Yet another member of the reborn again Groundhog Day club, this one-time talk radio host “Rush Limbaugh on decaf,” chatted his way to the Indiana governorship. This is the guy who has turned stupidity into a religion, who blew his 2016 presidential aspirations over his cock-up in his handling of Indiana’s Orwellian-named religious liberty law, and the guy who evidently Trump regretted picking as his VP even before officially picking him as his VP. Trump, whose quality control skills rank alongside who ever allowed thalidomide to be sold as an over-the-counter medication,—was allegedly “so unsure” about his offer to Pence that at the deadline “around midnight” he was still asking aides if he could get out of it.” What did a normally oblivious Trump see that is also so blindingly obvious to anyone not living in a cave? What part of Pence’s being, what organ, got stunted—before he had even begun?
Meet Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana…
As Andy Horowitz satirically wrote in The New Yorker
“In a history-making decision, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana signed into law a bill that officially recognizes stupidity as a religion.” Pence said that he hoped the law would protect millions of state residents “who, like me, have been practicing this religion passionately for years.” The bill would grant politicians like Pence the right to observe their faith freely, even if their practice of stupidity costs the state billions of dollars.
What was the inspiration for this outburst? Well, as governor, Pence passed a religious liberty law that apparently allows businesses in Indiana to have the liberty to discriminate against gays. He denies (as they always do) that he or the law is bigoted, which does not quite fit this picture:
Pence busted.
Pence refused to identify the bigots in the photo. I guess, being far from the sharpest tool in the shed, he presumed that investigative journalists would not investigate. Pence then defended the bill by saying it is just like other states and similar to federal law—statements that are just not true. As Slate reported:
Here’s the easily substantiated truth behind the bill. Its supporters explicitly intended it to legalize discrimination against gay people—especially gay couples, who, lately, have faced discrimination from florists, bakers, and photographers who refuse to serve them. To ensure the law achieved this goal, its drafter inserted two monumentally important provisions, neither of which is found in the federal religious freedom law signed by President Bill Clinton. First, the bill explicitly permits for-profit businesses to exercise their religious beliefs, rather than limiting its effects to regular human beings. Second, the bill protects businesses against private lawsuits in addition to state suits.
This law was a license to discriminate. It gave secular businesses less flexibility than religious businesses, thus motivating businesses to adopt a religion. This surely was the whole point of the founding fathers’ determination in ensure the separation of church and state—to prevent such coercion.
Making Indiana a headquarters for stupid is bad for business
A governor’s primary role is to look out for the best interests of one’s state. Coddling up to an element—wallowing in Pence’s narcissistic oily perversion of Christianity—should never be done at the expense the whole. Being seen to be associated with, and or enabling bigotry, does not sit well with most employers; business owners are in the business of employing a cross-section of humans, selling to cross-sections of humans, and are usually owned by a cross-section of humans. Thus, most businesses need to be at least somewhat aware of the importance of humanity, and all of its colorful, diverse, cross-dressing glories—especially in this day and age, when how a business behaves is instantly evaluated by various forms of social media.
Tim Cook of Apple is gay. I bet Cook, and numerous other business leaders would have similar sentiments to Yelp’s CEO Jeremy Stoppelman:
It is unconscionable to imagine that Yelp would create, maintain, or expand a significant business presence in any state that encouraged discrimination by businesses against our employees, or consumers at large,
The following is a short list illustrating the type of actions taken that harm Indiana:
Salesforce: The largest tech employer in Indiana canceled all corporate events in the state.
Angie’s List: The local business review website Angie’s List put an expansion of its Indianapolis headquarters on hold while it waits to see how the law hashes out. It actively started looking for different locations.
Wilco: The rock band Wilco canceled upcoming concerts in Indiana.
Nick Offerman: The comedian and Parks and Recreation actor Nick Offerman canceled a scheduled performance in Indiana.
AFSCME Women’s Conference: The public services employees union decided to move its annual women’s conference out of Indiana for good.
A Judge’s Message to the Pence the Xenophobe:
As reported in The New York Times:
A federal district judge in Indianapolis punctured this fiction (that terrorists could infiltrate the United States as refugees despite a resettlement process that is one of the strictest in the world) blocking the attempt by Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana to cut off federal resettlement funds for Syrian refugees who had passed a vetting process that took up to two years. Mr. Pence’s order was unconstitutional and “clearly discriminates” against Syrians compared with other refugees, Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled in a suit brought by a nonprofit resettlement agency. The judge found that Mr. Pence’s move to withhold resettlement funds was “in no way” justified by his claim that his main concern was the safety of Indiana residents.
Hey stupid! Campaign donations are not a personal piggy bank
The Washington Post reported:
Mike Pence was a young lawyer on the rise, challenging a longtime Democratic congressman in a Republican-leaning Indiana district. And then, scandal. Campaign finance records from the 1990 effort showed that Pence, then 31, had been using political donations to pay the mortgage on his house, his personal credit card bill, groceries, golf tournament fees and car payments for his wife.” But I guess that such stupidity had never surfaced before —”Experts say that subsequent rules passed by the Federal Election Commission barring the use of campaign funds for personal needs were the direct result of ethics concerns raised by Pence’s actions.
Needle Exchange Programs
Needle exchange programs (NEP’s) are massively effective. It is estimated that NEPs across the country have reduced HIV transmission rates by two-fifths to one-third overall. Such a program would cost Indiana about $160,000 a year, but treating a single AIDS patient costs $120,000. Additionally, addicts who use NEP programs are five times more likely to go to rehab than those who don’t. A lot of the time, these programs can be used to help get people into treatment.
One does not need to be a math major to do a cost benefit analysis. But being a major idiot ensures that this was too complex for Pence. However, he did feel a tad guilty
about the epidemic he had unleashed. So what did he do? He re-introduced the program for 30 days. Brilliant, just enough time for his short-horizon intellect and midget conscience to run its naturally myopic course. So if it is not about money,then mathematically it must surely be about hate?
Pence wanted his own taxpayer funded news service.
On becoming the immaculate governor, he conceived an idea that had the country rolling on the floor in laughter. Like any mini-me dictator (a perfect fit for Herr Twittler) his still-born plan was to deliver a taxpayer-funded state-run news service, divining content for Indiana papers about the Saint Pence administration and it partnership with Jesus Christ—along with other miscellaneous stories.
Abstinence education
This simply does not work, but Pence is simply too simple to worry about silly life-saving, abortion reducing facts: Pence announced he was awarding a $3.5 million contract to Pennsylvania-based Real Alternatives, an abstinence-only group, which had already received $1 million for a pilot project in Indiana. Such groups regularly lie to their often -duped clientele, they have to lie (since their premise is irrational), to women seeking medical services. Now that is sick.
Pence is at pains to state that he is not a bigot
Yet this is what his website stated when he ran for Congress:
The “Pence Agenda” supported “an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus,” and went further to say resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” Under the headline “The Pence Agenda: A Guide To Renewing the America Dream,” he said, “Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexuals as a ‘discreet and insular minority’ entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.”
By Stupidparty land standards Pence has managed to distance himself from overt racism. The fact that he stood tall regarding Obama’s birth certificate indicates a lack of malignancy on the issue of race. But ignorance about race, among leaders, is still hard to get over. He frets over:
“Too much of this talk of institutional bias or racism in law enforcement.”
But simply by enabling Trump, staying silent as the racist rabble of Onions are stirred and fried, makes him an accomplice in every after effect. Permanently standing down for Jesus, while the cock crows every minute of every day.
Lie, like Jesus taught him
I just don’t get it. Religion is everything to this guy—he was an altar boy six nights a week for years, the “preacher’s pet”—the whole Pence brood heavily into seeking Jesus’s love, he went to Catholic parochial school, but still he could not get close enough to Jesus. He got reborn again, married someone of a similar ilk, became an evangelical Catholic and prayed with anyone who will hold his hand (only a guy’s hand, mind you, when unescorted) to someone—but to whom? Who would say “go forth my son and walk in my shoes and lie like a fish fibbing, fabulistic fabricator of falsehoods—because that is how we roll”?
Or was it in a different universe? Far far away from Stupidparty land that a god was heard to say “these are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace,” Zechariah 8:16, or “a false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape,” Proverbs 19:5. And then there was the actual Jesus who said to unto Pence, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” John 14:6
Stupidparty land universe looks so different from the Smartparty land universe. According to Pence, in Stupidparty land universe, along the southern border of the U.S.,— the government apprehends “seven individuals a day who are either known or suspected terrorists.” Did you know that “less than 10 cents on the dollar from the Clinton Foundation goes to charitable causes”? Worse still, evidently Hillary Clinton who loves to see Americans die overseas “took 13 hours to send help to Americans under fire” during the terrorist attack in Benghazi.” Stupidparty land universe, a land where trickle-down is not a hoax and a land were “anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues.” It’s a land where, if implemented, Obamacare would be “a government-controlled health care plan that will deprive roughly 120 million Americans of their current health care coverage.”
In 2004, Pence announced to the house:
“Despite the national media’s best efforts to minimize the news, I am here to report, as the United States military confirmed in Iraq on Monday, weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. … ‘Where are the WMDs?’ we’ve been asked again and again. Mr. Speaker, they’re there—they’re where they’ve always been—hidden in Iraq, within the reach of terrorists, a threat to the Iraqi people, U.S. soldiers and the world.”
As reported everywhere, Pence’s performance during the 2016 vice presidential debate, was simply not of this world. Trump’s actions as president make Pence’s lies during the debate even more striking, including these:
When confronted (at the 20-minute mark) about Trump’s pledge to “absolutely produce his tax returns” if he ran for president, Pence said, “He hasn’t broken his promise.”
When asked (at the 44-minute mark) about Trump’s stated admiration for Vladimir Putin, Pence laughed it off: “Oh, please, come on.”
When reminded (at the 49-minute mark) that Trump had proposed banning Muslims from entering the country, Pence interrupted: “Absolutely false.”
When confronted with the fact (at the 65-minute mark) that he and Trump had praised Putin as a great leader, Pence became testy and laughed it off, saying, “No, we haven’t.”
Feigning shock at Tim Kaine’s suggestion (at the 36-minute mark) that Trump was waging an insult-driven campaign, Pence looked into the camera and said incredulously, “He says ours is an insult-driven campaign? Did you all just hear that? Ours is an insult-driven campaign?”
Because that is the way Jesus would have wanted it, what he whispers into Pence’s tiny little mind, before “Mother” tucks him in at night—yes, she does, just wait.
Pence, by believing rather than researching, is stupidly determined to increase abortions
Pence has decimated access to legal abortion. In 2016, Gov. Pence signed a measure preventing women from obtaining an abortion because of the race, gender, or disability of the fetus. Now Indiana is only the second state to do this. He slashed funding for Planned Parenthood—an organization that uses zero taxpayer money for abortions, but does hugely important and quantifiable work in providing for women’s health care needs. Going after Planned Parenthood, restricting access to abortions, means that numerous women will die, or be consigned to poverty. It is an act of misogynist manslaughter; this charge is substantiated here. Replacing Planned Parenthood centers with religious-based scam health centers is also deadly; this charge is substantiated here.
How pro-life = pro-death pro-lifers are actually pro death, on an epic scale
Fetuses have rights, too
On March 24, 2016, Pence signed into law (a law that later got tossed out by the courts) that would have basically forced women to seek funerary services for a fetus—whether she’d had an abortion or a miscarriage, and no matter how far along the pregnancy was.
The law demanded that all fetal tissue be cremated or buried, although I am not sure what type of headstone would be required. It also banned abortion if the fetus had a “disability,” which would have denied women the right to end a pregnancy even in case of serious fetal anomalies.
Thus, if a woman had a miscarriage at eight weeks of pregnancy at home, the mother would have to keep the blood and tissue and transport it to a hospital or clinic. After that the fetal tissue would have to be buried or cremated by a funeral home. This would lead to drastically increased costs of an abortion, since providers would have had to spend time and money on arranging the funerary services.
Pence believes incarceration rates are just not high enough.
Indiana’s incarceration rate is 751 per 100,000. Since this is higher than the highest nation in the world* (imagine want a dump that country must be), one would think that any good ol’ fashioned freedom lover might ask themselves, how can that be? But that requires intellectual curiosity. Pence has none of that. Surely the answer might be to think about drug policies—but not Pence. He don’t care; Jesus loves more orphans.
*“It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago despite the fact that crime is at historic lows.”
As Media Matters reports:
Pence signed legislation Enacting Harsh Sentencing for drug offenses opposed by Indiana legal groups. Pence signed into law an Indiana House bill imposing 10-year mandatory minimum prison terms for people convicted of second offenses for crimes involving methamphetamine or heroin. The legislation was opposed by the Indiana State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section, the Indiana Judicial Conference, and the Indiana Public Defender Council, which all argued that legislation to combat drug use should focus on treatment rather than harsher punishment. [The Times of Northwest Indiana, 3/21/16; TheIndianaLawyer.com, 3/21/16]
Pence has shown a commitment to expanding the private-prison industrial complex, backed by people like the Koch brothers, and promoted by “freedom-loving” Onions everywhere. The far right (half the country evidently) love high incarceration rates as this is a tool for voter suppression and intimidating minorities. The private prison industry is booming, supplying doctors and nurses, creating local prison guards, administration and construction jobs. But best of all, it enlarges a pool of virtual slave labor for large corporations. One reason why so many large American companies loved Hitler between circa 1924-1945 was a lack of regulations, lack of democracy, no independent judicial oversight, and, most importantly, by the end of the Second World War 25 percent of the German labor force was slave labor. I discuss this issue in depth here.
While America seems to be undergoing an awakening regarding the benefits of legalizing marijuana, with the notion of it being a gateway drug debunked—do not expect old fossils to catch on so quick.
Cannabis laws in Pence’s home state of Indiana remain stringent: According to NORML, Indiana still considers any amount of cannabis possession to be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and up to 180 days in jail
Pence must have been either high or oblivious to yet more evidence of his dire mental capabilities being smoked out, when he spoke out against relaxing cannabis penalties.
“I think we need to focus on reducing crime, not reducing penalties.”
In terms of Stupidparty land pearls of wisdom, that is right up there with three strikes and you’re out, stand your ground, good guys with guns, drill baby drill, voter fraud, live free or die, trickle-down, etc. But Pence just keeps upping the ante—evidently weed is a huge problem, but smoking is not a problem in Stupidparty land because
Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill. In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer. This is not to say that smoking is good for you.
Privatizing Social Security and Pence’s really special plan
It’s time to stop the raid on the Social Security trust fund and start allowing Americans to invest their Social Security taxes in personal savings accounts.
To fully understand the folly of the above, one needs some vital context about standard levels of financial planning competence in the U.S. The Wharton School of Business has designed a simple financial literacy test. It asks only three questions.
Here are the questions—see if you know the answers.
- Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 percent per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow? (a) More than $102. (b) Exactly $102. (c) Less than $102.
- Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1 percent per year and inflation was 2 percent per year. After one year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account? (a) More than today. (b) Exactly the same. (c) Less than today.
- Please tell me whether this statement is true or false: Buying a single company’s stock usually provides a safer return than a stock in a mutual fund.
Only 33 percent of Americans over 50 got all three answers correct. Higher-income people did better; thus, we can say that the number of lower-income people who are financially illiterate is significantly in excess of 67 percent. These are the very people who might starve, get sick, and/or die as they are thrown into poverty, but they do not, because of Social Security. I believe that we should submit Pence to this financial literacy test.
Privatizing Social Security: It is not simply that Pence supports privatizing social security—I explain why this is a deadly stupid idea here. But it is his explanation as to why people would be financially safer with his reform that is asinine—so asinine that it actually makes standard conservative orthodoxy on the subject seem quite brilliant by comparison. Evidently Pence believes that since it would be so easy for the average investor to outperform the returns secured under the present system, that a certain rate of return could be guaranteed by the government. Now let that sink in—people are guaranteed, say, a minimum return of a 3 percent return. The moral hazard becomes potentially catastrophic as everyone becomes emboldened to seek far higher returns. Bubble bubble toil and trouble.
Evidently this danger was just too complex for Pence, as observed by journalist Matthew Yglesias:
My expectation was that Pence would have some kind of answer to this: a technical solution or a plan for a regulatory fix or a promise to think about it harder or something. But he had nothing. He seemed to just not understand at all what the problem was. The idea that a government guarantee could change behavior appeared to be totally unfamiliar to him, even though in most cases it’s a bedrock of conservative economic policy thinking.
Women are just too damn attractive to be allowed in the military
When a woman walks into a room, what is Pence really thinking? What keeps his animal spirits in check? Perhaps author of Naked and Sexual Fiona Thrust can illustrate what an unleashed Pence, having finally been trapped alone with a woman, might be like in the bedroom.
“I could feel his whole body trying to claim me, want me, own me in lust, and it made me feel so valuable and wanted. As I was bent over the table, I felt like I was the world to him, and he could think of nothing else, could feel nothing else: he was consumed with my body, dedicated to exploring my female sexual power and energy.”
But Pence is kept at bay by a higher authority. His desires (the above example being politely close to vanilla) must remain repressed; thus he fears for others who wander the world without the benefit of his sick-genocidal-god-fearing fortitude. Hence no mingling of the sexes in the military.
“[M]any young men find many young women to be attractive sexually. Many young women find many young men to be attractive sexually. Put them together, in close quarters, for long periods of time, and things will get interesting … Moral of story: women in military, bad idea.”
Here’s a thought. Let’s put Pence, a man who calls his wife “Mother”, in close quarters with thousands of fit men, for long periods of time and wait until things get interesting. Is this a stretch? May-be, but think about the numerous other homophobes such as Congressmen Mark Foley, and Ed Schrock or Senator Larry Craig, or Pastors Ted Haggard and Eddie Long—and many other Stupidparty fake family value icons. They were all caught holding the short end of someone else’s stick and all crusaded against gays. Why exclusively attack Stupidparty? “People have the right to privacy,” Barney Frank, the retired gay congressman from Massachusetts said in Outrage, a 2009 documentary, “But they don’t have the right to hypocrisy.”
Women are just so scary, but who should be really scared?
“Mike Pence never dines alone [with] a woman not his wife, nor does he attend events [with] alcohol, without her by his side.” Perhaps if they wore a burka? Women must be escorted, thus creating discrimination at the highest levels of government. As reported by The Atlantic
Male staffers said they’d also seen some female aides barred from solo meetings with the boss, and that they benefited in some instances from the exclusion of their female colleagues in high-level meetings, at receptions with major Washington powerbrokers, and just in earning a little more face time with their bosses.
This poses an interesting hypothetical mind game. Imagine a commonly twinned trait of being both homophobic and a misogynist (or “feminaphobia”) indicating being stuck in the closet—wouldn’t this mean that mean that Pence, or someone like him, can never dine, shower, play, or chat with anyone unchaperoned by anyone other than “Mother”? A sort of cross-dressing Saudi Arabian culture on drugs. Oh, the complications of leading an irrational and bigoted life.
Perhaps in Pence’s case, a man who has chosen to be subservient to a tyrannical genocidal God, a man whose very haircut “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads” biblically screams “hell is your destiny,” a man who without such disciplines would logically unravel into a rampaging Chippendale stripper, sexually assaulting anything with two to four legs—perhaps such a repressed man needs to be so isolated.
Raping women, in his mind at least, because they deserve it
The abortion pill can eliminate pregnancy one week after pregnancy, and the U.S. Constitution ensures that this remains a legal option. But Pence has a plan for that. In Indiana, he promoted a sexist, insulting, and gratuitously violent measure to stigmatize and shame any woman who does not share his fake Christian morality by promoting a bill requiring women to undergo two transvaginal probes—before and after taking the abortion pill. There’s no medically necessary reason to require an ultrasound after an abortion procedure, since women can simply take a blood test to see whether their hormone levels have returned to normal to verify that they are no longer pregnant. And by the way, the bible has no problem with abortion, and that is putting it mildly. The Quran is quite pragmatic on the issue, and the only democratic country in the Holy Land, is itself pretty much aligned with Europe. But all religions tend to be undone, in numerous ways, by the nut job 5 percent on the far right (notice how everything is always done in by the far right). But that 5 percent rules in Stupidparty land, as it has morphed into around 67 percent of Stupidparty land residents.
This fake Christian loves poverty, sickness, and homelessness
Between 2006 and 2009, Pence voted against raising the minimum wage, against expanding health coverage for low-income kids, and against providing additional funding for Section 8 vouchers, which help low-income families pay rent. In 2014, Pence evidently believing, without any supporting research, that starving people will help them find work, denied about 65,000 Indianans access to the federal food stamp program.
AIDS and gay conversion therapy. “Just rope an’ throw an’ brand ’em,
soon we’ll be living high and wide”—Rawhide
During his first successful run for Congress in 2000, now-Indiana Gov. Pence wrote on his website in a section on LGBT issues that money from a program to help those with HIV/AIDS should go to organizations “which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”
But such therapy might be one of Pence’s kinder, more loving options.(In his head, he is certainly being kind and loving—just like his Quran says, “whoever saves one [soul] – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.”) The U.S. government tries to encourage foreign governments to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality. This is part of an international effort motivated by the fact that many countries like to round up gay people in order to harass, jail, or even to execute them. Pence opposed the U.S. supporting such efforts, calling the bill “a set of values that are at odds with the majority of the American people.” Apparently he thinks the majority of Americans want gays rounded up, humiliated, thrown in jail, and possibly killed. This—combined with his fear of gays, female flesh mixed with alcohol, and his love of guns and war—this is all indicative that Mohammad, not Jesus, is his man.
Good guys with guns will make us all safer
I truly believe that firearms in the hands of law abiding citizen’s makes our families and our communities more safe, not less safe.
Yet another example of a thought only sustainable in a different universe. Pence truly believes in more guns at schools, and he truly believes in the NRA. In 2014, much to the horror of Indiana school organizations, Pence, the beneficiary of NRA largess and “A” ratings, signed a bill allowing weapons of mass shootings, to be stowed in vehicles on school property. In 2015, after the shooting in Chattanooga, Pence recruited the noble people at the NRA to train the Indiana National Guard on concealed carry. Some National Guard officials from other parts of the country wondered why civilians dreaming of being “Dirty Harry” would be involved in a military issue. Talking about making someone’s day—in May 2015, Pence signed into law Senate Bill 98, which limited lawsuits against gun and ammunition manufacturers and sellers, and in 2016 as a speaker at the NRA convention he bragged that Indiana did not pass any laws to address gun violence after 20 children and 6 adults were killed at the Sandy Hook School. Rather, he provided millions of dollars to arm teachers. In fact, after each shooting Pence arms more people.
Here’s the thing, America already has the most infantile gun culture in the world, all the numbers add up to fewer guns = fewer problems. Arming teachers is a new level of stupid, getting more guns in schools is just sick. Have you considered just some of the potential problems? Accidental shootings, a bad teacher with a gun (because they are just so easy to spot—but any teacher that wants to have a gun in a classroom is either a moron or a bad person; either way they should not be a teacher), that teacher who has kids who now have access to more guns (bad person = bad parent), the teachers kids have friends too. All of these kids have more interest in, tolerance, and awareness of, and access to more guns. What kid cannot run rings around their parents? A good teacher off their meds, or on too many meds, an alcoholic, or a soon-to-be unmasked pedophile—suddenly becoming a bad teacher. Or is it the security guard with similar issues, a careless teacher leaves the gun unattended, a weak teacher gets disarmed by a manic kid, or a security guard entering a room. Is the teacher the shooter? Is the security guard the shooter? The heavily armed police arrive at the scene. They see two people in the room with a gun, may-be three or more—which one is the shooter? Which one is the bad guy? The black kid—that must be it, bang! Just shoot at any one with a gun.
And since when does the shooter give a damn anyway? More guns in the school does not create a hurdle, rather an opportunity or a motivation—they mostly kill themselves regardless, either that or they knew their capture was inevitable. The more guns the merrier, it will be just like that final scene out of Butch Cassidy—now how cool would that be? Stupidparty land—how it is meant to be.
In any normal country, if you dislike your teacher you might be disgruntled in class or write something nasty about the teacher on social media, play a prank. But in America, it so much easier. Why be creative? Just shoot the person, guns are easy come, easy go, shootings are a dime a dozen. So why not? Any other solution shows weakness or a lack of commitment. Hate your teacher? Well, bait that person into pulling out their gun. Even better if they shoot you—you just won that debate. Perhaps there is a nasty fight in class—simple fix, whip out that gun. But who’s the bad guy now?
Now what about the scenario that Onions dream about? It might actually happen, only because of the massive number of shootings—a real live bad guy shooter. He’s wearing KKK fashion statements to make life black and white. A good-guy teacher armed with a cross, a Make America Great Again baseball cap and a gun. What are the odds that he will not freeze, miss, sing out the national anthem first, hit a bystander, get shot by another teacher with a gun, or that disoriented security guard who has no clue who to shoot? Perhaps the KKK guy is the good guy wearing a Halloween outfit, the teacher is a Trump voter—suddenly the tables are turned.
Kids dead, so many, because of so many idiot parents—virtually any civilian parent who actually believes in more guns at school, at home, at the mall, or at a poker game. Yes, because of those idiots 5,800 children under the age of 18 get seriously injured by gunshots every year. How do I put this in perspective? How do I show such massively stupid people compared to the rest of mankind? Try this one—America has 5 percent of the world’s population, so if Americans were to claim to be worthy of peer-group status, then they should see 5 percent of the gun deaths. But you already know that that is not the case.
“Ninety percent of women, 91% of children aged 0 to 14 years, 92% of youth aged 15 to 24 years, and 82% of all people killed by firearms were from the United States.”
Bad, right? But I am being nice, which seems rather pointless when dealing with the deadly stupid. So just imagine if I compared America with developed nations (a rapidly receding notion). You are 25 times more likely to be shot to death in America than any other developed nation. But I am still being far too nice, because not all of America is truly Stupidparty land. Take Mississippi, the least-smart state in the country (yet Alaska, Alabama and Louisiana did have more gun deaths per 100,000), has four times more gun deaths per 100,000 than, say, Massachusetts. Thus, it would be more than reasonable to state that Stupidparty land is 5,000 percent more stupid (regarding gun culture at least) than Europe. How is that even possible? Well, much of this book has been about trying to get the bottom of this dilemma.
So back to Pence’s deadly stupid gun notions. Here is a better idea—teach kids that guns in most cases are a ridiculous idea, guns are for cowards, and guns threaten everyone. And as illustrated in my first book, Math vs Myth, fire arm deaths are a Stupidparty land problem—the redder the state, the worse the numbers. Come on. America, get a grip? First stop—go after then NRA, only then can one engage in intelligent conversation.
As for you, Pence, what should you do? I know—do the impossible; ask Jesus.
MIKE PENCE HEALTH WARNING: Christian Fail + Ethics Fail + Self-Awareness FAIL + Evolution fail + Global warming fail +ABORTION FAIL +Abstinence Education Fail +Women’s healthcare Fail +AIDS EPIDEMIC FAIL + Needle Exchange Program Fail + Bigotry fail + Economics fail +Thought process fail + Competency Fail = Nightmare that only a trump can hide.
Pence has declared that he is wedded only to Jesus Christ. Yet there is zero evidence that Jesus was a homophobic misogynist. In fact, all the evidence points to the reverse. The same can be said about guns, poverty, and healthcare. Pence enables Trump on the basis of “who am I to judge others,” while happily judging everyone else’s lifestyles by putting himself in positions of authority and judging such lifestyles as worthy of criminal prosecution. For someone who has given themselves to Jesus, why has he not given any meaningful thought to what Jesus actually preached and what the Pope is now trying to explain? Pence desperately needs to do less believing, and more critical thinking.
I can handle prejudice and ignorance up to a point. Not believing in sexual equality, being fearful of sexual preferences outside of the box and eschewing contraception, sex education and abortion—that is all fine up to the point of your bedroom door. But once you get immersed in the outside world and start interacting with humanity, then decide to seek dominion over humanity—then as an avowed Christian, we must apply a high benchmark indeed to that individual.
Being an Old Testament troglodyte does not make you a Christian. You do not simply get to call yourself a Christian, you have to earn that right—especially when in public office. We must stop giving all these charlatans a free pass. Can you even be a Christian and a Trumpeteer? Some politicians have earned that right. Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, and Mahatma Gandhi (by special invite) come to mind.
The politicians in Stupidparty land, often should be crucified, using their actions as the cross, and their words as the nails. I suspect that Pence is more sincere and less malignant than Cruz—it his lack of intellect, his stupidity being literally deadly, that brings him down to Cruz’s level. If Pence had become a priest of a Catholic Church, in a small parish in a European country, perhaps he could have served the Lord and led a life benefiting a community, with easily overlooked downsides.
But this not the case. Pence is seeking to become an emperor of a country that he is helping lead into a hellish dystopia. The day of the Ayatollah has arrived. This must mean that when Pence surveys the life of Jesus, he must be on a hallucinogenic drug of power, either that or he has absorbed too much Kool-Aid from his long term exposure to Indiana’s lead lined water pipes—now envisions Jesus and his Dirty Dozen riddle their Roman captors, making Judea safer, freer, and greater, expel non-believers, imprison Mary Magdalene, provide aversion therapy to his likely in the closet bestie disciple and later to be St. Paul. Now encourageing the local population to take up arms in the name of King David, sail with his close-nit male merry band of brothers to Rome, pounce on the Emperor Tiberius, then bayonet Caligula, grabbing the reigns of his stallion and counsel Incitatus, gallop into Gaul to round up and crucify any non-believers, and anyone who fell afoul of the laws of the Old Testament. Leaving just one man standing to inherit the earthen hell hole he created.
It matters not how neatly one combs one’s hair or wear one’s suit; what matters is that when you combine someone many cards short of a full deck, with the full force of delusional fundamentalist religious fervor. This combines to create a toxic goo that is destined to incite hate, misery, disease, and death. Pence is full circle from a Qur’anic screaming suicide bomber (they share the same ghastly god), but with gentle Indiana mannerisms. Now we are the inevitable destination of religion when brandished in the wrong hands. Now we all must suffer.
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