At one time I was a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger. OK, I was a huge fan of Schwarzenegger, the actor. Unlike the characters he portrayed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzengger is a bully. I was flabbergasted to hear his words at a McCain rally. There he was making cutting remarks, not about Obama’s policies, but about Obama’s physique. That is stunning. Schwarzengger, a grown man, acting like a bully. How can we expect our children to play fair and be accepting of others, when adults act in this fashion? Would it be alright to mock a fat candidate? How about a disabled candidate? How about a candidate with a disfiguring disorder? Governor, you are an embarrassment.
Then there is Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina running a TV ad against Kay Hagan, calling her Godless. First, Ms. Hagan is a church-going Christian. Second, what if she was? There is no religious test to holding a political office. It is in the CONSTITUTION! Look it up. America has atheisits, and they are Americans. They are not disqualified. This is more of the same rhetoric. Yes, there is still an underbelly of the GOP calling Obama a Muslim. He isn’t a Muslim, however, it should not matter. Muslims are Americans too!
Michele Bachmann, a US Congresswoman (and a nutcase), recently remarked that there are patriotic people and unpatriotic people in the US Congress. That is nuts. What she is saying is that non-GOP folks are unpatriotic. That would include all Democrats, and every other political organization. It would also include all non-Christian religions. Folks with this mindset believe in their heart of hearts that you must be a Christian to be an American.
McCain’s campaign is largely responsible for the growing hatred, this 2nd generation McCarthyism, and a potentially growing divide can be expected in American life if this tide the campaign has started continues. Remember, McCarthyism destroyed the lives of thousands of people. Innocent people were imprisoned. There was an Un-American Activities Committee. To think that all of those supposed intelligent folks would disregard the protection of the Constitution is hard to imagine. It is 2008 and we have the benefit of hindsight. Yet, the current GOP campaign to elect McCain appears to embrace this concept of painting people with the Un-American brush, simply because they want to win.
Ironically, the folks who would call people Un-American because of their religious views, or because of party affiliation, or because of any other factor that makes them different from the white, GOP evangelical Christian faction, fail to embrace the values of being an American. (Don’t send me hate email – I am definitely using the stereotype here). They fail to embrace the values explicitly provided in the Constitution and our Bill of Rights, values like the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the important lack of a religious test to hold office, and our right to vote for our representatives, just to name a few.
Is it worth it to these folks, to win at any cost? To trample the Constitution? To ignore the struggles of our forefathers? To deny actual Americans the constitutional rights, we allegedly are fighting (and dying) to deliver other parts of the world? It is completely ironic to me that so many of these individuals hailed the opportunity to bring fair elections to other parts of the world, yet they actively engage in activities to thwart people from exercising the right to vote. In a word – pathetic.
