Dave Easterly’s Bravo Sierra Blog

In Praise of Red State Fascism

A letter ran in the local paper praising the same legislation that has made S. Hartgen a nationwide laughing stock. That letter appears here:
This was the response I wrote.

So if Hartgen’s bill were to become law, can I say that I felt annoyed, terrified, threatened, intimidated, harassed, and offended by the comments of the anti-Constitution and anti-Liberty comments of people I disagree with and have the State on my side? If someone threatens me or libels me, there are already laws to deal with it. I’d much rather have the freedom to simply click “Delete” on an email or instant message or click “Back” to navigate away from a comment that offended me and know that others have the same freedom than to rely on the State to “protect” me from what other people think.

It always gets my goat how hyprocritical some so-called “conservatives” are, getting up in arms when something “offends” their delicate little sensibilities by not being in 100% agreement with their narrow world view. They p**s and moan when a few gay rights activists picket a TV station and persuade them not to show a program that spends an entire hour talking about how gays are all going to burn for eternity and how they’re all evil, perverted predators. And yet these self-proclaimed “conservatives” would use the exact same tactics to prevent the broadcast of an opposing viewpoint like that those same people should have the rights and protections of marriage. And then they get upset when their goose-stepping, jack-booted authoritarianism gets called out for what it really is. Well, I have two words for these kinds of people: “STOP IT.” Stop calling yourselves “conservative” because you and your “Limbaugh Leninism” and your “Coulter Totalitarianism” are the very ANTITHESIS of real Conservatism. You don’t _deserve_ the adjective and you’ve distorted and stained that good word with your putrid stench. Stop calling yourselves conservatives and start being honest with yourselves and the world. ANYONE that would support any bill like this isn’t a conservative. You don’t have a right not to be offended by what’s on TV, the phone, or the Internet. You DO have a right to change the channel, hang up, or click to a different site and that is all a decent and mature human being SHOULD need.
Hartgen and his sycophants need to simply grow up and stop crying if their little feelings get hurt.

Again, I doubt it will make it through the filters at the local Ministry of Truth, but we’ll see.

Stephen Hartgen: Is he Idaho’s “new” Larry Craig?

It certainly looks that way… Larry Craig was a huge embarrassment to the Idaho GOP, and as a freshman legislator Hartgen has already ignited nationwide disgust and outrage, but both of these are probably outweighed by outright mockery at how clueless Hartgen (and by association, the Idaho Republican Party) really is.

People that know me know that I’ve considered myself a Republican my entire life until I got acquainted with the Twin Falls County GOP. If they are what it means to be a Republican, then I know I’m certainly NOT one. I guess non-theistic conservative libertarianism just doesn’t have a place in their little clique as far as they’re concerned, and that’s fine with me because the majority of them are people I wouldn’t want to sit down with at the same table anyway. But among ALL of them, I must admit that Hartgen was always the one who epitomized all the wretched and disgusting traits that I found morally and personally reprehensible – even worse than Grant Loebs, and that’s saying a lot.

It seems that when videos of the Twin Falls County GOP convention found their way to YouTube and some anonymous commenter made some very immature and inappropriate comments it hurt Hartgen’s little feelings. What shocked me about the whole thing was how, aside from a few choice expletives, the comment really reminded me of the kinds of things that I had always heard coming out of Hartgen’s mouth about the Ron Paul paleoconservatives that were getting involved with the local party. But I suppose that Hartgen, being the sort of fellow that he is, felt that he should be entitled to protection from having his delicate sensibilities offended. In all honesty, I think _THAT_ is where this whole thing started, but that’s only my speculation based on what I’ve seen and heard from this tax-leeching big-government neoconservative Jacobin New Englander during the time that I was attending the Twin Falls County GOP meetings.

So is he Idaho’s new national embarassment a la Larry “Wide Stance” Craig? Well, it took Craig YEARS in office to become a laughing stock and Hartgen managed to do it in much shorter order. And Craig could actually show some integrity and still come clean and admit his lifestyle, renounce all his past anti-gay rhetoric and voting records, and reclaim some credibility as a human being. I think it’s already too late for Hartgen because he can’t gain any credibility if he were to renounce his own love of big, invasive government, authoritarianism, and all the other traits that make Hartgen one of the most disappointing examples ever of what we send to our Capitol to “represent” us. It would be too little, too late and there’s pretty much no way it could ever seem genuine.

(BTW, I know this is old news [from December] but it had been sticking in my craw and I finally had to just get it off my chest.)

All I can say is… OMFG

Maybe NOW some of my Obamaphile friends will start to get why I’m always talking about why the Federal Reserve, bailouts, “stimulus” plans, and Leviathan government are bad…