionaires?

Or maybe they’ll do it for some other reason. The FreedomWorks site says the Tea Party movement began in reaction to President Obama’s corporate bailouts and ensuing yawning budget deficits. These same conservatives, however, were mum when George W. Bush erased our budget surplus and put us deep in the red by drunken spending on a pointless war in Iraq and by, yes, granting massive tax rollbacks for the loaded country clubbers who fund the GOP (and Armey’s FreedomWorks). Another bothersome detail: The bailouts were also initiated by Bush.

Nobody I know is very pleased with the billions ladled out to teetering banks and corporations. Yet a clear majority of Americans are sophisticated enough to know that these bailouts are a necessary evil and are intended — unlike the lollipop Bush tax cuts — not for personal profit but rather as a radical, emergency measure to help Americans keep their jobs, their homes and their retirement.

And while way too many otherwise sane Republicans are actively pandering to the tea-bag battalions, some old-fashioned conservatives are calling out the Teabaggers for their silliness. Writing in Fortune magazine, conservative policy analyst Bruce Bartlett, who has a long anti-tax history, says: “The irony of these protests is that federal revenues as a share of the gross domestic product will be lower this year than any year since 1950. … The truth is that the U.S. is a relatively low-tax country no matter how you slice the data.”

The Tea Party movement, more than anything else, is a rather garish display of a Republican right that seems to have lost not only the national elections but also any semblance of political bearings. Staying on this course, the GOP risks — in the words of one pundit — becoming “the Talk Radio Republican Party.”

Better put that kettle on, Marge. It’s going to be a long and bizarre four years.

Marc Cooper is director of Annenberg Digital News at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC.

Happy Patriots’ Day. April 15 is the one day a year when our country asks something of us — or at least the vast majority of us.

For those who wear a military uniform, those who serve the rest of us as policemen and firefighters and teachers and other public servants, every day is patriots’ day. They work hard for our country; many risk their lives — and some lose their lives.

But for the rest of us, the civilian majority, our government asks very little. Except for April 15. On this day, our government asks that we pay our fair share of taxes to keep our beloved country strong and safe.

Freedom isn’t free. That’s what the courageous World War II veterans of the American Legion taught me back in Texas Boys State decades ago. That phrase had special meaning for them. Those guys had seen buddies blown apart at Anzio or Guadalcanal.

I grew up in a different era. There was no draft, and while I have friends and family members who joined the military, most of my peers, like me, opted for the security and prosperity of the private sector.

This country has showered me with the blessings of liberty. So what do I owe my country in return? Paying my fair share of taxes, it seems, is the least I can do. Thanks to President Obama and the Democratic Congress, 95 percent of Americans will get a tax cut this year. No one — not even the wealthiest 1 percent — will have to pay higher income taxes until 2011.

So why are a bunch of Fox News clowns and right-wing cranks hosting “tea parties” all over the country? The Boston Tea Party, in case the clods at Fox didn’t know it, protested “taxation without representation.” Note the second word: without. The goofballs tossing tea bags today have representation. They voted in the election; they lost.

That a bunch of overpaid media millionaires would lead a faux-populist revolt is comical. They somehow held their populist instincts in check as George W. Bush and the Republicans cut taxes on the idle rich and put the screws to the working stiffs.

Bush’s tax policies were a godsend to the Paris Hilton class, but they sent the country on the road to bankruptcy and helped ruin the economy. But now that we the people have decided to set things right, now that we’ve hired Obama to fix the mess conservatives created, now they’re protesting?

Give me a break. Instead of tossing tea bags for the cameras, the Fox phonies ought to go to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. There they would find better, braver men who have truly sacrificed for their country. They deserve nothing but the best — not the shameful and shoddy conditions they endured during the Bush administration.

You want something to protest? How ’bout protesting how little we give back to our veterans? Or how ’bout protesting that the entire budget of the National Cancer Institute (where government researchers battle a disease that will strike half of all men and a third of all women) is 0.03 percent of what we gave the bandits at American International Group alone? Oh, but veterans benefits and cancer research might cost money. It might require — dare I say it? — paying taxes.

If the whiners at Fox News want to advertise their selfishness, they are free to do so. But please don’t dress it up as patriotism. Patriotism is putting your country ahead of yourself — which is the precise opposite of what the tea party plutocrats are doing.

Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House.

Beam ’em into the theater, Scotty.

About 440 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will get to see the newest Star Trek movie at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, on Saturday — about a month before its stateside premiere, Army and Air Force Exchange Service officials announced Friday.

The troops will get an extra treat at AAFES’ Reel Time Theater: The actors playing the new recruits on the Starship Enterprise will also attend — Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Nero (Eric Bana), Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) and Lt. Sulu (John Cho). Director J.J. Abrams also will be on hand.

The directors, actors, Paramount Pictures, the local command and AAFES worked together to make the screening special for troops, Roy Robertson, AAFES’ vice president of restaurants and hospitality, said in the announcement.

The movie, simply titled “Star Trek,” recounts the early days of the original characters, with Kirk and Spock starting out as bitter rivals rather than the close friends they would one day become. Kirk, a “delinquent, thrill-seeking Iowa farm boy,” locks horns with Spock, who was raised in a logic-based society devoid of all emotion. On their maiden voyage, the young crew “must find a way to stop an evil being whose mission of vengeance threatens all of mankind,” the news release states.

“Star Trek” is scheduled to open in the U.S. on May 8 and I’ve got to say I haven’t been this excited about a movie in a few years.  Check out the trailer below.

(From The AirForce Times)

I knew it!  I really DO live in the most Republican district in Georgia! Georgia’s 6th Congressional district has a partisan index of +19… and it shows!

Charlie Cook notes that Democrats are in a good news/bad news situation heading into the 2010 midterm elections.

“The good news for them is that the Republican Party still has horrific ratings — 31 percent favorable, 58 percent unfavorable in the CBS/Times poll, compared with 56 percent favorable, 34 percent unfavorable for Democrats. And nothing the GOP is saying or doing is helping its cause.”

“The bad news for Democrats is that midterm elections are rarely a referendum on the party out of power.”

Politico points out the governors “threatening to decline federal stimulus money last month read like a list of Republicans considering running for president in 2012:” Governors Mark Sanford, Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin.

“But what began with a bang is ending with something closer to a whimper. All three of those governors have been forced to scale back their expectations, to varying degree, as the push of conservative philosophy gave way to the pull of political reality.”

“All three found that praise from the conservative movement in Washington meant nothing to furious state legislators of both parties. And in the end, along with other conservative Republican governors, the three submitted letters in recent days asking to be eligible for federal funds.”

The latest update on the NY-20 special congressional election shows Scott Murphy’s (D) lead is now 46 votes over Jim Tedisco (R).