Sunday, August 22, 2010

Broken Branch

A man's home is his castle. That's about as conservative a mantra as you'll ever find. It puts a nice capsule around the trinity of American ideas that were so cherished by the Founding Fathers - life, liberty, property (some silly liberal actually changed that last one to "pursuit of happiness", whatever that means).

My castle has been invaded. Twice now, both times during what we used to call dinner hour, my phone has been blown up by a robo-call. Was it a sales call? No. Dial-a-Prayer bugging me again? Not that, either. It was a recorded message from Bob Branch.

Bob Branch is (I now know) running for Congress, hoping to represent the great state of Arizona. He made sure to mention, numerous times, that he's a Christian conservative. Because I can read and understand the establishment clause, it occurs to me that Bob may as well be a Shinto anarchist where the First Amendment to the Constitution is concerned.

He has no other credentials. Bob Branch lays out all of his inexperience on a website for us to read. Based on the number of fingers he has, Bob Branch lays out his ten-point plan for the United States.

Homeland Security: It starts with securing the border, of course. Never mind that all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were in the country on visas. And he quotes "President Regan" (sic) as having said, "Government's first duty is to protect people, not run their lives." Perhaps President Regan was speaking of the Iraqi people; who knows?

Transferring terrorists to the United States: Don't do it! Of course, without actual trials, we don't really know if the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are terrorists or simple goat herders. Following Bob's path, we never will.

Education: Bob, a college professor with one of those elitist degrees with lots of letters in it, wants to eliminate summer vacation for the kids. And he wants to rearrange the timeline for completing their education. It is worth noting that the state he wishes to represent is dead last in education funding per pupil and leads the nation in dropouts.

Health Care: Bob, himself a rather overweight fellow, knows how to handle this one. His advice is to get a job. If you lose that job, you should be able to pay both your end and the employer's end of the bill to keep your health insurance until you get another job. The health care bill that was signed into law by President Obama is errantly referred to as "socialized medicine".

Balanced Budget: Bob wants to balance the budget. His many position papers, railing against the record deficits run up year after year by the Bush administration - which didn't even put the funding for two wars into the equation - can be found at... Hang on... I'll find it... Ah, never mind.

Same-Sex Marriage: Anybody want to take a stab at Bob's position on this one? He's against it, because he believes that the sanctity of marriage (and the joy of divorce) is reserved for one man and one woman. He also believes that marriage is a union blessed by God, further exposing his ignorance of (or contempt for) the separation of church and state.

The Right to Life: Bob doesn't agree with the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in America. He refuses to acknowledge that abortions have been declining for decades as a result of better birth control (which he also opposes). Wonder what other Supreme Court decisions he doesn't like?

Energy: Bob's first step to energy independence is literally taken from his website. "Drill, baby, drill". So original... With no more than 3 to 5 percent of the world's oil supply in our hands, and with the BP oil spill plaguing the Gulf Coast, Bob may as well take a Sharpie and write the word "Moron" on his own forehead.

Cap and Trade: Bob says that cap-and-trade legislation (effectively a tax on corporate polluters based on the amount of carbon they emit) "will kill us as a nation". So Bob Branch is either entirely delusional about this, or he's hoping to attract some corporate polluter money to his campaign. Or both.

The War on Terror: I actually expected him to say, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out", but Bob's logic is even hazier than that. Clearly define our goals, he says, without doing so. Then provide the troops with the resources they need (while balancing the budget, mind you). Once the goals are achieved, we can bring them home to a grateful nation. In other words, he would do what Barack Obama has already done.

Looking at this raw tripe, anyone can see that Bob Branch is in no way fit to represent any state other than Arizona. For us, he's a true par. One thing, though, struck me as odd each time my dinner was interrupted by his telephone solicitations. The phone number that popped up on my caller ID came out of North Dakota.

Bob Branch, in his bid to represent Arizona, outsourced the job to North Dakota. Arizona has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. North Dakota actually has the lowest, at 3.9 percent, and now we know why.

Bob Branch for Congress, anyone? Anyone? That's what I thought. You never know, though, as elections are funny things. He may yet win one for the Giper.

pH 8.22.1o