A question of Decency

By nature, I’m very involved in politics. Not necessarily going to rallies, or sending money to candidates, but I listen. Maybe because I use language to make my living, I like to listen to the people in power, and see how they are using language to manipulate or govern this country. When I was young my father always told me, there were three things you don’t talk about in public, religion, race, and politics. As my father will tell you, I’m hard headed, and feel like I have to open my mouth.

One of my good friends Brenton, would say I’m a big fat liberal, and he’d be wrong. I vote for my interest, and what I think is right. Sometimes it’s a Republican, sometimes it’s a Democrat, but I never follow an ideology when I’m in the voting booth. Ideologies never have any heart, or blood in them, they don’t deal well with the shades of grey that color our collective lives. They are just ideas that never live up to their intention. I love debating the issues with people. With the exception of my mother, I can always debate with someone on the opposite side, and then go have a beer and laugh with them about it. (Brenton as my witness.)

I was going to follow my father’s advice from years ago on this site, but right now, I’m bursting at the seems, and can’t be silent. There is so much I could say, about the war, health care, the state of poverty in our inner cities, New Orleans (which the news media has forgotten), so many things that need to be addressed. Today, reading the news and checking in on some blogs I ran across Ann Coulter, and she was straw that broke the camel’s back.

Normally, I just don’t pay attention to her, but I wonder who the people are who support her, who come out to see her. She lays claim to the fact that she is the Christian and the goodness of the “Right”. In her book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she claims the left denies God and mocks people of faith. Yet she runs around the country using hateful speech to discredit her opponents. She’s called people viscous names that I won’t repeat continually, and while I support her right to say whatever she wants, I don’t understand why big media continually give her a platform. Why Don Imus got fired, and Isaiah Washington paid the price for their bad language (as they should) why is Ann able to call be people the same type of hateful words, and still be on TV continually? When do we say enough? If you want to debate the issues fine, but the personal attacks are wrong and have no place in our political discourse.

When I look up in Webster’s dictionary the definition of Christian it says “1 a : one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ” As the son of a Baptist preacher, I can say with some certainty, nowhere in the bible does Jesus treat anyone with the viciousness that she displays on a daily basis. In fact, Jesus hung out with prostitutes, loan sharks, and fishermen (ie common men), he didn’t condemn them, he had mercy on them and told us all to forgive, and love each other. Stunningly enough, one of the few times Jesus is heated, is at big business using the temple/church to sell their wares and not respect the sanctity of the church.

I don’t understand how her hateful speech can be taken seriously, or how Christian people can stand by her. Ultimately it’s up to us. We the people. When we decide we are tired of the sideshow carnival act of hate, when we let the networks know that we support free speech, but give us something that is better then her hateful words, that she is unacceptable as Don Imus was, then we can expect change. Until then she will call people nasty names, claim that John Edwards campaigns on his dead son, and cast anyone who doesn’t agree with her as a terrorist. Christianity is better then that, you and I are better then that, I would say that Ann Coulter is better then that she’s just too lost in her own ideology to see it.