Disclaimer: This is a rant.
That said, this isn't just useless steam. It's important stuff, and I'd like it if you'd read.
There are a lot of things that I react strongly to. Liberal propaganda and lies, for example. Hypocrisy, for example. Anti-Christian crusades and the verbal, intellectual, and emotional assault of Christians in politics and, even more, in schools, for example. But those who know me can testify that it is a rare, rare person who can stir me to anger, sending me into a fuming rant like the one that will begin in two sentences. But this has gone too far.
I live with my family in the South Hills of Eugene, a liberal focal point in a liberal town. Ironically, the reason it's so liberal is because this is where all the college professors, yuppies, and other such well-off liberals choose to live. These are the same professors who attack capitalism in the college classrooms, but who, thanks to the very capitalism they denounce from the shelter of their classroom, enjoy its luxiries from home. But that's another discussion, yet another instance of liberal hypocrisy. My sole purpose for bringing this up is to set the scene for the events to follow.
My parents, my sister, and I are all very strong Republicans, conservative Christians, and proud to be so. We welcome the opportunity to allow our opinions to be seen and understood, and welcome any opportunity such expression should bring for discussion. As such, we proudly display our support for George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Republican party in our front yard. We had two Bush/Cheney signs on either side of our front yard, and one on top of our garage. In addition, courtesy of Bob and Virginia Pierson, we had a "Yes on 36" sign on one side of our front yard as well. (36 ammends the Oregon constitution to ban gay marriage.)
I was at Josh Kagi's all this evening. My sister IMed me late in the evening to inform me that liberals had stolen all five of our yard signs. She IMed me again later to say that my mom had found them—wires bent out of shape, signs completely shredded. How dare they.
Do they not understand that that is theft and vandalism? Do they not understand that those signs were our property? That we paid money for them, and that we had displayed them in our own yards? Did they not understand that they were trespassing on our property when they stole and vandalized our property? (For the signs were positioned within plain view, but well away from the street, so that anyone who would approach them must come up onto our property.) Do they not understand that their act of trespassing, theft, and vandalism was a violation of our right to free speech? No, of course they do. They know and understand this full well. They just don't care.
These are the same individuals who display Kerry/Edwards signs in their yards and windows. These are the same individuals who protest the war in the streets, blocking traffic and preventing people from getting to work, or wherever else they're going. Who, despite the fact that their obstruction is illegal, will be dragged all the way to the jailhouse screaming about their right to freedom of speech. These are the same individuals who are accusing Republicans of "suppressing" the black vote. No, they know exactly how wrong this thing they have done is, from both an ethical and a legal perspective. They just don't care.
They don't care that my right to free speech is violated, as long as they have theirs. They have no respect for anyone else, so long as their view—and theirs only—is respected and adhered to.
To put it plainly: They are miserable human beings. They are unpatriotic and unamerican. They are disrespectful and dishonest, and they are poor citizens.
How dare they prevent me from freely expressing my opinions? I don't get in their faces and scream and wave signs the way they do in mine. All I want to do is peacefully and passively express my freedom of political choice. I don't scream obscenities at liberals and their chosen candidate. I don't steal and vandalize their property, even if seeing their support for Kerry and Edwards is not exactly enjoyable for me.
They committed crimes against us. Four of them, to be precise. But more disturbing even than either their complete disregard for the law or their complete lack of respect for me and my family is their poor citizenship. They're simply unamerican.
I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that read "Not My President." You're wrong, he is your president. You may not have voted for him, but you are a citizen of this country, and this country elected him. By claiming the right to American citizenship, and the privileges that go along with that citizenship, you adhere to the American way of governance. To reject the president who has been democratically elected is to reject the democratic system that elected him and by which he governs. And to reject American democracy is to reject America. And if you reject America and the democratic process, then you have no right to all of the benefits it provides you. You have no right to the freedom of speech provided by the Constitution, because you have rejected both the democratic system that is built on the Constitution and the Constitution itself. You have no grounds on which to demand freedoms or rights or anything else that the citizens of this great nation enjoy, because you have rejected this nation. And you don't have the right to vote for the next president, because anyone who votes implicitly agrees to accept the results of the vote, regardless of whether or not he likes them. Indeed, even beyond that, the right to vote requires that the voter support the chosen candidate, not because he likes the decision the nation has democratically arrived at, but because he supports the democratic process by which the nation democratically arrived at that decision. So unless you intend to relinquish your right to vote, and to many other privileges we enjoy in America, then yes, actually, he is your president. Unless you intend to relinquish your citizenship, George W. Bush is your president. If he is not your president, then you are not an American.
The person(s) who trespassed on, stole, and vandalized our property, and who thereby violated our right to free speech, are just as unamerican as the person who thinks he can vote in an American election and then refuse to accept the result of the election. In the Bill of Rights, the right to freedom of speech is the very first on the list. But these tactics of theft and vandalism, of verbal abuse and intolerance, are a direct assault on my freedom of speech. It is the same thing that happens on the college campus, where conservative opinions are mocked and ridiculed, and conservative students are outright attacked, verbally and even, sometimes, physically. It's the politics of intimidation and suppression, and it's unamerican. These same people who preach tolerance for everything from homosexuality to subjective morality to religious expression (except for Christianity, of course) are completely intolerant of any political view but their own. For it is these people who will go to any length, who will stop at nothing, to make certain that any opinion expressed aside from their own is promptly supressed. Signs are stolen from yards so that none will see that many here in Eugene support the President. How dare they?
How dare they invoke their right to free speech while deliberately violating and supressing mine?
I understand that not all liberals are disrespectful, unlawful, and unamerican. But it would simply be untrue to call them the minotiry. When I get verbally assaulted every day for my views, when our signs can't last a week in our own yard, the sad truth is that this is becoming more and more the rule, less and less the exception. Liberals will stop at nothing to acheive their desired end; criminal behavior, complete disrespect for fellow citizens, intolerance, and suppression have all become acceptable means to their end.
If you are a liberal who still respects other views than your own; who still respects others' rights to free speech; who still respects others' property; and who supports the result of this election, no matter what the outcome, because as an American you support the democratic process—the same one that has also elected many democrats—then I appologize to you, for a couple of reasons. First, I'm sorry you had to read this. If you fit this description, then rest easy, because this isn't about you. Second, because of what much of your party has become. It's not an easy thing to be represented to the nation and the world by people who make you look bad, and so it's unfortunate that they are the ones setting the tone for your party. For that, you have my sympathy.
But take a look at these people. They are bitter, angry people. They are disrespectful, unlawful, and a disgrace to democracy. They are a group with no regard for morals and ethics, respect and freedom. They are a group for whom the end consumes them, driving them to embrace any means, no matter how unethical, unlawful, and disrespectful. The ends justify the means.
Are these the people we want running our nation?