Nothing important

Seems to me that those of us who rely on reason and logic are attached to them with a fierce emotion.

Metaphor

First of all, I would like to compliment Sarah Palin, or her minions, for knowing what a metaphor is. I would never have suspected them of such depth.

I have taken a day to digest the catastrophe of yesterday's shootings in Tucson. Yesterday, I was dazed. Today found me enraged. I find that this is the proper mood for me to be in if I want to write this decidedly uncivil note. Ms. Palin, Ms. Bachmann, Ms. Angle, your cute little word games, your "second amendment remedies," your crosshairs (and I know them when I see them), your "locked and loaded," and all of your other treasonous, murderous words have now borne fruit. "Awwwww, who, us????? Dontcha recognize a metaphor when ya see one?" Oh, so cute, so clever. So fucking stupid.

No, I will not be civil with people like you.

As I have said in this space before, people who shout others down at town hall meetings have no interest in democracy. People who wear their weapons to public events are not proudly celebrating their second amendment rights. These people are interested in getting their own way through intimidation.

Who are these people, and how did they get this way? These are people whose ideas hold no water, but who cannot bear to give these ideas up. The only way they can persuade others of the validity of their ideas is by force.

Here are some facts:

Republican policies have ruined the economy. For the second time. Understanding of cause and effect allows me to predict that, if these policies continue to be followed, things will get worse.

Barack Obama was elected president, by a wide margin, democratically. Nobody stole America from you.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. The proof of this is abundant, unless you are an idiot.

The earth is not 6,000 years old.

God did not make the earth in seven days.

The world was not covered by floodwaters, and Noah did not save all those animals.

Elijah did not go straight to heaven without having to die.

Jesus did not rise from the dead.

There are no such things as witches.

Homosexuals are quite normal human beings. They are in the minority, but nature makes a certain number of them, just as she makes a small number of left-handed people, and has done so since there were animals on the earth. As human beings, they do not deserve to be persecuted, and they should have the same rights as anybody else.

Barack Obama is a black man. He is, far and away, smarter than any of you.

You don't believe any of what I have just said. These facts have not found a way to penetrate your thick skulls.

Because your brains are having trouble assimilating this information, may I suggest taking all these facts and shoving them up your asses? That act will be more constructive than anything you're doing right now.

Democrats: Improving the quality of American life since 1932!

The Right Wing (hereafter referred to as the Insane Clown Posse) is trying to destroy Social Security. Now, I have remarked before that there is some sort of madness on the loose in America these days, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Once upon a time, the Right wanted merely to end the welfare state, reasoning (yes, they once reasoned, just like you and me) that the shiftless and the lazy were living off the taxes of the righteous holders of jobs. This was a selfish point of view, in my opinion, but it was logically consistent.

What in the world possesses anyone to want to get rid of Social Security? It's not a giveaway. We pay into it, and we expect to get some of that money back. And I, for one, would like to get every penny that I have been promised, with no sneaky changes in how old I have to be when I start collecting.

We must hold on ever more tenaciously to the social gains we have made while this national madness is afoot, and hope that the country will snap out of it before the Right destroys everything we hold dear.

Ideas

Back in the early 1980s, some of my co-workers were among the first Neocons I met. One of them talked politics all the time, and was very excited about the new breed of conservative politicians who were talking about "ideas." He said the word with wonder and reverence, as if nobody in history had actually had ideas before their invention in the 1980s.

All of these ideas boiled down to two concepts. People should be able to keep nearly every penny of whatever stack of money they could amass. And, perhaps, if this were not too revolutionary, that maybe our democracy would be better off if only those who owned property were allowed to vote. The rabble could not be trusted to understand what was good for the country and themselves.

I think my co-worker assumed that the uneducated would vote Democratic; perhaps nowadays he's pleasantly surprised at how well the Republicans have done with the common man.

Another assumption my friend made was that the election of somebody as liberal as Ted Kennedy to the presidency would "ruin the country." Let's examine these "ideas," which are, after all, not new, against the evidence of fairly recent history.

You have, perhaps, heard talk of an event called the Great Depression. This happened against a background of reckless speculation, a lack of regulation of the stock market and the banks, and a belief in the invisible guiding hand of the free market.

Things were so bad, for so many people, for so long, that most became convinced that the government had a role in giving people some security against the roller coaster ride of the free market. Now, there's an idea! The rough road of life can be smoothed by government programs. Franklin Roosevelt began the "New Deal."

I was born in 1950, and my life has been lived in the protection of New Deal policies. Social Security. Federal insurance to keep me from losing all my savings should my bank fail. Regulation of the stock market that did not allow a person to "buy" stock at fifteen cents on the dollar, gambling that he'd make his money back when the stock went up, as it surely must.

During my lifetime, the economy has been relatively stable, without severe ups and downs. This is not something I'm guessing at or making up. This is what I have observed, what I have experienced. My parents were not rich, but we got by, and I was able to go to college and do well for myself.

Then came the Reagan Revolution. The Neocons do not believe in the regulation of business. Never mind that regulated businesses have done quite well, and that America has thrived in the years since the Roosevelt administration. Since Reagan, the politicians with the same "ideas" that ruined our economy so many years ago have been working to chip away all of the New Deal protections. They did their job well during the George W. Bush administration, and by its end, the economy was on its way into the toilet once again. The same policies, therefore, had been pursued twice, with the same disastrous results.

Now, back to the subject of "unmitigated gall." Our villain from my last post, Rep. Darrell Issa, is searching for the answer as to why the economy has gone bad. The evidence is clear. The free market does not lead to a better standard of living all by itself. It needs regulation. But Mr. Issa is unable to see evidence that is in plain view. The reason? Ideologically-induced blindness.

Check out Darrell Issa's agenda for the House oversight committee:

"The committee will query business leaders 'about the government regulations that are doing the most harm to job creation efforts' and 'examine how overregulation has hurt job creation.'"

Yes, I feel so much safer with these reverse Robin Hoods in charge of the country.

Unmitigated gall

Ever since the resignation of Richard Nixon, the Republicans have been trying to settle the score. In their eyes, the Nixon investigations had nothing to do with his crimes, and everything to do with politics. Their first attempt at revenge was the Clinton impeachment proceedings, which failed, so the Republicans still feel one down.

The George W. Bush administration is another one that lied, committed crimes against the Constitution, and war crimes to boot. But far from pursuing these matters, President Obama has actually prevented foreign courts from prosecuting members of the Bush administration. I think that Obama probably hoped to break the revenge cycle, but the rabid bunch of Republicans elected in 2010 shows no signs of letting go.

Darrell Issa, the new head of the House oversight committee has called the Obama administration one of the most corrupt ever, and seems intent on hounding the administration on as many fronts as possible. This is the thanks Obama gets for trying to get along with thugs.

Should we liberals be learning ruthlessness from the masters? I'm torn.