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Dear Republicans

From the Great Orange Satan:

Republicans: We need to talk.

I know you and I don’t see eye to eye on many things. We hang out with different crowds, we listen to different music, we have different interpretations of pretty much every event that has ever happened from the Big Bang onwards—but I’m worried about you. We, the whole of non-Republican America, are worried about you. Heck, I even know people in other countries that are worried about you.

You can be forgiven for Sarah Palin. I know that was mostly McCain’s fault, and you didn’t have a lot of say in that. His staff looked around for someone who they thought could better appeal to the base, and that’s who they came up with. You should have been insulted by that, but I’ll at least grant that it wasn’t your decision to make, it was his.

But that was 2008, and this is 2012. And the decisions you’ve been making this time around are entirely up to you, and, well … let’s just say that most of the rest of us are pretty disappointed in you right now.

Your first serious non-Palin flirtation of this election cycle was with Michele Bachmann. Really? You could choose from among the ranks of the entire conservative movement, and you said “yeah, Michele Bachmann, I guess.” I don’t mean to be cruel, but that’s when most of us realized that this little ideological obsession of yours had turned into a full-fledged, self-destructive addiction. You’d gone and cracked, right then and there. I realize that you have to work with the candidates that present themselves, and not the ones you’d actually choose on your own, but Michele Bachmann was already known far and wide as, well, a crazy person. She’s Palin, after Palin drank an entire bottle of whiskey and drove her car into the side of a DMV office. She doesn’t have political beliefs so much as she has spasms; everything she disagrees with is elevated to the level of America-killing communist apocalypse. There’s no volume control on that knob. Her sole area of expertise is in the area of hand-waving panic over things she knows nothing about: Ask her for the barest details and she’s dumb as a post.

So fine, that was the first one. First loves are often not well-planned things, though; there’s some leeway there. Let’s look at the rest of your candidates.

Rick Perry.

No, let’s just pause there for a moment. Rick. Effing. Perry.

You’re pulling our legs, right?

Let’s all remember that it was your punditry, your own establishment figures, that pushed hard to get Rick Perry in the race. This wasn’t a case of a candidate foisting themselves upon you, this is a guy you actually picked to represent conservatism. Holy Freaking Hell, Republicans, what is that about? Let’s look at the attributes he brings to the campaign trail. First: dumb as a post. I know I just said that about Bachmann, but Perry forced us all to reconsider that, because compared to Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann looks like the freaking Einstein of conservatism. You know, if you folks believed in atoms and such. If Bachmann is as dumb as a post, then Rick Perry is as dumb as the dirt you dug out of the ground to make the hole to put the post in. He has an I.Q. 10 points lower than composted leaves. We’re talking about a guy whose convictions run so very deep that, on a good day, he’s lucky if he even remembers what they are.

Oh yeah, I’m going there. I don’t care how bad a debater you are, if you say that as president the first thing you’ll do is abolish these three federal agencies that are wrecking the country, but you can’t actually remember what the hell they are, you are stone-cold stupid.

Which brings up the second possibility: That if you can’t remember these three things you earnestly believe in, perhaps you don’t actually believe anything at all, and are just saying whatever your handlers told you to say. I have to admit, that might make for a better representative of conservatism: It worked out just fine for George W. Bush. Bush never cared about a damn thing, he just left everything to Cheney, or Rumsfeld, or Rove. Economy? Yeah, whatever. War with who? Sure, let’s go for it. Freedomz and stuff.

Make no mistake here, I haven’t ever forgiven you for Bush. Listening to that dimwit speak for five minutes should have convinced you what a mistake it would be to let that barely functioning manchild play with the entire free world like it was his personal Jenga game, and his first few public appearances were when you and I parted ways for-freaking-ever. But Perry, now? Rick Perry, who is the dumber version of George Bush? The less principled version? The less eloquent version? If that’s who your leading pundits wanted in the race, if that’s the be-all, end-all conservative savior (emphasis on the end-all, I guess), then who is it going to be after eight more years? A goddamn vase full of geraniums?

It makes you look bad. It makes you look dumb. It makes you look like, well, like a party so thoroughly detached from their mental capacities that they would actually look up to a guy like Rick Perry as being their brain trust.

So Rick Perry launched himself with a fanfare, but was last seen plummeting back through the atmosphere, hair-shield glowing red from the heat, his last words a sheepish “oops.” Bold move, there, and so Herman Cain is your next big thing. Let’s just skip the whole part about him possibly being a sexual predator. I think you’re probably wrong to dismiss those allegations: The list of politicians who have repeatedly denied such-and-such only to be thoroughly disgraced when such-and-such was proven to be true is at this point a very, very long one, and I think your heart is going to be broken on this, but let’s talk about something less contentious. Let’s talk about “9-9-9” for a minute, shall we?

You know what one of those 9s stands for? A national sales tax. Now, he explicitly points that out during every single goddamn debate, so if you didn’t know that, it’s time for a whole separate conversation, so I’m going to assume that you, everyone in the Republican base, are fully aware of it.

Let’s reflect on that. The one absolute in the modern Republican party, the one and only principle, the single Great Rule of Modern Conservatism that may never be breached, on penalty of dark, unspeakable Cthulhu-administered punishments, is no new taxes. Or old taxes. Or half-new, half-old taxes. No taxes of anything, ever. If you raise taxes, Zombie Reagan will rise up from the grave and punch you straight in the mouth. If you even talk about raising taxes, members of your party will start digging up Zombie Reagan so that he can get a good head start.

So here comes Mr. Pizza Executive Guy, and the lynchpin of his entire brilliant non-functional monster-deficit-creating economic plan is to institute a nine percent national sales tax on every damn thing you buy, ever. From cars to carrots, you’re going to pay a new tax of nine cents on every dollar, in addition to all the sales taxes you might pay now. In exchange for that, you get the grand deal of also paying a nine percent income tax no matter what your current tax bracket. (Don’t make enough to pay taxes? You do now, suckers.) For everyone but the top of the income scale, it’s a huge increase in taxes. And the less you make (are you retired? unemployed? gainfully employed, but simply not rich?), the worse off you are.

Here’s my question. How is it that the party that would rather put all of government through a wood chipper than raise taxes one thin dime finds themselves enthralled with a guy proposing the biggest, most regressive, most intrusive possible new tax? Nine percent of every purchase you ever make, you’re not only fine with that, but you clap and shout and say “hell yeah, sign all of us small-government, keep-yer-hands-off-our-wallet conservatives up for that!”

What, are you stupid? The current choice you’re trying to mull over is between a possible sexual assaulter who wants to institute a nine percent national tax on everything you buy, and a guy so dumb that he’d actually sign onto that tax as a good idea if someone slipped him a little blue notecard telling him so.

That’s not a political party. That’s a alcohol-fueled dare gone horribly wrong.

More…

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You Might Be a Republican If…

You think doing these things result in a better society:

  • Elimination of EPA
  • Elimination of Education
  • Elimination of Energy Dept
  • Elimination of Commerce Dept.
  • Elimination of Planned Parenthood
  • Elimination of NPR
  • Privatizing Social Security
  • Privatizing Medicare
  • Lower taxes on the rich, raise taxes on the poor
  • Trying to strip Union Worker Rights
  • Trying to criminalize abortion and miscarriages
  • Executive orders to mandate 12 yr old girls take HPV vaccines.
  • Emergency Financial Manager Law that allows the state to fire city elected officials and install a dictator.
  • Running fake democratic candidates in Recalls

Yeah, Republicans sure do run on a platform for creating a better society! /sarcasm.

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Asshat of the Day – Randy Thomasson

From Joe.My.God.

“This is training up an immoral army of soldiers to attack real marriage, the natural family, and to rope more children into sexual darkness. ‘Queer studies’ teaches you can do anything sexual you want without negative consequences or moral accountability to God, and that you have no ability to choose whether or not to engage in sexual behaviors. This philosophy essentially turns man into an animal, but less than an animal, because beasts follow God’s natural order of sexuality.” – Save California douchebag Randy Thomasson, saying that Queer Studies courses are nothing more than “gay boot camp.”

In the above-linked article, Thomasson goes on to repeat the familiar lie that all gay people were molested as children. Or hate their mothers. Or something.

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Food for Thought

“Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a god somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.” ~ Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), American social thinker and longshoreman

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Apologies

My feeds don’t seem to be updating consistently, so those of you who read Voenix Rising through some kind of RSS reader (Google Reader, Reeder, etc.) are probably missing some posts. Apologies to anyone affected, but at this point I’m not even going to try and troubleshoot it because I do enough of that crap at work and I don’t want to mess with it at home too.

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The Stuff of Dreams

For the most part, I believe dreams are nothing more than the brain’s daily method of defragmenting and organizing data.  I think this explains why in a dream something that happened when you were a child is suddenly juxtaposed with something that happened the previous afternoon.

But every once in a while, I think the imagery in a dream is so profound that it’s nothing short of your unconscious screaming out for attention.  Case in point, the dream I had right before waking this morning.

A little back story: before we left Phoenix, I left all my tropical fish with my sister. Ordinarily I would’ve moved them with us (as I have many times in the past), but since we were initially heading for a hotel, I knew that wouldn’t be possible.

I’ve also learned from past dreams about aquariums and their finned residents is that they are symbols for my general level of emotional comfort and well-being.  When I dream of vibrant, healthy aquariums, I’m usually in a pretty good space emotionally. When I dream of dirty or half-filled green-water aquariums and dead or dying fish, I’m not in the best of spaces.

Last night I dreamt I’d returned to Phoenix to retrieve my fish and three huge, beautiful tanks I’d left with my sister.  (In real life I have just one tank and I gave her only the fish, with absolutely no plans to return for them.)

In the dream, when I first arrived at her house, she was moving fish between the tanks because “they need to get out more.” She was also providing them a daily smorgasbord of food choices.  And she flat out refused to return them to me.

I went to our Mom (who was apparently back from the grave and visiting), hoping to get her to act as arbitrator.  She said, “You’re both adults. Work it out yourselves.”

I pleaded. I begged. I offered money. My sister was having none of it. I went to look at the largest of the three tanks, where my prized fish—three huge, gorgeous clown loaches—were, and when I saw them snuggling up against each other (as they often did), I dropped to my knees and started sobbing uncontrollably. I woke up at that point.

The meaning of this dream is obvious to me.

It’s no secret that I’m still not completely happy with Denver. I realize that we haven’t even been here six months yet, but the symbolism of not even having aquarium(s) or fish in my possession (based on their known interpretation) is clear. (It also doesn’t help that I come home every day to a still-empty tank sitting on the dresser, and I have no idea whatsoever when I’m going to be able to get it back up and running again.)

Secondly, the fact that in the dream my sister was refusing to return these items to me (something she would never do in real life) speaks volumes about her perceived view about my move to Denver. While she has been outwardly supportive, I’ve felt an undercurrent of hostility from the first mention of it, as if she resented the fact that I was giving up so much stability in my life to follow Ben on this adventure—as well as leaving her as the potential sole first-response caregiver if anything happens to our dad.

Or perhaps it’s subconscious guilt on my part that I left her to take on that role?

In either case, this dream shows me that I really need to get my aquariums refilled, both physically and metaphorically…and the sooner, the better.

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Snowvember

We woke up to another winter wonderland yesterday.

But…

When I saw snow on our balcony I should’ve realized this was not going to be like the storm a week ago.

When I went out to the garage and saw the car dusted in snow (even though it was under cover) I should’ve realized this was not going to be like the storm a week ago.

I left the house at 7 am, like I always do. I like to get to work a half hour early so I can take off at 4 pm and miss the worst of the I-25 traffic heading home. I knew it would probably take me a bit longer today because of the storm, so even if it took a few extra minutes it wouldn’t be a big deal; I’d still get there at a reasonable time.

When I pulled out onto Colorado Boulevard and saw that this major thoroughfare hadn’t even been plowed yet, I knew leaving early that afternoon was not going to be an option.

The easy commute I had in the snow a week ago was obviously an anomaly. Yesterday was ugly. Very ugly. I’d driven in snow before moving to Colorado, but never in snow mixed with slush and ice.  This was something new, and I’m here to testify that Anderson (and his owner!) does not like driving in it. Not one bit! On the plus side, Anderson is a front-wheel drive with fairly new tires, but that offered little assurance during the multiple times I found myself spinning the wheels furiously and not getting any traction. I also learned that Anderson’s anti-lock brakes work just fine, especially when approaching a stop light at an icy intersection while going an outrageous 10 mph.

I pulled into the still snow-covered parking lot at work, emotionally exhausted, at 8 am. It had taken me a full hour to go 11 miles. Normally it takes half that.

I’m sure that in time I will adapt to driving under these conditions, but after yesterday I have to say that I was relieved to see that there were no more snow days predicted in the extended forecast.

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