A taxonomy of different living beasts in our world is an important thing to keep up with. Because they are constantly evolving, due to processes of evolution (Stop hitting me with that old family Bible, Reverend Winchuck! It is still legal, for now, to say that word), you have to constantly change and refine your understanding of beasts and their relationships to one another. So here I am trying talk about “Why liberals and conservatives are completely different species!”
When I look at a group of people, a crowd, a… what do you call a flock of people? An idiocy perhaps? They all look the same to me. To tell which species they are, I have to hear them talk. So I selected a couple of notable interviewees to explain what the differences really are.
Bull Blindersly, head of the Bullish for Trump and Trumpkins Committee
The conservative I will use to represent conservatives is Bull Blindersly, who I noticed briefly had a Make America Great Again red hat on until the wind took it off his flat head. I’ll let him tell you the difference in his own words.
“It’s easy to spot a libtard. They have pointy little nerd heads full of stupid ideas based on statistics and encyclopedia facts and other such brainiac junk that clogs up your head. They don’t have the common sense they were born with because they spend all their time reading and thinking and other stuff that just gets in the way. There is a simple solution for everything in life. The economy is healthy and grows if you give tax breaks to rich folks and job creators. They will spend that money they have earned to improve things for everyone. You don’t fix problems by dancing around giving away my hard-earned tax dollars to folks who don’t work hard enough. Those people are just tempted to become blood-sucking parasites for life when you do that. We need to build a wall around Animal Town to keep more of those kinds of people out.”
Phillip “Flip” Moosewinkle. ACLU lawyer and Dal Mation, independent media journalist
I talked to Flip Moosewinkle and his friend Dal Mation because they were protesting in front of city hall with “Not My President!” signs and other signs that indicated they were liberals because everything was spelled and punctuated correctly.
Flip; “I think conservatives talk without thinking first most of the time.”
Dal; “You have to be careful about making blanket statements like that, though. It is not backed up by any studies I can find with Google on my i-phone. And we want to be fair and considerate when making statements about our opponents.”
Flip; “Yes, that’s quite correct. But a shoot-from-the-hip style of discourse is still common among those we argue politics with. They’ll accuse us of trying to take away their rights to own guns and won’t even listen when we try to shift the conversation towards gun safety and responsible ownership. They mostly agree with our positions when it comes right down to it, but they rarely listen to our point of view. They would rather call us names and chant slogans.”
Dal; “True, but you have to admit they do tend to win arguments that way in public forums. Maybe we should try some of their tactics, and try to be more forceful in making our case the way they are.”
Flip; “Do you really want to sink to their level? Then we’d be no better than they are.”
Dal; “But isn’t that the point we are trying to make? Aren’t we all the same and no one is better than anyone else? Aren’t we trying to be fair and loving to all?”
Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is.
Of course, it is at this point in the consideration of the topic that I reach the inevitable conclusion that I am dealing with two different categories of animal here. One side is patently unfair, and the other is marginalized and ineffectual. One side is often predatory, while the other is routinely prey.
What do I do about it? The conservative side has purged themselves of all compromisers, liberal-leaners, and RINO’s (Republican In Name Only, not rhinoceroses). The liberal side never wins. (Yes, I know Obama was president, but look how easily he was erased from the public conversation when his term ended.) There is no place for moderates any more. To be moderate is to be isolated and headed for species extinction. So I am a liberal now, hoping the side that is in power at the moment won’t pass a law against my continued existence. And trying exceptionally hard to fit in with other members of my same species.
Catch a Falling Star 
Stupid Is as Stupid Does
This is not a tribute to Winston Groom and his famous creation, Forrest Gump. This is an admission that when I have had very little sleep and lots of worry lines on my brow, I often do remarkably stupid things.
And sometimes, doing something monumentally stupid makes me feel better. You know, more a part of the stupid, meaningless, and goofy world around me. So, what stupid thing did I do? I joined a nudist organization’s website. Me, who freaks out when members of my own family happen to see me naked. And, you see, there is more to joining this organization than just signing up for some random thing on the internet where you get a lot of random emails. I had to submit nude photos of myself to be posted in community forums. And I may be able to write a blog for this website, which will mean taking some camping gear and actually going to the naturist club site near Dallas to experience the things I will be writing about… and probably making jokes about. But don’t be afraid of being subjected to the hideous torture of having to see me naked. In order to see any of that, you would have to join the organization yourself, and you are probably not as stupid as me. (But I am not telling you the name of the website anyway.)
This is a detail from an illustration based on Golding’s Lord of the Flies. But it is also a picture of me and a childhood friend from back in the skinny-dipping days, based on an old black-and-white photo.
You see, I have some real life experiences with nudists before this happened. I had a roommate in grad school who liked to go au naturel, and even was comfortable with me being in the room when his girlfriend was visiting. He was nude in the kitchen one time when my grandparents came to visit. It is a good thing my grandfather entered that room ahead of my grandmother. I also had a girlfriend in the eighties who had a sister living in the clothing-optional apartment complex in Austin, Texas. Every time we visited Austin, the city nearest where my parents lived, she would stay with her sister there and I would have to go in to fetch her whenever we had plans. Sometimes I was there just to visit. But always, since clothing was optional, I took that option. I did get used to being around naked people, though. I actually have nudist friends.
So, though I am not a nudist, I guess I already know a lot about how to be one. It is how I managed to stumble into this awkward arrangement.
I know I will never be able to get my wife to go along on this harrowing adventure. She refuses to even consider going nude in the house. She has to wear clothes to bed even though studies say that sleeping nude is good for you. I will be facing this basically naked and alone. And possible paid writing work will never make this worth it by itself.
But my photos are already posted and approved. My membership is a real thing. And I am not ready to shoot myself for this stupid decision. In fact, I will probably be less naked there than I have been here in this very blog where my every secret is laid bare and made fun of on a daily basis.
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Filed under battling depression, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, nudes, Paffooney, self pity, self portrait, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as bad decisions, humor, naturists and nudists, stupid stuff, stupidity