Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Thanks, Mickey, but No Thanks!

Today, anonymous posted this offering from Michael Moore. As a public service to the non whackos in the audience, the Wizer will now analyze and comment on the letter. Talk about a target rich environment! Please understannd, that the message is directed to conservatives and republicans, but I couldn't resist the urge to answer for them. Not all of them agree with me, just as not all dems agree with MM.

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives ...by Michael Moore

Translation: Grab your wallets!

To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,

I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.

Mike, are you talking to conservatives or republicans here? If you don't know the difference, there is much to fill you in on...I'll let it go for now.

Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress,

Millions? Don't you mean dozens of others who are now in charge?

have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.

Why do the words "do to you" cause shivers to race up my spine?

Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:

Dear Conservatives and Republicans,

Well, that's 55% of us, anyway.

I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

Did you get all your millions of friends to agree to this? Seems like you are in the minority in your particular wing on this. Just wanted to make sure there was a consensus.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

Of course, it will be necessary for all of us to subsidize your preferences by extending benefits to whoever you want to call your wife. Or whatever, as the case may be. Admit it. This is a scam to get corporations to pay for health benefits for your friends. As such, it's a program I'm not interested in subsidizing. No thanks, Mike.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

I'm not hearing Robert Rubin, Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi say this. Have you checked with them? They are talking about higher energy costs, higher environmental controls and higher taxes right off the bat. My grandchildren will have a much easier time holding onto my inheritance if you keep those jokers away from the policymaking.


4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

If you bring them home in such a way as to allow Iraq to fall back into the hands of terrorists, our sons and daughters will know they are not safe until they go back and do the job for good. The only lie is the one you are telling when you say this wasn't necessary.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

When the health care system is run by the bureaucrats, there won't be anyone working on stem cells. First of all, the money never gets there. Second of all, the doctors will be payed the same for playing golf or working up stem cells. The worlds greatest health care system will be destroyed. Mike, why do you think it is the best system in the world? Because it is the closest thing to a free market medical system that exists.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

When there's a difference worth paying for, come tell me about it. Right now it's just a game you're playing with a bunch of biased government dependent researchers.

7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

How can you say that one with a straight face given A) Bill Clinton's total lapse on Bin Laden, and B) what you just said on item #4 above? My God Michael, at least disguise your hypocrisy a little better than that.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

What are you saying here? That the unborn are expendable? Man, that hardly makes you seem like the magnanimous, inclusive figure you want to be seen as. "To all conservatives and republicans who have made it this far...."

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

Okay, so, I should not feel so bad that the person who just shot me did it with a gun that was illegal. Let's make more of them illegal. That will make me feel safer. Not. I don't even have to invoke the second amendment to show the folly of this reason.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

What you want is for everybody to be paid the same. And for that wage to be low for everybody. It's been tried before, you know. But the Soviet Union crashed and burned. It fails every time it is tried. You want to see everybody in the toilet paper line? Oh, I forgot. You've already made your millions. You can tough it out from here.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

What about your favorite radical religion: environmentalism? Isn't it disengenuous to be pushing your pagan agenda against the backdrop of accusing religious groups of doing the same? It's called freedom of religion for a reason. And it is well known that God blesses America. Live with it.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

Nice words. Talk to me about William Jefferson of Louisiana.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Signed,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
(Click here to sign the pledge)
www.michaelmoore.com

Michael, I have not seen this many fat pitches since the company picnic. Thanks for letting me swing away.

Sincerely,

The Wizer.

P.S. Please feel free to pass this on.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now they're all for bipartisanship
Newt Gingrich, champion of civility?


AUSTIN, Texas -- Having watched election coverage nonstop all week, I sometimes wake screaming, "Bipartisanship!" and scare myself.
Of all the viral members of the media who have been suggesting that the Dems cooperate with their political opponents, the one who rendered me almost unconscious with surprise was Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich, the Boy Scout. Newt Gingrich, the man who sat there and watched Congress impeach and try Bill Clinton for lying about having an extramarital affair while he, Newt Gingrich, was lying about having an extramarital affair. (This all took place during his second marriage. The first one ended when he told his wife he was divorcing her while she was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment.)

This is the level of Republican hypocrisy that reminds us all how far the Dems have to go. I tell you what. Let's all hold hands together and sing, "Oh the Farmers and the Cowboys Should Be Friends!" Just not, please, Newt Gingrich, the man whose contribution to civility was to recommend that all Democrats be referred to with such words as cowards, traitors, commies, godless, liars and other such bipartisan-promoting terms.

Please, anyone but Newt.

Molly Ivins

The Wizer said...

Molly, Molly, tsk tsk.

You make it sound like marital indiscretion disqualifies him. Just where do you stand?

I think you fear Newt very deeply, you just can't find anything meaningful to fight him with. Fight him on the basis of his ideas vs. yours? Oh, that wouldn't be a fair fight, would it? So, trot out all the irrelevancies you can muster that will influence your 40%, and we'll see what happens. This should be fun.

Anonymous said...

Newt's sordid marital history serves to impeach his credibility as an advocate of civility. Ugly is as ugly does.

The Wizer said...

We aren't hiring him as a marriage counselor. Until it affects his job performance, I think he'll get a pass. Besides, any democrats howling about this are going to be bigger hypocrites than the person they are accusing. That dog don't hunt.

Anonymous said...

How about Newt as constitutional arbiter? Are you as delighted as I am about his recent declaration that we're using the first amendment too much?


Published on The Smirking Chimp (http://www.smirkingchimp.com)
A Pre-emptive Strike Against the Constitution

By Cenk Uygur
Created Dec 1 2006 - 3:48pm
Newt Gingrich started the attack against the US constitution in the beginning of the week. He launched operation shock and awe by striking against one of the most cherished principles of this country - the freedom of speech. It worked, because after all we've been through in the last six years, I was still shocked [1] by this.

The first amendment! I am not sure I can name something more sacred to the principles of America.

Then Dennis Prager came in and delivered the second blow to the first amendment (if you don't know him, don't worry, you're not alone; he is a buffoonish conservative talk show host who has made a cheap living desperately trying to copy Rush Limbaugh his whole life). Prager went after the establishment clause. He argued that every member of Congress should show their allegiance to the Bible [2] in order to be allowed into Congress. The first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." How much clearer did they have to be?

But in case, you're as dense as Prager [3], the framers did make it clearer [4]! Here is Article VI [5] of the United States Constitution:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

The problem with these conservatives is that they truly don't understand the idea of America. They have no idea what this country stands for. If all we stand for is the religious views of the majority, then we are no different than any country in the Middle East. If we strike out against our enemies by trying to shut down their right to speak, then we are no better than communist China or the Islamic Republic of Iran.

These conservatives missed the whole point of the country. We are not just some slab of land between Canada and Mexico. Nebraska or Rhode Island or Hawaii is not the chosen land of any deity. The people that live here hold no special claim to privilege based on race, nationality or a favored religion. What makes us the greatest country on earth is that we are open and free. That we are willing to die to protect that freedom, and not just for us. We are the guardians of freedom. We are the ones who believe in liberty and champion it throughout the world.

And these clowns want to take that away because they are afraid? Perhaps Gingrich should have looked up the motto of the state he was speaking in. New Hampshire is the place of patriots - American patriots who lived and died for freedom. Not the place of moral and ideological cowards. In New Hampshire, they believe you "live free or die!"

That's the America I know and love.

Not the scared, shut-down society afraid of dissent that Newt Gingrich envisions. Not the exclusive, fundamentalist Judeo-Christian stronghold of America that Dennis Prager dreams of. I know an America that is open and free - and proud.

Don't tell me our boys died in Iwo Jima and Bunker Hill and Gettysburg and Normandy, so a bunch of cheap-suited Republican cowards can give away our freedoms [6] without a fight in the middle of the night.

Newt Gingrich said that we should empanel people to impose a level of supervision on speech that we would normally never dream of. Why? Because he's afraid of the big, bad Osama. If your beloved Republican leader had caught him, maybe you wouldn't be wetting your pants worried about him. We beat the Nazis so that Gingrich could give our rights away to a bunch of ragtag terrorists?

This is the white flag of surrender. Gingrich is saying that we cannot defeat the terrorists with our rules. In case, you think that's an exaggeration, he literally said we need a "different set of rules" [7] to limit speech and the internet. He is saying the American system that was good enough to win World War I, World War II and the Cold War is not good enough to beat Al Qaeda.

If I was less polite man, I would call little Newt a pussy. But I'm far too polite. Besides I don't want him putting this website on his list of dangerous websites that need to be banned. Oh, did I not tell you about that part [8]?

"This is a serious long term war and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, it will lead us to close down every website that is dangerous."

This man wants to be President. If this is the kind of pre-emptive strike he has in mind against our constitution, imagine what he would do if he actually seized power. Remember, the last time Gingrich was in the government, he shut it down. Does he believe in the US system at all?

Can Newt Gingrich fairly be called an American anymore? He might have been born here and he currently resides here, but is he really an American? In order to be truly American, don't you have to believe in America?

If these Republicans don't believe they can defeat the terrorists without giving up our unalienable rights and our system of government, maybe they should step aside and let some real men of honor guide this country back to the path of righteousness and strength.

The Young Turks [9]
_______


About author Cenk Uygur is co-host of The Young Turks, the first liberal radio show to air nationwide. The Young Turks began as Sirius Satellite Radio’s first original program, and, while still on Sirius, is now nationally syndicated and available on itunes and online at www.theyoungturks.com [10] and delicious [11] | digg [12] | reddit [13] | newsvine [14] | google [15] | yahoo [16] | technorati [17]
Source URL:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/3586
Links:
[1] http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2006/11/29/1157/9700
[2] http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2006/12/1/95330/5940
[3] http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2006/11/28/america,_not_keith_ellison,_decides_what_book_a_congressman_takes_his_oath_on
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taylor-marsh/that-uppity-democratic-mu_b_35148.html
[5] http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article06/
[6] http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/30/olbermanns-special-comment-on-gingrich-we-fight-for-liberty-by-having-more-liberty-and-not-less/
[7] http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Gingrich+raises+alarm+at+event+honoring+those+who+stand+up+for+freedom+of+speech&articleId=d3f4ee4e-1e90-475a-b1b0-bbcd5baedd78
[8] http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/29/gingrich-wants-to-re-examine-free-speech/
[9] http://www.theyoungturks.com
[10] http://www.theyoungturks.com
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Anonymous said...

anonymous said:

"The first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." How much clearer did they have to be?"

While this is true, it's telling how often liberals (just about always) neglect to state this little bit of the 1st:

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

It's even misquoted on many ACLU pages and publications. While I don't require my government people to swear on a Bible, an affirmation of their oath is acceptable, I wonder how often anonymous stops to think about how the left's rabid, bigoted, anti-Christian approach, their constant bleating and browbeating of people thru legal threats, undermines "the free exercise thereof" of religion? The Constitution does not guarantee freedom from religion, it only means you can't be forced to be a member of an "official" religion.

What the left is doing is against constitutional principles and violates the 1st Amendment rights of many many religious Christians in this country.

But I forgot, those who don't follow the liberal socialist ideology don't deserve any protections. Free speech? They are to be shouted down and silenced. Religion, how dare they want to practice that. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.