Here's my current story...
I've been searching for a job for 18 months. My new governor, Rick Scott, seems to think I'm just "not looking hard enough". I and the 4500 others who waited an hour to park at a small job fair this week would beg to differ.
I pass the days by job hunting and absorbing as much news and information as I can. Politics has always been fascinating to me, even when I was in grade school and supported Michael Dukakis in 1988. My daily tour of the web includes DKos and many other sites from all across the spectrum. Blogs, mainstream media, message boards... you name it.
I've always believed that you should find as many sides as you can to an issue, even if you know that you're going to find views that you disagree with. If nothing else you can at least get an understanding for the argument against your side and build a cogent, logical counter-argument. For many years, this worked beautifully. I've had deep, long friendships with people who were my polar opposite politically. My best friend throughout school was someone I could respectfully debate with for hours on end. At the end we'd call it a day then meet up later to do the things teenagers do. Basketball, the mall, video games, whatever.
Political disagreements are fine by me. Even "inartful" arguments that come from a place of honest, rational belief are things that deserve respect and hearing out. That is not what's bothering me. But what's taking up so much of the "public discourse" today does not qualify as honest or rational and it's being fueled by TV and radio.
In 2008 Barack Obama was elected President. And a small but vocal slice of America just completely lost control of themselves.
I'm at a loss as to how to deal with this brand of speech and those who blindly follow it without question. You can't present facts; they'll say you made them up. You can't appeal to their better nature; they believe our President is EVIL... literally evil and must be stopped at all costs. You can't even use logic; explaining that their quest to "protect democracy" by vowing to overthrow a duly elected government won't work just makes them scream louder.
Instead of being dismissed out of hand for the blind, dangerous anger that it is, this speech is granted the same platform and validity in the media as a Presidential statement or a debate on the floor of Congress.
And I'm at a loss. I don't know how to deal with this anymore. None of it is grounded in facts or logic or patriotism. It should be just dismissed as noise from the fringe, but I see it legitimized day after day in the papers, on TV, everywhere.
There's no empathy or compassion to it. Tea Party groups were raising money on the Tuscon shootings before any of the dead were buried. There wasn't even a pause in the churning of the noise machine, just one brief note of "I guess that's a shame, but we're not going to even consider changing our tune".
If this were just a small community of people, say a few thousand scattered about America, that'd be one thing. But it's HUNDREDS of thousands.
It saddens me. I just can't believe that there are this many people that are this drawn into this noise. I want desperately for there to be a way to discredit this talk in one grand rhetorical sweep so the country can finally have a sane discussion about the present and future. Just one time where the REAL media in America can get together and address all the garbage at once.
The President was born in Hawaii, not Kenya. Nobody in the government is going to "pull the plug on grandma". Some people obviously do not know what Communism, Socialism and Nazism are, as they keep interchanging those words; here is what they REALLY mean. These are the facts, supported by history. This is REALITY. These are no longer up for debate.
But I guess I'm dreaming. I guess all I can do is just wait for this to die down. People can't rant and rave this intensely forever... right?