North Star Writers Group - Syndicated Commentary: Opinion, Humor and Features

March 12, 2009

Conservatives, Don’t Go Away Mad . . . But Go

They can’t effectively run a country or manage an economy, but you have to give American conservatives credit where it is due: They have succeeded in making themselves virtually impossible to satirize.

You might have thought the right had scaled its loftiest peak of self-parody with the nomination of Sarah “Also!” Palin to the office of the vice presidency, or with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele’s abortive efforts at a hip-hop rebranding of the GOP in pursuit of eternally elusive minority and youth voters – but no. Having evidently become unhinged following their crushing defeat at the polls last November, the American Great White Right has opted to ratchet up the rhetoric, amp up the paranoia and migrate en masse to the realms of the unreal, visions of black helicopters and specters of socialism dancing in their soft little heads.

Driven to distraction by the notion that war for war’s sake may have fallen from favor and that the top 3 percent of American earners might be asked to pay up to four additional dollars per day in income tax, a growing number of self-proclaimed conservatives are publicly pronouncing their preference to opt out of the USA – politically, socially, economically or all of the above, by a variety of means. Seems strange, considering that these are the same goofballs who profess to love ‘Murka more than anyone else, and proclaim as much through their flag decals, magnetic yellow ribbons and Billy Ray Cyrus CDs, but whatever. Evidently, it’s gotten too hot in the kitchen, and the fair-weather patriots are wanting out.

Such an exodus is proposed by way of several distinct means, all more or less equally amusing and pitiable. One of these stems from a perhaps apocryphal uptick in sales figures for Ayn Rand’s bloated doorstop of a book – “novel” seems far too rich a word – Atlas Shrugged. For the sake of those who have refrained from scalding their eyes or soiling their souls by reading it, a single-sentence recap is in order: Offended at having to live in a less-than-laissez-faire nation, various titans of industry follow anti-hero John Galt to a hidden valley where they create a capitalist paradise, leaving the society they fled to wither and die without their precious contributions. Seriously, that’s it, though Rand drones on for another 1,100 pages or so.

Drawing inspiration from Rand’s boat anchor, a passel of supposedly “intellectual” wingers with a zeal for self-aggrandizement have now threatened to pull a John Galt move of their own: Purposely reducing their productivity, their incomes and their business activity so as to deprive the evil Obama Administration of the additional tax revenues they would ostensibly provide, and thus sabotage efforts to jump start the economy. To an untrained eye, it would appear that these geniuses are working at rather crossed purposes. Let’s get this straight: They’re going to make less money so as to punish the Obama Administration for making them make less money . . . right. Got it.

But as if economic secession by the Republican intelligentsia (sic) weren’t a terrifying prospect enough, we’ve got Chuck Norris and Glenn Beck to worry about too. In a column in Wednesday’s WorldNut Daily, the geriatric movie action hero wonders whether “history will need to record a second American Revolution” wherein, presumably, TV tough guys such as himself will liberate “real” America from the viselike grip of the winners of this country’s most recent election.

Norris posits that perhaps Texas might have the “gumption” to secede from the union, in which case he might run for its presidency. Norris closes his screed by exhorting his readers to join him and his good buddy Glenn Beck for “We Surround Them,” an evidently not-ready-for-prime-time telecast airing Friday afternoon, for which “thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation . . . It's our way of saying ‘We're united, we're tired of the corruption, and we're not going to take it anymore!’”

Yeah. “Cell groups.” Kind of like the Taliban, only . . . different. Less intelligent, less organized and with less purpose. Perhaps they can join forces with all those disaffected John Galts out there and have mammoth sore-loser pouting parties, or start construction of their new compounds in Waco. Or, as the closing lines of Norris’s blather remind us, “Chuck is also inviting anyone near the Houston area this weekend to see a good example of the raw Texas fighting spirit by joining him and others for the national martial arts event, ‘Showdown in H-Town.’"

Sounds like fun.

Whether they’re reading Rand, organizing themselves into little McVeighlike cells or attending “martial arts” events, these cut-rate quislings all share the common traits of being sore losers, lacking in ideas, divorced from reality and with nothing whatever of worth to contribute to the country they want to turn their back on. So yeah, go – to Texas, to hell or wherever you want. But for God’s sake, get out of the way already.

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