Shut the Fuck Up Hippie, Vol. 1: Corn Subsidies

With budget cuts a hot topic these days, I hear a lot of liberals complaining about the federal government’s farm subsidies, particularly subsidies given to corn farmers to make biofuels like ethanol. They say that farm subsidies function as a form of welfare for an extremely wealthy segment of the population, and that if we’re going to invest federal money in alternative energy sources, it should be something more efficient and progressive than ethanol. I get it. I see where you’re coming from, and I’ll admit that your premise kind of makes sense. On the other hand, why do you want to mess with farmers?

Seriously, is there any group of people who cause fewer problems than farmers? When was the last time you read a story about a robbery or an assault that ended with, “police are seeking a farmer for questioning,” or “the victim described the suspect as a farmer of average height wearing a black hoodie?” Farmers also pay a ton of money in taxes. When things are good, they can make millions. When things are bad, the government pays them enough so it evens out. Yeah, that’s not particularly efficient, but if farmers never cause any problems, isit such a bad thing to reward them for it?

[RIGHT- This guy has the idea, saving the environment, one drag race at a time.]

Nothing costs the government more than healthcare, and farmers don’t cost the government a dime in healthcare expenditures. In fact, farmers don’t even get medical attention when they actually need it. A farmer is likely to cut off his finger in a tractor in the morning, then put it on ice until he has time to deal with it at the end of the day. Even then, instead of going to the emergency room, he’ll just lash it back on with some twine and duct tape, and never complain about it. It is not worth messing with these people; it will not end well.

Plus, it’s not like farmers are selfishly hoarding all of the country’s resources and not giving anything back. I would be willing to bet that farmers serve in the military at a higher rate than any other portion of the population. Think about it, every time you’ve ever talked to someone who was in a war, or seen a war documentary on TV, they have started every war story with “a guy I served next to in the trenches was just a regular old farm boy from Mississippi.” Or Iowa. Or Missouri. But not California because all they grow there is bottles of wine to drink at their nipple-rubbing parties. Think about that. Everyone who has ever been to war served next to somebody from a farm. How many people do you know who are farmers? Unless you are reading this on a dial-up connection, you can probably count the number on your limbs, which means less than five, unless you are deformed. Say you know 400 people. That means about one out of every 100 people you know is a farmer. But if you’re in the army, one out of every TWO people you know is a farmer! And maybe the guys on both sides were farmers! Do the math people: farmers are 50 times more likely to serve in the military. Giving them subsidies is a small price to pay for that patriotic allegiance.

Penn Jillete was complaining about corn subsidies. That obese fucker needs to shut his gaping asshole of a mouth before another piece of shit squirts out. His mouth needs to clamp shut as a last minute intervention to save his heart from another Orville Redenbacher butter lover’s blitzkrieg or to prevent him from embarrassing himself by reminding us that magicians don’t get to have opinions. I don’t care. Either way. As long as he’s as silent as his mute boyfriend Teller, it’s really six of one and a half dozen of the other.

Maybe the worst part about the people who complain about biofuels is that they think they have to live the lifestyle and they buy a Vespa. Now every time I’m stopped at a traffic light, some bitch on a pink moped with a matching pastel helmet is four inches from my bumper and I can’t pick my nose because she could reach out and slap my hand away since she’s so close to my car. What are you trying to prove on that piece of trash vehicle? You top out at about 30 MPH, which means you can never go more than eight blocks from home, so good luck living your cosmopolitan lifestyle when you’re trapped in one square mile. And I don’t care if you get 435 kilometers to the litre, which you say to show everyone that you like soccer and crepes. You can also get pretty good mileage by walking, but that’s also slow and inconvenient, so we invented cars. Stop trying to drag me back in time.

I am not trying to say that ethanol is a cure-all for energy problems. I’m not even saying it’s a good thing, but it’s not worth fighting about. Think of it this way: imagine that there are three friends together at a bar. One is an alcoholic prone to drunken rampages, one is a straight-edge ninny, and the other one is a normal guy. The lush is trying to get everyone to do tequila shots with him at 7 PM, and the normal guy sees the writing on the wall and tries to convince him to stick to beer for the night. Everything is going great until the ninny starts rattling off stupid stats like, “you know, 70% of all DUIs come from people who had only been drinking beer.” Now the drunk guy is getting a look in his eye because he thinks he’s going to get to start drinking tequila again. The normal guy sees the problem emerging and nudges the ninny saying something like “can you shut up for a minute? I’m trying to keep him from getting incredibly wasted and starting a fight!” But now it’s too late and the guy has a double shot of Patron in his gut and he’s yelling at some Puerto Rican guys to go back to Mexico, all because the whiny guy couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut. That is like our situation with ethanol. No, it’s not perfect, and it could still get our friend the gas guzzler incredibly fucked up, but it’s better than what we have now, and maybe it can get us moving in the right direction. So for that, I say Shut the Fuck Up, Hippie.