There’s never been a progressive agenda that hasn’t met fierce resistance. Never. Change doesn’t come easily probably because it seems that many, if not most people simply don’t like to change. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hard. It requires adjusting to new ideas about things that they’ve thought for years to be the only way. It’s easier to hunker down and resist. It’s easier to fight that change than to try to make things better and expand outside of the circle.
In one word, it’s conservatism.
Conservatism will never die. It’s a necessary basic human instinct to protect what’s known and safe. Conservatism allows us to recognize when driving too fast on the interstate may lead to a terrible accident and it protects us when we realize that excessive drinking and drug abuse may lead to an early death. But conservatism when it’s not tempered with progress becomes a unwieldy weight that drags people into set ways and a stubbornness to recognize when real changes are necessary. Without progress, and therefore progressives, slavery would still be the way of the land, women would still be fighting to vote, a National Parks system wouldn’t exist and Rosa Parks would still be sitting in the back of the bus. This is not to mention the countless other examples of social and economic advances that were driven by progressives.
While progressives are constantly moving the ball forward and pushing to make for a fairer healthcare system, for gay rights, for an economy based on clean, renewable energy, for an educational system that doesn’t effectively bankrupt it’s citizens, we will constantly be fighting conservative thinking that fights that change. Currently the GOP is fighting to reconcile a natural shift towards a more progressive agenda. The shift is inevitable and unstoppable and conservatism must adjust or face becoming obsolete. Since becoming obsolete isn’t an option, we can expect a more moderate, dare I say, more progressive agenda from conservatives.
What progressives should take solace in is the fact that eventually we always win. Since our agendas are based in equality and fairness and not exclusion and class warfare, we will always be on the winning side of any argument. It may take many years, we may take two steps forward and one step back, we may lose battles along the way, but it is always important to remember one thing…
eventually we ALWAYS get what we want.
I’m just going to come right out and say it. I love you Rush Limbaugh. After many years of despising your every word and cursing your every move, I’ve finally realized that my deep feelings for you aren’t hate, but love. I think my turn of heart came when I realized that your callousness and intolerance are simply the way you protect some raw nerve that sits deep in your soul. Somewhere along the lines you learned that the best way to protect yourself from the pain of being Rush Limbaugh was to turn your animosity outwards on the world around you. I see it now and I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner. The moral superiority that you claim God gave you made you feel a little less insignificant in the world. Finally, after all the years of feeling sad and empty inside, you were superior and the mere convenience of not being held into account by anyone other than your spiritual guide seems almost too perfect an excuse to give up. It should have been right there for me to see. The radical weight shifts, the prescription drugs, lashing out at people more successful than you; all meant to fill the void of being a sad person with a closet full of regret. Sure, you’re financially successful and you’ve definitely carved out a niche for yourself in a world that rewards a seething animosity for anything outside your narrow vision of good, but I’m wondering if you might be a happier person if you just had a little love in your life. So, while it was hard for me to come to terms with, I finally recognize that hatred for you will only make you stronger—almost like a violent storm that gains strength over warm waters. You and your cohorts will continue to prosper financially by feeding on your flock and burning the fields with your vitriol, but I truly hope, on your death bed, you’re able to look back on your life and feel as if you made this world a better place.
While I don’t understand it and I don’t condone it, I can understand bringing out the swastikas and hitler mustaches to make an extreme point of view. It’s almost a comedy so extreme, you feel as if you’re watching a particularly over-the-top episode of South Park. The town goes completely mad, everyone buys machine guns, dildos rain down from a vagina shaped mountain and Cartman shows up at school in black face in protest. But when a man has dedicated his entire life to trying to make everyday people’s lives better with law after law after law, spent more time mourning the loss of those close to him than most of us ever will and topped it off with a fight with terminal cancer, have some fucking respect. You may disagree with many, if not all his policies. Maybe his lifestyle wasn’t to your liking since you live such a brilliant, sinless existence. Maybe he drank too much and didn’t fit your idea of what a politician should be, but have just a little fucking respect. Remember this when you show up to your own funeral, if you’ve lived a life half as dedicated to others well being as Teddy Kennedy, than you did pretty well. If your only claim to fame was coming up with the phrase “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy”, your existence on this earth was a total loss and you should apologize to the world for taking up space.
It’s one thing to distort and lie and believe the voices in your head that tell you that you matter to America, but you Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, should be embarrassed. At what point in your feeble existence did you get the idea that disrespect that you showed tonight is acceptable. Did your Mommy not raise you right? Did you miss the civics class that taught civility? You are EXACTLY what is wrong with our newly vitriolic system of divisiveness and hate. Pull yourself together and apologize to the American people for your blatant disregard for 100s of years of tradition and respectful discourse. Democrats have many times been equally as disrespectful and shame on them, but it’s unprecedented to have an elected official call the President of the United States a liar in a joint session of Congress.