Hey everyone, Ross A Lincoln here.

Aside from the Press that being a mushy, collaborating pansy gives you, what benefit is there in proving that you’re a “reasonable liberal”? You get your picture in the papers, but golly, who would be so politically short sighted that they’d sacrifice party strength and future electoral gains, undermining the public image of the left by living up to the Liberals = Wimps without real principles slur? Ta-DA! Enter the gang of 14.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Three members of the Senate’s “Gang of 14″ are downplaying the possibility of a Democratic filibuster to block the nomination of Judge John Roberts Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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The 14 agreed to limit their support of filibusters to what they termed “extraordinary circumstances,” derailing any GOP move to use the “nuclear option” and change Senate rules to prevent the tactic.
“I think that Judge Roberts deserves an up-or-down vote,” McCain said

I haven’t posted much about John Robert, but then what can I say? Bush nominated him, he’s been in and out of their most nefarious nonsense for the better part of a decade, and he’s got that creepy Stern, But Loving father look about him, that you just know hides underneath it a vicious, intractable disgust for what most Americans do when he can’t see them.

We can bet our bottom dollar that no matter how “nice” he is, (Reid awkwardly told us that by “all accounts,” he’s just sooo nice, didn’t he?) he’s guaranteed to reliably oppose just about everything we give a damn about. However self defeating democrats attempting to be reasonable delude themselves, there’s not a chance in SoCal that he won’t roll over and give Bush and his funders and fundamentalists exactly what they’re paying him for.

Sure he’ll act reasonable now, but anyone who’s paid attention knows in their bones that it’s a show. He gets to play the part of quiet, unassuming conservative-but-nonpartisan nice guy, while those Nasty Dems cruelly demand that he explain his positions on the things he might have to think about as a justice. THE HORROR! Fact is, should the pro choice balance of the SCOTUS tilts just one step further to the right, the first time a Roe V. Wade, or worse, a Griswold v. Connecticut related case comes before the court, you can bet on a vote against sexual freedom and personal privacy.

That’s the thing that matters the most here. As I mentioned in my previous post, it’s useless for us to try and pretend that we’re just slightly less preachy and intrusive Republicans. They already have the moral outrage shtick locked up and any attempts to glean some of that from them look pathetically transparent. Instead, to take my point further, I think our best option is to enthusiastically support sexual freedom and personal privacy without any wussy caveats and exceptions. We might not stop this guy, but we can start going on record for our actual principles.

And Why not? Why can’t the politicians who supposedly come from our side, no matter their particular beliefs, just be brave enough to come out as ardent supporters of the right of adults to enjoy themselves without fear that republicans will shame them?

What does this have to do with the gang of 14? And yes, I know that mentioned Harry Potter in my title. Don’t worry, we’re getting there, I promise. It’s a weak metaphor I realize, but I love the book, so bear with me.

WARNING: Spoilers in the following paragraph noted in orange or as hidden text. Click or highlight at your own risk. SERIOUSLY, I am warning you, do not highlight unless you want to be spoiled like moldy bread.

I’m calling bullshit on the so called Gang right now. Calling this group of weasels, opportunists and wimps a gang implies collusion and partnership, shared goals and objectives, and some sort of cohesiveness. Bullshit, it’s not a gang, it’s 7 republican Death Eaters and 7 Democratic Peter Pettigrews . Sure, for a while, it’s romantic to think that Snape might seem a sympathetic, even (possibly) heroic if deeply flawed character, especially as he occasionally does things that make you think he’s going to come around and join the Order of the Phoenix for real. But alas, we all know that in the end, he kills Dumbledore and that he’s probably just a bad guy with a really compelling back story.

Let’s also be honest with ourselves and just admit that Peter is going to turn on the Order of the Phoenix and join the death eaters in a way that hurts our chances of winning profoundly. I only wish he’d hurry it up and stop pretending to be a Democrat. Sure, I realize that Joementum Peter has a decent record on a lot of liberal issues. Big Deal, the Republicans have no shortage of people they can trot out in election years who claim quite convincingly to be quite liberal on social issues, and yet who somehow magically always forget about it when it comes time to vote.

No matter how “liberal” Joe is, he’s the most reliable moral scold the Dems have, and he simply cannot wait to kiss up to Republicans. You’d think that State of the Union kiss would have been enough to convince even the staunchest Joementum defender that he is not to be trusted. I suspect that were it not for his home state and his (non Christian Fundamentalist) religion, he’d long ago have left the party and become yet another useless moderate Republican like Lincoln Chafe.

Honestly, whenever I hear someone on my side bemoaning the so-called lack of civility in politics, and expressing interest in “both sides coming together” to reach a “compromise”, I wonder if who their dealer is. As nearly everyone with a brain has been saying, we no longer live in such luxurious times, when we tried to reach these mythical compromise positions. In fact, I’d even argue that we rarely ever experienced such a climate and we ought to stop fetishizing it. In fact, in these times our single biggest flaw is a constant attempt to seem reasonable in the middle of an unreasonable situation.

True Story: When I was younger, aged 13, my well meaning and well beloved mother filled my head with a mountain of nonsensical ideas about how and why people behaved. First and foremost was the notion that if you ignored, or tried to make nice with bullies, they’d respect you or leave you alone. Sense the heavy handed life lesson yet?

Halfway through the 7th grade, I was punched, literally socked in the danged face on the school bus, by a rat of human dung named “Lanny”. I want you all to know that my reaction to being visiouly, unfairly you might say, assaulted was to affably rub my sore jaw, tasting blood in my mouth, and to remark, I shit you not, “Wow, you really pack a punch“.

Feeling the same revile and disgust for me that I feel for myself?

Naturally he left me alone and we became friends, laughing about it years later. Ha ha, I’m kidding of course, actually he laughed at me while he and his friends delighted in calling me variations of “fag”. This rocket scientist continued to torment me until 8th grade, when I experienced the most eye opening lesson in human nature I have ever had. I will happily tell that story later, for now just note that I was a complete fucking idiot for ever having believed that nonsense. (Though I do love my moms.)

I learned as a teenager that sometimes, the only thing you can do is to fight back with viciousness and sneaky cruelty, until these people get the hint that they can’t pick on you anymore. It shames and offends me to see other well meaning people on my side attempt to apply a similarly simpering, sycophantic kiss-up in a quest to be well liked by other such people who suck.

Welcome to the current state of affairs, where making nice with the Republicans has done nothing but lose elections for us. In every single election period since 1989 (not featuring a vote for a candidate named Clinton), we have been portrayed as wimps, as light in the loafers pansies, as elitist toadies, as un-American, and even in some cases as traitors by our republican opponents. One thing they have never done is pretend to be us. Our attempts to do the exact opposite have been nothing but a losing option for us, and oh how I wish that our people in office, and our political laity would stop pretending otherwise.

Until they can do this, we will continue to lose to the republicans on all sexual issues. Meanwhile, we get nominees like JR. who might seem nice, but who is most certainly a republican hack, Bush’s man through and through. He’s going to issue exactly the rulings we expect him to, on exactly the issues that matter the most, so why bother pretending otherwise? Might as well at least put up a cosmetic offensive effort, if for no other reason than to draw a distinction between us and the republicans. And to feel like we actually have fighting sprit for once.

So now we see also that Hillary’s ridiculously off topic crusade against GTA, because she’s unable to realize that the fundies who respond to moralizing freakouts regarding sex will never, ever vote for her, has borne fruit:

Under pressure from Democratic senators, the board that rates video games assigned the latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto series an adults-only label yesterday, effectively removing it from the shelves of most major retail stores.

The decision comes a few weeks after independent programmers uncovered a sexually suggestive scene that the game’s creators say was never meant to be seen.
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Even as game players, mostly young men, have flocked to the series, politicians have singled it out for its violence and sexually suggestive material.

You read that right. A game featuring mugging, whack jobs, drug use, murder and gang violence that everyone seems perfectly okay with, but a sex scene causes anurisms. Amazingly graphic depictions of violence and near racism*: A-ok! Simulated Sex Scenes with fully clothed characters: OH MY FUCKING GOD WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!!

Since no one close to these guys will say it, I’ll add my voice to the sprawl: NO ONE ON THE LEFT GIVES A GOOD GODDAMN ABOUT THIS. It’s not only unimportant in the larger scheme of things, it’s also not the kind of thing that makes liberals feel like voting. And yet they’re doing it anyway, as if the Republicans will suddenly find themselves losing much-desired street cred with their insane bible thumping base. Please. Seriously, that’s just nuts, and only fills me with even deeper resentment that I am apparently considered political poison to the people supposed to represent me.

And yet, here we go again**, and here we go with the stream of people urging caution and reason as we vote for the next SCOTUS justice, and with it, the next generation of social and political changes. And the reliably compliant gang of 7 (Because it’s only the 7 dems that make this possible) bow down and give the press more pictures of liberals capitulating. Sad really, and because these moral scolds and collaborators still dominate the party, the Dems won’t do what needs to be done to win. We’ll probably pay for it, not just in future SCOTUS rulings, but in elections too.

I agree with what Greg says in the post just before this one:

As conservatives are apt to say, if Democrats are so upset about this, they should try winning a few elections for a change. If Roberts turns out to be the hard-right ideologue we’re all hoping he isn’t, the Democrats shouldn’t once again reward the American public’s short-term memory by politely ignoring facts that make their opponents look bad.

Yeah! Let’s try being proudly liberal, proudly not Republican for a change. And let’s try fighting back against these bullies, instead of placating them. Can we stop this one? Probably not and as Greg says in the previous post, we probably can’t get a filibuster past this. Still, criticizing, holding him to the coals, forcing people to see we’re not just a bunch of wimps can’t hurt, and lord knows that other thing sure ain’t working.

* I’m making a point here, not denying that I LOOOVE GTA and enjoy playing it like you read about.

**on my own