Oh, c’mon Texas, I’m beginning to think y’all are doing this on purpose.

Seriously, y’all have managed to pack an entire psychopathology into three little words: Republican from Texas. I swear, when the next version of the DSM is released there’ll be a diagnostic ladder for Republican from Texas. That three-word phrase has already become shorthand for bone-stupid, delusional, obsessive, and well-armed.

Texas, you started us off slowly (so to speak) with George W. He wasn’t so much stupid as he was intellectually disconnected and entirely unimaginative. But then you doubled down with Rick ‘Good Hair’ Perry, and before you know it we were up to our hips in Louie Gohmert, the Republican from Texas poster boy. Gohmert is so fucking stupid and delusional he won’t tie his shoes because he thinks shoelaces are gay. That’s why he wears cowboy boots, so his laces won’t get gay-married.

Louie Gohmert, Republican from Texas Poster Boy

But Texas, you’re not satisfied with your Rick Perrys and your Louie Gohmerts. No sir, you have a bench of Republicans from Texas full of goobers, tuna-heads, whack-jobs, and 40 Watt dimwits. Folks who are so loopy that, in other states, they’d be locked in the attic and fed table scraps don’t even get noticed among Republicans from Texas.

Including poor Blake Farenthold. And just who is Blake Farenthold, you ask? This is Blake Farenthold.

Blake Farenthold, Republican from Texas (he’s the one on the right).

No, I’m not kidding. The guy in the blue pyjamas with the yellow duckies? Guys, that’s the United States Representative for Texas’s 27th congressional district. And I’m willing to bet a shiny new nickel that you probably hadn’t even heard of him before. If so, that’s not Congressman Farenthold’s fault; it’s because he’s just not quite as irresponsibly insane as other Republicans from Texas.

Don’t get me wrong, the guy is completely loopy. Just not that loopy, not on the Republican from Texas scale. But he’s trying. Give pyjama-boy credit, he’s trying. At a town hall meeting with his constituents just last weekend, Farenthold was given proof that President Obama committed a felony by being a secret Muslim atheist faggot from Communist Kenya. Proof, mind you — put right into his hand. So why hasn’t Obama been impeached? Farenthold said that was:

“…a question I get a lot. ‘If everyone’s so unhappy with the president’s done, why don’t you impeach him?’ I’ll give you a real frank answer about that. If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.”

Farenthold apparently believes Making Texans Unhappy is an impeachable offense. The House of Representatives would impeach him for that, but those fucking Senators? No ma’am, not gonna do it. Farenthold believes it should have been done a long time ago, and now it’s just too late.

“I think unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue. The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into it and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.”

Oh, if only the original Congress had been patriotic enough to keep that birth certificate equine in the barn! Mitt Romney would be president today, and we’d all be eating crème brûlée while riding on dancing horses.

Blake Farenthold, Republican from Texas, legislating his little heart out.

Congressman Farenthold has some serious work to do if he wants to politic with the boys in the big hats. But he’s making the effort. He’s putting himself out there, meeting with his lunatic constituents, saying all sorts of crazy shit and doing it in public. He’s doing all he can to represent his Congressional district and uphold the standards of the Texas Republican Party.

Blake Farenthold, Republican from Texas, representing his constituents.

If Blake Farenthold can find the energy to keep this up — and I’ve no doubt he’ll do his very best — he has the potential to some day be known as the Louie Gohmert of South Texas. No dream is impossible.

I’m a relatively smart guy. You know what the problem is with being a relatively smart guy? The problem is it’s hard to believe that other people can be so incredibly fucking stupid.

I know that sounds arrogant, and that bothers me. But it doesn’t alter the fact that there are some astonishingly stupid people out there — and some of them are in Congress. The depth and breadth of their stupidity is so massive it can’t be covered in a single blog entry. It can’t be covered in a single book. There are people in both houses of Congress who are stupid on an encyclopedic scale; it would take multiple volumes to cover the extent of their stupidity. But right now I’m just thinking about their stupidity on the current United Nations Arms treaty.

Senator Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, Pretty Fucking Stupid

If you’re not aware of it, the U.N. has spent the last seven years banging out an agreement that will establish some minimal controls on the international gun trade. We’re talking about tanks, military drones, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, AND small arms sold in bulk. The controls are based on whether the weapons “will be used to break humanitarian law, foment genocide or war crimes, abet terrorism or organized crime or slaughter women and children.” It’s aimed at curbing the major arms dealers, the corporations (and nations) that deal in bulk weapon sales.

The treaty was passed, 154 to 3. The three nations that voted against the treaty? North Korea, Syria, and Iran. The U.S. approved the treaty, but it needs to be ratified by Congress. And here comes the stupid. There are a LOT of Republicans (and, sadly, some Democrats) who are siding with North Korea. Why? Because, despite all the evidence, this nitwits believe the U.N. treaty will inevitably lead to the confiscation of firearms from gun owners in the U.S. That is some serious stupid, right there.

Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, Pretty Fucking Stupid

“I am gravely concerned this treaty will infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of American gun owners.” — Senator Jerry Moran

“I have great concerns that this treaty can be used to violate the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.” — Senator Mike Lee

“This U.N. treaty takes away Constitutional authority; it diminishes the Constitution, it gives up Constitutional rights to a U.N. authority that should not exist. Anyone who votes for this U.N. treaty is violating their oath to support and defend the Constitution. It’s that simple.” — Representative Louie Gohmert

Let me just repeat the purpose of the treaty. It’s to make it more difficult for major arms exporters to sell weapons in bulk to governments or political movements or other military entities who are likely to use those weapons to 1) violate humanitarian law, 2) engage in genocide or war crimes, 3) engage in terrorism or organized crime, 4) or slaughter women and children.

Representative Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Incredibly Fucking Stupid

The treaty would have NO effect at all on anybody’s ability to walk into a gun shop and buy any gun they can afford. In order to believe the treaty would somehow infringe on the Second Amendment, you’d have to be really paranoid and pretty fucking stupid.

How paranoid and fucking stupid? Paranoid and fucking stupid enough to believe the treaty includes provisions to ban people 55 and older from owning a weapon. That notion is circulating widely among conservatives. NO, I’m NOT making this up.

Why do they believe that? Because 1) U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is said (I can find no record of this statement) to have expressed an opinion that people who’ve been “adjudicated mentally defective and persons with attenuating cerebral faculties” probably shouldn’t own weapons because they could be a danger to themselves. And because 2) somebody in Amnesty International pointed out that research shows “a significant majority of gun-related suicides, accidental shootings, non-fatal negligent discharges are perpetrated by persons 55 and over.” So therefore: 3) the United Nations is going to seize the guns of everybody over age 55, and that’s just the first step to 4) confiscating ALL THE GUNS.

I know, I know…that defies any semblance of normal logic. But logic is weak armor against stupid, especially when stupid is driven by fear. Want proof? Here’s Rep. Gohmert’s argument against limiting firearm magazines to ten rounds:

“[W]hy would you draw the line at ten? What’s wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit; it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?”

Got that? If you limit ammunition to ten rounds pretty soon people will be marrying goats. And that slippery slope will inevitably lead to laws requiring us to speak French and eat soft communist cheeses. You can’t refute that logic.

This week’s display of squalid politics by Congressman Steve Stockman just makes me sad. I’ve written about Stockman before. It wasn’t so much that he chose to invite Ted Nugent to President Obama’s State of the Union address. That was certainly shabby behavior. But what I find most sad is this line from Stockman’s press release:

“I am excited to have a patriot like Ted Nugent joining me in the House Chamber to hear from President Obama.”

A patriot. Stockman considers Ted Nugent a patriot. What sort of patriot wonders if the United States would be better off if the Confederacy had won the U.S. Civil War? Here’s what Nugent wrote in a Washington Times column:

Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.

Nugent is certainly free to disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court. I often disagree with them my ownself. But it would never occur to me to wonder if maybe the Confederacy should have prevailed in the Civil War. Steve Stockman has some odd ideas about what constitutes patriotism.

Congressman Steve Stockman (Republican Lunatic – Texas)

And what sort of patriot dodges the draft, brags about it, but encourages others to enlist in military service and fight in our wars? In a 1977 interview in High Times magazine, Nugent discussed how he evaded the draft.

So I got my notice to be in the draft. Do you think I was gonna lay down my guitar and go play army? Give me a break!

To prepare for his draft physical, Nugent described how he stopped bathing, how he ate nothing but a junk food diet, how he urinated and defecated in his pants. He told the interviewer he smoked meth before reporting for the physical, apparently to be sure he was in the right frame of mind. And, of course, Nugent was declared unfit for military service.

I may disagree with folks who avoided military service during the Vietnam War, but I respect those who were forthright about it — the men who went to prison for refusing to report, even the ones who chose to leave the country rather than fight for a war they didn’t believe in. Those people made principled decisions and they accepted the consequences. I have no respect for people who supported the war but chose to game the system because they simply couldn’t be bothered to serve in the military. In that same High Times interview, Nugent went on to say this:

But you know the funny thing about it? I’d make an incredible army man. I’d be a colonel before you knew what hit you, and I’d have the baddest bunch of motherfuckin’ killers you’d ever seen in my platoon. But I just wasn’t into it. I was too busy doin’ my own thing, you know?

Here’s another ‘funny’ thing about it: Steve Stockman considers this hypocritical braggart to be a patriot.

Ted Nugent (woman-hating, gun nut, coward, pedophile Republican – Michigan)

I don’t think Nugent’s sex life has anything to do with patriotism — you can, I suppose, be a pedophile and still love your country — but I’m going to mention it here anyway, just as an indication of exactly how much bad behavior Stockman is willing to overlook when he’s inviting guests to the State of the Union speech.

Nugent is a self-confessed pedophile. He’s admitted to numerous sexual relationships with underage girls and young women. One of them was Courtney Love, who has publicly stated she gave Nugent a blow job when she was twelve (which would have made Nugent around 28 years old).

A lot of rockers in those days probably did the same thing — and also got away with it. But Congressman Stockman professes to be concerned about young girls. In fact, he opposes immigration reform because he claims it will result in the sexual abuse of girls.

Our failure to secure our border has led to horrific, tragic stories of innocents brutally smuggled into the United States to serve as slave labor, and thousands of young girls forced into prostitution.

Apparently he’s less concerned about the welfare of young girls who voluntarily give blow jobs to rock musicians. Maybe he thinks that’s an example of entrepreneurial spirit?

Still, I admit Nugent’s sexual kinks have nothing to do with his qualities as a patriot — only his qualities as a human being. Stockman, to my knowledge, never claimed Ted Nugent was a decent human being; he only said Nugent was a patriot. So what makes this aging rock musician a patriot in Stockman’s eyes?

I can only assume it’s Nugent’s passionate hatred of President Obama and women Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein.

In case the audio is unclear, here’s what Nugent said:

“I was in Chicago and I said ‘Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these you punk.’ Obama, he’s a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. Then I was in New York and I said, ‘Hey Hillary you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch.’ Then I was out in California and I thought, Barbara Boxer, she might want to suck on my machine gun. Hey Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore.”

Imagine the reaction from Republicans if a Democrat had invited a guest who called President George W. Bush ‘a piece of shit’ to the State of the Union address.

I’m a fan of the First Amendment. I’m pretty close to being a free speech absolutist. I’m proud to live in a nation where pathetic asswipes like Ted Nugent feel free to say any hateful thing they want. But it’s shameful for an elected official of our government to consider Nugent a patriot.

Ted Nugent is no patriot. He’s a coward and a bully. He had an opportunity to serve his country in a war he supported; he chose, instead, to shit his pants. Like every other American, Steve Stockman also had an opportunity to express his patriotism and join the military when he turned eighteen. Did he? No.

Stockman, however, had a unique opportunity to demonstrate his patriotism. On 19 April, 1995 Timothy McVeigh detonated a bomb at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of six. Stockman, an arch-conservative serving his first term in Congress, received an anonymous fax shortly after the explosion, containing information about the terrorist event. It says something about Stockman’s politics that domestic terrorists felt he was enough of a kindred spirit that they’d send him a fax about the explosion. But even more revealing is what Stockman did with that fax.

He sent it to the headquarters of the National Rifle Association. Sometime later he also forwarded it to the Justice Department.

So maybe it’s not so odd that Steve Stockman considers Ted Nugent a patriot after all.