Dr. Forbush Thinks

My favorite comment in the last few weeks has got to be:

Oh YES! America is ready for some PROGRESSIVE PASSION! So go for it Democrats! Let's hear some passion for tax increases! Jimmy Carter was very passionate about his crude oil tax!

And three cheers for abortion! A chicken in every pot! An Abortion for every pregnancy!

Let's hear some more democrat passion about surrender! I can hear the glee in the voices of the liberal old media when they report on a possible civil war in Iraq. Just admit it! It's your wildest dream!

This was in response to my post on “passion.” Obviously conservatives can be just as passionate as they are misinformed. Their passion for tax cuts has resulted in borrowing to cover the pork barrel ear marks of the “conservative” Republican congress and an unnecessary war for pride in the Middle East. It turns out that every American man, woman and child are borrowing $10/day to cover the cost of this insanity. This means that every individual is borrowing $300.00 per month or a family of four is borrowing $1200.00 per month. Do you borrow this much money on your credit cards and not pay it off? Is this fiscally conservative? What is going to happen when we reach our limit and China and India don’t want to loan us this money any more? After all, who has the power in a loan/lender relationship? Are we gradually forfeiting our economic place in the world?

But, to listen to the blogger commenting on my piece we would think that because we have a Republican congress and a Republican president we are safe from the government robbery that we have suffered through taxation. Let me see; I paid about $500.00 less on my taxes or about $1500.00 since the Bush tax cuts, and the government has borrowed about $64,000.00 on my behalf over the same amount of time. Hey, I can do the math and I understand that the Republicans are bilking me. It’s too bad that the Republicans like my uninformed commenter can’t do math. Maybe its because the money to education has been cut to fund a war in the Middle East?

And, then we have abortion, which is another issue used passionately by the conservatives to vilify the Democrats. I would challenge any person at all to find one person in America that supports the idea of an abortion for every pregnancy, let alone the leaders of any progressive political movement. I believe that the progressive stand has been and still is that abortions are not great, but we should leave that choice up to the pregnant woman and not let the government interfere. It’s funny how conservatives are eager to guard the right to their machine guns, automatic weapons and other artillery but they want to take the right of a woman to choose whether or not to raise a child into adulthood and give that choice to the government. But, then they refuse to admit this hypocrisy, because the constitution mentions forming militias, but doesn’t mention women’s rights. But either way, you can see the ridiculous passion expressed on the subject in this comment.

And, finally the passion for aggression is obvious. Of course it would be great if all Republicans were this passionate about aggression, because they would be fighting with each other so often that they would just be a laughing stock. But, this particular comment displays the love of war above the love of peace. This might be because war is filled with violent action and peace is filled with diplomacy. Peace is obviously more complex and more difficult to contemplate than war. And sometimes those at the lower end of the intellectual scale desire proof of progress and therefore opt for the violent solution. But this anger is a passion that isn’t easy to control.

Americans don’t like passion as a matter of culture. In America passion is often identified with a loss of control. And, as I pointed out in my previous post, conservatives have used expression of liberal passion as a symbol of liberalism to be mocked. And, because of this the passionate liberals have shied away from expressing their passion. But, when the general public views this passion, the emotion draws them in. Beautiful pictures of rainforest juxtaposed with the devastation that man has wrought evoke response to this issue.
Please keep the comments coming in; I love to hear from both sides of each issue. Of course, some issues only have one side, like the DPW ports deal…








Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Politics