Lawyer and National Review writer Shannen W. Coffin is Fed Up with oppressive governmental intrusions upon his Liberty, such as his inability to buy toxic pajamas for his children and the fact that he has to pick up after his dog after it takes a crap. He’s pretty upset, saying “you don’t have to be Ted Kaczynski to feel just a little overwhelmed.” Yikes!
Clearly, Coffin needs some perspective, stat, before the cop who tickets him for leaving dogshit all over the sidewalk gets a pipe bomb in his mailbox. To this end we shall borrow the humorous premise of the classic and not at all disturbing 1940 short A Case of Spring Fever, in which a man named Gilbert Willoughby learns that if you long for a world without springs, much to your sorrow, your wish will be granted by a demented animated spring-sprite named “Coily.” (No, really.) By the Power of the Internet, we hereby grant Coffin his wish: NO REGULATIONS! (Must be imagined in voice of Coily for Full Comedic Effect and Maximum Laffs.)
SCENE. The Coffin Household.
Bleary-eyed, I crawl out of bed, shuffle into the bathroom, and flip on the lights, but the bulb is out. I remind myself to get to Home Depot and stockpile a few cases of good, old-fashioned incandescent bulbs while I still can.
He has to flip the switch a few times to see if the problem is just that there’s no electricity, because maybe the Enron guys felt like sleeping in again. But then the light comes on — and the bulb explodes, burning off Coffin’s eyebrows. Houses don’t have to be wired to code, you know! NO REGULATIONS!
After my morning business, I flush an extra time, since 1.6 gallons just doesn’t seem to do the trick. But at least we’re saving water, huh? Hop in the shower, where the water trickles out at an EPA-limited 2.5 gallons per minute. I think I’ll stay in here for an extra ten minutes or so.
But of course the morning business bubbles up from the shower drain, because there’s no such thing as plumbing codes either! And it’s cheaper to have plumbing done by inexperienced immigrants who work for slave wages anyhow! Coffin leaps out of the tub, his bare feet caked with his own morning filth! NO REGULATIONS!
I walk out to get the morning paper and take out the trash. “Honey, make sure to put out the recycling, too.” Right. I hope we sorted this stuff correctly.
There’s no recycling — freedom! He’s eyebrowless and afflicted with stinkfoot, but maybe this no regulation thing will work out after all! But upon opening the front door Coffin is buried under a huge mountain of garbage. He pokes his head out of the trashpile with the inevitable comical banana peel dangling over his forehead: there’s no municipal sanitation department, and there’s no one to force the private garbage company from providing shitty service, because it’s a monopoly! NO REGULATIONS!
As I’m contemplating whether you can recycle pizza boxes, my dog fertilizes the lawn, so I go looking for a plastic bag (without holes).
Everyone is free to let their dogs poop everywhere, and so they do! And since everyone in this Brave Poo World is a Randian Objectivist, and since everybody who ever lost their marbles after reading Atlas Shrugged always assumed somebody else would be cleaning up the shit, the whole neighborhood is a fetid swamp of canine feces three feet deep! NO REGULATIONS!
I load my daughter into my fuel-inefficient SUV, asking myself how many hybrids the manufacturer had to make to offset the hit against Department of Transportation CAFE standards. She’s comfortably seated in her state-mandated booster seat.
The SUV immediately explodes because of a faulty fuel tank, spewing debris across the suburban pet-fecal hellscape that had been anyway poisoned because of leaded gasoline contamination! Still, beats having the government force you to do anything ridiculous, like keeping your kids from dying because they don’t have the correct car seats! I begin to suspect that the original is becoming too ludicrous to be amenable to satire! Anyhow, NO REGULATIONS!
With no time for a decent breakfast, we hop in the drive-through lane at McDonald’s. I wonder how they’re going to get all that nutrition information required by Obamacare on the drive-through menu. Or how I’m going to be able to read it. Not to worry, though — at least no insurance company can refuse to cover me for my high cholesterol now. Who says there is no such thing as a free breakfast?
That doesn’t even make any sense! Fast food places have been posting nutrition information long before Obama was president! And you’re a frickin’ DC lawyer and former Cheney apparatchik — you have insurance! But to continue the joke, you get yourself & your kid a nice Crack McMuffin and wash it down with McLaudanum Shakes to start your day — and it’s perfectly legal: remember, NO REGULATIONS!
When I get home that night, I lunge for the remote as the all-too-familiar Cialis ad is coming on. The kids don’t need to hear about side effects in excess of four hours. (Four hours? Really?)
This still happens because corporate capitalism still exists. Except… no FCC! You and your kids are now watching Bob & Liddy doing the nasty, perhaps wearing some sort of patriotic fetish gear! Freedom! NO REGULATIONS!
After sending them off to bed in their Consumer Product Safety Commission–compliant pajamas, I look at a stack of bills.
No more bills — hired goons just come to your house to beat the snot out of you once a month to collect on your Visa. And what are you gonna do about it? Also, all American children are dead because of Osh Kosh B’Gosh’s misguided foray into electric bathing footie pajama marketing! NO REGULATIONS!
Oh, and you’re a corporate lawyer…? No you’re not! Corporations just hire, say, Blackwater mercs to do what needs to be done. NO REGULATIONS!
Now, quit your bitching about having to take out the recycling like it means you’re worse off than the Russian peasants under Stalin, you great big geek of a baby, and go bore the daylights out of your horrible friends on the golf course about the wonders of trivial legislation, like a good little Gilbert Willoughby, won’t you?



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Ted was anti technology I was unaware he was anti dog scoop laws?
saTHERSday nite live
Yeah, but Ted was on the “Left.” Anyway, gosh, there just aren’t any violent anti-government kooks on the right he could have cited… (Cough McVeigh Cough)
Hey Things, Ted musta had the Amsterdam Dogshit Blues.
Just a hit ‘n’ run, got beaucoup work to do before I sleep.
http://article.nationalreview.com/430684/there-oughta-be-a-law/shannen-w-coffin
My advice eat more bran god knows your colon or whatever is blocked. Also low water flush saves water when you flush when you just pee.
Nice seenin you Rat!
He was a Lefty? link please?
Oh, and if you haven’t seen this video, you’re really missing out on one of the most astonishing things ever filmed.
I said he was a “Lefty.” Quotation marks indicate National Review-class taxonomy.
Cool new bandname: Suburban Pet-Fecal Hellscape
Evening, Thers.
I refuse to read any Thers post that does not include a little dancing leprechaun gif.
Aah… The fragrant aroma…! ;-)
Aloha, Thers…!
http://article.nationalreview.com/430684/there-oughta-be-a-law/shannen-w-coffin
No pizza recycling then landfills fill up quicker is Shannen volunteering his town for the next trash landfill? Maybe Shannen does not care if his kids run barefoot on the lawn in dog poo? Does Shannen have carpet because even with shoes walking in dog poo brings the mess inside.
Wait Shannen must have a maid! Frakin Elitist Snob above the cares and concerns of Regular Americans!
I aims to please!
Evening.
I actually do need one of those where the l’il guy is dancing in poo.
Love the video. How’d you find it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski#Manifesto
Thers Shannen W. Coffin is trying to claim Ted as one of ours?
SaTHERSday Night Live!
We should send all these anti-regulation whackaloons to that libertarian paradise, Somalia.
Yeah, I think ol’ Ted was in a political dimension all his own.
i think coffin used ted because he was looking for someone not as recent as the irs plane guy — and was trying to find a domestic terrorist he could claim was motivated from the left. its not the ted — its the violence of the ted that was his point
He doesn’t say so explicitly, but the received wisdom of the Right is that Ted was of the Left. Also there are pretty obvious reasons why in a screed of this sort he didn’t use, you know, Tim McVeigh, the far more likely choice for a bizarre anti-government rant. You know?
Luddite doesn’t even begin to describe it…! ;-)
Mystery Science Theater used it once. Also it has something of a cult following. It certainly is, uh, memorable.
http://article.nationalreview.com/430684/there-oughta-be-a-law/shannen-w-coffin
Shannen is no mechanic the car companies overcharge huge on SUV’s and hybrids are making Toyota money. After all over a million Priuses sold if Toyota was losing even $100 a car that would be an over $100 million dollar loss.
Also Shannen didn’t the Chinese buy Hummer recently just how profitable are SUV’s now that we lost the oil war?
GM and Chrysler not Toyota and Honda asked for a government bailout Shannen or don’t you read the WallStreet Journal?
Batshit crazy is the place to start and move into outer space in an alternate dimension from there.
I agree its the Right’s logic I Diss I understand now that you were referring to their thinking in the post. It just smelled fishy to me you know.
No Evolution, No Stem Cells, No Keynesian economics, the GOP has us beat six ways to Sunday as the anti Tech Party.
i wonder why cheney had this coffin dood write this oped — was the subject matter rejected by baby dick and cheney had call this guy up from the farm team?
…the Chinese buy Hummer recently just how profitable are SUV’s…
Actually, I’ll bet we’ll see some Chinese hybrid Hummers soon…! We already are producing some military HMMV’s that are hybrids…! The Chinese wanted the ‘name’, not necessarily the product…! ;-)
This really highlights the problem with trying to describe a multidimensional space (politics) in terms of only one dimension (conservative-liberal).
Relevant to this attitude, I think, is a diary by Jim Moss currently up at the seminal:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/40103
He has a nice little graphic which shows that the top 1% in the country have 13 1/2 times the wealth of the bottom 50%. The haves in our society have too much. They think they are entitled to obey laws, or disobey them, at their convenience. And why not? In many ways this is just an extension of what we have seen in the housing bubble, the meltdown, even torture and wiretapping. For those haves, and their agents, the law simply does not apply. We have just seen the biggest frauds and swindles in the history of the world. Have we seen prosecutions? No. Are there even any investigations? No. And the tortureres? Their enablers like John Yoo? They’re doing fine. Obama is too busy looking forward to be bothered with defending the rule of law.
So of course some haveling wannabe like Shannen Coffin doesn’t want to pick up his dog’s crap. Why should he? We ordinary Americans are being crapped on by the powers that be every damned day. So what is a little dog poop next to that? And toxic pajamas? Well, maybe not for his kids, but the right to sell toxic junk to the rest of us should be held sacred.
Thanks, Thers. Sorry I can’t stay awake for toons, Suz. I’ll have to see it in the morning. Sleep patterns totally wild.
A Lawyer worried about reading? Did he go to Liberty University?
Actually if memory serves the Hummer deal fell through a week or two ago so the Hummer is going the way of the dodo.
Did they buy the right to sell Hummers at GM dealerships?
This was laugh out loud humor. Well done. (just like his child would be if her pjs were regulation free flamable)
In the US the FDA has no power to recall anything but baby formula. Did you know they have to ask the company to voluntary recall stuff? And the beef industry worked a deal were they didn’t have to tell people where tainted food went until they make a effort first to recall it quitely? This lack of teeth was responsible for mad cow meat to end up in the bellies of diners in a Vietnamese restaurant in Truckee. Now Mad Cow takes years to develop and their is no cure. Had the announcement been public that might have saved those people.
In China they don’t have the same rules. That is why the same melimine that killed 4,000 dogs and cats in 2007 ended up killing babies in China.
It won’t be until the white babies of the DC “no regulation” parents die will any change happen. It is a sickness that they can only see the need of regulation after they are the vicitm of no or poor regulation.
Agreed this could be a diary. Imagine trying to describe a multi dimensional space to a 2 dimensional good, evil world view. Our side only has 3 Good, Bad, Grey what would be other dimensions in politics?
This guy doesn’t know the difference between freedom and license.With no regs whatsoever, we could do away with all government, right?
GM announced it would close Hummer on April 7, 2010.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/last-call-for-hummer/?src=mv
Right. Even if it just makes sense (like laws requiring kids to be strapped into carseats) they resent it. It’s to do with the privilege. And to do with them being a gang of snotty adolescents, mentally.
Danka, amigo.
…the right to sell Hummers at GM dealerships?
currently only available in Nevada.
My bad…! ;-) It is the name the Chinese are pursuing relentlessly…!
I think if we had regulation concerning meat or if Shannen read the consumer information at McDonalds then maybe Shannen would not need two flushes?
Cause and Effect Science and Technology contradict with what Shannen wants to believe. Shannen thinks highschool level ridicule is a logical argument.
Clean up in aisle 43? Somebody spilled the full chamber pot all over the place.
*MODNOTE: refresh – aisle is cleaned up*
So offendeman at #43,
You really don’t know what you are talking about on so many levels. First, many of us here aren’t Democrats. Also many of us don’t see any significant difference between Republicans and Democrats. They are both corporatists. But if you enjoy being cornholed more by Republicans than Democrats, that is certainly your right. However, couldn’t you run some red state talking points by us that aren’t 30 years old? I mean is that how long it’s been since you had, not an idea of your own, but at least a new one, that your masters fed to you?
Dagnabbit, I missed the fun…! ;-)
Take heart – this is the ‘sane’ one in the bunch.
Maurice Clemmons, a suspect in the killing of four police officers in Washington state, had been granted clemency by then-Gov. Huckabee back in 2000
http://washingtonindependent.com/69156/conservatives-hit-huckabee-for-cop-killer-clemency
Huckabee’s clemencies became an issue, albeit not a defining one, during his brief surge in the 2008 primaries. In 1996, shortly after becoming governor, Huckabee announced his intention to grant clemency to Wayne DuMond, a convicted rapist and murder. A year after he was freed, DuMond assaulted and murdered a woman in Missouri. During the 2008 race, a mysterious group named Iowans for Some Semblance of Christian Decency pushed the DuMond story, and Mitt Romney’s campaign ran one ad in Iowa attacking Huckabee for granting “1,033 pardons and commutations, including 12 convicted murderers.”
http://washingtonindependent.com/69156/conservatives-hit-huckabee-for-cop-killer-clemency
Sic ‘em, Hugh…! ;-)
“Danka, amigo.”
When you wrote that I thought of this.
I remember laughing so hard at his instant switch of racial slurs.
What made your piece so funny was I could visualize each alternative world event. And him swearing after each one.
“Goddamn stupid wetback plumbers!”
the offending comment has been moderated
quoting from it will result in your comment also being moderated
DO NOT FEED
Yes over react much we attack a not very well thought out bit of GOP writing and this nut goes the Willie Horton card I smell fear.
Spoil Sport…! 8-P
dood i spend night after night dealing with the sewage that gets spewed, it is not because i am trying to take all the ‘fun’
Heh!
I watch that movie every year on my birthday. One of my favorite things to do.
Sorry, M’dear…! 8-(
But, a little fun, now and then, would be nice…! ;-)
I lived in New York City before the pooper scooper laws and rich and poor alike inevitably stepped into dog poo, and the streets were especially fragrant in the summer.
Surely even rich Republicans see the benefit of the poop scooper laws in a city where they are forced to walk the streets, at least for several blocks at a time.
However, I don’t believe for a moment that a big Randian baby like Shannen picks up their dog’s shit. They’ve got a maid, or gardener to do that.
No. The rich can see the benefit of laws forcing other people to clean up after their dogs (as well as themselves).
Bless the mods.
And all their works.
Time for me to toddle off. Take care all.
making mental note to add heavy duty hip-waders to the kelvar and nomex modsuit
g’nite dr dick
Can just any White Guy write for the GOP or what? Where are the editors, fact checkers etc? A piece like this would not survive 5 minutes on the Lake on a slow day.
just what is the reading level of his audience? Just how do his readers compare to Daily Show viewers and/or us as far as knowledge of actual facts go?
Aloha, Dr. D…!
Nite Dr Dick:)
Perhaps this pie chart will answer your question.
Hmmm, #43 is a response to my post.
I don’t follow.
Look into a Dry Suit Suz.. under the Kevlar/dragon Armor… better than them waders..
there was a troll that used to occupy that space before being bounced — your 44 became 43
Ok Any White Guy or Girl the operative factor seems to be crazy contra facts.
But, but that symbolizes 193% of the Repugs…? ;-)
I am reminded of a story that I read years ago about dogs in Paris producing 16 metric tons of “crottes” a day. I googled “crottes Paris tonnes” just now and came up with estimates between 10 and 20 metric tons, and yes, I saw references to 16 tons. That’s a lot of dog poop.
Oh man, that’s hilarious!
The original #43 got removed. Your comment must have taken its place. No offense meant. My remarks were addressed to someone else.
Ok, I suspected that after going back again.
I don’t see how you do it,love!
16 TONS
Just so ya know..what do ya get?
None taken, Hugh. Just some sort of woo-woo land, it seemed!
Ain’t she a sweetie…? *g*
That is the best laugh I’ve had all day.
Yep!
OK, I is drifting. Niters.
(Pie chart passed on to me by Watertiger, I must confess.)
Rioting on FDL!
That was a great song I remember from growing up. Tennessee Ernie Ford used to sing it on TV. It’s also a great union and protest song. I can’t imagine it or songs like it being allowed on TV nowadays.
Even funnier for me as I read it as 2012 Presidential Rum!
Well, after visiting woo-woo land on my first post, all hell is braking loose!
g’nite thers
We had ribald words we sang to that tune. But then, that is/was Chicago!
giving bb the LQQK
Karl’s ” Math”
Very true Hugh… But damn they younger generation need to join the fight for their future… Way to much of this union busting has been going on since ST Ronnie… Labor has had very little say in anything… Just look at how the latest mine disaster happened… it really comes down to one word GREED… Fuck the workers… A few deaths here or there is just part of doing business… Profits!! Profits..
As was said “what we need a good bit of REGULATION!”
LOLFOFLMAO
He definitely had it coming…! ;-)
Right, BB…? ;-)
Past transgressions even, eh…? *g*
A little bit older, and deeper in debt!
Hi CE how ya doing??
One of my oldie favs..
My old mother used to sing this song all the time. We rolled our eyes!
“Every one of them knew that as time went by they’d get a little bit older and a little bit slower.”
Bet I’m one of the only people who listens to Revolution 9 on purpose.
Lyric occurs at 1:03.
SNL great tonight. TINA!
tina doing the quitter?
Does it end,
“I owe my soul to the company store…”
Tina doing SP in black leather jacket and zippers.
It was in the margins when I submitted it. I have been getting the LQQK from Eureka Springs on your behalf. So it is official now…thank you.
I think Tennessee Ernie also inspired The Grateful Dead’s “Cumberland Blues.”
“Make good money, five dollars a day,
Made any more I might move away.”
st peter doncha call me ’cause i can’t go
i owe my soul to the company store…
I’ve always loved this part best.
I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”
if you type without spaces and repeat the word over and over and over and over and over and over and over it will bust the margins
I should know this, but sadly I don’t (embarassed).
Missed meaning. Seems tonight all are up in arms over the national Review articles. I may never have read a right wing corporatist, federalist paper that espouses benevolent despotism. But then I have been out there in left field.
What a picture of my lovely mother singing this at the top of her voice!
Thanks for the tips.
mom and dad in the station wagon, us kids in the back, all singing loud with the windows down on a sunday afternoon drive
I was hooked on TE when I was a teenager. And I once drove by the entrance to a Molybendium mine in CO did not appear inviting but then I was not living in a mining town.
It’s from the album “Workingman’s Dead.”
Here is a link to the lyrics, couldn’t find a good video.
Out now, splendid evening to all.
Parents smoking up front, kids rolling around in the back seat. Later we had one of the first VW bugs — a shock to the neighborhood!
memories so many memories..
Thanks to unions and other advances it’s a better job today than it was when he recorded that song. Only way to make a living wage in those areas. If you consider the large number of miners and the relative rarity of accidents, odds of making it to retirement are reasonably good.
Still too dangerous for me. Anyway, I hope one day we can leave all coal in the ground.
Monte Python, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso&feature=related
Originally saw “Spring Fever” on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I don’t think you’d see anything so elaborate if this clown’s anarcho-libertarian fantasy world were a reality: when his dog crapped on the neighbor’s lawn, the neighbor would just shoot him.
In reality, anti-nanny-state libertarians are always looking for an advantage for themselves. They want regulations eliminated because they that think they will then get their rightful, Gawd-given leg up on everyone else (“inferiors”). They forget that anarchy, like laws, cuts both ways and that, with the “freedom” to foul other people’s yards comes the “right” to blow befoulers away.
Personally, I’ve gotten quite used to the baggy. Doesn’t bother me a bit.