You may know, I simply don’t like putting my two cents in on politics. Political debates, protest rallies, electoral vote colleges… what? I don’t know what I’m talking about. Most political jargon goes right over my head. I may want to start looking into some of it. But when someone makes a claim that is completely irrational, without a basis in any type of science, I tend to get my panties in a bunch. I agree and disagree with much of both major political parties. I’m a walking political contradiction, which is why I wont bring it up very much.
On the other hand, and at the risk of alienating many of my readers, I do consider myself a Civil Libertarian. One of the problems Libertarians have is that we don’t have a good spokes person… well… with the exception of Penn Jillette. Most of the time we’re just shrugged off as complete nuts… which, we tend to be. Or completely ignored as though we have no say in the political world… which we do, despite whether or not we know what we’re talking about. Because both the Republicans and Democrats tend to make all kinds of crazy claims about Science, and Personal Liberties that don’t bode well against fact checking, I think our simple claims of “freedom-freedom-freedom” should be taken just as seriously.
Yeah. You’re free to laugh us out of the running just as we’re free to laugh you out of a anything else.
The main point of this blog is, coming straight out of left feild, The Simpsons. I am a HUGE fan of Matt Groening and his masterworks of “Life In Hell”, “The Simpsons” and “Futurama”, which is why whenever they get into politics I let it slide… as we all should.
My problem with The Simpsons is it’s Lisa heavy episodes. Lisa is a very clever little girl (who should be about 27 right now counting from the age she was at when it first aired if there wasn’t a floating timeline) and she’s always portrayed as the persecuted rational thinker. One of my favorite episodes involved finding the fossil of an Angel and another is the classic one where she becomes a Vegetarian (for reasons I don’t object to). Yet in my observations Lisa tends to be a fairly irrational thinker. I suppose we can all just say, “It’s just a cartoon” and let it go at that. But this cartoon has been on for 21 seasons and has affected many of our lives growing up. It may be that when she left the Christian church and went Buddhist, the original intent could have been with her just going completely “Skeptical Atheist” on everyone, after all, she does read Junior Skeptic Magazine, but the FOX network might not have liked that idea.
Instead she adopts a new religion and starts supporting New Age Woo such as Feng shui, Meditation, Herbal Supplements and I don’t recall if she supports Homeopathic remedies or not. I was especially disappointed when she had a Tummy Ache and Dr. Hibbert said he “could prescribe some harsh antacids”… just prescribe what will work! Don’t put it in such a negative tone. Yet, I know, if they didn’t write that in, it wouldn’t pave the way to the Alternative Medicine Shop part of the story and Lisa learning her lesson about how people don’t always have to bend to her every whim.
Damn those writers and the way they take the wrong route to a good point! I’m not saying all herbs don’t do anything for you, but have you read the claims made by MOST of them? Alternative Medicine that has been proven to work, is called Medicine. So, I’m a bit sad watching Lisa veer off into the world of the pseudo-scientific while still being portrayed as the smart, rational one. They could have kept her as a highly inelegant political Liberal without going into all these “spiritual” pseudosciences. It simply made her less credible while building on a Liberal stereotype that glows with idiocy.
On another note, Bart, the “dumb” brother, is a good candidate for a Libertarian mascot! Wow? It took all that ranting to get to this point? Well, I thought I had to point out how Lisa is really the only one in the Simpsons with a highlighted political stance.
BART=Libertarian. Seriously. Let’s think about it for a bit:
Homer=Casual Republican,
Marge=Casual Democrat,
Flanders=Fundamentalist Conservative,
Lisa=Fundamentalist Liberal
and, let’s face it,
Otto=Green Party.
Bart seems to adhere to all the basic “laws” of Civil Libertarianism. He enjoys the right to bear arms (sling shot), he speaks his mind which is why he tends to get in trouble a lot, he cares more about personal freedom than he does authoritative control, he eats what he wants, he plays where he wants (within reason), he appears to be the only one to be what I call a “non-spiritual Atheist” (who wouldn’t be with quotes like, “Church-Cult. Cult-Church. So we get bored somewhere else every Sunday”, “Ice cream at church? I’m intregued, yet suspicious” and “God’s words have never sounded so plausable”), and when he get’s older he’ll have a Ponytail… which seems to be a kind of theme in the Libertarian party. Yet, despite all those things he loves to do and take advantage of doing, he never infringes on other peoples rights to do the same. He does tend to borderline on Anarchism, but there is a clear difference between Civil Libertarianism and Anarchism… Nelson is an Anarchist.
He may be dim-witted. He may act out and cause trouble. He may even say something you don’t agree with as a form of social satire aimed at the right or the left. He is clearly Libertarian.
It’s no wonder that when He and his irrationally smart sister get together to solve a problem, they get it done. Then they just go back to making fun of each other.
As it should be in politics. At least from where this ill informed brain is seeing things.
I’m somewhere in between a libertarian and a moderate-leaning conservative. I’m also a huge Simpsons fan. I do like the Lisa episodes, but I like the ones where she ends up appreciating her family’s point of view the most (the angel episode and the vegetarian episode come to mind). And while Flanders as a conservative can be the punchline of many jokes, he is also given a lot of dignity as a character, so I can appreciate the writers for that.
Right, those ones are great! I really appreciate how the writers keep the topics light, while at the same time they try to address serious issues. The problem I have with the Lisa character is her profound lack of critical thought and willingness to follow the pseudo-scientific/pseudo-medical crowd, while still being propped up as the intellectual.
This blog post was kind of a jumbled rant with no real direction. I had some points I wanted to get out but, I don’t think I succeeded. I wasn’t trying to bash anyone, I sort of just smashed ideas together.