Month: March 2021

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“Gaybama” is not a slur

15 January, 2020

At least I didn’t think so.  I didn’t intend it to be. 

I was looking for a transcendental phenomenological description of contemporaneous political appeal.  Just as “Quisling” now includes non-Swedish traitors, and “Fredo” refers to more than just Italian supernumeraries, I thought that “Gaybama” was just as portable. 
What do I know? 

Imagine a candidate who not only satisfies your orthodox Democrat criteria, but is also an “X.”  You may not be an “X” yourself, but you’re also no bigot.  “X”-ness won’t stop your vote.  In fact, it’s an additional appeal – you could be a part of the historic movement that put the first “X” into the Whitehouse.  How cool is that?

Now, for “X” substitute the words “Person of Gender™” or “Cool Black Guy™.”  By 2008 I realized that, after generations of dragging their stupid bigotry in the mud, most of America had finally caught up to me and decided that neither a vagina nor a permanent tan should be considered automatic DISqualifications for the Presidency.  Unfortunately (for me and humanity) that particular “PoG” and that particular “CBG” were orthodox Democrats, and therefore unworthy of my vote.  Nevertheless, Cool Black Guy won his race —  a signal cultural triumph AND a painful political disaster.  In so doing, like Fredo Corleone and Vidkun Quisling, he has stamped his name onto a broader generic concept.

I still don’t care how Squeaky Pete™ (“Gaybama”) might swing his wing wang, but I’m confident that thousands of Americans do.  I expect that their concerns will move a great many more of them to vote FER’im than AGIN’im, just as the original “Obama’s” electoral “defect” worked more in his favor than not.

Many of the chattering chooms on teevee have referred to Squeaky Pete as “the next ‘Obama’,” yet delicately decline to explicate his appealing cache.  I thought that “Gaybama” nailed it, without rancor or revile.  It is a convenient political portmanteau that betrays neither judgment nor condemnation.

Or it is homophobic and racist.

predate 200110 (Clowns in Conflict):  “Alfred E. Neuman will never be President of the United States,” says President Ronald McDonald.

update 210307: Despite his political shortcomings (according to Cool Black Guy™ himself: “He’s thirty-eight, but he looks thirty… He’s gay. And he’s short.“) Former Vice President Biden and President Select Harris have appointed him to their cabinet, so these so called shortcomings are more likely political assets at this point.

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100% of the Tenth

18 August 2020  
Pravda Sivoydne®’s (USA Toady®) readers opine on “states’ rights.”  In a recent poll, Toady’s editors find that approximately 56% of Americans agree with 100% of the Tenth Amendment insofar as they believe that “marijuana regulation should be handled by state governments” rather than through federal usurpation. I’m confident that editors and publishers have an abiding interest in readers’ opinions, in as much as they reflect on their bottom line, but in matters of logical discourse, agreement is meaningless.  100% of flat earthers may refuse to believe in gravity, but a fall from a great height will kill them anyway.

8 December 2019 — Today’s Leftists celebrate the diversities that don’t matter, and stifle the diversities that do.

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Dear Singin’ Truckdriver

27 February 2018

I miss you just about every day.

I can see you’re doing well in those other universes where they had things figured out sooner than here in ours.  And I can easily see what a joyous and brilliant life you could have led in our world.

I mourn for a humanity who are denied your wit and your charm and your enthusiasm and your talents.  It hurts a lot less these days, and it’s been manageable for decades, but there are times when you reemerge and elicit a chuckle or a tear.  To this day I still steal your jokes, and there still isn’t a damned thing you can do about it!

In many of the best ways, you remind me of our grandmother Bernice, with your shared abilities to see through blizzards of crap and get at the priceless kernel of truth concealed within.  Neither one of you could tolerate the notion of shit on the mind and sugar on the tongue; you said what you thought and you didn’t apologize for it.

You’re a great guy, Bro!  I love you, and I never told you enough.  I guess we never really can say it enough to anyone.

Fondly and gratefully yours,
Older, taller, and better looking

update 210228:  Singin’ Truck Driver would be 62 today had he not been done in by primitive twentieth century medicine.  It is reported that the paean above elicited tears from both my sister and my Mom, as well as explicit thanks from our oldest brother, who may not volunteer the datum, but likely would not deny an emotional response himself.

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Hawaiian Sovereignty

13 April 2002

In the interests of full disclosure, I must state up front that I am not a secessionist. Now, I don’t have any moral or constitutional quarrel with the concept of Hawaiian secession. I just think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s a bad idea to separate ourselves from, relatively speaking, the largest free market in the world, and it would likewise be imprudent to remove ourselves from the protection of the greatest military power in history. I am disinclined also to trust the protection of our Civil Rights to The Peoples’ Republic, or to The Kingdom, or to The Consolidated Islands of Hawaii. I am dubious of Federal protection also, but at least with the State and the Feds at odds over the issue, we have some cover from both.

That being clear, let me state just as emphatically, that Hawaiian Sovereignty is already a FACT. You can look it up, if you want, or I can quote it myself. According to the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People.” This means that except for the very specific duties detailed for the Federal Government (mainly Hard Money and a Secure Frontier), all other legitimate authority in the United States resides in the States themselves.

Each State is a Sovereign entity unto itself, each is responsible for its own internal affairs, and each is answerable to no other. We are a Confederation of Equals, a Common Market, a Republic of Republics, and a voluntary union of friends. It also means that, since the body of the Constitution does not specifically prohibit secession, then that option is also reserved to the States.

Nevertheless, the aim of many modern sovereigntists, who would remove these islands from the American Union, is misdirected. If we wish to reclaim local control over ceded lands, reduce Federal authority, and put an end to the Federal Government’s vicious drug war in our skies, we must elect Representatives to the Congress who understand that the United States Constitution defines a Federal Union of specific and limited delegated powers.

With a Congress composed of Libertarians and others who understand the true Confederal structure of our Union, many of the illegal actions of the Federal government will stop, and any argument in favor of secession would be moot. When the Right of Secession is preserved, secession itself becomes unnecessary.

update 180130: In light of da kine recent missile scare, Hawaiians may well reconsider the value of “the protection of the greatest military power in history.” Considering its misadventurous interventionist foreign policies, does The Occupation draw more fire than it provides cover? New Yorkers and Pentagon employees might also wish to weigh in on questions of blowback. Of course, I also have serious doubts about my safety OUTSIDE of the US, as well. It’s a thorny puzzle.