And Speaking of Thumb Suckers
December 11, 2003
La Leche League (another international organization) has succeeded in creating a legion of perpetually voracious thumb suckers. Somewhere along the transitive path from opportunity to self-endowed “rights”, character development has morphed from “strength through adversity” into “entitlement through victimization”. Perseverance is now defined as the “right” to total avoidance. In our gradeless society, the individual always earns a pass because any hint of failure is the fault of someone else.
In the never-never land of the far right hide the eternal malcontents under the Antistatist pseudonym. On the surface, the Antistatists seek the admirable goal of downsizing the scope and authority of the federal government. The rub is in the pragmatic. When asked how, in real world terms, to achieve this, the answer is usually a string of non sequiturs: “The courts make lousy decisions—get rid of Bush”; “The deficit is too high—get rid of Bush”; “Hillary is a bitch—get rid of Bush”. I have yet to hear a coherent long-term plan from an Antistatist on how to actually reduce the grasp of federal intrusion other than “Get rid of Bush”.
Most Antistatists see both the Democrats and the Republicans as soldiers in the same army. The political parties play good cop/bad cop in a conspiratorial game to destroy the middle class and digest all individual liberty in the bowels of an all-powerful State...the ominous One World Government. Maybe they are right and maybe they’re not, but when asked for a solution other than violent insurrection, these “sons of liberty” retreat to their mommies basements and suck their thumbs. They are victimized by Statist forces and therefore entitled to smash everyone’s toys...”Get rid of Bush”. Perhaps their ultimate joy would be a state of anarchy, but perennial crybabies wouldn’t fare well without a legal skirt to hide under.
On the equal but opposite pole, the far left breeds the know all/know nothing egalitarian twits. Theirs’ is a world of privileged emotion devoid of any connectable empirical dots. Everybody should have everything and the ubiquitous rich will pay for it. The operative preemptor being that the egalitarian twits do not pay for any of this with their Malibu mansions, Gulfstream V’s or their wine cellars. And gun control does not include their private army of body guards. Hey, let the guy with the confederate flag emblazoned pickup truck get mugged.
The loony left lives in a world where cops are criminals and criminals are fêted at wine and cheese fund raisers. Somebody has to pay the future William Kunstlers to create victims from the immoral souls of cold-blooded killers. And, while you’re at it...always reserve a Chippendale seat for Pol Pot. It’s so easy for the elite to patronize Mumia abu-Jamal because moral parity for the likes of Sean Penn is not a stretch. But Bush is evil incarnate because he so overwhelms the hollowness of elite souls.
So, the Hollywood elite convened to Hate Bush at the Beverly Hills Hilton. The wife of Larry David, the man behind "Seinfeld", Harold Ickes (a top Clinton fund-raiser), the Sierra Club and the founder of "Emily's List" were among those in attendance. You can bet the menu for this multimillion dollar fundraiser did not include meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Isn’t that what the minions who buy the movie tickets eat? The evening concluded with a thumb sucking sit-in under a truffle.
On the extremes of the bipolar left and right sit a cadre of perpetually malcontent egocentrics. They are chasing ideological perfection in an imperfect world. Their concept of team-play is sideline sulking...”If you won’t play my way, I’ll just sit on the bench and suck my thumb.”
And now to the crème de la crème of the wet-nursed...the “Candidates”. You have to love the way that Howard Dean is depantsing the rest of the pack. Poor John Kerry emerges from his strategy brainstorms with little more than a blistered thumb. Kerry would be better off if he never stopped sucking his thumb. Every word he utters is a desperate attempt to out-Dean Dean. Let’s make it a pissing contest about self-aggrandizement and the issues are mere means.
Kerry’s solution to terrorism...”I will reach out to the French”. Kerry’s solution to reality...he wants an America not based on “perks and privileges”. Was he thinking about pardons for sale to the very rich? Kerry’s solution to his own obscurity...shock-talk “Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did?”. Please, somebody pay attention to Kerry before he starts sucking his toes for attention.
For all the thumb suckers who are clever enough to procreate but haven’t the faintest idea what to do with the products of their procreation, there is Dennis Kucinich, “I want...tuition-free college...universal single-parent health care...universal pre-kindergarten child care....” Perhaps Kucinich could solve this with his own advice, “enable the U.N. troops to come in”. What the hell, if the French and U.N. are good enough for the Iraqis, why not allow them to care for the children of this country whose parents know that raising a family is...well, “It’s just about sex”.
The clichéd General Wesley Clark is proud to be, “the only person here who’s negotiated...an agreement to end a war.” If General Clark thinks that the Kosovo military campaign against Slobodan Milosevic was a war then he has never walked the streets of Washington D.C. after dark. Does it really seem like Clark ended the war in 1995 when today there are still 4000 American troops in the Balkans acting as permanent police officers? At least Clark would have no problem changing his mind on this or any other position.
Madam Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun (formerly known as Ex-Senator Moseley Braun voted out of office under a cloud of corruption) seems to have only a single issue platform, “I want to take the men only sign off the White House door.” Dang...one might hope that she would also remove the women only signs off the doors of taxpayer funded Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley and other female only colleges. Hopefully someday Moseley Braun can contribute to an Ann Coulter presidential bid.
It seems as though every thumb sucker is throwing a Bush-bashing hissy fit, but none (possibly with the exception of Senator Lieberman) are offering realistic policy alternatives. Well, there are some Democrats who support a redux of Saigon’s 1975 fall. What a hoot...the last American helicopter leaving the al-Rashid Hotel’s roof as millions of Iraqi Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis brace themselves for the coming anarchy. Another pogrom founded on the hollow words of broken American promises. You might as well count on Al Gore as your ally.
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