To listen to the conservative talk radio circuit and read the Right’s wing of the blogosphere, one would think that the United States is in the midst of a coup right out of “Seven Days in May,” or a foreign take-over like the one portrayed in “Red Dawn,” or even an alien infestation by disguised lizards, as in the sci-fi mini-series “V.” Hysteria is everywhere. Dark threats of revolution are not being whispered, but shouted. “I really think civil war is inevitable,” one blogger wrote yesterday.
Holy Gamoly!
Cool the rhetoric, guys. This is irresponsible, and completely unwarranted. It is also dangerous, because it takes what is at its core a principled disagreement about national policies and recasts it as a sinister plot. If Republican and conservatives really think this is the way to regain power, they are both wrong and deranged. This is destroying the country to save it.
I know, I know. The Angry Left paved the way for this kind of toxic distrust. For eight years it shouted that the Bush administration was some kind of evil empire run by evil geniuses (but stupid evil geniuses) that gleefully stole two elections, engineered a fake terrorist attack to take away our rights and a fake war to enrich their oil baron pals, and intentionally let New Orleans suffer because, you know, they all hated black people.
Writing about this in 2006, I said…
“There are many Americans who now believe all of these things, and many more who believe at least one of them. …Fanned by intemperate bloggers, abetted by an irresponsible and slovenly news media and given what passes for credibility in our celebrity-worshipping culture by celebrity loud-mouths (“I hate the President!” screams Rosanne Barr to a cheering crowd on her current HBO special), the tenor of public opposition to the Bush Administration is hateful rather than critical. There is less trust in the national government than at any time since Watergate.
…The Democrats have now spent six years chipping away at the public’s respect and trust of their elected government and its institutions. It has done this not simply by challenging the policies, performance and governing philosophy of the party in power, as a responsible opposing party should and must do, but by exploiting rumor, innuendo, class and race divisions and ignorance to plant doubts about the Bush administration’s motives, dedication to the public welfare and commitment to democracy…This unconscionable picking at the fabric of the public’s faith in our system of government was successful at eroding support for the Bush Administration and Republican Party, but with disastrous consequences…
Many Democrats have pointedly used the old ironic description of the U.S. policy in Vietnam to describe the war in Iraq: “Destroy the country in order to save it.” If the nation the Republicans are willing to “destroy in order to save” is Iraq, the country the Democrats have risked destroying by planting and cultivating the contagions of suspicion and cynicism is the United States of America. One certain benefit of the Democrats gaining power will be that the party will have to begin building faith in our system of government rather than tearing it down.”
Barack Obama promised to rebuild that faith, but it has continued to crumble, aided by recklessly arrogant politics practiced by the empowered Democrats and their adoption, predictably, of the kind of corruption that the Republican wallowed in during their time in the sun. It is not too late, but conservatives and Republicans must realize, as the Democrats did not during the Bush years, that picking at the fabric of democracy and exhausting our nation’s spirit by demonizing fellow Americans is destructive and foolhardy. They will prove themselves unworthy of the power they attain by their method of attaining it, and will find themselves in charge of an ungovernable country.
Stop the fear-monger, name-calling, race-baiting and personal epithets. Condemn the intemperate and uncivil. Show respect for the President, and for your colleagues. Have some humility. Work to bring the country together, not tear it apart.
Cool it. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
Cool it.
Ethics Alarms 
Spot on.
I was hoping there’d be a post for me to place this little observation this morning:
I find it interesting that our government is getting into the commercial business sector of Banking and Healthcare, while a commercial business Google is making policies regarding foreign governments (China).
Well, maybe this stuff will result in the crash of the system and its rebuilding (or maybe the end of civilization). I am sort of wondering if some sort of revolution is the only solution to the current situation. The health care issue is only the window that let us see how bad things are.
Could you imagine a “Schoolhouse Rock”-type explanation of how a bill passes now?
• You have a bill that most of the public doesn’t want to pass (by polls), and the majority of both houses of congress don’t want to pass. How does it become a law?
-ignore them, this law is to important to be left to public opinion or the peoples’ representatives.
•You don’t have enough votes to pass it in the Senate
-bribe several senators with lavish gifts for their states related or unrelated to the bill
•You don’t have enough votes to pass it in the House
-bribe some representatives
•You still don’t have enough votes to pass it in the House
-declare that the bill must be passed because it is the only way to find out what is in it
•You still don’t have enough votes to pass it in the House
-come up with a reconcilliation bill
•You still don’t have enough votes to pass it in the house
-decide that you can pass it by only voting on the reconcilliation bill, and not the bill itself
•Someone demands that the House parlimentarian look at some of the unusual procedures
-ignore them, people who aren’t on your side don’t have rights
•You still don’t have enough votes to pass it in the house
-have the president meet individually with people who won’t vote for it. Have him bribe them with personal favors and threaten to destroy them if they don’t take the offer
•You still don’t have enough votes in the House.
-Tell the anti-abortion members that the bill won’t pay for abortions (a lie) and also have the President issue an executive order banning the funding of abortions (that can be rescinded at any time, while at the same time telling pro-abortion members that the bill will fund abortions and the Presidents executive order will be rescinded as soon as the legislation passes.
•Pass the bill with great celebration.
Now I realize this may not be exactly how it happened, but with the transparent process that was followed, it sure looks like it.
Someone asked me if the president violated the law in this process (though some of the bribes) if anything could be done about it. I had to answer, ‘no’. The attorney general (appointed by the president) is not going to bring charges. Since these actions were brought on behalf of the Congressional leaders, they were unlikely to impeach him, and the press is not going to investigate and bring outside pressure because they adore him.