A tax on tanning booths is racist!

[elfs]

Does it get any more hysterical than this? Glenn Beck is on vacation this week, but his fill-in host, "Doc" Thompson, has successfully brought the crazy:

The health care bill the president just signed into law includes a 10 percent tax on all indoor tanning sessions starting July 1st, and I say, who uses tanning? Is it dark-skinned people? I don't think so. I would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans. Why would the President of the United States of America -- a man who says he understands racism, a man who has been confronted with racism -- why would he sign such a racist law? Why would he agree to do that? Well now I feel the pain of racism.

Sorry, Doc, but just as the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges, so too it taxes the light-skinned and the dark-skinned equally while they sleep under tanning lights.

Comments

[casualprofessor.livejournal.com]

Thompson is being sloppy with language. True, laws are not racist, but laws can disproportionately affect a particular segment of a society. If the separation occurs along racial lines, then a law can exercise racism.

The difference here is that Thompson hasn't any evidence that only Caucasians use tanning salons. Even so, other separations may be more intrinsic to the law, such as the separation implied by the use of disposable income on a risk-prone treatment.

So, he has a valid concept supported by a whole slew of craziness.

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

"Well now I feel the pain of racism."

The Obama lynch mob! The Obama lynch mob! *pointing*

Can this whining possibly be sincere?
- E

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Hey, if they want the gov to pay for the skin cancers and other effects those salons give, the money has to come from SOMEWHERE.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

It's almost like... Glenn Beck has been waiting for his opportunity to pull the race card out. And being the opportunist he is, any opportunity will do.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

Well now I feel the pain of racism.

To use the vernacular...

Bitch, please!

The pain of racism is the lash of the overseer's whip. The pain of racism is being struck with cubical musket shot. The pain of racism is not being able to vote, at all, ever. The pain of racism is being bred like a horse. The pain of racism is being told you're not as good as someone else because of the color of your skin.

The pain of racism is NOT paying a 10% tax at a tanning salon!

If this bozo really wants to feel 'the pain of racism' I -- no. No, I promised myself I wouldn't go there, as tempting as it is. I Will Not Be Eliminationist, No Matter How Much Ann Coulter Wants Me To Die. It's a remarkably hard vow to keep to. So. If this imbecile really wants to feel 'the pain of racism,' he's out of luck. There's no way a white, upper-middle-class or lower-upper-class dingleberry like him will ever feel it... and he should be fracking thankful for it!

Waitasec...

[(Anonymous)]

"There's no way a white, upper-middle-class or lower-upper-class dingleberry like him will ever feel it... and he should be fracking thankful for it!"

Unless that white upper-middle-class or lower-upper-class dingleberry is Jewish. The assumption that white=never a victim is a terrible stereotype.

From white Jewish boy #3.14 :)

Re: Waitasec...

[kistha.livejournal.com]

Or your religion, or your sexual preference, or your gender.....

Re: Waitasec...

[caraig.livejournal.com]

Ouch. You are entirely correct! I sincerely apologize. I let my umbrage run away with my keyboard, and let anger cloud my internal editors. Thank you very much for correcting me, that was an unwarranted assumption on my part.

Re: Waitasec...

[caraig.livejournal.com]

This as well. I apologize; I made an unwarranted assumption. As I said I let my RAAAAAGE(tm) run away with me, always a foolish thing to do on the internet. :(

Re: Waitasec...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Don't get too apologetic, cariag. Being Jewish at one time in American history (and in some places, still) makes you equivalent to a "n*****" in the minds of the bigots. So does being Muslim now. Being an immigrant always has, so nothing new there.

And now, so does being LGBT. Especially since the fall of communism, when the Fundies redirected all of their foaming at the mouth at gay men and trans-folk, followed by lesbians (who, to them, must all practice witchcraft). Bisexuals were tossed in during the mid-1990's as an afterthought.

And yes, though I masked that particular odious word, I went there. Because it's very much the truth. America, for all its talk of equality, seems to need some group or groups that it can classify as Sub-Human and attack.