Sooooo. Politics.
I joined a discussion about Barack Obama's peace prize today online with a couple of conservative friends. Of course, by the time I joined it, it wasn't about the Peace Prize, it was about the marginalization of Conservatives.
Here's friend Llyw:
"I actually want to hear what you think and participate in a discussion, but I'm tired of dealing with the petulant attitude I keep hearing from conservatives. There is a open invitation to come to the table and be heard any time you want to engage in something productive. But being childish and dismissive only encourages the current Majority to ignore you."
To which friend Ben responded:
"the attitude comes from the constant condescension of liberals who feel they are the only ones with valid opinions, and that anyone who disagrees with them is simply misinformed or has failed to actually think about things. as a conservative in washington, I get talked down to pretty much every time politics comes up."
And my follow up. :
"Well, sometimes so-called conservatives do not have valid opinions. They have dogmas, and they conflict with the rules and obvious traits of our natural world and they expect their faith to be portrayed equally alongside fact. Dogmas like "Intelligent Design" and the constant denial of climate change (I'm ok with saying that it's not primarily caused by humans- that doesn't conflict with the obvious) are not worthy of respect. And if you're a conservative, I'm sorry- but a lot of time you are getting taken less seriously because of associations. Associations that conservative pundits and politicians aren't shedding because it forms the base of power that they have left.
Actual Conservatism, as embodied by, say, Eisenhower- is dead, politically.
The attitude of mainstream conservatives- that dogmatic belief that Liberal should be a four letter word- that causes them to dog, attack or demean more than half of America- calling us ignorant, traitors, socialists or communists or worse- is what I believe is marginalizing conservative opinion."
And finally, Ben's response:
"there's the problem. the pundits, personalities and screaming idiots of fox news and the rest aren't "mainstream conservatism", they're the noisy minority. they represent the average conservative about as well as Michael Moore represents your average liberal, or the Animal Liberation Front represents your average animal lover. They're noisy, they get attention, but ultimately they are an embarrassment and a detriment to that which they claim to champion."
It's his remark about representation that really brings me into focus here.
Regardless of how much Michael Moore may or may not represent most democrats, I don't think I'm alone in saying that for the first time in my lifetime I feel like I have a president that actually kind of represents me. I liked Clinton, but Barack is saying what I want to say were I to have his podium. I might not agree with all of his implementation, but the point remains:
He is trying to do what I want him to do. He is Representing me.
The thing is, is that when conservatives attack this man, when they call him a Nazi for doing what I- and in regards to health care, what most Americans- want him to do, they are in essence calling us Nazis.
I'm not a Nazi.
Let me pose it this way: If someone tells you an absurd, baldfaced lie unabashedly in spite of obvious evidence to the contrary, do you take that person less seriously?
Of course you do.
There's no escaping it. From Joe Wilson (Regarding his general speeches, not the "you lie" thing), Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rick Grassley, these people are lying. Outrageously. In the face of facts. They are implying that I want to pull the plug on Grandma. That I would destroy freedom.
And they represent a viewpoint that you, if you call yourself a conservative, claim to be a part of.
I'm not OK with that being said. Liberals disagreed with Bush, but I don't recall any of our elected officials saying he wanted to toss a baby out a window onto a bayonet, or to crowd Jews into an oven, or to euthanize your grandmother. And I sure don't remember any of our public figures implying that conservatives at large were okay with working children to death making the weapons that would kill their liberators and parents alike.
I know they're not. Most of them are good people. I'm friends with some on Facebook, and with some for the entirety of my life. Honestly, I have many, many conservative values. That's why I'm more or less a Democrat.
In short, the marginalization of "Conservatives" will continue until they take back their own party. Or better yet, abandon the trappings of that party and come into ours and we can have a discussion about actual values instead of red states and blue states.
But until then, whenever I hear a "Conservative" parrot a Fox News talking point- that person is associating themselves with the marginal. They are placing their hand on the shoulder of bald-faced liars, hypocrites and thieves. It is kind of me, as Ben put it, to think anyone who agrees with these charlatans "is simply misinformed or has failed to actually think about things." Because the alternative... I prefer not to think about it.
