As a public service to those unfortunate folks, I'd like to spend a little time refreshing their memories. So gather round the monitor, my GOP pals, and come back with me in time....
We'll begin our journey in 1787, at a time when our founding fathers were struggling to create a suitable governmental framework for the United States of America. They had a strong desire to prevent the type of tyranny and oppression which the original colonists had endured under the monarchy of Great Britain. The Constitution was drafted with this goal in mind, and in the hopes of convincing the individual states to ratify it, a series of essays known as the Federalist Papers were published.
Eighty-five such essays were published in the year following the drafting of the Constitution. One of the most important was Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, who went on to become our 4th president and the man generally credited as the "Father of the Constitution". In this essay, Madison lays out the case for a government based on the needs and wishes of a majority, instead of on the desires of smaller groups. Madison acknowledges that it is human nature to divide into groups rather than to unite, and points out how differences among groups can blind people to the common good:
A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
Hmmm...sound familiar? Madison goes on to state that, though these conflicts will always remain, the governmental model proposed in the Constitution will prevent a minority of citizens, however outspoken they may become, from imposing their will on the majority:
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution...To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.
You still with me, conservatives? That means, in a nutshell, that even when you decide to wage war against the other party, and even when you do it in your loudest voices and with your most militant attitudes, you cannot overrule the majority. When an election takes place, you have the opportunity to send your chosen party into power. But if that election ends in a majority win for the other guys, you are obligated to accept it and to wait until the next election. In the meantime, your attempts to obstruct the the democratically-elected president from doing things you personally don't agree with are EXACTLY what the framers of the Constitution were trying to prevent, for the good of the nation. You have become the tyrannical faction against which the American majority must defend itself.
Alright, our next stop in time is 1988, where we find then-President Ronald Reagan addressing a group of middle-school students. Let me repeat that: a sitting president is giving a speech to schoolkids! How outrageous! And yet, nobody was making any unholy stink about this at the time. I'm sure it didn't sit well with everyone, but it never became a subject of public outcry.
Chances are, people who didn't agree with Reagan's agenda could have been grinding their teeth when they heard his comments; much of it sounded like an ad for his administration, and for the GOP. The topics addressed included taxes, gun control and the deficit - all highly politically-charged topics, and all being discussed solely from a Republican viewpoint. To read the complete transcript of Reagan's speech, click on this link:
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1988/111488c.htm
So, conservatives, was Ronnie's little talk an attempt at "indoctrination" of our nation's youth? Was his sinister agenda really to brainwash our children into adopting the GOP party line? And if you don't think it was, then why is President Obama's desire to address schoolchildren making you all froth at the mouth so much? Yeah, he did ask for the speech to be televised...but Reagan's speech was also carried nationally on C-Span and the Instructional Television Network. It was available for any educator who wanted to share it with the class, just as Obama's will be. The key word here is "available". No mandate exists from the White House, and everyone is free to do as they please with regard to watching or not watching the speech.
In addition, you folks don't even know what the president intends to discuss. He plans to make the content of his speech available before he goes in front of the cameras. Wouldn't it make some sense to check that out and find out what he's actually going to say before you pop off in public about how this is all about "indoctrination"? At the very least, realize that this is not the first time a president has spoken directly to young people in this country, and that it has never been an issue before, so you may want to tone down the moral indignation just a notch or two, to avoid looking like total wingnuts.
Our third stop is earlier this year - January of 2009, to be precise. In the week just before George W. Bush was due to leave office, the Gallup organization analyzed his favorability ratings over the course of his presidency. They had his approval rating as 31% at that time, and they posted his 2nd-term average as being 36.5% over the last 4 years of his presidency.
Now, I'm not a math whiz, but it seems to me that all those people who were unhappy with Bush couldn't just be Democrats or liberals. Statistically speaking, there had to be a large number of Republicans and conservatives who disliked the way he was running the country. So I tend to get a bit confused when I see all the noise in the press from the right-wingers of this nation. Are we supposed to believe that they really feel we'd be better off keeping things the way they were under Bush? That the attempts Obama is making to steer things in a different direction are worse than how things were going when the GOP had the run of the place? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Our last stop in the time machine is a vague period in the past...it's hard to tell when it began or when it ended. All we know is that it is, most definitely, a time gone by. It was a time when Americans were Americans, even more than they were Republicans or Democrats. It was a time when civil discourse was actually civil, and where opposing views could be heard and debated without the threat of bullying, violence, or rabid anger. It was a time when we wanted things for the betterment of our nation as a whole, and found ways to work together in order to make those things happen. It was a time before TV and radio personalities told us what to think, say and do, and when we were proud to think for ourselves instead of being part of a mob mentality. We were reasonable people once, with a great spirit and a real sense of shared purpose. It's a shame we've left that behind in the name of win-at-all-costs political partisanship. But maybe you conservatives can remember that time from the past, and recognize your better selves in those memories. Don't you think you owe it to your country to be that better self once again?
1 comments:
Excellent! Thanks kiddo for a great article once again!!! Rock on. sister.
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