The meaning of my tagline

Some people wonder what the last line of my e-mail footer means – Not a lot of them have asked in so many words, but there have been enough to warrant a comment, and an explanation. Without further ado, I give you ... the secret meaning of: Neither DemEAUcrat nor RepublicanT ... I'm a Libertar-I-CAN!

Before I go any farther, though, I want to make something very clear: I am not intending in any way to denigrate INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS who identify themselves as being followers or adherents of either branch of the Duopoly thus referenced. No, the targets of this statement are the politicians who hide under one wing or the other of the Uniparty; vote as blocs based on their "club" symbol, regardless of the issue; and see themselves as somehow "superior" because of that club-logo. Yes, I identify with a party myself – the Libertarian Party – but beyond all that, I am a libertarian (small-l designating ideology and ethical standards, not just affiliation) first, last and always. Just wanted to clear that up ... and now to the explanation:

The first segment is, at least to my knowledge, the product of my own fevered brain. After carrying the initial slogan around in my head and then on my e-mails, it suddenly occurred to me that I need to "brand" the Donkey Party with the same level of derision I had found for the Rs, as outlined below. And it dawned on me one day, about a year and a half ago, that the defining characteristic of the Democrat response to a problem was to set up a committee to study it, create a Cabinet Department to administer it, pass a law to regulate it … and voila! Another bureaucracy is born! It didn't take more than a second or so, to turn "Democrat" into the homonymous "DemEAUcrat" - to remind us of all the burEAUcrats whose careers are fostered and maintained by efforts of the D party! (I just got a suggestion from the editor of this site, that it might also have something to with the aromas wafting from the average DemEAUcrat program proposal these days, but since I find the "D" options at present to be no more malodorous than the "R" faction -- and lately often far less so -- I resist that suggestion.)

Meanwhile, since I have very little use for "demoncrazy" as a concept (The vastly underrated novelist and visionary L. Neil Smith said it best: "Democracy is the concept by which 51% of a group may vote to KILL AND EAT the other 49!"), I have no problem in distancing myself from that crowd. (And near as I can figure out, I can even claim creation rights on that one, since even the great Google seems to have only ONE reference to the word that does not refer back to my e-footer (and that is a passing comment on a single blog-entry from only about a year ago, so it might even have derived from me?).

The second part of the phrase is (very) apparently NOT my own creation, although I swear I began using it before I saw it anywhere else. The text of my e-footer has used the "T" at the end of RepublicanT for several years now – to signify the inability of the once-Grand Old Party to live up to its rhetoric (as being a government-shrinking decentralizer of power, source of lower taxes and smaller bureaucracies… and defender of the Republic), for what has now been over a decade in control of Congress, and almost half that long with control of the Executive Branch as well.

Moreover, right from its founding, under the guise of being a force for the liberation of people from slavery, the GOP has been as much about fostering imperialism, at home and abroad, as it has about promoting liberty. (And for those who still consider that tall, bearded dude to be "The Great Emancipator," I have a few names to drop: Thomas DiLorenzo and the aforementioned Neil Smith, Just for starters.)

And so, giving the benefit of the doubt – calling this disconnect a result of ineptitude, rather than malicious intent – I choose to call the Elephant Party the "RepublicanTs" [apostrophe implied?]. However, as I've discovered from both personal prodding and a little Googling, the "RepublicanT" designation has been around for a long, long while. In fact, it's so much in the common parlance, there's even a rock band by that name!

And finally, Libertar-I-CAN, which is pretty obvious, but plays on the "Yes I Can" concept (from many personal growth seminars and at least one Sixties autobiography), while also taking an extra shot at those GOPer pols (once again, the politicians, not the otherwise-normal folks who for some reason still self-identify that way) who can't seem to live up to any of their alleged principles. (And since I've always been more leftist than right-winger, in terms of focus on civil liberties and foreign non-intervention rather than economic issues, I feel quite smug about that, indeed – though I've no more use for the preening popinjays of the D-stripe pols, who defame that wonderful word "liberal" by their every action and word!)

And that, dear children, is how I met your Mo ... Whoops, wrong program! I mean, of course, that's where my e-footer came from. ;}