America is being eaten alive, and from within, by a cancerous tumor called intolerance. It is fueled by the selfishness of a growing mass of individuals who yearn for a country of 8 million like-minded citizens instead of 350 million diverse people whose myriad opinions deserve respect and recognition. If left untreated, it will destroy the very principles our nation was founded to champion: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for all, not just for a selective few.
The cancer I refer to is America's Tea Party movement, the militant arm of the GOP.
When Georgia Republican Congressman Paul Braun was holding a town hall meeting yesterday and was asked by a Tea Party activist, "Who's going to shoot Obama?" the staunchly conservative Congressman's knee-jerk reaction wasn't to chastise the questioner for posing such an inappropriate suggestion. No, the Congressman's reaction was to score points with the sympathetic crowd by reminding the questioner that in 2012 he'd get a chance to vote Obama out of office.
Of course, later on, after Congressman Broun realized that his inappropriate response had touched off a political firestorm, he claimed to have been too stunned by the question to fashion an appropriate answer, but that claim rings hollow when you consider that Congressman Broun is a seasoned debater who is well-skilled at the art of verbal jousting. Broun knew exactly what he was doing when he played to his adoring Tea Party crowd by dignifying the assassination question with an answer that did nothing to chastise the sentiment being expressed by the questioner he faced.
The Tea Party follower who questioned Congressman Broun simply uttered the words that many Tea Party supporters are hoping in their hearts – that Obama will be killed and his supporters will be relegated to the back-burners of history. That doesn't sound like the Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for all principle that Jefferson espoused, and that's because it isn't. Followers of the Tea Party are only looking out for themselves, and as far as they're concerned, the rest of us can go to hell…and the quicker the better.
Agree, as usual. When are you going to write something I can debate with you?
ReplyDeleteMike L