House of Eratosthenes

The most wonderful thing an adventure movie can ever do — other than make sure the good guy wins — is to offer a fleshed-out psych profile of the BigBad, or, even better, of The Dragon. Tombstone would’ve been a better movie if it spent a few more minutes doing this. But the few seconds it offered was plenty good enough…

Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp: What does he need?
Doc Holliday: Revenge.
Wyatt Earp: For what?
Doc Holliday: Bein’ born.

This week, I notice, the democrat party has gotten itself into a fit. And they really shouldn’t have. They’ve won an election and a clear mandate for their ideas — which they have yet to carry out, even to such a cursory extent as the rest of us can stop arguing over what those ideas are. Maybe they want us to keep arguing about it; they’ve always behaved as if the longer this uncertainty can be carried out, the better it is for them.

But that doesn’t explain why — now, at the end of Barack Obama’s first hundred days — the time has come to convince the electorate that democrats are the right people for the job, and conservatives & Republicans suck so much. Polls, more polls, opinion pieces by Bill Maher, et cetera. What’s the occasion? What’s the point? I thought all this stuff was settled and it was time for that change-we-could-believe-in.

It’s like that boorish woman’s-vision of a worst-ever blind date: “But enough of me talking about me; you talk about me for awhile.” Now that it’s settled that Republicans suck so much and should be driven from power, let us say a few words about how Republicans suck so much and should be driven from power.

Perhaps this is a natural consequence of building a political party around the concept of seeking external validation for one’s virtues. Perhaps it truly is the “Ringo Party”; they’ve got a hole, right in their middle, that they can’t ever fill. They can’t ever seek or find enough approval or validation.

Geez, if it’s that bad, this raises questions about whether these people should own pets, let alone run anything. But why is it especially bad now? The elections are over. Isn’t now right about the best time to, y’know, get some actual work done? I imagine, in a sane universe, the following exchange:

Editor: You again. Whaddya want?
Bill Maher: You’re gonna die over this. I spent all night on it, and it’s so hip and edgy!
Editor: What’s it about?
Bill Maher: (Squealing a little) Republicans suck a whole lot!
Editor: Pass.
Bill Maher: WHAT??
Editor: You heard me. Pass. The elections are over. Where ya been?
Bill Maher: But-but-but…
Editor: Bring me something with meat. Bring me a list of reasons why Congress should pass Obama’s latest proposal. The democrats are trying to fix stuff right now, they’re not running anymore. Republicans suck? What the hell, like I was planning to put them in charge of something? Kid, you’ve gotta learn to figure out what people are thinking, before you write stuff. Now go away, I’ve got an electronic news-zine to get out.
(Maher’s lower lip trembles as he is led out of the room.)

Like that. That would be sane. A time to tell everyone how much the other guy sucks, and a time to show everybody how wonderful you are.

But no. Campaigning is always current. The time never quite arrives to actually achieve anything. It’s always time to talk about it, instead.

In fact, lately the need to champion liberal thought over conservative dissent, has peaked. This creates a mystery, and it is one not resolved by the Ringo Hole. This need for affirmation is an endless, constant thing. It is inspired by a colossal vacuum, and vacuums do not pulse. This is a pulse. What caused the pulse?

I was thinking on this, in my mind’s eye skimming back over the headlines of the last week…and suddenly, it hit me.

The Miss California and Perez Hilton thing.

To an audience in the Miss America community, Miss Cali really blew it. But to the broader electorate as a whole, Mr. Hilton managed to showcase everything that is wrong with the party that just won the elections five months earlier. He’s a piece of degenerate filth — by which I mean, not that he’s gay, not that he’s openly gay, not that he’s out of the mainstream, not that he’s a rebel. But that he’s an intolerant, rude dimwit.

No, not rude; cultured people can be rude. Uncouth. And a few steps beyond uncouth. More than one uncouth person has had it pointed out to him that he lacks manners, he ought to change, people would like him better…and as a direct result has made up his mind to learn them.

Perez Hilton is not in that camp. He’s unrepentant. Worse than unrepentant, even, for unrepentant people frequently desire to be left alone, and in return leave others alone. Perez Hilton exists outside of the mainstream, as one who seeks to re-define that mainstream. He’s a rude, uncouth asshole the same way he’s gay: He aspires to change all the others. The scathing, angry intolerance is simply a consequential outgrowth from that.

I think that answers the question of why it has become, lately, unusually necessary to showcase the supposed dysfunction of those Republicans who aren’t making any decisions about anything anyway. I think Mr. Hilton has dealt the democrat party a severe injury. He’s taken all these things people don’t really trust about the liberals, all the ugliness, the dysfunction, the intolerance, the bad manners, all that hidden, churning anger, and he’s put a great big bright spotlight on it all.

Contrasted with that: Carrie Prejean’s attitude — which, as is evident to everyone paying attention and that’s just about everybody — neatly captures the spirit of conservatism that was so handily defeated at the polls last fall. This question is cultural, therefore the jurisdiction in which it is settled, should be territorial and not global. I not only respect, but support and celebrate the right each man and woman has to decide this according to his or her value system…but…for myself, this is what marriage means to me.

Courage and class. Vividly contrasted against Mr. Hilton’s control-freakishness, meanness, childishness, and schadenfreude. Which one would you like making important decisions about things in our country?

It really hurts, because the liberal’s perception of his own righteousness doesn’t come from within. Deep down, I think they understand they want the same governmental structure as the most despotic regime: Our way or the highway, you don’t have the right to disagree, if you say the wrong things we’ll throw you in jail…et cetera. And deep down, I think they understand the only thing separating them from those despots, is being “right.” All these left-winger Hollywood movies about the hero living in fear of becoming the very thing he has sworn to oppose — that’s projection. Our hole-in-the-middle leftists live in fear of that every day.

That’s why the hole is there. They are godless. Their entire moral code depends on their nobility…and in their world, nobility is unmeasured, or measured only by popular decree. How else could it be done? There is no moral compass, no scripture, no deity, no organized set of values.

Send Cheney Home! And so they always have to campaign. Like the teachers’ pet that is given the job of helping to grade papers — and doesn’t even trouble herself to uncap the pen, instead, continues to sit there chirping away about how she’s the right girl for the job, and how right the teacher was to pick her. While the teacher does all the grading.

This is the supreme embarrassment. We didn’t have an election about who can solve the nation’s problems; we just had an election about who ran the best campaign.

Update: Related: The democrat party just sent me — since I’m on their mailing list — a pitch to contribute some of those Obama-economy bucks their way, so they can buy a bus ticket home to Wyoming for Dick Cheney.

These are the people who made fun of George Bush because one of his generals thought it would make the troops feel good to have a “Mission Accomplished” banner flying on the USS Abraham Lincoln. I never understood what was wrong with that. Now I think I get it: There’s something within what passes for liberal value-systems, within liberal thought-canon, that is stridently opposed to ever declaring a job done.

They live out their entire lives on a turning point. A revolution is always taking place. Today, it’s that our former Vice President is out there…powerless…but sayin’ stuff, and in so doing exercising the very rights as a private citizen that The Angry Left claims to be dedicated to defending and championing. So they want to raise $200 to get him a bus ticket. One simply can’t help but wonder, once that’s done, what comes next. They behave, in victory, exactly the same way a sane man behaves in defeat. Because of that colossal hole.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

I think the word you are looking for to describe Mr. P. HIlton is, “asshole” (or are you merely being too polite to use that term?). Or perhaps the term he used in his temper tantrum “dumb bitch” (I think that’s what he said. I can’t bear to watch it again) would be more appropriate. For him to refer to Carrie Prejean, who demonstrated poise and the the bravery to speak truth to power, the way he did, clearly demonstrates that he is an asshole.

It’s a shame he is invested with any power at all, as he seems to use it to demean his betters.
- sonofsheldon | 04/25/2009 @ 15:15
(or are you merely being too polite to use that term?)

Now, waitaminnit…I distinctly recalled using the term. So I went back and checked, there it is in the third paragraph counting forward from the embedded YouTube clip. In fact, I accused him of being an asshole who aspires to change all the non-assholes into assholes. He is the rotten apple in the barrel, and it comes as no great edification that an asshole is what he is. That is not to say we place a substandard value on your realization that Mr. Hilton is an asshole, it’s a matter of preaching to the choir.

In fact, with apologies to the ingenious Fish Called Wanda folks, we’re nominally inclined to issue a blanket apology to assholes immediately after calling Hilton an asshole. Seems like one is owed…
- mkfreeberg | 04/25/2009 @ 16:02
Yep, there it is, right where you left it, after “uncouth” and before “the”. Not sure how I missed it. I will make an appointment with my optometrist first thing tomorrow morning.
- sonofsheldon | 04/25/2009 @ 17:05
If my eyesight was failing, and that so far was the only thing I’d missed, I’d put that appointment off a little ways.

This is hardly the type of asshole who commands attention from decent people such as you. You can have a long and happy life without seeing assholes like this.
- mkfreeberg | 04/25/2009 @ 17:55
[…] post at House of Eratosthenes, too long to excerpt, on why Democrats seem to have gotten themselves into a fit, sitll constantly […]
- Links « Rhymes With Cars & Girls | 04/27/2009 @ 22:41

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

The Great Big Validation HoleSaturday, April 25th, 2009

The Great Big Validation Hole
Saturday, April 25th, 2009