Sunday, July 31, 2005

Thanks, Roddy

This was in the Haloscan comments over at Eschaton this morning:

And what does a family need, Rickster?

Lower wages, according to the Republican party. Less access to affordable health care, according to the Republican party. Fewer schools, according to the Republican party. More arsenic in drinking water, according to the Republican party. More mercury in fish, according to the Republican party. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the Republican party. Meat that has not been checked for contaminants like Mad Cow Disease, according to the Republican party.
According to the Republican Party, these are the ingredients for a strong family. And they're working hard to make sure each and every family other than their own has these things.

Roddy McCorley


Obviously a rhetorical response to Senator Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum. He's been on television talk shows like wet paint on a bench all this past week, hawking yet another "family values" book he's written. I'll bet that it's almost as good and wholesome as this philosophical masterpiece. Republican values have devolved into crappy comic book values, and they are proud of this.

It's more bait-and-switch for the red-state high-cholesterol types. Promise them "family values" (also known as homophobia,) but deliver more tax cuts for Tom Cruise and that guy who owns five mediocre Mexican restaurants.

Funny how it gets turned around. I'm for safer water, safer foods, better wages and benefits for working people with families, improved education for anybody willing to work at it, and health care that won't cause bankruptcy.

But according to the likes of Senator Santorum, I'm not "pro-family" because I believe, like most Americans, in a woman's right to control her reproductive life on her own, and I don't hate gay people. (Well, I must admit I do hate some of them, Ken Mehlman, for example. He's a loathesome little jerkwad, in my humble opinion.)

What do you want for your family?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tend to be a little less extreme in some of my political stands than I ave read here, but I have to agree with yo on most of this one. I want my family to have a safer place to live in all aspects, and the money were spending overseas right now could go a long way towards those goals (not that I think they would with our current administration).

I am a full time student working full time, so your wages and education stance is a home run with me, too.

I am not a homophobe, either, although I do have to admit having an issue with the word marriage. I certainly have no problem recognizing gay unions, legally, and entitiling them to the same rights and responsibilities included therin.. (who was it that said he agrees with gay marriage, they should be as miserable as the rest of us???). It is just that word, "marriage" I guess that's a hurdle I still need to get over....

Anonymous said...

What do you want for your family?

My family? We've got what we need. Families in general? I want to wrest the word from the parlance of the right. I want married people to stop feeling superior to single people and straight people to stop looking down on gay people. I want well-kept, affluent women in comfortable marriages to stop congratulating themselves for not having abortions. I want couples who live in $500,000 houses and who buy their kids more cheap plastic crap than they'll ever need to stop thinking that everyone with a lower standard of living is undeserving of children.

The word "family" makes me cringe when politicians use it, because I know it's a codeword to let me know that I don't count (since I'm childless) and my best friend really doesn't count (she's a spinster rebel). And my gay friends? Heaven forfend they should have a voice at all! Then they're "radicals" and "extremists" and have an "agenda".

Just my two cents.