2/17/2010

Conservatives Are Signing Some Worthless Thing Today:
By God, sometimes history is made only when brave men and women are willing to go online and type in their names and email addresses on the bottom of some random statement. And the braver still, the true leaders, they are willing to sign a document that has absolutely no weight or effect other than to hold their signatures. And sweet Jesus Christ, whose blessings must be pouring down like hot urine from a leaky catheter tube, we will be told that this is a momentous occasion, this moment, this shining moment close to George Washington's mighty manse, Mount Vernon, when an American glitterati of right wingers rose up to say, "We're here, we're conservative, get used to it."

For today, by the time you read this, the Mount Vernon Statement will have been signed by a veritable who's who of dicks and cunts who want to drag America into the Stone Age. What is the Mount Vernon Statement? Why, it's a statement, a manifesto, if you will, put together by conservatives to assert conservativism in the most conservative way possible. Or, as Brent Bozell overstated it, "It's a compass for every single issue, whether it's social, economic or national defense conservatives. It's meant to guide you." And dozens of those needing guidance will show up near Mount Vernon today to sign it. Why "near"? Because the Mount Vernon people said, "Um, fuck no" to having it signed there. It will be at Collingwood Library, which, really, was still part of Washington's farm and is available for weddings.

How conservative a statement is it? Why, it reads like teabagger porn written in shit by Glenn Beck, Jim DeMint, and Grover Norquist: "In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics." And then it takes revolutionary documents in American history and redefines them as conservative through the magic of calling them "conservative": "The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue." See what they did there? They paraphrased the Declaration of Independence and used the word "conservatism." Magic. They do the same thing with the Constitution.

Mostly, though, to sign this document is to assert, "I am a pussy and I have no real principles." For what do you make of grand pronouncements about what the writers call "Constitutional conservatism"? Things like "It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end." What's the opposition to that? "Prudently consider" shit? Or it "encourages free enterprise." That's some mighty strong words there. This sounds like a warranty, not a manifesto.

It will be signed by the usual suspects: Norquist, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the heads of various conservative groups, publications, "think" tanks. And then they'll go on with their happy little right-wing fuckfest in DC this weekend, also known as CPAC.

By the way, Mount Vernon was a plantation. By Washington's death, some 316 slaves lived there. While Washington may have freed them upon his death, he surely profited from their labor. The Mount Vernon Statement starts, "We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding." Yeah, that sounds about right.