If the rise of George W. Bush meant a return to traditional values, then some of the patrons at Patsy’s Irish Pub in Dana Point didn’t hear about it. The lot outside was flooded with cars and pickups bearing admonitions to vote for the man who many Progressive Christians now barely hesitate to call an antichrist. Mixed among these were iron crosses and other paraphenalia of the wRong.

Inside, heavily inebriated men pressed around several Britney Spears wannabes who bared their navels and wiggled their tooshes as they sang Karaoke. No one sang the Lord’s praises here: it was, after all, a bar. Yet I do not see John Ashcroft moving soon against such places because, like him, these boozers care more about homosexual than heterosexual temptations. Except for their sexuality, they live mostly pagan lives.

The RNC has a lot of explaining to do: why, if morals are their primary concern, do they keep inviting this variety of lout to help them form coalitions?

Recent polls suggest that moral values played a very small role in this election — if it was indeed fairly conducted. When you rephrase the question and ask about moral issues that moved people to vote as they did, the highest ranking of these was the War in Iraq. Fear of gays and abortion were comparatively negligible in their impact. Questions concerning just why we are in Iraq were higher on the American mind than either of these. Yet even now, the Bush Administration plans to pack the courts with the most narrow-minded civil rights opponents that it can find as direct assaults on our right to privacy. (No law degree or accreditation required!)

But civil rights has never really been the issue. What moved those who crowded the front lines at Patsy’s (there were liberals quietly drinking in the back) were taxes. They believe, despite their expensive Orange County homes, their luxury SUVs, their maid service, their gardeners, and the vacations they get to take two or three times a year that they represent an oppressed class. None of us can attach a hammer and sickle to her or his car without having it vandalized, but it is OK to discreetly announce your Nazi sympathies by placing an iron cross there. These people live in the freest nation on earth for fascists and they continue to complain! For these average Orange County single male Republicans, moral values amount to having the right to drink, grope women, obtain divorces without consequences or responsibility, and punch out whoever they desire. They’ll use the roads, stop at the lights, take walks in the park, and send our boys to Iraq, but pay their taxes for these and other responsibilities and privileges that come with being a citizen? “Them are fighting words! Hiccup!”

So we see the real face of Bush fanaticism here in Orange County. Go not to the churches to look his constituency in the eyes, but to the bars.