In the labelistic frenzy that besets our country from time to time, surely none can rival the tags "liberal" and "conservative" - except the universal epithet "idiot" that's bestowed with equal fervor on both. With the New Year rapidly coming up, however, I feel it's time for a cautionary note since all of the labels mentioned are in danger of becoming so overworked that their meanings will be completely lost.
In this spirit, I have to introduce a new label in hopes that it will replace one of the others and, eventually, become common usage that will both illuminate and explain a particular point of view.
I refer to CAPAC - Complete Anuses Posing As Conservatives.
Simply, CAPAC can be most distinguished from genuine conservatives by their brain power. CAPAC are generally dumb as rocks. While real conservatives sincerely believe in individual initiative as the main determinant of success, CAPAC feel anyone other than themselves don't deserve any help from "the taxpayers," especially those they see in the bathroom mirror.
Conservatives in the mold of the late Robert Taft Sr., William Buckley or Edmund Burke were pretty smart people. They recognized that people could only compete when they had at least a semblance of an equal playing field to start with. They would be the last to pile the burden for cutting debt on the backs of those least able to pay. They would probably endorse a flat tax, knowing that those on top would still have plenty to invest. CAPAC, on the other hand, grab onto the first "solution" coming from overpaid melonheads on talk radio and preach it as the one and only way out of the mess the "liberals" got us into.
CAPAC come in many forms. Take the Senator from Oklahoma, the "Honorable" James Inhofe. Senator Inhofe, who IMHO couldn't win a duel of wits with a tree, still insists that global warming and climate change has nothing whatever to do with the tons of garbage we spew into the air hourly. Says Inhofe, "Much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." Fear, perhaps, of people like Inhofe being on the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety.
Two other CAPAC, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, who deprived the nation of their presence in the Congress thanks to the quick action of the good people of Indiana and Missouri, displayed another characteristic of the species - complete unfamiliarity with facts. It's part of the mystery of our democracy that people who would be lucky to come in second on a Jeopardy panel with a three-toed sloth and an anvil could still be elected to arguably the most important deliberative body in the world.
Conservative views can often be valuable. The views of CAPAC generally cannot. CAPAC are simplistic, purile and bigoted. They thrive on hate, prejudice and unsubstantiated rumor. They rejoice in their own non-thinking, as evidenced by the self-description "dittoheads." Intelligence is condemned and intelligent people are called "eggheads."
While conservatives are willing to sit down and compromise, CAPAC are not.
So where does this leave our Congress and our country? Unfortunately, not in a good position. With CAPAC still occupying a good number of seats on the floor of the House of Representatives, the chances for some kind of exit from the self-inflicted maze we're in seems remote. Complicating the mess are the Lofty Anuses Posing As Liberals- LAPAL.
Altough outnumbered, they're still pretty effective at helping bring down the country.
As a partial solution, may I tear out a page from the CAPAC book and, instead of demanding birth certificates from political candidates, ask for copies of their IQ scores. I'd also like to see all of them take a GED exam to show that they could at least score at the level of a high school graduate. I think we'd all sleep better.