I Love America!

I heard this quote last night, while trying to unwind before I went to sleep and found myself watching a comedy segment by Bill Maher.

The entire quote is:


This country needs to get over itself, seriously. It's not the 1950s anymore, we're not the most efficient, we're not the most healthy, we're not the most respected. I'm not hating on America, these are facts. This is a challenge to America. I'm tired of people saying, "This is the greatest country in the world." How would you know? Always from the people who've never been anywhere just pulling it out of their ass...I love America; it's Americans I can't stand!


I actually pulled the quote from another blog where some right-wing conservative was listing all the quotes from the show and taking offense.

I can actually relate to that quote, and perhaps let me share why... America was founded on the ideals of freedom. Many of the founding Fathers where Deists too, contrary to popular belief, something I can relate to as well.

The ideals of America are the greatest ideals on Earth, at least in my opinion. But generally the schmucks we choose as leaders are the biggest collective bunch of assholes and jackasses you could find.

There's another quote that I liked that ties in with something I've been thinking about blogging about...


You know, I understand why rich people vote Republican. I never will understand why poor people vote for the Republicans. I mean, no offense, but they are just tricked into doing it, and it is sort of what fucks up democracy, because the regular people need to actually vote their interests, because if they don’t, the only thing, that’s all we have left. Otherwise, the lobbyists and the corporations and the money interests win.


As many of you know, I used to be ultra-conservative. I credit an extended family member with introducing me to the Almighty Rush Limbaugh, and subsequently I was turned onto Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Over time however, as I made the mistake of actually thinking while listening to the shows, I realized that they were full of crap.

With Rush it happened during an interview where his entire argument was "But that's not how a conservative should be thinking". Screw logic apparently, you have to think the way I think you should... OK Rush!
With Sean it was the day he had Ann Coulter on the show, and she kept going off about how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would condemn something or other - I think they may have been talking about the pernicious evil that is Gay Marriage.
With Glenn, and too his credit I think I would still enjoy his show had he kept it the same... He used humor, logic and seemed to tolerate some level of different opinion, but he's become lead fear-monger... I would blame it on a contract with Fox, but he'd started doing it while still on CNN.

But I digress...

I spent Independence Day with much of the extended family that were responsible for my introduction to Rush. I love these people, they're all genuine, and very accepting. They're also all die hard conservatives, and so the news that I voted for Mr. Obama has spread like wild fire. It has been interesting seeing how they react to me though... I make a conscious effort of not discussing politics with them and to their credit, they still treat me like they did before.

I heard a couple of things though while I was hanging out with them, that kind of made my head want to explode - to borrow a phrase from Mr. Beck.

First was an email which was being passed around, although when it got to me, the person looked at me, looked at the email, and passed it to the next person. I peeked at it later. It was a letter from a high school teacher (apparently) which had been feature on either Beck or Hannity's show. It was a letter too President Obama, expressing extreme loathing for the way in which Mr. Obama was spending his time flying all over the world apologizing for being an American.

Personally, I have yet to hear Mr. Obama apologize for being an American. I have heard him express regret at the way we've bullied the rest of the world, and failed foreign policy, and express a desire to return to our roots of freedom, but I have yet to hear him apologize for being an American. And I happen to agree with what he's saying. We haven't been acting in accordance with our founding principles, and it doesn't matter how much you love America, that's just a fact.

Next, I heard someone whining about President Obama destroying this Christian nation. For crying out loud people, America is not a Christian nation!! It never has been, and hopefully it never will be. It was founded as a country where people would be free to pursue their own beliefs. Yes, many of it's citizens are Christian, but it is not a Christian nation.

There were a bunch of other ignorant comments made, but the final one I want to touch on probably explains the others...

"Did you hear what Limbaugh had to say yesterday about the Stimulus package?"

First, let's just consider some facts here...

The US economy is in the crapper for a couple of reasons:

Removal of regulation from the banking industry led to corrupt lending practices, and the collapse of numerous banking corporations. While Bill Clinton shares the blame for signing this into law, the law itself was drafted by a Republican, and a follow up bill to undo the first was vetoed by Bush. He finally finds the balls to veto something, and it's something which he shouldn't have - Nice one!

Tax Cuts proposed by Bush and voted into law by a Republican Senate and Congress caused a temporary increase in revenue, and then proceeded to accelerate the deficit. This happened with the Reagan tax cuts as well.

The economy went South under a Republican Presidency.

The first stimulus package was voted in under the same Republican presidency, and the money (some $700 billion) was just given to financial institutions without any form of accountability or stipulation on how it should be spent. You may recall both John McCain and Barack Obama suspending their presidential campaigns to work on this.

In a true capitalist society, those banks which engaged in irresponsible lending practices would have failed, but America doesn't have a capitalist economy... It's run on crony capitalism. According to wikipedia that is...

Crony capitalism is a pejorative term describing an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between businesspeople and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.

Crony capitalism is believed to arise when political cronyism spills over into the business world; self-serving friendships and family ties between businessmen and the government influence the economy and society to the extent that it corrupts public-serving economic and political ideals.

Anyway, so while I don't necessarily agree with the whole bail out thing, I really don't think Republicans have any room at all to bitch about it. In reality, the Obama stimulus package has tended to show more accountability, and be applied with an actual plan. I don't know if it will work, but compared to the Republican - just hand it out to our financial industry buddies, I think the odds of success are higher.

The thing that bugged me most about the whole thing was that these peoples entire view of the democrats and President Obama are based on what Rush Limbaugh says...

I was raised Mormon, and I often remember Mormons complaining about non-Mormons looking for information on Mormons from their own ministers. Of course the minister to which you offerings are currently going is going to dissuade you from switching to another Church.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the other media celebrities from the right, and to be fair those on the left as well, earn their money because they have an audience. Of course Rush Limbaugh wants to see Republicans in office - they'll limit how much money he has to pay in taxes, and with the millions he rakes in, he doesn't have to worry about medical care or anything else like that.

The thing is that many who listen to Rush, are not doing so well in this economy. Many struggle with medical insurance premiums, because corruption between politicians and those who profit in the medical profession have driven prices sky high. But rather than voting for their interests, they do the What Would Rush Limbaugh do thing, and vote to keep the corruption in place.

So that was kind of my point. People don't think any more. I'm not saying that all Republicans are like this, and I'm not excusing the Democrats either. There is corruption in both parties. But I wholly agree with the sentiment expressed in the Bill Maher quote, that people need to vote for their interests.

I don't think Mr. Obama is the 'Chosen One' as Mr. Limbaugh calls him - Ironic coming from them man who claims to have 'Talent on loan from god' right? But I do think that with the election of Mr. Obama, people have started to vote for their own interests.

Please forgive my rambling on and thank you for reading - assuming you made it through to the end!