Sunday, July 12, 2015

The Politicians Who Scare Me ...

... are the ones I believe.

It doesn't bother me when politicians lie about what they intend to do and end up outing themselves as venal chiselers who were just saying whatever crazy shit they needed to say to get elected so that they could finish out their careers giving speeches for six figures a pop or as richly compensated lobbyists or whatever. And that's how 99% of politicians end up going, regardless of how idealistic they may have seemed early on.

But every once in awhile you get a peek into the mind of a reasonably successful politician who's clearly stark-raving nuts. For example, Rudy Giuliani:

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

Your run-of-the-mill grifter would never say anything like that. It's pretty much the equivalent of masturbating on a street corner or jumping up on the counter at a deli and taking a dump in front of horrified fellow customers.

So when Rudy Giuliani says it, we can be reasonably certain that yes, he really does think that "freedom" means "do whatever Rudy says." And from that we can infer that it would be incredibly dangerous to ever let him anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, even if New Yorkers were crazy enough to elect and re-elect him as mayor.

Some people seem to think that when Donald Trump says something similarly insane, he doesn't really mean it. He's just playing to a particular crowd, they say. No one could be that fvcking stupid and that fvcking rich.

I disagree. I think The Donald really does mean what he says. So if voting, especially in the GOP presidential primaries, is your bag, I encourage you to listen closely to what he's saying, assume he means it, and act accordingly.

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