Outrage and Epithets!

This topic almost puts me over the edge. I admit it. I find it hard to take and I'll tell you why. When I was a young conservative at San Diego State, we had a "sit-in" to demonstrate our objection to a Sandanista thug who was coming to speak at the student union. We brought our signs, which said stuff like, "Nicaragua Freedom Fighters NOW!", "Support Nicaraguan Freedom," and Sandanistas Supported by Communists." We sat out on the lawn where we had obtained a permit to sit, quietly.

As the faculty members at San Diego State University, most of whom we had identified as members of the Philosophy, Humanities, and English Depts. filed by, they spat on us, threw garbage at us, and called us "Baby Killers." It was outrageous, and there was no mention of it in the San Diego Union or the school paper. For years, the left has had marching orders that have included epithets and outrage all focused on obtaining favorable press coverage. My boyfriend in collge once obtained a list of protest suggestions from one of the Nicaragua protest groups (left-wing). I forget exactly what was on it, but I know the gist of it was that they were to obtain the most press coverage possible and there was mention of how to draw the opposition out and make them look bad in the press. There is such a double standard here, and I am tired of being demonized for my beliefs, which, for the most part, I have expressed peacefully, and with as many reference to facts as possible.

I don't give two hoots if the Tea Party started chucking half-eaten hot dogs at those idiots (eegads, I called a liberal an idiot) who just instituted a law that creates 159 new government offices and programs, and killed the free market for health insurance (I'll pause while liberals google the word "free market" [thanks Ann], and have essentially given over 20% of our economy to an economic entity that allocates resources with little thought to the most efficient methods and practices. We have become Europe with its lagging economy and lack of innovation, and if there is outrage over that fact, I support it wholeheartedly.

Frankly, I would not be surprised if this exercise of government power a la Max Baucus (God, it just kills me that the state of Montana actually provided the IDIOT who wrote this bill) ended in violence. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and our president who is supposed to be a constitutional scholar should pay close attention here, because the English king had imposed taxation without representation, and had required citizens to house the red coates. Well, when you think about it, our Congress just passed a bill that the majority of the country (by any poll, anywhere) does not agree with. They turned the House of Representatives into the English Parliament in one fell swoop where the majority rules with an iron hand. That is a prescription for violence if I ever saw one.

I know that from a personal perspective, my husband, a small businessman who has worked hard for years hauling pool tables and keeping his store open, is ANGRY; in big red letters. He is joined by many small business people who clearly see this as an intrusion of the most egregious sort. Ammunition sales in the United States have increased 300% in the last five years, and with increasing unemployment, skyrocketing gas prices, inevitable increases in inflation and interest, and our debt ratings being downgraded, it is simply inevitable that someone will die. You just can't take away freedoms and expect people to sit calmly by and continue as if all is normal.

Just a week ago, in Chula Vista (I think), Roger Hedgecock was thrown out of a meeting. I don't know what the exact problem was, but it is not atypical for conservatives to be drummed out of meetings (Ann Coulter, Canada). Chris Matthews can make references to shooting Rush Limbaugh on his television program (which has less viewers now than afternoon Sponge Bob cartoons), and Glenn Beck is touted in Newsweek magazine to "Hate Jesus" for opposing programs that support "social justice" which he claims, rightly, are programs that are meant to undermine free society. Alec Baldwin suggested that if we lived in a different country, we could stone Henry Hyde to death; it goes on and on.

Ours has always been a nuanced argument, and nuanced arguments are easy to pick on if you take only one point and rip it to shreds in the press. But the free markets have a way of prevailing, I would just prefer it not be through a hundred year cycle, because I've only got about 40 years left (if I'm lucky). In the grand scheme of things, then, does it really matter that we're violent or throw strong epithets at freedom-stealing politicians? Not really. In fact, we may save our children from lives of certain dispair.