"Freedoms"

It seems not a day goes by that I hear some teabagger lamenting the loss of or potential threat to their "freedoms". So what exactly are we talking about. They didn't seem to mind when Shrub & Congress passed the Patriot Act, which effectively removed our Constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Nope, barely a peep out of 'em. If you have nothing to hide, why should you care? When the TSA gropes 'em and requires proper papers before we can travel, mild grumbles, but hey! It's worth it if we can be "safe". So what freedoms have we lost the they miss so fervently?



First of all, it seems they grew up watching the Andy Griffith Show. They seem to think that America was really like that back in the forties and fifties. That real Americans lived in towns like Mayberry. Oh there were Americans that lived in cities, but most of the cities were like Happy Days era Milwaukee populated with families like the Cunninghams. Never mind that neither of those places or the people in them ever existed in reality. Anyplace else was populated by, you know, Coloreds. Or worse; Godless Liberals.

Point is; they're yearning for something that has never existed.

They also are egged on by their preachers and the fulminations of Christian Television. They are told that Christians are under attack as never before. Never mind that there is more religious broadcasting on radio and TV than ever in history. Never mind that you can't drive down a street without encountering a church or billboard advertising one. Their kids can't pray in school! The Mayor tried to put a plaque with the Ten Commandments in lobby of City Hall and the For All Eternity Damned ACLU made them take it down! The Mooslims are gonna convert the legal system to Sharia Law!.

Man, y'all can pray anytime you want to, anywhere you want to. Nobody's stopping anyone from going to their church or getting a bunch of like minded individuals together in their home for a rousing meeting. All we ask is if your kids want to mumble incantations to their sky daddies while they are at school, don't insist that everyone else do it too. Keep it to yourself! How upset would you be if some teacher began each class with an invocation to Allah? What if they wanted to erect a statue of Buddha in the Town Hall? The very thought that somehow Sharia Law might in the very slightest influence our legal system reduces the average 'Bagger to the vapors! No matter that it would be literally impossible. You still hear it discussed with great enthusiasm on Faux Noise.

So how are we to restore those "Freedoms?" Get rid of Big Government first. Get the Fed out of our lives, no more regulation, no more taxes. Get rid of the public school system as it's just a propaganda machine to brainwash our innocent, Christian children by Godless Liberals. End welfare and Social Security. True Believers know that God will provide. If you are starving or sick, well, you need to ask God for help, not the Government.

When I point out that Somalia is exactly the state they describe, they look at me as if I just admitted peeing in the pool. Then impatiently explain that Somalia is not a "Christian Nation".

Ah, well. When the impuse moves me to argue the point with a 'Bagger, I just need to remember the old maxim about trying to teach a pig to dance:

It just wastes your time and pisses off the Teabagger, er, I mean pig.