I'm just going to say it. Progressives are right. They are. No more discussion. The left is the correct choice.
I really love to maintain objectivity in all circumstances. I am not a kook. I'm the last person you'll find out on the street trying to push into your hand a densely-worded legal-sized sheet of paper filled with my views about how all the bees are going extinct. I am a measured person who weighs facts and forms judgments based on them. And I have weighed the facts, and I can now finally say: Objectively, Progressives are right.
How do I know? Easily. I have examined the people in the outer reaches of each party, and I have seen what sorts of things they say when they reveal to us their true selves. Case in point, Republican Representative Todd Aiken of Missouri. When Democrats slip up, they sound like they just pushed open the door of a VW Microbus and came out through a haze of the finest medical-grade Indica smoke. When Republicans slip up, they sound like they're auditioning for a role in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.
I'm not referring to policy gaffes. Herman Cain is not a bad person because he doesn't know who Libya is (he and Libya are currently settling out of court for an undisclosed amount). When Republicans slip up -- when they commit a gaffe of truth -- it always reveals that bubbling just below their shiny political candy-coating is a terrifying quagmire of fear, prejudice, ignorance and assholishness so strong that it would be considered bad writing if you were to see that character in a novel or movie.
Here's my pitch: Okay, how about we have a senator, really clean cut guy from like... I don't know, Virginia or something, and he's all but guaranteed reelection... but let's do a great scene at a rally where he calls an Indian guy "Macaca," because he is both racist toward black people and doesn't know what a black person actually looks like. If I said that, you would fire me, because that is the worst piece of writing ever.
But this is what Conservatives say when they don't know the mic is on.
When a Republican slips up, he explains to you that there is legitimate rape and illegitimate rape, and for those women who weren't secretly sort of wanting it, their body will naturally reject the rape sperm. When a Democrat slips up, he tells you that you should put on a sweater when it gets cold to save energy.
When a Republican slips up, he takes his friends hunting at his ranch called N-ggerhead. When a Democrat slips up, he says "YEEEAAHHH!" Also prostitutes. But Democrats and Republicans both really love prostitutes. So that cancels itself out.
Michele Bachmann is trying to force out communists from Congress. Barbara Boxer is trying to force people to use compact fluorescent light bulbs in the Capitol. Say what you will about the quality of light you get from CF bulbs. Boxer's idea comes from a good place. Bachmann's idea comes from a tiny, scary, dark, dusty old place that has had sheets over the furniture since 1956.
And say what you will about the merit of these fringe ideas. The two sides just have a different tenor. Progressives' stupid ideas sound like this: What if, like, we had a tax rebate so that everyone could have a bicycle for free? What if there were a community service requirement for millionaires? What if all public transportation had Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's album Déjà Vu playing on repeat during rush hour?
Conservatives' stupid ideas sound like this: What if we figured out a way to get fewer people to vote? What if we take all the people not born here and put them all on buses and send them home? What if we passed a law that everyone had to carry a gun everywhere all the time?
When a progressive is daydreaming, the things she imagines are starry-eyed slices of weirdness involving publicly funded community gardens and "Take A Minority To Work Day." When a conservative is daydreaming, her mind is a nightmare of home invasion, country invasion, and the invasion of her primetime TV shows with queers and hussies.
So, which worst is worse? The person with the pamphlet arguing that plants have feelings? Or the person protesting at a gay soldier's funeral?
Progressives are right. They win in a landslide. A landslide that some would argue was caused by God because they repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell. But I digress.