Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I really should send Joseph Farah a gift for putting together a publication that goes above and beyond the call of duty to provide me with maximum fodder for this blog. It suddenly occurs to me that Joseph Farah is the Hal Needham of right wing political commentary. Who is Hal Needham, you ask? He was the writer and director of the legendarily bad movie Cannonball Run 2. And just like that bad movie, the Worldnutdaily is so awful that it becomes campy fun; you can't stop watching (or reading) because you can't wait to find out what vacuousness comes next.
In his wonderful book Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon, Joe Queenan determines that Cannonball Run 2 is the single worst movie ever made and he praises Needham's understanding that a truly bad movie is like a shark - it has to keep moving or it dies. Thus, if you're going to start out with Jamie Farr as an Arabian prince and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. impersonating priests, you have to follow that up with Jackie Chan and the big goombah from James Bond.
If you're going to have Telly Savalas as a gangster, you know that Ricardo Montalban can't be far behind. If you're going to have Abe Vigoda and Jim Nabors show up early in the movie, then you have to bring in Tim Conway and Don Knotts to serenade an orangutan with "by the light of the silvery moon." And for God's sake, you have to find a part for Charles Nelson Reilly.
Farah understands this concept perfectly. It's not enough to feature his own inane commentary or that of his Gilligan, David Kupelian. If you're going to start with those two, you can't follow up with some run of the mill right wing hack; you have to dig down deep and pull out David Limbaugh (not Rush, folks, David). If you're going to have a designated Falwell slot (first Jerry, now his son Jonathan), you have to trump that with a raving lunatic like Janet Folger.
If you're going to have insipid gasbags like Ted Baehr writing columns, you don't settle for for the merely mediocre to follow him up, you go get Vox Day and give him a column. As Queenan might put it, if you're going to go slumming you don't want a slightly rundown neighborhood in Yonkers, you want Watts or the bad side of Compton. And yes, folks, Chuck Norris is the Charles Nelson Reilly of the Worldnutdaily.
In his latest screed, "Mad as h--- and not going to take it anymore" - and yes, they actually did replace the word hell with "h---" -- we find Norris struggling to understand the concept of proportional representation. He thinks all our problems would be solved if only there were fewer people in Congress and he's offering amusing arguments like this one:
I don't only think there are too many cooks in Congress' kitchen nowadays, but the numbers are stacked in discriminatory ways. For example, if California represents a larger liberal voice with its 53 representatives, what chance or how fair is it for smaller more conservative states who have between one and five representatives and votes in the House? The U.S. doesn't need a new reapportionment act to raise the number of representatives, but a return to the Constitution to reduce the number of representatives in pursuit of creating more equitable regions or districts. Personally, I believe, just as we have one governor per state, we should consider reducing Congress to one representative and two senators per state (the minimal by constitutional requirements). If one representative works for Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming, why can't it work for all the rest of the states?
He wants to "return to the constitution" to do precisely the opposite of what the constitution says. The constitution says that the House of Representatives is to be apportioned based on population. The reason why California has 53 representatives and Delaware only one is because California has 37 million residents, about 12% of the population, while Delaware has only 1 million residents, or about 1/3 of one percent of the population.
Politics
Comments
It's... it's not possible to be this dense. Does Chuck not understand that one legislative body with even representation is enough? Is he not aware that both the House and the Senate have to vote on these laws?
I don't think he actually believes this argument. This column was written to give the WND readers something to fantasize about.
Posted by: FishyFred | July 17, 2008 9:30 AM
By the way, re: Cannonball Run 2, would you say it's bad in a funny way (like Troll 2 or Shark Attack 3) or just bad bad? I have a small collection of bad movies and I'm always looking to add new gems.
Posted by: FishyFred | July 17, 2008 9:35 AM
Ah, so that's what "proportional representation" means in this context. Being European, I thought it meant something completely different...
Posted by: Dunc | July 17, 2008 9:48 AM
We have the 2 senators / state rule in the Senate and it's terrible. The "small, conservative" states block the "big, liberal" states at every turn.
If the issue lines up the right way, 10% of the population can prevent the other 90% from passing a law.
We had to come with a name for it. We call it, "Democracy"
Unfortunately, it's the one part of the Constitution we can't change. :-(
Posted by: Chris Bell | July 17, 2008 9:58 AM
But... but... that doesn't make any sense. I mean, I'm not quite awake and haven't eaten breakfast yet, but I'm pretty sure that I remember the reason the House's representatives are based on population and the Senate's representatives are not is because the larger states wanted their larger populations to count for more votes, and the smaller states felt that was unfair.
Maybe Chuck Norris wants to ship some people out of the more populous liberal states.
Posted by: Neviditelny | July 17, 2008 9:59 AM
Many years ago, a rumor floated about that hundreds of thousands of hippies (remember hippies?) were going to migrate to sparsely-populated Wyoming and take over. There was no truth to the rumor idea, even if Wyomingers were preparing for the onslaught, but maybe there's something to the idea.
Posted by: CJColucci | July 17, 2008 10:31 AM
I am in awe of the stupid.
Posted by: Bourgeois_Rage | July 17, 2008 10:54 AM
Well, I guess if we didn't have proportional representation, we could do away with the decennial census as well. Maybe McCain could use the savings from that to balance the budget.
Posted by: BC | July 17, 2008 10:55 AM
I think that the gravest error Chuck does here is to think that the Congress is an executive body. Cooks in the kitchen are executives. Congressmen are legislators. In the Westminster system, or in France, it is named the Parliament, which conveys well the idea that it is a place for speaking.
Posted by: Jérôme ^ | July 17, 2008 11:15 AM
Agreed. But what an insult to Charles Nelson Reilly. At least Reilly had a sense of humor.
Posted by: T's Grammy | July 17, 2008 11:21 AM
Maybe Chuck can start wearing those big oversized glasses and an ascot to complete his Charles Nelson Reilly transformation. He already has the bad rug.
Posted by: Lance | July 17, 2008 11:35 AM
Agreed that Hal Needham's "CB2" is pretty awful, but the first "Cannonball" is still fun to watch.
But I do feel that Chuck was trying to be cheeky in this particular column.
Posted by: CHV | July 17, 2008 11:46 AM
Absolutely FishyFred! I'd put it on par with Fire, Ice, and Dynamite and Yor: Fighter from the Future in terms of good bad movies. But it doesn't quite reach The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak level.
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 17, 2008 11:51 AM
It's childish to call people names. When debating the issues don't work, call them crazy, call them lunitics. or bad spellers. ;-)
But never try to debate issues. What a load of crap you spew out, the only good point you make is about size coralated to representitives. However if you look at Calafornia, it going back to limited goverment, and limited control, it really should be more then one state. North and South, would be a start... try 5 or more.
www.WallBuilders.com is a GREAT orginization which actually gets back to original intent of the constitution.
Example, I'll pay a Million dollars to someone that can find "seperation of church and state" in the constitution.
Even the clause that is being misused and abused was ment to keep the goverement from establishing one "denomination" was the word used in the first and second draft.
What about the FREE exersice clause!
God Bless,
Josh Darville
Posted by: Josh Darville | July 17, 2008 12:25 PM
Hey, genius:
1. Are you saying that Thomas Jefferson didn't understand the Bill of Rights? He's the one who gave us the separation phrase - you think you're a better Constitutional scholar than him?
2. Did it occur to you that maybe the reason the "denomination" language didn't make the final cut was precisely because the authors of the First wanted to make the restriction broader than just banning a state church?
Posted by: Mithrandir | July 17, 2008 12:57 PM
Lance said:
Yeah, but which knee would Chuck wear the ascot on?
Josh Darville said
It's in the 1st Amendment. Now where do I send my information so you can get the cash or money order (something tells me I shouldn't accept a check) out to me?
Posted by: Jeremy | July 17, 2008 12:59 PM
Okay, so split California into two states. Then it would have even more representation—four senators instead of two, and since congressmen are elected by district anyway the liberal/conservative congressional mix wouldn't change much. In what way do you think this would help your...cause?
And what's with the church/state red herring?
Posted by: nicole | July 17, 2008 12:59 PM
Additionally, "Josh Darville", I recommend browsing with Firefox, which comes with a built-in spell checker. I'll admit that bad spelling doesn't necessarily mean bad ideas, but bad spelling does make your ideas sound worse than they are (although as my prior post suggests, it's my opinion that they already sound pretty bad).
I'm sure you've been told you're a bad speller before, but I do urge you not to be indifferent to that fact. Modern technology provides a whole bunch of ways to compensate for poor spelling skills. On the Internet, no one needs to know you "kan't spel gud" - you can always get the computer to "spel gud" for you.
Even if you don't change your opinion about the Constitution one iota based on your time here, please, please change your opinion about the importance of good English.
(Sorry, pet peeve.)
Posted by: Mithrandir | July 17, 2008 1:05 PM
Ok I'll bite (again), apart from a village that is a venue for a horse race, what's an ascot*?
Oh now I get it (I'm a little slow) it's a kind of cravat or scarf, but knees? Now I'm relly confused. -DJ
*Is an ascot a house for small Roman coins (as).
Posted by: DingoJack | July 17, 2008 1:19 PM
Josh Darville, I'll gladly debate the issues with you. Though I'm having trouble parsing out your stance. I think you're in favor of more limited government. But it's not clear in what way.
What was that about North and South? Are you saying California should be split into two states? If so, how would that help, as the total population would remain the same? So between the two they'd still have a large block in the House, plus they'd get two more seats in the Senate, giving them more power, not less.
Regarding separation of church and state in the constitution:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
The concept of separation of church and state is encapsulated in the above quote. Or are you contending that because the exact phrase "separation of church and state" is not included that the concept is not there.
The phrase first appeared in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, where he was trying to explain the intent of the establishment clause I quoted above. To quote Jefferson:
You can keep the million dollars. I'm doing fine.
As to the free exercise of religion, some religions call for human sacrifice. Obviously that is not a practice that should be legal. That's a rather extreme example. But I think it illustrates that your right to freely practice your religion ends where it infringes on another person's rights.
One more thing I'm unclear on, what's all this establishment versus free exercise stuff have to do with the question of how many House representatives each state should have?
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 17, 2008 1:20 PM
I must say that this blog attracts a thoughtful and intelligent set of participants. The responses to Josh Darville's post have been reasonable and polite.
I especially liked the gentle touch that Mithrandir used to encourage Josh to clean up his spelling.
In many of the blogs here at Scienceblogs he would have been ruthlessly savaged for both his poor presentation, his skewed understanding of the constitution and his Dominionist views.
The effect of these attacks is usually to harden the views of the victim and lessen the chances that they might continue in dialogue. Thus lessening the chance that they might increase their understanding of other viewpoints and their proponents and perhaps even modifying their opinions.
The more reasoned and gentle approach displayed here may inspire Josh to think about other perspectives, learn more about the intent of the framers of the constitution and take action to improve his spelling.
If he doesn't do any of those things you can at least be assured that you haven't made the situation worse and have acted humanely.
Although calling him a fuckwit might have lowered your bloodpressure.
Posted by: Lance | July 17, 2008 1:56 PM
I stick with Ed Wood.
Posted by: Bill in NC | July 17, 2008 2:14 PM
If Josh had any wits, he'd be arguing for the breakup of large conservative states instead, to gain more senators for his side. And as it happens, there's a perfect candidate: Texas, which -- uniquely, as far I know -- entered the Union with the right to break up into as many as five states. I'm almost surprised that Tom DeLay didn't try for it, given his fondness for aggressive gerrymandering of the state. But I guess that Texas patriotism outweighs the potential gains in this case.
Posted by: Nemo | July 17, 2008 2:31 PM
as several posters have already pointed out, it is the small states that have a disproportionately large amount of power in congress. prof. sanford levinson explains this quite nicely in this book. http://www.amazon.com/Our-Undemocratic-Constitution-People-Correct/dp/0195365577/
slightly OT - the Y-O gets a mention on Science Blogs, nice!
Posted by: sdg | July 17, 2008 2:55 PM
Positive rating percentages from Rotten Tomatoes:
Cannonball Run 2: 11%
Expelled: 8%
Posted by: James F | July 17, 2008 3:07 PM
God Bless,
Josh Darville
Posted by: Josh Darville | July 17, 2008 12:25 PM
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Another example of when "god Bless" = FUCK YOU!
Posted by: W. | July 17, 2008 3:49 PM
Wow! Just, wow!
In two out of three of the federal branches of government, small states are already automatically overrepresented but that is still not good enough for him.
Posted by: Ferrous Patella | July 17, 2008 3:57 PM
I kind of agree with him. I also want to return to the Bible by sacrificing truant children to Moloch.
Posted by: libarbarian | July 17, 2008 4:26 PM
So true W.
I work with some Christians that think I am rude because when they say "God bless you" when I sneeze I tell them I would prefer gesundheit. They now either say gesundheit sarcastically or just continue saying God bless you.
So it would appear that the real purpose of saying "God bless you" is not to show concern for your health but just a gratuitous opportunity to reinforce their religious faith.
Posted by: Lance | July 17, 2008 4:30 PM
Chuck isn't half wrong. Perhaps we should think more critically about the structure of Congress.
Hear me out. Before the ratification of the 17th amendment, members of the Senate were chosen by state legislatures. The premise behind such a structure was that the House would be representative of the people directly, and thus perhaps more brash and brazen about public policy. The Senate was to be a more seasoned and sophisticated branch, checking the balances of the direct populace to rational discourse allowed in the Senates ability for unlimited deliberations. That is, passion is to the House as reason is to the Senate.
Anymore, the incumbency rate for the House is more than the Senate (excluding anomalous political changes due to a disgruntled populace, eg. 2006). And for any budding student of the Congress, it seems that it is the Senate that is more prone to brash political stunts and legislation. But maybe that's just my perspective.
I don't have a solution for this predicament, though. Opening the Senate to the popular vote allowed the complete domination of special interests in the late 20th and this 21st century. But returning the power to the state legislature seems even more risky, because I've been hard-pressed to find a state Congress that meets minimum expectations of leadership.
Just a minor rant. Ignore me.
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | July 17, 2008 4:32 PM
I actually think our system works fine; much better than the moronic parliamentary systems of Europe where the voter is disenfranchised by the constitution and the Parties gets to decide who represents where and how representation is delineated. Giving all states two votes in the senate ensures 1) that the small states can't be steamrollered by blatantly discriminatory laws like, say, proportioning Federal funds by the acre, or deciding tax rates by average population density, or restricting state fishing rights by miles of coast line, while also 2) ensuring that political divisions within a state will likely be expressed at the federal level.
These two factors encourage the congressmen of a state to look outside of their own delegations for political allies and encourages consensus making. Unfortunately, the monolithic position that the two parties have come to hold in our Union has led to a significant breakdown of these engines of compromise. Politicians care less about their states that they do about their parties these days, and the noncritical acceptance of propaganda, on both sides, has moved the U.S. voter drastically away from the results-driven ballot caster he once was to something akin to the political client of the late Roman Republic.
The blogging community and WND specifically are a perfect example; is there anything at all that they would agree with the people who post here about? I bet they'd argue against humans breathing air if someone posted it on Daily Kos.
Posted by: Julian | July 17, 2008 5:04 PM
It would be hard to find "seperation of church and state" in any document, since "seperation" isn't an English word.
I don't think that parliamentary systems disenfranchise the voter. Having a system where the leader of the party is chosen in the run up to an election sounds slightly more moronic to me - it essentially limits the competition to a tiny number of parties that go through a protracted campaign of primaries. Parliamentary systems enable elections to be called at times at variance with what would be considered normal in response to public pressure, amongst other things. I'd note also the excessive polarisation of opinion in the US, where Germany, the UK, Canada, etc, have much less of a problem with it.
Posted by: AlWest | July 17, 2008 5:34 PM
I have better idea, representation should be allocated to the states that actually pay the federal governments bills. Ex; OTTOMH Jersey gets back .60 for every dollar sent to the feds, Conn. NY etc close behind, Miss. gets 1.73 for every dollar. Why should I have to pay for these lazy parasites? If your state is in the red for 5 years straight, turn them into a colony. If you want a Highway, don't expect the feds to do it for you, Float bonds and pay them off with tolls.
Posted by: The Pale Scot | July 17, 2008 6:18 PM
Chucky, "more equitable districts" are ones that have "more equal" representation. I know you have trouble with the English language, but look closely at the roots of equitable and equal. Notice how similar they are? But Wyoming's 500,000 people having 2 senators while California's 30,000,000 people have 2 senators is not equitable. To give California Senatorial equity, they should have...60 Senators!
Chucky clearly rejects the democratic ideal of one-person, one-vote. That is, he rejects the idea that we should all be politically equal!
Apparently Chuck thinks equitable government is pure minority rule. Maybe we should take his love for minority (and conservative) rule to its logical conclusion and just crown Chucky king. King Scheiskopf the First.
Fuck off, Chuck. Seriously, fuck off. While you're at it, go fuck yourself.
Posted by: James Hanley | July 17, 2008 7:05 PM
By the way, if we wanted to "get original" with our representation, we'd actually have to add a whole hell of a lot more repesentatives, not reduce the number. I've done a little number-crunching on this for my American Gov't class (I wish Chuck would come take it, so he could learn a few things). Here's an excerpt from what I wrote up:
Not only that, but the smallest House districts (the small population states, each of which must, according to the Constitution, have no fewer than 1 Representative) are smaller than the average House district in population. The average district size is 650,000, while Wyoming, North Dakota, and Vermont each have fewer people than that.
This imbalance will only continue to grow. Far from Chucky's idiotic fantasy coming true, we are likely, in the next generation, to have increasing pressure to increase the size of the House.
Posted by: James Hanley | July 17, 2008 7:17 PM
James, I can't say that my German is very good, but don't you mean scheissekopf (or better yet, scheißekopf)?
Posted by: The Christian Cynic | July 17, 2008 7:38 PM
It seems Chuck Norris, Josh, and a lot of the republicans we see on these blogs got a perfect score on their APGAR test, and think that qualifies them to crititique smart people.
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | July 17, 2008 9:28 PM
Christian Cynic, I last studied German in 1991. If i managed to get the idea across, I'll say I'm doing pretty well.
Posted by: James Hanley | July 17, 2008 9:34 PM
Thanks for pointing that out, Mr. Hanley, though I doubt the folks who agree with the argument we're responding to will take notice of it. The number was set awhile back to keep the House manageable. If we were following the same ratio of voters/reps that the founding fathers were, just the building where the House met would have to be the size of a small football stadium.
Posted by: Julian | July 17, 2008 10:40 PM
Julian,
Maybe it would get the engineers motivated to building the hall similar to the one found in the Star Wars episode I movie.
Floating pads would be awesome.
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | July 17, 2008 11:47 PM
I'm curious -- does Norris actually know that he's completely violating the spirit of the Constitution and ignoring the main reason a bicameral legislature was created in the first place, or is he really that damn stupid? There are times I can't tell if people like him are in on the propaganda push or are just useful patsies.
Not to mention this would be the biggest gerrymander in history, and mindbendingly anti-democratic. Not that he cares, I'm sure.
Posted by: Brian X | July 18, 2008 1:54 PM
Joseph Farah will be my guest at 5 PM New York time Monday August 25 on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com.
To talk to him please go to www.garybaumgarten.com and click on the link to the show. There is no charge.
Thanks
Posted by: Gary Baumgarten | August 13, 2008 12:45 PM