He’s a Winter

Thus speaketh Ann Coulter of Saddam Hussein. Well, the rest of her article is a bit meatier that than but holy crap, what a bunch of antagonistic flag-waving, divisive drivel. This lady really sucks. I hadn’t really read much by her to this point and if this represents the quality of her work, how the hell did she ever get out of Denny’s or wherever she crawled out of. The sad thing is is that this represents a fair quantity of the conservative talk-show/newswriter tone—some ornery, overconfident righty who spews very contrary conclusions out of unrelated evidence.

The most confusing part to me is that I’ve spoken to a lot of Republicans and Bush supporters, and beyond the ones who can’t think for themselves (these are on all sides), a lot have well thought out opinions which really have nothing to do with anything that their leadership is driving them towards. I’ve realized recently (not too recently, but for the lucidity of it) that the Republican Party is one strongly based on buzzwords and images, dreams and nostalgia. It draws its voters in with those tools. The Grande ‘ole knows that logicking is tough, so it just needs to voodoo some sweet home pictures together with corporate sweetheart deals, and its members won’t catch the pass. Many Republicans are perfectly reasonable, well-meaning people, many are intelligent and open-minded.

At some point in their lives, people place their stakes in the ground. Not everyone, but many. At that point, you’ve commited. It is so hard to admit wrongness that even when the thing that you believed in turns into something different you can’t call it out, but instead become more solid in your position. I believe that this is what is happening right now. We need to turn this situation away from the ‘us&them’ , or as Ann reminds us, “You are with the terrorists or you are with America.” It’s amazing how the Administration has coopted the words patriotism and America. We need to reach out and find a common ground. I believe that there’s a lot more overlap than either side wants to believe, as long as you eliminate the leadership.

An aside, I believe the two-party system is obsolete and wrong. Either many parties or no parties is the way to go. We need to dissolve the national commitees of both to truly move forward. Corporations should have no rights as citizens. They have absolutely no business even buying a frickin cookie at the mall for my representatives. I will not support any politician who does not at least show evidence that they think this is a reasonable thought except in the face of worse alternatives. Take campaign finance reform as an issue to bond on with somebody who wants to be contrary, it will open the door to more agreements. Leave out the particulary grey issues like abortion and gun control, there’s little value in such an argument.

Your assignment for this holiday weekend is to find someone with contrary political views to yours and find agreement somewhere. If you fail at that you have to glue a picture of Ann Coulter to your butt.