Ted Nugent types some things

Much as how we should politely turn away when Sting says "you know what Trude and I did last night? I saw her titties and everything", we should also avert our eyes whenever Ted Nugent decides to share his views with us.

He's honked out some things vaguely connected to the shootings in Tuscon:

Conservatives need to turn up the political rhetoric if they want to defeat the liberal agenda with a conservative agenda that is based on the Constitution, small government, lower taxes and much less spending.

Conservatives have liberals outnumbered and surrounded. Don't play nice with liberal snakes. Don't let them escape. Instead, do America a favor and crush liberalism.

Yes, Ted, that's right. The only reason why America still has a tax system is because you haven't yet made your face red enough; your language violent enough; your veins bulge enough; your voice screech enough. It's a well-known fact that the winner in any debate is not those who have thought through their opinions and are able to argue cogently, using evidence and logic, but those who shout the loudest.

Ted Nugent is worse at politics than he was at music. And he was terrible at music.

New owners of Waco tribune fire Ted Nugent

Ted Nugent, the unofficial spokesperson for things perhaps best just thought and forgotten, is less than thrilled to have been asked to stop contributing to the Waco Tribune.

The paper recently changed hands, and the new owners suggested they might welcome a more constructive line from Ted. Or "behaved like Nazis", as Ted puts it:

When the Nazis had the Americans surrounded in the town of Bastogne, they
demanded American General McAuliffe surrender or they would level the city. General McAuliffe’s reply: Nuts!

The new editor of the Waco Trib recently told me that I could only write nice things about people, that I could not be critical. Basically, that I need to tone it down. I can not, nor will not, comply with this Romper Room request. My reply: Nuts!

But, it's not just for Ted to call "Nazi" at an editor deciding that a contributor's tone doesn't sit well with his paper. Under the mistaken impression that a right to freedom of speech somehow means that anyone with a media outlet must subsidise everyone's opinions, Nugent then... well, he reaches for a comparison with himself:

I can’t envision Thomas Jefferson, George Washington or Ben Franklin
making a request of an anti-King George columnist to tone it down. I can’t imagine Martin Luther King toning down his message. It is impossible for me to fathom any American to tone down what is in his heart and soul.

Oh God, it's the Nazis versus Martin Luther King... and Nugent is King.

I criticize where I believe criticism is due. That’s what Thomas Paine
did when he published Common Sense prior to the Revolutionary War.

He did. He self-published, though, Ted.

I have criticized President Obama and liberals for what I consider to be
destructive, anti-American policies that will hurt our economy and harm your health. Not once have I criticized him personally because I have never met the man. As far as I know he is a decent enough guy, but in my opinion, is politically naive and very wrong, even dangerous for America. So do many
other Americans as indicated by the shrinking support for his takeover of the health care system and numerous other heavy handed, foolish moves.

I'm not going to personally criticise the dangerous, naive, wrongheaded man who will destroy everything we hold dear. I'm sure when he's not destroying everything he touches and killing you, somehow, he's a really nice chap.

When I have criticized President Obama, I have almost always countered
his dunderheaded, Marxist policies with a free market, more personal freedom alternative. More government control is not the answer to what ails America. Obama believes otherwise.

You see, Ted. This is probably the point, isn't it? The new owners of the Tribune are probably less worried by your trenchant views, and more that they're giving space to a man who can't tell the difference between Barack Obama and a Marxist. Sure, they might have told you it was because you were too mean, but I suspect they're really letting you go because you're a buffoon whose presence on their pages would make the Waco Tribune look like it offers a gathering for any soft-thinking whacko who cares to happen by with a closely-typed, ill-considered screed claiming to have evidence that Obama is a closet gay Muslim who will put all god-fearing Americans underground to live on bugs while he consorts with Satan and Nye Bevan on the streets of Washington. But - hey, don't take that personal, Ted, because I've never met you.

This newspaper and others should encourage spirited and lively debate
and criticism, especially when so many newspapers are losing
subscribers. I don’t support milquetoast journalism. It bores me.

Well, yes. Spirited and lively debate is a good thing. That's not quite the same thing as letting any blowhard roll up the paper and honk through it, though, is it, Ted?

Paul McCartney gets an offer

Ted Nugent has taken time out of his busy slaughtering schedule and offered to protect Paul McCartney when Macca goes to Israel:

"Regardless that Paul and I have our obvious social, cultural, and culinary differences outside of music, I will not bend or waiver to voodoo religious whackjobs and neither should Paul."

"It would be my pleasure to keep this legendary musical hero safe from terrorists and mad men, and then buy him a nice dinner of tofu. I'm Dirty Harry with a ponytail, and I'm at Paul's service."

You might want to cut-out-and-keep Nugent's capsule guide to the decades-old Middle East conflict as being about "voodoo religious whackjobs" - handy, should you ever find yourself on the callback shortlist from the State Department. (I'm given to understand Sarah Palin is already writing a speech around this theme.)

Paul might want to think before taking up this offer, though - you'd have to expect that being protected by Nugent would be more likely to increase the number of people trying to attack you rather than reduce the chances of their success.

Ted Nugent loves his guns

We do love that people keep giving platforms to Ted Nugent to talk about gun rights as the more the pro-gun lobby parades violent, ignorant, paranoids to represent them, the better the 'why do you need an assault rifle' side looks.

Nugent had gone to Western Michigan University to speak up for guns:

"Nothing makes me happier than idiots attacking me," he said. "I take crowbars with self-evident truth on the end of it and whop liberals on the head every day."

Not, of course, that there's any link between violence and gun-ownership. It's just unfortunate that Nugent seems incapable of debating his point without lurching into violent imagery.

Nugent said Michigan needs leaders "who are absolutists, uncompromising of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Michigan Constitution."

Is Nugent sure that he wants leaders who are uncompromising on the Constitution? Only the right to bear arms wasn't in the original constitution, was it? It was, in itself, an ammendment and presumably an absolutist view of the constitution would refuse the possibility of any amending?