Ignoring Intellectual Incest

I was talking to my wife a while ago about how I am glad I don’t have the kind of posters on my blog that she does. She gets a lot of positive feedback, simple agreements, and kind words. She also gets people who criticize her, but it’s usually drowned out by the bevy of supporters she has accumulated.

And why not? My wife’s a great woman who deserves to have people stick up for her.

Personally, I’ve never sought this kind of feedback. I routinely comment on the blogs of people with whom I disagree, and the people who comment on my blog tend to be those very same people with whom I disagree.

To put it simply: I don’t frequent politically left-leaning or atheist blogs. Well, I sometimes comment on atheist blogs, but I definitely don’t want anything to do with liberal blogs.

Why?

Liberals have nothing intellectual to offer me. I have absorbed and internalized as much liberalism as is humanly possible. I know the arguments, and I am certifiably the most liberal person I have ever met. I’m so liberal… how liberal are you?… I’m so liberal, I don’t trust Obama’s white half. I didn’t vote for Obama, but I would have voted for that African Socialist that Republicans have been talking about for years… if only he existed…

I have little in common with my ineffectual, castrated Femacrat sisters out there. They revel in political correctness, which is about as gay as it gets. The focus is inevitably on the words I use, not taking into account the fact that I support gay marriage, gays in the military, even gays in my living room (I seriously have no idea what color drapes to get…). What a witless war of words these wailing warriors wage.

The thesaurus is indeed underused, but nothing came up when I looked up “faggotry,” and none of them will help me think of a synonym…

Moreover, I have nothing to gain reading the opinions of people who agree with my basic principles, especially from spineless wimps who have been politically impotent for my entire adult life (plus at least two decades prior). As far as I can tell, no liberal has anything to offer me intellectually (though about my drapes…).

Conservatives, on the other hand, are a wealth of novel information. First of all, there are many different types. Whereas there’s only one type of liberal (the “please don’t hurt me, I’m a feckless coward” kind), there are many brands of conservatism.

Yet, what amazes me is that even though there is more diversity among conservative ideologies, they lockstep and work as one much better than their liberal opponents.

What it comes down to is passion. Republicans are the party of passions, and they absorb so many different subgroups. Libertarians, law-and-order traditionalists, gun lovers, extreme fundamentalist Christians, militant atheists, Pro-Lifers, supporters of capital punishment, the mega wealthy, the dirt poor, hard working blue collar laborers, suits who vacation on their own private islands… it’s really an odd cross section of my country, like an American id.

So even though several of these ideologies are incompatible, it’s okay. The Republicans win by giving the most passionate people a platform to spew their idiocy, because passionate people vote, and votes count regardless of how dumb someone is.

What’s more, Republicans have no problem saying one thing while doing another. Look at “financial responsibility.” The only balanced budget in the last 30 years was during Bill Clinton’s last year. In fact, the lion’s share of our national debt is a direct result of Republicans, not Democrats. But Republicans run on a platform of “fiscal responsibility,” why?

Because Republicans are smart enough to be able to do two things at once. They say what people want to hear, and do what they wanted to do all along. It’s like patting your head while rubbing your tummy, only Republicans are rubbing out the middle class while patting themselves on the back.

Another thing I envy in Republicans is that they get their way. I like that about them. If I were a fan, I would root for the Democrats, but if I was a betting man, I’d have to side with the Republicans. Republicans play to win, Democrats think it’s how you played that counts. In this respect, Democrats make me want to grab them by the shoulders, smack them in the face and say:

“If you don’t win, I’m going to chain you to a radiator until the next election, do you hear me? Quit crying and staring at the ground, you look at me when I’m talking to you! Now fucking get out there and kick some ass. There’s no participation trophy here, you under-aged sandwich.”

[Did he just call him… okay, you’re still paying attention.]

Never a 9/11 goes by that I didn’t wish Al Gore had been president… there sure wouldn’t be a PATRIOT ACT. Can you imagine the hell Republicans would have raised about a bill that intrusive, with that much bureaucracy? We certainly wouldn’t have gone into Iraq. We’ll never know what might have been…

But we got eight long years of Bush selling us shit we didn’t need, racking up debts that won’t even be paid off by the time his daughters die of cirrhosis. And what did we get? A several trillion-dollar fireworks show in the Middle East that is so cool, people go to jail when they try to show us.

I have so much to learn from Republicans, Libertarians, and right-wingers of every stripe. Republicans can teach me how to sell hiking boots to a paraplegic. Libertarians can teach me how to avoid having a politically viable ideology go completely ignored by the American public. Finally, right-wingers in general can teach me how to take the gloves off and go for the eyes (which is the most vulnerable place on a Democrat, since they have no balls).