Well, you can “repeal” a Supreme Court decision that rests on statutory or common-law grounds.  Since Loving was a Constitutional decision, at least theoretically, it could be repealed via Constitutional amendment.  Abrogation would be the more precise term.

Somehow, I doubt niceties like that matter in the slightest to the colossal douchebag who “authored” that image.

Well, Llelldorin, I’d disagree that we can’t do this sort of thing right. We can’t do this sort of thing as effectively, because we insist on doing it right.

If I, for one, were convinced that by having no limits we’d immediately turn this country onto the right path irrevocably (kind of like the Repubs managed to do, really) I’d agree with you.

(On the other hand, since our entire counterargument to the MoveOn thing was “Hey, it was user-created” there is a large body of work that would directly contradict any such arguments. Again, I know that never stops the Rs.)

Kind of like the Repubs managed to do, only with the wrong path, I should have said.

Fuck.  Me.  Unfortunately that this was found on the official GOP site comes as no surprise anymore.

Llelldorin is 1/2 right, but what’s missing on the progressive end of the spectrum is that element of psychopathology, the “whiff of crazy” that can keep the wingnutz on their outrage benders for days / weeks / months / years / decades, keeping them in line by keeping focused on who they’ve been told is screwing them over in order to keep them distracted from who’s really fucking them in the ass while their pants are still on.

It isn’t just a matter of not being able to push a meme that relies on false premises that’s the problem.

It’s also the principle vehicle we would need to push that meme… namely, a complicit mainstream media.

The wingnuts were able to push the Bushitler MoveOn meme so effectively largely because ALL of the cable news channels as well as all major print publications went along for the disingenuous ride willingly.

Even those who got the facts essentially right led with misleading headlines and chyrons like, “MoveOn compares Bush to Hitler?”  And then the MSM outlet will claim that they did their due diligence by including the question mark and following up with a full presentation of the facts.  They’ll claim that they weren’t actually propagating the meme, but the fact is, we’re a very short-attention span country, and headlines and chyrons are usually much more powerful media instruments than the long-winded boring explanation that follows them.  It doesn’t matter if the follow-up reporting beneath the headline provided a full context, the wingnuts just need to be able to grab onto that headline, cleverly drop the question mark, and BAM - “OMG!!! MoveOn just called President Bush Hitler!  Even liberal CNN said so!”

So it isn’t really that we aren’t as good at pushing these memes as they are, but that we lack the resources that they have to push such memes.

Truthfully, if I had a choice between giving both sides equal opportunity to blatantly mischaracterize the actions of the other side or neither side having the ability to do such things, I’d opt for the latter.  And while perhaps sinking to their level in these particular things may “level the playing field”, it wouldn’t do much for the cause of democracy if we get reduced to both sides trying to outdo each other on who can lie, obfuscate reality, and present the most disingenuous smears the best.

Part of why I’m not only liberal but proud to be liberal is that we generally don’t sink to their level in blatantly making shit up about the other side.

And before one of our resident libertarians says “Dan Rather”... he was fired.  How many Fox Newsies have been canned in the past decade for presenting false information?  Regarding the attribution of racist quotes to Rush Limbaugh which haven’t been substantiated as ever having been said by him, I agree that it was irresponsible journalism on the part of those who did it.  And to my knowledge, virtually all of them have made retractions… a concept Fox News seems completely unaware of, even when they showed a video earlier this year of VP Biden saying “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” without advising their viewers that: a) the video footage was from the campaign trail last October; or b) Biden was quoting John McCain and poking fun at the insanity of McCain’s remark.

If we can eradicate media malpractice in regards to conservative spin, then we won’t have to worry about beating them at this game, because they won’t have that tool to use anymore.  And that’s what it is… malpractice.

In regard to the recent dustup between Fox News and the White House, I keep hearing the argument from conservatives that Fox News’ conservative slant shouldn’t be a problem, since MSNBC allegedly has a liberal slant.  Even if we agree that primetime programming for both networks is ideologically biased to the two opposite sides, the key difference between Fox’ programming and MSNBC’s is that Fox doesn’t just present the conservative position, they lie.  Like literally, they completely make shit up out of thin air.  Olbermann and Maddow may be “guilty” of practicing unabashed liberalism in their coverage of news and politics, but they still rely on accurate information in how they present their commentary.  I don’t have an issue with Fox making itself the conservative news network, I have a problem with their false claim to be a “fair and balanced” network that gives equal time to both sides.  I also have a problem with them repeatedly fabricating information and leaving out critical facts in their news and opinion presentation.  They are fully entitled to their own opinions; what they are not entitled to is their own facts.

Yeah but, Auguste, the RNC allowed the image to be on its facebook page since at least 10/20 (from what others on the internet are saying) so they get to wear egg on their faces for that.  It is fair to say that the uploaded photo was the opinion of a user and not necessarily the organization but the RNC needs to be more responsible about monitoring its official facebook page.  There’s no excuse for the 6 entire days it was up there.

How long was it up for and did some administrator or moderator have to okay it before it became visible? I’m asking because a few weeks ago gop.com didn’t check images and videos before they were made visible on the site. Naturally some enterprising individuals noticed this and put a lot gay porn, swastikas and funny cats in the gop.com our pictures section. Now they moderate, I just checked and the most controversial stuff is a picture of some guy’s hand holding a submachine gun that says “cold dead hand” and ron paul photoshopped into a jedi. I think they should have stuck with the porn. Anyhow they are terrible at the internet and terrible at muzzling their lunatics so it might not be entirely their fault. Of course it wouldn’t surprise me that much if someone who works for them thought it was hilarious and if asked about it will give the typical “I’m sorry I hurt people’s feelings, it was just a joke and I am not a racist you people need to learn to loosen up because you are the real racists, eliminate the death tax” response.

If I, for one, were convinced that by having no limits we’d immediately turn this country onto the right path irrevocably (kind of like the Repubs managed to do, really) I’d agree with you.

Comment #3: Auguste

I’m convinced their whole “I’ll be Raptured into Jesus’ arms” mentality makes M.A.D. completely ineffective.
Their narcissistic little brains convince them they’re the special ones who won’t ever suffer the consequences to their idiocy.

Fuck.  Me.  Unfortunately that this was found on the official GOP site comes as no surprise anymore.

It wasn’t found on the RNC’s official website, it was found on their Facebook page.  And it presumably wasn’t posted by anyone who actually works for the RNC, but rather someone who was a “fan” of the RNC Facebook group.

The whole point of Jesse’s post is that while we can’t really hold the RNC directly responsible for posting the image (though we can call them out for not monitoring their own Facebook page better and removing it quicker), it’s pretty ironic that conservatives had no qualms about trashing MoveOn for weeks over an image submitted by one of their supporters depicting Bush as Hitler, which they very quickly removed from their website.

They are fully entitled to their own opinions; what they are not entitled to is their own facts.

Speaking of overused, cliched memes…will Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s quotes please shut up already?  Crimeny.  Regardless of what people are entitled to, they will spin or just make up facts to suit their purposes.

I can’t tell what the President is eating in that pic; looks like fried fish.  Clearly it’s yummy.

The thing I’ve never understood about the fried-chicken-eating racism thing is, I can’t think of any white people who don’t like fried chicken.  I love it myself.  Same with watermelon, white people can’t get enough.  It’s just bizarre how in the hands of someone who’s black those foods are suddenly indicators of race.  I guess we’re all black, then.

Racism is STUPID.  Maybe that’s the answer.  Racists are stupid, and Republicans are the Party of Stupid.

Is it this webpage http://www.facebook.com/GOP#/GOP?v=wall because when you search rnc facebook you find their women’s coalition page. If it is they only have two pictures left up. When in doubt delete everything. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.

If you put up pictures without moderating them andyou’re a political party, you’re responsible for what you get.

Is it this webpage http://www.facebook.com/GOP#/GOP?v=wall because when you search rnc facebook you find their women’s coalition page. If it is they only have two pictures left up. When in doubt delete everything. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.

Which is why screen capture is awesome.  But then again, screencaps aren’t really incontrovertible proof, thanks to Photoshop.  Not that I doubt the veracity of this particular screencap, just saying that you can’t rely on a screencap alone as absolute evidence.  That’s what caches are for.

Racism is STUPID.

It’s one of those things, like creationism, that I just can’t believe anyone could genuinely take seriously, and only fight for because they literally can’t imagine what horrible things would happen if they let their fear go.

If you put up pictures without moderating them andyou’re a political party, you’re responsible for what you get.

Yes and no.

They are certainly responsible for not doing a better job of moderating their own Facebook page more effectively, but not necessarily for the actual appearance of the image, except to the extent that their negligence allowed it to happen.

It’s the difference between a Facebook user not directly affiliated with the RNC posting such a picture and somebody who actually works for the RNC posting that same picture.  It’s certainly offensive either way, but I think that public outrage would be much stronger if it was revealed that a high ranking official in the RNC posted that picture as opposed to Billy Bob Klansman in Kentucky posting that picture.

Hell, think of all the examples Pam provided last year of people affiliated with local Republican offices and conservative groups doing this stuff… people get angrier about them doing it than somebody on Stormfront doing it, because you accept that an openly racist organization is gonna do this sort of thing.  When somebody from a group that tries to claim that it isn’t racist does this, it’s easier to shove the hypocrisy in their face.  You can’t really shame an admitted white supremacist for his racism, because its a point of pride for him.  A Republican Congressman on the other hand?  It would be a lot tougher for someone in that position to come out and literally say, “I hate niggers” without massive career repercussions.  Ask former 2008 presidential hopeful George Allen about how big a career killer using racial slurs at public events can be.  That doesn’t mean they aren’t racist or can’t hold racist beliefs - obviously many of them do, but few will express their racism openly.  They have much more incentive to try to conceal, deny, or soften the way they express those racist beliefs, namely job security.

is there a cache? I would love to see how much stuff was up. If there were, for argument’s sake let’s say, three thousand submissions and 3 of them were outlandishly crazy like the one in the capture I think saying big deal the internet is full of wackos and you can’t really expect that them to pay people to check each and every picture and thor knows they shouldn’t depend on their supporters for volunteers who will display rational and fair judgement is fair enough. If 25% of them were outrageous or tea party level ignorant that’s interesting.

DTG:

I think we’re using “responsible” in different ways. I don’t mean you’re per se a racist if someone not affiliated with you uses your FB page to post racist pictures. Instead, if you will, I’m engaging in justified victim-blaming. These are the intertubes. If you know that your membership includes a bunch of racist fsckwads, and you do essentially nothing to prevent them from putting out racist propaganda under your banner, you deserve the opprobrium you get. Either for being a closet racist or for being too stupid to breathe.

The conservatives could hardly satirize themselves more effectively: Condemn something totally innocuous to outsiders (but deeply important to the participants, like, say, a marriage or private intimiate relationship) that nonetheless provokes their finger-wagging, pearl-clutching tirades and criminalize it as an attack on “American values.”

And as Jesse notes with regard to a single MoveOn contributor’s Bush-Hitler comparison, whither now the breathless, outraged and self-righteous media exposes of conservative radicalism?

pharmakos: There may or may not be a cache available for it, but Facebook saves everything, even if you “delete” it.  They could conceivably retrieve the whole set of pics and show what they had up there.

That’s part of some people’s qualms with Facebook: your stuff is out there in their hands forever.

I just want to say that Obama has great teeth. I would kill for teeth like that. Damn Scottish-French Canadian genetics ...

Yeah, never understood the watermelon/fried chicken stereotypes either. I thought it was more of a Southern thing. My mother-in-law (from Kentucky, culturally part of the South) makes great fried chicken and all my in-laws love watermelon. They’re white, though, so that means pretty much nothing I can figure out.

So we’ll never know then. Facebook is owned by some billionaire libertarian isn’t it?

Uh, you can’t exactly *repeal* Loving vs. Virginia. It’s a court ruling, not a law. L vs. V ruled the general implied bias in the US Constitution toward freedom in private matters trumped any state interest in restrictng interracial marriage. Thus only a constitutional amendment could make miscegenation laws viable again.

So we’ll never know then. Facebook is owned by some billionaire libertarian isn’t it?

I don’t know his political beliefs (though Wikipedia lists his religion as “atheist”), but the CEO of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg, a 25 year old who created the website from his dorm room at Harvard in 2004, when he was just 19 years old.  When he first started it, it was just for use by Harvard students and wasn’t operated to make money.  Then it was extended to anyone with a .edu email account, and ultimately to everybody.

He has a net worth of $2 Billion today, pretty much all from Facebook.  The company has over 900 employees worldwide, with offices in Palo Alto, Dublin, and Seoul… but it’s still a privately-held company.  It’s the world’s largest social networking site (300 Million active users worldwide), and the world’s 2nd busiest website according to Alexa.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

He and his partners are neocons who believe in limited government and the freedom of the market. Quote from the article “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser”. Oh and my personal favorite lolibertarian moment “You can’t have a workers’ revolution to take over a bank if the bank is in Vanuatu,”

Why am I not surprised by the Obama image in question? I’m frankly shocked that whomever created it spelled “miscegenation” correctly.

Maybe his next plan is to repeal black voting and citizenship rights.

This looks fake.
It was posted by “Gee Dub.”  Maybe George “Dubya” Bush posted it.
My bet is that it is graffiti posted by someone trying to smear the Republicans.
I am not convinced.
-Jut

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

He and his partners are neocons who believe in limited government and the freedom of the market. Quote from the article “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser”. Oh and my personal favorite lolibertarian moment “You can’t have a workers’ revolution to take over a bank if the bank is in Vanuatu,”

I didn’t gather that about Zuckerberg from the article you linked.

It certainly paints an ugly picture of Peter Thiel, the 40-something Silicon Valley venture capitalist who was the first to invest major capital into the company, but it didn’t really appear to say anything one way or the other about Zuckerberg’s political beliefs.  The quote about “losers” was from Thiel, not Zuckerberg.  Thiel had nothing to do with actually creating the website, he was just a rich guy with a good eye for a business on the cusp of skyrocketing in value.

Not that Zuckerberg isn’t a neocon or libertarian - he may well be those things - but the article never really dived into his personal worldview.

I wonder if they think that making interracial marriage illegal would somehow alter the past so that Obama would simply stop existing.  Do they think that they things they do now will let them go back in time for a redo?  It’s sort of the same thing as the birth certificate nonsense where they think we’d redo the whole election and McCain would get to be president or something.  Then there’s this strange belief they have that sex never happens outside of marriage, even though the group that supports this stuff has the highest teen pregnancy rate.  They seem to think that if couples of mixed races can’t get married, they’ll never have kids.

This looks fake.
It was posted by “Gee Dub.” Maybe George “Dubya” Bush posted it.
My bet is that it is graffiti posted by someone trying to smear the Republicans.
I am not convinced.
-Jut

It could theoretically be all of those things, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the RNC was extremely negligent in allowing it to remain on their Facebook page for FIVE FREAKING DAYS before they took it down.

When you are a political party that has as shitty a relationship with minorities as the RNC does, it is incumbent upon your party’s leaders to immediately address and repudiate all instances of racism that occur at your rallies and on your websites, even if you believe it is being done by a saboteur from the other side.

Its from 2008 so its been about a year since I read through it from start to finish. I just googled his name, libertarian and facebook because I knew I remembered something. Anyhow, I’d be shocked if he wasn’t considering who his friends are. I know that’s not entirely fair but yeah its a guess and those often aren’t.

Thus only a constitutional amendment could make miscegenation laws viable again.

Or a Supreme Court decision reversing Loving, like Lawrence v Texas did with Bowers v Hardwick

Have none of you noticed? He’s eating WHITE MEAT!!!!

My god this is revolting. And stupid. And a list of other things as well.

MKK

We’re assuming that the RNC’s facebook moderator(s) took the image down as soon as they noticed it. If it was really up for 6 days, I have to wonder whether they saw it and initially let it slide.

“Or a Supreme Court decision reversing Loving, like Lawrence v Texas did with Bowers v Hardwick”

Exactly.  And the SCOTUS only happens to be full to overflowing with nutso Republican picks who are in many cases (no pun intended) just itching to “original-intent” a whole bunch of stuff right out of existence.

Loving and Griswold are two that the Reichwing have had in their sights for a long time.  Those get tossed, they finish gutting Roe, finish hollowing out Miranda, uphold unlimited presidential power in “wartime”, accept the concept of “Fourth Branch” — and we’re living in an entirely different country. 

That may be a bug to the Left, but it’s a feature to the Right…

As for media response to MoveOn.org versus media response to this, it’s helpful to remember that journalists believe the RNC is Important and Serious, while bloggers, the netroots and intertubes users are just Dirty Fucking Hippies.

Loving and Griswold are two that the Reichwing have had in their sights for a long time.

Hell, ever since Milliken v Bradely the court has been retreating from Brown. It lives more in rhetoric than practice.

I’m just glad we’re actually talking about this stuff instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.  Obama’s the fucking Jackie Robinson of politics; he’s simply too decent a person and player for the BS to stick.

I’ve long wondered what Clarence Thomas, who lives in Virginia with his wife, a white woman named Virginia, would have to say about the “judicially activist” Loving v. Virginia decision.

Frederick R,

Clarence Thomas is special, remember? Affirmative action programs (oooh, dirty words) contributed a great deal to getting to where he is today (not saying he didn’t have to work damn hard, I’m sure he did, regardless of how I feel about virtually all his rulings), existed only to get him to the Court, now it can go away. Same with the Loving decision, he could marry Virginia but now Loving can go away. He is a twisted character.

(Deity of your choice) help us…

Can I just re-state that, as a white man, I really love fried chicken and watermelons?

Oh, and stewed greens with ham… FTW.

I wonder if they think that making interracial marriage illegal would somehow alter the past so that Obama would simply stop existing.

They don’t think anything. Being a racist fuckwit pisses off normal people and gets you attention, and that’s all that matters.

Are they saying that they want to outlaw interracial marriage ... as if you could define race anyway ... because it produces a superior product?

Gee ... whatever happened to America being the country where anybody could grow up to be president?  Why do they hate America so much?

...for those who believe the SCOTUS just couldn’t/wouldn’t overturn rulings like Loving or other landmark decisions, here’s Antonin “Screw the Black People” Scalia...

...for those who believe the SCOTUS just couldn’t/wouldn’t overturn rulings like Loving or other landmark decisions, here’s Antonin “Screw the Black People” Scalia…

It all depends on who makes up the membership of SCOTUS.

I don’t believe that the current 9 justices could or would overturn Loving, because the votes aren’t there.  All jokes about Clarence Thomas aside, Loving v. Virginia is one decision he absolutely wouldn’t vote to overturn, given his own personal situation.  Yes, he’s a total fringe wingnut.  He’s also a black man who is married to a white woman, and without Loving, that marriage might never have happened.

The worst case scenario if Loving were ever actually contested before the current SCOTUS would be a 6-3 decision upholding it.  And I’m not positive that there would be 3 dissenters, just that there would be no more than 3 at the most.  And truthfully, if someone did actually try to challenge Loving, I seriously doubt the current SCOTUS would even allow the case to be heard.  Everyone is guaranteed the right to file an appeal to SCOTUS.  Not every case is guaranteed the right to be heard.  An appeal of Loving would not even be heard, because it’s ridiculous on its face.

Now obviously, the fact that even 3 of our Suprem Court Justices could theoretically vote to overturn Loving is disturbing as hell, but the bigger point is that SCOTUS isn’t currently populated by enough wingnuts for us to worry about such a thing happening anytime soon.

Scalia is a lunatic.  He’s also only one vote.  And I realize there are 3 others who would likely join him in a lot of lunatic opinions, but Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote, isn’t likely to jump in for something as batshit crazy as overturning Loving.

DTG, while I agree with your analysis as far as it goes, Loving could get effectively overturned with a ruling on gay marriage. Loving clearly states that it is a fundamental right of each citizen to marry the partner of their choice. A too broadly worded smack-down of gay marriage, especially one that says that there are no fundamental rights to marriage, just what each state says they are, could effectively invalidate it.

Of course, it’s unlikely that they would be that incautious. A negative gay marriage ruling will be careful to only discuss same-sex couples, since fags and dykes aren’t really citizens, just tolerated parasites, but it could happen. Loving’s biggest protection at this point is that there is simply not a big enough percentage of the population that would want to push the Constitutional amendments involved.

I’m not saying that SCOTUS will overturn Loving tomorrow, but you have to admit it’s pretty damn disturbing that an educated adult with a lifetime appointment on the 2009-version of the Supreme Court thinks that Brown v. Board of Education was wrongly decided. 

I bet Scalia could get at least two more to overturn Brown (Roberts and Alito would be my guess) and I frankly wouldn’t be shocked if Thomas joined them.

I would guess that Griswold would go before Loving, but that doesn’t make it feel any better.

While not all of the SCOTUS justices are certifiable, there aren’t enough sane ones to guarantee reasonable rulings in all cases…

I bet Scalia could get at least two more to overturn Brown (Roberts and Alito would be my guess) and I frankly wouldn’t be shocked if Thomas joined them.

They wouldn’t need to. It’s already been chipped away at enough that it’s basically dead already anyway.