The Revolution is Starting

Glenn Beck's Revolution is starting!
    On schedule, conservative have sent out their minions to disrupt the democratic process. They wanted to slow down the process so that no decision was made before August recess, and now they are showing their "populace" mettle.
    It reminds me somewhat of the war protests of the 60s. What makes it conservative though is that instead of fighting against an unjust war, or any good reason, they are protesting against intelligent dialog. They are showing what the Rush Limbaugh School of Rhetoric has taught them. Truth is meaningless. Monologue is essential. Listening has only one purpose, and that is to find a way to twist your enemy's words.
    Despite all their blustering about patriotism and the American way, conservatives have always been against democracy. They were just as faint of heart when Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson won the presidency, as they are today with Barack Obama. The sky was falling then and if falling now. The last thing that conservative elites want is to place power in the hands of the people. Now, they don't mind placing it in the hands of those they can control, of course - those who have been trained to hate the word liberal, a word, by the way, that means free.
    The insanity is palpable. Show them Obama's birth certificate proving he was born in Hawaii, and they want to know why he doesn't show them his birth certificate. Show pictures of it on the news almost every day, they insist he doesn't have one, and produce proven forgeries in its place. They've called him Muslim, had him "pal around with terrorists," as Sarah Palin would put it, make his Herculean efforts to save the economy an attempt to make us all socialists. They are saying that health care reform will force euthanasia on the elderly. They claim that the government cannot run a public option, and yet praise Medicare and Veteran's benefits, both run by the government. They say that a government bureaucrat will come between you and your doctor, which is not the case, while hiding the fact that insurance company bureaucrats have been coming between patient and doctor since the last time they blocked health care reform. They ridiculously say that people will die because they have health insurance, while people are really dying without it now.
    Without intelligent discourse, a respect for truth, open minds and good intentions, democracy fails in its intent. Conservatives know this. In fact, they are counting on it. They no more believe in democracy than they believe all people are created equal.
    Liberals don't know how to handle this. They still believe in the American dream, and think that they should be able to reason with these people. They want to be inclusive, even with conservatives. President Obama invites bi-partisanship, while conservatives look only to sabotage everything he does. Truly, this is the greatest threat that America faces, for it threatens the soul of the nation, which was built on reason and good will.
    What is it about conservatism that makes it so compatible with conspiracy theories, media rabble rousers, push button hysteria, regional biases, bigotry, denial of science, distrust of anything new, and a dedicated hostility to democratic government?
    These are hardly the hallmarks of sane political leadership, especially for a nation as powerful as the United States. And yet they appeal to a sizable minority of indoctrinated people who are so steeped with hatred toward liberalism, one has to wonder why? What terrible thing has liberalism done, compared to the mean-spirited, costly, money oriented, divisively bigoted accomplishments of conservatism to rouse such animosity?
    It has to do with the basic character and premise of conservatism.
    Its most positive definition is an ideology dedicated to limiting oneself to the values and traditions of the past, in the name of preserving them, and then applying them to the future. Traditional values are well defined and comfortable. New ideas, no matter how well thought out, are considered unproved, risky, and even dangerous. Indeed, they are a threat to the established values that conservatives depend on for their discernment and identity. It is no wonder that every threat of change, every deviation, is viewed as an existential threat.
    Now, it is only natural for many people to fear change. We tend to get comfortable in the status quo, at least when it works moderately well for us. Even when it does not work well, we prefer dealing with the devil that we know, rather than the devil we do not know. This is the basic premise of conservatism, resulting in avoidance, circling the wagons, pointed attacks on agents of change, and propagation of fear that often extends to the irrational. It is not a positive or constructive ideology. It is a stagnant, defensive ideology, that considers the best defense to be an effective offense. Indeed, their concentration on attack and defense is so focused and overwhelming, that they often forget the essence of what they are fighting for. Truth has become expendable to them. Democracy becomes dangerous unless carefully and predictably manipulated. Those who disagree with formulaic agendas are discarded, thought of as enemies who need to be torn down. When someone like President Obama is democratically voted into office, he has to be discredited with conspiracies. As he tries to repair an economy sorely damaged by conservative ideology, he is accused of trying to destroy the whole character of the nation.
    Rush Limbaugh, the biggest mouth of conservatism, went to far as to accuse Obama of being a Nazi! This is not as surprising as it seems. It points away from the Nazi-like tactics of conservatives, who trash education, disrupt public gatherings, feed racial distrust, fill their airways with unrelenting propaganda designed to make people angry for no good reason. Right from Himmler's guidebook. Rush must think that Obama is that pudgy, bouncy, shirt-plucking, arms flailing white guy he sees every day in the mirror!
    We are at a juncture now. Conservatism may be in decline, which is why they are fighting so hard to make the insane look patriotic. Thoughtful people, even those who are committed to tradition and wary of change, are learning that they cannot trust this abusively negative ideology. And with good reason. Over and over again, they are shown the hypocrisy of leaders committed to family values having illicit affairs and bathroom rendezvous, spousal abandonment, and little concern about actual family oriented policies. People are starting to ask exactly what values are they really upholding? Hypocrisy has its breaking point of believability. More and more conservatives are proving that their main focus is that of blind power, and that they will use nationalistic or religious rhetoric any way they can to get it.
    In recent elections, conservatives have been labeled the Party of No. I suggest to you that they are really the Party of Sabotage. To preserve the wealth and power of the few, they would encourage global warming, discard the separation of church and state, allow needy citizens no access to affordable health care, undercut the president while he tries to rescue the economy, stir racial tension, encourage regional division, and turn our democracy into an oligarchy by leading people astray. Their ideal is a resurrection of the notorious Gilded Age, filled with corruption and ignorance.
    Good people, liberals, moderates, and well-minded conservatives, if we do not stand up and fight this, we just might lose it all. They are marching in the streets. They are turning town hall meetings into chaos. They want us to stagnant as a people, while the world moves forward. I hate to say it, but they simply cannot be trust. It is time for us to rise to the challenge and show them what Americanism is really all about.

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