"We've already established you're a whore ...

"... now we're just haggling over the price."

We all know that joke, right? "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" "Why, sure!" "Would you sleep with me for twenty bucks?" "Hell, no, what kind of woman do you think I am!?" Etc, etc.

Perceptively, Driftglass exposes the underlying whoriness of a large segment of the American public who are outraged -- outraged, goddamit! -- over the recent cheap and tawdry attempt to buy them off with a quick hundred bucks to cover the ridiculous cost of gasoline these days.

Quoth the outraged ex-whores, "Do you think we are prostitutes? Do you think you can buy us?" Why, yes, that's exactly what they think since it's always worked in the past, hasn't it?

As Driftglass explains so splendidly, many of these chumps are the same ones that the GOP has been ripping off for years, then buying off with a cheap trinket to shut them the hell up. Gut social programs, eviscerate the public school system, slash post-secondary funding and so on, but toss them some cheap gay-bashing rhetoric or same-sex marriage amendment and they're all on board, and all is forgiven.

Lie to them about a war, send their children off to be killed or maimed, take their money and give it to the uber-wealthy, but quickly pander to them with a meaningless flag desecration amendment and, son of a bitch, they're all smiles again and you're back in power for another four years.

Make a total mess of the world oil supply system which drives up the cost of gasoline to positively obscene levels but, no worries, toss a hundred bucks at them, that'll shut them up. Hello? What the fuck? They're still pissed? When did that happen?

Does the GOP think you're prostitutes? No fucking joke, that's exactly what they think. And given your history, can you really blame them? You've all been so stupid for so long, why should the GOP think you're suddenly going to smarten up now?

That would be so out of character.