joe wilson is afraid of illegal immigrants getting a hand out, later, asks you for some fast cash...

to give those who don't know yet, a little bearing on this story, the other day during president obama's speech on healthcare reform, the republicans trumped their own low (which was saying that the president urging kids to stay in school crosses some sort of boundary of political decorum). republican representative joe wilson of south carolina (which i think is now only allowed to remain a state out of sheer pity) stood up during obama's speech, precisely at the moment when obama was pointing out that universal healthcare doesn't mean that the US will pay for the entire universe's healthcare, and yelled, "YOU LIE!!". good one, wilson. with that kind of witty repartee, how could south carolina resist electing him? what a silver tongued charmer.

it's come to this, has it?

our political debate, once held to some degree (i said some) of dignity, and decorum, and the maniacal ranting left to pundits, and the loud mouth q publics who listen to them, has degenerated into shouting absurdities at one another in the forum of the very debate.

at first one figures, 1,000 page healthcare bill, the average citizen won't read it, but certainly they might get an accurate clifs notes from some media outlet. then it gets a little more grim, when we come to find that the media has not read the bill either, but still reports and opines to the citizenry as though they have. but the whole shebang really falls off the rails when it becomes quite clear that the politicians who get paid to read this stuff, either haven't done so, would rather act as though they didn't to serve their own ends, or simply don't have the reading comprehension skills to digest what they have read.

to steer away from the joe wilson comment for a moment, i recall hearing a lot of bitching and moaning about the length of the healthcare bill, as well as some questioning as to whether politicians can even be expected to read such a leviathan.

to respond to both of those concerns: there are 300,000,000 people in this country, each with a very different health and wellness situation, let us consider ourselves lucky that the bill wasn't 300,000,000 pages long. this is healthcare reform, after all, and it is a complicated issue to begin with, let alone when we begin to discuss reforming not just the system, but the coverage for every single person in the country.

as to whether politicians can be expected to read a bill of such girth, short answer: yes.

long answer: that is literally the job of a politician. what exactly are you doing in your office all day if not reading, writing, and analyzing political documents? that's exactly what we voted you into office to do. so somehow these fucks have time to sneak in a few tweets during the state of the union, and a long weekend at martha's vineyard once a month, but don't have time to knock out a few pages during their lunch break? as i said before, it is literally their job to do so. don't tell me it's too long, you owe the american public, at the very least, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week on the job, so shut your office door, and get reading. the fact that politicians get to take vacation time to begin with simply blows my mind. the world does not stop, if it did, don't you think it would be a lot easier to negotiate a state of world peace (hey, everybody, can we just call a time out for like, the rest of eternity? i want to go on vacation)? it's all well and good that people like ted kennedy can be in office long enough to recall that time that a dinosaur got loose on the floor of the senate, but i think that we must consider term parameters as not just a good way to kick out the bad apples before they do too much damage, but as a way to let the politicians, even the good ones, get out of office for a while, since, as far as i'm concerned, they should be working with the people and for the people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, until such time as they are not re-elected, or they decide not to put themselves up for re-election. instead our government is peopled with slackers who are in the office usually between the hours of 10am and 2:30pm on monday, tuesday, and wednesday, approximately 30-35 weeks a year, and complain that the healthcare reform bill is too long, that's real hard readin'.

then we get into the halls of debate, and it's much much worse. grown men, i mean god fearing, adult, wealthy, white men, debating(?) by flipping novelty sized presentation cards covered with comical caricatures, and punny sloganeering, rather than facts and well thought out arguments. we allow as reasoned debate, stories about how little jane doe with the toeheaded child, was struck with lupus and had to miss work, and won't you contribute to my campaign? anecdotes about how when they were a child they used to love playing with their pet turtle, skippy, and why do you hate jesus and want america to die? complaints about how this 1,000 page bill full of words and numbers and bullet points, and lord, the legal mumbo jumbo, is not exciting enough to read through, but here's our team's bill, it's a one page accordion style pamphlet (3 flaps, mind you, so you know we're serious), full of nothing more than 2 or 3 word catch phrases, and some clip art that the cute new intern cut and pasted between lunchtime handjobs. she's real good at that photoshop, you should see the cans she pasted on that picture of pelosi from last nights address, big as her head, man, big as her head.

just when you think it can't get any worse, the whole ordeal dissolves into people standing up in the middle of speeches, speeches, mind you, not even debates, and blurting out obvious misinformation, like, "you lie!". so articulate these politicians, these days. and what serves as an apology is a poorly written, mechanically read,1 minute and 35 second teleprompter session in which wilson tries real hard to pretend he knows how to read, and ends in the offender asking for money?

well, i'm not planning on asking you for money, but i think it's safe to say that we can wrap this up right here. it has been proven once again that anything we do as a species is driving by one singular motive... money. and it has reached the point that we don't even hide this from each other any more. like wild invalids, we struggle to grasp what it means to even be alive, and attempt to create some semblance of the human condition through a series of violent, frightened or territorial outbursts, in between which we cower in mortal fear or out of shame.

so what really separates us from the wild invalids? technology? religion? politics? sure, but at the heart of all those ideas is but one simple thing: money.

and if you think different, allow me to assemble a well thought out rebuttal...

YOU LIE!!

on the heels of the success of "doctors without borders", africa experiments with "unstable war torn dictatorships without borders"

i smell another "journalists without borders".

ahhh, i love the smell of empire building in the morning. i think that we have a skewed view on the subject. for one thing, our history classes frame the ancient empire builders (the persians, the greeks, the romans, the egyptians...) as though they were hollywood movies, and who are we to know the difference? we take our teachers to be vendors of the objective truth, and how many of our hollywood movies are based on the stories we hear in social studies and history class?

as for the modern empire builders, well, we sort of gloss over the british and the dutch. i'm not sure why. at one point the entire indian subcontinent was owned by a british import-export company. not to mention the disasterfuck that was made of the african continent by the brits, the francs, and the dutch. then there's the pathetic attempt at an arian empire by the germans, which often gets overshadowed by the holocaust that ensued. then of course, there's the USSR, which will always live on in american history books as a faulty, illogical, and oppressive regime of maniacal james bond villains.

but what of the existing empires?

what about the good ol' US of A-holes? who, of course, are never even whispered about as an empire, for fear of being strung up on charges of treason, or domestic terrorism. but given the facts, who could deny that we are the classic empire builders in the vein of the romans, or the east india trading company? and are we not failing? i find it hard to swallow an opinion to the contrary.

then there's the EU. which is so trendy nowadays, as to never be referred to as an empire, but essentially pushes around smaller european economies by denying them entry into the union until their economies are of a certain standard, or face the fate of being crushed under the weight of a booming economy based in seemingly fabricated monetary values (if the euro is worth 1.5x the dollar, and a candy bar costs $1 why would it cost €2.50? secondly, i don't care if the entire continent has the same pictures on their valueless paper and metallic baubles, each country is still an independent economy, and thus the euro should be far more volatile).

there is a lesson to be learned in all this: empires fail on the grounds of a basic human lack of empathy for the population as a whole. the building of an empire in and of itself breeds a lack of empathy in those lucky enough to be on the builders team, and not one of the populations being bowled over. meanwhile, the people being absorbed (to put it lightly) by the empire, are prone to a bitter resentment for the culture that annexes them like so much consumer inventory, if they even survive the ordeal.

so who will africa look to, when workshopping their new borderless empire?

granted, they've already got a few groups of cooperative nations. take ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States), for example, a place i recently visited, a place that it's citizens hardly know exists.

upon arrival in accra, ghana, i found that the immigration checkpoint was broken into three lines, "foreigners", "citizens of ghana", and "citizens of ECOWAS". as it was very early in the morning, only the "foreigners" and "ECOWAS" lines were open, yet there was much confusion among those of us offloading from the flight. there were people i knew to be nigerian, togoan, and côte d'ivoire(ians?) waiting in the foreigners line, when, in reality, only myself, and perhaps two others actually needed to be in that particular line (ECOWAS includes those countries, as well as ghana, and 11 additional countries in the "armpit" of the african continent). in addition, there was some confusion among the ghanaians as to how they would get back into the country, there being no line open for them. if the citizens of ECOWAS don't even know that they are citizens of ECOWAS, how can we consider it a successful union of nations? perhaps on the grounds of the philosophy, "a job well done, is a job you didn't know was done". but that hardly seems appropriate when dealing with overt international political and economic relationships.

during my stay in ghana i discovered that there were many people who had a particular kind of tattoo. the lucky ones had them on their arms, but i was told of some unfortunate enough to have them on their faces or necks. the tattoo was of the individual's name and village, and it wasn't so much tattooed on them as westerners would think of a tat, but stitched through their skin with ink soaked needle and thread. why would they do this? well, one of the reasons we might be more comfortable with is that children are often expected to be independent much younger there, and given that people will make mistakes, or forget things, and that children often simply don't have the life experience to work through a problem caused by a mistake they've made (a wrong turn on the way home, a missed curfew, etc), the tattoo would hopefully help the child find help getting back to a family member. the more disturbing reason for the tattoo is the human trade industry. in the bitter irony of a group of nations once victim to european and american slave trade, the international human trafficking business is still booming in africa, especially amongst neighboring nations (ghana and togo and nigeria, for example). the tattoo could be seen by a border official checking a car for contraband, who could then arrest the smuggler, and return the child to his or her home. as disheartening as this is to think about, i think it is absolutely something that needs to be considered when discussing the dissolution of international african borders.

what about the civil rights issues? not just among countries that have known human trafficking issues, but toward countries that still enslave their own for diamond, coal, and gold mining? for those that kill their own over tribal and cultural schisms? what about the sanctuary of refugees? what about countries that are "functioning" democracies, and those that are functioning democracies, and those that are still essentially under dictatorships? what about the arab nations, who exist on the african continent, but are light years apart from the majority of african tribal cultures? what about countries that are considered international threats? do those hoping to affect a change in a particular african region through military action risk going to war with every nation on the african continent? if so, do those african nations who wish to remain neutral, or who agree with the foreign opposition to a region's actions risk forced enlistment? civil war? internment camps? holocaust? how does such a large population of people reconcile the differences between tribal and urban life? what sort of representation would they receive in the UN? what would come of the representation that already exists within each of the existing nations? could bono kiss that many babies?

what of the war? how many would have to be fought before any sort of settlement could be reached?

what about the economy of a nation like zimbabwe? who's dollar is trading today (8/7/09) at 0.00000003 US dollars. meaning that if you went to the forEx in zimbabwe and handed them one US dollar, they would hand you 37,410,030 zimbabwean dollars. so for anyone that still has an unfulfilled fantasy of rolling around naked in a million dollar bills, you could make that happen for 2.6 cents american, if you don't mind those dollars having robert mugabe's face on them (just kidding, they don't have a $1 bill, how pointless would that be? they do however, have a $100billion bill, awesome!)

this is not even to speak of the horrible schizophrenia that has festered in a group of cultures rocked by western religious missionaries for so long that they give their children names like prosper, godson, godwin, verdict, and virtue because they read them in the bible. this group of people has arguably the most adherent populations of any in the world to both christian religions, muslim religions, and tribal religions. how does this play out in one united africa? religions are notorious for killing each other for no good reason (religion, itself, is not a good reason). nor does this post speak to the language barrier in a place where within on small country like ghana there are 13 completely different languages (let alone dialects). how does that play out in one african parliament (or council, or congress, or what have you)? nor does this post speak of the great number of nations on the continent, and the individual governments' international relationships within and without the continent with things like ECOWAS, SADC, EAC, the League of Arab States, OPEC, WTO, the UN, the EU, UNICEF, FIFA, and various other international organizations, as well as specific, individual non-african countries.

i will say it again: disasterfuck.

you know, it might seem quite to the contrary, but i hate to bring this downer stuff about an idea like continent-wide african prosperity. and what would be better than one world population living together as one? imagine all the people...

but humans have faulty wiring. it takes far too much resistance to inborn tendencies simply to get a family of 3 or 4 to live together in harmony for the standard 18 years or so until the kids move out, or the parents just say, fuck it, i want a divorce. we've had great ideas before, democracy, communism, socialism, moral barometers through ridiculous religious stories that are accessible to children, free market capitalism, free education. but what happens? money gets in the way, power gets in the way, fear gets in the way, people start touching kids, greed breeds deceit, law breeds lawlessness, desire breeds immorality. we just don't have what it takes right now, as a species, to pull off something with this kind of scope.

it would take not only an organized, pure, functional, prosperous, and peaceful society in each and every last african country. it would take an age of enlightenment so massive, and sweeping, that there was an absolute and impenetrable wall of virtue surrounding each and every african individual's life. what's more, it would take an age of enlightenment so massive and sweeping, that every last one of the world's nations outside of the african continent would be able to just leave africa the fuck alone, if they succeeded in doing this. for non-african nations too not cower in fear, encroach upon them, or threaten to cripple them or shut them off from the rest of the world because we felt that their way of life was a threat to our way of life, because an entire continent of once disparate nations, now prosperous and at peace, somehow posed a threat to all-you-can-eat salad bars, 15 minute oil changers, and designer jeans, or to wine appellations, organized soccer, and men wearing scarves, or to smog choked industrial districts, seizure inducing commercials for happy good time shrimp flavored soda drink, and the eternal oppression of tibetans.

yes, i think that one world at peace is a fantastic idea, but i leave you now with the words of a great poem (translated to modern english), words that have inspired one of my favorite books (you'll figure it out), words that have inspired this post, and my life in general:

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

-from to a mouse, on turning her up in her nest, with the plough by robert burns

in re:

defeating "politics as usual" means giving up politics altogether, says sexy alaskan fish monger

why does sarah palin continue to be the most amazing source of ...well, amazement to me?

the s(ex)y governor, who is apparently now a professional clam digger and fish monger, has made her official soundbyte raison d'être for giving up the governorship. apparently, remaining governor would just be politics as usual. hmmm. now i'm no politico intelligencia, washington insider, wall street fat cat, but something tells me that politics as usual, or politics as unusual might just involve some sort of politics. and correct me if i'm wrong, but being a governor is a pretty good place to start, especially if your life story involves being second runner up at a miss alaska competition, failing out of 3 or 4 colleges, losing a bid for lieutenant governor, and two miserable years as the mayor of wasilla alaska.

now, you've got to be pretty dense (like, even denser than sarah palin) to think that palin isn't doing this as some sort of shenanigan to keep up her face value for a presidential bid, but that she is dense enough to think that adding "quit job as governor. didn't like working in politics" to your resumé is going to help her get the most important political job in the world sets the density bar to unfathomable heights.

but what can you say? the woman is a maverick. a maverick who thinks that even though she ceded the governorship, she is still the queen of alaska. at best, she is now a community organizer. however, if the footage i have seen is correct, she is down at the docks busting crates for the deadliest catch crew, and shiva help us if she starts applying her maverick outsider ideas to that job.

"why do we keep trying to float our boats on top of the water, and catch the fish from above? my administration plans to go to australia, and tunnel through the earth. if my calculations are correct, we will break ground somewhere in the arctic sea. then we sneak attack those joe fish sticks from underneath! hoo-yeah! ya see? those three piece suit bureaucrats are still doing things the old fashioned way, but i'm just a regular ol' ice fishin' hockey mom, and it was those fundamentals, applied in reverse, that're gonna bag my administration the best catch in decades. ya see america? i wasn't building a bridge to nowhere. i was building a bridge to the other end of my reverse fish tunnel."

meanwhile the guys at the dock are spreading the word not to mess with the hooker who's standing on the pallet jack, talking to herself.

in re:

god shines her light on me, despite my constant blaspheming. i still don't believe in you, but i read your sign loud and clear, you sexy, sandaled, tetragrammaton, you!

as soon as i published my sarah palin brainCandy post, the confirmation page popped up to let me know it had been successfully posted, and that confirmation page always has a window in the corner with fun facts, and hints about how to manage a blog (getting ad space, formatting techniques, etc.). this time, however, it was not a blogger based how to note, but an advertisement. an advertisement for what you might ask?

SarahPAC.com!!!!

yes! ladies and gentlemen, saraPAC.com (not even organized enough to score a .org) is sarah palin's political action committee ("note: not authorized by any political candidate or candidate's committee"), which not only pushes an official agenda (i assumed, originally it was unofficial, based on the legal small print i just quoted. then i read their mission statement, included below...) to make sarah palin the most powerful politician in the universe, but also contains a link to thealaskafundtrust.com. now, some of you may think, "the alaska fund trust, that sounds like some sort of fund or trust to benefit the state of alaska, somehow." wrong, egg head! quit thinking with your brain, poindexter! thealaskafundtrust.com is actually a fund to help pay for sarah palin's legal fees, which she is accruing due to her litigation of people who tease her for being a dumb hypocritical bitch, or generally for protecting the dirty dirty secrets she is afraid will leak out of her closet if enough people bang on the door. i for one can't wait for the shit storm that will ensue when this all comes to a head.

this was so priceless, that i feel like i just have to get up, get out, and tackle the world. so i will leave you with sarahPAC.com's mission statement, and be on my way. happy fourth of july, people! this is what america is all about:

Dedicated to building America's future, supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation.

SarahPAC believes America's best days are ahead. Our country, founded on conservative principles and the fight for freedom, must confront the challenges of the 21st century with integrity, innovation, and determination.

SarahPAC believes energy independence is a cornerstone of the economic security and progress that every American family wants and deserves.

SarahPAC believes the Republican Party is at the threshold of an historic renaissance that will build a better future for all. Health care, education, and reform of government are among our key goals. Join us today!

Please note: There are many websites claiming to support Sarah Palin. SarahPAC.com is the ONLY political action committee authorized by Sarah Palin.

guantanamo prisoner torture outsourced to palau. pork legislation has nowhere to hide, now that we can hunt it in national parks. wait...what?

hey, look, i like obama as much as the next liberal progressive democrat, but i think it's time to face up to one big fact: he ain't as great as we think he is.

bottom line is, politicians are politicians, and now that campaign cycles begin the day after the most recent election (the only competition longer than the NBA playoffs. at this rate the 2010 season will start sometime in 2016), buckle up and prepare for a whole lot of idling in the garage until the US breaks down into independent, poverty stricken, war-torn stans, republics, and soviets, like the USSR. what? them again? no. us, this time.

and now that iraq has more money in the bank than we do, get ready for a 40 year run of aziz bond movies, in which an international militant of mystery repeatedly saves the world from total destruction at the hands of over-the-top american stereotype villains with cool scars over their eyes, all the while having tawdry affairs with conveniently named women like "skimpi burkha"; wooing them with lines like "let's liberate you from those wet clothes and rebuild you with a democratically elected interim shirley temple (no drinking there, and all)", "i've got an IED in my pants and i want you to drive your hummer over it", and "let's go back to my place, so you can occupy my former arab dick-tatorship".

"it's a good day to die, vice general greenspan, and it looks like it's time for you to cash out." oh my god, somebody make this movie!

wait...where was i?

oh yeah. less progress, more of the same. a good slogan for miller genuine draft, perhaps, but we're trying to run a country, here. so, what's new? or should i say, what's old? aside from the fact that this financial bailout is all happening with the same players and the same playbook as the bush administration's financial fumbleruski (again with the russians?), which is how we got in this mess in the first place (well, in the first place, we deregulated the banks, well before w got his grubby mitts on the country).

what's old is that obama, while making some strong and progressive moves, is no golden god, and it shows. don't get me wrong. i love the guy, partly because elmo would seem like a great president compared to w, and partly because he is making some strong moves toward a better US (that is just the opinion of this liberal progressive, however). but like i said, politicians are politicians, and at the end of the day, mr o is a politician.

let's discuss guantanamo bay, shall we? ok, so it's going to be closed. hip hip hurray! so what does that change? not a damn thing. all those prisoners are going to be sent to other prisons. look, the important thing about guantanamo is that we stop using it to hold prisoners without fair trial, and stop using it as a dungeon for sick and perverse modes of "information extraction". the prison itself isn't the problem. it's not like it's built on an old cuban revolutionary burial ground, and the ghosts of che's army are returning from the dead to torture people and refuse them due process. the important thing is not the empty gesture of closing the prison. the important thing is that we prove that we've learned our lessons. so we've stopped torturing (so i hear) and we are going to start putting these people through the court circuit (one would hope), so why do we need to start this argument about where to keep them, and whether or not regular, stateside maximum security prisons will be able to hold these super powered evil geniuses? just leave guantanamo open and stop treating it like thunderdome.

let's discuss progressive legislation. i don't know where everyone got the idea that, if elected, obama would legalize pot, and gay marriage, but apparently those ideas got out there in the ether, somehow. neither of those things is going to happen. look, obama said he wants equal rights for the lgbt community. but never did he say that, without following it with that fine print item: i believe marriage is only between a man and a woman. he may have said that he would be willing to open a discussion with the pro-pot folk, about the state of marijuana policy, but he never said he was even going to try to legalize it. in political speak, "open a discussion" could very well mean he invites them to stop by his office so he can tell them to fuck off, in person. but it's so deliciously vague, that it's pretty much assumed by the rubes that it means the flood gates are open and everything's coming up milhouse. we need to understand that there are going to be a lot of things that we thought obama was going to do, but unless he said it specifically (and in many cases, not even then) we're living in a fool's paradise (perhaps my 420 savvy readers are more comfortable with the term "pipe dream"? then again, maybe some of my lgbt readers are more comfortable with that phrase, too...).

let's talk fixing the mess we're in. i pointed out the non-progress of the financial bailout already, as well as the guantanamo affair. but what about the other turds w left on the white house lawn? we've renamed the mission in iraq, but the "exit strategy" is nothing of the sort, and in fact, aside from the name change, it's essentially the same plan w had laid out by the end of his term. so let's chalk that one up to another empty gesture. about GM... you know what? we've been over and over this. my problems with the GM plan were discussed explicitly in who needs capitalism... (06-01-09). about healthcare. somehow the terms universal, and socialized keep getting copy pasted to the front of his healthcare plan. this idea has a snowball's chance in hell of coming to fruition. which brings me to my next point.

mr pork slayer, mr lobby buster, mr transparent, himself. b to the o. transparent, maybe. he certainly seemed to be on tv a lot during the first months of his term, apologizing for things, taking the blame for things, swallowing his pride. so maybe he is transparent. but that's actually a call that history will have to make. as for mr lobby buster, i thought he had his justice league of filibuster proof superfriends to push all this shit through. what happened? every time obama talks about his new healthcare plan, he walks right up to the edge, then takes two steps back. i can just barely make out the health insurance lobbyists hiding behind the door, clearing their throats a little too loud, right before he disclaims the ways in which his new plan won't be universal healthcare, or socialized medicine. and what about mr pork slayer? i think this topic needs to be dealt with via a very sharp left turn, much like mr o did. when it was time to reform the credit industry, mr o sure showed those greedy fat cats and wall street slicksters who's boss. he passed a credit reform and regulation bill that allowed visitors to carry concealed weapons in national parks. shocked and a little thrown off? i was, too. so there goes mr pork slayer, right?

but with those filibuster proof superfriends behind him, at least most of the pork (after this gun thing) will be in the best interest of the progressives out there, right? i can't believe i am about to agree with (gulp) joe scarborough. too many people representing either party is a not a good thing. like bill burr says, humans are not meant to live alone, because when you live alone there's nobody to walk in and catch you doing stupid things, and tell you to put your pants back on and put the scissors away...after you've cleaned them. in a system with occasionally questionable checks and balances, the best way to make sure we don't run right off the edge of the left or the right, is to allow an open forum comprised of a good sampling of all those being represented (remember how we need to add a hispanic woman to the supreme court?). i'm about to agree with scarborough again here (super gulp). the problem is not that there are too many republicans in the government, peeing in the soup. the problem is that there are too many idiots in the government farting on the omelet bar. it just so happens that, at the moment, the republicans are in the majority when it comes to idiot production (i am still in agreement with scarborough at this point...where is this bizzaro joe hiding? you ask. certainly not on morning joe. you have to get waaaaaay deep, to find this joborough. you have to get tavis smiley deep. don't worry, the circus is here to do that for you). the term republican has grown to be synonymous with brain dead ass hat, but in reality, republican doesn't have to be a four letter word. in fact, republican is just that: a word. republicans can be whomever they wish to be, and they don't all have to act the same (dems can do this too). its perfectly ok for a person, regardless of their political affiliation, to use their own brain, instead of borrowing the collective brain that most people plug into when they choose sides. in fact, conservative doesn't, by definition, mean bigoted, whitebread, mississippi mudflappin', truck driving, gun nut (sweet virgin jesus mother mary theresa, joborough, why aren't you this intelligent and introspective on starbucks presents: moaning joe?). this is where me and scarborough go our separate ways, however. joe believes that republican stands for the obtuse idea of conservatism (this i agree with), and that conservatism is a good thing (not always).

i think that it is important to try to keep the intent of the founding fathers in mind (keep in mind, the founding fathers also had a serious discussion over the idea that the constitution they were writing should be rewritten every 19 years, even if it's rewritten word for word, to be a more contemporary, and appropriate document, imagine what an amazing country we would live in...). so if that is conservative, than i am conservative on that point. but as for clinging to their expressed written ideas? i think that we need to keep in mind that the world is a place that is itself progressive (as some of the founding fathers obviously knew), in that it is always changing, with or without us.

to look back at a document written during a time of revolution, building, and rebuilding of a small rogue state, a document that states, "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" and only see the part that says "the right to keep and bear arms" is ignorant. the world has progressed past that place. even if you wanted to look at that amendment literally, it does not give the right to keep and bear arms to random people who like to go out back and shoot stuff. it provides the right of people to keep and bear arms for the purpose of maintaining a well regulated militia. we've got one of those. it's called the US military, and those people have every right to keep and bear arms. if you're not part of the maintenance of our well regulated militia, then you have no right, or reason, to bear arms. if you plan on starting your own militia to overthrow the government, don't expect to be sanctioned or sponsored by the government you plan on overthrowing. rather, expect to receive sanctions (it's different) and subpoenas from that government. if you're planning on building a people's militia to overthrow the government, and you think you will have the legal support of that government, i don't predict your revolution will go well for you.

nevertheless, mr pork slayer, mr lobby buster, mr liberal progressive, the great and powerful mr o, has deemed it necessary toward wrangling the immoral practices of the credit industry, to allow the expressed legal consent of carrying concealed weapons in state parks. why? in case we come across a creditor while we're hiking Half Dome, and want to shoot them in the face?

california calls "no homo", the circus calls california "pretty gay".

alright, california, tough love time.

you think you're so cool, don't you?

well i got news for you, buddy boy: you ain't.

but i'll give you a bit of a break. you're from a large, unorthodox family. i mean number 31 of 50 kids? after the first 13, let's face it, your folks were pretty much phoning it in. you can see it in the name, i mean at first it was like, new york you're named after mom, new hampshire you're named after mom. by the time they got to us it was like, uh, you're named after some amazon person or place...thing. p.s. puerto rico is now called superbowl island.

and lets talk about your folks. all dads, weren't they?

funny that. just sayin'.

i never heard about any founding mothers.

so here we are, a middle child from a large, motherless, religious family... acting out for attention.

if the US were a sitcom, it would be full house, and california would be stephanie. sure she's the hot one now, but stephanie? come on, we can do better than that. shit, in the popularity polls we're running neck and neck with kimmy gibbler, who, for all intents and purposes is, lets say, canada, our annoying neighbor to the north.

i can see them now, ruining our garden party by letting their pet ostrich loose in the yard. 

gibbler, you hoser! get this bird out of michigan and take your stoner boyfriend with you!

and if american history were a sitcom, california is the season where they go on a trip to disneyland. that crap season right between the midwest, where the audience starts to flag, and that last season, where they totally retool, bring in alaska, that weird cousin they never mentioned before, and they all go to hawaii and jump the shark.

everyone hates our season! the disneyland season sucks!

sure uncle jessie and aunt becky share a magical kiss in front of sleeping beauty's castle, while the fireworks go off. but eventually we all go to disneyland and realize, sleeping beauty's castle is like the size of my apartment, there's fireworks every night, and this churro cost me $12.50! this isn't magical at all.

the point is, california's mystique is sort of an illusion.

everyone talks about how great we are for american politics, but oddly enough, no one ever says, "hey asshole, thanks for the reagan administration!" or "you know, nixon really sucked!"

we were a huge part of the political careers of (arguably) two of the worst presidents of all time.

we also get a lot of credit for pioneering environmental standards. but, while we did champion CAFE in the nineties, we also basically threw it out as soon as the auto and petroleum industries puffed out their chests (then coughed up a lung all over LA).

the world thinks we, california, are some kind of gay mecca.

untrue.

perhaps the bay area, but more likely just san francisco, is a gay mecca. on this fact we seem to have a selective understanding of how the world works.

granted we are home to gay mecca. we also do have a large population of open minded, progressive liberals; democrat, republican, or other. but california is a massive place, and disparately diverse in comparison to every other state. we have more people, more cars, more money, and mo' problems than any state in the union. if the bay area was a separate state, do you have any doubt that same sex marriage would have been legalized years, if not decades ago? what about pot? if soCal and norCal were separate entities, norCal's economy would be far less than half what it is now. we also wouldn't have immigration issues with mexico, and soCal probably wouldn't have marijuana policy issues. if the central valley seceded, the rest of us would have to import most of our produce and livestock. if everything south of ventura county suddenly became the people's republic of los angeles, no one would be flocking to bakersfield for the women. i never heard anyone say, "long beach...it's the cheese" or "the hip hop scene in monterey is off the hook." the skiing in san jose is terrible, and you can't find decent network reception in south shore, let alone a booming tech industry.

we've got a lot of stuff going on out here on the left coast (not to be confused with left leaning). when we present ourselves to the world, we pick and choose the things we put on our resumé. let's put it this way: within california, if the dodgers won the world series, you can believe that giants fans wouldn't go around bragging that california has the best team in baseball. and outside of california there are plenty of people who want to be big hollywood movie stars, but odds are, it ain't gonna happen if you move to fresno, or yreka (it's a place). 

so it doesn't surprise me when something like prop8 happens. most of california is not exactly a poppin' lgbt dating scene, and even less of california is generally accepting of that lifestyle at all.

to put that in political terms, more districts came in for mccain in 2008 (24 of 53), than came in against prop8 (19). 

basically, we just tell the world whatever they want to hear about california, like if you move to california you can have a same sex wedding at your sprawling beach front estate, and brangelina and robert downy jr will be there, and everyone will be smoking pot and driving cars that run on unicorn farts, and emit rainbows.

but this isn't any more true than saying, if i just aim my car east eventually harvard will issue me an honorary degree in red sox studies, and i'll eat clam chowder every morning while i ride the subway through central park to my job at the white house.

so if the jig wasn't up on california before, it is now. its a hoax, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

come on over if you want, but we're not enjoying it as much as the rest of the country thinks, that's just our laugh track you're hearing, and most of those people are dead by now.

*no homework tonight.