Duck Anus and the Seven Woes of Matthew 23

So Phil Robertson from the show Duck Dynasty popped off his mouth and said a lot of ignorant illiterate inbred hillbilly shit in an interview and suddenly the world, which heretofore was inexplicably entranced by his ignorant illiterate inbred hillbilly antics and had elevated him to a television star and face on t-shirts, became shocked and dismayed by the revelation that an ignorant illiterate inbred hillbilly may hold views that are a bunch of ignorant illiterate inbred hillbilly shit, and the ignorant illiterate inbred hillbilly was suspended indefinitely from his ignorant illiterate inbred hillbilly TV show.

That should have been the end of the story. Another sign of the shifting of the times. But then, the people who are most terrified of the shifting of the times, because the times are going to make them and theirs irrelevant -- ie, the conservative wingnut faction that only SEEMS like they suddenly became a force to contend with in recent years when my own memory is these assholes have been around my whole lifetime -- decided to seize on the moment as a rallying point for their culture wars. I guess to take a break from all the War On Christmas crap.

(Here's the War On Christmas in a nutshell, future historians: This is, right here and now, literally the first time in the history of this society that the voice of the Other has been able to be heard above the roar of the smug and entitled majority, and to a certain subset of said smug and entitled majority it is TERRIFYING. The idea that there are people who celebrate their own different winter holidays or indeed celebrate none at all is threatening to people who believe it is their god-given right to shove Christmas down everyone else's throat. Any attempt at getting them to respect or even acknowledge the existence of other traditions or non-believers, is perceived as an attack. The War On Christmas. Now back to our program.)

So first the governor of Louisiana comes out and immediately demonstrates that the governor of a state in this Union, right now today, has no functional understanding of how the First Amendment works. Not to be undone in idiocy, the inexplicably still-relevant Sarah Palin comes out to show that she, who was once almost the Vice President of the United States, also has no clear or cogent comprehension of the concept. And then every idiot fucking Republican tea bag motherfucker has to swallow the party line and parrot this same lame line about freedom of speech, or even better, freedom of religion. Because Phil Robertson is a Christian. So obviously whatever dumb shit this dumb ass says about the undesirability of anuses or how black people were more godly before civil rights came along is clearly motivated by his faith in Jesus.

Cue a bunch of snarky articles defining the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and how it does not insure one continued employment if said free speech should become a threat to the employer's livelihood. And then a bunch of people wondering where Sarah Palin was when Martin Bashir got fired a few weeks ago for making the completely reasonable suggestion that someone should shit in Sarah Palin's mouth. Those with longer memories chuckle and remember when Bill Maher got fired after 9/11 and how no one said boo about free speech. Cue more snarky articles reminding Republicans that the right of an employer to fire an employee in a free marketplace is actually about as Republican as it gets. Some also draw parallels between the right wing rushing to defend the right of some duck fuck to express his Christian faith and values, and the recent condemnation of Pope Francis by many of these exact same people when he freely expressed HIS Christian faith and values. Meanwhile, on the comments pages of any article about this topic, ignorant and illiterate people of all kinds line up behind the inbred hillbilly and express views that can be charitably described as on the wrong side of history.

Somewhere, an array of computers has been keeping track of all of this. Bombs are dropped by remote control death planes, precipitation seeding and nourishing more terror and violence for years to come. The spaceships are nowhere in sight. And I'm going to bed.