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D0UCHEN0ZZLE DAYS
To riff on the tired old phrase, some of my
best friends are conservatives. I know that
as an unapologetic leftie writing for a hippie
socialist rag like this one. I'm supposed to
eschew the company of our brethren on the
right, but the fact is that there is nothing
wrong with big-C conservatism of the well-
considered kind. We do need a strong mili
tary, government bureaucracy is bloated and
wasteful to the point of uselessness in many
areas, and the deficit is going to cripple our
grandchildren if we don't get it under control,
pronto. My conservative friends make sense,
and that's why they're my conservative friends.
The Tea Party is nobody's friend, liberal
or conservative. In a nationwide assault on
the sense and sensibility of the Republic,
the Teabaggers have advanced an agenda
of regressive policy, hate mongering and an
appeal to all the worst aspects of the human
character. The notion that a movement full
of white property owners paying some of the
lowest taxes per capita in the world can pass
themselves off as an
oppressed minority should
never have passed the
Giggle Test on day-one,
and yet not only are they
thriving, we elected them
into office and many of
them are sitting down to
make public policy even
as we speak.
So, we must wait out
the next two years of
inevitable gridlock as the
Teabaggers play obstruc
tionist games within the
GOP, the divided Congress
stonewalls and lets
Obama take the heat for
failed or stalled policy,
and Sarah Palin plays coy
about running for presi
dent while cashing in on
her baffling cachet. We
need something to get
us through the douchenozzle days. Here are a
few recommendations from my desert-island
list (and I've never wanted to be on a desert
island more than now):
The Collected Works of William Shakespeare.
I recommend the Riverside edition or the
Arden Shakespeare series. Uncle Will may have
been writing for the masses, but you will find
a passionate political streak running through
his work, particularly on the subject of what
makes a good ruler and why bad rulers should
be removed. Look at Julius Caesar, Richard III,
Hamlet and King Lear for examples of this, but
you'll find it everywhere, even in The Tempest.
A The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by
Mark Twain, and To Kill a Mockingbird by
Harper Lee. Perhaps the ugliest aspect of the
Tea Party's ascension—and there are so many
to choose from!—is the naked racism the
Party allows and condnr.es. It is no accident
that the Party coalesced during the current
administration and it's clear that many of the
Teabaggers have less of a problem with their
taxes than they do with a black president.
Witness the rally with the charming graphic of
Obama in witch-doctor drag or the one famous
sign calling him a "niggar" (if you can't even
spell the N-bomb correctly, you just may be a
redneck—Jeff Foxworthy can send me a check
c/o Flagpole). If we're still having these issues
on the national stage in the 21st century,
then perhaps it would do us all some good to
get back to some of the seminal texts on why
being a racist asshole is wrong.
I, Claudius and Claudius the God oy Robert
Graves. The classicist Graves is never better
than in these two books, adapted from The
Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, about the Roman
emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and
Claudius, told by the last as he grew up dan
gerously close to the first three. It's become
a weary cliche to compare the U.S. to ancient
Rome, but there are lessons to be learned from
this historical soap opera of unbridled ambi
tion, treachery and madness, particularly in
Augustus' drive to consolidate his power while
claiming it was all for the purpose of restoring
the Republic.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Time
Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein. A
Libertarian in the real sense, not whatever
Neal Boortz thinks he
is, Heinlein didn't just
believe that an armed
society is a polite society,
he believed that a smart
society is a sane society.
He's taken a lot of flak
over the years for his
supposed fascism, but
it's hard to argue that a
government run by the
smartest people beats
all hell out of a govern
ment run by dumbasses,
"populist" though they
may claim to be. That's
the central message of
Mistress. Time argues,
through Hein lei n's immor
tal alter-ego Lazarus
Long, that a free society
is one that is run intel
ligently and with as little
interference in the lives
of its citizens, including who they can choose
to be with, as possible. The latter book is
Heinlein's sweeping manifesto on a wide range
of subjects, all of it dedicated to the principle
of true common sense.
Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The
Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free
Society by Peter McWilliams. This one is a
bit hard to find, though it's worth tracking
down. McWilliams makes an eloquent case for
the legalization and regulation of drugs, pros
titution and gambling, along with the repeal
of personal safety laws, as opposed to the
Prohibition stance that clogs our legal system,
endangers lives and makes those activities
profitable for criminals. You may not agree
with everything in the book (I don't) but
McWilliams loads his book with so many good
arguments and supports that it is a virtual
bible for anyone who actually wants to have
an intelligent debate on these subjects.
And that's what we're going to need in the
coming days: books and resources to keep us
sharp and inspired until the rest of the coun
try realizes that calling the president a social
ist Muslim and telling him to go back to Africa
are no substitute for actual governance. Those
are my picks; got any suggestions?
John G. Nettles
12 FLAGP0LE.COM • JANUARY 19,2011
