A few weeks ago after news broke about the shooting in Colorado, a foreign friend commented to me on how America seemed so divided. Another friend who'd been around in the 1960s argued that it was no different now than it had been before.
The division began showing itself in another way a week later with the Chick-Fil-A bruhahaha.
As far as Don Cathy, Chick-Fil-A CEO's, opinion on gays and gay marriage goes, I do not agree with it. However I do believe that he is entitled to it. At the same time I do find it hilarious that many of the social conservative puritan types screaming about how gay marriage would "destroy the sanctity of marriage" are silent about stuff like Kim Kardashian's publicity marriage and its fast demise. That does far more damage to any "sanctity" of marriage than gay marriage ever could.
In the 1995 movie The American President, Michael Douglas makes a brilliant speech about the nature of America:
America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free"
Douglas, playing a president who would be called a classical liberal by the way we define that term today, gets at the core of what makes America the nation it is and about the fact that freedom must work both ways if it is to work at all.
America has always had its conservatives and its liberals. A common observation often attributed to Winston Churchill is: If you're 17 and not a liberal you have no heart. If you're 37 and not a conservative you don't have a brain. While I would personally say that I'm more to the right now at 34 then I was at 22, I'm not a hardcore Republican by any means.
I agree with an observation that Leonard Pitts once wrote in his newspaper column.
That disconnect is not about liberalism vs. conservatism. Agree with them or disagree — I've done both — there is a certain pragmatism to traditional conservatives. You know where they're coming from: small government; personal responsibility; fiscal restraint. And their arguments are usually grounded in something recognizable as logic.
But social conservatism is another thing entirely, a mutant strain unhindered by critical thought. These are the nominal Christians whose Bibles are so long on judgment yet so short on compassion, the soldiers of the new American theocracy who want to force creation "science" on the schools and deportation on the Muslims. They are the super patriots who regard criticism as treason, the pious moralizers who believe single mothers should be barred from teaching in public schools. They are blind guides who see tens of thousands dying in Iraq and think the defining issue of the election is what gay men do in bed. They give God a bad name.
Sums it up.
On the other hand, the far left often tends to believe (or at least gives off the impression that they do) that there isn't a problem that can't be solved by a tax increase, much like the Greek father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding who believed that Windex is the cure for everything. In addition, they also tend to jump too often on bandwagons without thinking stuff through (the right wingers are just as guilty of this too I acknowledge). For instance, while I agree that the current health care system is a mess and much in need of reform, I don't think jumping on the first quick fix solution is the way to go.
Basically when you boil it down to it, the ideologues and zealots on the extreme right and extreme left are more alike than they realize. Both believe they know what's best for everyone else and both want to impose their view of what's best for everyone else on all individuals.
Many people seem to have no problem going along with either side. Because breaking from it would be too hard. America isn't easy after all. It's easier to go on about things like "family Values" and "more government funding" than it is to look at the whole picture,
And from that we get many of the extremists. Many who believe that the other side is neither wrong oe misguided but vile and evil.
I'm willing to wager that if a Barry Goldwater or a John Kennedy were to come back and see those ideologues and zealots today, they would not recognize them as part of their party. Either that or they'd be trying to get the party to boot em out ASAP.
Today we have two major political parties and both seem to not care about sending America over a cliff if it advances their party. Hence why I am not a member of either party.
I consider myself politically to be a social libertarian. Wheb it comes to individual issues, I believe in getting all the facts then forming an opinion. So many views seem to be contradictory (IE: Opposing abortion and birth control when birth control can help reduce the number of abortions). While there are certain things I admit to adhering to (IE: No govenrment censorship at all) I'll never rule out chaning my mind if I acquire new information. Malcolm X never hesitated to change if he discovered he was wrong. That's one of the reasons why I admire him as much as I do.
The motto of America is currently "In God We Trust". Before that, "E Pluribus Unum". I like both of those better than "My party right or wrong".
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