Our Nation's Greatness?

From Mike Huckabee's Facebook page this afternoon:

"Today is Mike’s birthday and he is donating his age, 57, in dollars, to Huck PAC’s Conservative Senate Majority Fund. If you can afford to match him, I hope you will consider doing so by going to Huck PAC’s website using the link below. If you can’t donate $57 but can make a donation for a smaller amount, I hope you will. 

Mike is fully focused on electing a conservative Senate Majority to work with our next President, Mitt Romney. We both believe the last 6 years of Democrat control in the Senate, especially the last four with President Obama in the White House, have resulted in the systematic dismantling of our nation’s greatness. The America our children and grandchildren live in will be dramatically different than the one we grew up in, if we do not stop President Obama and the Senate Democrats now. 
So please join Mike and me in donating today to Huck PAC’s Conservative Senate Majority Fund. 

Thank you for your long-standing support of Mike, Huck PAC and the America we both hold dear 

-Janet Huckabee"

First, let me say, I think it's incredibly generous of Reverend Huckabee to dig so deeply in support of the Political Action Committee that carries his name.  It's that type of selfless leadership and self sacrifice this country truly needs in such uncertain times.  It's so refreshing to see an influential, well-to-do, man of God donate to his own political interests over truly decent things like feeding the hungry or healing the sick.

I don't fully mean to castigate Mike Huckabee on his birthday.  He earned his money, and he can do whatever he chooses to do with it.  However, for a Southern Baptist minister, with his own syndicated radio show and weekly Fox News television show to only be politically active is just a little off-putting.  He was the main voice behind the whole "Chik-fil-a Appreciation Day" earlier this month, of which he was very proud of the turn out "in support of Free Speech."  Imagine, though, if he were able to use his lofty status as a public figure to mobilize his audience to actually do something good for the community rather than eating a chicken sandwich as some distorted form of protest.  To think, I actually one time respected him and his views as a man of faith in an increasingly corrupt and disgusting political landscape.  I don't dislike the guy, personally, I just feel he has been seduced by the power his celebrity affords, and, like so many other decent human beings, has become a one-trick political being.

Pointing this out, though, is like saying it's cold on the dark side of the moon.  Huck's pulling a "full McCain" isn't a new development.  What perked up my antenna was the phrase:

 "last 6 years of Democrat control in the Senate, especially the last four with President Obama in the White House, have resulted in the systematic dismantling of our nation’s greatness. "

This phrase is so fraught with idiocy that I would honestly feel bad for what I'm to do to id, if I actually believed they were the words and thoughts of Mike Huckabee's wife, Janet.  I don't buy it for a second that she actually typed this status, because this idea that somehow America has lost her "Greatness" permeates to the very bedrock of the GOP rhetoric in this election cycle.  There are multiple fallacies in this rhetoric, but that's really nothing new when it comes to rhetoric.

In order for an entity's "greatness" to be "systematically dismantled," it had to have been great when the change identified as the culprit (The Democrats taking a majority of the Senate) took place.  To assume that, is to completely ignore the circumstances surrounding the 2006 Congressional Elections.  In 2006 the Democrats made huge gains in both houses of Congress because the voters had "had enough" of the GOP (this should sound familiar, because you heard similar rhetoric on Obama's platform for "Change" in 2008, and again on the GOPs platform in 2010.  Everything old is still old, but the put a fresh coat of paint and new fake outrage on it, making it seem "new.")

In 2006 there was no "Greatness" for the Democrats to dismantle, it was the same order of Turd McNuggets we face 6 years later.  If things were better in 2006, they could only have been marginally better, since the American public chose to elect Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years.  In the past 6 years, there hasn't been a sea change in policy initiatives, either.  There has been minimal policy change combined with minimal economic growth.

Maybe I'm alone in not wanting to recapture the "greatness" of 6, 12, 24 or 30 years ago.  This sort of campaign is the same sort of "recapture your youth that you can't remember" bullshit thinking that originally gave us hair dye, girdles, Hair Club for Men, and Viagra.  It's an attempt to idealize the 80's under Reagan the way Reagan idealized the 50's under Ike.  You can't recapture the past in the present, yet they manage to hoodwink people into believing that voting for their phony over the other phony will somehow give you back that '74 Camaro, full head of hair, dick that could get hard on it's own, and hot, young women wanting to see your hard dick and sit on it.  Those days seem awesome in retrospect because you were more awesome back then.  Now, you're a broken down, angry, old fuck who wishes he wasn't so broken down, angry, and could still fuck.

Politicians aren't magicians, and this crop we have in 2012 are bare even homo sapiens.  The one portion of the dream of America's past greatness I would happily buy from those by gone eras, would be the leadership.  I'd even take Joe McCarthy and Dick Nixon if it meant I'd get true leaders like Ike, JFK, Barry Goldwater, Reagan, and Tip O'Neill.  These guys never agreed, and in some cases, literally hated each other's guts, but they weren't self absorbed and stupid enough to think it was about them.  They were Americans first, and they had a job to do.

Alas, those guys are as long dead as their convictions about a great America for today and for tomorrow.  America was great, once, but it wasn't six years ago.  The dismantling started when WWII heroes like Ike and JFK and Bob Dole started dying and began being replaced by younger, and more spoiled men and women.  It started when the spoiled rotten children of heroes started trying to grow up, while still thinking they knew more than their parents.  They took pride in ending a war they refused to fight, acid and rock turned into cocaine and disco, followed almost immediately by deadly sexually transmitted diseases.  Rather than reinventing the machine the used to rage against, they just repainted it and slapped a peace symbol on it, replaced wit with condescension, cooperation with blame, and a dogged work ethic with smug entitlement.

I also see Romney's camp referring to his campaign as "America's Comeback Team."  This is another slogan or moniker that was obviously dreamed up by someone trying to appeal to 7-year-olds.  Did America suffer a concussion?  A pulled hammy?  What exactly is America "coming back" from?  It sure as hell ain't vacation.  Treating politics like sports ignores the simple premise that these assholes clearly aren't the best minds and leaders this country has to offer.  The best minds are on Wall Street inventing new ways to fuck us out of our money.  The best leaders?  They are an endangered species because we stopped teaching our children that with great talent and potential comes a great responsibility.  Civic duty and civil service used to be ingrained in the consciousness of this nation.  It wasn't an obligation or punishment.  At one point in our history, Americans actually got off on helping each other.

If they're going to insist on treating this like sports, and we're all on the same team, then we need to clean house when this season's over.  I don't mean just firing the coach and his staff, either.  The General Manager, and all the executives need to be sent packing, too.  We should also demand an ownership change, since our current ownership seems only committed to turning a profit on giving us an inferior product on the field.  Let's find an owner committed to WINNING.  In fact, how about we change things up and issue stock in our franchise, to return her to the people she to whom she really belongs, the fans.  If the fans actually own the team, they will hold the ownership accountable for the team's performance, and maybe pay better attention to the manner in which their franchise is run.

I know, I know, I hate to give an entire season away, but the losses we take here, will begin to pay off once we upgrade our talent through the draft.  It's a long season, and you can't win 'em all, no matter how hard you try.  This year's team sucks, anyway.