Political Thoughts

Following our somewhat puzzling national election results, and a rather heated argument with my mother at Thanksgiving, I've been trying to figure out exactly what's going on with American politics. I've read a lot of Andrew Sullivan after I saw him duking out out with Bill Maher on whatever that show on HBO is that is like Politically Incorrect but with more cussing. I've been reading other conservative articles when I get the chance, and I've been watching liberal sites like Daily Kos trying to figure it all out. These are some things I've noticed.

Conservative voters feel alienated by liberals because they view liberals as intellectual snobs, mostly because liberals can act like intellectual snobs (see previous post, and posts made right after the election). Our message is often this: we're smarter than you, and if you don't see why your voting for Bush is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders, then you're a fucking moron who deserves to burn in your Red-State hell.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but this is the exact same reason I hate conservatives: because a good deal of them act like this towards us, especially those in conservative-majority areas like Oklahoma. They feel that liberals ran this country for the most part of the last half of the 20th Century, and that they have been in the minority, so when they are in the majority (be it nationally, or locally), they tend to get a little prickish about it. I can't say I blame them, but I certainly don't like watching them do it to us, and I seriously doubt they like watching us turn around and say those kinds of things back to them.

Liberalism used to be the realm of Martin Luther King, Jr., of JFK and Bobby Kennedy. Our concerns are social justice: that people be treated equally, whether that means blacks have the right to vote without fear of being lynched; or if it means that a woman should be paid the same amount of money as a man for doing the same work; or if it means that gay couples should receive the same tax and health care benefits as married couples. It means personal freedoms that do not infringe of others' personal freedoms - which means that any child, regardless of their religious denomination (so not just Christians!), should be allowed to pray to themselves at school, but that the majority should not force the minority students (who also pay taxes) into saying their prayers.

It is the realm of James Madison, who believed that a Democracy existed not to enforce the tyrrany of the majority on the minorities, but to protect and treasure the minorities and allow everyone to live under one, big tent.

We've been called a lot of things: Nazis (I'm still not sure about that one), fascists, Commies, bleeding-hearts, nigger-lovers, you name it. But we were strong, and had a purpose. Our anthyms rang from the halls of African churches in the south, and from the airwaves by way of folk singers.

But it's all been supplanted; the airwaves belong to Clear Channel, who only plays artists signed to Clear Channel-owned labels (CC also happens to donate large sums of money to the Republican parties). They have managed to convince the people in the churches that liberals are not on their side; instead, we're out to get them by destroying their families, teaching their children the ways of Satan, and taxing them to death.

We have let them subvert our most powerful weapon: Christian churches. We've let them convince us that the churches are filled with dumb, NASCAR-loving rubes who hate fags and want to teach our children evolution - when, not a generation ago, those churches were the bastions of our call to social justice. And we have let them do it.

In order to regain our country - for make no mistake, this is our country, founded on the principles of Freedom and Liberty, not shallow-minded pseudo-patriotism and the willingness to sign away freedoms for corporate security - we must rediscover that we hold more in common with the people in those churches than the fat cats who now run the house. I do not believe for a moment that those Christians are really the dumb demons it's so easy to imagine; they are, or should be, our allies. It's time to reach out, to put aside the snobbery, and take back what is rightfully ours.

Incidentally, this all ties into my novel, which concerns itself with the fact that the current conservative social system is, in the end, unsustainable, which is something in our favor. But I'd rather not wait this one out; it's going to be a long road, and we cannot alienate our allies again, but I have no doubt that we can overcome.