Sounds Good To Me!

Right wingers are still reposting a weird old meme declaring that Obama was ordered out of his helicopter by one of his junior officers because he didn't salute his marine guard standing out front.

I responded:

Why is this nonsense still circulating? It was instantly disproven when it was first claimed long ago. Besides which, do you know what would happen to a real Marine officer who looked his  commander-in-chief in the face and ordered him off the aircraft? If this had actually happened that officer would be dishonorably discharged and currently serving his 20 years of hard labor at Leavenworth.

These bizarre political wet dreams are why so many independents and young people are utterly disgusted with the Republican Party.  This is why your party is no longer allowed in the White House.

Michele added:

This was proven untrue and the entire event covered recently by Snopes.  Only those in the service and in uniform are supposed to salute.  Obama would have been wrong , just as all those others have been wrong, to salute. Apparently Reagan started it, but that doesn't make it appropriate, or correct.

Dan commented:

Republicans are getting desperate, recirculating old fake news.  When Clinton humiliates Trump in November, we'll see a lot more of this idiocy.  The Democrats had better take Congress is all I can say.

I posted:

 I don't respond to most of the ones I see. It's just that they are so utterly divorced from reality and so full of hate that they irritate me enough to make a response.

Dan replied:

It's like resisting the temptation to waste time dealing with a classroom disrupter.

I responded:

I probably shouldn't respond to these. Actually I don't respond to most of the ones I see. It's just that they are so utterly divorced from reality and so full of hate that they irritate me enough to make a response.

It's all a result of the Republican Party's careful efforts to drive out any one who wasn't extreme and fanatic. It's an age-old story. Time and again various groups have thought, "I just had a great idea! We'll just let those extremists  think they're taking power and then we will pull the strings to make them our puppets."  The problem is the strings connect to both the puppet and the puppeteer. Often the puppet turns out to be the bigger and more powerful of the two.

I'm not feeling that well today so I'm going to be lazy and not do the research. However, there was a king in one part of early not yet united England who grew tired of all the Viking raids he was suffering. His solution? Why, he'd invite one Viking tribe to settle around the edges of his kingdom so they would provide a buffer and fight off the other Viking tribes.

You can see what's going to happen here. It was not long before the "friendly" Vikings decided they didn't want some of the land, they wanted all of it. So they took it.

The same thing had happened earlier with Rome. They invited one of the barbarian tribes, I think was Goths or Visigoths, to settle out around Rome to protect the city.  Being Romans, they abused this allied group of barbarians until they had taken enough and sacked Rome for the first time.

Then there's Hitler. Most Americans don't realize he was never elected to power. In fact, his party had lost a lot of seats in the parliamentary election just prior to his ascension.  Many of his political opponents were rejoicing that the whole Nazi nonsense was finally over.  Then a group of upper class conservatives, wealthy businessman, conservative military officers, and other fellow travelers decided that in order to get the country back under control they needed the determination and even the street brutality of the Nazi party.

Not that they liked the party. It's just that they thought, "Hey this guy Hitler is just a underclass street thug. We intelligent members of the upper class could easily control him. We'll just get all that passion and determination on our side, pull the strings, and make this guy do whatever we want him to do.  We will be the power behind the throne!"

You know how well that worked.

So the Republican Party has driven out moderates and even what used to be called conservatives. They were all declared to be Rhinos; not true Republicans. Now there is nothing left but the fanatics and extremists -- and of course the party leaders who thought they could pull the strings and control those people. Doesn't seem to be working out very well, does it?