Per the Onion, Republicans re-animate Ronald Reagan after two disastrous presidential campaigns.

This is an updated list. I originally put it up last September, just after the conventions, when the Presidential campaign began in earnest. I’ve updated it somewhat, but this seems to cover the subject pretty nicely. This list probably seems patently unfair to Republicans, and (to be fair) not all Republicans believe everything on this list. And Democrats believe some rather astounding things as well, which I will address later this week. And there’s a larger issue of what Americans IN GENERAL believe that is just fundamentally untrue, which I’ve been trying to address in my series Don’t Know Much About History. 

So we’re going to start with the things that define standard talking points for the 2013 Republican Party. You can add to this list or suggest changes.

1. JFK ‘stole’ the 1960 election by faking the real vote in Chicago in 1960, and if votes had been counted correctly, Nixon would have been president (not true—even if Nixon had won Illinois, JFK still had sufficient electoral votes to win);
2. Evolution is only a theory, and bad theory at that (ask Santorum, Cain, Gingrich, Ryan, Buchanan, Inhofe, Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann…);
3. Ditto global warming. And all those scientists who won’t testify to that truth are just elitists;
4. Life Begins at Conception as defined in HR212,  a bill that if passed would make IUD’s and most oral contraceptives illegal.
5. Obama is a Marxist (Cmon, folks–If Obama was really a Marxist, the Wall Streeters would’ve woken up in March 2009 to the sight of fellow banksters hanging from lampposts. Obama has prosecuted no one for the bankster crimes—he isn’t even a NEW DEAL DEMOCRAT);
6. Almost half of this country is ‘takers, not makers’, meaning they don’t pay their fair share.
7. The above rule does NOT apply to the corporations or One Percenters who’ve been dodging tens of billions of dollars in taxes. Corporations and One Percenters are by definition NOT takers, even if they don’t pay any taxes from one year to another.
8. Cognitive dissonance alert: Repubs simultaneously believe a) that work is inherently dignifying and uplifting and b) someone who does not have to work(aka a ‘welfare queen’) is living in a secret paradise
9. Black slaves actually had a sweet deal before the Civil War (aka the War to Defend Southern Apartheid) when their lives here are compared with what Africa was like, and things weren’t THAT BAD before the Civil Right Act;
10. FDR made the Depression worse, and Amity Schlaes did NOT make up numbers in her book about FDR no matter what historians say;
11. It’s okay to have dodged the draft in the 1960’s (Romney, Newt, Pat Buchanan, Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, etc) as long as you thought we were ‘right’ to fight in Vietnam;
12. Waterboarding is NOT torture no matter what John McCain, the sole Republican in DC to have personal experience with torture, says about it;
13. There was a vast, ugly, intricate conspiracy to hide Obama’s Kenyan birthplace including use of the highly experimental “Wayback” machine to place birth announcements in both of Hawaii’s Local newspapers. But the Air National Guard losing all correspondence dealing with George W Bush not showing up for drills for over a year? That’s just dumb luck;
14. Reagan’s tax cuts were completely self-financing, and the argument that the federal deficit under Reagan tripled from one trillion to three trillion dollars is due to that tricky math that liberals use;
15. It is perfectly acceptable to insult Democrats who are out of the closet (nee “Barney Fag”) and to start rumors about Dems who are not out of the closet (or not gay). It is beyond the pale for anyone on the left to call out closeted Republicans for throwing their gay and lesbian brethren under the bus by siding with anti-gay policies like Defense of Marriage or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;
16. Asking Cheney about how he supports an anti-gay agenda in the Republican Party while he has a daughter who’s gay is also completely unfair;
17. Asking Dick Cheney’s wife Lynn how come the lesbian scenes in her novel SISTERS  are so well written and detailed (and numerous) is completely unfair and libelous;
18. A serial adulterer such as Newt Gingrich should be able to define what constitutes marriage.
19. The VA medical system for veterans is a Socialist disaster, even though the bulk of its patients rate VA care higher than conventional private care;
20. Starting a war of aggression against a country that doesn’t plan to attack us (say, Iraq) is NOT a war crime in the United Nations charters the US wrote after WWII; Neither is torture.
21. Asking why Dick Cheney was never indicted for shooting a fellow hunter in the face at close range is just another example of the ‘lame-stream media’ asking the wrong questions;

There! I tried to pick truths that were a bit obscure but still accepted as common wisdom. This is not an exhaustive list–I chose items for their resonance, not for their currency. Suggestions welcome.

Don’t worry, I have a big list of SH*T Democrats believe.

I probably won’t have any friends  after this.