House of Eratosthenes

Rachel Lucas takes the Obamamaniacs to task. It’s a wonderful bit of rightful snarking, the only hitch in the giddy-up being that she’s saved some words for yours truly as well.

You rightly feel no pointless need to burden yourselves with any responsibility for anything – that’s why you vote Democrat – and hell if this guy doesn’t fit the bill perfectly! You’ll put him in office because life’s too short to waste time learning about important issues and understanding the world at large. Oh, it’s so cute, I just want to pinch your faces! Really, really hard.

Hope!

Change!

Oops, sorry – go ahead and go change your panties, I’ll wait. I know how those words make all the blood run from your brain to your nether-regions. It’s perfectly understandable that you’d have a physical reaction at the thought of having your soul fixed by a politician.

But you don’t get all the credit, Democrats. Easy there! – don’t bogart all the glory. You may be the ones giving the Idea-Less Wonder the nomination but you’re gonna have to share some praise with a big chunk of the Republican base once he wins the White House.

See, a lot of Republicans, they HATE the guy who might defeat your Sexy Prophet of the Second Coming. This guy is known as the Great Satanic Eye-Poking Back-Stabber, and enough people will refuse to vote for him – on principle – that it pretty much ensures our souls will be safe and that we can finally be proud of our country again. Those people deserve our gratitude, too.

Well no, speaking on behalf of my fellow rats-off-the-ship, I don’t hate John McCain. I just damn sure don’t trust him.

I’ve written about this already plenty of times. Conservatism can have a shot at staying in, if & only if it re-defines itself through The Maverick. Which means all the classical points of it are done — for now. The personal responsibility, the deliberating about cause & effect before this-or-that social program is put into place. The notion that the individual is a glorious, wonderful creation of nature, capable of good judgments about his own life, entitled to freedom and the ability to defend his family.

People want, as the Obamamaniacs tell us, “change.” I say, go for it. Fight terrorism with a universal healthcare plan. Go ahead and make it prohibitively and artificially expensive to hire new people to a business or, God forbid, start a new business. Give ALL the money and power to our trial lawyers. Take all our guns away and punish violent crime with a finger-waggling and wrist-slapping or two, if you punish it at all. Pay criminals money to not misbehave. Negotiate with tyrants around the world — no exceptions. Let me know how that works out.

Yes, I know I’ll probably be around to see the wreckage in the wake of liberal policies — again.

Yes, I know that since the consequences this time might involve real bombs smuggled in by real terrorists, maybe this isn’t an appropriate time for the “go ahead and run away from home, sonny” approach.

I’m receptive to all these arguments. I agree with them. What I don’t agree with, is that McCain can spare us from any of this grief.

If he says he will, his policies will prove to contradict that.

If he names specific policies that will not, all Ted Kennedy has to do is say “stop” and McCain will do what Kennedy says.

Exceptions to that in history? I know of none.

My vision, you see, is exceptionally dark. I’ve come to think of liberalism is something that people just have to learn about every sixteen to twenty years. When a new generation runs for office, and (probably more to the point) a new generation starts voting, the first thing we have to try is a bunch of dumb ideas everybody already knows aren’t gonna work mixed up with a great big huge gob of emotionalism. I don’t think it’s a wonderful idea to embrace this tragic aspect of human nature; I’m simply unsold on the point in trying to avoid it.

But enough about my snivelling excuses. This one passage from Rachel is solid-gold:

My only regret is that we have to wait so long to install our new messianic overlord; I’m not sure my soul can wait that long for its fixin’. I’m broken here, people, broken!

And what if there’s another big terrorist attack before January 20, 2009? Our current Chimp-in-Chief might do something stupid like retaliate before sitting down with the world around a rainbow campfire and playing folk songs until harmonic convergence is achieved and they give him permission to kill the jihadist fuckers who did it. Can we risk that, America? Shouldn’t we accept the Rapture that is Obama and swear him in now? That way, there’ll only be potential action after possibly determining who might have potentially killed a few thousand people. Maybe. If France says it’s okay. We’ve alienated them quite enough.

Liberals will predictably say that Rachel has represented their position innacurately.

They will predictably be unable to say how.

This is exactly the same mistake we made with Carter and Clinton, and came very close to making with President Kerry. It’s a truism that applies to all aspects of life, outside of foreign policy. If something’s a great idea, there is no need to say “it’s a great idea because such-and-such an outside party likes it” — nor is there any need to say something’s a bad idea because so-and-so doesn’t like it. Good ideas can stand on their own, and so can bad ideas.

If you want to think rationally, you need to think about consequences. We all know this to be true. That’s why this dumb talking point prospers so well when we talk about foreign policy — in that arena, and in none other, the “what’ll happen if we do such-and-such” overlaps sloppily with “who’s gonna be mad if we do such-and-such.”

John Kerry very seldom said he’d actually fix anything, especially with regard to terrorism. I recall his preferred talking point to be that he’d bring credibility to the White House, and make people happy with the things he’d do…or more precisely, make them happy just that he’s him. These were “allies” — outsiders, people who don’t live here, people who can’t vote here and for good reason. Foreigners. And never, ever, once did I hear “allies” qualified as anyone besides France and Germany. The election in 2004 boiled down to this: Who elects Presidents in America, Americans or frenchmen? Answer: Americans. But that was then, this is now.

It’s the year of pretty pieholes. It’s the era of pretty pieholes. Pretty pieholes and bad ideas…bad ideas we seek to justify, not by arguing their merits, but by pointing out some external party would be pleased with them. The era of no-responsibility, bastard child of too-much-comfort and poor-memory. God willing, it will end slowly as we get tired of it, and not suddenly with a crash and an explosion and thousands of deaths and millions of tears.

“This is exactly the same mistake we made with Carter and Clinton, and came very close to making with President Kerry.”

Don’t forget Gore.
- Duffy | 02/22/2008 @ 14:58
Economically speaking, I fear the crash and millions of tears answer may be the correct one. everyone smiles at socialism without ever looking at the Soviets.
- Tom The Impaler | 02/22/2008 @ 15:07

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The Pretty PieholeFriday, February 22nd, 2008

The Pretty Piehole
Friday, February 22nd, 2008