Thursday, November 29, 2012

More Convoluted Reasoning from the Tea Party Crowd

Anyone who’s paid much attention to the Tea Party crowd for the last three years already knows that critical thinking and logic are not exactly their strong suits. But this new talking point they’ve been circulating hits a new low in convoluted reasoning.

Now they’re claiming that Democrats (or liberals, or humanists, or anyone who doesn’t confirm to their authority-loving worldview) don’t support American troops because the troops supposedly voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. Here’s the quote that was floating around Facebook:

“In the 2012 election, our military rejected Barack Obama by a 2 to 1 margin. 67% of our active and retired military did not want Barack Obama as their commander in chief but the liberals still voted for Obama. Proof positive that liberals do not support what our military wants.”

To paraphrase our good friend Inigo Montoya, they keep using the phrase “support the troops,” but I don’t think it means what they think it means. On the most basic level, supporting the troops means helping them make the most of a tough situation. It means not forgetting them. It means respecting their sacrifice.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean deferring to their opinions about who should be president, or what’s the best toothpaste, or anything else that’s a matter of conscience.

I’m well aware that ever since we invaded Afghanistan and overthrew Iraq, many Republicans and other pseudo-patriotic types have used “Support the troops” as a euphemism for “Support our plan to kill all the foreigners we want and get rich off our investments in the defense industry.” But real support would mean getting American soldiers out of this backwards-ass godforsaken region and home to their families. Obama has some work to do in this regard, but I think he’ll get it done faster than the alternative.

Oh, and by the way: If exit polls had showed that Obama carried military voters, we wouldn’t have heard a peep from the tea party crowd.

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I toyed with the idea of replacing the phrase “backwards-ass godforsaken region” with “Assbackwardstan.” Finally decided against it, partly because it was a little too Mad magazine and because there's a good  chance someone probably beat me to it.

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