An open letter to Republican partisans
Last edited Sun Oct 21, 2012, 04:33 PM - Edit history (1)
The purpose of this letter is not to change any Republican minds, for I find that concept nearly impossible. Rather, it's to round up the tactics used by Republicans online and skewer them one by one, in hopes they'll try new strategies rather than the same-old same-old which they've polluted the internet with for years. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but perhaps you can get Republicans to wear a different clown mask amidst their wild, capering antics.
My Republican friends, when you post comments to message boards like Boston.com and use monikers like "Obamasucks," "Liberalsarestupid" and "Leftwingaretraitors," I don't bother even reading your statements. I know they're just right-wing fairy tales and mindless screeds appropriate for a three-year old. Same goes for anyone who calls themselves "AmericanPATRIOT," "Freethinking American," "ConservativeAmerican" or some such handle. You Republicans love to drape yourselves in the flag and wax rhapsodically about your so-called patriotism, but you're never patriotic when a Democrat is in the White House - that's when the "I love my country but fear my government" bumper stickers come out, to be scraped off as soon as a Republican wins the Presidency. Same goes for your constant self-reference as an American - sure, many of us are Americans, but your goal is to pretend only you and your side are "true" Americans.
When you post links to articles defaming Obama or some other Democrat, I take note of the site involved. If it's Fox News, American Thinker, Glenn Beck, or any other site that's obviously just full of right-wing bias, I dismiss the article as just empty propaganda. Perhaps there may be some facts or half-truths embedded in it, but the right-wing track record for honesty and truthfulness is appallingly bad, and you have no credibility in the bank to draw from. If the link you present points to a news site I haven't heard of, I Google it and as soon as I see in the results that "such-and-such site is owned by a conservative think tank" (which is invariably the case) I also immediately disregard it as just more smoke and mirrors of the sort your party has trademarked.
When you post links to fabricated videos (such as one whereby Obama allegedly admitted to be a Muslim) which are exposed as a fake, you don't get to run around screaming you're being picked on for standing up for your beliefs, and then start boo-hooing that the person who exposed you is a bully. Yes, this really happened to me on a recent occasion.
When you write letters to the editor of a newspaper you insist has a left-wing bias, and complain endlessly about said bias, I know you really don't care about bias - you just hate liberals having an opinion, or presenting facts you don't like. Every single Republican I've talked to who gripes about "left-wing bias" invariably holds as sacred anything coming from Fox News or other Republican media outlets which are demonstrably right-wing biased. Same goes for the time-honored tradition of accusing your opponents of "drinking the Kool-Aid." Speak to me about bias when you no longer embrace your own at every turn, and feel free to talk about Kool-Aid when you're no longer guzzling it by the gallon and refusing to question any of it, sneering all the while that it's really your opponents who are chugging away. Furthermore, if a paper prints 99 articles that are critical of Obama, you cannot rant and rave after one article is presented which praises him that the newspaper hides the facts, is just a cheerleader for this administration, etc. etc.
When you state it's treason to criticize the President, and that doing so undermines the troops and is anti-American, be prepared to have your standards used against YOU years later when you do the same thing. Don't think for a minute that anyone has forgotten how Republicans attempted to hound and shout down anyone who criticized George W. Bush during 2001-2009. Same goes for celebrities who speak poorly of the President. The Dixie Chicks received death threats for saying they were ashamed to be from Texas, where GWB came from, but Hank Williams Jr. and Ted Nugent get a free pass to make whatever hateful and destructive comments they like about Obama? Fuck you guys. No, seriously: fuck you. Have liberals rounded up CDs of Williams's and Nugent's music to publicly destroy, as they did with the Dixie Chicks? No.
When you quake in your boots proclaiming that Obama is coming to take your guns away, or is making it harder to buy guns, or is driving ammunition prices higher to keep law-abiding citizens from arming themselves, I know you are flat out full of shit. You see, I'm a liberal gun owner and even living in MA have had no issues buying weapons or ammunition. Just saw a circular this morning for fifty 9 mm rounds for $15, as well as the same for .38 special rounds. Wal-mart offers 100 .357 cartridges for fifty bucks, a sweet deal if there ever was one. So, please - stop the nonsense about Obama sneaking around trying to prevent you from purchasing weapons or keeping those weapons loaded. Just stop. You're bullshitting, and I know it.
When you lecture about gays destroying this country please point to some concrete examples that are factually-based. Don't just spew invective about gay marriage destroying traditional society. I'm a guy who has been married to a lovely woman for 13 years; not a single gay person has so much as negatively commented on that much less tried to "eradicate" my marriage. Matter of fact, every threat I see in this country is posed by a Republican who wants to take away someone else's citizenship, take away regulations that protect the public, take away legal obligations and responsibilities by big businesses, or take away economic policies without which the country would be far worse off. Muhammed Ali, in objecting to the concept of serving in Vietnam, stated famously "No VietCong Ever Called Me Nigger." Well, no gay person ever tried to infringe upon my life or my "traditions," but Republicans have attempted this in spades.
Oh, and speaking of gays, it's been my observation that Republicans loathe and despise them... except for the small minority of them who have gay relatives and are more tolerant of this group. While I'm pleased to see that some Republicans can actually take a softer and more tolerant stance towards a group deemed "the enemy" it shows me that your values are all relative. It's easy for you to rail against gays when you don't have any in your family. Perhaps you should look at the other policies you hold - people on unemployment are lazy parasites, immigrants are stupid, atheists want to ban religion - and re-evaluate them accordingly, pretending you know (or are) one of the people in question.
When you engage in online debates and have your comments smacked down or unraveled by liberals, grousing about how those "so-called tolerant liberals are so intolerant of other people's ideas" only exposes your idiocy. You're right: people who preach tolerance can be very intolerant - when it comes to intolerant people. Tolerance doesn't mean respecting reprehensible views about other races, creeds or genders, or allowing those reprehensible views to outweigh those of others.
If you want to post screeching tirades about how Obama is just such a liar, be prepared to look at and address the issues in which your side has lied. Romney's famous "27 myths in 38 minutes" as presented by thinkprogress.org after the first Presidential debates remains unaddressed by any Republican as far as I have seen, since Republicans have just been too busy assaulting Obama's credibility while giving Romney a free pass time and time again.
If a newspaper reports on a Republican lie, it's up to you to discuss and address it rather than just howling that some Democrat somewhere lied and that newspaper never even discussed it (even when it did). I have seen more time than I can count the attitude by Republicans online that their side can do whatever it likes, whenever they please, and when called out on it just start harping about what someone else did, apparently insinuating they don't have to abide by any standards whatsoever. Ted Kennedy died years ago, but he is still constantly invoked by Republicans who will proclaim that it's perfectly fine their side did (insert sneaky, disgusting maneuver here) since Kennedy "left that poor girl to drown." Never mind the man is dead and this incident occurred 43 years ago - Republicans seem to believe their side can do anything immoral for centuries to come as long as they capitalize upon Chappaquiddick and shed lots of obnoxious faux tears for a woman they care nothing about.
Going further, if you proclaim Obama "lied" about some such topic and then are told that Romney did the same, you don't get to retreat by trying to parse words and definitions to protect Romney. "Prove that he lied" is a favorite challenge among the few Republicans who even bother to address any tale tales told by someone on their side. I've been told that without a public confession on the part of the Republican there is no way to prove they lied about something. Well, the same applies for any statement you levy against a Democrat: prove it was a lie, or else stop insisting it was.
When you insist liberals don't think, can't reason, accept whatever the mainstream media tells them or whatever else you've cooked up to pretend your side actually evaluates facts, please keep in mind your Presidential candidate refuses to elaborate on any of the economic details of his "pie in the sky" plans and expects people to vote for him nonetheless.
If you want to moan about how awful things have gotten under Obama, despite the fact the economy is improving, unemployment is down, and business is picking up (except those businesses deliberately sitting on money, refusing to hire people since they want Obama to look bad), by all means please do so but don't expect to be believed. You merely make it clear that if Obama sent each household a box of 100 dollar bills you'd simply complain your stack of Franklins was dog-eared and rumpled, and that proves the government just can't do anything right.
When you say Obama "had his chance to fix this country and couldn't get the job done," please have the integrity to acknowledge that Republicans blocked him at every turn and tried in every way possible to tie his hands. Furthermore, recommending that we go BACK to the party and policies which created the problems Obama is trying to fix is pure insanity and you need to come up with a more appropriate strategy than this. Republicans are proclaiming that Romney is "different" from Bush (at least insofar as the plans he's even bothered to lay out, there is no difference) but the fact remains Romney espouses the same policies and strategies, and surrounds himself with the same people as Bush. A broken down car won't get you there no matter which driver you swap in and out of the seat.
If you want to attack Obama for blaming the problems he inherited on 1/20/09 on GWB (with lots of derisive hooting about how "Obama just can't take responsibility for his failures"
, please cease and desist any reference to the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both of whom you've tried to pin all manner of issues on for years.
And speaking of taking responsibility for one's failures, when your party recommends strategies that clearly bellyflop - tax cuts for the rich, for instance - please have the decency to acknowledge when your plans have bombed and come up with new ones. I don't know what's more disturbingly frightening - watching you people insist that more tax cuts for the rich are needed when they haven't worked for 30 years, or seeing you insist that the negative economic repercussions these provoke are never your fault and the blame always laid at someone else's doorstep. It's like seeing someone on LSD standing on a ledge, thinking they can fly. When your plans fail and the country thumps to the ground because of what you proposed, YOU built that - and you own it.
When you promote plans - tax cuts for the rich again, since it's such a convenient tool to use - others don't agree with since they've failed in the past, you don't get the luxury of screaming insults at the doubters who see no plausibility in your notions. If you want to eat a shit sandwich, that's your problem. If you want to make a fool of yourself by telling people it tastes like filet mignon, that's your right. But don't run around squawking that people who don't like shit sandwiches are ruining this country and are too stupid to see the truth.
Speaking of "you built that," when your party makes a claim about something a Democrat said and that claim is debunked, you don't get to keep stubbornly repeating the false claim over and over again. Obama never said people didn't build their businesses, and so like mature adults when the urban legend dries up it's time to find another one to move onto. Judging the number of urban legends about Obama at www.snopes.com you guys are furiously cranking out the lies, so you have plenty of choices to cling to there, at least for their 2-3 day shelf life. You're STILL proclaiming "Al Gore said he invented the internet!" when that lie fell years ago.
If you want to post your obnoxious views on Facebook (and 9 times out of 10 it's always a Republican doing this), you don't get the right to go unchallenged. If your "facts" are refuted you don't get the right to be mad at your opponent - YOU put that out there. You don't get to run from facts you don't like by smugly replying "Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree." And if no one likes or comments on your posts, don't mistake this for approval of what you've posted. Chances are nobody cares about your latest biased outpouring or they think you're just too dumb to engage.
When the Onion posts an article skewering a Republican and you comment on it with a remark like "Boy, I really hate these political articles! They're so not funny!" we know you'd have no problem with a political article skewering a Democrat, and that you'd find time to find it funny if that were the case.
When you celebrate Mitt Romney's aggressive, combative style in the first Presidential debate you LOSE the right to complain about Joe Biden's aggressive, combative style in the first Vice Presidential debate. You also don't get to complain that Biden was mean and disrespectful. Are you really saying that a simple Congressman is more worthy of polite respect whereby the President of the United States is not? This ties in with what I've said above, where to you criticism of a Republican president is treason but criticism of a Democratic president is just you exercising your First Amendment rights like a loyal American.
Oh, and let's talk about First Amendment rights. If you're going to rally behind a political talk show host who loses his job for making racial slurs, and insist "His freedom of speech was stifled!", guess what? It's now up to you to support and defend a guy who lost his job in Texas for saying the Bible was a myth. You want to defend the First Amendment? Great! That means you do it for both sides, even for causes you disagree with.
And then we have the topic of "freedom." Oh, how you Republicans love freedom. Except when someone besides yourselves might actually get it. Freedom doesn't just mean the freedom to own guns, to not have to pay taxes, or to dump toxic waste in the river. It also means not having to be forced to kneel to someone else's religion, to be able to marry whomever you choose, and to make decisions involving your own body. If you want to praise freedom, great! I'm right there with you. Only you need to make sure ALL manners of freedom are heralded, not just the ones you like.
Smaller government? Please don't bullshit me. That's a code phrase. The people who lecture loud and repetitively about "smaller government" never want smaller government for themselves. No, they love the government when it's handing them Social Security or Medicare checks, engaging in wars overseas, or restricting the rights of people they don't like. It's EVERYONE ELSE they want smaller government for which translates to "I don't want to have to pay taxes that go to help anyone else but me. Furthermore, everyone else needs to pay taxes for the stuff I believe in." You want to gripe about "your taxpayer dollars going to pay for abortion" (something that happens rarely if at all, despite what your side claims) - go ahead, but be willing to listen and concur when someone says they don't want their taxpayer dollars going to build bombs to drop on people in other countries.
When a Democrat enjoys a noteworthy success such as killing Osama Bin Laden, please try to have the maturity to acknowledge it rather than frantically trying to deflect praise and insisting he/she had nothing to do with it. We all know that if Bush had killed Bin Laden you'd have screamed it from the rooftops for years, and Republicans everywhere would be campaigning on that accolade for decades to come. And if you can't even give grudging congratulations, you can at least knock off the "Obama has done NOTHING to keep us safe" bullshit - it just looks even more pathetic when you also insist no terror attacks occurred under George W. Bush.
Oh, and let's talk about terror attacks. When your candidate goes on television and lies to the world - yes, that word is "lie" - that Obama didn't refer to terror attacks as terror attacks for 2 weeks, when in reality he did the next day, you don't get to scream insults at the moderator who verified that Romney was in fact wrong. You see, facts are facts. They're not opinions we can pit against one another. So, if your side has a fact used against them, you need to own up to it and acknowledge it, then learn from your mistakes. You don't get to angrily insist that a fact really isn't a fact and how horrible it is that your poor guy was picked on like that. In reality, Mitt deliberately shot himself in the foot and exposed himself as a fool, for subscribing to right-wing myths you guys call reality.
And, last but not least, when it comes to "reality," your definition of it is always changing. Like Mitt, it's impossible to nail down. One minute you're angrily insisting the media is trying to slant the race in favor of Obama. The next you're crowing that Romney won the first Presidential debate and everyone knows it. And then the next you're angrily sobbing that "the media was going to announce Obama as the winner of that second debate NO MATTER WHAT!" which shows the world you have absolutely no short term memory (nor consistency), since just the week before you were so proud of Mitt for his so-called undisputed "win" which the media was dutifully reporting. Pick an argument and stick with it for longer than ten minutes, and perhaps that argument might earn some respect or at least be taken seriously.
In conclusion, I'm sure most Republicans reading this will just ignore it and start feeling sorry for themselves about how those mean liberals are always picking on them. But this is not all criticism. There is one thing you guys do which I love, and I urge you to continue doing it over and over. When your side loses, it's impossible for you to grasp the concept that your message is worthless, so you blame the messenger. "He wasn't right-wing ENOUGH!" is always the rallying cry. "Next time we'll find a TRUE conservative!" Just like Linus ranting that the Great Pumpkin REALLY WILL come to the pumpkin patch next year, you run off in search of the most sincere right-wing candidate you can find next time, never heeding the fact that a dozen far right-wingers were picked over and discarded during the primaries, since their views were considered too abhorrent. Please keep this up; this is excellent work and something I look forward to after every Republican defeat.
