The God Habit

I'll cut right to the chase: I'm not sure that I believe in God anymore.

Actually, let me be a little clearer about that. I still believe in God, more or less, but I don't know what in the world God means to me, or if He's what I always believed He was.

I was raised in a Christian home, beginning at age three. I remember when my parents got "saved", not because I was there, but because my mom sat me down and told me about it. She told me about how she and dad had given their lives to God and were going to start taking my brother and me to a place called church. I remember getting dressed up for it, and riding in the back seat of my parents' gold Chevelle to the big stone building. I remember being told over and over that the cardinal rule of church (for a three year old) was being QUIET, and I remember immediately forgetting that cardinal rule when I was led into the big sanctuary with the amazing paintings on the ceilings. I remember being quickly shushed, but I was three, and being shushed didn't dampen my spirits about the wonder of it all.

My parents were-- and are-- excellent Christians. They owned Christian book and gift stores for many years. They are devout, more or less (and I mean that as a compliment-- both the "devout" and the "more or less"). They would be very unhappy to hear what I am about to admit. I'm pretty unhappy about it myself, but that doesn't change it.

I was in church this past Sunday and I was angry. The anger wasn't about anything in particular, really. Over the past several years, I have been increasingly angry at God in general. I think it started back when I tried to attend Zion Bible College (and may that hallowed establishment burn merrily to the ground). Interested readers can explore my history with Zion via my earlier blog on the subject-- frankly, it would greatly illuminate what is yet to come. The point is, I have been God's problem child for years. And the funny bit is, I have no reason to be. God has taken excellent care of me. I am married to the love of my life, I have talents that take care of me financially and give me great pleasure, I have two unbelievably gorgeous and engaging kids, I have experienced a modicum of success in most of the things I have tried my hand at, I am healthy, decent-enough looking, and generally of a happy disposition. I have nothing, really, to complain about.

The problem is that, if these are the ways God has chosen to love me, then He is speaking the wrong language. My love language is not gifts. It is quality time. I like the gifts-- and, in fact, one of the reasons I have been reluctant to talk about this is my fear that God will capriciously yank the gifts away from me out of spite, to "teach me a lesson"-- but the gifts just don't mean love to me the way sensing God's attention and presence and delight in me would. Basically, if I am a little boy and God is my father, he's been one of those fathers who works so long and so often that his kid barely knows what he looks like, but who sends along a lot of gifts to try to make up for that fact.

In short, I'm a whiner. Fine. God isn't the sort of hands-on affectionate father that I want, and I just can't seem to satisfy myself with the distant gift-giver father, especially since even His gift-giving seems so erratic. I mean, what about the much better Christians than myself who haven't gotten anywhere near the blessings I have? How can I even think of my good fortune as God's gifts when they seem, on the macroscopic scale, so random and purely coincedental? Why should I have experienced such blessings, whiner that I am, when so many better people than me have experienced nothing of the kind?

So I was in church and I was angry. I was outright pissed off, and the reason is simple. I didn't want to admit it to myself, but when I finally faced it, I couldn't deny it. I'm mad at God-- furious at him-- because I really value believing in Him, and He has made it almost impossible for me to continue to do so.

It's like this: imagine that when I was young, my Christianity was a grapevine. It sprouted from the ground swiftly, and I was completely assured that it would grow wildly, massively, into a gorgeous vineyard of faith, from which I could press the wine of wisdom and enlightenment. So, to shelter that vine, I built a stone wall around it. For the past thrity years or so, I've been guarding that stone wall, maintaining constant vigilance in defense of it, waiting for it to grow and bloom and bear its limitless fruits. On this past Sunday, I actually opened the door of the stone wall, looked in, and saw something extremely disheartening. The vine hasn't turned into a vineyard. It hasn't grown at all. In fact, it looks more or less dead.

I haven't really talked to God in any meaningful way-- at least regularly-- in years. I do believe in Him, more or less, but I just don't believe anymore that He has the time or the interest to hear my thoughts and concerns. My prayers have never seemed to make any difference to Him, and logically it doesn't make any sense to me that they should. I mean, if God is God, then he knows what needs to happen and is on it already. If He isn't on it, and is waiting for me to let him know what needs to be done, then he can't be God. Right? So what's the point? I expect the pious ones would say, "the point is that prayer brings about a relationship with God", and that's fine and good. I want that-- more desperately than I can express-- and yet prayer seems only to prove the lack of relationship that God wishes to have with me. My prayers go nowhere. There is no response, no difference in any outcomes, not even any sense of some meaningful presence. They are words in a cave, bouncing back as echoes, sounding silly and inane. Completely pointless.

If prayer at least meant that I could sense God listening, and caring-- if prayer ONLY meant proof of the relationship-- then I'd keep it up. It doesn't though. I never made a conscious choice to stop praying, but over the past several years, my silence to God has been the practical result.

So I asked myself, this past Sunday, do I really even believe in God anymore? The answer was, grudgingly (or stubbornly), yes I do. But I don't believe that God is who I always thought he was.

I used to believe that God thought I was special, that he loved me specifically and wanted to spend time with me. I used to believe that prayer made a difference to him, because he cared about us and wanted us to express our wishes and concerns and fears and desires to him, so that we could watch him address them, and thereby show us his love for us. Now, I don't believe those things. I am angry at God because I really, really want to believe them, but I cannot maintain the illusion anymore that my experience with God has borne those beliefs out. It hasn't, and I am too tired of it all to pretend anymore.

I do have one more prayer for God, and he may consider it a constant: prove me wrong. I want to be wrong. I've prayed this prayer before, and I suspect I will pray it until I die. I don't expect anything special to come of it, though. Not because God can't answer, but because, for whatever reason, he chooses not to.

I hope it's good enough to believe that he's out there, because that's all I've got left. Prove me wrong.

Off the Cliff

We conservatives are oft heard referring to to threat of incrementalization-- what is commonly known as "the slippery slope". For instance, if it makes sense to help the poor and unfortunate by forcing their employers to pay them eight dollars an hour, why not nine? Why not fifteen? Why not fifty, with full medical benefits, child care, and a brand new Prius for them to drive to work? Or in another common example: if it is incumbent upon the government to grant marital benefits to homosexuals, then why not to vegesexuals? Or people who want to marry their pet marmosets? Why should they be excluded? And don't try to suggest such people don't exist. We all know they do, and if it's OK to marginalize them now, it won't be once we begin to slide down the-- say it with me-- "slippery slope".

What I am beginning to wonder, however, is if the slippery slope has already come and gone, probably sometime during the Clinton years. What if there was a cliff at the bottom of that slope, and we're already off it, falling, speeding toward terminal velocity, beyond any hope whatsoever of going back? Pretty hopeless, eh? I'd sure like to think otherwise-- I'm a generally optimistic guy-- but I think it may indeed be too late. Here's my evidence.

The other day, I heard a very well-known conservative talk show host (not Rush Limbaugh, thankfully, but one of his fill-ins) agree with a caller on the following point: the Democrats won the last election because people no longer cast their votes on ideas and issues, they cast their votes based on which candidate their favorite comedians, singers and actors say is cool. Therefore (this caller claimed) we should embrace this new reality and send out our own army of comedians, singers and actors, intent on making conservative candidates cool enough for these dolts to vote for.

The host, woefully, agreed whole-heartedly.

I don't need to tell you what is wrong with this, but there are probably a few others who don't see the point, which is this: for the first time in the history of planet earth, people are making their most important life decisions-- decisions about their leaders, about their spirituality, about what to stick in their mouths, heads and hearts-- without depending on critical thinking, a study of the issues, or conversations with people of different perspectives. For the first time in history, these weighty decisions are being made based on peer pressure, cool-factor, fictional representations, and the opinions of people paid to pretend to be other people (actors). This is bad enough. What's worse is that our own leaders are not suggesting that we fight this tide of intellectual laziness, but that we embrace it.

Take, for example, the recent announcement that supreme court justice Souter is planning to retire. Conversation immediately turned to who Obama might choose as his replacement. One would assume the conversations might have centered around any potential candidate's legal and intellectual qualifications. Perhaps there might have been some in-depth analyses of the candidates' experience, record, writings, education, etc. In short, one would have expected that the main issues would revolve around said candidate's ability to actually perform the duties required by the highest court in the land. Alas, this was not the case. What, instead, has been the meat of the discussion about Justice Souter's replacement? Whether this person will be a woman. Or a black. Or maybe a hispanic.

This should seem utterly preposterous to our leaders-- a superficial mockery of what the office of Supreme Court justice stands for-- and yet it apparently doesn't. These ridiculously meaningless and insignificant considerations are debated with utter seriousness by the "watchdog" media. No Republican leader, so far as I know, has said "Wait a minute. Shouldn't we actually be discussing this person's legal qualifications a bit more than their gender or the color of their skin? I thought judging people on those details was wrong and racist?" No GOP leader is saying that because if they did they'd instantly be called wrong and racist. That, however, is no excuse.

This, unfortunately, is the reality of the post-Obama-election-age. The country's first MTV president has finally firmly established the fact that a slim majority of Americans now vote for a presidential candidate based entirely on what the TV tells them. And I'm not even talking about the news media. I am talking about singers and actors, about fictional representations of the world as seen through the lens of programs ranging from The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live to Family Guy and Gossip Girl. We conservatives get sidetracked complaining about the "liberal media", but the sad reality is that Americans aren't getting their political views from NBC News, CNN, and the Washington Post. They are getting them from Brian Griffin (the dog on Family Guy, for you uninitiates), Sheryl Crow, and Tina Fey. They are abandoning their most important decisions to fictional characters, from Stephen Colbert to Matt Damon (and yes, he is a fictional character; all of his lines are written by moveon.org and George Soros). Most Americans believe-- subconsciously, if not overtly-- that Sarah Palin is a character played by Tina Fey. They have no more idea of what Ms. Palin has actually said than they do the words of the actual consitution of the United States.

For the first time in history, average Americans now judge entire populations of people -- specifically conservatives and Christians -- based entirely on their fictional representation, rather than on actual observations of any specific conservatives or Christians. Try this: ask any liberal what a conservative and/or Christian is like. They will give you some variation of the popular stereotype, i.e. they are anti-science, bigoted, homophobic, hate-filled, brainless, hayseeds and rednecks. Nod wisely, and then, as innocently as possible, ask them this: do you know conservatives and Christians like that? Can you name names? Prediction: the liberal will hem and haw a moment, and then blurt out the name of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. You may choose to remind them that they probably don't know those people (and likely have never even listened to their shows), but such a reminder would be pointless and will probably just get you fired, ostracized, and called a bitch by some gay gossip columnist. In short, it really isn't worth the effort, because your liberal friend is utterly convinced that the representation he/she has seen on TV is true and accurate, even if they don't personally know anyone like that.

I think the people that propose that we conservatives embrace the "popularity contest" mentality of the post-Obama age recognize the truth of what I am proposing. They know that we are over the cliff-- there's no turning back. It is no longer possible to appeal to the masses based on logic, experience and debate. Thus, these leaders tell us, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

The problem is, conservatism will never be "cool". Conservatism relies on a moral, intellectually honest, logic-based worldview. It cannot be tranformed into something that is merely shallow, hip, and rooted in instant emotional gratification. Even if we wanted to, we cannot promote conservatism in the same way that Democrats can hype liberalism. It'd be like trying to hawk broccoli at a baseball game: "GET yer nuTRICious BROCK-leee! Steamed FRESH and HOT! GOOD and good FOR ya..." It'd be funny, but nobody'd be buying it. If we can't convince people to eat their veggies by getting them to actually care about what's good for them, then there is no hope whatsover. In the same way, if we cannot convince the country to vote conservative based on what is best for themselves and the country, there is no way we will get them to vote conservative based on how yummy it is. Liberalism may be an abject failure in terms of effectiveness and intellectual soundness, but its got the market cornered on yumminess, and that's pretty much all anybody cares about anymore.

This is why I fear that the argument for the "slippery slope" is now officially moot. That argument only works when there is time to stop the slide. I fear that that time is now past. Take a look around. The slope is history. We're off the cliff now, falling into the abyss. All that's left now, I suppose, is to enjoy the ride.

Wheee.

Released Surveillance: American Torture May Indeed Function as Terrorist Recruiting Tool

Recently, the Obama team has released records of “torture” methods used by the Bush administration on terrorist militants. While the Obama team has chosen not to release any of the life-saving information obtained via said torture methods, they have made a rather serious and damning proclamation about the dangers posed by such actions. America’s use of torture on terrorist detainees, the administration claims, will function as a recruiting tool within the Al Qaeda’s terrorist network.

Unfortunately, they seem to have a valid point, as evidenced by the release of a recent surveillance document. The following is a transcript of a covertly recorded conversation between an Iraqi teenager and a terrorist recruiter. It may well change your position on the current torture debate.

-----(transmission begins with the sound of a closing door)-----

“So you are considering a career as an Al Qaeda terrorist, yes?”

“Well… I guess so."

“You have reservations. This is perfectly natural. Tell me, what is the nature of your apprehension?”

“I don’t know. I mean, what if I get caught? You know? I mean, the Americans… they’re the most powerful military in the world. I hear they torture their prisoners for information. I just… I just don’t know if I could face something like that. I mean, it isn’t all just fun and bombs, you know?”

“You hear correctly, my young friend. The Americans do torture captured terrorist militants. I have a brother in Gitmo. I had two friends who were at Abu Graib. You probably know them. Muhammad and Muhammad.”

“Muhammad’s boys? Yeah sure. My older brother went to school with them. We all used to play cops and suiciders in the back yard.”

“Indeed. The point is, all of them have witnessed and experienced the great Satan’s torture techniques.”

“And lived to tell of them?”

(indistinct; possibly a snicker) “You could put it that way. Let me show you a picture. This was just released by the new American President. It is a ‘candid’ photo of what torture looks like at the hands of the Americans.”

(gasps) “What are they doing to that man?”

“They are grabbing his face. This is what they call a ‘face grab’.”

“Let me guess: this was right before they cut his face off with an electric knife?”

“You would think so, right? I mean, that only makes sense. Alas, no.”

“Did they force him to eat broken glass, maybe?”

“Not a single shard.”

“Then they gouged out his eyes. With a spoon, right? They popped out his eyes and made him look at himself as they urinated on him. Is that it?”

“No, no, and no.”

(Horrified) “Then what? Oh, Allah, what did they do to him?”

“Nothing. After the face grab, he went to the commissary and had a nice rice pilaf and coffee. Weak coffee, I understand. The Americans try, they really do, but they just don’t know how to brew the bean. It’s surprising, really.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it.”

“But surely they were merely teasing him. Surely the next day… I mean, what about Abu Graib? The things I have heard—”

“Are mostly camel fodder. Do you want to know what really happened at Abu Graib?”

“I’m not sure I do. I… I have nightmares…”

(noise of a drawer opening, closing. A pause.) “What is this? A fraternity party at Mosul U?”

“It is from an American newspaper story. This…” (suppressed laughter) “This is a picture of the ‘cruelty’ committed at Abu Graib.”

“…this?”

“Yes.”

“Are those ladies’ panties?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You are yanking my chain.”

“I yank no chains. This is what they call torture. There are Americans for whom this would be a sort of secret fantasy. And not a few of our own countrymen. Am I right? Huh? Yes?”

(Sheepish laughter) “Maybe. Yes. Ah-hah ha!”

(Mocking voice) “Oh no! A dog is barking at me! A leashed dog! I might get dog spit on my nice prison jumpsuit! Oh my goodness gracious! Dear me, there are ladies underpants on my head! Oh what will they do next? A lap-dance? Please, no!”

(Both laughing.)

“All right, all right, I get the point. But that can’t be all they do. I mean, the Americans, they’re as wily as the devil. They play terrible, godless games with their prisoners. I have heard how they can get inside a man’s very own mind, make him afraid, play on his deepest terrors. They have technology that makes nightmares come true, that brings a man’s secret horrors to life.”

“Alas, this is true. My brother, Muhammad, in Gitmo. He has experienced this.”

“He has? What? Tell me! What was his greatest fear?”

(Long, meaningful pause.) “Caterpillars.”

(Ten seconds of silence.)

“Caterpillars?”

“Well, that’s what he told them. They asked him what he was most afraid of, and it was the first thing that came into his head. He considered telling them he was terrified of hot fudge sundaes, but he thought even they wouldn’t believe that. So he said caterpillars.”

“Ooookay. So what did they do? Bio-engineer some sort giant carnivorous caterpillar and drop him off in a forest full of them with only a chicken bone for a weapon?”

“You’d think so, no? I mean, that would have been pretty cool. Scary, yes. But cool.”

“Dead cool.”

“No.”

“Then what? Tell me!”

“They put him in a room with one.”

“One what? One caterpillar?”

“Yes.”

“A regular caterpillar? No genetically enhanced fangs? No poison barbs?”

“Not so much as an electric stinger.”

(laughing again) “You are yanking my chain! Come on, admit it!”

“I tell you, I yank no chains. This is what the Americans do. And you know what? You know what is the most amusing thing of all? They feel bad for it.”

“No!”

“They do! They really do! They berate themselves for it. They conduct big crying fits on their Sunday morning talking shows, telling each other how horrible they are, how they must apologize and beg our forgiveness before we get really mad and do something equally bad to them! Like, oh I don’t know, spilling hot chocolate on them or something.”

“No way!”

“Yes way. They are so riddled with guilt that they give us Korans and prayer rugs—while we are in their custody! They give us lawyers to defend us. It’s true! It would be funny if it wasn’t so totally pathetic. But still, I mean come on, it is pretty funny, is it not?”

“They do know what we do to their people when we catch them, right?”

“Are you kidding? We send them videos! We broadcast the beheadings like spectator sports! We drag their bodies around the streets like piñatas and send them the pieces that are left! It doesn’t matter!”

“Impossible. It must be a trick.”

“Shh!” (Long pause, then whispering) “Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“Stalking… footsteps… coming for you… look out! It’s a… paper tiger!”

(both laughing)

(Falsetto voice) “Meow, meow! Do you have a lawyer! Meow! Are you comfortable? Do you need a new Koran? Meow, meow! Tell me where the bomb is or I’ll… I’ll take away your dessert! I may even grab your face a little! I may stick you in a room with a fuzzy bug! Mee-OW!!”

(growing serious) “That’s all well and good, but what about…”

“Yes, tell me. Get it all out. What is your last worry?”

“Well… what about… waterboarding?”

“I see. You have heard of this. Do you know what it is?”

(pause) “I’ve heard… things. Even the Americans are terrified to talk about it.”

“This is true. And that should tell you everything you need to know about them.”

“But what is it? Do they stick you in a box and fill the box with water until you drown?”

“No. But that’s a pretty good one. Try again.”

“Do they… do they nail you to a board and force you to drink so much water that your stomach explodes?”

“Allah akbar, boy, where do you get this stuff? Heavens no.”

“Well, what is it then? I have to know!”

“You say you have older brothers, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever go to the pool with them?”

“Ugh, yes. They used to tease me. They’d dunk me under the water and then let me up and laugh at me, and then do it again and again. My mother would get so mad at them. Once, I got so much water in my nose that a little bit came out my mouth. It tasted really gross and I had to go sit by the side of the pool for a few minutes. My mom gave me some Fritos and Kool-aid. I hated those guys.”

“Welcome to the resistance, my young friend. Muhammad here will suit you up and get you your machine gun. You have to grow your own beard.”

“Yes sir!”

“And son?”

“Yes sir?”

“If you purposely get yourself caught by the Americans just to go to Gitmo and have Harry Potter audiobooks played at you, I will come there and cut off your head myself.”

(grinning) “You totally would, too. Meow!!”

----- (laughter. Tape ends) -----

Bumper Sticker People: a Useless Response

It's pointless to offer them a response, methinks, the Bumper Sticker People. Not because they don't deserve it, but because they don't have the mental capacity for it. If they did, they wouldn't be Bumper Sticker People. They are the ultimate expression of the sociology of our age. Where people in John Adams' and Thomas Jefferson's time expected their ideologies to be expressed in lifetime bodies of written works and three hour extemporaneous speeches, the intellects of today are happy to be represented by half a dozen words glued to the backs of their cars. But for the sake of argument, and not a little amusement, let's explore these one-line ideologies a wee bit deeper.

1) IF YOU AREN'T ANGRY, YOU HAVEN'T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION!

On the surface of it, this seems like a pretty bipartisan statement, right? And yet, is there any real question in your mind that the car bearing this bumper sticker belongs to a hardcore liberal Democrat? Of course there isn't. For some reason, anger is nearly synonymous with liberals. Can anyone really deny that they are generally the most pissed-off, self-righteous and unhappy people one will ever have the misfortune of meeting? I thought us puritanical racist war-mongering conservatives were supposed to be the irate ones, all red in the face and full of spittle-flying diatribes. If that was so, wouldn't we be the ones wearing the bumper stickers claiming how awesome it is to be pissed off all the time about stuff? But I digress.

I wonder if the people who live by that bumper sticker are still angry. After all, the new Democratic president has kept a bunch of the dreaded Patriot Act in place. He's also insulted our greatest allies while reaching out to Iranian and Taliban whackos, miss-spelled the one single word of Russian he emblazoned on a gag gift to Russia's leaders, lied about his knowledge of those AIG bonuses, done more immediate and direct damage to the nation's economy than any president in history, and cannot say more than four coherent words in a row without the assistance of a Teleprompter. These things, I imagine, could be construed as reasons for people to get angry. How much do you want to bet, however, that the Bumper Sticker People are still talking about George Bush when they tell us all how pissed off we should be? Hating George Bush is a nearly orgasmic experience for the BSP. For them, the anger only points to Republicans. The ugly litle secret, though, is that the BSP aren't angry with Republicans because they've been "paying attention" and had their ire righteously stoked, despite what their bumper stickers might say. The ugly secret is that the BSP are angry because they just don't know how NOT to be. They're miserable, unhappy people, and they can't rest until everyone else is miserable too. Republicans just make the easiest targets for their anger. Maybe because most Republicans are actually pretty happy? Hmmm.

2) WAR IS NOT PRO-LIFE!

No? Apparently allowing bad guys to run rampant over the earth, killing at their perverse whims, keeping millions of people imprisoned in poverty and fear, seeking power no matter what the cost to the lives of their minions, THAT's pro-life, right? This bumper sticker is the rallying cry of the pacifist, and we all know how great pacifism is in the global scheme of things. How about a new bumper sticker for pacifism, one that really gets to the nub of the issue: PACIFISM: LETTING THE BAD GUYS WIN SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME!

How is this attitude any different than Ghandhi allowing his wife to die of pneumonia because the pennicilin injection would "commit violence" against her body? How is it any different from the religious nutjobs who won't take their dying children to the hospital because "if God wanted them to live, he'd save them Himself"?

Pure pacifism only makes sense if your worldview is only as small as one single person. It falls apart as soon as you realize that the world is a big, scary place, full of bad guys who will hurt whoever they want if good people with guns don't stop them. Pacifism is the greatest ally of the worst people in the world. After all, what more does a murderer want than for his victims not to fight back?

To the contrary, war is one of the most pro-life activities a human can engage in. It is the choice of those who understand real love, who know that real love sometimes means sacrifice and pain, all in the cause of something far greater and better than any single individual. War has saved millions more lives than it has cost, just like surgery has saved far more blood than it has shed. Anyone who cannot see this is that especially dangerous kind of idiot-- the one whose idiocy is a loaded gun just waiting for a bad guy to pick up.

3) HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE!

What about hating George W. Bush? Is there any doubt that the BSP who proudly proclaims this little ditty avidly teaches his kids that conservatives are the lowest form of human life and that if they don't grow up to vote Democrat they will probably be disowned and turned over to the mainstream-media thought police? Interestingly, most of the conservatives I know (including myself) do not hammer their kids with dogma about how evil Democrats are and how we should all hate this or that people group. The fact is, we want our kids to grow up to think for themselves, to come to their own conclusions based on intellectual pursuits. We will try to lead them in the best directions, but we most assuredly will not simply pound them into hating the people we disagree with. And I'll go a step further: conservatives themselves don't hate the people they disagree with. We don't think Democrats are evil. We just think they are stupid, or misguided, or short-sighted. Generally, we feel sorry for them, and for the people their policies have hobbled.

Of course, there are exceptions. There are a few crazy militia types and racists out there, working to teach their kids to hate those whom they hate. They are the fringe, the loons, the moonbats. The fact of the matter, however, is that mainstream hate is taught almost exclusively among the Democratic ranks. For them, hating conservatives and Republicans and George W. Bush and Sarah Palin and Christians and NRA members is more than just a family value, it is an outright virtue.

Example: I had a liberal friend who once pointed me to a news story about a pastor who'd gotten accidentally electrocuted by his microphone while standing in a baptismal tank in front of his entire congregation. She thought this was funny. I, myself, didn't even laugh when Saddam Hussein was executed. It was simply justice, pure and simple-- a dirty, sad job that morality demanded, but not something to celebrate. My liberal friend, who prides herself in being compassionate, caring, and filled with love, thought the accidental public electrocution of a pastor-- whose only sin was believing a philosophy she disdains-- was humorous.

Now ask yourself: who is really teaching hate?

4) TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL!

I really am a little mystified about why this one bothers me so much. Maybe it's that, when I see this bumper sticker on someone's car, the driver is almost always some granola-jockey kid who surely has no children of their own. I have two, myself, and I have to admit that being instructed on child-rearing by a childless BSP raises my ire just a wee bit.

Then again, maybe it is the obnoxiously self righteous implication that any parent needs to be told this. I am trying to imagine a scenario where the sight of this bumper sticker might actually make a positive difference in the mind of a cruddy father. He sees the bumper sticker while screaming at his kids, stops, and thinks to himself, "You know, maybe they're right. This whole 'teaching my kids poorly' thing may not be the best choice after all. Maybe I should do what the bumper sticker tells me to do. I can't imagine why it didn't occur to me before. It seems so obvious in retrospect." Maybe I'm just a cynical bastard, but I'm having a hard time imagining that scenario actually happening. The truth is, ALL parents THINK they are raising their children well. Even the liberal ones who are teaching them hate as a family value. Thus, the only person this bumper sticker really benefits is the childless moron who displays it, since it allows them that one essential thing all liberals need: an excuse to believe they are better than everyone else.

On the other hand, maybe the thing I hate most about this bumper sticker is the unspoken fact that what it really means is this: TEACH YOUR KIDS THE STUFF I WANT THEM TO BELIEVE IN!

In other words, why should the public education system do all the work?

5) IF YOU CAN'T TRUST ME WITH A CHOICE, HOW CAN YOU TRUST ME WITH A BABY?

This is a new one. I saw it for the first time the other day, and I have to admit, when I read it, I was pretty stumped. It's a damn, damn good question.

I thought about it for quite awhile. Here's what I finally came up with. The essential flaw in the axiom is that it creates a false division between the two statements. I don't remember much about algebra, but it seems to me that if you reduced this bumper sticker to its most basic elements, it would look like this: "How can you trust me with X, when you can't trust me with X?" In short, there is no distinction between trusting someone with a choice and trusting them with a baby, when the choice in question is about what they'll do with the baby.

Remember recently when that muslim guy (who, somewhat ironically, started a muslim television station to show Americans that not all muslims were violent) cut off his wife's head because she wanted to divorce him? Let's imagine him with a bumper sticker on his car that reads: IF YOU CAN'T TRUST ME WITH THE CHOICE OF WHETHER OR NOT TO SAW OFF MY WIFE'S HEAD, HOW CAN YOU TRUST ME WITH A WIFE?

To which we might all say, "good question." But you see the problem, yes? You cannot seperate the two concepts. The choice is not distinct from the person the choice is about. The choice IS the person. The only difference between the choice to kill an unborn baby and the choice of a muslim man to kill his wife is that it is illegal for a muslim man to kill his wife.

At least in this country.

So far.

6) SOMEDAY SCHOOLS WILL HAVE ENOUGH MONEY AND THE MILITARY WILL HAVE TO HOLD A BAKE SALE TO BUY MORE BOMBS.

Response: Someday good guys will have finally killed all the bad guys and obnoxious self righteous twits will have to go back to writing shampoo jingles instead of oversimplistic bumper stickers.

7) INSTEAD OF WAR INVEST IN PEOPLE!

This one is sort of a cop-out, because if we don’t wage war against the bad guys, they’ll probably kill most the people the bumper sticker claims to want to invest in. This, in fact, is the perfect picture of liberal compassion in action

IN CONCLUSION: I suspect that the bumper sticker is by far the most popular form of expression of those with a more liberal bent, since it allows them to feel smart without the burden of actually thinking.

I've never put a bumper sticker on my car, mainly because my ideologies are bigger than a four by twelve inch piece of vinyl. Further, I can defend them in great detail, without a Teleprompter. I don't often get into those kinds of discussions, however, because those of opposing viewpoints get irrational and even occasionally violent about it. They are insulted, offended and infuriated by the idea that anyone would expect them to have a logical defense to their bumper stickers. We live in a sound-byte culture, perfectly suited to the simplistic philosophies of the Bumper Sticker People. Not only would one of our nation's founder's extemporanneous speeches bore them to death within ninety seconds, the typical liberal of today wouldn't even have the capacity to understand it, much less debate it. This is not an insult, just an observation. Maybe I could sum it up with a bumper sticker of my own: "Those who can think, do. Those who can't, use bumper stickers".

Or to quote one more bumper sticker I recently observed: "I THINK, THEREFORE I VOTE CONSERVATIVE."

The Difference Between Arrogance and Ego

This will be relatively short by my standards, methinks. It's an idea that just popped into my head a few days ago and I wanted to get it down while it was still fresh. I've wondered a lot over the years about where the fine line is between arrogance and ego. I believe in my skills, so does that make me arrogant? I used to think so, but then I watched all of those superstars accepting awards and adding the obligatory words of self deprecation, and found myself thinking, "what, did you just win the cosmic lottery? Did you not work extemely hard to hone those skills? Did you not make great sacrifices and slave away at crap jopbs, paying your dues along the way, all in effort to make it to that podium? Take some credit for it! Don't pretend you just got lucky, you liar!" False humility is so annoying to me, because it not only denies the speaker the credit he/she is due, but it creates an erroneous belief that the best among us just got lucky breaks, or that God loves them more than the rest of us, or that excellence is in no way connected to effort. So, I wanted to reject false humility, but not cross the line into outright arrogance. So where is that line? This is why I have pondered it, and this is what suddenly occurred to me the other day.

The whole consideration is moot, because there is no line.

Follow: to say there is a line between X and Y is to imply that X and Y are very similar, and that the gradation between them is hard to spot. The difference between arrogance and ego, however, is not fine. They are not even remotely similar. They only look somewhat similar on the surface, at least to a simple-minded observer. At their core, they are as different as night and day. In a nutshell, here is why: arrogance is bred out of insecurity, ego grows out of confidence. When you remember the source, suddenly they don't seem very similar at all. Arrogance is someone who doesn't believe in their worth pretending that they do, trying to fool the rest of the world into thinking they are better than they really are. Ego is someone who is utterly convinced of their worth, at least in some area or skillset, and who is operating out of that confidence. Arrogance is pointed outwards and is a mask; ego is pointed inwards and is a spotlight.

I came up with this analogy, and I like it. Arrogance is like someone who paints the outside of their house to look like a mansion. They go to such great lengths to perfect the illusion that they completely neglect the interior of their house, allowing it to fall into disrepair and ruin. Ego is like someone who forgets to mow their lawn or weed the flowerbeds because they are too busy renovating the inside of their house, strengthening it, painting and refurbishing, decorating and cleaning, making it exactly the sort of house they want to live in, and knowing they have the skills to do it. The arrogant homeowner only cares what the neighbors think. The confident homeowner, secure in his ego, only cares about what he or she thinks.

It's probably not a perfect analogy, but I'm working on it. I guess the most important thing to remember is that both the arrogant and the ego fail out of pride-- the arrogant out of its lack, and the ego out of its excess. Fair enough?

Maybe the Best White Can Hope For is a Presidential Pardon...

I, like most of the rest of planet earth, watched a good bit of the coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration this last Tuesday. As always, I marvel with pride at the fact that we are able to achieve "regime change" every four years in this great country, and that we do it seamlessly, civilly and with great pomp and circumstance, notwithstanding the few-- but vocal-- moonbats who actually booed President Bush when he appeared on the dais.

I watched Obama's speech, and listened to the poem that followed, at least as much as my attention span allowed (which, in the case of the poem, was about as long as the third word) but what struck me most was the benediction, given by Reverend Joseph Lowery. I bet a lot of us remember that, and for many of us, it is possibly the most notable moment (other than the unfortunate flub during the actual swearing in). The reverend's benediction got some of the most noticeable applause lines and laughter from the millions there on the mall. And it was, in many ways, sort of cute. The Reverend seems like a very likable guy, with his affable demeanor and gravelly voice. And yet it left me feeling sort of dirty and unsettled.

I just have to ask a few questions about it, for clarification's sake. Maybe someone out there can help me out.

First, where, exactly, as the Reverend declaimed, does "black" have to "get in back"? I mean, I really must be missing something. Are there still buses rolling the streets with "whites only" sections in the front? I am being just a bit facetious, of course, because I know this is not the case. Forced segregation has been outlawed for decades. So what is the reverend referring to? Who is telling black to get in back anymore? I know I'm not, and I can honestly say I don't know anyone who would. If anyone I knew attempted to force an African American individual into any sort of subservient position based on their skin color, I-- and everyone I know-- would speak out loudly against it, decrying such stupidity. And I may be wrong, but my attitude toward such intolerance seems to be mirrored everywhere I look. Thus, Reverend Lowery's comment leaves me a little confused.

Second, where is "yellow" not "mellow"? I assume "yellow" means Chinese, or maybe anyone of Asian descent. And I assume "mellow" means relaxed and at ease, mainly because (I am inferring this from context) the yellow person in question feels loved and respected, with no correlation to the color of their skin. Again, forgive me, but where are Asian Americans judged poorly for being "yellow"? Where are they not allowed to be "mellow"? Granted, not many of the Asian Americans I know are particularly laid back and relaxed, but that isn't because they are reviled for their skin color-- it's because they are very smart and have a remarkable work ethic. But surely, obviously, I am missing something.

Third (and not in any particular order), can someone tell me where "brown" can't stick around and the "red man" can't "get ahead, man?" I mean, again, I might be wrong, but my guess is that "brown" means Hispanics, and are they not now the largest minority group in the country? That fact doesn't seem to make any sense if "brown" ain't allowed to "stick around". And what about the red man? I really don't want to sound nit-picky, but aren't Native American offered exclusive rights to open multimillion-dollar-earning gambling casinos all across the country? Moral conflicts aside, no one can argue that that's a pretty damn good way to "get ahead", at least financially.

Again, certainly and obviously, I am missing something.

And, finally, what about the white man? Regarding them, Reverend Lowery asked this: when will white embrace what is right? Hmmm. That one I think I might be able to answer: The white man will embrace right when he arises en-mass to confront the stench of slavery, many of them giving up their homes and lives in an effort to abolish its abominable practice and save its victims. White will embace right when they legislate equality for minorities under the law and when they vigorously oppose any official segregation of different races. Furthermore, white will embrace right when they elect a man of a different skin color to the White House. When those things happen, maybe then Reverend Lowery will be able to say "Glory, hallelujah, we have at last evolved into a people of respect and equality. Congratulations to all races. We have overcome."

One hopes to live to see the day when all those things come to pass. I wonder when it will happen?

I wonder if Reverend Lowery will notice when it does?

Politics Over Personality

As an underground conservative working in the arts community, I tend to suffer a bit from the Elijah mentality. That is, it is easy to look around and say, "I am entirely alone! I am the last true Republican conservative in a liberal Democrat emotional mudslide! Send sustenance, oh God! Send me some ravens with copies of 'The Weekly Standard' in their talons!"

Alas, one of the places I turn to when I feel this way (albeit very secretly) is conservative talk radio. I am an avid aficionado of the Maha-Rushie, listening to his program on my iPod at every opportunity. I like Glenn Beck's rattled every-man logic quite a lot as well. Laura Ingraham strikes me as one of the most balanced and moderated voices out there. On the other hand, however, unlike many of my underground conservative brethren, there are one or two of those radio voices I don't love. In particular, I don't like Sean Hannity, and I'll explain why.

I'd like to say that Sean Hannity is probably a fine individual, even if I don't like his show, but I'm not sure even that is true. Anyone who throws around the term "You're a great American," like he does, spending the compliment on anyone and everyone based on the mere qualification that they can obtain a telephone and dial his show's number, is suspect in my (admittedly rather long) book. Frankly, he is only bearable on his Fox show because he is offset by the relatively more odious Alan Combs (although I fear I must admit that I'd sooner drink a beer with Combs than Hannity, as long as we don't talk politics).

But all of that aside, my issue with Sean Hannity is really my issue with current politics in general. The problem with the discussion of American politics is that it is bogged down with the relatively superficial vaguaries of personality instead of idealogy. It's easy to preach to the choir about how awful the enemy is, but it does nothing to engage those who are on the fence, or even to bolster the intellectual arguments of the faithful. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, Hannity strikes me as simply a mean-spirited dimwit whose main argument against the opposition is that they are dopey-looking, silly-sounding, anti-American dum-dum-heads.

In a nutshell, while I tend to agree with Hannity that Howard Dean's famous barbaric yawp is funny, I do not think that it is reason enough not to vote Democrat.

Here's the problem: I am convinced that most of those who voted for Barack Obama and all the rest of the Democrats were not voting for the primary ideals of liberalism. They were voting against George W. Bush, even though he wasn't on the ballot. Why? Because they've been trained to dislike him personally. Not for his policies, specifically, or his Republican ideologies, or even his record. They simply voted for Obama because they don't like Bush himself, personally. Poor John McCain couldn't get out of Bush's shadow enough to differentiate himself-- and let's be honest, he doesn't have all that winning of a personality either.

The main problem with the Hannitization of politics is that, once we reduce the discussion to an argument over who looks the funniest, sounds the dumbest, lies the most, produces the most scandals, or looks the most or the least presidential, we are doomed to a relatively equal slap-fight. There are liars, cheats, thieves, incompetents and screw-ups on both sides. Of course, we on the conservative side at least aim for a higher standard, and arguably there is less out-and-out corruption on the Republican side, but our politicians are a long, long way from perfect. Therefore, the moment we allow the discussion to center on personalities instead of idealogies, that is the moment we surrender our greatest and most meaningful tool in the debate: the soundness of our core ideas.

I propose this: next time we have a discussion about politics, challenge all involved to avoid reducing it to a slap-fight about personalities. Challenge yourself and your conversants to have the discussion without mentioning any specific politician, even by inference. The more we can center the debate on ideals and common sense concepts, the more succesful we will be. And this goes for politicians themselves, progressing all the way through this next election. No name calling or insults or smack-downs. As fun as they are, they reduce our message to a mere popularity contest, a mere debate of one-liners and put-downs. If it comes to that, we will be doomed, not only because it takes away the irrefutable strength of our core convictions, but because, let's face it, pretty much all of the one-liner writers are on their side.

Think about it: why are we conservatives? Is it because we love George W.? Hardly. Is it because Obama is a snarky, pompous elitist? Not in the least. We are not conservatives because of personalities. We are conservatives because we believe in personal responsibility, and the power of the free market, and liberty. We are conservatives because we believe everyone and anyone can achieve, and should be free to, without the roadblocks of a nanny state, or the hobbling of a welfare state. We are conservatives because we believe government's job is, contrary to current experience, extremely limited and necessarily small, and that a huge, tax-and-spend Washington D. C. money machine is a proven failure and should be mercilessly pruned. We are conservatives because we believe in the sanctity of life, and are willing to make the pragmatic, difficult, and honorable choice to sacrifice it in the short term so as to preserve it in the long term. We are conservatives because we recognize that a simple-minded ideal of universal peace only foments the bloodthirsty tyranny of murderers.

And the reason these ideologies will win, if we subtract from them the shifting superficialities of personalities, is that, deep down, almost everyone shares these core beliefs. It's true. Reduce conservatism to the lowest common denominator and almost everyone agrees with it. In their personal lives, all but the most suicidally liberal would use lethal force to protect their families from evil people. All but the most deluded radical knows that he cannot give millions away to charity if his wallet is empty. All but the most knee-jerk Democrat drone knows that he cannot freely fulfill every whim of his child without reducing that child to a helpless, directionless bum. Where the rubber of action meets the road of life, nearly everyone is a conservative. Our duty is to help them see that what is true for themselves is true for nations and governments. This message, however, will be instantly lost the moment we allow it to be hijacked into a debate over personalities.

Conservatism does not need to be redefined. It needs to be unvarnished. It needs to be stripped of all the labels and fluff and superficial personality worship and defamation that well-meaning conservatives have bogged it down with. Under all the tripe, the machine of conservative is still well-oiled, effective, and universal.

It's time to de-Hannitize our message. The discussion isn't about this Democrat's cheating or that liberal's lies. It's about the strength of our ideology versus theirs. If we can manage this, we will see a vast reawakening to the logic and common sense of conservatism.

If we keep arguing personalities, we'll be stuck defending George W. Bush's pronunciation of "nuclear" and Sarah Palin's wardrobe forever. Think about that, and then ask yourself-- Politics or Personality: which do you think will be more effective?

New Democratic Talking Points: "Change Nothing"

(Intercepted Document from the New Democratic National Committee)

------CONFIDENTIAL------

If you are not a card-carrying member of the Democratic National Convention, an affiliate of the cabinet of the current President-Elect, an employee or editor of a national news organ, then stop reading immediately and destroy this document.

OFFICIAL STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES FOR CONTINUED DEALINGS WITH ROGUE CONSERVATIVE THINKERS AND POLITICIANS (IF ANY ARE TO BE FOUND).

On the heels of our smashing victory this last November, we, the new Democratic leaders of this country, have cause to rejoice. We must not, however, be lulled into a false sense of security. Our foes are still out there, and they may be even more dangerous in their current, defeated state. After all, the last thing their cause needs is martyrs. The work of destroying our opposition has only just begun, and that work can be summed up in two, all-important words:

CHANGE NOTHING.

It will be tempting to adopt an attitude of magnanimous reconciliation with our opponents, or to soften the viciousness of our attacks. This is a sign of lingering humanity in many of our members, but under no circumstances should these primitive instincts be indulged. That which we have used to defeat the conservative (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Republican) ideologies must be continued verbatim, with no break and no exception. "Change" may be an extremely effective mantra for wooing the proletariat, but it is the last thing we wish to implement in terms of our ongoing manifesto. Our new President Elect has shown his understanding of this by peopling his cabinet entirely with our best old-guard liberal warriors, so let us all follow his example and remember the basic principles which have carried us thus far.

Here, in brief, are the guiding axioms that should continue to define our attitude to the remaining conservative underground and any recalcitrant Republican politicians who dare not defect to our side, if in ideology only:

NUMBER ONE: REPUBLICANS ARE STUPID.

This cannot be emphasized enough. This is our first and most effective attack, and it should be repeated above all others. Did it matter that George W. Bush scored higher grades than Al Gore? Not at all. Does it matter that he reads more books in a year than the typical Democrat voter will read in his lifetime (although, in all fairness, he does not watch anywhere near as much television)? No, it doesn't matter. As we so importantly learned during the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings a decade ago, it isn't the facts that matter, but rather the seriousness of the allegation.

Calling someone stupid works on the grade school playground and it works in the world of adult politics for the same reason: calling someone stupid means that their words can be legitimately ignored. THIS is the point. The last thing we want any of our people to do is start listening to the arguments of the other side. As we have long known, debate does not help our side, for the simple reason that our rank-and-file are, in actuality, rather ignorant themselves. As we know, eighty-percent of our own people do not know who Harry Reed is, and only slightly more can name the current vice president. Historically, our members do not vote on issues or ideology; they vote on emotion. They vote on what makes them feel “cool”, or “caring”, or “broad-minded”, or “sexy”. It has been said that Barack Obama is the first “MTV” President, and we are not ashamed of this. This is, in fact, the pinnacle expression of how our Party has always worked. We must, if anything, continue to craft our Democratic brand to represent this strength. This means assuring that our voters continue to vote based on emotion and cool-factor, rather than on boring intellectual facts. We must do everything in our power to prevent ideas from cluttering our voters’ judgments. In short, our best tools involve stifling debate, but under the guise that we'd love to have a debate, if only our opponents weren't so stupid. This way, we can allow our members to continue to feel smart, while freeing them from the burden of actual thinking.

NUMBER TWO: REPUBLICANS ARE HICKS, RUBES, REDNECKS, HILLBILLIES, HOOSIERS, HAYSEEDS or whatever synonym is colloquially relevant.

This is second only to the first in application, and it is mostly the purview and responsibility of the entertainment media to spread this attack. Our own politicians must continue to be viewed as above making such degrading accusations, but it should be made obvious that they are thinking it, and simply being too gracious to say so. Late night comedians in particular are granted free reign in spreading the rumors that:

• Conservatives enjoy incest at every opportunity.

• Conservatives own guns, leave them lying around their shacks loaded, and fire them at every opportunity, usually at cuddly animals and homosexuals.

• Conservatives are religious whackos that handle snakes, pronounce “God” as “GAWD”, and include country and western music as a central tenet of their faith.

• Conservatives are terrified of black people, and, in fact, people of any other color, and have probably never seen or spoken to one.

• Conservatives subsist entirely on Twinkies, deep-fried sticks of butter, and buckets of gravy, which they both drink and bathe in (often at the same time).

See? The jokes pretty much write themselves, mainly because we’ve been making them for so long. It does not matter that the jokes are unoriginal, cliché, or even knee-jerk obligatory. All that matters is that they demean and belittle our enemies in a way that works.

Many of our members feel a twinge of dishonesty about this tenet for two reasons: one, most Republican politicians are, in fact, wealthy upper-west-side urbanites with nary a gun cabinet or a pick-up truck in sight, and two, most of our rank-and-file constituency are gun-toting, pickup driving, rednecks, rubes, hicks, hayseeds, hoosiers, hillbillies, etc. It must be emphasized again that these mere “facts” must be ignored for the good of the Party. It does not matter that our political opponents are possibly more urbanized and intellectual than we are, simply because the allegations stick. We have been making them for so long that the idea of a redneck conservative politician is an absolute institution: people know it before we even say it, furthermore—and this is the main point—they know it not because it is true, but because we’ve been saying it for so long that people simply see what they expect.

Secondarily, it does not matter that the vast majority of our constituency is, in fact, rednecks, hicks and hayseeds, because of one very simple thing: they do not acknowledge it. They refuse to think of themselves as such, even though they know they are. We provide for them the important service of giving them someone else they can look down on, someone whom they can feel is even less backwards and inbred than themselves. Voting for us becomes simply a nominal evidence that they are not what we’ve claimed our opponents are. After all, what is more important to the redneck than fooling himself into thinking he is better than the “redneck” who might rule him?

NUMBER THREE: REPUBLICANS ARE RACISTS

This must be handled delicately lest it back-fire, but it is one of the deadliest bullets in our arsenal. As with the previous two points, it does not matter if the allegation is true, but merely that it be made, seriously and with absolute assurance. You must trust your own indignance, even if it is baseless. If we have been able to convince the voters of this country that the party of Abraham Lincoln and the Underground Railroad is, against all probability, a racist party, then you must trust your ability to make the accusation stick as well. Fortunately, today’s voters’ understanding of history is apocryphal at best, thus they actually believe that Republicans were the party of segregation, rather than Democrats. We have not yet had the sheer audacity to imply that Governor George Wallace, who enlisted the militia to block entry of black students into an Alabama high school, was actually a Republican, but we’d venture to guess that most people probably believe it anyway.

It may seem ludicrous on the surface of it, but it is absolutely essential to maintain the appropriate sense of outraged indignance whilst making accusations of racism, lest the accusation be seen for the farce that it is. One must not smile or giggle, even if the accusation is made against a conservative candidate who has adopted or married a person of a different race, supported racially-harmonizing issues, or is even of a non-white race themselves. There need be no supporting facts or evidence in the least. In fact, the more the accuser relies on actual evidence, the less convincing the accusation will probably seem. As any race-racketeer knows, racism is best accused on terms of “instinct”, rather than evidence. As we’ve learned in this country, if a person of color accuses a white of racism, it is true, period. Argument or denial by the accused will only deepen their apparent guilt. If handled well, there is no escape from the accusation of racism, as evidenced by the legions of conservatives who have been buried by it in the past.

Now that we have a black President in the White House, some of you may feel that this tool has become somewhat ineffective. To repeat the main point of this dispatch: CHANGE NOTHING. Accusations of racism have been a lethal tool against our opposition in the past, and they remain so today. The fact that we now have a black President in the White House simply means that, as far as we are concerned, forty-seven percent of voters are still racist. You must use this angle to its fullest effect.

NUMBER FOUR: SHOW NO MERCY

Joe Lieberman spoke before the Republican convention, supporting John McCain. Now that we have won, is this the time to welcome the Honorable Senator back to our camp with open arms, exhibiting our respect of his dissenting views in a country that purports to value freedom of thought? Recent events give us the answer to that question. Just as we have convened to see how best to punish, belittle and excommunicate the traitor, Joe Lieberman, we must not allow ourselves to show the slightest compassion on our enemies now that they are down. They will attempt to reorganize, even in their decimated state, and just as we have arisen from the ashes of the George W. Bush years, unified and unstoppable, they will surely attempt to rally themselves for 2012 and beyond. We are now in the perfect position to crush them utterly.

Our first tack must be to further the idea that Conservatism is dead, the Reagan years are over, and that Republican ideology must be redefined to conform to modern reality (i.e. liberalism).

Further, we must support and fast-track the Fairness Doctrine, shutting down on-air expression of conservative ideas. We must continue to redefine dissenting thought in all its forms as hate speech. We must inflame our base into threatening their conservative associates into silence. We must make our members believe that it is good and just to crush the opposition, with threats and shouts if effective, and with violence (such as the glorious displays at the Republican Convention earlier this year) when necessary. We must continue the campaign, consistently rallying our troops to avoid the temptation to debate issues or engage in polite discourse. Conservatives remain our enemy, and like a virus, they must be destroyed utterly, lest they return in the future, rallied and immune to our opposition. Now is the time to complete the work we have begun, ever vigilant, and more dedicated than ever.

That which has worked so far will continue to work. Our voters do not really want change. They want what they have always wanted: to be told they are smart and good for voting against the purported conservative dimwit redneck racists. They want to be promised things, even if we never really follow through with granting those promises. They want to be convinced they are victims, that the evil conservatives have held them down, and that it is time to make those conservatives pay, figuratively and literally.

Despite the apparent landslide of this last election, our majority is slight. Now is the time for us to create further dependence on the government, greater desire to be coddled and provided for, and even less belief in the potential for success. If we accomplish this mission, fully cementing a majority in this country who will vote entirely on emotion and on who promises the most goodies, rather than ideas and what is best for the country, then we will never again have to fear losing power. The few remaining conservative Republicans will become, quite literally, a party without a country.

Only then will we be able to rest.

Say hello to the new Democratic Regime. Just like the old Democratic Regime.

Dispatch From the New Conservative Underground: It's Worse Than We Thought

I work in the creative industry, therefore it will surprise no one that I am constantly surrounded by Democrats, most of whom are fairly hardcore liberal. Most of them are not bad people, but they are passionate about their politics, despite the fact that most of them truly do not know what they are talking about. Being a liberal in the creative industry is like being high at a Grateful Dead concert: you don't have to be the one smoking it to be under its influence. Most of the people in my field are Democrats simply because you can't be cool (or even particularly tolerated) if you are anything else, and creative people are very enamoured with being cool. I don't engage my colleagues in political conversations for the same reason prison inmates don't bend over to pick up a dropped bar of soap. I just keep my head down and do my job, and usually we all get along fine.

Today, however, I had my first serious freak-out of the new Obama era.

I was working in an editing suite with three other guys. One of these guys, who I will call Bob, spent a good portion of the day loudly voicing his glee about what the Obama presidency was going to be like. The other two guys nodded and agreed as Bob plowed on, assuming, as a matter of course, that everyone in the room agreed with him.

I have not been so sincerely freaked out in a long, long time.

It started with Bob disgustedly calling those who dared vote different than him "f--king hayseeds". This did not particularly surprise me. I am long accustomed to Democrats utterly belittling and insulting those who disagree with them. A few minutes later, however, Bob mentioned an acquaintance of his who'd attended the Republican National Convention. He said that this person had been appalled by the violence that was committed against many of the attendees. Bob blithely admitted that the violence had indeed occurred, and then explained to this acquaintance, "the fact that you people don't understand why that was justified is why you are going to lose this thing."

Did you hear that? I mean, really? According to this particular liberal Democrat, violence against people who disagree with him is justified.

I should point out that Bob is not a complete whack-job. He's successful. He's apparently happily married. He's a father. He's even relatively likeable when he isn't talking polotics. And Bob thinks that dropping cement bags onto the windshields of busses full of conventioneers and spitting on seventy-year-old women is justified, simply because those people dared to be Republicans.

How, exactly, are people like Bob different from terrorists?

I'd sure like to believe that Bob is the great exception, sort of like the Republican racist or the Boy Scout child-molester (contrary to popular belief), but then I began to recall more of what his party has always been about.

Barack Obama himself never once spoke out against the violences committed against Republicans at their convention. Strangely enough, on our own side of the campaign, one couldn't even mention Obama's middle name without John McCain calling an emergency press conference to condemn the guilty party. Amazingly, however, McCain's strained nobility didn't translate across the aisle. During the last debate, Obama managed to effect an air of wounded transcendence at the idea that someone might have shouted something ugly about him at a Republican rally, but was apparently all right with the idea of bags of human feces being lobbed at Republican conventioneers. Bob would certainly approve.

These are the people who've just won the White House.

This is the same party that spawned Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Pucs Coalition, which regularly extorts massive donations from corporations lest they be deemed "racist" by the morally impeccable Jackson. Similarly, this is the same party that planted the seeds of the current economic catastrophe by threatening to picket banks as racist if they didn't grant more and more sub-prime home loans. This is the party that foments men like the baton-weilding Black Panthers who attempted to block the polling place in Republican-heavy voting areas, happily resorting to threats instead of debate. This is, in short, the party of simple thug-politics and mafia-style threats.

These are the people who now control the majority of the government.

Bob's party is the force behind the "fairness doctrine", which is interested in fairness in the same way that George Orwell's fictional "Ministry of Peace" was interested in Peace (for those of you who've not yet read "1984", the Ministry of Peace was, of course, concerned with waging war). This is the party that shuns debates of ideas, choosing instead the forced silence of anyone who dissents. This is the party of shouting down the speeches of those they oppose, rather than engaging them intellectually. This is the party of Barack Obama, who refused to debate John McCain in Town Hall-style meetings across the country. This is the party of Al Gore, who refuses to debate anyone in the scientific community (or any other community, for that matter) on the issue of global warming. This is the party of Michael Moore, of propagandistic movies and bumper sticker slogans, of one-sided diatribes of all kinds, but never of rational discussions of ideas. This is the party of belittling and mocking, of comfort in the like-minded crowd, because the group-think of the crowd so easily supplants any need for personal intellectual honesty.

This is the party that admits that the question of when life begins is "above their pay-grade", and yet, even in the face of that uncertainty, defaults to killing that potential life, and then dares to call it a virtue.

This is the party that admires Karl Marx, who taught that truth is variable based on whatever furthers the cause. This is the party that has made that philosophy a synonym for politics.

I hate to say it, but I think things are actually a lot worse than we originally thought. This is the party that is now firmly in charge of our country.

Bob had a lot more to say. He said that Obama was already planning to use his army of millions of online cyber-brutes to harrass his opponants, pressuring and threatening them into fast-tracking the new president's deliciously liberal agenda. Most of the facets of that agenda, Bob explained, had to do with forcing companies to adhere to debilitating "green" retrofittings (much like what Obama claimed he'd cripple the coal industry with) and supplanting "straight-capitalism" with "new socialistic capitalism". Bob wasn't just blowing smoke. He wasn't making any of this up. He knew his stuff. He knew the terminology and the numbers. He knew how this internet army came about (Clinton and Howard Dean) and about the uncomfortable alliance between Clinton's DNC and the new Obama regime. He knew dates and names and specifics. Bob was very much in-the-know.

Maybe Bob is wrong. Maybe Obama really will settle down into the sort of mainstream, centrist presidency that so many presidents seem to succumb to, regardless of political inclination. Maybe Bob doesn't represent his party when he says that violence against Republicans is justified and understandable. Maybe Bob is just one angry, gleeful exception in the liberal Democratic juggernaut that is now controlling everything.

Oh God, I do hope so. But considering the history of the Democratic party, up to this very day, I don't think Bob is wrong at all. I think Bob is, in fact, in the dead-center mainstream of his party.

I used to keep my head down and avoid talking about politics among my colleagues because I was worried about getting into a senseless argument. Now, for the first time, I am actually worried to even admit I am a conservative. Now, for the first time in my life, being a conservative could potentially be physically dangerous.

Welcome to the New Conservative Underground.

This Former Republican says: If You Can't Beat 'Em...

Well, it's almost nine o'clock on election night, and it's a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama is the new president. I was upset by this at first, but then I realized something, something that has set me free.

I've realized that I've been wrong all along.

Let me explain. I was raised by well-meaning, but obviously deluded parents. They worked hard to instill in me the same misconceptions they themselves grew up with, and as a result I have been a victim of those misconceptions my entire life. Thus, when I saw that the most liberal-minded democratic candidate of all time was about to assume the presidency, those life-long, deeply ingrained misunderstandings led me to believe that this would be an awful, even frightening thing. "How is it," I thought to myself, "That the majority of this country can fanatically support a man who represents the exact opposite of the ideals I was raised with?" And for the first time in my life, I asked a question that very few people ever honestly pose to themselves: Is it possible I am wrong and they are right?

It was an epiphany. I am shocked and amazed that it took me so long to realize how wrong I have been. And I have to tell you, it is extremely freeing to come over to the other side.

But I fear I am not being as specific as I should be. Like those who suffer from the disease of alcoholism, the first step to healing is admitting one's specific problem. Let me take a deep breath and face this.

I was raised to believe in personal responsibility. It was, in fact, the cornerstone of my family's belief system. I was taught that if I was ever to succeed, it was up to me to do the hard work of making it happen. I was told that no one would give me a free lunch. I was made to buy my own first car and pay my own way through college. As an adult, I have struggled and worked long, hard jobs, all because I believed it was my responsibility to take care of myself and my family. In short, my life view was summed up by the idea that I, and I alone, was responsible for my own health, success and family.

What a prison I had constructed for myself! To think of all the time I spent trying to work it out on my own, struggling to learn and grow, slaving through the days to hone my talents into marketable skills. How much time I wasted trying to create new products and valuable services, all to achieve my own success, to take care of myself and my family. In short, how very long I struggled to reach that elusive and teasing American Dream! Oh, what a fool I was! For now I see what the majority of the rest of this country sees, what the rest of you have apparently known all along: it ISN'T my job to take care of myself and my family. It's the government's!

WHAT a relief!

You know, I laugh now, looking back on how I felt during the election. I was so annoyed at people for not seeing the apparent folly of Obama's statements about "being our brother's keepers" when his own brother was living in a shack for twelve dollars a year and his aunt was living in a rat-infested slum in Boston. Now, of course, I see the real truth. Obama didn't literally mean we should take care of our brothers. What he really meant was that the government should take care of our brothers (and aunts). This explains how he intended to help his slum-living Aunt, and I see now that it is a much more loving method than just sending her some of his own money. Instead, once he becomes president, he'll just send her a bunch of everybody else's money. I understand now that it wasn't Obama's job to help Aunt Zeituni specifically, since she is just one of the millions of children of the government, meant to be taken care of like chicks under a huge, federal wing. It makes sense to me now. I used to be so shamelessly literal.

Similarly, I used to labor under a delusion of ownership. I was plagued by what Congressman Jim Moran recently called "the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it." Never mind what Thomas Jefferson (the slave owner) meant when he said "a wise and frugal government... shall leave [men] otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it had earned". It was quite the two-edged sword of heresy I lived under: the idea that I had to work hard for myself and my family, and the idea that what I earned by that hard word was mine. Only now do I see the folly of my ways, and now that I have rejected them, I feel such a sense of complete freedom.

Shall I describe it? Now I can finally- finally!- let it all go. No longer do I have to work hard day and night to make a way for myself and my family. No more will I have to struggle to create new products that the market may wish to enjoy. Finally, I can catch up on all that wonderful TV I've been missing because I'd been working so hard. Now, finally, it's someone else's duty to take care of me! How completely and utterly freeing! Here, all this time, I had resented the fact that the government takes away thirty percent of my income. Now, finally, I see that if I simply give up, lay back, and do nothing, that same government will give me chunks of someone else's thirty percent! What a complete and unadulterated fool I have been, working so hard and trying to be self relient! Obama, and you, the rest of the country who figured this out a long time ago, have finally shown me the way.

It's a new day. It's a "what's in it for me" day. This is the moment where I officially abandon the idea of personal responsibility and making it by myself. After all, I'm a victim. I was misled by my parents, taught a narrow-minded and probably racist litany of lies about character and hard work and wisdom and good choices. Now I see the truth: choices don't matter, because if I make a mistake, I can abort it (even in the third trimester, and I won't even have to pay for it). If I screw up, the government will take care of me anyway, so why even try? Why work so hard to be the one creating the income for everyone else, when I can be the one sponging it up? Let the Joe the Plumbers of the country be the schlubs to go out and work their butts off. They may be sucker enough to think its still worth it to be self-reliant, but I have seen the light. I have learned that it is better not to try, because trying just means having more and more taken away. I have learned that this is the "gimme" country. So gimme. I want mine. I don't want to work for it anymore. Why should I? It wouldn't be mine to keep even if I did. I want someone else's, because they have too much and don't deserve it, even if they worked for it.

I'm late coming to this party, I know. Most of the country is in line ahead of me. All of you who voted for Obama got here first, but I'm shouldering in with you, lining up outside the federal coffers for my chunk of the handout. The bank doors are open. We've finally gotten to that fabled point where we are voting in a president because of the free goodies he's promising us. I know it means the end of the country is at hand, but it isn't here yet. There's still at least a few more years of good looting to be had before everything is completely broke and all the producers flee the country like rats from a sinking ship. Until then, at least for a little while, there will be plenty of wealth to spread around, so get outta my way. I want mine.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Hallelujah, Reverend Wright, pass the collection plate.

Political Vomit 2: Bumper Sticker People

Sorry, I don't think I quite got it all out yesterday. This has been accumulating for awhile.

Part of the reason that it is easy for a mild-mannered, reasonably intelligent conservative-minded guy like me to get a little depressed about things is that, by all appearances, the rest of the country is in complete disagreement with me and my personal views. Everywhere I look, there are bumper stickers and yard signs snidely deriding my beliefs, proclaiming the deity of Barack Obama, and trumpeting snarky, self righteous one-liners about how horrible people like me are. Some of them are pretty funny ("Republicans for Voldemort '08") and some of them are so sappy they rot your teeth ("one day schools will have enough money and the navy will have to hold a bake sell to buy a..." yadda yadda, I think I'm gonna puke, 'scuse me, I feel so dirty for even quoting this), but all of them amount to the same things I mentioned yesterday: Republicans are evil, mean, war-mongering, intolerant, gun-toting, over-religious bitter clingers-- with absolutely no exceptions-- and you should all be dreadfully ashamed of yourselves, hit with plastic bags of feces, sued, impeached and shot.

Besides the bumper stickers and yard signs, just watch any television, movie, or listen to any popular music. It is absolutely undeniable-- I mean, come on, even the most liberal-minded of you can't deny this and keep even the slightest shred of respectability-- it is absolutely undeniable that the vast and nearly unanimous majority of our entertainers (including the broadcast news media, with the single exception of most talk radio) are passionate adherents to democratic political philosophy. It is an axiom. If you are an artist, actor, singer, writer, or entertainer in any way, two things are true about you: Your job is to be heard and seen by the general public, AND you are a liberal-minded democrat. The result: nearly every message we hear in our media-saturated culture, either directly or indirectly, mirrors the messages of the bumper stickers and yard signs.

It is no surprise, really, that the entertainment community as a whole is liberal democrat. If it is true (and it is) that Democratic beliefs are rooted in emotion, then it makes perfect sense that it'd appeal strongly to a demographic whose very livelihood is based on the conjuring and commerse of emotion. Artists of all stripe work in the world of manufacturing emotion, first in themselves, to create the product (drama, music, art, news*, etc) and then in the general public, through the sale of that product. Emotion is their single currency. It's all they understand. I know this, because I am an artist, and I know a lot of other artists. Of course they are not all ruled exclusively by emotion, but I know from personal experience that it takes an effort of will for an artist not to be. Thus, again, it makes perfect sense that a political idealogy based on feel-good intentions and lofty motivations (regardless of actual result) would appeal to the great majority of artists.

It's no surprise, either, that young people are also almost entirely democratic. Young people are all ruled by emotions. It's the very nature of being young. We who are no longer particularly young remember it well. We all made stupid decisions and said moronic things and got into sticky situations because our emotions made it seem like "a good idea at the time." If you don't agree, I'm sorry, you were never a teenager. Also, let us not forget that the single most important thing to any young adult is being as attractive and cool as humanly possible. There is NO way that a young person can be attractive and cool AND be known as a Republican. (I recall the episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which the main character is so disgusted by the fact that his gorgeous romantic partner is a Republican that he loses all desire for her; 'nuff said). On the other hand, there is no quicker and surer way to proclaim your coolness than to mock Republicans, mindlessly parrot democratic talking points, and march for global warming/world peace/save the polar bears/protect abortion-on-demand rallies.

Face it: young people, while pretending to be the most free-minded and individually unique of us all, are the most lock-step lemmings imaginable. "You can be cool believing anything you want! Er, as long as it's the same thing me and George Clooney and Moby believe."

At the end of all this, the result is that we are absolutely inundated with the message that democrats are the vast majority, that they alone are cool and well-adjusted and socially conscious, that democratic beliefs are the only responsible choice, and that Republicans are evil, uncool, hate-filled neanderthals with rebel flags tatooed on their very fat butts. Thus, for a guy like me, looking around at our culture, it is easy to get depressed. It looks as if everyone is aligned against me and my beliefs.

But I've begun to suspect something. You wanna know what it is? I don't care, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

They're ALL bumper sticker people. What I mean is that it only seems like the rest of the country is aligned against conservative beliefs because democrats are the LOUD ones. They're the ones whose political beliefs are rooted in emotion, thus they are passionate and angry, and this makes them militant and vocal. From the news anchors to the guy currently waving the "impeach Cheney" sign on the courthouse lawn across the street from this very coffee shop, they are believers in the spectacle as argument. They are big ones for rallies and marches, shouted chants, chaotic disruptions of speeches, throwing fake blood and real feces, spray-painted epithets and, yes, bumper-sticker plastered cars.

I have fairly strong political convictions. I quite like to debate them, because I am very keen on honing my own convictions via sharpening them against smart people who might disagree with them (even though-- and I'm not joking here -- smart people who disagree with me are getting harder and harder to come by). But I don't have any bumper stickers on my car. I never have. I don't put up yard signs or chant slogans. And I definitely don't believe in the persuasive power of spitting on old ladies as they try to enter conventions.

In short, I'm not one of the loud ones. And here's the part that gives me hope: I don't think the majority of the country are, either. I think most of us are doing our jobs, raising our kids, thinking through our political and moral convictions, and voicing them only in the quiet but earth-shaping act of voting. We look with dismay at the militant, spittle-flying diatribes of our angry democratic neighbors, and with disgust at the snide, belittling attitudes of the entertainment media, and we just go on silently anyway, unswayed in our convictions because we are not the sort to be persuaded by emotion alone (even if it would make us a little cooler to Keith Olberman and Tim Robbins).

We're the ones that really move the country, and this is why the loud ones are so very, very loud. They hate that we, the quiet ones, are, in actuality, driving the nation. We, who work too hard to attend protest rallies, who respect people too much to shout them down at their speeches, who believe in logical thinking too much to reduce our convictions to snarky one-liners, we are the mighty unseen who carry this country and make it work. And yes, this gives me hope.

Even if it means Al Franken thinks I'm a big fat idiot.

*And if you think news is not interested, first and foremost, in conjuring emotion, consider that most famous news axiom of all, "if it bleeds, it leads."



ADDENDUM TO YESTERDAY'S POST: The Polar Bear Debacle

My general advice to any political minded person, republican or democrat, is the advice I try to follow: 1) verify the rumors before you make them the foundation of your convictions. 2) Check and know your sources before you try to use them in an argument. And 3) Use your brain just a little teensy bit more than you use your heart. With this in mind, I did some research on the Sarah Palin Polar Bear debacle my friend "Ruth" was so exercised about.

I discovered a lot of things, but the only one that really matters is this: the entire controversy is based on the numbers of polar bears. Are they increasing or decreasing? As with all such things, it depends on who you read. I found this article about it, from a site dedicated to debunking the opponents of man-made global warming and proving that we humans are the vilest creatures to ever leave a trail of slime on this poor, abused planet. Here's the quote that was meant to prove that polar bears are in dire doom:

"Yet recently there have been claims that polar bear populations are increasing... While polar bear numbers are increasing in two of these [various polar bear] populations, two others are definitely in decline. We don't really know how the rest of the populations are faring, so the truth is that no one can say for sure how overall numbers are changing."

Let's turn off our emotions for a moment and look at this together: the article states that two populations are increasing, two are declining, and two are unknown. At best, mathematically, does this not mean that polar bear numbers are, in fact, generally the same as always, with some variation in specific populations? I thought the numbers were supposed to be plummeting? This is the whole reason they were supposed to be endangered, yes? The best the self-proclaimed defenders of the poor polar bear can do is claim that the numbers of polar bears are unchanging? Forgive me if, like Sarah Palin, I don't find this incredibly moving.

In fact, if two of the populations ARE, in fact, increasing, as the article states, how can we be certain that any changes made for the good of the declining types of bears would not harm the numbers of the type that are increasing? I guess, like any good democratic philosophy, it's noble and just that the bears who are benefiting be punished in favor of the bears that are less-well-off.

Despite what the polar bear blogs say("Oil and gas extraction can be very damaging to arctic ecosystems including the polar bears."), even Alaska's Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who "rejected every point" Palin made about the polar bears, admitted that the threat to polar bears did not come from the petroleum industry (it comes from your SUV, you stupid Republican war-monger). So. What does this leave us with? Turn your emotions back on. That rankled, itchy, hot feeling in your chest? It's justified annoyance at being hoodwinked.