I must admit that I was moved by watching the “Rally to restore Sanity (and / or) Fear.” Stewart and Colbert have taught me that: YES- we must and can work together and tone down the rhetoric.
But, working together and calmly debating ideologies means that you can no longer call me a racist, or a teabagger, or claim that I hate Mexicans just because I want the southern border laws followed. Or say that I hate all Muslims just because I object to a Mosque being built near ground zero.
In return, I will stop calling you a piss-head because you drive a car, yet complain about other people who drive a car; because THEY are killing the earth? (Well, they have a bigger car than I do.) So you are BOTH killing the earth, you are just killing the earth- slower; and that is OK with you?
Also, I will quit calling you brain-dead because you say that you want to help the poor, but to help the poor; you want to raise taxes? My friend, if you want to help the poor, reach into your pocket and give your money to the poor. If you want to pay higher taxes, just refuse your refund check this year from your income tax. Very little of your tax money actually goes to the poor. Your tax money went to bail out the banks, which they used to give huge bonuses to their CEO’s. Your tax money is use to supply a jet for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to fly back and forth from DC to California.
However, Stewart and Colbert are right, we should debate without calling each other names.
Actually, we need each other to survive. After watching the “Sanity” rally, I find it VERY hard to say anything BAD about a liberal. I cannot cut down a democrat, and I may even say some nice things about a progressive.
Let me prove it to you that we do NEED each other...
To grow a pretty flower, (which would represent the new- budding conservative government) you would first need fertilizer. (Which would represent the past 2 years, and the democrats in power.)
You cannot have the beautiful blossoming flower, (which is conservatism) without the steaming pile of compost (which would be liberal / progressives.)
See, we truly need each other, we do not have to call each other names, and we can work together. The Stewart / Colbert rally taught me that.
It was actually a very entertaining rally. Sure, there were mistakes that happen during any LIVE show: (for example) During a song with Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow; you could hear a video tape rewinding for the (pre-taped) Rap section of the song. And during a song by Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, the audience was supposed to participate by shouting into a microphone what city or state that they were from. But that didn’t happen right away, which left Stewart and Colbert on stage, stunned; with a poor guitar player trying to fill the void. However, this stuff happens to every live show, and didn’t effect the overall entertainment value.
I enjoyed the show, and I learned that we can all work together.
(Maybe you need one more metaphor?)
To use recycled metal to build a shinny new Ford car (again, the car represents the conservatives) you need a junk yard full of old rusty metal- (100 years of old ideas held by the democrats.) From the junk yard full of trash, rats, and rusty ideas; you can create a new conservative (car).
Think about it...
100 years of rusty ideas.
See, if you truly wanted to restore sanity, and calmly debate the issues; you could read what I am about to say without calling me a name.
It was almost 100 years ago, (1919, to be exact) that President Wilson help form the League of Nations, (which was the precursor to the United Nations.) The League of Nations was supposed to end all wars because surely; if nations just “talked” to each other, they would never fight. Oh yea, that worked out REALLY well. America has been involved in MORE wars since joining the League (the UN), than before; when America was a “lone wolf.”
100 years of rusty ideas..??
There is a birthday coming up. 1913.
1913 was the year that democrats passed the “progressive income tax.” We didn’t have a personal income tax before that period. (How did we ever survive..??)
The progressive income tax was designed to grow the federal government so that the Feds could help the poor. YET, we still have poor people today. It’s been 100 years, and we still have poor people? (What the hell is congress doing with the money?)
I know that it sounds “noble” to hear a political party “claim” that they are going to help the poor. But do they really help the poor?
I have been alive for half a century, and I have listen to democrats talk and talk about helping the poor. But we still have poor people, and some might argue that it is worse today; for the poor.
Why isn’t the liberal methods working?
Here is the best way that I can describe it:
Picture this: you are on a dock, and you see a drowning man in the water. Do you throw the drowning man a bag of money and tell him to come back next month for another bag of money? This is what democrats have been doing for 100 years. They toss a drowning man a sack of money.
I cannot speak for all conservatives, but I can tell you what I believe. You do NOT throw a bag of money at a drowning man. First, you reach out your hand and lift this man out of the environment that IS CAUSING THE MAN TO DROWN IN THE FIRST PLACE. Get this man out of the water. Get him some dry clothes and a hot meal. Then place a paint brush in the man’s hand and tell him: “Get to work, no free rides here. And, don’t fall off the dock again.”
Welfare, by design, keeps people poor. Like throwing a bag of money at a drowning man; sure the man has some pocket money, but he is still in the environment that will cause him to drown again.
Welfare is a fine program, we have to be a caring nation; but welfare cannot be a way of life. Because welfare does NOT provide a “real” life for anyone. No matter how you rationalize it. Welfare keeps people poor.
Everyone needs a job. Work builds self-confidence and shapes character. The government should be focused on job creation, and NOT focused on new ways to tax people, and better ways to toss drowning people bags of money. The social programs that we have are fine, if they were managed properly. What government should be focused on now is working with business to help incubate new business, and the creation of new jobs.
And if one member of congress suggests a new way to tax the American people, he or she should be run out of town. There is no reason to raise taxes in this economy.
Yes, the message of the Stewart / Colbert rally wasn’t lost on this old conservative. I understand what they are trying to say. If everyone would just calm down, we could discuss our differences. The problem is, the minute that I talk about lowering taxes to create jobs, you shout me down by saying that I am in bed with evil BIG business, that I hate poor people, or I am a racist.
Besides, the “sanity rally” was based on a lie. Stewart claimed that the rally would not be political, and would not take sides. Yet, Colbert’s whole comedy bit is based on making fun of conservatives. Which is political, in itself; and does take sides.
I have no problem with Colbert making fun of me. He makes me laugh. But don’t tell me, and the American people, that this rally was not political, or not taking sides.
Still, Stewart did have his moments; when showing “fear” montages, he did equally show clips from MSNBC’s Ed Shultz and Fox’s Glenn Beck. The video went back and forth, from left to right. It was fair enough.
And Stewart’s closing speech was genius. Comparing the general American public as people in cars just trying to go home. When confronted with the dilemma of a 6 lane highway being necked down to a two lane tunnel, people are mostly courteous and take turns getting into the tunnel: “No, you go ahead.” People, sitting in their cars, wave to each other: “It is your turn, you go ahead.”
Stewart is correct, in real life; most people are courteous to each other. Only on the blogs, and on political TV talk shows do we shout each other down.
But it has always been that way, and Stewart knows this. The founding fathers fought loudly with each other over the direction of this great country. Founding Father Hamilton would have been a president if it wasn’t for the fact that he was killed during a duel, with a fellow American.
You do not get much more passionate than that. Politics- to the point of DEATH, by way of a duel. But this is what Stewart fails to realize: when you love your country, and you see a group of people trying to “change” your country into something that you disagree with; you are going to get passionate. You are going to get loud.
Really, it is egotistical to think that YOUR way is the RIGHT way, and those other people need to tone it down a notch.
I am sure that liberals feel the same way when conservatives are in charge. I saw how passionate (and loud) they were when Bush was president.
Still, I cannot take away from the brilliant example that Stewart used to describe the general American public. We are sitting in our cars, stuck in traffic. It doesn’t matter if there is a “Support the NRA” bumper sticker on the back of a car, or a “Vote for Obama” sticker on a car; we smile to each other and wave to the other driver: “You go ahead.”
If the 2010 election polls are correct, Americans are waving a new group of drivers to the front of the line. Democrats have been in charge of congress for 4 years and during those 4 years, the country has gone to shit.
The American public is telling the republicans, “you go ahead.”
I just hope that the republicans understand how important this is.
Written by AR Babonie for The Angry Republic
