Roy has been performing satirical folk music since the early eighties, as both a solo artist and a member of the Fore (a group who had the distinction of playing the national conventions of both major parties in 1996).  Roy’s music focuses on political and social issues, and his songs about religious topics have made him quite popular in the FreeThought Community.  Here are a few examples:

1.  Jerry Falwell’s God
2.  I want a Marriage like they had in the Bible
3.  Creation Science 101

Zimmerman’s lyrics often come from an admittedly liberal or progressive point of view and may alienate some more conservative listeners. However, Roy’s performances are fun, enjoyable and often hilarious. The Tucson FreeThought Community is proud to sponsor this fine entertainer along with other entertainers and speakers from a wide variety of view points.

Come and join us for this fun night of song with Roy Zimmer on March 10^th at the Unitarian Universalist Church.  Hope to see you there!

Jim Wilson has a question:

I know a few anti-gun zealots who would like the populace to be completely unarmed. I cannot help but completely disagree with them. Like most Americans I think law abiding people should be free to have guns, knives, swords, and etcetera for the purposes of self-defense, hunting, and peaceful recreation.

At the same time so many of my fellow American’s are happy to point the Second Amendment of the Constitution and declare it to be absolute and scream at the mere suggestion that we restrict people’s ability to buy assault weapons or high capacity ammunition magazine. I’m put off by both sides in the gun debate as more often than not absolutist gun nuts and gun abolitionist both seem to be driven more by ideological rigidity than a willingness to examine the issue.

I recognize that in practice the Second Amendment is not considered absolute by the majority of people on either side. Most gun rights advocates will not argue that the Second Amendment does not grant ordinary Americans the right to own ground-to-air missiles, weaponized anthrax, rocket propelled grenades, Apache helicopters, or nuclear bombs. For better or worse, most actually see it as a good thing that the government maintains a monopoly on these arms and they are not often accused of being inconsistent. There seems to be some sort of unspoken agreement that the line between what weapons we do or don’t have the right to own needs to be drawn somewhere. The question is, how do we determine where?

Perhaps it is the case that things like assault rifles are close to the line that is to be drawn. Or perhaps there is no line and we really should allow ordinary people to run around with tanks and cruise missiles. One friend of mine suggested that we will inevitably draw the line where the Supreme Court justice with the best persuasive skills says we should. So I’ll ask our readers, “How far does the right to bear arms extend?”

I was a believer when I first heard this story. It was a bit uncomfortable to hear for a couple of reasons. First, it laid bare the idea that we are on our own during dire situations as it is very unlikely to be saved in a miraculous way by God. In all my life, I had never heard or read about a miraculous save such as the one depicted in the story and part of the humor was the how unlikely the situation really is. The second reason it was a bit uncomfortable was that it opened me up to the idea that if the other deities are looked upon by outsiders as ridiculous, how does the God of the Bible stack up?

Hearing that joke may have been my first experience with cognitive dissonance. It made me realize that there may be answers that I hadn’t considered before. Many current believers must have a similar feeling when they hear Mike Huckabee blame our most recent tragedy in Connecticut on the lack of prayer in public school. The difference of course is that he wasn’t telling a joke, at least not on purpose. It is a most “cringe worthy” statement and it’s amazing that he states his opinion with such confidence. Do you believe that saying a prayer before classes would have made the least bit of difference in that tragedy? But also buried within his statements is the underlying theme that there is no morality and no values in secular society. Dave Noise in Psychology Today also cites Huckabee’s comments in his article on Atheist discrimination. Somehow Atheists are to blame for everything bad that happens. Mike Huckabee and others forget that religion played no part in the Sandy Hook tragedy.

About that religious student skydiver, do you think it showed a lack of faith for him to put on a chute to begin with? Mike Huckabee may be a hero of the religious right and his professions, while silly to the unbeliever, may resonate with those who believe in Christianity but Atheists have their spokesmen too and many of them are comedians (on purpose). For example, Eddie Izzard got it right when he says, “If there was a God, don’t you think he would have flicked Hitler’s head off?” And just between you and me, don’t you think he might have made Adam Lanza’s four weapons inoperable?

The first part of this blog was published on the 16^th, a couple of days ago. Here is the second part of This is a Christian Nation: What That Statement Really Means by Gregory W. Chmara.

 In part I, Gregg listed four statements:

1. “The United States was founded on Christian values and all are troubles are because we have drifted away from those.”
2.  “Christian values are founded on the rock solid principles of the Ten Commandments and they should be on display in public buildings and courts to remind us.”
3.  “All Christians believe the same things – those taught by Jesus Christ.”
4.  “I am a Christian and that settles the argument.” (Whatever the argument is.)

ON TO THE SECOND STATEMENT:

“Christian values are founded on the rock solid principles of the Ten Commandments and those commandments should be on display in public buildings and courts to remind us.”

Unified Christian values founded upon the Ten Commandments are as much myth today as is the idea that there were only Ten Commandments in the first place.  Any casual reader of the bible finds that the laws given number more than 600 (613) and sectarian bible scholars will give you a range of the exact number depending upon their sect.

Choosing ten statements to represent the whole of the Mosaic Law including compromises on which ten statements which translation and in which order the statements were presented is a topic most sects refuse to discuss or to allow much open and accurate study. Many still dip back into the 600 plus unlisted laws to cherry- pick supporting arguments for their church’s interpretations of the commandments. They use these for application today; more than 3 millennia since the total number of 613 were first recorded by their desert tribe authors.

One of my favorite considerations is the conflicting interpretations of “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”  In times of war this is often interpreted or changed to say “Thou Shalt Not Murder” taking the sin away from killing an unknown enemy of the opposition (unholy) army or an internal alleged traitor.  Then, of course, I must consider the vegan Christians who extend the commandment to the slaughter of food animals.

Also note that in the supporting laws for these ten digest-like commandments the penalty for many things was originally death by stoning, without the constraint of due process.  Among those 613 Mosaic Laws which abrogate the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” and commend stoning someone to death are:  adultery (which Christ said a man commits in his mind by looking lustfully at a women), murder (nothing constraining Holy Wars), sassing your parents, blaspheming against the official god, mixing fabrics you wear, or working on the Sabbath.  These were all cause to suspend the law against killing — and kill the offender.

Let us take a look at combining two of our original statements as far as the U.S.A. goes.  I have read the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution as amended, and the Declaration of Independence.  I find the Ten Commandments listed nowhere in them.  Could the founding fathers been assuming that everyone believed the same thing, especially the Ten Commandments?  Or did they have other notions about the difference between civil secular law and ecclesiastic commandments?

Maybe the closest we come to the Ten Commandments in the founding American documents (particularly using the magic number 10) are the first ten amendments to the U. S. Constitution. These are very different than the any inclusion of the Christian Ten Commandments.  In fact they contain a simple, thoughtful expansion of the Constitution’s original prohibition on any religious test (including belief in the Ten Commandments) being required for holding office,  expanded by the establishments clause, the first amendment, saying :

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Compare this with the first Christian Commandment “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me.”  Sure sounds like a religious test to me.

Could it be that the founders in their wisdom could also see that some churches believed in a Nicene God of three parts of one mystic indivisible individual, while others tended to give Christ a little more emphasis than in the triumvirate approach, and yet others depended upon a holy ghost or spirit rather than direct communication with God? Could they see the time government could waste over these arguments rather than how to govern a nation of individuals with a desire to thrive? Did they ascertain that any one religion’s rule over another by law would be antithetical to the hard won liberty they fought for? Could they see the rise of any one sect would allow a dictatorship of thought with its constriction of personal liberty?

One only need look at the religio-doctrinal arguments in Congress today over abortion, gay rights, education, death with dignity, and funding of churches for social services to discover where the fault of rigidity applies.   You only need look back to women’s fight to gain the right to vote and to own property in the early 1900s.  Look further back at slavery if you wish to find religion’s corrosive power against rational humane consideration. Somehow, it takes reason a long time to overcome belief.

Here’s an example from Noam Chomsky’s essay found in NationofChange.org on July 23, 2012 entitled “Destroying Commons:

“The founders of course did not intend the term “person” to apply to all persons. Native Americans were not persons.  Their rights were virtually nil.  Women were scarcely persons.  Wives were understood to be “covered” under the civil identity of their husbands in much the same way as children were subject to their parents.  Blackstone’s principles held that “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything.” Women are thus the property of their fathers or husbands.  These principles remain up to very recent years.  Until a Supreme Court decision of 1975, women did not even have a legal right to serve on juries.  They were not peers.  Just two weeks ago, Republican opposition blocked the Fairness Paycheck Act guaranteeing women equal pay for equal work.  And it goes far beyond.”

Too many religions and their texts do not recognize women as whole people. If this is Christian Doctrine, I want nothing to do with it.  After all — in the Ten Commandments the “do not covet” section lists wives and donkeys as property all with the same value for coveting.

Turning to the idea of whether the Ten Commandments are up to date, or the archaic product distilling the thoughts of ancient desert tribes into 16th century language with laws that remain unchanging in the light of all modern knowledge and progress, we need only look, again, to our nation’s constitution.

One of the farsighted inclusions in the main body of the U. S. Constitution’s text is a way to change it through amendment. The Ten Commandments and its supporting bible provide no such thing. There have been 27 Amendments to the constitution since our nation’s founding.  Remember the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st to restore the use of alcohol after prohibition was pushed through by religious zealots. So we can count on 26 forward looking amendments.

Some wag might point out that the original Second Amendment and the Fifth commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” are directly in conflict, particularly in these modern times and in light of the Aurora Colorado shootings.   There were no guns around when the commandments were written.

Let me declare right here, I am a gun toting liberal who both supports the Second Amendment, and detests the paranoid propaganda promulgated by the National Rifle Association. I also believe that the idea of not killing people is a good one — as long as other people hold that same principled belief and act upon it.  Those prompted to otherwise abrogate my right to live freely, whether they are an individual, a sect, political philosophy, or psychopath need to be thoughtfully defended against.

I firmly hold that the doctrines that offer rewards on earth or in heaven for killing “the other,” unless the other agrees with a specific sect or belief, or becomes subject to the belief or group,  is antithetical American ideals.  (I also include the base idea of sending the other to hell for not accepting Christ — as defined by any sect or belief as something to defend against, but not by force of arms.) But that is a conversation for another day.

A few days back, I suggested that there should be a discussion about limiting the magazine capacity of firearms. It was on the heels of the Aurora tragedy where a 100 round magazine was used. There were some commonalities with our own Tucson shooting tragedy that happened in January 2011 in that there was a high capacity magazine involved. Most of the feedback came from a couple of libertarian leaning and “gun nut” readers that ANY discussion of ANY type of gun control was definitely off the table as they accused me of being a knee jerk reactionary. Seems to me, that their reaction was to hold their hands over their ears and say “la, la, la.”

Also a few days back in another blog entry, I pointed out an inconsistency in an impassioned speech delivered by Jamy Ian Swiss at the annual The Amazing Meeting held in Las Vegas. Judging from the response to the speech, the crowd was with Jamy on not being OK with excluding Christians from the ranks and also agreed that those that have a problem with vaccinations are to be universally shunned. It seemed a bit inconsistent to me but the New York magician received a standing ovation from the crowd.

On yet another blog post, I pointed out that there is a large segment of the population that feels justified in blaming Evolution and Atheists for every evil thing that ever happens. We’ve been blamed for hurricanes, shooting sprees, earthquakes, droughts, and rampant fires, to name a few.

In these cases, the argument is over before it started:

• If the government is involved, then it’s bad.
• If someone disagrees with the groups belief, it’s OK to say “Screw Him” and
• if something bad happens , blame the a group you don’t agree with.

Ideally, the FreeThinker can put aside the stock beliefs and evaluate the world free of the preconceived notions. The best we can hope for is that we at least understand ourselves and our own prejudices. I realize that it is more difficult to be critical of those that we generally agree with.

It’s easy to read a book that you agree with. Have you ever read a book from the “other team?” Oh sure, some of us read the Bible but how about reading a book on Applied Kinesiology such as Force vs. Power by Dr. David R. Hawkins? I read this book because someone gave it to me and I thought it might be a great subject for a Skeptics of Tucson meeting. I read it. It was hard to get through it but I did and we had a good meeting on the subject. I tried to do a double blind test as described in the book and posted a video of the test. It wasn’t surprising that in a room full of Skeptics that I couldn’t get the test to work. I couldn’t even get a baseline. Fortunately a believer posted his own blind test and I was able to use it at the meeting. I have to thank the poster for being so honest about something that he really wanted to believe in. I reviewed the book on Amazon. I gave it a fair review but the one comment received said that I didn’t have an open mind and that’s why Applied Kinesiology doesn’t work for me. What tripe! Something that is true should be able to withstand the doubter’s skepticism and besides I DID take the time to read the book, the reviewed DIDN’T take the time to consider the points I made in the review. It is another case of the argument being over before it starts. The reviewer believes what Dr. Hawkins is selling, so there can be no discussion to the contrary.

No matter where you are currently, there can always be discussion or there can be no progress. Reevaluation of current positions held is not the end of the world. Honest, fair communication is always welcomed. Ever start to make a point and have the person you’re talking to start shaking his head before the point has been presented? I don’t care for it myself. To me it’s as if the person has clapped his hands over his ears and starts saying, “la, la, la.” When someone holds an unalterable belief, rational or irrational, strictly because of group identity it’s the same thing. There are many ideas that are held by Penn Jillette that I don’t agree with but when a caller with a persuasive argument changed his mind on his radio program, my respect for the man increased significantly.

Keeping an open mind is the same thing as being willing to change one’s mind and Skepticism isn’t about what we believe but how we get to believe.

Previously, the Columbine tragedy was blamed on the fact that school prayer and the 10 Commandments were taken out of the schools.

Britain’s decline? You guessed it—Atheists! According to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (America’s Rabbi).

Chris Hedges says, “Secular Atheists are to Blame for Norway Massacre.” The right wing Christians initially thought that the Muslims were to blame until it was discovered that Anders Behring Breivik is a Muslim hating Christian. Chrissy then blamed the secular fundamentalists for instilling the hatred for Muslims in Mr. Breivik’s head.

Did you hear that the Pope blames Atheists for the Holocaust?

I think we can all agree that buying a gun after such a tragedy isn’t an insane thing to do and it probably won’t have a negative effect on gun violence. Assume the common reaction after such an incident is to arm oneself. If I were to use myself as an example, I’d probably buy a pistol unless I was reacting to a rash of home invasions then my choice would be a 12 gauge “home protector.” Personally, I’d buy a pump because just the sound is unique, well known, and so intimidating.

So far, we’re all good with that I hope. In order to simplify the discussion and focus on the most recent situation, let’s concentrate on the tragedies outside the home like the one in Aurora. I’ll include a discussion of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and talk about the differences first, then the similarities, and finally a common observation.

In Aurora the gunman didn’t have a specific target as far as we know, while in Tucson Jared Loughner was specifically after Representative Giffords. The suspect in Aurora, James Holmes, used multiple weapons, wore protective gear, and used gas in the attack. Jared used a single Glock pistol with an extended magazine and no protective gear. His attack was in the open, in broad daylight and direct.

There were similarities too. Both men acted alone and made preparations for the attack. They both used legally obtained weapons not commonly used for protection or hunting. Both shooters used a large capacity magazine: Jared’s Glock had a 30 round magazine while James’ had a 100 round drum magazine on his assault rifle. He also carried a pair of 40 caliber Glock handguns and a shotgun. The attacks were quick and the suspects were captured almost immediately. In both cases, many people died. Jared is responsible for 6 deaths and 13 wounded and in the Aurora tragedy 12 died and there were a total of 70 people injured.

What about the common observation that an additional gun in the theater would have saved lives? Here is a video that tries to make that point. Cute! In our own Tucson tragedy there was at least another gun on the scene and the owner of the gun came very close to using it on the person holding Jared down. He didn’t because he saw that the gun’s slide was back and empty—good eye! Things happen quickly and decisions being made by armed citizens could have deadly irreversible consequences. What is needed then are trained armed men to counter the threat but that hasn’t always worked out either. President Reagan was surrounded by the elite armed Secret Service yet Hinckly was able to shoot him in his rib cage before anyone could react. Lynette (Squeeky) Fromme got a .45 pistol within range of President Ford in 1975 and he was similarly protected. Sara Jane Moore got a shot off at President Ford 17 days later. Armed men at the scene, even well trained armed men, are not always the answer. It’s obvious, almost trivial to assume that the tragedies here in Tucson and in Aurora would not have happened if no one had been armed. Here is a COMIC that sums things up. Advocates of gun control have all but lost. Nothing changed after Gabrielle Giffords was shot and nothing will change as a result of the Aurora tragedy, except perhaps for the increase in gun sales. The issue is radioactive, and emotional to the point where there can be no meaningful discussion. I have to ask, however, could we at least consider limiting the lethality and fire power? We already do have some limits. There are already caliber limits and restrictions on owning automatic weapons. Is the slope so slippery that we can’t at least restore the restrictions on magazine capacity?

One of my absolute favorite entomologists is the late Thomas Eisner. I want to talk for a few minutes about some of the research he did and how it has been misunderstood and misrepresented by creationists. I’m talking about the Bombardier beetle and its incredible defense mechanism – the ability to spray out a boiling mixture of oxygen and chemicals known as quinones. Many species of bombardier beetle emit the substance as a thin jet which they can aim with uncanny accuracy. The beetle is able to do this through an ingenious evolutionary adaptation. It stores two precursor chemicals – hydrogen peroxide and another type of chemical called hydroquinones – in separate reservoirs in the abdomen. When the beetle feels threatened, it contracts special muscles, forcing the two chemicals into a special mixing chamber. This is when things get really cool. Inside the mixing chamber are special enzymes – catalyses and peroxidase. Oxygen is freed from the hydrogen peroxide, and the hydroquinones are then oxidized into p-quinones. There is a lot of thermal energy released during this reaction, and as the substances heat up, the internal pressure builds and the boiling mixture is expelled out the rear end of the beetle at the would-be predator or over-eager bug collector. It gets even better. Not only is the mixture boiling hot, the substances that are expelled are very irritating to almost all arthropods and most vertebrates – including people, even when they are not hot. More incredible still – this cycle of muscle contraction, chemical reaction and expulsion occurs at a rate of up to about 500 times per second.

Now, many creationists look to the bombardier beetle as proof of intelligent design. Their “evidence” seems to be based primarily on the work of Duane Gish, a biochemist who is a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research. Like all good creation scientists, he gets all the facts wrong. He starts off by claiming that hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinones are spontaneously explosive when combined – they are not. He claims this was a mistake he made due to a poor translation of the original research by Dr. Hermann Schildknecht, mistaking “explosive” for “unstable”. However, if Gish were truly a scientist, and not merely a creationist masquerading as one, he would have performed the simple experiment himself before repeating it so vociferously, something which should have been exceptionally easy (if not unnecessary!) for him to do as a biochemist. He also continues making a thoroughly disproved claim that an explosive “inhibitor” is required to prevent the beetle from blowing itself up. He makes the argument that the entire reaction mechanism is “irreducibly complex” and that anything less than the present form would result only in a beetle capable of blowing itself up. It’s easy to show the errors in Gish’s reasoning; we don’t even have to look into the fossil record or hypothesize intermediate stages to show that the argument of irreducible complexity simply falls flat with the bombardier beetle. He apparently overlooks the fact that the quinones, by themselves, are present in the cuticles of many different arthropods. Also overlooked is the fact that hydrogen peroxide is a by-product of cellular metabolism. A small amount of excess quinone that is left on the external cuticle would make an insect unpalatable to predators (in fact, many beetles and millipedes make use of simple quinones as defensive chemicals to avoid being eaten). There are bombardier beetles that have been found, which, instead of producing a fine jet of hot quinones, emit more of a diffuse gas, and others which produce something more akin to bubbling foam. These could be examples of beetles with lower amounts of the catalyses or peroxidase, or perhaps weaker muscles, smaller storage or mixing chambers. However you want to slice it – they are intermediate forms, all of them capable of defending themselves well enough to continue reproducing, none of them simply blowing themselves up, and so the argument of irreducibly complexity is itself reduced to nothing.

Perhaps most important in all of this is the fact that the man responsible for much of the research on bombardiers, Thomas Eisner, was himself a non-believer. He died earlier this year, of complications due to Parkinson’s disease and was an outstanding scientist, incredibly gifted science writer, pioneer of the field of chemical ecology, and one of my all time favorite authors. If you want to know more about the bombardier beetle or Thomas Eisner, I wholeheartedly recommend you find his book “For Love of Insects”.

* Charles Darwin, an avid beetle collector, recorded an experience in which he once popped a beetle into his mouth when he spotted a third beetle and already had both hands full, only to get a mouthful of a hot, irritating chemicals from the beetle

I’m not a big gun control fan or advocate. I’ve joked on this blog that I live in a state where the second is the only amendment that matters. I think the second amendment is an important one. I think law abiding people should be able to arm themselves, for protection, for hunting, target shooting, and whatever other lawful uses they like. I have not been convinced by anyone on either side of the gun debate that their gun policy of choice has played a significant role in the fall of crime anywhere.

I tend to error on the side of more personal freedom. I see little reason why most people should not be able to own a gun, but I am open-minded. If you can demonstrate to me that a strict gun control regime actually increases public safety and reduces violent crime, there is a part of me that would favor it. If you could show me that unlimited access to guns on demand, kept society safest, I would favor that. Which brings me to a question for gun control opponents: What if the jerks are right? If it was shown conclusively that a strict gun control regime kept society safest, how much freedom would you be willing to give up?

Don’t say that it could never happen, this is a hypothetical exercise. I want to know how much liberty you are willing to give up, for the security of the population. I personally hate being asked to give up any whatsoever and the thought of doing so makes me sick to my stomach. I tend to identify with Benjamin Franklin when he said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” I dislike the heavy handed enforcement of laws designed to keep everyone safe. I cringe at seat belt laws, helmet laws, speed-traps and red light cameras. What traffic cops do is either a huge waste of tax payer money and law enforcement personnel, or a despicable way for the state to extract money from ordinary citizens trying to get work on time. These give the police one more excuse to pull you over and investigate you.

Such laws may keep drivers safe, but are intrusive. The huge fines that are associated with breaking them are often draconian. I feel the same way about other victimless crimes. These include prohibitions on drug use, paying for sex, obscenity laws, anti-sodomy Laws, prohibition of intoxication in public, contraceptive restrictions, bans on abortion counseling, nudity prohibition, curfews, bans on factual sex education, and parental notification laws. All of these are things that have been or still are enforced in this country. Then there are restrictions on one’s ability to freely carry knives or swords in many jurisdictions. Shouldn’t that be covered under the second amendment too? Maybe it is time to start a National Knife Association to lobby for sword and knife owner’s rights.

Perhaps some of these laws have positive benefits, and I hate to think that any of them do. Where do we draw the line? How much petty tyranny is consistent with keeping America the land of the free? It seems like there are always proposals for new freedom restricting laws made for our own good. Recently, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed legislation that would allow the health department to levy fines on vendors who sell soft drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces. This is likely to be completely ineffective at protecting public health, as well as likely to trigger the exact sort of cynicism of government that gets Republicans elected in the first place.

It is not only Government that is doing this sort of thing. A major manufacturing employer near one of my former residences did not allow its employees to enjoy tobacco products even off the job. Others are taking a greater interest in what their employees are doing on Facebook and other websites. As much as I dislike government encroachment into my private life, I find employer encroachment just as annoying but in today’s economy what can we do?

We are overly tolerant of being regulated, supervised and prohibited. Our government spends a fortune prosecuting victimless crimes and loses just as much in tax revenue. Furthermore, the government now has unprecedented abilities to gather information on and detain American citizens, all in the name of fighting terrorism. How much of this is keeping us safe, and when is enough, enough? Where do you draw the line?

Jim Wilson tries his hand at prognosticating as he shares his opinions on Rush Limbaugh:

 “So I always believed that if we’re going to have a recession, just don’t participate.”-Rush Limbaugh

Will Rush Limbaugh vote for Obama in 2012?

Of course he will! Just like he voted for Obama in 2008. Do you really think he wanted to spend the last four years defending a McCain/Palin Administration or the next four years defending a Romney administration? I don’t think so.

By the end of George W. Bush’s second term Rush found himself defending a party that presided over the biggest deficit spending since the sixties two unpopular wars a failed response to hurricane Katrina an unpopular bank bailout and the biggest economic downturn and loss of jobs in decades. This had to be a royal chore and from his point of view if a liberal president were ever get elected there couldn’t have been a better time. So much for Karl Rove’s permanent Republican majority…why not let some seemingly liberal newcomer like Obama deal with the growing unemployment and the increasing unpopular wars in the middle east not to mention the enormous debt GW’s administration left behind? The immediate forecast was not looking good so why not let the other team dirty their hands with stimulus packages and high unemployment? Frankly, I cannot for the life of me see why any sane person would want to be president during such circumstances.

In addition, there was not much hope that a Republican administration like McCain-Palin could reverse the downward economic spiral so why not let the libs get themselves all muddy? In 2008, McCain was falling all over himself in the debates and Palin was looking like caricature of shallow opportunism and backwardness. Had they won in 08 convincingly presenting the  Republican brand of conservatism as the wave the future despite continued stimulus packages (which McCain almost certainly would have pushed) would have been an uphill battle.

Conservative talk radio is so much more interesting when the liberals are in charge anyway.

It is such a yawn to turn on the radio and hear how strong the president is and what a good job he is doing. Honestly, if I am going to turn on some political talk radio I want to hear some outrage about big government. It is so much harder to convincingly muster up the needed outrage when your team controls the government prove themselves even more interventionist than the Democrats. It is so much easier to make the case of that conservatives are being marginalized by liberal elites when said elites actually control a few levers of state power. Guys like Rush are only truly able to perfect their art while in attack mode and he is smart enough to know it.

Conservative talk radio runs entirely on fear and loathing and to generate this you need the occasional presumed Black Muslim socialist to take power once in a while. Listeners are far more likely to tune in if they think the liberal elite are just a vote away from seizing their guns, outlawing their marriages, destroying capitalism, and sending all conservatives to death panels. Is it a coincidence that we saw huge growth in militia membership and the rise of the tea party after Obama was elected when fears were drummed up by the conservative talk radio business? Remember how the gun and ammunition business made a killing encouraging everyone to stock up?

A cynical right wing radio host would have every reason to be happy about a dark horse Democrat taking power and the deal has only been sweetened by how little Obama and company have done to change the status quo. After all, it is hard to change much when you are saddled with trillions of dollars in debt from the bush administrations and wars in the middle east. Obama bailed-out the US. Banking system rather than break it up, expanded oil exploration in the US, and cracked down on illegal immigrants. He did not enact immediate withdrawal from Iraq, single payer health insurance, or stronger gun control and has been weak on keeping church and state separate. Rush once said he hoped Obama failed as a president because he did not want to see the “absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible from the banking business to the mortgage industry the automobile business to health care.” We have not seen any of these taken over by the government and conservatives really have lost little ground during Obama’s presidency.

Rush a self-interest driven cynic. He doesn’t care about abortion, war on drugs, Christianity, the sanctity of marriage, or birth control as evidence by his personal history in regard to these issues. These are simply tools to him. His chief allegiance is to the wealthy Republican establishment and the military industrial complex. I have yet to hear him criticize a war or international intervention backed by Republicans or huge deficits run up by Republicans or expansions of government by Republicans. In spite of his claim to be a conservative first and a Republican second, he is clearly a party tool filled with double standards.

Other conservative pundits are probably not voting for Obama. Only Rush strikes me as a cynical self-interested mercenary. His best successes occur when he is in attack mode and does not want to return to apologizing for a non-charismatic B-teamer like Romney. Ironically, Romney’s company, Bain Capital, acquired Rush’s employer, Clear Channel, in 2008.