Second Thoughts -- Part II

My dear ones, here are more of the fruits of my ruminations over the past few weeks.

How many of us actually think to distinguish our anger at today's donkey-ass Democrats and our opinions of liberals in general? Do we often stop to realize that the two categories are no longer one and the same?

I have been guilty of this myself. I have railed at "the liberals" and "the Left," without remembering that (A) not all of them are Democrats and that (B) a great many Democrats will have nothing to do with them. I'm mad at the Democrats -- one of whom I am no longer -- not at the liberals, with whom I have really never parted. In the interest of fairness, I would be wise to remember that, too.

Now I have another question, and I don't fare too well on this one either. How many of those of us who are angry at the Democratic Party and its toadies have been unduly swayed by the Right's smear of liberals? A closely related question would be, do we even realize the extent of the smear? It's been going on for twenty-five or thirty years, now, it's very well-orchestrated and it's funded by many of the richest people in this country.

Is it really true, for example, that "all" liberals favor big-government intervention into every area of our lives? We certainly don't think it's a very good idea when the conservatives are in charge of it. Nor do "small-government" conservatives seem at all opposed to it as long as THEY are in charge.

I still say we liberals do a lot of stupid things. Holding up picket-signs that say "Stop Racism," for example, instead of working to eradicate it. I think we blundered our way into all this big-government tyranny because we imagined we could control it forever, and that this has a lot to do with why the Right has such a huge and powerful governmental apparatus with which to tyrannize us today. Not resorting to force to get our way when we'd better serve our cause by persuading people is always a good idea. My lean in the direction of libertarianism has existed for a long time, and it will surely continue.

But what WILL they do about Social Security? I can't claim I want to see it abolished, after all those years of having paid into the system, without the government honoring the promise it made to provide me with an income after my retirement. I also think the libertarians are wrong if they think that screwing everybody out of the benefits they've been paying for all their working lives is going to make people more likely to support libertarianism. Far more likely, it will merely lead them to blame the libertarians.

I've never had a conversation with a libertarian that didn't drift off into a pretty pipe-dream about how well his (almost always it's a his) ideas would work -- if this were this way, and that were that way, and if, and if, and if and if and if and if. Libertarians claim to be hard-headed anti-utopians, but they are the biggest utopians I have ever known. I fully agree that if the world operated exactly the way libertarians think it should, life would be better for almost all of us. I think it would be lovely if we could all ride around on unicorns, too. The former seems about as likely to become reality as the latter.

How, at the very pea-picking least, are we ever gonna even begin getting from here to there? If you can't even answer that, then SHADDUP.

This country is in the hands of fascists. If we don't wrest it away from them, in another few decades it will no longer exist. Let's get rid of the menace that's trying to destroy us all, and THEN we can go back to dreaming about utopia.

Second Thoughts of A Disgruntled Liberal

Well, all this time away from blogging has given me ample time for reflection. As every reader of Born on 9-11 now knows, I am a disgruntled liberal who defected from the Democratic Party in deep disgust over the spinelessness and cluelessness of its leading "lights." Not wanting to be a woman without a party, and having been attracted to the libertarian philosophy for years, I promptly joined the Libertarian Party. I am still a liberal, just of the libertarian-leaning variety. It seemed to me that this new party affiliation was the sensible and principled course to take.

To put it mildly, I have begun to wonder. I make a point of reading just about everything I can get my hands on about where libertarians (both capital "L" and small) want to take this country. But I remain, still and always, a staunch liberal. I have changed my party affiliation, but my convictions are the same as ever. I make no apology for the fact that the questions I have about libertarianism are those of a bleeding-heart liberal.

Thus far, nobody has been able to answer these questions. I still have no idea, for example, what a Libertarian would do if he or she were ever actually elected to high office. How would this newly-minted potentate deal with the realities of the job? If nobody can even answer this question in casual conversation, how the hell are they ever going to do so when entrusted with power?

To put it bluntly, whose ox is going to be gored first? Granted, most libertarians claim that they are equally opposed to both welfare for the poor and corporate welfare, but -- in the light of cold, hard reality -- which would they cut first? If they have any grip on reality at all, they surely understand they can't do everything at once. Everything must be done in a certain order -- but which order?

Many libertarians will dismiss me as a typical blithery, dithery woman who worries her pretty lil' head about merely sentimental matters. The official line of self-flattering hooey they choose to believe -- in their ninety-percent-or-so male majority -- is that women are not generally attracted to libertarianism because we're "too dependent." That is, of course, a crock, but feeling superior is evidently more important to them than building their party or winning support for their movement. The truth of the matter is that women are more likely to be depended upon by others, which makes us concerned for how political changes might affect them. That's called responsibility, and pardon me very, very much if I see no reason we need apologize for it.

The most likely case scenario, by far, if a significant number of Libertarians began to be elected to high office, is that they would start by goring the oxen of those least able to make the sacrifice. They'd start with the poor, the marginalized and the struggling -- those who have already done most of the sacrificing, risk-taking and burden-bearing already. If they ever got around to trying to shift any of the load onto the rich, the powerful and the privileged, it would only be much, MUCH later. If ever -- and that is a very big "if ever" indeed.

I'm no less disgrunted and disgusted with the Democrats than I ever was. But will somebody out there in libertarian-land please, PUH-LEEZE just answer my questions? Don't insult me, don't condescend to me, just frickin' ANSWER me. I don't think it's too hard to figure out why I might consider your insults and your condescension to mean that you simply don't have an answer. Or that you don't want to admit the truth.

If we're to turn the country in a genuinely libertarian direction -- the direction I certainly agree we ought to go -- then how the hell are we going to go about it? We've got literally thousands (if not millions) of miles to go to get there, and somebody had better have some idea what route we're going to take.

Lemme see...men overwhelmingly dominate the libertarian movement and the big "L" party, and men don't like to stop and ask for directions. There couldn't be any connection there, d'you think?

I Feel SOOOOO Much Safer Now!

Well hello again, all you hardy readers of "Born on 911!" I can only hope there are at least still a few of you out there.

Tomorrow I take off for the Twin Cities area and the infamous first annual Minnesota Garlic Festival. As it was, I would have had to set my alarm-clock for three A.M. in order to arrive at Sky Harbor Airport here in Phoenix in time for my flight. That would have given me the approximately two hours it would have taken for all the security B.S. I'd have had to go through in order to even be allowed on the plane.

As I lolled half-awake in bed this morning, listening with one ear to the radio I always keep on all night, I happened to hear something about an "elevated terror alert." It seems there was a scare involving possible terrorists with liquid explosives, who tried to board a plane bound from America to the U.K. The news announcer said people were now being advised to arrive at the airport from three to four hours earlier than their flights were scheduled to depart.

Hustling out of bed, I promptly called the customer service desk at Sky Harbor, and this was confirmed. I now need to get there about two hours earlier than previously scheduled, so that I can stand in line for a flight that might, now, even be delayed. Oh, joy to the world!

Of course I'm going to do it. I already have at least a thousand bucks invested in this trip -- none of which, as I understand it, might be refundable should I decide to cancel this late. There are relatives (in particular, my favorite uncle, Willard) I might never get to see again in this world if I don't go to Minnesota now. Regardless of the inconveniences, I am pretty much committed to going.

The terrorists have already fucked up my birthday. From now on, every time I tell somebody it's September 11th, I'm going to have to hear "Eeeeeewwwwww, yuck!" And now this.

Of course I'm simply supposed to keep right on blaming the terrorists and leave it at that. And I'm certainly not about to let them off the hook. But, a month shy of five years after 9-11, I think it is fair to at least begin asking another question. Why the hell did we let the assclown in the White House steal yet another election -- purportedly to "keep us safe from terrorism" -- if we're quite obviously no safer now than we were then?

Not only are we not any safer, but we are undeniably LESS safe than we were before all this.

George W. Bush and his "administration" are the biggest incompetents and frauds this nation has ever seen. I never did like him, nor did I ever trust him any farther than I could spit. I didn't vote for him either time (not that that made any difference). But it is now high time for ALL of us to ask ourselves: has he even done the most minimal thing (protecting us from terror) that he said he would do?

I believe the bigwigs in this "administration" turned cartwheels of sheer joy when America was attacked on 9-11. I think it was exactly what they wanted to happen. They have milked it, so shamelessly, for all it was worth ever since then that it is impossible even for the most fair-minded person to imagine otherwise.

Miss Marple would have told us to look for those who had a motive. Nobody -- perhaps not even the terrorists themselves -- had a greater motive for America to be in scared-shitless chaos and complicity to raw governmental power after 9-11. Nobody. As another great American truism would have us remember, we should always "follow the money." Who has really gained the most from all this shit?

They were warned before 9-11, but they simply let it happen. And just as they had a powerful motive to want it to happen in the first place, they have just as compelling a motive to want it to happen again. Truly, nobody else would benefit from it more.

Look for the motive. Follow the money. Wake up, America, for crying out in a craphouse, and smell the damn bacon before it burns.

Truth be told, these people have absolutely no motive for the "War on Terror" to EVER end. They have no incentive to want to see it end, and every possible incentive to keep it going.

I feel SOOOOO much safer now. Don't you?