Martha Well's Ile-Rien stuff is great. Starts with THE ELEMENT OF FIRE, continues through THE DEATH OF THE NECROMANCER, and wraps up with her most recent trilogy... the last two of which are THE SHIPS OF AIR and the THE GATE OF THE GODS, I think, I can't remember the first one.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series is fantastic. Starts with SHARDS OF HONOR, continues with THE WARRIOR'S APPRENTICE, and then there are six or seven more... do a Google search, they'll come up. I envy anyone who hasn't started reading them yet.

Among the classics, there is David Brin's UPLIFT books (STARTIDE RISING, THE UPLIFT WAR, most notably) and Roger Zelazny's AMBER series (there are actually two of them, but start with NINE PRINCES IN AMBER and carry on through. While reading Zelazny, you'll find a side trip into stand alone novels like LORD OF LIGHT to be rewarding, too.

Plus, it's a REALLY REALLY GOOD series.

For the record, a shorter version of this essay would go like this:

My mind is blown and my brain is boggled that any Republican or conservative would ever seriously claim that no Republican politician has ever called someone who opposed the Iraqi war 'anti American'. Because they did. All the time.

My sanity is further challenged by the concept of any Republican or conservative describing the conspiracy of deliberate distortion and lies employed by Bush with the phrase 'made a compelling argument and won'. Bush did not 'make a compelling argument and win'. Bush lied and lied and lied and lied and when people called him on his lies he screamed "WHY DO YOU WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN???" and "YOU'RE ANTI AMERICAN!!!" and "SUPPORT THE TROOPS!!!" until all dissenting voices were drowned out.

This is not making an argument and winning. This is lying and screaming and yelling and telling everyone who disagrees with you to shut up. It is bullying people into shutting up, it is suppressing any dissenting voices, it is repressing any who disagree with you.

It is, in short, exactly what Republicans are still trying to do right now; it is exactly the opposite of what President Obama is doing, and this column by James Taranto that I am responding to is a frankly astounding attempt at what George Orwell called 'newspeak'.

I hope that's clearer.

Someday I'll manage to do this sarcasm/irony thing right.

Okay, let's boil this down:

Shorter Jason Everett Miller: "As a Republican and a conservative, I do not find your so called satire of Republican/conservative POVs to be either funny or insightful, and, further, you're a meanie."

As to the remainder of your point of view, which seems to be that the conservatives can insult everyone who disagrees with them however they please, but god forbid anyone say anything back, it's an opinion, but it's not one I hold or have much respect for. One of the most potent weapons against foolishness and malice is humor.

Beyond that, you seem to believe that those on the right wing are filled with good intentions and simply misled, or woefully ignorant. I don't; I think many of them are filled with deliberate malice, corruption, and wickedness, especially those I am trying to satirize and parody with this blog entry.

Yeah, when I Googled for the 'pig to sing' quote (I don't have an eidetic memory, even for Heinlein, sorry) I hit the same 'Heinlein quotes' page you must have.

As I've mentioned in a couple of other spots (most prominently here: http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/majorattitude/heinlein.html) I enjoy Heinlein's fiction but would never hold him up as a model of social virtue. The dialogue he puts in the mouth of various fictional characters if often eminently quotable, but he himself went from one extreme to another in terms of social and political beliefs over the course of his life, and he was not always as polite in real life as his fictional characters preached everyone should be (nor, for that matter, were his fictional characters always as polite in their fictional lives as they preached everyone else should be... Lazarus Long, just for one, was capable of enormous rudeness when he found such to be in his self interest).

I see great value in civility, but I also see equal or greater value in invective, insult, satire, and parody, when they are done in a fashion I find entertaining. As much a fan as I am of gentle souls like Heinlein, I'm also a fan of Clemens, Wilde, and Churchill, not to mention modern masters of the vituperative art like Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart. I'd imagine as much as my attempts at humor have offended you, so to have all those worthies exasperated you equally, and no doubt you've published many essays and comments scolding and abjuring them for how they've lowered the discourse, just as I have here.

Or maybe you just think they're funny, and I'm not, which is certainly fair enough.

In other words, this 'essay' is for entertainment purposes only. When I want to convince a conservative of something, I'll either bring a club or a bribe, depending on circumstances.