Dennis the Peasant

Fuck It. I Might As Well Leave The Right As Well...

You know what? I don't get jack squat for being a conservative. Not one fucking thing.

Other than shit, that is.

Nobody in the VRWC links to me. When I do get links, it's from Lefties. Most of whom say something to the effect of "Here's a post by Dennis ragging on [fill in the blank yourself]. He isn't as big an asshole as most wingnuts." Do I get that sort of love and respect from my side of the political blogosphere?

Hell, no.

Nobody buys me stuff on my Amazon Wish List. Nobody asks me why I don't have a PayPal account to donate to. And nobody sends me emails asking me to gather up my badly composed, out-of-focus photos and turn them into a calendar they can buy.

It just sucks, and I'm tired of it.

So I'm done with the Right. Clearly they've moved away from the sort of core values I hold dear. Core values like massaging the ego and fattening the bank account. Let's face it, if you can't look down on those who are different from your own true self and then make a buck off it, what's the point of voting Republican?

With that in mind, here are the reasons I'm leaving the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:

1. I can't support a movement that is full of haters. Let's face it, I'm one delicate flower of a human being. Forgive and forget... That's the motto I live by. And if there's one I hate, it's all those fucking asshole wingnuts out there hating. Assholes.
2. I can't support a movement that is full of religious fanatics. You know what? Christianity is a pain in the patoot. It gets in the way of things. Things like if I decided tomorrow I wanted to leave my wife and shack up with a 16 year-old tart who's double-jointed. Or shack up with some hairy guy name Burt, for that matter. I mean, who has the time to memorize the Ten Commandments when there's nude gay mud wrestling on channel 343?
3. I can't support a movement that is racist. Hey, I know many negroes personally. I understand where they're coming from. I even have an LL Cool J CD to prove it. That alone seperates me from most conservatives. 
4. I can't support a movement that won't raise taxes or cut spending. Like most middle-class white people, I have more money than I know what to do with. And I feel guilty about that when there are so many poor people out there... Many of whom are negroes!
5. I can't support a movement that won't support a robust public option to improve health care for old people and poor people and unemployed people and people who just say "What the fuck, I want a public option". I mean, all you have to do is listen to Nancy Pelosi for five minutes and then ask yourself "What could go wrong?" Right? I rest my case.
6. I can't support a movement that wants more troops and more years to wage an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Er, let's just skip this one for the time being...
7. I can't support a movement that advocates discrimination against persons of the LGBT community by opposing the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. Everybody knows gay people are noisy and annoying. It's much easier to give DOMA repeal some lip service and then move on to other things. Let's face it, LGBTers will put up with anything.
8. I can't support a movement that refuses to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell". Ditto.
9. I can't support a movement that embraces torture. Spankings? Absolutely. But that's where I draw the line.
10. I can't support a movement that thinks Sarah Palin should be anything other than barefoot and pregnant (I when I say pregnant, I mean really pregnant. Not fake pregnant.) in Alaska. Oh sure, Sarah throws off that "naughty librarian" vibe that turns a lot of us middle-aged guys on, but the truth of the matter is this: Katie Couric drunk on pink gin is my kind of MILF...
11. I can't support a movement that thinks my smoking an ounce of Arkansas Polio Weed on a daily basis should be a criminal offense. I smoked Arkansas Polio Weed continuously from 1976 to 1982 and it hasn't impaired my ability to be a useful member of society. Of course, I have no idea what I actually did during those six years, but since I didn't wake up in 1983 with a criminal record, it couldn' t have been too bad.
12. I cannot support a movement that doesn't accept evolution as a fact. Science rules, as far as I am concerned.
13. I cannot support a movement that doesn't accept global warming as a fact. What do you mean the science doesn't support global warming? Fuck the science. Are you some sort of asshole denier, or what?
14. I can't support a movement that watches, listens to and/or reads annoying asshole haters on Fox News who do nothing but hate and be assholes. People, quite frankly, who are a lot like me.

Well, that's about it.

I figure my moving from the Right to the Left has raised the I.Q. of both movements, and therefore I should be eligible for large, expensive gifts from liberals and conservatives, as well as Democrats and Republicans for making the switch. Just head to my Amazon Wish List and put together your own Stimulus Package.

You really don't want me putting together a calendar, now do you?

A Selection Of Republican Sing-A-Longs...

This is Michael Steele's favorite, as it should appeal to the youth vote:

Why I Am An Ex-Republican, Reason # 1,463 (The Sanford Edition)

1,463) I can keep my cock in my pocket.

Why I Am An Ex-Republican, Reason # 1,462 (The Ensign Edition)

1,462) I walk my cock; my cock does not walk me.

Today's Fearless Prognostication...

Swami Dennis the Peasant looks into the future...

I will bet dollars to donuts that within a month of the November, 2010 elections, Republican politicians, partisans and operatives will begin navel-gazing on the subject of why they aren't getting much support from Latino voters.

Morons.

Evidently Illegal, Immoral, Imperialist Wars Of Aggression Are Just As Dull As The Global War On Terror...

For those of you not paying attention, yesterday the Obama Administration relieved General David McKiernan of his command and replaced him with General Stanley McChrystal. This command shake-up is, we are told, part of a major shift in how the Obama Administration intends to prosecute the war in Afghanistan.

Strangely enough, it appears that nobody in the blogosphere cares. I took a quick tour of some of the leading left-wing and right-wing political blogs and found neither information nor commentary. Lefties are focused on torture, health care and some bathing-suit bimbo from California, while Righties are obsessing on Obama's impending communist takeover, the deficit and some D-list bimbo comedian yukking it up at some journalistic slobberfest in Washington.

I guess they don't make wars they way they used to.

Then again, it could just be the Lefties aren't interested in ending illegal, immoral and imperialist wars of aggression when Their Guy is running them. And how could Righties acknowledge that the Other Guy is running the wars exactly the way they'd want it run if Their Guy had won last November?

And people can't understand why I don't take the issue of torture by the Bush Administration all that seriously.

Yet Another Reason As To Why I Have The Number Of Friends I Do...

I've been getting whiny emails and phone calls from a number of my Republican friends regarding The Coming Apocalypse™. Evidently there's a not-very-secret plot afoot to send us all to re-education camps for a little attitude adjustment. The details are sketchy, so I'm not sure if it comes before Obama gives citizenship to everyone whose ass is parked in any part of our 50 states or after we have all our firearms seized by the Youth Police cadres.

This has left me with the unenviable task of telling a large number of people I should be able to humor to leave me in peace.

At what point did all sense seem leave the heads of the vast majority of Republicans? (Mark, please do not answer this question... it's rhetorical!) Do they realize that they now are sounding as much like Pammycakes as Pammycakes herself? And truthfully, did anyone really think the Republican Party was going to be able to retain power running a Zero like John McCain for President on the heels of a full-fledged disaster like George W. Bush?

It's to the point where I end up typing crazed emails in all-caps that say things like this:

JUST WHAT THE FUCK DID JOHN MCCAIN ACTUALLY STAND FOR?

JUST WHAT THE FUCK DID THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ACTUALLY STAND FOR?

And what do I get in response to this two questions?

NADA... ZILCH... and, of course, ZIPPO.

Let me clue you brain-dead die-hards in on something: You had nearly a year to convince roughly 4% of the electorate to remain Republican, and you know what? 

YOU FAILED.

So please believe me when I pass on this solid-gold fact: Repeating the same old shit that didn't work the first time isn't going to work now. Honest. I can guarantee it. You can keep on bitching about Obama's crypto-socialist leanings, his shady dealings, and his ties to dubious personages until the cows come home and it will avail you nothing. It might, however, clue folks onto the idea that you haven't managed to come to grips with the fact that you now really do believe your own bullshit.

From my own standpoint, I simply cannot imagine ever voting again. I will not vote Democratic because I do not believe in its agenda or its policies, and I will not vote Republican because when faced with the choice doing the right thing and selling out, the Republicans and the Republican Party sold out. Period. John McCain sold out years ago... that's why he was labeled a "maverick" in the first place. And now Republicans are shocked that he sold out again and dropped all the "maverick" stuff to run as a half-assed pseudo-conservative. 

And please understand that John McCain lost this election because he is, more than anything, the perfect personification of today's Republican Party... No principles, no policies, no positions and no ideas about anything the majority of folks give half a hoot about.

If you simply cannot understand how so many folks were willing to overlook so much of what seems to make up Barack Obama, I suggest you look in the goddamn mirror. Now leave me alone about that crap.

What Conservatives?

It's with more than a bit of amusement that I note the teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling and garment-rending of self-proclaimed Conservatives over the prospect (now virtual certainty) of a John McCain-led Republican Party. After seven years of George W. Bush in the White House, we are now told by everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Coulter that we are danger of the Republican Party being in the hands of a Less-Than-Completely-Pure Conservative.

Pardon me while I burst into hysterical laughter.

What Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and their blogospheric equivalents (from A-listers like Michelle Malkin to D-listers like Pammycakes Geller) want you to believe is that the RINO tendencies of McCain somehow amount to something new, different and unwelcome when compared to the Dubya Years. That is, of course, complete bullshit. If anything, a McCain Administration represents a completely logical extension of the Bush Administration. What Bush gave them that McCain has not has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with pride. Period.

Additionally, the Limbaughs and Coulters of the world would also like you to believe that they are the True Believers and the Keepers of Sacred Mantle of Ronald Reagan. That is, also, complete bullshit. If Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin represent anything, it is the Reactionary - as opposed to Conservative - element presently plaguing the Republican Party. They are more the heirs to Pat Buchanan's throne than Ronald Reagan's. One need only look at the agenda of CPAC 2008 to see just how intellectually barren these people are, and how little what they espouse has to do with Reagan Conservatism.

Don't believe me? Here's a sample of the brain trust of "today's" Conservative Movement that is currently infesting CPAC:

Al Regnery
Rick Santorum
David Horowitz
Tom DeLay
Brent Bozell
Lamar Alexander
Ron Paul
Bob Novak
Ken Blackwell
Grover Norquist
Dinesh D'Souza
John Bolton
Michelle Malkin
George Will
R. Emmett Tyrell
Phyllis Schlafly
Newt Gingrich

That's right, every failed Republican politician, every self-promoting public intellectual, and every half-assed inside-the-beltway influence-monger the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has to offer. You'd be hard pressed to find a better short list of those responsible for gutting the Reagan Revolution. And given this cast of characters, is it any wonder that CPAC 2008's panel discussions show the depth they do? Try these on for size:

The Assimilation Question: What's the Answer?
Is the GOP Still Lost?
What Do Liberals Have Planned for Your Money?
The Power of Principle: Conservative Victories
Reforming Entitlements Without Raising Taxes
What is a Conservative Foreign Policy?
Why Blacks Think Conservative, But Vote Liberal
Out National Defense - Looking to the Future
Hugo Chavez Democrats: Silencing the Right
A Conservative Approach to Health Care Reform
Show Me the Spending: Transparency in Government
Using New Media to Advance Conservative Ideas
How Liberals Are Criminalizing Free Enterprise
Forward for Freedom: Looking Ahead to Conservative Victories in 2008

And of course…

Is Hillary Electable?

To top it off, CPAC 2008 has screenings of "new documentaries" such as these:

Hillary: The Movie

and…

Rediscovering God in America (starring Newt and Calista Gingrich)

In it's lack of substance and rabid partisanship, CPAC sounds like a fucking YearlyKOS convention, doesn't it? And these people wonder why Republican voters are running away from "Conservative" candidates as fast as they can?

Call me cynical, but here in 2008, I'd be more impressed if CPAC wasn't dealing with the sort of issues Conservatives should have helped solve during the years of 2001 through 2006. The time to have their Conservative Shit straight on immigration, health care, tax and fiscal matters, and the rest was then… not now. Evidently the idea that 2009 through 2012 won't offer Conservatives a better opportunity to enact legislation than was presented between 2001 through 2006 doesn't seem to have dawned them.

That, of course, is a big part of the Conservative Movement's problem. Although it would never occur to most of CPAC's participants, there's an excellent chance that Republican voters are flocking to McCain out of exasperation with the Conservative Movement's inability to offer practical solutions or realistic policy options on just every major issue on the agenda. One can only refuse to compromise one's high moral principles so many times before the citizenry gloms onto the idea that perhaps such invocations constitute a smokescreen hiding a lack of any worthwhile solutions.

One has only to review the agenda to CPAC to see just how little grounding the Conservative Movement has in developing and marketing innovative policy solutions. It is no accident that the most prominent public intellectuals amongst these so-called Conservatives are intellectually barren. Has Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh or Michelle Malkin ever devoted an ounce of energy to discussing the real-world policy options that might actually advance the Conservative Agenda? Of course not. And why not? Well, beyond the fact that people like Malkin don't have the brains for such work, it is in no small part due to the fact much of today's Conservative Agenda has no particular grounding in the real world.

Perhaps I'm being a bit churlish, but it would seem to me that if the likes of Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter cannot interest Republican voters in the slightest as presidential candidates, then maybe a rethink on issues such as immigration, the War on Terror and national defense is in order. There seems to be an obvious disconnect between Republican voters and the Conservative Movement, and the Conservative movement seems to be of the opinion that the problem is with Republican voters… which doesn't seem to be the sort of message that's going to sell well, if you know what I mean.

For all the sound of fury of CPAC 2008 and the Conservative Movement, what is at the heart of their demands is that they be shown the sort of deference they are used to. That lack of deference, more than any particular RINO tendencies, are at the heart of the Conservative's beef with John McCain. John McCain frightens and infuriates the Reactionaries at CPAC 2008 because they don't consider themselves a spent force… Despite the victorious march of the one man in the Republican Party who has publicly called them out as such. And you know what? If Ann Coulter wants to vote for Hillary, that's fine. If Grover and Newt and Michelle want to sit at home, that's fine too. The Conservative Movement of Ronald Reagan - the one that was about problem solving and policy innovation - cannot make its reappearance until the dross has been cleared away. For that reason, and that reason only, do I root for John McCain… His victory is a necessary step towards dismantling the Empire of Reactionary Thought presently claiming to be Conservatism.

Friday Morning's "Just When You Thought I Couldn't Sink Any Lower" Glenn Beck Videos

Glenn Beck's favorite game:

Glenn Beck's favorite song:

Where Glenn Beck should have gone for his treatment...

What Glenn's hemroid is doing now:

The video Glenn should have made...

This Week's Worst Non-Amanda Sentence...

From Roger Kimball of Pajamas Media:

As the pious cataract of eulogies for Benazir Bhutto accumulate and briefly eddy before draining away, the connoisseur of cant is tempted to wade in and examine the specimens: which of these cringe-making hagiographical exercises is the worst?

You mean one of them might actually be worse than the above sentence that you've written?

From John Hinderaker of Powerline:

In today's USA, those who want to impose their preferences on you are generally on what we call the Left.

And people who generalize to the point that Mr. Hinderaker does are generally what we call, "Blinded by the pure white light of stupidity."

From Pammycakes at Atlas Shrugs:

While I was being searched and patted down by TSA prior to my flight this morning, America continued to take a rabbit's foot approach to the scariest threats to national security.

If there was ever an Amanda sentence written by someone other than Amanda...

From Dumptruck Debbuh over at Debbie Schlussel:

Yes, it is now considered acceptable--in vogue--for a man to sport women's underwear.

Dumptruck Debbuh spends a lot of time worrying that THEY are turning all the REAL MEN into Carson Kressley clones. Then again, when you're not a bull dyke but look (and dress) like Dumptruck, it's easy to understand why...

From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

But the weirdest thing about the choice is that Sulzberger and Co. have failed to grasp the taxonomy of the neoconservative literary cartel.

Haven't we all failed, at one time or another, to grasp the taxonomy of the neoconservative literary cartel?

And The Obligatory Special Roger L. Simon Moment...

December 23: There's little I find more repellent than multi-millionaires battling each other over the votes of the "common man."

December 31: Champagne for tonight: Bonville Blanc de Blancs.

Da Raj has always been known to have the "common touch"...