IT'S ABOUT HATE
2014 March 17, Monday

     I think every right-wing, conservative, or libertarian should read the screed below. It was presented by somebody I have respected for three decades, not some idiot crackpot. I believe this letter represents all too well the point of view we're finding ourselves against in trying to save America from its current death spiral. I have encountered this message in bits and pieces from respectable and respected left-wing sources.

     This letter reveals a significant difference, perhaps the fundamental difference, between the left-wing and the right-wing in the twenty-first-century United States of America.

     I believe my left-wing friends are well-intentioned. I believe my left-wing friends are deluded, misinformed sheep following a malicious message. I have several political web pages and a few of these dwell precisely on the issue of how people who want to help poor people can put tens of millions of them out of work, of how non-racist people can support the racism of affirmative action, of how people offended by the collusion of the military-industrial complex can support the naked corporatism of the stimulus packages and "Government Motors" in Detroit, of how otherwise-clear-thinking people can tolerate the pseudo-science and eco-scare power mongers of global warming, of how believers in open dialogue can support today's political correctness, of how people against monopolies and favoring more jobs believe in government-forced unionization, of how alleged supporters of freedom can support the enormous increase of centralized power of the last six years, [in a Yul-Brunner voice from "The King and I"] "et cet-er-a, et cet-er-a, et cet-er-a."

     There was a disappointing movie with a great title, "Not Evil Just Wrong," a spirit which I attributed to my left-wing friends. If they could understand the connection between their actions and their results, maybe they could realize enough to change their behavior. Surely, I have felt, few on the left could actually want the fruits of their politics that have become evident since 2007.

     I envisioned our friends on the left thinking similarly about us, that we just don't get it. We just don't understand that more of what they've been doing will reverse the trend of doing what they've been doing so far. I thought they thought the right just doesn't get it.

     What I have not envisioned, at least with nothing resembling the passion evinced below, is this naked hate and spitting vituperation being commonplace. I've glimpsed it from enough angles that maybe I should have figured it out, but it had not occurred to me that this might represent the common left view of the right. I have never seen this kind of hate from the right. The most emotionally-driven, sheep-like right wingers I have met still believe, deep in their hearts, that most left-wingers are simply misinformed or misguided. (There may be an inner circle in American politics who understand fully what's happening, as Russia had its circle around Stalin, as German had its circle around Hitler, as China had its circle around Mao, but I'm talking about the liberals we meet socially and engage in political discussion.)

     Riddle me this: How are we going to have meaningful dialogue understanding the complex and intricate relationships of political cause and ultimate effect with people who resonate with the liberal tripe I've seen in various media, especially the "open letter" below?

     Are we really going to gain understanding of John Locke's theory of value and property with such people? Are these people able to discuss Adam Smith's understanding that liberty produces more wealth of nations, especially for the lower classes who are suffering today, than any form of central planning? Could they possibly get the notion that America is a collection of values expressed in the Declaration of Independence and executed in our Constitution, and that the entire world is a better place, both economically and politically, to have such a country? Or is rampant name-calling and spitting the only communication available with this kind of left-wing community?

     My left-wing friends neither understand America nor embrace its values, but I would never use this sort of language to describe them. They may be wrong-headed followers "drinking the Kool-Aid," but I never doubted their good intent. (I similarly believe in the good intent of those similarly-misdirected right-wingers who believe in social meddling as a political imperative.) It's becoming clear, however, that this is what the left thinks of us.

     So read this and try to understand what we're up against when we're trying to save America from those who work tirelessly to destroy it.

     I meet you all the time. You hate Obama. You hate gay people. You hate black people, immigrants, Muslims, labor unions, women who want the right to make choices concerning their bodies, you hate em all. You hate being called racist. You hate being called a bigot. Maybe if you talked about creating jobs more than you talk about why you hate gay people we wouldn't call you bigots. Maybe if you talked about black people without automatically assuming they are on food stamps while demanding their birth certificates we wouldn't call you racist. You hate socialism and social justice. You hate regulations and taxes and spending and the Government. You hate.

     You like war. You like torture. You like Jesus. I don't know how in the hell any of that is compatible, but no one ever accused you haters of being over-committed to ideological consistency. You like people who look like you or at least hate most of the things that you hate. You hate everything else.

     Now, I know you profess to love our country and the founding fathers (unless you are reminded that they believed in the separation of church and state), but I need to remind you that America is NOT what Fox News says it is. America is a melting pot, it always has been. We are a multi-cultural amalgamation of all kinds of people, and yet you still demonize everyone who is not a rich, white, heterosexual christian male or his submissive and obedient wife.

     You hate liberals, moderates, hell, anyone who disagrees with Conservative dogma as espoused by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. You hate em.

     Well, here are the facts, Jack. If you hate the Government then you are unqualified to manage it. If you hate gay people more than you love America than you should take your own advice and get the hell out. There are several countries that are openly hostile to gay people, but they are full of brown people and you don't like them much either from what I understand. It looks like you are screwed, but that's not what I am here to tell you.

     More rant below the fold . . .

     Now that you have thrown everything and the kitchen sink at President Obama and it still hasn't worked you are panicking. Obama's approval ratings are still near 50% despite your best efforts to undermine the economy and America's recovery at every step you can. You tried to hold the American economy hostage to force America into default on its' debts, debts that YOU rang up under Bush, so you could blame it on Obama and it failed. You've used the filibuster more than any other Congress ever, going so far as to vote against providing health care access to 9/11 first responders. You remember 9/11, don't you, it's that thing you used to lie us into a war in Iraq, and then when Obama killed Bin Laden and ended the war in Iraq you told people that he hates America and wants the troops to fail. You monsters. You hate Obama with a passion, despite the fact that he is a tax cutting, deficit reducing war President who undermines civil rights and delivers corporate friendly watered down reforms that benefit special interests just like a Republican. You call him a Kenyan. You call him a socialist. You dance with your hatred singing it proudly in the rain like it was a 1950's musical.

     Frankly, you disgust me. Your hatred nauseates me. Your bigotry offends me. Your racism revolts me.

     Dear haters, I am openly questioning your patriotism.

     I think you hate gays, Obama, black people, poor people, all of us, women, atheists and agnostics, Latinos, Muslims, Liberals, all of us, I think you hate every one who isn't exactly like you, and I think you hate us more than you love your country.

     I think you hate gay soldiers more than you want America to win its wars.

     I don't even think you want America to win wars, you just want America to have wars, never ending wars and the war profiteering it generates. You love that kind of spending, you love spending on faith based initiatives and abstinence based sex education (George Carlin would have loved that one), you love spending on subsidies for profitable oil corporations, you spend like drunken sailors when you are in the White House, but if it is a Democrat then suddenly you cheer when America doesn't get the Olympics because it might make the black President look bad. But oooh you love your country, you say, and you want it back. Well listen here skippy, it isn't your country, you don't own it, it is our country, and America is NOT the religiously extremist Foxbots who hate science, elitist professors and having a vibrant and meaningful sex life with someone we love if Rick Santorum doesn't approve of it. Rick Santorum isn't running for America's fucking high school dance chaperone, he should probably just shut the hell up about sex, but he can't because he has nothing else to run on.

     Republicans can NOT win on the issues. They've got NOTHING. All they have is a divide and conquer class war that pits ignorant racist and bigoted people against the rest of us in a meaningless battle of wedge issues and the already proven to fail George W. Bush agenda again of tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization and war profiteering and nothing else, so all they can do is blame black people, gays the government, anybody and everyone else for their own failings. The party of personal responsibility, my ass.

     But they love multi-national corporations, just ask a gay hating and racist religious extremist if they think Corporations are people and they will gladly agree, but if you ask them if gay people are people they aren't so sure.

     Dear haters, you are the cruel, heartless misinformed assholes who would sell America out to Haliburton in a heartbeat, you would rather pay ZERO taxes than you would see a newly born baby get access to quality health care, you cheer when we discuss denying health care to young people with preventable diseases, and you boo when we discuss the First Ladies plan to cut back on childhood obesity. You are a cross to carry and a flag to wrap yourself in away from being the people who Sinclair Lewis warned us about, but I guarantee that if Fox News told you to dress that way you would, because you are the same blind, ignorant and closed minded dunces who drove this country into a civil war years ago because you are bound to the notion that some men are more equal than others. In short, the reason I proudly wear my union army hat is because of seditious sell outs like you who constantly fuck over working class Americans so a foreign entrepreneur like Rupert Murdoch can get a bigger tax break. If corporations are people, they are neither American patriots nor capable of love. Just like you.

     So stop wearing your hate with pride. Stop celebrating your anti-science, anti-math ignorance. Stop using code words to mask your bigotry like "family values", especially when you hate my family and when you stand on the same stage as a guy who has had three marriages or if you share a seat in the Senate with a guy who cheated on his wife with hookers while wearing diapers. You should be ashamed. I know that you are just doing this to motivate your misinformed hate cult base because if they actually knew that your ideas will make them poorer than they are now, they would never vote for you. You are doing your best to impoverish your countrymen so rich people can get bigger tax breaks and you can keep on delivering corporate welfare to the special interests who have bribed you, and I am disgusted by the way you gleefully parade your hatred with aplomb. I don't think you do love America. At least, not as much as you hate everyone in America who isn't exactly like you.

     You should think about that, and maybe get some help.

     And for the record, I do not hate you. I am embarrassed by you and nauseated by your cruel and thoughtless behavior and your all consuming greed, but I do not hate you. I forgive you and I hope you can change someday, but I don't hate you. You have enough hate in you for the rest of us as it is.