Beware!  The patriotards are reconstituting themselves, like those tiny Terminator droplets that reform when you’re not looking.  Patriotards are folks still confused and/or ambivalent about the Bush Administration’s legacy.  And, to set things right, they believe all this country needs is President Sarah Palin. A recent Rasmussen poll, my main reason for this post, finds 42% of this country ready and willing to vote for Palin in 2012.  Forty-two percent…this country…Earth, you betcha ya.  And this number will only increase with another attack.  One peep from Al-Qaeda and the patriotard hordes will seep out of the woodwork like, well, those Terminatorites.  As Bill Maher put it, after the next attack we’ll tear up the other half of the Bill Of Rights and Toby Keith is president.  This Rovian wave of nationalistic neurosis is the heartland of Patriotard Country.  You still don’t understand the patriotard menace?  Let me splain.  No, that will take too long.  Let me sum up…

It’s a free country (used to be anyway, before your last brainchild), so go ahead, vote for her.  But finding a way to identify and track Palinites is important sociological research.  We can call it the slow-jack.  You see, waving an American flag doesn’t necessarily mean you’re patriotic.  Patriotards, while waving such flags, have done more damage to our country then both reality television and ‘alternate side parking’ combined.   I know what you’re thinking.  How do you stay patriotic and intelligent, Mick?  Well, that does seem to be the issue, doesn’t it?  Patriotism these days seems to suggest an almost Sean Hannity-style level of denial.  Let’s say, for argument sake, Christopher Hitchens throws his hat into the ring in 2012. Now, I don’t agree with a lot of Hitchen’s policies, but I would consider voting for him, in fact, I probably would, because he’s fiercely intelligent. He embraces the heart of entrepreneurialism, small government, fiscal conservatism, and would be keenly shrewd on foreign policy.  He’s not even my brand but I clearly respect the model.  Palin fans wouldn’t like him, probably don’t even know him. 

Why do patriotards insist on the lowest common denominator? Why not find someone to champion your views who isn’t dating Cleetus the “Slack Jawed” Yokel.  I am petitioning the American Psychological Association to add a Pervasive Patriotard Disorder to the new DSM-V in hopes a viable treatment can be developed.

If you support Sarah Palin you are simply a Fox-only-watcher (FOW), or, well, the other option is even less charitable.  Look, I have nothing against Sarah Palin. That’s just a banana in my pocket, really.  I don’t mind idiots; I just don’t want any more for president, thanks.  People say, Mick, you’re afraid of her because she’s popular.  Whaaa?  I’m afraid of people in their forties going on sixteen…especially ones with aspirations to be president. But let me make this perfectly clear: the media hasn’t duped me into despising her; she’s just obviously petty, inarticulate, and her politics, what can be gleaned of them, are pathetic.  I based this determination not on the media’s coverage of her, but on the strings of unrelated words spewing out of her mouth that she calls sentences. 

The most recent patriotard pet peeve (PPP) about Obama involves all of the czars he is currently appointing to head everything from the auto industry to the porn industry.  I always wanted to be a porn czar.  Obama is simply continuing Bush’s expansion of power.  This isn’t algebra, folks.  Czars are answerable to no one but the President, so Obama can avoid congress and those pesky cabinet posts by appointing as many as humanly possible.  The patriotards cheered on Bush’s czar power for years. So it’s OK when your guy spawns this evil precedent, but now you cry foul? Anyone who passed civics class can tell you it’s too late once you let the czar out of the Kremlin.

Obama is the most powerful president ever.  He’s an Uber President.  Look, let me borrow a Crank-style analogy to help.  If someone gave you a Dodge Viper on Inauguration Day, are you really going to jump back into the Ford Escort for four years?  Please…  Let him take these new executive powers out for a spin, will ya?  Torture some bad guys, hire some death squads, maybe even appoint me as porn czar (I work cheap).

Now here’s my plan to restore order: “Know Soap.”  Obama can clean up on the way out.  Now hear me out on this. The only thing this democracy still has going for it is term limits.  If he does actually leave office when he’s supposed to, he could throw the keys to the Dodge Viper into the Potomac on his last day in office.  Restore order on the way out.  It’s brilliant!  This way he gets to have fun and we get our Constitution and our Bill of Rights back at the end of his term.  Not much of our country will be left by then, of course, but not much of it’s really left now.  It’s just the patriotards haven’t gotten the memo yet, is all.  Hint: they’re a little slow. 

Now to keep the Crank a little less cranky, there’s another end of the spectrum.  If you think Nancy Pelosi is doing a bang up job, welcome to the libertard club.  I agree with the Crank on the danger of libertards (another sure sign of the apocalypse).  The Crank feels most people are in themiddle of these two extremes, but I see it differently.  I think Karl Rove ordered everyone behind door number one, or door number two.  His politics of polarization worked far better than even he could imagine.  Americans now side with one group of developmentally disabled politicians or the other.  I think there are two countries, and I don’t like either of them.  About 42 percent of the country consists of patriotards, 45% consist of libertards, and 12 percent are hopelessly ambivalent.  Who’s left, you ask?  Yes, I’m talking about the Transcosmetic Party!  We need more integral voices.  The fighting one percent! The army of integral thinkers…onward Wilber soldiers!  

Oh, and Barak…I know you want to go on this joy ride of yours for awhile, but please stop riding the collective clutch.  A second stimulus?  Stop.  Please, just try male enhancement products. 

Oh, and I will be submitting my resume for porn czar shortly.  Open your minds real wide.  

Dear Andre,

This is a rebuttal to your posted verbal diarrhea on July 16th regarding, among other things, that child cancer patient recently in the news.  Let’s start by saying, AHHHHHHHHHHHH!  I would like to follow that point with a brief ARRRRRG! BLLLARRRRRG!  Whew.  Now I’m on a roll.  You had me for one paragraph, the first one, I loved it. Then you lost me, big time. You see, there are times when people have to be saved from themselves. Mickko comes to mind when he tries to BBQ (can you say “Fire Marshall”?).  Let’s start with that cancer kid. He is a child, and having been one, albeit many moons ago, I can tell you that a child can not make a conscious decision. I could not make a conscious decision until I started my meds in my mid-thirties. You may never make a conscious decision, based on your last paragraph.

There are many types of parents in this world, Andre, and some are better than others. I assume, or rather hope you don’t have any children, ‘cause if you do, I will need to alert the authorities. That cancer kid’s parents have him brainwashed into believing what they believe, just as my mother had me brainwashed into believing that I was actually a reincarnated gopher, who needed to stay in the yard under some leaves for the better part of my childhood.  OK, in my case it may have been a good decision, but in general it is bad form. Seriously, my mother had a rather large impact on my life (not to mention my ass). I still crap my pants when I see a large wooden spoon. What she didn’t realize was that I crapped my pants upon seeing the spoon, knowing the intense pain to follow.  Pavlov calls this Negative Reinexcrement.

So when she came up to me holding that big fucking wooden weapon in the air saying “did you just crap your pants?”, well, it was a self-fulfilling poophecy: Instant HotPocket.  I call that point my “number two.”

Stupid decisions are OK, I suppose, when you make them for yourself, but not when you are making them for a child.  She was wrong, and so are you.

Now, getting back to you, if I want to go to a bar for a beer or five, I don’t want you sitting next to me going all afterburners on me with your Lucky fucking Strikes.  Bite me.  Take it outside. It’s a stupid decision for you to smoke, but “stupider” for me to inhale your decisions, while I’m trying to kill my liver all quiet and peaceably like.

As for your next brain fart: “If I want to smoke marijuana and veg out on the couch watching psychedelic movies, let me.”  This is also problematic, in that someone has to work two jobs, probably your mother, cause you’re still living on her couch at nearly forty, I would guess, so you can “veg.” Or worse yet, it’s your wife, and she is secretly seeing a divorce lawyer. Hey, but look at the bright side, she’ll be the one who has to pay the legal fees, right?  You may do as you wish in our great society, but you must do so on your own. When you start involving others in your little “Neverland,” it becomes a problem.

Time to get off Sugar Mountain and find a friggin job. 

Welcome aboard, Andre.  Oh, and don’t go crapping your pants when you see that old Discord gorilla pic.

Yours Unruly,

Goomis

There is one thing, well WAY more than just one, that annoys the hell out of me about our “faithful” and “allegiant” United States Government.   First off, I personally consider myself patriotic, as long as the government does the right thing and doesn’t tell me what to do.  They don’t know what’s best for me!  Why does the ever-so-powerful-&-liberating U.S. government think they can dictate my lifestyle?  Shouldn’t ordinary people be able to make our own decisions without organizations like the FCC, Child Protective Services, NAACP, ACLU and a host of other acronym-laden organizations (ALO) getting in the way?  Hell, we can’t even make our own decisions in the comfort of our own home anymore.  And it seems like every decision we do offends some dipshit organization or another.

Here’s a perfect example: the thirteen year old cancer patient in Minnesota who had to RUN FROM THE LAW because the LAW didn’t think it was right that the mother and child decided against potentially lifesaving treatment.  Um excuse me!  Since when is it OK for other people to tell me what is right and good for MY CHILD!?  The last time I checked the U.S. Constitution makes a rather big deal about separating church and state.  In fact, our forefathers weren’t happy until there was an ocean between the two. You all saw this recent abomination on the news.  This child’s religious beliefs are that no life saving measures need to be taken when there is a life threatening injury or illness.  The least we could do for a thirteen year old boy is to respect that.  But no; some asshole didn’t think it was right that the boy’s parents allowed this and obtained a court order to force him into treatment.  WHAT THE F—PEOPLE?!  Now the boy and his mother are on the run from the law only to return and face a media storm that now involves the ACLU and all kinds of children’s rights organizations claiming that the boy’s constitutional rights have been violated.  But get this, they are on the side of the law!

Grow a brain, folks!  This boy made a conscious decision, with the guidance of his mother to avoid treatment and enjoy what was left of his life.  Can’t we as “civilized human beings”, as we describe ourselves under mostly false pretense, just respect the decision and sympathize with the fact that maybe the chemo wouldn’t have worked and he may have lived the remainder of his life in illness and pain?  Can’t we as “civilized people” just get out of the way and respect people’s decisions?  I would be willing to bet that the jack hole that took it to court in the first place doesn’t even have kids.  If (s)he does, I would also bet that they haven’t been through this with their children and therefore have no idea just how hard it is without the interference of some selfish, disrespectful, potentially atheist “patriotic” dick head.  It’s just like someone who doesn’t have children thinking that a simple spank on the ass when a child screws up royally is child abuse and “CHILD ABUSE BREEDS CRIMINALS!”  Again I say grow a brain, folks!  Learn the difference between discipline and abuse and come talk to me about how to handle my child.  I was spanked as a child; most of us were.  I’ll bet that 98 percent of that ‘abusive’ generation didn’t grow up to be criminals.  Well, I did, but I’m a bad example.

For crying out loud, the U.S. Government has turned into a bunch of sissies.  This is why I am a Libertarian.  I want to make my own decisions.  Have you heard we’ve had over one hundred years of psychotherapy and the world’s getting worse?  If our behavioral health experts are so damned interested in ‘measurable outcomes’, how about looking at your own track record, libertards?!

Oh, and I should be able to smoke in a bar (most bar patrons are smokers).  BUT NO; the U.S. Government, in their infinite wisdom, caters to yet another group of sissies who can’t stand the smokers and, presto, there’s a law banning it.  How about this idea: GET OUT OF THE BARS IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE SMOKE OR QUIT COMPLAINING!  It should be up to the owner of that bar.  He bought the damn thing.  It’s his joint.  Don’t even get me started on joints!

Anyway, the point is:  government, get out of my life.  If I want to smoke and “waste my life away” let me.  Maybe I have a family history of cancer?  My father never smoked, yet he is dying of lung cancer.  My 80 year old grandmother, who died in 1996 of natural causes, smoked for 60+ years and was perfectly healthy when she went.  If I want to allow my child to decide against chemotherapy, let me.  If I want to smoke marijuana and veg out on the couch watching psychedelic movies, let me.  These, among others, are decisions ONLY I can make for myself.  Now, if you will excuse me it’s time to spank something, spark something, dose on something, and skip my damn chemo.

More rants to come…