A Revoltin' Development

South Carolina Tea Partiers are gearing up to put on quite a show for us next month.

"The Tea Party" isn't monolithic.  Like most political entities, it's an amalgam - but unlike a "real political party" where the point of the exercise is to cobble together a coalition of interests that's as wide and as deep as possible, Tea Partiers are all about purity.  And I think that means they'll have to keep splitting into smaller and smaller factions as they try to rid themselves of "the non-believers".  Listening to their language, I hear the telltale signs of Fundamentalism taken to the Logical Extreme.
1) Compromise is not an option.
2) Compromisers must be expelled.

So what happens when Fundamentalists start feelin' their oats?
(hat tip = The Firebrand)

Organizers of a tea party convention scheduled to convene next month in Myrtle Beach are fending off accusations that they called for “armed guards” with concealed weapons permits to staff the event. A senior leader of one tea party group in the Palmetto State raised concern about heat-packing patriots amid a flurry of email backlash after supporters of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann announced their intention to hold a straw poll at the event to promote their candidate.
Read more: The Daily Caller

And be sure to drill down into the comments to get a good taste of what's in store for us.

If it was any less tragic, it wouldn't be funny.

Thank You, Firebrand

Wow.  I'm just so impressed with my own bad self right now, I cain't hardly stand it.  Thanks, guys.

Firebrand

Bless Their Pea-Pickin' Little Hearts

From The Richmond Times-Dispatch today:

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign the pledge will be barred from voting.

During a brief meeting Wednesday at the state Capitol, the State Board of Elections voted 3-0 to approve three forms developed by the election board’s staff to implement the loyalty pledge requested by the state GOP.

(hat tip = Wonkette)

It's nuts.  Obviously, the oath is unenforceable unless they can tie an individual's Primary Vote to the vote he casts in the General Election.  It's just a guess, but I'm thinkin' there's a coupla dozen laws in place at various levels of government that are supposed to ensure the Secret Ballot.  Are they telling us they intend to break the law trying to impose a little party discipline?  (insert sardonic Political Crook reference here)

For me, the real problem is the simple fact that anybody in a leadership position would think it's legitimate even to propose such a thing.  Somebody please tell me how this is in keeping with any of the traditions of democracy, in any way, at any time.

I don't vote for Repubs any more because they insist on doing stupid shitty things that make it impossible for me to vote for them.

Give It A Rest Already

Every election cycle - actually, we're well into the Era of the Perpetual Campaign, but that's a different rant - anyway, every election cycle for at least a good 35 years, we hear the same crap: "We need the government to run like a business".  This is the dumbest fuckin' nonsense imaginable.

Think about any business you've ever owned or worked for.  Can you tell me, with even the tiniest kernel of honesty, that that business was operated as a democracy?  Think of the lightest, fluffiest management you've ever worked under; did they put their policies up for a vote?  Good management always talks about "empowering our people" and "soliciting input" on some of the more important issues, but let's be real clear; what's going on is that you're being invited to agree with decisions that have already been made, and/or decisions that will be implemented when the "labor climate is a little more receptive"; no matter what they are, and no matter how they affect you, these decisions are not yours to make.  Your participation in these decisions is always post facto.

Looking for proof?  You find a hundred people who've worked for any private company maybe 3-5 years, and I'll do the same.  We'll ask them all this question: "Have you ever been in a meeting (or in an argument with your boss) debating company policy, where the final pronouncement on the subject has been, 'Yeah well, this is no democracy'?"  I'll pay you for every "No" answer, and you pay me for every time somebody says, "Shit, that's all we ever fucking hear any more."

A business is Top-Down and Authoritarian.  It's run by Powerful Elites, chosen by other Powerful Elites, who form a Central Planning Committee that sets policy and issues commands in order to make the company do whatever Ownership wants it to do.

Are you sure that's what you want your government to look like?

E-Con

Here's another good one from Firebrand:

The Atlantic Cities ran an interesting piece today about corporate relocation battles. The short of it is that states compete with one another to bring in specific corporations by giving away huge sums of public money. Right now, Ohio and Illinois are fighting over the Sears corporate headquarters, with both states offering around $400 million of public money to the corporation. Incentives like these amount to around $50 billion a year in state and local spending.

Companies have been playing this Labor Arbitrage game for a long time, with the emphasis on paying very low wages overseas, and counting on relatively cheap fuel and zero tariffs to make shipping easy.  Maybe they're starting to see that they're causing themselves to have some real problems because of it.  Or maybe they just see that it's time to apply the Principles of Arbitrage here at home in a bigger way.

Unions are on the ropes, so one angle is to propose opening a plant in the Rust Belt (eg), but make sure everybody knows the company simply can't afford to pay union wages, so "If you want a job, you'll have to work for shit - that's the only way - after all, we've got lots of people in Cambodia doing this work right now for 16 cents an hour; you wanna bitch about us doing you a favor at 8-and-a-quarter?"

I think we can look forward to a lot of really shitty things happening as States and Counties and Cities continue to hack away at every government expense trying to find ways to buy those jobs.

Welcome to Pottersville.

A New One

First, I'm lovin' me some serious Wonkette.  They keep coming up with great posts that have very sharp edges.

And B, I found The Firebrand on their blog roll.

Conservatives are pretty shifty in arguments. One moment they appear to be concerned about the poor and how taxes will ultimately hurt them and kill their jobs. The other moment they seem to think the poor don’t deserve anything anyways. Most folks — no matter their political leanings — do not consciously think about the philosophical frameworks that the justifications for their opinions tend to fall in. Although rigid frameworks are probably a bit reductive, they can be useful tools to understand what exactly people are saying. The following three conservative philosophical frameworks can account for almost all of the conservative rhetoric and arguments out there these days. I offer them here to hopefully help those who want to understand and better analyze conservative justifications.

The piece is a good breakdown of three basic formational ideas of what passes for "conservative" thinking these days, and it gives me some good new vocabulary to work with.

A Turnaround

A facebook friend wrote on his wall: "What if all you had today was what you thanked God for yesterday?"

Seems like bible thumpers believe there can be no argument with this kinda crap; that the authority of their faith says it all; that the sheer profundity of their utterance leaves no possibly for an alternative view.

Poor salesmen take this as 'The Stopper' - an insurmountable objection.  Good salesmen go for the turnaround.

What if today, we didn't have all the shitty things that zealots have forced on us in the name of their gods for the last 800 generations?

Just askin'.

Today's Pix

Today's Random Thought

We don't free ourselves by changing the world.  We free the world by changing ourselves.

Dear Gov Walker

Nice ad, Scott. But y'know what? If you want people to stop hatin' on ya, then you'll just have to figure out how to do fewer hateful things your own self. And BTW - what you're doing in this ad is called whining - which is exactly what you spent a good long time and lots of tax dollars railing against. But what really gripes me is that you decided to send your wife and kids out to do your fighting for you. Here's a look at the reactions from YouTube:

Quote

Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Learn and grow evil.

Be Advised

Lots to do for the holidays and such, so I'll have to be away from the blog thing for a few days.

Watch for the new Christmas letter soon.

Have fun and I'll be back as soon as I can get my shit together.

A Short Battle

The War on Christmas is sometimes just a little hard to follow.  What if some Israeli settlers attacked a busload of Palestinian Christians (eg)?

Do ya think that's gonna find its way onto DumFux News? Yer right - prob'ly not. Ma'an News Agency

We Are So Fucked

The logical companion for Perpetual War is the Perpetual Election Campaign.

Simple arithmetic - and thank God for that cuz numbers ain't my thing:  If we get a huge turnout for 2012; something that approaches the 63% level of 2006, it still means the "majority" is actually comprised of just over 31.5% of the people who're eligible to vote.  In most years, that number is more like 23%.

Guess what?  A poll from USA Today/Gallup asking about the 2012 elections shows 70% "can't wait for it to be over".  Worse yet, that number goes to 75% if you're asking people in a dozen states that figure to be the battleground next year.

There's no such thing as "political coincidence".  If something happens, it's because somebody wanted something to happen.  That's not to say the Rule of Unintended Consequences has been repealed - it's only to say  that nothing in politics happens all by itself.  Cause and Effect is alive and well.

I'll say further that no matter what the prevailing sentiment is, somebody's gonna stand in front of it and tell us he's been leading that charge all along, or he'll point to it as an example of what we need him to fix for us.

After a good 25 years of Slimecasting, and Both Sides Do It, and They're All The Same, we have an electorate with no fucking clue what's going on and no fucking way to figure out what's going on, and that gives the smart politcos the opportunity to embrace the suck and turn Voter Alienation to their advantage.

First, you can make it harder for a lot of people to vote by passing Voter ID laws; by cutting back on Early Voting and Absentee Voting; by narrowing the window for voter registration; etc - and by making the process itself even more repellent, the people you're keeping out are less willing to fight to get back in.  Then you only have to concentrate on moving a couple of percent of the "undecideds".

We didn't just turn a blind corner and find ourselves in the shit - we're here because this is where somebody wants us to be.

A Question

If God sides with the Repubs, how come He put so many donkeys in His book?

The Good Samaritan 

Born in a manger

Palm Sunday, ridin' a what?

"...with the jawbone of an ass"

Where's alla elephants at?