The Economist's Cookbook

So since I went to an Obama "house meeting" earlier this year I figured I ought to give the other side a shot. Now let me preface this by saying that the Republican committee meeting I attended was not a rally like this Obama "house meeting" was. But still it provides a chance for me to get a look at the "everyday republicans".

Well this was a small local community meeting of the Rep. Committee. It was a painful joke.

Well things started off with an invocation, a prayer to get things started off. Please do remember that this is the South so such things are to be expected. However what followed was nothing short of fear mongering for the sake of creating solidarity. The leader of the meeting, who we shall call Mr. X, for the sake of anonymity, started on about how he's so thankful that he can live in a country where they can pray and there are people who want to kill us and destroy "our" way of life. The blatant reference was to Muslims. I mean ... come on. Yes there are terrorists out there who want to blow things up and kill people. But using this as a tool to get people to support your political views is little more than yellow journalism in the new millennium.

Then they had the Pledge of Allegiance. I stood but remained silent. Mr. X then went on about how ... "this is why we are here" ... for the invocation and the pledge. Umm ... I'm not sure he understands how things are supposed to work, but anyone who pledges themselves to a flag is an idiot. You pledge yourself to ideals and concepts and beliefs, not to flags. Flags can of course represent ideals, BUT those ideals might be changing.

He, Mr X that is, then went on about how the Republican party believes in a right to choose. My response??? HERE:Seriously, at this point I wanted to stand up and begin shouting at this motley collection of milksop socialists and moralist social engineers. What about the drug trade? What about the subsidies and tariffs that you all support to prop up "American" businesses which limit our right to choose? What about your "reasonable" restrictions on the ownership of firearms? What about the PATRIOT Act? What about the abuses of police power we see on a daily basis? What about the desire to put the government in people's bedrooms? (By the way, Oral sex is illegal in VA. I imagine Mr. and Mrs. X have broken that law.) What about the 'blowback' that our political decisions bring us in the in the international scene and how does that affect the "choice" that they support?

Here is my theory, they support choice, as long as you're making choices "they" (yes I know it's nebulous but it's the best I can do to describe the movements of mass opinion within the Republican party) approve of. And keep in mind this party has become the party of bigger and more government, more invasion into our private lives "for our safety". What the hell?! So choice is only okay when you approve of the possible choices? That's not choice that's poorly veiled tyranny.

The next one was a real joke. "We don't ask much of our citizens..." You have to be kidding me! We have a government that enslaves us for 4 months out of the year because they have a"right" to our labor, our minds, and our money and "we don't ask much"? This is absolutely asinine! If this guy actually believes what comes out of his mouth, this country is in deep shit.

There was a shot in there about people out there dying to protect our ability to pray and I thought that was so laughably stupid. Those troops are over there dying to support some sort of pipe dream that we can "build Democracy". For support of my opposition to this practice I point you to Dr. Chris Coyne's book After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy.

They went though attendance crap, Bylaws, approved minutes of the last meeting, identified officers, and other and sundry recruiting nonsense.

This one was a good one about supporting candidates. "We support those candidates that support the pledge and invocation." This statement is radically different from 'We support those candidates who support the US Constitution as our governing document." Oops. I don't give a damn about your pledge or invocation. What I do care about is the philosophical underpinnings of this country when it was founded ... namely this concept called freedom.

Sigh, the circus was just that, a circus. No one asked where this party was going or what it's beliefs are or what people think of the party and how can we make it better. No it was all about, let's jump on the bandwagon and vote our way to a better society.

What a joke.