LIBERAL!

Oops, sorry to bring this up, but TPP missed publishing this in time for the election, but the sentiment, the message still are appropriate as nothing much has changed, and why waste a perfectly good blog rant.  Just a couple of days before election day, TPP got a flyer in the mail from the GnOPe of Lincolnland;  they wanted my vote, not for anyone in particular, not for any particular issue or agenda, just in general, more or less for everything.  In fact the missive only featured one word in bold, red letters: LIBERAL.  Yes, vote against anything liberal; vote against the liberal agenda; vote against Washington liberals (if only we really had some!); meaning vote for the GnOPe.  Personally TPP is insulted.  The GnOPe seems to think that the word LIBERAL will affect me the way the word SQUIRREL affected the dog in the movie UP.  Well, TPP has stopped associating with the GnOPe since they became the party of stupid.  However this increases the likelihood that this message resonated quite well with their party's main base, but liberal doesn't mean what they think it means.  TPP has long embraced a liberal philosophy of equality and justice supporting free and fair elections, freedom of speech, religion, and press, a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If the GnOPe is serious about opposing a liberal agenda, then they should be more specific about which of these rights and freedoms they wish to limit or take away.  Well, in a manner of speaking all of them, for one group or another.  The GnOPe doesn't want minorities or people who vote against the "conservative" agenda to vote.  The GnOPe doesn't want women to have any rights at all.  And freedom of religion is OK as long as it's the right religion, theirs, and even when this is pretty confusing for the them trying to convince the religious right that Obama is the wrong kind of Christian while at the same time sort of side stepping the issue that Mittens isn't any kind of Christian at all by their own standards.  Before receiving this missive, TPP was actually thinking (uh oh, a GnOPe no-no) of voting for at least one GnOPe candidate for state office, by all accounts a reasonable, nuanced fellow, but his party, the party of stupid, managed to alienate another voter.  So maybe he'll get this message and think about what he stands for.  Nah!  The R next to your name virtually assures your election in the sea of red surrounding our university town.