On Being a Liberal Suffering From Conservative Episodes

I’m a pretty liberal person. I grew up with a lesbian pastor and parents who earnestly campaigned for an opera hall to be built in lieu of a new Vikings stadium. When I was six, I lovingly embraced a tree for 20 minutes, tears soggifying my pink velour overalls, as exasperated laborers waited to remove the rotting ash trunk from my back yard. I was the girl on campus who, three lattes deep and donning a “yes we can!” button, shoved a clipboard stocked with voter registration cards in your face when you just wanted to get to the library.

But as I get older, I’ve begun to experience an occasional, unfamiliar reaction to bits of political news—a conservative one. For instance, the other day I was reading a story about whether or not prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Aurora shooter James Holmes, when my brain exploded. “Oh sure, waste more precious taxpayer dollars to let that shit-muncher hang out forever in a cozy cell eating saltines and taking regular hot showers. Are you freaking kidding me!? Dust off the electric chair! END THE MOTHERFUCKER!”

These conservative episodes aren’t limited to issues involving mass-murderers. When I see protesters lobbying to halt a business venture because it might temporarily alter a natural landscape, I think, hey, it’s a free country! I’m not attacking your co-op for making that hill look different with your soybeans and your quinoa or whatever. Industry equality!

Bursts of right-leaning energy seem to run in my family. My dad is a lifelong Democrat who doesn’t mind paying a little extra in taxes to support human services, despises firearms, and claims he’ll “definitely toke up again once it’s legal.” He also hates abortion. I was chatting with him about my sporadic conservative impulses, particularly towards the free market, and he suggested, “Maybe you’re only a social liberal.”

But I’m not always liberal on social issues, and I’m not even close to fully conservative on fiscal topics. I support ample education funding, high annual payments to local governments, and comfortable budgets for social services. And yet the feeling of my hands wrapped around a cool, 9mm pistol gives me a feeling of excitement in my mommy-daddy-no-no-place. I believe in the draft, and think women should be part of that lottery. And I think everyone who lives in the USA should speak English.

I work in the political sphere, so I blame my constant exposure to both sides for my newfound Republican urges. It’s easy to be liberal or conservative when you only surround yourself with left or right-wing literature, groups and friends. But when you’re required to talk to both sides every day, it’s easier to admit that Rep. Reagan Bush R-Murica actually has a damn good point even though her voter registration has a different letter attached to it than yours.

It’s not really about tallying up how you feel about different issues and declaring the party with the most check marks the winner of your political allegiance. Defining your ideology comes down to values. Values like the freedom to say whatever I want, to anyone, anytime, or my belief that God exists, or the apparently radical idea that everyone should be able to get married. And even though I’ve developed some conservative tendencies, I know I’ll always be that flier-toting, free-range chicken chomping commie I was in college. There may be an elephant in my room, but I’m still a total ass.

- Natalie Berkley

(Source: thetangential.com)

Types of U.S. Political Candidates: A Field Guide

The young gun
Examples: Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), Sarah Palin (R-Alaska)
The young gun is sexy. S/he needs to have a 90% absence of physical flaws complemented by several striking attributes—sparkly green eyes, long, shiny brunette hair flecked with blonde highlights, maybe a butt chin. The young gun has been in the game for a few years, maybe five, maybe ten, long enough to tuck some key legislation into his or her Gucci belt, long enough to win over crowds with passionate orations, pose for photos with their gaggle of well-groomed offspring, and meet more experienced, homelier politicians with which to join forces. The young gun is a radical, a rabble-rousing firecracker that can burn brighter than any other candidate for a party, but also has the potential to explode in its face ten minutes before showtime on the fourth of July or the first Tuesday in November.

The smooth talker
Examples: Herman Cain (R-Georgia), Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin)
The first time you encounter the smooth talker, you are thoroughly impressed. Every word out of her mouth sounds like a first draft of Pulitzer-winning nonfiction. Her constituents love her and she has an army of dressy campaign interns knocking on doors offering ear-to-ear grins and candy seven days a week. The smooth talker seems like a proficient politician until you slow down and actually listen to what she’s saying: beneath her charismatic USA! USA! speeches lie repeated, disjointed statistics that lack legitimate sources, umbrella statements about reform, and demeaning jabs at well-established, moderate opponents. You realize that the smooth talker is only that: a big personality with a good speech coach and a theater minor who lacks a working knowledge of law-making and what it takes to implement real reform.

The veteran
Examples: Joe Biden (D-Delaware), Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia, served 57 years and then died)
If you’re going to mess with the veteran, you better have a lot of money, a lot of friends, and skin as thick as the patriot act. The veteran has at least ten terms under his or her belt, with a war chest overflowing with diamonds and hundred dollar bills. The veteran is what some may label a “career politician,” but before embarking on three decades in Congress, s/he spent twenty-five years in a noble, bootstrap-pulling, all-American career in the military, medical science, or law. Each election cycle, a fresh-faced Mayor or state representative will vigilantly try to usurp the veteran, only to find their campaign bankrupt, their personal life and business neglected, and their political swag humbled down a notch. Stand down, kiddos. The veteran plans to continue to deepen the butt dent in his or her seat in Washington until at least the ripe age of 87.

The celebrity
Jon Runyan (R-New Jersey), Jesse Ventura (I-Minnesota)
This sparkly little star didn’t dream of the furious American political melee when s/he was blossoming as a professional comedian, wrestler, actor, or football player. But something happened—an injury, perhaps crow’s feet—that took away the sense of power and public ear-time the celebrity so enjoyed. And one afternoon, the celebrity realizes s/he cares passionately about koala bear rights, and starting an advocacy group or throwing a shebam of a benefit just isn’t enough. So the celebrity files for political office, and wins by a landslide primarily due to name recognition and a feeling of bonding from the public (“I loved her in “love actually,” and the movie’s message tells me she cares about family values and international issues.”) The celebrity doesn’t often last too long after the public sees just how fit he or she actually is to balance a $40-billion-plus checkbook.

The over-zealous freshman
Examples: Kurt Bills (R-Minnesota), Christine O’Donnell (R-Delaware)
Mr. Freshman hasn’t been in office that long—one term, to be exact—but this young’un wants to move up to greater things right now. Sure, just two years ago he was CEO of a mega-windmill company who had never read a bill proposal cover to cover, but believe him, he’s got the knowledge to shape the constitution and write nation-encompassing laws that will affect whether or not citizens have access to health care, how much money will be spent on highway repairs annually, and tax rates for all. Mr. Freshman basically wants to skip from his first year of high school to the fifth year of veterinary school. That might seem like a big change, but he reallllly loves animals, so it will all be okay. Trust him.

The nerd
Examples: Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota, Barbara Boxer (D-California)
Like the celebrity, the nerd never intended to transform into a gladiator for the government. But, sigh, the country requires her beautiful mind, so she will leave her mahogany-trimmed office at a New England university to try to save the nation. Prior to election, the nerd always worked next door to politics but never in the same building. But today, this former litigator/non-profit guru/cancer researcher will awkwardly file into Congress to join the spray-tanned, gelled, suited-up masses. She may write, lobby for, and ultimately pass some of the most well-crafted human services programs the country has ever seen, but she’ll never be able to toss a new definition of rape or anti-immigration zinger around the Washington chambers like the bronzed, mouthiest of her comrades.

- Rachel Green

(Source: thetangential.com)

My Northwoods Pinecone Store: You’re Damn Right I Built That!

Obama says, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” Oh, really, President Obama? Please allow me to introduce you to my Northwoods Pinecone Store, a small business that I built myself, the American way.

I started out alone on a hill, naked and adult. I was raised to adulthood by my parents, yes, but I’m going to ask you not to hold that against me because I was a mere child and had no say in the matter. As soon as I possibly could, I ran away from home and supported myself by singing “Yankee Doodle” on Georgetown street corners. I had absolutely no help from anyone. Finally I saved enough money to buy this 10×10 foot patch of land in northern Minnesota, and I set out to build my own small business.

I didn’t use any tools, because tools are produced by corporations that have lazily taken governmental subsidies and benefited from federal regulations and inspections—not to mention using banks that have been bailed out by the federal government. I didn’t want to sully my business with any of those social supports, so I assembled a small sales counter out of twigs and stones.

I sheltered myself with thatch, and subsisted on squirrels I caught with my teeth. I know what you’re thinking and, no, these are not squirrels that have been fed by tourists! They were lean and gamey, like squirrels that have had to subsist for themselves. Pure, independent squirrels, as I am a pure, independent human.

My stock in trade is pinecones: pinecones dropped from my trees growing on my land. No one helps me to gather the pinecones. I employ no union labor, nor any other form of labor. I pay no taxes, for I trade in no money. All my pinecones are exchanged for barter…but not just any barter. I don’t want to sully my gullet with FDA-regulated food or tarnish my birchbark pockets with government-printed currency, so I accept only the unprocessed natural products of my fellow Americans’ independent labor. So far, that’s meant trading for pinecones, a welcome diversification of my stock.

When the squirrels came for my pinecones as I slept, did I rely on privately provided insurance or, God forbid, FEMA relief? No, I did not! I gathered pinecones anew, like the resourceful American I am. I had to climb into a tree to procure certain choice cones; I accidentally fell out of the tree and broke my ankle, but since I’ve pledged not to accept the assistance of any doctors demanding government currency, I had to rely on the attentions of a local man who’s watched every episode of E.R. For an easily provided sexual favor, he bound my ankle.

The ankle healed improperly and I’m now forced to crawl or hop about my business, but as I shout my daily special from the hillside—I’ll trade two little pinecones for one big one, or all my pinecones for a game animal you’ve caught with your bare hands—I can take pride in knowing that I can look down on my little pinecone store and say yes, I built that.

- Jay Gabler

(Source: thetangential.com)

20 Free Headlines About Paul Ryan

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But WHERE is Paul Ryan’s Plan to Make Yahoo! Relevant Again?

16 Most Gen-Y Friendly Things About Paul Ryan (Hint: He Likes Hummus!)

A Comprehensive Investigation of Cruel Things Paul Ryan Has Done to Dogs

10 Weird Email Subjects Barack Obama’s Team Has Used to Ask for $3 to Fight Paul Ryan

Coincidence or Not: Announcing Paul Ryan Just Before Shark Week

If Someone’s Going to Occupy Our Uteri, At Least He’s Not Wearing a Sweater Vest, We Guess

Ideas for Paul Ryan’s Reality TV Show to Air After Sarah Palin’s Alaska

20 Rich Guys Who Think Paul Ryan’s “Not So Bad”

6 Ways Paul Ryan Will Put Pizza into the Hands of Real Americans

- Becky Lang

(Source: thetangential.com)

Title IX, Gay Marriage, and Why Liberals Are Called “Progressives”

Today is the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the 1972 U.S. law that has—among other things—guaranteed equal opportunity for women in high school and college sports. It was, and in some ways remains, an intensely controversial piece of legislation. Many men whose sports were made or have remained club rather than varsity sports (for example, a school might have a varsity women’s lacrosse team but only a club lacrosse team for men, since there’s no women’s football) are still not thrilled with the law.

From decades’ distance, though, it’s clear that Title IX has been the foundation of a completely transformed sporting landscape—a landscape where women’s sports at every level have a visibility and prevalence that’s almost unimaginable without Title IX. While the battle for gender parity in athletics is far from over, it’s now routine for girls to play hockey or dream of careers as pro basketball players. Title IX has helped to make the lives of girls and women happier and healthier—to the benefit of all. It’s hard to imagine anyone, especially anyone who grew up in the Title IX era, wanting to turn back the clock.

Politics in America’s two-party system split generally into conservative (Republican) and liberal (Democratic) camps. One of the terms commonly used to describe liberal political views is “progressive.” Though that term has had various shades of meaning over the decades, it’s always been associated with a view towards the future as opposed to a fixation on the past.

That difference in outlook, broadly, characterizes the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. Republicans look to the past: to a time when abortion was illegal, when America used its military might to exert dominance over the rest of the world, and when it was the church rather than the government that took care of people in their old age (as long as people didn’t do anything ungodly like, say, getting pregnant out of wedlock). Democrats look to the future: when health care is guaranteed to all, with the costs fairly shared; when America is respected rather than feared; and when our shared humanity means more than our gender, our race, our income, or our nationality. That’s what progressive means.

Historically, ideas that once seemed controversial but were championed by progressives have come to seem like no-brainers. From emancipation to suffrage to Social Security and Medicare to Title IX, history validates the wisdom of progressives again and again and again. Yet there are always reactionaries who kick back, who say these new ideas are dangerous and scary and will be the downfall of society.

Right now, those reactionaries are kicking back against gay marriage. States are rushing to pass constitutional amendments banning (almost always redundantly) gay marriage. These amendments will eventually be overturned…do even their supporters really believe they won’t be? The tide of popular opinion is moving quickly in favor of marriage equality, and once it inevitably washes over the 50% mark, we’ll have to go through this all over again. In the meantime, there will be all the more years when same-sex couples have to endure the indignity and injustice of being denied a basic human right.

It doesn’t have to be this way. It was a Republican president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and it was a Republican president—Richard Nixon—who signed Title IX into law. When he spoke about the law, though, Nixon didn’t say much about women’s equality in sports; the law’s far-reaching implications in that respect weren’t yet fully understood by anyone. Instead, Nixon emphasized the law’s positive effect on racial desegregation via busing.

Today, most Republicans want to make affirmative action illegal; they favor voter ID laws that are squarely in line with racist, classist voter suppression efforts from Reconstruction to the present; and they want to ensure that gay marriage will never be legal.

If we legalized gay marriage today, what would people think in 40 years? If you think they’d condemn our moral corruption—rather than praising our forward-thinking good sense—not only do you have a disturbingly dark view of human nature, you haven’t been reading your history books.

- Jay Gabler

(Source: thetangential.com)

What Kid Rock Sees in Mitt Romney

Every former-white-rapper knows his base: rednecks. Rednecks aren’t able to actually come out and like hip-hop because Lil Wayne stickers don’t look dope on a four-wheeler. But, white guys rapping next to chipped-paint barns and whiskey distilleries pass the test. And with former-super-redneck candidate Rick Perry (“these bills have too many words!”) now gone from the competition, and Ron Paul a little too cerebral (“all those prep boy conservatives like him!”), Romney is the last, best hope for young rednecks everywhere who think “contraception” is either a rolled-up Wal-Mart bag or a new truck part carried at Fleet Farm.

Strippers always dance better to conservative kingpins. While I still maintain birdbrain, liberal do-gooder Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” is the only thing I want playing on the jukebox in my fictional strip club, most male stripping fantasies involve women taking clothes off to songs that (perhaps not ironically) flaunt debauched American values. I.E., no one’s taking clothing off to Cat Stevens’s “Peace Train.” Greed + illicit sex + polar bear rugs + hemi-powered, Slash guitar riffs are definitely the turf of Bain Capital execs.

Kid Rock’s real name is Robert James “Bob” Ritchie. Have you ever met a guy with three first names who doesn’t sympathize with at least a few planks of the John Birch Society platform?

Kid Rock’s career is like the Mitt Romney verbal slip-up personified. If Mitt’s not winning over “everyman” credentials by saying he pals around with guys who OWN NASCAR teams or betting hamburger flippers $10,000 they can get the grease off their company-issue khakis with his new stain-away product, he’s sending out press releases apologizing for verbal misfires. But, Kid Rock can sympathize. He’s the one whose summer-hit (REMEMBER!?) “All Summer Long” did the musicology no-no of lyrically referencing “Sweet Home Alabama” while actually sampling Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.” (It’s okay, though, because he appears on the album cover wearing an Alabama b-ball jersey.) And who can forget “Bawitdaba,” which sounds like something that would stammer out of Romney’s mouth in a presidential debate when Obama asks him why he thinks a 15% effective tax rate is “hey, whatevs!” for a guy who makes nearly twice my annual salary—EVERY DAY!

- Dunstan McGill

(Source: thetangential.com)

2012′s Most Dangerous Idea: If We Deny the Existence of Race and Class, They’ll Just Go Away

“I have a dream,” said Dr. King, “that that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

For all the hard-earned and justly-celebrated progress America has made since the 1960s—including, most dramatically, the election of an African-American president—we’re still a very, very long way from that lofty summit where no one is judged by the color of his or her skin. Yet that’s what a disturbingly vocal faction would have us believe: that any mention of the reality of race is a step backwards, that the way forward is to drop all discussion or study of race. To do otherwise is deemed—they actually use this word—racist.

Who’s saying this? I encounter it most often in comments on posts in the Twin Cities Daily Planet, an online news publication where I work. If we publish an article quoting black leaders criticizing Voter ID laws as likely to disproportionately affect African-American voters, we get a quick tweet back calling us all racists. If we publish an article on school integration, we get a noxious string of comments likening it to genocide. I mentioned some of these comments in a recent article and acknowledged that they represent only a small minority of whites’ views, and one of the commenters swooped right in and challenged me to provide evidence that they didn’t speak for the silent majority.

It’s disturbing enough that anyone would express such ignorant and hateful views, but even though I believe (sorry, no, I can’t prove it) that such extreme rhetoric comes from only a relative few, I think the way they couch their regressive views is telling: they twist the language of the Civil Rights Movement back upon itself, suggesting that now that discrimination is legally prohibited, any mention of the reality of race is perpetuating a racially divided society. Let’s all just ignore it and it will go away, right? This comes, of course, largely—though not exclusively—from people whose skin color continues to earn them privileges that they’d like to pretend don’t exist. (See Becky Lang’s post, “Why Reverse Racism is Not ‘a Thing.’”)

The same logic—albeit with more measured, calculated language—is used by mainstream politicians and media figures to argue against affirmative action, against school integration, and against any other civil-rights legislation that does anything more consequential than erect a statue (actually, they’d probably prefer to skip the statues, too). And it’s spreading.

In an ominous statement that’s not been sufficiently publicized since he made it in December, Rick Santorum—a leading candidate for the presidential nomination of one of the country’s two major political parties—has said that “you’ll never hear the word ‘class’ come out of my mouth. Classes? We specifically rejected that. Look in the Constitution. No titles of nobility.”

See the parallel to the logic of the race-deniers? Because our ideal is to build a society without race or class barriers, goes the argument, it’s destructive even to acknowledge they exist. This is absurd enough when it comes to race, but adding class to the argument vaults it into a new realm of unreality. According to Santorum, class should not be part of the public debate because it simply doesn’t exist. Some people have more money than others, true—a lot more money than others—but that vast discrepancy (goes the argument) doesn’t lead to any shared interests like, for example, an interest in having certain tax laws in place. Differences in skin pigmentation? Just that, nothing more and nothing less. We’re all Americans, and Rick Santorum wants to erase any suggestion that there’s any inequality in this country.

Santorum and like-minded people of privilege are already demonstrating the selfish calculation of this argument by the selective way in which they apply it (if we’re all so equal and free now, why can’t we have marriage equality?)—but still, this argument needs to be called out for what it is: false. Race and class are realities in America. There are very real race and class barriers that people are struggling to climb every day. Reasonable people can disagree about the best strategies for breaking those barriers down, but denying they exist is profoundly insulting, and…I’d like to say delusional, but that would be giving the advocates of this dangerous idea far too much credit.

- Jay Gabler

Image: RickSantorum.com

Subjects, In Addition to Birth Control, That These Five Men Are Prepared to Testify About

How to get more followers on Pinterest.

Belly shirts, which make them feel both angry and horny, and angry that they’re horny.

Melissa Etheridge albums, ranked from best to worst.

People putting sweaters on dogs and cats—what’s next, sex with dogs and cats? Precisely.

Nursing bras: too much risk of nipslip?

The show Glee, which promotes gay stuff, learning Spanish, and other evils of humanity.

A consensus on at what weight Oprah is the most trustworthy, and whether or not she’s just using Stedman.

The American Apparel catalog. The way the leotard girl is splayed is absolutely an affront to the religious freedom of penises to stay dutiful and flaccid.

The whole Melissa McCarthy phenomenon.

Uncrustables: delicious convenient Godsend, or horrendous unnatural abomination?

The Wii Fit game, and how it is morally discouraging to be told by a small Japanese floormat that one is “obese.”

Whether the Deathly Hallows epilogue was really necessary.

Which cast member does the best DVD commentary for Friends. (This looks like a Chandler crowd.)

Finally nailing down what exactly is meant by “the good ol’ days.”

Why girls should also be given practice putting condoms on string beans as well as bananas.

Chili’s new late night menu.

Vajazzling—is it demonstrating that women have too much autonomy when it comes to their own genitals, or at least that they don’t know what do with that responsibility?

The terrorist threat posed by Canadian nationals, specifically Tegan and Sara.

Who killed JFK.

Their feelings.

- Jay Gabler, Becky Lang, Dunstan McGill, and Katie Sisneros

(Source: thetangential.com)

This Might Seem Unnecessary, BUT…Why the new Muppets film is NOT liberal propaganda

You may not know this, but that new Muppets movie is liberal brainwashing of children. No, the HIV-positive, starving or “Ralph Nader” muppet doesn’t appear in this film to turn your child pro-choice. Finding the bogeyman this time requires more of a leap.

Tex Richman (played by a devilish Chris Cooper)—yes, seriously—is the antagonist who wants to purchase the old studio Kermit, Miss Piggy, and the gang rehearsed at for years in L.A. to get at a ton of crude oil. Richman is a stodgy, emotionless (he can’t even do a maniacal laugh right), and ultimately evil-to-the-core bad guy you can love to hate.

The cable-news soothsayer behind this claim is Fox’s Follow the Money host Eric Bolling, who can be seen exasperatedly asking why liberals “hate” corporations. Another commentator asks why the bad guy couldn’t have been an Obama muppet and goes on a limb connecting everything from The Matrix to Cars 2 with Occupy Wall Street, rampant business taxes, and job loss.

I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but I’m not quite so certain The Muppets are playing politics here.

I’m not a good fiction writer (you can hear those two old codgers Statler and Waldorf yelling from the balcony, “You can say the same for your nonfiction” with a cymbal hit). But, I know the basics of storytelling. And in order to achieve a satisfying victory for the protagonist—and I’m talking basic, good v. evil stuff, not like As I Lay Dying—you need a working antagonist.

Your choice for a bad guy can be political (maybe we’ll make the bad guy an evil union boss instead of a conservative plumber from Ohio), but what matters is not the job, it’s the greed. It’s the corrupted soul. It’s the very thing children can always tell if you were to set up a jailhouse book-em style line up of good and bad characters: the bad guys just smell fishy.

A couple years ago, I re-watched Ghostbusters. What momentarily bugged me was that even though the two main characters (science nerds who can’t get funding from the Dean) are quintessential intellectual liberal heroes, their nemesis (not Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man, Gozer, or that green blob who keeps eating all the room service food) is actually a mere mortal: the jerk-off from the E.P.A. who wants to shut down the “containment” unit because it doesn’t meet environmental code.

Again, first time I saw this as a kid, it flashed by me. But now, as a knee-jerk protector of all things Progressive, I had a mini-heart-attack. Why did Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis choose an environmentalist? Don’t they see what they’re doing?! Indoctrinating a generation of kids to think ill of the government, environmental regulations, and liberals! AHHHHH!!! Now I’m really afraid!!

But then I caught my breath. It didn’t matter that this guy was an EPA dude. What mattered was that he was a royal jerk. He is a character foil to the laid-back coolness of Dr. Vinkman.

What we miss here is the deeper emotional currents in our stories that spread beyond partisan rubrics. Bolling and other complainers miss that The Muppets entire project uses metaphorical shells, out-front tropes that seem to encourage the audience not to dig too deeply into this stuff. (Did Bolling check out the scene where the Muppets travel by “map” across the Atlantic?)

Saying anything else—that this is liberal brainwashing—is playing politics with kids as the pawns. Look, I still am okay with the EPA even though I saw Ghostbusters as a kid, and I’m guessing 30 years from, some little twerp who just watched The Muppets will still be begging to drill for oil in ANWR. The only brain-washing I’m concerned with is coming from those real-life adult puppets on television.

- Dunstan McGill

(Source: thetangential.com)