The Sadness of the Liberals

Our local paper graced it’s Op Ed page with an editorial from Ellen Goodman and one from Paul Krugman this evening. Nothing like having some balance! Neither editorial was really worth the waste of good trees and ink. Ellen was lamenting that Bush has “co-opted symbols”, and her special ire was directed at the yellow ribbons on the backs of vehicles, and of course ESPECAILLY those on the backs of SUVs. I don’t have one at this point, but if they bother Ellen that much, they might we worth sticking on.

She sees “support the troops” as a proxy for “support their commander in chief”. She wants to be clear that she supports the troops, is very patriotic, she just doesn’t support what they are doing … and of course even though we live in a democracy where we have elections and Bush won, she doesn’t support him either. He keeps talking about “War on Terror”, and “911”, and he should just stop, it is awful and disgraceful, and it just bothers Ellen SO much!

I think can understand. It would be like if I had a “Support the NEA” sticker on my vehicle, but my real position was that public schools are a disaster, the only thing they are good at is teaching kids gay sex, rap music, and crime, and any student wasting their time going there was doomed to failure. Oh, and I hate the Democrats saying “it’s all about the children”. BUT, I’m really pro-public school, and VERY pro-teacher. All my criticism is based on “support for teachers and public education”. I support them, I just don’t support what they are doing. Not that many teachers die in the line of duty though, so I guess the analogy isn’t quite exact.

Krugman was in his usual “all is lost mode” relative to Iraq. It is wrong, it was always wrong, there isn’t anything right about it, it can’t get better, it can only get worse, Bush is stupid, Bush is a liar, we should get out ASAP, we have lost, lost big, the sky has fallen, might as well just kill ourselves as wait for the terrorists that we are creating to come and do it for us. There just isn’t any doom and gloom dark enough for Paul. I’ve always been against assisted suicide, but if only we could elect Bush to a 3^rd term I’d say that would have to be the best idea for Paul.

I think holidays bring out the worst in liberals. Thanksgiving and Christmas are always hard on them … things like God and family involved. They don’t believe in the God part, don’t like the fact that some people that celebrate the holiday DO believe. Usually don’t like the family thing … lots of imperfection, probably some idiot relative that watches Fox and listens to talk radio, nobody should have to be exposed to that. People aren’t genuine, how can anyone be happy when Bush is President? Holidays make no sense.

July 4^th is a really tough one. Patriotism and liberals is always a touchy subject. They are absolutely sure that they are really the only TRUE patriotic Americans. They just don’t like flags (too showy), or fireworks (pollution and noise), or grilling (pollution, People Eating Tasty Animals (PETA)), marching bands (too military, too regimented, too “Red State”) and most of all, that whole “rockets red glare” thing. The idea that America was born in war and war is often required to preserve their freedom to constantly find the worst in the country. That is a tough concept for them. They have a hard time really coming to grips with what they like the least, but the whole experience is very uncomfortable, and doesn’t feel like a holiday to them.

Liberals like MLK day. They can march in the streets and talk about how bad it still is in America, it is a celebration of badness and struggle. It is a celebration of the flaws of America, and those they love to celebrate. They love Earth Day. Again, they can point to pollution and all that isn’t right. We haven’t signed Kyoto. Labor Day is probably the most major holiday that liberals love. It celebrates labor, how hard labor has it, and how much we all need unions. More unions, more union dues, more money for Democrats. They like Halloween; witches worship nature, and trying to scare the weak is the favorite liberal strategy of all.

The plight of liberals is tragic. All those holidays celebrating God, home and hearth … Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and those celebrating country in a positive light … Memorial Day and July 4^th tend to get much more attention than the liberal holidays. Yet another part of an unfair world in which liberals are forced to make their sad way.