Wingnut Scattergories.

(A phrase I lifted from somewhere, but can't remember where.)


From “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell:

“What was slightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase - " complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism " - jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid.

For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking.

And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature.

He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front - it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc.”

And that is precisely where 30 years of absolutely tireless, relentless, shameless Conservative lying and slander has left us; with a segment of the population numbed to facts and reason and sensitized to start drooling and creaming with hate at the mention of certain key-words.

Or, as the Waco Kid put it much more succinctly in "Blazing Saddles"

...morons.

In their world, the rules of Wingnut Scattergories never vary and are depressingly easy.

1. Pick a word that the pig people have been conditioned to fly into a white-hot rage every time they hear.
2. Pick another part of the Constitution you want to raze.
3. Repeatedly and hysterically declare that Democrats want #1 to violently ass-rape #2.

This week's Scattergory?

Democrats want to let evil "trial lawyers" help wreck "FISA" so terrorists can destroy Murrica.

Think I'm kidding?

From CNSNews.com...

Democrats Back Trial Lawyers Over National Security, GOP Says
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
February 18, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - Republicans say House Democratic leaders are putting the interests of trial lawyers ahead of national security by blocking House consideration of a bill that would modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Instead of taking up a bipartisan bill passed by the Senate last week, House Democrats recessed for 12 days on Friday without doing a thing about FISA.

A temporary FISA update measure expired on Saturday, after repeated warnings from President Bush that he would not sign another temporary fix when a permanent solution (the bipartisan Senate bill) was at hand. The House had enough votes to pass the Senate bill, but Democratic leadership refused to bring it to the House floor.

"Our first priority should be protecting our national security and not paying off trial lawyer campaign contributors," House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio wrote on Sunday. "The question now is how much longer are some lawmakers prepared to protect their trial lawyer allies at the expense of our national security?"

Boehner and other Republicans say terrorists are still plotting against the United States, and because House Democrats have blocked a FISA modernization bill, as of Saturday, "our intelligence officials will not have all the tools they need to protect us from an attack."

...

Democrats are balking at retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the government conduct electronic surveillance after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against those companies -- "frivolous and costly lawsuits that would tie up our courts and endanger American lives," Boehner said. Without retroactive immunity to protect them from those lawsuits, the telecommunications companies are reluctant to cooperate with the Bush adminstration's eavesdropping requests.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told Fox News Sunday the telecom companies are understandably nervous: "And the private sector, although [they] willingly helped us in the past, are now saying, 'You can't protect me. Why should I help you?'

First, this whole deal is because tecom companies are whining "Why should I help you?" Really? Well this is an exciting development in law enforcement. Does this mean when the nice man from the NSA shows up at the castle with the warrant and subpoena I can treat it as just another irritating customer service call?

That I can tell him, sorry, but I choose not to "help" you, but you are free to kindly fuck off?

Because that would be seven kinds of awesome.

Second, please note that the Party of Small Government and Personal Liberty has sold it soul so completely that the Official Policy of the GOP is now that the idea of American citizens taking their government to court for secretly and illegally spying on them constitutes merely "frivolous and costly lawsuits" that would somehow "tie up our courts and endanger American lives".

Third, honestly I think our problem is that we're thinking about this fight all wrong and firing waaaay too high.

Boehner and Bush and the SwineVolk that blindly support them are never going to to be lured into a debate about checks and balances and the rule of law in the first place. The remnants on the leadership caste of the Party of God are either outright brownshirts or conscienceless toadies, and the "Fox Rocks!" 27%-ers that will follow them cheerfully into the slaughterhouse are frankly too stupid to comprehend or appreciate what is at stake and what they have already cost us.

In the end, if we want to save what is left of our basic rights and protections from the GOP, we have to move from law and fact-based arguments that sound all preachy and French and elitist to the Pig People...

...and either LOLCat our foundational documents until they are too fucking adorable to be mutilated any further...

"Awwww! Ain't you the cutest little Bill of Rights? Yes you are! Yes you are! We won't let the mean ol' GOP hurt you. No we won't."

Or really go all in, print the thing on "Shroud O' Turin" stationary

and start screaming 24/7/365 that anyone trying to tamper with it wants to make Sweet Baby Jebus cry.