The Liberal Memorial
 
I might have thought, thinking being something I might do, that with the grave and gathering calamity of a United Stated Federal government unified under Republican political power, that conservatives would busily examine what has gone wrong and why. I might do so, doing being something I might do. And yet, the favorite subject of the petty pundits boosting the Republican party remains the liberal, Homo Sinestri, to whom a great edifice of disposable scribblings continues to be raised in memoriam. Here is, I believe, a fair and conservative appraisal of the Republican party at the federal level: Disaster, treachery, insincerity, misdirected, incompetent, corrupt and heading for the margins. Demonizing liberals alongside the political ineffectiveness of the Democratic party may keep power in Republican hands a little longer, but as long as the right continues to rely on these two pillars of American politics, the last two still standing, the calamity and the ignominy associated with the right will continue to escalate. Some of us are true believers in limited government, personal responsibility above that of the state, transparency, accountability, civil society as the agent of morality and fiscal discipline. We prefer competency as well. Some of us may prefer a pink pig over a standard Democrat. If we are sincere, honest and true, however, we now prefer a standard Democrat to a Republican as well. All that remains to the Republican party are its own partisans, those who would vote Republican if Jesus came down in a Kerry/Edwards t-shirt and the Devil ran himself for Senate majority leader, winning on a party-line vote. To these, I offer the following words of encouragement and advice: Your soul can yet be saved if you banish the word “Liberal” from your vocabulary and study up on “conservative.” Now is the time for all good Republicans to come the aid of the party. The triumphant fervor with which some Republicans love to burn straw liberals has long been hubristic, simplistic, silly, peripatetic, pretty pathetic, cruel, confused, crass, mistaken, God-fosaken, pouty, prissy, pandering, pig-headed and pompous. Today it amounts to no more than whistling past the graveyard. The Prattler Wordbook BALDERDASH, n. The Senate’s proclamation of a national language. BANE, n. Balm. BANSHEE, n. A pundit whose party holds power. BANQUET, n. A congratulatory feast celebrating a recent or expected victory, accomplishment or ascent. Notable honorees include Jesus Christ and Marie Antoinette. BANQUO, n. Shakespeare’s personification of Ronald Reagan. BARBECUE, v. A funeral banquet at which hogs celebrate the virtues of a fallen comrade. TWO NOTES ABOUT THIS POST: This post was inspired by this post on Wonderland or Not. Indeterminacy sent me a link to this film, in which a film-maker outshines the moon by parodying Ann Coulter. http://wonderlandornot.net/2006/05/25/damn-liberals-we-only-have-to-look-to-american-idol-to-see-there-is-no-real-problem/http://indeterminacy.blogspot.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgdNZSgWjNsshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2
Saturday, June 3, 2006
From the collection of Richard Samuel West / Periodyssey.