Christine O’Donnell is one of those public figures that emerge from time to time that make any writer of fiction envious of reality. Only a truly gifted writer could make someone like this up and then sell her as a plausible character.
At the heart of it, she is the problem with the Tea Party.
Here’s the thing I’ve never understood about the far right: fiscal responsibility is well and good and certainly we could do with a lot more—we could have used some for the last thirty years, certainly, a period during which Republicans (and by inference conservatives) have been largely in control of Congress—but how come is it we can’t seem to get candidates who are just about that without dragging all the social issue crap along with them? I for one am tiring of having my alternatives clipped because some whack-a-do who may well have a sound fiscal policy in mind is also hell bent on “correcting” the lax, immoral, godless state of the country.
Now we get right down to the basic issues with Ms. O’Donnell: jacking off. It’s destroying the country. People are going blind from this, divorce rates are record high because selfish people are doing themselves at the expense of the shared relationship god intended they have. Abstinence means all of it! Tie those peoples’ hands behind their backs! Put those genital safety belts on those young fellows who can’t leave johnny alone! Why, if we root out the evil of self-pleasuring, we’ll be on the road to sound financial policy and security in no time!
Then of course there’s the usual slate of absurdities—she’s a young earth creationist. (What, may I ask, does this have to do with fiscal conservatism? Well, in her case, apparently, a difficulty with basic math…) Naturally she opposes abortion and since she’s so down on pud pounding, we may presume she hasn’t much use for birth control of any kind, sex education, or possible female orgasm.
She is that perfect contradiction of modern far right womanhood—someone who probably thinks women’s place is in the home who is attempting to establish a powerful political career in order to legislate herself back into a state of chattel bondage.
And then there’s the Libertarian wing of the Tea Party that basically believes people ought to be free to choose their own lives without interference from anyone, especially the government, and eventually they will create the fissure in opposition to the Talibaptist contingent who want more than anything to tell people how to live decent lives.
It may do this country good to elect some of these folks into public office so we can see, really see how they perform. How they make their philosophies mesh with what most Americans really want.
It’s a sad time for American politics. We’re in a depression (why they insist on continuing to call it a recession is purist political cynicism), Obama has not miraculously fixed that, and people are pissed off. They are in a “Throw the bastards out” mood, but unfortunately they have little to choose from. The Republican Party, self-deluded that they may ride this tide back into power for “all the right reasons”, has so bankrupted its credibility right before, during, and since W that even conservatives must hold their noses to vote for them. The Democrats have failed once again to define an American Ideology behind which the people can get and although right now they are probably on the right track fiscally, it will take time for their actions to result in anything fruitful. (Didn’t Obama say all along it would take a long time? Didn’t he say this would not be painless? Didn’t he say a lot of work would have to be done before things started drifting back to something good? Didn’t he? But he’s been in office 19 months! My god, just how long is a long time?) They haven’t “fixed things” so people don’t like them either.
So there’s the Tea Party. This is bottom of the barrel time. These are the screeling, apocalyptic, neo-revisionist, founding-principled-though-illiterate gang of conspiracy theorist candidates who have gained momentum through sheer quality of nerve, who intend to save the country from our foreign-born Muslim president and the anarcho-socialist intellectual elite. They are the ones who wish to remove all the interfering laws and restrictions that hamper the marrow-deep entrepreneurial American essence and allow people to make millions on their own or starve in the gutter with their families because while Darwin was wrong about biology he was right about economic policy and the weak ought to perish so the strong can dominate. These are the folks who would free us to be dominated by Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banking, and Big Insurance. These are people who believe corporations are people, too, and back the American dream nurtured in the heart of every kid who wants to grow up to be a corporation. Or an oligarch.
But first, they have to curtail masturbation. The country has had enough of people jacking off. Time to get them back to work.
Mark
I posted a comment to Erich's post Fakeonomics, regarding a breakfast conversation I had this morning about O'Donnell, the Tea Party, the upcoming elections and the pending Republican takeover.
My comment here is that the TP have shifted the overton window so far into total wingnut territory, that the party itself is no longer representative of 'mainstream' conservative thought (an example of the latter is David Frum).
Indeed it looks increasingly like the US will either need to change it's more of government (which is based wholly on a two party position/opposition dynamic) to allow multi-party politics (not impossible, but the transition would be interesting to say the least), or the parties will have to expand and overlap in their positions so much they will become largely identical across the broad center, and be defined entirely by their fringes.
My respondent mentioned that the US does not want to be like Europe. I said that was because they didn't understand Europe – only demonized it. He retorted that he understood Europe well enough – and added that Germany was moving away form socialism… to much stronger fiscal conservatism in the american mold and that's why they were doing so well! My response – If anyone tried to institute German fiscal policy here, they'd be lambasted as Communists, so don't even think of using Germany to support your argument.
Needless to say, he changed the topic.
[aside]
I think I mixed up the posting — this one seems more 'economics' and the other is 'TP are wingnuts' — Maybe it's simply that the TP are utterly baffling.
[/aside]
From Andrew Sullivan:
Christine2010.com, O’Donnell’s website, now resolves to nothing more than splash page asking people to donate. There is no content, contact info, or biography . . . No actual policies; no media accountability; repeated statements of demonstrable untruths; total absence from the airwaves for fear of any genuine exposure. Palin – and the MSM's total capitulation to her lies in 2008 – has changed politics more than most imagined.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_d…
Her old "Why Christie" page had some choice statements about Mike Castle's positions which demonstrate her wingnuttery and alignment to Palin.
voted to subject children to out of state abortions without consent of parents
I didn't know he had voted to make it compulsory! OMG! Save us, Christie!
voted to ban exploration for American Energy along with the rest of the caucus, I recall!
voted to spend billions on failed stimulus packages and bailouts
Last I heard (from almost every reputable economist) the bailouts have worked, have mostly been paid back, and they should have been bigger – and weren't those the 'Bush' bailouts?
Will Bunch on the Tea Party:
To suggest that the Tea Party movement is an organic uprising of angry Americans is to ignore the giant elephant in the room—the right-wing media machine, led by the Fox News Channel and a coast-to-coast umbrella of conservative talk radio, that takes popular anger and channels it away from Wall Street billionaires and toward “the Other,” a grouping that now not only includes Mexican immigrants and Muslim Americans but our unprecedented new president. There are only one or two references to Glenn Beck in all of Mad as Hell—which I find stunning after talking with so many newly minted activists who cite Beck—a non-stop font of misinformation—as the main reason they “got off the couch.” A new Pew survey released today found 40 percent of Republicans watch Fox News regularly—and just as Fox News viewers were more likely once to wrongly believe that Saddam Hussein attacked America on 9/11, today those same folks are more likely to think that Obama bailed out the banks by himself… when he wasn’t bowing toward Mecca.
That’s why I think it’s so important to look at the Tea Party not so much as an organically grown movement but one that is being altered, dangerously so, by toxic forces in our society—high-def hucksters who mislead fearful and angry Americans to line their own pocket, and opportunistic political non-leaders along for the frightening ride for their reelection.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-…
Mark: O'Donnell likely wouldn't approve of scientists helping chimps to masturbate. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_d…
Nope, the TPers are nuts! But, since the "Scare the White people Party" f/k/a the Republicans are apparently poised to resume their ruinous rule of America, let's look at what they actually stand for:
Taking the Democrats' Middle Class Tax Cuts in the Stimulus Plan away and giving them to the ultra-rich at a cost of $731 billion.
Getting rid of the "Ponzi scheme" of Social Security and making it a "privatized program" where Wall Street gets our bucks and we all get to eat cat food in our retirement.
Getting rid of Medicare and replacing it with "vouchers" so they can ration health care to lower costs and keep down services as old people die before they can get cured.
Getting rid of the Departments of Education, Energy and Agriculture because they get in the way of banks ripping off students, Big Oil ripping off America and Big Agriculture from fixing prices on our bad food.
Getting rid of healthcare reform;
so kids can die because they can't get coverage for "pre-existing conditions" or whatever the health insurers don't want to pay for this week;
so healthcare insurers can charge whatever they want for as little coverage as possible which they'll cancel as soon as you make a claim;
so kids under 26 can't be covered by their parents' policies;
so there's no real competition in most very state because usually one carrier has 80% or more of the market and wants to keep it that way;
so we have to eat their shit and die as they deem fit without the interference of any governmental authority!
The economic policy alternatives offered by the TPers and the STWPP are the same fatally flawed and failed GOP policies which brought on the Lost Decade of Bush/Cheney, the Great Recession and deficits as far as the eye can see. The only winners will be those in the top 2% of the economic heap, while what's left of the the Middle Class after the Lost Decade will disappear entirely.
The national security policies of the TPers and the STWPP focus on promoting 24/7 racist xenophobia, sedition, and internal fearmongering to allow them to strip away the last vestiges of our republic and replace them with a truly fascist corporatist state ruled by Rupert Murdoch and his ilk.
Andrew Sullivan discusses O'Donnell's "theoconservative" stance on masturbation:
"O'Donnell's stance against masturbation is related to the new natural law that is central to the theoconservative project that Douthat endorses and believes in (and that is at the core of the Republican party base). It is rooted in the notion that any sex that is not self-giving in a lifelong marital bond between a man and a woman is destructive of the human soul and also of the community at large."
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_d…
Tim, You left out the Tea/Republican parties "stealth" issue: Reformation of tort law to exempt corporations from liability.
The tort reform we really need is to key punitive damages against a corporation to their revenues, and provide substantial and meaningful penalties for the abusive manipulation of the judicial system in the practice of "litigation as a business strategy".