Political Irony

by Art Buck, from the Ashland Daily Tidings

I have been following the election build-up and I’ve made up my mind: I am voting a straight Republican ticket.

The thing that tipped me over the edge was the Republican incandescent light bulb position. They say it is a Democratic police state that is forcing manufacturers to abandon Thomas Edison’s 19th century incandescent bulb and make only more efficient ones, which burn cooler and use less electricity.

I will overlook the fact that this law was passed in 2007 by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Bush. It is clearly a Commie plot devised by Democrats. Can you spell “1984”?

I am also voting Republican because I want lead back in gasoline and paint. Only sissies worry about the health effects; freedom demands that corporations do whatever they want.

Republicans want to end the Environmental Protection Agency. I am for that, too. I remember the good old days of London’s killer fogs and Los Angeles’ smog days when you could not go outside. It may have been slightly annoying, but it was better than the government forcing us to stop polluting.

For that matter, I support the Republican position that the new Consumer Protection Agency is a monster which robs corporations of their constitutional right to do whatever they want to do to consumers, including lie to them about the terms of the loans they are taking out. Corporations are persons, after all — just ask Chief Justice Roberts.

Another plus for Republicans is their taking Jefferson out of the list of presidents because he supported the separation of church and state. It will make history easier to learn if we have fewer presidents.

I support Rick Perry’s and Michelle Bachmann’s drive to make evangelical Christianity the official and only religion of the USA. And how about Creationism? It is a whole lot easier to learn that only 4,000 years ago God made the earth in seven days than to grapple with the science of how life forms on this planet came to be over hundreds of millions of years. (Or to consider that religion and science are not incompatible.)

Ask Perry and Bachmann. They both say there is no evolution, and Texas public schools even teach Creationism. My kind of leaders! Keep It Simple, Stupid. I am not much of a scientific Darwinist, although, like them, I am all for Social Darwinism. I am a little uncomfortable with the racist tendencies of Southern Republicans, but it is a small price to pay for freedom and liberty.

Global warming? The whole Republican pack rejects this squishy liberal idea. If it were true, imagine the hurt it would do to the oil and gas industry! So it cannot be true! And Fox News says it is not true. So let’s skip this science stuff, it only hurts the brain and leads to lower GPAs.

I am also for the Republican goal to kill Social Security and Medicare. Bush tried to “privatize” (kill) Social Security but the citizens put up too much of a fuss. But it is time to try it again, and I know the GOP will. They have said so.

All but four of the 238 House Republicans voted for Paul Ryan’s budget, which included killing Medicare and cutting taxes for the rich even further. Greg Walden voted for Ryan’s budget. Those Senate Democrats stopped it. The nerve! So I know the Republicans won’t let me down if they get majorities in both houses and get the presidency.

You don’t mind paying health insurance companies whatever they demand in your retirement years, do you? It is a small price to pay for freedom. Without those pesky programs, and success finally in their efforts to end unemployment insurance, the Republicans will finally have returned us to the pre-Teddy Roosevelt robber baron days, where it is every man and woman for themselves, without any namby-pamby help.

Someone said, “Republicans claim that government does not work, and when elected they prove it.” I yearn for the Bush years, and this new crop of GOP politicians is Bush on steroids, no holds barred. Let’s go! Prove it!

I like the GOP slogan, “Government is not the answer.” Lately, though, I am nagged by the thought: What was the question that elicited that response? Was it “What is the highest mountain in North America?” Or, “Why is John Boehner’s DNA so close to that of a chimpanzee?”

Anyway, misgivings aside, vote Republican; they always use the words freedom and liberty.