I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

What common ground on America, Mikey.  You hate America as it is.  You love America only in the context of its potential to become some kind of pacifist, neo-socialist shithole like most of Europe.  So don’t ever speak to me about your great love of America, Mikey, because we both know it isn’t there.  (For more of my thoughts on this, see this post.)

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

See, this is so typical of Mikey’s agitprop technique.  He asks one question, then answers it with something that has nothing to do with the first.  Are we safer now than before 9/11?  Yes, absolutely.  It’s going to take 20 or 30 years for our current Middle East strategy to truly bear fruit, but in the long term it will most definitely be worth it.  Is our disaster preparedness ability better after 9/11?  No, absolutely not.  Two questions, with two different answers, and Michael Moore’s drooling fans won’t for a second see the way they were just manipulated.

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

Nope, not at all.  He’s next on my hit list.

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Nope, but I can point you to someone who had his arms blown off, and let him answer that question.  His name is Peter Damon.  You should recognize him, Mikey, you used him in Fahrenheit 9/11.  He’s the guy in hospital who had his arms blown off.  You remember him, right?  You whored him out without his permission.  For all the camera crews you had at your disposal, you somehow couldn’t manage to get one over to interview him.  Hell, you didn’t even ask his permission to use his image, you bought the rights to the interview footage from NBC.  Well, there was one filmmaker who had the courage and integrity to let Damon say his piece.  Mike Wilson, in his brilliant film Michael Moore Hates America went to Damon’s house and let him have his say.  I’m sure you didn’t watch that film, Mikey, so if you or any of the drooling retards you count as your fans have the personal integrity to want to get Damon’s opinion, you can read it here.  But, hey, why actually do the right thing, when you can continue to whore out people who despise you and your message, right?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Yes, absolutely.  There is no institution in the history of mankind more incompetent, bloated, and unaccountable to the people than government.  If anything, the Katrina disaster had shown us just how inept government actually is. But don’t take my word for it, Mikey, ask Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish.

We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water.  FEMA turned them back.  They said we didn’t need them.  This was a week ago.  FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish.  The Coast Guard said, “Come get the fuel right away.” When we got there with our trucks, they got a word.  “FEMA says don’t give you the fuel.” Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines.  They cut them without notice.  Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, “No one is getting near these lines.” Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn’t be in this crisis.

Government, no matter which party or which president happens to be in power, is totally incompetent.  I will always, always trust private individuals and companies over some bloated, inept government bureaucracy.

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

Totally false.  Conservatives aren’t anti-government, Mikey.  We understand that there are certain functions and needs that can only be met by government.  National defense, building roads, picking up garbage, providing fire and police rescue, that sort of thing.  What we object to is the European, neo-socialist nanny state that you are so fond of.  We believe in empowering the individual to provide form himself, whereas you beelieve in empowering the state to provide for the individual.  We believe in teaching a man to fish, whereas you believe in stealing money from one group of people to create a behemoth government fish-distribution bureaucracy to keep poor people sucking at the ample, fishy teat of government for the rest of their lives.  Our way is better than yours.

With the nation’s debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Ah, the classic non sequitur logical fallacy.  Once again Mikey asks two questions with two different answers, thus implying that there is a connection between giving people tax cuts and other people being denied housing. 

Tax cuts are a good idea, always.  There is no such thing as a bad tax cut, ever, under any circumstances.  However, for tax cuts to be effective they also must be tied to cuts in spending.  Bush has cut the taxes, but has increased spending to unbelievable levels.  Bush is as big a spender as any rabid left-wing liberal in Congress, he just spends on different stuff.  And since “the rich” are the only people in this country who actually pay any taxes, then they are the only people who will receive tax cuts.  So, yes, I believe they are still a good idea, provided we cut government spending.  The answer to this discrepancy isn’t to raise taxes, it’s to cut spending.

As far as giving back the tax cut goes, you’ve thrown down the gauntlet.  You’re a multi-millionaire, Mikey.  What did you do with your tax cut.  Did you give it back to the government, as you are asking others to do?  If you did, prove it to us.  Show us a copy of the cancelled cashier’s check to Uncle Sam, proving that you gave back your tax cut.  What’s that, Mikey?  You didn’t give it back?  Then you’ve proven to the world that you’re nothing but a fucking hypocrite.

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn’t he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

This is the latest attempt by Mikey to somehow tie in quotes from Jesus to support his nanny state message.  Tell me, Mikey, where exactly in the Bible Jesus commands his followers to give money to Caesar, and for Caesar to create a huge entitlement bureaucracy to redistribute this wealth?  Jesus was speaking of man being judged for his actions on an individual basis.  What have you done, Mikey?  I mean, apart from check into a fat farm and write these emails.  What have you done?  How many dirty, impoverished black families are currently shacked up in your Park Avenue penthouse?  Does “zero” ring a bell?  How will Jesus judge you for your lack of compassion?

Oh, right.  Being compassionate doesn’t mean doing something on an individual basis, it means empowering the government to do it.  How very Jesus-like.

That’s not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

Look, the idea that Bush was out of the loop here is preposterous.  He was in Air Force One, for Christ’s sake.  He went to a pre-sheduled event.  The president is never, ever out of touch.  Now, if you want to argue that Bush shouldn’t have done this for the sake of appearing in a leadership role, I totally agree with you.  (See my previously linked post on Katrina.) It was a short-sighted, asinine thing to do, but what else was he supposed to do?  Fly down there and stop the hurricane with his bare hands?

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read “My Pet Goat” to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying “Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you’re doing a heck of a job!”

Note, gentle reader, the incredible lack of any criticism for the monumentally inept job done by Governor Blanco.  Oh, that’s right, she’s a Democrat.  Mikey has to protect them at all costs, especially when there’s a Bush he’s trying to blame.

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

Nope.  I’ve been to the rest of the world.  I don’t give a flying rat fuck what they think of us.  Besides, you’ve done more to play to that anti-American sentiment than any living person.  You’ve used it to make yourself millions and millions of dollars.  When you fly your fat ass around the world fomenting hatred of America, how can you turn around and then criticize America for the hatred that you yourself helped to create?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Of course not.  What it shows is that,, at its barest element, you cannnot count on government.  Government routinely fails us, yet your solution to the problem is more government.  More money, more spending, more control over the individual.  How do you honor the dead, Mikey, when every single thing you propose will do nothing to make us any safer or any better prepared?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can’t string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can’t pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

And here we go with the socialism, tying into his 9/11 message things that have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or natural disaster preparedness or anything else.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you’ve sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution.

So says a guy who lives in a Park Avenue penthouse.  Man of the people, eh Mikey?

Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

Do you think that their poverty could, ya know, maybe just possibly have anything to do with some of the poor choices they have made in their lives?  Like getting pregnant, dropping out of school, becoming addicted to drugs, joining a gang, that sort of thing?  Because here’s a shocker, Mikey: white people who engage in that sort of behavior are poor too.  Funny how that works.

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn’t up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren’t up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn’t a horse show.

I’ll close with this one thought.  We didn’t “give the world” Bush.  We had a choice to make, Bush or Kerry.  It’s fair to say that, even among Republicans, there were a lot of people who didn’t like Bush.  I could name 20 people I’d rather see as president than Bush.  If the choice were to vote Bush or Not Bush, clearly Not Bush would have won.  But that wasn’t the choice we were given, it was Bush or Kerry.  To use a South Park analogy, we had to choose between a Giant Douche or a Turd Sandwich, and no matter who won the election we were going to end up with either a douche or a turd.  The 2004 election could have easily been won by the Democrats if they had nominated a less detestable candidate.

Ironically, Mikey, it was you and your meddling that put Bush back in office.  You campaign for the most extreme left candidates in every election.  You, and your ilk in MoveOn, are working feverishly to push the Democrats to the radical left: support for gay marriage, gun control, the massive socialist welfare state, appeasing our enemies, worshipping the United Nations, and so on.  And because we only have a choice between two candidates, those of us whose primary focus was on national defense voted Bush, because there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Kerry would have cut and run in Iraq.  So think about that the next time you get a hard-on for someone like Dennis Kucinich.