Arby’s Macht Fries.

Father Changstein el Gamal: Well, we could join together in prayer.

Fry: Uh huh. But is there anything useful we could do?

Father Changstein el Gamal: No.

I think that’s in the hipster-run camps, which are pretty apolitical.

These opposing visions explain, for example, their opposite views concerning nondenominational prayer in school.

There’s no such thing as “nondenominational prayer”. Christians can’t even agree on whether they should ask for debts or trespasses to be forgiven, and that one came from the Big Guy himself.

Now here’s a nondenominational prayer, from Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

Of course it takes a heaping helping of paranoid self-importance and unawareness to go from that to “ZOMG teh evil Democrat overlords will round up all registered Republicans to toil in their underground chardonnay caves!1!!”.

Kilo said, Dubious anecdotes and work camps for everyone!

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2E3Yzk5M2Q4YjAyOTg4MWE5ZjMxZjM2MDZkMDMyNGE=

Tonight on Medusa, Voter Activist!

Actually, I find that to be a highly plausible anecdote. I can certainly imagine that Mr. Nordlinger’s friends are right-wing paranoid lunatics convinced that the liberal coffee shop girl is putting ground glass in their lattes, excuse me, black coffees.

I, for one, am terrified of being sent to camp to be glared at by trained liberal torturers. I hear that if you cross the camp guards, they take you away, and then loudly snort whenever you try to say something.

….and a “looser”. Get it right.

Unlike Jesus, who encouraged people to pray loudly in the streets so that others might admire their religiosity.

Oh wait.

The big diff, IMO, between conservative and liberal is that liberals generally don’t let their far left crazies run every fucking thing and run amok hurting as many people as possible.

Bingo!

My grandparents were married in October of 1929. They were pretty hard core populist/labor supporters. They tried to farm some pretty shitty land in the early 30s, plowing by horse, no electricity, no running water. This was dust bowl days, temps in the 100s day after day. My grandma had a baby die in utero during this time, and nearly died herself with only sulfa for antibiotics. Times were rough, people weren’t in the mood to fuck around. If Roosevelt hadn’t come along with the ND, and if my gramps hadn’t landed a good, safe federal job with the railway mail service, my grandparents were always quite sure they would have been in the front ranks of some sort of serious revolutionary movement.

I come from an actual leftist family tradition. My uncle occasionally votes for socialist candidates, and I’m getting ready to vote for the socialist candidate over blue dog Democrat Leonard Boswell in this election. (Though I wouldn’t do it if Boswell’s seat wasn’t completely safe.) I know I’m never going to get what I want, politically. But having said that, by way of comparison to what we’ve had for most of my life, Obama looks damned good. I’m pleased to vote for him, even if the FISA thing enraged me and even though his health care plan doesn’t come close to being what I want or what I believe we need. But as for Obama being a lefty, that’s just crazy talk. Personally, I can count on one hand the fellow socialists I’ve met over the years. Mr. Prager, Obama ain’t a socialist or anything close to it, and you can take it from me, an admitted socialist* , your worst nightmare.

*Philosophically, I’m probably closest to being an anarcho-syndicalist, but I’d settle for some Western European style socialism with pleasure, Mr. Prager.

TLAD said,

The right walks like this. The left walks like this.

It’s funny, ’cause it’s true.

My basic political principles haven’t changed much in forty years. Back in the day, my student peers viewed me as being a suspect center-right moderate “conservative”. But nowadays, according to the accepted characterizations of the MSM, those same principles define me as a complete fookin’ looney Lefty fringe-dwelling anti-American.

You and Justice Stevens both. Bless his arterial integrity for at least another three months.

All this Red-shit, Blue-shit rammed down our throats is just fucking absurd. Sometimes it seems that I’m the only one that remembers this to be a recent phenomena. Before 2000, each network fairly arbitrarily selected red and blue for each side. Some would have Republicans red, some blue. All of a sudden, half the country’s Red, with a capital R, and half the country’s Blue. If there has ever been a huge signal that we need to go RICO on our media outlets, this was it.

It is reconcilable if the Republican party is reduced in size until it can be drowned in a bathtub. Then, presto! Reconciliation.

As I recall, much can be said for the practice of neutering/castration in order to calm down the remaining members.

Right and left share the same ends, I thought.

Getting into & maintaining their place in political power, trying to be popular, making connections to increase said power, advancing their agenda while discrediting that of their opponents – yup, those are sure ends both seek.

Then he has to go & fuck it up with the “I thought” part, though … I don’t think “thought” means what he “thinks” it does.

How much “thought” went into:

calls for a unity among Americans that transcends left and right are either naive or disingenuous. America will be united only when one of them prevails over the other. The left knows this. Most on the right do not.

?

Is he cribbing straight out of agitprop from the Shining Path here or what? This guy isn’t a thinker: he’s a wingnut-textbot-Eightball, & someone needs to stop shaking him! He’s wasting precious paragraphs on distilled dingo-shit masquerading as elder wisdom. Take away his goddamned adjectives until he gets an upgrade!

And I just had to close it right there; nothing good could have come from me reading that blog.

In a country where there can be factions and proportionate representation, all voices on the political spectrum can be heard.

In a society like ours, winner take all, the two party system is a guarantee (sorry, Naderites. Go Google “Duverger’s Law” if you don’t believe me).

By definition, that’s going to moderate extremist positions.

I’m a self-described liberal. What I want from this country and what the system is likely to give to me are two very different things:

I want univeral health care, single payer. I want universal college education, government pays. I want CAFE standards so high that my bicycle would have a hard time qualifying. I’m willing to pay taxes sufficient to see all those come to fruition. I want my government to be afraid of its citizenry and not the other way around.

And so on. But let’s be realistic: we can only nudge a little at a time.

So I pick my battles as I best see fit.