Finding a balance

I'm trying.

I find myself getting a little too caught up in the constant daily flow of political and other news information emanating from various news sources, both on TV and online. I enjoy being informed, and I think it's important that all of us try to do so. I think that is part of being a good citizen. I'm still stunned when I hear someone say, "Oh, I don't pay attention to all that stuff. It's boring/stupid/unimportant/too upsetting." The only one I'll agree with on occasion is the latter. I find myself getting so angry and agitated about things lately that it's coloring my entire world. I maintain a little more balance over on Facebook, because I find amusing and fun things to intersperse with the political and religious, and my friends keep me laughing with a lot of fun posts and comments. I've been more heavy-handed here, and that's part of the reason I haven't been posting as much lately. I can only handle so much.

Amazingly enough, it's not so much the politicians themselves, although I do get disgusted with some of the antics I see (and we're seeing plenty these days). What I'm more frustrated with is a lot of my fellow citizens who seem to embrace the endless contradictions of their anti-Obama movement. Their mantra is "defend the Constitution!" But they're the first to cheer the scuttling of it by the Arizona legislature, who decided it's perfectly okay to stop someone and check their papers merely because of the way they look. They champion the stripping of the rights of an American citizen who has been accused of a crime but not yet convicted, all the while defending every American citizen's right to buy a gun, regardless of possible history of mental illness, and sometimes with no background check at all. (Something is wrong when people can buy guns at garage sales.)

They accept blatant lies and conspiracy theories spilling from the mouths of those on a certain "fair and balanced" network and on the radio, without bothering to check the facts themselves. They forward me emails about Obama being a secret Muslim, about Michelle racking up a huge bill at a New York City hotel by ordering lobster and caviar, about how a birth certificate isn't the same as a certificate of live birth...and when I debunk all these claims using Snopes or PolitiFact or FactCheck and send that back to them, they send me another forwarded email about how the people who run Snopes are mysterious liberals who don't really check things at all, so I send them an email back containing the link to the PolitiFact or FactCheck article that debunks that. It's mind-boggling.

Then there are the charges that the Obama administration is either socialist, communist, or fascist. (Maybe one day they'll pick one.) The "regime" is compared to that of Hitler, which I think means that the accusers have no concept of history or scale. The administration is soft on terror—and remember, no terrorist attacks occurred on American soil during President Bush's administration...Rudy Giuliani said so!—they deliberately caused the massive BP oil spill in order to stop offshore drilling (despite having authorized it just a few weeks before), they want to force women to have abortions, Obama wants to create a dictatorship (never mind the fact that he was democratically elected), the administration wants to stop people from being Christians, and they want to kill Grandma by forcing her to appear before a death panel and make her case for why she should be allowed to live.

I'm so fucking sick of it. It's all bullshit, and anyone who buys all of this hook, line, and sinker is a fucking retard. Are there problems that need to be addressed? Of course. Do I agree with everything the President has done? No, I do not. However, he is our duly and democratically elected Commander in Chief, and if you don't like it, by all means cast your vote against him in the next election, and voice your disagreements with his policies. I will even defend your right to pray for his death if that's the way you get your jollies, and if your god is so psychotic that you think he just might kill the President of the United States for you because of your prayer, then you two have a ball together. But if all you've got is lies, contradictions, and bullshit, I'm really sick of hearing it.

So yeah, I'm not in a good place right now, and although I'll keep writing about a lot of this stuff—it’s my bag, baby—I think I'll just leave the loonies to their fun. Enjoy your constant hand-wringing and mental anguish about your country being taken over by godless liberals and people who don't look exactly like you. The rest of us will just go methodically and efficiently about our business.

Sabotage!

In the latest round of right wingnuttery so astounding that I'm left shaking my head as I attempt to plunge two freshly sharpened Number 2 pencils into my eardrums, a couple of people address the massive oil spew going on in the Gulf.

First is former Bush press secretary Dana Perino, who said on "Fox and Friends" that she was "not trying to introduce a conspiracy theory," then went on to ask "But was this deliberate?" She finished, "...if there was sabotage involved."

Then there is Limbocontin:

Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they're sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they're sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I'm just noting the timing here.

People, people, people...anyone who thinks either of these two scenarios are reasonable or possible is just as retarded as Limbaugh, and apparently as Perino...although she always seemed somewhat reasonable and not at all as idiotic as she sounded in these latest statements.

This is insane. I continue to be amazed at the lunacy of such remarks. Anyone who thinks that either the Obama administration or environmentalists are responsible for this oil well going kablooey is...hm, let me think on how to word this delicately...fucking stupid. And let me make my apologies to regular stupid people—I’m not disrespecting you, because this is a special kind of stupid beyond what you could ever achieve.

If you're so desperate in your hatred of Obama that you think he would order the destruction of an oil well in order to...well, what exactly do you think that would accomplish? I don't get the logic there. Same goes for environmentalists. If you think any environmentalist would deliberately destroy an entire coastline, ecosystem, and fishing industry in order to make some sort of a point about off-shore drilling, then you are an IDIOT.

I'm so dismayed by the current tenor of debate that I am in tears right now. Even those of us who pretty much agree on issues are contentious and ready to brawl, and I include myself in that. I've always tried to debate using reason, facts, and persuasion, but I'm finding that that is out the fucking window these days. How do you deal with someone who, when presented with hard facts, numbers, and logic simply says, "I don't believe you" or "You're wrong"? How do you deal with someone who thinks it's amusing to join a group that prays for the death of our President, apparently forgetting what our country went through in the 60s when our President got his head blown off, and then a peaceful man trying to effect change and gain equal rights for all Americans got his head blown off, and then another guy who was trying to prosecute bad guys (and who also happened to be the brother of the first guy) got HIS head blown off?

I've lost my sense of humor about this. I don't find this funny, and I don't find an atmosphere of hateful rhetoric funny. I see it as the possibility that some mentally unbalanced loon will decide that it is his duty to put a stop to it all by blowing another head off. At the very least, it has all of us bickering rather than finding solutions, and that is really a crying shame.

I am going to pick myself up, dust myself off…and listen to some Beasties. They’re good for what ails ya.