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Politics

All My Rowdy Friends Are Filibustering Tonight

Jesse Walker | 11.26.2008 11:07 AM

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Hank Williams Jr. says he plans to run for the Senate in 2010. I'm picturing a pro-pot, pro-vigilante, pro-pro football platform -- and maybe, down the road, a Brooks/Sumner-style showdown with Al Franken on the Senate floor.

Bonus links: Hank, meet Millie Jackson.

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Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

PoliticsCultureMusicCampaigns/Elections
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  1. Hacha Cha   17 years ago

    pro-pot, pro-pro football, hmmm not a bad platform at all.

  2. John   17 years ago

    Hank Jr. would kick Al Franken's ass. It would be an ass beating not seen since Preston Brooks beat down Charles Sumner.

  3. Daze   17 years ago

    Hank spent a lot of time on the campaign trail with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

    This doesn't bode well for a libertarian playa-haters-be-damned campaign. More likely is the sad spectacle of HW2 apologizing for "past indiscretions" and claiming Ted Nugent-style that he didn't know what those lyrics meant.

  4. Ska   17 years ago

    I'm with Jimmy Durante up there.....pro-pot, pro-football sounds pretty kick ass. It's my regular Sunday platform anyway.

  5. John C Jackson   17 years ago

    Uh, we are talking about a guy who spent this year worshiping "Law and Order" Republican "patriotic" bullshit. This guy loves authority as long as its old white guys and anti-intellectual hicks.

    GWB was pro-drug at one point, too.

    Hank seems around 6 years too late for Patriotic War on Terra Anti-COnstitutional Republican niche.

  6. troy   17 years ago

    I'd be careful. I think I remember about a post about Charley Daniels going rouge (Read: repudiating his pro pot days)

  7. Troy   17 years ago

    Smoking a doob at Arrowhead Stadium with a .357 strapped to my side would be......heaven.

  8. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    If Hank Jr. uses a good solid pool cue instead of a hollow cain we won't be annoyed by Stewart Smalley any more.

  9. Frank_A   17 years ago

    I wouldn't count Franken out.
    http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/27/elec04.prez.democrats.larouche/index.html
    Dude was a wrestler back in high school and used some of those moves taking down a crazy LaRouchite pronto in the 2004 campaign.

  10. Vinny   17 years ago

    Daze | November 26, 2008, 11:32am | #
    Hank spent a lot of time on the campaign trail with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

    This doesn't bode well for a libertarian playa-haters-be-damned campaign. More likely is the sad spectacle of HW2 apologizing for "past indiscretions" and claiming Ted Nugent-style that he didn't know what those lyrics meant.

    Agreed with Daze.

  11. Jesse Walker   17 years ago

    This doesn't bode well for a libertarian playa-haters-be-damned campaign.

    Bocephus was tamed long ago. And it's been decades since his music was interesting. Consider this post an exercise in wistful nostalgia.

    I wouldn't count Franken out.
    http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/27/elec04.prez.democrats.larouche/index.html
    Dude was a wrestler back in high school and used some of those moves taking down a crazy LaRouchite pronto in the 2004 campaign.

    Did I say which one would be Sumner and which one would be Brooks?

  12. joe   17 years ago

    A natural move "the party of ideas."

  13. joe   17 years ago

    A natural move for "the party of ideas."

  14. Mad Max   17 years ago

    Whose ideas will prevail? Two argue these matters of principle, we bring you . . . a comedian and a country-music singer.

  15. Mad Max   17 years ago

    to argue

  16. Mosby   17 years ago

    As you recall Hank hinted at his political aspirations in his epic "If the South Woulda Won."

    If he can deliver on us all learnin Cajun cooking in Louisiana he'd certainly be remembered as one of the finer legislators in this nations history.

  17. Adderall Apocalypse   17 years ago

    corrections: Troy. It's "rogue." You said "rouge," which is the stuff they applied excessively to Al Gore during that one debate in 2000.

    Also, I believe the title to this post should have been "All My Rowdy Friends Are Filibusterin' Tonight." Gotta drop the 'g.' What are ya, a pinko-commie?

  18. kwais   17 years ago

    The only cool thing about "pro-pot, pro-football, and pro-vigilante" is the "pro-pot" part.

    If he were to stay true, and have the balls to be a pro-pot republican candidate, that alone would be solid gold.

    If he pulled some bullshit "I made mistakes in my past" crap, he can go fuck himself, same as every other toolbag.

    Fine if he wants to fight Franken, or whoever. I want to know; how is he different?

  19. kwais   17 years ago

    Well, I guess a bunch of rowdy fellas fillibustering, would be pretty cool.

    I have a feeling upcoming fillibusters could be a godsend. More so if done by a bunch of rowdy people.

  20. Crow eating dumbass   17 years ago

    "Two argue these matters of principle, we bring you . . . a comedian and a country-music singer."

    Franken graduated with honors from Harvard. SNL writers tend to be an educated bunch these days.

    There is actually a lot to like about Williams, but his selling out as exhibited by his Monday Night Football performances and other things makes me pity him nowadays (he really sings a song for each game! And did you see the one on "Hispanic Heritage Night" where he just threw in a Hispanic word here and there, jeezus)

  21. SIV   17 years ago

    What is wrong with football and vigilantism?

  22. CED   17 years ago

    "What is wrong with football and vigilantism?"

    Yeah SIV, if only we still lived in the Glory Days of vigilantism!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States

  23. CED   17 years ago

    "From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Most of the lynchings that took place happened in the South. A big reason for this was the end of the Civil War. Once black were given their freedom, many people felt that the freed blacks were getting away with too much freedom and felt they needed to be controlled. Mississippi had the highest lynchings from 1882-1968 with 581. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. 79% of lynching happened in the South.

  24. kwais   17 years ago

    SIV | November 26, 2008, 1:18pm | #

    What is wrong with football and vigilantism?

    Vigilantes tend not to respect the constitutional rights of the subjects of their vigilatiism.

    I guess that is why I am a minarchist.

    I mean, I don't believe that justice has to be doled out by people with badges. But I believe that constitutional guidelines are pretty cool for any group of people imparting justice on another.

    Outside of superhero movies, vigilantes don't tend to do well in that regard.

    I mean, I suppose people with badges don't do very well in that regard either, but still.

  25. CED   17 years ago

    "I ain't touching the Confederate stuff, except to say that the behavior of the Confederacy is not an excuse for one-sided denunciation of the twenty-first century South, as if it were a unique source of evil."

    I just thought Mad Max would want to defend his tribe against the lynching stats I just put up since they kinda look a bit bad there...So I helped him out with this post from yesterday defending his area from the nastiness of slavery.

    Jeez Max, is your area going to be on the right side any in the next two hundred years?

  26. Robert E.   17 years ago

    The Southern concept of a vigilante is different, and the heroic and anti-establishmentarian connotation thereof ought to be accepted and respected.

  27. kraorh   17 years ago

    CED:

    Well, not that I'm terribly wild about vigilantism, but it's worth remembering that what made the Southern lynchings you're referring to so bad was precisely that blacks were prevented from defending themselves. The first anti-gun laws were passed there, aimed primarily at blacks. Lynchings were carried out either with the active participation, or at least, the blind eye, of local authorities. In that situation, what should you do? If anything, that's a good case for blacks to arm themselves and fight back by the only means left to them - vigilantism. I don't think that should be equated with lynching, which is more like mob-murder than someone trying to enforce the law where the legal authorities aren't doing their job.

  28. Mad Max   17 years ago

    "Jeez Max, is your area going to be on the right side any in the next two hundred years?"

    Does Goldwater v. Johnson count?

  29. Mad Max   17 years ago

    Or the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions protesting the Alien and Sedition Acts? Guess which region supported *those* enactments?

  30. Mad Max   17 years ago

    In the nineteenth-century debate over tariffs, which regions supported high tariffs and which region opposed them?

  31. Mad Max   17 years ago

    And, unless the British side in the War of 1812 was the "right side," maybe New England's dubious loyalty during that war should be considered.

  32. Frank_A   17 years ago

    Jesse Walker | November 26, 2008, 12:11pm | #
    Did I say which one would be Sumner and which one would be Brooks?

    Touche.

  33. kwais   17 years ago

    Kraorh,

    Maybe the gubmint was evil in the south too.

    But anecdotally, I have run come across a few stories of vigilantism in a few countries. And most of those events were grave injustices.

    A lot of cases of getting the wrong guy.

  34. robc   17 years ago

    CED,

    No one goes to the UP for spring break.

    Point to the south.

  35. joe   17 years ago

    Franken graduated with honors from Harvard.

    Now now, we've all learned that graduating from Harvard with honors means nothing - NOTHING!

    He also wrote a couple of best-selling books about politics.

  36. CED   17 years ago

    "Does Goldwater v. Johnson count?"

    Well, I think they were wrong there, but that's probably not too popular a position around these parts...Anyway, it would be offset by the four Southern states that provided Dixiecrat votes for Thurmond.

    I'll give you the Alien and Sedition acts as I despise the Federalists and their New England support. Afraid that's a small counterweight to slavery, peonage, Jim Crow, lynching...

  37. cecil   17 years ago

    Max,

    Please cite "dubious loyalty" of New England during the War of 1812.

  38. FatDrunkAndStupid   17 years ago

    Daze and Vinny,

    Sarah Palin never "apologized" for using pot. Indeed, her response to that issue was comforting from a libertarian standpoint on two levels. First, because she didn't moralize. She simply pointed out that it wasn't illegal under State Law. Second, her emphasis of state law highlights the fact it was still illegal under Federal law, but Palin's pro-AIP ass clearly doesn't care what the Feds think. She's far from perfect on the drug issue, but heads and tails above monsters like McCain and Obama. I'd rather Williams suckle from Sarah Palin's ample, moderately libertarian bosom than socialize with any of the statist goons from his home state.

  39. Metal Messiah   17 years ago

    Screw Junior, let's put Hank III into the Senate.

    HANK3: "They didn't want my vote from the time I was doing Federal probation for five years, so I've never been into politics and I don't believe in the government. If the government was a real government, pot would be legal, the speed limit would be faster and they wouldn't be fuckin' gettin' upset over a cuss word or a pair of tits or all this stupid shit. America needs to take a fuckin' nice hard look at themselves and see how much energy they waste on drama mutherfuckin' bullshit and get real. I mean, we're the land of the free, but we're also the land of the fuckin' most double standards out there. Compared to Europe and some other places, it's just God awful. It doesn't matter because it's already a higher power and it's already planned out in their game. We the People does not exist anymore in my eyes."

  40. ASSJACk   17 years ago

    Yeah HWIII actually makes good music. What did his do besides the football song?

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