Early Morning Political Rants Are The Best Kind: Election 2012

The other day, a friemily member posted something on Facebook about how politics were possibly the reason why humans couldn't find intelligent life in the Universe besides ourselves.  The basic gist of it was that if a people were too "smart," they'd eventually develop weapons that would annihilate the folks they hated and voila!  Dead planets everywhere.  (To read the article in such a way that it makes actual sense, go here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-we-alone-in-the-universe/2011/12/29/gIQA2wSOPP_story.html )

Although I realize that it's sort of being the ultimate Debbie Downer to embrace this concept, I think that it's just as good as any other reason why the vastness of space seems as empty as Charlie Brown's mailbox on Valentine's Day, especially when you consider the idiocy going on in the Republican primaries right now.

I'm not trying to be ugly (okay...not THAT ugly) when I say this, but one reason America might lose big in the race to destroy our planet (or possibly win...but that would be losing, too--this is a difficult metaphor to grasp before a giant mug of tea) is that while we embrace technology that allows us to communicate with folks halfway around the world *waves enthusiastically at my lovies halfway around the world*, we also embrace politicians named Newt who run on Morality Clauses after shtupping and discarding roughly forty-three wives.  AND THEY ARE NAMED NEWT.  (Liberal witches everywhere are pretty much snorting themselves into tizzies over his name on a daily basis.)

I started to write a post about how and why people like Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry couldn't win the nomination, but then Rick Santorum came in SECOND PLACE last night in Iowa after spending a week making statements that made my face turn inside out at the idiocy of them all.  I'm pretty sure that repeating them all would make me vomit, but my favorite was either the one about how, as a black man, President Obama should be more concerned about abortion or the one about how states should have the right to outlaw sodomy and birth control, because neither one of them was in the Constitution.

OH MY FILING CABINET, Y'ALL.

You know what ELSE isn't in the Constitution?  Sex.  At all.  Of any kind.  No sex, people.  STATES CAN OUTLAW SEX.

Know what else isn't in the Constitution?  Cheeseburgers.  BAN THE FLIPPING CHEESEBURGERS, STATES, BECAUSE THEY AREN'T IN THE CONSTITUTION.

I place all of the blame (ironically, since Santorum beat him in Iowa) on Ron Paul's skinny little shoulders.  Here's the problem:  when you start saying things like, "Let the people decide, turn power over to the states, it isn't in the Constitution," folks go batshit crazy, because somehow, they've decided that things like, you know, the federal Department of Education and Medicare and, I don't know, Planned Parenthood, are TAKING THEIR FREEDOM.  They start frothing at the mouth and running amok and yelling, "Give me back my freedoms, you socialist, communist, fascist bastards."  And the politicians get all excited, too, and they start doing things like saying states should take away a citizen's right to have oral sex or not get a sexually transmitted disease because those things aren't spelled out in the Constitution.

Do you see the problem here?  No?  I'll spell it out:  trading a federal government that does things like require businesses to not pollute the environment for a federal government which allows states to deny people the right to screw who and how they want to is trading down.  Conservatives, I've got much love for you, but if you want to live in a world where our federal government is FORCED to put sodomy in the Constitution, keep pushing people like Santorum and Paul.

There's a reason why things like sodomy aren't in our Constitution:  they are private things that have no bearing on other people's liberty or pursuit of happiness and, thus, our founding fathers thought that it wasn't necessary to say, "Oh, and people should be able to have anal sex if they want. Let's make that Amendment Number Seven."  The British Crown wasn't banning anal sex, but it was making sure that the people couldn't defend themselves, or speak against the government, or, you know, have representation in Parliament.  Anal sex really wasn't on the damn radar.

So for people like Rick Santorum to decide that in order for us to really honor our primary document, we need to let states tell adults they can't avoid getting pregnant if they decide to have sex...are you kidding me?   Guess what happens when states decide that they want to pass laws that violate a person's personal freedom?  The person sues the state.  And, almost without fail, those cases wind up heading to federal courts where, almost without fail, the person wins because our Constitution is a document of FREEDOM.

UNDERSTAND:  Ron Paul might be a true libertarian at heart (with the exception of abortion) and he might honestly believe that the states would be the best vehicle for the most freedoms.  I think this is naive and vaguely dangerous, but I don't think he's trying to remove rights from people so much as he's trying to shrink the federal tax burden and he can't think of a better way to do it than by removing federal departments and responsibilities.

But Rick Santorum?  Rick Santorum is a vitriolic homophobe who wants to allow states to make homosexuality a crime.  He's a religious wingnut who wants to allow states to tell consenting adults that they can only have sex to procreate.  (Hence the whole birth control thing.)

AND HE WEARS SWEATER VESTS.

You know what else isn't in the Constitution?  Sweater vests.

Or Rick Santorum.

I KNOW!  How about we allow states to ban Rick Santorum?  Now THAT'S a political agenda I can get behind.