Dr. Zhivago

'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;
  And all are to be sold, if you consider
    Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features
      Are brought up, others by a warlike leader;
        Some by a place--as tend their years or natures;
          The most by ready cash--but all have prices,
            From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.

                                                                            Lord Byron                                                                      

Okay so the repubs love Family Values even though more than a few like to fuck a lot.

So what?

It is all affected bullshite anyway. Ensign and Vitter and Foley and Craig and Lott (it looks like) and Lindsey (it looks like) and scores of others from the Family Values Club are literally caught with their pants down and their guns loaded; so to speak.

And family values are exactly what?

We must teach abstinence only to our children and every adult--evidently.

We must be married to one partner and procreate and mow our lawns--evidently.

We must eschew fornication outside the marriage bond--before, during and after.

We must eschew abortion and deliver all fetuses related to any kind of sexual contact; voluntary or other.

We must eschew birth control of any kind.

We must eschew any sexual contact with anyone of our own sexual genre.

We must eschew all pornography of any kind or nature.

We must refrain from slamming our own hams so to speak.

And we must shun those who violate these principles and keep the violators out of our families, and out of our armies and out of our churches and out of our government and out of our work areas.

I think that just about does it.

There is a bit of intangibility in all of this.

I think that the real law here is to ask and don't smell. Family values as a concept seems to be wrought with social control mechanisms.

I wish to live my life a certain way and it hurts and so I wish that hurt to be put on everyone else.

There is no 'pay off' in all of this.

I mean the companies that publish these standards wish to get paid good money.

The politicians wish to get paid money for espousing these values and they wish to gather votes from all of this.

There is an economic consequence to these standards so that governments do not fund abortions. So that governments do not fund manufacturers of birth control devices.

But on the whole, family values encompass a belief system. And individuals wish to make that belief system part of our legal system.

Hypocrisy is a natural consequence of all of this. Human beings fail to live up to their own standards. That is the nature of things.

Sometimes, when one is caught violating the ideals he espouses he is subject to a shunning or even exile, like Larry Craig

Other times, the transgressor is welcomed back into the fold with open arms and even applause, like David Vitter

I watched a rerun of an old West Wing episode. The chief of staff tells his personal aide to notify seven members of Congress that their presence is required at the White House.

Once assembled, the chief then tells his captive audience that the White House wishes to proffer a new take on the war on drugs. Instead of two thirds of the federal monies going for the purpose of arrest, prosecution and imprisonment; the new program would apply two thirds of available funds to treatment alternatives.

The members of the audience all laughed and then began grumbling at this ridiculous change in policy.

The chief then calls out each individual Congressman.

Representative Smith, your nephew was recently arrested with a significant amount of narcotics on his person.

The chief turns to a member of his staff and asks:

What are the sentence guidelines for this amount of illegal narcotics? 

8-10 years in a maximum security facility. 

And your nephew received what as his sentence? Oh yes, six months under house arrest and a fine of five thousand dollars.

And every one of you representatives has similar stories and if you do not fall in line with this new legislative initiative, I will see that you will be called out. 

This administration will not countenance hypocrisy. 

See how documented hypocrisy becomes a tool to help 'frame' legislative initiatives? 

And therefore bribery and extortion and blackmail are inevitable consequences of this family values system.

Churches have always and will always have a lot of money and they will gladly pay for certain legislation. For the most part churches do not pay taxes and that, ironically, makes them even more political. Government decides who pays taxes after all so churches end up tithing to keep their tax free statuses.

This oil spill, this humungous felony perpetrated against flora and fauna, seas and land, cites and townships...this felony highlights the best and the worst in mankind.

This catastrophe goes well beyond hypocrisy.

Take Palin for instance. She represents just one facet of the evil forces responsible for this salt water Armageddon.

Drill baby drill became the mantra for the McCain/Palin ticket a couple years ago. The entire Republican Party picked it up.

In lock step all the repubs were screaming to drill baby drill up until this emergency.

Now imagine that you are a member of one of these corporate think tanks. Imagine these fine fellows sitting in some members-only club attempting to spin this affront to humanity to their favor.  Hours and hours of sipping brandy, sucking on Cubans and hashing out the alternative propaganda.

Palin is now espousing a line developed by one of these think tanks. She is saying that the mantra 'drill baby drill' would have somehow prevented the oil spill

Now hang on as Patton Oswald says, by the time I am finished with this twisted logic I promise I will deliver you to the safe haven of the hobbits once again.

Palin is saying that if more companies were allowed to drill on land--land found in Alaska--then we would not have to drill into the ocean floor. And therefore, the oil spill is the fault of the 'greenies'.

In other words: We will have to drill over here so that we will not have to drill way out there.

Like a family values speech coming out of the mouths of Vitter or Ensign, it is really hard to believe that Palin believes one word of this drivel. Not that she is capable of believing in anything except her appearance fees.

And Palin is so inept as to how she communicates her robotic messages.

But she succeeds just as w bush succeeded. Ineptitude sometimes works well in politics.

The logic of the message is inane, of course; as well as patently insane. I mean oil companies want to find oil. Digging fifty thousand holes in Alaska would not keep them from seeking oil under the ocean floor for chrissakes.  Oil companies are not the greatest producers of pure economic profit by accident.  

Can you see Exxon saying that they are so busy digging in Alaska that they have no interest in off shore drilling?

A lesser insane approach is being spewed by Jindal. The governor of Louisiana is screaming bloody murder at BP and at the Administration (though less so than Vitter of the Long Hose)

Jindal's argument is much the same as the argument that Wall Street Bankers are too big to fail.

Jindal is actually saying that too much regulation inspired by this environmental holocaust will mean less jobs in Louisiana.

The Louisiana Department of Economic Development estimates that the active drilling suspension alone will result in a loss of 3,000 to 6,000 Louisiana jobs in the next 2-3 weeks and potentially over 10,000 Louisiana jobs within a few months. If the suspension of active drilling activity continues for an extended period, LED estimates that our state risks losing more than 20,000 existing and potential new Louisiana jobs in the next 12-18   months

In other words, off shore oil companies are too big to fail.

We need more off shore drilling, not less off shore drilling because off shore drilling produces more jobs in Louisiana.

THIS IS NUTS.

How many fishermen have lost their livelihood for the next decade or more?

How many tourist businesses have lost their livelihood for the next decade or more?

How many other livelihoods have been lost?

Jindl is not an example of hypocrisy folks.

Jindl is an example of how to sell your soul for the right amount of cash.