[Vision2020] Keep GOP Out of Reach of Children

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (March 1, 2006) Lewiston tribune with a very, very special
thanks to Tom Henderson.

You know . . . You've just gotta love his attitude.

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COMMENTARY: Tom Henderson... Keep GOP out of reach of children

Tom Henderson

Many people (meaning basically just me) have long advocated a hunting season
on right-wing Republicans to keep them from overpopulating the ecosystem. 

Hunters would get a cash reward for the pelts. How they got the pelts would
be strictly their own business. 

Of course, hunting is wrong unless you use every part of the animal. And
right-wingers are known for being a bit gristly. 

Forced sterilization provides a logical alternative. I like that idea.
However, lacking the political might to impose my will, I have to content
myself with hiding behind the country club late at night with a pair of
pruning shears. 

But the mess. Ick. 

There must be a better way. Leave it to Ohio's mighty brain trust to find
it. 

Ohio state Sen. Robert Hagan sent out an e-mail to colleagues last week,
announcing plans to introduce legislation banning Republicans from adopting
children. 

Cool beans! 

Specifically, Hagan's bill would "ban households with one or more Republican
voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents." 

Hagan closed his e-mail with a plea for a co-sponsor. So far, no takers. 

Strange. Ohio legislators are willing to consider a bill introduced by Rep.
Ron Hood to ban homosexuals from being adoptive or foster parents. That
makes just as much sense as banning Republicans. 

Or people whose eyes are too close together. (Oh, I hate them.) 

Hood's bill goes beyond homosexuals. It would also ban children from homes
where the prospective parent or roommate is transgender. After all,
cross-dressing is contagious. 

So, too, is Republicanism. More so, actually. 

If a boy is raised by a cross-dressing father, the lad may or may not take a
fancy to women's clothes. On the other hand, Republican parents more often
than not breed Republican children. 

All those noxious opinions floating around the air inevitably get sucked
into a child's lungs, eventually find their way up the brain stem and into
the nervous system. Contamination surely follows. 

Hagan says "credible research" (at least as credible as the research on
homosexual parents) shows that adopted children raised in Republican
households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social
stigmas, inflated egos and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem
different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their
insecurities." 

How horrible. 

The victim starts babbling incoherently about illegal aliens, homosexuals,
welfare mothers and godless scientists. Left unchecked, the disease can
infest entire communities. 

Banning adoptions by Republicans is a modest means of quarantine. Should
more be done? Probably. But Republicans' basic civil liberties must be
respected. Hagan's bill doesn't keep anyone from being a practicing
Republican. 

It just insists that if people choose to be a Republican they have to keep
it to themselves. 

The pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction in recent years,
with Republicans being given too many special rights. 

Republicans are protected from housing and job discrimination. They're
allowed to vote without even having to pass literacy tests. One of them is
even allowed to be president of the United States (as long as he promises
not to touch anything). 

None of this means Republicans should have unfettered access to vulnerable
children. 

Hagan thinks the bill targeting homosexuals is a big waste of time. 

"It flies in the face of reason when we need to reform our education system,
address health care and environmental issues that we put energy and wasted
time into legislation like this," he says. 

Agreed. Homosexuals generally stay to themselves. They venture out every now
and again for Barbra Streisand concerts, but generally speaking, they're
harmless. 

But Republicans ... ugh. Look at all the problems they create for society.
Something really needs to be done, especially in red states like Ohio and
Idaho. 

Too bad Hagan didn't do more to control Republicans before the 2004
election. Now we're faced with an infestation. If Hagan's bill fails, what
will we do? 

I guess there's always aerial spraying. If it works. 

You know Republicans. They love pesticides.

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I don't think that Moscow needs an aerial spray.

Maybe just a flea-dip.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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"It doesn't require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless
minority keen to set brushfires in people's minds"

- Samuel Johnson  [1709-84]

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