Earth to GOP: Get a Grip

[question everything]

Bret Stephens commentary in the WSJ

(snip)

Fellow conservatives, please stop obsessing about what other adults might be doing in their bedrooms, so long as it's lawful and consensual and doesn't impinge in some obvious way on you. This obsession is socially uncouth, politically counterproductive and, too often, unwittingly revealing.

Also, if gay people wish to lead conventionally bourgeois lives by getting married, that may be lunacy on their part but it's a credit to our values. Channeling passions that cannot be repressed toward socially productive ends is the genius of the American way. The alternative is the tapped foot and the wide stance.... Also, Democrats did better with a president who wanted abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"; Republicans would have done better by adopting former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels's call for a "truce" on social issues.

By the way, what's so awful about Spanish? It's a fine European language with an outstanding literary tradition—Cervantes, Borges, Paz, Vargas Llosa—and it would do you no harm to learn it. Bilingualism is an intellectual virtue, not a deviant sexual practice.

Which reminds me: Can we, as the GOP base, demand an IQ exam as well as a test of basic knowledge from our congressional and presidential candidates? This is not a flippant suggestion: There were at least five Senate seats in this election cycle that might have been occupied by a Republican come January had not the invincible stupidity of the candidate stood in the way.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324894104578114791679213644.html

[Flashmann]

1. Can we, as the GOP base, demand an IQ exam

Then next obvious question,to me,is:If they demand an IQ exam which,I presume,would measure ability to learn/absorb/display such things as civics,empathy,genuine concern for positive social values and agendas.etc., that are actually good for the country,just WHO do they think will earn passing marks in such an exam??......

[ROBROX]

2. A SCHOLAR DOES NOT MEAN A PERSON HAS COGNIZANCE

This year the GOP selected a person who had two degrees from HARVARD. This does not mean this person could THINK. This guy worked in a big company which had good thinkers to do the work as Romney sat back and collected the cash.

Therefore by definition each GOP candidate doesn't need to know how to think but they do have a brain trust to guide them. This year many times the handlers lost control of their talking head and the idiot was voted OUT.

[Myrina]

3. Even if it's not lawful, as long as its consensual ...

... then it's nobody's damn business.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. There are tons of "blue laws" still on the books in some areas....

In one movie a list of charges against W. C. Fields included "eating spaghetti in public". That was making fun of an actual blue law that was on the books at the time in Philadelphia, a favorite target of his.

[HuckleB]

5. He ends it with the usual GOP wish for the economy to tank under Obama.

He pretends he gets it, but he doesn't really get it.