Look, you stupid bastard. You’ve got no arms left!

I have started to write something several times since I first heard a local radio talk monster quoting an e-mail from one of his slobbering minions: “Watching the Obama victory last night was like re-living 9/11. I felt just like the passengers on that plane in Pennsylvania.”

Most of this stuff just bounces off, but (as my wife will atest) I thought my head was going to explode after hearing something that foul and disturbing (or what my friend Buzz calls “unbelievable, irresponsible and unforgivably unpatriotic”).

Yet, each time I have reached for my keyboard, I have been overcome by a sense of calm and certainty that we are at the beginning of something new and good. No, it’s not the end of racism or partisan politics. Florida (not alone among the states) is still filled with confused if not homophobic folk. Space aliens have not arrived to do our thinking for us. Evolution (if you believe in such things) has not rapidly accelerated our capacity for just getting along. But, for at least another couple of years, I can take pleasure in this fact:

Even if I ascribed to the ridiculous idea that every person who voted for John McCain were one of those who hate the American ideals of freedom, justice and equality as much as the woman who compared the election of her country’s President to a murderous attack by religious fanatics, they’re now officially and legally in the minority.

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4 Responses to Look, you stupid bastard. You’ve got no arms left!

  1. Buzz says:

    I truly believe that America got it right. Finally.

  2. Ric The Schmuck says:

    I’ve always tried to consider myself moderate, rather than “liberal”. But it still galls me whenever the extreme neo-cons go off on their rants, either on TV, the radio or in the papers.

    It’s been a lot easier to deal with such drivel since Tuesday.

  3. bran says:

    As the people at the Center for Inquiry have quietly pointed out for years, the “Moral Majority” is actually a small, but very well-funded, minority. It’s the “well-funded” part that makes them dangerous. It’s also the spin and the media manipulation. The mindset of the “religious right” is not going to go away; they’ll figure out some new and despicable way to take over, again, if they can. If it weren’t for this small sect, we “liberals” wouldn’t feel so distrustful of Republicans, right now. There are intelligent, thinking, rational, feeling conservatives, but they’ve been painted with the same ugly brush as the fundamentalist Falwell-spawned neo-con creationists, and that is unfortunate.

    If it weren’t for Fox News, we wouldn’t have such virulent hate in our country right now. If it weren’t for the radio hate peddlers, and people like Ann Coulter, we wouldn’t have such an “us vs. them” attitude toward the different political ideologies. It’s the us vs. them attitude that has to stop. We’re not going to get anywhere as a people by thinking that way. It extends to the “Christians” vs. those heathen atheists. Most of the Christians I know are pretty tolerant of my atheist views; it’s only the fundies who seem to take it as a personal offense.

    I feel the same way, about something good happening. What was most heartening about this election was that we knew beforehand Obama had a lot of support; people wanted change and wanted it badly. But, I think many people were worried there would be tampering at the polls, or smudging of the numbers, or that something catastrophic would happen as it did to Al Gore. The feeling was, “why vote? They’ll do what they want anyway.” I’m glad people voted, anyway. Americans came out in droves to cast their ballots, and in the end it showed. I was so proud of us, then. We really accomplished something; the system really can work. It’s such an affirmation to see that our government isn’t as corrupt as we thought, and that victory is possible in these grim times.

    I made a vow the moment Barack’s win was announced that from now on out, every damn day of my life, I will do something to keep the forces of “evil” at bay, for the sake of our Constitution. I won’t sit idle again and let our freedoms be taken from us. My hope is that our new President will undo the workings of the Bush doctrine, and restore our Constitution as it was.

    Joy, and hope – I didn’t think these things were possible! I thought for sure, the fascist (fundamentalist) take-over was in its final stages, and we would wake up November 5th a doomed nation. I’m so glad I was wrong.

    However, it is possible they are only postponed; I’m sure the machine has not given up working just yet.

  4. CLD says:

    Speaking as the second class citizen that 62% of our state seems to believe I am, it gets tiring to continually have to fight to be seen and heard.

    But, I won’t give up. We got Obama [with no promises for gays or lesbians or even women], we got rid of Feeney and Keller. Maybe we can start to at least move toward a more progressive agenda. I think reinstating habeas corpus is a good place to start.

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