Thursday, May 03, 2007

Advice to the Republican party

You're going to lose in 2008. The war in Iraq is not going well, because Bush and Cheney do not have sufficient will or brutality to do the job. The American people blame the Republicans because, well, it's your war. You could run Jesus Christ himself on the Republican ticket, against a Democratic Stalin, and you'd still lose.

But this isn't so bad. Remember, the American people are stupid, and can barely remember what they had for breakfast. Just as Bill Clinton paved the way for Bush, whoever wins in 2008 can pave the way for Giuliani.

Throw McCain under the bus in 2008. Giuliani is your man: He has the will. But 2008 is not his time. Run McCain in the general, and run pro-war ideologues for Congress. They're mostly going to lose, but there are enough safe Republican seats that you should have a filibuster-capable Senate and enough seats in the House to make a lot of trouble.

The Democrats are not going end the war in Iraq and Iran, and they don't have the will to win it; it's no more winnable for the Democrats than it was for the Cheney Bush administration. They won't repeal the Military Commissions Act. They won't restore habeas corpus. They won't make torture illegal. They won't substantially limit the legal power of the imperial Presidency (but they'll be much too weak to use it effectively).

You still have the commercial media: Start selling the "Democrats are too weak to win" meme for the next five years. Do what you know how to do best: Smear. Lie. Insinuate. It works.

By 2010, the American people will have forgotten Bush, forgotten that Iraq is a Republican war, and enough will believe that no Democrat is competent to be elected dog-catcher. You should be able to get Republican majority in Congress.

In 2012, run Giuliani with a second-level religious right apparatchik (one who dear God! hasn't fucked a hooker lately) as veep, and you should be able to at least Florida yourself into the Presidency.

And then you can show us what a real empire looks like.

8 comments:

  1. "In 2012, run Giuliani with a second-level religious right apparatchik (one who dear God! hasn't fucked a hooker lately) as veep, and you should be able to at least Florida yourself into the Presidency."

    Sheer topical poetry, that.

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  2. Ah BB I see you are still doing your "I'm an atheist and ethical subjectivist, except when it comes to politics" routine. When it comes to politics you are, like most of the sentimentalists and sob sisters who make up the Democrats, as moralistic and hysterical as , er, BILLY SUNDAY..........I'd go with Rudy before a Boy Obama or Hillarity (both of 'em will biblethump on occasion).........Here's to Edwards, but he don't have a chance in Hades

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  3. Perezoso: Your critique of my philosophy would have a little bit more persuasive power if you actually read my primary work on the subject.

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  4. subjectivism is subjectivism. So, any rage or disdain for other persons' values (whatever they are) seems not merely misplaced but hypocritical.

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  5. I stand truly in awe, Perezoso, at your ability to get to the gist of a complicated philosophical position without even reading it.

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  6. And I say the same to you: have you read Hume on the fact/value distinction? That is subjectivism defined: and I agree it is a formidable argument. Your MESR idea merely updates it, and doesn't really even address the possibility/counterargument that there could be "moral" facts of some sort, even from a secular POV. We do have various "rights" of some sort: and it seems very strange to say Due Process or Voting or driving rights are merely contrivances or pragmatically upheld. If you were wrongly accused of a crime and arrested and attempted to file a habeas corpus and the Judge said "Barefoot Bums aren't allowed to file Writs," you would be upset. And you would not simply say "different strokes for different folks"--you would, I suspect, say that it was an Injustice. While I agree establishing that Injustice in precise axiomatic form is difficult, people DO seem to make use of such a notion which can be fairly well described. That sense of Justice should not just be swept aside, nor put into the relativistic terms that you use.

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  7. Oh, Christ on a stick with a side of kettle chips, is he still here?

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  8. Know what annoys me the most about Platonists? I've yet to meet one who doesn't speak or write like a total asshole.

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