I'm a political junkie, which keeps me in a constant state of agitation. This would make me a masochist if it weren't for the fact that I was born bitchy. Following politics just allows me to share my natural gift with the public in a more focused way than would otherwise be possible.
Here’s the deal – Walker is going to win in Wisconsin if he doesn’t blink. I hate that is it so, but it is. The only way that he won’t successfully take away collective bargaining rights for public employees, is if he backs down. I’m not saying that it’s not possible that may back down, but if he doesn’t he will get his way.
Honestly, if I were him I wouldn’t back down at this point. He’s already ensured that he’s going to be a one term governor. He’s also already ensured that he’s going to get a very high paying lobbying job when his one term is over. There’s no reason for him to back down so going after him is the wrong strategy.
But don’t worry, it’s not hopeless. There is a a winning strategy to ensure that this doesn’t happen all across the country. Wisconsinites must swiftly move to recall every member of the state house and senate that voted to strip public workers of their bargaining rights. They need to take a page out of Darrell Issa’s (he orchestrated the recall of Grey Davis in California) book and start collecting signatures to recall everyone that is eligible for recall right at this moment. I know that Wisconsin has a provision that says that a legislator must fuck up for a full year before they can be recalled, but there are plenty of people supporting Walker that have served for a year. Walker’s bill has passed the house, so there’s already a list of names to start with. If Wisconsin can get enough names to instigate a recall of even one or two state house members, there’s some chance that they can peel off a few republican votes in the senate.
Let’s be honest about the current situation – averting this vote, means having faith that democrats can hold out. When was the last time a democrat held out and stood on principal? Oh yeah, that would be Russ Feingold, who Wisconsin voted out of office last November! But aside from Feingold and a handful of others, the odds of democrats holding their ground are historically slim. No, banking on democrats to have balls is not going to turn out well for us.
Other republican governors that were talking about union busting are already losing their stomach for proceeding down that road, so public pressure has done a lot of good. A swift move to remove Wisconsin legislators that helped to make this happen will put the fear of god in every pro-union busting piece of shit all across the country. Here’s the thing – although Walker is assured a big fat Koch brothers paycheck at the end of all of this, the legislators that supported him aren’t. They key here is to go after the low hanging fruit. No politician in their right mind is going to sacrifice themselves so that some other asshole can get rich. No, they’re far more interested in amassing wealth and power for themselves. Making it clear that we won’t give them the opportunity to get rich if they go against the will of the people should remedy this situation.
You’ll never get to be a Koch whore if you’ve only served for a year in government because a year isn’t long enough to make you worth anything to them.
Trust me on this one, going after Walker is futile. Counting on democrats to stand firm is foolish. The only way to win this is by recall, recall, RECALL.
I’ve given a lot of thought to why the hell anyone that depends on a paycheck to survive, would possibly support the busting of a union. The only explanation that I can come up with, is that they have low self esteem. This explanation actually works to explain several otherwise perplexing opinions.
On any given day, Rush Limbaugh spends three hours riling up his listeners by telling them that they should hate people that have more than they do. “Fuck the people with pensions! You don’t have one, so fuck em!”. That’s his mantra, day after day. Fox news is a little more subtle, but the message is basically the same; the problem always lies with the people that have what you don’t, unless of course, we’re talking about the richest 2% among us. In the case of the mega rich, you need to fellate them, until they generously trickle their wealth down to you.
I get why the commentators that take this stance. They’re being generously paid to do the bidding of corporate America. But the working class people that buy into this? They obviously suffer from low self esteem issues.
Let me explain. Every single one of us knew a bully in our school days. And every single one of us remembers that when confronted, the bully crumbled like a republican economy. On the day that someone finally confronted the bully, we all realized that he/she was the most insecure person on campus. A bully chooses bullying because it’s easier and less thoughtful than self-improvement. Why put the time and effort into becoming someone that you can feel good about, when shitting on someone else offers so much instant gratification?
Fighting to get a pension for yourself takes a lot of work and organizing. Hating people that have pensions is much easier! You don’t have to organize. You don’t have to educate yourself. And you don’t have to confront your employer, which requires self esteem. The instant gratification of hating someone that has something that you don’t, simply requires having a small mind and a bitter attitude. It’s easy. And voila! You get a little boost in your mood without having to do any work.
And the reason why you don’t want to do the hard work required to get what the people that you hate have? Say it with me, it’s low self esteem.
This also explains that Sarah Palin phenomena. Think about, the thing that you hear most often from her supporters is that “she’s just like me”. And they’re right. She’s ignorant, and too lazy to remedy that ignorance by learning things. Her supporters know that they’re in no way qualified to occupy an office in the white house, but having someone like them some so close makes them feel better about themselves. The “reasoning” is this; she doesn’t know anything, just like me. And if she can make it into the white house, I have a shot.
What those people failed to consider, is that her ignorance isn’t what got her so close (although it didn’t hurt). Her fuckability is. Poll after poll shows that the majority of her supporters are men. Here’s a newsflash for Sarah Palin’s ignorant supporters; if you’re ignorant and you weigh 300 pounds, Bill Kristol’s penis is never going to pick you to be a vice presidential candidate. But don’t let that deter you. I understand that supporting her helps you feel better about your low self esteem issues.
Low self esteem is what makes people believe the unbelievable. Like the inexplicable belief that government workers are taking us all to the cleaners, with their above market compensation packages. Seriously, how can you believe that? If that were true, everyone would be clamoring to work for the state of Nevada, instead of Google. Why are technology professionals fighting over low paying Google jobs, when they can get rich on a government salary? You have to be an idiot to actually believe that. Trust me, I battle the behemoth that is Google to hire talent every single day. The fact of the matter, is that Wisconsin state workers’ total compensation is 5% below that of their private sector counterparts. That’s right, their total compensation (including health benefits and pensions) is 5% under what the market dictates.
I’m not even going to bother posting all of the statistical data that shows that government jobs pay less than private sector jobs. You can find that for yourself, and it defies common sense anyway so it’s not worth my time. So I’m going to go the other way, and ask you to suspend your self esteem for a moment. Let’s all hate government and union workers together, by accepting the premise that they’re all getting fat on our backs. If you add up all of the state and federal employees, government would by far, be the biggest employer in America. If all of those government entities were grossly overpaying their employees, wouldn’t that drive up your wage in the private sector? Wouldn’t your company be forced to compete with the government and it’s bloated compensation structure in order to get anyone to work for them?
Okay, I can’t keep this up. My self esteem isn’t low enough to accept this bullshit premise. I’m worried if I keep it up, my IQ will go down and that I will become angry and insecure.
I would like to say to working class people that support Scott Walker – please work on your self esteem. I know it will be hard at first but in the end, you and your family will benefit from the strong belief that you deserve better.
I would like to say to Fox news – you should encourage your viewers to fight for more, because this will help your rich benefactors in the long term. When people make more money, they have more to spend on your rich friends’ products.
And lastly, I would like to say to Rush Limbaugh – you need to find a way to be happy. I know that your viagra fueled limp dick and your giant ass are bummers. But you’re filthy fucking rich! You can afford to pay people to get you viagra, and you can afford to pay women to fuck you! See the glass as half full, Rush. You’re not doing your listeners much good when you’re this angry.
I’ve always loved that word. I love the way it sounds, and I love what it means.
[par-i-tee] – equality, as in amount, status, or character; equivalence; correspondence; similarity; analogy
Parity is the single most important ingredient in what made America great back in the day. We didn’t start this country off with parity. Contrary to what Michele Bachmann will have you believe, our founding fathers did not fight to free the slaves that they owned (holy shit, that woman is an idiot!). Nor did they advocate for their wives’ right to vote and right to work. No, parity was more abstract back then. It was an ideal, espoused in our founding documents. The actuality of parity is something that was fought for, and earned throughout the evolution of our nation. I believe that those ideals of parity that were fundamental in our founding documents, were the motivational tools that kept Americans fighting for equality over the course of our evolution.We are now in an era where parity is being systematically dismantled in our country. I fundamentally believe that in any given situation, the best possible result is achieved when two opposing forces with parity are forced to compromise in order to get to the end result. The greatest era in American history was one in which the government butted heads with corporations, and achieved compromise that resulted in the greatest expansion of our economy that we’ve ever seen. Thank you, FDR for showing us how to get it right. We no longer have that parity between corporations and government. We now have a situation where both entities are on the same side, leaving Americans with no one to fight for us. The situation in Wisconsin is the perfect illustration of the further breakdown of parity. Make no mistake, what Scott Walker is trying to do in Wisconsin has nothing to do with balancing a budget. It’s about creating more disparity.Just to recap, Scott Walker was sworn in as governor of Wisconsin a month ago. At the time of his swearing in, his state had a budget surplus thanks to his his democratic predecessor. Here’s where the story starts to sound really fucking familiar. This asshat, Scott Walker took that surplus and spent $140 million dollars in a month. He gave the wealthiest Wisconsinites $67 million in tax breaks and spent the rest on kickbacks to cronies, thereby creating a budget crisis. A crisis that he wants to remedy by (say it with me) crapping on working people. This situation would be pretty fucked up if it were just about a reverse Robin Hood menacing working people in Wisconsin, but that’s not what he’s doing here. He’s not asking Wisconsin state employees to make sacrifices in order to balance the budget that he fucked up this year. He’s asking them to forever relinquish any bargaining power they have. This is about the age old GOP tradition of busting unions. Unions that by the way, were formed in order to remedy the disparity between American workers and corporations that existed early on in our country’s history. Before unions, the average worker faced 12 hour work days, 7 days a week. But that isn’t as bad as it sounds because they got to work right next to their kids. It really was a golden age of quality time with the family. You see, because there was no parity between workers and companies, people got fucked. Corporations have no feelings or compassion because they’re not people. Corporations are motivated purely by profit, which doesn’t leave much room for human rights’ issues to prevail unless people organize and created a modicum of parity. Regardless of what you do for a living, you have benefited from the existence of unions. You wouldn’t have a weekend if it weren’t for unions. You wouldn’t have vacation time were it not for unions. You wouldn’t have dozens of other rights that you take for granted if it weren’t for unions. I’m not saying that unions are perfect. Far from it. Unions definitely have their fair share of corruption and embezzlement. But they create a level of parity. Without unions, labor’s power is eviscerated. And when one side is eviscerated in any negotiation, we all lose. How you personally feel about unions is irrelevant. I would hope that you would have the common sense to understand eviscerating workers is a bad idea, just as eviscerating corporations would be a bad idea. We need parity.I am utterly flummoxed and disgusted by anyone that doesn’t understand this. Listening to right wing media this week has been a particularly vomitous experience. The constant barrage of insults against working people that just want parity is not something that is comprehensible to me. You wanna know who has the right to negotiate their working conditions, benefits, and termination packages? Every single fucking asshat on Fox news that is telling you that unions blow, that’s who. You wanna know who else has a shit ton of bargaining power? Really fucking rich people, regardless of their level of competence. That’s right, Crazy Carly Fiorina negotiated the $40 million dollars that she ultimately got paid to leave HP, because she sucked. Can you, in your wildest dreams, imagine sitting on one side of a negotiating able saying, "And if you need to fire me, I will need $40 million before I leave"? I can assure you that every single Fox News "personality" has negotiated generous exit packages for themselves, in the event that they get fired. The fact that they have disdain for people who want what they have is appalling, but it’s also the very foundation of Fox news. You shouldn’t listen to people that tell you that you don’t deserve what they have. That makes you a fucking idiot and a tool for a machine that places no value on you. You also shouldn’t listen to anybody that wants to eviscerate one side in any power struggle. That person is a tunnel visioned ideologue that can’t understand the value of parity.
Were you paying attention, Bill Kristol? How about you, Dick Cheney? Hello, Wolfowitz? Does anyone believe that any of the signatories to the mission statement for PNAC (project for the new American century) aka the neocons paid any attention to what happened in Egypt today?
I hope so, but I doubt it. We watched a democracy develop over the course of two and a half weeks, in a place that hasn’t seen democracy in over thirty years! This was amazing, and I’m overjoyed to have been around to watch it happen.
This one happened without an armed opposition. Democracies aren’t always born peacefully, but they’re always born when the people are ready to fight for it.
Democracy isn’t something that can be foisted on people. It’s something that they must seek out and fight for when they’re ready for it. It’s earned, it’s not imposed. No amount of weapons can make democracy happen where it’s not ready to.
We have now reached the $750,000,000,000 mark in Iraq. How’s that democracy working out over there? We’re about to “celebrate” the eighth anniversary of the beginning of that war.
Eight fucking years, and 3/4 of a trillion dollars! Compare that to 18 days and $0. And who got the better result? Who got the job done in a more dignified way? Did you notice that we didn’t see see Hosni Mubarak’s sons’ dead bodies displayed, in a show of testosterone? Did you notice that there were no cell phone videos of Mubarak being barbarically hanged? Did you notice the dignity with which this all happened?
Yeah, democracy only works when people want it. You can’t shove it down peoples’ throats when they’re not prepared for it. I’ve said this before in other posts, but it bears repeating; I believe that people are the same all over the world. We all fundamentally want the same things. We want to live freely and comfortably. We want the opportunity to be able to feed our families and live in peace. I believe that there isn’t a country in the world that won’t eventually move toward democracy. But they have to move in that direction in their own time, unmolested by outside forces.
This notion that we can “spread” democracy is asinine! Democracy is a system of governance, not an STD.
When people want it, they always get it. We just need to learn to stay the fuck out of the way and let it happen naturally. We need to refocus our resources here, on our own citizens and trust that everyone will come around to our way of life because we’ve demonstrated it’s better.
I have SO many things to say on the topic of the Egyptian protests, none of which includes speculation on what the Egyptians should do. I have no business telling Egypt what to do. I’m not Egyptian, and I don’t live in Egypt. I’m not arrogant enough to presume that I know what’s best for people in a country I’ve never been to.
If I were that arrogant, my opinion on how Egypt should handle their current situation would most likely be rooted in my experiences as an American and my belief in freedom and democracy. If I were a freedom loving, patriotic republican who believes in the power of the people over the power of government, I would most definitely have an opinion rooted in American exceptionalism, wouldn’t I?
Shockingly (or not), this isn’t what’s happening on the right. Right wing commentators on both radio and Fox have united in the support of the dictator! What the fuck?
Here’s Limbaugh hating and distrusting democracy:
Think I’m just singling out one republican whacko? Here’s Mark Levin. You may know him because occasionally, when the camera angle hits Sean Hannity’s desk just right, you can see Mark Levin’s hand up Hannity’s ass, making him talk.Watch Levin’s hatred of democracy:
Want more? Here’s Dick Morris (most famously known for his love of sucking prostitutes’ toes) crapping on democracy:
But I’m just getting warmed up. Let’s delve into why these idiots hate democracy so much, shall we?
Let’s start with the grandaddy of all honey toasted nutbars:
WOW! He’s an idiot and a chicken shit. But he’s not the only pussy crapping his pants at Fox News. Watch Hannity piss his pants with fear:
Honestly, could there be a bigger bunch of scared little girls on a single network? These chicken-shits are afraid of democracy because it might lead to Shariah law taking over the universe? Are you fucking kidding me?
I’m at a loss as to where to start here. Let’s start with democracy. Either you believe in it, or you don’t. And if you believe in it, you believe in it for everyone. These asshats are basically saying that they Egyptian people shouldn’t have democracy because they can’t be trusted with it. They won’t make the right decision, and therefore shouldn’t have democracy.
If that’s how we’re going to administer democracy, then let’s fully commit to this new system. Let’s collectively determine whether a people are trustworthy enough to have earned the right to a representative government. Let’s start here in the good old U.S. of A. Anyone that voted for George W Bush, even once is not worthy of having democracy. Their right to vote should be revoked because they’ve already demonstrated incredibly poor judgment. Sorry, you’re shit out of luck. You can’t be trusted with democracy.
Another litmus test for whether people should have democracy or hot, is apparently whether we believe they will do what we want them to or not. If they won’t do what the US wants, then fuck them and fuck democracy. If Egypt isn’t planning on picking a pro-American, pro-Israel leader, then they’re unworthy of democracy, and must continue to live in their own filth, under a dictatorship of our choosing.
First of all, that’s a dickhead point of view. People have a right to choose their own government. If Egypt is made up of 20% Muslim Brotherhood members, then the Muslim Brotherhood should have 20% representation at the table, whether we like it or not (for the record, I don’t). That’s the makeup of the country. The government should reflect the people it represents. If we’re not down with that simple concept, then I say we eradicate all republicans from our government. Fuck conservatives. They’re dangerous, frequently run our country into the ground, and they shouldn’t have a seat at the table even though half of all Americans fall for their bullshit over and over again. They’re ignorant, and therefore unworthy of representation.
Secondly, I find it rather inconceivable that a nation is rising up against the oppression of a dictator, only to then choose the oppression of religious extremists. Call me naive, but I just don’t see that as being the likely outcome here. How chicken shit do you have to believe that it will turn out that way? I swear, these fucking people are afraid of their own shadows.
Thirdly, so what if it did turn out that way? What if the Muslim Brotherhood, which represents 20% of the people, managed to take control of 100% of the government because they’re fucking powerful and brilliant enough to pull that off? At this point, we must remove our spines and lobotomise ourselves in order to accept the premise of this paragraph. Let’s assume that the protesters in Egypt successfully fight this fight for freedom, only to hand the country over to those that will oppress them in the name of religious purity (because Egyptians are stupid and easily duped!). So what? Is it conceivable that this new radical regime will leave 1.5 billion dollars of American aid on the table so that they can impose Shariah law on a country that isn’t down with that practice? Does that make any fucking sense to anyone? And if they do, how long will that last? How incredibly chicken shit do you have to be to fear this scenario?
We have never, in modern history watched a country fall into Shariah law. We are only seeing countries that have not yet moved beyond Shariah law. Contrary to what Fox tells you, Iran is not a country ruled by Shariah law. It’s a country ruled by the military. The ayatollahs lost control of the country a long time ago. The lapse int Shariah was a temporary, reactionary protest against the intervention of the west. The uprising we saw last year are not over. They were just the beginning.
And to the AIPACian Israelis, let me say this; grow the fuck up and learn to negotiate with the enemy. You have no right or ability to control how other countries choose to govern themselves. Get over it! If you don’t learn to negotiate peace with your enemies, you have no chance for survival over the long term. Dominance over other countries has never worked for anyone else, in the history of humankind. You’re all fucking children if you think it will work for you. And you should feel deeply ashamed of yourselves for supporting the oppression of other people in the name of your own survival.
I firmly believe two things;
I believe in the American way of life
I believe that humans are fundamentally the same all over the world
I know that the principles of freedom and free will are the best way to live and to govern. I believe that humans all want the same things; to be able live our lives and to raise a family in comfort and peace. I do not believe that in the modern world, anyone will ultimately choose oppression in any name. I believe that, with the exception of a few whackos, people will ultimately choose owning an iPhone over being stoned to death for committing adultery. I believe in democracy. I believe that people will always choose self governance over anything else. I believe this will all my mind.
If you don’t believe this, then you don’t really believe in the righteousness of the principles that gave birth to America. You’re afraid of the American way, and you should shut the fuck up, because listening to your irrational, whiny ass fear mongering is making me excessively bitchy.
Partisan, right wing, hack judges all across the country are ruling health reform unconstitutional. Specifically, they’re targeting the part of the bill that mandates that every American obtain health insurance. These rulings are comical, but I’ll get to that soon enough.I first want to start with my prediction on what will happen with health reform. Republicans have passed repeal in the house. This is meaningless and purely a ceremonial gesture to appease their base. They know it won’t pass the senate and they don’t want it to. Let me explain. We all know that the health insurance industry has spent a lot of money on political contributions to ensure that politicians (both democratic and republican) protect their interests. The provisions of the bill that have already been enacted have increased the number of subscribers of health insurance. Small businesses are taking advantage of the federal subsidies that are now available to them, and offering their employees insurance for the first time. Parents of twenty-something kids are adding their children to their policies because they now can. Insurance companies are seeing double digit spikes in new enrollments. Do you think that the insurance company overlords are going to let their republican subjugates take away all that new business? Fuck no! The part of the bill that sounds most egregious (mandates) is the part that insurance companies won’t ever, ever allow to be repealed. They’ll never, ever repeal the small business subsidies or mandates because they’re bringing in the cash, and at the end of the day, that’s all the insurance companies care about. My guess is that they’re going to have to subversively chip away at the parts of the bill that cost insurance companies money. You know, the parts that all Americans agree we want like disallowing rescission, or denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions. The republicans won’t be allowed to repeal the parts of the bill that they rail against. So if you’re worried about full repeal, don’t be. It will never happen.Now onto the idiot judges, dipshit state attorneys general, and any asshat that claims unconstitutionality in an effort to repeal the bill. Thanks to Tom Hartman for bringing this little gem to my attention. Turns out that the 5th congress of the United States passed a bill titled, "An Act For The Relief Of Sick And Disabled Seamen". This law required that privately employed sailors obtain health insurance. Here’s a little background. Even early on in our country’s history, it was obvious that trade with other countries was going to be instrumental in creating a strong economy. In those days, our ability to trade relied solely on private merchant ships. Since working on a merchant ship was dangerous work, seamen were getting hurt in such numbers, and with such frequency, that it was leaving shipping companies with a serious shortage of manpower. Enter; the federal government. In 1798, they passed "An Act For The Relief Of Sick And Disabled Seamen". This law did a couple of things;
It created The Maritime Hospital Service, which was a series of hospitals that were built and run by the federal government for the purpose of treating injured private seamen.
It mandated that maritime sailors pay 1% in taxes to pay for these hospitals. Those taxes were withheld by the ship’s owner and paid directly to the federal government.
Can you smell the socialism in the air? Oh, but it gets better. Members of the 5th congress that passed this law included:
John Langdon
Jonathan Dayton
William Blount
Richard Dobbs Spaight
John Rutledge
Abraham Baldwin
Why are these names relevant? Because they fucking signed the United States Constitution.The Vice President at the time, who served as President Of The Senate was Thomas Jefferson. Wanna know who the President that signed the bill into law was? That would be John Adams. What do John Adams and Thomas Jefferson have in common? They helped to write the freakin Declaration Of Independence.I think that they had a really fucking clear idea of what the founders intended.Let’s add another historically deficient asshat to this group, shall we?A couple of weeks ago, a North Dakota state representative (and asshat) Hal Wick proposed legislation that would mandate that every citizen of North Dakota purchase a gun, upon reaching twenty one years of age. He thought that he was getting cute by pointing out that mandating people to buy anything is unconstitutional. Wick maintains that he knows that his proposed legislation is unconstitutional, and that he’s just trying to make a statement about mandates.Wrong again, Bob. George Washington signed a bill entitled, "The Militia Act Of 1792". Wanna guess what provisions were in this bill? Read for yourself;
That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act.
That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder;
Ignorant and unoriginal Hal. Way to go!
This health reform issue will ultimately end up with the supreme court. That’s where it will get fun. What do you think the odds are that Scalia will advocate for his strict constructionist views on this one? They’re actually pretty good. Not because Scalia is actually a strict constructionist, meaning that he doesn’t believe that the constitution is a living, breathing document that was intended to be amended over time. He clearly isn’t, despite what he says. If he were a strict constructionist, he would never have argued for corporate personhood in the Citizen’s United ruling, since corporate personhood doesn’t appear anywhere in the constitution. No, he will whip out the strict constructionist routine because it enables him to serve his corporate masters. Remember, the insurance companies don’t want the revenue generating mandate removed from the health reform bill.
So if you’re worried about health reform being repealed, don’t be. But beware of your legislators quietly trying to strip away the really good stuff that we all want.
In the meantime, feel free to rub the founders’ real intent in the noses of any asshat that tries to tell you that Obamacare is unconstitutional.
I recently engaged into the latest of hundreds of political debates on Facebook with a republican friend of a friend. I actually learned something this time around! The learning didn’t come from anything the republican said because he, like 100% of his brethren, didn’t have anything to offer other than cute (and baseless) theories.
What I learned is that there are no smart republicans left. I don’t mean that as a partisan attack. This is an observation that each debate I engage in reinforces. Republicans didn’t used to be disinterested, or even devoid of facts to support their points of view thirty years ago. Something very bad has happened to them over the past three decades. I’m serious. And anyone that has attempted to have a discussion with a republican has most definitely experienced this.
Here’s how it always goes; the republican will make a comment to a political post. Said comment will contain no demonstrable, fact based sources to support the comment. I will present several, non-partisan links containing tangible data to counter republican’s point. Republican will ignore the data, and respond with another baseless talking point. At this point other people may jump in with their personal observations based on the fact that the topic at hand happens to be in an area of their professional expertise. The republican will again ignore these observations and offer yet another baseless opinion. I’m a bitch that loves data and provable facts, so I will post yet more links to disprove the torrent of baseless theories. You know what’s coming next from the republican, don’t you? If you guessed that the republican ignores the latest round of data, only to offer another fanciful opinion, you win a cookie!
Time and time again, this is how these discussions go. We’ve all, liberals and independents alike, had this experience. Can we attribute this disinterest in facts to Fox news? I hypothesize that we can’t. Not entirely, anyway. My theory is based on the observation that the republican in a debate almost never attempts to cite a source to back up their point. They don’t even bother to cite a blatantly partisan source like the Cato Institute or a Rasmussen poll, even though Fox refers to them in perpetuity. They just can’t be bothered with facts, manufactured or otherwise.
Now granted, thirty years ago, conservative ideology was easier to support because it hadn’t been disproved as thoroughly as it is today. We’ve had thirty years of republican and democratic presidents alike, implementing conservative practices. We’ve systematically peeled back financial regulations that kept our economy stable for over forty years. We’ve lifted regulations on business, agriculture, guns, and oil drilling. And time and again, we’ve seen this deregulation lead to disaster. We have outbreaks of contaminated food with more regularity than we’ve ever seen. We’ve seen oil spill disasters escalate in both frequency and scope. We’ve come to expect that our job market to collapse at least once every decade, even though these severe downturns didn’t happen between the early 40s and the 80s. And we’re forced to accept incident after incident where a person of questionable mental health kills dozens of innocent people with weapons that serve no purpose other than to kill a lot or people quickly. These “free market” theories were more viable thirty years ago, before (literally) every single one blew up in our faces.
Is that decreasing viability of conservative principles the reason why republicans sound more stupid today than they did thirty years ago? YES! Fox isn’t responsible for creating uninformed automatons, it’s just given them a home. Fox news viewers wouldn’t be more susceptible to facts of Fox didn’t exist. They can’t even be bothered to cite the bullshit facts that Fox so generously provides them with.
I think that blaming Fox for the epidemic of dumbass republicans is too easy, and not supported by facts. I’m not dismissing the force that Fox has proven to be in America. I’m just saying that blaming them for the segment of the population that doesn’t have any use for facts doesn’t make sense.
