Well, we had our Primary here in North Carolina this past Tuesday. Here's a quick breakdown of the three most important races from my personal perspective.
1. I lost my bid to be the Democratic nominee for NC 10- meh
2. Lt. Governor Walter Dalton secured the Democratic nomination for Governor- yay
3. Amendment One passed- MOTHERFUCKER!
I am quite proud of my run for US House. While only raising .85% of the total monies expended in the race, I collected 15.75% of the votes. Not too shabby! Did I want to win? Oh, no... why would I spend 8 months of my life working myself to the bone on little sleep with no money to run for a job I wanted? What kinda question is that, ya moron?! OF COURSE I WANTED TO WIN!! I just didn't. What I DID do was make sure that this race was about the things I wanted it to be about and (I'd like to think, anyhow) guarantee that by pushing the narrative in the direction of liberal values, economic justice, universal health care, and the preservation of the Social Safety Net and away from 'jobs, tax breaks, and 'business-friendly governance', I made sure the winner of my contest was a lot like me. ie: someone who focuses on people's needs over corporate profits.
Am I just polishing this turd so it doesn't seem so dull in the cruel light of a post-election morning? How the fuck should I know? Ask my therapist. Oh wait, I don't have one because I am poor and uninsured. If I'm still a ticking time bomb of rage in 2014 after the Affordable Care Act is fully in place, maybe I'll get a therapist then. Or not. Hell, if I weren't always one throbbing forehead vein away from Bruce Banner-level rage, I'd have never done any of this shit in the first place. So...yay uncontrollable bouts of rage and Republican-induced depression!! You have guided me well. Master Yoda would not be pleased, while Darth Sidious is cackling triumphantly. "Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you."
Walter Dalton is a hometown celebrity 'roun these parts. A Rutherford County native, his rise in politics is in direct opposition to the decline of our Party's share of the vote in this area. His candidacy may help to give this county's votes to the Democratic candidates in other races (but I doubt it. it's gonna take a massive 'get out the vote effort' to do that) and may help to push our area's profile up a notch. He's been a good public servant so far, so I hope he uses his good will points around here to help out the candidates above and below him on the ticket.
Amendment One. Jesus Christ on a fucking rubber crutch.
I would like to say, "How did this pass?! The majority of people opposed it! Even folks who are vociferously anti-gay could see that it was poorly-written and could open the door to a lot of things they don't like! I can't believe it actually got such a high percentage!", but I can't. I knew Goddamn well it was gonna pass and I knew Goddamn well why it was going to pass. I was deluding myself into believing that rational discourse and factual arguments against were going to do one bit of fucking good. I mean, they (by which I mean his piece-of-shit-fake-'Man of the Cloth' son-who-has-seized-the-reins-of-a-once-respectable-ministry) drug motherfucking 93 year old (and possibly senile, I hope) Billy Graham out to oppose it. Billy Graham!! That's like wrapping Dale Earnhardt in Patsy Cline and dipping him in Evel Kenevel sauce around these parts! What did we have? Calm and rational arguments and a Bill Clinton robocall. Fuck.
How did it pass? Because only 34% of the 6 million registered voters in this state showed up. Hell, of the folks that did show up, only 10,000 fewer voted in the Democrat race than in the Republican. So at least 35,000 people that I expected to vote against it did not? What the fucking fuck?! I'll leave that bit of motherfuckertry aside and focus on the big issue: An Amendment to our State Constitution was on the ballot and only 34 fucking percent of the voters showed up?!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???!!!! I mean, sure, it holds up historically, I guess. 36ish percent came to the Primary in 2008 with open seats in both parties' Presidential and Gubernatorial races and 14.4 percent came to the Primary in 2010, but shit, man! There was a motherfucking Constitutional Amendment on the Ballot!! Do you know how many Constitutional Amendments I've voted on in my entire life?! Good guess, smartass. One. That's right. Ooh!!! You're so smart! Like I wasn't telegraphing that one for a whole paragraph, Einstein... It was supposed to be a semi-rhetorical question. I say (with fake incredulity), "Do you know how many Constitutional Amendments I've voted on in my entire life?!", and you say, "Wow, Tim. I dunno... how many?", and I say, "ONE!! ONE MOTHERFUCKING TIME IN MY WHOLE GODDAMNED LIFE!!! CAN YOU GRASP THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT??!!" But no, you had to go and say, "One.", thanks a lot. Ass.
So, anyway... 34 PERCENT!! Same as the turnout in the General in 2010 when those tea bag totin' cocksuckers fucked everything up while over half of the people that voted in the General in 2008 stayed home and jerked off to Photoshopped pictures of Sarah Palin or something. Ya know, neither thing takes that long, ya coulda done both and still had time to make the 8AM whistle...
That's probably unfair, and I'm just being coarse for its own sake. I should apologize, but that's really my whole Goddamn shtick, if ya stop and think about it.
So, we got fucked in November 2010 because only 34% of registered voters showed up and we got the Tea Party.
We got fucked in May 2012 because only 34% of registered voters showed up and we got an Amendment which codifies discrimination into our State's Constitution.
When in the fuck are we going to get our shit together?
To all who did vote: Thank you. You are true patriots and loyal citizens.
Fuck the rest a' y'all.
And Franklin Graham too.
Decorum and civility? Fuck that! I ain't running fer office no more!
I'm back, motherfuckers!
Tim
Lack of Content Warning
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Faith and Science
I am a Believer who (not uncommonly) doesn't believe that a majority of the events in the Bible (specifically those related to the creation of the universe and the ascent of humans) ever happened. It boils down to the balance I seek between my faith and undisputed scientific fact. Of the two, only science is of a binary nature. Science either is or it isn't, religion is subjective. To reject science is too reject reason. To reject reason is to reject the gifts God bestowed upon us. I do not reject reason. I will not stick my head in the sand and cling to a disproven interpretation of the natural world to meet some nebulous proscribed requirement of faith. Faith's only requirement is that you believe. I believe that God created the universe, I just don't believe it happened in the way that it is presented in Genesis. The creation myths of my religious tradition are of the same category as those of other traditions: myth. The nomadic tribes of ancient Palestine (just like every early group of pre-industrialized humans) looked at the world around them and strived to make sense of it. Where did we come from? How did the earth and the sky and the sun and the moon and the stars and the air and the water come to be in the place they are and in the form they hold? Lacking the luxury of thousands of years of cumulative knowledge and technological advances we enjoy, they came up with the best answer they could. Over the years, these explanations (clarified and unified and, finally, codified) became the accepted Story of Creation for these tribes. With the advent of the written word, these stories became part of a religious text. Once stamped as "The Word", these myths gained permanence in the mythology of the Jewish religion.
These stories haven't changed much since then, but our understanding of the world we inhabit has. As little as ninety-five years ago, we thought the universe was confined solely to our galaxy. We now know that ours is but one of billions of galaxies. We have learned of the vast scale and age of the universe. We have detected the background radiation left by its creation from a pre-singularity. We have gazed upon the ancient light of the very supernovae in which the atoms from which our very bodies are created were formed in an unimaginably powerful nuclear fissile event. We have walked upon the surface of our moon and sent probes to the furthest edge of our solar system. We have charted the evolution of life from single-celled bacteria to self-aware human. We have harnessed the atom to both power our cities and to date the age of our home planet. Our understanding of the natural world grows by the day and shows no signs of slowing. Although time and erosion have left gaps that we will never be able to gaze upon, we are more able to understand the immutable mechanisms which have lead life to its present state.
Ours is a clockwork universe, yet it needs no divine watchmaker to keep it running. The universe, once set on its course almost 14 billion years ago, has and will run its course unto its end. No detectable divine presence is necessary.
MY universe has a creator. Having chosen to follow the God-given gifts of reason and rationality I was endowed with, I chose to disregard the creation myth I was told at my mother's knee and follow the proven paths of science. Wait. That isn't precisely true. One cannot CHOOSE to accept science as one does a religious belief. Science is an independent entity. It exists regardless of my personal opinions on the matter. Better to say that I am a resident of a universe that science has and does describe to the best of our current abilities. As science progresses, we may find ourselves discarding some of our current assumptions and embracing the newer, more adequate explanations. Science requires no loyalty, only the ability to accept new interpretations and discard the old as evidence dictates.
My God is large, huge, infinite. He has existed since before the beginning and will outlast the end. He wrote the laws of nature and mathematics in the first fraction of a picosecond of creation. He set the speed of light and the gravitational constant. He created a universe where one need not ever see any evidence of His hand at work. The universe is bound by law. Stellar evolution, planetary accretion, biological evolution, all follow the rules of an orderly universe.
I don't need my creation myth to be true for my religion to be. I teach my children that faith and knowledge are two equally necessary ingredients for wisdom and humanity. To deny scientific fact that contradicts your belief is counter-productive to both individual growth and to society as a whole. If my children grow up and teach their children that the stories of the Bible supersede the indisputable facts of science, then they will be willfully handicapping their children's futures. I teach them that God expects us to be faithful, but to never choose to be ignorant of the facts he has made us capable of discovering about the world He made.
I say none of this to disparage, but to clarify. I do not accept the Bible as literal truth when science has shown it not to be the case. This doesn’t lessen the Bible or my faith in its lessons. If anything, my faith is strengthened and enlarged when I contemplate the nearly limitless wonder of its scope. The idea that the atoms of my right and left hands may have had their genesis in stars billions of miles distant from one another makes me feel more special in the grand scheme, not less. Of all God’s creations, we are the pinnacle. We are Homo sapiens (literally, ‘thinking apes’), no equation exists to explain how we gained the power of rational thought. It is God’s gift. If science does one day find an equation to explain the mechanisms by which rationality evolves, said rationality will be no less of a gift, for it is the one gift that makes all discovery possible.
These stories haven't changed much since then, but our understanding of the world we inhabit has. As little as ninety-five years ago, we thought the universe was confined solely to our galaxy. We now know that ours is but one of billions of galaxies. We have learned of the vast scale and age of the universe. We have detected the background radiation left by its creation from a pre-singularity. We have gazed upon the ancient light of the very supernovae in which the atoms from which our very bodies are created were formed in an unimaginably powerful nuclear fissile event. We have walked upon the surface of our moon and sent probes to the furthest edge of our solar system. We have charted the evolution of life from single-celled bacteria to self-aware human. We have harnessed the atom to both power our cities and to date the age of our home planet. Our understanding of the natural world grows by the day and shows no signs of slowing. Although time and erosion have left gaps that we will never be able to gaze upon, we are more able to understand the immutable mechanisms which have lead life to its present state.
Ours is a clockwork universe, yet it needs no divine watchmaker to keep it running. The universe, once set on its course almost 14 billion years ago, has and will run its course unto its end. No detectable divine presence is necessary.
MY universe has a creator. Having chosen to follow the God-given gifts of reason and rationality I was endowed with, I chose to disregard the creation myth I was told at my mother's knee and follow the proven paths of science. Wait. That isn't precisely true. One cannot CHOOSE to accept science as one does a religious belief. Science is an independent entity. It exists regardless of my personal opinions on the matter. Better to say that I am a resident of a universe that science has and does describe to the best of our current abilities. As science progresses, we may find ourselves discarding some of our current assumptions and embracing the newer, more adequate explanations. Science requires no loyalty, only the ability to accept new interpretations and discard the old as evidence dictates.
My God is large, huge, infinite. He has existed since before the beginning and will outlast the end. He wrote the laws of nature and mathematics in the first fraction of a picosecond of creation. He set the speed of light and the gravitational constant. He created a universe where one need not ever see any evidence of His hand at work. The universe is bound by law. Stellar evolution, planetary accretion, biological evolution, all follow the rules of an orderly universe.
I don't need my creation myth to be true for my religion to be. I teach my children that faith and knowledge are two equally necessary ingredients for wisdom and humanity. To deny scientific fact that contradicts your belief is counter-productive to both individual growth and to society as a whole. If my children grow up and teach their children that the stories of the Bible supersede the indisputable facts of science, then they will be willfully handicapping their children's futures. I teach them that God expects us to be faithful, but to never choose to be ignorant of the facts he has made us capable of discovering about the world He made.
I say none of this to disparage, but to clarify. I do not accept the Bible as literal truth when science has shown it not to be the case. This doesn’t lessen the Bible or my faith in its lessons. If anything, my faith is strengthened and enlarged when I contemplate the nearly limitless wonder of its scope. The idea that the atoms of my right and left hands may have had their genesis in stars billions of miles distant from one another makes me feel more special in the grand scheme, not less. Of all God’s creations, we are the pinnacle. We are Homo sapiens (literally, ‘thinking apes’), no equation exists to explain how we gained the power of rational thought. It is God’s gift. If science does one day find an equation to explain the mechanisms by which rationality evolves, said rationality will be no less of a gift, for it is the one gift that makes all discovery possible.
Monday, October 17, 2011
There is no "Fun" in Fundraising
Sorry I haven't been posting rants at my usual pace. My Congressional Campaign has sapped my will to be angry. Well, not so much my will to be angry so much as my will to write about it. I promise to do better in the future. Surely if I can find the time to go through every friend's post for the past 12 hours since my last Facebook visit, I can find the time for a solipsistic exercise in self-aggrandizement on here.
For the past month and a half, I have been officially running to secure the Democratic Party's nomination to challenge the excreted lump of organic matter know as North Carolina's 10th District Representative, Patrick McHenry. In that time, I have learned a valuable lesson: Almost no one that hates Mr. McHenry's job performance is interested in donating money to see him defeated. I've tried jokes, pleas, reason, logic, veiled threats, offers of a sexual nature... nothing seems to work. With a few notable exceptions, I cannot convince the people I "know" on the Internet to part with so much as a dollar. It seems like it would be a slam dunk. I've got the narrative:
"Mr. Murphy, a former teacher and businessman from Rutherfordton, is the very definition of a "political outsider". Raised the youngest of seven children in a poor family of farm laborers, he knows first-hand the pains of hunger and the importance of welfare programs. As an uninsured "independent contractor" (Mr. Murphy delivers the local newspaper to rural customers each morning. A job which cost him his car in an early-morning crash recently) earning less than minimum wage, Mr. Murphy knows the value of health coverage for all and the need for job opportunities which offer the basic protections and perks of actual employment, like Social Security and Medicare contributions, Worker's Compensation and Unemployment Insurance and OSHA and Labor Board protections. As a person who has been too busy working (often two jobs) every waking hour of his adult life, Mr. Murphy knows that the vast majority of otherwise-qualified candidates for public office haven't had the luxury of being involved with their local political machine for their entire adult lives. Mr. Murphy understands that he is a long shot, but he wants you to understand that he is your best shot."
And I've got the drive. What I don't have is the cash to let folks know about me. What am I doing about it? Well, I'm taking Samuel L Jackson's advice to Bruce Willis in "Unbreakable": I'm going where the people are. A Town Festival? "Howdy, Ma'am! Timothy Murphy, Candidate for the Democratic nomination for US House here in District 10!" A fair? "Those lard-wrapped lard sticks deep-fried in real lard smell delicious!! By the way, I'm Timothy Murphy, Candidate for the Democratic nomination for US House here in District 10!" Funeral? "He was a good man. A loving husband and a caring father. A man concerned about the future of this nation, and he were still here with us, he would (and would encourage you to) contribute to my campaign and vote for me, Timothy Murphy, Candidate for the Democratic nomination for US House here in District 10!"
What? Oh, no. I wasn't being funny. That's what a no-name guy's gotta do. I can't even get a mention in the newspaper I deliver every day. Ya know what our front page was on Sunday? A 13 year-old Michael Jackson impersonator. I bet that really pissed off the person with the biggest gourd at the Fair.
I just realized the hold that fame has on the Public's attention. If any national news or entertainment outlet covered my campaign, the coffers would overflow and the local media would come running. That’s just the way it is. The majority of folks that contribute to campaigns have little direct interest in the race, because it doesn't actually directly impact them, they just want to "do their part" to help a big, exciting campaign. That's just human nature. There's no impact to saying, "I gave 10 dollars to the local challenger for the nomination to attempt to unseat the incumbent" The usual response to that statement at a party? "So what?", or (if Christian Bale's your conversational partner) "Oh...Good for YOU!!!!" It just doesn't hold the cache that saying, "I gave 200 dollars to Elizabeth Warren's campaign. Remember her? She was the lady from the Consumer Protection Agency that Patrick McHenry was so rude to last spring. Yes, that lady! I couldn't stand the way he spoke to her, so I'm going to donate to her campaign for Senator of Massachusetts. That should send a message to that McHenry person from North Carolina! I wonder if he's going to face a decent Democratic challenger this time? Probably not. I haven't heard of anyone on the national media broadcasts. For all I know, he's probably running unopposed..."
No, he isn't. I'm not on TV or in the papers, but I'm out there. My only hope is to keep on keepin' on. If I survive the Primary (and Lord, do I hope to... the other candidate doesn't share very many views with the Party. I may be too liberal for them, but he sounds like the Republican incumbent, to me), I pray the money MAY find it's way to me. If it doesn't, it won't stop me from doing the most I can to get as many folks as possible to support me in November. Maybe all the fame of being an asshole to Elizabeth Warren will translate into the populace being angry enough at McHenry to vote for the guy with the "D" by his name that they haven't heard of. Hell, every time I ever voted for the Democratic candidate in North Carolina's District 10 (before I decided to get married and move 5 miles south into District 11), I'd never heard of them, either...
Vote Angry, Vote Redneck, Vote Liberal
Tim
For the past month and a half, I have been officially running to secure the Democratic Party's nomination to challenge the excreted lump of organic matter know as North Carolina's 10th District Representative, Patrick McHenry. In that time, I have learned a valuable lesson: Almost no one that hates Mr. McHenry's job performance is interested in donating money to see him defeated. I've tried jokes, pleas, reason, logic, veiled threats, offers of a sexual nature... nothing seems to work. With a few notable exceptions, I cannot convince the people I "know" on the Internet to part with so much as a dollar. It seems like it would be a slam dunk. I've got the narrative:
"Mr. Murphy, a former teacher and businessman from Rutherfordton, is the very definition of a "political outsider". Raised the youngest of seven children in a poor family of farm laborers, he knows first-hand the pains of hunger and the importance of welfare programs. As an uninsured "independent contractor" (Mr. Murphy delivers the local newspaper to rural customers each morning. A job which cost him his car in an early-morning crash recently) earning less than minimum wage, Mr. Murphy knows the value of health coverage for all and the need for job opportunities which offer the basic protections and perks of actual employment, like Social Security and Medicare contributions, Worker's Compensation and Unemployment Insurance and OSHA and Labor Board protections. As a person who has been too busy working (often two jobs) every waking hour of his adult life, Mr. Murphy knows that the vast majority of otherwise-qualified candidates for public office haven't had the luxury of being involved with their local political machine for their entire adult lives. Mr. Murphy understands that he is a long shot, but he wants you to understand that he is your best shot."
And I've got the drive. What I don't have is the cash to let folks know about me. What am I doing about it? Well, I'm taking Samuel L Jackson's advice to Bruce Willis in "Unbreakable": I'm going where the people are. A Town Festival? "Howdy, Ma'am! Timothy Murphy, Candidate for the Democratic nomination for US House here in District 10!" A fair? "Those lard-wrapped lard sticks deep-fried in real lard smell delicious!! By the way, I'm Timothy Murphy, Candidate for the Democratic nomination for US House here in District 10!" Funeral? "He was a good man. A loving husband and a caring father. A man concerned about the future of this nation, and he were still here with us, he would (and would encourage you to) contribute to my campaign and vote for me, Timothy Murphy, Candidate for the Democratic nomination for US House here in District 10!"
What? Oh, no. I wasn't being funny. That's what a no-name guy's gotta do. I can't even get a mention in the newspaper I deliver every day. Ya know what our front page was on Sunday? A 13 year-old Michael Jackson impersonator. I bet that really pissed off the person with the biggest gourd at the Fair.
I just realized the hold that fame has on the Public's attention. If any national news or entertainment outlet covered my campaign, the coffers would overflow and the local media would come running. That’s just the way it is. The majority of folks that contribute to campaigns have little direct interest in the race, because it doesn't actually directly impact them, they just want to "do their part" to help a big, exciting campaign. That's just human nature. There's no impact to saying, "I gave 10 dollars to the local challenger for the nomination to attempt to unseat the incumbent" The usual response to that statement at a party? "So what?", or (if Christian Bale's your conversational partner) "Oh...Good for YOU!!!!" It just doesn't hold the cache that saying, "I gave 200 dollars to Elizabeth Warren's campaign. Remember her? She was the lady from the Consumer Protection Agency that Patrick McHenry was so rude to last spring. Yes, that lady! I couldn't stand the way he spoke to her, so I'm going to donate to her campaign for Senator of Massachusetts. That should send a message to that McHenry person from North Carolina! I wonder if he's going to face a decent Democratic challenger this time? Probably not. I haven't heard of anyone on the national media broadcasts. For all I know, he's probably running unopposed..."
No, he isn't. I'm not on TV or in the papers, but I'm out there. My only hope is to keep on keepin' on. If I survive the Primary (and Lord, do I hope to... the other candidate doesn't share very many views with the Party. I may be too liberal for them, but he sounds like the Republican incumbent, to me), I pray the money MAY find it's way to me. If it doesn't, it won't stop me from doing the most I can to get as many folks as possible to support me in November. Maybe all the fame of being an asshole to Elizabeth Warren will translate into the populace being angry enough at McHenry to vote for the guy with the "D" by his name that they haven't heard of. Hell, every time I ever voted for the Democratic candidate in North Carolina's District 10 (before I decided to get married and move 5 miles south into District 11), I'd never heard of them, either...
Vote Angry, Vote Redneck, Vote Liberal
Tim
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Again with the "Protect Marriage Amendment", NC GOP?
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina, hoping to save their sorry asses by motivating bigots to vote next year, are looking for their chance to finally bring a Constitutional Amendment "Protecting Marriage" to the 2012 ballot. Now, before you pack up your partner and run down here to get married on the veranda at Orton Plantation before it's too late, don't. Same-sex marriage is just as not legal here as it is in 44 other states, the GOP'ers just feel bad that we're the only state in the South that doesn't actually codify it in our Constitution. I (like 56% of my fellow North Carolinians) oppose this bit of legislation. I can think of two reasons right off the top of my head.
1. Unless you are removing parts that are blatantly illegal (such as the stipulation that no one "that denies the existence of The Almighty God" can not hold public office), leave the Goddamned Constitution alone. Constitutions are designed to enumerate and protect freedoms, not limit them. Also, it's not a dry erase board for the lunch special, it's the traditional, historical and damn-nigh immutable codification of our highest laws. Unless the Amendment proposed is "At least 2/3 of North Carolina Voters Must Vote to Allow a Ballot Initiative to Amend the State Constitution on the Ballot and No Less than Five Years Must Elapse Before said Amendment (if Approved By No Less Than 2/3 of the Voters) May Appear on the Ballot", then I don't want to see one. Show a little respect for the Document you have sworn to uphold, assholes.
2. There is zero need to amend the Constitution to prohibit an activity that is already illegal. If you don't like current law, change it. If current law is precisely what you want, why the fuck are you worried? I know why. You are well-aware that your anti-equality stance is an anachronistic one. You're losing your grip on the majority opinion. The vast majority of the heterosexual Public doesn't care if two people of the same gender get married. They only care that y'all are such dicks about it. No matter how hard y'all try, gayness just isn't scary to people. We've evolved. You can't. Or won't. Lord knows what you'd do for campaign donations if you lost the "Gay Menace". Abortion rates are lower than they used to be, the State (and the Nation) elected a black man President, everyone laughs at your "Osama bin Laden Thanks You For Voting for a Democrat" bumper sticker and no one is buying your "Taxing the Rich Hurts Small Businesses" bullshit, anymore. You are fast losing the ability to fool anyone with half a brain.
"I wish we knew how to fool folks with half a brain!", some NC Republican strategist that I just made up once said, "What can we do to get these folks to vote for us one more time? I know! We can slash Education funding, cut Medicaid and Poverty-Assistance Programs, deny funding for Women's Health and cut the Corporate Tax Rate! Do they love us now? Fuck!! What do we have to take from them and give to our richest contributors to make them see that we are their best choice? I'm all out of ideas, here. Those were our very best. Yes? What? Oh, yeah...the Gays! How could I have forgotten?! God bless 'em (well, not really), they might save our asses one more time!"
So there's the plan. Pay shills to write bullshit Op-Ed pieces in newspapers claiming 70% of the population wants our Constitution amended to deny the Equal Rights of Marriage to adult citizens, use the Legislative majority to push it through the Legislature while loudly declaring that it is for the protection of "The Children", let bigoted outside PACs buy tons of advertising to scare the "common folk" and BINGO!! Enough votes to maybe not get shellacked next Fall. It's a shitty way to do business, but it's all they got. Sadly, it might work. Happily, it won't work for much longer.
Vote, dammit.
1. Unless you are removing parts that are blatantly illegal (such as the stipulation that no one "that denies the existence of The Almighty God" can not hold public office), leave the Goddamned Constitution alone. Constitutions are designed to enumerate and protect freedoms, not limit them. Also, it's not a dry erase board for the lunch special, it's the traditional, historical and damn-nigh immutable codification of our highest laws. Unless the Amendment proposed is "At least 2/3 of North Carolina Voters Must Vote to Allow a Ballot Initiative to Amend the State Constitution on the Ballot and No Less than Five Years Must Elapse Before said Amendment (if Approved By No Less Than 2/3 of the Voters) May Appear on the Ballot", then I don't want to see one. Show a little respect for the Document you have sworn to uphold, assholes.
2. There is zero need to amend the Constitution to prohibit an activity that is already illegal. If you don't like current law, change it. If current law is precisely what you want, why the fuck are you worried? I know why. You are well-aware that your anti-equality stance is an anachronistic one. You're losing your grip on the majority opinion. The vast majority of the heterosexual Public doesn't care if two people of the same gender get married. They only care that y'all are such dicks about it. No matter how hard y'all try, gayness just isn't scary to people. We've evolved. You can't. Or won't. Lord knows what you'd do for campaign donations if you lost the "Gay Menace". Abortion rates are lower than they used to be, the State (and the Nation) elected a black man President, everyone laughs at your "Osama bin Laden Thanks You For Voting for a Democrat" bumper sticker and no one is buying your "Taxing the Rich Hurts Small Businesses" bullshit, anymore. You are fast losing the ability to fool anyone with half a brain.
"I wish we knew how to fool folks with half a brain!", some NC Republican strategist that I just made up once said, "What can we do to get these folks to vote for us one more time? I know! We can slash Education funding, cut Medicaid and Poverty-Assistance Programs, deny funding for Women's Health and cut the Corporate Tax Rate! Do they love us now? Fuck!! What do we have to take from them and give to our richest contributors to make them see that we are their best choice? I'm all out of ideas, here. Those were our very best. Yes? What? Oh, yeah...the Gays! How could I have forgotten?! God bless 'em (well, not really), they might save our asses one more time!"
So there's the plan. Pay shills to write bullshit Op-Ed pieces in newspapers claiming 70% of the population wants our Constitution amended to deny the Equal Rights of Marriage to adult citizens, use the Legislative majority to push it through the Legislature while loudly declaring that it is for the protection of "The Children", let bigoted outside PACs buy tons of advertising to scare the "common folk" and BINGO!! Enough votes to maybe not get shellacked next Fall. It's a shitty way to do business, but it's all they got. Sadly, it might work. Happily, it won't work for much longer.
Vote, dammit.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
It's Called A Search Engine, Maybe You Should Google It
I spend a lot of time on Facebook (ooh! You rebel, you!) so I read (and post) a lot of Status Updates. Usually, I'm just looking to amuse my "friends" while updating them about my whereabouts. I like to imagine that somewhere in the world someone is asking their spouse, "Hey, honey! Is that guy still sitting on his ass at home posting on Facebook? Whaddya mean, you "Guess so?" Go look! He's still there? Well, good! It's nice to know you can count on some things in this fast-paced modern world!" It is for that person that I strive so hard to keep the updates comin'. Thanks to Facebook and the Internet, I need only hit a few keys to accomplish this. In bygone days, I would have been forced to ride around the town on a bicycle, ringing a handbell and crying, "Hear ye! Hear ye! Nothin's goin' on! I'm not doing anything you care about! See you in an hour or two! Sleep well!", and throwing rocks with funny cat pictures wrapped around them through people's windows. This way is so much less labor-intensive.
This labor-saving method of social interaction comes at a price, however. One hundred years ago, we had to wait a week or so to mail someone our news and wait another week for a reply. If we REALLY wanted to quickly share something with a friend we had to be willing to go all the way to their home. The advent of reliable telephone service made the dissemination of news much more efficient, but we were still hamstrung by people's work and sleep schedules and by just how much they actually wanted to hear us talk. The Internet brought us email and Instant Messaging, but it took Facebook to perfect the art of limitless, self-absorbed information sharing which frees us from having to consider the schedules and interest levels of others. Now we are free to let the world know just what's on our minds.
Sadly, what's on most folks' minds is posting a Status Update. That's all well and good in most cases. I am constantly entertained by genuinely funny people who brighten my day by posting a silly status or a link to a funny website or photo. I am kept informed by the people that share news stories and links to blogs and opinion pieces that I would have otherwise missed because my main news feed is busy telling me that the daughter of OJ's late lawyer that once made a sex tape (the daughter, not OJ's lawyer, I hope) and whose Mom is married to a wax sculpture of that guy that was on all the Wheaties boxes is getting married. I find out what my friends are doing and where they're doing it and with whom (btw, my kid's friends' parents should REALLY read their children's Facebook updates) and why. Some folks are always hurtin', or "agrvated", or "wish peepul wud stay outta ther bizness that their alwys tlkin bout on Facbk". Some folks are always checkin in' and some are REALLY into posting music videos. It is a constantly entertaining stream of words, pictures and videos from those folks.
Other folks just copy someone else's status and repost it. I'm not inferring plagiarism. The text of these missives plainly states their Fair Use and Public Domain status by including the disclaimer (often with a thinly-veiled threat of social ostracization if ignored) to COPY and REPOST. These can be funny, or sad, or informative. Can be. CAN. Most aren't. Most fall into the category of annoying, misleading, mean-spirited and dumb. Lemme 'splain...no wait, there is too much..lemme sum up...
One of the most popular forms of repostable Status Update is the conservative-leaning insult to Democrats/The President/Atheists/The "Main Stream Media"/Liberals/"Troop-Slash-Flag-Slash-America Haters"/Scientists/Organized Labor/Non-Christians/Socialists/Secular Humanists/Modern Society/The Original 'Pledge of Allegiance'/Activist Judges/The Constitution/Federal Courts/Gays/Environmentalists/Messicans/Feminists/Planned Parenthood and/or the Poor. According to these repostable four hundred and twenty (old n' bust'd) or five hundred (teh new hotnis) character treatises, we all need to be on guard against whatever-the-hell these folks/organizations/ideas are doing to our great Nation® and that we should repost this information/manufactured outrage/mean-spirited joke/IMPORTANT WARNING!!! on our own walls, to show the world we mean business.
Sadly, some random percentage of us won't. Depending on the status, we are afraid of offending others with our Christianity or our Patriotism or our Biblical TRUTH!! or because the "PC Police" don't want us to rock the boat. That random percentage of us just don't care enough about our LORD or our TROOPS or the CHILDREN or the FLAG or even (sadly) about AMERICA to do the right thing. I guess we hate the LORD and the TROOPS and the FLAG and the CHILDREN and even hate AMERICA. At least, that's the implication.
You're probably wondering where I'm going with this. Hell, you may have a sneaky suspicion that I lost track of my point a long time ago and am just spinning my wheels until it comes back to me. You might even suggest that I take a break and fix a cup of coffee so my mind can eventually circle back to whatever I had originally intended to say. I say that I'm out of sugar for my coffee and need to go to the store and you probably don't love AMERICA! If you did, you'd just let me say whatever drivel I want to without responding. Like a Status, ya know? People hate like Hell when you comment in a less-than-one-hundred-percent-agreement fashion to a reposted Status Update. HATE IT. You'd think that the inference of "disagreement equals social pariah, possibly an AMERICAN-HATING ATHEIST THAT STRANGLES OUR SERVICEMEN'S CHILDREN WITH THE FLAG" would be enough to shut up those contrarian assholes that always comment with some copy-and-paste refutation of the main points of the post or with a reasonable refutation of it's "all or nothing" wording or a damn "Snopes" link, but it doesn't. They keep on posting that shit on everything you try and share to save our Christian Nation from the enemies within. Eventually, you have to "Unfriend" them. You still pray they see the light though. Hopefully, people will see past their un-American disagreement with your post and will repost it themselves, although a random percentage will be too afraid to.
You know what would help these constant re-posters? Google. In case you haven't heard, it can find more than just porn and LOLCats. I run everything I share from an outside source through four or five websites before I post it. Why? Because I don't want to look stupid! Everyone else on the Internet (that doesn't live in China) has access to the same search results that I do (to my Chinese readers: I hope you are enjoying this Historical Romance novel, Mao Tse-tung and the Reluctant Regional Cultural Governess) and can easily point out any glaring factual errors I make. It's just good practice. You can trust me, eighty-five percent of my Internet stupidity is purely intentional.
Why do these statuses (stati?) exist? Some are genuine attempts by regular people to voice their opinion on matters of religion and governance whose authors are unaware of the belligerent tone and aura of exclusion they impart to their work. Some are the thinly-veiled, somewhat pleasantly-worded products of racist, violent, anti-inclusive, un-American minds. Some are (quite possibly) carefully crafted bits of propaganda which seek to make the bottom 98 percent of us hate each other. By attempting to lay the blame for our country's ills on the poor, the different, the immigrant, the non-believer, the believer that believes differently or the person that holds the Constitution up as his highest law, they seek to divide us. These hateful, dishonest bits of propaganda seek only to keep us at each other's throats so that we never look to see that we are all in the same boat. In a country where the 400 richest people own more than the 155 million poorest (50 percent of the population), keeping us mad at each other is the only way the system can continue to function. God forbid we ever notice.
Happy Sunday!
This labor-saving method of social interaction comes at a price, however. One hundred years ago, we had to wait a week or so to mail someone our news and wait another week for a reply. If we REALLY wanted to quickly share something with a friend we had to be willing to go all the way to their home. The advent of reliable telephone service made the dissemination of news much more efficient, but we were still hamstrung by people's work and sleep schedules and by just how much they actually wanted to hear us talk. The Internet brought us email and Instant Messaging, but it took Facebook to perfect the art of limitless, self-absorbed information sharing which frees us from having to consider the schedules and interest levels of others. Now we are free to let the world know just what's on our minds.
Sadly, what's on most folks' minds is posting a Status Update. That's all well and good in most cases. I am constantly entertained by genuinely funny people who brighten my day by posting a silly status or a link to a funny website or photo. I am kept informed by the people that share news stories and links to blogs and opinion pieces that I would have otherwise missed because my main news feed is busy telling me that the daughter of OJ's late lawyer that once made a sex tape (the daughter, not OJ's lawyer, I hope) and whose Mom is married to a wax sculpture of that guy that was on all the Wheaties boxes is getting married. I find out what my friends are doing and where they're doing it and with whom (btw, my kid's friends' parents should REALLY read their children's Facebook updates) and why. Some folks are always hurtin', or "agrvated", or "wish peepul wud stay outta ther bizness that their alwys tlkin bout on Facbk". Some folks are always checkin in' and some are REALLY into posting music videos. It is a constantly entertaining stream of words, pictures and videos from those folks.
Other folks just copy someone else's status and repost it. I'm not inferring plagiarism. The text of these missives plainly states their Fair Use and Public Domain status by including the disclaimer (often with a thinly-veiled threat of social ostracization if ignored) to COPY and REPOST. These can be funny, or sad, or informative. Can be. CAN. Most aren't. Most fall into the category of annoying, misleading, mean-spirited and dumb. Lemme 'splain...no wait, there is too much..lemme sum up...
One of the most popular forms of repostable Status Update is the conservative-leaning insult to Democrats/The President/Atheists/The "Main Stream Media"/Liberals/"Troop-Slash-Flag-Slash-America Haters"/Scientists/Organized Labor/Non-Christians/Socialists/Secular Humanists/Modern Society/The Original 'Pledge of Allegiance'/Activist Judges/The Constitution/Federal Courts/Gays/Environmentalists/Messicans/Feminists/Planned Parenthood and/or the Poor. According to these repostable four hundred and twenty (old n' bust'd) or five hundred (teh new hotnis) character treatises, we all need to be on guard against whatever-the-hell these folks/organizations/ideas are doing to our great Nation® and that we should repost this information/manufactured outrage/mean-spirited joke/IMPORTANT WARNING!!! on our own walls, to show the world we mean business.
Sadly, some random percentage of us won't. Depending on the status, we are afraid of offending others with our Christianity or our Patriotism or our Biblical TRUTH!! or because the "PC Police" don't want us to rock the boat. That random percentage of us just don't care enough about our LORD or our TROOPS or the CHILDREN or the FLAG or even (sadly) about AMERICA to do the right thing. I guess we hate the LORD and the TROOPS and the FLAG and the CHILDREN and even hate AMERICA. At least, that's the implication.
You're probably wondering where I'm going with this. Hell, you may have a sneaky suspicion that I lost track of my point a long time ago and am just spinning my wheels until it comes back to me. You might even suggest that I take a break and fix a cup of coffee so my mind can eventually circle back to whatever I had originally intended to say. I say that I'm out of sugar for my coffee and need to go to the store and you probably don't love AMERICA! If you did, you'd just let me say whatever drivel I want to without responding. Like a Status, ya know? People hate like Hell when you comment in a less-than-one-hundred-percent-agreement fashion to a reposted Status Update. HATE IT. You'd think that the inference of "disagreement equals social pariah, possibly an AMERICAN-HATING ATHEIST THAT STRANGLES OUR SERVICEMEN'S CHILDREN WITH THE FLAG" would be enough to shut up those contrarian assholes that always comment with some copy-and-paste refutation of the main points of the post or with a reasonable refutation of it's "all or nothing" wording or a damn "Snopes" link, but it doesn't. They keep on posting that shit on everything you try and share to save our Christian Nation from the enemies within. Eventually, you have to "Unfriend" them. You still pray they see the light though. Hopefully, people will see past their un-American disagreement with your post and will repost it themselves, although a random percentage will be too afraid to.
You know what would help these constant re-posters? Google. In case you haven't heard, it can find more than just porn and LOLCats. I run everything I share from an outside source through four or five websites before I post it. Why? Because I don't want to look stupid! Everyone else on the Internet (that doesn't live in China) has access to the same search results that I do (to my Chinese readers: I hope you are enjoying this Historical Romance novel, Mao Tse-tung and the Reluctant Regional Cultural Governess) and can easily point out any glaring factual errors I make. It's just good practice. You can trust me, eighty-five percent of my Internet stupidity is purely intentional.
Why do these statuses (stati?) exist? Some are genuine attempts by regular people to voice their opinion on matters of religion and governance whose authors are unaware of the belligerent tone and aura of exclusion they impart to their work. Some are the thinly-veiled, somewhat pleasantly-worded products of racist, violent, anti-inclusive, un-American minds. Some are (quite possibly) carefully crafted bits of propaganda which seek to make the bottom 98 percent of us hate each other. By attempting to lay the blame for our country's ills on the poor, the different, the immigrant, the non-believer, the believer that believes differently or the person that holds the Constitution up as his highest law, they seek to divide us. These hateful, dishonest bits of propaganda seek only to keep us at each other's throats so that we never look to see that we are all in the same boat. In a country where the 400 richest people own more than the 155 million poorest (50 percent of the population), keeping us mad at each other is the only way the system can continue to function. God forbid we ever notice.
Happy Sunday!
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
How Do You Solve A Problem Like The Angry Redneck Liberal?
Every time I look at the top of this page, it seems like the guy that "writes" me has added or modified some disclaimer in a transparent attempt to distance his "real" self from me in the minds of the public. What a load of horseshit! Who does he think he's foolin'? No one's gonna buy that, "Oh, the Angry Redneck Liberal? He's just a literary device. A "wise fool", as it were. A means for me to make my policy views known to the populace while being entertaining to the masses. Sort of like Shakespeare did so brilliantly in King Lear (aside to audience) Not that I am comparing myself with "The Bard", by any means. Ha, ha ha! (Back to imaginary interviewer) You see, the modern man is hamstrung by societal conventions which force him to temper his opinions in order to ascend in the ranks. The "Fool", on the other hand, is freed from such constraints by the immutable nature of his station. Unable to rise above, he is free to "Speak Truth to Power", as the late Professor Peter Hennessy so eloquently put it in his writings on the "Whitehall Watchers". In fact, I ...
SHUT UP! Jesus! Even my impression of the guy makes me want to shove a pencil up my nose and stab myself in the brain. You folks have it easy. You only have to read whatever he craps out on the page once or twice a week. Me? I gotta ride around in his brain every day of my life! Day in and day out, it's, "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. What about my political aspirations? How am I going to explain my writing to the people and get them to vote for me? Why did I write all that stuff? Sure, it was funny at the time, but now I'm stuck with it. How will they ever take me seriously? What if they take my writing too seriously and think I'm some foul-mouthed, rage-filled lunatic who says any crazy thing he wants?"
Dear Mr. Murphy: I got two doses of reality for ya, buttercup:
1.You're an ungrateful asshole. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even have "political aspirations". You'd be sittin' on yer ass all day trying to pick out Alice in Chains songs on that beat-up acoustic of yours. Before you started this blog, you were just some small-town nobody that annoyed anyone within earshot with your incessant complaints about the Republican Party. Look at you now! A small-town nobody that's been on TV, has readers in nineteen countries on six of the seven continents (yeah, that's right. I said seven! Seven continents! Don't try and give me that "Eurasian Land Mass" crap, either. It's Europe and it's Asia. Next you'll be tryin' to tell me there's FOUR states of matter, too. Oh, superheated plasma, huh? Well, OK...I guess that makes sense. Hey! At least there's still only four food groups, right? Right? Fuck it.) and has an active Facebook page (in MY name, by the way) with around 1500 members. Not just "Likes", either. Actual, interacting people. The lowest number of "eyes on" numbers you get is still over 800! You say (I say?), "I'm going to bed", and 900 people take the time to click over to your page and say to themselves, "Looks like the ARL's gone to bed! Wait, watch this. I'll say something and he'll respond. See?! Liar! Ha ha! Go to bed, you stupid redneck!" These people have given you support, self-confidence and sense of purpose. That is why you think you can run for office. That is why you're stepping out of your "I have a lifelong speech impediment and don't like to get up in front of people without holding a guitar or mic stand..." bubble. All of that has come from the support and positive feedback you've gotten over the past few months. All that stuff, you got because of me.
2. Hate to burst your bubble, but you are, in fact, some 'foul-mouthed, rage-filled lunatic who says any crazy thing he wants', as you so succinctly put it. Everyone that has ever read your blog, sat next to you on a bar stool or tried to start a fight with you over wearing that worn out "Obama '08" shirt you love so much (I thought your wife threw that out after the incident in Charlotte? Oh, you had a backup... Once a Scout, always prepared, I guess...) knows that you don't "write" me as much as channel me. You just sit there with your fingers (both of 'em) on the keyboard and let me flow onto the screen. You're always looking for the explanation to tell someone who I am? Go read every unpublished thing you ever written. Well, not literally. I don't have that much time since that would be EVERYTHING you've ever written. Just kidding, I love, seriously...OK. Are you reading? What do you notice? Besides how bad you used to be? That's right. Everything you have ever written sounds just like me. Why is that? Because there is no me and you, stupid. YOU are Tyler Durden. I'm just the narrator.
So, what are you gonna do? You can't distance yourself from me. I'm you. Well, in a sense. I'm you cranked up to eleven with a good bit of your Daddy's mannerisms and vocabulary thrown in. I'm not trying to get all Freud on ya up in here, but that's all I am. Dad's not around, so you argue with me all night and then put the resulting product on the page. I'm catharsis and soapbox all in one. Hell! I'm the only reason you CAN calmly discuss things with assholes in the real world, nowadays. You get all your ire worked out here and then you go out there and put on your "Church Manners" so you can try and convince folks of the reasonable nature of your ideas. If a few (I dunno, hundred? thousand?) cuss words on a blog close their ears to you, they probably weren't gonna listen anyhow.
SHUT UP! Jesus! Even my impression of the guy makes me want to shove a pencil up my nose and stab myself in the brain. You folks have it easy. You only have to read whatever he craps out on the page once or twice a week. Me? I gotta ride around in his brain every day of my life! Day in and day out, it's, "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. What about my political aspirations? How am I going to explain my writing to the people and get them to vote for me? Why did I write all that stuff? Sure, it was funny at the time, but now I'm stuck with it. How will they ever take me seriously? What if they take my writing too seriously and think I'm some foul-mouthed, rage-filled lunatic who says any crazy thing he wants?"
Dear Mr. Murphy: I got two doses of reality for ya, buttercup:
1.You're an ungrateful asshole. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even have "political aspirations". You'd be sittin' on yer ass all day trying to pick out Alice in Chains songs on that beat-up acoustic of yours. Before you started this blog, you were just some small-town nobody that annoyed anyone within earshot with your incessant complaints about the Republican Party. Look at you now! A small-town nobody that's been on TV, has readers in nineteen countries on six of the seven continents (yeah, that's right. I said seven! Seven continents! Don't try and give me that "Eurasian Land Mass" crap, either. It's Europe and it's Asia. Next you'll be tryin' to tell me there's FOUR states of matter, too. Oh, superheated plasma, huh? Well, OK...I guess that makes sense. Hey! At least there's still only four food groups, right? Right? Fuck it.) and has an active Facebook page (in MY name, by the way) with around 1500 members. Not just "Likes", either. Actual, interacting people. The lowest number of "eyes on" numbers you get is still over 800! You say (I say?), "I'm going to bed", and 900 people take the time to click over to your page and say to themselves, "Looks like the ARL's gone to bed! Wait, watch this. I'll say something and he'll respond. See?! Liar! Ha ha! Go to bed, you stupid redneck!" These people have given you support, self-confidence and sense of purpose. That is why you think you can run for office. That is why you're stepping out of your "I have a lifelong speech impediment and don't like to get up in front of people without holding a guitar or mic stand..." bubble. All of that has come from the support and positive feedback you've gotten over the past few months. All that stuff, you got because of me.
2. Hate to burst your bubble, but you are, in fact, some 'foul-mouthed, rage-filled lunatic who says any crazy thing he wants', as you so succinctly put it. Everyone that has ever read your blog, sat next to you on a bar stool or tried to start a fight with you over wearing that worn out "Obama '08" shirt you love so much (I thought your wife threw that out after the incident in Charlotte? Oh, you had a backup... Once a Scout, always prepared, I guess...) knows that you don't "write" me as much as channel me. You just sit there with your fingers (both of 'em) on the keyboard and let me flow onto the screen. You're always looking for the explanation to tell someone who I am? Go read every unpublished thing you ever written. Well, not literally. I don't have that much time since that would be EVERYTHING you've ever written. Just kidding, I love, seriously...OK. Are you reading? What do you notice? Besides how bad you used to be? That's right. Everything you have ever written sounds just like me. Why is that? Because there is no me and you, stupid. YOU are Tyler Durden. I'm just the narrator.
So, what are you gonna do? You can't distance yourself from me. I'm you. Well, in a sense. I'm you cranked up to eleven with a good bit of your Daddy's mannerisms and vocabulary thrown in. I'm not trying to get all Freud on ya up in here, but that's all I am. Dad's not around, so you argue with me all night and then put the resulting product on the page. I'm catharsis and soapbox all in one. Hell! I'm the only reason you CAN calmly discuss things with assholes in the real world, nowadays. You get all your ire worked out here and then you go out there and put on your "Church Manners" so you can try and convince folks of the reasonable nature of your ideas. If a few (I dunno, hundred? thousand?) cuss words on a blog close their ears to you, they probably weren't gonna listen anyhow.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
S&P Food Stamps
North Carolina's State Motto: Esse Quam Videri. Translation: It's Better to Be Than to Seem (didn't even look that up! Public Education, baby!). Turns out that's not always the case. You see, Republicans have always seemed like a bunch of assholes to me. I mean, I was pretty sure, but I didn't wanna go all in with my analysis lest they come outta nowhere with some non-asshole move and prove me wrong. I needn't have waited. Turns out they are assholes. I was right all along.
Usually, their assholism is focused in a predictably narrow fashion on one specific group. Some days, it's women, some days it's gays, some days it's Seniors, some days it's the Middle class and most days it's the poor. They get industrious every once in a while and will try to marginalize two or three groups at a time, but they've always known when they were trying to do too much harm at one time and paced themselves accordingly. Over the past two weeks, they've set a personal best: they have managed to be such contrarian assholes that they have inadvertently fucked every man, woman and child in the US of A.
All of us: rich, poor, old, young, bunch, of, other, class, and race, divisions are united today to receive the fallout of the "Debt Ceiling Debacle of 2011". In their quest to deny meaningful solutions to America's deficit issues, the anti-tax wing of the Republican Party has managed to take what should have (and always has) been a "rubber stamp" vote to meet our previous obligations and have leeway for forthcoming monetary needs and turned it into such a partisan political circus that the S&P (the Green Stamp people? No, not the green Stamp people, please shut up) has decided to downgrade our credit rating from "Shit yeah, you can drive it home today!" to "I can try'n talk to the manager, but this's the best deal I got." Yeah, we can still buy any damn thing we want, but the interest rate's gonna be a little higher and we've lost our VIP washroom privileges.
Ok, not really. The downgrade doesn't really mean a thing in the short term, but the markets sure didn't think so. Why, I myself lost...well, nothing cause I'm poor, but I'm sure someone lost some imaginary wealth, somewhere. I hope it wasn't the exact amount we would have collected this year had the Bush Tax Cuts been allowed to expire last year. That would be too much irony for one week.
What was I saying? Oh. That by acting like such dicks and forcing the House and Senate to work so long to produce a bill which does about "this much" shy of "not a Goddamned thing", the Republicans have forced our Government's inability to seek meaningful agreement on matters of governance to the forefront of the world's consciousness. They never gave a shit before (truth is, they don't give a shit, now, they're still gonna buy our T-bills and bonds and whatever the Hell else we sell to finance our debt. We're still the US of fuckin' A, after all, and our money's still the best there is for international trade), but now they can honestly pretend to be thinkin' about pickin' up some of those tres cool les obligations plus onéreux from the French, instead. It's just another morale hit when morale is about all we got.
S&P (who, by the way, were the same rating authority that gave those shit sandwich "bundled mortgage securities" that sunk the world economy in the first place a "AAA" rating. Motherfuckers) said that the main reason for their downgrade of our rating was because of the Republicans' "complete and total resistance to any revenue increase" (that's not a quote, this isn't a fuckin' MLA-compliant research paper. I think I can put punctuation anywhere I damn well please. I'm not the only one, apparently. Have you seen what the Internet has done to the American public's understanding of the apostrophe?). They (the Republicans) are so opposed to raising taxes that even the company too stupid to see that taking a bunch of shitty mortgages and putting them in a pile with a bunch of other, shittier mortgages did NOT make them not less shitty (if anything it made them shittier by association!) think that the Republicans are stupid. That's saying a lot. These very same mathematically-impaired motherfuckers are themselves so horrible with numbers that they miscounted our debt by two trillion dollars the other day! They are like Rain Main, if his ability was to be wrong all the time...
"No, Raymond. There are not 'two trillion, two hundred forty-six toothpicks' on the Goddamned table! That's impossible! Stop saying it!""
"There's two trillion four left in the box..."
"You're not helping!"
....these guys can't even drive slow on the driveway. That's at least a marketable skill.
Even with their inability to count to 15 and an institutional inability to know that "credit swaps" and "bundled mortgage securities" were a bad idea, they still think that the Republicans are a bunch of idiots so bound to their adherence to a "no tax" pledge ( is it legal to Pledge to something besides the Constitution when you're a public servant? It shouldn't be) that they put the "full faith and credit" of the United States of America on the chopping block.
It's better to be than to seem? No. I seem like an asshole. These guys? They are.
Usually, their assholism is focused in a predictably narrow fashion on one specific group. Some days, it's women, some days it's gays, some days it's Seniors, some days it's the Middle class and most days it's the poor. They get industrious every once in a while and will try to marginalize two or three groups at a time, but they've always known when they were trying to do too much harm at one time and paced themselves accordingly. Over the past two weeks, they've set a personal best: they have managed to be such contrarian assholes that they have inadvertently fucked every man, woman and child in the US of A.
All of us: rich, poor, old, young, bunch, of, other, class, and race, divisions are united today to receive the fallout of the "Debt Ceiling Debacle of 2011". In their quest to deny meaningful solutions to America's deficit issues, the anti-tax wing of the Republican Party has managed to take what should have (and always has) been a "rubber stamp" vote to meet our previous obligations and have leeway for forthcoming monetary needs and turned it into such a partisan political circus that the S&P (the Green Stamp people? No, not the green Stamp people, please shut up) has decided to downgrade our credit rating from "Shit yeah, you can drive it home today!" to "I can try'n talk to the manager, but this's the best deal I got." Yeah, we can still buy any damn thing we want, but the interest rate's gonna be a little higher and we've lost our VIP washroom privileges.
Ok, not really. The downgrade doesn't really mean a thing in the short term, but the markets sure didn't think so. Why, I myself lost...well, nothing cause I'm poor, but I'm sure someone lost some imaginary wealth, somewhere. I hope it wasn't the exact amount we would have collected this year had the Bush Tax Cuts been allowed to expire last year. That would be too much irony for one week.
What was I saying? Oh. That by acting like such dicks and forcing the House and Senate to work so long to produce a bill which does about "this much" shy of "not a Goddamned thing", the Republicans have forced our Government's inability to seek meaningful agreement on matters of governance to the forefront of the world's consciousness. They never gave a shit before (truth is, they don't give a shit, now, they're still gonna buy our T-bills and bonds and whatever the Hell else we sell to finance our debt. We're still the US of fuckin' A, after all, and our money's still the best there is for international trade), but now they can honestly pretend to be thinkin' about pickin' up some of those tres cool les obligations plus onéreux from the French, instead. It's just another morale hit when morale is about all we got.
S&P (who, by the way, were the same rating authority that gave those shit sandwich "bundled mortgage securities" that sunk the world economy in the first place a "AAA" rating. Motherfuckers) said that the main reason for their downgrade of our rating was because of the Republicans' "complete and total resistance to any revenue increase" (that's not a quote, this isn't a fuckin' MLA-compliant research paper. I think I can put punctuation anywhere I damn well please. I'm not the only one, apparently. Have you seen what the Internet has done to the American public's understanding of the apostrophe?). They (the Republicans) are so opposed to raising taxes that even the company too stupid to see that taking a bunch of shitty mortgages and putting them in a pile with a bunch of other, shittier mortgages did NOT make them not less shitty (if anything it made them shittier by association!) think that the Republicans are stupid. That's saying a lot. These very same mathematically-impaired motherfuckers are themselves so horrible with numbers that they miscounted our debt by two trillion dollars the other day! They are like Rain Main, if his ability was to be wrong all the time...
"No, Raymond. There are not 'two trillion, two hundred forty-six toothpicks' on the Goddamned table! That's impossible! Stop saying it!""
"There's two trillion four left in the box..."
"You're not helping!"
....these guys can't even drive slow on the driveway. That's at least a marketable skill.
Even with their inability to count to 15 and an institutional inability to know that "credit swaps" and "bundled mortgage securities" were a bad idea, they still think that the Republicans are a bunch of idiots so bound to their adherence to a "no tax" pledge ( is it legal to Pledge to something besides the Constitution when you're a public servant? It shouldn't be) that they put the "full faith and credit" of the United States of America on the chopping block.
It's better to be than to seem? No. I seem like an asshole. These guys? They are.
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