Barney Frank once said that government is just another name for what we decide to do together. In our case, government is what makes America a country that works for its people in a million and one different and generally unnoticed ways. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot, but if you still insist that taxes are evil and oppressive, then I’ve got 102 things that you need to stop doing immediately. Unless you enjoy being a hypocrite.
For reasons I don’t understand or really care much about, WWJD doesn’t get a lot of comments. Every now and again, though, I write something that somehow hits a hot button for a few people. It’s kind of fun watching a conversation- such as it is- develop over time. Sometimes, it’s really just a sad commentary on the state of our public discourse.
Almost eight months later, this post is still drawing comments, although most of them are angry and some barely literate. Perhaps it’s the title: “Time for Conservatives to wake up and smell the cat litter….” The title of the post wasn’t meant to offend, but I did want to tweak those who hew to what I feel is an inherent hypocrisy in today’s Conservative movement: the willingness to sacrifice our collective well-being on the altar of an ideology seemingly devoid of compassion.
As usually happens with things like this, the responses tend to be angry and poorly constructed. Some folks evidently could barely channel their rage long enough to construct something resembling complete sentences. Right; telling me I’m an idiot is EXACTLY the sort of dialogue that will help make this country a better place…which is what I’m really after.
Dialogue is neither bad nor threatening, and I see nothing wrong with asking why so many seem so amenable to scrapping the social contract and forcing America to become a place governed by a “dog-eat-dog” ethos.
Really; aren’t we better than that? And in case anyone was wondering, compassion is NOT Socialism.
