Dear Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, and the Texas GOP,
You don't know me, and I'm not a Texan in any way, shape, form, or fashion. So I'd say you won't care what I think about this fiasco - except that you've already made it abundantly clear that you don't care what anyone thinks of what you're doing here, whether they're a constituent, a politician with the opposition, or God Herself, so I know it's nothing personal.
Since my words, and indeed, my very existence mean nothing to you, I will feel free to speak my true mind on this in very blunt terms.
You are the biggest pack of filthy hypocrites I've ever seen.
You (the wider GOP) venerate the Founding Fathers, who fought a war and founded a nation over the right to be treated with respect and have a say in one's government - and yet you blatantly disrespect the modern people of that nation when they gather by the hundreds and thousands to tell you to STOP. You idolize (and I mean that in the truest sense of idolatry, by the way) a group of men who are remembered for, among other things, decrying "taxation without representation" - and yet you will happily impose far more intimate regulations on your constituents' very bodies while silencing their representation, whether it be through their elected officials or through their own voices raised in protest.
You use procedural trick after procedural trick to try to force those elected voices to shut up, eventually forcing them from the floor under guise of respect for parliamentary procedure - and yet you're quite happy to blatantly violate the same rules you insist everyone else abide by as soon as it suits you, by altering documents and timestamps to literally rewrite history once it became clear you'd lost.
Do you know why I am political in the ways that I am, Mr. Perry (et al)? Because I still believe in - still want to believe in - the the noble ideals I was told we as a country stood for, as a child growing up in America. I want this country to offer liberty and justice to all. I want a government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.
And you people claim to love the Constitution, love the Founders, love what this country "stands for" - that is, what we claim to stand for - and yet your actions tell a terrifyingly different story.
Because when you are faced with The People Themselves, in the flesh, by the hundreds, literally raising their voices to prevent you from making unjust laws that trample on their rights...
And your response, after every dirty trick and lie and machination you used failed you, is to say "That's fine, we'll just try it again next week"...
You are not acting in the spirit of the lofty goals of liberty and justice and freedom. You are channeling King George. (Hell, at this point, I'm inclined to say you're channeling Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine too, but that's my penchant for hyperbole and my geekishness sitting down for a drink together, so.)
You are liars. You are hypocrites. You are power-hungry tyrants unfit to wield authority over an ant colony, much less millions of human beings. And you need to fucking stop.
With intense loathing,
J
