Our Democratic System

Anarchist blogger Broadsnark responded to a post I had made on our democratic system, but because her comments section is super-anal and won't allow long comments, I'm posting my reply here:

First off, I'd like to say that "Love it or leave it" is most definitely NOT what I'm saying here. That's the attitude of those who insist that you have to love America the way that it is and that if you attempt any change of it, including change within the democratic process, you hate America and should leave. And this is the attitude of head-in-the-sand conservatives who insist upon pretending that America has done no wrong and that if you think any wrong has been committed, you hate America. But as much as I love my country (and I truly do), I readily admit that it has done many shameful things that have brought discredit to it. So no, I don't insist that you have to love America the way it is or leave. I myself would like to see many more changes, so that America becomes the ideal of what it should be.


Secondly, I did nothing but state the social contract that we all have with our country. Minors aren't old enough to enter into contracts, but their parents are. So your parent's decisions are binding on you, whether you like it or not. Just ask any child actor who got robbed by his folks and he'll assure you that your parents can enter you into shitty contracts and then steal all your money. And once you turn eighteen, you can choose to leave. That's not my opinion, that's just how the world works.

Finally, the focus of my post was on our democratic process, not on accepting the status quo. And my point is that, if you don't like how our country is, work to change it. Help elect representatives that will represent your interests or run for office yourself. And thusly, change what you want to see changed. And if you can't get enough people to agree with you, then tough. That's how it works. If you think our system is broken, then fix it. And if you don't like our process for fixing it, leave. And if you want to rebel, then rebel, and face the consequences. There are no other options.

And it should be stressed that this argument was explictly written for conservatives who INSIST that Obama doesn't have the right to force healthcare reform on us. And the title of my post came from the conservative belief that "taxation is theft." And as I explained, taxation is in accordance with our system of government, so if taxation is theft, then democracy is also theft. And my "love it or leave it" style rhetoric was specifically chosen to throw their own rhetoric at them; though I never used that specific phrase.

And I like the democratic method, because frankly, I don't agree with lots of what you might want. We can't all win. That's the point. And it doesn't matter if you were born into an oppressive government, or a "fixed" system you don't agree with. You still don't have the right to force anything on me any more than I can force it on you. That's why we agreed to democracy. Because it gives us all a chance to get the government we want, based upon majority opinion.

And from what I can tell, that's what anarchists seem to want too. They want democracy based upon majority opinion, and merely object to what they see as a permanent ruling class that dictates orders. And if that's what you want, elect it. Work to get as many anarchists into Congress as you can, and have them fix the system. What other choice do you have? Can you possibly be saying that you're going to rebel and FORCE the rest of us to adopt your anarchist system? I don't think so. So you either have to use our democratic process to get your anarchy, or you don't get it in this country. There is no other logical option.

And if you don't like it, then go to the magical land that allows us all to be our own personal dictators. But as you realize, such a place doesn't exist. We can't all be dictators. So democracy is the next best option. And if you don't like it, fix it. And if you don't like democracy, leave. I never suggested that you have to love what America is, but if you want to live here, you got to play by the rules. And that's all I was saying.

Anarchy as Democracy

Don't ask me how, but I've fallen in with anarchists.  No, I'm not switching to anarchy.  I've just gotten into a discussion with them.  And as with any time I'm in a discussion, I discuss to win.  And that means I need to know more about their belief system than they do.  That's what makes me so great. 

And one thing I've found is that I'm really not that different from anarchists.  Well, some anarchists.  In fact, one of the ironic things about anarchy is that there are about as many different visions of anarchy as there are anarchists, if not more.  And while some anarchists hate capitalism, others embrace it.  And you never know which type you're dealing with until you assume it's the other type and get corrected.  And I'm not sure, but I think in my discussion, I've gotten involved with the two different types and now I'm totally confused.

But one anarchist tried to help me out by sending me to An Introduction to Anarchism.  But for god's sake, don't click on that link!  You'll most assuredly regret it.  It's long.  Ungodly long.  You can read it if you really want, but don't say I didn't warn you.  And while I appreciate the thoroughness, most of it was meaningless for what I was wanting to know, and it takes so long to get to the actual intro of what anarchy is that you'll probably have stopped reading long before you get there.  Because most of it is about what anarchy isn't.

Anarchy isn't lawlessness.  Anarchy isn't utopianism.  Anarchy isn't equality.  And of course, anarchy isn't the current system, which involves government taking advantage of you to oppress you, yadda yadda yadda.  Ok, I get it.  But what is it?  I'm not exactly sure.  I read all that stuff, and can only conclude that anarchy is whatever you want it to be.  It seems to be more of a feeling than an actual form of government.  And you can bet it's a good feeling.

And you'd think it meant no government, but you'd be wrong.  It basically comes down to anarchy being a free-form democracy run by the people.  That's it.  And they'll have rules that can be enforced, but it just won't be powerful, and I think they won't tax you.  Oh, and while they can enforce laws, they still don't have power over you.  Again, anarchy seems to be more of a feeling than an actual form of government.

No Domination

Here, try this, from the intro:
Perhaps the best way to describe anarchism is as the rejection of all forms of domination of one person over another.

Oookaaaaaay.  Yeah.  The rejection of all forms of domination of one person over another.  Right.  That's going to form the basis of a real government.  Of course.  But notice, this still isn't a description of what it is.  It's just more attack on the current system.  And I'm not shitting you, according to the intro, anarchy will protect "a worker who is declared useless to society and thrown out of the business he’s been working at for 30 years."  Oh, and apparently, the president can currently order airstrikes on civilian populations, something that anarchy will also put a stop to.

And that's the thing: These people aren't actually railing against our government.  They're railing against some fictional government in which we're stuck with a "few" leaders who have unlimited power and can't be stopped.  In their universe, our laws don't apply to our politicians.  Or our police.  As was explained to me, liberals believe in hiring wolves to protect the sheep and nothing can protect us from the wolves, as the laws only apply to us and not them.  Oh, and while the government is all-powerful, it's actually controlled by capitalists; who I guess are also above the law.

And when you really get down to it, you'll find that these anarchists want government.  They just don't want our government, or any government that's ever existed.  They want a government that they can control.  And they think that if you get together with all your neighbors, you can solve the problems that arise and people can work for themselves and won't need to worry about being fired.  In other words, they want democracy, mixed with a strong dash of fairy dust.

Government of the Neighbors

And it's like these people have never been to any meeting with people who disagreed before.  I've seen PTA meetings that got quite heated.  A neighborhood association where I once lived had a meeting that erupted in anger and shouting and almost fighting (thank god I never attend these stupid things) over some stupid issue that I can't even remember.  I once saw an actual coup d'etat at a Knights of Columbus meeting, because the guys who did most of the cooking were never being picked for leadership positions, and so they stacked the election meeting with new members who elected them to all the top positions.  My dad was on the nomination committee and was LIVID over what these jerks did.  It took years for that brauhaw to settle down.

And yet we're to imagine that neighbors will get together and settle real issues?  Property disputes, and rape accusations, and murder?  Really?? I'm going to trust my neighbors to handle this stuff?  Hell, I like my neighbors and live in a cool area with highly educated people who all vote the same way I vote, yet I'd prefer to let the professional police handle my burglary, thank you very much.  And by the time they catch on to my Ponzi Scheme, I'll be in the next county, pulling it again.

Oh, but did I say burglary?  There will be no need for crime, once we get anarchy.  You see, once we get all the money and property away from the "few" who possess it, then we'll all be living in the land of plenty and work will be easier than crime.  And kids will educate themselves and electricity will generate itself and iPod's will rain down like manna from the skies; while no one is ever fired.  Huzzah huzzah! 

And apparently, hunger is created by "the few," because they're all sitting on a giant stack of cheeseburgers that's just waiting to be eaten, if only we could use our anarchy to free the burgers for our own consumption.  And honestly, is it possible for a realist to debate someone with such fantasy expectations? 

Anachronistic Anarchists

And I'm not even going to get into the problems of how we handle healthcare or the elderly or education or any of that.  What's the point?  I read a long ass essay as an "intro" and still lack any sort of real world understanding of how their government is supposed to work.  I'm an accountant, dammit!  Not some pansy-assed philosophy grad.  I need real answers, like how long fixed assets depreciate in anarchy.  I'm a guy who's actually seen the faces of the faceless bureaucrats at the IRS.  Stop telling me about how all-powerful they supposedly are and start telling me how we replace them.

And honestly, I'm not going to keep going with this.  Because I really don't feel confident enough in my knowledge of anarchy to truly snark it properly.  But that's just because every damn person who's trying to explain it to me keeps explaining it in la-la magical fairy terms.  I'm told endlessly about how unfair the government treats me (unbeknownst to me), yet very little as to how this really will work.  Yeah, great, we all live in harmony, but who's going to protect my daughter from rape?  Sounds to me like a tribal justice system or vigilantes, or...something that involves one group having dominance over another, yet I was assured that this wouldn't happen.  But maybe there's no reason to rape once we get anarchy.  Maybe the rapists can rape themselves.  I don't know.

And overall, I think their main problem is that they're stealing rhetoric from the original anarchists, who were describing a different world than the one we live in.  This stuff was created back when governments really were mysterious organizations with almost unlimited powers.  But these days, Cheney can't disappear someone like Jose Padilla without everyone and his brother knowing he was on a navy ship.  And it really IS possible for a black kid from a broken home to end up in the Whitehouse.

One of my favorite books is In the Days of the Comet by HG Wells, in which he describes to a future person how horrible things were in his age, due to lack of zoning laws, employment laws, environmental laws, and the ownership of much by the few.  And while not all of these problems have been solved, it's funny looking back at this as we really have solved many of the problems he's describing.  We're so far removed from his world that it's hard to believe it was written in a century I've lived in. 

Yet, these anarchists are still describing that world, the one where we're all powerless and even educated people are completely at the mercy of a corrupt system..  Because the rhetoric they're using is still caught in the past.  These are anachronistic anarchists.  And these days, you really can be your own boss and be treated as an equal if you have a boss and be paid for what your time is worth.  And if there's a group trying to make this easier and bring about more protection and accountability for citizens, it's liberals and we're using the government to do it.

And their solution, far from getting the laws that helped remedy the situations the original anarchists were railing against, is to blame the govenrment and imagine that we can solve it all if only the government went away and let us solve them.  Somehow, we'll be able to boycott businesses that are bad in ways that our current boycotts fail.  I guess the government is blocking those too.

Donald Douglas Doesn't Know Much About Anarchy

After my recent post on Donald Douglas' attack on anarcho-capitalists as being anarcho-commies, I've learned a lot about anarchy.  And the first thing I learned: Professor Donald Douglas doesn't know anything about anarchy.  And that's fairly surprising, seeing as how anarchic his belief system appears to those who try to undestand it, but it's true. 

And one of the main things I learned was that, Martin Rothbard, who Donald cited as evidence that anarcho-capitalists don't exist is, in fact, the founder of anarcho-capitialism.  It was Rothbard's term and he invented the concept.  To quote Rothbard's Wikipedia page:

Rothbard began to consider himself a private property anarchist in the 1950s and later began to use "anarcho-capitalist."  He wrote: "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism." In his anarcho-capitalist model, a system of protection agencies compete in a free market and are voluntarily supported by consumers who choose to use their protective and judicial services. Anarcho-capitalism would mean the end of the state monopoly on force.

And that makes perfect sense to me, far more sense, in fact, than Donald's attempt to thread the needle; in which he argues that he's against Big Government, just not as against it as the anarchists are.  And in Donald's view, you can't love capitalism if you reject America's government or Tea Parties. 

But of course, if you read what Rothbard said, you'll quickly realize that most conservatives fall into the anarcho-capitalist label; assuming we accept it as legitimate.  In fact, I honestly think the term "anarcho-capitalist" is a far better description than the amorphous "conservative" they prefer.  After all, there's nothing conservative about their plans to destroy government as we know it and replace it with good feelings and fairy dust.

And if anything, one mistake Donald makes is the one that most folks unaquainted with anarchy make (including myself), which is to assume that "anarchy" means anarchy.  But as I'll mention in my next post (assuming I write it), anarchy doesn't really mean what you think it means and you'll feel a tiny bit dumber once you realize the truth. 

But Donald's bigger mistake was that he just didn't like the folks at the G20 summit, didn't like the folks helping them out, and therefore, didn't want to think that anyone associated with conservativism could have been involved. 

Defeat Begets Defeat

If there's one thing I'm great at (and trust me, I'm great at many many things), it's strategy.  I understand strategy like fish understand water.  And one of the oddest pieces of "strategy" I keep hearing from progressives is their insistence that we'd be better off if Dems lost Congress next year, as it would sweep out the sell-out centrist Dems and we could finally get the liberal Democrats we all desire.

But as a top-notch strategist, I can assure you that this "strategy" is complete and utter horseshit.  Past history guarantees that, were Democrats to lose Congress next year, it would be loudly announced that they lost because America is a conservative nation and Democrats were too liberal.  And Obama would be roundly derided for his liberal push on healthcare reform and other "socialist" issues, and Dems would be warned to never attempt anything liberal again.

And why not?  Isn't that exactly what we said after our victory in 2006 and 2008?  We insisted that the election results were proof that Republicans were too conservative and America had rejected their agenda.  So why shouldn't they say the same when conservatives defeat liberals?  And we insist that Republicans can only regain popularity if they reject their ultra-conservativism.  So why wouldn't the same be true for us if we lost?  I mean, if the moderate-liberal loses to the ultra-conservative, wouldn't that mean that America supports conservatives?

And come on, conservatives keep saying that they lost because their candidates weren't conservative enough; and everyone knows how laughable that claim is.  These progressives are making the same dumb argument.  It'd be like if a manufacturer saw that people preferred DVD over VHS and decided to start making more VHS machines.  Dumb.  Just dumb.

How to Win

And so the end result of this would be an immediate shift towards conservativism in 2010, as well as a delayed shift in 2012, as Dems struggled to become more conservative.  And that's exactly what we've seen after every Republican victory.  Can anyone seriously suggest that 1994, 2002, and 2004 gave us the awesome progressive Democrats these people think a 2010 defeat would give us?  I can't imagine how. 

But you know what could give us more progressive Dems?  Victory.  Sweeping victory.  Every time Dems win a landslide, it shows how liberal the nation is.  And the easier the win, the more liberal we must be and the safer it is for us to run ultra-liberals against them in primaries.  That's why we think it's ok to have primary challenges in safe blue districts, while allowing "blue dog" centrists run uncontested in red districts.  But if all the districts were safe, then we'd have hard-liberals contesting all the primaries.

And that just makes sense.  Only partisan extremists believe in the myth that the base stays home if they're not satisfied.  That's bullshit.  The base is the last group that will allow the other side to win.  It's the rest of the electorate that you have to please.  If you don't excite the less political voters, you'll lose.  But the base will always show up; guaranteed.  That's why they're called "the base."  I'm not sure who created the myth that you have to please the base in a general election, but I doubt they knew anything about strategy.

Obamacare Plan B

Carpetbagger's got a post about how the Obama Admin has been increasingly putting on the pressure in regards to getting Congressional Dems to support Healthcare Reform including the Public Option; or at a minimum, agreeing to not let Republicans filibuster it. 

And for as much as many progressives have complained about how Obama isn't doing enough (or even insist that he doesn't want to do enough, in accordance with a bizarre theory which posits that Obama wants to stake his reputation on failure), I've always thought he was playing it low-key as a strategy, but would eventually turn up the heat if he felt it was necessary.  The rest of this is what I wrote as a comment.

I'm of the opinion that this was Plan B (or possibly Plan C or D, depending on who's counting) the whole time. It was best for Obama if he didn't signal that a large portion of his presidency hinged upon getting healthcare reform with a public option, as that would have been like painting a giant bulls-eye on his face. So instead, he left it up to Congress to write the legislation (as per our Constitution), while he sat back and acted as a mildly interested cheerleader.


But it's now quite apparent that Republicans put the bulls-eye on his face after all, and since their best attacks have failed to rally any serious opposition to him or his plans (ie, from anyone who didn't already think he was a socialist), he now feels safe in taking an increasingly more active stand. But even still, it's largely behind the scenes and still hasn't involved Obama publicly insisting on a plan.

And for as frustrating as this is (particularly as he can't possibly let us know what he's really up to), I think this is the best way. I suppose I would have preferred a more aggressive pushback in August, but then again, maybe not. Perhaps it was best to give August to conservatives, so they could huff and puff and overplay their hands. And now, as usual, Obama held tight while his opponents over-reached and gave everything they had, and now he's playing strong again while Republicans slowly realize how impotent their best attacks had been.

Sure, perhaps none of this is intentional and he's just making this shit up as he's going along, but this really does fit exactly into the same pattern we've seen for the past year and a half. Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes, and all that.

Donald Douglas: All Dumb is Liberal

Poor, poor Donald Douglas.  In his herculean effort to maintain his belief that liberal=bad and conservative=good, we see posts like this one, about an anarchist who supposedly Twittered to G20 Rioters in order to help them avoid arrest.  Donald goes as far as to title his post "Queens 'Tin Can' Anarchist Held One Pound of Liquid Mercury," based entirely on a claim written in the NY Post that mercury was found in his apartment. 

I guess this is proof of the NY Times liberal-bias, as they failed to mention this important fact completely.  So in typical fever-swamp fashion, Donald takes this factoid and proceeds to explain to us the dangers of explosives and other such toughguy nonsense which all conservatives inherently know since birth.

But here's the funny part: Donald quotes from Mike Gogulski, a completely different anarachist, who writes in his bio:

My political philosophy — which could be variously termed anarchism, anarcho-capitalism or individualist anarchism...

But then Donald writes in a comment:

I call them "anarcho-communists," Mark. They're really the same in my book.

Yeah, self-described "anarcho-capitalists" are "anarcho-communists" in Donald's weird world.  Similarly, people who despise government and actively fight against it are the same as those who support big government and the use of force to ensure government control over people.  Right.  And mind you, Donald Douglas is a professor of Political Science at a college somewhere in California.  Is it any wonder they're in such deep doo-doo right now?

Donald Responds

Oh, and as it turns out, Donald has a response to this.  I had written a brief version of what I wrote above, and he responded with a stellar argument: He insulted me, mentioned a Lenin picture found in the anarachists apartment (which Donald turned into multiple "pictures," which is absolute proof, as the only people who have pictures of Lenin are card-carrying communists), and then cites two links. 

The first link was to his own blog, in which he posts some pictures of the riots; one picture had an anti-capitalist sign in it, while the other had an anti-government, anti-bank sign.  He then quotes one of my fellow "nihilists," who had lambasted the unfairness of the insurance industry.  Apparently, Donald is so clueless about our healthcare system that he imagines it's "anti-capitalist" to decry unfair business practices that kill people.  Apparently, if you've heard of recission, you're a communist. 

As far as I can tell, this post of his is "proof" that anarchists are liberals because  he combined them into the same post.  Sure, the anarchists were protesting government, while the liberal was wanting stronger government; but hey, they both have complaints against corporations, and that makes them equals. 

Oddly, Donald referred to these people as "anti-globalization," yet their sign suggested they were against borders; which I think would put them in the pro-globalization camp.  I mean, who flouts borders more than the international conglomerates these people detest?  But of course, I've generally found these sort of people lack any kind of inner-consistency, so it's quite possible that it was the protesters who were confused about how you can't be both anti-globalization and anti-borders at the same time; and Donald was correct in labeling them as such.

The second link was from a libertarian who asserted that there are extreme communists who have turned to anti-government anarachy because they're so extreme that they've realized that the government supports capitalism.  And while I'm sure that such people exist, as I once had the misfortune of talking to such a person, I fail to see how this is proof that all anarchists are communists.  After all, this article was written in 1970 and I doubt he was directly referring to the G20 protesters.  And while there are commie-anarchists who oppose government because they think it reinforces inequity, there are also capitalist-anarchists who oppose government because it infringes on their freedom.  And most of the anarchists I know are in the pro-freedom side; including the anarchist he quoted.

Oh, and as a late entry, Donald gave another response which asserted that Gogulski MUST be a socialist because he posted at a socialist website and a real capitalist would NEVER do that.  But as I found, he only had the one post there and it was originally posted at his own blog.  The Socialist Webzine Donald linked to had just reprinted what Gogulski wrote at his own blog.  In other words, Donald's "birds of a feather" argument has no wings.

My Rebuttal

And to this abudance of evidence which Donald may have been alluding to when he posted these links, all I have to say is, he quoted an anarchist who describes his beliefs as"anarcho-capitalism."   But if that's not enough, here are a few lines from Gogulski's Anarchist Declaration, and just try to tell me that this couldn't have come straight from your average Tea Partier:

•Where a tyrant, a majority, a plurality, or a minority presume to grant you power over me, or over anyone else, I shall condemn it, resist it, renounce it and denounce it.


•Where there are those who are subjugated beneath the boot heel of power, by “democratic” means or otherwise, I shall support their resistance, their condemnation, their denunciation and their renunciation.

•I shall make no compromise with evil.

Oh, yeah.  This totally sounds like your average liberal to me.  Sure, we believe in a strong government which can regulate industry and force people to buy insurance, while this guy thinks that democracy is illegitmate and doesn't give us power to compel people to act; but hey, those are just flipsides of the same coin.  Because when you get down to it, Donald doesn't like this guy and he doesn't like us, and that means we must be on the same team.  After all, conservative=good and liberal=bad, and never the twain shall meet.

The Futility of the Lose-Lose Liberals

I'm continually frustrated by liberals who insist that every Republican move is part of some genius strategy that always puts them on top, and how we're all naive fools if we somehow imagine otherwise.  Somehow, they've failed to grasp that we had congressional victories in 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2006, and 2008. Republicans, in contrast, only had victories in 1994, 2002, 2004.  And without 9/11, I seriously doubt they'd have had any Congressional victories after 1994, and definitely think Bush would have been tossed in 2004.

So in the past nine elections, we made congressional gains in six, while losing three; yet still these people continue to talk about how Republicans keep beating us and we can't win until we finally start treating these people the same way they treat us.  Somehow, losing tactics are going to help us win victories that are so big that even these people will finally be satisfied in acknowledging our success.

And now I read not one, but two comments about how the imbecilic behavior by conservatives in celebrating us not getting the Olympics is somehow part of some grand strategy that we're losing.  And these comments come in two varieties: The ones who insist that these conservatives would be ignored if we didn't talk about them, and those who actually think it's part of some savvy plan for them to appear juvenile and anti-American; and that we're "being played" by going along with it.

Liberal-Created Conservatives

And both ideas are horrible. The first is wrong because it somehow imagines that it's wrong for us to criticize them, and insists that moronic conservative attacks should go unanswered.  Now, I can understand if we were talking about hyping some anonymous blogger, but Laura Ingraham does just fine on her own without our help.  They also say the same of our attacks on Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachman, and Sarah Palin; and we're told repeatedly that attacking these people only makes them more powerful.

But these people weren't created by liberals, and I happen to think that they're a huge BOON for liberals.  I'm glad these people say the moronic stuff they do and the more we can highlight crazy conservatives, the better we look in comparison.  Had these conservatives not existed, we should have created them.  Hell, that is what conservatives do.  They look crazy, so they have to invent strawmen liberals who are even crazier than they are.

For as much as these sort of people think we should emulate conservative attacks, it's like they really aren't paying attention to how those attacks work.  But shining the light on these cockroaches is the best way of combating them; while allowing them to thrive in darkness is exactly what they want.

Karl Rove's Eternal Mindfuck

And the second group is even more maddening, as they insist that any strategy is futile.  Whether you want to ignore the attacks or attack the attacks, these people will assure you that you're playing right into their hands.

This was particularly emphasized back when Rove was a feared political god.  No matter what Rove did, you were assured that it was all intentional and that we would lose.  But of course, that was actually Rove's greatest trick: To convince you that he was a political genius and that resistance was futile.  But of course, his only real strategy was to fight dirty and toss as much mud as possible, in hopes of distracting his opponent.  Meanwhile, his actual strategies often backfired.

And now that he's been exposed as the impotent charlatan behind the curtain, that idea seems laughable. Yet still, we're told that the greatest mistake we can make is to ever laugh at anything these people do or suggest that they've blundered.  Sure, their juvenile behavior on the Olympics was a huge mistake which only increases the more people hear about it, but we're assured that this is all a distraction and that we're "being played."

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans continue to poll at the same dismal 30% rating they've had since 2006; while Obama continues to enjoy majority support.  In the past eighteen years, we've had twice as many congressional victories as they have, and their prospects look worse now than ever; yet we're still suckers who will never win until we adopt a fool-proof strategy that no one has ever actually explained.  Brilliant.

Call me crazy, but I suspect that these people really have no other strategy in mind beyond criticizing everyone else as being less intelligent than themselves.  Sorry, but cynicism isn't a strategy.

The Absurdity of ACORN Election Fraud

Some conspiracies are better than others, and it's a good test of your intellectual honesty if you know how to spot the bad ones.  And regarding the attack on Obama that ACORN stole the election for him, absolutely dreadful.  I mean, seriously, how could they have pulled it off?  The rest of this is a comment I left at a conservative blog which seriously suggested ACORN gave Obama the election.

Seriously, how could ACORN have achieved such a thing? Take North Carolina, a close win for Obama: He won by 14,177 votes. But for good measure, they'd want to have at least 20,000 fraud votes on their side and probably many more as they wouldn't know how many fake votes they needed until afterwards. So how could they arrange that sort of thing, without one of the people involved confessing to this army of fraud voters? Remember, we're talking a minimum of 20,000 fraud votes without anyone getting caught. How could they do it?

Or how about the 35,000 minimum needed in Indiana? Or the 150,000 fraud votes in New Mexico? Or the 300,000 fraud votes in Virginia? How could they possibly pull this sort of thing in so many different states without anyone noticing or getting caught or confessing? To suggest that ACORN gave Obama the election would be to suggest that they pulled off the greatest scheme in history without getting caught. This, from a group that gets bamboozled by two rich white kids pretending to be street hustlers. I don't think so.

And hey, I'm not trying to get on your case. I'm just trying to help you think through this a bit. There is no evidence to suggest that any major election fraud occurred and everything you're mentioning is voter registration fraud; not election fraud. And the idea that ACORN somehow gave Obama a million mystery votes without getting caught is entirely absurd, and it would probably have been larger than that. Trust me, you don't sound like a bad guy, but you really have to question this stuff a bit more.


And as a comical end note, one of the links this guy gave of "ACORN voter fraud," was only about voter registration fraud and ended with:

And good luck on Election Day, when your GOTV teams try to round up "Mick E. Mouse" and "Don L. Duck" to go to the polls.

Yes, thanks for the luck.  I'm sure we'll need it.

A Holocaust Too Far

I've often said that extremists on both sides of the spectrum have more in common than they do with their more moderate affiliates on either side.  And I see a touch of that now, regarding Congressman Grayson's attack on the Republican healthcare plan as being "Don't Get Sick." 

And I agree with his message and wish we had more Congressmen like Grayson.  While I definitely don't want to see President Obama using this sort of rhetoric, this is the exact sort of thing the House of Reps was made for.  And best of all, rather than fall for the phony outrage by those who thought they had a monopoly on strong rhetoric, he keeps dishing out more.

But he made one mistake: He evoked Hitler.  Why?  After all the stupid Hitler moustaches on Obama and Nazi comparisons, why would anyone think it's ok to bring up the Holocaust in this debate? 

And for posterity's sake, here's the line:

I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't acted sooner to end this Holocaust in America.

It's a nice line, but I really don't see how we can continue to attack conservatives who use this sort of rhetoric if we defend it on our own side. 

Rationalizing Nazi Attacks

And it's obvious that liberals know better.  I mean, they criticize the hell out of Republicans when they do it.  Yet when I said at Carpetbaggers that Grayson shouldn't have used the word "holocaust," it was suggested that my comment might be "contributing to a holocaust of our own making," while another commenter suggested that because I didn't like Grayson's use of this one word, my family might die for lack of healthcare.  Yeah, I think this rhetoric might be getting a touch out of hand.

And sure, the word meant something before the Holocaust happened.  And many of these folks are trying to hang their hat on that argument.  One person actually wrote "Sadly, "holocaust" is reserved for the jews, in the popular mind..."  Yes, how unfortunate that those damn Jews stole a perfectly fine word for their own purposes.  But, as Wikipedia kindly points out, the term often referred to the slaughter of Jews before the Nazis did it to them.  And originally, it was a burnt sacrifice. 

But who are they kidding?  Grayson meant it in the Nazi sense.  This isn't an unfortunate confusion, like the dumb schlubs who used the word "niggardly" around the wrong people.  Grayson was purposefully evoking the intentional extermination of up to seventeen million people and comparing it with the Republican's corrupt negligence towards those unfortunate enough to not have insurance.  And while that's a horrible thing, it ain't Hitler horrible.

Oh, and a late entry to this game insists that Grayson's usage was only meant to mock pro-lifers who use similar language, and he wasn't making a Nazi reference at all.  In this view, Grayson was using the holocaust as a "dog whistle" which he was blowing in Republican ears, and we're supposed to all know that he wasn't really making a Nazi comparison because of one phrase he said a few sentences earlier, as well as the fact that everyone knows they use that phrase alot.  And no, I don't really see how evoking the Holocaust as a form of mockery is any better than the original idea.

Extremists Think Alike

And check out these comparisons:

Liberal commenter:

So Grayson should not have used the word "holocaust." Instead, he should have referred to "The Republican's Final Solution to the Health Care Crisis."

 Conservative speaker:

“Adolf Hitler issued six million end of life orders–he called his program the final solution. I kind of wonder what we’re going to call ours.”

And note, the liberal actually referred to it as "The Final Solution," while the conservative merely ponders the idea.  I wonder how many of these libs jumped up to defend this guy, as opposed to the number who denounced him for his vicious rhetoric.  Because, to be clear, evoking the Holocaust against your opponent is not only a cheap smear of your opponent; it's also a cheap smear of the Holocaust.  That's why it's considered off-limits.

The Upside to Grayson's Holocaust

Of course, one big plus to this is that the rest of Graysn's two speeches were really good and his Holocaust line is going to make it so that more people hear the rest of what he said.  So you end up with Fox News which was stupid enough to include the picture on the right.  Wow.  They normally don't make that sort of blunder.  Yet, this picture's just about as good as Grayson's whole speech.

And then you get RedState, which is completely confused as to how to respond to the whole thing, with Erick Erickson writing:

The holocaust was real with a real meaning. Roping it into the health care debate cheapens what it was all about.

He then goes on to write that it's "ironic" for Grayson to have made this attack, as Grayson supports a plan which "would compel people into terminating their elderly relatives’ lives."  In other words, Erickson was stunned by all this because he thought that only his side got to make the holocaust connection. 

And in that regard, even the holocaust line wasn't so bad.  But overall, I think we just need to discourage this sort of talk, no matter who it comes from.  Yes, Grayson's two speeches were great and I certainly hope more Dems copy his lead, but all the same, the holocaust needs to be saved for something bigger than lack of insurance.  Until Republicans try to pass a plan which involves Health Chambers which are solely intended to exterminate millions of people, while turning even more millions into sub-human slaves, it ain't a holocaust.

President Obama: An Army of One

I'm reading this story about Republican attacks on Obama for traveling to Copenhagen in an effort to woo the Olympics to Chicago in 2016, and all I can wonder is if there's anything they won't attack Obama for and whether they'll finally attempt to start wooing non-Obama haters to their side. 

And this is just insane.  According to Republicans, nothing can get done in Washington unless Obama does it.  To hear their complaints, Obama's some sort of one-man army solely responsible for fixing the economy, reforming healthcare, and saving our country from terrorists within and without.  And if Obama takes a brief trip to a foreign land, nothing can possibly get done until he gets back. 

But of course, if Obama were to even suggest such a thing himself, you can most assuredly count on Republicans to attack him for it.  Even as it is, they attack him for daring to suggest that he's the Messiah, the One True Savior who the world revolves around.  And now they're saying that themselves and insist that Obama needs to focus on fixing our problems or they won't get fixed.  Bush had more vacation days than any other president, spending over 1,000 days at either Camp David, his parent's home in Kennebunkport, or his "ranch" in Crawford (and that doesn't include his other vacations), yet Obama is neglecting his official duties if he goes to Europe in an official capacity. 

But of course, we were always assured by conservatives that Bush only took "working" vacations, while Obama is clearly only interested in using his popularity to help his country; which the article describes as "a boondoggle for Obama's hometown allies."  And it definitely is, assuming we completely flip the meaning of the word "boondoggle" into being the exact opposite of what it normally means.  Seriously though, the word they were looking for was "boon," which rarely has negative connotations.

Counterproductive Attacks


And as they did during the Clinton days, because they reflexively attack their opponents for everything, they completely swamp their attacks, as it's too difficult to keep track of what Obama supposedly did wrong.  And even if they had a reasonable attack on him, nobody would remember it a week later, as they would have jumped on twenty more attacks in the meantime. 

And that's something the Bushies used to their advantage.  We became so accustomed to hearing new Bush scandals breaking every day that nobody remembered the old ones.  Fortunately, Obama is copying the Bush way of dealing with this instead of the Clinton way; as the Bushies knew how to ride out scandals until they disappeared, while the Clintons always tried to push back on each one, which would only make them more noticeable.

And so all these stupid attacks are making people who don't reflexively hate Obama immune to the attacks; just as Clinton was largely immune to attacks.  Clinton got impeached, yet still the public didn't care.  And every day, the Republicans are yelling about the stupidest of stupid attacks on Obama, which only gain traction with the 30% of people who already hate him. 

And anyone else paying attention is going to read an article like this and think "Huh?  They're attacking him for trying to bring us the Olympics?  Well, it's obvious that Obama is a powerful man."  And so they're just reinforcing the image of Obama as an influential power player, while making themselves look like complete boobs for attacking him.  Seriously, what rational American could possibly be upset at Obama trying to get us the Olympics?  And if he succeeds, it will only make Obama look more powerful, while marginalizing Republicans further.  I see no upside for Republicans with these attacks.

Conservative Bubble

And yet it's obvious that Republicans are too locked-into this to even give a damn about what non-haters think.  They're still trapped into their little bubble of Obama-bashing that it doesn't occur to them that appealing to the base's hatred is a rewardless endeavor.  They don't need to be egged on any more into hating Obama.  They've gone so far past the level of sane opposition that it's now considered rational to believe that the military will bless us with a bloodless coup against Obama.  Obama hatrers have already gone over the cliff and each attack will only make Republicans look worse.

So the GOP continues to whip the choir into a frenzy, while the rest of America is slowly realizing how cuckoo these people are.  And good for them.  The more they smeared Clinton, the more popular he became and Obama is even more adept at handling these sort of attacks. Even if Obama truly did something wrong, I can't imagine how Republicans could possibly capitalize on it. 

I'm now putting in my prediction that, unless some super-major event changes our political landscape before the mid-terms next year, that Democrats will easily hold onto both houses of Congress and could possibly gain new seats.  Even a complete block on healthcare reform and a continuing poor economy isn't enough to save these freaks now, and only an unpredictable catastrophe could possibly help them.  And the only reason I'm not predicting a definite gain in seats is because there really aren't many more we can realistically grab.

Obama the Miracle Job Maker

While looking for something else, I happened to stumble upon the American Thinker Blog, which imagines it makes a point when it posts an AFL/CIO quote saying that Obama would be good for jobs, and then posts this from the NY Times:

And as anyone can see, the problem started well before Obama took office and continued at the same pace as before.  And then towards the end of the graph, things appear to be leveling off.  And for the record, this graph ends in July.  That's right.  July.  This dude's basing his attack on Obama's first six months in office, even though the recession clearly had been raging for much longer than that and he still hasn't even gotten all his people approved by Congress yet.

And of cousre, none of this is news.  This guy just saw a picture that he thought was damning to Obama and posted it without comment.  Because of course, if he had commented on it, he'd have had to admit that his attack was unfair as he's blaming Obama for not being able to stop Bush's recession immediately.  So instead, he gets to pretend that this is so damning that no comment was necessary.

Easy Snark of the Day: If this is what the American thinkers are thinking, I'd hate to see what the morons come up with.

And as a final note, what is with the "..." between the sentences on the first two graphs?  Yes, if there are more unemployed people for fewer job openings, that means the number of unemployed people per job opening increases.  It's implied as if these are two separate events which combine to make an even worse event, yet they mean the same thing.  I'm telling you, I read that damn thing about twenty times to make sure I wasn't wrong about that, but I'm not.  The NY Times just made their readers a little bit dumber.

Spirtualism in Materialism

I regularly take the Zogby Interactive poll and just got this question:

I believe God is angry and will soon begin punishing sinners in ever greater numbers.

 Wow.  I'm a tad frightened to think that Zogby thinks this question warrants asking.

Another question I've seen a few times asks about whether I think "the American Dream" involves material success or spirtual success, as well as questions asking me which I prefer.  But while I'm not into material success, I'm not into any sort of spirtualism either.  So I have no clue as to how I'm supposed to answer these questions.  If you saw the way I dress and the old car I drive, you'd know that materialism isn't my bag.  I live for comfort, not to score points with my neighbors; and I definitely could earn a lot more money if I wanted to. 

I'm about happiness and enjoyment.  And oftentimes that involves material stuff.  I like the internet and my computer.  I LOVE my Wii.  I'd be nothing without my music and I hate going without my iPod.  Material goods help give me the happiness I seek.  I wouldn't be the person I am today without my material possessions and if I were to be transported into a time long in the past, I'd be one unhappy dude. My stuff brings me happiness, yet I have no plan to accumulate much more of it (beyond the Wii Motion Plus, an essential I'll probably get next month).

But spirtualism, that's a bunch of hoohaw to me.  If it makes other people's lives better, than I'm happy for them.  But it sure ain't for me.  I don't believe in religion, don't understand what a soul is, don't commune with nature, and don't understand why anyone else does.  I'm genuinely happy.  Isn't that enough?

Overall, I'm offended at the paradigm that Zogby is offering me.  If I choose material goods, then I'm a soulless suit who doesn't understand the futility of seeking happiness in material goods.  So if I want to consider myself "deep," I need to say that I'm a spirtual fruitcake who doesn't need material goods.  But that would be a lie.  I'm a happy dude made happier by my stuff, and for as unhappy as many materialists are when they seek happiness at the bottom of a credit card, I've seen just as many unhappy spirtualists who have to pretend to eschew materialism while latching on to the materialist world they pretend to reject. 

But the right answer is to ignore what everyone else thinks, enjoy the stuff that makes you happy and not give a damn what John Zogby or anyone else thinks.  Trust me, no one was ever made happier by rejecting their Wii.  And if there's some higher power that has a problem with my life, then he can suck my tough titties, cause I'm doing the best in the situation I was given.  And honestly, I'm quite confident that if there is some higher being that judges us based upon how we live our lives, any truly intelligent one would have high respect for how I'm living mine.  Happiness has got to be a top goal for everyone.

Yet Another Victory for Biobrain

Hey bitches, I won another carnival!  Not that there was any surprise about this, but hey, I knew you'd be excited to know someone as successful as myself.  That's why I do this stuff.  It's all for you, my loyal readers.

Conservative Elitist Guilt

NRO's got a piece by Victor Davis Hanson in which he accuses Barack Obama, our Commander-in-Chief, of being (gasp) a college administrator.  The horror!  And his evidence: Obama does things which can be compared to things a college administrator does.  Like surround himself with smart people and ignore conservatives who attack him.  Obama also thinks he's better than other people (apparently unaware of the presidential tradition of being on-par with the common man) and keeps trying to convince people that he's right and that they should adopt his policies.

And no, I'm not joking.  This is it.  He wrote two fucking pages worth of this crap, and this is the best he's got.  Oh, and czars.  Obama uses czars, just like college administrators do.  And overall, Obama's an ivory tower intellectual who just doesn't know how the common man thinks.  Commen men, like Victor Davis Hanson.  And oddly, I was thinking about the fact that Hanson is writing for the National Review, and they're generally not known for hiring Schlitz-drinking schlubs to write for them.

So I looked up his Wiki page and lo and behold: Hanson's a college professor educated in the classics.  He's even written books that would bore me to tears.  Get a load of this:

His mother was a lawyer and judge, his father an educator and college administrator.... Hanson received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1975 and his Ph.D. in classics from Stanford University in 1980.

Indeed.  Hanson's mother was a judge and his father was a (gulp!) college administrator.  And mind you, that's the exact phrase he used to describe Obama, both in the title of the piece, as well as throughout the post.  And Hanson is a PhD from Stanford.  Stanford.  I sure wish I was elitist enough to get into Stanford.  And a doctorate in the classics, no less.  I was dumb enough to get a workingman's degree in accounting.  Needless to say, Dr. Hanson's a career professor.

And this is the guy criticizing Obama for being a college administrator.  I mean, the whole piece is dripping in scorn against Obama for being a dreaded "college administrator," while ridiculing university culture.  He even attacks Obama for being a community organizer, because professors also complain that they're not paid enough.  Except...Hanson was the underpaid professor, while Obama was actually helping people.  And unless I missed it, it doesn't seem that Hanson mentioned his college background in any of this.

And before you type a comment suggesting that this is standard projectionism, I assure you, you're wrong.  This is yet another self-loating conservative who wishes he was a beer-drinking, NASCAR-watching, tobacco-chewing, hardworking, real American schlub, because that's what the Republican Party has been reduced to.  They've so thoroughly adopted Southern Inferioty Complex as a party platform that their most accomplished people are simply embarrassed at their own accomplishments. 

So guys like Hanson write long articles attacking their opponents for their own faults, simply as a way of atoning for not being a white southern slob.  His column was a fairly pointless attack, as the only folks who might possibly see the connection Hanson's trying to make are people who already hate Obama.  So the whole thing just serves as a sad admission of shame on Hanson's part, because the person he's heaping scorn on is most assuredly himself.  Yet another conservative intellectual bites the dust.

Obama Loves Our Enemies

When conservatives are right, they're right.  And when it comes to Barack "Hussein" Obama, they were right.  (And yes, Barry's middle name is important to me now.)  They warned us that Obama would be soft on our enemies and softer on our arch-enemies, and I just wouldn't listen.  And now here we are, needing to confront a nuclear Iran, and what does Obama want to do about it?  He wants to talk about it; without preconditions, no doubt.

From the AP:

"My offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open," Obama said, urging Tehran to "take action to demonstrate its peaceful intentions."

Meaningful dialogue?  This guy doesn't have a clue!  These are nuclear Arabs we're talking about here, not wayward teens.  The only "meaningful dialogue" we should have with them is the type that can be written on the side of a missile.  Let them have their dialogue from the rubble we leave them in, as we wipe their country off the map!

And sure they have "peaceful intentions."  After all, we're all reminded every day that Islam means peace in some languages.  Unfortunately, it's the sort of peace we can only have once their global caliphate has completed its stranglehold on freedom.  That's why we need to bomb the shit out of them, so we can institute our freedom on them before they can do it to us.  History shows that only democracies can promote peace, and that's exactly what our bombs will do.

So, yeah.  It looks like I'm changing teams at this point.  Sorry, but I just can't deny reality any longer.  Thanks to the brainwashing I've received from the liberal media, I really wanted to stay on-board the Obama Express.  I really did.  After all, I've always felt so guilty about what our forefathers did to his forefathers, and felt giving them the Whitehouse was the right way to atone for our sins.  But I can no longer idly sit by and watch as Obama attempts heartfelt dialogues in his futile effort to love the nukes out of our enemies.  I'm sorry, but you can't hug evil, Mr. President.  You can't hug evil.

Oh, in addition to demanding that the bombs begin to drop on Tehran, I'm also going to pay $30 to have a justice foundation send faxes on my behalf which will finally force Obama to prove his Hawaiian birth.  And if he can't, then he needs to step aside and give McCain his rightful victory.  Oh, and I'm also going to demand to hear the truth about what happened in Chappaquiddick.  Americans have the right to know.  The liberal media might not care, but I do; and I'm now a real American.


Update: I've been informed by a reliable source that I'm an idiot, and I have now rescinded my conservative viewpoints.  Sorry.

The Art of the Understatement

For as much as I enjoy being loud and absurd (and if you knew me personally, you'd know what I mean), I truly appreciate the art of the understatement.  And as it turns out, the guy who built Gitmo definitely understands that art.  I really liked the last two sentences of this:

"I wanted to run it close to Geneva Convention rules," Lehnert said. "Our job was to take them out of the fight, and once we had done that, I felt we had a moral responsibility to take care of them."

However, another task force was put in charge of interrogating detainees, and there were disagreements over their treatment, Lehnert said.

"I think it is extraordinarily important how we treat prisoners," he said. "Obviously, there were other views."

"I came to the conclusion very soon that this probably wasn't the right way to go," said Lehnert, who served just 100 days at the base.

Obviously, there were other views.  And no, torture probably wasn't the right way to go.  But I don't know what to make of this statement:

"Probably before I left Guantanamo, I was of the opinion it needed to go away as soon as possible," he said.

Probably before he left Gitmo?  He's not sure of when he came to this conclusion?  I suspect this is the sort of speech mannerism one needs to develop to rise to the rank of general.  No sense in committing yourself if you think you're only probably right.

Senator Bond Hearts Torture

Alright, Obama said that he wanted to look forward, not backward, and therefore wasn't going to investigate the Bush torture policies.  I got that.  But the Justice Department is the one that investigates crime, and they want to open a limited investigation of crimes that went beyond Bush's torture policies.  I got that.  Republicans don't want this, as they fear that an investigation will let everyone know that they were lying about how we were torturing folks all these years; and just want the whole mess to be forgotten about.  I've got that.  This all makes sense to me and was to be expected.

Senator "Kit" Bond of Missouri is upset because Obama pledged to not look back and now his Attorney General is looking back.  I got that.  Senator Bond is now arguing that having the DOJ investigate this is bad because it might hinder the Senate Intelligence Committee's own investigation into the matter.  Huh?  I understand if his argument is that he doesn't want us looking back, but he doesn't want us looking back so that his committee can keep looking back?  That doesn't make sense to me. 

And what he's saying is that, if these criminal tortuers believe they'll be prosecuted for their criminal activities, they won't want to confess their criminal activities to his committee.  And because they'll be reluctant to confess their criminal activity, it'll slow down their investigation, which will distract them from taking care of more important stuff; like Afghanistan and Iran.  And that's a bad thing, because he just doesn't think the work his committee is doing on this is of any particular importance, so the DOJ needs to step aside on its investigation, so his committee can rush through its own investigation and put the matter to rest.

In other words, it's wrong for the DOJ to do a thorough investigation which might lead to people being prosecuted for criminal activities because it could hinder his committee's less thorough investigation which will ignore confessions of criminal activities and probably shouldn't be done in the first place.  Right.  Look, I understand the need to have an opposition party, but could we please get an opposition that wasn't so entirely stupid?  Or a media that wasn't so shallow that they actually think these boneheads are geniuses?  Is that too much to ask for?  I mean, I understand why Bond's doing this.  I just can't figure out why he's comfortable saying this out loud.

And on a sidenote: If it's super-important that a few low-level ACORN employees attempted to aid a self-described pimp in his criminal activities, might it be at least a little important that a few Senators want to aid the criminal activities of torturers?  Probably not.

Bob McDonnell Loves Guns and Unborn Babies

And speaking of Virginia Governor candidate (and Biobrain advertiser) Bob McDonnell, his jobs link wasn't the only place I read.  Oh no, I saw on his issues link that he had a page on "Protecting Families" and just couldn't leave that one alone.  And sure enough, Bob McDonnell does believe in protecting families; just as long as those families consist of fetuses with shotguns.  Everyone else is going to have to wait until he gets this matter resolved.

Here's a brief recap of Bob's page on protecting families.  He starts with a lofty George Washington quote which he lamely summarizes as "values matter."  He quotes Jefferson's "life, liberty, and happiness" line, insists that it applies to the unborn, and vows to defend them against the born.  He says the Founding Fathers wanted us to have guns and vows to defend the 2nd Amendment.  He lets us know that he's "pro-life" (in case we hadn't already guessed) and mentions how he protected unborn babies from partial-birth abortions as Attorney General.  He also did so as a legislator, as well as fought for parental notification, informed consent, and adoption.  Bob defended marriage from the gays.  And finally, he won "Legislator of the Year" twice from the Virginia Family Foundation, as well as receiving an endorsement from the Virginia Society for Human Life.  And that's it.  That's his entire "Protect Families" issue page.

And all this brings up the question: What the hell does this have to do with families?  Seriously, I've had a family for quite a few years now and none of these issues have come up even once.  Hell, I was born in a family and this stuff didn't apply then, either.  And let's not forget something here: McDonnell has clearly established that he wants the government to interfere in the decisions a family makes regarding childbirth, as well as preventing certain folks from having a family.  Oh, and guns.  Can't forget the guns.  And just so it's clear, Bob already has another section labeled 2nd Amendment Rights. So his pro-gun stuff in the family section is just more padding.

And all this shows what a total shame the whole "Family Values" movement was.  It wasn't about values at all.  It was a cheap ploy for scoring political points, and based upon Bob's dearth of info on it, a ploy that has pretty much run its course.  These guys aren't even trying anymore.  These aren't values.  It's all about sticking their noises in other people's business, and everyone seems to realize this by now and they're just going through the motions. 

And so instead, we're stuck with Mr. Virginia Family Foundation tossing out a few nothing tidbits on "values," and then stealing a liberal platform while promoting tax cuts.  And as I said last time, that's why they're stuck attacking us personally with everything they've got.  They call us socialists, so they can use the taxpayer money of the unborn in order to fund their liberal big government agenda.  Oh, and guns.  Gotta protect the guns.  Values matter.

I Insult My Advertisers

I don't know why, but some Republican named Bob McDonnell has ads on my blog pertaining to his bid to be governor of Virginia.  And I can't imagine why he'd bother, as I don't even cover Texas politics, let alone politics in one of the lesser states.  But I went to his site just to see if maybe this guy fit in with my blog and while he most definitely did, I doubt it's in the way he meant.  After all, I enjoy targeting hypocritical know-nothing blowhards and this guy definitely fits the criteria.

First off, he's anti-tax (big surprise, right?).  And if you click on his Taxes and Spending link, you get a quote of him saying how he's going to "conduct a thorough audit of how your tax dollars are spent," citing increased government spending as a huge problem.  But of course, who's going to perform this audit?  Magic fairies?  No, expensive accountants and/or government bureaucrats, that's who.  So right off, his plan to cut spending will involve higher government spending.  But of course, there's no mention of how much he thinks this is going to cost the state.

And his site has the standard stuff of what a "Friend of the Taxpayer" Bob is, by showing how many taxcuts he voted for.  Yet, his list of spending cuts involved trivial amounts which look better for political reasons than budgetary reasons.  For instance, he cites his time as Attorney General, in which he cut his office budget and perks and saved the state $4 million; which may be admirable, assuming they were good cuts.  But as he says, the state budget is $80 billion a year.  So his $4 million is hardly a dent in the bucket.  He even touts $2 billion in taxcuts during his term as a state congressman; yet shows nothing comparable in spending cuts.

And that's the thing: Tax cuts aren't free money.  If you cut taxes without cutting spending, then you're just a political coward trying to score cheap points.  And Bob seems to know this, as he quotes himself saying "We have a spending problem more than we have a taxation problem."  And I agree with him on that.  Cutting taxes is super easy and fairly pointless if you're not cutting spending; as you're just putting the taxes off for another day.  Yet Bob's Tax & Spend page is all dessert and no liver.  Big surprise.

Bob's Expensive Jobs Programs

But hey, that was then, this is now.  Surely Bob has some great spending cuts in mind if he's elected governor, right?  No.  As usual, he's a Big Government conservative who seems oblivious to how his policies will increase spending.  As with his magical spending audit, he never bothers explaining how much any of his policies will cost or how they'll be paid for.

For instance, Bob's jobs page is full of great ideas for increasing jobs in Virginia.  Great, expensive ideas which rely upon government to save the day.  His "job initiatives" consist of spending more on a job creation fund, using the Lieutenant Governor as a Job Creation Czar, dedicating another government bureaucrat as Rural Economic Development Czar, and finally, another bribe for job creation in the guise of a tax credit.  And yes, that's everything. This is the strongest part of Bob's platform and it consists entirely of expanding existing programs.  And hell, the main piece of this expands a Democratic program that he voted against repeatedly.  His defense of this flip-flop?  What else: That was then, this is now.

And these aren't Bob's only Big Government solutions.  No, he's planning to help small businesses by making it easier to start new businesses in Virginia by streamlining the processes online.  No word yet if he'll be using the same group of magic fairies to do the programming on this.  And here's a brilliant one: "Promote Virginia as the 'Best State in America in Which to Open a Small Business.'"  Yes, I'm sure all the other governors are kicking themselves for not thinking of that one.

Bob also has plans to increase tourism by spending more money on a tourism group, preserving more land for outdoorsmen, and spending more money to promote filmmaking in the state.  He's also going to spend money to further develop a commerical spaceport, as well as spend more on education and job retraining.  He has a specific section on "Economic Vision for Rural Virginia," which largely just reprints what he already said before.  And shit, I'm going down the page and see that most of this is just repeated from before.  If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Bob was padding his jobs page.

And needless to say, most of Bob's plans involve him expanding programs which already exist.  Brave man, Bob McDonnell.  Never saw an idea he wasn't ready to steal.

Bob McDonnell: Free Lunch Liberal

And the thing is, looking over Bob's list, I really can't disagree with much.  While it all depends on how he implements it, I think the ideas sound pretty good.  But of course, I'm a liberal and Bob's a Republican in a purple state.  I'm not supposed to like his ideas.

Overall, Bob comes off as a moderate-lib Democrat who has ambitious plans for helping Virginia, but which he refuses to pay for.  He's got lots of expensive ideas, yet also wants to cut more taxes.  In fact, the only item on the list that makes him a Republican besides tax cuts is that he's firmly against card check; which he misrepresents.  But beyond that, Bob's job plan is fairly liberalish.  Bob McDonnell clearly doesn't think that businesses will stimulate the Virginia economy unless the government bribes them to do it.

And this is exactly what I've been saying for years.  There are no real conservatives anymore.  Everyone understands how useful the government can be.  Even ultra-right conservatives understand that military spending is good for their local economy.  And so the only real difference now is that Democrats understand that they need to pay for their spending, while Republicans continue to believe in the free lunch.  Well, except for the ones who are merely trying to turn the government into their personal cash cow; but I suppose there are Dems who do that too.

And that's the reason Republicans are reduced to making personal attacks against us and completely misrepresenting what we stand for.  It's not that they truly believe we're socialists trying to take over the country.  It's just that they've got nothing better to say and are jealous of our platform.

Republican Identity Politics

Over at The Palmer Lyceum (which I believe is named after a new nighttime sleep aid), I read a post suggesting that Romney might have a problem in 2012 if Obamacare passes as a similar program to what Romney did in Massachussetts, and blogger Steve P asks:

...what will he do if there is no public option included in the eventual bill? What cover will he seek then?

And the answer, of course: 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.  Let's bomb Iran.

Seriously though, Romney's biggest problem is that he's Mormon and lots of evanglicals think that Mormons are scary cult members. (And honestly, you do too, so you've got something in common with them here.) And his next rhree problems are that he's not a Southerner, not a war hero, and looks like the sort of guy that most conservatives would want to spit chewing tobacco on; and that includes the women.  And yes, even though most conservatives are city folks who don't chew tobacco, they all like to imagine themselves as being the sort of people who do.

But Romney's shift on the issues isn't any bigger problem than the shift these people took with their own positions; and how they went from Small Government Conservatives to Big Government War Mongers and back again, all based upon the occupant of the Whitehouse. These people would vote Stalin-Mao if they vowed to bring some of that purge action to our coastal regions.  This isn't hypocrisy; it's self-deception.  They believe what they need to believe in order to support the people they want to support.

The Base Hated McCain

McCain didn't win the nomination because he slanted to the right.  He won because he was a war hero who wanted to double-down on Iraq.  And that's why he found himself dead in the water once Obama won his nomination, as McCain didn't have any real platform that would work in a general election.  Obama's sales pitch was a fine-tuned machine by the time he beat Hillary, while the only things McCain could talk about were Iraq, Vietnam, and Obama.  And the only change in that was after he nominated Palin, and had to keep defending that boneheaded decision.

And that's the weird thing about that election: McCain didn't move to the center after the primaries, as he hadn't been running an issue campaign.  Rather, he moved to the right in order to appease the righties who were upset that he won.  Because they never supported him.  And that needs to be remembered: For as all-powerful as the conservative base is perceived as being, they hated McCain.  It was all the other Republicans who supported him; the ones we rarely hear from.  They preferred the tough talking war hero over all the others.  The base lost that primary contest.

That's what all the big fakery with Palin was about: They knew they were going to vote for McCain in November and needed some political cover for doing so.  So they pretended that Palin was such a brilliant choice that she overcame their disdain for McCain.  But that was all fiction.  They were going to vote for McCain and Palin provided them with the excuse to do so.  And for as much as they're still in love with her, it's merely because she's telling them what they want to hear because she thinks they're her meal ticket. 

But they're not in love with her; they're in love with the person she's pretending to be.  But she doesn't understand conservativism any better than she understood the Bush Doctrine.  Palin's not a conservative; she's a shape-shifter.

Fitting the Suit

And getting back to the point, it doesn't matter what Romney says.  All that matters is who he is.  And if they accept him, it'd be because he showed that he can spit tobacco on people too.  It's not about adopting the right positions, but adopting the right attitude.  They accepted a phony like Bush because he pretended to be a Texan and a born-again (plus, they wanted to avenge the loss of the first Bush), but that was a one-time deal they lucked into. 

And I agree with Scott that things don't look good for Republicans at this point; as anyone short of the zombie Ronald Reagan is going to have a hard time being conservative enough to get the nomination, yet mainstream enough for the general.  McCain made it only because he was a wounded vet who said encouraging things about our chances in Iraq, and even he got trounced by Obama.  Unless Romney gets an arm blown off while saving his platoon in Iraq, I don't see what chance he has of getting the nomination. 

But if they got someone with the proper bio, they can be as liberal as they want to be.  That was Palin's big mistake.  The base already liked her, as she was supposedly a rugged hockey mom who ate mooseburgers...plus, she was sort of hot and these guys will take whatever they can get.  So she should have posed as a rural social conservative who supports big government liberalism; which is what she actually was in Alaska, so it wouldn't have been difficult.  The krazy konservative routine was total overkill, which not only hurts her in a general election, but with the people who picked McCain, as well. 

Again, it's not about supporting the base's issues.  It's about making the party believe that you're good people.