Political Irony

There are some who don’t think Westboro Baptist Church is a real church — just how do you decide if some organization is a real church or not? So if the Supreme Court feels it is important to protect the free speech rights of Westboro, then I expect to see a rash of new “churches”. Here are some potential ones:

© Brian McFadden

I’m still waiting for the IRS to recognize the FSM.

Right now, one of “the most active lobbying efforts” ever is going on in Congress, but you might not have heard much about it in the mainstream media.

The fight is over the fees that banks collect from debit card transactions. Currently, the banks collect (on average) around 44 cents per transaction, but under Obama’s Wall Street reform act, the Fed can regulate fees charged by banks. The Fed has determined that it actually costs banks less than 12 cents per transaction — a 367% profit for the banks and adds up to $16 billion in fees every year. New regulations limiting the fees to 12 cents are due to go into effect in six weeks and the banks are fighting every step of the way.

Not only are the banks lobbying Congress, but they are also making threats to consumers. JP Morgan Chase is threatening to limit the size of debit card transactions, so for example, you may be denied any purchase greater than $100, or even $50.

What I find disingenuous about this is that the banks claim that they need to charge higher fees to offset fraud costs, but this sounds like BS to me. After all, unlike credit cards, debit cards take money directly out of your checking account. And unlike checks (which hardly anyone uses anymore), banks can electronically check your balance and grab the money before they even approve the transaction, so there is no danger like bounced checks (plus no expense moving paper checks around). So why would banks need to charge more in fees for debit cards than they do for checks?

But the real issue here is government regulation versus free enterprise. I’m sure the banks are screaming about government regulations, claiming that we should allow the free market to determine what people pay for fees. Unfortunately in this case we don’t actually have a free market. There is no real competition between banks, at least not for the average consumer. Our financial institutions have not only become too big to fail, they have become too big to compete.

So here is what I’d like to do. We eliminate regulations on banks like the new cap on debit card fees, as long as we split up the large banks (and credit card companies) to the point where they actually compete. There are a number of easy ways we could do this. The goal is to make it so that no financial institution has monopoly-like power to unilaterally set rates and fees. If they tried, their customers could easily switch to another bank that charges lower fees. Now that would be a real free market!

I would rather have government regulations creating free markets (by increasing competition), rather than having the government exercise detailed control over how much businesses can charge (like debit card fees). Of course, there will always be businesses where there can never be enough competition to ensure a free market (for example, utilities like power and water companies), but banks don’t need to be like that. We just need to split up the large banks so there is an actual free market where consumers (bank customers) have an actual choice.

Unfortunately, I don’t see Congress having the will (or even the desire) to split up the large financial institutions. After all, politicians love those huge contributions they get from large banks, and the revolving door between the banks and the US government mean that the foxes have already taken over the hen house.

Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) delivers a smack-down on a Republican bill that attempts to repeal the scientific finding that pollution is harmful.

But the real question is whether the people he was slamming even understood anything he was saying.

[Thanks to Blue Girl]

Buried in the budget cuts the Republicans are demanding is a 28% cut to the National Weather Service, including the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Inconveniently for the GOP, nature seems to be drawing attention to what these cuts may actually mean.

In addition to saving lives when something like today’s Japanese tsunami occurs, accurate weather forecasting helps to avoid flight delays and reduces the cost of shipping and agriculture products.

As we used to say, “Penny wise, pound foolish.”

In what some are calling “one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture“, a new survey shows that White Evangelical Christians as a group reject politicians and policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus.

For example, Jesus preached that mercy and forgiveness are cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the strongest supporters of the use of torture, the death penalty, and harsh criminal sentencing. Jesus taught non-violence, and yet Evangelicals support the preemptive offensive invasion of other countries. And most ironically, Jesus repeatedly claimed that greed and the pursuit of money was an anathema to God and that in order to follow him you should give your money to the poor, and yet Evangelicals are very supportive of corporate greed and excess. Indeed, most Evangelicals denounce the primary teachings of Jesus as “socialism”.

I find it especially ironic that Jesus explicitly said that people who disparage others and call them names will burn in hell, and yet the Westboro Baptist Church main website is “God Hates Fags”, when the city of Orlando and Disneyworld instituted an annual “Gay Days” event Pat Robertson warned that this would “bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor”, and the Mormon Church violated the separation of church and state by pushing for Proposition 8 in California.

So what can you do to turn this around? Ranker has put together a list of the top 20 Bible passages that can be used to fight intolerant fundamentalists. For example, the next time someone claims they are for Christian family values, remind them that according to the Bible, divorce and remarrying are both adultery, that anyone not married who is not a virgin must be stoned to death, and that if your married brother dies, you are commanded to have sex with his widow. If they say something like “Family First” you can remind them that Jesus said “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Not only that, but anyone who curses their parents must be put to death. Given the attitudes of typical teenagers, that would quickly depopulate the country. But that’s fine, since the Bible also says “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” And if you disobey the word of God, then God will punish you by making you eat your babies. Seriously.

As for our response to terrorism, the Bible teaches us to “turn the other cheek” and submit passively to violence against us. And that if someone steals your coat, you should also give them your cloak. I guess that’s why Christians are all calling for the dismantling of our Department of Defense and for fewer prisons.

I know this is old, but I can’t help but think that if Jesus were to come back and run for political office, something like this would be the result:

© Ted Rall

We’ve done a spectacularly bad job of “helping” countries like Iraq and Afghanistan transition to democracy. I for one am glad that we are staying fairly hands off with countries like Egypt and Libya.

But it is ironic that the same conservatives who used to denounce “nation building” are now attacking Obama for not doing more of it.

UPDATE: Even something as innocuous as a “no-fly zone” has sucked us into war in the past. Will we ever learn? For some people, sadly no.