Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Rules of Disengagement

A friend sent me the following in an email.  It’s pretty “liberal” so, if you aren’t, it’ll just upset you and you’re probably better off just watching some videos of clouds and waves and soothing images like that.  But if you’re in a mood to whine and moan about what’s wrong with this goddamn world, you might enjoy the following 20 Rules for being a Good Arch-Conservative:

1) You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.

2) You have to believe that the US should get out of the UN, and that our highest national priority is enforcing UN resolutions against Iraq.

3) You have to believe that government should stay out of people’s lives but it needs to punish anyone caught having private sex with the “wrong” gender.

4) You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don’t pray to Allah or Buddha.

5) “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

6) You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body, but that large multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever.

7) You have to believe that you love Jesus and Jesus loves you, and that Jesus shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and Hillary Clinton.

8) You have to believe that the best way to encourage military morale is to praise the troops overseas while cutting their VA benefits.

9) You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know if teenagers don’t have condoms they won’t have sex.

10) You have to believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our allies and then demand their cooperation and money.

11) You have to believe that providing health care to all Iraqis is sound government policy but providing health care to all Americans is socialism personified.

12) You believe that global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are “junk science”, but Creationism should be taught in schools.

13) You have to believe that waging war with no exit strategy was wrong in Vietnam but right in Iraq.

14) You have to believe that Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney was doing business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

15) You believe that government should restrict itself to just the powers named in the Constitution, which includes banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

16) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about the adulterous affairs of Democrats, while those of Republicans are a “private matter”.

17) You support state rights, which means Ashcroft telling states what locally passed voter initiatives he will allow them to have.

18) You have to believe that what Clinton did in the 1960’s is of vital national interest but what Bush did decades later is “stale news” and “irrelevant”.

19) You have to believe that trade with Cuba is wrong because it is communist, but trading with China and Vietnam is just dandy.

20) You have to believe that the use of alcohol and tobacco are safe enough to be legally protected but the use of marijuana is so dangerous as to be unsuitable even for serious medical study. 

I think conservatives should be people who boil down fruit into a pectin-rich jelly.  Buttered toast with fresh conserves, direct from the conservatory where the conservatives toil… mind wandering… more work to read… desk yawning… rant winding down… so tired… so very tired…