On Morons and Elections, Part I....

I had pretty much decided some time ago to no longer devote time to this blog. I have so many other things to worry about, after all. I need time to work; I have a sick girlfriend who requires a great deal of care; I wasn't making much money with the damned thing, and so it became a pointless exercise in shouting in the wilderness that returned nothing for the energy devoted to it.

I was resigned to turning out the lights and locking the doors, leaving this little patch of cyberspace in much the same state as a Pharaoh's tomb, which is to say, something left undisturbed for centuries until some douchebag with too much curiosity and time on his hands might accidentally find it to plunder it's dank, musty mysteries as he saw fit.

But there's another election coming, and with elections, you can always count upon three things happening:

1. The morons come out of the woodwork.

2. The morons need to be put in their place.

3. I am, by nature, unable to resist putting morons in their place.

Douchebag of the Week (12/13/13): John Boehner...

We haven't handed out many DOW awards recently, what with the only possible winner being our President it hardly seemed worth the effort, but yesterday was a different story.

For yesterday, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner did something so fantastically stupid that it almost vies for the top spot on the Douchiest Things Any Human Being Could EVER Do In Order To Be Considered The Biggest Douche In The Universe List.

The Circular Firing Squad...

Darwin was wrong.

The idea that living organisms evolve in order to take advantage of the circumstances of their environment, and adapt to changing conditions in order to assure the survival of the species, is belied by the existence of a certain subsection of the American electorate which is apparently so stupid and so stubborn that they are doing everything in their power to ensure their own disappearance.

And in the process, make life hell for everyone else.

This strange creature, which seemingly has embraced suicide as a strategy, is a certain brand of person who goes by a most deceptive, inaccurate, and self-bestowed appellation.

They call themselves "True Conservatives".

What The Fuck Just Happened?

So, the Election of 2012 has ended, and not in a good way.

Barack Obama has won re-election, a possibility that as little as a week ago seemed remote, nearly impossible, given high unemployment, economic stagnation, crippling national debt, gridlock in the halls of Congress, and an apparently reinvigorated Al'Qaeda on the rampage throughout Northern Africa. There will be much navel gazing today, and for weeks to come, and most of the results will be predictable:

Santorum: "Obama Preferable to Romney..."

Rick Santorum proves that he's a hellaciously petty little asswipe.

Okay, time to shut it down, Ricky. You’ve just proven that you’re not ready for prime time.

This is exactly what happens when you put a smug, Bible-thumping, arrogant little prick with no sense or realization of the depths of his own stupidity front-and-center of your “Conservative” movement. He invariably gets it in his head that if he doesn’t win outright then you deserve the terrible alternative…it’s almost as if God is punishing you for daring to ignore his Holy Message and reject his Most Sacred Messenger.

Rick Santorum, as I’ve said millions of times on this page, is a sanctimonious little dipshit with too high an opinion of himself. The unfortunate thing about American right-wing politics these days, from the point-of-view of this right-winger, is that our party and movements are overflowing with just exactly this sort of pompous asshole who can't win unless they can manage to tear everyone else down.

Five Reasons Why Marco Rubio is a Bad Choice for Vice President...

Conventional conservative wisdom, as expressed by the likes of Charles Krauthammer, is that Mitt Romney, having all but sealed the deal in the race to become the GOP presidential candidate, should turn his attention to the subject of who will be his Vice President. Moreover, this same conventional wisdom says that Romney will need to placate Hispanic voters and that this means that he will simply have to select one Marco Rubio Senator-in-Diapers from Florida.

Here are Five Reasons Why Marco Rubio Would be a Bad Choice For Vice President:

Rick Santorum: Morbid Mental Case, and Birth Control, Too...

Andrea Peyser in today's New York Post on Santorum’s weirdness.

If taking a dead child home to cuddle and sing to it doesn't strike you as somewhere between "emotionally overwrought" and "batshit insane" let me know: I want to keep as much distance between you and I as possible.

Don't Jump on That Santorum Bandwagon Just Yet...

With regards to the recent surge of Rick Santorum:

Santorum is the lucky beneficiary of the following fortuitous factors (hey, that's alliteration!), in no particular order:

Oh, Dear God, Make it GO AWAY....

Sarah Palin: I might run in a brokered convention, or something, you betcha, wink, wink.

I am so thoroughly sick of this woman. She makes you wish the moose could shoot back.

You Obviously Must Have Nothing Better To Do?

Governor Christie of New Jersey criticized for flying flags at half-mast for Whitney Houston.

I’m starting to get a little sick and tired of some of these self-righteous douchebags who claim to speak on behalf of others, and then take that feeble power a little too seriously, or let it go to their tiny heads, and make mountains out of molehills. I think they do it mostly for reasons of self-gratification:

Santorum The Apparatchik…

RE: Rick Santorum’s rise in the polls, winning a few caucuses without delegates and the revision of the Iowa Beauty Contest in his favor:

I will not make the argument that Rick Santorum is a bad man, but I will argue that he is a bad candidate for the Presidency.

Wait A Second...When Did Romney Become a Conservative?

I love Ann Coulter. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if it were possible, I would gladly bear her children. Our prospective rugrats would be so exceedingly adorable, so wonderfully smart and sarcastic that they would probably be some of the most dangerous (in an irreverently cutesy kind of vicious way) people to ever walk the face of this great Planet Earth.

Why Conservatives Fear Newt Gingrich...

I used to think I was a Conservative, but that was before I realized what the difference between a Conservative and a Republican really was. This realization didn't just sneak up on me, arriving with one of those "Eureka!" moments where the skies seem to part and thunder echoes across the valley, with the trumpets of angels heralding some great epiphany.

What Newt Meant to Say...

...I think, was that Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to 'save' Medicare basically amounts to cutting out the Middleman without tackling the question of whether it is the proper role of government to provide medical insurance to it's citizens at all.

Medicare is Socialism. This cannot be gainsaid; any attempt to paint it otherwise, to obscure this truth, is cynical and ultimately futile. The government had no business handing out health insurance, just as it had no business in creating a Ponzi-scheme disguised as a retirement plan.

If I understand Rep. Ryan's plan, it will basically 'give' vouchers to seniors so that they may buy insurance on the open market. In the process, the Medicare bureaucracy that sprang up to administer the program would slowly fade away as the "Free Market" (we don't have free markets in this country), through the magic of competition set up a regime of superior care at lower cost, and relieved the Federal Government of the responsibility of having to administer the program itself.

When that happens, you could fire all those useless bureaucrats who are collecting bloated salaries and expecting even more gargantuan retirement benefits, thus 'saving' The System, and relieving the taxpayer of an onerous burden.

The 'reform' would, basically, keep Medicare in place; it would only change the way in which your dose of socialism gets delivered. Your choice: you can take it through a 'voucher' or keep the old anally-injected delivery system. The end result is still the same.

If Medicare is socialism, brought into being by the spirit of Great Society Social Engineering, then, naturally, any reform that keeps the basic premise underlying it alive is still 'social engineering'.

Ryan's plan only makes sense if it is an interim step towards eventually eliminating government interference in the health care market. Otherwise, it's simply a welfare pig in a new shade of lipstick. If the ultimate goal is not to eliminate Medicare altogether, then one has to assume that Ryan's reforms are simply a way in which to make the same old social welfare payments to the same old people, only in a way that conservatives who don't think too deeply (this is a large number, btw) just won't recognize as welfare.

Welfare is bad because it's expensive for the taxpayer to provide it, and it comes with a laundry list of rules, regulations, and other government 'interference' with the rights of the individual. The government enacts these rules and regulations in order to influence certain behavior, and many of the behaviors government is encouraging are often morally questionable and an assault upon Constitutional Rights...

...unless a conservative gets to make the rules and regulations and encourage the behaviors they want to encourage, and then it becomes a 'reform of a badly-flawed and bankrupt system'. Newt is essentially correct in his assertion that Ryan's Plan, at first blush, is right-wing social engineering, just as much as the current system is the result of left-wing social engineering.

The solution is to have no government-run medical insurance scheme whatsoever. However, this would deprive politicians and bureaucrats of either political stripe the ability to interfere with your life in ever-more esoteric and subtle ways.

I really believe that Rep. Ryan wants to cut 6 trillion bucks out of the National Debt and realizes that the process is going to be painful for some, and certainly cause tremendous uproar in these United States, and so he thinks to cushion the blows through gradualism. 'Privatization', though, is a conservative buzzword for keeping the basic structure of entitlements -- i.e. handing out tax payer money, mostly to people who don't pay much in taxes -- while making sure the money ultimately finds it's way to Big Business through the magic of the 'Free Market'. It doesn't matter if you call it a 'voucher system' or a 'government check', it's still the same thing; a direct subsidy to the insurance industry, only under Ryan's plan, it passses through fewer hands.

It's still welfare, though. A True Free Market solution would be to let people have to fend for themselves, and those who can't or won't, will simply have to suffer the consequences of their laziness and short-sightedness. But then Rachel Maddow calls you nasty names on (P)MSNBC,and you have to contnue to defend and explain yourself, and the whole thing gets rather tiring and annoying. Better to go the incrementalist route, and just rebrand the whole thing.

It's not the conservative's (small 'c' intentional) job to 'reform' fundamentally-flawed programs so that they merely cost less; it's to eliminate fundamentally-flawed programs that cost too much, run contrary to American Constitutional principles and which infringe upon the Individual's Rights. Any system which eliminates the aspect of Moral Hazard or repsonsibility on the part of the recipient is also bad juju.

Now that sort of reform  -- blowing the thing up entirely, and putting the responsibility for your own welfare back onto the individual -- would be a true conservative solution to many of the problems we face today, but since there are no more true conservatives (and the ones who usually claim that mantle are more concerned with the Afterlife than they are with this one, so they don't really count), don't expect to ever see it happen.

Newt's real sin in this case was not so much to criticize Ryan for not going far enough, it was to provide the Other Side with a soundbite that's going to be pinned to every GOP-wannabe between now and 2012. And that douche who confronted Newt over his comment in Iowa is exactly the sort of 'conservative' I'd like to see tarred and feathered; he's worried about tactics at the expense of grand strategy, and how it plays in the Press.

Propaganda, it seems, still takes precedence over prudence in American Politics, unfortunately.

And that's really troubling, because Newt's supposed to be the smartest guy in the room, and he should have known this when he made the comment.

Even if you gave the democrats (small 'd' intentional) the opportunity to say "Even Newt Gingrich is against this..." it doesn't change the crux of the issue, which is:

How can you justify the contiunued existance of an unconstitutional, super-expensive, super-intrusive, flawed, destructive, out-of-control, politically-manipulated Entitlement Program which has cost far more than was ever envisioned, provides fewer services, and is rife with fraud, waste and abuse, in a day-and-age of $14 trillion dollar National Debts, high rates of unemployment and shrinking tax bases?

The only response available to democrats on this question is a simple appeal to emotion and class warfare, their stocks-in-trade. Any conservative worth his salt should easily be able to defeat emotion and class-warfare with reason, logic and The Constitution. If you, as a conservative, are worried that Newt's response gave the dems 'ammunition', you're worried about people armed with water pistols and slingshots, while we have Stealth Bombers and Atomic Bombs.

You have to utter but one sentence to kill any democratic objection that Ryan's Plan, or any other reform of Entitlements, are 'cruel', 'mean', or 'will throw Grandma out into the street":

"Keeping the system as-is requires huge tax increases, and more power vested in Washington. That formula has worked so well up to now, hasn't it?"

'Nuff said.

Update: Corrected a minor spelling error. Apologies!

Newt Is In...

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About Egypt...

For over a week now, my television screen has been poisoned by the pictures of tens of thousands of Egyptians in the streets of Cairo demanding the removal of their President-for-Life, Hosni Mubarak. If there's a silver lining in this particular set of Muslims-rioting-in-the-streets footage, it is this: at least I haven't had to look at or listen to President Marriot-Suites 500 times a day (again) making the case that Reparations-for-Slavery-Disguised-as-Wise-Economic-Policy has been an absolute godsend for the American people.

(I watched some of that much-vaunted Bill O'Reilly vs. Barack Obama interview prior to the Super Bowl, and I will say this about it: Obama hasn't any real core principles. He simply says whatever he thinks he needs to say at any given moment. That has been obvious for the last three years to anyone with basic brainstem functions, so it wasn't as if O'Reilly got anything new out of him, and if it wasn't already crystal clear to you before, it should be after yesterday's tour-de-force of bullshit: Barack Obama has no answers to whatever question or problem is put before him).

What is happening in Egypt at the moment was, up to a point, entirely predictable. Which is why our government, press, intelligence and diplomatic services all seem to have been taken by surprise. Even the dumbest people on this planet, given time, will eventually get fed up with some situation and then decide to do something about it, even if they're not quite certain as to what they're pissed about, or what to do about it. I'm not going to pontificate on whether or not Mubarak is a prince amongst Men, or the worst sort of douchebag, because I have no first-hand experience, and because I know that at least 80% of what passes for information on the nightly newscast is someone's opinion, rather than facts. Mubarak's record, so far as I'm concerned, is not germane to the argument I'm about to make. I'm fairly sure that given the mold from which the typical Middle Eastern potentate is cast, he's probably the second-biggest Dick in the Universe, it being a toss-up as to whether Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Micheal Bloomberg deserves that title.

Egyptians are fed up with slowly starving to death. They are fed up with a country that is a police state in all but name. They have tired of a President who's appearance of a democratically-elected term of Office seems to have run nearly one third of his lifespan. He's an old man, now, which in the rough-and-tumble of what passes for politics in that part of the world, makes him vulnerable. Like the aged jackal which can no longer hunt or scavenge and which becomes vulnerable to the hyenas all around it. Yeah, yeah, spare me thee-mails; I did just compare the entire population of the Middle East to predatory canines. It fits. They certainly smell like offal-scavenging, predatory canines.

Anywhoo, the one thing that becomes painfully clear to anyone who is watching and paying attention is that despite all the lip-service being paid to "democracy" by some of those protesters, it's that no one in Egypt actually knows what democracy is, and it's even more apparent that no in in the White House knows what it is, either. So, all you talking heads on television can shut the fuck up about whether Obama makes a "powerful" statement in support of the Egyptian "democracy" movement. For a start, no such movement exists (more on this in a second), and secondly, because Obama talks so much that no one actually gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about anything he has to say. There is no "statement" -- "powerful" or not -- that does any good in this situation. More than anything, the moment requires action more than grand elocution, and when it comes to action, well, that's not Obama's strong suit; he's not a doer.

And his elocutions are usually written by somebody else, too.

As to what actions I would take -- since I've opened my mouth -- you don't want to know what I would do. Suffice to say, the only way you'd ever be able to know there was such a place as Egypt when I was done, would be a visit to a museum. The same for Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, et. al. But, I digress.

For those of you who are beginning to buy the "democratic movement arises in Egypt" theme the American Press so fervently hopes to spin you with no actual facts to back that assertion up, I say this: you are engaged in wishful thinking, for there can be no democracy -- as we would understand it -- in the Middle East. There are no democratic institutions, for a start, and they could not be magically created overnight (see: Iraq). Sure, Egyptians could vote, but that's not the same thing. Purple fingers do not a democracy make, despite what George W. Bush and Barack Obama have told us. In fact, if given the chance to vote in fair, democratic elections, Egyptians are likely to do what the Palestinians and Lebanese have done, and....vote for the Terrorists and Islamonazis amongst them.

It's predictable. It's inevitable. It's what their culture compels them to do, because they don't know any better. When the smoke clears, and Mubarak and the other despots in the region who are also under threat from this nascent "freedom movement" are gone, we're likely to see even worse forms of government arise. "The Shah always falls", the saying goes, and what usually follows him is likely to be our worst nightmare. That part is always unspoken.

When someone speaks of "democracy" in the Middle East, what they're really talking about is the means by which people will willingly vote to destroy any vestiges, or possibility, of Freedom. At the moment, all the talk about "Freedom" in Egypt is little more than people using this month's new buzzword. A society which has no history of Freedom, which has gone from Pharaohs, to Caliphates, to Foreign Occupation, to Presidents-for-Life, all of it overshadowed by the threat of force, is a land totally devoid of even the simplest idea of what freedom is.

Primarily, Freedom is the ability to ask the simplest of questions -- Why? -- without getting a less-than-social visit from the Death Squads, Gestapo, or Clerical Authority intent on stamping out heresy. Heresy, in this case, being not strictly limited in it's scope to strictly religious subjects. In a place where it is illegal, perhaps even deadly, to question secular authority as well as religious, Freedom cannot exist. The foundation of Freedom is that ability to ask "Why?", and then get an answer from an authority which is compelled by force of Custom and Law to provide an answer that doesn't involve firing squads or false confessions signed under threat of continued beatings in a dank basement cell.

A very interesting aspect of this whole "What Happens in Egypt Now?" drama being played out on the television is the differences in point of view between so called Conservatives and so-called Liberals. The ersatz-Conservatives worry about "what comes next", while the ersatz-Liberals openly question why their Great Man of History, Barack Obama, has been relatively silent. The differences are mainly between people who;

a) wish to convince us that they're intellectuals, in all ways smarter than we,

b) wish to give the appearance of substance to their act of pretending to be intellectuals

And in neither case does either side come close to accomplishing their goal.

For Conservatives, the question "What Happens in Egypt Now", revolves around a binary star of Right-Wing bugaboos; the fate of Israel, and the need to prove that George W. Bush was right, all along. The Israel question is a difficult one, because it requires that a Right-Wing intellectual balance his Reason while never telling the truth about his real attachment to Israel. On the one hand, he has to argue that Israel is a Western-style, pluralistic society in a region where no others exist, and that on that basis it is the task of the United States to do everything in it's power to protect and support such a state, because in so doing, we live up to our ideals about freedom. Intellectually, this is a powerful argument, and in my opinion, absolutely true.

However, there is a strong element in American Right-Wing politics which sees Israel not so much as a democratic flower in a desert of despotism, as much as it sees in Israel the fulfillment of God's Prophecy, for without the State of Israel to build that Third Temple, the primary requirement for the Rapture cannot occur, and these religious idiots will be stuck here on Earth with all us sinners for eternity. For them, the preservation of Israel is a means by which to bring about Armageddon. Any threat to Israel threatens to delay what God hath ordained. They can't come out and say it, because these are largely the same people who decry the Islamic Theocratic states, and people in glass houses, etc, etc. It's why Mike Huckabee broadcast his weekly dreck from Israel this weekend, you know, when there was apparently no reason to do so (guess who is running for the GOP nomination in 2012, and just burnished his Godbot credentials on the backs of Egyptian protesters?)

Conservatives have a third reason for giving a turd about what happens to the sandy little buttholes in Egypt, too. This has to do with proving the point that George W. Bush was essentially correct without having to tell the truth about how half-assed his efforts truly were, that the Reverse Domino Theory (topple Saddam Hussein, watch the entire Middle East go democratic) works, and that The War, it's expense and it's sacrifices, Guantanamo, Renditions, all of it, was justified; we were on the side of the Angels all along -- even if we didn't find WMD's or direct links between Saddam and Al'Qaeda. The end result of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq would automatically be Democracy, and "stability", and therefore, less terrorism, more Freedom (vaguely defined) and more commerce. What Conservatives of this ilk never tell you, though, is that so far as they're concerned, "Stability" means nothing more than the free flow of Middle Eastern oil to Western Industry. If you've ever needed proof that even fire-breathing-Freedom-for-Everyone Conservatives will deal with the Devil, here's a short list of them: The House of Saud, The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, The Jordanian Monarchy, Hosni Mubarak.

"Stability" (meaning there is no "trouble") often trumps the call to Freedom, it seems.

For Liberals, the question of "What Happens in Egypt Now" is more about what their self-described Elitist figures of the Mentally-Deranged Cult of Personality do and say. Appearances are always more important than substance in Left-Wing Circles, which is why a great many Liberal Flapping Rectums on the Idiot Box have been gravely disappointed with Obama on this issue. Where are the grand pronouncements from the Oval Office? Why hasn't there been a U.N. Resolution condemning this, but supporting that, and making it perfectly clear that while it apears as if somebody is being admonished and someone is being praised, no one is really taking sides? Where is the Shuttle Diplomacy between Washington and Geneva? Where are the grand-but-empty gestures of Treaties, and Memos and White Papers?

Where are the Kennedyesque, Cuban-Missile-Crisis-Quality, dramatic black-and-White photos of Obama in the White House Situation Room, surrounded by grave-faced dolts who have even less of a clue than he does, passing papers, looking all stern and concerned and Statesmanlike, feverishly "working" to solve a problem they neither understand, or have any workable solution to.

Great Men of History do these things. Whether they achieve anything of consequence is besides the point; they at least have the appearance of Great Men of History, with all the suitable backdrops -- the White House, the U.N. General Assembly Hall, the huddled masses of useless diplomats and sycophantic journalists enthralled by the oratory pearls of a Man Who Speaks Much But Says Little. They go through the motions, only with Drama, and most of that has to be manufactured for strictly domestic consumption.

Liberals don't actually expect Obama to be able to do anything (doing requires action, and ultimately, responsibility, neither quality is in Obama's, nor in the Libtard's in general, character, for that matter), but they wish to be seen as being effective, as being strong, capable, smart, on top of things, when the truth is that they're really just pretending.

Neither Liberals or Conservatives has an answer for Egypt, primarily because they don't understand, or cannot admit to themselves, the reasons why what has happened has happened. Egyptians are dissatisfied with their lot in life, as people usually are, and what they are crying and bleeding for in the streets of Cairo (just as they did in the streets of Tehran, Beirut, and Damascus) is that they at least want to have the opportunity to choose which demented douchebag inflicts their misery upon them, whether despotic secular or despotic clerical, or a combination of both. This is not, strictly speaking, democracy.

The answer both Libtards and Godbots come up with is essentially the same: a newer, kindlier-and-gentler version of the White Man's Burden, in which "enlightened" Westerners gently nudge (on the one hand with bombs and infantrymen, on the other with grand-but-empty gestures and words) our Islamic-nutjob-retarded-cousins in the "right" direction. Both sides ignore the real problem because the means by which it can be solved is too terrible to contemplate and leaves too many open questions which our so-called Elites cannot answer; how does one change an entire culture?

Because that is the real problem. Islamic culture, an oxymoron if ever there was one, is like a disease. Terrorists and despots are merely the visible signs of it, the pustules or the bad rash that occurs upon infection. The Terminal Phase of this affliction begins with shouts in the streets and ends with airliners being plowed into office buildings. One side believes the disease can be dealt with by simple comparison and learning lessons from with the West and calls to reason, and the other believes that it can be cured with good intentions, greeting card slogans, and dreams of Rainbows, Pixie Dust and Purple Unicorns.

Ultimately, the best solution lies in something far more sinister and destructive, which is a Pan-Islamic Asswhipping followed by a 200-year Cultural Enema, delivered by a strong, untied, and determined West. George W. Bush was correct in this assumption, but he didn't follow through and make his War on Terror a Terrible War, which might have begun the process of radically changing Islamic culture (just ask Japan and Nazi Germany how that worked out for them in the long run). Neither side in this Great Debate has to courage or the intellectual honesty to speak that truth, or even to acknowledge it, because in so doing they both trip all over their most cherished dogmatic beliefs, and would have to, necessarily, reveal their true motivations.

Whatever happens in Egypt is none of our business, insofar as Egyptians have the right to be led astray and given the shaft by anyone they chose. So far as I can see, if the protesters are successful, and Mubarak is chased from office, all they will have accomplished is a choice between Bad and Worse; another dictator-for-life, or another version of the Khomeini Revolution, but they will not have fundamentally altered either the source or the severity of the cancer which eats away at them. They will not have changed themselves or their culture.

When the American punditocracy (a.k.a The Flapping Rectums) asks the question in another decade, "Who Lost Egypt?", the first people they'll look to blame will be the American political class, but the real culprits will have been the Egyptians themselves.

Personally, I hope they all turn on each other and spend the rest of the century killing one another (their only real talent), because it saves us the trouble of having to do it ourselves. However, if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen from time to time) and there is a glimmer of hope that what is now happening in Egypt can evolve into something approaching a true democratic nation, then by all means, let it happen. Stay out of it. We can't do it for them; they have to figure this out -- and even perhaps fight it out --for themselves.

Yet Another Reason Why I'm Not A Conservative Anymore...

A new storm is brewing between the Tea Parties and the Taliban wing of the American Right. This one is between social conservatives who believed that Christine O'Donnell was an absolutely fantastic candidate who should have been elevated to Queen of the Galaxy, and the Middle-of-the-Road Conservatives who feel that winning elections and putting forth workable policies are more important than expressions of Religious faith.

This little catfight began over accusations that Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, unfairly criticized O'Donnell, and that this may have helped her lose her Senate bid to a "bearded Marxist" in Delaware. The same lament you always hear when a"Real Conservative" loses reprises: we coulda/shoulda/woulda won, if it hadn't had been for those (pick one) RINOs/Rockefeller Republicans/Northeast Liberal Repubs/Country Club Republicans who stood in our way.

You can read about the extremely petty -- and retarded -- origins of this brouhaha here and here. As if Chris Christie wasn't already a target of the Left (what with the Attorney General investigating his five-year-old travel vouchers), now he has a bullseye on his back, courtesy of the Insane Right.

Money Quote:

"When you start seeing people like Chris Christie being attacked for not being conservative enough, you know that the right is in danger of going off the rails. Or at least some parts of it."

This invariably begins the quadrennial pissing contest called "The Who's More Conservative than Whom Sweepstakes" which will dominate the lead-up to, and much of, the 2012 Republican primaries.

The sad part is that none of this has anything to do with Conservatism; it's really all about religion. When one of the chest-beaters on the Right says that he or she, or someone they support, is "more conservative than _____", what they really mean is that person is a candidate who loudly, and proudly, proclaims their Christianity. And not just any old Christianity, either; you almost never hear of this "Real Conservative" tag being placed upon a Roman Catholic (O'Donnell somehow managed this feat), or a Lutheran, for example. Born-Again's, Evangelicals of all Stripes, Baptists, those are the "Real" Conservatives, you see.

For these folks, Conservatism is not a political philosophy; it is a tribal affiliation, a way of designating which brand of religious insanity they ascribe to. For people like this, religion is not a personal matter of faith, it's a driving impulse -- perhaps even THE only motivating factor in their lives. Their faith gives them a purpose, while simultaneously blinding them to reality. Then again, that's what faith really is, anyways; the willful suspension of truth or logic.

Anyhow, these folks get involved in politics for the following reasons;

a. They want the government to use the force of law to impose their morality to upon others. This, coincidentally, is what the worst Libtards also want, so the extremes of both parties have more in common than they can ever admit to. One side seeks to reorder the planet according to their tastes, and the others according to the command of God. Both lead to a loss of freedom for the greater mass of us here in the middle, but we don't really matter. In the great battle between a fake-intellectuals personal opinions and the Word of God (which must be true because someone took the trouble to write them all down, you see), we normal folks don't count for shit.


b. They support Israel, since the very existence of the Jewish State is a prime requisite for the Coming of the End of Days. Therefore, the American government must be full of people who either believe in the same prophecy, or at least, support the right of Israel to exist. This is the ultimate goal of every red-blooded Evangelical in America: to help bring the Rapture about, and then to survive it. From what I gather, some say that you get to survive the Rapture (be taken into Heaven) on a system of brownie points, and "helping" God to bring Her prophecy to pass is somehow worth something in that regard.

Of course, mankind thinking it can "help" God, or force Her hand into launching the Day of Judgement before She's ready, is both stupid and arrogant...then again, so is believing in an invisible spirit in the sky that used to talk to people, but who now somehow needs classic Redneck Caricatures who beg for money to be Her spokespeople. I'm sure the Israelis are absolutely thrilled to know that the support of American Conservatives stems largely from a prophecy in which the Jews will ultimately be destroyed for being Apostates. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me, too.

c. They want the gays dead, and if they can't have that, they'll at least settle for seeing them begging for salvation and forgiveness from the Terrible Retribution of the Lord Our God; you know, the one who loves everyone and has an infinite capacity for mercy and justice? The one who is supposed to be everywhere and all-knowing, but must have been off having a crap when Eve was being tempted by a snake, or making a sandwich when Cain killed Abel, and maybe answering the doorbell when Lot's daughters were raping their Dad, and demanding that Abraham kill his own son...just to test him.

Anyhow, the very existence of homosexuals drives these people batshit insane. Mostly because a good many of them are in the closet themselves, or feel some sort of ambivalence about their own private parts, or even anxieties about sex -- after all, they've been trained to regard their genitalia as the source of all evil in the world. That's when they haven't "Found Jesus" because it was cheaper than psychiatrists, and demanded less effort than a 12-step program. People who go this full-bore religiously are probably insane to begin with (see; Taliban, Jim Jones). Most of the Born-Agains/Evangelicals I know were absolutely terrible people (criminals, drug addicts, basket cases) before someone persuaded them that praying to something that doesn't exist was the cure for all that ails them.

It's hard to take people who take that kind of thinking seriously, seriously.

If the fight over who is the republican nominee in 2012 devolves into this sort of fratricidal infighting over who's "more Conservative" (i.e. who is a bigger church-going douchebag), then we're sunk. The great thing about the Tea Parties in 2010 was that, unlike past generations of Conservative Activism, they weren't dominated by assholes entitled "Reverend". The Tea Parties respected people of faith, but their agenda is firmly rooted in the Here-and-Now instead of the Hereafter. Concern over High Taxes, Government spending, Micro-management of our lives, the abuses of power by the powerful, those were the themes of the Tea Party...not the Ten Commandments, Prayer in School, or Abortion.

And they swept 65 republicans into the House, and seven into the Senate, not to mention taking Statehouses and Governorships all over the country, with a REAL CONSERVATIVE AGENDA, and nary a hint of Evangelical Orthodoxy to be seen or heard.


That's what really at issue here in these battles between different sects of conservatism. The greatest fear of the God, Guns and Gays coalition is that a Conservatism based on Logic, based upon what Is Possible Within the Scope of Government, will marginalize them. They fear being made irrelevant to the process, which right now, they dominate; you can't get elected Dog Catcher on the GOP ticket in some places without a pilgrimage to Bob Jones University, let alone win a national primary. We're about to see if the Great Middle, having successfully pushed back against the Far Left, can now push back against the Far (-out) Right.

This little teapot tempest is just the first shot fired in that battle. Christie just happens to be the first target.

That Didn't Take Very Long, Did It?

In response to this post, I got the usual diatribe about the difference between "REAL Conservatives" and RINOs ("Republican-in-name-only"). The writer, who was such a cowardly little bastard that he/she responded Anonymously (they all do, you know), made reference to my oft-repeated opinion that, for some, "conservatism" means only holding to a very narrow interpretation of Scripture-approved axioms, particularly when it comes to the topic of homosexuals.

I needed to be taken to the woodshed and educated on just why this small-but-vocal wing of the republican party was right. They always are, you know (smell that? It was sarcasm).

"God Hates Fags" this brave Bible Warrior assures me, making certain that I got the message by conveying it in bold italics with seven exclamation points, and two useless verses of Scripture to back it up (one predictable mental defect in these people is that they can always be counted upon to quote a verse which is often totally divorced from the topic at hand, and presented to you as unshakable truth. It's almost as if by reciting the Good Book word-for-word, in any context, the argument is supposed to be over, and they've won it, you fucking Heathen!).

God doesn't "Hate Fags" if only because:

a. God doesn't exist.

b. If She did exist, then you would have to admit that she created Fags, and in Her image, too. She also created people who can decide that blowing up supermarkets and turning passenger planes into WMD's is legitimate political discourse. She's created headhunters, child molesters, robber barons and Nazis, too. The idea that God is a benevolent force that can do no wrong and is possessed of an infinite ability to love is belied by the fact that She also created Ebola, Cancer, Malaria, and bears some moral responsibility for the "Jersey Shore". God as the ultimate force for good and justice in the universe is a human invention. An omnipotent and omniscient God devoted to the cause of good would not have produced the world we live in, with war, the more disgusting aspects of human nature, disease, natural disasters, and the often-contradictory and violent natures of our religion and politics.

And the idea that God gave Man free will to disobey Her by conscious action is one that has long outlived it's usefulness. Manipulating guilt is one of the tools used Communists and Socialists to come to power and excuse the worst of abuses, you know.

The God of the Old Testament (you know, the one that flooded the planet, destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, tormented Job, and tried to keep Adam and Eve from gaining wisdom?) bears no resemblance to the God of the New Testament. That Old God was all "Thou shall not" this and "I will smite thee" that, and the New-and-Improved version was all "turn the other cheek and love they neighbor". Either God mellowed, someone is laboring under some serious misunderstandings, or the whole thing is being made up as we go along, and fags are (one of many groups) suffering for it.

c. Someone has to enforce the unwritten "No White After Labor Day" rule.

Spare me, please.

There are no more "real conservatives", and the word -- much like it's counterpart "liberal" -- no longer means what it once did. In the past, a conservative was one who espoused Classically Liberal ideals about personal freedom and the role of government in securing innate human rights. Now the term has been hijacked to encompass a movement which is less dedicated to personal rights as much as it is to imposing it's own belief system upon others for it's own (mental) comfort.

These people are the "Base" of the modern Right, much like the libertines and welfare queens are the base of the Modern Left, and they're angry about Tea Parties and such. While they most certainly agree with the anti-Tax/Anti-corruption thrust of the Tea Party, they often can't square that with their requirement that everyone think and behave and believe as they do. Muslims claim that there will be no peace on the earth until the four corners of the world are under the thumb of the Caliphate, and so do the Christian FundaMENTALists; they just happen to think their version of the Caliphate is better. Both are aiming at the same goal (imposing their worldview on a great mass of people who don't agree with it),only by different means: the Islamofascists use violence, the Pantybunched Right uses electoral politics.

And when neither gets it's way, they throw a tantrum.

The Tea Parties and Anti-incumbent movements aren't about conservative and liberal, and certainly not about God; they are about what is Right and Legal, and what the proper relationship between citizen and government is. The second you inject God -- and what you arrogantly believe She thinks -- into the conversation, you've lost the battle because it's really all about we mortal men. This movement respects God, but doesn't look to Her for all it's answers, and that drives you absolutely batshit insane. You're afraid that any movement which does not kiss your ass, or play by your rules, is one that will ultimately displace or perhaps even destroy you.

So much so that you can write "God Hates Fags" and not notice the logical contradictions between that statement and the very religious beliefs you claim to espouse.

What's Wrong With The Establishment?

The Closet Conservative asks "WTF is Going On With Krauthammer"?

Here's your answer:

People like Rove, Krauthammer and Peggy Noonan (who all swore that Obama was a moderate, or would be reined in by the realities of governance) are really no different than the "liberals" ("libertines") they rail against.

They went to the same schools, have similar backgrounds and experiences, attend the same cocktail parties, belong to the same Country Clubs, have the same friends, and the same thought process; Their hope is that all the problems of this country can be solved by throwing someone else's money at them -- only a "conservative" believes he can do it cheaper so as to provide a moral basis under which he may keep more of his own. Liberals hide their own miserly ways by transferring responsibility for paying for anything by evoking the collective (i.e. "The Government", "Society", etc.).

The major differences revolve around their own peculiar mental constipations; the Libtards still find the struggle for Socialism to be a romantic pastime, the Old Guard R's are still fighting the Cold War. One side wants to relive the Age of Aquarius, the other pines for a lost vision of an America that never really existed except in a Norman Rockwell painting. Both are out to tell you how you should live, and how you may thank them for overpaying for the privilege of their enlightened guidance.

Both Establishment Republican and Democrat are deathly afraid of the prospect of having to work for a living like everyone else, or worse, of being in a position where they will have to actually live with the consequences of all the things they've advocated (or legislatively enacted) for everyone else. That's when they aren't in mortal fear of being exposed (and prosecuted) for the retarded crooks most of them truly are.

In between this Scylla and Charybdis is the greater mass of the American public which is tired of being lectured to and robbed blind by both sides. Sarah Palin is not so much a leader of this force as much she is an opportunist; She has identified the need this mass has for a visible face, and taken advantage of it. I don't dislike her -- I used to cream, figuratively, over her -- but now I wouldn't follow her through my own front door, even if I agree with her 90% of the time. Her "success" is less about HER (and her supposed political skills) and more about US.

Voting anti -establishment pisses these folks off because the party apparatus has much (other-people's) money invested in them. The purpose of getting elected has become an exercise not so much in responsible governance, but in how to use the levers of power to dole out patronage, or to try to enact policies that will affect the actions and behaviors of the masses in a way that's favorable to oneself and his confederates. And shareholders (i.e. campaign contributors).

A few loose threads:

* On John McCain: he lost because he was a Bad Candidate who couldn't beat an empty suit that gave Good Speeches. When McCain should have shown Leadership, he opted for Drama instead, before pulling a reverse-Kerry on TARP ("I voted against it before I voted for it"). Palin was not going to "save" him, and her only contribution was to make McCain look like an idiot for choosing someone so obviously Not-Ready-for-Primetime. Not that this mattered so much to the Other Side, did it? McCain made the choice easy with his scattershot theatrics and inability to adequately identify and explain the problems of the day in way that gave him an aura of command.

John McCain looked like a doddering, clueless old man, and so he stampeded the independents into Barack Obama's camp. They took a flier on "Hope!" instead of "Duh!"

* I loved GWB, but he was only elected because he uttered "Jesus is my favorite political philosopher", and then re-elected because the thought of another 9/11 with Kerry/Edwards in charge was too terrible to contemplate. If Bush -- father and son -- was a "real" conservative, you'd never know it.


* On the term "RINO": It refers specifically in "conservative" circles to people who don't espouse the complete "God-Guns-and-Gays" agenda of the Pantybunched Right. Rudy Guiliani was far more conservative than both Bushes put together, and he could never make it through a Republican presidential primary. You can be a fiscally-responsible, law-and-order, pro-growth republican, but if you don't promise to frogmarch gays to the ovens, execute the abortionists and put prayer back in the public schools, then you're a RINO.

But now the people WANT an Army of Guilianis, and this frightens the Establishment on both sides. They're not inclined to vote social issues right now, and this threatens Rove's/Kruathammer's/Noonan's ricebowl, as well as discrediting the Religious Right/Recipient-Class Left coalitions that these people have spent the last 30 years assembling, talking up -- and milking for a living.

Buchannan: McCain Won By Being A Douche...

Who knew Pat Buchannan was still alive? Who the fuck taught him how to use a computer? When does he go back on his meds?

Pasty wails today about the unseemly electoral tactics of John McCain in his defeat of The Joker-Look-Alike Contest Runner-Up, J.D. Hayworth.

A few quibbles, if I may, Mr. Buchanan:

1. J.D. Hayworth is not an "authentic" anything, let alone conservative. His kind of "conservatism" is a tribal affiliation, little more than the wearing of gang colors. Then again, neither is McCain a conservative. In the race between neither-really-a-conservative "Douchebag" and "Shit Sandwich", the people of Arizona chose "Douchebag" as the lesser of two evils. This, unfortunately, is the state of American electoral democracy today. In a perfect world, neither man would have been on the ballot. Why don't you write something about that tragedy, Patsy?

2. In the Obama-McCain race of 2008, I don't recall you being quite so critical of McCain, except for your appearances on MSNBC as resident-curmudgeon-in-chief, where there's a check involved, I imagine. In your own personal dilemma of Douchebag-vs-Shit-Sandwich-and-which-do-I-criticize-more-on-TV, you grudgingly supported Douchebag McCain too, if only because to do otherwise would have been a tacit approval of Obama.

3. Don't suddenly get bent out of shape because you've just NOW realized that politics is a dirty profession. I suggest that your disgust at the process has less to do with McCain's tactics as much as it does with his victory, because if you could do to a democrap what McCain did too Hayworth, you'd do so with an indecent haste.

4. How is it that someone still pays you for your opinions? You are the Al Sharpton of the Pantybunched Right.

5. This quote is quite puzzling...
　

"But if the GOP takes the advice of its establishment,
and the neocons who seek power to start another war, and walks away from
cultural, social and moral issues, which are far more popular than the party
itself, folks who care about the character of the country and national identity
should walk away from that party, and find outliers who will pick up the banner
and carry it forward..."

...coming, as it does, from one of those very same "establishment" figures in GOP politics, i.e. YOURSELF.

And what the fuck is a "neocon"? Ever since that term has come into common parlance, it seems that it's only possible definition is "a republican that doesn't agree with Me,and just cave to my ridiculous demands", and has been freely used by both the Communism-is-good-Left and the Taliban-Has-Some-Good-Points-Right. If it is, as I take it to mean "a republican who is willing to find common ground and consensus where that is possible, for the common good, even if it means telling the Church Pikers to fuck off", then this makes a nonsense of this little bit of stupidity in the very next paragraph;

Americans motivated by causes need to maintain their freedom and independence of both parties, forming what George W. Bush liked to call "alliances of the willing.

This is rich: in one paragraph you denounce the "Neocon" War-starters, and then cite George W. Bush (with whom the term "Neocon" originated), as a shining example of enlightened leadership? Do you even read what you write, anymore, Pat?