At war with modernity

There's this story at MyDD about an editorial by Brad Carson (you may remember him as the guy who lost to Tom "Teenage lesbians are so prevalent that they only send girls to the bathroom one at a time" Coburn, who's fucking insane). In it he writes that it's not that the Democrats have a problem getting their message out, it's that some voters want to bring us back to the 18th century itself.

I'm reminded of a piece at uggabugga about Bush being an 19th century President.

Meanwhile, I happen to like progress and modernity. I'm a little confused at a worldview that at one moment rails against the oppression of women under Islam and on the other hand works towards a homegrown version of purdah. It's not a mystery why they're gutting education--if you never learn about rights or ideas, why would you want to have or follow them? But I'm just a giant fighting robot--I have no knowledge of this invisible cloud being that instills more fear of human bodies or gay people than crushing poverty, unaffordable health care, or the misguided invasion of Iraq trumping any true efforts to combat terrorism.

This robot runs on coffee. I will go procure some.