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Sarah Palin draws distinctions between the “real” America and other places and suggests that Barack Obama is a socialist. A Minnesota congresswoman wants the media to investigate the Americanism of Obama and other legislators. Rush Limbaugh insists that Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama is only about race. Such people are behaving irresponsibly.
I’d tempted to call them “evil” because I’m sure they know what they’re doing. They pander to people’s wishful thinking instead of telling the truth, thereby inviting us to be worse than we are instead inspiring us to be better. They advocate minimal government, lower taxes, and more freedom as if those things were possible. But a society without government is anarchy. (The Wall Street mess might be a glimpse of what anarchy looks like.)
Without government, who would provide roads, schools, parks, national defense, food safety, water supply, trash collection, sewage treatment, flood control, police protection, fire protection, and many other necessities that we take for granted? And how would those things be paid for if no one pays taxes? And what freedom is possible if it’s not accompanied by consideration and responsibility? (Your freedom is jeopardized if I’m not considerate and responsible, and mine is if you aren’t.) And what’s wrong with using laws and rules and regulations to ensure that one person’s or business’s responsibilty isn’t undercut by someone else’s lack of it?
The Republican campaign wants us to believe what we want to believe, even though we know better, and I suppose it’s natural for them to hate anyone who points out that the emperor has no clothes. I think they fear that enough people might come to understand that the visions with which they tantalize voters really are “too good to be true.” And that’s the reason they hate Barack Obama so much.
ALAN J. HAHN
Grand Junction
One Response to “Fear breeds hate during this campaign season”
Posted October 21st, 2008 at 7:20 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Today’s Republican Party has become the “Party of Fear”. And, what many members fear most is that, after three decades of self-indulgence and self-gratification, they may have to begin accepting some obligations, other than to themselves.
Beginning with Reagonomics, he who glorified and lent respecability to self-centeredness, greed, and selfishness, the Republican Party has been steadily moving toward George W. Bush. So, one cannot blame him entirely. Those who are really at fault are the ones who placed him in office, and that includes John McCain, who supported him, not once, but twice. One cannot support something then say that what has been done is “not my fault.” It is called being ‘intellectually dishonest’.
At one time, John McCain may have been an honorable man. But, whatever respect I may have had for him in the past, I have lost. He does not appear to have control of his campaign, but seems rather a shill of others. His negativity, and attempted ‘character assasination’ of opponents was to be expected as it is being run by the same individuals who ran GW’s campaigns.
Sorry, but innuendo and ’suggestive statements’ do not wash with some of us. Those who believe them, do so only because they “want” to and choose to do so. That is not the mark of an educated person, as those individuals choose to think for themselves, and not blindly regurgitate what others have said, no matter what the source.
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