Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Congratulations Rep. Scott Murphy! Norm Coleman take note: when the votes don't go your way, it's generally a good idea to gracefully concede.

There are times when I seriously wonder if the Cons are ingesting some sort of toxins that cause acute stupidity, insanity and hypocrisy. Today's one of those days.

There's been a lot of talk about Cons going to war lately (rather than merely sending soldiers to live out their fantasies for them). They've talked about becoming an insurgency like the Taliban. They've threatened to go nuclear over various and sundry nominations, the budget reconciliation process, and formed a mob demanding the head of Janet Napolitano. Now they're threatening war over war crimes prosecutions:

New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.

King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should "shut down [legislative] activity across the board" if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court.

"We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war," he told POLITICO.

Is it just me, or do these fucktards seem to be starting more wars than they have the troops to fight? They've got a rather bad habit of doing that.

Rep. King didn't just stop there, though. He's decided Jay "Torture Memo" Bybee doesn't deserve impeachment, but a medal.

Cons have a funny way of thinking about war crimes. Now, apparently, if we prosecute officials for war crimes, we'll be turning America into a banana republic. Cons have been so delighted with this meme that it's filtered up to Sens. Bond and McCain, forcing Steve Benen to school them on the true meaning of "banana republic:"

One of the distinguishing characteristics of a "Banana Republic" is an unaccountable chief executive who ignores the rule of law when it suits his/her purposes. The ruling junta in a "Banana Republic" eschews accountability, commits heinous acts in secret, tolerates widespread corruption, and generally embraces a totalitarian attitude in which the leader can break laws whenever he/she feels it's justified to protect the state.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Rove, McCain, Bond, Hannity, Beck, et al are so caught up in their partisan rage, they've failed to realize they have the story backwards. They're so far gone, they're so blinded by their rigid ideology, they have no idea that they're projecting. It's genuinely pathetic.

If our goal is to avoid looking like a "Banana Republic," then we would investigate those responsible for torture, which is, not incidentally, illegal. The accused would enjoy the presumption of innocence and due process rights. The process would be transparent, and those who act (and have acted) in our name would be held accountable.

It's the hallmark of a great and stable democracy: we honor the rule of law, even when it's inconvenient, and even when it meets the cries of small men with sad ideas.

To do otherwise, to retreat because a right-wing minority whines incessantly, would do more to make us look like a "Banana Republic" than anything else.

You've got that right. I wonder if any of them will ever wake up to that little fact? Nah, you're right. They can't even understand simple concepts, such as "the dose is the poison:"

On the House floor on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) argued that threat of manmade global warming doesn't make any sense because "carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature":

Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that's on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that -- that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.

That's right, Michele. It is fundamental. So is water, but people drown if there's too much. The dose is the poison. Thinking like yours is what leads people to give themselves vitamin toxcity and destroy their organs with overdoses of herbal supplements because "it's necessary to life/it's natural, therefore we should take as much of it as possible."

Morons.

Cherrypicking facts and evidence has become something of a Con specialty. You've got people like Bachmann latching on to the fact that CO2 is a necessary gas while ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence that says too much of a good thing is bad. And you've got Cons like Dick Cheney requesting proof that torture works - all two documents' worth:

Two things that are immediately striking about the request Dick Cheney submitted for classified documents that would allegedly prove that torture worked:

(1) He only asked for a total of two documents, a total of 21 pages — meaning this is likely the grand total of proof Cheney himself is able to point to supporting his claims about the torture program.

(2) Despite the charge that Obama cherry-picked from the torture memos, it seems pretty clear that Cheney himself did some serious cherry-picking from the intel files.

This, at least, is the immediate takeaway of ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer, who’s been following this stuff as closely as anyone.

Something tells me that if torture were truly effective, there'd be more than two documents proving it so. This also conveniently ignores the fact that whether or not torture's effective, it's completely fucking illegal. Look at it this way: I could claim that shooting my neighbor is an efficient, effective way to get them to stop playing loud music. Even if we ignored the messy clean-up, the wailing of relatives, and the fact that the apartment complex may be a little upset at losing a paying tenant in this manner, we'd still be SOL advocating shooting as an effective method to enforce the hours of quiet rules because murder is morally and legally wrong.

Cons in general yawp loudly about morality, but let's just look at one final bit of Con thinking to see how moral they might be:

I predicted a freak-out about Plan B, but I didn’t think it would be this funny:

So guys, if you screw a 17-year-old and “forget” to use a condom, remember: Nothing says “thanks a lot, you cheap whore” like the gift of Plan B!

Alternately, your readers could stop screwing minors.

Striking that never occurred to them, innit? I'd like to offer a word of advice: whatever Cons are ingesting that's causing this rampant dumbfuckery, it's probably time they started rehab for it.