Category: Political Byline

by Smitty

Political ByLine has a solid roundup on yet another classy outburst in the political discourse, this time from the Left, a T-shirt saying ‘[verb] tea’.

I went to their site, [URL NSFW if image clicked] and they appear to *shudder* be. . .selling stuff.

Maybe our hipsters like Young4Eyes and gg can help out here. I thought the new commandments went something like:

1. And the Government spake all these words, saying,
2. I am the LORD thy Government, which have brought thee out of the land of unfettered capitalism, out of the house of bondage to materialism.
3. Thou shalt have no other Party before me.
4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any photoshop image, or any likeness of any thing that is within the Beltway above, or that is in the flyover country beneath, or that is in the water under the edge of the map below Louisiana:
5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to the Tea Parties, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy Government am a jealous, peevish, all-around bitchy Government, visiting the iniquity of the Founding Fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them raaaaacists that hate me;
6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them in the SEIU that love me, and keep my commandments, and flex on command.
7. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy Government in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. The Attorney General shall be empowered to call the bitter cling-ons in the Tea Party a ‘nation of cowards’.
8. Remember thee Labor Day, to keep it holy.
9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do feign doing all thy work:
10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy Government: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, which you are discouraged from siring, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, having gotten rid of that despicable slavery, nor thy cattle, since we’re on about loving animals, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, whom shall soon be given amnesty:
11. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and got organized the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it for the production of new activists.
12. Honour thy father and thy mother by making them the last fathers and mothers in your family tree: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy Government giveth thee, and then quit tearing up Gaia, you self-serving human being!
13. Thou shalt not kill unless the victim is politically inconvenient to the Government, in which case, either be discreet or frame the opposition.
14. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Child-ery is just fine, especially if your name is Roman Polanski. Also, call it ‘lovemaking’, a much more nuanced rhetorical approach to oathbreaking.
15. Thou shalt not steal. Only capitalists steal. Focus on re-distribution, a much more nuanced rhetorical approach to larceny.
16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Lying is bad. Focus on constructing narratives, a much more nuanced approach to prevarication.
17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, again, dispensed with following the era of slavery, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. See, if you covet materialistically for only yourself, you might be a capitalist. Focus on economic justice, a much more nuanced approach to avarice, and reach through the LORD thy Government.

It must be a Tea Party ruse to make the Progressives look like blasphemers. This blog is firm in its commitment not to buy this nonsense.

Update: Also blogging,
TrogloPundit
Pirate’s Cove, who has a mother lode of other links.
Ed Driscoll reviews other equally disastrous outings from the Left in this vain vein.

Update II: By Belvedere demand, I’ll exhume a similar Slashdot outing from a few years back, he said, suddenly feeling old. This is in reply to the story “Why the Coming Data Flood Won’t Drown the Internet”

This is a really old story
5 And the ISPs saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, swapping copyrighted music, filching pre-release movies, placing phone calls all about the earth as if information were a mere fluid, like the sea.
6 And it repented the ISP that Oscar winner, Nobel laureate, and all around handsome fellow Al Gore, Junior, had made man to surf on the Internet, and it grieved them at their heart.
7 And the ISPs said, we will destroy the neutral face of the Internet, (which we have implemented from the primordial swellness of Gore) from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth us that we have made them to access information in an inexpensive and convenient way.
8 But NOAA found grace in the eyes of the ISPs.
9 These are the generations of NOAA: NOAA was a tidy little bureaucracy, and perfect in its generations, and NOAA walked with the ISPs.
10 And NOAA begat three acronyms: SHEM, HAM, and JAPHETH, which are not relevant to this jape at the moment, but will be cleverly decoded later for humorous effect if need be.
11 The Internet also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with sex and violence, because it was just another show, like the news.
12 And the ISPs looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto NOAA, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth with a bolt from my wand of bogus legislation.
14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. If ye know not the length of the cubit, check http://www.wikipedia.org but make haste, because Moby Dick shall be sent to devour Jimmy Wales shortly after this post self-destructs.
16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And though shalt put one mother of a datacenter therein; such that yea, even Marc Andreesen shall be made to blush at the smoking bandwidth thereof.
17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring an exaflood of data upon the earth, to destroy all data, wherein is the breath of binary life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall crash like Internet Explorer.
18 But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy acronyms, and thy support contractor, and thy acronyms’ support contractors with thee.
19 And of every living thing of all data, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be stored at RAID99.
20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive, but they only need, say, RAID5.
21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them: plenty of frozen pizza and jolt.
22 Thus did NOAA; according to all that God commanded him, so did they, once they got the budget plus-up.