Saturday, January 19, 2013

The Right, Deconstructed

Every week, Daily Kos (a.k.a. "The Great Orange Satan") posts Saturday hate mail-a-palooza, a compendium of the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) examples of the hate mail Kos receives on a daily basis. Now, I know that a favorite topic of the right is how nasty and filled with invective the liberals (or progressives, depending on your taste in labels) are. Any time someone on the left says something that can, no matter what contortions are required, be viewed as less than courteous, the right goes nuts. With that in mind, let's have a look at this sample from Saturday hate mail-a-palooza, The Day America Died:


death of America?Are you trying to destroy America, you traitorous scumbag? Your precious Obama regime will be in power for four years to come and that's plenty of time for him to complete his plasn to destroy this country.

I will admit right here and now that I have no idea what a "plasn" is. And yes, it is true that anyone can commit a typo; I'm a writer. I am on a first-name basis with typos. But most word processing software alerts you to a misspelling with a squiggly red line under the word that is hard to ignore. For some reason, one of the hallmarks of posts from those on the right who have an axe to grind is the preponderance of typos, homonym errors, and grammatical errors.
Having said that, I have a question about this opening paragraph: How did you find out about Obama's plans to destroy this country? Shouldn't plans like that be secret? And if Obama is so terrible at keeping secrets, what makes you think he'd be any good at destroying the country? But going even deeper, how does this make any sense? Does he plan to destroy the country by giving us access to affordable health care? Was saving GM and Chrysler part of that plan? Your suggestion is long on conjecture and short on evidence, my friend. 
He has already turned American healthcare into soviet healthcare where every pill and surgery must be approved by bureucrats.
Again with the misspellings! Oh well. But... really. Soviet healthcare? What is that, anyway? Cheap vodka? But getting back to your charge, here's the reality: Every pill and surgery that I take or undergo must be approved by bureaucrats right now. You see, I have health insurance. Private health insurance, of the kind that the Affordable Care Act mandates. I can't just say "I want some Vicodin. Oh, and take my appendix out while you're at it!" No, I have to get approval for things like that. And who approves it? Some bureaucrat at my insurance company.
He has hiked taxes to skyhigh levels. He has ruined our economy.
O.K. This is getting old. It's sky-high, not skyhigh. And he hadn't hiked taxes. Taxes are at their lowest rate, as a percentage of GDP, in maybe a generation. I'd have to look that one up, but it's clear that you haven't looked it up. And the economy? It was ruined when he took office, ruined by the gutting of regulation, ruined by all the tax cuts for the rich, ruined by two unpaid-for wars, ruined by Medicare Part D, an unpaid-for giveaway to the health insurance companies. Have you even checked all the relevant statistics? The economy has been improving steadily ever since the stimulus was put into effect. It would be improving even more if the Republicans in the House and Senate weren't so hell-bent on making Obama, in their terms, a "one-term President." Maybe they should put the country first, yes?
He and his fellow traitorcrats are trying to put in place the "fairness doctrine" which would force Fox news to start airing liberal propaganda while letting MSNBC continue to be a motuhpiece for the Obama regime with no restrictiosn. Goodbye to the first amendment.
A typo bonanza! I have no idea what a motuhpiece is, nor do I know what a restrictiosn is. But the sad fact is that there has been no attempt to resurrect the "fairness doctrine," which might force Fox news to actually be accurate once in a while. And while we're on the subject, the fairness doctrine did not restrict what anybody could or could not say. It simply said that anyone using the public airwaves -- which are owned by you and me -- had an obligation to present the other side of things. Fox, which bills itself as "Fair and Balanced," is essentially a public relations arm of the Republican party. There's nothing inherently wrong with that; the First Amendment, after all, guarantees freedom of speech. And since Fox News operates through cable rather than the public airwaves, it wouldn't be subject to a resurrected fairness doctrine anyway. But clearly you are not one to let facts get in the way, nor do you care to do any independent research. This makes you the perfect target audience for Fox News, by the way.
He has built a mosque on Ground Zero so his muslim pals can celebrate the murders of Americans in the very same place where they commited the murders in the first place.
(Sigh.) Committed, not commited. First, Obama hasn't built any mosques. Presidents don't build mosques. Second, no mosque has been built on Ground Zero. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're not from New York. I am. I know that the so-called mosque is actually a community center and I know that it was planned for a site some distance from Ground Zero. I also know that one of the principles this country was founded on was freedom of religion. It's right there in that first amendment that you mentioned earlier. Are you suggesting that freedom of religion applies only to Christians? I wonder if you're aware that all three major religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all trace their roots back to Abraham and all worship the same God?
One other thing: As a (former, if there is such a thing) New Yorker, I can assure you that nobody would dream of "celebrating the murders of Americans" in New York City. Not anyone with a hope of making it through the rest of the day in one piece. 
Then he nominated the anti-semitic, anti-Israel, pro-Iran communist Chuck Hagel for the position of the Secretary of Defense. This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Hagel hates our country even more than Obama and he would gladly order every soldier to shoot themselves if he could.
Um... "Semite" is a term given to a group of people, and is therefore capitalized. Like "American." I see that you capitalized Iran, but decided that "Semite" did not deserve capitalization. What does this say about you? Are you anti-Semitic? Do you hate America? And why do you claim that Chuch Hagel, who served his country honorably in the Vietnam war (and earned the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, two Purple Hearts, an Army Commendation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge) hates our country? He hates it so much that he fought for it? Hates it so much that he saved his brother during combat? (That's a particularly heroic tale, by the way. You should look it up.) Did you serve? Did you know that Kos served? Wait... Why am I asking you questions? You get all your opinions from Fox News.
And now Barack Stalin has declared war on the Constitution with his evil plan to disarm law abiding Americans. His plan to take our Constitutionally protected guns is of course completely illegal but that doesn't matter since laws don't apply to traitorcrats.
Ah, here it is. The "evil plan to disarm law abiding Americans." It's such an evil plan that it does not exist. As much as I'd like to see fewer guns in this country -- there are currently 300 million guns, owned by 20% of American men and 10% of American women -- the steps President Obama has proposed, which have to be voted into law by Congress, do nothing to take away anybody's guns. You really should research these things, you know. It's possible, just possible, that Fox News is not being completely honest with you. Remember when they insisted that Mitt Romney was going to win the election?
Our country is dying and turning into a third-world stalinist dictatoship. So basically you got your wish. But I will rather go to one of your prison camps than be a part of the "Soviet States of America". And 50 years from now "Markos Moulitsas" will used like "Benedict Arnold" today.
Ah, yes. We're turning into a third-world... wait; what? A "dictatoship?" Is that anything like a potato ship? And third-world? I do not think you know what that word means. Prison camps? You mean those FEMA prison camps up in Montana, the ones that only exist in Glenn Beck's mind?
Here's the real deal: The only party trying to turn this country into a dictatorship would be the Republican party, those nice folks who want to restrict voting to the "right" kind of people (read: Republicans,) those nice folks who only have a majority in the House because they successfully gerrymandered their districts back in 2010*, those nice folks who are so desperately afraid of true democracy that they do everything in their power to stop it.
* - The Republicans even bragged about how they held their majority in the House despite getting one million -- that's one million -- fewer votes nationwide than the Democrats. Read about it here, in their official report.

Friday, January 11, 2013

A Compendium of Republican Threats

Republicans just hate it when they don't get their way -- especially when they don't get their way at the ballot box -- and are not shy about threatening violence. Remember Sharron Engel and her "Second Amendment Remedies?" For a political party that professes to love America, they sure don't have much use for democracy, do they? I'll add to this list as my research turns up more cases.

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Republican't

Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released their "State of the Climate" report, in which they noted that 2012 was the warmest year on record. By a lot. Members of the Republican party are quick to point out that we can't do anything about it. Twenty kindergarten children were slaughtered a few weeks ago by a nut with an assault rifle. Republicans were quick to point out that we can't do anything about that, either. They, clearly, are Republican'ts.