FriendBurst Blog

Ironically, one of the things that compels me to change my mind, one of the things that makes me say “something is wrong with America today” is the large number of people who are saying “there is something wrong with America today”.

My gut feeling is still that we ARE that country that won WWII and then helped to rebuild Europe and our former enemies.  We are STILL that country that ended a legacy of oppressing our own minorities and overcame centuries of having an underclass based on skin color.  We are still that country that defeated oppressive communism whilst building a basic safety web for our own people that in any other century would have been called socialist.  Even going back to 20 years ago, we are still that country that could help unite the world and push back a dictator who invaded a neighbor for no better reason than he could.

I remember when the whole “Tea Party” thing got started when the Democrats controlled the legislature and executive. The point of the original Tea Party in 1775 was an objection to taxation.  I asked my conservative friends to name one single increase in taxes that had come with the Obama administration.  No one could name one.  BECAUSE THERE HAVEN’T BEEN ANY!  Obama has not raised taxes one cent!

So the “Tea Party” changed tack.  It became a movement to oppose expenditures.  They should really find a different name because the Boston Tea Party had nothing to do with colonial spending.

If I were to look at the radicalization of the American right wing on a sociological level, I would say that it is a natural dialectic of the election of Obama as president.  If you’re not familiar with dialectics (very different than Dianetics, BTW),  this kind of analysis came from a guy named Hegel.  Basically, what it describes is how any movement in a society naturally creates a reactionary force to counter it.  A society starts to move one way, and a opposition to that movement builds strength.  Looking to our own time, it explains the election of Nixon as a reaction to the radicalism of the 60’s.  It explains the rise of the Reagan right after the permissiveness of the 70’s.  It even explains the election of a populist African American after the neo-con militarism of the W. Bush era.

Here’s the thing though.  The Tea Party reaction to election of Obama has been more of a counter-swing to what Obama represents as opposed to what he has actually done and the policies he supports.

This more of a question to the men our there who tend to be more competitive with their cars.  Have you ever been out on the road and someone speeds past you or cuts you off and then you react irrationally and drive differently just to “beat” that other car?   If it’s a Ferrari or a Corvette that does that to you, you’re more likely to just take it as opposed to it being an old Hyundai or Geo Metro.

See, because of his youth, skin color and background, many in this country subconsciously see the Obama administration as an AMC Pacer passing up their Cadillac or Lexus.  So they get the political equivalent of road rage.  They aren’t going to admit to racism any more than the driver who gets passed by an “inferior” vehicle would admit to “carism”, but I think that is part of why the American right has gotten so vitriolic in their anti-Obamanism.  It explains why the man has been categorized as a failing president not because what he has done, but just because who he is.

Imagine you were made captain of a quickly sinking ship.  The Titanic after it has been ripped apart by a subprime iceberg.  If you managed to keep that ship afloat, keep it from sinking further, even shoring up critical parts of the boat, would you be a failure for not getting the boat up and moving again?

The folks who put the ship in the path of the iceberg, the folks who MADE the iceberg in the first place are now trying to blame the captain put in charge of that sinking ship for not fixing the huge gash in the hull.  Is that fair?

I’ve spoken in this blog of why the right wing is wrong in it’s condemnation and reaction to the current administration.  To conclude, I want to look objectively at some of the charges thrown out by the right and show how they’re misguided at best, propaganda at worst.

THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE IS IN PERIL:  As I said, I think the peril to America is in what we might do as a reaction to this sentiment.  How much political capital has been dug up by the right in symbolic opposition to Sharia Law in America?  It seems to me that there is a basic misunderstanding of the what is meant by “law”.  We have never, and never will, allow religion to be the dictator of law.  Are Mormons allowed to be polygamists because their religion says it is okay?  No.  Does the Biblical tenet of an “eye for an eye” require states to allow the death penalty?  No.  It’s something that each state decides democratically. Does Sharia Law have any chance of becoming a legal standard in ANY jurisdiction in the USA?  Absolutely not!  Bizarre right wingers like Herman Cain who use the opposition to Sharia Law for political capital might as well be taking a stand against the torture of kittens.

Furthermore, how often has this argument been made?  Going back to the days of the Tea Party, one thing those Anglo-Saxon colonial founding fathers were afraid of was the influence of all the German immigrants to the New World.  Those guys were worried that German might become the language of the USA.  I’m guessing that most of the people reading this have a little German blood in their ancestry.  German people are the top contributors to the melting pot of America.  Me, I’m more than half German.  When considering the anti-immigrant stances of today, remember where we came from.

TAXES ARE TOO HIGH: Personal income taxes are lower than they’ve been in 50 years.  Fact.  They’ve never been lower for the top income bracket.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS TOO INFLUENTIAL IN OUR LIVES:  How so?  Can you give me an example?  I’m much more pissed off at my local government and their imposition of driving regulations than I am with anything the federal government has done!

WE SPEND TOO MUCH ON FOREIGN AID:  The ironic thing is that the folks who say this are more likely to be fundamentalist Christians.  Foreign aid makes up about 1% of the US budget.  It’s duck feed.  Let me remind my Christian friends of Matthew 25:35 which reads: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

CONGRESS IS BROKEN:  Approval ratings for the US Congress are at all-time lows.  This wouldn’t have anything to do with the Republican take over of the House of Representatives, now would it?  It is SO easy to blame “Washington” for everything.  The Republican front runner for the presidency wrote a whole book railing against “Washington”…  Umm… People, who elects Congress? WE do!  Who is “Washington”?  It is US!  Particularly in the House where we get a chance to pick someone new every two years, what better representation of democracy is there than Congress?  If you’re disapproving of Congress, you are disapproving of democracy!

Ever since the advent of democracy in Ancient Greece while working with would-be benevolent dictators like Themistocles and Pericles, there has been an understanding that a benevolent dictatorship absent corruption is a superior form of government in terms of getting things done than is democracy, at least in terms of getting things done.

Why don’t I like blaming “Washington”?  Washington is US!  We decide who sits in Congress!  The blaming of Washington is universally done within the context of blaming “the other”… blaming something that is outside of the people’s will when in truth, there is nothing more representative of the people’s will than the US Congress!!!

Is the people’s will always the best thing?  Ask Themistocles and Pericles.

Is democracy always going to produce the best result?  No.

“Democracy is the worst form of government…  except for all the others that have been tried.” -Winston Churchill