Putting up with a confusing campaign
The race for president in a nutshell: Everybody's mad as hell.
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul won't put up with flag burning. Ron is mad as hell. (I'm with Ron. Flag burning has become an intolerable problem in my neighborhood.)
Mitt Romney won't put up with abortion. Mitt won't put up with gay marriage. Mitt won't put up with undocumented immigrants unless they work on his yard. Mitt is mad as hell.
Rudy Giuliani won't put up with anything – facts, wives, expense account rules, you name it. Rudi is mad as hell.
Except for an ex-Baptist minister, all the Republican candidates are mad as hell.
I'm confused. I thought Republicans had been running things for years. Why are they mad?
They're mad as hell about taxes, they shriek.
What's the point of the Bush tax cuts and the resulting deficits if these guys remain mad as hell? They seem to be doing fine. They all can afford nice blue suits, white shirts, red ties, and flag lapel pins. I'm confused. What are they mad at?
They are mad as hell about illegal immigrants, they holler.
Most of the Republicans I know are my fellow golfers at Broadmoor (The People's Course). They love immigrants, legal and illegal, who rake the sand traps, roll the greens, and mow the fairways.
Do Romney, Tancredo, Hunter, Paul, Huckabee, Giuliani, Thompson, etc., want to shut down every country club in America? Few Democrats would suffer. The Broadmoor Democratic Club meets annually in May. If everyone shows, we play as a foursome.
I'm confused. Why are creationism and torture the only things these candidates like? Do they hope to make Intelligent Designing and Waterboarding Olympic events?
Fred Thompson was supposed to enliven this race, but he soon adopted the platform "No Voter Left Awake." Now Mike Huckabee is rising in the polls because, uniquely in the annals of Arkansas governors, he may not be a horndog.
Tancredo, Paul, Hunter, and others manage the difficult feat of being wacko without being entertaining. Democratic wackos do better. Consider Dennis Kucinich, whose campaign advisors are all from the planet Zork-El.
Where did the Republicans get this lackluster bunch? The race for county auditor of Tallapoosa, Ala., drew a better field. Has the Republican Party ever heard of executive search firms? For a $750,000 fee, Korn/Ferry or Spencer Stuart could produce four candidates with more talent, intelligence, and charisma.
Among the Democrats, Hillary leads in national polls because of her name recognition. Therefore, the pundits have awarded her the nomination, lauding her campaign as "professional," "tightly scripted," and "disciplined."
Pundits are not troubled by the fact that nobody likes her or trusts her. This is viewed as normal. Inside the Beltway, nobody likes anybody or trusts anybody.
"So what if she reminds men of girls who didn't buy their act in college. So what if she reminds women of the priss who chaired the Honor Board while cutting corners for her personal advantage?" they reason. "Hey, nobody liked or trusted Nixon, and he was twice elected president."
If Hillary stumbles, the pundits will reveal that they knew it all along – her "professional," "tightly scripted," and "disciplined" campaign only pissed people off.
If she does not stumble, we can look forward to Hillary running as the woman who put up with Bill, and thus deserves the presidency.
(I'm confused. What about the rest of us who put up with Bill? What do we deserve? Hillary?)
Her opponent will run as the suit who isn't Hillary, won't put up with Hillary, and thus deserves the presidency.
It will be confusing. I may not put up with it.
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Comments:
Posted Mon, Dec 10, 6:51 a.m. inappropriate
Flag burning amendment explained. reading required.: Hi Steve-
Ron forced a vote on the Flag burning Amendment much in the same way he forced a vote on the Iraq war and then voted no to both. Here is the text from his speech on the floor after introducing the legislation.
Just wanted to clarify this for you and your readers.
The Flag Burning Amendment
by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
Ron Paul in the US House of Representatives, June 3, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule, although unenthusiastically. I am not too excited about this process, and certainly I am not very excited about this proposal to amend the Constitution. As for my viewpoint, I see the amendment as very unnecessary and very dangerous. I want to make a few points along those lines.
It has been inferred too often by those who promote this amendment that those who oppose it are less patriotic, and I think that is unfair. And an earlier statement was made by the gentleman from Florida that everybody here is patriotic and nobody's patriotism should be challenged.
It has also been said that if one does not support this amendment to the flag that they are disloyal to the military, and that cannot possibly be true. I have served 5 years in the military, and I do not feel less respectful of the military because I have a different interpretation on how we should handle the flag. But nevertheless, I think what we are doing here is very serious business because it deals with more than just the flag.
First off, I think what we are trying to achieve through an amendment to the Constitution is to impose values on people - that is, teach people patriotism with our definition of what patriotism is. But we cannot force values on people; we cannot say there will be a law that a person will do such and such because it is disrespectful if they do not, and therefore, we are going to make sure that people have these values that we want to teach. Values in a free society are accepted voluntarily, not through coercion, and certainly not by law, because the law implies that there are guns, and that means the federal government and others will have to enforce these laws.
Here we are, amending the Constitution for a noncrisis. How many cases of flag burning have we seen? I have seen it on television a few times in the last year, but it was done on foreign soil, by foreigners, who had become angry at us over our policies, but I do not see that many Americans in the streets burning up flags. There were probably a lot more in previous decades, but in recent years it averages out to about eight, about eight cases a year, and they are not all that horrendous. It involves more vandalism, teenagers taking flags and desecrating the flag and maybe burning it, and there are local laws against that.
This is all so unnecessary. There are already laws against vandalism. There are state laws that say they cannot do it and they can be prosecuted. So this is overkill.
(full speech linked below)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul99.html