Right Wing Nation

Assclowns to the left of me,
asshats to the right,
here I am,
stuck in the middle with you!

Is it a convention? Something in the water supply? Why have they all popped up like bobbing head dashboard dolls in the last couple of days?

A couple of days ago, Sebastian put up an exasperated article about this guy, who’s your garden variety “let’s burn the Constitution and write our own!” social justice asshat:

Perhaps, then, the recent signs of violent times occasion an opportunity for broadening our collective sense of what ”rights” should be in terms of our social consciousness. Our political and judicial discourse would benefit from moving beyond a purely libertarian view of rights, which emphasizes freedom from governmental coercion or constraint, to incorporate also a dignitarian view of rights, which promotes freedom for the good of each other and for society as a whole.

not unlike the dolts at Mills College who thought this would be a good idea (which, indeed, it would be if the point were to demonstrate how much scorn leftists have for the Constitution):

As current and future leaders, many of you will have a hand in writing primary documents for community organizations, companies, and countries. The Women’s Leadership Institute offers you the opportunity to gain experience by participating in the Mills College 21st Century Constitution Initiative.

In keeping with the history-making experience of two Mills alumnae—Beate Sirota Gordon (1943) and Eleanor Hadley (1938)—the Women’s Leadership Institute invites Mills students, faculty, staff, and alumnae to participate in crafting a 21st Century Constitution. In 1946, Hadley and Gordon were asked by General Douglas MacArthur to write the Japanese Constitution in seven days. Hadley wrote the economic section, while Gordon wrote the family, equity, and gender policies for the Japanese Constitution.

Although this is my favorite part:

Guidelines for the 21st Century Constitution Initiative

Your submission can be written:

• As articles in the form of the current U.S. Constitution
• A narrative poem
• An essay

Or performed as:

• Interpretive dance (provided on DVD)
• Song (provided on CD)
• Play (provided on DVD)

And that brings us to the Assclowns of the Decade, at least for the state of Pennsylvania, Democracy Rising Pennsylvania. They get the Assclowns of the Decade award because there is a limit to how stupid an idea can be, and there is nothing stupider than theirs.

They want to have a Constitutional Convention. Gee, now there’s a brilliant idea! Sure, let’s shred our constitution and let Project MOVE write it, that’s a great idea! And while we’re at it, why not just have Angela Davis move in and take up permanent residence as Number One Comrade in Harrisburg, how’s that for a plan? Just think of the bill of rights we’d get if these assclowns got their convention. Let’s just drop Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and become the Peoples’ Soviet Republik of Pennsylvaniastan. Why have a convention, when we could just do it in one fell swoop?

What morons. And what gets me is the number of otherwise sane human beings who treat this organization like they’re not idiots.

Then we have Richard Neville, who makes Jeremy Rifkin and Ralph Nader look sane. To be fair, we have to include his fan club, because you see, this idiot is a “professional futurist.” Turn that over in your head for a moment. That means that even stupider idiots than this guy pay him to spew his idiocy — and such knee-slapping blather it is, too:

What is the journey into future likely to look like? Here are some possible signals:…
• Today’s hi-flyers in Ferraris will get mud on their armani’s, as they plant acres of fruit trees and turn weeds into diesel…
• The most important mission of the military is to help repair the ecosystem.
• Fast food will slow down. Vegetarianism will globalise…
• In 2027, Madame Tussauds will feature high profile war criminals and climate change deniers. Tony Blair will make the first category; John Howard and George Bush will feature in both.
• Water theft will be punished by a lifelong sentence of community service. Rain dancing will come into vogue…
• Courts will practice Earth Jurisprudence, a philosophy of law and human governance that is based on the belief that human societies should regulate themselves as members of a wider Earth community. also known as Wild Law, it extends our understanding of governance and democracy to embrace the whole Earth Community, including trees, species, rivers and eco systems.

I can’t wait for the rain dancing, myself. And Earth Jurisprudence has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

It’s really hard to say who’s the bigger assclown, this Neville, or the idiots who pay to hear his nonsense.

Of course, no list of assclownery would be complete without a kindly jackbooted fascist oozing concern for the chil-dern, which here would be one Ophelia Benson. She starts by equating Heaven’s Gate with the Amish, then proposes that because Amish children are more likely to leave the faith if they go to public schools, should be forced to do so. You know. To “liberate” the chil-dern.

She’s easily the most obnoxious and dangerous asshat on the list.

Then we have Carol Iannone, idiot extraordinaire at Phi Beta Cons — a good place to keep up on the latest academic moonbattery, as long as you ignore her drivel. While wringing her hands about multiculturalism she says — really, I’m not making this up — she really says:

President Bush holds Cinco de Mayo dinners at the White House

Yes, Carol. He’s from Texas. They do that in Texas. What’s next, gasping because somebody has a taco for lunch?

Idiot.

Next on our asshattery list is a double bill: Romesh Ratnesar at Time, and Anne Applebaum at Slate, who think we should invade Burma. Ratnesar is an asshat for writing the original article, of course, but Applebaum is an even bigger asshat for presumbaly reading it and saying, “That’s a great idea!” and then unintentionally pulling down her pants and showing us her rear:

They are “cruel, power hungry and dangerously irrational,” in the words of one British journalist. They are “violent and irrational” according to a journalist in neighboring Thailand. Our own State Department leadership has condemned their “xenophobic, ever more irrational policies.”

On the evidence of the last few days alone, those are all perfectly accurate descriptions. But in one very narrow sense, the cruel, power-hungry, violent, and xenophobic generals who run Burma are not irrational at all: Given their own most urgent goal—to maintain power at all costs—their reluctance to accept international aid in the wake of a devastating cyclone makes perfect sense. It’s straightforward, as the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt put it Monday: “The junta cares about its own survival, not the survival of its people.” Thus, the death toll is thought to have reached 100,000, a further 1.5 million Burmese are now at risk of epidemics and starvation, parts of the country are still underwater, hundreds of thousands of people are camped in the open without food or clean water—and, yes, if foreigners come and distribute aid, the legitimacy of the regime might be threatened.

Let’s see, here. The communist junta slaughters far more people than the natural disaster, and that’s okay with these idiots, but let the natural disaster strike and the junta refuse aid, and it’s suddenly not okay? What planet do these people live on? Who stole their moral compass?

Of course, idiocy and school administrators go together like cake and ice cream, and indeed, we have this bozo, Kate Steffans, Dean of the College of Education at Stl Cloud State University. We have a student with a service dog, and Somali scumbag students threatned to kill his dog so he left the program. Kate “I’m a great big PC mouthbreather” Steffans responds to this with this jewel of a line:

I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse.

And there we have it! It’s part of the “growth process.” Why do I suspect this would not be her reaction of these scumbags had threatened to kill her dog?

Idiot.

Last, well, I humbly suggest when an otherwise sane and reasonable human being comes up with something like this, it’s time to take a nice, long sabbatical far away from the nearest university or Starbucks and take your lips away from Obama’s nether regions:

I realize Obama can’t inspire hope in everyone, especially in people who are themselves afraid of being killed for thinking anything new, but isn’t there some hope that an Obama presidency would help advance ideas about freedom of religion?

Reading that sent me running for my antacids. But some of the comments were laughable, like this one, which is memorable not only for its stupidity, but its moaning, concerned hand-wringing:

thank you for finding this disturbing article. Part of the problem is and will be that most of the world probably doesn’t understand the multicultural nature of this country and his background may seem odd across the world. On a related but side issue - I know Obama is not a Muslim but did you know that there is only 1 Muslim member of congress and there are over 2 million Muslims in this country.

That of course had me in a dither of worry — only one Moslem in Congress? Goodness, how awful! Fortunately, another said:

Actually there are 2 Muslims in Congress. Carson won

And that made me feel so much better. I’d been moaning and sobbing and wringing my hands, worried sick about what awful bigots we must be and what the French must think of us after somebody pointed out that Congress didn’t accurately reflect the number of Moslems — why, the French must think we’re a laughingstock! Just consumed with guilt and our standing in the world, I was, sitting her sobbing in my seat. I had even called my therapist and was thinking about waving giant puppet heads or having a nude bicycle protest. Now, I feel better. I think I’ll go to Starbucks for a soy latte now.

Seriously, too much campus, too much Starbucks, and way too much or this “sensitivity” horse manure. Take a nice long vacation in America. Reconnect with your common sense gene.