Much of Rick Santorum's moralizing may be valid, for him and probably for a lot of people. Family is good. Community is good. Responsibility is good.
But that is irrelevant. It's been known for a long, long time that we each need to come to our own relationship with the universe, our god, our higher power, our society. We do not change because some angry, tight-lipped moralizing, demeaning male is telling us how awful we are.
He doesn't have a right to get involved in my relationships. I don't want to go live in his house. I just won't. Regardless of that episode where he and his wife took the dead fetus home to their kids.
I actually liked Santorum's dressing down of the New York Times reporter who tried to set him up yesterday over comments about Romney. Santorum was right, it was unfair and taken out of context. That the reporter seemed speechless was telling in itself.
But what was not okay was how he responded. His facial expressions. His body language. The anger, the sarcasm, the belittling, the threat. This is an unpleasant man. A strident and ill-humored man. This is a man we all have known elsewhere in our lives, and may have been on more than one occasion, and are hopefully are trying to change.
It doesn't matter if he is right. His self-righteousness is wrong. It shows a fatal character flaw for one who has the might of America at his fingertips.
Is there a place for outrage? Yes. Do I trust Santorum? No, I don't trust any zealot, Santorum is as much a zealot as any mullah in Pakistan. And we don't want him to have the bomb, either.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The world is watching
Rick Santorum's family is not better than Barrack Obama's family. Mitt Romney's family is not any worse, nor better than Rick Santorum's. Rick Santorum's church is not better than Barrack Obama's church. It is not better than Mitt Romney's. Rick Santorum's God is not better than Barrack Obama's God. Nor that of Mitt Romney.
How did we come to this? How can men be so willing to twist the facts, be so hungry for power, so blind to the impact of their words on the welfare of our country so as to call the President of the United States treasonous, or guilty of infanticide, or the worst threat America has ever faced?
Because you let them do it.
Don't give me that "it's our opinion and it's our right." Of course it's your right. But you need to show some self-restraint. Be an adult. You don't like so many laws? Neither do I. But laws are required where self-restraint is missing. It is also your responsibility to be thoughtful and measured in your words, attempt to be accurate and not simply win.
This is your fault. It's your fault for tuning in to hate mongers like Rush Limbaugh who spew green bile-tinged words of anger and disparagement until we are drenched with it, all of us, until it is in our hair and on our clothes and we have to smell it and taste it with every breath we take.
He thinks it's clever. It's not clever. It is despicable behavior, and that it is packaged and sold as entertainment in 2012 when it would have been considered unconscionable in 1952 shows how far we have fallen as a civilization since the generation that fought in World War II.
It is the fault of you addicted to hate that is peddled like heroin by media outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch, an evil man who has turned news into a game of destruction. He did that because he has contempt for you. He knows you'll buy it because it is easy. He has contempt for truth because he knows he can convince you that truth doesn't exist and if it does, that it doesn't matter. He has contempt for decency because it stands between him and power.
That contempt shows every time one of his minions drools vomit-scented words of hate through poorly concealed smirks. Sluts. Feminazis. Birth Certificates. Muslim. Socialism. That smirk that is aimed at you. And yes, I mean the smirks of hatemongers named O'REilly, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and you too, Lars.
Newt? You must be joking. He is a certified narcissist who did more damage to decency — because he is smart, clever and without a soul — when he was in Congress than anyone in this lifetime in America. He is a bad man. One must not forget what he did to his wives. One must not forget as you listen to Newt bemoan the loss of decency that HE WAS THE ONE who threw decency under the bus. It's not like the man changed. Right? RIGHT?
Stop this. Argue the issues, tax rates and business regulations and unions and free trade, and okay, abortion and birth control if you really must. But tone it down. Make it about something. The world is watching.
And the world is really disturbed by what it sees.
How did we come to this? How can men be so willing to twist the facts, be so hungry for power, so blind to the impact of their words on the welfare of our country so as to call the President of the United States treasonous, or guilty of infanticide, or the worst threat America has ever faced?
Because you let them do it.
Don't give me that "it's our opinion and it's our right." Of course it's your right. But you need to show some self-restraint. Be an adult. You don't like so many laws? Neither do I. But laws are required where self-restraint is missing. It is also your responsibility to be thoughtful and measured in your words, attempt to be accurate and not simply win.
This is your fault. It's your fault for tuning in to hate mongers like Rush Limbaugh who spew green bile-tinged words of anger and disparagement until we are drenched with it, all of us, until it is in our hair and on our clothes and we have to smell it and taste it with every breath we take.
He thinks it's clever. It's not clever. It is despicable behavior, and that it is packaged and sold as entertainment in 2012 when it would have been considered unconscionable in 1952 shows how far we have fallen as a civilization since the generation that fought in World War II.
It is the fault of you addicted to hate that is peddled like heroin by media outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch, an evil man who has turned news into a game of destruction. He did that because he has contempt for you. He knows you'll buy it because it is easy. He has contempt for truth because he knows he can convince you that truth doesn't exist and if it does, that it doesn't matter. He has contempt for decency because it stands between him and power.
That contempt shows every time one of his minions drools vomit-scented words of hate through poorly concealed smirks. Sluts. Feminazis. Birth Certificates. Muslim. Socialism. That smirk that is aimed at you. And yes, I mean the smirks of hatemongers named O'REilly, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and you too, Lars.
Newt? You must be joking. He is a certified narcissist who did more damage to decency — because he is smart, clever and without a soul — when he was in Congress than anyone in this lifetime in America. He is a bad man. One must not forget what he did to his wives. One must not forget as you listen to Newt bemoan the loss of decency that HE WAS THE ONE who threw decency under the bus. It's not like the man changed. Right? RIGHT?
Stop this. Argue the issues, tax rates and business regulations and unions and free trade, and okay, abortion and birth control if you really must. But tone it down. Make it about something. The world is watching.
And the world is really disturbed by what it sees.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)