Republicans in Power are like Bipolar Patients

Several years ago, I read the book "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck. He's a psychiatrist who wrote the best selling book based on his experiences treating patients.

There are several fascinating parts of the book, but one that has stuck with me was a discussion of some of his patients who would swing wildly through extremes because they never learned discipline. Parents who would alternate between complete license for their children or cruel, harsh punishments. One woman vacillated between sexual promiscuity and prudery, either inviting men to her bed on the first date or living like a monk. Always swinging between one extreme to the next.

Part of the problem is that living a realistic life is hard work. It's hard to have consistent, fair discipline for your children. I struggle with it. It's too easy to say "Here, kids, here's the TV shut up for a bit", then scream at them when they're too loud or they mess up their rooms. It's hard to pay attention to what really matters day after day, doing the little course corrections here and there with how you treat your family, your coworkers, your friends. When is it necessary to punish and by how much? Are you rewarding for a job well done or encouraging half-assed efforts? Are you putting in 20 hours a day at work because you spent the last 30 days slacking off?

Paying attention is hard. Which is why it's so easy to just swing back and forth between the extremes.

Which is why when I watch the Republicans in the last few weeks, all I can think about is that women who alternated between living like a nun and reenacting "Debbie Does Dallas."

You've got Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour. First he started out by describing the bits of BP Gulf Oil on the beaches as looking like chocolate mousse. Not that dangerous! It's not that bad! Why are we beating up on BP?

And then - OMG federal government I need help right now this stuff is going to kill us all! Help me! Damn it, I could have called up the national guard but SOMEBODY HELP ME NOW!

It would have been the grown up, mature thing to say "Huh. Maybe I don't think we should worry, but maybe I should get my crap in order *just in case*. Spend some money. I know - government is evil, but I guess I *was* elected governor for a reason."

Then you've got the financial system reform. Remember 2008, when we learned that deregulating the financial market because they said "Hey, trust us, we'll stop doing stupid things before it gets to be a problem, because we're greedy - but we're not crazy?" And then the financial market collapsed, and even Greenspan, the Ayn Rand loving libertarian himself, had to admit that you know, maybe financial regulation was a good thing.

At the time, Republicans were screaming "let it die! Them them all fall apart and let the free market rule!" Granted, anyone who knew anything about history knows that's how the crash of 1929 happened. And while there should have been a better deal, "just letting them die" would have been far, far worse than offering them a loan to get them through. So it was Bush's team that pushed for the big bank bailout, and the Democrats agreed because it was better than nothing.

Now, we have a chance to do some regulation. To impose some boundaries so we don't have the complete and utter shit storm that happened last time. Nothing too crazy - how about some transparency in credit default swaps so we don't have people making tons of bets that things will fall apart and then they have every incentive to see it fail - crazy thought, but maybe people should know that. And maybe the big banks should pay when one of their own falls apart, instead of the American taxpayer. So how about a fund kind of like the FDIC, but bigger, where the money sits in an insurance fund and when someone like Goldman Sachs blows up - they get bailed out with big bank money.

And the response from the same Republicans who whined and complained about the bail outs? We should trust Wall Street. They built the economy. Sure, it was only 1.5 years ago that the thing came melting down like Chernobyl - but these are smart people!

Look at the whole war on terror. You have records about how people like Clarke warned about al Qaeda over and over again, and it wasn't until November 12 that it because something to care about. And then it was Patriot Act and illegal wiretaps and torture.

It would have been better to have a consistent, even, measured, mature method of checking a little bit here, a little bit there, and course correction as need be. It might require you don't see government as "evil", but a necessary component to keep the powerful from preying upon the powerless. It requires that you don't see "the invisible hand" as the ideal for how people interact, but just a term used to describe how prices normalize, not morality.

Sadly, after apologies to BP for having to take responsibility for fucking up the planet, candidates coming out saying that God has a plan so rape and incest victims shouldn't be allowed abortions and Texas rewriting history to fit their ideals - I don't see maturity as something to expect anytime soon.

It's not honesty to confess after you've been caught

All hail Republican House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, who confessed he paid $150,000 to silence a woman he had been with. In a hot tub. Naked.

When she was a minor and he was 28.

What strength of character to confess his sins on the House floor, and how his fellow politicians applauded his honesty!

Only one problem:

It's not brave to confess after you've been caught.

It would have been brave if he had left it out there and said "You know what, 20 years ago, I was a jackass and did something stupid-judge me by my actions since them" before the incident came out.

Or maybe if he had told the woman "You know - I was stupid, but I'm not paying you hush money."

But to do the stupid thing of being almost 30 and hanging out with a 15 year old girl naked in a hot tub, then pay her money to keep quiet, then confess only *after* the newspapers started picking up the story - that's not bravery.

That's damage control.

So bravo, Mr. Garn. Bravo. Truly, the heart of a lion. Well, after the lion has run away, hid in the bushes, waited until everybody went away.

Minimum Standards and States Rights

Last Wednesday, there was a vote in the House to establish that schools across American could not tie down, use solitary confinement, and other medieval techniques of discipline that should never be applied to children.

Nearly every single Republican voted against it, on the idea of "states rights."

I have to say - what exactly is wrong with a minimum set of standards? We set up minimum standards for air quality on the federal level, for automobiles, even federal standards for what should be taught in classes.

There are some 22 states without provisions against treating children as if they were criminals, which this law seeks to address by establishing minimum standards to let all teachers know "No, you may not tie down Jimmy when he's bad. No, you can't put Susie in solitary confinement - you run a school, not a prison."

Evidently, the vast majority of Republicans thought that setting up these standards and spending $22 million a year to enforce them is too much. So remember, trillions for war, billions for tax cuts - but torturing kids? Well, they, we can't go spending money on that.

Jindal as Bizarro Obama

Did anyone else watching Jindal speak feel like they were watching Bizarro after Superman? I watched the speech in first bemusement, then growing shock at the level of stupid.

Hi, I'm Bobby Jindal. My parents are immigrants, like President Obama. My skin is brown - but not as brown as President Obama. But otherwise, we're the same, and clearly that's what the people want - more brown people!

I'm the governor of Louisiana. And let me tell you - government doesn't work! Here's an example: Katrina. Remember when a Republican president who was pretty incompetent was told by his former Arabian horse breeder turned disaster recovery head of FEMA that "Mr. President, there's a big storm heading to New Orleans" - and then Bush went to San Diego and played guitar? Yup - proof right there that government doesn't work! At least when it's headed by Republicans.

I probably shouldn't have reminded you about that.

In fact, it works so badly that the only person that was helping people was a sheriff getting out boats. Yes, a government official performing his duties in an emergency - that proves that government just doesn't work when you elect people of competence!

Now, let's talk about this "stimulus" plan. You may remember that 9 years ago, we had a surplus in the deficit, we were paying down the debt, and we were doing that with a combination of a reasonable tax rate and drawing down spending. Then Republicans got into office, and we cut taxes and spent the money on two wars and on piling up security for places like a Kentucky Fried Chicken center. And look how well the economy did!

Now that we're in bad economic straits (only because Democrats were in office for 2 years, so it's all their fault), we Republicans have the solution: tax cuts and deregulation! Because it worked so well over the last 8 years!

Look at Louisiana - while I've been governor, we've cut taxes all over the place - and our growing unemployment (funds for which I just denied, because poor people just need motivation to work), firing schoolteachers (because we don't have enough money to pay them because we cut all of those taxes - kids can education themselves about things like Intelligent Design!), and having to take in the other upteen billions from the federal government to meet our budget deficits - so my governorship for my state has been awesome!

Of course, we also want to reduce spending. Like on things like volcano monitoring. You may think that because my state was all but destroyed by a natural disaster because people weren't heeding the warning signs, I'd be more interested in monitoring that. Hell, no! See, if you know its coming, that just encourages government to respond badly. Instead, if it's God will to wipe out a bunch of people and towns, it should happen.

Now, I know President Obama just said he wants to cut wasteful spending in the Pentagon, and give troops a pay raise and increase spending on veterans. But I'm going to ignore that, and say that Obama wants to cut our military so we're more likely to be attacked. If I close my eyes real tight, then reality can't see me!

So, remember folks:

1. I'm just like Obama!
2. Tax cuts cure everything from having a stimulus, to funding two wars, to fixing our economic woes!
3. Spending money monitoring possible natural disasters is a waste of money. Tax cuts and prayers are far more effective!
4. If you didn't know, me and Sarah Palin are going to run for President in 2012 along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Republicans rock!

Or, was I the only person who felt this way when I saw this?