I’d like to be all Rachel Maddow and demand that someone talk me down, but I’m not sure that what I want to hear can be said by the Tennessee Democrats at this point. I want to hear that they really get it–that they really get that we, as a state, are in dire circumstances and that we need real, new ideas. I want to hear that they get that there are good Tennesseans who are repeately being screwed over by this idea that, in order to count as a real Tennessean, you have to have a penis, a gun, and a wife. Shoot, I’m about ready to start a campaign to buy guns for every kid sitting in a shitty school in this state, guns for every person who doesn’t have healthcare, guns for every person who loses their job. Maybe then the legislators will take their problems seriously.
And, if that doesn’t work, we’re going to have to see if we can’t get some kind of bulk discount on realistic dildos from the Hustler store.
Where was I?
Yeah, anyway, what Steve says.
Edited to add: Okay, now I’m tickled. “Democrats want gun owners to submit to drug and alcohol testing during a state-defined nine month period.” “Republicans want to refuse unmarried gun owners the right to adopt.” “The Legislator refuses to quickly fund schooling for gun owners.” “Party leaders say that gun owners without health insurance are just shit out of luck.”
For the good of our state, we need to work with cities and communities from across this land and, when they do their gun buybacks, we must volunteer to take those guns and distribute them to the people in our communities.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Heh. Best lede ever.
has your governor gone all stupid republican and refused to take the bailout money yet? ours has. but this is no surprise, mississippi has long since shot itself in the foot when it comes to taking federal money. it might actually help some people and the muckity mucks are not about that, you know.
oops, just went and looked it up. y’all are lucky enough to have a democratic governor, so you should get the help.
Ha, no worries. He often acts Republican, so it’s hard to tell. Though at the moment he’s said he’s going to take it.
The best part though is that, in response to the bill, our Republicans are introducing legislation that would reaffirm that we are a sovereign state.
Let that stupidity sink in. I think the TNGOP is saying, “We’ll take your money, but we still reserve the right to secede.” I guess so that, if any of the money is in the form of loans, we don’t have to pay it back?
I’m not sure, but it’s hilarious.
Our governor (or anyone holding his positions) would be a Republican in most states. He’s the one who asked Obama not to come here during the campaign, because, ya know, he was sounding like a Democrat and all and that might put people off.
Aunt B: but you know, they are still more patriotic than we could ever hope to be
B>>> “He often acts Republican, so it’s hard to tell.”
Ya think? Here’s my theory: He’s a Republican who occasionally* acts like a Democrat.
But yeah, they don’t get it. What you’ll hear is that this is a Republican state and that to get along, you need to go along.
* That occasion would be the day before Election Day during state mid-term elections when he’s punching the appropriate digits to get cash out of the political ATM. On the day after, he’s invariably totalling up the losses and attributing fault (where he was dragged down in ’04 because Kerry was a loser and he was dragged down in ’08 because Obama was a winner, e.g.).
Reaffirming something that they already legislatively declare? Doing something that was already done? Passing the same shit over and over instead of doing something desperately necessary?
Sounds par for the course, unfortunately. They can do their little states’ rights dance all they’d like to, but we know how well that worked out for Tennessee the last couple of times (and how ambivalent the actual, y’know, population was about their glorious declaration).
Andy, I agree. And I find that discouraging. I think the truth is that progressives and libertarians need to find some common ground right now and work together against the legislature to ensure that we’re not run over by the State.
>>> progressives and libertarians need to find some common ground
Well, they have common ground in the issue of normalization of marijuana laws – and come to think of it, that may be the problem. Too little motivation on either side.
But on a more serious note, I’d be relatively happy to find common cause with libertarians when it comes to, you know, actual civil liberties. Where many of them lose me is when you run across their pet issues, like de-funding public schools, returning to the gold standard, allowing self-governance in the markets (epic FAIL as we see now), and, to tie this back to the original post, mandatory firearms hoarding.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, is creepier to me than when someone says, “I voted for Ron Paul.” (OK, maybe when I hear grown-ups opining that Smiley Virus and those cutie-poo Jonas Brothers have actual talent. That’s sorta creepier.)
By and large, the establishment D’s who hold office are simply Dixiecrats who’ve been walking among us as the Undead (take one look at Zombies like Henry and Wilder and tell me I’m lying). People who should know better have been propping them up for far too long because of their damned yellow dog house-training. Fuck a bunch of *that*. I think I’m madder at the Zombie enablers than at the Undead themselves.
Ha, okay, true enough. I just feel like a chump, a little bit and I am pissed off, but I just don’t know how to channel it. As a blogger, I feel like, well, we tried to work with the system and we tried to show you that there was support and money for people willing to be more progressive and I’m about to be all “fuck you, buddies, before I might have been willing to give you a fair hearing, but I’m becoming much less willing.”
I mean, seriously, if the commenter over at Kleinheider’s is right, we’ve just turned over all of the Democrats’ money to a guy who voted for Bush twice. I’m not quite to Beale’s level (http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2009/02/democrats-do-not-donate-to-republicans.html) in that, I do think you can donate to Republicans and be a Democrat. But I don’t think you can help run the fucking party.
All your change of heart says to me at that point is that you know which way the wind blows. Well, whoopty do.
Bridgett, I know. I just wonder when the hell it dawns on some of them that, if you are replicating stuff you’ve already done, maybe it’s because doing it in the first place wasn’t such a great idea.
But on a more serious note, I’d be relatively happy to find common cause with libertarians when it comes to, you know, actual civil liberties. Where many of them lose me is when you run across their pet issues, like de-funding public schools, returning to the gold standard, allowing self-governance in the markets (epic FAIL as we see now),
Well, see, that’s where you have to play like grown-ups. A lot of the things y’all do lose me rapidly. But if you’re interested in stopping the long arm of the government from reaching into your private business, you’ve got to table some of the things that you find skeevy in order to get things done.
But don’t let me stop you from allowing your prejudices to defeat you when it comes to accomplishing the main goal.
>>>Ha, okay, true enough. I just feel like a chump, a little bit and I am pissed off, but I just don’t know how to channel it. As a blogger, I feel like, well, we tried to work with the system and we tried to show you that there was support and money for people willing to be more progressive and I’m about to be all “fuck you, buddies, before I might have been willing to give you a fair hearing, but I’m becoming much less willing.”
Seems like there’s an option more productive than playing stoolie for the many captains of the S.S. Failboat d/b/a TNDP. I’m simply not down with this prevailing wisdom about “BOHICA bipartisanship.” You’d think that they’d learn some lessons in losing, but this party is so gummed up in groupthink that “bend over, here it comes again” has become S.O.P.
Maybe we should form a bowling league. (I would even take time to roll on Shabbos.)
>>> don’t let me stop you from allowing your prejudices to defeat you
Gee, that’s pretty much what I was told by the hopey-changey coalition too. I’m still waiting for the pony I was promised.
There is no big-tent political home for we left-leaning contrarian types, so I don’t take it personally. Neither should you. If so many of your brethren/sistren didn’t conform so faithfully to type, it’d be easier for me to suspend my disbelief. And yeah, I’m aware that this knife cuts both ways. I call this the “Free Mumia Effect.” (That is: Organized public protest tend to attract people who will leverage any said gathering to promote their own pet causes, thus tainting the entire coalition as one big drum circle/Free Mumia/referendum on the death penalty/A.N.S.W.E.R. rally, thereby making everyone involved look like a radicalist dolt with a chronic case of cranio-rectal inversion.)