Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Tea Party Advocates Destruction of All of America (Except its Golf Courses)

Dateline: WASHINGTON—Senator and reputed Tea Party leader Ted Cruz introduced a resolution to the Senate yesterday, calling for the immolation of all of the United States apart from its golf courses. Speaking in favour of the motion on the congressional floor, he said he “wished to clarify the Tea Party message in response to misconceptions of Republican anarchism.”

He opposes what he called “the Democrats' slander of patriotic Americans,” according to which Tea Partiers are “bomb-throwing, black-mask wearing nihilists and anarchists.” Rank-and-file members of the populist movement mustn’t be mistaken for "rabble-rousers of that degenerate variety," he said, because Tea Partiers have learned from "the failures of their ideological cousins." “If you want to break a window,” said Sen. Cruz, “you throw a rock. If you want to blow up a small business, you toss a Molotov cocktail. But if you want to destroy almost all of a country, you take control of its political process so you can hit the self-destruct button.”

Questioned later by reporters about why his motion would explicitly spare the golf courses, Sen. Cruz said “We’re not barbarians,” adding that while most Tea Party voters have likely never played golf, they know enough to use golf-obsessed political representatives to achieve their goal of destroying themselves by laying waste to the American infrastructure and to most of the country’s landscape. “To get the job done right, you need professionals,” said Sen. Cruz. “The new breed of Republican leaders is made up of full-bore, big-picture anarchists. We don’t fool around with rinky-dink mobs. And we’re just absolutely obsessed with golf.”

Political analysts credit that obsession as the reason why the Tea Party doesn’t advocate the wholesale slaughter of the nation by the launching of nuclear missiles against itself. “What would happen to the golf courses, then?” pointed out one such analyst. “That’s the sticking point, you see. If you want to destroy modern civilization, but you also happen to just adore stepping onto the fairway and swinging away at that golf ball, you have to be careful about how you go about your business. You can’t lay about willy-nilly with crude grenades, since you might just hit a golf course.”

Asked why his resolution specifies that American society be “immolated,” or burned as a sacrifice, Sen. Cruz said, “Well, that proves we’re not nihilists, doesn’t it! That’s contrary to the scurrilous rumours you often hear from the other side of the aisle. No, we don’t believe in nothing. We believe in Azathoth, the God of Chaos, and He demands human sacrifice.”

Speaking at a fundraiser, David Koch, the wealthy financier of the Tea Party, which he called the “anarchist heart of the GOP,” welcomed the clarification. “I’m appalled by almost every facet of American society and have spent millions trying to tear it down. But I really love to dress up in gaudy, thousand dollar outfits and drive around highly-exclusive golf courses with my servile caddy and tungsten-weighted Maruman clubs in tow.”

Asked what would become of capitalism and big business if most of the country were burned to the ground “so that Azathoth might inhale the smoke rising from the flames,” as Sen. Cruz put it, Koch said “Business would proceed, of course. In fact, we’d finally have a perfectly free market. It would be every man for himself, free to do whatever he wants as long as he’s a billionaire golfer. Haven’t you people been listening to anything we Republicans have been saying?”

9 comments:

  1. And it'll mean jobs!

    Anyway, if you forget the borders between countries, doesn't this exact thing happen when war occurs? It's just half assed - only partially obliterating all involved.

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    1. What will mean jobs? Burning down the country? Jobs for firemen maybe.

      I like the disgruntled Republican staffer Mike Lofgren's explanation of Tea Party populism, which I read in his recent Salon interview and which he told Chris Hayes on MSNBC. In the big picture, the 911 attacks and the Great Recession created an absolutist, us or them atmosphere in the US, on which demagogues like Cruz can capitalize. But you're right, wars also drum up this lemming-like support. In fact, Lofgren wrote about how "crackpot realists" make that happen too (link below).

      For anyone interested, I fixed some errors in this first of what I expect will be a long series of satirical reports (to make this blog a little less doomy and gloomy). I called Cruz a governor, whereas in fact he's a senator.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-s-lofgren/syria-and-the-triumph-of-_b_2966541.html

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    2. It's what you say - pretty much anything you wanna do, you tag 'And it'll mean jobs!' on the end. It is generally true. No matter what you do - indeed, the more blood, the more jobs...

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  2. Is your bigotry toward nihilists logical or emotional?

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    1. Why would you think I'm bigoted towards nihilists, of all people? As I explain in my critique of Brassier's nihilism, I agree that a rational view of nature leads to nihilism (this is what I call the curse of reason), which is why I think that viewpoint is incomplete. But I don't see why this satirical report about the Tea Party would give anyone the impression that I hate nihilists. As I said, elsewhere I consider the philosophical implications of that viewpoint.

      But to answer your question, I'd say my rejection of nihilism is both logical and emotional. At least, see what I have to say on the matter through the link below, if you haven't read it already.

      http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2013/09/brassiers-nihilism-and-creation-of.html

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    2. Be fair, Anon - he's got people who love burning whole countries but saving golf courses as the ones putting down nihilism. What, you'd complain even if he had Hitler putting down the nihilists?

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  3. Since meaning is subjective, how do we determine who's a nihilist? I would assume you think Hitler was a nihilist, and surely you realize he would consider you one. Imo, true nihilists are difficult to find. All I see are people on either side of the political spectrum, calling each other nihilists. A true nihilist is sitting on the sidelines, watching the glorified baboons known as human beings bark at one another.

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    1. There is no rule that forbids a nihilist to act in any way. A true nihilist can do what he wants except say that what he/she/it does has meaning.

      A nihilist is someone who claims that there is no meaning. There are no other criteria that need to be fulfilled.

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    2. Yeah, I don't believe I'm one of those who just throw around the term. Hitler was not a nihilist. He was a utopian who had all sorts of passionate values, which caused him to sacrifice a lot to achieve them. That is, his values were so strong that he thought the ends justified the means, even when the means were the destruction of Europe, the killing of all the Jews, and so on. Hitler was the opposite of a nihilist, which shows that nihilism isn't the same as evil or even egoism. Evil people are likely to be highly selfish, but that means they value their safety or their pleasure much more than that of others. That means they're not nihilists, since nihilists don't see the value of anything.

      Buddhists and other mystics might be classified as nihilists, since they don't believe any particular thing exists to be valued, so they try not to value anything, by disengaging from their emotional attachments. What they value is a transcendent mental state, nirvana, which they nevertheless identify with nothing since it's supposed to be beyond our ordinary comprehension.

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