“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader

Wherefore Art Thou, Civility?

(Written and posted 25 July 2006)

It is primary election day here in Oklahoma. Doing my civic duty, I went to the polling place and voted. Living in a small county, the polling place is very small. There were five of us there: two election judges, myself, and two other voters, who walked in just in front of me. When the ballot was given to the man in front of me, he quickly pointed out that it was the wrong ballot—he was a REPUBLICAN, and that was a Democratic ballot. The error was quickly rectified. (“He is the meanest man around”, one of the election judges told me. “I definitely don’t want to give him a green ballot.”) When I was given my ballot, I too was given the wrong ballot, as I was given a yellow Republican ballot instead of a green Democratic one. After I finished voting and placed my ballot in the voting machine, I started walking towards the door. What happened next saddened me, as a reflection of how far our once great nation has fallen.

“I cancelled out your vote!”, the elderly gentleman sneered with glee as I started to turn the knob on the door.

“No you didn’t!”, I replied as I started walking out the door. “This is the primary; that doesn’t happen until the general election!”

“See! I told you he was the meanest man around!”, the election judge shouted at me as I walked out the door.

Hours later, I can still hear the snootiness in his voice. It used to be, once upon a time in American, that people with different viewpoints could respectfully disagree. I remember a time spending hour upon hour debating Republican friends of mine over a beer or two or three, and when we were done, we went home as FRIENDS. That was before the Texas Republicans hijacked our government.

Now, it is a “You are either with us or a terrorist” mentality. If you do not agree with someone, it degrades into a shouting match, name calling, and, in extreme cases, fisticuffs. While the “patriots” are the worst, both sides are equally obnoxious and hostile. Because I don’t believe in a pointless war being fought on behalf of Halliburton and a bunch of Texas oil barons, I have been branded a traitor. Because I don’t glamorize war, then somehow I don’t love this country. It is easy to be a patriot from the comfort of your armchair.

We have forgotten that war is hell, and people die. Lots of people. Lots of innocent people. They talk about the current war only in terms of the numbers of soldiers lost; after all, only 2000 or so soldiers isn’t very much, is it? What they won’t tell you are the other numbers. The numbers of innocent people killed when their houses and places of business were pulverized by bombs and missiles? How about the number of children who will grow up without a parent? Or the number of wives who are now widows? They won’t tell you about that, because that puts a human face on the tragedy, and they don’t want that. They want you to think of the current situation as nothing more than a real-life video game; how cool is that? Of course, in the real world when you play a video game you don’t finish dead; if your character dies, you just hit the reset button and try again. There is no reset button for what is going on now! Once you are dead, you are dead; there is no going back.

Unfortunately, we are such a stupid, ignorant, moronic population, thanks to the watering down of education. (Knowledge is no longer important; sports are! Who needs science, when we can have religion!) We are so dumb, we are led around by the collective noses like livestock; in fact, I’d say that even most livestock are probably smarter. What happened?

We have been brainwashed into thinking that the world is black and white. You either win, or you lose; there is no such thing as a tie. (They have even eliminated the tie from sports!) You are either with me, or you are a scum sucker, evil incarnate. You either follow my religion, or else you will rot in hell! You either get out of my way, or I will run you over! My kids is the greatest, and your kid stinks!

Heaven help us! We have become such a mean nation! Is this what it means to be Christian? Is this what it means to be God-ly people? I have yet to find one holy book that preaches hate and intolerance, but I have met many people who use the holy books to promote hate and intolerance. We have been warned by the prophets and the holy men and women throughout history that Satan will come back and disguise himself as a holy person, and use that disguise to spread evil and death and destruction throughout the world, to establish his evil kingdom. Look around you and see the death and destruction we are bringing onto each other in the name of “God”. Do you honestly think that a God of kindness and love and goodness want us to kill each other for Him?

It is not too late. It begins with each and every one of us here and now.

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