E-Mail This Article to a Friend Screw you, America (continued)

What else is on your hate-laden Limbaugh-laid table? Flag burning? It’s just cloth, guys. Sex ed? Heaven forbid your daughters learned the facts of life in time to prevent having to avoid an abortion.

Gun control? We said "control," not confiscation. And there are high-powered automatic weapons most civilians really do not need. Even moose tend to come at you one at a time. "But shooting’s fun!" you argue. "It’s a sport." Breaking windows and driving 100 miles an hour are fun, but they’re legally controlled activities. "But," you object, "how do I defend my family when the nigras and the Jews and the Communists from Harvard come on my property?" Right. Lock the gate; everybody covets your Tupperware and your chard. We’ll be right over.

Does it really bother you cornpone chuckleheads that "we" think you’re under-educated, culturally limited, and ignorant? Well, how about proving us wrong? For starters, get this straight: there were no weapons of mass destruction; the Iraqis did not attack the World Trade Center; lots of children (including many of yours) are left behind every day; the greenhouse effect is for real; and the Dixie Chicks were right. Pin down a few of those basics and then perhaps we’ll talk.

Am I being elitist here? Disrespectful of the dignity of the masses? I fuckin’ hope so, because 51 percent of the masses have had their say and it doesn’t make sense. Besides, when I think about people being tortured while they’re held without representation at Guantánamo and Iraqi families crawling out of the rubble of their own homes, I’m not too worried if I insult some Bible-sucking insurance salesman or a possum-breathed saw sharpener.

TOO HARSH? I know (because I’ve been so chided) that there are lots of good, right-thinking/left-leaning liberals out there who feel it’s my responsibility to "understand" you. These are good people; unlike you assholes, they voted the right way. But this is why in true progressive circles the word liberal attracts adjectives such as "wishy-washy," "self-serving," and "useless."

In its own well-intentioned way, liberalism is, when you think about it, almost as big a problem as fundamentalism is. See, as much as I disagree with you and am disgusted by the shallow and pathetic pawns you’ve become, I respect your potential. That’s why liberal Democrats can’t bring themselves to do what the Republicans do so well — cynically lie to you for selfish gain. (Do you really think Kerry would have banned the Bible?) We nice people actually expected reasoned arguments, logic, and incontrovertible evidence to convince you that Kerry was the better candidate. Turns out that the GOP’s double whammy of fear and loathing is a more powerful vote-getting tool.

Of course they, not we, laid the groundwork there. And that’s the real shocker you fly-over chicken-rubbers are going to realize just before the end (of freedom, that is; I don’t mean the Rapture, which is something else you believe in that’s not going to happen): you’ve been duped, and the Bushies are laughing at you behind your spineless backs right now. The Republicans don’t care about you; they just wanted your vote so they can stay in power and make their oil-and-blood-soaked cronies even richer. They’re going to send your job overseas and destroy Social Security. In the name of catching terrorists, they’re going to make sure you don’t read any interesting books or travel without permission. They’re going to toss you a minuscule tax cut in exchange for under-funding public education and social services, so there will be more poor people around to bother you. Perhaps you will become one of them.

They’re going to shower the pharmaceutical companies with excess profits while denying you life-saving medical attention. They’re going to let corporate conglomerates fill the air you breathe with carcinogens while they discourage clean-energy research. They’re going to insist the ozone layer’s okay until y’all bake your little red asses off. They’re going to alienate the rest of the Western world and any portion of the Eastern world that isn’t willing to supply Wal-Mart with cheap labor. They’re going to throw more Saddam-esque bogeymen in your face while tacitly supporting Saudi terrorists and ignoring nuclear-armed Korean dictators. They’re going to rig the system so that even you law-abiding yahoos won’t be able to get a fair trial. And worst of all, they’re going to dehumanize your children and send them off to kill or be killed in the name of oil profits.

And you bought into it all because you’re afraid. And you’re afraid because they scared you. And it was all so unnecessary. You don’t have to be frightened. You (okay, most of you) aren’t really stupid or helpless. I know you at your worst and best. I grew up with you; I shared outdoor plumbing with you; I complimented the dead deer hanging on your front porches. You can open your minds and accept or reject things on their merits instead of on their reputations in small-minded circles. You can think for yourselves.

And some day, you might figure that out. Meanwhile, you deserve what we all got thanks to you, you bastards.

Clif Garboden can be reached at cgarboden[a]phx.com