When I walked in, people were milling around, chain smoking cigarettes, cloves and blunts, guzzling big recycled-paper cups of organic coffee. They stayed gathered together with their groups: the knot of gray-haired hippies eying the group of kids carrying skateboards suspiciously; gay and lesbian couples holding hands, trying not to mind how many people were trying NOT to look at them; groups of African Americans, Native Americans and so on sitting in their own groups.
I walked into the room, nervous.
"Hello everybody," I said, "We should get started. I'll go first. I'm Madman, and I'm a single issue voter."
"Hello Madman," everyone muttered. I was greeted by nods, nervous smiles. We were all there, sent by the party, to discuss how we could solve our problem by admitting it.
The meeting continues ....
A thin woman, palid, wearing a baseball cap that said
SURVIVOR!, smiled at me encouragingly. "Go ahead dear," she says. "It feels good to get it out in a room with people who at least
seem to be listening." She pulled a brownie out of a tupperware sandwich dish, and smiled again.
"Okay, ummm, thanks." I shuffled my feet, then continued, "Like I said, I'm a single issue voter. I can't believe that our party doesn't fight harder for individual rights, especially privacy rights. I can't believe the party won't stand up for this vital issue!"
I was greeted by silence at first, some shifting of metal folding Chairs. A hacky sack hit the floor.
"That's not a single issue," the fashionably dressed woman said. "I admit it's a vital foundation for me to be able to control my own body, but it's not an issue all on its own."
"Yeah, what are you talking about?" The guy wearing a tshirt that said Got Root? said loudly. "They want to regulate my blog! I should be left alone to speak my mind."
"Forget about that," an African American man in a suit said. "I can't tell you how often I'm harrassed by the cops, especially when I'm driving in nice part of town."
Similar exclamations rang out from around the room. Issue upon issue was stated, folks forgetting, as lefties are wont to do, that the rules say you're supposed to say "Hi, I'm __, and I'm a single issue voter!" The meeting spun out of control.
"Wait," said the nice woman, after she carefully dabbed her mouth clean of the last few brownie crumbs. "Think about what you're all saying."
The room quieted down. It's amazing how someone speaking quietly yet firmly can garner people's attention.
"I think this man is onto something." She went on to tell us how the Justice Department had shut down her medical marijuana collective, and how a few of her friends had been visited by Special Agents shortly after they'd bought books on hydroponics. "We all share this issue!"
The room went quiet, then people began to talk to one another. We started to talk about how we all depended on the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Acts, upon laws that relied on the Griswold v CT decision, how it led Roe v Wade and Lawrence v TX. How individual rights and privacy rights were the issue that held us all together.
"So why doesn't the party fight for it?" The kid was angry, but he had a point.
"You're right," the young Wiccan woman said, her lacy skirt swirling as she stood up. "We should all work together, and demand that they quit wasting OUR time and freedoms by failing to fight for them!"
A man in a tailored suit sat, legs crossed, fine leather briefcase at his side. "I don't know guys," he said carefully, choosing each word, the way lawyers do when they are about to make a point. "The party leaders are pretty sure the best way to go about this is to pick our battles, be careful, work within the time-honored procedures of the government."
We all turned toward him, waiting. "You know, though, I didn't win my cases against those big companies by being careful. It's time to go on the attack!"
We all cheered, excited, and we all agreed that it was time to demand that the party fight for us, starting with this one issue that we all shared. That individual American's rights are THE shared issue we can rally around. That it's not right for us to sacrifice the women, the gays, the poor, the minorities or anybody else's rights in a vain hope of maintaining a status quo that serves a smaller and smaller number of people. We streamed out of the room, eager to coordinate our efforts and change our party, so that party could change our country to reflect the hopes and dreams we all had for Life, Liberty and our own Pursuits of Happiness.
I'm so glad I went to that meeting.