Friday, October 9, 2009

My Gay Soapbox

Let me see how many people I can annoy with this post. If there isn't a one, then I guess Habladora might have a leg to stand on as far as this blog not reaching the people who need to be challenged. However, I believe I can annoy someone. I've managed to do it before on topics that I fully anticipated to be innocuous. So, come on people, don't let me down now. Read the following article by Bill Maher about how the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy can be obliterated by one swipe of the pen from a man with Noble Prize winning character.

Let me just provide snippets to get you going:
But there is one thing the president can do with the stroke of a pen: He can let gays serve openly in the military. It's called an executive order. Harry Truman wrote one in 1948 for blacks in the military, and that was that.

Health care and the environment are complicated, but it's not hard to keep track of the places that God allows you to put your pee-pee. I mean, you can count those places on one hand. And that hand isn't something you should be using either. A year ago, if you had asked your average wing-nut neighbor what he thought about health care reform, he would have shrugged his shoulders and gone right back to eating his Moon Pie. But he's pissed-off about it now, why? Because it's in their nature to be pissed-off. They have a pre-existing condition called the Conniption Fits. The tea-baggers have taught us all an important lesson in modern politics: If you want to be taken seriously, act like a fucking loony-tune.

In fact, let me explain how the right-wing mind works: wing-nuts get up in the morning, get their "news" from Fox or Drudge, and then spend all morning drinking coffee and getting all worked up about whatever Fox and Drudge tell them to get worked up about. "Mexicans - Grrr! Socialism - Grrr! Van Jones - I don't know who he is, but sure... Grrrrrr!" By the time Rush comes on at noon, they're ready to just start demanding we build a wall around Andy Dick. And when Glenn Beck shows up at five, they're seeing red - right through the blue from the Viagra.



Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-everyone-deserve_b_315406.html


Health care and the environment are complicated, but it's not hard to keep track of the places that God allows you to put your pee-pee. I mean, you can count those places on one hand. And that hand isn't something you should be using either. A year ago, if you had asked your average wing-nut neighbor what he thought about health care reform, he would have shrugged his shoulders and gone right back to eating his Moon Pie. But he's pissed-off about it now, why? Because it's in their nature to be pissed-off. They have a pre-existing condition called the Conniption Fits. The tea-baggers have taught us all an important lesson in modern politics: If you want to be taken seriously, act like a fucking loony-tune.

In fact, let me explain how the right-wing mind works: wing-nuts get up in the morning, get their "news" from Fox or Drudge, and then spend all morning drinking coffee and getting all worked up about whatever Fox and Drudge tell them to get worked up about. "Mexicans - Grrr! Socialism - Grrr! Van Jones - I don't know who he is, but sure... Grrrrrr!" By the time Rush comes on at noon, they're ready to just start demanding we build a wall around Andy Dick. And when Glenn Beck shows up at five, they're seeing red - right through the blue from the Viagra.

I've got to admit here. On those rare days when I force myself to go to the gym and swim rather to drive home and have a beer on the deck, I am greeted in the locker room by Glenn Beck. Delightful I tell you. Not much beyond Grrr moments that I can tell. I promise that I will write a comment card about this next time I am there. Put on the local news. Put on Food Network. Don't put on shows that are designed to do nothing but incite.

Until I accomplish that, here is my proactive post. Don't Ask Don't Tell is ridiculous. Banning gay marriage is ridiculous. I'd like to say I have faith that Obama, Mr. Yes We Can, believes that we can indeed provide equal rights. Maybe a skosh of optimism is bleeding through there. In fact, it probably is. That doesn't mean it can't be done. It just might not start with him. It might start with you all out there reading this. You might be giving a supportive head bob or you might be seething. Either way, it's got you thinking that equal rights are equal rights and religious beliefs that engender fear don't automatically grant the right to oppress perfectly beautiful human beings.

P.S.
Air Force Academy Censors Professor for Discussing Gays in the Military

4 comments:

DJ Dual Core said...

Well, Mächtige Maus, neither you nor Bill Maher made me mad. Not at you, anyway. It was a good reminder of what thumb-spinners I think far Right is made up of.

Your health club, by the way, is fucked up. In what strange, alternate world does hate speech promote health and wellness?

Anyway, if The Underground does want something that will rile your readership I'm working on a piece about why pacifists should own guns.

Mächtige Maus said...

Well, I'm 0 for 1.

Keep in mind, I am in the South, which (I am sad to say) explains a lot about the programming at the gym. I'm working on it.

Pacifist and gun...which of these terms doesn't play well with the other?

Jessica said...

I totally agree that DADT should be gone already.

What annoys me about the bit you quoted by Maher is the way he characterizes the Far Right, which is kind of a problem in a lot of the left-ish media these days. It's a small number of people who actually listen to that stuff and take it seriously. And as far as I'm concerned, they're just as annoying as the Far Left. In fact, I find the Far Left more annoying because I am embarrassed by the fact that they're associated with the Left.

What really gets me is when snippets of the Far Right discussion manage to trickle into the mainstream. We don't talk politics much in my family, but the number of times I've had to tell my Mother, "But no one's even proposing that!" in the last couple months is far far too many.

And maybe I'm missing it, but it seems to me these days that the Right is so focused on Cap and Trade and Health Care Reform that they haven't seemed to care that much about DADT at all. Instead, you've got strong voices on the left--not even the Far Left, but the regular old Left--constantly asking when it's finally going to happen. And one thing Obama hasn't been so great about doing since his first few weeks in office is actually responding to the center-left.

Sorry if I went very off topic there...

Mächtige Maus said...

Maggie...if I had been forced to guess one comment that might have come out about the post it would have indeed been that the linked article was itself a rant (I suppose mine might have been as well, but hopefully far less bonkers?)

No doubt, far left loonies are just as bad as far right loonies. In fact, I am also embarrassed by their association with the left.

Still, there was a small part of me that enjoyed reading that. I assure you, I never get to go to the gym and listen to the far left loonies on CNN because all they seem inclined to air is Fox. It was kinda nice for a moment to hear some counter crazy, if you know what I mean.

I am curious about Obama's HRC speech today.