Monday, August 29, 2005

The Angry Left

Classic that our resident Republican poster "anonymous" resorts to a personal attack in the comments, even as he questions my portrayal of the angry right.

But he is correct to state that the left is angry as well. Who wouldn't be with the current political climate. It's crazy how pissed people are on leftwing radio. But the idea that "angry" would be my primary political characteristic is pretty absurd.

Now having said that, there are huge differences between the anger on the right and that on the left. First of all, it is strange to us that you all would still be so angry now that you have everything you've ever apparently wanted: control of the presidency, control of both houses of Congress and 7 of 9 SCOTUS justices appointed by Republican presidents. Perhaps the problem is that the tradition of the United States is one of liberal progress not of conservative regress, and because of that you're constantly having to prove yourselves and be on the defensive even though, hell, you guys win elections, can't argue with that.

So for all these years, as you've constantly been thwarted from really enacting a conservative agenda, you've built up resentment, years and years of resentment against some imagined class of people you call "liberals." You've even succeeded in making "liberal" a dirty word. So your anger extends to an entire set of people and goes back 30+ years to the point where I bear the brunt of anger my Uncle has against Jane Fonda. It's just irrational.

At least our anger is actually motivated by real events and facts. The anger against George Bush is very real and anyone with a clear head can see why the left would hate him so much even if you disagree that the things that Bush has done are problematic. But what it comes down to is that we're used to getting our way and now we're not. Let's face it, over the years, whether or not a president has been a Democrat, the values that we hold dear have never really been challenged or in danger...until now. Bush's administration has waged an all out assault on privacy and equality, among other progressive ideals. We're used to those ideals winning the day, we never imagined anyone would actually be able to undermine them, and Bush has begun to try. That's why we're angry. It's actually based in fear more than anything else.

But look at how we express it: sure we use heightened rhetoric, we make movies like Fahrenheit 9/11, we march and hold vigils, we erect crosses outside the president's ranch to symbolize the fallen soldiers. But how does the right express it? In addition to the rhetoric and the mad rantings of such crazed individuals as Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly who constantly confuse freedom of expression with treason, they destroy cds, they spit in Jane Fonda's face and run over those crosses outside Bush's ranch. If I were looking at the political culture in this country right now from the outside in, a culture by the way that is characterized by lots of anger, just by virtue of whose company I would prefer to keep, I would choose the lefties every time.

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