Right Wing Blather

Hi folks. You may have noticed that my Jedi Idiot series of blogs drew some less than complimentary attention. That's exactly what I was hoping would happen, but this last comment worries me. Not because he/she posted a salient, well thought out riposte, but because of the underlying 'if you ain't with us, yer agin us' mentality it evinces. Behold the pertinent stanza:

Also why are you for "gay marriage". marriage is between one man and one women. Anything else is a sin.

Some of you, my dear friends, will know that I actually am for gay marriage. If same sex couples want to destroy their sex lives the same way we 'hets' have for centuries, more power to you. ;-) But, the reason I'm mentioning that is that this conclusional leap was based on this statement from your humble blogger:

As for domestic issues, getting people all fired up over non-issues like gay marriage, abortion, and flag burning so disgusts me that I would never vote for anyone stumping for them.

Now, before you start snapping your fingers in Z formations and calling me Miss Thing, allow me to clarify. By calling these non-issues I don't mean that they are unimportant. I mean that, in my opinion, government has no business legislating one way or another about them, and using them as planks in a political platform is merely pandering to the mouth-breathing, sheep-eyed, 'do whatever my pastor tells me' psuedo-fundamentalists of the type that made the aforementioned comment. In some ways I guess I do agree with what the Republican party used to stand for; smaller government that barely interferes with public life. But over the last two decades Republicans have more and more been trying to legislate morality, probably in order to keep their deep-pocketed religious right affiliates happy, but it's as false as Judas' kiss. There is no morality in Washington, and anyone who believes that there are more than a handful of truly good men and women in our government is sadly delusional. As I have pontificated before, our bureaucracy has become a bloated, overfed, masturbatory Jabba the Democracy whose main goal is not to make life better for the American people, but to maintain the power hungry, cash sated lifestyle of those who supposedly represent us. When even someone like Mark Foley can be corrupted by the 'don't ask, don't tell...unless you get outed 3 weeks before election time' mentality I say it's time to throw them all out and start over.

So long as there are people out there like my eloquent objector, who think that any president deserves respect(although I would be curious as to his opinions on Clinton)and blind obedience, there will be scumbags in office who will take advantage of them by waving the 'immorality and terror' flags. I once had a student who accused me of perpetuating the stereotype that all conservatives were inbred, undereducated hicks, and I granted her that point, and have made an effort to eradicate that type of thinking from my mind. But when all it takes to bring out the snaggle-toothed Lil Abners is to call the president an idiot in the title of a blog which maybe a dozen people read, I find it very hard to reprogram myself.

Have a happy Sunday, y'all. :-)

Marius