Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Civility in politics

Over the past few years I've been involved in politics, I've been called a teabagger, right-winger, war monger, neo-con, gun nut, and of course my favorite was 'in the pocket of big business'.  I don't really care about most of that stuff, as it tends to reflect more on the people issuing the supposed insults than it does on me.  But when a congressman called for supporters to 'get a little bloody', I couldn't help but wonder about the logic of this.

The two main ideologies in this country today are liberalism and conservatism.  (Sure, there are plenty of variations and those are broad terms, but follow me here for a minute.)

Liberals are known, whether accurately or not, for the following personal labels; hippies, vegans, pacifists, anti-war protesters, progressives, peace advocates, tree-huggers, socialists, communists, and the blogger favorite moon-bat.

Conservatives are known, whether accurately or not, for the following labels; ex-military, gun nut, bible thumping religious nuts, racist, mentally unbalanced, NRA members, and the 60's radical favorite baby-killer.

The gist of these labels is clear-liberals like to classify themselves as peaceful, fairness loving people who are in tune with the environment, the arc of justice and cosmic euphoria.  At the same time, they deride conservatives as violent, angry people who 'bitterly cling to their guns and religion'.

So it begs the question-if Congressman Capuano wants to mix it up in the streets and get a little bloody, which side is more likely to win--the gun toting ex military protester who has a German Shepard, or the peace loving vegan carrying a poodle in a Gucci bag?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Typical right winger. Complain about civility then brag about how you can be more violent