Soapbox

I'm hardly once to wax policital- I don't claim to be majorly into politics, and I am fairly ignorant to a lot of issues. But, as I get older, I am gaining more of an interest and I'm starting to pay close attention. I don't think I'd take my chances in a huge political debate, but I know bullshit when I hear it. That being said, this week's Political Animal (Citypaper) is right on:

It’s times like these you have to love being a Democrat. Have you ever noticed that if there’s one thing right-wingers love to do, it’s to give liberals “advice”? They’re always saying, “Well, if you knew what’s good for you, you’d do this,” where “this” is something that would, in effect, blow up the party for good.

Granted, for a long time, Democrats have been really good at taking that bad advice. They keep pandering to the cheap sentiments of the fickle Washington press, ignoring the sentiments of the angry (and getting angrier) grass roots, while watching a badly conceived war get worse and a domestic agenda steer dangerously off the tracks. But still, Republicans have the temerity to tell liberals—who have no power and have been wont to do everything to avoid power for four solid years—to follow their advice and make things worse. Who are they kidding?

So right now, let’s start a trend—it’s probably a good time to start giving Republicans advice. When more than now could they use it? The White House is under investigation by a special prosecutor due to its exposure of the identity of an undercover CIA agent. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission because what he claimed were assets held in a blind trust were sold—apparently under his orders—right before the stocks tanked (et tu, Martha Stewart?). And former House majority leader Tom DeLay was indicted recently on a felony count of conspiracy stemming from his efforts in Texas to illicitly fund campaigns and jury-rig the state’s delegation to the House of Representatives. It doesn’t get any sweeter than this, folks.

So, Republicans, here’s some advice: Keep laying on the tax cuts. They won’t keep anyone from drowning come the next hurricane, they won’t save any of those troops in Iraq from living past the next improvised explosive device lining the roads from Baghdad to the airport, and they sure as hell won’t make the general American public safer in their beds. But the corporate contributors love them, and they keep allowing Republicans to proclaim, despite all other evidence to the contrary, that they help keep the economy going. Foreign debt is at an all-time high, and who knows how long the Chinese will keep paying for our sins by buying dollars, so what better than shoving through yet another set of tax cuts? Besides, one tax cut a year for five years has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Speaking of foreign intervention, the whole Iraq thing is getting old by now, don’t you agree? Nothing makes our allies more nervous than the idea that we may just lose all our marbles and attempt yet another march into some foreign country’s sovereign territory. Syria, Iran—hell, maybe Canada. It would be such a kick to see the look on those smarmy Canucks’ faces when what’s left of the 82nd Airborne drops down out of the skies into Quebec, right? Serve them right for not joining in when we told them to jump when we went into Iraq.

Think about the bright side of it—gas prices have more than doubled under this presidency. This administration, under which gas reached the $3/gallon mark for the first time, is run by former oil executives. But nobody really remembers that, so go ahead and keep pushing the sales of those U.S.-made Hummers and Cadillac Escalades.

On another note, health care hasn’t gone anywhere, so don’t do anything to fix it, as it very well could be the next major catastrophe. Five years have gone by and the baby boom has gotten older, and Republicans’ only thought has been to dismantle the one truly working legacy of the New Deal, Social Security, and to drive a stake through the heart of the Great Society by larding up Medicare with a budget-busting plan that you had to lie about to get through Congress.

For the coup de grâce, you’ve finally got a chance to lock in all the gains made over the past five years by filling the Supreme Court with big business-whoring conservatives for whom money equals speech and a woman’s body is nothing more than a baby-making tool of your own priapic desires. I’ll bet it just makes you drool—for something like the next 40 years, given modern life expectancies, a Roberts court can enforce all the ideals of the Bush administration until we have all the modern comforts of life one could expect from an ideal conservative administration—say, Warren G. Harding’s.

Buck up, Republicans! If things keep going as they are, today’s conservatives might want to remember a piece of advice written on the back of a bathroom door in an East Baltimore bar’s men’s room: advice is like semen—easy to dispense, but hard to swallow.