Big Gulp

Marco "Big Gulp" Rubio (see tengrain at MockPaperScissors) gives us the standard smarmy dodges when asked about Climate Change ("hey, the climate's always changing - what's the big deal?").  That one's bad enough, but the real fun starts when he kicks in on Marriage Equality (at about :45).

And here's the smarminess revealed thru translation:  Marriage (ie; Civil Rights) can be regulated (ie: Denied) by the states.  

For just a moment, let's disregard Big Gulp's total abandonment of a GOP Article of Faith - Thou shalt not regulate - and focus on the fact that he bails on the question with the  typical States' Rights bullshit.  He's saying the individual states have the authority to deny equal protection under the law.  Of course, that's not really news because it's also a GOP Article of Faith that they get to fuck people over at the state and local levels, which they've been doing (whenever they're in power) for a very long time.  And they get to do that again now because they own most of the governments at the lower levels, so they're right back to playing the Nullification card, saying the Federal Gov't ain't the boss of me; you're not my real gubmint - I can do what I want.

But then again, he's not abandoning anything - nobody in the GOP has any more distaste for Regulation than any other Ruler Wanna-Be; they're perfectly down with regulating, but they lie about it by calling it exactly the opposite.  Anyway, he's just turning it inside out, and then he's giving the rubes a little language massage that helps ease the pain of all that Cognitive Dissonance.

Repubs fully intend to regulate the fuck out of like-gender marriage while pretending that that kind of regulation doesn't actually reinforce the Wingnut Notion that a government has the power to restrict everybody's rights for any reason the government pulls out of its ass at any given moment.  So they hafta disguise it.  They Orwellian-ize it - The Freedom To Buy Puppies For Your Grandkids Act.  That should do it - let's see those stupid libtards vote against that one.

In the end tho', it's just distraction.  We need to be given something to argue about so we won't be paying attention to how all this connects up with why it seems we can't figure out some way to deal with the world that doesn't involve bombing every fucking thing in sight.  And why every police and sheriff's department here at home looks and acts exactly like the US military looks and acts everywhere else in the world.

This is what creeping authoritarianism looks like once it gets up on its hind legs.  This is the transition from Nanny State to Daddy State to Bully State.

hat tip = LK