I have been receiving calls and emails all day from friends throughout the City of Santa Ana. They are all wondering what Red County blogger Matt “Jubal” Cunningham was thinking when he attacked me with a truly lame hit piece this week. Perhaps the best response to the crazed mailer, which served as a free advertisement for this blog, came from my friend Gustavo Arellano, who writes at the OC Weekly and at the L.A. Times. Here is what Arellano had to say in my defense, in his Navel Gazing blog post:
I will always be a fan of Art Pedroza, the county’s original political blogger and the man behind Orange Juice!, because he’s living proof that people’s political philosophies can change—in Art’s case, he went from a homo-hating, MEChA-bashing Republican to a Prop. 8-opposing virtual Aztlanista who tells it like it is, damn public opinion. Nevertheless, Art has an uphill battle in his campaign to wrest the SanTana City Council’s Ward Three seat from Busty Bustamante—Busty has far outraised Art (more on Busty’s campaign donors super-soon) and has the advantage of his incumbency, as incompetent and plain-pendejo Busty may be.
But hopefully, Busty has committed the error of this political season with a flier he sent out to SanTana declined-to-state voters attacking Pedroza. First off: is Busty that scared of Pedroza—a man with no institutional support—to spend thousands of dollars on a flier attacking what Busty’s handlers label a “gadfly”? As much as I love Orange Juice!, the vast majority of SanTana’s voters haven’t heard of Pedroza or his blog—until now. Busty’s flier is really just an advertisement to visit Pedroza’s blog—shit, Busty’s folks should file their effort as a donation to Pedroza.
Worse than that, though, is the flier itself: a picture of Pedroza buried under nuts with the legend “Is This Nutty [Gustavo’s note: “nutty” is in Halloween-squiggly font] Or What?: Political Gadfly Art Pedroza Wants to Get Elected to the Santa Ana City Council.” On the back, Busty & Co. gathered some Pedroza quotes over the years at Orange Juice!—but none of it is damning. So Art once talked about how the California State Constitution was written in Spanish—who cares? And who cares if Pedroza says that Cesar Chavez’s illegals-hating ways will never get much publicity? It’s true. The other quotes, if you read them carefully, show why the Libertarian Party endorsed Pedroza, which Busty’s handlers ridiculously characterized as a party “which seeks to legalize prostitution and hard-core drugs.” HA! Libertarians are much more committed to liberty than the OC GOP, a collection of self-hating gays, hypocrites, and felons—and those are the reputable folks.
It remains to be seen if Pedroza can pull the monumental upset, but one thing is clear: Busty is the stupidest politician this reporter has seen since the days of Harald Martin—and given that Busty works in the Banana Republic, which has spawned Papi Pulido, Nativo Lopez, Claudia Alvarez, and Ted Moreno, that is quite the accomplishment. Good luck, Art—at least this campaign has been as entertaining as the wackiness that passes for political discourse in Irvine!
*UPDATE: Trying to find out all the morons who wasted their money giving Pedroza a free ad for his blog, but one of the people behind it was Matt “Jubal” Cunningham of OC Blog, who openly despises Pedroza. Geez, Matt: You’re supposed to be smart when it comes to political consulting. On one hand, I give you credit for being able to convince people to give money. On the other hand, if you’re really trying to publicly smack Art, it landed with the equivalent force of a Vlad Guerrero postseason hit.
Libertarians also want to decriminalize the simple act of being a hard core Republican.
There are a log of activities in this world that people can engage in that are just plain stupid and self destructive. Hiring a prostitute can be a danger to your health, it may weaken your relationships with your loved ones, and help reinforce unhealthy perspectives about women. Prostituting ones self… well we could start with all the above and throw in meta-programming a crippling self image to the list of why prostitution is just not a good idea.
I can not begin to tell you how utterly bad an idea hard core drugs are. You wreck your mind, body and soul; and only Las Vegas will drain your wallet faster.
Being a moron Republican is probably one of the most fool hardy endeavors ever. Drunk with brown people’s blood, being a republican can dull your senses and emotions causing you to justify war for profit (someone else’s), inflate everyone’s currency, destroy the American manufacturing base, justify hate and bigotry, bloat government, plunge the country into depressive debt, install domestic spying programs, do wholesale surveillance of citizens without cause much less sworn testimony, draw the disdain and ire of the entire world upon all Americans, perform secret kidnappings, take scissors to the constitution, and get laughed at by a Supreme Court despite the fact that it is heavily stacked in what should be your favor.
Libertarians stand by the right of EVERY MAN to make stupid decisions for him or her self. Stupid decisions have consequences and nature has this great tendency to reward stupidity with big self-correcting slaps of reality.
We may not like drug users, prostitutes or progressive democrats with flag pins and GOP membership cards, but we Libertarians do not want to see the use of force used to stop simple self destructive behavior. We know in our hearts that the Republicans, drug users, and prostitutes will quickly learn their lessons when criminal prosecution is removed from the picture. Laws regarding personal choice masks the natural consequences of actions, and becomes an enabler.
We are best served in restraining our desire for using governmental force until someone has hurt another. We know that a junky may be more motivated to steal or do other things that hurt people. Statisitcs show this to be true; but, you cannot project a statistical “tendency” of a group upon an individual within it. it is unjust to do the addict harm on propensity for “weakness” unless he actually does something to hurt another. It is far wiser for us to concentrate on the addicts who do steal, and throw the book at them then.
Republicans are the same, just because someone belongs to a group that is proven to do great harm to others, does not mean the individual is guilty. Prosecuting republicans for their bad voting habits is just as unjust. Instead of rounding up all republicans, Libertarians urge law enforcement to concentrate on the ones who ordered or performed acts of murder, kidnapping, theft, and various hate crimes. Make an example of them… maybe up the penalty with a kicker of having broken the law while in office… BUT we must allow those republicans who, while engaging in foolish self-destructive activities, have not actually done anyone harm to learn the natural consequences of their actions.
ALIVE * FREE * HAPPY
Libertarian
Holy Sh*t the only thing I got from AFH is that you really love the use of run on sentences.
Another writer working on stream of consciousness writing, thanks AFH. I agree with Yeah Ok, a few periods in there would help alot, well maybe not alot. There is that pesky contradictory content thing to work through.
Hey, that was a lot to try and get out in my half hour for lunch 😉
It does my heart some good to see that the only detractions so far have attacked my style, and not the content.
BTW an iteration of crimes by republicans is not a run-on sentence.
I had meant to say that, as a Progressive Democrat, I would agree with just about everything you said there AFH. Except I’d probably add that there are some important things that we citizens can only do – or do best – through our government. Health care comes to mind.
Of course the secret is everyone has to stay involved in their government, or it gets taken over by one kind of scum or other and turns against us! 😉
ALIVE – FREE – HAPPY – PROGRESSIVE DEM! (for now)