08 Feb 09 Silly Partisan Labels

Do you consider yourself on the right, or the left?

Are you a progressive or a conservative?

Democrat or Republican?

I’m none of those.

Allow me to digress a moment. I hate crowds. Ask my wife. I dislike being in a crowded mall, or in any huge crowds of people. I’m not claustrophobic, I just get impatient with not being able to make progress to where I want to get to, and often with all the noise about something I’m not enthusiastic about.

You see, I don’t care if I’m in a group of 1,000 that are all supporting Idea X. If I don’t like Idea X, I’m not going to cheer for it.

I’m not going to go see a movie that most of the world thinks is the greatest ever, if it doesn’t appeal to me.

I’m not going to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, even though I am ‘supposed’ to because I don’t like turkey.

I am not going to put myself into any one political group either. I hate partisan politics. I hate the way that some folks will trash anything and everything that the Democrats do, simply because they always side with the GOP. Oh, and vice versa too!

No one group ever has the right ideas and policies for everything. Why can’t folks take a good hard look at an issue, and then come forward with some unpartisan ideas of their own, instead of wasting all their energy simply slamming the other side, imply because the other side thought of it?

A current example is the Stimulus bills or bailouts. Heck, the previous Bush administration started it, and it all went through with barely a whimper – give money to the Wall Street Bozos that have FAILED the American people in a bug way, but then, once the administration changes, condemn any further idea of bailout as wrong.

Labels again -  now it’s Marxist, Communist, Socialist etc. All soundbytes really, as the majority of folks in the USA have never had a true experience of any of those things, and in any case, what the current administration is proposing is far from Communism, Socialism or Marxism.

It’s all down to these labels though. It’s like bumper sticker mentality, but an exclusive one. Whereas I might have a sticker that says I support a charity, that doesn’t mean I exclude other charities or causes, it simply means I want to promote this particular one, right now.

But the divisive partisan labels you see, are mostly negative. They don’t say that supporting any political view is good, but simply trash every other view except theirs.

There are whole twitter groups now, where the members twitter about politics, but not promoting their ideas, just condemming everything that their group or party hasn’t thought of.

Of course this is nothing new, but I’ve always gone through life looking at the glass being half full, not half empty.

It’s sad to see such negativity. Anyway, the last General Election was a vote for a change in the way things are done. The last eight years haven’t been any kind of spectacular success.

Why can’t people move forward together, and work in a constructive manner, instead of throwing negative junk around all the time, that benefits no-one?

Tags: bailout, bozos, bumper sticker, bush administration, communism, conservative democrat, crowds of people, current administration, huge crowds, marxism, marxist, mentality, partisan politics, political group, socialism, socialist, soundbytes, stimulus, true experience, whimper