Satan’s Sounds
Much as I make fun of the Republicans (and, by the way, I don’t hate them — that’s kid’s stuff) it’s the Libertarians whom I consider to be the silliest gang of political animals extant.
The Libertarians, from this vantage point, are essentially overgrown teenagers. Their basic philosophy boils down to You can’t tell me what to do.
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As Walter Sobchak said of the difference between nihilists and neo-Nazis in The Big Lebowski, “Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, at least it’s an ethos.”
Matt Kibbe, one of the folks responsible for the Tea (read: Me) Party’s existence, was interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday this morning. He’s a Libertarian of the first degree. He says his early philosophies were formed in part when he listened to (the insufferable music of) Canadian prog-metal rockers Rush as a youth.
Philosopher Rock Stars
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Apparently, Rush put out a song or an album (I forget which, mainly because I don’t care) about some dystopic society far in the future. So the pimply-faced young Matt Kibbe ate the song (or album) up and next thing you know he was working with the former House Majority Leader Dick Armey to form a quasi-sociopathic political bloc that has taken over much of the Congress of this holy land. The Tea Party’s tenets are spelled out in a book Kibbe and Armey c0-wrote entitled, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. Kibbe’s own FreedomWorks organization is dedicated to the proposition that a monolithic, all-powerful entity like the federal gov’t is icky.
Kibbe
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Freedom Works and the Tea Party are financed and led, ironically, by various representatives of monolithic, all-powerful multinational corporations as well as any number of monolithic, all-powerful, individual plutocrats.
So the argument can be made that rock ‘n roll is responsible for the birth of the Tea Party. Hmm, maybe all those hyper-moralists of the 1950s who warned that rock ‘n roll was the devil’s music were right.
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Rotten To The Core
Speaking of Me Party-ists and Libertarians, the Indy Star today tells the story of the downfall of Indiana’s acceptance of the federal Common Core standards for public schools.
Common Core is pretty much an innocuous attempt by bureaucrats to make sure kids graduating from high school know how to do things like read, write, and add two plus two. The vast majority of states in this holy land — 45 of the 50 — accepted Common Core standards after they were released in 2010. Indiana bought in almost immediately but it has become the first of the states to change its mind and buy out.
Guess who was in the forefront of the state’s reversal. Yep, the Tea Party and its Libertarian pals.
The Rush-inspired and robber baron-funded political movements demanded the Hoosier State adopt its own educational standards for students at each grade level. That’s what state legislators and operatives from the Indiana Department of Education are doing as we speak. In fact, they’ve already come out with a number draft standards.
Lo and behold these new standards are — get ready for it — pretty much the same as the fed standards.
Hmm. So the whole contretemps boiled down to — see above — You can’t tell me what to do.
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While it’s silly to expect every mother’s child to know precisely the same stuff in precisely the same ways, it is equally silly not to recognize the need for a foundation level of knowledge and the tools to pursue advanced/specialized knowledge that fits one’s interests and abilities. It is the latter that scares the beejeezus out of Rush-ites, Rand-ites and big green($$$) Armey men. Without rampant spoonfed, willful ignorance, purile race/class bullshit and anti-intellectualism, there is no market for simple-minded jingo-jargon and pseudo-populist hate-speech. One need only objectively assess the quality of our visible “intellectuals” i.e. David Fucking Brooks, Tom Friedman, William “The Bloody” Kristol, Sean Hanky-T, Brian Killme-duh et al, to objectively realize we are phooked!
Good one today Bubba. The idea that 300+ million people over 4 time zones can be governed without a strong central government is ludicrous. Now, let’s argue about the nature of that central government.
Bravo!