Politics blows

Once upon a time, I loved debating politics.  Like, when I was a kid and Richard Lugar and Birch Bayh were running against each other, and I was 'debating' a friend who countered my "Richard Loser" with "Bitch Bayh"... when it was fun to see which of the seven million seeming candidates would win the next primary (Seven million might be high, but in 1976, there were 15 Dems against Reagan and Ford). 6 of them won primaries... 4 of them, including the winner, Mr Carter, are still alive.

I had this Newsweek cover on my bedroom wall...

  Now, it's all about hate.  Donald Trump is the biggest monster the world has ever seen...  Nancy Pelosi is drunk all the time... he's a traitor, she's a traitor, you're a traitor.  It hasn't been like this since... well, since 1856, when " Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts, in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized slaveholders, including a relative of Brooks. " Thanks, wiki, for helping the lazy.  And everytime I feel like speaking MY mind, I either think of Proverbs 26:4-5...

Pro 26:4  Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. 
Pro 26:5  Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. 

...or I end up wishing I had.

So I try to spend my time just praying for their souls, praying for God to raise up some good men, praying that someone might look in the fricking mirror and really see themselves before all there is is hate.  And praying for myself, because I would really love to call some of these spades, spades.

The bad thing is, I can't disagree with anyone without being a monster.  If I dislike Obama, the Congressional Black Caucus, or Lou Grant, I'm a bigot.  If I choose to believe that Israel in Palestine is the fulfillment of Ezekiel 37, I'm an anti-Semite.  If I think Greta Thuneburg ought to be given a chance to figure things out on her own, I'm a science-denier.  And if I say I think our President has done a great job on delivering what he promised, I'm either a Nazi Fascist or a blind worshipper of the man.

Once upon a time, I could do a caricature of Obama with exaggerated big ears because he has big ears and it's what you do in a caricature.  Now if I do that, I am saying that all African Americans are monkeys.  God help me if I walk away giving the ok sign...

Hell, I only got Misty "because white people miss having slaves".

I would love to debate the pros and cons of the latest budget, explain why I support a border wall, ask someone just what it was that the President did that left poor Dorothy from South Carolina without proper medical care.

No one can do that.  At least, not many.  And one friend I have that can, got me annoyed the other day because he still calls out Republicans on crap mainly because it's useless to call out Democrats on anything anymore.  And I shouldn't have gotten annoyed, because he's right.  Proverbs 26:4 tells me that.

I was thinking today about one of my earliest posts, in which I told the story of a liberal I was acquainted with that said that the government was to give the minority not protection, but POWER.  Being an LGBTQ SJW, I can see why he would have HOPED that was right, but it isn't.  But I shouldn't have expected him to; despite being someone who clearly thought himself more intellectual than myself, he couldn't even set his self-protecting atheism aside long enough to answer the question: "Suppose for a minute, the Bible IS true.  Would not Satan, in order to attack people, use the very arguments you use?" (Reply,"This is pointless, God is no more real than the Easter Bunny, and I refuse to give even that much thought to it."  -not exact quote, BTW, but captures the essence.)

Point being, you cannot argue with those who will dismiss whatever they disagree with out of hand.  It's never a debate anymore.  You'll never see battles at the convention over each plank of the platform anymore, because the candidate is already selected long ago and the platform was set in concrete years back.  You'll never see Nelson Rockefeller hoisting up that disconnected phone receiver again, never hear of the deal making at the convention backrooms, never see Sarge Shriver's psychoanalysis notes on the convention floor.

The teams are all divided up.  Just another game of Red Rover left to play.  

by Dennis Brack