Let's nip this bullpuckey in the bud, my friends.

There's a particularly objectionable idea that's been running around the Internet since we first went to war on the evil Islamic terrorists that want nothing but to destroy our God given way of life.  And this meme has recently resurfaced, after I thought it had long since been safely blown away by a designated firing squad and buried without a marker.  Yet recently it resurfaced.  When Jesse "the Body" Ventura called out Fox News commentator Brian Kilmeade live in prime time, this whole ugly thing clawed its way out of the grave.  And I'm here to whack the danged thing with a shovel and cover it back up again, by gum.

While young conservative hero Kilmeade was righteously and rightfully calling "the Body" on all the nonsense that "the Mouth" has been spewing lately about how we should play all namby pamby with enemies of our nation and not torture anyone even when there is clearly a ticking bomb ready and waiting to go off if we don't get the information to defuse it in time, Ventura came back with what can only be characterized as a vicious slur.  A cheap shot, a low blow.  While Mr. Kilmeade was making Mr. Ventura look like the empty bag of wind he is, Mr. Ventura demanded to know when Mr. Kilmeade was going to enlist in the armed forces.

Mr. Kilmeade responded, as any thinking person would, with outrage to this completely inapropros comment:  "What, you want me to enlist?  You don't like our armed forces the way they are?" 

Mr. Ventura ignored that response, as he had to, lest he admit that indeed, he had just treasonously questioned the fitness of our standing military to carry forward the War on Terror without the active enlistment of civilians whose duty clearly lies elsewhere.  Instead, Mr. Ventura blustered: "Walk the walk, don't talk the talk."  To this, the righteously angered Mr. Kilmeade asked the most intelligent question of the entire exchange -- "What, I can't fight for American unless I'm in the military?"

This nonsense all began back when we first started preparing for the War on Terror.  Throughout the liberal blogosphere, a particularly vicous and cowardly meme sprang up -- that those who supported the war effort and our troops most vociferously were 'chickenhawks' if they did not immediately go volunteer for active combat duty themselves.  And this spiteful, mean spirited, completely illogical and foolish characterization spread like wildfire.  Soon a decent, upright, God fearing, patriotic American citizen didn't dare speak up in support of our righteous War on Terror or our brave heroic soldiers prosecuting it without having fingers pointed and names called.  "Oh, if you're such a big war supporter, why aren't YOU in uniform?" the fruity left would sneer hurtfully.  "When are you shipping out to Baghdad?  Where's your rucksack and rifle, hero?  Is it hard to shoot terrorists without dropping your bag of Cheetos, Rambo?"

It was typical of the kind of childish incivility that lives long and prospers only to the left of the American political mainstream. 

But we thought it had been laid to rest when a brilliant conservative blogger, I think maybe it was Dean Esmay or possibly Jonah Goldberg, showed this scurrilous nonsense up for the stupidity it was.  After all, as whoever it was pointed out, just because I believe burning buildings are a bad thing and I want fires to be put out, that doesn't obligate me to join the Fire Department.  My opposition to street crime doesn't morally require me to become a police officer.  I support the brave men and women who willingly shoulder those duties, of course I do.  But my taxes pay for those things, and I'm happy to pay them (or was, before my taxes started being used to turn our American way of life into a socialist nightmare, thank you very much). 

So just because I support the War on Terror, just because I lustily cheer for the invasion of enemy countries and root for American troops and American CIA agents to use whatever means necessary to safeguard our great country, just because I denounce everybody who isn't completely behind our military efforts as traitors and weaklings, none of this obligates me to become a soldier.  And the fact that I choose not to enlist doesn't make me a coward or a hypocrite.  I can support the war in different ways.    With my taxes, and a magnetic sticker on my SUV, and my blog, and my lapel pin. 

Like Brian Kilmeade, I can speak out for America without wearing America's uniform.  I can fight for America without being a member of the American military.  There is ample historical precedent for this.  In World War II, not everybody was in the military.  Sure, every man jack who was fit for military service joined up because they knew it was their patriotic duty, but, I mean, look at that wonderfully Christian and patriotic movie IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.  George Bailey never fought in WWII, but as the narrative said, "he fought the Battle of Bedford Falls".   And if he had never lived, his brother would never have been able to save the life of every man aboard a Naval transport!  Just by being alive, George Bailey served his country and fought for America, in a way every bit as meaningful as any of those others who enlisted and went off to war.  In fact, George should have gotten that medal at the end of the movie, not Harry.  We all know George was the real hero. 

In all of our wars there have been men and women, strong, fit, healthy, patriotic, God fearing, Christian men and women, who have fought for their country in ways besides serving in the military.  You can make many vital war contributions from behind a desk or a pulpit.   Sometimes 'talking the talk' is incredibly important, too.  If everybody heads off to the front lines, who will stay at home to support the troops?  It's not like those liberal war protesters ever enlisted, either, so who are they to point fingers and call anyone else hypocrites?

Men like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Brian Kilmeade... these are warriors and soldiers in the War on Terror, but in a different way.  They are warriors of words, soldiers of the keyboard and the TV screen.  But these too are vital roles, roles that only men of courage and vision and charisma and the most eminent masculinity can play.  Our troops fight the War on Terror, but our conservative media members fight an even more important battle every hour of every day for several hours, several days a week... they fight the War on Liberalism.  The War on Socialism.  The War Against Creeping  Hippie Softheaded Subversiveness, right here in our own backyard.   And it's important... it's vital!  Someone has to do it.  Someone has to step up!  It's a tough job, it's a real grind sometimes, they don't get paid much money and there isn't a lot of glory the money and the fame really don't mean anything to these men.  Like gladiators of old, they strap on their swords and their shields and they head into the arena every single day.  Not for themselves.  But for America!  The America of Francis Scott Key and George Washington, of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.  For your America, and for mine... the America of concerned parents and dutiful teachers, pious pastors and helpful neighbors, the America where everybody does their bit, whether they're in uniform or not... the America that the godless atheist hippie socialist freaks are trying to tear down, bit by bit, vote by vote.

I believe that every patriotic American, every resident of America who merits the term 'citizen', has a patriotic duty to support the war and our military and to do everything in their power to safeguard our liberties and our way of life.  But for different people that means different things.  For the poor and the jobless, yes, it means joining the military.  But for the employed American with higher education, there are other opportunities to serve.   And yes, you can speak out for America without enlisting in the military; yes, you can fight for America without wearing a uniform.  George Bailey did. Captain America does.  And so do Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Brian Kilmeade.

God bless these warriors of the homefront.  We've never needed them more than we need them now.   And I, for one, am deeply grateful they are on our side.  As they surely are.  Can you left-wing dissident socialist America haters say the same?

I thought not.

Here comes another no comment/no rec entry.  But it's okay.  Gimme the needle.   I am a sap.  I deserve it.

So, anyway, a few months back I mentioned how I'd uploaded four of my novels to Amazon's Kindle platform.  If you have a Kindle, you can own an electronic copy of one of my sci-fi fantasy novels for less than $8 each.  What else are you going to do with eight bucks these days, throw in the street?  Buy one of my novels.  You'll like it.  And my wife and kids will be very happy to see the slightly more than three bucks I make on each sale.

Back then, I told you about the following novels:

WARREN'S WORLD
It's 1983 in New Sparta, NY, and Warren Dawson is beloved by
everyone... his friends, his family, even random strangers on the
street.  Everybody loves Warren and wants to make him happy.  The TVs
only show his favorite programs, the radios only play his favorite
songs, the movie theaters always have his favorite movies.  And,
naturally, all the women are beautiful, and all of them love Warren
unreservedly and uninhibitedly...

When Warren's best friend Jimmy starts to notice just how strange the
reality he and all his friends inhabit truly is, he becomes a threat
to the odd, timelost Utopia that Warren has so carefully constructed
around them all.

Which sets the stage for a final, epic battle  between Warren Dawson
and his closest friends.  Utilizing powers and abilities far beyond
those of mortal men, Jimmy and his buddies must go to war with a man
who would be God, to settle the final fate of the entire human race...
and every living inhabitant of WARREN'S WORLD.


THE FEAR MASTERS
In the late 21st Century, the Global Union has mostly united mankind
and brought lasting peace to the surface of the Earth... until the
dead start rising from their graves to attack the living.  Across the
globe, panic and terror cause chaos to erupt, civilization to crumble,
and humanity itself to totter on the very brink of extinction.

Only three members of the Global Union's top secret Science Sector
have any inkling of what is actually going on.  Now they must
undertake a perilous journey into the airless depths of outer space
and beyond the borders of death itself in a last ditch attempt to save
humanity from the evil alien Fear Masters that seek our utter, final
destruction.

Can two tough as nails secret agents and a beautiful, brilliant
super-scientist 'git 'er done'?  For the answer, check out THE FEAR
MASTERS, by D.A. Madigan.

TIME WATCH
When Jim, a thirty something bachelor geek with no life outside the
pages of his favorite SF books, comes across a wrist watch that allows
him to travel in time, he immediately sets out to fulfill his lifelong
dream by traveling through time to assemble the greatest collection of
mint condition Silver Age superhero comics in human history.

But in the future, the secret agency known as Time Watch isn't pleased
that one of their devices has fallen into the hands of an outsider,
and they are ready, willing, able, and eager to do whatever it takes,
up to and including killing Jim, to get their watch back.

As Jim flees from his pursuers across time and space, he quickly
realizes that he may well be the human race's only hope for avoiding
extinction at the hands of the insidious alien intelligence that is
pulling Time Watch's strings from behind the scenes.  They want
humanity, ALL of humanity, dead... and Jim is now the only living
human being who knows the truth.

Armed only with his wits, his time watch, and the aid of a beautiful
female personal computer from the 22nd Century, Jim must avoid his
pursuers and somehow thwart the genocidal agenda of an ancient,
immortal, unearthly collective mind that seeks to bring all human
history to a most final termination.

ZAP FORCE: ROYAL BLOOD
Welcome to Sparta City, circa 1995, where seven super-powered teenagers fight for their lives and their freedom against covert cabals of ancient, evil immortals who yearn to outfit them all with high tech alien mind control slave collars - or low tech earthly bodybags, whichever works.

Yes, here in Sparta City, it's the neurotically networked 90s as they never really were, a time and a place when centuries old evildoers scheme, conspire, machinate and manipulate, while teenage superheroes leap, flip in midair, hurl lightning bolts, cast illusions, punch, kick, fly at supersonic speeds, kick ass, take names, and generally blow stuff up real good.

Seven stalwart students at Sparta University, inadvertently given unique and insane ultrapowers by an exotic on-campus psychology experiment gone horribly awry, and now avidly sought after as super-powered slaves by every other secret super society on the planet -

GALLANT, team leader, who at the age of 19 is both selfless and cynical, and whose super-agility and inhumanly unerring aim make him an all but unbeatable hand to hand combatant and absolutely deadly with anything he can throw, especially the hard energy discs and explosive energy globes his alien tech gauntlets generate;

TESLA GIRL, an 18 year old French Canadian hottie who can turn heads with her high voltage beauty and whose electrically supercharged metabolism can generate lightning bolts powerful enough to melt a combat tank into molten slag;

STRAIGHTLACE, the 18 year old diminutive blonde babe with the attitude of a pit bull who can fly faster than a speeding Sidewinder and smash through solid concrete without taking a scratch;

RAMPART, 19 year old African-American star athlete and honor student who can leap tall buildings in a single bound while carrying a Cadillac Seville over his shoulder;

LOBE-O, wheelchair bound 16 year old supergenius with an advanced college placement whose telepathic powers can trace a fleeting thoughtwave through a million muddled mundane minds;

GLAMOUR, a husky Innuit plain Jane psych major whose psychically projected mental illusions seem real enough to leave lipstick marks on a frat boy's cheek, or boot shaped bruises on a bad guy's ass;

WARPER, the 19 year old star college quarterback who can open teleportals with his mind, when he's not charming phone numbers out of any nearby cuties with his All American good looks;

MAINFRAME, the ageless, bodiless former maintenance man who now only exists as a self aware electronic impulse haunting any machine or set of circuitry he cares to inhabit at any given time;

Together they are ZAP FORCE, reluctant heroes fighting to protect an innocent and ignorant global populace, or at least, their own damn selves, from enslavement or death at the hands of the ancient evil immortals who secretly run the world:

BARON SAMEDI, centuries old blustering boss-man of the voodoo-themed Clan Loa, whose sheer raw strength can crumble solid concrete and whose brutal will to dominate will not be denied by uppity interfering newcomers like those no good Zap Force punks;

THE BARONESS, Baron Samedi's crafty, malevolent and utterly ageless wife and co-Monarch, whose vast mental prowess can (and does) enslave entire populations, including, of course, her own entirely unsuspecting husband;

THE OLD ONE, an inhumanly brilliant schemer born before written history began, who remembers the angels, gods and devils of ancient Sumeria and Babylonia as his contemporaries, peers, and more often than not, siblings, and whose own Royal Clan, the Eldest, is the most respected, hated, and feared of any in existence on Earth today.

STEPHEN SANTERIOS of Clan Loa, psychic assassin and master of the incomprehensibly advanced technology left behind on Earth by the long gone alien H'nnr

Put it all together and what do you got? ZAP FORCE!!

Of all of those, THE FEAR MASTERS is so far my top seller... in the last three months, I've sold 7 copies of it to discerning and apparently satisfied customers (at least, they didn't ask Amazon for a refund).  This is so far a break out month for me; from May 1 through today, I've sold 10 copies, total, of my work.  In 60 days or so, I'll get $34.80 direct deposited to my bank account.  I may buy my wife flowers.  Or, you know, just my kids some groceries.

Anyway.  To the above tally, I'm happy to say I've formatted and added the following:

ENDGAME :  When Webster Madison awakens at the far end of the universe in the super powered fantasy body he'd always wished he had, he was thrilled... until he learned that the price for his power would be his participation in a deadly alien game that could cost him not only his new avatar-form, but also his sanity, or even his life.

Now Webster and thirty other transformed roleplaying gamers from Earth find themselves enmeshed as living chess pieces in a contest whose rules they cannot comprehend, and where every move can result in sudden, horrible, grisly death, while the alien overlords responsible for their transformations test their new champions, often to destruction.

Those transformed human champions who survive these trials will be sent on a mysterious mission even more hazardous than the game itself, with an enormous reward waiting at the end for those who finally win through. Or so they are all told... but Webster suspects that in a world where no one is what they appear to be, nothing they have been told is the truth, either... and if he cannot somehow determine actuality from illusion in this dangerous labyrinth of perilous power, neither Webster nor any of his fellow super powered pawns will make it through the ENDGAME...

EARTHQUEST :  When Webster Madison, Hired Gun is dumped at the other end of the galaxy from Earth by treacherous aliens, he must fight his way back home across the hostile stars. Hijacking a ship full of slaves, he successfully leads the human cargo in rebellion against the crew and embarks on a career as an interstellar buccaneer and liberator of the oppressed.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Sam Curtis is using his newly found superpowers to reshape the world in his own twisted image. Should Webster somehow manage to set foot once more on his native planet, he will find himself walking into a deadly trap elaborately planned and set by his deadliest foe...

So that's that.

I have two other novels, UNIVERSAL MAINTENANCE and WARLORD OF ERBEROS, that I'll get uploaded to the platform at some point.  I also have a memoir of my time in Army Infantry Basic Training back in 1985, IN THE EARLY MORNING RAIN, that I'll probably work on getting into Kindle format in the near future, too.  (UNIVERSAL MAINTENANCE can be ordered in hard copy from nearly any online bookseller, but while the PublishAmerica trade paperback edition looks gorgeous, it's way overpriced, in my opinion.  So I don't recommend it.  Although it's a very good book.  If you're curious about it, search on UNIVERSAL MAINTENANCE by D.A. Madigan.)

I'm mostly mentioning this because one of my recent commenters was kind enough to say my novels sounded interesting. So, you can find many of them above, and if you give any of them a shot, I, my wife, and my stepdaughters all thank you.

So over the past week or so I've learned a lot more than I ever really wanted to know about how the human eye functions.

It's like this -- your eye is basically a big sack of vitreous jelly.  Inside this sack are various things like the cornea, the pupil, the lens, the iris, the conjuctiva, and many other really funny sounding words.  Most of these things take in light and then beam it onto the retina, which is not, as I had thought, the center of your eye, but is, in fact, this lining at the back of your eye that essentially acts like film in a camera... the light image that is taken in and focused by all the other whatnot gets beamed onto this film at the back of your eye, where the image is then passed on through your optic nerve to the cells of your brain that interpret this data.

Now, when you're young, your vitreous jelly is, in fact, jelly, and that works really well.  But as you get older, and especially if you are very nearsighted, your vitreous jelly becomes less solid and more of a fluid.  And this doesn't work so well, because when it's a fluid, it doesn't press so firmly against the retina, and in fact, it kind of falls away from the retina.  And when this happens, all sorts of little fuck things that were always suspended in the vitreous jelly, but which were held firmly there by the vitreous jelly and which didn't float around, start to float around.

So you start seeing flashing lights and a lot of great big hairy floaters, pretty much all the time, or, at least, half to a third of the time, and this gets very fucking annoying and makes it hard to see and you think "Jesus fucking Christ I'm going blind".   Which is terrifying to any member of our species that has enjoyed functional vision for 47 years, but is especially terrifying to me, among whose greatest joys in life are reading and writing, which I will no longer be able to do if I'm suddenly fucking Matt goddam Murdock without the goddam radar sense.

Anyway, last Tuesday I started seeing flashing lights and a lot of great big hairy floaters and these phenomena persisted until they were very nearly driving me batshit and I did some internet research and found a lot of interesting phrases like retinal detachment and macular degeneration and "You too can be just like Stevie Wonder without the musical talent or dreadlocks" and so we scheduled me an eye exam.  And as soon as we scheduled me an eye exam the fucking floaters and flashing lights went away so I canceled it and said "Hurray!"  And then the floaters came back like gangbusters so I scheduled me another eye exam and went to that yesterday.

The eye doctor who examined me was a bona fide sonofabitch.  His bedside manor was, er, brisk and robust, to say the least.  When my head was not where he wanted it to be in the apparatus that holds your head where the doctor wants it to be, he would grab me by the face and move my head until it was where he wanted it to be.  His fiendish assistants put nasty stinging shit in my eyes that dilated the fuck out of them, and then the doctor beamed gigantic laser photon particle rays into my dilated eyes which caused me the closest thing to pain I have ever experienced without actually experiencing pain.  And he did this for several years.  And when I did not look exactly where he needed me to look at any given time he would snap "No, no, down to the RIGHT" and when I finally got it correct (it was hard, due to the photonic particle death ray shit), he sneered "That's better, little learning curve there".  Which made my wife kind of gasp at his rudeness.  

But then he said "Well, you're fine, there are no retinal tears or detachments, this is just the sort of thing that occurs to people at your age, especially very nearsighted people.  It will happen to your left eye at some point, too."  So that was kind of a... relief?   Although I wanted to ask him if his first name was puh-Rick.   But I didn't.  

Then he said "However, you're at risk for a retinal tear for the next three weeks, so I'd like to see you again at that time for another exam".  Then he led us back out to the front where another of his evil assistants put more stingie shit in my eyes to undilate them (it didn't work, I was pretty much blind the rest of the day) and then yet another evil assistant charged us $140, as I am unemployed and have no insurance.

Then we left, and I made an appointment with the Kentucky Lions Eye Clinic for a follow up exam, which is much, much less expensive and has a sliding scale for unemployed people with no insurance, and where hopefully the eye doctors are not named puh-Rick.  Which I should have done before I went to Dr. puh-Rick, but I tried and they couldn't get me in for a couple of weeks.

So, anyway, I'm kind of relieved that I'm not going blind at the moment, but, on the other hand, this whole "your vitreous jelly turns into snot and collapses inside your eye when you're approaching 50" thing seems like a design flaw.  I'd like to sue someone, please.

A quick primer, for those who may care about such things, on some of my basic political beliefs:

* I believe all governments are, essentially, predatory. I believe the American Founding Fathers understood this, which is why they tried very hard to create a government that would function only just barely well enough to keep the lights on and the water running. I believe that when we complain about how disfunctional our government is, how inefficient it is, how laden with incompetence it is, we are badly missing the point. An incompetent, bungling government is something to be deeply grateful for.

Under the recent Bush Administration, the government only seemed to be staffed with dolts; in fact, I believe, most of those people knew exactly what they were doing. Their so called incompetence never seemed to cost them any money or many elections; in fact, somehow or other, despite every law they've broken and crime against humanity they've blatantly committed, none of them have spent a single night in jail.  Or seem likely to.  That's not incompetence.  Evil pure and simple, yes.  Ineptitude, hell no.

* I believe that religion is a social control mechanism. And I believe that it is the most successful social control mechanism in the history of humanity, far more successful than secular government. Having said that, I think submission to superstitious terror is beneath the dignity of what humanity can and should aspire to, and if such is to be the cost of living as a civilized being, I prefer anarchy. (And I'm a fat geek; I'd DIE in a real anarchy. FAST.)

* I hate affirmative action. I know, I know, as a white male I have no right to say this, and it automatically makes me a racist and I should just give up the futile effort at fooling anyone and go put on a white sheet and start dancing around a burning cross. Well, fuck anyone who thinks that way, and fuck everyone who thinks that you can somehow fix racism by reversing it and then institutionalizing it. If the Federal government is going to be in the business of redressing social inequity... and I have no problem with that as a basic concept of government... then instead of creating laws that force people to take race into consideration with every personnel decision, they should be trying to create and model policies designed towards making such processes as color blind as possible.

* I'm not wild about abortion, but I don't believe abortion is the issue. The issue is whether or not individuals will have the freedom to control what does and does not happen within their own bodies. And as to that, I deeply believe no government has the right to deny me or anyone else any medical procedure I want and can pay for, just as I similarly believe that no government has the right to force me or anyone else to undergo any medical procedure I do not want.

* I believe the war in Iraq is wrong. I believe that's so self evident to anyone capable of even a moment's real lucidity that I shouldn't have to point out all the reasons that it is wrong. If the guy down the street is shouting insults at you, you have many legal and moral recourses, but one of them is not and never will be to invade his house, break most of his chattels, steal the ones you like, torture, rape, and kill his family, and then burn the place down. Even if you truly believe he's got weapons and is planning to use those weapons on you at some point in the future, you still are not allowed to pre-emptively take these actions. And while analogy is always suspect, I believe this one is pretty exact. That is pretty much exactly what the United States did to Iraq, and we are still over there, torturing, raping, and killing that guy's family, breaking and stealing his shit, setting fire to the walls and furnishings. The only thing we should be doing over there now is trying to put out the fires we set. Given our level of competence at actually helping anyone, though, I think we should just get the fuck out of there and let the United Nations do what they can. And resign ourselves to paying horrific reparations, with the understanding that for the next hundred years at least, if the Iraqi people want something from us, we damn well owe it to them.

* I believe the U.S. Constitution is a deeply flawed document -- no document that approvingly acknowledges slavery can be anything but flawed -- and I would love to see it replaced with something better. Pragmatically speaking, however, any attempt to replace it would only end us up with something far worse, so I'm willing to live with it.

* I like Christmas. I think it's very cool. I'm not a Christian, am not even particularly religious (although I have articles of faith, at least one of which we'll get to on this list because it also pisses off  many of my fellow liberals no end, the tiny minded little fuckers), but Christmas is what the Winter Solstice Holiday that every human culture has always celebrated was always called in my childhood, and that's the word I have the strongest, most positive associations with. So I say "Merry Christmas" on my own time, and in the house I share with my wife and stepkids our holiday celebration is, and will remain, Christmas, despite the fact that we are about as secular humanist as you can get, and my wife and I are both educated enough to know that even if Jesus ever was born, it wasn't anywhere near December 25th. We make Christmas cookies, we send Christmas cards, we put up Christmas decorations, we will goddam well have a Christmas tree.

So during the holidays, I say "Merry Christmas", and if that pisses anyone off (and I imagine it will, at some point), well, there are many people who get pissed off over how I choose to wear my hair, too. I think people who get exasperated over such things badly NEED to be exasperated, hopefully into fatal aneurysms. So I wear my hair long and I say "Merry Christmas", and that's enough about that for now.

* I'm not sure about gun control. I'm still up on the rails about it. See, I hate guns, absolutely. Yet... our forefathers seemed to feel that individual ownership of weaponry was an essential component of individual liberty and social freedom... and I am not sure they are wrong.

I intensely dislike the idea of anyone anywhere being able to walk around with the power of life and death over me, or people I love. Yet, at the same time... the idea of giving all the boomsticks over to the authorities makes my hackles crawl. Would it make cops safer? Yeah, but... well, we don't draft cops in this country; they sign up for the job and last I heard, nobody advertised it as being 'safe'. I'd be happy to pay cops more and equip them better; I'm not sure I'm happy with the idea of seeing to it that they are the only people on the streets with guns.

Beyond that, it's extremely impractical. There are millions of guns in circulation. Gun control laws are not a magic genie; most of the people that society feels shouldn't carry guns are criminals already.

I've already come up with a solution for this; I wrote it up on a much older blog. I called it 'gun insurance'. Maybe I'll go back and dig it up again.

I also think our Constitution pretty unequivocally denies the power to pass any laws in regard to gun control whatsoever. I'm hardly a strict constructionist of the Constitution; in fact, as I already mentioned above, I feel it's a deeply flawed document... but it is the Owner's Manual of the United States, so I do feel we should pay some attention to what it actually says.

Whatever the case, in the end and at this point, I'm just not sure about gun control.

* I cannot support 'hate speech' and 'hate crime' legislation.

I deeply loathe many of the more extreme consequences of absolute freedom of expression. I abhor most exclusionary hate speech, and there are kinds of porn that will make even a filthy jaded old Internet pervert like me go pale as milk... but, nonetheless, I think that the essential concept of freedom of expression requires that we tolerate ALL forms of expression. Letting any authority decide which speech is acceptable and which isn't... nuh uh, that's a bad road to start walking on. So when you start pointing out certain types of extremely distasteful speech and levying fines and even jail sentences on people simply for speaking their minds, well... I think you've left the Freedom Trail and are heading towards despotism. At a fairly decent clip.

Similarly, I feel that when you set aside a certain type of crime as a 'hate crime', what you are doing is criminalizing a person's thoughts and feelings, rather than their actions. I cannot support that. I don't mind 'criminalizing politics', whatever the hell that means. But criminalizing speech, and criminalizing thought... that troubles me deeply.

* I believe in intelligent design. I really, honest to Whatever, do. I think the universe around us is simply too complex to have 'jest happened'. I think it's an artifact of some sort. What sort? I have no idea, any more than I have the slightest frickin' clue who or what set the whole thing in motion, or whether there is any greater purpose to existence than just existing.

I do not believe the idea of 'intelligent design' qualifies as science, but on the other hand, it mostly doesn't qualify as science because religious people think they KNOW who designed the universe, and 'scientists' feel just as certain that nobody/nothing did... so no one is trying to do any research into it. I understand my 'faith' in intelligent design is just that... but instead of having one side rather smugly say "Well, it's the absolute truth, and we know all the details because they're in our Bibles", and the other side just as contemptuously declare "No, there is no Higher Intelligence, that's all childish superstition, we KNOW the universe just 'evolved' over a course of billions of years as a progression of various random chemical interactions"... I'd like to see actually unbiased people who know something about how the world really works, really looking into it.

It's been said many times before, but I will say it again, because it's always worth repeating these essential truths: atheism is in every way as much a leap of faith, or an organized religion, as Christianity or Buddhism or anything else. Insisting that something DOESN'T exist takes as much arrogant gall as insisting that it does... more, in that one can prove that something exists, but I can't think of any feasible method for proving something doesn't.

No human being I am aware of understands how the universe around us works, or where it came from, or where it's going, or even, for the vast most part, where it is and what it is doing right now. We don't truly comprehend time, or space, or matter, or energy; our most brilliant researchers are waving a couple of lit matches around in an abysmally dark cavern of ignorance.

We have to keep trying to find stuff out. Embracing the ignorance and making a virtue of it, as the ultraconservative Christian right wants us to do, is absolutely deranged, but it's nearly as addle-minded to simply say "well, those guys we don't like believe in something, so we're going to laugh at it and pretend that we know it isn't true, when we actually do not know any such thing, because we haven't bothered to do any real research or experimentation on it".

I, personally, believe in Intelligent Design... in a vague sort of way. I don't insist anyone else believe in it... but I do get annoyed when all my fellow liberals insist that the entire concept that the Universe 'just goddam is', is the only acceptable concept for a truly enlightened and rational being to believe. The truth, at this point, is that no one knows for certain a single frickin' thing about the actual nature of the Universe. And if we can't agree on that and move forward with open minds, we aren't going to ever learn anything.

So, there you go. A quick primer on some of the things the guy behind this particular blog believes, or doesn't believe, in. Make of it what you will.

Let's take as a basic precept of this essay that when we attempt to formulate a workable government that we'd all want to live under, our ultimate goal, whether we've ever thought of it this way or not, is wise government.

This is generally the desire of those who are going to be governed, when they attempt to formulate an idea form of government.  We want to be governed wisely and well.  We want our government to make good decisions, pass sound laws, spend the money it collects from us on useful things that will improve our lives.  All that, basically, adds up to 'wisdom'. 

The problem with this is two fold.  First, wisdom is a tough get.  Second, wise governance is rarely the aim of those who are going to do the governing.  They generally have substantially different objectives, like, amassing as much personal power to themselves for purposes of their own self-aggrandizement as possible. 

Let's deal with the first, first.  Wisdom is always a rare commodity.  You can find a wise person, and then, maybe, you can elevate that wise person into a position of authority where they will hopefully make wise decisions that will better the lives of those they govern.  But that's only a temporary solution, because, well, first, often times wisdom does not survive the accumulation of personal power (power being an intrinsically corruptive influence), and second, even if your wise ruler stays wise when given great power over others, there's no guarantee that said wise ruler will have a wise successor. 

This is the problem with monarchies and other tyrannies.  You find an enlightened, intelligent, and wise person to boss you around, and that works out for a while, but eventually that enlightened, intelligent and  wise person either turns into a sonofabitch or dies on you.  And then you're right back at square one.

Wisdom is a tough get.

Then we have the second thing, where the people who are going to do the governing are rarely interested in governing wisely, or in an enlightened fashion.  In fact, as a reliable rule, those who are interested in having power over other human beings are neither wise nor enlightened, although often, they are unpleasantly intelligent.  (Not always, as recent Presidencies will attest to.  But often.)

So then we turn to democracies, a form of government as old as the ancient Greeks.  This is where either the people vote, en masse, to decide every single matter that concerns them as a people, or, the people vote for a representative ruler or rulers to make these decisions for them.

This is even more of a problem.  When you allow the governed to vote on their government, you are basically making the governed part of the government.  And if wisdom is a tough get, if it is indeed a rare attribute (and it is) then the more you expand your government, the less wisdom you are going to have in it.  Democracies, by their very nature, are rarely very wise.

Yet we, the governed, yearn for wise government, and we have since we lived in caves and rude huts on fertile flood plains.  We yearn for it, yet it seems impossible to achieve... or, at least, when we do achieve it, it doesn't last long. 

This is where our American Founding Fathers did something truly radical.  Instead of creating what they thought would be a wise and enlightened form of government, they decided to abandon that natural but unrealistic yearning, and, instead, create a largely inept and inefficient government instead.

This is where We The People often go wrong, when we look back through our exceptionalist fog at the founding of the United States.  We think the patriots that created the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were idealists attempting to enact as close to a perfect kind of government as humans could conceive of.  We believe they wished to engineer a utopia.  Yet the actuality was, they were all pretty pragmatic.  They were younger sons of wealthy families who came to America because they were sick of the Church and the Crown confiscating all their crap.  When it turned out they hadn't come far enough to escape that nonsense, they fought a war to toss the Church and the Crown right the hell off their chosen continent of residence, and then they wrote documents to found a replacement government  that specifically delineated all the things that government would never, under any circumstances, be allowed to do.

They weren't angels, or slumming deities, or even  upright paragons of civic duty.  They were rough and they were tough and they owned the damn land they built on and farmed and they worked hard and they took no shit from anyone and, in point of fact, they were pretty goddam surly.  They wanted the minimum government necessary to get shit done, and they wanted to make damn sure that government didn't tax their incomes, steal their land, tell them what church to go to, or how to raise their families or treat their slaves. 

So instead of making any kind of attempt to create a wise government, which they knew was doomed from the beginning, they created a government that, for the most part, wouldn't know its ass from a hole in the ground.  They figured, sure, inevitably any kind of authority is going to corrupt those we allow to have it, so when that does happen, we'll make sure that there isn't a whole lot of power for those corrupted government officials to abuse.  They put in checks and balances.   They deliberately created a system that could, and would, tie itself into knots at every opportunity. 

And then they retired to their tobacco plantations to futter their slaves in relative impunity.

Enlightened, wise leaders and visionaries these laddies were not.  Sullen reprobates who didn't want anyone to screw around with them and theirs, they certainly were.  And that's the kind of government they set up, and it's the kind of government we have.

Yet here we are, 233 years later, and we're sick right up to our gorges with government bungling, government corruption, and, lately, outright government malevolence.  We want a wiser government for sure... and presuming we can somehow manufacture one out of the empty ether, then we want a more efficient and functional one, as well.

But honestly, we're expecting way too much of ourselves and our rulers.  If wisdom is hard to find on an individual basis (and it is) it is virtually impossible to find in a group.  Winnow the global population for the wisest individuals you can ferret out, then put those wise people into a room together and ask them to do anything as a group... come up with a plan for directing traffic at a rock concert, say.  Whatever wisdom each of them has will evaporate instantly the minute they sit down at that conference table; let them bicker and yell and scream at each other for four solid hours, and the only thing they will have settled is that the person who has to refill the coffee pot is whoever was out of the room going to the bathroom when the vote was finally taken. 

So we want wise government...especially in times of crisis... but we can't have it.  It's simply not realistic to expect it out of any group of human beings.

Probably the best thing to do, if we want wise government for a while, is to find a wise person and give them emergency powers until this mess gets straightened out.  Yet I look back at the eight years we all just went through and shudder at that thought, because that, essentially, is exactly the argument that Bush and the Republican Party were making the entire time Bush was in office.  And it resulted in a spectacular global debacle. 

Personally, I think Barack Obama is a one of a kind visionary and a genuinely wise person, and we could do far, far worse than make him Dictator for the next six years.  But I don't recommend that as a permanent form of government by any means. 

For one thing, I ain't no genius.  I could be wrong about Mr. Obama.

For another, I'm just not a big believer in Dictatorships or Tyrannies.  I'm of the opinion that if we, as a people, cannot make our democracy function wisely and well, then, well, we get what we deserve, pretty much.

NOTE:  Over on my own personal blog, The Miserable Annals of the Earth, I occasionally indulge myself with 'self interviews', rather like Jimmy Rabbit from THE COMMITMENTS, which, if you haven't seen, you really should.  The main reason I do it is because it's an incredibly easy format for speaking your mind on certain subjects.  What follows is one of those self-interviews, on the general subject of 'politics'.  

MAOTE: All right. Let's talk about politics a little.

ME: Works for me.

MAOTE: It would pretty much have to, yeah. So... politics has pretty much always been a mess throughout the history of man. What's your silver bullet? What's the ideal form of government? And how do you get to it from what we've got?

ME: It... hmmm. 'Silver bullet'... you mean, some panacea to somehow resolve all the conflicts and problems we currently face, socially, nationally, and globally, as individuals, citizens of a nation-state, members of a race, and inhabitants of a limited ecosphere?

MAOTE: Uh... yeah. How would YOU solve the problems of the world?

ME: Given some plot device that makes me all powerful... well... that's not a very realistic question. 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.

MAOTE: How so?

ME: 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.

MAOTE: I'll pretend I don't follow you so you can explicate.

ME: Thanks! This self interview stuff makes expository dialogue so easy. Okay -- whether people are aware of it or not, what they hunger and thirst for, when they think of a 'better government' 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'.

MAOTE: Which you would define as --

ME: Oh, Jesus. Wisdom is -- wisdom is the ability to learn not only from your own experience, but vicariously from the experience of others you become aware of, and to apply what you have learned in a manner that is consistently effective in resolving conflicts and solving problems.

MAOTE: Uh... ::ticking finger in air:: yeah... okay... okay, that works, I guess...

ME: 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 in the ways 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. Political wisdom is the most demanding of all -- 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, well, generally, a group of human beings... and humans are the most cantankerous and difficult to lead entities in the known universe.

MAOTE: So we long for wise government. But...

ME: But, again, 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.

MAOTE: So to get 'wise government', you need to get one wise person and let them run everything.

ME: Yeah. 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.

MAOTE: But that won't work for the long run, because your effective problem solver eventually dies, and then...

ME: Other, less wise people covet the power he or she 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 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...

MAOTE: ...which is a problem in and of itself.

ME: Yeah. And you have another problem, too. Wisdom rarely survives the accumulation of power. Take the wisest person you can find and give them absolute authority over a group of people, and that person will tend to, gradually or abruptly, become less wise.

MAOTE: Absolute power corrupts...

ME: We're trying to avoid clichés, but, yeah. Anyway, that's the problem with seeking 'wise' government... you need to basically set up a government of one person. A tyranny, a monarchy, an imperium... whatever you want to call it. And however this form of government starts out, it won't stay 'wise' very long.

MAOTE: So... what... you try to find a way to make a governing group wise? How do you do that?

ME: 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 well. 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.

MAOTE: And instead, they created... inept government?

ME: More or less. They tried to create a benign government, the only way they could... by, yeah, making it inept. Authority is going to become corrupt; you can't stop it. 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'.

Things won't get done efficiently, and often they won't get done effectively... but they'll get done, just because, well, as S.M. Stirling likes to say, quantity has a quality all its own.

MAOTE: I don't know. That seems awfully cynical.

ME: The most idealistically founded nation-state in the world was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Me, I'll take cynicism; it generally works better.

MAOTE: That seems awfully cynical, too...

ME: That's 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 take their shit away from them, 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 fuck 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'.

MAOTE: You make our Founding Fathers sound very libertarian.

ME: Yeah... I don't know. 'Libertarian' has turned into one of those words that means whatever you're pointing to at the time... a lot like 'Republican' and 'conservative', actually.

MAOTE: You don't think 'Republican' and 'conservative' are terms that have a specific meaning?

ME: Okay, I put that badly. I think 'Republican' and 'conservative' have become very successfully marketed brands that no longer have a great deal to do with what they are placed on. Our current Republican Party no longer has particularly Republican values. And the people we point at and refer to as 'conservatives'... well... to be conservative is actually to be someone who is trying hard to protect the status quo. The power bloc that here in America we refer to as 'Conservatives', though... they aren't trying to protect the status quo, for the last twenty years or so, they have been fighting hard to undo the status quo. The entire modern conservative movement is a backlash against the ongoing success of progressive social policies throughout the 20th Century. The 'status quo' they are trying to protect is from the 1950s... and not the real 1950s, but some idealized, Archie Andrews at the malt shop, Father Knows Best 1950s that never actually existed.

MAOTE: Yeah, I see what you're saying. But you don't think there are still Republicans out there who believe in Republican values... you know... states rights, the Constitution, patriotism, law & order, individual liberties... family values... whatever the hell it is Republicans believe in...?

ME: They want Federal laws that prohibit gay marriage, abortion, and flag burning. If they can't get those through Congress, then, sure, they want a Supreme Court that will weaken or throw out the existing Federal laws, so they can legislate whatever they want on a state level. They want 'rule of law' for a Democratic President, but a Republican President can do whatever he wants. They want to keep American troops home if Clinton wants to send them somewhere to save lives, but they're perfectly happy to see them sent off on an illegal invasion without proper equipment to torture Arabic men, women, and children if a Republican president does it. They'll get up in arms about the body armor thing, sure, until a Democrat uses it as a campaign issue, then body armor is for wussies. If a Democrat lies, cheats, or steals, they should resign immediately, then go to jail. If a Republican does it, they're a hero and it's a damned shame those worthless America hating liberals managed to drag such a great man down.

MAOTE: So you're saying that conservatives and Republicans are hypocritical...?

ME: I'm saying... well, no, first, they aren't. But leave that aside for the moment. I'm saying, right now, we shouldn't call them 'Republicans' or 'conservatives'. Those words mean different things, and stand for different things, than the current groups labeled with those words. It's misleading. We need to call them something else.

MAOTE: Such as?

ME: I don't know. The Power Party works. It pretty much sums up what they're all about.

MAOTE: You mentioned that you didn't feel they were hypocrites, despite the endless litany of 'they said this then/they're saying this now' that anyone can reel off regarding the Republicans and conservatives. How do you figure that?

ME: Well, the left wing keeps track of that stuff. Left wing blogs exult in it, they constantly point out 'the Republicans are being hypocritical, blah blah blah, they wanted to send Clinton to jail for perjury, but they defended Bush when he authorized illegal military action, imprisoned Americans without trial, signed off on torture, initiated illegal domestic spying programs, let his aides out covert CIA operatives, etc'. All of these things are illegal, indictable, unConstitutional, and by any sane standards, far worse than Clinton playing semantics to avoid answering a question about his damn sex life that wasn't anybody else's business but his, his wife's, and Monica Lewinski's, anyway. So the Republicans and conservatives are hypocritical, because, you know, they have one standard for Democratic Presidents, and another for their own. That's the gist of it.

MAOTE: And you'd argue with that?

ME: The Republicans and conservatives aren't hypocritical. They want power. They want influence. They want authority. They want wealth. They want those things, and they will do whatever they have to do to get those things. They aren't hypocritical about it. When Clinton was in office, he diminished Republican power and influence; they did everything they could to get rid of him. With Bush in office, they did everything they could to support him... as long as his presence in the Oval Office was working toward their goals, which are now and always have been, securing and increasing their own personal and political power.

MAOTE: So, they're being true to themselves...

ME: Always. It's like calling Rush Limbaugh a hypocrite because he wants to put every junkie in jail and every drug pusher on Death Row... until he gets hooked on Oxycontin and starts getting illegal scrips from his maid. But he's not a hypocrite, because Limbaugh doesn't really care one way or another about drug addicts and drug dealers, what he cares about is his own power and wealth. And he secures and increases those things by securing and increasing his audience, which he does by telling them whatever they want to hear. He's not a hypocrite... well, he is if you listen to what he SAYS. But not if you watch what he DOES. He believes one thing and says another, yeah... but the truth is, he has always been out for himself. What he says to get what he wants is going to vary somewhat as what his audience wants to hear changes, but, still, he's always been true to himself.

MAOTE: Well, okay, but I'd still call them hypocritical. They say one thing, they mean something else.

ME: Oh, they're lying scum. But it's important to understand that whatever they said when Clinton was in power, they didn't really mean it. Everything the Power Party says basically translates as "Get out of our way, give us what we want, shut up, roll over, get out of our way, give us what we want". That's what it all comes down to. They change the talking points as it suits that underlying agenda, but the underlying agenda is always there. And when liberals play "gotcha!", they honestly cannot understand how the Power Party can just stand there and say "we never said that" or "9/11 changed everything" or "fuck you, you're an idiot". The liberal attitude is "Don't you people have any shame?" But the Power Party has no shame, because they feel they have nothing to be ashamed of. They set out to get power, anyway they can get it, and they are doing that.

MAOTE: Yeah, but... I mean, that's all politicians in a nutshell, right?

ME: I suppose. You're not going to run for office if you don't want power, certainly. But people want power for different reasons. The current conservative movement in America started out more or less ideologically pure. It was a backlash against the steady success and expansion of progressive social and government policies over the course of the 20th century. People who felt threatened by a world that was changing too rapidly for them, and that seemed to be incorporating too many different, even alien elements in it, were looking around for a way to slow things down for a while, or even turn the clock back. That was what the current conservative movement was all about, back then... just trying to give a voice and some influence back to a segment of Americans who felt that as minorities gained more influence, they themselves had become marginalized.

MAOTE: Which is ridiculous and insane, as, you know, Caucasians were and are still a majority in America, Christianity is still the majority religion, white males still essentially run nearly everything...

ME: I'm not arguing with that; in addition to being ridiculous and insane, the conservative movement has always been mean spirited and selfish. You pretty much have to be, to believe that the world is okay the way it is and we should try to keep it this way. That's essentially the 'I got mine, now you get yours, but keep your hands off mine' attitude, and that's conservatism in a nut shell.

MAOTE: So when you say they were 'ideologically pure'...

ME: I mean they were trying to get into power so they could accomplish a certain social agenda. It was a stupid, crazy, mean spirited, regressive, crypto-medieval social agenda, but they felt they had an honest grievance. I mean, they grew up in a world where a white man could tell a Polack or a Jew joke at work, and if it offended someone, they'd better just shut up about it. White guys could have a bikini babes calendar on their desk. They could pat the secretary's ass. Management didn't have to explain why they wouldn't hire a woman or a black guy. Every church had a cross on the top of it. You didn't have to dial 1 for English when you called customer service.

MAOTE: It was like Paradise for skeevy white guys.

ME: Yeah. They wanted that back. They genuinely felt that they had a grievance... that in the midst of all this seemingly sudden cultural pluralism, where every other culture and race was finding a voice and showing ethnic pride, the Caucasian race and culture was in danger of being minimized and lost.

MAOTE: You almost sound wistful.

ME: No, I'm not at all happy about having my own ethnicity intrinsically coupled with bigotry and hatred, thanks. Yeah, it bothers me sometimes that female empowerment is considered inherently good, while male empowerment is considered to be objectionable, and I don't like affirmative action... I don't think you get rid of bias by reversing and then institutionalizing it. I think 'the level playing field' may be the best phrase Clinton ever introduced into our social lexicon, regardless of how much of a joke it's been turned into by conservatives. All I'm pointing out is, when the modern conservative movement began, they had an actual social goal. It was a hateful social goal, but still, the power they were trying to attain was meant to serve a greater end.

MAOTE: And you think that's changed?

ME: Oh, absolutely. I think people like Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney and George Bush and Tom Delay are pretty clearly into power for power's sake. They said whatever they needed to say at any given time to keep their core supporters engaged... they'll whore to anyone that can get them votes, as long as it doesn't actually cost them votes... but they no longer care about the agenda they preach. They want power and wealth for its own sake.

MAOTE: You're saying they weren't trying to implement a conservative agenda anymore?  That the Republican Party isn't trying to implement a conservative agenda any more? Isn't that good news?

ME: Well... hrm.  That's complicated.  The Republican Party under Bush, Cheney, and Rove weren't trying to implement an ideologically pure Republican or conservative agenda, that's true.  However, they sure as shit weren't trying to implement a liberal, progressive agenda, either. They were already rich and powerful, so they were trying to change the laws to make themselves more rich and powerful. They' cut taxes for the wealthy, they set up domestic spying programs, they deregulated every industry they were heavily invested in, they kept the U.S. out of any treaties that would cost them money, they began and continued to wage a war to make sure we have a supply of petrochemicals for the remainder of their lives, because they sure as shit didn't want to their stock portfolios to take a hit from viable alternative energy. 

MAOTE: So you weren't worried that, when Bush and Cheney were in power, they were going to start up concentration camps for Arabs or Mexicans or... I don't know... .liberals, or anything?

ME: Hell no.  Not unless they could make a profit doing it. Bush actually wanted to legalize all the illegals in the country, because it would effectively create an enormous cheap labor class. But that absolutely enraged the white base of the Republican/conservative movement, those ideologically pure elements who are still concerned with what they see as the increasing marginalization of the Caucasian people, specifically the Caucasian Christian male, and his steadily growing isolation from the centers of power in this culture and country.  And that, in a nutshell, is why the Republican Party is falling apart all around us.

MAOTE:  Because it can't serve two masters?

ME:  More like, it can no longer pretend to serve one master -- white Christian males and their families -- while actually serving another -- wealthy corporate interests.  The white Christian males and their families have TV and the Internet now; they can clearly see how badly they're getting screwed.  And they don't like it.  And they no longer blame it entirely on the goddam hippie Hollywood liberals.  They realize, however dimly and vestigially, that they are being betrayed by the Bushes and Cheneys of the world, too.  And this is what the current fragmenting of the Republican Party is all about.  In order to once more secure the support of their ideological base, the Republican Party has to denounce the wealthy corporate plutocrat class that they actually get most of their money from... and they have to do it in some way that will convince the rubes they really mean it.  And they can't... not and have any hope of surviving as a viable political party.  So they're stuck right now, trying to figure out exactly what to say, and exactly what kind of public display of renunciation will be necessary, to get their extremist nutballs back into the fold. 

MAOTE:  How long do you think this will go on?

DM:  It's hard to say.  People like Karl Rove got very complacent over the last thirty years.  They took for granted that the white Christian base was essentially very stupid and would never wise up... they could toss them a lot of red meat during election seasons, then placate them the rest of the time with "well, at least a liberal didn't get into office".  And people like Rove are still having a very hard time accepting that that basic presumption is no longer true, and they're going to have to make some kind of real, significant concession to the needs of the poor, rural, deeply conservative whites whose votes they desperately need.  They really don't WANT to do it.  They don't want to cut taxes on the poor.  They don't want to have to employ American workers at decent wages while providing expensive benefits when they can hire Indonesian pseudoslaves at a fraction of the cost.  They don't want to give us a decent, affordable health care system.  They don't want us to have cheap energy. And they really don't want to try to keep  non whites or non Christians out of America, because those guys are a fantastic labor base for them, who don't expect any of the stuff that all the white males and their families in America have come to feel are entitlements.   So they're trying to find a new line of bullshit they can feed to their base. 

MAOTE:   You think they will?

ME:  I don't know.  The rich corporations will let them SAY anything they want; they're used to the idea that politicians, especially conservative politicians, say stuff they don't mean.  But they may have to actually DO something to get their base back, and the super wealthy aren't going to tolerate much of that at all.  The Dems may well continue to pick up significant amounts of the disillusioned former Republican electorate for several election cycles.

MAOTE:  So that's good.

ME:  Not really.  The Democratic Party is completely in the bag for Big Money, too.  We're seeing that now, as once again, aggressive calls for a comprehensive, universal health care plan are diminishing and eroding into something that President Obama will paint as a major victory, but that will actually do little to help mainstream America and nothing to hurt vested corporate interests.  We're never going to replace petrochemicals as an energy source, either, until the 'innerests' figure out how to make just as much money from whatever we replace it with.  And the various wars we're waging will continue to be waged just as long as they continue to generate obscene levels of profit for fatcat campaign donors. 

MAOTE:  So we're just screwed.

ME:  I voted for Obama because I genuinely thought he was a once in a generation visionary who would take on the system and make real changes beneficial to the common folk, not simply here in America, but throughout the globe.  And I'm still not fully convinced that he will inevitably fail to live up to that very high ideal he sold me and a lot of others.  But what I am mostly seeing from him is a willingness to reverse most of the truly egregiously self serving policies enacted by the Bush Administration, as long as those self serving policies were largely unpopular anyway.  But I'm not seeing him do anything to really help me, or anyone else like me.  I still don't have a job.  I still don't have health insurance.  My wife's health insurance, which covers her and my stepkids, is considerably better than nothing at all, but it's really expensive and doesn't pay for enough and won't help us much at all if one of us gets a catastrophic illness or injury.  We are completedly dependent on a vehicle that is fifteen years old.  We can barely pay our bills, and nobody is doing anything to help protect us from the insurance companies, the credit card companies, the finance companies, or the banks, all of whom are more than happy to pick what little meat is left on our bones off to slightly fatten their own bottom lines.

MAOTE:  So what does Obama have to do to make you feel your vote was well spent?

ME:  Punch the goddam bankers and Wall Street sharks who are largely responsible for the current mess in the mouth, by which I mean, shut them down, redistribute the money they stole from us back to us, and send the fuckers to jail.   Tell the private health insurers to sit down and shut up, and set up a Federal health insurance agency that, in exchange for low premiums withheld by payroll deduction, provides real coverage for any kind of medical treatment an American needs, for low or no cost with no goddam deductibles or yearly maximums.  Seriously go after the corporations who have been funneling all their money offshore for decades; the economic problems would evaporate if the government could recapture that hidden money.  Get behind Jim Webb's prison reform effort in a big way.  Get behind serious decriminalization of various recreational drugs; the War on Drugs has been a disaster.  Declassify EVERYthing the Bush Administration every classified.  Provide a completely transparent government process.  Pull our military out of every place in the world where a majority of the native population does not want us.   Break up big corporations.  Provide incentives for reopening American manufacturing facilities.  Put some money into workable mass transit systems.  Refurbish our railroads and develop some high speed rail. 

MAOTE:  That's all?

ME:  It would be an excellent start.  I'd also love to see some kind of Federal program to provide monthly stipends to creative types... writers, artists, that sort of thing... as long as they continually write or draw or paint or put on plays or whatever, they can draw, say, $1200 a month.  I'd love to be part of a culture that underwrites creative expression with its tax dollars.  And I'd like to see a real space exploration program start up again, too.  And I happen to think both those programs would actually be good for the economy.  But I seriously doubt any President has the political capital for either, much less both.  But the other stuff would be nice to see. 

There's always been a powerful current of anti-intellectualism in American politics, just as there is in American life. It's the dark side of democracy: The pressure to accept what the majority, or the most vocal minority, thinks is true as truth - even when the evidence is entirely on the other side. When Henry Ford said history was bunk, he wasn't taking about the past but about the present, and his ire wasn't directed at historians per se but at the revisionist historians of the Progressive Era, who were telling him and his fellow know nothings inconvenient facts they didn't want to hear. Pump Henry full of Hillbilly Heroin and put him on the radio, and you've got Rush Limbaugh, still making the same point.
 - Billmon

Billmon is always worth reading; I can't recommend his poliblog highly enough. But the above passage touched a particular chord in me, and made me want to expand a bit on the point I think he's making in it.

Billmon uses the phrase 'the dark side of democracy'. It reminds me of one of Robert A. Heinlein's most frequent political musings, which goes something like this - "Monarchy is the idea that one person knows better than a million people. Democracy is the idea that a million people know better than one person. Huh?"

Where I think Heinlein (who was, as far as any of us can tell post-mortem, pretty much a libertarian anarchist who disliked nearly every conceivable form of government) is simply stating that no government makes rational sense when looked at objectively, Billmon is pointing out that the downside of 'one person, one vote' is that it gives ignorance as much potential power as education - more, in fact, since it's easier (and often more fun) to be ignorant, so there are many more ignorant people out there voting than there are enlightened folk.

Now, it isn't everyone voting; we do limit the franchise in America to 18 year olds and up who have a pulse and who are willing to put up with the minor inconvenience of registering and then going to a polling place and then, in the case of a small majority of us, having our votes disregarded by chicanery anyway. However, none of this in any way screens mindless idiots and/or hateful bigots from sober, reasonable, responsible citizens. Even a mindless idiot can get registered to vote, and then pull the lever on Election Day, especially if they have a helpful gay-hating pastor to fill out the paperwork for their signature and then drive them to the polling place when necessary.

This is why I've always felt at least a few more limitations should be imposed on the franchise. It's one of those opinions that other liberals hate me for; as I'm given to understand it, democracy isn't democracy unless everyone can vote, regardless of race, creed, or national origin.

But, as I've noted above, we do limit our franchise already, which seems to me to already fly in the face of true democracy. We do not, for example, allow resident non-citizens to vote in America, and we also disenfranchise American citizens 17 years of age and below. There are good reasons, at least, for the latter policy; if young children could vote, they would most likely vote the way their parents told them, which would give an inordinate amount of electoral power to the Catholics, to say the very least. And if we let adolescents/teenagers vote, well... they're a very large percentage of the population and politicians would certainly have to court them, and I hate to think what kind of hot button issues would sway the heavily hormone driven vote. (Although if I could get a free X-Box 360 my damn self, I might be tempted to vote Republican, too.)

Yet if there are good reasons to keep our younger citizenry from voting (essentially, intellectual and emotional immaturity) and we all accept that, why, then, does it outrage the masses to suggest that those same standards (intellectual and emotional maturity) continue to be applied, regardless of the physical age of the potential voter?

I once saw an episode of L.A. Law in which their mentally retarded office guy, Bennie, was being told he couldn't vote. Naturally, the extremely liberal lawyers on the show swung immediately into action; by the end of the program, Bennie was duly registered and had, in fact, proudly entered the voting booth, pulled the curtains closed behind him, and toggled the levers for the candidates of his choice... presumably, those he felt would be most likely to provide him with free hot dogs and ice cream on at least a semi regular basis.

I mean, look, Bennie was a nice guy, absolutely. But it strikes me as madness to allow the mentally retarded to vote in a modern American election. I understand that most politicians try to dumb down the issues to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but I also understand that this is one of the problems in our process, and the direct result has been, well, the nightmare we've been experiencing here on Planet America for the past six years... or the past sixty years, if you want to look at it another way.

I believe every American citizen should have an absolute right to demonstrate their competency to vote. But I don't believe we should simply allow anyone tall enough to pull a voting lever, and who is physically capable of doing so, to do so.

Unfortunately, I can't come up with some kind of objective standard we could apply to measure for the highly subjective quality we desperately need to measure for in electors, or, for that matter, in the elected - wisdom.

On the other hand, I do believe that we can filter out ignorance, and if we do that, we will most likely take large steps towards correcting many of the problems we are currently seeing with our form of government.

My modest proposal is this - we require that people pass a Voter's Qualification Exam before we allow them to exercise the franchise.

Now, in the past, as I have argued for this step in various highly liberal environments, I have been met with horror. Such tests, I have been told, were but one weapon in the nefarious arsenal of tactics used to disenfranchise the newly freed colored folk during Reconstruction, and onward. Because this tactic has been used at one time, or even at various times, in human history, for onerous and reprehensible ends, apparently we are to accept that from those points until the end of time, it will always be regarded as completely unacceptable, intolerable, and just plain evil to attempt to impose any sort of tests or qualifications on potential voters.

This is, in my mind, a pretty stupid objection. You don't outlaw paint simply because someone uses a bucket of Dutch Boy to deface your house. Paint has positive uses as well.

My Voters Qualification Exam would be a relatively simple artifact - a few hundred entirely objective questions regarding politics - local, State, Federal, global. Multiple choice questions (so it can be graded by computer, natch) along the lines of "The senior Senator of New York State is currently (a) Phil Eton (b) Charles Schumer (c) Hilary Clinton (d) Daniel Moynihan". Or "The branch of the Federal government charged with interpreting the law is (a) the legislative branch (b) the executive branch (c) the judicial branch (d) the abrogative branch".

Maybe 300 questions like that. Would you have to learn a lot of arcane political trivia to pass the test? Sure. Would a great many people not want to even bother trying? I have no doubt. Would I feel better, knowing that everyone who gets to vote for elected officials in this country actually knows who their current elected officials are? Absolutely.

This is not the equivalent of the kind of poll tests imposed in the past, in which most freed slaves were automatically kept from voting simply because they couldn't read. Yes, taking and passing the test would require a certain level of literacy, but nowadays we tend to expect that sort of thing in grown up Americans anyway, after eight generations or so of public education. Nor is it a poll tax, assuming that taking the test is free to all, and I'd certainly want it to be. One can, I suppose, argue that it might be difficult for some prospective voters to go to a particular place at a particular time and take the test, but it's not as if we let people stay home and phone in their votes now.

The only additional difficulty this test puts on potential voters is that, well, everyone but the fanatical political geeks are going to have to study their asses off to pass this test... and frankly, that doesn't bother me. America's consistently lousy electoral turn outs are a global embarrassment, and one of the reasons so few Americans even bother to vote is that we take the franchise so completely for granted that many of us hold it in contempt. To my mind, if we as a people has to make a concerted effort to vote, if we had to earn that vote, we'd be far more likely to use it once we got it.

Pragmatically, I would never expect such a step to actually be enacted. For one thing, there is nothing more likely to anger people than trying to take something away from them that they've always had, and feel entitled to, even if most of them never use it. For another, putting voters to this kind of test would completely revolutionize our elective bodies, making it much much harder for many, probably most, of our current incumbents to stay in office. The tried and true methods for swaying the rabble would go out the window if we insisted on only allowing those who actually know something about our political system to vote. It wouldn't by any means weed all the scoundrels out, but it would certainly make it much more difficult for those who rely on straight demagoguery to get into office. Someone like Tom DeLay is going to have a hard time getting elected if everyone who listens to Rush Limbaugh and who buys Ann Coulter's books has to actually study to pass a test before they can vote for him. In fact, any candidate who relies on dumbing their hot button issues down to the lowest common denominator is suddenly going to find themselves in dire straits. By definition, anyone willing to make the effort necessary to pass such a test will not be in the lowest common denominator; anyone that disciplined is going to be more likely to vote based on reason and rationality, instead of anger and provincial bias.

Given all that, there's simply no way anything like this will fly - and if it did, well, I don't know as I'd be one of those folks who would bother studying and taking a test just so I could go pull a lever in November, anyway. Maybe I'd be too damn busy.

But, at the very least, if that turned out to be true, I'd have to forego the wonderful pleasure of bitching about a system I couldn't be bothered to exercise a voice in.

And, having typed all this out, it occurs to me that we already have a test pretty much exactly like the one I've described above... it's the test we make those not lucky enough to be born in America pass, if they want to become American citizens. Why not  just make everyone who wants to vote in an American election pass that test?  It's simple, and, hey,  we're already making a sizable percentage of our population jump that particular hurdle in order to vote.  Why should the rest of us get to cast a ballot just because we got luckier in the birthplace lottery than those guys?  Why not make EVERYONE earn it?

On my very first day at my very latest job, people were doing the cubicle shuffle -- you know, that frantic repositioning dance that every cube-farm denizen goes through when new people come into the mix, where any open cubicles get reapportioned in such a way among the people who are already there so as to guarantee that the newbies get all the crappy ones.

It is an invariable law among cube-farms, of course, that newbies have to start in the crappiest cubicles, and only through experience and attrition gradually work their way to the desirable window or corner cubicles, where hardly anyone can see what's on your monitor so you can web surf a lot more than you're supposed to.

Anyway, first day, this woman who sits across from me and one station back noticed how other people were shuffling around to get at the cool cubicles, and apparently, she felt vulnerable, as she was sitting at not only a window cubicle, but a corner window cubicle, and she's a temporary contractor, and temporary contractors are always the lowest of the low in any office pecking order. So she got up on her cracker barrel legs and stared around truculently with her big watery flounder eyes and then announced rather stridently that she HAD to sit by a window, she didn't know WHY, but she just HAD to sit by a window, something about sitting by a window, it just soothed her somehow, she HAD to sit by a window, if she got MOVED away from a window, then we were going to have ONE VERY UNHAPPY PERSON on our hands.

Maybe nobody else would have found that aggravating or exasperating.

Maybe I'm just not patient enough with my co-workers.

Maybe it's just me.

No, I'm sure it is.

So anyway, yesterday is Monday, and I come in, and Flounder Eyes asks me, all solicitous-like, how was my weekend? And I advise that it was, y'know, too short. And she agrees that weekends are always too short, and then she sighs in a rather exaggerated fashion, and allows as to how she is just EXHAUSTED from HER weekend. And I'd like to sit down and ignore her, because, you know, I'm just that kind of guy, plus, if you go around zotzing your co-workers with a taser it causes talk and management takes a dim view of the whole activity, but it's a new office situation and I need to keep this job for a while so I dasn't be notably anti-social right now, I just dasn't.

So, hating myself for doing exactly what Cracker Barrel Legs erroneously thinks she is oh-so-subtly manipulating me into doing, I chirp brightly, "So what were you doing this weekend that was so exhausting?"

Sez her: "Oh well at church I had this total immersion experience in the Holy Spirit. And it was just, like... WHOOOOOA."

And she quavered.

All -- OVER.

It's mean, I know, to ridicule other people for their physicality. And it's not like too many random strangers have come up to me on the street lately and said "OmyGod, Harrison Ford circa 1983, I love your work, can you please sign my RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK souvenir fedora for me? Make it out to Joe. Your Biggest Fan. And please sign it 'love'. Okay?"

So I have little room to be cracking on how other people look, and I know that. I do.

So suffice to say, watching this woman QUAVER all over was not a sublimely pleasurable experience.

In fact, it was just, like... WHOOOOOOA.

And then later on that day she was talking about how her daughter thought everyone at that church was weird because they like, spoke in tongues and rolled on the ground and SHE told her daughter HEY just OBEY THE SPIRIT when the Holy Spirit comes over you you just LET IT TAKE CONTROL and DO GOD'S WILL.

I'm not inclined to worship theoretical supernatural entities I can see no real material evidence as to the existence of; I think, if some critter out there wishes me to conform my behavior towards its expectations, much less adulate it as some kind of spiritual mentor, it can at least offer to cut me a check for said services, and I wouldn't mind a health care plan and a retirement package either, if you got one or two back there somewhere you aren't otherwise using. Having said that, though, even if I were drawn to abase myself before some concept of divinity, I think I would be very wary of any such myth-figure whose WILL and SPIRIT involved me shrieking incomprehensible gibberish while writhing uncontrollably on the ground ANYwhere, much less, in front of a few hundred other people, at least one of whom was, my child.

Also... and here's where you discover very nearly the worst of me... I'm of the opinion that abjuring your young daughter to just OBEY THE SPIRIT just let it TAKE CONTROL and DO GOD'S WILL is, y'know, what's that thing, what do they call it -- oh, yeah -- child abuse.

There should be an island somewhere and all these people should go live on that island and they could babble at each other in made up languages and flail around like a bunch of spazzes on the beach right next to all those big giant stone heads that I'm sure would be on that island with them and then those people would be happy, and they wouldn't stand around outside theaters trying to keep me from going inside to see LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, so I'd be happy too, and their kids should be adopted by, you know, smart people who aren't insane who don't live on that island, so THEY'd be happy.

And then those people on the island could vote for, like, President of the Island, but not for anyone who would make any laws that would have any effect on MY life, and that would be really cool, too.

Or, the Rapture could occur, like, NOW. And as these Chosen Lambs of God ascend heavenwards in a brilliant golden beam of holy grace, I will wave, and laugh, and dance, and shout "Farewell, O Beloved Lambs of God, and please, please, please don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way outta here!"

Because I'm really just that uncool.