Atomic Nerds

Obama hasn’t been officially President for more than a few days yet, and there’s already something I’m really, really sick of hearing about: how Americans now need to “put aside their petty grievances” (his words) and focus on our “commonalities, not our divisions” so that we can “work together”. Sounds pretty good, certainly very hope-n-changeriffic, but I’ve got a question.

Which of the major political differences in America of the last eight years- or hell, let’s call it the last sixteen, it’s not like Republicans and Democrats were playing stickball together every recess then- were “petty grievances”? Was it the war in Iraq, or our response to 9/11 in general? Was the massive tug of war between hawks and doves, between those who wanted to aggressively confront a slippery enemy and those who wanted to show restraint and handle the whole thing with as little smashy-smashy as possible akin to a squabble around the family dinner table? How about Guantanamo and torture? Were those no-big-deal issues? Liberty or safety- eh, six of one, half a dozen of the other, I guess. Or hey, let’s talk social issues- I suppose at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter all that much to anyone whether gay people can have legally recognized marriages, or whether abortion is murder or a simple gynecological procedure. Let’s work on the important things, like the economy.

So, we can all- liberals and conservatives- readily agree that the way to help the economy is to aimlessly spend a trilion dollars of money we don’t have and probably won’t really be able to reasonably expect to recoup from our grandchildren, right? There are no philosophical conflicts here whatsoever, and anybody who disagrees is obviously playing churlish little partisan games- because there’s nothing of substance to honestly argue about here, surely.

Look, it’s not just Obama, although he’s certainly the current standard-bearer for this weaselly pap masquerading as a political philosophy. Saying “shut the fuck up and do things our way and everything will be just fine” but couching it as bipartisan cheerleading has been a favorite refuge for political scoundrels for decades, and if I did some digging I’d probably be able to unearth it in Athens. But when said standard-bearer goes around saying the leadership of the other party should quit listening to the voices that reflect their core principles* in order to get along with his administration, that home truth gets a little harder to hide in rhetoric.

*I’m not a fan of Rush. If I wanted to be shouted at for hours on end, I’d join the military and get paid for it. But he’s such an influential voice on the right for a reason.

Posted current events, Ranting |