An Open Letter to David Horsey

Dear Mr. Horsey:

I would only suggest that there is something amiss about this whole debate when you find yourself compelled to disclaim that “the fact remains that nothing has proven anybody’s words inspired Jared Loughner’s actions”.

I would ask everyone to stop and think for a moment. At the core of the question about violent right-wing rhetoric is an issue we’ve been tolerating in these United States for longer than I’ve been alive (thirty-seven years). Indeed, I’m sure if I looked back beyond the advent of rock and roll, I could find the same arguments.

An amusing “conspiracy” theory

While I may not agree with every detail of her construction, Tina Dupuy offers up a long-overdue theory to the political arena:

It seems everybody gets their own pet conspiracy these days: Birthers, Birchers, Deathers, Truthers and whatever you call the people who won’t get their kids inoculated. According to the theories, nothing is as it seems and everyone is in on it. Following this reasonable assumption, I’ve come up with my own. Here it is: former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin are all Democratic plants.

The rest of the article pretty much spells out the theory, and as conspiracy theories go, it’s probably less crazy than Truther conspiracies, and clearly less insane than Birthers.

Aynal adventures

A couple paragraphs worth reading:

But much as Rand craved appreciation for her work (as sadly reflected in the worshipful eyes of The Collective and her bitterness about every negative book review she ever received), it’s hard to imagine that she would have been terribly happy about its current appropriation by a motley assortment of conservative populists, who mix quotes from The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged with Christian Scripture and the less-than-cerebral perspectives of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. In her own view, Rand was nothing if not a systematic philosopher whose ideas demanded an unconditional acceptance of her approach to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, psychology, literature, and politics.

Rand’s famous intolerance should not be dismissed as simply the psychological aberration of a flawed genius. She feared, for good reason, what lesser minds might do with the intellectual dynamite of her work when divorced from its philosophical context. The prophetess of “the virtue of selfishness” made rigorous demands of herself and all her followers to live self-consciously “heroic” lives under a virtual tyranny of reason and self-mastery, and to reject every imaginable natural and supernatural limitation on personal responsibility for every action and its consequences. Take all that away–take everything away that Rand actually cared about–and her fictional work represents little more than soft porn for middle-brow reactionaries who seek to rationalize their resentment of the great unwashed. This is why Rand was so precise about the moral obligations and absolute consistency demanded both of her fictional “heroes” and her acolytes. She hated “second-handers,” people who borrowed others’ philosophies without understanding or following them.

Can I get an amen?

Says Jonathan Golob:

As individuals, we’re screwed under either governmental or corporate dominance. Owning a shitload of guns won’t resolve this. The goal of a lot of liberal policymaking is the balance corporate power with governmental power—allowing both to be trimmed and molded into something more functional and humane in the process. The point isn’t a Federal takeover of our lives. The point is to balance these forces to the point where most of us will be left the fuck alone.

Family values farce?

The triumph of family values:

Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska’s governor and last year’s Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, has split from her fiance Levi Johnston, celebrity magazine People reported Wednesday.

Ah, politics!

Ah, politics!

For Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the voice on her cell phone sounded eerily familiar.

“He sounded just like Obama,” she said on Thursday, referring to President-elect Barack Obama.

Sensing she was the victim of a spoof by a South Florida radio station, she promptly disconnected the call.

Trouble was, it was Obama.

A chagrined Ros-Lehtinen told the Fox News Channel that she also hung up on Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, when he called her back to explain it really was the next president on the line.

Both Emanuel and Obama tried to convince her the call was for real.

“Guys, it’s a great prank, really,” she said she told them.

It took a subsequent call from California Democratic Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to finally convince Ros-Lehtinen to talk to Obama.

Apparently, Ros-Lehetinen was even concerned about Rep. Berman, requesting he relate a private joke between them as a sort of password.

I suppose, given the prank call to Sarah Palin in the run-up to the election, one might … but, no. Wait. I’m sorry, but while the idea of French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling a vice-presidential candidate is perhaps a bit strange, is it really so rare that an American president, or president-elect, might be calling a member of Congress?

Is this a bit of paranoia? Just … I don’t know, maybe?

And is it worrying? I mean, is this an omen of things to come? After all, at some point, Democrats and Republicans, or Congress and the White House, need to start trusting each other. Or am I just being paranoid?

Giving thanks: counting our blessings

Many thanks (I think) to Wm.™ Steven Humphrey, for this … um … yeah.

And as Humpy suggests, if the gay black guy in the cowboy hat can thank Sarah Palin ….

Very well: Thank you, Governor Palin. For many years, a certain kind of crass politics, invested in brutish ignorance, has held inordinate sway among voters. The grotesque caricature you (unwittingly?) offered us upon your debut at the GOP convention all the way through Election Day and beyond provided a kind of mirror for the American soul, into which millions of American voters gazed and finally understood that they did not like the reflection. Thank you for helping to elect Barack Obama. Americans everywhere owe you great thanks, and we would be even more in your debt if you would now, finally, shut the hell up and not bother us again.