Friday, October 16, 2009

Conservatively Challenged

I have no idea why I am so far adrift from what presents itself via emails as “conservative” America. Here are a few excerpts from an email that I just received and will be sent ad infinitum by all my Glen Beck touting, Limbaugh praising, Christian right, conservative buddies. I provide a response to some, knowing full well that nothing, absolutely no rational exposition will promote change in a conservative's mind.

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn`t buy one.
If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.


As a matter of fact, I do not want all guns outlawed and firmly believe that all citizens have a right to protect their homes with a gun. I do not think that citizens need AK 47s, 50 caliber machine guns, and tanks to defend their property. I do think states have a right to set reasonable limits on appropriate protection. I just don’t get why it is usually acceptable that one can hunt with only three shells chambered for killing geese, rabbits, ducks, and deer. But, some insist that they have a right to carry a pistol that will fire in excess of ten shots in less than ten seconds. Is it un-American to know that the designers of the Constitution had only muzzle-loaded weapons for a frame of reference and that common sense dictates a continual examination of our standards as technology reshapes how we behave? Or does only Glenn Beck have the inside track on common sense?

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.


I don’t worry about homosexuals at all, and I do not care who squawks about what if they think they are getting a raw deal from this country. In fact, if we would redirect all the energy worrying and protesting homosexuals toward fixing our energy grids, becoming independent of foreign energy, and extricating ourselves from useless wars, all of us, conservatives, lesbians, liberals, and libertarians, would be way better off.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!)


I can’t claim this one; it is already in the Constitution. Unfortunately, conservatives refuse to read it and apply it as the very word-conservative-means they should. I agree with the wit who says that if you will stay out of my government, I will stay out of your church.

If a conservative slips and falls in a store, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a liberal slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he's in labor and then sues.


Good conservatives hire illegal aliens to shop for them and then deport them if they are injured.


Oh, there were a bunch more of comparisons between liberals and conservatives in that email, all insulting to liberals. But I, as I have said, in another post, am still wondering why I am a target for all this conservative blather. Oh, they usually add some disclaimer about its being posted in good humor, but it is not. There is nothing funny about people who want everything one way and refuse to join in or to compromise to make things better.

I never know if I am liberal or not; in my head, I am not. I think you can have a gun just not one that fires huge bullets or a whole mess of bullets real quick. I think you can go to church or a synagogue or whatever; just don’t try to put religious pressures in public schools, local, state, federal governments or laws. I do not care to argue about where you put the baby Jesus and the wise men as long as it is not in a place paid for by taxpayers. And that goes for your menorah, too. I think we ought to pay our bills, improve our country, improve public education, make life as good as possible for people who will work to help out, and have the balls to do what it takes to accomplish the these goals. Furthermore, from Washington, DC to Willards, MD, we should get rid of elected folks working against these principles. If these are liberal ideas, I guess I am a liberal.

Above all, I am convinced that if we would think more for ourselves instead of letting others think for us, we would all be way better off.