Lame

I saw that live. I love that they openly laughed at him. She had another whackjob on who started in on evil lesson plans, and she just flat out threw him off the show.

Joe, to quote from an Adam Sandler movie, ” What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.”

If I was so terrified that my view of the changing world was already outdated and getting more so every day I wouldn’t want my kids listening to smart people either. Let them go through life fat, drunk and stupid.

If parents don’t want to be challenged by their kids or for the hearts and minds of their kids … they shouldn’t have kids.

What’s wrong with his mouth? It moves like a Simpsons character’s mouth.

And this embodies two other things that drive me crazy:
(1) GOP trotting out one of their three black supporters
(2) GOP talking heads rudely interrupting others

@SanFranLefty: I thought it was just a failure to sync the audio and video.

I love his slippery slope argument. We can’t let the articulate, persuasive president speak to kids about staying in school because then they’ll think it’s a great thing and then they’ll agree with him about things like non-opposite marriage. Parents will be powerless against his powers of reason and logic. How will we control our chillin’?

@Just Jamie: I meant the way he talks out of the side of his mouth and how his upper lip flaps.
Not to mock those with speech impediments (but I will in his case) but every time he said the word “marriage” he sounded like the priest in The Princess Bride.

I’ve heard this same stupid, inane rant before, except then it was about teaching sex-ed in schools. Now it’s about whether our kids should be exposed to the President in school. It’s shameful, really.

@SanFranLefty: I was kind of wondering if he’s had a little stroke or something, and has more control over one side of his mouth. It was distracting, though.

And yeah, “The president is popular and charismatic, so we shouldn’t let our children listen to him” doesn’t make any sense, no matter which way you spin it.

@Just Jamie: If parents don’t want to be challenged by their kids … they shouldn’t have kids.

Amen. The dutiful and obedient child is a Victorian-era fantasy, most of the time.

At least now we know why they liked W. They didn’t just tolerate a bumbling, incoherent, belligerent know-nothing, they vastly prefer it; teh smart scares them. There’s a line from the Simpsons, when Jimbo Jones says “this chick’s messing with my mind.”

Why would we want to expose our kids to a great orator, a talented speaker, someone who speaks with great conviction and authority, and who is very persuasive.

Have you all listened to this dude? Your heads should be asploding. All those adjectives up there, those where his words, yet he somehow thinks these are negative qualities, things we should shield our children from.

My head is asploding.

These people live in conservative bizzaro world, where all that is good and admirable is evil and nefarious.

I used to laugh that there was once a political party in the US that proudly called itself the Know-Nothings. But thats what the Republican party is, right now. They are open about it. They have come out openly against compassion eloquence, sympathy, mercy, intelligence, science, tolerance, jesus H christ on a bicycle, what next?

@Promnight: I want Barry to go balls out and challenge Congress to pass legislation making apple pie the official dessert of US ‘Merika and every Sunday Mother’s Day, if nothing else to watch the Republicans go bonkers.

Part of me wonders if this was actually a set-up to show the absurdity of these morons, and the crazee-pants went for it hook, line, and sinker.

@SanFranLefty: We all started at Wonkette, we all love chainsaw, we all love taking hyperbole beyond rationality as a means of making an ironic statement, we have been saying for years that the republicans, that that segment of ouur society that votes republican, that they are retarded, fucknuts, pigfuckers, insane, criminal, morons, idiots, that they are pathological liars, that they are suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance, we have been saying this for years now, most of the time giggling at our intentionally, knowingly hyperbolic, semi-ironic stance.

The problem, I see it as a problem, is that now, truly, literally, a segment of our population, probably about 25%, really, truly, literally, is insane. Individuals in this group are obviously, visibly, babbling, ranting, spittle-emitting insane. The culture that this subgroup lives in, believes in, is an insane, sick, disordered culture. They are not as bad as the Nazis, not yet, not in actual actions, but they are as insane, as disordered, as divorced from rationality, and from normal tenets defining the social bond between people living in our larger culture. Like the Nazis in Germany, they no longer think of all members of their nation as full-fledged people with rights, with the right to be even respected and accorded fundamental human rights.

Anyone who wonders what happened to Germany, how a society, a civilized society, could come to what it did, well, look at us now, because if these people found a leader capable of sizing power, who then told them to load us, you and I, liberals and homos and such, into cattle cars and then into ovens, these people would do it, because they no longer regard us as human, they regard us as an implacable, evil, enemy, no longer owed any of the basic rights in a humane society.

But the problem, I started out saying there is a problem, the problem is, we have been saying “retarded” “insane” “sociopathic” “nazi” for so long, that now that its really, literally happening, the words mean nothing anymore.

What can I say now that would impress with some force and clarity how bad its gotten? Nothing, it sounds just like what I have been saying for 9 years, but this time, its all really really true, its not hyperbole or exxageration anymore.

There is a scarily large segment of our society that has gone insane, in the way that societies as a whole can go insane, and do insane things on a massive, societal scale, like Hutus and Tutsis, like Nazis, like Wahabis.

I am more afraid of my own society, culture, national zeitgest, now, than I was when W was president.

I’m buying a gun.

@Promnight: This is dead on: “Anyone who wonders what happened to Germany, how a society, a civilized society, could come to what it did, well, look at us now, because if these people found a leader capable of sizing power, who then told them to load us, you and I, liberals and homos and such, into cattle cars and then into ovens, these people would do it, because they no longer regard us as human, they regard us as an implacable, evil, enemy, no longer owed any of the basic rights in a humane society.”

It can happen here. This is why the Black Panthers had shotguns.

@Dodgerblue: Funny that, I am planning to buy a shotgun. I want to start a movement, “I’m a Liberal, and I am Armed.”

@Promnight: And RML will be our leader and gun-safety instructor. Ian will teach me and flippin and HomoFascist how to use a cross-bow. About fucking time the liberals got the weapons. Game fucking on.

And they are batshit insane. I’m so used to thinking I’m the crazy one, and then I hang out here or talk to my shrink and we all agree I’m one of the few honest ones who notice what the fuck is going on.

The unresolved question is whether I will curl up and hide under the blankets in the bubble of EssEff or open my coffee shop in Wellington or get on the U.S.S. Ivins yacht w/ my fellow Stinquers…OR stay and fight these motherfuckers. In the words of Zapato “Mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas.” [It’s better to live on your feet than die on your knees.] (no offense to my ghey friends who can’t imagine a better way to die, but I don’t think *that* was ol’ Emilio meant)

@Dodgerblue: @Promnight: Hang on, wait, gents. There was also the matter of WW1; millions killed; the Treaty of Versailles; war reparations that destroyed Germany’s economy; hyper-inflation; the collapse of Weimar; and such as before we get to Hitler. I don’t quarrel with you that there are many of our compatriots out there barking at the moon. To my mind one of the mains problems here is that not enough has happened. By and large people have led fairly safe lives protected and cushioned by a massively wealthy country. Hence the ridiculously sentimental idea that ‘government’ is the problem. And most Americans never leave the country. And most foreign countries are so far away – not counting Utah. We don’t even fight wars here any more: we go invade someplace else and let them do the dying.

Though they make a lot of noise there’s not much heat to this insurgency.

More importantly, I went outside this evening and a blue heron rose from near the new little pond and flew up and away. How awesome is that?

@Dodgerblue: @Promnight: Like David Bowie, “I’m Afraid of Americans.”

@Benedick: Very.

@Benedick: “How awesome is that?”
Wonderfully awesome!

@Benedick: Herons are the awkward ballerinas of the bird world. I love them. And yes to your other comment, which is why I’m on the “mandatory draft for everyone between age 18 and 30 regardless of gender, college, sexual identity, or disability” tirade that is driving Mr. SFL crazy.

SanFranLefty: In thinking about it more, I actually am afraid as to what would happen if DOMA got repealed between now and the midterms.

The birthers were/are fun. The health care loonies are easily dismissed. The teabaggers are so blissfully unaware of how pathetic they look. But if you drive a stake in the heart of DOMA, the nutjobs might actually go totally insane. It’ll kind of be like the Beatles landing in New York for the first time, but the shrieks will be somewhat more blood-curdling. And there will be more gardening tools in the crowd. Some of them may even make Fred Phelps look calm, cool and collected by comparison.

(That, plus the loss of three or four states in 2012, is of course why there would be no repeal of DOMA, ever. In case you were curious.)

@chicago bureau: But if you drive a stake in the heart of DOMA, the nutjobs might actually go totally insane.

Careful with that logic. You could also say the Dems lost the South because of the Civil Rights Act.

@Promnight: it sounds just like what I have been saying for 9 years

I’ve been saying “the only thing we have to fear is the fear of others” since 1981.

@chicago bureau: Fuck ’em. DOMA, DADT, all of it. What are they going to do, secede? succeed [ha!]? Bon fucking voyage, Confederacy. I’ll sponsor my parents for passports back to the U.S Of A. back from Tejas; since they were born in Left Coast states that shouldn’t be too hard. I want my hard earned blue state taxes going to blue states rather than subsidizing idjit mouth breathing breeders in Mississippi.

nojo: You’re right. I fully retract that last WAIT A MINUTE…

But going back to the “America Has Too Many Insane People In It” thesis propounded by Dr. Promnight — the secret is that the idiots were always here. There are idiots in every country in the world, really. Roll around a suburb of London, and you may run into an idiot at the pub. The guy in the second dump-truck in a convoy working the tar sands in Alberta? Idiot. As is the cabbie at the airport in Marseille, that silly waiter in Dubai, and that middle-manager in an Osaka gambling parlor.

There’s a lot of variables, surely. But what is happening here is that the idiots are better organized. Technology has a lot to do with it, I reckon. Remember HillaryCare? The way I remember it, sinking that was a Beltway job. You didn’t see vast crowds of people screaming their heads off as if the world were coming to an end. It was Harry and Louise and a couple of insane flow-charts and POOF. Now, somebody tweets TEABAG THE PRESIDENT and everybody comes running. And they become this mass of humanity with its own momentum until they get more insane by the moment.

I suspect it’s the nature of the thing. You get a bunch of liberals together in a march, and all sorts of insane stuff comes out. I didn’t like the Iraq war, so I went to a march many moons ago — where I was asked to sign up with ten or twelve different causes, each more radical than the first. Town hall guy goes to protest health care, and ends up being convinced that Barry’s a fascist and a communist at the same time.

(Truth? I don’t believe that most sane people who don’t like Barack Obama that much don’t come into it believing that he is Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler wrapped into one. It’s just not possible. And yet the numbers of political science flunkies seems to grow exponentially.)

Like Ma Bureau says, it’s always a good time for people to (in the immortal words of Yosemite Sam) shut up shutting up. It’s the right wing’s turn for that advice, methinks.

@chicago bureau: Yes, the stoopid have always been with us — but the institutionalized pandering is a modern development. I’ve known plenty of crazy lefties, but the Dems aren’t exactly rushing to embrace them, nor do you have anything even remotely equivalent to Rupert Murdoch. The smart money’s on keeping the sheep in line.

What strikes me is how craven the Demrat leadership is — I thought the lesson everyone learned from Bubba was to keep hitting back, but they still prefer to say “deliberate falsehood” rather than “lying bastard.” Sure, the yahoos are louder than before — it’s easier when the resistance is barely above a whisper.

@Promnight: Too late, ese. I shall see your fledging organization as a threat to Gun Owning Liberal Democrats, aka, Liberal Firepower aka the Progressive Rod and Gun Club.

As for shotguns – Mossberg 500 pump action in 12 or 20 gauge (3 in for both. The 3 1/2 in shells will tear your arm off. I use 2 3/4 in shells – less flinching = more pellets on target). A 20 ga with a slug will kill a bear. Cheap – you can get ’em in wal mart along with a hundred pack of shells, paper targets, house brand two liter sodas and a crate of clays* (they stock the biodegradables here) for practice. The Remington 870 is also a very nice shotgun. You can get some inexpensive over-unders, but I’d go with a pump. Fast to operate, up to 5 rds in the tube.

*Also, a hand thrower if you have a trusted confederate; a spring loaded launcher if you don’t. Find a National Shooting Sports Foundation First Shots affiliate in your area for further help or come to the First Annual RML Summer Outdoor Camp in 2010.

ADD: Anyone interested in this subject can PM me on FB and I can give you my dos centavos worth on shotguns, rifles and handguns (both revolvers and “automatics”). Since it’ll be based on personal experience, it won’t cover AR-15s and the tacticool/mall ninja end of gun perversion, but I can cover the seriously practical, utilitarian and value for money stuff.

@SanFranLefty: Ever get so high you’re straight? That’s where we’re at on the insanity scale of this country. We are the Oroborus.

@SanFranLefty: Happens to all the GOP leadership. They get facial hernias sucking Rush Limbaugh’s asshole.

OK, I listened to as much of this asshole as I could stand his essential argument is that Obama is so persuasive and so homoislamofascistic, at some point he will order all the school kids in America to become gay, behead their parents and give all their wealth to Al Qaeda. Now that they’ve been indoctrinated, all Obama need do is wait for the moment to give the signal and the institution of the family vanishes and America is handed over to Al Qaeda in a single deft domestic incursion.

@chicago bureau: @nojo:
And everyone, here is a nonfiction book club suggestion, an important historical sociological work which is right now extraordinarily relevant: Anti-intellectualism in American Life.

Teh stupid is always with us, and yes, there is stupid in England and even France, but the US has always uniquely embraced teh stupid to its bosom and raised it to a virtue, and the book’s thesis is that this is a direct result of the unique christtard fundamentalist christianity here.

Very very interesting stuff, very very important assistance in putting whats going on in historical and sociological context.

@redmanlaw: I want to come to your 2010 outdoor leadership course. Srsly. Maybe Baked can enlist some IDF girls to help out. Oh okay, and some IDF guys for teh gheyz.

@SanFranLefty: I always attributed “mejor morir de pies…” to José Martí, but it’s one of those catching phrases (like “Yes We Can”) that easily catches fire with multiple users.

@The Nabisco Quiver are Go!: Shooting, fishing, camping for several days, plus the opera. Sounds like fun to me. PM me on FB or drop a line to redmanlaw at the gmail. I shall be slain by Mrs RML if the IDF girls show up.

@Promnight:

I’ve been noticing the same thing. For instance, I just ran across this article from 8+ years ago:

Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over

Written on the eve of Bush’s inauguration, it is most disturbing in that most of the (satirical) projections came true. Now, most of the fake “quotes” from RW commentators could actually be real quotes!