The UnRepublican Party
Please let's get our act together, D******s...
This country has no counterpart to the Republican party. For years now, the option has been between Republicans, and what amounts to vanilla deadweight which continue the spiral of bureaucracy to no clear purpose. Just because the track record of that vanilla deadweight has been consistently better than the Republican offerings, doesn't mean that it's a substitute. What it's missing? All the comedic hooks mentioned on the Colbert report; Heart, Balls, Gut. Whatever the hell that bullshit means.
But of course, most of us, despite our mostly functioning brains cannot deny that it does mean something. The airline steward, who, when he saw that I was reading Nietzsche to relax (and it *is* relaxing if you are a collossal sycophant like me--Zarathustra is a reasonable substitute for the bible. Try it some time.) produced some utterly vapid nonsense about how 'he used to be into stuff like that' but 'in the end' he had to come back to spirituality.
'You can't live without spirituality'
Oh how brilliant. Of course, my urge was that say that spirituality is nothing but an excuse to run around in circles in your own imagination until you get dizzy and fall down--and if your mother was there to see you behaving that way, she'd tell you to stop, reduce your sugar intake, and possibly slap you on the hand. And I did say exactly that to this trainwreck of intellectual due diligence.
But, after all, this isn't entirely fair. I'm well aquainted with the more ludicrous aspects of personal spiritual belief. For any who care, I skew Valhalla/heavy metal/Goth/Crusader. Which *should* make me an absolute bore. Snide comments aside, I manage to avoid that fate through a healthy sense of my own childishness, which, I firmly believe, *most* people preserver in some sense or other. The typical christian version is humility, but in general, I believe that many people think of themselves as ninjas, or children of light, or mischievous fairies, or even werewolves, but keep it to themselves, because they recognize, while this *belief* does something for them personally, it has no place in the interface between their innermost privacy and external measurement devices (such as potential mates).
Kids always make the mistake of wearing their inner sanctum on their sleeve, and we grin and say 'oh how cute', and revel in the transparency of it all. That's why, when you reflect on being so open with your beliefs as a child, inevitably, there is a sense of embarrassment ('oh good god, I can't believe I used to have 2 invisible friends'), whereas, when adults see children behaving this way, it's cute. Well, mostly cute. Jewish mothers are, of course, unimpressed with such frivolity, as it takes away from time they can spend getting good grades and ostracizing themselves from the greater community.
But I'm off message, and that's the point, here, isn't it. Democrats are way off message.
'But jee whiz, American people, we don't think we're off message... What we need is a strong unified party that can make tough decisions and not back down, and not sacrifice our positions to people who don't care about the consequences of ther--'SHUT UP!
What a bunch of meaningless pseudo-rhetoric drivel (pseudo rhetoric because it barely amounts to 'we should stop sucking' + no appeasement). The Notrepublican party has no useful contribution to make in politics. A 100 years ago, they did. You know how they stayed in the game back then? They were the White party. If you hated blacks, you could vote democrat, because Wilson was bound and determined to keep them out the government. Is this a positive development? Is this the way to run a party? Mostly yes. Why mostly yes? Because, like it or hate it, there were enough people *in this country* that hated blacks enough to keep them out of office, that needed representation. There aren't enough true hardliners at the moment to deserve an entire party worth of representation, but if there were, it would be madness for one party to reject them.
This is purely from a political perspective, right? If we wanted to just throw our hands up and deny the usefulness of people's personal prejudices in government, we'd leave out the campaigning process and use test scores to determine government, wouldn't we? But we don't. Real world party please.
Republicans are a big tent party, alright. There's room in that tent for people who hate/are afraid of illegal aliens. People afraid of terrorists. People who love Jesus more than they love freedom of religion. People who hate big government. People who love guns. It's all there. Tons of irrational likes, dislikes, and fears, all under one tent. The rallying battlecry; 'values'. The core concept; 'the Republic'. The decisive quality is action. It's all very roman.
Meanwhile, the Democrats represent no irrational policy that wouldn't cut off their own balls. Gun control? Pussies. Pollution control on cars? Pussies! We love people of all races and creeds, and believe they should have an equal chance in the economy? Pussies!! The rallying battlecry; 'be reasonable'. The core concept; 'Democratic debate'. The decisive quality is informed governance. What a losing proposition.
The moderate point of view is predestined to fail, since the attitude that one might take one course of action over another requires an inherent unreasoning. The point of decision in combat is the moment when, despite the fact that the selected course of action has a certainty of losing life, the process of delaying and trying to make a better decision would be more destructive. The standards of combat are no more harsh than the standards of politics. Moderation is inherently a position on nondecision. When someone said that to me years ago ('can't make up your mind'), I just about beat the shit out of him. The fact that I *didn't* proves his point incontrovertably. You can't fight for even-handedness. Even the Wisdom of Solomon was batshit insane; Let's be reasonable! We'll cut the baby in half! (What the fuck?). The reason that story makes no goddamned sense at all is because there is virtually *no* way to aphorize wisdom. The Chinese attempts are cryptic and stupid. The biblical attempts are cruel and rely the stupidity of the characters involved in the story. The European ones involve intense appeals to emotion which put you 'on the side' of a particular group, so that 'wisdom' is merely endorsing the pure good and condemning the pure evil. Various tribal versions avoid the issue of wisdom in favor of civility.
Moderation has it's place! If you *have* to work with someone else, then moderation can save you from accidentally going to war with each other before youa accomplish your goals. The Republicans synthesize most of their positions via the concepts of 'values' and patriotism. Both of which share the best aspects of Christianity; Vagueness and effortlessness. You can buy a flag (or a cross) and declare yourself christian. You can take or leave from the giant pot of actual values whatever you like and ignore the rest. That's the beauty of it. You can't declare that Democrats also have values, since, if they do, they should be Republicans--if they're not, then they must have strange values that are in direct opposition to the values which make republicans comfortable (so goes the tacit arguement--which is why the Democrats don't bother with protesting the concept anymore). That's the proper use of moderation. Democrats have made the mistake of thinking they are on the same *side* as the Republicans.
So here's the Brave New World: No more Democrats. I don't know what term should replace it. I'm thinking the US party. Symbol? The Rattlesnake. Rallying battlecry? Principles!
Principles, yes that's right. Values are meaningless! You can pay lip service to a value and never do anything about it. Principles define action. Principles define honor and integrity. The people of America are principled, and so the Unrepublican party...
The core concept; 'Union'. Union? What the hell? Well makes about as much relevant sense in this day and age as 'Republic'. The beauty of Union is that it's counterpoint is secession. Republicans become Secessionists. They want to pick up their marbles and go home if they don't get their way. Republican Senator X? He wants peculiar legislation that only affects his own state--how self serving. Clearly this person is not invested in Union. Clearly he does not love his country and wish to see it stay strong and unified. The concept of Union paves the path to Patriotism, which the republicans exploit via 'values'. We're attempting to one-up each of these points. Above all, Union/Secession is a ludicrous concept to dig up (unlike naziism which is far far too accurate far too often--which is why people reject it as ludicrous), and therefore is invincible. Seriously. You don't want to be part of the group! How do you argue with *that* crap?
Beyond even the psychosis of 'union' as a concept, is the idea that, in contrast, 'Republicans' are archaic toga-wearing irrelevants. Portray them as various Roman senators, debating issues of utter obscurity. The lack of education in this country will serve to put poeple off to the concept of a republican. Those who are educated and 'get it' will still receive the message. The message of archaic irrelevancy. The current crop of 'progressive' crap is a problem because the opposite of progress is... what kind of gress? Can you think of it off the top of your head? No. Meanwhile, an acceptible alternative to progress is status quo. And status quo might even be progress of a kind. Furthermore, progress is synonymous with change for many people, and change is scary. Progress is a suicidal construct of propaganda. What is *not* suicidal is playing negative and calling the other guy irrelevant.
The decisive quality must be better than action. For this, we go to an old standard. Glory. Theologians will actually waste time debating the true meaning of this word and concept. It is integral to the concept of fidelity that most people want to owe a deity. The Glory of the United States is more impressive than decisive governmental action. Plus, the very idea of working for glory is wrapped up in both the right and left. It's a word without perjorative connotation politically. Even a 'glory hound' isn't nearly as negative as, say, an action junkie, or precipitous action, or even an action film.
The Unrepublicans have to get their act together and play politically, instead of dicking around with the protestations of preppies and nerds. Americans are not weak cerebral children who are willing to sacrifice a well rounded personality for the sake of impressing their teachers. America was formed when we flipped off our dad, married our freaky girlfriend, and moved across country to play rock and roll in seedy dives until we made it. The measured consideration of the democratic party cannot please enough people in this country to make a difference, and politically, they are impotent.
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