Phantom ballots for Bush

6.11.04 13:57


Red State 101


During my post-election funk, I came up with the idea, not wholly original, to correspond with a red-state voter, and find out what the hell he was thinking, only in a loving and supportive way. That correspondence would open the door to some armchair strategizing by yours truly over where the Democrats need to head over the next two years.

But Publius beat me to it. Go read this. It's brilliant. The money quote
"The overwhelming majority of these people are not mean. In fact, they are some of the kindest, biggest-hearted people you would ever meet. The problem, though, is that these people see the world through an "us versus them" lens. They see the world as being in decline from a past golden era. They believe strongly that their world is being threatened by pernicious outside forces from Hollywood, and Maxim magazine, and atheist professors. And they really really believe it.

"That's why things like the Ten Commandments and gay marriage get so many people worked up. It's not so much the issues themselves as it the perception that these are "proxy" wars for the larger battle against spiritual decline. The key is to not to shame these people into coming around to our views. The key is to convince them using the language they understand - the language of Christ. We have to convince them that our policies are more like the 'us,' and less like the 'them.'"
I've as guilty as any elitist, left-of-center, college-educated American when it comes to making fun of the faith-based crowd. They're fair game, after all. That's what happens when you drag Jesus into the political arena. But me and the rest of us book-learnin' fools went too far. And now it's time for our own Come to Jesus Moment.


Rush to judgement

Rush Limbaugh is now claiming that Democrats lost because we want to outlaw all morals, and that George Bush is now more popular that Bill Clinton ever was. George Bush just won approval from 51 percent of the voters. That's now. Bill Clinton's highest approval rating during his eight years as President was 70 percent. That's ever. I know, Rush was overstating it. Clinton's average approval rating was 57 percent.

That's much better.


Morality 101

The next time George Bush starts lecturing us on his standards for selecting a new supreme court justice, just keep in mind these words:

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.  One’s rights to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

--Justice Robert H. Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624,638 (1943).
8.11.04 18:30


Knuckle-dragging mouth-breather suspended


Mark Belling is to the public airwaves what a turd is to a swimming pool. That a publicly traded company, Clear Channel Communications, would employ him to entertain Milwaukee's fish-out-of-water red staters is proof that God is a ditto head. Belling, in full pre-election rant mode, recently told his loyal listeners to keep an eye on Milwaukee's Latinos:
"You watch the voter turnout on the near south side (of Milwaukee), heavily Hispanic, and compare it to the voter turnout in any other election, and you're going to see every wetback and every other non-citizen out there voting."
Belling later apologized, then milked the apology for more yuks, even polling his missing chromosome listeners about whether he should have apologized. Finally, even an ethically-challenged outfit like Clear Channel had had enough, and suspended Belling.

But he'll be back.


Arafat pledges resistance to Zionist cholecystitis

"I will hurl my gall stones against those who occupy my intestinal tract," says dying Palestinian nutjob.
9.11.04 01:23


Yassar Arafat, useful idiot


Don't shed any tears for Yassar Arafat. The longtime Palestinian leader was created by the Soviet KGB as an act of cold war mischief. Over the years, he profited handsomely from his terrorist acts, and openly bragged that he invented airline highjacking and suicide bombing. The hundreds of millions of dollars that he stole from the people he professed to help, plus millions in Soviet blood money, reportedly sits in a Swiss bank account, which would explain the public outpouring of grief from his wife, whom he hasn't seen in four years.

I hope the left can get over its infatuation with this monster:
"Next, the KGB gave Arafat an ideology and an image, just as it did for loyal Communists in our international front organizations. High-minded idealism held no mass-appeal in the Arab world, so the KGB remolded Arafat as a rabid anti-Zionist. They also selected a "personal hero" for him -- the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the man who visited Auschwitz in the late 1930s and reproached the Germans for not having killed even more Jews. In 1985 Arafat paid homage to the mufti, saying he was "proud no end" to be walking in his footsteps."
Keep following those footsteps, Yassar. They lead straight to hell.


Hitch on secular government and liberals

Christopher Hitchens on secular government and the left:
Secularism is not just a smug attitude. It is a possible way of democratic and pluralistic life that only became thinkable after several wars and revolutions had ruthlessly smashed the hold of the clergy on the state. We are now in the middle of another such war and revolution, and the liberals have gone AWOL. I dare say that there will be a few domestic confrontations down the road, over everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the display of Mosaic tablets in courtrooms and schools. I have spent all my life on the atheist side of this argument, and will brace for more of the same, but I somehow can't hear Robert Ingersoll* or Clarence Darrow being soft and cowardly and evasive if it came to a vicious theocratic challenge that daily threatens us from within and without.
I'll probably get kicked out of the liberal club for saying this, but here goes: It's stupid to complain about the corrosive effect of Christian fundamentalism on American government if you can't get equally worked up about the danger of Islamic fundamentalism on the rest of the world. As odious as school prayer, creation science, and government support of faith-based charities is to an agnostic like myself, they are inconsequential compared to the excesses of the Islamofascists, who recently murdered a Dutch filmaker in broad daylight. His crime? Producing a documentary film that criticized the subjugation of women under fundamentalist Islam.
10.11.04 01:19


Even the accent?


We already knew as much, but still, it's good to hear it from a native. Amanda from Austin on the ex-governor:
"Look, Bush's arrogance has little to do with his being a Texan and everything to do with being a spoiled brat from a family that positions itself as the royal family of America. As this article points out, he's no Lyndon Johnson. Johnson's attitude was less "Fuck you!" and more "Listen to me, I'm the boss here." More importantly, Bush isn't what Johnson was--a born and bred Texan. ... Bush is a fake. His accent is fake. Cowboy hats look stupid on him. The big belt buckles are an affectation that I guarantee he'll drop the second he's out of office. He doesn't politic like a Texan, but just hides behind people who do. Good Texas politicians know everything that is going on--Bush tries to know nothing. Good Texas politicians stand up to their critics, but Bush just comes off as whining when he addresses the few criticisms that penetrate the force field his handlers have built around him."
I have an idea what he can do with his belt buckles.


The myth of judicial activism

Steve Sanders, a published writer and third year law student, has posted an excellent piece on the right wing's jihad on civil liberties:
Thus continues the jihad against an independent judiciary, the bulwark that protects constitutional rights and liberties against the passions and prejudices of the political, cultural, and religious majority.
This isn't paranoid ranting. The framer's of the constitution, and 200 years of court decisions, make is perfectly clear that minority interests can never be held hostage by the whims of the majority party. The Bush administration's ongoing campaign to co-opt our independent judiciary warrants extra scutiny in the coming years. I hope our "liberal media" is up to the task.

An attack on an independent judiciary is nothing less than an attack on the separation of powers. But that's to be expected from an administration that will do anything, and say anything, to grab as much power as it can.
11.11.04 01:21


Veterans Day

Here in the midwest, it's the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Here's a poem by Wilfred Owen, a British officer who wrote some of the starkest, most moving lines to come out of the Great War. I chose this poem for its title.

The Last Laugh

'Oh! Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped-In vain, vain, vain!
Machine-guns chuckled,-Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed,-'O Mother, -Mother, - Dad!'
Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured,-Fool!
And the splinters spat, and tittered.

'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till slowly lowered, his whole faced kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
11.11.04 18:02


Flat tax


Like most Americans, I loathe paying taxes. Not so much for the hard-earned income I need to dole out to the government every quarter (I'm self employed), as for the complexity of the tax code. I gave up doing my own taxes about five years ago, and now pay an accounant about $300 to do it for me.

So a flat tax, which is sure to be addressed by the Republican controlled universe, has appeal to me. At one stroke, congress could execute a Fallujah-style attack on the tax lobbyists who bribe our lawmakers, plus save small business owners the considerable time and money that is needed to file overly-complicated tax forms.

Democrats and their constituents will howl that the flat tax lets the richest one percent off the hook, by taxing them at the same rate as the middle class. But the rich are already evading paying their fair share precisely because the tax code is so loaded down with exemptions and qualifiers that the flat tax would abolish. Read any "How to Get Rich" book and you'll find entire chapters dedicated to how to avoid paying taxes.

Which makes me skeptical that a flat tax will ever come about. It would take a supreme act of courage by congress to chase away the tax lobbyists who finance their re-election campaigns, and I don't trust congress, or this administration, to do the right thing. George Bush has shown time and again that he is not an honorable man, and the Republican synchophants in congress take their cue from him.

The fish rots from the head down.
12.11.04 15:37


[first page] [previous page]  [next page]