Just Not Quite Yet in Alabamaland…

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

You know conservative talk radio must by dying when attack machine shock jocks toss insults at us smart people in their desperate attempt to get anyone to pay attention to them.

Most of the country is yawning and putting their kid pictures on Facebook and have confidence that the administration of President Barack Obama is getting the country back on track after eight years of devastatingly crass, commercial capitalism about ran the country into the ground under George W. Bush.

The talking heads must put assholes like Dick Cheney on TV to show they are “fair and balanced,” but the country is not buying it. Conservatism as a political philosophy is as dead as the Confederacy and the National Republican Party is left with nothing but the remnants of the Old South to support it.

The polls clearly back this up, but don’t tell that to the idiots left crying in the wilderness on talk radio in places like Alabamaland, where the “Democrats are socialists” mantra just keeps on going, and going, and going, like the Energizer Bunny headed for the edge of a cliff. No one with half a brain buys that stupid shit.

But as we take the time to view images of the coffins of veterans killed in Iraq on this Memorial Day, images the Bush administration didn’t want you to see, it seems far more interesting to talk about some issues where the world is not so black and white as the right wingers think, like the issue of guns in our national parks.

I know this will come as a complete shock to my conservative enemies, but I’m kind of glad the gun amendment made it into the credit card bill passed by Congress before the Memorial Day recess.

For starters, Obama has said he will sign it, so that should put an end to the mantra of conservatives on talk radio that Obama is out to destroy the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by taking way the National Rifle Association’s guns. It won’t end the talk, I know, because the idiots on talk radio will say just about anything to keep that rabid, Republican base listening, even if they are dwindling in numbers and dying off at a rapid pace.

Why am I all for allowing guns in national parks? Well, because I always carry a loaded shotgun around with me when I go van camping, even in national parks.

It’s not that I will ever need to use it, but I figure there’s always the chance that some crazy, right-wing, redneck might take exception to my endorsement of our first black president and decide I deserve the first bullet in the new, all white American Revolution. Call me paranoid, but that’s what they tell me in the death threats I get via e-mail.

Besides, what you may not find out from listening to talk radio is that Bush had already signed a policy allowing loaded guns in our national parks. If the Democrats in Congress really had their way and were not worried about being targeted by the NRA in their re-election campaigns in 2010, the policy would have been repealed. But when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) couldn’t help himself from attaching a totally unrelated rider to that credit card regulation bill that would allow individuals to carry rifles, shotguns and semi-automatic weapons in national parks, the Democrats caved and went home for the holiday.

Laws are made for honest people. Criminals would have violated this law with impunity anyway.

Check this post from Buzzflash:

I’ll carry my pistol in National Parks no matter what happens with this. The 2nd Amendment IS my concealed weapons permit. It’s nice to see some Dems getting on the pro-gun/constitution wagon. Of course 2010 is an election year and by looking @ gun & ammo sales most politicians who are anti-2nd A might get their ass handed to them.

Uh, huh. Right. My 16-gauge is loaded, nutjob, and I know how to use it.

Then, there’s always the issue of other more natural threats to personal safety when camping in the wilderness, more natural than rednecks, that is.

On a recent camping trip to Tennessee, the bears were still mostly in hibernation and the wolves normally stay far away from people. But you know, just in case…

On a recent camping trip to the Gulf Coast, they say panthers have been sighted in Gulf State Park. Perhaps it’s someone’s vivid imagination.

My question: Would a National Geographic photographer ever go looking for photos of dangerous animals without being armed? I’m not sure about that so I think I will ask. When I find out, I will post the answer in the comments.

But before I end this and get on with Sunday breakfast, I feel compelled to take one more shot at a different brand of conservative that seems to be on the rise.

Don’t think for a second that talk radio is the only place left in the U.S. where media managers are out of touch with Americans. The Tuscalooosa News just hired a conservative columnist to try and save that newspaper, one of the two remaining New York Times properties in the state.

I doubt it will work, since Robert DeWitt is about the most boring guy I have ever seen in print. Best I can tell from a Google search, his prior experience mostly consisted of writing about fishing. Now there’s an exciting sport.

If he wants to fire up the base, he might want to check out the fastest growing sport in the world, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. They say it’s now bigger than Nascar. I know, that’s hard to believe.

But after walking into a redneck bar in suburbia to have some barbecue last night and watching a crowd of people go crazy over guys rolling around on the ground on top of each other beating each other’s brains out — without padding mind you — I know that anything is truly possible in America. Rome didn’t have much on us as an empire, including the taste for blood.

Fortunately, the kind of people who go for that sort of violence as sport apparently don’t know how to find their way to the polls to vote. They would support Sarah Palin for president in a heartbeat, perhaps, but we say bring her on. There are enough people in America now who understand what is at stake and they proved in 2008 that they will turn out to vote.

The so-called conservative revolution is over. Get over it. I know I am.

© 2009 – 2015, Glynn Wilson. All rights reserved.