One of the reasons I love campaign ads so much is that I'm fascinated by how much dishonesty and stupidity can be jammed into thirty seconds. I've seen ads where it takes me upwards of ninety minutes to explain all of the half-truths, lies and overwhelmingly moronic statements in them. That's pretty goddamned impressive, if you ask me. Aren't you glad you did?I'm certain that Al Gore invented the Internet for no other reason than to allow campaign ads to be stretched out well beyond their traditional 30 second frame. After all, there's just so much stupid out there, so why limit yourself?
Rick Barber, a possibly psychotic Tea Partier running for the Republican congressional nomination in Alabama's Second Congressional District, knows that longer form advertising can accommodate more than just lies and idiocy. You can pack them full of crazy, too!
Barber was made internationally famous in his first web ad, wherein George Washington told him to gather an army to use against the United States government, which used to be called treason.
Sure, I'll bet that Barber will tell you that Washington meant a political army, but that isn't exactly what America's first president was famous for, was it? If I remember my history correctly - and I do - he raised and commanded an actual army to overthrow a tyranny. Besides, Ol' George spent his entire presidency arguing against the existence political parties.
The ad is almost comically crazy. I've been following politics for a long, long time, and I don't think that I've ever seen a candidate try to spin his hallucinations of converting long dead historical figures to his point of view as a positive thing before. It used to be that that sort of thing got you committed, not elected. I'm really impressed.
But Barber's second and most recent ad is far and away my favorite. I'm not even sure that I have the imagination necessary to introduce it properly ...
Wow. I've never seen Abraham Lincoln used a positive figure in Alabama politics before. Maybe there really is a New South!
And for the record, a lot of people really did shed a lot of blood trying to end slavery. The only problem is that Alabamans weren't among them. They were of ... another opinion on the matter. As a matter of fact, they still refer to it as the War of Northern Aggression.
The Constitution of the Confederate States of America actually went out of it's way to protect the institution of slavery. Moreover, it prohibited it's member states from interfering with the "property holding rights" of slaveholders from other states and precluded the Confederate Congress from abolishing slavery, which sort of undermines the idea that secession and the Civil War were about states' rights.
The approval of raising taxes to fund "legitimate functions of government", like the Revolutionary War, is pretty funny, too. If a revolutionary war is a legitimate government function, how revolutionary can that war really be? At that point, what exactly are you revolting against? As I understand, there was no popular plebiscite on independence in 1776, nor were the delegates to the Contentinental Congress elected by anyone. The Loyalists probably thought that was pretty "tyrannical," but not as much as their subsequent tarring and feathering.
For that matter, what are legitimate government functions in the eyes of Mr. Barber and his Tea Party ilk? Is the Interstate Highway System legitimate, even though such a thing isn't mentioned in the U.S Constitution? If it isn't, will they tear it up if they get elected? What about Medicare, which consists almost entirely of "medical procedures" that are funded by taxes? If that's illegitimate, why were the Tea Partiers screaming so much about cuts to it during the health care bill debate? Were they actually trying to preserve slavery?
You may not like ObamaCare, but if you take the position that it is illegitimate or tyrannical, it stands to reason that Medicare is, too. And isn't "forcing someone to work for months to pay taxes, so that a total stranger can get" Social Security benefits like slavery as well?
The "Arbeit Mact Frei" sign at Auschwitz is a really nice touch, too. It's important to understand that the Holocaust wasn't just about exterminating the Jews. It was also about an overreaching government giving away health care insurance. Too many Alabama Republican primary voters forget that.
On July 13th, vote for Rick Barber. He sees dead people.
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