2011-04-26

My Generation's Reaching Out For You*

SOCIALISM!

We got our phone call from Toronto Public Health to see how things were going. They phone all new parents and "interview" them to make sure they're raising the kids in the Government Approved Prescribed Method**. I was talking about it to the mother-in-law who explained how things went back in the day. Public Health made house calls. To every home with a new baby. They didn't ask to be let in, they just flashed their "badges", barged in and inspected your baby for signs of abuse. The State wasn't acting like a nanny, it was acting like you were the nanny of their child.

Tea Party people are, by and large, geezers. They are from generations before mine, from the Olden Days when Government actually acted in the ways they claim it does now.

Maybe it's really different south of the border. Maybe you guys really do have some sort of massive Creeping Socialism thing going on. But I doubt it. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly true that the current Administration is making some pretty broad and sweeping claims to power. Suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, the things being done in the name of the Struggle With The Existential Threat To Civilization Posed By A Few Unhinged Religious Nutjobs, or whatever they are calling it these days. But,,,

The generation before mine was the one that got drafted to shoot the Viet Cong. The generation before that had McCarthy's witch hunts. Imagine the response to the "grassroots" Tea Party protests if they were held in the fifties.

We laugh at blue laws now, but for me - it was only twenty years ago that Government decree prevented people from shopping on Sunday. The stories I hear about the hoops one had to go through in order to purchase alcohol back then make my head spin.

All a part of that arcing moral universe bending towards justice and whatnot.

Now if the complaints against Government were that the arc was bending too slowly - that we aren't doing enough to get to that just society where people are judged by the contents of their character - then I am all in. In fact, my words to the "Moral Universe" are "Get Bent".

But that's not what Tea Partiers and conservatives in general are saying. They aren't calling for progressive changes, they aren't clamoring for moving with that arc. They are pining for the Olden days - when there wasn't as much SOCIALISM! - only that Government intruded much moar deeply and into way moar areas of your life.

Here's what I'm saying (although I recognize no one that needs to hear it is going to be reading this blog) - you are now more Free than you ever have been***. It's a bit clouded for the Tea Partiers since everything they want to do are the socially and legally mandated behaviours, but being prevented from doing things that you probably weren't going to anyways is still a loss of Freedom.

In closing, my baby is UNBELIEVABLY ADORABLE! SHE IS THE BESTEST THING IN TEH UNIVERSE (even if her hand is too small for my bourbon glass).





* Title from this song which I may have posted before, but this video is a newer version.

** Mostly that you're feeding her and that mom is recovering well. Oh, and that you are reciting the correct ideological manifestos**** to her while she sleeps.

*** Offer not valid for Bradley Manning and other Enemies Of The State.

**** This is what I mean. The concept of reading brainwashing materials to a baby as it sleeps is too ludicrous to be considered reasonable satire. Especially by those who read the Bible to their sleeping babies.

14 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

even if her hand is too small for my bourbon glass.

Just you wait!
~

Smut Clyde said...

The concept of reading brainwashing materials to a baby as it sleeps is too ludicrous to be considered reasonable satire

I tried reading chapters from Penrose's "Shadows of the Mind" to the Doktorling, but she did not respond well to quantum gravity theory.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

I read her excerpts from The House of Substance. Then I draw googly-eyes and moustaches onto Post-it notes and past them all over her face while she snores. Her mother is not amused.

Substance McGravitas said...

Let the eastern bastards breed in the dark!

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

I am already planning a baby love match! I think my son will be in to older wimmin!

Smut Clyde said...

Then I draw googly-eyes and moustaches onto Post-it notes and past them all over her face while she snores.

PHOTOS PLEASE.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

There's clearly a market for baby bourbon!

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

I hear it's really good for teething...or when you're just really tired and don't feel like parenting.

Another Kiwi said...

A friend says "Mummy is drinking wine now darling, because it makes mummy clever."
On Subby's inestimable blog he has the Eagle Scout film trailer and the comments in it include people who do not the "Federal Flag" in their state. Which is about as fucked in the head as you can get without being Donald Trump.
Without a federal structure you would be like 1800's Italy without the charming regional foods.
It is the ultimate cutting off of the nose to spite the face.

Mendacious D said...

There's clearly a market for baby bourbon!

Demand, meet supply.

Smut Clyde said...

"Mummy is drinking wine now darling, because it makes mummy clever."

AHEM.
Also available in t-shirts.

Willy said...

or when you're just really tired and don't feel like parenting.

Benadryl...so I'm told.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Ha! Well, it's safe for pregnant women, so...

TruculentandUnreliable said...

Belated congratulations, DKW. She's lovely!