Rant2

    Let me start by saying I have never been part of the reilgious right, and probably never will be.    I have never been a "social" conservative, and probably never will be.    I am not against stem cells research, or other things like that.    That having been said, I feel like I have to post today and speak my mind.

       I've eaten a great deal of shit over the last four years, both directly and indirectly from people over my political beliefs and who I support.    For the most part, except for a few issues near and dear to my heart, I have kept my mouth shut on this blog, but now that the election is all done, I'm not going to remain silent.    I voted, my candidates won, and I just wanted to say something.

     For most of the 90s, I listened to you attack just about everything I was into, and every freedom I enjoyed.     I watched Joe Lieberman and his cronies completely disregard the First Admendment to attack music and video games he considered wrong.     I watched people get demonized and attacked for being into music or movies or games that 'promoted hate and intolerance'.    I watched Lieberman try to silence his opposition with the bullshit 'equal time' laws aimed at getting Rush Limbaugh off the air, and watched the IRS under the Clinton administration audit Bill O'Reilly every single year to try and get him in trouble and off the air.      I watched the media try to paint every gun owner as a loose cannon and vigilante, and time bomb waiting to go off.    I watched the NRA get blamed for the Oklahoma bombing. (Does that mean we can blame Greenpeace for the Unabomber?) I watched you attack music and things in popular culture with just as much vigor as the religious right had before, and this proved nothing to me except that you were just as capable of 'think my way or else' behavior as the religious right you claimed to despise and fight against.   I watched Janet Reno say, "Clean up TV or we will clean it up for you." You considered censorship as just a viable a tool as the religous right did, and demonstrated your willingness to use it.    I will always save an article I found in Entertainment Weekly talking about how Marilyn Manson felt so threatened by Joe Lieberman and goverment censorship that he decided to vote for Bush in 2000.    Am I the only one that saw a cross-dressing, narcotics junkie, self-professed devil-worshiper vote for a white, Texan Republican because he was afraid of censorship and say, "What's wrong with this picture?" The excuses changed, but the end result was the same: an effort to suppress ideas and thinking you didn't agree with, in the name of fighting, "hate".

    The depths of this hypocrisy were not revealed until the Bush administration.    You have exhibited the same hatred you claimed to abhor.     You have attacked Bush and conservatives with such intensity, that I am wondering what you had against Doom players and metal fans in the first place.

    For the last four years I've watched you protest against war and killing.   These protests never held much weight with me, because you turned a blind eye to all the wars Clinton started.     If you were really against war, you would have protested the Kosvo air strikes and "peace keeping" occupation.    If you were really against war, you would have protested the cruise missile attacks in the Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for the African embassy bombings.    If you were really against war, you would have protested operation Desert Fox, in which a month of air strikes against Iraq conveniently put Clinton's impeachment hearings off until after the elections.    Your protests against Bush and the Iraq war had nothing to do Iraq or the idea of going to war.   You just seem to have your own ideas about who is allowed to go to war, and for what reason.    The war has become a convenient excuse to attack Bush and blame him for all the problems in your lives that have nothing to do with it.

    You talk of the horrors of the war on terror and the human rights violations.   You try to make Bush out as Hitler.   Where were your protests when Clinton had federal agents murdering American citizens for having beliefs that weren't popular or politicially correct?   Where were your protests and moral indignation when FBI sniper Lon Hirouchi shot and killed the unarmed Vicki Weaver?    Where was your self righteous sense of freedom and due process when the ATF blindly fired into the Branch Dividian compound with armor-piercing bullets, indiscriminately killing women and children while David Koresh was calling 911, begging for the fighting to stop? Why was it okay for Clinton to ignore the Constitution and have Americans murdered, when it's not okay for Bush to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan?     Why is the Patriot Act such a crime against the Constitution when Clinton using the feds as a Gestapo was not?

    In this last year I have heard intellectual lightweights like Michael Moore berate us for living in a culture of fear, and making too big a deal out of 9-11.    Who are you or anyone to tell me how I should perceive risk and when I should be afraid?    How many people have to die before you concede that the world sucks, and sometimes we have to take steps to protect ourselves?    When are you going to realize that just beacuse we try to be open, tolerant and accepting doesn't mean that others will do the same for us?

    In this last year I have heard you openly admit that Farenheit 9-11 was biased and filled with factual errors, yet I was still supposed to run out and see it so that I could have my mind changed.    Just how does this make sense?    I'll tell you what I also remember.   I remember a review by an anti-Bush French critic who claimed that the movie was poorly made propoganda.   I remember not being able to go to any website that talked about it without finding it's factualness ripped to shreds.

    Since the early 90s, I have heard you tell me that you think the Second Amendment is an outdated and obsolete notion, and that you feel you have the right to ignore it.     I have heard you tell me that I should just surrender my guns and trust in the government to protect me.    In the spring of 1996, in what is considered the best and safest neighborhood in this town, I was run down, cornered and jumped by 11 gangbangers, all high on cocaine and out "looking for someone to fuck up".    Where were all the extra cops that the crime bill was supposed to put on the streets?   Where were all your social programs that were supposed to give these punks something to do so that they would stop committing crimes?    Why am I supposed to give up my guns for security and safety you cannot or will not guarantee? The Supreme Court has upheld the decision that states the police are not liable or legally responsible if something happens to me.    I hear big city cops cynically say, "Call the police, call an ambulance, and order a pizza and see which shows up first."   I heard about a woman in California murdered with a pitchfork because she couldn't get her trigger lock off her pistol in time.

    Your gun control didn't stop Columbine.   It didn't stop the North Hollywood bank shootout.   It didn't stop Stockton or Jonesboro. All I see is feds arresting and killing people for having guns.   Not for misusing them or commiting crimes with them.   Just for having them.   If gun control is supposed to save us, who is supposed to save us from you?

    In the last four years, I've listened to you bitch about the economy, and about how the mess is Bush's fault.    Let me tell you something.    In 2001, I quit my job because of a corporate buyout, in which I was going to lose all my seniority and benefits.    I've been struggling ever since, trying to find something better.    I juggle shut off notices, sometimes don't eat to get bills paid, and often have trouble making my rent in time.   Do I blame Bush? No.   He didn't make Furr's Supermarkets go bankrupt.    He's not the one that fucked us out of unemployment and severance pay.    He's not the one that engineered the collapse of the company so that he could sell off the assets to the company that had already agreed to hire him.     The blame for that falls on former Furr's CEO Tom Dahlen.    Bush had nothing to do with it, and I will get no where and accomplish nothing by trying to blame him for what happened.

    Last I checked, this was a free country, and businessmen are just as entitled to do what they want as anyone else.   Greed is a universal constant, and I think the only difference between liberal and conservative economic policy is who gets rich.    You aren't going to end greed or corruption with laws and policies.    I hate greedy and corrupt businessmen as much as the next person, but I wouldn't believe in a system where the president had the power to dictate company policy to private businesses of any size.    A president with the power to force someone to hire people or buy from a certain supplier or make that kind of decision is also going to have power to do other things he shouldn't.     That's called Socialism, and it doesn't work. Not without sacrificing a lot of the freedoms that we claim to cherish.    It's up to no one but me to find a good job and take care of myself.   I don't believe that the world owes me or anyone a living, hard times or not.

    I've heard you claim that you are entitled to punish people for their success with higher tax rates.    You seem to feel you are more qualified to spend the money that people make than the people themselves.     You seem to envy and resent everyone who does well for themselves and is rich enough to do what they want, and try to take that away from them in whatever way you see fit.    The best example of this bullshit was the anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft.     I hate to break this to you, but Microsoft is not a monopoly.   There are choices.    I can buy a MacIntosh.    I can buy a mainframe computer that runs VMS, or Unix.   I can even buy a PC, and put Linux on it for free.   I can buy a PC with Windows, and put Netscape or Mozilla or Opera on it, even if it came with Internet Explorer. I can network PCs with Novell or Firewire instead of Windows NT based systems.     I have options and choices, which is why the anti-trust laws were put on the books.    Your attack on Bill Gates was nothing more than resentment at his success and childish spite.

    But I'm not making this post to talk about any of these things.   I just wanted to let you know what your behavior did to me.   All of your hatred.   All of your double-standards.   All of your venom and shit talking.    All of your Michael Moores and Al Frankens.   It all did affect me.   It strengthened me.   It galvanized me.   It strenghtened my resolve and the conviction with which I've held my beliefs. It made me more determined than ever to go vote and support Bush.

    And if the elections yesterday were any indicator, I wasn't the only one who felt this way.

   I just hope you learned the same thing that Clinton haters learned in 1996.    It takes more than hate.   Hatred and 'anyone but him' rhetoric doesn't win elections.   Winning the presidency means having a candidate that people support and truly believe in.    A candidate that can run on the strenght of his merits and not the weaknesses of his opponent.    A candidate that inspires people.    It takes more than a shit-talking sock puppet to chant the party line.

    I'm not going to tell you or anyone what to believe in or who to vote for.    I don't always get the same courtesy from you, but whatever.    I just have one thing I do want to say before I end this rant and go back to blogging about the mundane details of my life, my fan fiction or my psycho surveys.   I went to vote.    I went to fight for what I believed in.    And in spite of all your doctored polls and how loudly you have complained, I look at the results and think:

WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!?