This is real.

[davidn]

I know I haven't exactly been helping this affliction over the last week or so, but if you're sick of the UK election by now, here's a small glimpse into how politics work over here. This attack advert on somebody called Bradley Byrne running for the Governor of Alabama has been going around recently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJG-7s1e5eM

American political/news laugher-atter Jon Stewart recently made fun of the UK debates because one of the more serious and weighty accusations discussed was the taking away of bus passes. By comparison, this advert instead focuses on the way that someone dares to suggest that evolution is really quite a plausible theory for how life might have come about and demonizes any hint at rationality. I love the question intonation - "evolution best explains the origin of life?" Yes, because a tale about the first of us being moulded from clay and having the essence of life blown up through his nostrils is much more plausible.

Perhaps the saddest part of it is that rather than sticking to what it would seem he actually believes, Bradley has now responded reassuring people that he does honestly think that the earth sprang into existence six thousand years ago and was engineered in about a week by a big man with a beard, because the good citizens there just don't trust people who question the Bible and demonstrate any particles of independent thought - the whole thing is a sort of stupidity arms race in which candidates have to prove that they're the one least suited to life in the real world.

I really do think Obama's doing his best, but it must be difficult to get a country into shape when it contains anything approaching this hailstorm of imbeciles.

And in case you're thinking I'm being a bit unfair about all this - which I'm not - here's an example of what political interviews are like in Britain. We don't debate evolution, because no rational design could have produced Boris Johnson.

Comments

[goodbyebartleby.livejournal.com]

Bill Maher had an amusing response to the Byrne ad too~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdQzpqbZ3Po

[davidn]

Excellent :) That takes the stupidity arms race to its logical conclusion!

[kjorteo]

I really wish that brother/sister incest wasn't associated with the Bible-thumping ignorant Southerner stereotype. But, you know, minor nitpick! Overall, that was incredible. :)

[stubbleupdate.livejournal.com]

Bill Maher is not very funny.

[goodbyebartleby.livejournal.com]

He really isn't, but some of my favourite hippies pop up on his show so I must watch it weekly anyway.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the ad does seem attack on a reasonable point: namely that he used to support evolution, has had a total change of political beliefs, and anyone voting for him on views now should be aware he might change.

"Has utterly changed political views in the past -- the political views of your governer may not be that of the candidate" is a legitimate point of attack, in my book. But negative campaigning is bad.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's that the ad itself is dealing with the issues inappropriately, so much as the fact that this is one of the issues.

[kjorteo]

Yes, pretty much this.

[kjorteo]

Considering it's an Alabama Republican primary, it's not that unexpected, and that's really the saddest part of all.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/usa-political-map.html

In case you were ever wondering why I've been occasionally known to describe Texas as a buffer zone that protects my beloved home state of New Mexico from the rest of the South... although Arizona has gone a bit nuts lately, so we might have to start looking out for them, now, too. Sigh.

Edit: To further drive home the difference, look at it this way: when Republicans run for Governor in Alabama, you get that commercial. The last time we had a Republican Governor in New Mexico, it was this guy.

[davidn]

And indeed, before you had described all that to me a couple of years ago, I'd assumed that you were trapped in the middle of this mire of proud ignorance because of New Mexico's location along the southern border of the country. I was very glad to know that you had a safety barrier!

Thanks to political-wire, I can now pretty much recite what colour the states are and how many electoral votes they have, but still have to look up where each of them are in the country.

[kjorteo]

I figured as much, which is why I went ahead and included the map. ;)

Edit: On the other hand, it is still true that we are a blue state mostly surrounded by a sea of red (though we're working on turning Colorado!)