Posted by
Icarus on Friday, October 03, 2008 12:17:08 AM
When the cops kick in your door and drag you to
jail for not paying taxes, tell me it's only opinion. When the government
shuts down the radio and television station you have watched or listened to devotedly for the past few years, tell me it's just view as good as any other. When a teacher tells parents that they have no say how their children are taught and the government mandates sex education for 5 year old toddlers, tell me it is just one person's belief, no different than any other. When Islamic theocracies
stone rape victims to death, ignore ‘honor killings’, and execute apostates tell me ... that conversation on politics and religion is just one opinion arguing with another, and this one is no different and no better than that one.
The morning before an extremely Vice Presidential
debate in an extremely close Presidential contest, I only heard, “I refuse to
talk about: Religion and Politics. It’s all just opinion. Everyone has their
own opinion.” I have been wondering these past days and weeks how we got to
where we are today. A Left-wing radical stands on the cusp of becoming the 44
th
President of the United
States. The Federal Government is about to eat
up a significant portion of private property mortgages. Radical Islamists are
at war with Western Civilization and work furiously to establish Islamic
Sha’ria religious law in Europe and America. And my fellow citizens,
based on the circle of folks around me, are more interested in Monday Night
Football, American Idol and whether or not Lindsay Lohan will make it through
rehab.
My ‘apolitical co-worker’, dismissed both politics
and religion with an “everyone has their own opinion” disdain masked with a
smile and laugh. Why has something that impacts everyone’s life everyday become
off limits as a topic of conversation? When did it become vogue to dismiss law,
regulation and taxation as mere opinion no different from what’s your favorite
color or what should we eat tonight, Italian or Chinese?
The blame has to lie with the Left and the absurd
idea that “all politics is personal”, reinforced by a media and educational system
that has enshrined feelings as the touchstone for political and cultural
attitudes and opinion. As more and more Americans watch Oprah, The View and
other trash TV shows like this, the more our politics will devolve to sharing what
we feel about issues. Reason and rational thought are tossed on the trash heap
of history, and whoever gets the most sympathy or yells the loudest usually
wins.
As Neil Postman wrote in his Foreward to
Amusing
Ourselves to Death Aldous Huxley saw this coming a long time ago. “Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we
would be reduced to passivity and egoism. … Huxley feared we would become a
trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy
porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in
Brave New
World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever
on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost
infinite appetite for distractions".”
My co-workers would rather discuss the latest college
football match than who may be the leader of the free world. The result of
this could be a repeat of 20
th Century’s worse years. What happens to
a nation when the people are preoccupied with the feelies at the same time a
cult of personality entices them with goodies?
We might find out should Obama win in November.