Click for huge.

Hey, remember when I mistook John McCain for John McClane, linking to livefreeordiehard.com as his campaign page? Well now, COINCIDENTALLY, Twentieth Century Fox Films has done the same thing, even using “Yippie Kay Yay America” as a slogan like I did, linking right from livefreeordiehard.com with a bumper sticker graphic very similar to the one I made. And how were people getting to livefreeordiehard.com to see the advertisement? That’s right, those thousands of people were getting there because I had the common decency to link them there.

Stephen Colbert may have made Mike Huckabee (and Conan O’Brian made Stephen Colbert (and John Stewart made Conan O’Brian))), but it’s clear that it is I who made the viable candidate that is John McClane.

Granted, I never followed through by making a full-on campaign page because it was too much work for a stupid joke, but it gave Fox the opportunity to show that there is NOTHING TOO STUPID, provided someone comes up with it for them first. On the plus side, their site looks JUST LIKE the one I was going to make, so that’s all good. I particularly like the quote about John putting himself in his opponent’s shoes. I’d link to it, except that unlike my version of the site, theirs is entirely flash and impossible to use.

Anyway, to the people at 20th Century Fox I only have one thing to say: “You’re welcome.”

The other night’s exhibition of crazy political ideals prompted some discussion from a friend intrigued by my Ron Paulian Libertarian Fantasyland.  He was particularly perturbed by the idea of things like roads and schools not being paid for with taxpayer moneys, and wondered what I thought about them.  I must confess that the school angle had simply not occurred to me before, so after a little thinking I went with the standard Libertarian answer (private companies).  Like all Libertarians, I became smug after giving an answer of such sufficient convincingness.

“But what about poor families?  How will they pay the tuition at these privately run schools?” he countered.

Once again, the idea of people unable to pay for school had simply not occurred to me.  I briefly felt my world-view beginning to crumble, but then, mercifully, sudden inspiration struck.

“We put webcams in the gymnasium and charge pedophiles money to watch all the kids chasing bouncy-balls around and climbing ropes in those skimpy shorts.  This will bring in TONS of money, effectively making tuition null and void.”

See, with a little creative thinking, Libertarianism can solve ANY problem.  We don’t need the government to solve all our problems (badly) when we have millions of citizens willing to MAKE money off all the problems.

Lest anyone question the level of my nutjobbery, here are the results from the little “pick your 2008 candidate” quiz that’s making the rounds:

65% Ron Paul
50% Mike Huckabee
47% Fred Thompson
46% Mitt Romney
46% Rudy Giuliani
44% John McCain
41% Mike Gravel
41% Bill Richardson
38% Tom Tancredo
37% Chris Dodd
37% Dennis Kucinich
30% Barack Obama
30% Hillary Clinton
28% John Edwards
26% Joe Biden

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

I was really hoping—because of the truthfulness of my answers—that it would read from top to bottom in order of craziness.  In large part it did, but I’m a bit surprised that Mike Gravel didn’t even beat McCain, let alone Giuliani. I did expect Kucinich to be a little higher on the list, though, as I kinda like the guy.  I truly hope for a “Ron Paul / Dennis Kucinich” ticket, as I think that’d be the perfect balance of differing crazies to ensure that I don’t hate my country as much in the future as I have lately.  Which, actually, is quite a lot. 

I guess the results didn’t stack up the way I expected because the quiz isn’t really designed to return results relevant to the craziness of the candidates—instead it just shows MY craziness.   There were a bunch of them that I didn’t answer because they didn’t have appropriate choices, many that I feel are not relevant to presidential politics, and one that I had to answer dishonestly.  The dishonest one was about federal funding of stem cell research, and I had to inaccurately mark as “yes,” despite being against federal funding of ANY research.  I’m NOT, however, against stem cell research—provided that the government isn’t paying for it—so I decided to answer by the “spirit” rather than the “letter.”  I’m of the nutjob opinion that the government is rubbish at pretty much everything it does, and that therefore we should let it do as little of said rubbish as possible.  Privatized science will work just as good—better, even; we all know that every major technological advancement in the last century has been as a result of pornography anyway, which, as far as I know, is one area we spend very little federal money on. (Unless, of course, you count all the federal agents pretending to be little kids to lure sexual predators on the internet, and/or posting child porn so that they can bust the people who download it.)  To those that insist that they help pay for science research I say that you’re free to write as many checks as you’d like.  I know I sure will be.  They’ll just be to private research groups rather than the government.

So, in summary, I hope this brief foray into my nutjobbery will help quiet the people who insist upon haranguing me every four years about how it’s my duty as an American to exercise my constitutional right to vote, making them instead relish my decision to not take part.  Mmmm, relish.

Know what I think would be a fantastic use of genetic engineering?

Splicing together Ron Paul and Mike Gravel to create the PERFECT LEADER FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  They’re both passionate, they’re both saying things YOU CAN’T HELP BUT nod in agreement to, and they’re both REALLY freakin’ nuts. 

What could symbolize America more than someone batshit passionate about things pretty much everyone has trouble disagreeing with? I think this hypothetical chimera candidate would give even John McClane a run for his money, and you know how much I want to see him elected.

I suppose they could even make two variants so they could run together as a “Paul-Gravel / Gravel-Paul” ticket in ‘08.

The latest problem to grace the Bush administration’s war plans is that no one is willing to take the job of “War Czar.”

This is quite the unexpected blow, but I submit that Americans have a long-standing tradition of being unwilling to take certain jobs, and that this should have been expected. One might say that this country is founded on the idea that all men should be free to choose the jobs they don’t want to do.

Unlike everyone else that’s complaining about this issue, though, I have a solution. Instead of a single “War Czar,” we just need to create a “Bureau of War” and staff it with the one group of people who have a long-standing tradition of accepting the jobs the rest of us Americans don’t want to do: illegal Mexican immigrants.

This solves both the Czar problem and the immigration/amnesty problem, because all so-called “illegal” Mexican immigrants will now be government employees, entitling them to benefits like healthcare, taxation, and the always popular “not getting kicked out of the country.” Having seven million “War Czars” ought to get things in Iraq nailed down at least seven million times faster than the single “War Czar” that we’re currently unable to find, so this proposition wins all around.

Also: taking into account the popular sterotypes of both Mexicans and government workers, this pairing seems like a pretty good match to me.