Posted by
Ric Dibney on Thursday, August 09, 2007 10:37:12 AM
At a website devoted mostly to sports, there is a corner where a person can talk about just about anything that is not sports related as long as the National Guard isn't called in. After staying away from a thread entitled "Election 2008" for weeks, I waded in this past weekend armed with facts and in the mood to tweak some progressives. And I learned a couple of things in the process. One is that most people are not privy to the facts I had in hand. This is most likely due to the "weighted" reporting my progressive friends claimed was not happening. The other thing I learned is that being confronted with reason is very upsetting for progressives. First of all, in calling themselves "progressives", they are implying that those of us who are not of their political/philosophical persuasion are only slightly up the evolutionary scale from Neanderthals. So it unnerves them to hear one of us conservatives speaking in complete sentences and using a grown up vocabulary. Also, "I think" has very little place in an "I feel" world. If a person "feels" a certain way about the world or about one aspect of the world we live in, what one thinks or what facts are presented that dispute that feeling are irrelevant. For example, the Bush Tax Cuts have caused a huge swell of revenue for the U.S. Treasury. The response I got, "What has Bush done with this extra revenue?" Regarding my questioning of Barak Obama's Pakistan policy, talking about specific candidates was apparently taboo. Again, the thread's title was "Election 2008..." Bias in the media? "Not since 1984," opined one U.K. Guardian devotee. And the thought of Democrat candidates sitting down with Brit Hume for an interview? "Why should they go over to Fox News?" The disdain nearly dripped through my computer screen. I guess getting interviewed by a snowman is preferable. I also learned that Ralph Nader is "above politics", Bush "thinks he's king", and all sorts of wonderful things. How I crave an actual debate between ideologies. How I wish for intellectual honesty on the part of my political opponents/fellow Americans. Alas, my reason is the problem. If only I could see what an evil jerk George W. Bush is and how socialized medicine and education and the like are the way to go. But then I'm not progressive. I wouldn't understand.