Friday, March 10, 2017

I’ve been wondering lately how we ever got to a point where our public servants serve themselves and still get people to vote for them. But then I remembered history.

The Native Americans didn’t get slaughtered overnight, you know—there was over a century of people giving lip service to humanitarian relations with the Natives, while others argued for White Supremacy, or Christianity uber alles, or whatever other rationale presented itself—or they simply snuck out at night and ambushed innocent Natives, without bothering with excuses.

Likewise, slavery was debated and fought over, long before the Civil War. And, as with the Native American genocide, good Americans sat around their breakfast tables, saying, ‘tsk, tsk, it sure is a conundrum’—and went out and voted for public servants that wanted to rid the land of Indians, or keep our Africans safely in chains.

So our entire history is one of good people, sitting around and discussing politics like a spectator sport instead of a battle between good and evil. Yet a battle between good and evil it has always been—and continues to be in the present. We vote our fears more than our beliefs. We are more easily frightened than inspired. And, sadly, we get the government we deserve.

Our present government is on the ironically-tragic side of being a joke. But we elected them. We even heard them say incredibly disqualifying things, then voted for them. They go on TV every day and embarrass themselves trying to call a pimple a beauty mark, or call a lie an alternative truth—and we support these con artists.

Yesterday, a profoundly stupid man named Scott Pruitt, recently appointed head of the EPA, remarked that he didn’t believe in chemistry, optics, or physics in general—more specifically, he questioned the greenhouse effect of CO2 in the atmosphere—an unquestionable fact. He was appointed to head the EPA because he could be counted on to either be this stupid, or pretend to be this stupid—and, in that context, he’s doing a bang-up job.

Americans have gotten into the bad habit of questioning the veracity of things they don’t like—and politicians, seeing this as a new tool, are leading the charge. Had they had the advantage of being raised by my father, they would be more familiar with the motto of normal people who don’t like an unpleasant fact: “Tough tomatoes”.

And so I offer this sentiment to all you fat bastards who don’t like the fact that the way you stay filthy rich is by destroying our society, our environment, and given sufficient time, even yourselves—you stupid brats. Tough tomatoes. Stop yer crying (and lying and pollution) and let’s all move on to a future where the inconveniences of science and truth are dealt with, rather than squirmed around.

How childish is it for Paul Ryan to respond to a question about what’s not in the TrumpCare bill by saying, “Read the bill”—when he knows that there’s nothing in the bill to answer the question either? That evil rascal needs a foot up his ass. But that’s the trouble—we voted for these criminals—and now that they are safely in office, they get to tell us, ‘tough tomatoes’—not because they’re right, but just because they can.

If any American ever votes for a Republican, ever again, it will be proof positive that we are all idiots and deserve to be inveigled by these fuckers for however long this country can last, without real leadership.