I've been getting more and more fed up with all the "reasons" President Bush won the election. Everyone who voted for him was supposedly a knuckle-dragging mouthbreather who only put down his Bible and klan robe long enough to vote for a chimp. I've been getting really irritated this week.
And then I read Deskmerc. Exactly.
Posted by Sarah at November 8, 2004 09:59 PMWow. I can sympathize. I myself am sick to my teeth of reading about all the reasons that Kerry lost. I'm sick of hearing high profile Republicans gloat in a manner most unbecoming over their win, and I'm especially tired of being portrayed as an unpatriotic tree-hugging, welfare-gettin', morally bankrupt leech on the ass of American society.
Let's face it: stereotypes suck.
Posted by: . at November 9, 2004 07:34 AMPeople need to chill out. i watched a media symposium on CSPAN tonight. Some of the audience questions were very troubling. There is real fear out there, irrational fear, that religious zealots are going to turn this country into a Christian Iran. i don't understand it, that's never going to happen. But i'm afraid of the anti-religious backlash that is probably going to result from this kind of mass hysteria, which is being fueled by the media.
Posted by: annika at November 9, 2004 08:42 AMThe more that they sink their head in the sand, and believe that it was fundamentalist crusaiding christians that won the elections, the less they are going to understand the shift in this country, and the more marginalized they will become.
It's not our job to fix our opponents, let them sink themselves.
Posted by: John at November 9, 2004 12:33 PMI feel your pain. Here is a little nugget of truth to consider the next time someone says Bush supporters are idiots.
Gallup final pre-election poll data show that...
58% of college graduates(no postgrad)voted Bush
47% of postgrads voted Bush
56% of those with some college voted Bush
-D
Oh do you have to throw something as dirty as statistics at us? I mean really now, you shouldn't assume that just because someone's graduated from college that they're necessarily intelligent. I know plenty of morons with degrees.
Posted by: . at November 9, 2004 06:50 PMAnd plenty of morons with graduate degrees. Most of them teach.
Posted by: Mike at November 9, 2004 06:58 PMI'm one of those knuckle-draggin', Bible-thumpin' Neanderthal Protestant Evangelical Fundamentalists what thunks that all you-uns should be in church at least three times a week, or you will all be doomed. Of course, never miss any of the revival meetings, or else. My wife is barefoot and pregnant with our 48th child, whose wi ar homskulin.
OK. Enough sarcasm. Seriously, surfing all the epithets that have been cast at all of us who attend on at least a weekly--or more often--basis a local Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Nazarine, Assembly, Full Gospel, &c, &c, &c church, has me realizing that Jesus Himself couldn't "unite" this country.
At the risk of being burned for heresy, I hold that there are indeed limits to the capabilities of my Southern Baptist God: There are those whom He cannot change, for they will to hate. Listening to Lawrence O'Donnell, Bill Mahr, and others (indeed, even Carl Bernstein on Scarborough) makes me wonder what kind of nation my granddaughter will grow up in. Will those "Creator" phrases in our Declaration of Independance be expunged from all our school textbooks, Will the historical record of our founding fathers' individual and corporate faith be found to be unconstitutional to discuss in a classroom setting (oh, wait--ask any Am. Gov. teacher today, and he (or she) will unequivocately state that a de facto ban already exists, by virtue of the threat of litigation)?
And the hypocracy of the left! When Clinton (mis)quoted St. Paul's first letter to the churches in Corinth, Greece ("seared--seared in my memory" are these words from his '92 nomination acceptance speech: "The Scriptures say, 'eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the mind of man [here he mis-quotes] what we can build'"), when Barak Obama gets up in the 2004 Democratic Convention and says, "Our God is an awesome God!" (title of a popular Christian chorus), Kerry getting up and "preaching" in pulpits of various Baptist (and other denominations) churches (followed by, from the pulpit, explicit endorsements by those churches' pastors of Kerry--in direct contravention of the IRS law LBJ got passed)--but if GW paraphrases the Declaration ("freedom is a gift from the Almighty"), and all the Pavlovian knee-jerks hit the airwaves. Go figure.
And please, another thing: Nobody. N.O.B.O.D.Y. in the religious right, wacko, 6,000 year-old creationist/Armageddon/Ark of the Covenant hidden under the al-Aqsa mosque, new temple being built in Jerusalem/Apocalypse Bible-thumping community ever--not never no how--brought up the gay marriage issue. NONE OF US DID. So don't blame us. WE did not force the Taxachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to force Kerry's state--WE did not issue illegal (under California state law) marriage licenses. So don't blame us. It ain't our fault. We were willing to live and let live.
Forgive me for being so ragged out. But I have become weary. Weary of ALWAYS being required to justify my very existance in this nation which, recalling ALL the organic founding documents, once acknowledged the existence of a Being Who, through "Divine Providence", made us a great nation. But we are going to throw it all away, and make ourselves a clone of Old Europe (and of France--no scarves or crucifixes, you remember).
You two keep having a good time. I'll keep praying for your safety.
Jim
Posted by: Jim Shawley at November 10, 2004 05:03 AMOOPS! hypocrisy. -5pts, spelling. Shows that we evangelicals really are ignorant.
Posted by: Jim Shawley at November 10, 2004 05:06 AM