It brings a chill to my spine when I think of the caliber of some of our elected representatives and the voters that put them there.
This week, Rep. Viginia Foxx (R-NC) stood on the floor of the House of Representatives and while debating the hate crimes bill named after Matthew Shepard, who was killed because he was gay, called it a "hoax." According to Foxx, it was a robbery, not a gay hate crime.
I suppose in Foxx's world, some backwoods, racist and homophobic goons from Laramie, Wyoming plotting to drag someone out into the darkness, beat him to a pulp, string him up on a fencepost and leave him for dead is a just normal robbery gone wrong.
"(The) hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills," Foxx said.
Some of these nutballs are under the impression that passing hate crimes bills are infringing on free speech. What part of beating a person to death because you don't like their sexual orientation or skin color is considered "speech"?*
And where did Foxx get her information? Why from TV of course. A 2004 20/20 report questioned whether Shepard had actually been killed because he was gay. If it's on TV, it's gotta be true, right Rep. Foxx? Why bother reading the actual trial transcript for facts when you can watch faulty journalism on the tube? An extra doucheslap to Foxx for her non-apology apology:
"The term ‘hoax’ was a poor choice of words used in the discussion of the hate-crimes bill … Referencing these media accounts may have been a mistake, but if so, it was a mistake based on what I believed were reliable accounts."
Rep. Virginia Foxx, Douchebag of the Week.
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*And for those who say that racism is over because we now have a black president, tell that to the family of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez, who was beaten to death by two white teenagers and were just acquitted by an all white jury in rural Pennsylvania.
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9 comments:
What added to this was that Judy Shepard was sitting in the gallery when this hateful rag said all this. And even in her non apology apology she still hasn't called her and said I am sorry. That's the very least she could do, is talk to the mother of the young man she just slandered.
This woman is little more than an inbred hillbilly, elected by toothless goobers still angry about the Civil War. Remember, this woman -- as mean as she is stupid -- is the cleverest person in politics in western North Carolina, representing the best foot the slack-jawed yokels of the Appalachian foothills can put forth.
Yet another Republican embraces Teh Wacky™ to please the new "teabagger" base of the GOP.
I'm one of those slack-jawed yokels in that crazy douchebag's district and I've been voting my little heart out but having no luck with this moonbat. I even have a friend who voted for Obama, voted mostly for Democrats and usually does, but voted for her because of a personal response on a veterans' issue. She is a crafty one. And he's far from dumb but she got his vote anyway.
And Armadillo, I gotta say that one stung a little bit. But I do see where it comes from and I often feel the same way. We "hillbillies" are the last group that it's politically correct to slap around. We are descended from mainly Irish and Scots immigrants who chose isolation and beautiful mountains (and hard work on hardscrabble soil without slave labor--a painfully poor existence compared to those in the flatlands). Now the world has busted down our door and we are woefully behind in worldly education and the social graces. That's where a lot of the wingnuttery here comes from. I'm not defending the wingnuts, just explaining the mindset in this particular area. And while I'm preaching, the mountains are pronounced Appa-LATCH-ian, not Appa-Lay-chian. :-) My personal pronunciation crusade is showing. Someone please tell my hero Keith Olbermann.
dontpanic23 --
I understand your viewpoint. I am descended from similar stock - Louisiana Irish farmers on my mom's side and Texas German ranchers on my dad's. Though white and from the south, my family has no history of slave-ownership, just hard work until an early death.
As for the history of your region, my mother's side of the family has a similar tale. They were farmers in northern Louisiana, near Arkansas, former "hillbillies" who came down from the Ozarks to farm the more fertile soil in the flatlands. Had it not been for the jobs in the petroleum industry that sprang up after the widespread collapse of small farming in northern Louisiana in the 40's & 50's, they might never have left the narrow patch of land and learned that an outside world does exist. As for social graces and worldly educations, they still haven't learned.
Sometimes, people can evolve past their origins. Sometimes they can without even understanding that's what happened. In the throes of the last election, a story went around about a poll worker working door-to-door in western Pennsylvania who had the following experience (via Sean @ fivethirtyeight):
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a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."
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The point is, people can surprise you because fate is not written in stone. Just because those two Pennsylvania hillbillies did not know that the language of their social milieu was ugly and morally wrong didn't change their comprehension the "the n***er" was clearly the better choice and crossing that bridge is the bigger of the two steps. Language sometimes has to catch up to fundamental understanding.
So, speaking of language, I apologize for using the "hillbilly" canard. She is a dimwit and a thug and I was seeking the most hurtful language possible both as a way of lashing out at ugliness reflected in my own biography and shaming similarly-inclined people into hiding from public life. Those who hold such beliefs are anti-democratic and simply not fit to join the public discourse.
But then, I'm an Northeastern, big-city liberal elitist running from his Dixie white-trash origins, so maybe that also has something to do with it.
The link for the story in my previous comment:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-western-pennsylvania.html
Thanks, Armadillo, for sharing (and I love the canvassing story and its sociopolitical message--so true). I have a split history of fairly civilized (read: college educated at least 4 generations) white southern city folk on my mother's side and smart but uneducated backwoods mountain folk on my fathers's side--he ran from that in the 50s by joining the Coast Guard and then graduating Duke--who whispered the n-word when I was a kid, probably because the only way I would be allowed there was if it wasn't said out loud. I have one child who abhors the culture here and ran away to Scotland only to find it was much like home on many levels. And I have a son who is very much a part of the local culture while still being able to converse with his Masters-in-English grandmother. It's very confusing to all of us sometimes.
Anyway, I get your remarks. Michele Bachmann has gotten me to make disparaging remarks about people in MN that are out of line I'm sure. Virginia Foxx's days in office, unlike Bachmann's, are probably numbered. More and more families around here are finding their kids are gay no matter how they were raised and are taking issue with her idiocy. They may not talk about it but many will now quietly go and vote for the other person. And part of that is that Foxx was really rude publicly to Shepard's mother. Big mistake. Elizabeth Dole learned the rudeness lesson this past election when she did a smackdown of Kay Hagan hitting her in her religious beliefs, another mistake that Dole would have known if she ever actually lived here.
Ah, I'm rambling on. I didn't mean to jump you. I just sometimes get defensive about the "hillbilly" thing. And I always jump on the chance to get people to learn the Real pronunciation of Appalachian/Appalachia, even when I didn't hear it pronounced wrong (it was felt!)(Yes, call me crazy).
Ugh. This woman is just sickening.
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