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Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Cult or Gang? You decide!

Not long ago I urged Markadelphia to swear off accusing conservatives of belonging to a cult. I said the cult meme wasn't really very accurate, the Republican weren't all that monolothic and dogmatic, they actually were more tribal or clannish, and so on. Imagine my chagrin when Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote an opinion piece reiterating Mark's thesis.

I still don't go along with the cult idea. The Republican Party likes to think of themselves as a band of revolutionary firebrands or guardians of an ancient and noble trust. But they're more like a criminal gang that sees its influence slowly leaking away as new people move into the neighborhood.

They've still got a mean streak a mile wide, and aren't afraid to bust a lot of heads to get what they want. They don't mind smashing up the store fronts of our economy to keep the protection money flowing to the oil company capos. And they're perfectly willing to kidnap the opposition's debt ceiling and hold it hostage, even if it'll bring the whole neighborhood down around their ears when the mob from Beijing comes to collect their cut.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

And they're perfectly willing to kidnap the opposition's debt ceiling and hold it hostage, even if it'll bring the whole neighborhood down around their ears when the mob from Beijing comes to collect their cut.

So your solution is to increase the size of the cut we owe to the mob from Beijing? That is a particular kind of genius!

Anonymous said...

We've got to get MORE in debt, in order to be LESS in debt.

I gotta get my Visa Card limbered up! This sounds like it could work!

In other news...

Republicans are:

a criminal gang
[with] a mean streak a mile wide
[they] bust a lot of heads
they[...] smash up store fronts
they're willing to kidnap
and hold [...] hostage

No wonder you are unwilling to listen to a single stupid thing those corporate cock-suckers have to say. They won't deal in facts, like you do.

rld said...

2 awesome replies so far to a real stupid post.

Mark Ward said...

I love how things are "stupid" when the whole proving wrong thing falls apart.

What I'd like to hear is what the peanut gallery thinks about Grover Norquist. Remember the question is about him. A response that immediately redirects to a liberal "equivalent" is not a response (eg George Soros).

Anonymous said...

Mark,

His argument was self-refuting; also known as internally contradictory. In street terms: stupid.

"The whole proving wrong thing" doesn't need to go any further than that. If any construction (bridge, fence, house, etc.) falls apart the first time someone leans against it or a breeze picks up, it's pretty darn clear that whatever it was, It. Wasn't. Right.

Oh, as for Grover Norquist: I don't know who he is, or what his positions are. No further response is possible. Nor would bringing him into the discussion make Nikto's argument any less self-contradictory.

Anonymous said...

Hey, but Nikto. I thought the Soprano's rocked. I have seen every episode. I wept.

The genre is a little done, but keep up your creative writing skills.