Today is Freedom Eve, so naturally we are celebrating over at Happy Nice Time People! Between the apple pie, the guns, and the glory, we don't know what to do with ourselves! But don't worry, we've got your horoscopes and your Bobby Womack and your (NBD) RACHEL MADDOW LOVING WONKETTE and so much more.
I've been doing some heavy family research on Ancestry.com and discovered that one of my ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. So to all you "Love It or Leave It" wingnuts out there, have a happy 4th on me and my family.
Dripping as it is may be with self-contradiction, it's hard not to feel one's heart leap up when reading old Tom's Declaration:
<blockquote>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature&#039;s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.</blockquote> But wait a minute...&quot;Laws of Nature and Nature&#039;s God&quot;? What kind of Deist (= atheist) bullshit is that?
My favorite part of the Declaration is the middle part, the airing of grievances so to speak. It&#039;s basically a laundry list of all the shitty tricks the GOP and teaparty have used to keep the federal government from getting anything done since Raygun. I have always loved that the founders were basically pissed because the Brits wouldn&#039;t govern.
&quot;the Laws of Nature and of Nature&#039;s God&quot; is one of the best-scanning little riffs you&#039;ll ever see. Tom could write some. It wouldn&#039;t have the same swing without the last part.
On a related note, the insertion of &quot;under God&quot; into the Pledge of Allegiance (which insertion happened DURING MY LIFETIME, FOR ANY WINGNUTS OUT THERE) totally fucked up the flow.
I actually went to the poll results. One interesting detail lost way down in the crosstabs was that the geographical breakdown of the respondents was NE 18%, Midwest 24%, West 22%, South 37%. As it happened, the differences between the regions, on the questions where the results were shown, wasn&#039;t as large as I had expected -- the differences were clearly there, but only a few percent.
But as to the &quot;best&quot; and &quot;worst&quot; categories, it was pretty obvious that the results were a matter of what choices were available. First, the choices were extremely partisan (as one would expect). Regarding &quot;best&quot;, the self-identified Democrats spread their votes among JFK, Bubba, and Bamz. The self-identified Repubs almost all went for St. Ron. The indies were sort of all over the place. Add it up, and you get Raygun.
On the &quot;worst&quot;, the Democrats were spoiled for choice. Nixon? Reagan? Bush2? To be honest, if they&#039;d asked me, I would have gone with Ronbo, which would have been one less vote for Shrub as worst. A fascinating thing was that almost no Republicans picked Carter, who they used to consider the worst of the worst.
It was the usual thing -- the Republicans congregated heavily around one choice for best and another for worst, and the Democrats spread their votes around.
I&#039;ve been doing some heavy family research on Ancestry.com and discovered that one of my ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. So to all you &quot;Love It or Leave It&quot; wingnuts out there, have a happy 4th on me and my family.
Dripping as it is may be with self-contradiction, it&#039;s hard not to feel one&#039;s heart leap up when reading old Tom&#039;s Declaration:
<blockquote>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature&#039;s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.</blockquote> But wait a minute...&quot;Laws of Nature and Nature&#039;s God&quot;? What kind of Deist (= atheist) bullshit is that?
My favorite part of the Declaration is the middle part, the airing of grievances so to speak. It&#039;s basically a laundry list of all the shitty tricks the GOP and teaparty have used to keep the federal government from getting anything done since Raygun. I have always loved that the founders were basically pissed because the Brits wouldn&#039;t govern.
It.is.epic.
the preamble is just icing <a href="http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/exhibits\/charters\/declaration_transcript.html" target="_blank">" rel="nofollow noopener" title="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declara...">http://www.archives.gov/exh...
Here&#039;s a handy travel tip for those of you who will be flying this weekend - bringing a party sub on an airplane is a no-go, apparently.
&quot;the Laws of Nature and of Nature&#039;s God&quot; is one of the best-scanning little riffs you&#039;ll ever see. Tom could write some. It wouldn&#039;t have the same swing without the last part.
On a related note, the insertion of &quot;under God&quot; into the Pledge of Allegiance (which insertion happened DURING MY LIFETIME, FOR ANY WINGNUTS OUT THERE) totally fucked up the flow.
I actually went to the poll results. One interesting detail lost way down in the crosstabs was that the geographical breakdown of the respondents was NE 18%, Midwest 24%, West 22%, South 37%. As it happened, the differences between the regions, on the questions where the results were shown, wasn&#039;t as large as I had expected -- the differences were clearly there, but only a few percent.
But as to the &quot;best&quot; and &quot;worst&quot; categories, it was pretty obvious that the results were a matter of what choices were available. First, the choices were extremely partisan (as one would expect). Regarding &quot;best&quot;, the self-identified Democrats spread their votes among JFK, Bubba, and Bamz. The self-identified Repubs almost all went for St. Ron. The indies were sort of all over the place. Add it up, and you get Raygun.
On the &quot;worst&quot;, the Democrats were spoiled for choice. Nixon? Reagan? Bush2? To be honest, if they&#039;d asked me, I would have gone with Ronbo, which would have been one less vote for Shrub as worst. A fascinating thing was that almost no Republicans picked Carter, who they used to consider the worst of the worst.
It was the usual thing -- the Republicans congregated heavily around one choice for best and another for worst, and the Democrats spread their votes around.