I hate talking about politics in this town. Being a non-conservative in Pensacola is like getting caught wearing the scarlet letter.
It sucks because whenever people want to talk about politics with me, I always wind up having to argue on the behalf of a certain ideology, even if that ideology isn’t mine.
I can’t just talk about it openly with people and share my thoughts with them.
They hear my point of view on it and immediately assign me to a label and begin arguing with me about it. And it’s funny because when they’re arguing with me, they’re actually just arguing with the label that they stamped me with.
Ever since last year’s election I’ve had people telling me that I’m a socialist because I voted for the Democrat and not the Republican.
What is this? It’s like the right has completely abolished the left wing of American politics, going so far as to say that anyone who isn’t on their side of the spectrum should be living in another country: an evil, socialist country. That’s not fair.
First of all, America actually has a socialist party, and it’s not the Democrats.
It is a legitimate third-party organization that had its own candidate for the 2008 election, Brian Moore.
Moore was on the ballot in eight states, including Florida, and had his best showing in Tennessee, a “red state!” Days before the election, Moore even went on The Colbert Report to dispel the claim that Obama was a socialist.
If I was a socialist, why did I vote for Obama and not him?
Second of all, I swing both ways. I voted for both Republicans and Democrats in the last election, and I try to decide where to cast my vote based on the issue, not on which party I favor more.
Moderates like me are the ones that decide these elections, and let me tell you something: the way that the right has been acting lately makes me want to vote for them even less than before.
All I see is this vocal minority of protesters that are always on the news trying to make the case that Obama is a Muslim, a socialist, a national socialist, a liberal democrat, a communist and an immigrant (and the Joker, which really makes no sense because the Joker was an anarchist who didn’t believe in having any kind of structure) all at the same time.
It’s like they’re going down a big list of groups that America has been at odds with and saying that he’s one of them, not one of us. He’s an outsider, an “other.” It’s textbook xenophobia, and it’s terrible.
Now granted, I don’t think all people who dislike Obama are racists, but when you see a major figure from the Tea Party movement admitting to Anderson Cooper that he thinks Obama is an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug,” you can’t exactly say racism isn’t a factor.
I understand some people don’t like the idea of universal health care, but that’s not enough to justify saying disrespectful comments like that about a president that was democratically elected fair and square.
I mean, have you checked out which countries have universal health care?
All the cool ones! Even the patron saint of conservative media himself, Rupert Murdoch, hails from Australia, which not only has universal health care but also strict gun laws that have been proven to reduce crime! I mean that’s borderline hypocrisy.
The man behind FoxNews, the most jingoistic news network on TV, is not only from another country, but from a country where liberalism is proven to actually work!
Anyway, I’m going off topic. All I’m trying to say is that we need to stop throwing labels at each other.
I’m not a socialist, or a communist, or a liberal.
I’m Mike. And I believe that countries work better when people don’t go around reducing each others thoughts and feelings down to a single boring word.
Column playlist: Pixies
