DUMBING DOWN POLITICS TO THREE "G's

Two weeks is a long time to hold your breath, but it is not nearly long enough when visiting family. What drove home the idea of the length of time I was gone was the long, long list of emails on my computer. Also, I realized from this length of this list, that I was out of touch with the nuances of politics. My wife had wisely forbidden me from talking politics while with friends and relatives. As someone said, actually my baby sister, in Minnesota politics involves three things: God, gays, and guns. From comments made by others, I understood why. In a casual conversation with the people, there seemed to be a lack of understanding current affairs and with what understanding there was there was a dumbing down of issue. Problems in the Middle East was reduced to Muslims are evil people, and we should bomb them into oblivion—plain and simple. For intelligent people, this is shocking. When the topic broadened, it became even more shocking; thus, more surprising. The question I have about all of this is why do they think the way they do? The people reduce politics to these three “G’s”. Not only reduced to these three things but each of the three is used as a pre-define answer or solution to many things. The “God” solution is an example. The Constitution is the greatest document ever written, and they will die to defend it. Except of course the part where it explains that everyone has the right to worship the way he or she wants to as long as it is a Christian God. The more I puzzled over this, the more I realized that this is what the Republican Party preaches. As one of them explained, “I didn’t like Bush, but I had to vote for him because of the church.” In other words, some priest or minister told them that abortion was a mortal sin and Democrats support abortion. Collective gay marriage, the right to choose, etc. under the same rubric and that is many, many votes. It seems beyond their comprehension that the idea of Sharia or religious law is so terrible, but the Biblical law would be any different. In fact, Biblical law is a much crueler law than Islamic religion. It never seems to enter their minds that life is not sacred even at war especially when they talk about “bombing Muslims to oblivion”. They are willing to condemn a new mother to carry and then deliver a deformed child that will die within minutes of being born or a child that that will need constant care throughout life. After all, it is her life not their. The Constitution guarantees individual freedom, which they see the guarantee meaning their individual freedom. It would be better to say, they see it as their individual freedom and to hell with yours. They miss read the 2nd amendment. Organized state militias have the guaranteed right to own and operated guns. They seem unable to comprehend the difference between a gun designed to kill people and a sports gun. I can show them one hundred different weapons, without hesitation, they can tell me the sporting weapons, and the ones designed to kill people. If they saw someone setting a deer-hunting stand with an AK 47 assault rifle across their lap, they would immediately condemn them as being crazy. These same people seem incapable of separating guns into one's individuals could have and telling the difference between an AK47 and a 30-30 rifle if the government were to ban weapons designed to kill people. Even worse, a young man said to me, police should not have guns if we cannot have guns. Obviously, he has zero understanding of the entire point of the gun debate. He fails to understand what organized society is. Is this an education failure or what? As for hating gays, given a chance, I would love to ask them when they choose to be straight. Is this another education failure of is it a cheap vote getting technique to snare in a bunch of non-thinking people for their votes? I wonder if they ever listen to news analysts or read any of my blogs. I am sorry, I do not have to ask that, I already know the answer. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated