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Saturday, February 02, 2008
Six is a State of
Mind
Listen
to EloiseRachel.
C'MON. There are times when the naif is smarter than the experts. This might be one of those times. Yesterday, I read comments about McCain at a leading rightish blog. The battle raged back and forth between those who swore they'd rather see Hillary in the Oval Office than compromise their principles and those who argued the philosophically less glamorous point that half a loaf is better than none.Today I read a slighly different perspective, notable both for its uncompromising posture and its primitive approach to politics. It's okay to be primitive as long as you don't make too much of a virtue of it, and Rachel Lucas seems to have a becoming awareness of the crudeness of her judgments.
Let me put that more plainly. Rachel is a 35-year-old woman who is, for all intents and purposes, six. Here, for example, is an excerpt of her views on economics:
Rupert keeps trying to explain
economics to me; what causes this or that, all the intricacies. But I
think I’ve mentioned before that I just get turned on when he does that
and never remember anything.
She belongs to no political party. Her views are too pure for that:
I really don’t like writing about
politics; it gets people too excited and punchy. Plus despite popular
belief, I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE. I just don’t like socialists, it’s
really that simple. I don’t give a toss about abortion or religion or
gay marriage. All I want is to pay less taxes and to have my guns, and
that does not make me a Republican.
Well, not completely pure. When she decided to run her dog Sunny for President (we demurred by the way), she sounded way less than liberal in her views on abortion:
Sunny believes that you can eradicate
abortion, along with much child abuse and neglect and poverty, with one
simple program: mandatory sterilization before puberty. After much
research and careful consideration, she perceives that this is the most
brilliant goddamn idea of all time.
Of course, we are not running on the Nazi ticket, so it would be temporary sterilization, reversible upon the individual’s attainment of all of the following:
(1) The age of 25
(2) Completion of a child-rearing course and passing a test on it
(3) An amount of no less than $10,000 in a bank account
(4) An IQ of average or above
(5) An ongoing relationship of no less than 3 years with the potential co-parent
Of course, we are not running on the Nazi ticket, so it would be temporary sterilization, reversible upon the individual’s attainment of all of the following:
(1) The age of 25
(2) Completion of a child-rearing course and passing a test on it
(3) An amount of no less than $10,000 in a bank account
(4) An IQ of average or above
(5) An ongoing relationship of no less than 3 years with the potential co-parent
So, actually, she's like all of us are when we're not trying to be completely rational and consistent. She's -- what's the word? -- spontaneous. Which suggests that like a willful child she also has the ability to cut straight to the heart of the matter on occasion, unhindered by self-destructive intellectual traps of the sort students of various sophisticated disciplines fall prey to. If you were six, how would you view the current presidential race? Something like this perhaps?
Just what in the hell kind of
crack are Ann Coulter and lots of other conservatives (even the
normally brilliant Michelle Malkin) smoking when they say they won’t
vote for him if he’s the Republican nominee? Coulter actually said last night on
Hannity and Colmes that she would campaign for Hillary instead...
[McCain]'s not going to socialize healthcare like Hillary or Obama would. He actually gives a shit about fighting the war against towelheads, unlike Hillary or Obama. He’s not going to appoint liberal activist judges. So what if he thought Alito was too conservative? I DO, TOO...
Don’t get excited. I don’t like a lot of his record, particularly a long list of quotes he’s given about class warfare and taxes. I think he’s nuts to want the Gitmo population put into American prisons. YEAH RIGHT. I think he’s an asshole for things he’s said and supported about gun shows.
And I don’t even have enough curse words in my brain to communicate my opinions about McCain-Feingold. Jesus on a muffin, that is some bad, bad stuff.
BUT.
Seriously, people. Seriously. You’d rather have Hillary? You’d rather have Obama?
I don’t even know you....
Hmph. Honestly, I just don’t even want to talk about it anymore, it’s all so pointless. People want some sort of perfect president and it’s never ever going to happen. Personally, I think we should do away with the position of president altogether; all it is is a popularity contest anyway. And I don’t even want to post this because people are going to bitch at me in comments. McCain is eeeeevvvillll! Bah. What politician isn’t? Pick your poison, they’re all gonna make you sick.
[McCain]'s not going to socialize healthcare like Hillary or Obama would. He actually gives a shit about fighting the war against towelheads, unlike Hillary or Obama. He’s not going to appoint liberal activist judges. So what if he thought Alito was too conservative? I DO, TOO...
Don’t get excited. I don’t like a lot of his record, particularly a long list of quotes he’s given about class warfare and taxes. I think he’s nuts to want the Gitmo population put into American prisons. YEAH RIGHT. I think he’s an asshole for things he’s said and supported about gun shows.
And I don’t even have enough curse words in my brain to communicate my opinions about McCain-Feingold. Jesus on a muffin, that is some bad, bad stuff.
BUT.
Seriously, people. Seriously. You’d rather have Hillary? You’d rather have Obama?
I don’t even know you....
Hmph. Honestly, I just don’t even want to talk about it anymore, it’s all so pointless. People want some sort of perfect president and it’s never ever going to happen. Personally, I think we should do away with the position of president altogether; all it is is a popularity contest anyway. And I don’t even want to post this because people are going to bitch at me in comments. McCain is eeeeevvvillll! Bah. What politician isn’t? Pick your poison, they’re all gonna make you sick.
Yeah, you can snipe all you want. She's in favor of eugenics and she thinks Alito is too conservative. I didn't say she was actually smart. I said she had a knack for cutting to the heart of the matter, and she does. Here's what she's got right. And don't any of you forget it.
Politicians are crooked, bought and paid for, every damn one of them. (Yeah, I, too would like to think that Reagan was an exception, but I'm old enough to know that if he was, the exception was partial and mostly a miracle.) Voting for any politician is a deal with the devil; you're just hoping against hope that the one you vote for has some tiny remembrance of the idealism he confronts in the faces of his supporters when they gather to admire him.
When you vote, you're always choosing the lesser of two evils. And there are degrees of evil. The corrupt, lying, narcissistic, power-mad idiot you vote for just might be marginally better than the corrupt, lying, narcissistic, power-mad idiot he's running against. Especially if one of them is the depraved wife of a depraved ex-President or a snot-nosed cipher too in love with himself to realize that two years of national office doesn't qualify you to run the most powerful nation in the history of the world.
I'm not saying the conservatives shouldn't carp. But Ann Coulter is being an ass. And so is every other conservative who would rather turn the country over to Hillary Obama for four or eight years than vote for a nasty old fart who doesn't hate America as much as every single Democrat in the United States.
I told you how to prevent this. You didn't listen. I told you it would come to this. You didn't listen. I also told you I can't stand him. Now it's time to be a grownup and quit dreaming about what might have been. It's time, in short, to cut the crap and be six.
Are you up to that mighty challenge? If EloiseRachel can do it, you sure as hell can.
