By uniting many of America’s social conservatives with corporate conservatives and hawks, Republicans absolutely ruled DeeCee from the election in 2000 until the election of 2006. Now it seems the voters are wising up. Costly failures of the neoconservative Bush administration, both at home and abroad, are no longer being ignored by a majority of Americans.
Furthermore, from what I can see many Republicans, at least in Virginia, have taken a rather strange message from their November trouncing. They seem to think they lost because they weren’t conservative/backward enough. While dismissing the utter incompetence of the Bush neoconservatives from New Orleans to Baghdad, they sound the call for the GOP to turn hard right and step on the gas.
Don’t laugh, words to that effect are being chanted by the faithful as you read this.
OK, go ahead and laugh, but this is not only funny -- it’s also a good thing. If Republicans want to lose control of Virginia’s legislature by continuing to see stubbornness as strength -- as does President Bush -- that’s just fine. If they want to go down with the sinking ship by clinging to unsupportable positions that are weighing them down, I have to say it’s a fate they richly deserve.
Accordingly, here are the five most contorted positions, plus a special Virginia bonus, that are rapidly turning red states to blue. (If I’ve left one out, readers are encouraged to add to the list.) Drum-roll, please ...
SLANTblog’s Top Five Loony Losers for the GOP
- In public schools Bible verses regarding the origin of Earth and its inhabitants should have equal footing with scientific evidence. “Creationism” should be taught in the same way as science.
- Global warming is a myth created by leftwing scientists and tree-hugging crackpots who hate capitalism.
- Pointing out the indisputable fact that in America the rich are getting much richer at everyone else’s expense, or questioning the wisdom of tax cuts for the wealthy, is engaging in “class warfare.”
- Validating same-sex relationships undermines the institution of marriage, because it encourages homosexuality, which is a decadent lifestyle choice.
- With regard to how Congress should pay it bills, “borrow and spend” is more fiscally prudent than “tax and spend.”
- The Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery, because most Southerners didn’t own slaves.
4 comments:
Very good list.
I disagree, and will continue to disagree, with your last one.
Vivian,
Thanks. Nice to hear from you.
Dannyboy,
Without slavery there would not have been an American Civil War, as it happened. There would surely have been rough patches over states rights. There would have been plenty of trouble over any number of issues. But not the war that was.
Yet, when I hear Robert E. Lee called a traitor, I bristle. To me he was a tragic hero, as were so many Virginians. When their home state was invaded, they stood with their state, instead of the USA. That was a dilemma. Calling those who chose to serve their state “traitors” is shallow.
Nonetheless, that war was over money and power, like all wars are. In 1861 in Virginia, the money and power chose to defend slavery. The soldiers, like all good soldiers, did what they saw as their duty.
I agree about the civil war and slavery--but will add that one of the bad things about the civil war is that it sacralized "the union" and gave secession a bad name. The world would be better off at this point if sensible units in the US could get out, to allow good people to get on with solving local problems without the distractions of meglomaniacal invasions of distant countries, toadying up to Helliburton, etc.
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