Apparently unable to marshall any actual arguments, tea partiers instead resorted to levels of name-calling that would be hilarious if they weren’t so sad.

Or, at least, ignorant. The raving nutbird looney contingent on the Texas State Board of Education has managed to delete Thomas Jefferson and the entire Enlightenment from the state’s textbook standards. Oh, and the whole idea of separation of Church and State.

Click through for more. It’s really discouraging, but ultimately unsurprising.

In response to the bruhaha at the Washington Post, which included such erudite complaints as

One called me to complain about “promoting a faggot lifestyle.” Another complained about the photo in an e-mail to the two Post reporters who wrote Thursday’s story about the licenses: “That kind of stuff makes normal people want to throw up. People have kids who are being exposed to this crap. I will be glad when your rag goes out of business. Real men marry women.”

one blogger has this to say:

Your kids are not to blame for your politics. Your kids are not to blame for your decisions. Your kids are not to blame for any way in which you choose to live your life. Your kids are your kids, and they’re people, and I know this is me saying this, childless whore, etc. And I’m not saying having children can’t inform your worldview. I’m saying own your worldview as YOURS, instead of hiding behind your children’s blankies and pretending you can’t help yourself.

Jesus H. Gentle Cycle Christ, I hate this. Like, how are we to suppose this works, that you used to be a fair and decent person but then you had a kid and decided, “You know, white sheets look fucking good on me now!” You had a kid and then went, “Hmm, suddenly ladies kissing each other is just not on!” Bullshit. You always felt this way, and now you can justify it with somebody who is more into playing with blocks or reading comic books than realizing his parents are total assholes.

Problem is, he won’t always be too into his own stuff to notice yours. So won’t it be fun for junior to read someday that you used to be a good person and now you suck, and he was the line between before and after? And not only do you suck, but you’re such a stupendous pussy that you can’t even give yourself credit for the decision to suck, you’ve got to shove it off on him? Isn’t that charming? Do these people listen to themselves?

You wanna be a bigot? You wanna hate gay people? You wanna wax redneck in the pages of the Post about faggot lifestyles and shoving things down people’s throats? YOU DO THAT THEN. You just go do it. You go and do that all on your own, slick. You go and do that because YOU want to do it, you stupid motherfucker. You go and do that because you’ve taken a good long hard look in the mirror and decided that writing pissy letters to the paper about how you don’t like reality anymore is the best way to spend your time. You do that because being a bigot is what you want to be.

Leave your children out of it.

(Via TBogg.)

Slacktivist:

One reason for the current non-debate over health care reform is that the Republicans and Democrats are playing different games. Democrats, and President Barack Obama especially, are playing Jeopardy. Republicans are playing Family Feud.

On Jeopardy, facts matter. On Family Feud, all you need to know is what 100 morons might’ve told some pollster.

More:

At the recent health care reform “summit,” Republican leaders made it clear that they’re not interested in playing Jeopardy. That would be a losing proposition against President Ken Jennings. Obama was eager to show that he really does have the right answers — cost containment, near-universal coverage, lower premiums, better quality care, deficit reduction. All of that is well covered in the plan he’s pushing and any attempt to challenge him on the facts would be doomed.

So the GOP has decided to play a different game — to switch from Jeopardy to Family Feud. That way it’s not about the facts, or about what works, or about the actual effect of actual policies on actual people. In the subjective guessing-game of Family Feud, none of that matters. Family Feud is all about perceptions — about what those hundred people surveyed think or guess or dimly remember having heard something about.

And the Republican Party — with tons of financial support from their allies in the health insurance lobby — have been working very hard for many years now to make sure that those hundred people surveyed have a distorted, confused and mostly ass-backwards perception of the facts.

This is how you play Family Feud politics:

Step One: Redefine the facts. If a policy works, claim it doesn’t. If it will lower premiums, say it will raise them. If it would reduce the deficit, claim it will bankrupt the country. Obfuscate. Distract. Confuse. Lie. Lie some more. Throw random nonsense at the wall — death panels! — and see if any of it sticks. Don’t be troubled by contradiction or worried about consistency. It’s perfectly fine to simultaneously propose eliminating Medicare while posing as its defender. That’s absurd and confusing, but confusion is the whole point here. Confusion is good. If those hundred people surveyed aren’t completely confused, then you haven’t succeeded in rigging the game.

Step Two: Poll, poll and poll. Hire Frank Luntz. Poll some more. This is all you can afford care about. Family Feud politics isn’t about ideology, principle, values, good government, effectiveness, solutions, reality, facts, science or truth. It’s about perception and the shaping of that perception by any means necessary. Obsessively polling and recalibrating the message and then re-polling is the only way to be sure that you’re shaping perception in a winning way. Keep this up until the polls show that the confusion and disinformation sown in Step One have taken root among the hundred people surveyed.

Step Three: Cite the polling data. Call it that: polling data. The word “data” there makes it sound kind of like you give a damn about facts or reality or truth-telling. You don’t — you mustn’t if you intend to win this game — but you need to sound like you do. Argue that the polling data proves that the right answer is unpopular and therefore wrong. Argue that the facts are contrary to the will of the people. Argue that it would be undemocratic, tyrannical even, to insist on the right answer when the majority clearly disagrees. If you do this properly, you can congratulate yourself for being a champion of the very people you’re screwing over and even get some of them to thank you for robbing them blind.

Here’s an excellent translation between what liberals are saying, and what the Teaparty retards hear.

From CBS:

BAD: CBS affiliate CBS13 reports that Roy Ashburn, a state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk.

WORSE: CBS affiliate CBS13 reports that Roy Ashburn, a state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk AFTER LEAVING A GAY BAR.

WORSER: CBS affiliate CBS13 reports that Roy Ashburn, a state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving a gay bar WITH ANOTHER MAN IN THE CAR.

WORST: CBS affiliate CBS13 reports that Roy Ashburn, a MARRIED state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving a gay bar with another man in the car.

WORSTER: CBS affiliate CBS13 reports that Roy Ashburn, a married, REPUBLICAN state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving a gay bar with another man in the car.

WORSTEST: CBS affiliate CBS13 reports that Roy Ashburn, a married, Republican state senator from Southern California WITH A HISTORY OF OPPOSING GAY RIGHTS was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving a gay bar with another man in the car.

Really, the jokes just write themselves.