Even halfway across the continent, Texans continue to embarrass me. It was bad enough when the anti intellectual, drug addled, jingoistic, nationalist and revisionist George Bush claimed that Texas was his home [in fact, the Bush family is from Connecticut and has ties to – i’m sorry to say – Maine]. Now Governor Rick Perry has shown how far Texan politicians have fallen. How did we get from Sam Rayburn and Jake Pickle and Lyndon Johnson to this turd? Oh yeah, that ever prevailing belief by those undisturbed by facts that somehow government is a bad thing, so we have to vote for people who think government is a bad thing, so that we can show the world how bad government is.

By the same logic, we should hire arsonists to watch our houses, sociopaths to be teachers and pedophiles to babysit your children.

So Rick Perry stands in front of a few hundred folk on 15 April and bellyaches about the “oppressive” government. In fact, this is what he said:

The 10th Amendment was enacted by folks who remembered what it was like to have a very oppressive government, to be under the thumb of tyrants in an all-powerful government. Unfortunately, the protections it guarantees have melted away over the course of the years… I believe the federal government has become oppressive. I believe it’s become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state.

Let’s look at how sincere he is about this.

How upset has Rick Perry been at receiving federal money for roads since he’s been in office?
How upset has he been about receiving federal money for schools in Texas?
How much outrage does he demonstrate at having FEDERAL military bases in Texas?
And remember how much he complained about receiving federal aid from FEMA to help combat wildfires? Then there was the time he really complained about taking federal money to help with the fallout of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Yeah, boy, he really whined about that… And the federal troops that have assisted in securing the border. Gosh, you’re really being oppressed there, princess.

And the focus of these rally’s on the 15th of April were supposed to be about taxes. In fact, the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against corporate influence and taxation in the form of the East India Company which is ironic because the whole astroturf movement this past Tax Day was manufactured by multi billion dollar corporations that know they can co-opt people into working against their best interest by feeding into their emotions and depriving them of knowledge. For proof, look at the Republican Congress of 1994 and the back to back elections of George Bush, who cares about as much for working folk as Roger Ailes cares about facts or journalism.

But i’m getting sidetracked.

I was going to point out the cruel irony of denouncing the federal government and taxes and all the bellyaching that these luddites are screaming about Obama being, simultaneously, a fascist and a socialist. I’ll let the obvious idiocy just linger in the air for a moment.

Did anyone notice that as they were boo-hoo’ing about taxes, that the only reason they could write their mangled English on their posters is because most of them learned how to write in SOCIALIZED schools, that they arrived at their destinations on SOCIALIZED roads under the protection of SOCIALIZED police and when they stood and listened to Rick Perry babble incoherent white nationalist propaganda, they did so on lands that were paid for by TAXES? Also, Gov. Perry, did you happen to mention that all of the food, drug and military protections that people enjoy are all sustained by TAXES?

Rick Perry, i’m embarrassed to have to tell this to you, but it’s for the better good of everyone- shut up. Standing up there, spewing your white nationalist tripe, whining about “oppressive government” then holding your palm open behind your back while you take funds when it’s convenient to you, demonstrates the absolute insincerity that you operate in and assumes that we are all as stupid as you seem to believe. The sad part is the manufactured rage that your corporate handlers have told you to create reinforces the fact that conservatism, in it’s current form, is so far fallen from the principles of which it was founded, that people have lowered their expectations even further than ever. And it’s in this arrogance combined with a streak of anti intellectualism that has allowed the incurious and the assuming to believe that somehow people like you, that people like Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, George Bush, William Kristol, James Inhoff, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Michele Bachman, etc… either have any sort of regard or concern for the well being of the working class, or morals on which to stand.

In fact, they have neither.

And neither do you, Rick Perry. I don’t expect you to understand your own hypocrisy. In fact, you can’t. I do hope that you’ll understand that Texas needs someone who is more concerned with leadership and moving government forward to its next challenges instead of someone who… well instead of someone that thinks like you because, let’s face it- your inability to lead is surpassed only by your ability to keep Texas from joining the 21st century.