My heart is heavy tonight.
I have a truly unimaginable task facing me - and I'm just not certain if I can follow through on it. Me - a Deaniac. A liberal. A progressive. A Kossak. A Kossak with a 4 digit userID, fer chrissakes... with a bona fide conservative father.
I ask no one's pity, no one sympathy - though yes, I am a little bit choked up. Still - I knew full well the risks of joining DailyKos. I understood what sacrifices might be required were I to align myself with the glorious liberal movement to subjugate non-liberal people.
Sadly, I must kill my father.
I've tried to fool myself into believing it wasn't true - he was really an independent, I'd say.
Technically, he's still a registered Democrat, I'd tell myself.
He only watches FoxNews for the ads, not the pictures.
To be honest, I've always known, just refused to believe the trust. His threats to loan me a Bill O'Reilly tome should have a been a dead giveaway. But then, he's a South Park fan - so his sense of humor has always been a bit... odd.
Not to long ago, the crime of being a conservative didn't warrant a death sentence -- I believe S.O.P. was that I was supposed to openly disdain him, put him on the Greenpeace mailing list, ensure all gifts to him are products of France, and taunt him with my Cadillac purchased with his tax dollar funded food stamps.
If one was sufficiently liberal, sufficiently devoted to the cause -- "sweat equity waivers" could even be purchased for family members.
Now that we are in primary season, however, I understand that we have new marching orders. The risk that the Great Hopeful Satan might bridge the divide between "them" and "us" has grown too great. We can no longer be assured of the purity of our litters of liberal offspring. Rumors are afoot - everywhere is fear that the Kossak next to you might well have watched Fox New, might have said something kind about John McCain, or worse -- may have said wait... why does our Health Care solution necessarily require a mandate?
I tell myself that he's led a full life.
The 2nd of four brothers born to a working class Polish-Catholic family, my father didn't get along well with his father. My father was something of a hoodlum in high school - barely graduating, with his own father not in attendance. The day after graduation, with only the shirt on his back - he got a ride from a friend to the bus station and a bus that would take him to boot camp, and then Vietnam.
Returning home, he got married, raised a family, joined a union. He even voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. He even believed in a brand of family values that extended no further than respecting others and the property of others, the value of hard work, and individual acts of charity. He voted Reagan, he never looked back.
Despite how he votes -- despite the fact I know that he must die of my own hands -- I do maintain that he's a decent enough fellow. I like to tell him that he, more than anyone else, is the reason I'm a liberal. That the work ethic, the belief in justice, insistence that one be judged on the measure of his or her actions never skin, sex, or religion -- these things convinced me I belonged in the Progressive wing of the Democratic party.
But die he must.
I do not blame any of you for forcing me into this sad predicament.
What other choice do we have? I have spent years, ruined many a dinner, hopped on a train or a plane not speaking to him -- trying to convince him to renounce his evil ways.
He will not budge. He rails against 'entitlements'. He hates taxes. He couldn't care less about gay marriage or whether you wish him Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas -- but he loves his handguns.
I know - no one need remind me - this monster must be destroyed. He watches Falafel O'Reilly - on FOX! He must die, his lands salted, and his seed must be wiped from the earth... wait.. can we skip that last one?
Last year, he moved to Nevada
Tonight, on the phone, I got him to admit that he might caucus for Barack Obama next week. To be sure, much of this is because he has an unnatural hatred of Harry Reid -- and a vote for Obama would be a vote against Clinton, which is a poke in the eye of Harry Reid... or something.
Yet - he also admitted that there's a certain appeal this brash young newcomer who seems to talk of little else but unity, who doesn't want to drag him kicking and screaming into a socialist utopia.
I cannot be sure, but it sounds like my conservative father might be willing to "unite". This cannot stand.
I thought about showing my dad Senator Obama's scores from the ACLU, the ADA, the LCV -- I certainly could convince my father that Senator Obama is something of a liberal... but this would only delay the inevitable.
I understand that nothing has yet been etched in stone - but so long as there's a chance that this monster and I might actually, for the first time ever, vote for the same candidate, the same Democratic candidate, in the General Election.
I'm stalling now. I know the rules. Conservatives must be put to death, lest we cooperate with them. The partisan divide must be maintained at all costs. Partisans don't hate people, people hate people... or something.
I just need to know the rules.
How is this done? Can I wait until November? Or how about January of 2009? Can it be a pain free death?
I await your judgment and will abide by its wisdom.