I recently began another historical journey through the American Civil War (as I am wont to do) with The Coming Fury: The Centennial History of the Civil War, Volume 1. Unfortunately, my recent “reading” has been anything but. My literary consumption has, in fact, taken place via the spoken word. That is to say, I have been listening to audio books. To my own misfortune, this makes it very difficult to review books. I would like to be perceived as a fair person, so I try to include the words of the author when I review books. Unfortunately, this medium does not lend itself well to making notes. Writing anything down while driving is considered unsafe. Apart from book reviewing, however, I am often unable to do something more important. When I hear quotes from an antebellum Southern Democrat, I cringe. In many cases, it is like the words were taken from a modern Republican politician. I should say, rather, that the rhetoric sounds similar except for a fact that most Southern Democratic fire-eaters were considered learned men. In today’s Republican Party, ignorance is considered such a badge of honor that politicians purposely exaggerate regional accents, knowingly use poor grammar, and interject obsolete slang phrases into their daily speech.

But I digress…

The point is that the Republican rhetoric of 2012 is recycled from a century and a half ago. It strikes me as interesting that we rarely hear in the media that the obsession the Constitution by people who fail to understand it at all is not new. The only differences between the Confederate Constitution and the U.S. Constitution are the addition of the Christian god, the protection of the institution of slavery, and the focus changing from the rights of the individual to the rights of the states. In other words, the Constitution was rewritten in such a way as to codify explicitly what the pro-slavery politicians claimed was already implied.

Amusement parks have signs that declare, “Must be this tall to ride.” Why is it that we can’t have something similar for using the trappings of science? People who disbelieve the single most fundamental theory of the life sciences, evolution, are free to suck down all the antibiotics money can buy. People who believe in prophecies and other such bullshit are allowed to use computers. People who …

Nevermind.

This is an exercise in futility. In a way, I understand the frothing rants of those mentally afflicted with Randism. The typical Randroid feels victimized by people (read: filthy peasants) making use of things he created (with the exception of herself, women are basically props in Ayn Rand’s world) without paying him exorbitant royalties. The use of science should have its own “royalty” of sorts. Those users should be required to accept science, even that with which they disagree on political grounds. You see, disagreeing about something as absurdly obvious as anthropogenic global warming is a de facto denial of science. As such, it is adequate cause to revoke the “capitalizing on scientific findings” license of any person.

Buffoonish beliefs in fairies, angels, and supply-side economics would leave a rather large fraction of the population reduced to the status of hunter-gatherer (or, perhaps more appropriately, involuntary dieter). Come to think of it, the evangelicals would likely be quite happy about it.

Charles Pierce has a bit to say concerning the upcoming debates:

What do people expect from Romney at this point? He did the fan dance for his lunatic base, and it got him the nomination, but it boxed him in on so many issues that it made running in the general election an almost impossible task even for a good candidate, which he is not. On what issues can he be expected to “knock the president out”? Now, he’s got advice pouring in from the likes of N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer of Civilization’s Rules and Leader (Perhaps) of the Civilizing Forces, whom, it should be pointed out, Romney beat like a drum just at the moment in which Gingrich’s dark star seemed to be ascendant.

Some days, Mr. Pierce is the only reason I have any hope left in the media.

I was trying to install Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012. I could actually install Visual Studio Professional 2012 with my license. But Visual Studio Professional 2012 is not supported in my arcane, ancient, outdated operating system. You see, this dinosaur still lumbers on on the mummified limbs of Windows Vista. An infinitesimally small number of computers are still equipped with this. According to Wikipedia, a completely insignificant 1 in 12 computers uses Vista. Of course, the Microsoft business model depends critically on releasing a buggy new criminally-overhead-intensive operating system every few years to prevent a truly stable OS from ever existing. In order to induce the rubes customers to step into a fresh pile of Microsoft droppings, all new software should be backwards incompatible. I really dislike Microsoft.

If you think any of the following are true, you should be under professional supervision:

1. Joe McCarthy was not a power hungry drunk with sociopathic tendcencies.
2. Communism has been a serious threat to this country in the past couple of decades.
3. Barack Obama’s birth announcement was falsely entered into the Honolulu Advertiser a couple of days after his birth in Kenya in August of 1961, because a half black/half Jew was pretty much a shoe-in to win the 2008 United States election.
4. “Gold Standard” does not equate to crazy.
5. The use of words “nigger,” “wetback,” “kike,” and numerous epithets related to the female anatomy is appropriate whenever you think none of “those people” are around.

I could keep going, but I think we all know where I am headed with this.