New adventures in stupidity
Lest any of ye forget, I hail from behind the Orange Curtain, Orange County, Calif., birthplace of Richard "I'm not a Tricky Dick" Nixon, fertile ground for the John Birch Society ("Making the world safe for John Asscroft since 1958") and political launchpad for "B-1 Bob" Dornan.
This is a world where Fox News passes for journalism, Bill "Welfare Killer" Clinton is denigrated for constructing?! a socialist state, and George W. Bush is regarded as a visionary and great leader on par with Norman Schwarzkopf (gag), Winston Churchill (puke) and Ronald Reagan (violent upchucking sound).
I "highlight" these predominant traits of this crazy place where I grew up from time to time mainly because I'm proud of how far I've come, how I've managed to escape from behind the Orange Curtain, and because I feel a moral obligation to warn the world of this decadent, political and cultural black hole called Orange County.
No better way to give you a pulse on the vapidity of this scene than to share with you some of the "wisdom" being dished out on the opinion pages of the local rag, the Orange County Register. Bear in mind that in the Register's guidelines for submissions, its first tip for getting published is to write "Columns that share the values of our editorial page, especially a commitment to individual liberties and limited government." So much for the opinion page being a forum for open discussion among O.C. residents. Nope, we'd rather give lie to the notion that there's any diversity of opinion, except for those needle-brained leftist-socialist-Commie-tree-hugging-liberals coming to get our guns and pollute our children with ideas of "tolerance." It's eerily reminiscent of The Onion's policy on letters to the editor, namely that it won't accept them and intends for the newspaper to serve solely as a one-way conduit of information.
But I digress . . . .
It's not unusual for me to read something in the Register that strikes me as exceedingly stupid or just downright offensive, whether it be a claim that massive tax cuts for the rich will solve all the world's economic woes or a column trying to hijack the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by claiming he'd be appalled to see how affirmative action has perverted his original dream. Whenever I want to get my blood pumping full bore in the morning, I trust the Register to print something that will offend my sense of righteous indignation. But this morning I saw something that took the cake.
Syndicated conservative pundit Walter Williams wrote an entire column attacking the U.S. government for enforcing mandatory seat belt laws because it violates our individual free-dumb to not wear a seat belt if we so desire. Williams finds it an injustice that cops can issue a $50 ticket for not buckling up, because it's not the government's place to protect us from being so stupid. Unbelievable. I thought you should know.
This is a world where Fox News passes for journalism, Bill "Welfare Killer" Clinton is denigrated for constructing?! a socialist state, and George W. Bush is regarded as a visionary and great leader on par with Norman Schwarzkopf (gag), Winston Churchill (puke) and Ronald Reagan (violent upchucking sound).
I "highlight" these predominant traits of this crazy place where I grew up from time to time mainly because I'm proud of how far I've come, how I've managed to escape from behind the Orange Curtain, and because I feel a moral obligation to warn the world of this decadent, political and cultural black hole called Orange County.
No better way to give you a pulse on the vapidity of this scene than to share with you some of the "wisdom" being dished out on the opinion pages of the local rag, the Orange County Register. Bear in mind that in the Register's guidelines for submissions, its first tip for getting published is to write "Columns that share the values of our editorial page, especially a commitment to individual liberties and limited government." So much for the opinion page being a forum for open discussion among O.C. residents. Nope, we'd rather give lie to the notion that there's any diversity of opinion, except for those needle-brained leftist-socialist-Commie-tree-hugging-liberals coming to get our guns and pollute our children with ideas of "tolerance." It's eerily reminiscent of The Onion's policy on letters to the editor, namely that it won't accept them and intends for the newspaper to serve solely as a one-way conduit of information.
But I digress . . . .
It's not unusual for me to read something in the Register that strikes me as exceedingly stupid or just downright offensive, whether it be a claim that massive tax cuts for the rich will solve all the world's economic woes or a column trying to hijack the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by claiming he'd be appalled to see how affirmative action has perverted his original dream. Whenever I want to get my blood pumping full bore in the morning, I trust the Register to print something that will offend my sense of righteous indignation. But this morning I saw something that took the cake.
Syndicated conservative pundit Walter Williams wrote an entire column attacking the U.S. government for enforcing mandatory seat belt laws because it violates our individual free-dumb to not wear a seat belt if we so desire. Williams finds it an injustice that cops can issue a $50 ticket for not buckling up, because it's not the government's place to protect us from being so stupid. Unbelievable. I thought you should know.
posted by Alexander Dubcek | 21:59
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