QUIT SCREAMING IN MY EAR!
The Monthly Mumble
©2004

We, as a whole have been subjected to increasing histrionics from both sides of the political spectrum. I, for one am becoming totally fed up with it. Banner headlines, vitriolic columns and commentary from left and right media icons, editorials with bolded wordage. Political forums, off and online have always been fractuous places, but they have degenerated into partisan shouting matches. The debate has degenerated into childhood playground exchanges that are not much more than elaborate versions of “Nah Nah Nah, your mamma, you too, takes one to know one.” This has become the norm instead of a real exchange of views.

The saddest and most frightning part of this degeneration of civil discourse? Our own Government is following suit, watch the televised sessions of Congress. Instead of debates, they have a joint name calling contests. Congress has always had its share of squabbling , but lately it has become much worse. Vital business is neglected while they trade insults. The Executive branch has become shrilly strident in its claim that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is a traitor or worse. I thought that disagreeing with the Government through speech was a right, guaranteed by the Constitution. Not a privilege granted by fiat from some Bureaucrat.

It doesn’t seem to make much difference which side of the aisle the participants sit on, they have begun to sound exactly the same. One of the greatest ideals we inherited from the founding fathers is a consensus formed by debated compromise, it has kept us in the center for the most part through our history. When America steps off into the roadside thickets of extremisim, it is because we forget the hard lessons of the past. While we’ve swung back and forth over time overall we’ve somehow managed to steer a course that kept us off the jagged shoals of liberalism and the sharp reefs of conservatism.

But the swings appear to be getting faster, wider, sharper, more abrupt. Instead of coming together to work out differences many have begun standing on each side of the political road and screaming at one another. Those of us in the middle have our ears and eyes assaulted by both sides. I for one stop listening when someone begins ranting and raving. Reasoned civil debate I will participate in, unreasonable strident podium pounding I can, and will walk away from.

We were subjected to eight years of bitter assault on Clinton, AKA ‘Slick Willie’. I didn’t like him either, I believed then, and now he didn’t have the inner moral compass that the President of this country needs. But I wouldn’t have spent such an enormous amount of time and money attempting to find some reason to hang him from a lampost either. He wasn’t the first president in modern times to have more than one skeleton in his closet, won’t be the last either. Some of the more notable names in recent history had their own little secrets.

From either party.

Not surprisingly I don’t care much for Bush either. And I voted for him. I have come to believe he is influenced heavily by his staff and others who have agendas not in the best interest of the people of this country. The enormous tax cut he escorts down the runway every chance he gets? That looks as if it will be a disaster economically over the long run. While a certain amount of debt is acceptable, even necessary, too much drags down the economy. Not just ours but the world’s.

I won’t begin on the upcoming Social Security overload which will start in about ten years or so.

So, what do we do? The majority of us who take the center of the road?

Vote, vote, vote. Start with your local elections, educate yourself about the candidates, their positions, their background. All of it. Do not chooose someone simply from Party affiliation, choose them because they have the best interests in your community, state and country. The information is available, with the internet, PBS, NPR, C-Span, local TV news or newspapers (remember them? those big sheets of paper with comics in the back.) There are a thousand ways to learn about who wants the power to change your life for better or worse. Locally you can simply go to a rally or gathering where they are speaking. When someone begins a spittle spewing rant look very closely. Is this what you really want?

Let’s be honest, the two majority parties don’t really want a large turnout. The smaller it is the better chance they have because the hard-core party hacks will vote! The only way to balance the scales is for the rest of us to stand in line and make our choice plain. Believe it or not Politicians do pay attention, if they know they stand a good chance of getting kicked out of office by the voters, they listen a lot better. They move to the center, where they should be all the time.

Free Speech is a vital right of this country. Whether or not you agree with what is said, you should defend the right to say it with vigor and determination. Without free speech the very freedoms we treasure would slowly wither away, sooner or later all of our rights given in the Bill of Rights and subsequent Amendments would be gone.

If this continues those who would object to an overreaching Government would be ignored, or worse - silenced. And we would suffer the very thing we wish to avoid the most. Oppression, servitude and all the other horrors of the past.

Can we keep what we've sacrificed so much for in the past? Or do we let it slip away into the darkness?

For as someone said, “Evil triumphs when good men stand by and do nothing.”

I intend to do my part.

Will you?