Archive

Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Tea Parties are for girls

September 9, 2009 doctorbrown Leave a comment

A thought experiment occurred to me after I heard news of another round of “tea parties.”

I thought, “hmm, these folks are so dead-set on not paying taxes, I say, let’s exempt them from taxes.”

How, you might ask, could we exempt these right-wing foot soldiers from their duty to pay for the services they enjoy? Simple: stop including them in these services.

But how could we exclude them effectively? I mean, no one would voluntarily give up the privilege of driving on the roads, public education —well, maybe some of these Bible-thumpers would be OK with that one — enjoying the protection of the armed services, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., etc.

So, then I thought, why not just gives these whiney, wannabe tax-cheats their own country, you know, the part of America that consistently votes Republican.

But what would this look like? I mean the last time part of the country seceded from the other part, didn’t that turn into a national disaster, and didn’t the conservative, backwards part of the country get thumped bad and forced to reintegrate? Who would comprise the Conservative States of America?

Well, we can lose these tea partiers right off. I mean, tea parties are for little girls, not gainfully employed adults with a sense of responsibility.

But who else do we lose? Creationists. Still, I’m thinking good riddance.

I can see test scores improving already. There will also be much less people with Confederate Flags, people telling me that “God hates fags,” and almost no pro-lifers.

Things are really looking up for the Blu-Nited States of the East and West Coast of America (and parts of the Midwest)

But, the real pain is going to be that we will lose large portions of our armed services, and a lot of rich people. This could be a blow to the B. S. E. W. C. of A. (and parts of the Midwest).

But maybe we’ll get by. I mean, there will be less federal and state government employees, who come to tax-funded jobs Monday through Friday, and then attend tax protests.

We’ll have achieved what conservatives wanted all along, and shrunken a bloated, ineffectual bureaucracy. Hmm, still looking up. Maybe we’d even be able to cut taxes, too.

So what will the Blu-Nited States look like? Well, we’ll have universal health care, most of the Hollywood elite, the “main stream news media,” artists, the gay, lesbian and transgendered members of the military, I would imagine pot would be legal, everything would be unionized, and women’s bodies would be their own business.

We’d also get D.C., so there would be no need to relocate the nation’s capital. Hmm, not too bad.

But who gets Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and the other defense contractors? Well, they tend to go with the highest bidder, and since the Blu-Nited States would still have the nation’s richest states, I think we’d be OK there, too.

But what would life be like in the no-tax, no science, states’ rights CSA? The way I see it, kind of like the bastard child of Franco’s Spain and the Confederate States of America.

While roads, and other public works projects are completely unfunded, and all services are privatized, but staffed by a relatively incompetent pool of workers, the quality of life for the average person will comparable to a third world country.

The military will be a national one, paid for by levies upon the public. I say levies because they won’t call it taxes, even though it essentially will be.

The rich will live in great manses, guarded by private security forces to keep the roving bands of the poor, uneducated and drunk from entering. They will still fly Leer jets and secretly do business with liberal rich people in the Blu-Nited States, while chanting demagoguery lifted from the Dark Ages to the masses. There will be no roads after about two years from the strain of the SUVs driving on un-funded highways, but this will be fine because “we’ll make our own roads.”

If you get sick and can’t afford insurance, well, in the words of the now-immortal cyborg Dick Cheney, “fuck you.”

Broken bridges covered with ivy will stand as monuments to an ancient civilization of wonder at every road crossing the Mighty Mississippi.

The clergy and business interests will still collect money from the masses in the form of tithing, and a largely feudal state will emerge, the conservatives’ wet dream since Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre (look it up.)

Jobs will largely consist of the option to work at McDonalds, or the option to work at Wal-Mart.

And while the liberal-socialist paradise of the Blu-Nited States, with its relative affluence, top-class entertainment, sexual liberation and free-wheeling attitudes towards drugs will produce a contented culture, the repressive authoritarian culture of the Conservative States of America will require an outside enemy.

Without anyone to hate, the uneducated, superstitious and aggressive populace will turn against each other.

Churches will compete over who can be the most ridiculous in their rejection of fact and hatred for those who are different. Rednecks, without any gays, blacks, or really any brown people besides Ramesh Ponnuru, will turn against each other in a nation-wide orgy of bar fights.

Anarchy will erupt, even in the completely, monistically homogenous society, because, let’s face it, conservatives need something to hate in order to get out of bed in the morning. And who would be better than the queer-loving, Godless socialists next door.

A cry will rise from a jail cell somewhere in Alabama, a book detailing the struggle of the white working man to succeed despite a government that doesn’t tax him or question his supremacy will be written, tea parties thrown, brown shirts donned, and war will be declared against the Blu-Nited States, because the CSA needs “breathing room.”

And the overly-militarized CSA, despite its lack of innovation, will still have numerical superiority in the longest, bloodiest land war in history.

Rednecks with M-4s will mow down pot-addled college students, given a divine sanction by the Southern Baptist Convention. George Clooney’s head will adorn the pike of a small, toothless child wearing a shirt proclaiming “Lucky Devil.”

Eventually, Premier-for-Life Obama will have to nuke middle-America, dooming the remainder of us to a nuclear winter in socialist paradise.

So, go ahead and have your tea parties, bitch about the taxes you have to pay without reflecting on the services they provide for, and threaten secession. I mean, we Democrats may want a socialist paradise, but we’d still get the nukes in the divorce.

Categories: Misc. Crap, Politics

Tejas freedom…

Submitted without comment from our friends in Texas:

The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state’s social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology should be to the teaching of history.Three reviewers, appointed by social conservatives, have recommended revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.

“We’re in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it,” said Rev. Peter Marshall, a Christian minister and one of the reviewers appointed by the conservative camp.

The three reviewers appointed by the moderate and liberal board members are all professors of history or education at Texas universities, including Mr. de la Teja, a former state historian. The reviewers appointed by conservatives include two who run conservative Christian organizations: David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a group that promotes America’s Christian heritage; and Rev. Marshall, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God’s judgments on the nation’s sexual immorality. The third is Daniel Dreisbach, a professor of public affairs at American University.

The conservative reviewers say they believe that children must learn that America’s founding principles are biblical. For instance, they say the separation of powers set forth in the Constitution stems from a scriptural understanding of man’s fall and inherent sinfulness, or “radical depravity,” which means he can be governed only by an intricate system of checks and balances.

The curriculum, they say, should clearly present Christianity as an overall force for good — and a key reason for American exceptionalism, the notion that the country stands above and apart.

“America is a special place and we need to be sure we communicate that to our children,” said Don McLeroy, a leading conservative on the board. “The foundational principles of our country are very biblical…. That needs to come out in the textbooks.”

But the emphasis on Christianity as a driving force is disputed by some historians, who focus on the economic motivation of many colonists and the fractured views of religion among the Founding Fathers. “There appears to me too much politics in some of this,” said Lybeth Hodges, a professor of history at Texas Woman’s University and another of the curriculum reviewers.

The conservative reviewers say they believe that children must learn that America’s founding principles are biblical. For instance, they say the separation of powers set forth in the Constitution stems from a scriptural understanding of man’s fall and inherent sinfulness, or “radical depravity,” which means he can be governed only by an intricate system of checks and balances.

The curriculum, they say, should clearly present Christianity as an overall force for good — and a key reason for American exceptionalism, the notion that the country stands above and apart.

“America is a special place and we need to be sure we communicate that to our children,” said Don McLeroy, a leading conservative on the board. “The foundational principles of our country are very biblical…. That needs to come out in the textbooks.”

But the emphasis on Christianity as a driving force is disputed by some historians, who focus on the economic motivation of many colonists and the fractured views of religion among the Founding Fathers. “There appears to me too much politics in some of this,” said Lybeth Hodges, a professor of history at Texas Woman’s University and another of the curriculum reviewers.

the words she knows, the tune she hums…

July 11, 2009 Smith Michaels 1 comment

Submitted without comment:

The point of Satanic rock was to scare the Normals while fucking with the minds of its pimple-faced, predominantly male (nerdoid) audience, who needed to create a counter-world, with counter-morals and counter-aesthetics, to empower the nerdoids against the cooler, more successful jocks. But metal had its rivals for the hopelessly angry nerdoid: punk, hardcore and metal’s own competing mutations. The competition forced metal’s leading edge to metamorphose into harder, faster and more violent forms, reaching its apex with the rise of Death Metal in the mid-80s. Death Metal was as violent, Satanic and musically inaccessible as metal could go, or so it seemed.

And here is where Norway, the comic straight-man character in this dumb, bloody saga, comes in. Norway is not only a completely humorless society (it banned Monty Python’s The Life of Brian for being too offensive, leading to ads in rival Sweden boasting that the movie was “so funny it was banned in Norway!”), but worse, a deeply oppressive society, in a recognizably bland, caring, pious, Social Democratic way. Which raises an interesting question: Do boredom and blandness “count” as real suffering, and if so, do they justify murder the way other forms of oppression make murder seem a likely, even understandable response? The Black Metalists of Norway think so.

The humor and empty boasts inherent in Death Metal were lost on Norway’s youth. They took Death Metal literally, and quickly discovered that it wasn’t “evil” or “authentic” enough. There were too many “poseurs.” And more important, too few genuine corpses for a scene that claimed to be so obsessed with death and violence. So Black Metal offered up one of its own as its first sacrificial corpse: the lead singer of Mayhem, who ingeniously had changed his name to “Dead,” offed himself with a shotgun. His friend and lead guitarist, Euronymous, discovered Dead’s brains splattered all over their apartment. So the first thing Euronymous does is run down to the village store to buy film, run back, snap a whole bunch of photos of Dead’s corpse, boast to all his friends about it, then call the cops. Now that is fuckin’ cool, dude.

Where as the nerdoids in Lords of Chaos were vainly trying to recapture the lost, centuries-old glory of their Viking ancestors in a diminished modern Norway, uber-nerdoids Richard Perle and David Frum seem hell bent on destroying contemporary America’s glorious imperial war machine right at the very peak of its power. Their plan for leading America, lemming-like, over the cliff of self-destruction is laid out in their sparsely-worded manifesto, An End to Evil. The title alone shows how very Black Metal these grown-up war nerds are.

(via)

My response to Heritage Media Partners

June 26, 2009 doctorbrown 3 comments

So I was checking my student e-mail today, and I came across a gem:

Can conservative + grassroots + Christian = edgy and insightful political commentary?

Tune in and find out!

Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Conservatism strikes again!

Every Thursday at our
NEW TIME of 6:00 pm PT hosts Babe Huggett and Warner Todd Huston discuss and examine current political events, put them in historical context and follow trends to their logical conclusions through a conservative, Christian viewpoint. Scheduled guests will enjoy their own featured isegment. Phone in comments from listeners always welcome!

On tonight’s show:

Hosts Babe Huggett & Warner Todd Huston dig deep & analyze the news with their usual insightful and historical approach all the while being as politically irreverent as possible! We’re going glam tonight at our NEW TIME with the uber talented and downright gorgeous Hollywood actress and film producer,
Sharise Parviz, whose quirky characters, political satire and true conservatism has video buffs crying for more!

My response:

Subject: Please remove me from your e-mail list.

Body: I very rarely check my student e-mail address, because I have graduated college.
When I do, I don’t want to read about dying movements trying to reinvent themselves with “gorgeous actresses.” You guys really need some new ideas if you want to save conservatism.
You could try moving away from the medievalists, quasi-fascists and racists on the fringe and instead focusing on issues that matter to most Americans. For instance, actually getting spending under control. This is even more important to pay attention to when we have a hawkish, Republican president in office, but it still resonates – perhaps surprisingly – with some Democrats.
If you guys can return to being the party of Eisenhower, who rejected the military-industrial complex as dangerous to the American people, then you will be on the right track.

But that’s just this former student journalist’s opinion.
Bottom line is, please remove me from your subscription list.

Sincerely,
C. Ervin Brown
Former Editor,
The Shepherd University Picket.

Answer for what exactly?

May 14, 2009 Smith Michaels 1 comment

Jim Cramer:

No one wants to suffer a beat-down. No one wants to be humiliated or embarrassed. I was shocked at [host Jon Stewart's] behavior. I wish he knew about my background, and I wish he knew about a lot of things that I had done, because I think he would’ve thanked me instead of attacked me…I think the attack on CNBC and the attacks on me were gravely misplaced. It was rather remarkable in that it was so clear that his goal was to just destroy me. One day he’ll answer for it.

If Cramer could provide a list of all of the great shit he’s done it would make things much easier.

Love, the kind you clean up with a mop and bucket…

May 13, 2009 Smith Michaels 3 comments

There is so much brilliance here that words can not describe it:

The part about the gay mafia/Gestapo is so priceless that it can virtually save our economy all by itself.

Sometimes I think I understand all of the abovie in an abstract way – but then the pure reality of their bigotry smacks me in the face.

(via)

Walking the walk…

Submitted without comment:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Incoming clusterfuck…

Justice Souter is retiring.

Washington is going to implode.

Does this mean that we get a liberal version of Scalia? Or at least Roberts?

One can dream.

UPDATE: My prediction for his replacement: Ed Rendell.

Wow…

April 8, 2009 The Kaiser Leave a comment

submitted without comment:

Categories: Media, Politics

“These pictures which hint that he’s gay…”

April 8, 2009 Smith Michaels 4 comments

Did you know that gay men like to show their affection for each other through kissing? And that they don’t find this activity embarrassing?stupidbill

I know quite a newsflash. Now the below clip contains Bill O’Reilly getting weirded out that pictures have surfaced of a gay contestant of American Idol kissing another man. I know: horror, upon horror. O’Reilly seems convinced that these pictures have doomed – DOOMED – this guy’s chances of winning on American Idol. I mean, there’s no way that a gay pop singer can succeed? America won’t stand for that. Boys kissing boys is gross. Hetro kissing is ok but what’s really awesome is two girls kissing – which Bill clearly agrees.

Honestly, the real problem is just PDA in general – yes, even lesbian kissin’ – especially if pictures of it surface on the internet. I can speak to this from personal experience. A picture of my girlfriend kissing me recently appeared on the internet and ruined my life – I’m shunned by my peers and am on the verge of failing out of grad school. If only I hadn’t allowed that unfortunate shot to be snapped!

Ladies and gentlemen, Bill O’Reilly is doing a public service to us all – kissing is gross and should be kept behind close doors.

(via)