House of Eratosthenes

“I was teaching a Sunday school class two weeks ago,” he recalls. “A girl, she was about 16 years old from Panama City [Fla.], asked me about the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

“I asked her, ‘Are you for peace, or do you want more war?’ Then I asked her, ‘Do you favor government helping the rich, or should it seek to help the poorest members of society? Do you want to preserve the environment, or do you want to destroy it? Do you believe this nation should engage in torture, or should we condemn it? Do you think each child today should start life responsible for $28,000 in [federal government] debt, or do you think we should be fiscally responsible?’

“I told her that if she answered all of those questions, that she believed in peace, aiding the poor and weak, saving the environment, opposing torture … then I told her, ‘You should be a Democrat.'”

You know, every now and then I get my hands on a piece of retro-culture from the late-seventies early-eighties timeframe, when Carter was President, and I step into a world I don’t recognize even though my childhood was immersed in that world. I see…sheer and utter lunacy. I see the General Lee jump over grain silos. I see a middle-aged man playing the Incredible Hulk’s alter ego. I see barely-legal blond bombshells running straight past the hunky guys in their mid-twenties, flocking to the forty-something, brooding, penniless Bruce Banner like hummingbirds to a feeder — and instead of bagging them, he just walks off into the sunset one more time, emotional angst in tow. I see Wonder Woman trying to make up her mind whether it’s 1975 or 1945, whether she can fly or not, whether she has super strength or not. The Six Million Dollar Man blocking devastating body blows from a robot or a huge monster or a $7 million man, with, oopsie, the wrong arm. White guys in huge afros, and oh-so-manly tobacco-chawing cowboys boogeying to the Disco craze. Is it even physically possible to dance to that awful music when you’re wearing cowboy boots?

And then there’s that unwritten rule about leading men. Leading men always have to have skinny butts. When Carter was our Commander In Chief, leading men always had glass-cutting asses. And, of course, there was this rule that when you wore a pair of blue jeans with a size-28 waistband, it’s just a matter of time before you would play amteur psychologist, wisely counseling the beautiful russian gymnast you just rescued that she has to stop blaming herself for…whatever.

Everyone was rescuing russian gymnasts. Even Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. And everybody had read “I’m OK, You’re OK.”

And I have to think to myself…boy, we were off our rocker. Why didn’t someone just bomb us and put us out of our misery?

And then the leader of that era opens his big cakehole and I have to re-think everything all over again. Were the television producers to blame at all? Were the musicians? Were the consumers? How long can sanity survive, with a whackjob like that in charge? Such a narrow mind invested with the authority of so much as…as…well, your Sunday School teacher, let alone your President. It would be like wearing a bag of cement around your neck all day. It would interfere with everything you try to do.

Hey, I’m not going to sit here and take the high road. I’m not going to type in some nonsense to the effect of, if I was in a position of seniority, authority and trust like Jimmy Carter was, and an impressionable young mind asked me about Republicans and Democrats, I’d say “Oh, I don’t think that’s an appropriate topic for this forum” and zip my lip. I’m not going to say I would do that. Because I wouldn’t. I’d give an answer, and my answer would likely offend Democrats just as much as Carter’s answer offends Republicans. My answer might sound like the Republican television commercial nobody has the balls to actually produce, just like Carter’s answer sounds like the Democrat commercial nobody is crazy enough to carry.

I freely admit that.

Here’s the deal, though. My categorization of Democrats, in my answer, would be consistent with my sincere, heartfelt beliefs about most of them. I would be willing to bet large amounts of money that most Democrats resembled, in substance as well as in form, my description of them. Particularly when we start discussing what motivates Democrats, as opposed to how they prioritize things or what they actually want done. When I start to speculate on what it is that Democrats really want, a lot of what I have to say about them is actually pretty positive.

For example, I would never say “Do you want racial harmony, or do you want black people blaming white people for their failed attempts to get a job, and white people blaming black people for their failures to get promoted at work? If you want harmony, you should be a Republican.” Yes, racial harmony will elude us as long as we’re all compelled to subsidize a government that creates artificial barriers for some and confers special privileges upon others, based on skin color. And yes, Republicans (sometimes) show better promise at ending those kinds of policies. But I’m not going to sit there and imply that Democrats actually want the racial strife that their left-wing lunatic policies invariably create and sustain.

Does Jimmy Carter, down to his very core, believe that Republicans favor more war, government helping the rich, destroying the environment, engaging in torture, and starting each child’s life $28,000 in the red?

Well, that gets down to the title of this post. Was Jimmy Carter born a delusional pinhead, or has he been working at it his whole life?

You know, it wasn’t so long ago there was a lot of popularity involved in decrying how Republicans and Democrats couldn’t find common ground, they just couldn’t see eye-to-eye. It was very fashionable to complain that Republicans couldn’t recognize how Democrats wanted the same things they did, just had different ways of going about doing it — and vice-versa. We were directed by our media elites to be “tired” of the “gridlock” and “obstructionism.” The prevailing sentiment was that we’d all like to have a bloody Tuesday and fire the whole lot of them (although, after 1994, we never actually did it), because we were so exhausted from watching this continuing failure to get together and join forces to get something productive done.

And for this, we were supposed to be blaming Newt Gingrich.

Can anyone read the above and give me a sound, logical reason why we should not be blaming Jimmy Carter for our leaders promoting their own party politics at the expense of getting along? Because if you’ve got what it takes to negotiate and find common ground with some pinhead who sincerely believes you want to make more war, destroy the environment, and ruin little kids’ lives, you’re a far better diplomat than I am.

Update 4/8/06: Great minds think alike. Yesterday, April 7, the day this post went up, Neal Boortz made the same observations I did that Jimmy Carter is looney tunes (link goes to his home page; for some reason Neal doesn’t have a permalink for this post, you’ll just have to go looking). He engaged in the intellectual exercise I deliberately chose to avoid, which, now that he’s displayed the fruits of his labors, looks like a lot of fun. Might even be habit forming.

Now come on, folks. Does this sound like the type of reasoning you would expect out of someone who was once the President of the United States? These are the ravings of a person incapable of rational thought. Actually, this little story about Carter talking to a 16-year-old makes us shudder at the thought of how much more damage this man could have done while he was in the White House…

Ok .. now let’s turn Neal Boortz into a Sunday school teacher.

A young lady, she was about 16, approaches me in Sunday School and asks me about the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. I asked her how much time she had. “Not much.” she said. “Keep it simple.”

I asked her if she believed in the concept of individualism, and the right of an individual to live with personal and economic freedom. Then I asked her if she would fight to defend those freedoms, or if she thought it would be better to live as a slave rather than fight. I told her that if she would fight for her freedom and the freedom of her family, then she should be a Republican. If she would rather live as a slave, then she should be a Democrat.

I asked her if she believed that government should treat all citizens alike, or if she believed that government should take take stuff away from those who prosper because they work hard and make good decisions, and give that stuff to people who aren’t willing to work hard and who put no thought into the consequences of the decisions they make. I told her that if she believes in punishing behavior that improves our society and our economy, then she should be a Democrat. But if she believes in rewarding the behavior that builds our economy and enhances freedom and economic liberty, then she should be a Republican. I fact, she should be a Libertarian.

Then I asked her if she believed that saving a life by force-feeding a person who is trying to kill themselves with a hunger strike is torture, then she ought to be a Democrat. If. she believes that keeping that person alive is the right thing to do, even if it means making them eat, she ought to be a Republican.

I asked her if she believes that when the sun gets hotter the earth’s atmosphere will get hotter also. If so, she ought to be a Republican. If she believes that the sun getting hotter can’t possibly be responsible for the temperature of the earth rising a degree or two, then she ought to be a Democrat. If she believes that humans should be wiped off the face of the earth in order to save it, she ought to be a Democrat. If she believes that mankind has a place on this earth she ought to laugh at Democrats.

Then I asked her if she thought that her child should start life owing about $28,000 to cover the debt of her government, then either the Democratic or the Republican party would work pretty well for her. If she thinks that government ought to be limited and should cost a lot less, then it’s time to look into being a Libertarian.

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Born A Pinhead, Or Worked At It?Friday, April 7th, 2006

Born A Pinhead, Or Worked At It?
Friday, April 7th, 2006