The Political Freakshow

What Republicans Believe, Except…

I’m a free market Republican in the United States of America. This is what I believe.

I believe that the government is too incompetent and corrupt to do anything right, except:

It’s competent to build a trillion-dollar military, armed to the teeth with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, and assassinate US citizens.

It’s competent to run a massive police force able to arrest and even kill US citizens.

It’s competent to manage the largest prison population in the world.

It’s competent to carry out drone strikes killing people in foreign countries.

It’s competent to build a giant fence along the entire southern border of the US.

It’s competent to judge whether a person deserves to die for a crime.

It’s competent to deny an immigrant entrance into the country.

I believe that the government should butt out of business, except:

It should enforce draconian copyright and patent laws.

It should keep shareholders isolated from liability through the corporate form.

CEOs should be able to make millions because the law protects boards of directors, who are appointed by the CEO, from being sued easily.

It should grant oil companies, hedge fund managers, and many others large tax subsidies.

It should spend trillions on defense contractors.

It should prevent labor mobility by limiting immigration.

It should ignore the fact that every property right is inevitably a kind of regulation.

I believe that government should not interfere in private lives, except:

It should control women’s bodies.

It should control the right to marriage.

It should control the smoking of marijuana.

It should control online gambling.

It should control music and file sharing online.

It should control prostitution.

It should control whether the poor and minorities get to vote.

It should control the right to die of the terminally ill.

I believe that government should not censor the population, except:

Movies should be rated and controlled by a secret group of housewives.

Sexual education in schools should be banned.

Julian Assange should be hung and Wikileaks banned.

Janet Jackson’s breasts should always be hidden.

Occupy Wall Street should not be allowed to protest.

Public demonstrations of liberal viewpoints should always require extensive regulation and permits.

Protestors outside Republican conventions should be strictly regulated.

I believe in property rights above all, except:

Native Americans deserve little compensation for their loss of property.

The descendants of former slaves deserve little compensation for the theft of their inheritance.

Muslim mosques should not be allowed near Ground Zero.

Environmental polluters should be allowed to pollute the air, ground, and water.

Lawsuits by the little guys to vindicate their rights should be made harder.

Historic advantages that people and corporations have gotten from government don’t count in thinking about who owns what now.

I believe in a flat tax, except:

It’s fine that people like Mitt Romney paid 13% tax over 10 years — far less than the average American.

Carried interest deductions for hedge fund managers are fine.

Large deductions that help homeowners are good.

I believe in deficit reduction, except:

The Bush tax cuts, which increased the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, are great policy.

More unpaid-for tax cuts are even better, particularly for the wealthiest.

The military should keep growing.

Medicare should not collectively bargain for its drugs.

Single-payer healthcare is bad, even though it would dramatically reduce healthcare costs.

I believe in self-sufficiency, except:

It’s fine for red states to take in more federal money than blue states.

Agricultural subsidies might be bad in theory, but I’m not going to talk about them.

It’s still ok for Republicans to declare bankruptcy, take advantage of public schools, welfare, unemployment, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on.

Churches should be completely untaxed.

It’s not ok for the poor or minorities to get a helping hand, but it is ok for children of the wealthy to enjoy massive advantages.

I believe in family values and that children are pure and innocent, except:

Gay people should not be able to have families.

Divorces are higher in red states.

The children of poor people and immigrants should not be helped with government money.

Inexpensive pre-natal care and daycare should not be funded by the government.

Poor children should not have the same quality of education as rich or even middle-class children.

Pre-school programs for disadvantaged youth should not exist.

I believe the culture is decadent and corrupt, except:

The arts should be defunded, along with PBS and NPR.

Schools should not have art or music education.

Corporations should take over schools and enforce a market mentality.

Profit is and should be the measure of success in media.

Historic preservation of important architecture is fascism.

Public libraries should be defunded.

It’s fine to destroy wetlands and endangered species that may hold knowledge and wonder.

I believe in reason, except:

Evolution may not be real, or it should be taught alongside creationism.

Global warming isn’t real; if it is, it isn’t man-made; if it is, we can’t do anything about it; if we can, it’s not worth it; if it is, la la la la la.

Professors, academics, and other intellectuals in the humanities – except conservative ones – should be treated as traitors and communists.

Gun violence? That was an isolated incident. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one.

Public universities should be defunded; higher education should be only for the rich.

Basic research should be defunded.

Statistics showing that the Obama stimulus worked—to the extent that it could, given that it was too small—are irrelevant.

The complex role of the government in creating new technology such as the Internet should be ignored.

It’s ok that I am ignorant of economic concepts like externalities or public goods.

Intellectuals and thinkers should be resented.

The truth? I worship money and power and the people who have them, and resent the poor, the powerless, and the outsiders, even though I may actually be among them. I am in awe and fear of the ruthless and strong, and fantasize that someday I too will join their ranks.