The Stupid Files: "Dear Jim, I win" edition

"No liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves."

Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Here we are, a third of the way through Confederate Treason Appreciation Month and I was beginning to despair that anyone would say something that I could riff off of. You can imagine my joy when I checked the news yesterday morning to see that Heritage Foundation chief honcho, former senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), had said something so gobsmackingly stupid about the Civil War that it's caused me to restart the Stupid Files.

Jim DeMint is not a stupid man. He's a mean-spirited, scorched-earth extremist, but he's not stupid. Therefore, it stands to reason that there must be some greater context that makes the above statement make some sense. There is context, but it just makes him sound dumb and naive, like he's been getting all his history from David Barton. Last week, DeMint appeared on Vocal Point with Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries. I'm not familiar with the show, but Right Wing Watch has been good enough to provide an audio clip and transcript of his conversation. Here's the context:

DeMint: This progressive, the whole idea of being progressive is to progress away from those ideas that made this country great. What we're trying to conserve as conservative are those things that work. They work today, they work for young people, they work for minorities and we can change this country and change its course very quickly if we just remember what works.

Newcombe: What if somebody, let's say you're talking with a liberal person and they were to turn around and say, "that Founding Fathers thing worked out really well, look at that Civil War we had eighty years later."

Everyone knows we liberals all hate the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and all the values that America stands for, so it stands to reason that we'd jump at the chance to rather incoherently spear them.

DeMint: Well the reason that the slaves were eventually freed was the Constitution. It was like the conscience of the American people. 

That's why the Constitution guaranteed slavery and even gave the southern states extra votes in the House for holding slaves. I love the Constitution, but it did not free the slaves.

Unfortunately there were some court decisions like Dred Scott and others that defined some people as property...

It's nice that he acknowledges that the early republic has its flaws.

...but the Constitution kept calling us back to "all men are created equal" and we have "inalienable rights" in the minds of God.

Both of those phrases are from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. Maybe he really is getting his history from David Barton. Also, I'm not aware that Thomas Jefferson ever claimed to know the mind of God.

But a lot of the move to free the slaves came from the people; it did not come from the federal government.

Fair enough. The federal government is an abstract concept defined by a foundational document (the Constitution) and a large body of literature (laws and court precedents) that for its practical application. As such, it has no thoughts of its own and can create no movements. I'm sure I'm being pedantic here, but DeMint either does not understand, or is counting on his audience not understanding (bingo!), that the government is made up of people. The abolition movement was made up of people, mostly Northerners, who aimed at using the government, especially the federal government, to free the slaves.

It came from a growing movement among the people, particularly people of faith, that this was wrong.

See above.

People like Wilberforce who persisted for years because of his faith and because of his love for people. 

Wiberforce? William Wilberforce was an English abolitionist. Yes, his writings on the topic were influential, but he died in 1833 and his efforts were directed at slavery and the slave trade in the British Empire.

So no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves. In fact, it was Abraham Lincoln, the very first Republican, who took this on as a cause and a lot of it was based on a love in his heart that comes from God.

Yes, Abraham Lincoln was able to end slavery by the sheer force of his love for God. A lesser man might have used the government to raise the largest army ever seen on the continent and incurred unprecedented debt, all while ballooning the size and power of the federal government and reducing the authority of the states. A lesser man might have used the power of that growing government to impose new taxes, including a tax on income to pay for its expansion. A lesser man might have used an executive order or "proclamation" (which all good Republicans know is nearly treasonous to use for anything other than Mother's Day proclamations), enforced by the might of the state, to dispossess tens of thousands of Southerners of their property without compensation.

No liberal is going to lose an honest debate that big government freed the slaves. No amount of warm feelings in people's hearts could have freed the slaves without the overwhelming power of the state to enforce their goals. The government that the United States had in 1860—the government that the abolitionists chose as their tool—was not big enough to accomplish the task. It had to be made bigger, much bigger. Lincoln, "the very first Republican," was also the very first big government liberal. He did more to expand the size and influence of the government than any single individual in American history, with the possible exception of FDR. It's almost inconceivable that FDR could have expanded the government without the precedent of Lincoln and his Republican cousin Teddy Roosevelt before him. Lincoln set the path for big government.

I said DeMint is not a stupid man. So why did he go off on this dumb Bartonian tangent? Simple. DeMint is a demagogue. He doesn't really do politics with all its give and take, negotiation and compromise. He fires up the mob and points them at their target. In the Senate, he tried to establish himself as the chief spokesman of the Tea Party. But, he's not that dynamic of a personality and there was too much competition in Congress. So he went a little behind the scenes and took over the role of directing the most influential conservative think tank in the country. At the Heritage Foundation, the mob he addresses isn't voters with badly spelled signs; his mob is the elite who pull the levers of power.

The job of a demagogue is to pander and direct. The demagogue tells the mob that everything they believe is right and true and eternal. Then he tells them what conclusions and policies they should support based on their possession of the Truth. DeMint went on a religious show and told the listeners that the greatest injustice in American history, slavery, was defeated by the faith of people just like them. Following that pandering he told them that big-government liberals want to take that credit away from them.

The silly and awkward narrative he used to make those points isn't meant to be taken by itself. If it is, it's laughably wrong. But, his intended audience isn't meant to take it by itself. His narrative fits into a much larger context than the expanded quote I fisked above. The liberals-want-to-steal-your-credit message feeds into the paranoid siege mentality that is so central to movement conservatism. It also echoes a populist message that Lincoln himself mocked, that is the fear that "they" are looking down on "us." In setting big government up in opposition to faith, DeMint reinforces the message heard all across the right that secularism is a (non-Christian) religion and using government to solve problems deprives God of his rightful position in the scheme of things.

Hierarchy and deference to rightful authority are key elements at the very core of conservative thought. DeMint crafted his story to impress on the minds of the faithful that supporting the anti-government agenda of the libertarian/capitalist wing of the Republican Party is a religious duty. Those of us who don't like Kool-Ade might find his rhetoric laughable; he doesn't care what we think. I'm sure his message went over just fine with the faithful. How well it went over with the leaders of the faithful and other conservative elites is another question. Will mocking his apparent ignorance cause them to close ranks or to distance themselves from him? I hope for the latter, but I expect the former.

How's that minority outreach program doing?

I took the last month and a half off to move, spend holidays with my family, and enjoy the benefits of non-stop anxiety attacks. While I still don't have a home or a job, my decline and fall has temporarily paused. That means I have to get back to writing. I'm making some progress on the book. Now, I think it's time to get stupid again.

Let's review the rules of The Stupid Files. Inaugurees into the Files must be public figures who say something gob-smackingly stupid. Their stupidity can be factual ("If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.") or politically (such as racial insensitivity so blatant the entire political spectrum cringes). Political figures who bring shame on their parties get preferential treatment.

Today's winner, as is so often the case, is a racist boob, Republican County Executive L. Brooks Patterson of Oakland County, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Patterson had this to say in a profile published in New Yorker magazine this week:

Anytime I talk about Detroit, it will not be positive. Therefore, I'm called a Detroit basher. The truth hurts, you know? Tough shit.
[...]
Before you go to Detroit, you get your gas out here [Oakland County]. You don't, do not, under any circumstances, stop in Detroit at a gas station! That’s just a call for a carjacking.
[...]
I made a prediction a long time ago, and it's come to pass. I said, "What we're gonna do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and the corn."

Is it fair of me to call Patterson a racist? Of course it is. We can argue about whether his fear mongering over carjacking is a race-baiting dog-whistle aimed a provoking white suburban stereotypes of black urban crime (it is). The concentration camp for Native Americans is not open to question. What the hell do Indians have to do with Detroit? It's not uncommon to hear fearful outsiders and their demagogues snarl about the local metropolis that we should put a wall around it and let "those people" kill each other. And they assure us that they mean "those people" in a totally non-racist way. But, bringing in a third, unrelated group and saying their entire race should be ghettoized (in the historical sense of the word (no, not "slag heap")), there is no other way to read that. In case you're still not sure whether Patterson is a racist, check out the blankets and corn stereotype.

Patterson's spokesman, Bill Mullan, deserves some recognition for obliviousness here. Faced with a social media shitstorm, Mullan pulled a boiler-plate, Republican response out of the file and gave it no more thought. Ignore the actual issue, blame the liberal press for quoting him accurately, and tout his record on something unrelated.

It is clear Paige Williams had an agenda when she interviewed county executive Patterson. She cast him in a false light in order to fit her preconceived and outdated notions about the region. Mr. Patterson’s record on advancing regional issues in a transparent and responsible manner is unparalleled.

Sorry, Bill. This one is going to need a little more than an off-the-shelf press release. "I'm sorry you didn't understand my brilliant humor" isn't going to make it either. You're going to actually have to get off your butt and do some damage control on this one.

"I'm called a Detroit basher," Patterson says. Now, he can also be called an Indian hating, genocidal boob.

The Stupid Files: Mini-Snopes edition

I've seen that meme called the 28th Amendment or Congressional Reform Act of twice today. With all the feelgood shouts of "stop their pay" and the GOP pushed lie that Congress has somehow exempted itself from Obamacare, we're probably going to be seeing a lot more of it in the coming days. I've written about it before, but it's time to refisk it. 

There are several forms of it floating around. The first one I saw included term limits ("stop me before I vote again!"). Another version says Warren Buffett himself started the chain letter. That lets you know how honest the propagators of these things are. The original was some person's honest rant which they sent to their friends who sent it to their friends and so on. But at some point, someone thought it would be more effective if they added an out-and-out lie to the beginning. This sort of thing appeals to the inner populist in us all. It's an emotional appeal not a rational one. It counts on the too easy impulse to shout "Yeah!" and press "Send to All."

And so to begin. Warren Buffett does not send chain letters. The various versions are presented as a list with different numbering and paragraph breaks, but a core content. The list is made up of a mish-mash of misconceptions, outdated information, and just plain weirdness.

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

"No tenure" What does that mean? Congress doesn't have tenure. We can vote them out at any time, but we need to take responsibility for our own votes and do it if we don't like what they are doing. Democracy belongs to those who show up. Their pension is the same one that all government employees have.

2. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.

This is that unkillable rumor that Congress keeps collecting their pay for life. Think about this for a moment. What the rumor claims is that if Sarah Palin were to elected to Congress, she could serve one term, quit, and still collect 172K a year. That's not how it works. Congressional pay ends when the job ends, just like at any job.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.

Members of Congress do pay into Social Security. They have since 1984.

4. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

5. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

Congress participates in the same retirement program that other federal employees do. It's based on a formula of years served and pay grade. There is no special fund.

6. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

According to the 27th Amendment, Congress cannot vote itself a raise. What it can do is vote the next congress a raise. If we don't like it, we have the responsibility to let them know our disapproval, either by voting them out or by deluging them with letters, petitions, and phone calls. Since the 27th Amendment was pased, Congress has voted raises roughly once evry four years.

7. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

Because of that rumor about Congress exempting itself from Obamacare, this one is sure to get recycled a lot. The health care system that the American people participate in is one where some people get Medicare, some have veteran's benefits, some use Medicaid, some buy their own, and some get insurance through their employer. The Federal government provides insurance for its employees, including Congress. There is no special policy for them. They have the same choices as the rest of the civil service. Obamacare requires people to have insurance. Congress has insurance. Therefore, Congress is participation in Obamacare. It's that simple.

8. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

Once again, because of that exemption thing, this one is getting a lot of traction. Some versions of this list say they are specifically immune to sexual harrassment laws. They are not. Do you think that Congress could pass a bill saying rape or murder is a crime unless one of us does it? Of course not. If they tried they would be laughed out of the Supreme Court. There are a tiny number of laws under which they are treated differently. One of them is specifically written into the Constitution. Article I, Section 6. "They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place." Even then, as soon as the session is over, they can be arrested.

9. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/31/13. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.

This line is in every version of this that I have seen. Something very specific was bothering the original author   but I have no idea what it was. Contracts are a normal part of adult life. Does this mean that members of Congress can't buy or sell a house or a car or get married? Those are all contracts.

I hate these things because I hate seeing people taken advantage of. If you see any variation of this nonsense, point the person who sent it to you back to me or to the Snopes article. If all of us did this, we could raise the avaerage IQ of the internet by at least two points. 98% of you won't and you are bad, bad people.

Shutdown stupid 2

Today, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) explained the important issues behind his principled stand against funding the government.

We're not going to be disrespected, We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is.

It speaks for itself.

The Stupid Files: shutdown edition

We can always count on Darrell Issa to issue some paradox laden rhetoric. Who can forget "an 'act of terror' is different than a 'terrorist attack.'"  Here's how he explains the budget process.

 Not funding the government is part of funding it.

Is this quote lacking context? Let's look at what he says next.

If you have the right to fund the government, you have the right to fund the government to a lesser amount.

 That sort of makes sense if you ignore the fact that Rep. Issa is face-palmingly unclear on how the government works and what rights are. A right is something that we can chose to exercise or not. My freedom of religion includes freedom from religion. I have the right to bear arms, but I also have the right to keep a gunless household. The Miranda warning includes a sentence about waiving rights. I suppose I have the right to quarter troops in my house during peacetime. Funding the government is not a right possessed by a few hundred people who work in Washington. It's an obligation. It's part of their job description. The only right Rep. Issa has in this regard is the right to resign from his job and let the voters of California's 49th district hire someone who is willing to do the job.

The stupid is very strong today. I imagine I'll have to update this post more than once.

The stupid raises me from the dead

I am such a bad person. I've neglected the blog for--what?--two weeks. It's not that I haven't had any good ideas for posts. I've had awesome ideas. It's just that I get involved with writing the book or looking for work or worrying about my uninsured health (the other night I woke up in the dark hours and my foggy mind decided I had testicular cancer. After realizing a good vet could "fix" the problem for a hundred dollars, I went back to sleep). But, hey, I've spent the last three days obsessing about a certain old map that might get two paragraphs in the book. It's time to take a break. Let's get stupid.

What is the essence of public stupidity? There are two possible paths to public stupid. First, obviously, is to be wrong. But, not merely wrong, not holding an opinion that I disagree with--No! Type one public stupidity means being absolutely, factually wrong. Paul Revere did not ride to warn the British off. Raped women can get pregnant. There is no significant disagreement among climate scientists on the reality of human caused climate change. The founders did not conceive the United States as a Christian nation. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The second form of public stupidity is saying something so face-palmingly offensive or impolitic that your friends rush to deny they even know you. Today we have type two stupid.*

I'm not sure if you remember, but way back in the fall of 2008--which is, like, 5000 years in reality TV watcher attention span years and 2000 internet years--an unregulated investment market almost destroyed the global economy. Pensions for millions of Americans near or past retirement age evaporated. The economies of several South European countries collapsed. Millions of Americans lost their jobs and, therefore, their homes. In an attempt to stop the crash, the Bush administration committed the taxpayers of the US to 700 million dollars to bail out some of those responsible. The investment house AIG was one of the lucky survivors. A few months later, they gave the people most responsible 165 million in bonuses. In the face of an outraged public, AIG's PR flaks explained that they needed to pay those bonuses to retain the best and the brightest because the investment community was so robust that their competitors were lining up to steal the people who made trillions of dollars of the global economy evaporate.

Now, you would think that, if you were one of the companies who was responsible for the near collapse of Western Civilization; if you only survived because you were bailed out by billions of dollars from the American taxpayers; that you only survived to get that bailout because you lasted a few days beyond your competitors before admitting that you had also destroyed the wealth of your smallest, most vulnerable investors; that you might try not to remind everyone about those days. You or I might behave in that manner, but not so AIG CEO Bob Benmosche. His painful memories are not of the tens of millions of Americans whose futures were destroyed. His empathy is not for those who lost their homes, pensions, or retirement accounts. No. His empathy and outrage are for those brave, noble top level employees who destroyed the economy and faced criticism. Yes, some of these people had to face the horrors of bad publicity and mean words while collecting bonuses bigger than the mortgages of many people who lost their homes.

That brings us to yesterday. The current CEO of AIG, Bob Benmosche, remembers the horror of those days:

Now you have these bright young people who had nothing to do with [the bad investments that almost destroyed the global economy] ... They understand the derivatives very well...
they understand the complexity. ... 

And if they are so blameless, they must have been completely ignored by senior management.

They're all scared. They [made] good livings. They probably lived beyond their means. ... They aren't going to stay there for nothing.

Because, with half of our competitors wiped out, there's a worker's market bidding for their talent.

The uproar over bonuses "was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that–sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong."

Yeah! Having some people say bad words about you is "just as bad and just as wrong" as being dragged through the streets, beaten, hung, and set on fire. America would owe those poor lynching victims a major apology if they were still alive.

Wait, they are still alive? And, they're richer than before? But the bad words, the bad words, no amount of taxpayer money can make up for that. Can it? I don't know. Ask the 47 percent.

* If anyone has a recommendation for type three public stupid, put it in the comments here or on Facebook. Hell, if you can find me on Twitter (@archymck), use that, too.

Math: not his strong suit

And now, a special mini edition of The Stupid Files.

Vetoing a tax cut is the same thing as raising your taxes.
--Gov. Rick "Goodhair" Perry

Stupid and manipulative

David Horowitz is not a stupid man, but he does say stupid things, and, apparently, he thinks his audience is stupid.

The reason we don't attack him is obvious, but no one will say it out loud. I will: It's because the color of his skin is black. It is because Obama is a minority that nobody will hold him to a standard or confront him with what he has done.

Who are these timid Republicans that fear to criticize Obama? Is Horowitz one of them? Even before he took office, Paul Broun was comparing Obama to Hitler. Trent Franks called him "an enemy of humanity." Michele Bachmann speculated about his "anti-American views." Other prominent Republicans have made Stalin comparisons, called him a tyrant, a dictator, "a low-level socialist agitator," and hinted that he's the Antichrist. These days, the crowd-pleasing favorite is to say he needs to be impeached for something, though they're not sure what.

Those are only the politicians. Maybe it's non-politicians that have been cowed into silence by Obama's color. Does Rush Limbaugh tremble in fear? How about Mark Lewin, Glenn Beck, or Michael Savage? Does Fox News only sing Obama's praises lest they be--gasp!--criticized? No. They seem to be just as critical of Obama, if not moreso, as they are of other Democrats. Perhaps it's only the common man who fears to criticize the president. Republicans would never be brave enough to form a group named after a popular hot beverage and gather in public waving signs that feature Obama's face PhotoShopped as h Joker, as a witch doctor, or into an old Nazi poster. They would never call him the "lier in chief," a "half-breed muslin," or a "theef." The average conservative on the road is far too fearful to put a bumper sticker on his SUV that says "Buck Ofama," "Stop the Obama-nation of America," or "Don't Re-Nig in 2012."

Of course, Horowitz doesn't believe the things he says. This is pure pandering. He's telling is audience that they are the lonely few, the brave truth speakers. The real stupid radiates out from anyone who would believe that.

More stupid petition tricks, and a logo

LeftAction gets to have an exciting two consecutive entries in The Stupid Files for their pointless petitions. Today, LeftAction is calling out Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson has said plenty of stupid and vile things over the years. He was a major apologist for Charles Taylor, the murderous dictator of Liberia and his business partner. His book The New World Order was a patchwork of recycled anti-Semitic conspiracy nonsense.* In 2005, he suggested that it would be okay for the US to assassinate Hugo Chavez. In 2006, while promoting his "Age-Defying energy shake," he claimed to be able to leg press 2000 pounds, an achievement that would have made the septuagenarian by far the the strongest person in the world. In 2010, he explained that the entire country of Haiti was cursed because they had signed a pact with the devil to gain independence. In 2011, he recommended a man divorce his Alzheimer wife and marry his girlfriend. And so on.

What has LeftAction upset today are comments Robertson made concerning AIDS on his Monday show. After explaining that gays have pushed through laws that make it illegal to talk about the disease, he went on to tell his views that gay men in San Francisco wear infected rings with little blades on the inside so they can infect people just by shaking hands with them. LeftAction says enough is enough. They want us to sign their petition demanding The Christian Broadcasting Network take Robertson off the air.

This might sound a little less stupid than their Palin petition. But it's not, and even they admit it. Robertson is CBN. He founded the network and his show is the mainstay of their programming. Sure, the man is 83 and should turn over hosting the show to someone younger, but no liberal petition is going to force him to do that. Demonizing gays and making up stories about people his prime audience hate isn't going to hurt him. Among his viewership, the divorce recommendation was far more damaging.

Asking Robertson to fire himself over something that isn't offensive to his viewers is just plain stupid. Signing a petition asking a petition asking him to do so is a waste of time.

* In his defense on this one, he probably didn't have a clue what the books he quoted meant.

Let's put some liberals on the Stupid List

This is not so much stupid as pointless and transparent ploy to get Facebook followers. It's a petition.

Tell Alaska: Don't Send Sarah Palin to the Senate.

To start with, to whom are they going to send the petition? Are they going to buy ad space in the Anchorage Daily News and expect Alaskans to say "we should pay attention to what a Lower 48, liberal group wants us to do"? That'll turn out well.

Since they started the petition, Palin has changed her mind about running at least three times. "I'm thinkin' about runnin', but I might not, though I'm not closin' any doors, though closed doors are still on the table, the same table that Joe Sixpacks are sittin' around with their families (Mrs. Sixpack and the kids Skidoo, Cessna, Cranberry, and little Spitvalve) sayin' 'Golly! I sure do wish there was a real-American, common-sense, constitutional conservative in the race who could tell those elites what's what.'" If I were to handicap the race this far out, I'd say the odds are two or three to one against her running. Though that could change if she doesn't think the lamestream media is giving he enough time in front of the camera.

In their way, Left Action is behaving just like Sarah Palin with this petition. It's a pointless, toothless effort to get attention. Also.

Do you even listen to what comes out of your mouth?

Participating in a town hall in Fayetteville, Ark., the first stop of Heritage Action's planned nine-city tour to promote the effort to defund Obamacare, DeMint was asked why Republicans should push legislation to gut the new federal health care law "when we know that President Obama won't sign it."
"Well, we don't know that, do we?" DeMint replied.

If a bill was introduced in Congress to disband the military, give its supplies to Iran, ban Christianity, marriage, and Country and Western music, we don't know  that the Republicans wouldn't support it, do we?

Yeah, Jim, we do know that.