Now that I am back home, well rested and up at the crack of noon, right on schedule, it's back to work for me! Today's post idea came to me when I was in the shower. Apparently I'm getting old because now when I take showers I think about stuff other than beating off, and today was no exception. I was thinking about Bill Mahr's
show on HBO. We just recently got cable again in our humble household and part of our reactivation package was 3 free months of HBO. That has allowed me to watch Bill Mahr for the first time in a while... well, complete episodes, that is. Usually I would just hunt around for clips of all the good parts. At any rate, I was thinking about his "New Rules" segment and coming up with some of my own and I figured what the hell, I don't have anything else to talk about right now and this is a good way to give a little bit of attention to a bunch of recent news pieces that really only deserve a little bit of attention in the first place. To that end I present to you, Dave's Rules, vol. 1! (With all due respect to Bill Mahr)If you don't believe your tax dollars should go to pay for welfare, food stamps, health care, medicare, social security, unemployment or any other "entitlement" programs for "lazy [brown/old] people who just don't want to work and expect everything to be handed to them," then you're not allowed to post anymore shit on your facebook page about how "Disgraceful" it is that we "Take care of other countries before our own."
If you think one congressman should resign because he tweeted his dick to a handful of consenting women on the internet, but it's perfectly fine for a Senator who cheated on his wife with hookers to keep doing his job every day, then you need to admit to your wife that you fuck hookers before you bring her home an STD and have THAT awkward discussion. I mean, why else would you be ok with a guy fucking prostitutes behind his wife's back but not ok with a guy tweeting his dick to girls? Or, is it like an overcompensation guilt thing? Like you also have sent pics of your cock to chicks and to throw your wife off the scent, you're WAY overreacting to what Weiner did, lest she think you'd EVER try anything like that yourself? Oh, it's so diabolical! Either way, you're a shit head.
Michele Bachmann needs to call Sarah Palin and thank her every single day for lowering the bar for conservative women to the point that Bachmann's actually being considered the strongest Republican presidential hopeful so far. Sarah Palin is officially the intellectual equivalent of the fat girl that cute girls take out with them to make them look even prettier by comparison.
On the subject of cute girls, it's time to deal with the insane pass we give to cute girls who are fucking idiots before we let one of them have control of our country. Now, Michele Bachmann is no Sarah Palin, but both of these dip shits are given such a pass on their stupidity, on their complete lack of strong, personal ideals and ability to do anything other than parrot their party talking points - points that are authored by white men - that it's ridiculous. I mean, could you imagine Hilary Clinton not knowing the Paul Revere story? Could you imagine the field day the Fox News/Talk Radio pundit turds would have had with her? Could you imagine Hilary just being an empty-headed talk box for the democratic platform? The press would eat her alive. Oh, but because you could actually see yourself fucking a Michele Bachmann or a Sarah Palin, it's ok for them to say stupid shit and be political puppets because they're just so darn cute!
Listen, white conservative males, I get it, ok? You've been drinking pretty hard ever since Obama won and now you're so drunk that girls like Palin and Bachmann are looking way hotter than they really are, and I know you want to take one of them home with you, but I promise you, if you do, you're going to wake up and your house is going to be completely trashed because they couldn't figure out how to work all your expensive electronic gadgets and didn't want to wake you to ask you to show them, so they just fucked everything up and left it for your maid to clean up... oh, you don't have a maid? Well, surely you didn't expect a cute girl to clean up her own mess, did you? Yeah, that's gonna happen, only it will be the whole country that has pancake batter and broken remote control parts all over it...
Speaking of the election. Republicans, if by some miracle you actually win the presidency in 2012, you have exactly 2 1/2 years to fix the country or we're calling for your heads. Why? Because that's 6 months longer than you gave Obama. Also, you're not allowed to blame Obama for shit, those are your rules, remember? The "Hey, Bush isn't president anymore, it's time to move on!" crap you gave to justify why inheriting two wars and a recession was Obama's fault, not Bush's? "Hey, you saw how I drove this thing for the last 8 years, what made you think it was gonna run good when you took over payments?" 2 1/2 years, Republicans, that's all you get.
Also, here's a new rule (now I'm just straight up ripping you off Bill, mea culpa). "White Guilt" no longer refers to white people feeling guilty for the history of white oppression towards minority groups and overcompensating for it. We have a black president now and minorities at all levels of business and government. White guilt no longer means I feel bad because I had it so good as a white person and you didn't. White guilt now means I still hate people who don't look like me, even though it's 2011 and that shit is fucking ignorant, dinosaur bullshit, so because I feel guilty for still being a racist dip shit in the 21st century, I'm going to read racism in every comment that a minority in power makes and use that as a justification for my own racism as a "reaction" not a "pro-action." So, when Michele Obama tells the NAACP that they need to work harder to raise the standard of living for blacks to the national average, I'll say she's "Blaming white people" for all of the problems in the black community. When people accuse me of hating Obama just because he's black, I'll remind them that he's half-white, even though that still wouldn't get him through my front door to date my daughter. See, it's not racism, cuz we have a black president! "But, I thought he was half-white?" Yeah, but only when I'm not using him to defend my ignorance!
Speaking of ignorance, less than half as many Republicans in office believe in global warming now than they did before Bush was elected president. Also, more than twice as many Republicans in office now believe in creationism over Darwinism. I know that they didn't ALL go to public schools, so there has to be more at work here than just our abysmally-ranked public education system that's creating this trend towards stupidity in the face of actual, factual information. I know that the dumbing down of our society is no accident. I am aware that an ignorant, undereducated populous is more controllable, willing to work harder for less and will believe just about anything you tell them, no matter how counterproductive it is to their own well-being, so it has always been in the best interests of the powers that be to keep the proletariat ignorant, but the side effect of generations of bar-lowering is that now we have people in office who aren't much smarter than the morons who elected them. It's the blind leading the stupid.
Do me a favor - I know you can use google, so just do a quick search on nations that gradually dumbed-down the population, created a manufactured national security threat to keep everyone scared and paranoid, pushed for an anti-immigration "closed borders" policy, opposed organized labor, claimed one particular religion to be superior to all others and divided the working class over things like political affiliation, religion, race, sexuality and called on the people to question the patriotism of everyone who didn't fall in lock-step with the policies of the ruling party. Just search for all the nations in our world history who did all those things and answer two questions for me (I know this is hard, but please, find the strength to pay attention long enough to do this. I know "Keeping up with the Kardashians" is on, but it's recording on your DVR, you won't miss it.) Question 1) Are any of those countries places you wished you lived during the time all that shit was going on? Question 2) How did things work out for those guys in the end?
Please stop telling people that all they have to do is "Want to work" and they'll be able to find a job. Also, please stop telling people to "Work at McDonalds if you have to" as an alternative to accepting government assistance. I love all these amateur economists who somehow think that making minimum wage, part-time at a fast food place will magically provide you with enough money to support a family without welfare, food stamps or section 8. I also love how this fast food job will just open up a myriad of career opportunities, because clearly all the leading fortune 500 companies recruit from the drive-thru windows at their favorite fast food joints. "Hey, you... yeah, the first guy ever who didn't have to make me repeat my order and got the entire thing right on the first try... how would you like to enter our executive training program?" Yeah, that happens...
If you're lucky enough to have a good-paying job in this economy, then God bless you and I have nothing but love for you and wish you continued success. However, SHUT THE FUCK UP about what other people need to do to improve their situation who aren't as lucky as you. Being unemployed right now sucks fucking dick. Sending out dozens of resumé's and not getting a single call back for an interview sucks fucking dick. Going to college for 3 years, getting an AA degree and still not being able to get a call back for an interview sucks fucking dick. Having to go on food stamps 3 months after you finish school because you can't find a decent job and you are no longer getting your meager financial aid check anymore and food stamps actually ends up giving you more grocery money than working part time at McDonalds and paying for car insurance and gas to drive there SUCKS FUCKING DICK. Jobs that pay less than welfare are not viable career options for struggling families, so if that's the best advice you can offer to someone who is unemployed, then keep your mouth shut because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, ok?
How about, instead of preaching to everyone how they need to just "Do what I did," you actually help someone do what you did? How about you extend that self-righteous, Christian hand of yours to help out your brother? Oh no, that would be socialism, and we all know how much Jesus hated helping out poor people who were down on their luck...
Also, as long as we're talking about welfare, please stop bitching about the "welfare moms who drive BMW's" ok? I've been on food stamps, I've been to the welfare office plenty of times, and in all the times I've ever been there I would say less than 5% of the cars parked out front looked "too nice" to belong to someone getting government assistance. The rest were 10+ year old piles of shit, just like mine. Here's an idea, you're not allowed to be mad at the one welfare mooch out of a hundred who exploits the system and drives a BMW unless you get even more pissed at the EVERY SINGLE BANKER AND FINANCE INDUSTRY CEO who took billions in bailout money and used it to give themselves bonuses. Does that sound fair to you? You're not allowed to talk shit about the people applying for section 8 and food stamps unless you talk just as much shit about the bankers who took their homes and the companies who laid them off to get them there in the first place. You're not allowed to criticize the people who push for more benefits for the working poor in this country unless you criticize the greedy corporations who are responsible for causing a person with a full-time job to still not make enough money to live above the poverty level. Deal?
I hear a lot of talk about "Envy Economics" lately. The new buzzword talking points term for people who want to tax the rich because obviously we're all "jealous" of their wealth and success and want to "punish" them for it by making them pay their fair share of taxes. However, all I ever hear from conservatives is bitching about how good these welfare bums have it. How they're living the life of Riley on their $400 a month in food stamps, their partially-subsidized shitty ass ghetto apartment and their meager welfare benefits check. Oh, how they live it up getting free health care from welfare clinics! Have you ever BEEN to a welfare medical clinic? I have. It's like a fucking 3rd world country in there. Kids screaming, piss on the floor that doesn't get cleaned up all day. Dirty ass everything, from chairs to sit on, to the walls to the people crowded shoulder to shoulder, who obviously aren't using any of their cash benefits to buy deodorant. Receptionists who could give a shit less about anyone and spend the whole day talking to their boyfriends or whoever loudly on their cellphones, and when you interrupt them to let them know you have an appointment or ask any other question, they look at you like you just asked them to cup their hands so you could shit in them. Then finally, after a minimum 2 hour wait, a completely annoyed and apathetic nursing assistant calls you back to sit in a waiting room for about 30 more minutes, at which point a completely overworked PA rushes in, asks you what you're there for, gives you a quickie diagnosis before you can even finish explaining your problem, rushes you to the back counter for a script and a follow-up appointment date and then disappears to deal with his next patient before you've even finished your sentence. Yeah, stellar health care right there. Cadillac lifestyle these guys are living. And yet, middle class conservatives are so jealous of these people!
Oh, how the conservative male wishes he could make ends meet on $400 worth of food stamps and $400 worth of cash benefits a month, in a slum of an apartment in the "brown" part of town. Oh how the conservative male oozes with green envy juice over the thought of that pampered lifestyle of having just barely enough to survive and nothing else. Oh, to live like the fatted lamb atop my mountain of subsidized poverty! Talk about "Envy Economics." You'd think that being a welfare case was hitting the lottery to a conservative. I mean, who wouldn't want that lifestyle? Am I right?
And finally, everyone needs to be consistent in their outrage. Really, I could have opened with this and covered just about everything else I said above this one, but then I would have had a really short blog post. What I mean, though, is exactly what it sounds like. Be consistent with your outrage. If you think Weiner should resign for tweeting his dick, then Vitter should resign for fucking hookers. If you think bums living off welfare suck for working the system, then bums working on Wall St. suck for the same reason. If you think high unemployment sucks, then you should think the companies who created that unemployment so they could ship those jobs overseas suck too. If it's wrong to be jealous of those same rich CEO's who made their fortunes out of fucking the middle class, then it's wrong to be jealous of the "extravagant welfare lifestyle" many of those middle class families are now being forced to live as a result. If it's wrong for the Democrats to do it, then it's wrong for the Republicans to do it. Be consistent in your outrage. If you're going to blame the Democrats for encouraging banks to write bad home loans, then you have to blame the Republicans for allowing those loans to be packaged into securities and traded on the stock market. If you're going to blame Obama for the second bailout, then you have to blame Bush for the first one. If you're going to blame Obama for everything he did in the 3 years since he took office, then you have to blame Bush for what he did during the 8 years he held it.
Our country would be a whole hell of a lot better off today if people voted based on the issues instead of on the labels attached to them. Instead of looking for the (R) or (D) next to a name, start looking at their policies. Instead of looking at which side proposed a piece of legislation, look at whether it actually helps you or not. Instead of just believing everything one side says and automatically calling everything the other side says bullshit, start listening to the actual content of their speeches. Listen to what it is they're actually saying.
It is a truly ignorant man who thinks he's already learned everything there is to know. If you aren't willing to rethink your beliefs and opinions constantly as you go through life, if you aren't willing to be open-minded to the possibility that there might be new information out there that could change your outlook on things that you have yet to discover, if you aren't capable of admitting that maybe, just maybe, you don't know everything about everything and there's a chance someone you disagree with might still have the right answer anyway, then you are a fool. No ifs, ands or butts, you are simply a fool. The minute we stop questioning our beliefs, the minute we stop asking "why?" the minute we begin to believe that we have it all figured out is the minute we become a stubborn fool. If you're not willing to ever admit you could be wrong about something, life has a way of doing it for you, and she can be a real salty bitch about it.
Peace out, bitches.
This is an amazing post, Dave. You really have focused in on some key issues and your rules are fair and just.
ReplyDeleteI loved the part about Palin and Bachmann and the horny old white conservatives and this line... "Yeah, that's gonna happen, only it will be the whole country that has pancake batter and broken remote control parts all over it..."
I like how your mind works and how you string words together. Good job.
Thanks DiAnne. :) I wish I had some insight into how I think of stuff, but I literally stare at the screen after I hit "new post" and whatever pops in my head, I write it down. Sometimes I'll get lucky and be inspired by something I saw on TV or read somewhere else... or think of in the shower like today :D and I'll come up with a good premise or two and just hope the rest comes to me as I go. Like for this post, for example, I thought up the first two rules while I was in the shower and by the time I had all that typed out, the Bachmann/Palin one just popped in my head, and so on. It really shouldn't come out sounding as well-crafted as it does, and I'm not saying my writing is well crafted at all, just that it shouldn't even be THIS good. :D Literally, it should sound like monkeys wrote my posts by throwing their poop at my keyboard until one accidentally hit the "post" button. ;)
ReplyDelete