It’s TRULY Morning in America

When the Republicans said it, it was a way to use people’s hope as a way to keep office (remember that, all you squawkers about Kool-Aid)?

Now, it’s actually true. It is Morning in America, and with hard work it will be a bright and glorious day.

Joe the Plumber, Tax Maverick!

The McCandidate’s Man of the Hour last night was Joe the Plumber, who’s concerned about having to pay more taxes under Obama. Joe wants a tax break. Funny – he’s already given himself one:

`Joe the plumber,” the Toledo, Ohio, man whose complaints about Barack Obama‘s tax plan were highlighted by John McCain in the final presidential debate, owes the state of Ohio almost $1,200 in back income taxes.

According to records on file with the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, the state filed a tax lien against Samuel J. Wurzelbacher for $1,182.98 on Jan. 26, 2007, that is still active.

~ Bloomberg.com

No sense of civic duty, that’s what we see here. Taxes? Sharing for the common good? Ptah. Who needs a society where people work together and look out for each other, when we could have a society of proud individuals, hoarding their Preciouses.

Pro-Life, Pro-Obama

http://www.prolifeproobama.com/index.htm

Health Care that Covers Abortions?

There’s a possibility that Obama’s health care plan would cover abortions, if, that is, he gets elected and his health care plan goes through exactly as he wants it with no compromises whatsoever on controversial issues — which of course it won’t.

But that won’t stop people from getting offended at the possibility. They will squawk about THEIR tax money. They forget: Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s.

Equal Pay and Oversight

McCain’s ads about the supposed wage gap in the Obama campaign are all over the place now.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this is true, instead of the gross misrepresentation it actually is.

Why then does McCain oppose doing anything about it? If he’s so concerned about wage gaps and equal pay, why not, I don’t know, try to stop it? Why didn’t he vote for the Fair Pay Act instead of against it?

But instead McCain has no intention of stopping it. He thinks that a woman who is discriminated against should (somehow) find out about it immediately, and bring suit immediately. Otherwise, tough. The burden is all on the woman to find out private information about other people’s salaries (which she is forbidden to try to do, by other laws); the burden is all on the woman to find the money to bring suit; the burden is all on the woman to get the law moving quickly – because one person can totally get Dredlock & Dredlock in motion.

Why put all this burden on the woman? Well, because punishing businesses for their own mistakes – mistakes? Their own deliberate wrongdoing – is a hurty boo-boo.

This damnable hypocrite actually has the temerity to mouth platitudes about how, in his maverickiness, he wants more regulation and “I can assure you” that wrongdoing will not go unpunished. What a lying coward.

Oh, National Review, you’re cute

National Review‘s courageous Byron York has stepped in today to set the record straight on Obama, sex-ed, and McCain’s Obama sex-ed ad.

York’s argument is basically this: sure, the bill in question does does provide for teaching children that there is a such a thing as inappropriate touching. But “the bill’s intention was to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children before the sixth grade.” Ergo, Obama really wants to teach children how to avoid the consequences of sluttery.

Touchingly, York doesn’t bother to quote much from the bill (although, to be fair, he does link to it, and right away, too), relying more on little interviews in which he attempts to uncover Obama’s mindset at the time he voted for the bill. York does favor us with a few excerpts here and there, which serve to (of course!) bolster his interpretation.

Somewhere in the morass, you notice, McCain’s intentions have been conveniently forgotten.

The “logic” of the article is this: McCain’s intentions have been attacked as “shameful” and dishonorable race-baiting. But actually Obama’s motives may not have been conservative, er, pure – ergo, McCain’s motives must have been pure!

If you’re not registering a double-take, or if you’re done with that already, you might want to check out the actual bill in its entirety – you’ll notice two important things: it is about K through 12 (without breaking down what is to be taught in each grade), and ensures that parents get to look at the curricula and materials planned for their kid’s grade as well as empowering any parent to opt out.

The Problem With Politics Today

…is that too many people treat the vote as an expression of their individuality. When they vote at all.

America is filled with people who idolize self-expression. Liberal hippies (mostly educators) openly worship at the shrine of self-esteem, and conservative Statler & Waldorfs pretend they despise self-expression while valuing it just as much, only in their minds expression of a different self isn’t self-expression but something more noble/less hippie-sounding: character, maybe.

So we have the current situation: Obama has a slew of giddy, largely uninformed followers, many of whom (even the informed ones) can’t speak of him without emitting verbal jizz. McCain had a peck of desultory followers who are now energized by the addition of Sarah Palin, whose presence on the ticket finally allows them to vote, not for McCain the candidate, but for McCain / Palin, Political Symbol (thus shewing that Republicans themselves don’t like to vote on their supposedly most precious issues, like Taxes and Big Government). McCain / Palin gets to be a symbol, not of boring ol’ facts, but of self-expression:

“She’s married – gosh, I am too and I know a lot of people who are and damn it, we’re proud of our avant-garde defense of what practically everyone does!”

“He’s really a maverick – boy, so am I! It takes a maverick to defend creationism, which is what I do mentally all the time!”

Barack Obama may well have lost the election because his campaign has only one symbolic value: Change. During the primaries, when liberals were voting, such a vague ideal was perfect, because Change was associated with No More War. Now that a broader base of America is voting, the symbols need to be stronger. McCain / Palin is able to be a symbol to many people of many things: Honesty in Men, Hotness in Women, Giving the Bird to Authority, (One) Religion for All. These are popular values, and the Obama campaign, now on the defensive, needs to come up with something equally powerful. Restoring America’s Standing in the Collective Mind of Foreign Powers isn’t it. “Not Bush” may be.

Hopefully, Obama will win, if only for this reason: to avoid White House support for the extended teaching of creationism, under the justification that all ideas are equally valid and what you choose to believe is OK, because it’s just an expression of you.