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The Life You Save May Be Your Own

The always brilliant Kim Crawford, drawing on the equally indispensable Flannery O’Connor for inspiration, puts into words what many classical liberals are feeling in the run-up to election day. From “The Man in the Lavender Automobile”:

There have been any variety of temperaments and personalities to hold the office of President. They range from heroes to rapscallions. I fervently believe, however, that not one person to hold that office has ever hated his opposition. There have been the churlish and disdainful, for sure. Carter presumed a moral vanity against his foes, which grievance he nurtures to this day. Nixon was consumed by paranoia and fear, to the point of ridiculous capers in the cause of an aforetold landslide victory.

I mention this because I firmly believe Barack Obama absolutely loathes my kind. This man will not be content to win the presidency. He will spend his waking hours thereafter not pursuing the legitimate goals of state, but punishing those who would dare to oppose him. The man is devoid of humility, or any sense of humor. He cannot humbly accept his incredibly lucky break in the crapshoot of American politics. The absolute lack of any pushback or intercessions on the part of the journalist class has rendered him peckish and intolerant of any dissention, if indeed he was not born that way.

This man truly hates. As only someone who is quite aware of his great shortcomings can hate. And like the second monkey he can hear, or tolerate, no evil.

The inevitability of Barack Obama has rendered the sane lycanthropic, the skeptical bemused, the disputatious fearful. It is no coincidence that formerly reliable conservative pundits are jumping the McCain ship like bilge rats in a galley fire. Most people attribute this craven capitulation to elitism. Noonan, Frum, Chris Buckley, that dithering Converse finishing school twit Kathleen Parker, they’re elitists! No, they’re not. Or that’s not what is compelling them. They are fucking afraid. Afraid to be the last dissenting voice in the face of the Hope and Change juggernaut. The Chinese kid versus the tanks in Tiannamen they are not. They are elitists, but they are cowards first and foremost. We don’t need them. And, unfortunately for them, Obama doesn’t need them. Therefore I will speak their names no more.

[…]

I am not a reactionary person by nature, but trust me when I say the first 100 days of a Barack Obama presidency will bring holy hell upon those who adhere to a classical liberal philosophy. This man is a radical of the first stripe, and he has left no stone unturned in his quest. He has not committed voter fraud in the good old fashioned way. He has a vast network of ACORN operatives stealing votes through fraudulent means by the hundreds of thousands. This man has not committed campaign finance fraud in the good old fashioned way, squirrelling away Chinese monies like Bill Clinton. This cocksucker actually disabled his credit card verification system to allow tens of millions of illegal dollars to flow into his coffers from any number of enemies of the state. The droid army of the legacy press is aware of this, of course, but who wants to be the whistleblower once this man assumes power? No one. No fucking body. Wouldn’t be prudent at this fucking juncture, as 41 might say.

Did I mention this man hates me? You and me? Yes he does. Why? Because he can. Yes He Can. Beneath that cool persona is a megalomaniac. Cool? Like Stalin after a purge, emotionally and sexually spent. Like Saddam after a torture session, dozing in his chair with someone’s genitals curled in his fist. Like Pol Pot after a petit mal seizure, mumbling a litany of the dead. Cool that way.

So I will cast my pathetic vote, and ramp up my relocation to the mountains. Reduce my footprint. Carbon? That will be a nice byproduct, but I mean my personal footprint. My credit footprint. My interface with authority footprint. I’m researching micro-hydro water turbines for that stream, windmills for water, a half-acre patch for vegetables, a few goats, and a bison. Just because I want a fucking bison. My address? Fifty rounds up that gravel road.

There’s always going to be the temptation to surrender, to disengage, to tend one’s own garden while the world around us goes to hell. Christ knows I’ve felt that way — and that I probably will a thousand more times during the Ayers Administration.

But what we’re going to need to do instead is cover our heads, take the downpour, and drive on:

A cloud, the exact color of the boy’s hat and shaped like a turnip, had descended over the sun, and another, worse looking, crouched behind the car. Mr. Shiftlet felt that the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him. He raised his arm and let it fall again to his breast. “Oh Lord!” he prayed. “Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!”

The turnip continued slowly to descend. After a few minutes there was a guffawing peal of thunder from behind and fantastic raindrops, like tin‑can tops, crashed over the rear of Mr. Shiftlet’s car. Very quickly he stepped on the gas and with his stump sticking out the window he raced the galloping shower into Mobile.

We are all Tarwater, sure. But we’re all Shiftlet, as well.

So. Let’s just bundle up as best we can, shake the rain from our collars, wear our deformities as badges of grace, and drive.

It’s the only way forward, I’m afraid.

229 Replies to “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”

  1. happyfeet says:

    I’m not afraid of Baracky he’s a coward when it comes down to it hiding behind NPR’s skirts. Just don’t carve my face please.

  2. You really should make it to one of the Blown-eyed meets in the Smokies some day, Jeff. You could bask in that sort of talk all day, AND then enjoy the sweet embrace of the inflatable sheep!

  3. happyfeet says:

    also i hate driving in the mountains. I have this thing with heights. I won’t even take Mulholland ever.

  4. panther girl says:

    Take that back! Jeff would to know a classical liberal if she sat on his face!

  5. urthshu says:

    LOL @ ST

  6. Sgt. York says:

    How are we supposed to have grace watching our country turned into a banana republic?

    I’m not sure I can deal with a worst case scenario…Communism ain’t my bag.
    Respectfully,
    Mike

  7. ST also seems to be the kneeling, slurping type. What’s with all the troll/O! fellators?

  8. That would be a classic libertine gal.

  9. happyfeet says:

    baracky is gonna lose cause he’s a dirty socialist, ST, but there would be nothing more better for the Republican brand than a dirty socialist in power I don’t think. Turnips are dirty rooty things what grow in the dirty dirt but this one improbably ascended and I think the imagery bothers you a lot.

  10. urthshu says:

    mike – thats for you to work out. welcome to your freedom, or whats left of it anyway. keep what you can

  11. JimK says:

    I got my 10 acres, deer, wild turkeys, and lots of guns. I will survive. That is, if Bank of America doesn’t go under.

  12. urthshu says:

    I’m gonna wander the earth like Kwai Chang Caine, I think

  13. happyfeet says:

    I’m not going to grow my own egg rolls. What is it with you guys and the stocking up on food? It’s always pragmatic but what baracky threatens isn’t your caloric intake it’s your dignity as human people what value freedom. You can always come by and I will make you a smoothie and some egg rolls I promise. Even you, ST. I’m working on a citrus / green tea / cucumber one that I think is kind of tasty but I haven’t got it quite there yet.

  14. cynn says:

    I don’t think Obama hates: he indulges. He needs to crank it up, or he’ll lose.

  15. happyfeet says:

    oh. That one uses a little sweet potato as the base if you were wondering how it could be called a smoothie.

  16. happyfeet says:

    I already said baracky was gonna lose cynn. He’s a dirty socialist. That’s not happening.

  17. No fair giving up until the buzzer sounds, Jeff.

  18. I’m gonna raise chickens so that I can make an omelet by cracking a few eggs.

  19. pdbuttons says:

    can i get my cremated remains shot out of a cannon like hunter thompson?[sp]/
    I mean, come on Barack/ you surely don’t need my melon for your mountain of skulls-d’ya?

  20. Dash Rendar says:

    happy, I think the food thing is a coping mechanism. I expect the Baracky administration to exacerbate the financial crisis by an order of magnitude, so I’m all like well that’s gonna mess up the economic strata wherein we can’t get basically all the food we want whenever like happens now. So that survivialist cum individualist streak in my libertarian genes is all like well you better stock that nice Yurt in the backyard with some freeze dried goodies. And I’ve been thinking about buying an Arctic parka which I don’t need and all even though I’ve got a nice north face; the act of preparing with those stupid emergency blankets and extra nalgenes is like some sort of meditation for people.

  21. happyfeet says:

    and trust me baracky will be treated more better historically with a lot prettier hagiography as a loser victim than he will be if his dirty socialist ass ever soils the oval office.

  22. Jeff G. says:

    ST is clearly not a fan of Ms O’Connor. Or a reader. Or someone who can understand metaphors based around metaphors.

    So, like every predictable dullard, it screeches that because it can’t understand what’s been set before it, the person responsible for flummoxing the poor middling bore is Teh Stupid!

  23. happyfeet says:

    oh. Well you should get some of those dried wasabi peas cause they last a long time and they are very tasty and they have lots of calories. Don’t forget lots of mustard too cause if for real things get bad mustard is unbelievably helpful I think at making things you wouldn’t normally eat palatable.

  24. Bob Reed says:

    Ms. Crawford is right about the hate…I mean, look at what O! has done to all his opponents, and all it takes is a look at what went down with Joe the plumber, simply for putting him in a postion where the mask could slip…

    And, consider O! beckoning his legions to get in the face of those that either were undecided, but unsure, or simply opposed to the messiah. Or, the e-mail commands to the Brownshirt brigades to shout down, electronically, on the telephone, and in person anyone who had the temerity to criticize O! or talk about the result of any investigation into his past; all who would threaten the story of O! would be silenced-by whatever means necessary!

    And, that brings me to her comments about Noonan, Brooks, et al…I think that she’s on to something by noting that none of these folks want to be the last voice in the wilderness criticizing O!, and providing an easy target for his legions to affect the politics of personal destruction upon. In this sense, it is truly chilling in a third reich kind of way…

    It makes me wonder whether the Seventh Seal isn’t about to be broken…

    At the very least, if O! doesn’t consciously hate us, you know Michelle does…So no matter what, we got that going for us…

    We can’t give in though, and must stand against this together, doing all we can-which starts by voting for Mav-regardless of what comes of this election. If O! wins (God Forbid!) we just have to keep the pressure on our representatives to keep them from taking us lurchingly toward left field…

    My own personal religious beliefs afford me a more sanguine outlook than I assume those with a more secular outlook have. I know that in the end, justice will prevail and all will be well, although the road to apparent perdition may be rough indeed…

    There is a cliche that says, “There are no atheists in a foxhole”…By that logic, and in view of what may come to pass, it may be a good time to reconsider ones cosmology…

    Best Wishes…

  25. Carol says:

    I’m not sure I’m quite seeing this with Obama, yet. But the way he describes him reminds me of the New Party bots that took over our city govt 13 years ago. They are not the jolly old Democrat ward heelers of yore, not of the Tip O’Neill-Moynihan stripe or our local equivalents, at all. They’re different; they’re cold. They won’t make eye contact. They’re on a mission. They’re…Goths.

    Hmm ok I’m seeing it now.

    Hmmm, Mexico.

  26. urthshu says:

    Jeff, when all you’ve learned with your expensive education is that Tupac is the equivalent of O’Connor, then there is no need to go through the bother of reading O’Connor.

  27. Bob Reed says:

    I must say though, I love her turn of the phrase when she says,”My address? Fifty rounds up that gravel road.”

  28. dre says:

    McCain/Palin ’08!!!!

    FU O!

  29. Dash Rendar says:

    But for real it seems like there are only 2 kinds of Democrats left that have any real power and they’re either parasitical or batshit crazy socialists. You’ve got your Maxine “socialize the oil industry” Waters crowd who also said something I think about FEMA executing 5,000 black people during Katrina (could have been someone else, but same tribe).

    Then there’s the Dodd/Frank/Biden/Reid crowd of inveterate congressman who are uber-parasites, cf. FM/FM, todays 401(k) scheme, who I think don’t have any other ideology than greed and job security and have amply demonstrated their disdain for cooperation on matters of actual importance. I still don’t think it’s fully settled in my mind how these supposed “Americans” could undermine their country in a time of war after we were attacked on the floors of Congress and such with such reckless impunity, like there aren’t American troops in the field and 100 million Wahhabists/Deobani/Salafist Muslims out there who would like nothing more than to make the northeast corridor a radioactive wasteland.

    I’m belaboring the point, but Baracky is the synthesis of what these two groups of Dems want and its distinctly non-American. And for people like ST, what good can Baracky possibly do for this country and how can anybody support these people? Gosh, rant done.

  30. Jeffersonian says:

    I honestly don’t get the hate vibe from Obama…but I sure as hell get it from everyone around him.

  31. happyfeet says:

    oh. Raw they’re kind of earthy but sort of interesting and they have a nice texture kind of like jicama. Mashed turnips are very flavorful I think. I haven’t had those in forever. I will look next time I go to el supermercado.

    And, that brings me to her comments about Noonan, Brooks, et al…I think that she’s on to something by noting that none of these folks want to be the last voice in the wilderness criticizing O!, and providing an easy target for his legions to affect the politics of personal destruction upon. In this sense, it is truly chilling in a third reich kind of way…

    Maybe. They don;t strike me as brave people, no. But also though they are very shallow. Or narrow. Let’s say narrow. They have narrow circles they run in and they write and think and *live* for a very narrow audience. They disappear when they turn sideways.

  32. Jeffersonian says:

    Waters crowd who also said something I think about FEMA executing 5,000 black people during Katrina (could have been someone else, but same tribe).

    That was Cindy “Damn them Jooz” McKinney

  33. Dash Rendar says:

    “That was Cindy “Damn them Jooz” McKinney”

    Ahh yes, that harpy. Hot sauce and popcorn is interesting in a pedestrian, movie theater sort of way. I just hope my local pup will still have 39 cent buffalo wings when all is said and done.

  34. McGehee says:

    If you’re going through hell, keep moving.

  35. james wilson says:

    I do not believe Bam hates conservatives–yet–while his disdain overwhelmes him. It is our job to see that he does.

  36. urthshu says:

    Despite the Dem resurgence, I think Zell Miller still had it right. They’re no longer Dems, exactly, except in the sense of how they’re living up to their old traitor party label. This election of a socialist – if it occurs – would be I think the 4th major traitor thing they’ve done since the CW.

  37. psycho... says:

    can i get my cremated remains shot out of a cannon like hunter thompson?

    That’s the only thing you can get shot out of a cannon. If you’re in it.

    (The circus things aren’t cannons.)

    baracky will be treated more better historically with a lot prettier hagiography as a loser victim than he will be if his dirty socialist ass ever soils the oval office

    Nope. FDR.

    It’s been half a century and you still get called a fascist/racist/etc. if you shit-talk him. Which is funny, irony-wise, if you don’t care.

    The only Presidents you can freely hate are the least dictatorial. “Pierce! That bastard!” Which is also funny, especially now, when Bush is hated for others’ fantasies that he’s some kind of half-assed Caesar, and he’ll be hated in the future for not being one. Daddy’s boy.

  38. urthshu says:

    >>If it was up to me, your Thesaurus privileges
    would be revoked for life.

    ST dreams of being Teh Censor

  39. Dash Rendar says:

    The local news just blared that “Mayor Bloomberg of NY just scored a HUGE political victory after the city council allowed him to run for a third term.” If it were an (R)..

  40. McGehee says:

    ST is like the kid in the story. The one that jumps out of the car just before the end.

    Exactly like him.

  41. Jeff Y. says:

    Jeff G., I’m tending my garden. Democrats hate the country; Republicans are insane. There is no middle way between them.

    I don’t want to be a pussy, but if we are to drive on then where?

  42. happyfeet says:

    Cynthia was on NPR last night. On some socialist I think named Neal Conan’s show. I will look it up. Yes… Neal. Whatever stupid can’t spell my own name socialist.

    NPR has the scariest commenters.

    What a nutjob. Although I agree more with her platform than with any other candidate, there’s no way I could vote for her. What a shame that both the Green and Libertarian parties nominated such bizarre candidates this year.

    None so fucking blind, dude.

  43. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    “Chimps can write metaphors, they just don’t understand them”.

    Says the one man informal fallacy factory.

  44. happyfeet says:

    Sometimes psycho you’re not very cheering.

  45. urthshu says:

    The whole Obama/Hate thing:
    Dunno if its hate, precisely, but what I’m certain about it is life under a Baracky Admin would be an unending Mandated Diversity Class. He would just.not.stop. preaching his BS every damned day trying to enlighten all of us.

  46. thor says:

    This changes everything. I’m retreating to a underground bunker with a year’s supply of chocolate likenesses of Sarah Palin. Even though the confection’s head is hollow it’s got a sticky and chewy filling in the mid-section. You don’t think that could be a… mmm.

  47. Dash Rendar says:

    FDR is kinda like an inverse of W., in the sense that if you praise him you’re called a fascist/racist/etc. WWII relegates all the unpleasant fascisty stuff to the periphery and he is beloved for winning a “good war” against fascism. W. fights another war against a variation of fascism with the support of Democrats minus the domestic fascism stuff (lefties notwithstanding). It’s almost like the dems are petrified of an (R) having a similar legacy to the patron saint FDR.

  48. happyfeet says:

    It’s definitely resentment. No question.

  49. happyfeet says:

    oh. thor made me think of goo goos. I haven’t had one in forever. I think the band used to sell them. So good and without icky sex overtones necessarily depending where and who with you eat them.

  50. urthshu says:

    Seriously tho, if he gets in even the Dems will be like WTF did we do? W will be rehabilitated in comparison to the awfulness and we’ll be the ones saying he was dumb as a doorknob. History is teh funneh mostly when it isn’t tragic

  51. Hrothgar says:

    #32
    “I honestly don’t get the hate vibe from Obama…but I sure as hell get it from everyone around him.”

    That’s because he is even slicker than those around him!

  52. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    You’re bringing up NIXON, meya?

    Umm… okay.

  53. urthshu says:

    I liked this post on W, BTW.

    I have no cause for regrets in voting for him. No matter any of the BS, the NCLB crap, etc. I got 2 good Supremes and Heller, Bolton and a vigorous response to terrorism that refused to just let that shit go. And, of course, exploding hippie heads.

  54. happyfeet says:

    The ceiling at Nixon’s library is too low. I don’t know who designed it but it’s like touring a junior high.

  55. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I think Nixon would’ve been a lot more popular if he’d had access to today’s modern five blade razors.

  56. happyfeet says:

    George W. Bush is an amazingly good president. People I think will be very hard-pressed to name a damn one of his political contemporaries.

  57. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I think Bush turns out to be like Truman, historically speaking.

  58. Dash Rendar says:

    I liked this part:
    “George Bush has never committed the cardinal sin of turning on us and accusing us of being the problem.”

    Which reminded me of Nietzsche for some reason on ressentiment
    “It is not surprising that the lambs should bear a grudge against the great birds of prey, but that is no reason for blaming the great birds of prey for taking the little lambs. And when the lambs say among themselves, “These birds of prey are evil, and he who least resembles a bird of prey, who is rather its opposite, a lamb,—should he not be good?”

  59. urthshu says:

    The one thing W always said was, he’d serve the office with the dignity we deserved. Through everything, all the blinding shit he was given, that is exactly what he did.

  60. happyfeet says:

    that was beautifully said urthshu. Bush has class that I don’t know how far back you have to go for a comparison.

  61. happyfeet says:

    oh. Reagan. There you go.

  62. happyfeet says:

    Sometimes I forget Reagan was president not my surrogate grandfather.

  63. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Bye-the-bye, since meya thinks dragging Nixon into the debate is legit, I’d like to put this guy and this guy on the table.

    Oh, and let’s not forget this guy, while we’re bring up racists from the Olden Times.

    Ooops. My mistake. That last one is still in the Senate, isn’t he?

    Btw, meya, have you been taking logic lessons from ST?

  64. Dash Rendar says:

    Time for Choosing was a pretty badass speech. Baracky’s version? “Time for present.”

  65. Sgt. York says:

    He did give us the dignity, but the spending….ugggggghhhh!

  66. JD says:

    ST has to spend a good amount of time to come up with that weapons-grade inanity.

  67. Velociman says:

    You know, I forgot to mention it in my post, but George W. Bush, whatever else he may be, is a compassionate fellow. I don’t think he’s capable of hate. When he reached across the aisle in 2001 and was bitten, he laughed it off. When he wins, he doesn’t gloat. When he loses, he affably shrugs his shoulders and moves on to the next issue. I’m not saying I adore that in a president, I’m just saying you wait and see.

    Kim Crawford

  68. eCurmudgeon says:

    I mention this because I firmly believe Barack Obama absolutely loathes my kind. This man will not be content to win the presidency. He will spend his waking hours thereafter not pursuing the legitimate goals of state, but punishing those who would dare to oppose him.

    And to think, at one point many of us were thinking it would have been She Who Must Not Be Named, rather than The Chosen One that would fit this description…

  69. Jeff G. says:

    Oh, I understand perfectly. If it was up to me, your Thesaurus privileges would be revoked for life.

    I don’t have a Thesaurus, but I’m pretty sure thems ain’t books of metaphors.

    And to paraphrase Wanda:

    “Chimps can write metaphors, they just don’t understand them”.

    I still think there’s time for you to learn. But don’t call yourself a chimp. That’s racist.

  70. Sgt. York says:

    eCurmudgeon:

    We’d be hosed without the courtesy of a reach-around either way…

  71. Jeffersonian says:

    Time for Choosing was a pretty badass speech.

    But….but….what about the nuance?

  72. apotheosis says:

    And like the second monkey he can hear, or tolerate, no evil.

    Well that certainly won’t be misconstrued.

  73. SarahW says:

    She’s wrong of course. Those certain elect ship-jumpers aren’t afraid enough of Baracky.

  74. I don’t think Obama hates us. The people who put him up to all this certainly do, but ‘racky doesn’t. He doesn’t think of us at all.

  75. happyfeet says:

    those is similes

  76. Jeff Y. says:

    But again, if we are to drive forward, then to where? To Republican corporate welfare or to Democratic redistribution of wealth? Can anyone even tell the difference in the destinations?

    I’ve been a Republican for over twenty years, and I can’t.

  77. happyfeet says:

    I can tell the difference. Energy.

  78. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    those is similes

    ST is a real dumbass, isn’t he? Perhaps “synecdouche” would be le mot juste.

  79. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Perhaps “synecdouche” would be le mot juste.

    Ha!

  80. JD says:

    I love it.

  81. JD says:

    I do not think that ST has proven the ability to read for comprehension yet.

  82. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    From his undergrad rhetoric class untimely ripp’d, I’d say.

    Or maybe he just got rilly, rilly ripped the night before the class session on metaphors.

  83. Roland THTG says:

    http://boortz.com/nuze/undecided.html

    Now, I’m all depressed and shit.
    Maybe I’ll just stay in Shanghai for the next 4 years. At least they seem to understand capitalism here.

  84. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Chinga tu madre, maricon.

  85. JD says:

    ST – Veuillez enlever votre pénis de cette chèvre mineure, rue. Tandis que vous êtes à elle, vous pouvez cesser de lécher votre doigt après vous jeu avec votre rectum.

  86. JD says:

    qus omik, ST.

  87. Jeff G. says:

    Overwrought prose? Hmm. Well, as I’m the only writer here these days, I guess ST has no reason to be hanging around anymore.

    Bye bye, ST!

    Oh, and your comments can head out along with you!

  88. JD says:

    Babelfish is not always a 100% complete correct translator. Especially slang.

    I said, ST, Please remove your cock from that underage goat, and while you are at it, please stop licking your finger after playing with your rectum.

  89. Jeff Y. says:

    It’s easy to see how Republicans will lose. Why settle for the appearance of socialism? Elect real socialists instead. Congressional Republicans are insufficiently distinguished from Democrats. Our team is gonna’ lose big time. Time to get a new coach. The RNC has got to go.

  90. TmjUtah says:

    “I must say though, I love her turn of the phrase when she says,”My address? Fifty rounds up that gravel road.”“.

    Years back I had to make a map of a section of state road way out in west central Utah, out in the Great Basin clear over by the Nevada line. This was mostly flat, mostly public, and mostly dry land except for one side in one one mile section that had been irrigated and fenced. Most right of way fences are your typical t-post/four strand barbed wire affair but this one was eight feet tall of deer fence topped with three strands of barbed wire.

    Well, we needed to collect cross sections of the existing road plus the ground fifty feet beyond the existing right of way on both sides. We drove down the fence until we came to an open gate with a cattle guard. The access road ran off perpendicular from the state road for about a thousand yards then doglegged to the right at about a forty five degree angle, then ran a slightly shorter distance to the farm/ranch headquarters. We could see a house and some other outbuildings. It was pretty flat except for small hill that had been sculpted on the edge of the access road right where it doglegged.

    We drove down the access to the dogleg. There we found a two-post wooden sign about four foot square on the right side of the road. “Use the phone. Crank twice and wait. If no answer, leave a message on the pad. No trespassing beyond this point” written on the wood in neatly painted white letters. There was a box built onto the post with an old GI sound powered phone and a memo pad and pencil inside. Ten feet off the road on the left side of the truck, set in front of the hillock and facing the house, was a steel drill pipe sticking out of the ground about eight feet tall; a short piece was welded at ninety degrees at the top, and a swinging 12″ round steel plate was hung from that.

    That target was some kind of chewed up; the pipe and crosspiece showed bullet splash but no round impacts. The plate had been center shot often enough that it was concave toward the house, something over five hundred yards away.

    So we made the call. The owner came down, was pleasant as could be, and we arranged a time to meet to do the work we needed to do.

    He just valued his privacy.

    There’s not going to be any place to hide. Just a time to make your call, I think.

  91. Jeff G. says:

    Soon word will get out that personal attacks on me without provocation are no longer something I’m interested spending time or energy on.

    Plus, I’m really getting into this whole deleting thing.

    Maybe it’s just a phase, though.

  92. DAve says:

    Save the Plumber and save the world

  93. JD says:

    What a great and vivid story. I bet I would like that guy.

  94. JD says:

    Soon word will get out that personal attacks on me without provocation are no longer something I’m interested spending time or energy on.

    That is all they have got.

  95. Roland THTG says:

    ST,
    CAO NI MA!
    What?
    Fuckoff then.

  96. Ana says:

    Greenspan has recanted. Apparently letting the market roll and correct no longer works. Regulation is the name of the game. Whatever were we fucking thinking?

  97. TmjUtah says:

    The Dems have manufactured and groomed victim groups since Wilson, but up until just recently they were careful to keep them in their proper places.

    Now… now they have the O!ne. Got his O!wn gig, his O!wn people, his O!wn organization, but script wise he’s almost just like any other Democrat.

    Pelosi and Reid, Mrs. and Mr. Twelve Percent, fresh off of their accomplishment in getting the Republican representatives to buy culpability for the outcome of the bailout, are contentedly watching the O!ne being carried toward the White House by the media and are already trying to figure out exactly how they are going to schedule all the stuff he’s going to do for them.

    History.

    I feel like I’ve been chained to a rock overlooking the garden of Eden, and I wake up every day at dawn the day that Eve eats the apple. Except what I’m really watching is a dumpy little fuck with a bad mustache being made chancellor. Over and over again.

    Sorry to bore you. I always do go on after arguing with the wife.

  98. Ana says:

    I don’t know. Hillary’s a frigging wet dream next to O!

  99. Jeff Y. says:

    Damp, maybe. Wet’s pushin’ it, or pulling it, or a rapid sequence of one then the other. I dunno.

  100. MAJ (P) John says:

    ST – probably time to back out, slowly. Coming here and trying to criticize Jeff’s writing abilities, and in the process showing you would be marked for about 35% on an English 101 exam (see large red check marks by “metaphor” and “Thesaurus”)….well, you can keep showing your fanny if you want, but you merely give those who dismiss what you say out of hand all the more justification.

  101. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Wasn’t the Thesaurus that weird critter in the Labyrinth? Or was that David Bowie?

  102. Mark A. Flacy says:

    Nope. “Bored of the Rings”

  103. Sgt. York says:

    SBP:
    “Thesaurus” was the ring name of one of Asian transvestite midget wrestlers at the match I refereed last night…

  104. Republican on Acid says:

    Today at work I invoked a very hostile reaction from a future Obama voter (EVERYBODY IS GOING FOR OBAMA!!!!) by saying that Obama was the ultimate anti-wigger. I am not too sure at this point what I even meant by that but the look of disgust on that pasty fat ass face was worth my life.

  105. Republican on Acid says:

    A very reasonable “racist” conversation going on over at Jim Goad’s web site..

    http://www.jimgoad.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1200444865

    Of course, you cant trust this guy or his buddies. Must be giving Patton Oswald the FEAR.

  106. J. Peden says:

    “Thesaurus”? The first dinosaur?

  107. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Maybe that’s it.

    THE Saurus.

    El Artículo Definitivo.

    The ONE. The ONLY one.

  108. Roland THTG says:

    Who would win in a fight between a Thesaurus and an Onomasticon?

  109. Drider says:

    I have never been afraid of an American politician, simply because we have been a government of checks and balances.
    Any country….ANY country, where absolute power would exist terrifies me.
    Yesterday, term limits was swept aside for Mayor Bloomberg and although I am unsure of the constitutional aspects of that in NY.I can’t help thinking it is a prelude to something bigger.

    People of Obama’s ilk have spent a lifetime dreaming of was to do away with our constitution and replacing it with something more….progressive.

    There is talk, rumors if you will, that Biden was refering to the American peoples right to bare arms in his strangely coded comment the other day which if as surprising as Ayers comment on having to kill 25 million Americans for his ideological vision to take place, hence….not surprising at all.

    Obama and his cronies, if elected will no doubt be cookies and cream until he can manage/snooker/rig elections to get the unprecidented filibuster proof Congress and that is when the “absolute” change will come.
    Then will come the “Civil Defense Force” which should terrify everyone but won’t, the media will pass it off as a wonderful idea and they will be the ones to collect the weaponry,they will be the ones to shut down differing points of view(whats left of it), they will be the ones to shut down political opponents.
    You say drive on….going forward is the only choice, well….what I’m think that could be possible even in this great Country…that may not be an option.

  110. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    #113 – Cool your jets sport. I don’t think any of that shit is going to happen, even if Obama manges to get dragged across the finish ;ine like he did in the primaries, which I also don’t think will happen.

    – The Lefturds are going to go for the hat trick. Their very arrogance demands it. Then the Dem led Congress will dig in its heels and fight McCain just for the partisan glory, and in two more years they will be sent packing. Then we can all forget about Socialism again for a few generations til a fresh crop of young fertile minds are available for Marxist gardens.

  111. alppuccino says:

    I like your scenario BBH. And unlike the great George W, I don’t think McCain will be chained to the dignity of the office, seeing as he has taken great pains to distance himself from the man who stood firm on terrorism, despite those who jumped ship because their invitations to the right cocktail parties were put in jeopardy.

    Bring on the crotchety rage Johnny Mac! Pat Pelosi on her big bum and say “Why don’t you go back to your little house Nancy.”

  112. meya says:

    “meya, have you been taking logic lessons from ST?”

    She was talking about presidents. But you get the point. This:

    “I fervently believe, however, that not one person to hold that office has ever hated his opposition. ”

    Is ridiculous.

  113. I thought a thesaurus was a giant nearsighted lizard with a big vocabulary.

    And how about ‘ol irrational exuberance’? He’s shocked shocked that the credit crisis is as bad as it is, and maybe the derivative market should have had some regulation. I mean, it’s not like anything happened during his tenure as king money gorilla to precipitate this bullshit. Lying fuck.

    Next Fed chairman should be Nick Leeson.

  114. TheGeezer says:

    The country is still a middle-right population. If Obama moves just one millisecond too fast towards abrogation of inalienable rights, the House, at least, vulnerable every two years, will rise up in opposition to radical agenda. At leat that’s how it’ supposed to work.

    Happyfeet is right: history repeats itself until it does not, and we’ve never elected a socialist. VOTE and wait and see.

  115. Carin says:

    While I understand Kim’s sentiments (my husband echos them), I’m with Jeff. We need to drive fucking ON. The media sure isn’t going to be doing it’s job during an Obama presidency … honestly, it’s up to “us.” Us, being those who refuse to accept the ascendancy.

    And, I hope those “conservatives” who are voting for B realize they’ve completely lost their credibility. They’ve shown they lack judgement. To make their declarations, they’ve basically switched into campaign-mode for Baracky. Fuck em.

  116. serr8d says:

    And watch for the impending collapse of the Republican Party, judging by the conservative attack on Powell and now Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke for his endorsement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stimulus package. The post-Bush party is facing its worst prospects since the Goldwater defeat in 1964, heading for a thorough ideological purging, reorganization and rebirth in some new form. Whether that process takes years or decades depends on whether Democrats, controlling all branches of government, do better than Bush and the Republican Congress in taming their own appetites.

    We should’ve had that soul-searching after 2006. Now, we’re forced to clean house.

    First out the door? The neocons. Sorry, we’ll need some real Conservatives to clean up the Baracky mess.

    No half-assed measures will do.

  117. Carin says:

    They’re dreaming if they think it will take years or decades to reorganize the Republican party. And Obama presidency is NOT the end of the Republican party. Actually, I think it’s the dems party that has transformed into something different than what it was.

    Reality of the situation is that either Obama is right about his change and hope for America and it works (doubtful) or he isn’t and it doesn’t. I’m sure he’ll have a bit of grace period, but how long can he drag out blame on the BUsh administration? I say, 9 months, because Bush got blamed for 9/11. Nine months. After that, everything will be Obama’s fault.

    Of course, here in Michigan you know who they blame the mess on? Bush (of course) and the few Republicans in the state. It’s not Jenny’s fault!!! She’s only in her SECOND term. It’s still Engler’s fault and BOOOOSH and Joe Knollenberg.

  118. hoss says:

    Kim speaks to me too. I’m really worried this time. I hate to be like the Henny Penny Dems always screaming that this is the most important election and that this opponent is the awfulest ever, but I am really scared.

    I thought Kerry would be an awful President but I just thought of him as an amiable dunce. I thought he was going to win that one but it didn’t scare me.

    This O guy with a big Democratic Congress can do a lot of damage. I’m only hoping he is only half as radical as his allies (Ayers/Wright) and that those were only alliances of convenience. But it’s only a hope and his rhetoric/actions don’t give me much comfort.

    I also hope that the inherent goodness of the American people (which I’m losing coonfidence in as probably 20% of the American people (and 70% of the media) would have no problem with throwing Rove/Limbaugh/Bush/Cheney in jail without trial) will keep the govt in check. But frankly with the MSM in the tank, we’re probably not going to hear about a lot of the stuff that goes down and if we do it will be a blurb on page C-36.

    Oh well. Gonna keep my stock market short on for now.

  119. Slartibartfast says:

    Mashed turnips are very flavorful I think.

    To properly appreciate turnips, you have to grow them yourself. First, there’s the planting, and then the caring parent stage where you’re carefully weeding around the cute baby plants, and then the savage anticipation, and then the thinning stages, where you selectively uproot your babies and eat them. For the greens, you know. Don’t skimp, there; throw in a hamhock when you cook them. After a couple of thinnings, you just have to let them go for a while until they reach maturity. Then eat ’em, a few at a time, leaving the ones you aren’t going to eat in the ground. Preferably while the weather is still cool.

    ST’s words require no response other than erasing. That euphoria you’re feeling, Jeff, is similar to what you feel during volunteer trash cleanup day: you’re not really improving the world in general; just the part that you’re looking at right now.

    Kim’s stuff I found a little over the top. No, a lot over the top. I think there’s some truth there, but I don’t think an Obama presidency will have anything quite so dramatic as she envisions. If for no other reason than that the revolutionaries have realized that baby steps are the thing. And I don’t see Obama as a wannabe revolutionary, because he’s smart enough to realize that he’s just there to drive another wedge in. Oh, and that being President sort of offers limited opportunity for drastic change.

    Which is pretty much all of successful politics, I think.

    I find Obama fairly likeable; much more so than McCain. What has me voting for McCain is not that I like him or his policies, but that I find the consequences of a McCain presidency much less unpalatable than those of an Obama presidency. I know such lethargy doesn’t make for getting out the vote, but it’s going to be plenty enough to get me to the polls.

    And I’ve decided to back Keller, instead of Grayson. I can’t stand either of them, but Grayson has decided to appeal to the far left lunatic fringe, and he’s decided that it’ perfectly ok to smear defense contractors as a group for the actions of a few. Not my kind of politician. And here I was all set to impose term limits on Keller, who volunteered to term-limit himself before the One Ring of Power beckoned.

  120. Drider says:

    BBH, My heels are as cool as ever, I’m sitting here watching things unfold the same as everyone else.

    I also don’t “think” this could happen for the simple reason that it never has in this Country but lets look at the facts here.

    Our current Republican president has set into place with the help of the Congress debatable socialized policies in distributing 700 billion dollars of taxpayers money into private companies to prop them up in a murky economic crisis that just seemed to pop up “overnight” and nobody admittedly knows what to do.
    Our Government also is now actively, actually taking control of banks(or parts of banks) in what our leaders tell us is a “temporary” situation to help get the credit flowing again, which can only be described as a full fledged socialist move and to make it even scarier and more defining is that some of the banks who weren’t in need of this cash infusion “did not” want to be part of it but had no choice.
    Like it or not, the groundwork has been laid, so now we are waiting on this big meeting with our friendly advasaries throughout the world of whom are almost all socialists on how to proceed economically in the future…..on how “we” proceed in the future.

    There is no Republican party other than in name at this point if you think about it, it’s like Republicans are now the democrats and the Democrats are socialists, with the socialists advancing to where you can’t tell friend from foe.
    If your a fellow Republican then where is your representation on the….ummmmm….happenstance… that the Obama campaign as well as some other of the more socialist campaigns running now are gladly accepting money from anyone all over the world and are not “vigorously” challenged on it?…It’s blatant and provable and yet, where are those we put in office to stop it…hiding?

    The fact is that anyone with the resume’ of Obama would be considered an undeniable Marxist/socialist.

    The fact is we are a land of laws based on our constitution, the land of laws won’t change but the constitution will if the people who possibly take power get their way simply because the Europeans disposable/alterable constitution is what they need to make laws more in line with their ideology.

    I am like you, I don’t think something as surreal as this can happen in this Country but I believe the difference between us is that as these strange policies are put in place by Republicans, with meetings taking place to determine a new economic blueprint for “our” Country with foreigners, with a presidential candidate with the same ideological view as Ayers possibly taking over, with the Republican party needing to be reformed from the bottom up, with a fair to decent chance of a filibuster proof Congress geared to take us on a socialist binge in which “we” the Republicans(of today) started, I can honestly say that I don’t “think” that my kids will recognize the country in 10 years that we have today.

  121. Republican on Acid says:

    The future of course is your children. I attempt to teach my children to be openly hostile to socialism. I tell my children to openly badger their opponents. It isn’t as if leftist retards are the only ones who can’t “get in your face”.
    At work, I make fun of leftist. Be like them, pick the most obvious target and let em have it. People aren’t likely to “accept” something that appears to be socially stupid. Grass roots and all that – there is no other option at this point. The time for calm declaration is over.

  122. TmjUtah says:

    Our current Republican president has set into place with the help of the Congress debatable socialized policies in distributing 700 billion dollars of taxpayers money into private companies to prop them up in a murky economic crisis that just seemed to pop up “overnight” and nobody admittedly knows what to do.

    The act mentioned above, the four hundred pages of the first “bailout”, and Greenspan’s “Who knew?” moment of yesterday, all are absent of any whiff, any hint, any nuance that government might have anything at all to do with the current situation.

    The political establishment is striving to keep the collapse of the world economy from being an issue, becuase both parties lose seats if the public realizes that November 4 will be their last chance to have any input on fiscal policy for the next two years.

    How’s that for bipartisan action, skippy?

    DOW futures are locked at -550 as I write this. Europe is down 10%. When the smoke clears, Asia might look even worse.

    We can elect a squishy RINO whose VP actually ran a small business… or Barak Obama, revolutionary, and a thirty -year Senator owned by credit card companies. There are no third party choices I care to investigate.

    And we can vote for anybody but a Dem or Rep. Green? By all means. ANYBODY but the mob that has brought us to the cliff we fell over a few months ago. It’s not about parties or individuals now. We must amputate the Beltway culture from power.

    Vote them out. If nothing else, force them to join us on the rocks below.

    Good luck.

  123. Timstigator says:

    Geez, I really like my house. We live right on a scenic river with a small plot of land. I hate the thought of uprooting the family to Idaho. I know my dog would like it though.

  124. […] People was ‘just enough’ in 1974, then 30.5 Million would be the goal today… ~*~ Posted by Serr8d @ 2:18 pm | Trackback Share […]

  125. Lisa says:

    Damn, folks. Have we whipped your asses that bad? Just go vote on election day and see what happens. It might be us crying in a couple of weeks.

    But I really like your dystopian victim rant, Perf. It was Teh Awesome.

    WOVERINES!!!111!!!

  126. Lisa says:

    Or: WOLVERINES!!!111!!!, even.

  127. Lisa says:

    The man is devoid of humility, or any sense of humor.

    If one is inhuman, how could you expect them to have any humor? Doesn’t the former negate the latter? Inhuman Socialist Autobots are quite naturally lacking in humor.

    — Inhuman Socialist Bore

  128. ThomasD says:

    To properly appreciate turnips, you have to grow them yourself.

    Amen Brother. Back in Idaho I used to grow an Asian variety. Small and perfectly white, they only grew to the size of a golf ball but they were so sweet you could slice them raw into a salad or shred them into a slaw. I’m back in the south now so I’ll probably grow some turnips for greens next season, but the roots of those tend to be darn woody by the end of the season – those get fed to the hogs (if I had hogs anymore.)

    There is talk, rumors if you will, that Biden was refering to the American peoples right to bare arms in his strangely coded comment the other day

    I don’t think Biden would see the need to ‘warn’ Obamabots about such action, and I sincerely hope this talk is inaccurate. I’ve got a wife and two kids who depend on me, but there are lines in the sand that really should not be crossed.

    Ultimately that is my biggest fear. That the proggs and their ilk assume most everyone is of the type who will simply knuckle under if the yoke is laid down gently – frogs in pans of water if you will. Jeff is right, we cannot isolate ourselves. The lone guy on the fringe is easy pickings, so easy he might never be missed.

    Oh, and you probably cannot afford Idaho anymore (or western Montana) – at least not the plot of land you’d need to be self sufficient and away from it all. And careful with the family pet – Idaho now has wolves thanks to the Federal government. Rover likely has no idea what he’s up against, and even if he does, he’s outclassed and outnumbered.

    The Feds learned the biggest mistake was letting anyone off of Ruby Ridge alive, they did their best not to repeat that mistake at Waco. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The media may not report your arrest, but the smoking ruins of your home, and your next of kin cowering in their basement, just might concern the neighbors.

  129. 49 says:

    @Lisa – Humility as distinct from humanity, me thinks. Though if you’d like to take it there…

  130. Lisa says:

    Oh nevermind. I misread the word humility. FAIL.

  131. Lisa says:

    Tim, what’s in Idaho, besides Separatist movements and a whole lot of methamphetamine?

  132. ThomasD says:

    Lisa, there is nothing in Idaho. It is cold and damp, or hot and dry, and barren of life and culture. Best stay away.

  133. Lisa says:

    Someone described Idaho as “grunge, without the good music”.

  134. Carin says:

    Of course, the only time I’ve been to Idaho was my bil’s wedding in Sun Valley. It was infested with liberals. Rich liberals.

  135. Carin says:

    Of course, I heard they fly right into Sun Valley … you know, so as to avoid the outliers.

  136. Carin says:

    Fly-in on their private jets, of course.

  137. McGehee says:

    Idaho exists to serve as a buffer zone between the Mormon baby factories of Utah and the buffalo-ranching yee-haw cowboy types of Montana. You know how buffalo-ranching yee-haw cowboy types can be when there’s womenfolk around.

  138. alppuccino says:

    Just go vote on election day and see what happens.

    Sure Lisa. Unless of course you’re a McCain supporter and your precinct is in the city. Because waiting at the booth with be Notorious B.I.G. and Puff Daddy to push a gold-plated nine in yo face if you even think about pullin’ the lever for whitey.

    But I’m going to go hang out at the voting place and take notes.

    Oh, and I’m getting my info from Hillary’s account of the Nevada caucus BTW.

  139. ThomasD says:

    Yes Idaho is very much infested from Sand Point on down to the Utah border.

    I thought Grunge was ‘grunge without the good music,’ so go figure.

  140. Lisa says:

    Ha, Carin. My people live in Park City, Utah – a blue oasis in a desert of red. My granny can’t afford a helicopter like Robert Redford, but she is swiftly whisked away from Salt Lake City airport by a motorcade of aunts, uncles and cousins when she returns from travels – so as to avoid the outliers, lol.

  141. Rob Crawford says:

    Happy:

    Well you should get some of those dried wasabi peas cause they last a long time and they are very tasty and they have lots of calories.

    Oh, dude, you have GOT to be careful of old wasabi peas. A friend of mine, while packing to move, stumbled across a long-forgotten package of them, and decided they’d make a nice snack.

    An hour later he was freaking blind.

    Oh, his vision came back, but still.

  142. Jeff G. says:

    You also seem not to be able to properly attribute the “rant,” Lisa.

    My contribution to post was stiff upper lip stuff. Mixed with O’Connor. Like a southern fried blood pudding almost.

  143. Lisa says:

    Ha AlPuccino: I live in Baltimore City for the love of Jeebus and the 5 or 6 McCain/Palin supporters around here seem to move about the city unmolested. There aren’t many of them – but I know of at least two who park their enormous McCain stickered (and vandalism-free) SUV’s on the street! I posit that they will, latte in hand, stand in line at St. Brigid’s Parish with the rest of us swarthy socialists and vote for who they want to vote for. The worst that will happen to them is that they will be offered a gluten-free soy muffin to go with their latte.

  144. Lisa says:

    Yeh perf, that is what happens when I forget my breakfast (the breakfast of champions!).

    Sorry bout that.

    .

  145. McGehee says:

    I live in Baltimore City for the love of Jeebus and the 5 or 6 McCain/Palin supporters around here seem to move about the city unmolested.

    A lot of neighborhoods adopt community pets.

  146. Silver Whistle says:

    Woh, Lisa, you don’t look very black in that picture.

  147. N. O'Brain says:

    My car got keyed because we have a “Marine Corps Mom” bumper sticker.

  148. Slartibartfast says:

    I’m back in the south now so I’ll probably grow some turnips for greens next season

    You’re probably keyed into the whole purple-top thing, then.

    No, not that. Freakin’ pervs.

  149. mcgruder says:

    that esay was the stupidest fucking thing a classic liberal (and I consider myslef one) ever wrote. No wonder we are getting wiped out; we offer nothing to the American people but lip-quivering “He hates us” lamentations.

    “He” doesnt hate us; he simply doesnt have to consider us. We are weak and getting weaker, and electorally he will likely have no reason what so ever to even pay us heed.

    Obama is nothing more than a seemingly agreeable leftist. We saw this coming; there is no surprise with his platform or agenda. Think NYC 1984, or any other big U.S. city in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Instead of trying to get the next Barry goldwater or ronald reagan going, we cry like a punch of 10th grade punks. Instead of acknowledging the many, many places the GOP failed us–and begin building a grown up right-wing–we write, post and read essays like this.

  150. Lisa says:

    Silver: Michael Jackson and I have the same plastic surgeon and dermatologist.

    McGehee: Ha ha! Yeah being a Republican in the state of MD is pretty much consigning yourself to the same status as a Lyndon LaRuche fanboy. The entire Eastern Shore is full of these odd, conservative creatures. We often drive out there on weekends and observe them in their native habitat. I think there might even be a bill in committee to make Cecil, Queen Anne’s, Kent, et al protected habitats of endangered species.

  151. Silver Whistle says:

    Silver: Michael Jackson and I have the same plastic surgeon and dermatologist.

     Man, I had imagined you as Robin Givens, but younger and hotter. Life sucks.

  152. Sdferr says:

    Command of the details, that’s all that’s wanted, eh eeyore, uh, I mean mcgruder?

    Classical liberal? Yeah, that’s you all right, you and Lord Keynes pounding away at your essential details.

  153. Jeff G. says:

    You seem uncomfortably comfortable with the idea that Barack doesn’t hate us — despite his being nursed at the font of hate for his entire life, just about.

    Were he a literary character being analyzed by a leftist, his upbringing and political influences would necessary inscribe him, we’d be told. He cannot escape his hate, and so his “moderate” pronouncements would be duly deconstructed to illuminate the radicalism that necessarily writhes beneath the studied exterior.

    Look at the depictions of Bush, eg.

    But now we’re supposed to believe that a man who sat in a hate whitey church for 20 years listening to the victim narrative that supposedly defined his sense of social justice, and surrounded himself with salon radicals with a revolutionary dislike of capitalism and a murderous attitude toward the bourgeois, is really not a hater. Just an amiable leftist.

    Who has no problem watching Palin or Joe the Plumber trashed by his minions; who alienated Hillary voters with his subtle misogyny and Bros before Hos campaign subtext; and who has been prickly with anyone who confronts him — even before being elected — to the point where he has actively sought to shut out certain speech from the political conversation.

    Not a hater.

    That’s your story, mcgruder?

  154. Log Cabin says:

    Lisa, so we can expect you and other reasonable democrats to yell, “Stop”, when the purges begin?
    As a ‘self-loathing’ gay, I am sure I have low draft number. Traitors get liquidated first, right?

  155. Carin says:

    In liberal la-la land, once O! ascends, they will no longer need to use their by any means necessary tactics.

  156. ThomasD says:

    so we can expect you and other reasonable democrats to yell, “Stop”, when the purges begin?

    Lisa standing up for the oppressed other? Brother please.

    When the ACLU kindly explains to Lisa that the suppression of certain forms of speech is not necessarily unconstitutional she’ll feel alot better about herself.

  157. Rob Crawford says:

    When the ACLU kindly explains to Lisa that the suppression of certain forms of speech is not necessarily unconstitutional she’ll feel alot better about herself.

    That ground work’s already been laid. “Hate crime” laws, anyone?

  158. Lisa says:

    Log Cabin: We will get the paranoids first. Thus, you should get your orange jumpsuit out of the dry-cleaners very soon.

  159. Lisa says:

    ThomasD: I suffer from such terrible self-righteousness that I don’t even have any need to feel better about myself. Ain’t it grand?

  160. Jeff G. says:

    And your gun out of the lock box, LC.

  161. Lisa says:

    My atrocious English is just preparation for the coming United States of 40ozes in November.

    Fo shizzle!!

  162. ThomasD says:

    As long as we know where you choose to stand Lisa.

  163. Lisa says:

    You won’t need a gun in the work camp, Perf. Just bring comfortable shoes and your iPod.

  164. Lisa says:

    ThomasD: That is pretty obvious. I am from the city. We are not real Americans anyhow. Total no brainer where I stand. Remember to yell “Wolverines” (or, “This is Fer Sarah, bitches!!) when you storm over the Key Bridge with your Merry Band of Rebels.

    Woot woot!

  165. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    “We are not real Americans anyhow”

    How come?

  166. Brock says:

    What bugs me is that if the worst comes to pass (which I’m not thinking is too likely, but IF), theres’s nowhere to frakking go. Should we go to The Great White Frozen Land of Human Rights Commissions? The United European Socialist Republic (UESR)? South America? China? It used to be that when the politically repressed needed to flee the land of their birth they fled to the USA. Where do we get to flee to?

  167. mcgruder says:

    Sdferr,
    eeyore? sorry, that shot’ll cost you a buck. Put it in the misplaced metaphor jar. he walked around moping; im yelling. Also: Im not the one writing essays like that.

    Details? No, not a hang up. How’s about having something, i dunno, work out?

    Jeff,
    I dont think he hates us. I think he looks at us and laughs, which is worse.

    He just will not (in all likelihood) have to reckon with us on the right in any meaningful fashion; he never has had to in Chicago, and because of OUR screwups, he wont for the first two years of his term either.

    there is an ugliness to politics today that is disgusting, 100% true. He has been at the center of a lot of it. And, like all pols, he is pretty-much a dick. But again, what’s new there? Is there anything that the left will say or do that surprises you?

    The GOP is not blameless. Please recall Rove helping throw McCain under a bus in 2000 for the “Not tough enough on Breast cancer” angle. That was reasoned discourse? For my money, Malkin went pretty hard after that kid’s family last year after Pelosi pimped him out and got him to speak up on healthcare.

    so no, not a hater. A C- city machine hack who has never had to wrestle, or even confront, an idea in opposition to him. And a moment in time when it appears the American people are just fine with that.

    Which sucks.

  168. Log Cabin says:

    I was just joking about the camps…

    But isn’t it odd that I have been socially shunned by many gays aquaintances for being a political conservative, but never shunned by my conservative (and/or Evangelical Christian) associates for being gay? My guess is an Obama reign won’t really be one of terror, but will have many people keeping their opinions private.

    That liberal tolerance is so heartwarming in practice!

  169. Carin says:

    hat is pretty obvious. I am from the city. We are not real Americans anyhow

    But, we’re giving people from Blue cities two or three votes! You’re like “extra Americans.”

  170. Carin says:

    Log Cabin, you are so inauthentically gay. I’m thinking you prolly wouldn’t even be able to decorate my house.

  171. mcgruder says:

    Log Cabin,
    very insightful points.
    I work in MSM central. I know exactly what you mean, although because I can play well enough at the reindeer games, I have no problem speaking up.
    although, unlike my colleagues, i make it a point to be civil and non-abrasive. Im trying to win a convert or two, you know?

  172. Carin says:

    I dont think he hates us. I think he looks at us and laughs, which is worse.

    What comes to my mind is condescension.

  173. Percy Dovetonsils says:

    “I’m certain about it is life under a Baracky Admin would be an unending Mandated Diversity Class. He would just.not.stop. preaching his BS every damned day trying to enlighten all of us.”

    Yep. That shit will get real old, quickly. That’s my main hope.

  174. urthshu says:

    Didn’t know that about you, LC. Here, I was thinking you were a real smart & good kind of guy, now you’re just a h0m0 and I can’t read you no mo’.
    /2 minute hate before coffee LOL

  175. Slartibartfast says:

    But isn’t it odd that I have been socially shunned by many gays aquaintances for being a political conservative

    Shun the nonbeliever….shuuuuuuunnnnn.

  176. Lisa says:

    Carin our votes have to be counted three times per election (plus two more after we die) to make up for our Hating of Freedom and love of Teh Terrorists.

  177. urthshu says:

    >>Shun the nonbeliever

    “I don’t want LC to babysit the kids b/c he might recruit them and make ’em conservatives!”

  178. Slartibartfast says:

    You should just vote three times on polling day like I do, Lisa. That way your odds of getting counted go way up.

  179. Lisa says:

    But isn’t it odd that I have been socially shunned by many gays aquaintances for being a political conservative, but never shunned by my conservative (and/or Evangelical Christian) associates for being gay?

    That is odd. However lets revisit an earlier comment:

    A lot of neighborhoods adopt community pets.

    I denounce myself in advance.

  180. Sdferr says:

    Nothing says “feeling the love” quite like

    …he will likely have no reason what so ever to even pay us heed.

    or

    …I think he looks at us and laughs, which is worse.

    He just will not (in all likelihood) have to reckon with us on the right in any meaningful fashion; he never has had to in Chicago, and because of OUR screwups, he won’t for the first two years of his term either.

    Contempt to the point of ignoring, (call it elimination, if only in mind, how’s about)? Right. So, not hate? Right.

    So I’m not feeling the love. Particularly when it is easier for him to just juke and jive, twist and dodge every offered opportunity to fully and openly explain just what it was he was believing “way back when” he was operating hand in hand with Rev. Wright, Father Pfleger, William Ayers, Madeleine Talbot, Alice Palmer, the New Party, et al.

    Why is it “easier”? Contempt to start, utter lack of empathy second. Not hate? No, for how can he hate something that isn’t even there?

    Oh, but wait, what if it happens that forthrightly explaining what he was believing “back then” involves explaining that it was precisely hating that constituted the enterprise, hating on the AIDS creating government bent on the destruction of black folks everywhere, hating on the “capitalist system” that was bent on keeping people of color down everywhere and always, hating on the haves “stomping” on the have-nots, wow, how about that, hating going on everywhere we turn?

    As to your command of details remarks, I keyed on this, which doesn’t sound all that classical liberal to me:

    …but Bush has turned everyone off to the idea of “high-character, low command of the details” type leadership.

    So how is it that “…something…work[s] out?”, would that be with yet more “control” from the top, do you think, or maybe instead, get the “controllers” out of the way, let go the reins, set people free to succeed and fail on their own hook. Is it leadership with “command of the details” that accomplishes that (I think of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust)? Or leadership that understands it cannot, can never know the details requisite to making the sorts of rational decisions that leads to things working out?

  181. urthshu says:

    Honestly, tho, I don’t find it odd in the least what happens with LC. He’s the best person to ‘splain why that is, altho I’ve my own ideas about it.

    You’re not alone, LC. I’ve got members of my family in the same boat. Lesbian, which is likely easier to get away with in a cultural sense

  182. McGehee says:

    Lisa, stop jumping up on the guests. And stay off the couch.

  183. TmjUtah says:

    …surrounded himself with salon acknowledged and in some cases convicted radicals terrorists with a engaged in a decades long, ongoing revolutionary covert campaign to subvert dislike of U.S. culture, and by extention capitalism, via gramscian social policies executed as education reform.

    Clunky. But it works better for me. Ayers, Wright, Alinsky… all of Obama’s mentors were about getting inside, then taking down, what they declared a corrupt, racist, system.

    mcgruder, you think that we… okay, that I, am extreme for taking them all at their word? What fucking reality do you live in that insulates Obama from even the slightest suspicion that he might just embrace the views of every single individual he’s identified as mentors over his entire life?

    “That’s just too horrible to even think about” probably came up in dinner table conversations across Europe, especially in Jewish households, for a large part of the thirties, you think?

    I appreciate your observation from the standpoint of a media player. But you, and your culture, miss the point entirely where Obama, the current economy, and the importance of this election is concerned.

    I don’t see anybody here holding the Republican Party up as a solution for anything we face.

    But ANY Republican candidate for public office – ANY office – who had one tenth of Obama’s past associations or public record of campaing thuggery and fundraising fraud would be retraining as a low-tier lobbiest (certainly not beltway, at best) or simply “spending more time with his family”.

    Half of America isn’t cool with Barak Obama because only about a third of us pay enough attention to get through the media firewall that protects him.

    He’s a hater, and ALL of his footsoldiers are intent on following him through the gates of the city when the victory is won. Barbarians in victory aren’t known for restraint. You are very right in pointing out he’s never faced opposition he couldn’t cheat or game off the field.

    He doesn’t have any other tools, mcgruder. Plus, the first obstacles he will face will be the plantation owner Dems, whose treatment will be an excellent indicator to the rest of us on what to expect in terms of subtlety and pace.

    Try this on: Think of any member of the CBC who isn’t an outright lunatic. Now see them seated in the Speaker’s chair this time next year, if Obama wins.

    Watch it happen. The unimaginable is only that until you live through it.

    First run made at the bill of rights, I am on the green. Republican has nothing to fucking do with it.

  184. TmjUtah says:

    Oh bosh. Sorry about the open tag.

  185. Sdferr says:

    Who would like to see a catalog of Obama’s personal library, even if sifted to carefully remove Michelle’s books? Anyone? How about Biden’s? Or McCain’s? Palin’s? How about it? Put the catalogs on teh Intertubes, let’s have a look.

  186. Bob Reed says:

    My dear Lisa,

    Speaking as a former Marylander, of P.G. county extraction, I know of what you speak; the overwhelming number of Democrats. It’s not surprising though when you think of the overwhelming number of Federal employees, mostly Democrats, who live in the Maryland suburbs surrounding DC.

    In fact, I was recruited to be an election judge owing to the almost non-existant number of RethugliKKKans in that same county; indeed, it often seemed like I was throwing away my vote. And my, aren’t the residents of that county a tolerant buch; witness the recent Outrage! when a Clinton hotel owner had the temerity to display a McCain/Palin sign….

    …Businesspeople have to be mindful of the sentiments and sensibilities of their market trading area, and Prince George’s County is overwhelmingly for Obama,” said community activist Arthur Turner of Kettering, who was among those advocating a boycott. “People I have talked to look at the sign as a slap in the face. They feel it was blatant disrespect

    From this article in the Washington Post:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/11/AR2008101101465_pf.html

    Maybe its much better in, “it’s all good”, Baltimore city. As a Ravens season ticket holder still, it seems like the city has put it’s rancorous past to bed for good; that’s pretty easy though when everybody agrees on a prevailing political worldview. And as far as those few “pet” republican voters you all suffer in your neighborhood? I’m sure it’s a task made easier by the knowledge that as recently as the year 2000 more than 10,000 dead people apparantly zombie-walked from the cemetery to the polls to cast their Democratic, straight-ticket, vote…

    So believe me, I know what it’s like to be optimistic, yet regularly defeated, as well as being a member of a racial and ideological minority. So, if you are an O! supporter and he wins as many indicators suggest, I bid you well and suggest you enjoy it while you can…

    And, for the record, I find myself in not too a dissimilar position in my new home of NYC. Still a Rethug! in a universe of Dems; but I find I’m tolerated-as long as I don’t make too many waves…

    Why at dinner with some of my wife’s friends last week, one young woman wanted to talk about politics with me, seeing how she’d never actually met a Republican in her whole life; she was 31…

    No bad feelings intended,
    Best Wishes…

  187. Bob Reed says:

    Drat!
    Sorry for the open italics tab…I gotta type more and tag less, I guess

    Best Wishes

  188. Lisa says:

    Bob:

    Wow! Tell that girl to take one of those Eco Tours to the Eastern Shore or Southern Maryland to gawk at the Rethuglicus Knuckledragulus or the Bitterus Firearmus et JesusChristus species in their native, endangered wetlands. It is fascinating to watch them mow their McCain/Palin sign studded lawns and wash their yellow-ribbon festooned F-150s (some even have an odd crimson, alabaster, and cerulean cloth stuck to a stick and affixed to their rear passenger window). Her friends will be deeply impressed and consider such a trip even more fascinating and admirable than her Peace Corps stint in Lesotho back in the 90s. She will be the toast of the dinner party circuit!!

  189. Andrew the Noisy says:

    “:Yeah being a Republican in the state of MD is pretty much consigning yourself to the same status as a Lyndon LaRuche fanboy. The entire Eastern Shore is full of these odd, conservative creatures. We often drive out there on weekends and observe them in their native habitat. I think there might even be a bill in committee to make Cecil, Queen Anne’s, Kent, et al protected habitats of endangered species.”

    Actually, Lisa, the fault line is somewhere in Baltimore County, near as I can figure. Damned if I don’t see a hell of a lot of McCain/Palin signs on Bel Air Road as I drive out of Balmer. They really pick up once you get into Perry Hall.

    ‘Course, anywhere outside of the 95 corridor, you see the same thing. Drive down into (most of) Charles, St. Mary’s, Calvert, Southern Anne Arundel, or west much past Frederick and it’s Bush country.

    And we love Our Fine Governor.

  190. Lisa says:

    Lisa, stop jumping up on the guests. And stay off the couch.

    Can I at least pee behind it?

  191. Andrew the Noisy says:

    Bob, I know the Hotel in question, I’ve drank myself silly at the Duck Lounge on more than one occasion. It’s just BARELY in P.G., and in fact is closer to the Waldorf/St. Charles cancer area than anything else.

    And the marquee may have been censored fixed, but when I drove past it last weekend, the sign was still there.

  192. JD says:

    KKKomrade Sugartits – You are in rare form today. Pissing behind the couch is okay, once you have mastered writing your name in the snow.

  193. Bob Reed says:

    Lisa,
    LOL…That is soooooooo true. My parents live in Ocean City now, and you see all this on the way there these days; quite a contrast as my trip now takes me through the length of Delaware.

    You are quite right though, and all those affectations were in high form display when we drove through the countryside on a recent visit…

    I wonder if the Peace Corps would consider delegations to places like the Eastern Shore, and Appalachia perhaps??? It would be quite an eye opening experience for the NYU and Columbia types…

    Best Wishes…

  194. thor says:

    #

    Comment by Lisa on 10/24 @ 12:13 pm #

    Bob:

    Wow! Tell that girl to take one of those Eco Tours to the Eastern Shore or Southern Maryland to gawk at the Rethuglicus Knuckledragulus or the Bitterus Firearmus et JesusChristus species in their native, endangered wetlands. It is fascinating to watch them mow their McCain/Palin sign studded lawns and wash their yellow-ribbon festooned F-150s (some even have an odd crimson, alabaster, and cerulean cloth stuck to a stick and affixed to their rear passenger window). Her friends will be deeply impressed and consider such a trip even more fascinating and admirable than her Peace Corps stint in Lesotho back in the 90s. She will be the toast of the dinner party circuit!!

    I remember when we used to sing in the government yard in Trenchtown. Everything’s gonna be alright!

    Way to jam your fist in their eyes.

  195. Lisa says:

    Waves to Comrade Thorsky!

  196. thor says:

    Black power e-fist raised!

  197. Lisa says:

    Perf, WordPress just ate a comment of mine. I think I may have tripped the Commie Ejector Wire or something.

  198. Lisa says:

    Maybe I will break it up. Here goes:

    JDizzle!! Greetings! LOL now I know how to spend my snow days constructively. Always a delight to see you J-Smoove.

  199. Lisa says:

    Bob: NYU students + Appalacia = PBS special (see Ken Burns). Which I would then receive as a “thank you gift” next pledge drive.

  200. Slartibartfast says:

    F-150s are for pencilnecks. Go for the F-650.

  201. Lisa says:

    Andrew: The Charles County folk vote for whoever has the free beer and hot chicks. Since both the Republicans and the Democrats are 1/1 on that front, there is much confusion and gnashing of the teeth this election season for the good people of Charles County.

  202. Lisa says:

    LOL Slart. You would need your own Exxon-Valdez parked in your fishpond to keep that sucker in gas.

  203. Slartibartfast says:

    Nah. Think of it as a mobile swimming pool.

  204. Lisa says:

    Nah. Think of it as a mobile swimming pool.

    LOL!!

  205. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Can I at least pee behind it?

    Depends on whether Michelle is wearing it at the time.

    (Link goes to a gay-guys-for-Hillary blog. Nobody does fashion snark like gay guys)

  206. JD says:

    Slarti – I am saving for an International CXT. I want to drive it to the nearest Greenspeace or Sierra Club meeting.

  207. Lisa says:

    Spies that is funny. Mrreeeeeoooooow. Pfffffffft, pfffffffttt.

    I love the commenter who said: “Looks like she might have part of the cat pinned to her dress as well.”

    That dress was dreadful.

  208. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Yeah, it was fuckin’ hideous.

    I will say that Michelle’s bod looked damned hot in it, though.

  209. JD says:

    Yeah, it was fuckin’ hideous.

    Better Half screams at the TV every time Michelle comes on stage wearing a sofa or some 60’s shower curtains.

  210. Bob Reed says:

    Lisa,
    LOL!!! You are a riot, Darlin’…

    thor,
    Did you mean Trenchtown, as in Jamaica? Is that your extraction, or did you just visit the Island a lot?

  211. Bob Reed says:

    SBP,
    That link was hilarious…But admit it Bro, I wouldn’t want to get in her way if she was in a mood, would you?

    And I’m a 6′ 3″, 280 lb, former defensive end; not your typical eng-o-nerd…

  212. Lisa says:

    Spies: Michelle is bootylicious, if fashion challenged (and finally it looks like someone from Oprah’s battalion of hairdressers came to her rescue, because her naps are looking fantastic). Though I must say that Governor Palin is rather bootylicious herself. My brother is glued to C-SPAN when she is on it in hopes of seeing some Alaskan butt-curves.

  213. thor says:

    I’ll be there during the elections.

  214. Bob Reed says:

    Oh, that’s why you mentioned an absentee ballot in one of the other threads…

    Enjoy yourself thor, It should be nice in Jamaica this time of year…

  215. thor says:

    I’ll be deep in the Land of The Lookback.

  216. Bob Reed says:

    Lisa,
    They always show Palin from the front though, to appeal to those who might want to, ahem, head to the mountains…Or the foothils, as it were; that’s a more subjective matter…

    I’m sure he could google her in order to better ogle her though…That almost sounds obscene!

    Best wishes…

  217. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Lisa: yes, they’re both very…healthy…looking women. Too bad Michelle is always scowling.

    I’ll be in my bunk, listening to Sir Mix-a-Lot on the iPod.

  218. JD says:

    No doubt that Michelle could take Baracky, easily.

  219. Bob Reed says:

    thor,
    Land of the Lookback? I was only there once in the early 80’s. We were at a resort in Montego Bay. That was a very bourgeois junket though, was before I had traveled more extensively and learned the sublime pleasures one could get by avoiding the tourist areas and hanging with the regular folks instead…

    I envy you, well all be here caught up in election FEE-VAH!

    Again, Enjoy!

  220. Lisa says:

    LMAO Spies!! You like big butts and you cannot lie…

  221. Lisa says:

    Thor have fun in Jamaica. Smoke one for me, man.

  222. urthshu says:

    I’m not getting the Michelle is a hottie thing. Thats like fantasizing about Aunt Esther, you old heathen

  223. McGehee says:

    Urthshu, I think some guys have a thing for women who look like they’d bite their heads off after sex.

  224. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Michelle would be cute, but the permanent scowl is a deal-breaker.

  225. […] Crawford, whose O’Connor-inspired post I linked here a week or so back, responds to his liberal “critics” — most notably […]

  226. The way he makes me feel…

    I’m late on this, having spent the last day or so with the stomach flu, trying to edge ginger ale and saltines down my throat unnoticed.

    Anyway, Reason has a round-up of thoughts by lib……

  227. Emmaline says:

    Halo! The babes are here! This is my favorite site to visit. I make sure I am alone in case I get too hot. Post your favorite link here.

  228. […] biggest problem with Obama is his instincts. I don’t think that he hates classical liberals (via Eric), any more than I think Sarah Palin hates those of us who live in blue […]

  229. Bob43 says:

    Scotty, have you seen Big Bang Theory? ,

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