A Matter of Perspecitve and Perception

Having long paid close attention to the world of politics,  it has become abundantly clear that our nation's social courtesy and willingness to get along, despite our differences, has deteriorated. 

Any student of history knows that our political system, despite the strong differences between opposiing parties, has, until recently, usually been civil in its conduct with the understanding that the ultimate goal was to come to a compromise in the interest of mutual benefit.

Sadly, that is no longer the case.

The beating (with a cane) of a Senator on the floor of the Senate in the heat of debate during the Civil War period is one past example of how passions have flared out of control.

Today, the behavior and language is much more subtle and deceptive. There have been recent times when some politicians have said things which were clearly absurd and uncalled for, but most of the rhetoric has been far more cryptic.

Nearly all liberal/socialists verbiage when speaking about their “progressive” agenda is couched in terms which sound good to the individual who has yet to develop enough life experience to understand the consequences behind them.

Political correctness is probably the most well-known term. While it sounds good, its deeper implications portend a stifling of free thought and speech - something our founding fathers were extremely and deliberately very concerned about to the point of making it one of the first three rights established in the Bill of Rights.

In fact, Benjamin Franklin is quoted on this topic: "Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

Another current and pressing issue is how we, as a people, should react and deal with the epidemic of mass shootings in our public schools. Politicians on the left speak of passing more laws that will, they claim, bring a complete halt to these tragedies. Yet we currently have a massive array of gun restriction laws on the books which are repeatedly ignored!

Group titles, such as the Alliance for Gun Responsibility seem to be for re-establishing responsible gun ownership, but are actually pro gun control. Such a position naively assumes that if you impose a law restricting their use that all outlaws will honor it. If all law abiding citizens who owned guns of any kind turned them in under the new law, who then would have the upper hand over them? What about the ability of the gun owner to adequately respond to a home intruder? Are they supposed to tell them, "Wait, I need to put in my combination to get my gun so I can shoot you."?

Going a bit more specific on this issue, the mayor of a large metropolitan area is proposing a "safe storage" ordinance which would penalize gun owners if they failed to report lost or stolen guns to the authorities.

Do you detect a pattern here?

Liberals are true-blue bureaucrats. They believe that the state has the answer to all of society's problems through legislation, while maintaining a philosophy that criminals don't need to be accountable for their anti-social actions under the premise that they've experienced someone else's unfair or racist treatment in their past. 

Conservatives, on the other hand, understand that if society is to keep crime in check to deter future ones, then our judicial system must be fair, but firm in our dealing with those who deviate from acceptable behavior. After all, soft judges only make hardened criminals.

At the same time, they paint their ideological opposition, conservatives, as selfish, bigoted, racist, corporate loving capitalist monsters. It would appear that their agenda is to destroy the economy by imposing taxes on the very businesses that provide them revenue for their programs – programs that do not produce real results.

Civility has joined common sense on the street. They have been evicted from their homes and excluded from ongoing public discourse.