Spode

I think P. G. Wodehouse has provided me with a wonderful way to describe how I feel about living in Utah County, a place dominated by Republicans, Libertarians, and Constitutionalists, and also a few people not nearly so liberal.

Understand, it's not that I've necessarily identified myself with the Left-of-Centers, either. I don't really think of myself as a liberal. But that being said, I have to also say I'm tired of the arrogant, self-important, know-it all conservatives that run Utah, or at least try to. I would throw every one of the bums out, if I could and if I thought there weren't three more lined up behind each one of them just as bad.

OK, done with that rant. And now for my wonderful quote. If you are not familiar with P. G. Wodehouse, well, you're missing out. In the Jeeves and Wooster books, there is a character named Roderick Spode, loosely fashioned after Sir Oswald Mosely, the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Spode's followers wear black shorts instead of black shirts, and his political policies are laid out thusly:

Our policies are: one, the right, nay the duty of every freeborn Englishman to grow his own potatoes; two, an immediate ban on the import of foreign root vegetables into the United Kingdom; and three, the compulsory scientific measurement of all adult male knees! Nothing stands between us, and our victory, except defeat! Tomorrow is a new day, the future lies ahead!

Roderick Spode, the Earl of Sidcup

Spode spends a lot of his time blustering, and threatening, and throwing his weight around, not unlike the Utah Legislature. At one point in the novel The Code of the Woosters, our hero Bertie Wooster has the temporary upper hand over Spode, and gives the following little speech:

"The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: 'Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?'

Couldn't have said it better myself, Bertie. You're my new hero.