Pointing Fingers

After reading this e-mail sent to me

Be afraid, be very afraid…

To those of you who voted for the Republicans and John McCain be afraid, be very afraid. The country has elected an educated, smart, thoughtful, man who weights his decisions calmly and decidedly after careful consideration of all sides and a great deal of deliberation even from opposing views.

Those of you who haven't read a book all year, watch trash TV, listen to Rush, follow Nascar and complain about the Mexicans, be afraid be very afraid. The world is leaving you behind. Your main concern is the right to life question yet, you support the death penalty and an ill-conceived war in the Middle East that has killed tens of thousands of people that never were our enemies. You make judgments based on your belief yet, deny someone else to do the same. You are right and no one else is allowed an opinion. Only you know what God meant. You quote the Bible yet, live as far away from the Christian life as anyone can get. The vile and hatred that comes out of your mouth and your computers is beyond anyone's imagination. We are promised that how we judge others is the way God will judge us. Be afraid, be very afraid.

After 8 years of a President that has trashed the constitution, lied to the nation and those around him, brought down our economy, left us with trillions of dollars of debt and cost us our standing in the world, be afraid, be very afraid. The world is changing and leaving you behind.

Stay in your double- wides with your guns, stay ignorant, don't think a new thought, condemn those who dare to say what if and hate all those who don't believe exactly as you do and be afraid, be very afraid because there is no place left for you to go.

I felt compelled to respond in kind:

As a party that has preached it is a time to unite, a time when all opinions matter, what do we see but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid upset with Senator Joe Lieberman because he spoke his opinion at the Republican National Convention. Upset enough to suggest stripping him of his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship. This isn’t unity, it’s a vendetta!

The article you quote paints all conservatives as being uneducated rednecks, so who is judging whom here? I don’t watch NASCAR, I don’t listen to Rush, I certainly don’t watch trash TV, and I’ve read a multitude of books in the last year. I don’t complain about Mexicans, only illegal immigrants, regardless of where they are from. I’m not a perfect Christian and seldom ever quote the Bible and despise those who do and I certainly don’t know what God meant and won’t till I meet him face-to-face. However, I do support the death penalty and am privately right-to-life (how someone can be against killing a hardened criminal yet think it’s perfectly alright to snuff out the life of an unborn child is beyond me), BUT I also support a woman’s right to choose. I don’t want the government telling me what I can or can’t do with my own body (or in my own bedroom) and certainly don’t believe it should do the same to anyone else.

President Bush certainly doesn’t have the market cornered on lying to the nation. Nancy Pelosi stood in the hallowed halls of Congress less than eight weeks ago and blamed the Bush Administration and its policy of de-regulation (supposedly via the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed by Bill Clinton) for the mortgage industry fiasco, when Clinton himself even disagreed with this assumption. However, no mention was made of the fact that the Administration in 2005 requested legislation to create a new agency to oversee the mortgage industry. House Democrats, led by Barney Frank, killed this in committee, with Frank even going as far as to say that there was nothing wrong with the industry and it was all just Administration scare tactics. Do an Internet search if you think I’m lying! And while economics is far too complex to blame the current collapse on one issue, the sub-prime loan fiasco, caused by giving home loans to those who most likely should not have gotten them, is a major cause. Lay that one squarely on the feet of Clinton and the Democrats as they pressured Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to relax their draconian lending standards so that more people could be able to purchase a home. Once again, do the research if you don’t believe me.

The author’s diatribe was laced with stereotypes that if directed toward anyone but white conservatives, would have been quickly condemned! What if someone had told blacks to stay in their ghettos, living off welfare, and eating fried chicken and watermelon? That person would have been verbally stoned on the spot, but the author uses generalizations that are every bit as strong.

The author needs to do a little reading and assuage his or her own ignorance. Economic theory would be a good place to start. Most economists will tell you that the changes brought about by economic policy aren’t felt for more than ten years, meaning that many of the issues that Bush dealt with were the product of Clinton’s policies. You don’t have to take my word on it (despite the fact that I do have a MBA), go do the research. I do hate that the debt tripled, but losing the support of the Germans and French, both of which had back-room, under-the-table dealings with Saddam Hussein… well, I’m not mourning.

And I’ll agree that many innocent lives have been lost in both Iraq and Afghanistan (as has been the case with war throughout history), but it also eliminated many extremists that would gladly kill you or me, and have done so in the past and continue to do so. Did you miss the news where Christian missionaries have been killed in both countries, their only crime was spreading the Gospel?

I do believe that we did elect an educated, intelligent, and thoughtful man to be President, but I also believe the same could have been said for the other candidate. I didn’t support Obama the candidate because I disagree with some of his policies (a tax increase, no matter which segment is targeted, has historically NEVER had positive results), but now that he is our President, I will support him to the best of my ability. I might not always agree with him and will question when I think necessary, but I will support him. It sickens my stomach to see the way some conservatives have reacted to Obama’s election (particularly the racist comments), but the I can say the same for some liberals. The biggest object of my disgust with regards to liberals is the double-standard they wish to apply, that nothing negative can be said about the President-elect, yet they’ve spent the last eight years disparaging the outgoing President (see below for an example).

The article does a lot of finger-pointing, but remember, when you point fingers, there’s four pointing back at you.