A peace sign in Hebrew, Arabic, and English

Image via Wikipedia

The past several weeks have had me in a real funk. I have debated whether to remove all traces of political affiliation from my various social links because of my stance on issues. I consider myself a liberal progressive. I’m a registered Democrat. Yet lately, being of those political ideologies means you have a target on your back, sometimes literally. As much as everyone claims they’re horrified by the awful actions in Tuscon, I can’t help thinking a lot of others are secretly cheering what happened, because in their minds, it’s payback, baby.

They think being a Democrat/liberal/progressive is tantamount to being a traitor, or comparable to a Nazi collaborator. They think we should be held for treason, executed for betraying America (of course, those who think that are extremists and out of their minds). Not long after the Tuscon shootings, there were ‘liberal hunting licenses’ being sold over the internet by right-wing extremist sites. I felt physically ill after seeing that. Everyone kept trying to make people belive that the shooter was a left-wing extremist, trying to link him with the President, anything liberal or Democratic. On Facebook, some sicko created a page praising the actions of the shooter and there was a lot of talk there of who else they’d like to see dead, including the President.

Is it illegal now to be of a party affiliation other than Republican, Tea Party or Libertarian? That’s what it seems like to me. I am only going on what I’ve seen, this is ONLY my feelings, NOT fact. What’s going to happen to people like me, who don’t like or agree with GOP/Tea Party doctrine? Is it ‘shut up and put up’? Are people of left-leaning views going to be forced to be silent, or be told to leave this country? Yes, I know that’s outrageous, but there are some Americans who do feel that way.

When did threatening elected officials become part of the American way? When did making death threats to politicans equal freedom of speech? When did murdering those individuals represent a better way of demanding change? Violence has never benefitted anyone but the fearmongers. It has not improved things for anyone. We see this happening all the time in the Middle East, in Africa, in any part of the world where there is political and social unrest. We just accept it there as part of that country’s way of life. We say such actions are unacceptable in our country, yet it has happened in Tuscon. What chills me even more is that some Americans think it was a good thing, that there should be more incidents like this to punish the President. We think we’re so much beyond the savagery of the Middle East, but those kinds of extremist thinking are taking root here under our very noses. We don’t want to think of the shooter as a terrorist, because he’s not Muslim. We have deluded ourselves into believing all Muslims are automatically terrorists, and that’s not true. We don’t want to think that any other group, whether religious or political, can be terroristic but Muslim.

In November, this country elected numerous peopl with rather extremist ideologies into office, believing it would lead to the defeat of the President in 2012. They want to remake this country in their own image, because they think it’s for the benefit of all. They take the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to everything; either you do as they demand or you’re marked as the enemy. They want change, but only THEIR idea of change, and it doesn’t include everyone.

Making statements that insist bullets are more effective than ballots is not beneficial. Saying politicans should be shot because you don’t like their views is HORRIFIC. It’s un-American. It’s savage and inhuman. It doesn’t belong in our vocabulary. This is NOT what I think should be ‘American values’. This isn’t the 1770’s anymore, and we need to stop thinking that only by brute force things will change for the better. If we don’t wake up from this nightmare, we are going to destroy one another. I love this country as much as any self-styled patriot. I was born here, and my voice counts just as much.

Stop kowtowing to the talk radio goons that rule the airwaves. They are in it for ratings and money. They don’t care about you or anyone else. They do it for their egos and because they’re bullies. They can rant and scream all they want, because they know their words will drive one of their devout followers to take action. That’s what happened in Tuscon. American has become the pressure cooker of heated ideologies; it’s either one way or the other. Do we now use violence to decide who runs this country rather than elections? Is bipartisanship now a dirty word, just as liberal has been demonized?

This has to stop. I’m tired of the violence, of the bad behavior of politicans when they can’t force their way on others, the rabid politico-religious ideologies spouted by extremists in THIS country. It’s not part of the America I believe in, nor should it ever be.

Related Articles