In a recent issue of the Sun (March 3) there is a letter written by Mr. Larry Bargenquast: “Liberals need to grow into responsible adults.” This letter says that liberals hate conservatives as people and are reduced to a state of rage when exposed to conservative ideas with which they—liberals—disagree.
Reduced to rage? I don’t think so; as I recall, was it not conservative stalwarts who loudly and rudely heckled ad nauseam those speakers trying to present the Obama health care plan in the town hall meetings? I could be wrong, but I’m sure all the venom being spewed was coming from the conservatives.
I am a liberal, and proud of it. And of course we, like everyone, can be and are passionate about our platform positions, but “getting in your face” is not the usual way we pitch our products.
No, aggression is not a liberal characteristic, and it never has been. Nor do liberals depict their opposition by putting faces inside target rings.
By the way, have the conservatives all suffered mass amnesia? Have they forgotten who it was running the country when the sirens began blowing? Our entire financial system very nearly came crashing down around our heads not so long ago, and this was not because of “over regulation” but rather the opposite. Protective regulations were gutted on a wholesale basis for the benefit of a few very select conservatives.
Look, readers, the ultra right wing conservatives do not want any government regulations that might interfere with the pursuit of profit. They are the ones who wrote the rules surrounding American capitalism. Actually, there is only one rule, and that is “we don’t need no stinkin’ rules.”
We grew up and became the greatest nation on Earth through the combined effects of a relative few rules and regulations. Our past leaders were not interested solely in the aims of the individual, but rather in the aim of the country as a whole and to the betterment of the common good.
This article appears in Mar 17-24, 2011.