Helpful hint

Conservatives,

The next time you feel compelled to say any variation on the following...

"This isn't about the environment/public safety/access to elections/national security/fairness/childhood nutrition/education/economic stability, it's about enslaving a free and proud people and making them helpless vassals of the State!"

Just pause for a moment, and think -- it's very possibly about the first thing.  Not the second thing. 

I've been around liberals at certain points in my life, and i've never heard much talk of enslavement.  They mostly talk about movies and weed.

Apropos of nothing, i love this cartoon.  It speaks the truth.

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They're all gonna laugh at you.

(This post only refers to conservatives who are a bit older than me, we're talking 35 years of age or older.)

You know, if you were to ask your typical Breitbart-Cruz-Levin fan to list their core beliefs, i have no doubt you'd end up with a shining document that contained the words "freedom, liberty, prosperity, freedom, capitalism, security, constitution, founders," and "freedom" a number of times.  And they would look at their statement of purpose, and think "how can anyone have a problem with these beliefs of mine?  They are utterly beyond reproach.  Anyone who criticizes me and my sacred beliefs is just plain wrong."

But nobody has any problem with those collections of patriotic buzzwords.  We really don't.

It's the little things, the things they say when goofing off with their buddies, the things that creep and crawl from between the lines that come across as icky.

It's how they hated the first black president before he was sworn in, how they immediately assumed that the dead black kid was guilty.  It's their constant fear of "thugs" and "urban youths" with their "cRap music."

It's their offhand remarks that young women are turning into "sluts" and are "stupid" because they have been fooled by falling for flashy guys instead of grounded, sensible, conservative men of worth and valor.  (Translation: "Women refuse to fuck me, what's their problem?")

It's the jibes and jabs at "metrosexuals" and "fairies" and "wimps" and all those others who don't live their lives in unconscious imitation of John Wayne.  It's the bragging that they used to "stuff kids into lockers" and "put the nerds in headlocks."

It's the repetition of the phrase "...are laughing at us."  How many times have you heard that?  The illegals are laughing at us, the Muslims are laughing at us, other countries... are laughing at us!

Sometimes that seems to be their greatest fear.  To be laughed at.

These conservatives -- the ones who are middle-aged now -- always remind me of kids that we all knew in junior high.  Not the bullies -- the genuine brutal sharks who are probably all in jail now -- but the kids that tried to cozy up to the bully, the wannabe bullies, the kids who looked at the dweebs and fags and sissies and weirdos and said "i don't want to be laughed at, i want to be one of the tough guys.  I want to make fun of the weak, and not be considered weak myself."

And ever thus have they lived their lives.  And it worked, for a while.

But these days, they don't feel too cool.  All of a sudden, they're being called "hicks" and "rednecks" and "teatards."  The specky geeks they once thought they ruled are now ruling them.  Now it's cool to be black, and okay to be gay, and perfectly acceptable to not give a fuck if whether the music you're listening to, or the movies you watch, or the people you hang out with, are acceptably masculine.  Now their Republican party is no longer the dominant party of Reagan and Trump and Oliver North, but the uncool, stodgy, stuffy old white man's club of Boehner and McConnell.

As Grandpa Simpson sagely stated,"I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me."

And they don't like that.  Around the age of 12, they made a deal with the Devil, that they'd sell their souls for the chance to be on top of the pecking order, to be the bully rather than the bullied.  And now they feel bullied -- by young people, by attractive women, by the intelligentsia, by Hollywood, these voices assaulting their sense of self worth from all sides.

No wonder they find such solace in the right-wing world of talk radio and FOX News.  It's the last place on the planet where they're still cool.  

As for the conservatives and libertarians under the age of 35?  Probably still going through that Ayn Rand phase.

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Zimmerman Dimmerswitch

The Zimmerman verdict. 

Obviously, there is a lot i could say.  Everyone else has said it already.  They've talked about the inherent moral problems with the stand-your-ground law.  They've asked why the statute denying the use of deadly force to the "initial aggressor" was never brought up to the jury.  They've pointed out that Zimmerman's gun was almost, by necessity, primed to kill before the confrontation happened, and that his injuries were extremely minor.  They've pointed out the insane case of a woman who was just sentenced to 20 years for firing a warning shot at her abusive boyfriend. 

Right now, the right-wing whackos and goons are slobbering with righteous fury, gleefully sharing stories about how they broke down in joyful tears at the verdict, that their faith in the otherwise-abhorrent United States is partially redeemed... and, as always, they bellow, why are people callling us racists?  We're so clearly not!  This isn't about race, this is about constitutionalism, and gun rights, and all of that.

Here.

Is why.

There is still a four-minute gap where no one -- except George Zimmerman -- knows what really happened.  The possibility that Zimmerman tried to attack Trayvon Martin, or grabbed him, assaulted him verbally, accused him of crimes he hadn't committed, ordered him to lay down on the pavement, attempted to search his person, or even pulled out his gun and threatened to shoot him -- they consider all of these to be IMPOSSIBLE.  It is, to them, utterly not within the realm of possibility for any of those to have happened, or for Zimmerman to conveniently fail to mention them to the police.

Nope.  Won't consider it.  Can't consider it. 

The only possibility, they claim, is that Trayvon Martin attacked Zimmerman without provocation.  He was young, black, liked rap music, and smoked weed in the last few days, right?  What other outcome could there have been?

As Te-Nahisi Coates states...

"The idea that Zimmerman got out of the car to check the street signs, was ambushed by a 17-year old kid with no violent history who told him "you're going to die tonight" strikes me as very implausible.  It strikes me as much more plausible that Martin was being followed by a strange person, that the following resulted in a confrontation, that Martin was getting the best of Zimmerman in the confrontation, and that Zimmerman then shot him.  But I didn't see the confrontation. No one else really saw the confrontation. Except George Zimmerman."

It's okay to have doubt.  It's okay to want to know the whole truth.  It's okay to want to weigh the evidence.  It's even okay to accept the verdict, with reservations, because the evidence to the contrary just isn't available, acknowledge the ambiguity, and grudgingly decide that it's better to let a potentially guilty man walk free than risk imprisoning an innocent man.  That's the system.

That's entirely proper.

But to consider this a simple case closed situation, to gloat and celebrate and feel "joy" at this turn of events -- is monstrous.

As usually is the case with these chortling morons, i ask myself, is this evil or stupidity?  Probably both.  These poor lonely wingnuts have been on a losing streak these last few years.  After two Obama wins, gay marriage, and the nearly wholesale dismantling of Bush's legacy... they want a "win."  If they can't take the Senate, then seeing a black kid get gunned down is good enough.  Take that, Obama!  As an added insult, many of the louts who cheer over Martin's grave are the same rednecks and idiots who brag about all the fistfights THEY got into when they were Trayvon's age, how they didn't take shit from anybody, and settled things with their fists.  Because, hey, it's okay to get in some scraps and brawls if you're white.  But if a black kid fights back to prove he isn't a punk, then he's a dangerous animal who deserves to be put down and then jeered at.

We get it.  You're racists.  You're terrified, old, white people.

Anything else i have to say was just said by TJ Kirk, aka The Amazing Atheist.

Tricks of the Trade

I listen to a lot of conservative radio.  Not as much as i used to, but sometimes.  In doing this, i've learned that there are three tricks that nearly every wingnut host these days uses.

1.)  The Calculated Bellow:  You know what that is.  Every segment, with few exceptions, begins at normal volume.  Then they get more intense, a bit louder and faster.... with the occasional... dramatic pause... so that the extent... of the damage the homosexuals.... are.... doing to the nation... can sink... in.  And then, there's a few words that are said LOUDER than the rest, and then they all become LOUD.  LOUD SO YOU KNOW.  HOW ANGRY AND PASSIONATE THEY ARE.  BECAUSE THEY JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE.  ....then silence.   Then back to normal volume.... for a bit... until the next one.

2.) The 20/20 Hindsight:  All right-wing hosts are genius prognosticators, able to divine the future with perfect accuracy.  They do this by a steady process of predicting both outcomes at different times.  My friends, the vibrations are right, Romney is slipping in to the Presidency, he will be President on January 10th, take that to the bank.... also, Obama will win.  The Democratic corrupt machine is too powerful to overcome at this point, ACORN, minorities, moochers! 

......and as i said, my friends, Romney lost, just as i predicted.

3.) The Greased Pig:  Nearly all talk show hosts are just looking for callers to agree with them and say how brilliant and insightful they are.  When faced with any sort of dissent or chance for debate, they instantly squash it with a rapid-fire series of dodges and deflections.  It goes like this...

Caller: "....one thing i agree with them on, is that we spend way more money on the military than we ought to, and...."

Host: "Is that so?  What is the percentage of GDP that went for military spending in 2012?"

Caller: "...uh, well, i don't know the exact percentage, but the US spends more than the next..."

Host: "Oh, so you have no idea?  NONE WHATSOEVER."

Caller: "...my point is, if we were serious about the debt, we'd...."

Host: "You've already proved your ignorance!  You have no idea what you're talking about!  Tell me this, did you know, in your ignorance, that our actual defense spending is LESS than than the average rate per capita for western nations if deducted by a prime percent of inverse coalition?  And that any reductions would be proportionate to the increased terror factor?  Huh?"

Caller: "....what?  I..."

Host: "Get him out of here!  He doesn't know anything!  I'm done with you, buddy!  Next caller!"

It really is sick to listen to.  Savage.  Levin.  Ralph Bristol.  Theater for the weak-willed, the easily gulled, and the mushy-brained rubes.

Kinda entertaining.

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