A Modest Proposal: Require all Americans to Vote, Read Plato, and Read Mark Twain.

America has a dismal record when it comes to voting. It also has turned into an Oligarchy, in which the politicians are bought and sold by rich motherf***ers (since there aren’t enough votes to get their attention). This is not a coincidence. When most Americans don’t vote, we get liars, crooks and con artists “elected” via bribes and propaganda to be our “public servants”.

So mandatory voting would at least get more of our citizens to show up and vote (maybe charge them a fee on their taxes if they don’t). And that in and of itself would be a benefit, even if the new voters just vote randomly: it would scare the crap out of our “representatives” and the 1%-ers who own them. But to get maximum benefit, it would be better if people understood just what and who the Hell they are voting for, and (most importantly) why they should question everything a candidate or government says.

One example: a popular bit of Plato, currently winging its way about the Intertubez:

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

This is not the exact wording (he wrote, “But the chief penalty [of good men who refuse to lead] is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule.” [Republic, Book I, line 347c]) but it captures the essence.

In other words: we wind up with crooks, fools, and a**holes in government when the competent, intelligent and decent people refuse to run and/or vote.

Another couple of examples:

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. – Autobiography of Mark Twain.

Sounds a lot like the crap we hear from Teabaggers and such, does it not? Willful ignorance, regarded as a virtue rather than a vice. Here’s one example: James Inhofe http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inhofe-an-epa-foe-likely-to-lead-senate-environment-committee/2014/11/05/d0b4221e-64f4-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html
And:

“To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.” – Mark Twain’s Autobiography

This writer would prefer that it say “a party” rather than “one party”, but that’s just me.

That is wisdom, Gentle Reader, spanning thousands of years, and speaking a truth we most sorely need to hear: if you let parties and plutocrats run things, they’ll run things to suit themselves. Which they have done. Those of us who do not participate in politics will NOT get the government we want: we’ll get the government THEY want.

Everybody needs education. Everybody needs motivation. This modest, if cynical, proposal can help empower our people and repair our democracy, at a very low cost. It’s kind of hard to think of anybody who’d object to that, right? Ermmmm….well…the bastards who have stolen our country will most certainly object. But f*** those people.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Only Questions that Matter Today: Could You Vote, and Did You Vote?

Everything else is a bunch of irrelevant details, or an excuse. If you could have voted and did not, then you suck at being a citizen.

If you are voting or have voted, thank you! Feel free to ignore the rest of this post.

If you couldn’t vote, you should find out why, and then work to clear any roadblocks so you can vote in the future. Perhaps you’re too young, not a citizen, or prevented by other legal reasons; nobody can get on your case for that. Or perhaps you couldn’t vote because of GOPee criminal actions that disenfranchised you: you’re pretty much blameless there. too. Maybe you’re sick, or out of the country, or had some other obstacle in your path. Understandable.

But if you COULD have voted today, and CHOSE not to do so, f*** you. F*** you for being lazy, being cynical, being stupid, or being oh-so-superior. The only way we can win a f***ing election is if we turn out. And when people don’t turn out, we get whatever a**holes the 1% wish to cram down our throats. By not voting, you bear partial responsiblity for the Teapublican Takeover of our nation. F*** you for that, you stupid, f***ing f***.

Turnout is the ONLY tool left in our kit, the ONLY weapon in our arsenal. Turnout, and ONLY turnout can defeat voting machine hacks, disenfranchisement schemes, poll-rigging, disinformation and propaganda. Every other means of ensuring our representation is already gone, stolen by the corrupt motherf***ers who have hijacked our nation. THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT THE “REPUBLICANS” IS FOR EVERYONE ELSE TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR CORRUPT A**ES.

A few other factual points:
Number A: the two parties are NOT THE F***ING SAME. Stop with that f***ing lying bull-f***ing-s***.
Letter 2: Dem voters outnumber Repub voters overall. If Dem voters vote Dem, we win. If Dem voters don’t vote Dem, we lose.
Thirdly: If you aren’t voting, you aren’t using your Constitutional rights.
Fact the Fourth: You can vote Dem, or Repub, or for some idiot third-party yahoo who is there to help Repubs steal Dem votes. Only by casting votes for Democrats do we beat “Republicans”.

It’s math, period. Pound all the other hifalutin philosophical bilge right up your own a** along with a heaping helping of sand. More votes win. Fewer votes lose. Math.

Ohio flipped from Purple to Red because of fewer votes that can be counted with your shirt, pants and socks on. Less than ten votes in one district did the trick. So don’t tell this writer that your vote is of no consequence: women, children, and every taxpayer in the state are suffering because a few f***ing Dem voters did not vote for a single Ohio Democratic candidate in 2012.

Once again: If you can vote, PLEASE do so. If you choose not to and you could have, f*** you and the high f***ing horse you f***ing rode the f*** in on.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

THIS is how Dems can Win. Easily.

Everybody assumes that Dem turnout will suck out loud this election. And it looks like that could well be true. If so, Democrats have no one but themselves to blame for the succeeeding years of Teapublican rape, pillage and plunder.

But there IS a way for Dems to win. An easy way. A way that can work, and requires less than half an hour’s time from each Dem voter. Here it is:

VOTE. That’s it. If Dems vote in numbers that exceed the current dismal expectations, they will win races. Lots of races.

This is because Repubs are assuming Dems WON’T vote. So their plans are based on crap Dem turnout. Increasing our turnout messes up their plans.

Plus, voting machine hacks are programmed in advance, and are based on projected turnout. If Dems exceed turnout, the hacks fail and Dems can win.

The biggest problem in making this happen? Disengaged, apathetic Dem voters. For example: Ohioans as a rule pretty f***ing pathetic when it comes to doing anything other than bitching and moaning about our government. So Repubs are projected to keep 100% of power in the state for another four years.

Now, ask yourself, “what would happen if just a few thousand extra Dem votes were cast in the Buckeye State?”. Answer: Some of those motherf***ing Repubs would be cast out of office, replaced by Democrats. That, Gentle Reader, would be a very good thing indeed. In Ohio, and across the nation. Add more votes, win more victories.

Come on, let’s give the bastards one in the eye. Let’s confound the pundits and give the Elephants an atomic wedgie. Let’s all vote. The occupants of the House O’ Cranky mailed in our ballots today. Who’s next?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Who Cares who Alison Lundergan Grimes Voted For?

Bitchy Mitchy McConnell tells a lot of lies. A LOT of lies. But a very subtle and sneaky one jumped out at this humble blogger during the lone debate with his Democratic challenger: he said Americans have no right to a secret ballot:

Grimes stuck to her days-long refusal to say if she voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. She insisted that if she answered the question, it would “compromise a constitutional right” to cast a secret ballot.

McConnell quickly scoffed at that. “There’s no sacred right to not announce how you voted,” he said, seated next to Grimes for an hour-long debate hosted by KET, the state’s public television station.

There is indeed no explicit Constitutional right to a secret ballot: because Boards of Election need to track voters and ballots to prevent fraud. But that’s the only place where your right to voting privacy is limited.

But old Jerkle the Turtle goes a step further: not only does he not think you have a right to privacy in the voting booth, he thinks you can be forced to reveal your votes if any old yahoo asks you. This is some truly, scarily insidious, authoritarian, big-government s*** here, folks: “Republicans” think they can force you to tell them how you voted, and that you have no right to privacy.

It’s of a piece with GOP philosophy: they hates them some Fourth Amendment. Repubs think the government should be able to wiretap you, arrest you, torture you, dictate your medical care, and monitor your sex life. So voting rights are likewise non-starters for Big Brother Motherf***ers like McConnell and the rest of his party. Once again, Gentle Reader: Repubs think you have no right to privacy.

We should all of us applaud Ms. Grimes’ strong stand on privacy, and support her right to not say for whom she voted. This seems obvious, but even some Democrats are saying she should tell us all how she voted. Poppy-f***ing-cock. She has the same privacy rights as the rest of us, and we should all have her back on this issue – because we all are in the same boat. Want to be forced to tell your boss how you voted, or your parents, or a “news” organization? This writer does not, and you shouldn’t have to, either.

This election isn’t just about candidates, folks: it’s about our freedom from Big Government Repubs and their NSA-Patriot Act-Morals Police-Brute Squad vision of America. We all need to vote against any candidate who would take away our rights, and support any candidate who supports our rights.

Your humble correspondent doesn’t give a single turd from a tufted titmouse’s ass how Ms. Grimes voted. It’s her right to keep it private, and good on her for asserting that right.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Hong Kong Citizens Lose Voting Rights and Protest. Ohio Citizens Lose Voting Rights and Yawn.

These pictures show us what an engaged citizenry looks like:

Communist China is violating the law by taking away part of the power of the Hong Kong electorate. As this article explains:

The unrest began Sept. 22 with a call from the Hong Kong Federation of Students to boycott classes in protest of the government’s plan to limit candidates in Hong Kong’s first leadership election, slated for 2017, to those approved by a panel of presumed Beijing loyalists. The decision was widely viewed as a sharp reversal of a long-held promise to allow Hong Kong voters to select a new leader in open, democratic elections.

In other words, the locals have not lost the right to vote, but they have lost the right to any meaningfulvote. So they got angry, took to the streets, and remain there at the time of this writing.

Your humble correspondent tried to find pictures of Ohio voters rioting after the Supremes took away parts of their voting rights. But there are no such pictures, because there have been no protests. Americans as a whole have become conditioned to just roll over and take it whenever the government takes away their rights. Bloody pathetic.

When the history of our time is written, will we be remembered as active citizens of a democracy? Or will we be remembered as a load of lazy, disengaged, deluded fools who let our Constitutional rights be stolen from us without so much as a whimper?

The answer to that question, Gentle Reader, is (for the moment) up to us. Get out and vote. Make some noise. Do it while you still can.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Supreme Court “Republicans” are helping to Steal another Election.

Ohio’s stinking “Republican” Secretary of State John (“Yes, the kind that pays for whores”) Husted has finally hit the US Supreme Court jackpot: the five partisan Wingnuts thereon are helping “Republicans” steal yet another election:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The nation’s highest court on Monday granted an emergency plea from state officials to block a lower court’s order expanding statewide early voting days and times.

The court issued its order without an opinion or explanation, noting the court’s liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan would not have granted the stay. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy voted to grant the stay.

Ohio’s disastrous 2004 election shows the state cannot operate an election on only one day, argued attorneys for the ACLU. In papers filed in Supreme Court on Saturday, they said early voting, including Sunday “Souls to the Polls” events, have become woven into the fabric of Ohio’s democratic process.

“That election [in 2004] resulted in waiting times to vote that stretched into the day after Election Day and failed to provide meaningful access to the ballot for tens of thousands of Ohio voters,” they wrote. “Ohio thus comes to court with dirty hands.”

And the Repubs amongst the Supremes, who illegally installed an illegitimate occupant (Bush the Lesser) to the office of the Presidency, have even dirtier hands. Hands they now proudly display, filth and bloodstains plain to see.

All pretense of legitimacy is now gone, and the Roberts Court has fully revealed its true intent: the permanent takeover of our government by their ideological “soul” mates and paymasters in the GOP. Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

The Teapubbies announced their intention to do so back in the 1970’s. In the Powell Memo, they laid out their plan to seize control of the media, the economy, and the government. Click the link and read it.

The only way, and by that I mean the ONLY F***ING WAY to save this country from the tender mercies of the Rightish Inquisition is for the rest of us to VOTE in this election. Vote against every Elephant on every ballot in every race. Take back the House and keep the Senate.

That way, some actual jurists can be placed on the Supreme Court, replacing the corrupt partisan Repub motherf***ers who just f***ed tens of thousands of us out of our right to vote.

Vote, vote, vote. Take all your friends and family too. Vote while you still can.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

To Those 400,000 Climate Change Marchers: Here is how to Make an Even Bigger Impact. VOTE.

The march was impressive by any objective measure: people across the world held similar events, but none approached the size or intensity of the NYC protest. The media kinda-sorta reported on it in a desultory manner (if at all), as usually happens when Lefties do something significant (but let one Teabagger hold up a misspelled sign and it’s “breaking news” for days). So the questions of “what good did it do?” and “what next?” are very important today.

Sadly, because of the Infotainment industry’s biases and the general lack of mainstream political support for the climate change movement, the march itself may or may not have much of an impact at all. If it didn’t make a big impression on the nation, it won’t result in pressure on the politicos. And pressure on politicos was the point of the exercise.

This makes “what next?” an even bigger and better question. And the answer is plain and simple: VOTE. Vote at every election, on every race, every issue, every time.

Voting can make changes that the biggest marches cannot, the more so since politicians assume that you won’t do it. They ignore the electorate and focus on the big-money types who bribe our “public servants”: those bribing bastards ALWAYS participate in politics, because they know it is important.

If those 400,000 marchers would all show up at the polls, the outcome of any number of races in the 2014 election would be changed for the better. Deniers would lose and reality-based candidates would win. Legislation would be written to change the way we pollute.

Marches and civil disobedience are powerful tools to help effect change. But unless we take that same spirit and work ethic to the polls as well, nothing will change. Only when politicos are afraid of being voted out of office will they respond to the will of the people.

March. Then vote. But if you can only do one of the two, vote.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The government is not, repeat NOT scared of your guns. Here’s proof.

The arms industry makes a pretty penny by scaring us into thinking that the Eeeeeevil Government is gonna take away our firearms. Indeed, they and their pet politicos would have us believe that our guns are the only thing stopping said evil gummint from imposing some sort of Satanic tyranny. This is fertilizer of the finest, and here is how we know it’s bulls***:

Go look for active legislative, judicial, or executive actions that seek to take away our right to keep and bear arms (RKBA for short). No rumors, no CT, no crap you heard at the bar or barbershop, we are talking actual government actions to violate our Second Amendment rights. You found nothing, right? Neither did I.

Now look for government actions to limit or take away your right to VOTE. You found a helluva lot, right? Yeah, me too.

It’s not your bullets that the government fears, Gentle Reader: it’s your BALLOTS. Were they scared of our guns, they’d be trying to take them away, and they aren’t. Pretty clear, isn’t it?

Want to scare your elected “representatives”? Get on out and vote, and show them who’s boss.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky (proud gun owner AND voter)

Your vote matters, example five gazillion and three: Gay Marriage in Virginia.

The Democratic candidate won the Virginia Attorney General’s contest last fall by 163 votes, out of 2.2 million ballots cast. That means if a couple hundred Dems had stayed home, or a couple hundred more Repubs hadn’t, the “Republican” candidate would have won. Such a teeny tiny number of people deciding to vote made all the difference.

And because of those few extra Dems, gay marriage will soon be legal in Virginia. (Marriage Equality is a better term, so we will roll with it henceforth.) That is because new AG Mark Herring will fight to get rid of Virginia’s anti-equality law. You read that right: the new AG says the state’s marriage law is unconstitutional.

So tell us again that your vote doesn’t matter, please, do tell. Whether you are a Big Government Repub who wants the the State to monitor your bedroom activities, or a Small Government Dem who thinks that you have a right to privacy, your vote counts. Your individual vote counts. Your choices matter, especially when you choose to vote or not vote.

And because a very small number of freedom-loving people chose to get out and vote last November, Virginia will soon have more freedom for its dwellers than it does today. Marriage Equality is on the way in that state. You need no more proof, Gentle Reader: your vote matters.

So get the f*** out there and vote in the next election, so you can have the government you want. The freedom you save will very likely be your own.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Lying Sack of S*** of The Week: Antonin Scalia

This week’s Crown O’ Polished Turds shall adorn the misshapen dome of a Supreme Court “Justice”. Antonin Scalia (an Italian name meaning “scaly like a snake”) this week declared from the bench that providing everyone equal access to the polls was “racial entitlement”. Yes, he really said that.

Fat Tony is saying that providing those who have been discriminated against when trying to vote with protection against further discrimination is somehow giving these crime victims some sort of special goodies. Never mind that the poor, elderly, the young and people of color are still being victimized.

Let us imagine for a moment what Mister rude gesture is thinking, in the darkness of his bigoted, slimy head: probably something along the order of “those damned jigaboos need to learn their place”. No doubt he also feels that the nips Japanese should still be confined to internment camps, and bitches women should not be allowed to vote, along with the micks Irish, wetbacks Hispanics, terrorists Moslems and pretty much everyone but bead-squeezers Catholic honkies white men. Had he been around in Pharaoh’s day, he’d have been putting more chains on the kikes Israelites, no doubt.

You may find the previous paragraph to be offensive, and you’re right: it is. Why, it’s nearly as offensive as a Supreme Court reinstating slavery invalidating the Voting Rights Act and claiming that they are promoting “equality”.

Mr. Scalia, you may wear your COPTs, but you’d be better off to eat it, so as to harmonize better with the rest of your body chemistry.

Mr. B & C