If You Come, They Will Build It... Sort Of

The line was instant movie history when the seminal moment of Field of Dreams flickered across the screen. "If you build it, they will come." The removal of air from the room was palpable as hopes and dreams were distilled into seven syllables. Today, Kansas City teeters between slack-jawed horror and that giddiness that comes with waiting for an explosive to do its thing. The National Right To Life Committee has sanctified the local Hyatt for a few days. Liquor sales are reported to be up 30% over a year ago.

This group of Stop Right There thinkers has converged upon our middle-of-nowhere serenity with their unique brand of half-baked assumptions and half-assed conclusions. And less than half of the Republican candidates for president bothered to book a flight for the event. We call this progress.

The basis of the Know Nothing wing of the party - they are to American Politics what snake parts are to a can of green beans - is the conviction that caring at all the wrong times exempts you from giving a damn at all the right times. In a delightful display of insanity, they contend just the opposite. That's why we haven't gone out of our way to make a big deal over their presence. If the circus wants to set up down the street, who can argue with the convenience of a decent show on the block - elephant shit notwithstanding? We spent long minutes wondering whether the Committee believes itself to be furthering the Nation, Rights or Life. The conclusion? Like most committees, it now simply exists to announce its existence. Committees all go that direction eventually.

To understand these well-dressed lunatics requires a basic knowledge of tactics more than platforms. First, they speak a language that sounds like English but isn't. They take words from the language but use them in a way so that they mean the opposite of what the casual listener might assume. We dated a guy like that. It's where we got familiar with the term "Congenital Liar". They are so convinced in their misuse of the language that they forget just when and where they made the decision to lie in he first place.

The right to life is a sure thing. It's right there in the Declaration of Indepedence next to liberty and the ever-popular pursuit of happiness. But these wing nuts don't mean life like you mean life. They don't mean breathing. They mean the obligation to breed. You think a right to life means a right to be alive. They think the same right means you may get to the starting line, but you're on your own from there. From conception through the frying of the placenta at your family gathering, they insist you finish what you started. Once it cries, their job is done. They have no plans or desire to feed, clothe, care, or otherwise give a good goddamn about that hideous creature until they congratulate it in heaven some years hence.

This Right To Life bunch is anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-gun, anti-welfare, and generally anti-bothering them with any of the details of a life they insisted be commenced. They are notoriously opposed to the idea that everyone should have simple health care. Keep your eye on the dashboard Jesus: This is about getting life started, which has nothing to do with keeping it going. Look at their complete abstinence in the last 25 years on AIDS: If you got it domestically, shame on you; if you got it internationally, they'll pray for you. One of our favorite Ann Richards quotes refers to the elder Bush's identical position on all of the above: "Spoken like a true fisherman: Throw 'em back and kill 'em when they're grown." If that doesn't sum it up, we may need to have the Good Lord send Ann back for an encore.

The Right To Life bunch is thrilled to see your fryable ass in an electric chair, your veins popping with poison at your final moment of a death sentence, or your neck snapping from a good hanging. The Right To Life bunch doesn't acknowledge anything between vaginal birth and funeral rites as worthy of their attention. They have one goal and one goal only.

Make sure the sperm takes.

That's it. Nothing else. Once the orgasm hits, you are on the hook, in their book. Better you should aim for a tree than a fertile womb, although when Dr. Joycelyn Elders (nominated by President Clinton as Surgeon General) suggested that masturbation was a pretty good contraceptive measure, these same nut bags went berserk. They subscribe to the Loaded Gun Theory of the penis. You're not supposed to use it except in emergencies. If it's not an emergency, you don't have any business even touching it. Funny people, this bunch. They should get a sitcom. They already have a news network.

Mitt Romney showed up to kiss their ass as did the local yahoo, Sen. Sam Brownback - the only Kansan we could find who makes Bob Dole look chipper. Our favorite crazy person du jour: Rep. Ron Paul of Texas - the Libertarian who can't seem to find the exit door of the Republican Party - also showed up. The delegates had to be told as much after he spoke. They barely noticed. You can imagine the popularity of a Libertarian message ("Hey...what are you doing legislating in my womb?") among this crowd. It is lost on the Know Nothings that Rep. Paul is the only one of the bunch to ever deliver a baby (he's a 70 year-old retired obstetrician). The man who has really delivered (forgive the pun) on their only issue is the one they can't seem to find in the crowd. This, too, gives us hope.

We have a "Fuck 'Em Award" for Rep. Duncan Hunter, with whom our grandmother is running even in early presidential polls. He said he would come and then didn't. We appreciate that sort of a thumb in they eye. We have nothing else nice to say about Duncan Hunter, but would be remiss to let this good deed go unnoticed. The others? Please. This is 2007. The Christian Right has been revealed as neither. Nobody with a serious chance of being President will go near these people. T.B. boy has more high-profile visitors than this bunch can muster.

Giuliani, McCain, Gilmore, The Reverend Governor Huckabee(!), Tommy Thompson and the other nameless, hopeless few Republican candidates had the entire Midwest declared a No Fly Zone just so no one thought they were headed in the direction of this conference. The top two candidates have spent the last few days walking with their backs to Kansas City just to be sure no photo op would show them facing in Missouri's general direction. We hate that they're wising up. But we love seeing loathsome philosophies marginalized in publicly humiliating ways. It makes us all tingly.

In case you were wondering, Brownback was the hit of the show. If that doesn't give you hope for our future, you may just need to go take pills and lie down.