Herman Cain: Pizza Guy for President?

Ex CEO of Godfather's Pizza Herman Cain

On Saturday, Herman Cain won Florida's straw poll, and by quite a large margin. He's showing himself a serious threat to Rick Perry in the fight for the Republican candidacy.  Unfortunately, Herman Cain is an incompetent, inexperienced bigot who has absolutely no business being considered for President.

First, let's talk about his political experience.  Well, there is none.  That was easy.  He's never held any political office.  He's absurdly proud of this, going so far as to claim it's a good thing:

Knowing how Washington works isn't necessarily an advantage. As a businessman going in, I don’t want to know how Washington works. I want to change Washington D.C. and so by not knowing how it is supposed to work I can ask tough questions that will help change the culture.

That's wonderful.  He doesn't want to know how Washington works.  Cain apparently thinks that being President of the United States is like being in a comedy movie, where pluck and audacity is enough to succeed at pretty much any task in the world.  Maybe he imagines that he's like Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2, and that his ignorance of political culture will be just what's needed to shock all those stuffy old codgers out of their ruts and get something done for a change! He's definitely shown that he doesn't have the slightest idea how government works, with bizarre statements about how he'll only sign bills that are three pages or shorter.  I guess he just doesn't like to read.

Bigotry is Bad for Business

Chris Hughes, Co-founder of Facebook

As you can tell from my previous post, I don't have much patience with people who are willing to deny an American citizen their rights.  It's simple: this is America, and we have rights.  Those rights don't get to be threatened and denied just to make some people feel like they're better than others.  Because of that, I didn't get too much into any other reasons.  If we're arguing against slavery, should we have to bring up economic reasons to end it?  That's nothing short of insulting.

But there are other reasons, too.  Chris Huges, one of the founders of Facebook and a native of North Carolina, explains too the Wall Street Journal that discrimination like this is more than just morally reprehensible, it's bad for business, as well.

Hughes . . . who is engaged to social activist Sean Eldridge, says the move will chase entrepreneurs like himself out of the region and hobble job-creation efforts at a time when state unemployment is above 10%.

He's even said that he'll donate $10 for every person who "Likes" the Facebook page of Equality NC, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to equal rights.  (Up to $10,000.)  Good for you, Chris.

Lots of people talk about conservatives as if they just have different priorities.  Republicans are said to care about business so much because they think that happy, unregulated  and un-taxed businesses are the only thing that can pull us out of our economic slump.  And sure, 90% of the time, a Republican lawmaker will go out of his way to give a corporation anything it wants, regardless of the individual citizens that he hurts along the way.

But then you see something like this.  It's pretty clear that when it comes down to the line, Republicans are more concerned with controlling our lives than they are helping businesses.  Or maybe they just don't want any new businesses.  After all, their campaign trails are paid for by the old businesses, who feel like they'd do better without the competition from any fresh new business.

Maybe it's more fair to say that they "making things better" isn't really something Republicans care about at all.

North Carolina's Amendment One

Throughout the nation, conservatives are working hard taking away our rights as American citizens.  In many cases, it's not enough for them to simply deny a person's liberty.  The average Republican respects strength, brutality, and clear statements of superiority.  What could be more brutal than stomping down on the face of someone you've already defeated?  Conservatives are never happy with merely winning a fight, they need to grind their opponents into the dirt, laughing at their own barbarism.  Anything to feed their sense of superiority. 


North Carolina remembers that it's supposed to be bigoted

This is happening right now in North Carolina.  The opponents of freedom in the state's House and Senate have passed a bill that could amend the state's constitution to deny the right to marry to anyone who doesn't meet the state's stringent "moral standards."  This anti-rights amendment could be put on ballots as early as May of 2012, during the primary election.

Friends, there's something you need to understand.  North Carolina already has laws against the freedom of marriage.  Can two men get married in North Carolina?  Can two women?  No.  That's illegal, and has never been allowed.  So why an amendment to the state constitution? 

That's the stomping I mentioned earlier, the grinding into the dirt.  It's not enough that gay marriage is illegal, they want it to be unconstitutional, enshrined into the very basis of the law.

Regressives have been fighting to amend the state's constitution for years, but every time the legislation was put forward, the House and Senate stopped it.  That changed this year, as Republicans took control of both chambers for the first time in over one hundred years.