by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Sep 7, 2021 | Featured, Politics
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken
September 12 is H.L. Mencken’s birthday. He was a wonderful provocative opinionated Baltimore Sun newspaperman who was definitely not politically correct and loved to piss off everybody. Times such as these require we celebrate six days early.
Though I could never match him the only way to celebrate him is follow his lead. Please accept this as all in good fun.
My celebration is in two parts.
Part 1
Extra! Extra! Read all about It! Where in the Constitution is the freedom of choice?
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — H.L. Mencken
Let us first consider American “freedom of choice,” which has been heavily relied on by anti-vaxxers and the intellectuals on Fox News.
Let’s start with a little history. In the mid-1950s, my mother joined all the other mothers back then who lined up their children for the new polio vaccine and thereafter for mumps, measles and who knows what including all kinds of booster shots. It was so long ago there were “pin cushion” jokes. Back then, people had sewing machines and pin cushions.
Yes! These were the days when tattooed people were not afraid of needles and vaccinations were not considered to be secret government IQ tests.
It wasn’t perfect but I am sure that many of us are alive today because our “Rosie the Riveter” mothers, fresh from their patriotic duties and the sacrifices of the Second World War, grabbed their first graders and put them in line.
It was a civic duty that their children were safe and also were not spreading any infectious diseases. I guess today they would be blamed for not looking out for #1.
This is not to say I have given up on the present.
I was very happy when almost every anti-vaxxer to whom I talked refused to tell me where this “freedom of choice” is located in the Constitution. But was saddened that nonetheless they said it was “in there someplace.”
Unfortunately, after a careful review of the Constitution, I discovered “freedom of choice” is in fact from a short-lived Burger King advertisement. The fact that it was short-lived seems to indicate that most of these Americans preferred uniformity in their Whoppers.
When I argued that perhaps freedom of choice at least requires a concern for others and it was inappropriate to disseminate misinformation and cited my mother as an example, I got nowhere.
For my back-up authority for both proposals I asked If they recognized these names: Marc Bernier, Dick Farrel, Tod Tucker, Jimmy DeYoung Sr., and Phil Valentine? I pointed out that they had two things in common: they have all made a fortune as anti-vaxxer talk show hosts and they have all died of COVID. I can’t even imagine how many people they took with them, as the numbers continue to multiply.
Part 2
Extra! Extra! Read all about it – Are we back to deputizing bounty hunters?
“There is always an easy solution to every problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” — H. L. Mencken
As you already know by now the Supreme Court’s decision last week finds no constitutional problem with Texas bounty hunters receiving up to $10,000 for reporting anyone who “aids or abets” an untimely abortion.
The Court’s decision sidesteps the right to privacy of a woman which remains constitutional in Roe v. Wade but lets stand that bounty on anyone, including nurses or doctors, who make any effort to help her.
These developments will be obviously universally supported by our fellow Americans since recently we love and elect presidents that have acted as cowboys in the movies or have been on reality TV.
Nonetheless, I think that the current Supreme Court is showing us the way to solve all of our current problems if we just support the constitutionality of this decision and embrace its wisdom.
There seems to be no constitutional reason we cannot employ bounty hunters to ensure our personal freedoms, cut unwanted government protections, and also cut taxes.
Consider traffic safety. What a wonderful way to get rid of police expenses and cut the costs of enforcement. We can eliminate road rage by merely reporting on bad drivers and collecting the bounty.
Our federal and state highways could be a reenactment of the carnival game Whack-a-Mole or a video game and advertising will increase substantially for drive time traffic updates. It will be great for business and prevent us from having to raise the minimum wage.
This opportunity has no limits! We can finally all be safe if we each are bounty hunters reporting on each other for any violation of any law. There may be one problem though: how do you collect the bounty if there are no police to enforce it?
But once again the current Texas Republican Party and the current Supreme Court helps us understand that the second amendment has been there all along. We the people finally will be the “well-regulated militia,” which the Supreme Court has previously ignored.
If you think about it, we can even eliminate election fraud if “we the people” police them. We can ensure fair elections and “stop the steal” if we have televised shootouts between the candidates.
Let’s give credit where credit is due. These are the new breed of Trump Republican that have modernized the party. Completely different than my old Republican heroes like President Eisenhower, Chief Justice Warren, or Senator Charles Mathias for whom I was proud to have worked for when people from both parties worked together for the good of the nation. But that was the old Republican Party.
I apologize. Mr. Mencken made me do it. He was born in 1880, so on September 12th he would have been 141 years old and almost half the age of our country.
“If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.” — H. L. Mencken
I am not worthy. He was politically incorrect but he still can shock you and make you laugh. Hats off to my friend David R. So, let’s get this party started!
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Aug 17, 2021 | Featured, Personal, Politics
I’ve got you beat! Have you ever been vaccinated for rabies?
Years ago, my young family was traveling back from Frederick, Maryland after the 4th of July when I asked my wife to pull over because I saw an injured baby raccoon by the side of the road.
I love all living things and most humans.
The little raccoon was so small it fit into the palm of my hand. I took it home that night, named her Thomas Jefferson — because it was the 4th of July after all — and started to feed her with an eye dropper.
I researched diet and organized my schedule to ensure regular feedings, but it was too late. Three days later, she started to die. Despite my efforts, somewhere around 3 o’clock in the morning she stopped breathing.
When I told my wife the next day, she was understandably horrified. She informed me that it was possible that I could have gotten rabies and I must get vaccinated.
I voluntarily got the shots and became the hero and laughingstock of my little neighborhood. They would turn to each other and point at me approvingly and say, “if you see a rabid animal call Bob because he can bite back.”
So why did I voluntarily get those shots back then?
I didn’t really volunteer to be the game warden for my neighborhood but I did not want to get rabies and I certainly didn’t want to involuntarily bite somebody.
I also wondered if rabies shots were mandatory. I was surprised to find that with the exception of Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio, every state in the union has mandatory rabies vaccination laws for domestic pets but apparently not for their owners. The success that public health officials have had in controlling rabies is due to vaccinating domestic pets.
But what does this say about my parents? I got vaccinated for everything! Did they treat me like a pet?
As a child, I had been vaccinated for typhus, measles, mumps, and polio, and our reservoir water had been treated with fluoride to save our teeth. All this in order to protect the living generation from the transmissions of death and worse, tooth decay. I remember there were protests against all of these vaccinations at the time.
Recently, it occurred to me: Why not smallpox?
Why didn’t our pets and I get vaccinated for smallpox? It must have been mandatory! Because of this oversight could I have accidentally passed on smallpox and kill somebody?
So, I did the research.
In Europe smallpox vaccination began in the early 1800s, after Edward Jenner did cowpox experiments, in which he showed that he could protect a child from smallpox if he infected him or her with cowpox blisters. Jenner’s ideas were met with immediate public criticism. The rationale for this criticism varied, and included sanitary, religious, scientific, and political objections.
What a wonderful surprise!
Almost two centuries after Jenner hoped that vaccination could annihilate smallpox, the 33rd World Health Assembly declared the world free of this disease on May 8, 1980. Many people consider smallpox eradication to be the biggest achievement in international public health.
I felt even better when I concluded that it was patriotic to be vaccinated.
René F. Najera, DrPH, the editor of the History of Vaccines, an online project by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, reported that there is good evidence that the United States won the War of Independence because of vaccine’s precursor: inoculation.
Among the Continental regulars in the American Revolution, 90 percent of deaths were caused by disease, and Variola — the small pox virus — was the most vicious of them all.
On the 6th of January 1777, George Washington wrote to Dr. William Shippen Jr., ordering him to inoculate all of the forces that came through Philadelphia. As he explained:
“Finding the Small pox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running through the whole of our Army, I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated… Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army… we should have more to dread from it, than from the Sword of the Enemy.”
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Jun 16, 2021 | Featured, Politics
I have decided to knock off for the next few weeks to enjoy the summer with the family. But before I do, just for the fun of it, let’s play devil’s advocate and irritate everybody.
Hey! Where are all the baby boomers protesting the January 6th “Stop the Steal” Capitol takeover and why aren’t they demanding an investigation?
And where are all the baby boomers protesting the misinformation being used by the Trump Republicans to take back the Senate and the House in only sixteen months?
The baby boomers divided into two groups back during the Vietnam War. There were those that were drafted and went to the war and those who went skirted the draft somehow and protested the war. Both sides claimed to be patriots.
The patriotism of the war protesters has always been tinged with a possible conflict of interest. Did the protesters prefer college rather than risking their lives at war? Still, their patriotism has always been secure because the war and its purpose were so mismanaged and the country was so misled. But…
But where are these patriots when our country and democracy are being threatened as it has rarely been before? Was that not an insurrection at the Capitol and is “Stop the Steal” not an ongoing attempted take over the country?
Is this not an issue that is far greater than the Vietnam War?
Those that criticized the protesters back then painted them as spoiled comfortable middle-and-upper- class brats who only thought of themselves and cared not for those who went in their place to possibly die.
What if the boomers are and always have been America’s selfish generation?
Let’s all pretend that it’s gonna be all right. The investigations of Trump will build and fill the newspapers with the same drip, drip, drip of sustained conversation as happened with Nixon. And slowly the big donors will drift away and the Trump party with its roots in Newt Gingrich and southern racism will finally die. And the Trump Republicans who only represent themselves will fail to take back the Senate and the House and gridlock the progressives as they did with Obama.
As the baby boomers drift into old age, don’t worry, it’s gonna all work out. Like the bumper sticker says: “The one who dies with the most toys wins.”
Still, it does make you think that maybe self-interest and the responsibility of patriotism was too much for my generation.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | May 25, 2021 | Featured, Politics
So what the hell is irony?
Perhaps irony is when you consider that the descendants of those who came from the previously enslaved may set the standard for the preservation of our freedom.
Last week I again listened to Amanda Gorman’s poem at President Biden’s inauguration and then to her TED Talk about how poetry is political. She points out that when totalitarian leaders take over, they burn books and imprison the creatives to silence alternative voices to their propaganda.
Today, I read a blog post by Heather Cox Richardson, the brilliant Boston College professor, about the courage of Frederick Douglass as he risked his life to secure his freedom. He was a tradesman in Baltimore with a relatively safe life compared to other slaves of his time, but he risked his life for freedom to become the leader he became.
He got on a train from Baltimore to New York with false documents saying that he was free to travel as a freeman. Once he left on that train, he was either going to get off in New York or he was going to be imprisoned and shipped to the Southern states and his likely death.
It must have taken incredible courage and determination to get on that train. He risked his life for his freedom.
As I read the news today, I am convinced that we are at a turning point for freedom in the United States.
The Republican party stands for nothing but itself, its authoritarianism, and Trump. It is unrecognizable and unreconcilable with its past.
There is a high likelihood that because of the propaganda, the falsehoods of “the big lie,” and the Republican southern legislatures that have curtailed the right to vote, the GOP will win dominance in the House and perhaps the Senate in 2022.
If we each do not act now to protect this democracy over the next year and a half, we will lose it as we know it.
I think of what it will take for all of us to get on the train.
But I fear we do not know what we are losing.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Mar 2, 2021 | Featured, Politics
You know all those starry-eyed men and women who describes sex like “an earthquake”? Well, they’re gonna love fascism!
You think this fantasy has not finally become a reality. Well, who paid off a porn star as a campaign expense?
The statistical proof that the world’s population is increasing much faster than the number of earthquakes is fantasy for these people, but so is fascism. They are just loyal Americans following a former president who led an insurrection on Congress.
They bought “the big lie.” The lie that the “little hands” man won. What are those hats that say Make America Gigantic Again?
These people believe anything that might lead to an orgasm. La petite mort. They have no political agenda other than themselves and their orgasm. It must be treated as a sickness.
Last Sunday, CPAC sullied the conservative GOP’s good name at a fascist rally in Orlando Florida. Trump again unzipped the big lie and his fascist followers, who refuse to impeach him, treat it like a game for winning re-erection.
These senators have embraced their hypocrisy because they know they are safe. They use advance information about the COVID hoax of pandemic to insider trade their stock portfolios and take vacations to Mexico when their states are in turmoil. They don’t care. They will not be sanctioned. They’re delivering “the orgasm” to their followers.
If you think the attack on our capital led by a former president is anything less than the first step toward a revolution, bend over…
The Electoral College has repeatedly given Republican candidates the presidency despite a popular vote for the Democratic candidate in the past. And now 43 states have introduced more than 250 bills to restrict access to voting, ensuring that this minority will prevail based on “the big lie.”
The Supreme Court will hear the latest voting rights case and will likely uphold the restrictions. The Supreme Court, largely appointed by Electoral College Republican presidents, has been very hard on voting rights.
The fascists have always been there. They have hidden in the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party. Hanging black people was a campaign event. One of them assassinated Lincoln, giving birth to the states’ rights arguments of the Jim Crow laws, which overturned democracy in the former slave holding states in the South.
If you think the attack on our Capitol lead by a former president followed up by CPAC is anything less than the first step toward a revolution, bend over and enjoy your earthquake.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Feb 23, 2021 | Featured, Politics
This may be the start of a conspiracy theory, but there is a really big question hanging out there:
After that “freak” snow storm in Texas you’ve got to ask yourself, is Punxsutawney Phil, that Pennsylvania groundhog, a Democrat or a Republican?
Think about it. What if that “freak” Texas snowstorm was about gathering support for the Green New Deal?
It sure looks like the “the deep state“ because the coverup is so clever.
It’s true. Think how hard it is to prove Phil’s party affiliation.
The election was stolen in Pennsylvania, so his vote was definitely destroyed and so “ipso facto” we will never know how he voted.
There may be even no evidence that he even registered to vote!
Just watch. The coverup is clever!
The Dems always want it both ways. They will say he had to vote by mail because groundhogs can’t sneak into voting places unnoticed so his vote should be counted.
But don’t get fooled by the lie that he voted by mail! Everybody knows he was in hibernation in November.
Lock him up! That groundhog should be indicted, unless Phil was actually a groundhog just trying to do its civic duty and he actually did see his shadow, but this was suppressed.
Did you see the press conference? Yes?
Remember after we were told that Phil saw his shadow?
Didn’t Phil look kind of unreasonably sleepy after months and months of hibernation?
He never actually said he saw his shadow, did he?
What happened to his First Amendment rights?
Very clever! Genius! Avoid the indictment by getting a groundhog to do your dirty work. And then, trust me on this, they cut lose the Sky Laser to redirect the polar winds to Texas!
Rush Limbaugh died last week. He was a true genius of radio and polarizing conspiracy theories: Obama‘s birth place, for example, or the 2009 healthcare bill that would empower “death panels“ and “euthanasia“ for elderly Americans. Even during his final broadcast, he insisted to listeners that the new administration had “not legally won it.”
He created this kind of talk radio. “There is no talk radio as we know it without Rush Limbaugh; it just doesn’t exist,” according to Sean Hannity the Fox news commentator. “I’d even make the argument, in many ways there’s no Fox News or even some of those other opinionated cable networks.“
Early on, he built conservatism as a satirist who evolved into the source of information for an ever- growing angry group of Trump supporters. Global warming was a “hoax”, the homeless were “compassion fascists,“ abortion rights activists were“ feminazis.” He championed homophobia and called a female law student “a slut” because of her testimony in favor of health insurance coverage for birth control: “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.”
The FCC “Fairness Doctrine” was introduced in 1949. It required the holders of broadcast licenses to fairly present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. President Reagan eliminated the policy in 1987.
Rush Limbaugh made a handsome living after the end of the Fairness Doctrine. According to the February 18th New York Times, he collected $85 million a year and lived in a 24,000 square-foot oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach. He had a half dozen cars one costing $450,000 and a $54 million Gulfstream G550 jet.
Shortly before his death, the president gave Mr. Limbaugh the highest honor American government can provide to a civilian: The Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The protection of political speech does not protect the trafficking in misinformation.
Democracy, for its survival, depends on the truth of its information.
