North Carolina Keeps Coming Up With "Interesting" Politicians For Some Reason

Larry Pittman, a North Carolina state GOP rep, says
Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant on par with Hitler. 

I've been watching for the past year with a mix of fascination, horror and amusement as North Carolina politicians keep coming up with the strangest legislative initiatives.

For the past year, for instance, they've been strangely obsessed with who uses public restrooms with them, which resulted in those weird 'bathroom bills" in which they try to keep transgendered people using rest rooms that correspond to the gender with which they identify.

Like it would be an improvement that a beareded redneck guy must share a restroom with the fine ladies of North Carolina. Or something like that.

The inspiration for these kinds of weird laws or proposals seems to come from a bench of mostly Republican North Carolina lawmakers who have rather, um, interesting viewpoints on history and the world around them.

One of these clowns is Larry Pittman, who, according to the Raleigh News and Observer recently introduced a bill trying to get North Carolina to defy the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

The bill will go nowhere and this isn't the most interesting thing about Pittman.

In a Facebook discussion, somebody who noticed Pittman's obsession with gay marriage told him to "get over it."

Pittman won't. He responded, breathtakingly: "And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort of tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional."

Well, that's certainly in interesting take on history.  There was that little matter of freeing the slaves the Lincoln was involved in, and why the Civil War was fought.

I dunno. Maybe Pittman thinks that slavery wasn't such a bad idea?

Somebody asked him on Facebook. No answer. The Raleigh News and Observer tried to ask him. No answer. Oh well.

By the way, Pittman, unlike other extreme right wing wackos, doesn't think former President Barack Obama is a traitor because "he didn't harm any Kenyans."

Ookie Dokey then!

Moving on:

The wife of former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory had a pretty reasonable legislative request last year: Why not require so-called "puppy mills" to treat animals humanely. Many such puppy mills have a reputation for abusing animals, so the legislation made sense and the idea had bipartisan support in North Carolina.

Then came Rep. Michael Speciale, who apparently hates puppies, indicates Slate.  The legislation called for animals at "puppy mills" to get exercise daily. Speciale asked: "If I kick (a puppy across the floor, is that considered daily exercise?"

Mrs. McCrory's proposal would also require that if euthaniasia was necessary, that it be performed humanely. That seems straight forward enough. But not to Speciale "'Euthanasia performed humanely' - so should I choose the ax or the baseball bat?"

Lovely.

The point Speciale was trying to make (I think) is that he thought the language of the bill was too vague. But really? Sounds like this dude likes the fact that some puppy mills abuse animals.

Slate, in the same articles that cited Speciale, also brought us Rep. Carl Ford, who wanted to establish a state religion in North Carolina.

Yes, I know the First Amendment of the Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

Ford says this only applies to Congress, not states. Of course, Ford is ignoring the 14th Amendment, which applies most of the Bill of Rights to the states.

Even so, Ford tried to forge ahead, promoting a bill that would have allowed prayers and creationism in public schools, and allowed lawmakers to steer tax mone to the churches they especially liked.

The bill went nowhere, and the courts would have overturned it anyway, but nice try, Mr. Ford!

I guess it's become a tradition among extreme right wing politicians to wage Quixotic political battles in the imaginary belief they can create a world that suits them perfectly and forces the rest of us into that world, kicking and screaming.

The danger, of course, is that they do often succeed in lurching us a little closer to these bizarro worlds they want us all to live in. But at least they're too dumb and stubborn to fully make us go there.

Damn Americans have a habit of rebelling against being told what to do and who to be just because some wacko politicians says so.