People Love Bad Taste in Everything

There was once a more glorious time to be American. People could rest easy when they got together with unusual strangers back in the day - without a fear for their lives, or their organs, of all of their hard-earned cash or even the police knocking at the door and dragging off a friend or two. It was an American sense of possibility. Average citizens ran around without fear, not like the America we know today.

You could drink a six pack out in the open and run around naked without getting shot. You could rent a place out in the forest for a week with friends at the drop of the hat - and nobody looked strangely at you, or called the local sheriff to check things out, or ran a check on your credit and employment history or sneaked a peak at your medical records or checked to see if you had any moving violations in Nevada or bench warrants in Florida.

There were lawyers and judges, but the Law wasn't feared. We were all aware of the rules, but these weren't jammed down people's throats. Laws and Rules and Police and Informants were part of the fabric of living, and none was feared or worshiped like they are in America today.

It was a much different time. A more honest time. A time where bad taste was respected as much as the Holy Bible. And I am sure that even the most scandalous lawyer would tell you the Truth (even while he was lying to the world on your behalf), not because he was cutting you a deal - but because it was the American thing to do.

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."

Mencken said that: and he was right.

The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often tolerant and humane. But when the fanatics are on top there is no limit to depths of their oppression. It used to be that when politicians began speaking we knew to grab our wallets because, doing the right thing by them has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of people with something to sell. Now, we speak of "likeability" and "having a beer with the guy" as if it's some important substitute for actually getting involved with facts. Truth in politics is like no blood in war - and if somebody sells you this line of crap ... well, you know what to do.

From Crazy Pat Robertson (a greed-crazed, cash-sucking monkey if there ever was one): "And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "

Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

And we've learned that nothing has changed since 2000, now that are reports of uncovered voting problems in Florida. Dubya's daddy, the real reason why we went to Iraq according to his dimwit son, is oozing quiet confidence again. The evil grin has returned. But the Democrats are better organized this time around, we keep hearing. Early turnout is supposed to fix all that's wrong in Florida. But, again, we have the entire Bush family picking up salvage from four hurricanes and deverting federal funds to the Rethug areas first, sneering at the stupidity that has become the American electorate.

The entire election, in fact, appears rigged and fixed from the start. It's become a gigantic media extravaganza, scripted and staged for the viewers at home. It happens every four years, like your run-of-the-mill, bought-and-paid-for Olympic event, at an eye-gouging cost to the American taxpayer, with ninety percent of the funds being marked for deception and TV commercials. A team of alien beings could land on Earth tomorrow and they'd confuse American Idol reruns with our election process in Florida.

The last two years, the American people have come to know me. They know my blunt way of speaking.
-- Dubya seems to think he took office in 2002... Daytona Beach, Florida, Oct. 16, 2004

My opponent seems to be willing to say almost anything he thinks will benefit him politically. After standing on the stage, after the debates, I made it very plain, we will not have an all-volunteer army. And yet, this week -- we will have an all-volunteer army. Let me restate that. We will not have a draft. ...And the best way to avoid a draft is to vote for me.
-- With "clarifications" like that, who needs an opponent? Daytona Beach, Florida, Oct. 16, 2004

One of the most amazing events of my life, at least as the presidency, was to go to the NASCAR Race here at the Daytona 500.
-- OK, two things: (1) Dubya is the president, not the presidency, and (2) How could going to a NASCAR race be the most amazing event of his life or of the last four years? Daytona Beach, Florida, Oct. 16, 2004

We need a safety net for those with the greatest needs. I believe in community health centers, where low and poor can get their preventative and care.
-- Dubya seems to be missing a few words here, Daytona Beach, Florida, Oct. 16, 2004

You really have to appreciate the preznut. He can barely speak Texan - which is basically a dried-out, tin pot version of the English language - and he can draw the dots with simple words but can't connect them with a reasonable line of thought. How else could it be explained that a stuttering village idiot could hold half of a divided country in his hand? Calling it corruption would be unfair to the term corrupt as it's defined. No, this is a level way beyond corruption. This is pestilence feeding upon moral turpitude, born from years perversion, decadence and atrocity. Turn over the carcass on this administration and the worms would be ripe from foulness and infection.

The old man has always been the key to this degenerate bunch. The depraved grin with a sardonic land-of-make-believe, matter-of-factness reveals a moral incontinence reaching into the realm of prostitution. Watching the Bush family in Florida is like watching a 300-pound pimp string out a runaway into a hooker and then beating her for doing too much smack. Her fate is sealed, and so is Florida's. Everyone else watches the car crash with rubber necks and finds the tragedy entertaining for the drive home.

To know Florida is to acknowledge that it is the most profoundly wretched State in the Union. More than half of its elected officials are so openly on the take that politics is more like a bookmaking operation than a democratic government. Congressmen run scams that raise the acts of money laundering and wire and mail fraud to artforms and its Senators have routinely committed more outrageous crimes than John Mitchell was ever alleged to have done. If the State of Florida were an indian casino, the name of the chief would be "Keeping Two Books." More murders and rapes go unreported each year in Miami than in Bosnia and Ruwanda combined. There's no income tax and the traffic signs are not laws, but suggestions. Its rural areas are ruled by deranged dipsomaniacs and its school systems are training grounds for Klansmen and flesh peddlers. Everything in Florida smells of fried chicken and spent beer cans. Daytona Beach is filled with steroid-addicted rednecks looking for skull sessions and there are plenty of trailer trash morons who are proud and eager to serve them. Oral sex is more common on the streets of Florida in broad daylight than anywhere else in America.

Yes, people love bad taste in everything.