Welcome To Libtard Land

In retrospect I should have known better. At the time I was relatively new to Twitter so tended not to wade into Twitter wars on political issues. It is so easy, especially if trying to be humorous or satirical or sarcastic, to be misunderstood when reducing your deepest political thoughts to 140 characters. 

I especially try to steer clear of issues that I see as minor flashpoints guaranteed to cause polarization. If I'm going to get involved in a flame war it has to be over an important issue, not some sideshow. 

So by all of my standards I should have stayed away from comments regarding what was happening at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. For those who have had more sense than me, or have forgotten after lo these many months, I'll provide a brief synopsis of the issue:

• Rancher Bundy in Nevada has let his herd of cattle graze on federal land without permission for over 20 years
• He refuses to pay the fees required to do so; these fees were instituted by one President Ronald Reagan in 1986
• There have been several court rulings concerning the issue; all have gone against Mr. Bundy
• Finally the Bureau of Land Management sent Mr. Bundy a letter essentially threatening to confiscate any of his cattle found on federal property unless he paid the required fees (which by the way over 16,000 ranchers have done over the years); and I believe they began to do so
• Mr. Bundy complained and become a cause celebre to the right wing, conservative pundits and Fox News; armed militia members showed up on his property to protect him from the big bad "gummint" 

Not the type of issue I take great interest in usually. One I leave to the internet to fight out while I worry about income inequality and a better, more secure life for the middle class in this country.

Unfortunately I also tend to have a low tolerance for bullshit and intellectual dishonesty. And this issue is just dripping with it. All of these people portraying Mr. Bundy as a hero are so quick to judge others for even the most minor infractions or for stealing from taxpayers. So stupid me, after reading some comments about this issue by people I follow on Twitter, decided to make a comment and use the hashtag #BundyRanch which was the tag being used for comments concerning it.

My comment was simple enough: "So new right wing hero is breaking law signed by Reagan and stealing from every American taxpayer. #BundyRanch"

And it was actually retweeted by a couple of folks, a very uncommon occurrence for me as I do not do a lot on Twitter. And now I know why.

I then received a response: "Only in Libtard Land. He has stolen nothing from me and provided me with food and milk. @SenatorReid stealing NV 4 Chinese"

fyi - that last part about Harry Reid stealing Nevada for the Chinese is a reference to the latest right wing nut job conspiracy to flare up over this Bundy Ranch issue. Namely that the only reason they are trying to get Bundy to stop using the public lands is that the government wants the property to build a solar power array in the desert, that the company supplying the solar panels is Chinese, and Harry Reid's son is somehow connected to the Chinese company and stands to make a lot of money off of it.

And indeed if you enter "Harry Reid stealing Nevada for Chinese" online, you get a lot of entries popping up - almost all of them belonging to right wing sites repeating the accusation. You have to search harder to find links like the one here that debunk the story. Turns out yes there are proposals for solar sites in Nevada. But none of them are for the land Bundy is using without permission, nor anywhere close to it. Nevada is a big state after all.

But I was intrigued by the beginning of the response. "Only in Libtard Land". Supposedly this meant that only a "libtard" would label Mr. Bundy a thief rather than a true patriot.

I looked up "libtard" in the urban dictionary. As you can tell the entries are not complimentary to people who would consider themselves liberals. By the tone and words used you can tell the entries were written by people who are, well let's be nice and simply call them, "conservatives".

They paint a stereotypical picture of liberals as rich elitists who live in a fantasy world where people can get along and work together. Reality however, in the view of these authors, is a conservative bitch. In reality people are not good-natured, don't want to work together or work towards a common goal. So the "libtard" must advocate for government control and laws and regulations to try and enforce their naive utopia.

Wow. Projection thy name is conservative. I'll leave to another posting, hell it could take several, to deconstruct the pejoratives associated with "libtard". For now though let's accept the label and try to imagine what life is like in "Libtard Land".

You may be living in Libtard Land if:

• every individual is treated equally and with respect, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, gender or sexual orientation
• every individual has the opportunity to receive a good, free public education through the 12th grade
• every individual has access to quality medical care, and access to the care and the quality of medical care received, is not dependent on the size of your bank account, or that of your parents
• nobody goes bankrupt or loses their home because they or a family member becomes ill or has a devastating accident
• every individual has ready access to necessary information, whether through adequately funded and maintained public libraries, or affordable internet, cable or satellite facilities
• full-time jobs are available that pay a living wage for every individual who is physically and mentally able
• communities have quality transportation, health care facilities, schools, and other basic infrastructure
• the air you breathe is clean, the water you drink is potable, and the food you eat is safe from disease and pathogens
• military solutions are always the last resort, not the first option in foreign policy

Is that reality? Not even close. Is it the ideal we should be striving for? Absolutely. And the free market does not by itself get you there. Yes those pesky government laws, policies and regulations are needed to help create equal opportunity for all, not just for those that start out ahead of the game due to fortune of birth.

So I will admit to living in Libtard Land. In the future I'll try to imagine what conservative utopia might be and see if we can post some dispatches from there. 

What should it be called? ConservoCretin Country? ConservaCretin County? Feel free to offer suggestions. There have to be better ones.