Thursday, December 19, 2013

Sorry, we thought he was George Washington.

For whatever reason, the far right contingent of the GOP seems to have this ongoing fetish for choosing unlikely ideologues like the Duck Dynasty family to be pop-culture champions of their cause. Only to once again realize that their "Ben Franklins" turned out to be more a group of "Mel Gibsons" leaving the party embarrassed and having to step back to allow the more sensible modern conservatives to once again bail them out. 

I never found the Duck Dynasty family intriguing for even a moment. Nonetheless their show became a nationwide hit and they became unofficial spokespeople of the religious right wing of the GOP. 

The lesson NEVER learned here is that when you surround yourself with people like the Robertsons and their peers, you will find mostly decent people that use the Bible and Christianity as a basis to treat others with equal dignity and respect as was intended.  However one must remember that this same culture of God fearing Southern Christians has its own share of detractors in our society that view them as uncivilized rubes. Their daily activities are continuously probed for isolated incidences in order to find justification for their own discriminatory beliefs. (A common practice of all bigots) The very moment they spot a few rotten apples in the mix that manipulate various scripture in order to make some non-mainstream jabs at homosexuality, they pounce. 

Why does the GOP never see this coming? Despite the fact that today more than ever, the mainstream beliefs across both parties are predominantly accepting of alternative lifestyles and the remaining bigotry is peppered fairly lightly across both parties, the Republicans will always take the disproportionately larger beating for it. 

This is because the Left has better damage control in these situations and also has the full cooperation of the mainstream media, happily driving the get-away car when abandoning their "Alec Baldwins" at the curb. Meanwhile the Republicans are caught with their camouflage pants around their ankles desperately latching on to those they have designated as cultural icons without doing proper background checks first. 

Remember GOP, the Democrats are not pointing their fingers at you this time. They are pointed firmly at Phil Robertson. But keep hugging and kissing him in defense of his freedom of speech, and they soon will. 

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

I want a pony.....

LIBERAL: "I want a pony"

CONSERVATIVE: "No. We can't afford one"

LIBERAL: "I don't care." "I WANT A PONY!!"

CONSERVATIVE: "Tell you what, if you get a job and save money, maybe we can buy one together next year for you"

LIBERAL: "NO! I want one right now! Put it on your credit card!"

CONSERVATIVE: "That is NOT a smart investment at all! Do you have any idea how long that will take to pay off and then how much interest we'll incur in the interim? Do you even know how to take care of a pony??"

LIBERAL: "I don't care! You are mean and don't love me"

CONSERVATIVE: "Of course I love you. I'm just trying to teach you patience and how to live within your means!"

LIBERAL: "You are a bigot and hate all minorities and gays!"

CONSERVATIVE: "That is the stupidest thing I ever heard"

LIBERAL: "See? You think I'm beneath you and you just want to keep all of your money! You favor the rich and hate the poor!! I am disenfranchised!!"

CONSERVATIVE: "I can't even talk to you anymore!"

LIBERAL: "I'm going to get the Government to buy me a pony then!"

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

So what kind of gas mileage does your bandwagon get?

     You know, the thing that is really great about being a sports fan is it is one of the few things in life where you truly CAN have it both ways.  I can cheer for my team through all of their wins and losses in a given year and if we are lucky enough to make it to a championship game, whether they win or lose, I can still get up the next morning and everything is exactly the way I left it.  I didn't lose my job, my fiancĂ© didn't leave me, my dog didn't die, etc.  Everything that makes my life wonderful remains a constant despite whether or not my team let me down.  My favorite sports teams have no control over that.  And I know disappointment because I am from Cleveland. Yes, I know you are sorry about that. Thank you for your condolences. 

     Now I have to admit, I have "alternate" teams as I call them. I like the Utah Jazz due to my family in that state. I like the Falcons due to my time in Atlanta.  I like the Buckeyes because I live in Columbus even though I went to Akron. 

     My philosophy is you can all support whatever team or teams you choose. You can pick 20 random teams and pull for them all. You can pick the El Paso Polytechnic State Fighting Banditos because you like their helmets for all I care.  But when you start emotionally latching on to teams in a championship game which you ordinarily do not support simply because they are in the same conference as your alma mater, you look a little desperate.  Especially when you spend the entire regular season loathing them as a conference rival. Now suddenly you want to share in their glory when they earn a title.  It wouldn't be so annoying if you didn't pump your fist in everyone's faces telling them how awesome you are because a team in your conference won the title.  I mean I suppose I can follow the same logic and just pull for the AFC North all of the time since I am a Browns fan by birth.  Or better yet, I'll just pull for the AFC as a whole. Or better yet still, I'll just pull for the entire NFL. That way no matter who wins I can run around the next morning at the office that "my team won another championship" pretending everyone cares.

     I mean there is an expression for people that latch on to winning teams at the last second. 

     They're called "front runners". 

     I know this will insult a few friends and I apologize for that but I'm not sure why some of you spend quality time thinking that if you went to Georgia or Arkansas or Vanderbilt that you somehow get to celebrate Alabama's  title as if it were partly yours.  It's not. Do you think LSU was pulling for 'Bama after the Sabian slap-in-the-face? I don't think so. Would the Buckeyes pull for Michigan? Hell no. Nor vice versa. 

     I mean just about everyone watches these championship games and picks a team for whatever reason they feel. Sometimes they don't even know why.  Regardless, you cheer a little when they score and smirk a little when they fail. But when the clock expires on the game, so does our emotional connection to it. I really didn't have a favorite team for the championship game. I have people in my life from both schools and I wish they all could have been happy with the turn out. But I see people all over the SEC shouting "We have another championship!" to people from conferences who were not represented in the game last night.  And they really don't care. It's not a contest of conferences but rather individual schools.