We've all done it. While we're engaged in a discussion, we say something that we immediately know was a totally stupid thing to say. Our faces turn red, our body language becomes uncomfortable, we hope that nobody really heard the remark, and we try to change the subject as quickly as we possibly can. Later on, your significant other or your best friend turns to you and says...." Wow, dummy, you really stuck your hoof in your mouth that time." Luckily, the damage wasn't irreversible and the next time you're in that group you make certain that you are a bit more careful in your speech.
But not the 2013 republican party and those who support them. Instead of thinking about what they have said, and rewording and rethinking their positions that led to their mouths becoming full of their hooves, they inexplicably double down the next time they open their mouths. It doesn't make a difference how far outside the pale the statement might have been, how crazy the majority of Americans may consider those statements, these republicans can't help themselves.
If this was the case on a single issue, say "reasonable gun laws", we might be able to understand the position of those that take the position that any individual can own any weapon they can buy and have as large an ammunition clip as the gun could hold. After all, the interpretation of the 2nd amendment to the constitution has been litigated and re-litigated over and over with wildly varying results. The only thing that we know is that there is a constitutional right to bear arms, but the types of arms and ammunition are still a matter of debate. What shouldn't be a matter of debate are the inflammatory and frankly ludicrous statements that have come from many on the far right and from many in the republican party. After the massacre in Newtown, the appropriate response by all was to state that we should all come together to find ways to insure that the loss of life of innocent children and adults could be agreed upon. The response that we should have more guns, in schools, on our streets, in our public areas was inappropriate. The blanket statement that the problem wasn't the semi-automatic weapons or the extended magazines but purely the mental health issues of the shooter in Newtown seemed like a mental health statement unto itself.
But this isn't the only "I know it's crazy" moment that we are hearing. This republican party is again threatening to close down the government of the United States over the raising of the debt ceiling when every American knows that the debt ceiling only allows us to pay the debts that the congress {who authorized the spending in the first place} has incurred. That ceiling must be raised. The republicans know that. It is insanity to say otherwise, but listening to congresspersons such as Marsha Blackburn, Louie Goehmert, and Michele Bachmann, they cannot help putting the hoof back in the mouth again.
Can the republican party close their mouths long enough to pay attention to issues of government rather than issues of oppression of women? They are willing to shut down government, but they place the 35th consecutive losing bill on the house floor to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Insanity. They move to attack a woman's right to health care services at locations such as Planned Parenthood, even though the nation has clearly told them that they consider that a move marked by political insanity. But they keep doing it. They keep introducing bills and making speeches and allowing their television and radio surrogates to pitch causes that are bordering on the insane.
They are seeing demons where no demons exist and they have somehow decided that anyone who disagrees with their current extremism is no longer republican {or has never been}. The next target will be Colin Powell. His attack on the republican party will place him publicly on the same pariah list as Charlie Christ, Christie Todd Whitman, Chuck Hagel, or any other republican who dared to question the current "I can't help myself" attitude.
Unfortunately sanity in speech in the republican party has been equated to being a RINO. Human hoof and mouth disease is usually a temporary and curable condition. This 2013 edition of republicanism is a new and viral strain of the disease. They are crazy, they can't help themselves, they are in critical condition. There can't be a moderate republicanism. There can't be a growing republican party. Only in the delusional mind of the terminally ill could this type of insanity continue.
