Tuesday, March 29, 2005
And Now, a Message From the Uneducated and Ignorant
I lived in Iowa for a long time, and liked it there. However, the cliche about Iowans--that they're plainspoken sons and daughters of toil possessing the sort of wisdom you can only get by staying far removed from the elitist East Coast and flighty West Coast--is not strictly true. Hang out in Iowa City or Ames for a while and you'll meet as many political and cultural flakes as you'd find in any California granola bowl. Remember also, that Iowa is home to one of the first statewide Republican parties to be almost entirely colonized by the fundamentalist Borg, during Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign.
The influence of the Borg is the only explanation for the existence of Representative Steve King, who has been getting all sorts of airtime in the last few days with astoundingly ignorant and inflammatory comments on the relationship between Congress and the judicial branch in the wake of the Schiavo case. Last week he said, "The judiciary has circled their wagons, not around the Constitution, not around the law, not around justice, or jurisprudence, but around themselves." (To which a member of the reality-based community might respond, "I'm rubber, you're glue"--and be right.) Yesterday, Fly Trap had the goods on his weekend interview with NPR, in which he yapped about how it's time for Congress to assert its "rightful Constitutional authority" over the courts--a statement that indicates he's never actually read the Constitution. Granted, King isn't a very big fish--boil on the ass of Congress is more like it--but nobody in his party is rushing to distance themselves from his rhetoric, because much of his party is right in step with it.
I have been pessimistic about the direction of American politics for several years, but comments like King's cause me genuine, sphincter-clenching fear for our future. I believe that people like King put us in grave danger of blowing the entire experiment in democracy that began in 1776, and not in the intermediate future, either. It could happen within the next few months. Such extremists, driven by a religious conviction that brooks no doubt, don't back down--unless they're met with force and conviction greater than their own. Sean Connery in the 1987 film The Untouchables:
Recommended Reading: The big buzz in the blogosphere this week is over the return of Billmon, proprietor of the Whiskey Bar, who has resumed blogging after a hiatus of several months. His recent post on the Schiavo circus is one of the best you'll find anywhere, and his explanation of why he quit blogging (and started up again) mirrors a lot of my own feelings about the blogger's art.
Quotes of the Day: From Dave at Electablog: "Who would you rather be stuck at a cocktail party with: The placard carrying protestors outside Terry Schiavo's hospice or the Jacko supporters outside the Santa Barbara courtroom? Either way, you better drink with both hands..."
From Dover, Pennsylvania, where schools have been ordered to teach the farce of intelligent design, pastor Ray Mummert explains why Christians must stand up for it: "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture." At last, a Repug tells it like it is.
I lived in Iowa for a long time, and liked it there. However, the cliche about Iowans--that they're plainspoken sons and daughters of toil possessing the sort of wisdom you can only get by staying far removed from the elitist East Coast and flighty West Coast--is not strictly true. Hang out in Iowa City or Ames for a while and you'll meet as many political and cultural flakes as you'd find in any California granola bowl. Remember also, that Iowa is home to one of the first statewide Republican parties to be almost entirely colonized by the fundamentalist Borg, during Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign.
The influence of the Borg is the only explanation for the existence of Representative Steve King, who has been getting all sorts of airtime in the last few days with astoundingly ignorant and inflammatory comments on the relationship between Congress and the judicial branch in the wake of the Schiavo case. Last week he said, "The judiciary has circled their wagons, not around the Constitution, not around the law, not around justice, or jurisprudence, but around themselves." (To which a member of the reality-based community might respond, "I'm rubber, you're glue"--and be right.) Yesterday, Fly Trap had the goods on his weekend interview with NPR, in which he yapped about how it's time for Congress to assert its "rightful Constitutional authority" over the courts--a statement that indicates he's never actually read the Constitution. Granted, King isn't a very big fish--boil on the ass of Congress is more like it--but nobody in his party is rushing to distance themselves from his rhetoric, because much of his party is right in step with it.
I have been pessimistic about the direction of American politics for several years, but comments like King's cause me genuine, sphincter-clenching fear for our future. I believe that people like King put us in grave danger of blowing the entire experiment in democracy that began in 1776, and not in the intermediate future, either. It could happen within the next few months. Such extremists, driven by a religious conviction that brooks no doubt, don't back down--unless they're met with force and conviction greater than their own. Sean Connery in the 1987 film The Untouchables:
If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead. . . . You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send on of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?I was going to end this post by suggesting that this is what it must have felt like to be an American in 1860 as the Civil War was approaching--until I realized that's old news. Radical Repugs like Steve King have started the war already. It's time for the rest of us to choose our weapons and fight--Chicago-style.
Recommended Reading: The big buzz in the blogosphere this week is over the return of Billmon, proprietor of the Whiskey Bar, who has resumed blogging after a hiatus of several months. His recent post on the Schiavo circus is one of the best you'll find anywhere, and his explanation of why he quit blogging (and started up again) mirrors a lot of my own feelings about the blogger's art.
Quotes of the Day: From Dave at Electablog: "Who would you rather be stuck at a cocktail party with: The placard carrying protestors outside Terry Schiavo's hospice or the Jacko supporters outside the Santa Barbara courtroom? Either way, you better drink with both hands..."
From Dover, Pennsylvania, where schools have been ordered to teach the farce of intelligent design, pastor Ray Mummert explains why Christians must stand up for it: "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture." At last, a Repug tells it like it is.
