In response to my last post, The Undiscovered Country:  Obamaland, which was a snarky fisking of an American Spectator column by former Reagan White House political director Jeff Lord titled Freedom and the View from Obamaland,  I got the following comment from a reader calling him or herself "likelydemented":

An amusing post, Doc, but I think we all know that nobody actually pays any attention to this kind of loopy nonsense. Eric Hoffer has some interesting observations on true believers who base their personal identity on a cause. Hoffer believes that if you take away "conservatism" of someone like Jeff Lord, he ceases to exist. He vanishes. He becomes nothing.

It is always tempting to believe things like this.  But it is also extremely foolish, and dangerous, for liberal/progressives to comfort themselves with fatuous reassurances like "we all know that nobody actually pays any attention to this kind of loopy nonsense".

The particular rant by Lord that I spent most of yesterday morning ridiculing is part and parcel of a coordinated effort by conservative/Republican movers and shakers to get their base energized. Going into 2008, it has been the Rove and Co.'s greatest fear that Republican/conservative corruption, indecency, impropriety, and immorality (especially by accepted conservative standards) had become so brazenly commenplace in the last eight years or so, with so much of it manifesting in ways that the conservative base simply cannot and will not ignore (DeLay, Foley, Craig, etc, etc), that a significant percentage of the normally reliable base will simply stay home from the polls in disgust... or vote for some other candidate than the Republican (probably not the Democrat, no, but maybe some third party crank with a convincing "arrest all the goddam Mexicans and kill all the homos" stump speech).  

Rove has perfected the art of stealing close elections, but the popular vote has to be within 2-3 percentage points for all his tried and true jerrymandering techniques to work. The Republicans' worst nightmare this season is any national election with a 5% or higher spread. Even with everything they can do to keep Dem/progressive voters away from the polls (new ID laws, voter list caging, aggressive, knowingly fraudulent challenges, etc, etc) and everything else they will do to ensure that Dems who do show up either don't get to vote or their votes don't get counted (discarding provisional ballets and absentee ballots in predominantly Dem districts, making sure Dem precincts get too few voting machines, or broken voting machines, or ones that can be easily reprogrammed to show results entirely at odds with the exit polls), none of this will matter if Obama has a big enough lead going in.

So Rove goes to work for Fox News where he can continue to throw red meat to the base from his new vantage point as a 'political analyst' (never identified more accurately as a blatantlyl partisan Republican operative and close adviser to the McCain campaign), and everybody who has ever shilled for a Republican administration gets called on to write op eds and columns anywhere a conservative reader might see them screaming at the tops of their lungs about the horrors of an Obama Administration.

This is why McCain has reversed so many of his more progressive positions in the last several months. Most candidates moves to the center once they've secured the nomination, but McCain's right wing base doesn't like him, so he's had to move hard right to try and secure them, and the Republican noise machine is yapping yapping yapping, trying to get Cletus and Lurlene (and their upper middle class or wealthy analogues) up in arms about how there's a negra runnin for the White House and he's gonna take away yer guns and yer SUVs and let the libruls control yer thermostat, goddamit.

This is also why Obama has very cynically and very calculatedly taken so many positions recently which have offended the extreme left (like myself). He's doing what McCain can't -- moving to the center. In the end, Obama is pretty sure he can count on all of us, however disgruntled we may be about his selling out on FISA and his cheap shots at MoveOn, to vote for him, and if he can pick up a few million moderate and/or undecideds by appearing to be a centrist who is strong on national security concerns, well, that's the ballgame.

David Limbaugh has a column right now over at Townhall.com warning that Obama's recent right swing is a fraud, that he's still a far left progressive and liberal, and that conservatives should not allow themselves to be fooled... if Obama becomes President, he will purge Congress of conservative Democrats, marginalize Republicans and evangelicals for at least a generation, and stack the Supreme Court with liberal judges.

I wish to God I thought he was right... but this is what Republican operatives are going to be dancing and shaking and screaming about from now until November, in hopes they can make their base forget about Mark Foley and Larry Craig.

We liberals tend to want to think that no one is really stupid enough to fall for conservative bullshit like this, but that's our own particular brand of intellectual snobbery. Forty million people voted for Dubya despite the fact that his entire exterior appearance was a fraud, and he'd never managed to accomplish one single thing in his entire life... and in addition to being a weakling, a coward, a man of no character, a liar, a drunk, a doper, and a failure, he was also a cruelly cynical man who got marked pleasure out of executing women and the mentally retarded, childishly mocking such people's pleas to him for mercy.

The conservative/liberal dichotomy can be broken down many ways, but one of the most valid is to say that liberals think about issues, while conservatives feel about them. (That isn't entirely true; many liberals are just as knee jerk reflexive over their own core values as conservatives are about theirs, but at least left wing values tend to be somewhat intellectual, while right wing are always based entirely on emotion.) Conservatives vote their guts; they go for whichever candidate 'feels' best to them.

Right now, the right wing smear machine is working hard to undo all the damage it has done to McCain over the past ten years or so. They've put in a great deal of time and effort making conservatives feel that John McCain is not one of them and can't be trusted, and now they are reaping the whirlwind. So they aren't really focusing on McCain. Instead, they are simply trying to make this election be about which candidate conservative voters will trust less.

Don't ever let yourself think that horseshit like 'the view from Obamaland' doesn't matter. It's not targeted at you. They know YOU ain't gonna vote for McCain.

In fact, they know that very few of those who end up casting a ballot with McCain's name will actually be voting FOR McCain.  McCain is an empty suit, even more so than most Republican Presidential candidates. There is little to recommend him to conservatives; none of the real powers that be in the Republican Party are happy that McCain is their representative... but they are much less happy with the idea of an Obama Presidency, and this is the pitch they are making to conservative voters:  Okay, You Don't Like McCain, But For Christ's Sake, You Better Stop This Goddam Liberal Darkie!

The aforementioned Townhall.com column by David Limbaugh, entitled Obama's Leftist Armies, even opens with the old horror movie tagline -- "Be afraid; be very afraid."

Even Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report has repeatedly closed his recent blog posts with the question "Why would ANYone vote for McCain?"  But Karl Rove's strategy is not to convince people John McCain will make a good President, but simply to terrify them with the prospect that Barack Obama will be an effective liberal one -- which to conservatives translates as, one who will further erode the already intolerably diminished pre-eminence, power, privileges and prosperity of the upper class, the Caucasian,  the Christian, the heterosexual, and the dick-endowed.

A more viable strategy for the Obama campaign than simply attempting to out-Republican McCain on national security concerns might be to try and continually remind conservative voters that John McCain is not somebody they want to trust, or that they really feel good about voting for.  

If the Obama campaign can help the Republican base continually remember just how much they really dislike John McCain, and, for that matter, just how disappointed they have recently been in the party that has given them an unending parade of corruption and sex scandals for the past decade...well, they for damn aren't going to vote for the Magical Negro, but they just might sit the '08 elections out at home in disgust.

If Obama feels he needs to stay above the fray, that's fine.  But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't print up red white and blue McCain/Foley '08:  We Love Our Boys buttons, bumper stickers, and t-shirts and pass them around to our neighbors.  

It's tempting to ignore conservative hacks like Lord and Limbaugh; after all, who's going to listen to idiots like that?  We need to remember -- they aren't talking to us.  And the people they are talking to, are going to pay very close attention indeed.

So I’m sitting at my keyboard and the kids are all out somewhere and my wife is at work and I’m wondering if there’s something I could post over at TPM.  And I can’t think of much.  But I do a little web crawling and find that Jeff Lord, former Reagan White House political director, has apparently been woken early from his afternoon nap and he’s feeling a little pissy about it, too.  At least, I presume that’s the underlying motive for this Special Report over at The American Spectator entitled Freedom and the View From Obamaland, which I will proceed to share with you, Gentle Readers.

Pull back for a moment from the day-to-day and see the pattern.

 

Okay, I’m game.   I’ll pull back from the day to day… er… day to day what?  Never mind, I’m pulling back, I’m pulling back, I’m pulling waaaaaaaaaay baaaaaack… okay, now, what was this about a pattern…?

 

Talk radio. Oil. Guns. Global warming. Smoking.

 

It’s… um… er… I… don’t  SEE a pattern… is this some kind of test, or something…?  Because I always do crappy on those pattern recognition things they make you take to get into MENSA…

On the surface this is a seemingly unconnected laundry list of issues, their connection one to another tangential at best.

 

It… DOES seem that way.  Yes, it does.  How… sinister.

 

Wait.  Talk radio is an issue?  Really?

 

 Or is it?

 

That’s what I’m asking you.  Is it?  I don’t think it is.

 

Oh, wait,  he’s talking about that pattern-whatchamacallit.  The one I can’t see in the seemingly unconnected laundry list of issues.  One of which isn’t an issue.    I mean, unless, you know, subtypes and genres of broadcast media are actually issues, which I don’t think they are.  Well, maybe porn is, for some people… whatever. 

In the increasingly disturbing view we are all getting of the messianic world that is Obamaland,

 

Okay, first, I don’t have any ‘view’ of ‘Obamaland’, because I don’t know what or where ‘Obamaland’ is.  Wait.  Is it that huge supercontinent from pre-history that all the other continents were formed out of?  Oh, no, that’s ‘Gonwandaland’.   So I have no clue what’s up with this ‘Obamaland’ thing, but I will say that the only ‘view’ I’m finding ‘increasingly disturbing’ around here is the one I’m getting of Jeff Lord’s writing style.

 

these subjects in fact have a chilling commonality.

Hold on, hold on, first they’re issues and now they’re subjects.  I’m calling shenanigans. 

* Talk Radio: Think back for a moment to that threatening letter sent earlier this year to Rush Limbaugh's business partners at Clear Channel Communications by Senator Harry Reid, the Democrats' Senate leader.

 

It… what?  Harry Reid is sending threatening letters to Clear Channel Communications?  Holy crap!  If only the author had linked to a copy of that letter, so I could see what it says… wait… here it is… hmmmm… okay, I don’t know, I mean, I’m not a lawyer or a former Reagan White House political director or anything, but doesn’t a ‘threatening letter’ have to actually threaten something?  This letter doesn’t seem to threaten anything.  I mean, I’d say it’s definitely a scolding letter, in that it says Rush Limbaugh is a jerk and he should apologize for insulting our troops over in Iraq, but nowhere does it threaten anything. 

 

 It was signed by all Senate Democrats, prominently including Barack Obama. While Limbaugh famously turned the attempt to intimidate him into a hilarious charity bidding war that raised four million dollars for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, make no mistake.

 

It… I… okay, I won’t.  Thanks for your concern.

 

 The idea behind the letter was an attempt by government officials to intimidate a private citizen into silence. To shut down Limbaugh's freedom to run his radio show the way he sees fit.

 

Okay, I read that letter and it seems to me that it was an attempt by government officials to call a private citizen a jackass without actually calling him a jackass, and to indicate that he should apologize for one particularly offensive example of his typical jackass behavior.   Nowhere does it say anything about, say, putting handcuffs on Limbaugh and leading him off to jail, as fellow conservative mouthpiece Bill O’Reilly wants to do with ‘liberal underminers’, nor does it even advocate killing all conservatives except two for each zoo, so future generations can always remember just how dangerous conservatives are, as Rush himself has advocated for liberals.   

 

Silencing freedom is also the point with the push by Obama supporters to revive the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a move that would effectively shut down the free-market world of talk radio as Americans by the millions have so enthusiastically come to know it.

 

Because, y’know, God forbid racist hate-spewing wanklords like Limbaugh have to provide equal time to opposing viewpoints on their own shows.    I mean, jesus christ, that’s what free speech zones are for!

* SUVs: Remember this gem a while back from Barack Obama?

"We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership."

 

I do remember that, yeah.  That’s one of those reasons I supported Obama so fervently in the primaries.  Damn, I wish he still said cool shit like that.

 

The point is not subtle.

 

God knows that subtlety is not the best policy when attempting to communicate with people like Jeff Lords.

 

Obama is laying the ground work here for the potential banning of SUVs as well as pushing regulations that will tell all of us at exactly what temperatures we must heat or cool our homes.

 

This is, truly, a horror.  It’s way better to just let everyone crank their thermostat as much as they want so we can completely fry our national energy grid and then NOBODY will have any electricity.  Well, except for the rich people with their own generators, for as long as they can afford to buy gas to run them.  That’s much MUCH more fair. 

 

Over at the website BanSUVs.com, an outpost of the type of thinking that prevails in Obamaland, the goal, as the name of their site proclaims is just that: banning SUVs because they are "endangering peoples lives" and are "high polluting."

 

And we must never never never pass laws against things simply because those things kill people or harm the environment.  I mean, what kind of crazy world would THAT be?

 

 The Obama point that we should no longer enjoy the freedom to "keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra" has already emerged as a proposal in California. In this Obamaland vision the state would mandate that every heating and cooling system in a private dwelling include a "non-removable" FM receiver that would allow the government to decide the temperature inside your home.

 

Well, fuck ‘em!  I say we all heat our houses with an open wood fire in every room, and cool ourselves down in the summer by hiring great big Nubian slaves with giant ostrich feathers to fan us.  Or, y’know, Mexicans; they work cheap.  That’ll teach all those goddam bureaucratic control freaks in Obamaland!  Yeah!

* Global Warming: The answer in Obamaland is simple. Not only should there be no further debate ("Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers..." wrote Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman a while back),

 

Okay.

 

the demand is on for a Nuremberg-style trial for oil executives.

 

This is crazy talk.  Oil executives should get Guantanamo-style trials at best.

 

 Applauding the sentiments of climate "scientist" James Hansen, who suggested as much in a recent appearance before Congress, one enthusiastic denizen in the Daily Kos precincts of Obamaland put things more succinctly: "Put the bastards on trial on national television."

 

No, no!  Then they’ll want lawyers and everything.  The Gitmo model works WAY better.

Are you seeing the thread here?

 

Uh… wait.  There’s thread?

If not, there's more of this kind of thing. Also on Obama's list of things he either wants to ban or has considered banning are ammunition magazines, semi-automatic weapons, smoking (to be resolved with a federal ban on smoking in public places) and -- at one now infamous campaign rally -- Muslim women wearing the hijab.

 

I, personally, want to ban, or have considered banning, refried beans,  hand held nuclear glowsticks, morons on the Internet, conservative talk radio hosts, the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage, and all warm weather clothing for good looking women more concealing than a thong bikini.  However, it’s unlikely that I could get such laws through Congress even if I were President, and last I heard, Obama is not running for Supreme Being.  Although what with the new ‘unitary executive’, maybe I’m wrong about all that.

 

The Obama campaign apologized for the latter incident, but the apology only underscores the point. While his staffers may be sensitive to the image of Muslims in the Obama campaign,

 

Fuckers.  I mean, sensitive to the image of Muslims?  That’s intolerable.

 

 they either know or intuit that the idea of restricting the freedom of others is, as a rule, perfectly acceptable in Obamaland.

But not in Conservative Land, where anybody can attend a Bush rally without getting arrested or moved to a free speech zone, and any adult can marry any other adult any time they want to, and adopt a kid, too!  Yay!

 

FOLLOW ALONG NOW to a just-released Obama commercial featuring Obama himself.

 

Jesus I hate Obama commercials that feature Obama himself.  I mean, WTF?

 

Also, why are the first three words of that sentence capitalized, anyway?

 

Doubtless un-intentionally it speaks exactly to what lies at the heart of the philosophical heart of Obamaland.

 

Oh, doubtless.  Doubtless.

 

 Praising himself for spurning a post-Harvard Law School opportunity to work on Wall Street in the heart of free-market capitalism, the candidate boasts of his decision instead to "go to Chicago...helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed." Helping them? Did he go out and raise capital to start a new business that would bring jobs to the neighborhood? Well, no. Job creation through the free market system was not at all what Obama had in mind. What did he have in mind as to how one creates jobs? As Obama himself expressed it in a 1995 interview with the Chicago Reader, Obama wondered if he could "figure out ways to use the political process to create jobs for our communities?"

 

Oh, motherfucker.  Like FDR, you mean?  Commie BASTARD.  It’s not government’s place to create jobs for poor people; it’s government’s place to prop up the financial sector with billion dollar loans while cutting taxes on the wealthy.  Yeah!

 

Still, there is some truth to this particular criticism.  It would have been much better if Obama had borrowed a lot of money, bought some land, and started a big plantation that all the out of work Chicago residents could pick cotton and watermelon on.  That would have been WAY better.

In other words, when faced with a disagreeable problem (in this case the lack of jobs) the answer for Obama always seems to get back to the manipulation of the political process to achieve the desired result.

 

And only Republicans are supposed to do that, goddamit.

Are Obamalanders uncomfortable with the free-market driven success of talk radio?

 

It… I… wait.  Obamalanders?

 

Then they will "figure out ways to use the political process" to shut it down. In the case of talk radio, how else to explain the threatening Reid-Obama letter to Rush Limbaugh's business partner?

 

Um… it wasn’t a threatening letter?  No, that’s too simple.  Space aliens were mind controlling Harry Reid?  Yeah, yeah, that works better.

 

How else does one explain the attempt to retrieve the "Fairness Doctrine" from the dustbin of history?

 

Um… we want every viewpoint to have the opportunity to be heard?  Because, you know, equal opportunity is one of those things that America is supposed to be all about?

 

Nah, that can’t be it.  It must be mind controlling space aliens again.

 

 These are nothing more or less than the "use of the political process" to subvert someone else's freedom. Period.

 

I don’t know.  Maybe there’s a little more to it, if you ‘step back from the day-to-day’ and really look hard at ‘the pattern’. 

 

Are Obamaland followers hostile to oil? Do they hate SUVs? Do they think you have no right to heat or cool your own home beyond what they consider politically correct? Do they think you should pay $5 -- or $6 or $7 or $8 or more -- for gas at the pump to ensure you conform to the Obamaland world-view?

 

I don’t know!  I don’t know!  Please tell me, for the love of God!

 

 Yes, they do think all of this

 

Wow.  Really?  Cool.

 

and their Obamaland answer is inevitable. They will "use the political process" to stop drilling off shore in its tracks.

 

It… but we’re… they… okay, wait.  Off shore drilling is already illegal.  Aren’t conservatives trying to ‘use the political process’ to START off shore drilling?

 

So too with stopping the use of oil shale or ANWR or anything else that even hints at allowing average Americans their basic freedom to drive whatever vehicle wherever they damn well please whenever they damn well please.

 

Which amendment was that again?  I forget. 

 

In Obamaland it is not only perfectly acceptable, it is gospel from the secular bible that they must use the political process to stop refineries from being built, to keep nuclear power plants from being built, to keep coal from being burned.

 

Because clean energy sucks!  Nobody has stock options on it, or anything!

 

Use the political process to forcibly mandate the temperature inside every single American home. As a matter of fact, why not just go all the way and nationalize the oil companies -- this actually being suggested by Obamaland's New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey.

 

Obamaland has Congressmen?  But they’re from New York?  I’m gettin dizzy here.

Tired of debating global warming?

 

Yes, please.

 

Use the political process to set up show-trials for oil company executives.

 

I… okay, that sounds like a good idea, actually…

 

Who will be around to object if you have successfully used the process to silence the world of talk radio?

 

Um… conservative asshats like you?  And, y’know, FOX News?  Plus most of the rest of the ‘mainstream media’…

As we learned in one of his last debates with Mrs. Clinton, presented with the economic fact-of-life that cutting the capital gains tax resulted in increased revenue for the government, not, as he was portraying it, a loss,

 

Wait, I can do this, too… ‘presented with the economic fact of life that cutting the capital gains tax resulted in DEcreased revenue for the government, not, as Jeff Lord was insisting, any kind of gain… See how easy it is to say anything you want, when you don’t have to cite any actual references or anything?

 

 the ringmaster of Obamaland simply shrugged, saying he would raise it anyway because to do anything else was "unfair."

 

Yeah, yeah, more of this ‘fair’ bullshit.  I mean, seriously, WTF.  You’d think he was a Democrat or something.  Or even a liberal.  God DAMN him.

 

 The idea of your having the freedom to do with your money as you please -- even when doing so increases the revenues for Washington politicians to spend -- was simply irrelevant to Obama.

 

Or maybe the idea of having the freedom to do with my money as I please even when doing so increases… wait… what was the middle thing again? 

 

No, your freedom must pass his "fairness test" -- and if it doesn't, well, too bad.

 

This ‘fair’ shit has totally got to go.  I mean, this is stupid!  Nobody was complaining about how unfair it was when the Republicans were running every branch of the government!  Well, no conservatives were, anyway, and liberals are all pussies, so who cares about them?  This sucks.

 

 Your income is going to suffer right along with your freedom to listen to talk radio, drive an SUV, debate global warming, eat what you please, heat your house the way you please or -- the latest Supreme Court decision notwithstanding -- own a gun if you please.

 

Having to care about the consequences of MY actions on OTHER people?  That’s not American! Did we lose a WAR or something?  This sucks!!!

Is there a problem in Obamaland with your constitutional right to own a gun? It's an easy-to-solve problem, as state senate candidate Obama proposed way back in 1996 when he filled out a questionnaire endorsing the idea of, you guessed it, just banning your freedom to own handguns.

Interestingly, when this questionnaire came to light the Obama camp denied their candidate had done this, which prompted the Politico to come up with an amended copy of the questionnaire plainly showing the candidate's own handwriting.

Heh.  Yeah, I figured you'd come up with a link to THAT document pretty frickin' quick.

The Obamaland acolytes say their leader favors the use of guns for hunting and target shooting, but on the issue of handguns -- well -- his stiff response to the 5-4 decision of the Court that insists gun ownership is, in fact, a constitutional right suggests that handguns in Obamaland would go the way of talk radio and oil.

 

That’s right.  Obama says he’s in favor of gun ownership, but you can’t trust THOSE people.  They all lie.  Especially when they’re filling out forms.  They learn how to do that when they’re applying for Welfare. 

 

The first Supreme Court vacancy announcement would have barely made it onto the cable news networks in an Obama Administration before an Obamalander would be named to fill the vacancy on the understanding that at the first opportunity he or she can grandly reverse that 5-4 decision and effectively ban the entire Second Amendment.

 

On the other hand, the first Supreme Court vacancy announcement would have barely made it onto the cable news networks in a McCain Administration before a McCainite would be named to fill the vacancy on the understanding that at the first opportunity he or she can grandly reverse that goddam annoying Roe vs. Wade decision and effectively ban a person’s right to privacy as regards what medical procedures they will or won’t have performed on their own bodies.   Which is way WAY better. .

 

SO LET'S SUM UP what America would look like in an age of Obama.

 

AND LET’S INCORRECTLY CAPITALIZE the first four words of a sentence because we’re kind of retarded, too.

To start there would be no more driving SUVs. No more Rush. For God's sake absolutely no driving your SUV while listening to Rush.

 

But… wait… if there’s no more SUVs, OR Rush, then… I… um… how can you… ::gibbering::

 

No more eating whatever you want.

 

No, goddamit, you will eat what the married gay liberal illegal black Mexicans tell you to eat, and LIKE it!!!  OR ELSE!!!!!

 

 Definitely no keeping your home as warm or as cool as you prefer.

 

But liberals will be able to, because they’re sneaky.  Especially the illegal Mexican liberals. 

 

 No capital gains cuts because they are unfair.

 

Once again, all this fair shit sucks.  This is America.  Rich people have a RIGHT to live in a society that is unfair in their favor. 

 

Your guns will be banned.

 

Or at least semi-automatic rifles that fire explosive rounds will, and god knows you can’t hunt anything without auto fire and explosive rounds.

 

And if you have a different opinion on global warming? All those lofty supporters of rights for terrorists are going to strip every oil executive in America of theirs in a heartbeat, live and in living color.

Which is totally un-American.  Here in the U.S., we only strip people’s rights when nobody is looking.   

Is anyone paying attention here? Today the targets are talk radio, oil, SUVs, or guns or debates on global warming and so on. But what about tomorrow and the day after that and the day and years after that?

 

First they came for the talk radio people, and I did nothing, except blog about it.  Then they came for the oil executives, and I did nothing, except blog about it.  Then they came for the gun nuts, and I did nothing (except hide my guns and blog about it).  Then they came for the people who don’t believe in global warming, and I did nothing, except stop talking about what a farce global warming is while they were in earshot, and blog about it. 

 

Then they came for my SUV, but I’d already traded it for a hybrid, so I laughed at them.

 

When they finally came for me, there was nobody left to help me, except those fucking hippies in the ACLU, who represented me for free and kept them from locking me up, just like all those other people before me.  Goddam I hate the ACLU. 

 

What freedoms will next be targeted with that deadliest trademark of an Obamalander -- moral superiority?

 

Yes.  Moral superiority is even worse than all this ‘fairness’ horse shit.  Conservatives hate people who are morally superior to them.  If only there weren’t so goddam many of them.

 

 What do we have when the sole purpose of the government as run by the chilling principles of Obamaland is to "use the political process" to remove freedoms large and small one by one by one?

I don’t know, I don’t know, please TELL me, please, please!

Someone needs to speak it plainly.

And you’re just the guy to do it.

 

The word is fascism.

 

It… um… okay, wait.  ‘Fascism’ is a word derived from the Italian ‘fasces’, which is a bundle of rods.  Mussolin used this symbol for his political movement, which is where the phrase ‘Fascist’ originates.  The bundle of rods symbolizes the use of force to accomplish political ends.  So, yeah, given that, pretty much any political system that uses force to accomplish its ends is ‘fascism’, absolutely.  Our government is ‘fascist’, yes, indeed.

 

But it’s going to be that way regardless of who wins what office in November, dude.  You just don’t like fascism’s new chocolate flavor, is all.

 

 

Hey, Big Fella,

I realize that for whatever mysterious and inscrutable reasons You may have, You are apparently not into doing any big stuff right now. So I won't trouble you with requests for world peace, or an end to poverty, or getting rid of racial injustice, or wiping out the international arms trade, or any of that big abstract stuff.  Hopefully, You are working on all of that and we can expect good things from You over the coming millenia in these regards.

However, there are some smaller, more minor issues and problem areas down here that, if You have a few minutes, I was wondering if You could look into for me:

** You know that thing You did to the Jim Carey character in LIAR, LIAR, where the smarmy lawyer found it suddenly impossible for him to tell any kind of untruth?  Well, if You could kinda throw that 'cannot lie, must tell the truth no matter what' whammy on everyone who works for the government, especially including Presidential candidates and those who work in their campaigns, that would be sweet.  Also, everyone working for the media.  Also, everyone who works in any capacity for the criminal justice system, or for a collection agency, or in customer service.  That would be swell.

**  It's pretty clear that the people in charge down here don't want me to have my flying car, so if You could have someone up there throw something together, I'd appreciate it.  If You could have whoever You put in charge of the project lean heavily on design elements from the '59 Cadillac El Dorado, that would be perfect.   

While You're at it, a working cold fusion power generator about the size of a suitcase that I could run my household electrical needs off of would be greatly appreciated, too, O Lord.

** Also, as it seems unlikely we're going to get anything like a reasonable health care policy at any point in the future, Lord, if You could kindly refrain from having people get sick or injured, and You could kind of miraculously heal all the people who are currently suffering the ill effects of disease or prior injury, that would be a big help.  I realize that this may seem like a great deal to ask, but a miracle from on high is only slightly less likely than getting any relief from Obama's health care proposals, and a hell of a lot more likely to help than frickin' McCain's.  

** Getting back to politics for a moment, it occurs to me that You could solve a great many of the world's problems by waving Your Hand and making it suddenly early November of 2000 again, except we all remember everything that has happened since then.  Give people a chance to go into that voting booth again knowing exactly how their original decision turned out and You will probably see a markedly different outcome.  And if the U.S. getting an 8 year jump on dealing with global warming isn't enough reason for You, well, think of all the hundreds of thousands of Your Middle Eastern children who won't be dead, maimed, tortured, or otherwised fucked up under an Al Gore Presidency.  I know, I know, supposedly You don't like them as much as You like us, but You'd be helping us out, too, what with us not becoming the nation of lawless detainment, violations of the Geneva Convention, torture of noncombatants, etc, etc..  

Also, I have to assume that whoever Al Gore would put in charge of FEMA would have had to do a better job with that Katrina mess than Brownie, plus, I would imagine Al would have implemented a better plan for dealing with the imminent destruction of New Orleans than playing a fucking guitar on a ranch somewheres.  

Plus, when some NSA employee briefed him from a report entitled "Bin Laden To Strike In US", Gore most likely would have listened and taken some steps, other than ordering his staff to stop flying on commercial airlines.  

Just sayin'.  

**  If You can't let us have a do-over on the 2000 Presidential vote, then maybe You could just get that Rapture thing going?  We'd be going a whole lot better down here if You'd just grab up all those evangelicals and such like and keep them from interfering with the political system.  Also, and I know it's a lot to ask, but if You could make sure you get all those two faced lying sonsofbitches who are constantly talking about Your will and how they know exactly what You want and they're always praying and going to church and ranting about gays and Islamoterrorists and how New York City and LA are the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah and  what not in public, while in private they're doing crystal meth and banging gay hookers or having erotic Internet chats with 16 year old page boys...?  You know the type, I'm sure.  I know, they aren't REALLY Christians, but, honestly, who is these days?  

Okay, well, if there actually are some real, genuine Christians down here, maybe You could leave them, and just Rapture up the hypocrites?  It would be a big help, honest.

If I think of anything else, I'll be sure to let You know, but in the meantime, this list of minor requests should do to be going on with.

Your Fan,

Doc Nebula

What's your silver bullet?

What one thing would you do, were you Supreme Being or simply Commander in Chief, that, above all others, you feel would go furthest and accomplish the most towards achieving an ideal society and/or government of humans here on Earth?

Pragmatically it's a pointless question; it's improbable that any of us are going to be appointed God any time soon, and most likely the press would just make fun of our hair if any of us tried to run for President. 

But it's a useful question regardless, because it underscores what I think is the fundamental problem with government, any government... we tend to expect too much of it.

Well, America really is unique in human history, and in human social/political evolution. And I think that uniqueness comes largely from the fact that the American founding fathers had a previously unheard of political insight -- that wisdom is an individual attribute, one that is rarely or never found in groups of humans.

Whether people are aware of it or not, what they hunger and thirst for when they think of a 'better government' s not so much righteousness as it is a wise government. Whatever it is they want from their governing authority structure -- that it take care of them during natural disasters, that it protect them from harm, that it defend their individual liberties, that it keep taxes as low as possible and waste those taxes on idiocy as little as is feasible -- all of that boils down to 'wisdom'.

And what, precisely, is wisdom?  For working purposes, I'll define wisdom as the ability to learn not only from your own experience, but vicariously from the experience of others, and to apply what you have learned in a manner that is consistently effective in resolving conflicts and solving problems.

But there are different kinds of wisdom, just as there are different kinds of luck. One person may be very wise in the ways of, say, the Amazon wilderness. Another may be wise as applied to the workings of the streets of Brooklyn. Another may be wise in the ways of, saying, getting a grant proposal through Congress, or handling a budget meeting in the English department of a large University.

Generalized political wisdom of the sort that is required for wise governance is the most demanding of all of these these -- it requires that you be able to use your own experience, and the experience of others, to effectively and consistently resolve not only your own personal conflicts, but the conflicts of a society, a nation, a race, or any other group/subgroup of human beings... and humans are the most cantankerous and difficult to lead entities in the known universe.

So we long for wise government. But, unfortunately, wisdom is an individual attribute. You rarely... I want to say 'never', but I don't generally believe in 'never', so, rarely... see it in groups of humans. Put the six wisest men and women in the world in a conference room with coffee and donuts, and tell them to, I don't know, come up with a plan for directing traffic smoothly around the Super Bowl, and two hours later, they'll still be arguing over who has to brew more coffee, because, you know, the guy from New Zealand deliberately left half a cupful in the bottom of the pot so he wouldn’t have to do it, and the woman from Canada is resolutely refusing to take that last half cupful and get stuck with the job.

Wisdom is stable only within the individual; try to spread it over a group and it evaporates.

So we find ourselves in a box.  We yearn for wise government, but to obtain such, we need to get one wise person and let them run everything.

Which is the basis of every human government, pretty much, prior to the founding of America. Caesars, dictators, tribal shamans, kings, monarchs, pharaohs, emperors... whatever you call the Big Boss, it is basically this principle at work... find someone who seems like an effective problem solver, let them solve the problems.

But that won't work for the long run, because your effective problem solver eventually dies, and then other, less wise people covet the power he or she has accumulated. Material power is a form of wealth, just like anything else, and it can be passed along, or seized. Once you give it to an effective problem solver... or he or she just takes it, effectively solving the problem of doing so and proving themselves 'politically wise' at least to that extent... it multiplies and takes on a mass, a weight, and a momentum of its own, and there is nothing people covet more than power. So once your first 'wise person' dies, there is inevitably a fight over who will inherit his or her power...

...and let me back up a step here.  Another reason the search for wise government is 'fooked for starters', in the words of the Committments' original drummer, is that as a general rule, only the unwise covet power.   Wielding power over your fellow man is usually a headache.  It grinds you down, even without factoring in assassination attempts.  It makes for long wearying days and sleepless worrying nights.  But it can certainly make for a comfortable lifestyle, gets one into the history books, and applied in an unenlightened fashion, can allow one to gratify a great many of humanity's more basic urges, so it always seems to be an attractive job to the unwise and the unenlightened.  Which means, naturally, those are the sorts who generally seek power, and who generally obtain it.

This is a problem in and of itself.   And you have another problem, too. Even assuming one somehow finds a wise person and gives that person power, wisdom rarely survives the accumulation of power for very long. Take the wisest person you can find and give them absolute authority over other people, and that person will tend to, gradually or abruptly, become less wise.

Absolute power corrupts... ah, but you all know that one already.

Anyway, that's the problem with seeking 'wise' government... you need to basically set up a government of one person, or, at most, of very few people. A tyranny, a monarchy, an imperium, or, maybe, a very narrowly limited oligarchy... whatever you want to call it. And however this form of government starts out, it won't stay 'wise' very long.

So how does one make a governing group 'wise'?

I don't think you can. We’re just not that evolved or enlightened yet; any group of people is going to have problems getting along well enough to solve problems effectively, much less, in an enlightened, socially empathic manner. And our Founding Fathers knew this, too. They didn't bother trying to cut that particular Gordian knot. They decided wise government wasn't worth the effort.

Instead, they tried to create a benign government, the only way they could… by, essentially, making it inept. Authority is going to become corrupt; you can’t stop that, it's inherent to any authority system. So you have to set it up so that even when it does inevitably go bad, it can’t hurt you much.

So our Founding Fathers deliberately set out to create a form of government that wouldn't be wise, but that would at least be somewhat effective at what it needed to do, while, at the same time, spreading all the power across the largest number of people possible. See, they deliberately set up the opposite of the 'one wise person ruling all' model. They said 'okay, we'll have a lot of idiots handling everything more or less collectively… and when those idiots try to take advantage of their power, well, they won’t have much power to take advantage of, and they'll get in each other's way a lot'.

That's human nature, and that's how you make it work for you when it comes to setting up an authority structure.  Spread it out among a great many people, and trust that when the time comes for some one person, or group of people, to inevitably make some kind of power grab, all the other people in power, who are equally greedy for it, will do their best to stop them... not out of enlightenment or idealism, but out of simple jealousy, and self preservation.

Such a government will not manage efficiently, nor, often, effectively... but it will manage, just because, well, as S.M. Stirling likes to say, quantity has a quality all its own.

This all seems terribly cynical, doesn't it?

It may help to bear in mind that the most idealistically founded nation-state in the world was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Sometimes, cynicism just works better.

This is what a lot of people don’t get about the founding of the United States… it wasn’t an act of idealism. Our Founding Fathers were out for themselves. They were tired of having the Crown and the Church messin in their business, so they came to a new continent where they hoped they’d be far enough away from that nonsense to be left alone. Turned out they weren’t far enough away, and they didn’t feel like moving any further, so they fought… and when they succeeded in kicking the Church and the Crown out, they sat down and created a government structure meant to guarantee that the Church and the Crown would never be able to screw with them again. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not idealistic, they are very selfish… they are documents that say, ‘you can’t mess with us; these are all the ways you can’t mess with us, now leave us alone’.

Of course, when our Founding Fathers devised an inept government specifically so that they themselves could not be messed with, they were actually simply trying to protect their own private power over their own property... which property, at the time, included not only all of the improved land on the continent, but nearly every female and non-white male living and working on said improved land.

So a government whose power to actually govern is strictly limited by its own internal inefficiencies is really only a good idea, if the people who will putatively be governed by that limited government are all actually free to do as they please.  Which most of the population of the United States of America has never really been.  Over the course of nearly three centuries, the power of white landowning males has somewhat diminished, but it has done so almost entirely as a result of central government action.  In other words, as decentralized private power (which is mostly, inevitably, applied in unwise and unenlightened ways) has diminished, centralized federal authority has grown.

Unfortunately, centralized federal authority is also going to be, for the most part, applied in unwise and unenlightened ways, so, honestly, there seems to be no good answer.  Limit the powers of government and the rich bastards steal all your shit and make your life miserable.  Pass laws to protect yourself from the rich sonsofbitches, and those same laws allow the government to steal all your shit and make your life miserable. 

Yet all is not grim and there is cause for hope.  If the social progress of the United States over the course of its existence demonstrates anything, it is that we can change things for the better if we really want to.   The elimination of slavery, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, the increased autonomy of labor forces in the marketplace, a growing sense of tolerance for those not exactly like ourselves, a deeply implanted, even fervent, belief on the part of most if not all Americans in the very concepts of liberty and freedom for all individuals, and a consequent diminishing of basic tribal xenophobia... all of these are good, even great, developments in human society. 

To each and every one of these progressions there is resistance and push back on the part of those who feel threatened by any and all change.  Many of these are, of course, those who have enjoyed privileges within less enlightened and progressive social contexts, but not all of them are such.  Some are just people who want their entire lives to remain the same way as they were when they were children, or as they were for their parents and grandparents.  That's human, too.

The forces of progress enjoyed great victories in the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries.  In response, the forces of fear and regression have risen up righteous and enjoyed some triumphs of their own in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.  American elections in particular have always been about a choice between these two things -- progress towards social and financial equilibrium and equality amongst all human beings, or regression to the sort of strict class/caste society that the wealthy, privileged and powerful prefer. 

It may, in fact, be absolutely impossible to have a democratic and/or representative government that is also in any great way 'wise' or 'enlightened'.  Perhaps benignly inept is the best we can really hope for... certainly, I believe that's the conclusion our Founding Fathers came to.  (American history bears them out; our wisest Chief Executives have enacted some of our most odious state policies, from Lincoln's egregious unfair Draft Act to FDR's equally contemptible imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in  internment camps.)

But we do, occasionally, get a little wisdom, trickling down from on high... or, maybe, trickling up, when we ourselves exercise some individually, and collectively, at the voting booths.

This election, like every other one in American history, will be about a choice -- progress, or regression?  Dignity and tolerance, or fear and loathing?

Choose wisely.

Here we go:

AMERICA'S DEM DAMNABLE PIT
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.
MichNews.com
Nov 2, 2006



If Dems sit upon America's throne, we will have:

Okay. Let's see -- first, America doesn't have a throne. Although Dubya and his buddies have been doing their best to change that.

Abortion clinics on every corner.

I don't think any City Council, however liberal and/or hellbound, will support rezoning every urban intersection for abortion clinics.

Same-gender 'marriages' blessed on every blissful boulevard.

Illiterate ecumenicals embarrass everyone as they attempt to alliterate idiotically.

God cleansed from the culture.

Well, to be fair, He could certainly use a shave and a haircut. Shoe shine. Maybe a new suit... I mean, have you looked at God lately? If He walked into your church looking the way you guys paint Him in those color Bible inserts, you'd have Him arrested for vagrancy.

Schools engineered for European secularism cloning.

I... what? Could you write a little more fucked up, please?

Condom machines under every lamppost.

Even closeted gay super-evangelists don't need that many condoms.

Recreational sex encouraged in public school health courses.

Youth is wasted on the wrong people. ::sniff::

Gideon Bibles absented from every motel / hotel room.

We'll hire illegals to do the leg work. Or make the godless liberals do it. After we send them to the Halliburton internment camps. Yeah.

Christian crosses erased from every political symbol, every mountain, every public building.

I know that everyyyyyyybody has a dream... this is my dream... my ownnnnnn...

Christmas symbols stored in underground caves in favor of "Season's greetings" stamps on every envelope.

No, I like Christmas. It's a historically inaccurate label for the traditional Midwinter Feast celebrated since prehistory by every human culture inhabiting the Northern Hemisphere -- I mean, if Jesus ever was born (there's no real historical evidence of it) then it certainly wasn't on December 25th -- but it's what I was raised with and the phrase that carries the most pleasant emotional associations of the celebration for me. On the other hand, if other people want to call the traditional MidWinter Feast something else, I'm fairly sure that's what the First Amendment is all about. Or something.

Christmas nativity scenes labeled "criminal."

Um... no, not so much. Unlike moron subliterate Christian conservatives, Democrats, liberals, and other fellow travelers on the left tend to actually respect things like civil liberties, freedom of expression, inalienable rights, and all that jazz. For, you know, EVERYone. Not just the people we like. Which, I grant you, isn't you.

What you MAY see, though, and I know this will drive you crazy, but still, what you COULD see, under Democrats, or, you know, any other political party that really cares about tolerance and an actual right to free expression for EVERYone, not just nutjob Jesus-blowers, is something besides a traditional Christian nativity scene next to the traditional Christian nativity scene on publicly owned property. Or, if there isn't room, then, yeah, the local magistrates may have to say "sorry, you can't have your particular religious display in this public park where many people, some of whom do not celebrate the traditional MidWinter Feast the way you do, will walk by and have to look at it, because we cannot give equal prominence to other religious displays (and if we did, you and your nutjob Jesus blowing friends would scream about THAT, and you know it's true) and so that wouldn't be fair."

Evangelicals judicially categorized as social nuisances, their publications and preaching examined by the state.

Oh, let's do one more chorus -- "I know that everybodyyyyyyyy has a dream... I know... I know..."

Darwinian evolution cemented in every public school curriculum from elementary school through high school graduation.

All religious references erased from public buildings, starting with structures in Washington DC.

Any Ten Commandments display vacuumed from public view.

Any reference to God in public addresses deleted, e.g., commencement speeches, political speeches, etc.

I am so on board with this plan. Although your vacuum cleaner is seriously going to need to have its bag changed.

Biblical believer cleansings throughout the republic.

Well, I don't want to be the one to break it to you, Reverend, but honestly, a lot of your people could stand a social introduction to the concept of 'soap'.

Homosexual couple child-adoptions encouraged in every state.

Yes, dammit! We'll pay the gay to adopt some of these goddam surplus unwanted kids all you good Christian heterosexual couples can't be bothered with, once you save them from the demon abortionists.

Judeo-Christian heritage historical instruction erased from any public mentioning and all public curricula.

No, no. I think we should teach the Albigensian Crusade in every public middle school. Seriously.

Activist judges ensconced in every courtroom throughout the United States.

Wait. You left out 'hellbound liberal' in front of 'activist judges'.

Elimination of chaplains in any public institution, starting with the US Congress.

Nah, chaplains are fine. There should just be some Innuit shaman ones, and some Muslim ones, and some Buddhist ones, and some Mormon ones...

Jesus, Reverend, take your meds or something. You're gonna stroke out right here. That vein in your forehead is about to make like the chest-burster in ALIEN.

Prohibition of evangelical chaplains in the military.

Fuck that. Our military needs all the prayer it can get, with the dickheads you people have running it.

Muslim prayer rooms established in every public area, e.g., schools, athletic gyms, and airport facilities.

It... wait. But if we take out 'Muslim' and put in 'Christian', then it's okay, right?

Muslim special time frames as Ramadan declared as holiday-days-off-from- employment.

More days off! W00T!

Korans placed in motel / hotel end tables.

More work for the illegals. God, it's great of them to work so cheap. We should buy them a chalupa, or something.

Mosques given free reign for property acquisition and construction.

Muslims encouraged to run for public office.

It... I... um... damn us! Damn us liberals for encouraging American citizens to buy property, build shit on it, and run for public office! Damn us! We must be insane!

Muslim customs such as the "sharia judicial system" permitted wherever Muslims establish housing.

Yeah, cuz, you know, we allow every other ethnic and religious sub grouping to create their own independent justice systems inside their own communities. Man-Law!

"Under God" deleted from the American flag pledge.

The Pledge of Allegiance is an embarrassment in any free society. You want your kids to take a McCarthyite loyalty oath to a piece of fucking fabric, do it at home around the breakfast table, right before morning prayers. My kids shouldn't be expected/required to recite the goddam thing in school in any free country, whether the disgusting degradation of individual liberty implicit in the Pledge's very existence is compounded further by the insertion of idiotic nonsense spittle spew like 'under Imaginary Scoutmaster In The Sky' or not.

Uh... sorry. Lost the funny for a minute. Really don't like the Pledge of Allegiance, though.

Any references to God in political hymns removed.

I... we... you...

'political hymns'?

No, my brain will explode. Moving on.

Public figure funerals absented of any reference to God.

Um... no, that would, again, be covered under the First Amendment. Hey, here's an idea. Why don't you read the Constitution of the United States of America sometime? Yowza, there's that forehead vein again...

All Christian broadcasts / telecasts deleted.

One more time, and I really want to hear you this time: "I KNOW -- THAT EVERYYYBODY HASSSSS A DREEEEEEAMMMMMM... I KNOW THAT EVERYBODY, EVERYBODY!!! HAS A DREAM... THIS IS MY DREAM, MY OWNNNNNNN...."

Oh yeah.