31 August 2010

the man whose name shall not be spoken

In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be.

This does confuse me. There are many questions that should occur to us when you listen to the rhetoric of the aggrieved and agitated political right.

1) What is "Real America"? What exactly do you think "your country" consists of?
2) Who belongs there? Only the people who you approve of and no one else?
3) What use is "freedom of religion" when it does not apply to unpopular religions, or lack thereof?
4) How is the current economic stature of the country vastly different from that under President Bush, or for that matter President Bush the first? This would include questions like, who passed and demanded TARP or expanded and defended medicare rather than attempted to cut it? These are questions that do not provide easy answers for either political team (social security for example creates the same dilemma), but the fact that they do not means they must be asked of BOTH teams, not merely the one who you don't like and don't belong to.
5) How exactly would the President being a Muslim constitute a terrible atrocity in the first place worthy of our scorn and derision? It does not seem to have impacted our zeal for prosecuting wars against predominately Muslim countries, for example, in the slightest. What implication are you really concerned about herein?
6) How exactly does opposing wars indicate opposition and insufficient reverence for the professional American soldier?
7) How exactly does opposing expansive and bad laws (often unconstitutional laws, if not horribly morally flawed laws as in the case of those "justifying" torture or indefinite detention without charges) indicate support of terrorism, or an insufficient support for police powers?
8) How does one receive an education that would lead one to conclude that they should follow without criticism people on their "team", despite their occasional or repeated intellectual dishonesty or inconsistency, and scorn and disregard repeatedly and without reservation people perceived to be on the other "team", despite occasionally or even sometimes frequently doing things that are consistent with your team's beliefs?

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