"Liking" And "Sharing" Without Thinking

The Heritage Foundation is a well-known ultra-right-wing "think tank."  Heritage likes to brag about its influence on Capitol Hill but claims (falsely) it is not a lobbying group.  Among its myriad arch-conservative causes, Heritage opposes any taxation (in the knee-jerk, Grover Norquist manner); opposes public education; promotes private schools and Christian-based policies; wants an outright ban on abortions and affirmative action.  They pretty much wrote all of George W. Bush's foreign and domestic policies.

The president of the Heritage Foundation is Jim DeMint, a Tea Party darling and former Republican Senator from South Carolina.  Ol' Jim is a special kind of crazy.  Some of DeMint's more bizarro pronouncements:

• Gay people and unmarried women having sex should not be allowed to be teachers.
• God doesn't like government.  "The bigger government gets, the smaller God gets."
• Women should not be allowed to talk about abortion on the internet.  (He included an amendment in an unrelated bill to ban such electronic discussion, even with physicians.)
• After Obama's election, said America was "turning into Iran."
• Led the effort to kill a bill which would have allowed a private group to build a National Women's Museum in D.C. at no cost to taxpayers.
• Compared the Chicago teachers strike to violence in the Middle East, and called the teachers "thugs."
• Claimed (incorrectly) that Obama was going to tax Christmas trees "to start a government agency to promote Christmas trees."
• Asserted (wrongly) that the federal government played no role in freeing the slaves.

Real. Piece. Of. Work.

DeMint said he left the Senate because he could be more influential at the Heritage Foundation.  Maybe he's right.

I say this only because a friend shared a post on his Facebook page, and invited me and everyone else to "like" it.  It was a photo of Ronald Reagan, with the words of his well-worn sound bite.  The source of my friend's FaceBook share was the Heritage Foundation.

Ronnie's phrase may be popular in some circles, but it's actually one of the most absurd and unhelpful statements ever made by a government leader about, you know, government.  It's just a simplistic bucket of hogwash.  You really think government is the source of all problems?  You'd really prefer no government, a.k.a. anarchy?  Welcome to The Walking Dead.


The point to all this -- finally! -- is that I seriously doubt my friend has knowledge of the Heritage Foundation or Jim DeMint or what they're really all about.  I'd like to think that if he did, he'd be properly mortified.

Of course, I could be wrong, and if I am, then OMG! -- my friend, you're a closet Tea Bagger!  But if I'm not wrong, it's just another example of how easy it is to slap some shit up on FaceBook without considering the source, the meaning, and the implications.

Therefore, I blog.

And I'm adding my friend to the Buster's Blog list, as an educational service.