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I love so many of the ironies of the "tea party movement," not the least of which being the metaphorical emulation of a historical event in which our proud and noble forebears were so earnest and committed to their ideals that they dressed up as Mohawks and threw their tantrum while pretending someone else did it. Well, I suppose everything goes in the game of FREEDOM™, although it's not quite the kind of "freedom" one has when one can marry the person one chooses, defend one's country, or be a boy scout, but who needs that kind of communistic nonsense, right?
Maybe I should be one more of those dour, histrionic DNC apologists who's packing their bags and threatening to move to Canada every time some conservative dimwit does a dimwitted thing, but I just had to laugh when the tea partiers hollered "nigger" and "faggot" at passing politicos, because it is pretty damned funny when the raw, ugly core of a movement that claims so stridently to be spontaneous, grassroots, and populist comes roaring, embarrassingly, to the surface. It's just…stunning, when it happens—when fervently backwards haters get caught looking the fool, just like all the "hope and change" messianic crowd look when their anti-Bush Jesus turns out to be, you know, another center-right politician like the rest of his party (Pack your bags, baby, we're moving to Canada, because it's so much better than "Amurika!").
It's ironic for me, as someone with no horse in the race (my party left me in '96 and I'm not interested in being their reliable voting block while they continue to do to my ass what they don't believe I have the right to do in a recognized state of marital bliss). More and more, I don't get why people call themselves "liberals" or "conservatives" (or "progressive," for the wussies who surrender to the right wing idiot language machine and "libertarian" for Republicans who want to smoke pot and sleep around). I believe in the liberal use of government resources where it makes sense, and a conservative use of government where that makes sense—and I'm aware that it's all really about ball teams these days and not anything to do with either classical liberalism or conservatism—but that's apparently not how we're supposed to look at the world. Go team! Who needs pragmatic, reasoned approaches when we're in charge?
So the tea parties clatter on like slightly-dampened Klan rallies, and the anti-tea party people content themselves with their snotty sense of superiority and their snide pride in knowing about semiotics, and the star-bellied sneetches hate them without stars upon thars and so on, and nothing ever, ever gets done.
And, of course, something will happen with healthcare, either way, but I can't possibly imagine it'll be good.
Maybe I should be one more of those dour, histrionic DNC apologists who's packing their bags and threatening to move to Canada every time some conservative dimwit does a dimwitted thing, but I just had to laugh when the tea partiers hollered "nigger" and "faggot" at passing politicos, because it is pretty damned funny when the raw, ugly core of a movement that claims so stridently to be spontaneous, grassroots, and populist comes roaring, embarrassingly, to the surface. It's just…stunning, when it happens—when fervently backwards haters get caught looking the fool, just like all the "hope and change" messianic crowd look when their anti-Bush Jesus turns out to be, you know, another center-right politician like the rest of his party (Pack your bags, baby, we're moving to Canada, because it's so much better than "Amurika!").
It's ironic for me, as someone with no horse in the race (my party left me in '96 and I'm not interested in being their reliable voting block while they continue to do to my ass what they don't believe I have the right to do in a recognized state of marital bliss). More and more, I don't get why people call themselves "liberals" or "conservatives" (or "progressive," for the wussies who surrender to the right wing idiot language machine and "libertarian" for Republicans who want to smoke pot and sleep around). I believe in the liberal use of government resources where it makes sense, and a conservative use of government where that makes sense—and I'm aware that it's all really about ball teams these days and not anything to do with either classical liberalism or conservatism—but that's apparently not how we're supposed to look at the world. Go team! Who needs pragmatic, reasoned approaches when we're in charge?
So the tea parties clatter on like slightly-dampened Klan rallies, and the anti-tea party people content themselves with their snotty sense of superiority and their snide pride in knowing about semiotics, and the star-bellied sneetches hate them without stars upon thars and so on, and nothing ever, ever gets done.
And, of course, something will happen with healthcare, either way, but I can't possibly imagine it'll be good.
