Then there's those other guys........

They're abrasive. They're obnoxious. They're annoying. And they all have that same sense of self righteous fascistic smugness that you can only be imbued when you know without a shadow of doubt that God is on your side.

Who are they you ask? Why they can only be the republicans.

In truth however that caricature is not entirely fair. I like to think that I've taken a pretty objective look at the various components that comprise the substrata of each of the two major parties in the United States, and here is what I have found.

The Democrats seem to be comprised of a vast and almost incalculable collective of tiny minorities each with their own highly specialized agenda (which by the way is the most important issue facing the human race at this time). Save the whales. Save the planet. Save the jack Russel Terriers. Gay and lesbian rights. Hippie rights. Minority rights. Gay and lesbian Jack Russel Terrier rights. And the list goes on and on and on and on....... It's toooooo confusing for me to keep track of.

The republicans aren't nearly as complicated. They keep it simple. If you take a hard look at the republicans there's really only three groups of people there. You got your crazy far right wing Christian religious zealots. You've got your cold hearted ultra capitalist pigs. And you've got all those dangerous gun nuts. Although recently I've noticed more and more of trend toward a new group slipping in, the nationalistic rednecks. But so far they've still got to be lumped in with the far right wing religious zealots and the dangerous gun nuts. If they're still around after Bush leaves office maybe they can have they're own group.

The republicans are a very binary party, everything is either black or white, yes or no. You're with us or our against us. There's no lengthy logical syllogisms to determine what the meaning of the word is is. No sir, there will be none of that. You're either a terrorist or your not. You've either got WMD or you don't, well maybe you're hiding them, or you could've moved them when we weren't looking, but we know you're up to something.

All that being said the republicans ain't what they used to be when old Dutch was running the party. Then there was a clarity of purpose. There was an unbridled sense of optimism for the future of the country. America was carrying on the legacy of greatness from it's past and moving it into the future. The government was there to do only what needed to be done and get out of the way, so the people could build for themselves. The republican party today is a mess. Allegations of corruption, and racism, coupled with incompetence and cronyism. Sealing off the deal we have Hank Paulson writing open ended checks to his corrupt fat cat buddies to live the good life while millions of tax payers and stock holders get screwed. I seem to recall from my macro economics class that is was John Maynard Keynes who talked about priming the pump to stimulate the economy, but Paulson's actions sure seems a lot more like robbing the till after shooting the clerk on the way out the door.

I'd like to close this off with a quote from one of my favorite authors, the incredibly perceptive P.J. O'Rourke: "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. "