Americanism, Familyism and the New Orderism

[ElsewheresDaughter]

recieved this from my Texas friend who is truly frightened of any "ism":

Family is a True Comfort in times of political strife.

I tend to use my family in Texas to gauge the political climate. Specifically, my parents and most often my mother. Our political views do not often mesh, but it's difficult to think of the people who raised me as right wing monsters.

Sure, Pop wouldn't let me leave the table until I'd eaten everything on my plate, and Mom corrected my grammar in public, but these are not enough to rank them with living caricatures like Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly. My folks are nice people who don't push their religion on others, spout bombastic nonsense or wallow in hypocrisy. If the subject ever comes up, I make a point of mentioning that they raised me to be kind, thoughtful, generous and to take responsibility for my own actions. Any wavering from those guidelines is on my head.

True to the old saw, there are two things that we generally don't talk about: politics and religion. However, leading up to the presidential election, Mom and I couldn't get on the phone without having what I think of as "border clashes," small bands of political views galloping over the borders to hit and run like Pancho Villa. Nothing serious. Not a full-scale invasion, a bombing raid or cruise missiles. Just political bandits having a little fun. Poli-Banditos, full of tequila, whooping it up.

I always knew there was no changing her mind. My folks, having worked hard to bring in somewhat more than the average income for many years, will always be most sympathetic to others who are comfortable, but not in that condescending way that the filthy rich describe themselves as "comfortable." I mean the sort of people who still worry about bills, but only because they choose to live in a modicum of luxury. This is where the real rock of their Republicanism lies. Oh, they'll deny it and most likely believe it, but nothing else holds water.

It can't be "moral values," because they raised me to be as moral as they are, even if I don't have the bolster of organized religion. And I'm not Republican.

It can't be "national security," because I'm as much for dead terrorists as anyone I know. And I'm a registered Independent.

It can't be simply "religious views," even if a certain mother (who shall remain unnamed), seems to have some kind of built-in, anti-Catholicism gene, because I know plenty of people who are more left than I to whom religion is a major part of their lives. Many of them are actual (hang onto your seats) Democrats.

It can't even be "domestic prosperity," because they filed chapter 13 last year after umpteen years above the national income average. And I'm no longer a tax and food burden on them.

My theory is that they simply identify with money. Nothing else makes sense if it's a given that they are un-hypocritical and fair. The point, though, is that we have always agreed to disagree. Neither side can quite understand how the other can be so willfully blind, but we try to be gracious about it. After all, we were all raised in the Deep South. Some people really are still genteel and well-mannered there, politicians and entertainers notwithstanding.

Our border skirmishes have never been belligerent... until this election. Since November 2nd, the incursions have come more often and with an ugly edge that I've never seen before. Those banditos are not magnanimous in victory. It turns out they're the tiniest bit mean-spirited about the whole thing (tequila not sitting well, perhaps), as if anyone with the temerity to disagree deserves whatever they get and then some.

I catch this faint whiff of attitude from my own flesh and blood. And that, to finally come back around to it, is how I gauge the political wind. If my folks are reflecting it, it's all over the place, which worries me. Not simply because I disagree with the group currently in power, but because the attitude I detect is a distant cousin to the sort of feeling that leads to ”Isms.” You know, McCarthysim... Nazism... Stalinism... Puritanism, you name it. “Isms” then lead to exercise. Action verbs. Red-Baiting. Jew-Hating. Ummm... Everybodywhodoesn'tagreewithyou-Killing. Cheater-Lettering. The works.

Personally, I'm somewhat of a low-grade Libertarian, albeit one who doesn't trust other people to make rational decisions. If there's one thing people who believe in personal accountability hate, it's “Isms.”

Think of an “Ism” as something that forms when a whole lot of people come together, kind of a social physics. A sort of mob gravity pulls people together, and when there are enough the heat they generate causes some to explode, which in turn causes others to do so and so on. Before you know it, you have social fission, and an “Ism” is born. Somehow, no one is ever responsible for things done in the name of an “Ism.”

The next thing you know, anyone who's against the status quo pays for it, one way or another. Kind of ironic, really, since the United States was founded by a bunch of guys kicking against the pricks.

Of course, if the folks are reading this, keep in mind it's just my opinion... I don't want to be disowned, ratted out to Homeland Security and popped into the Loony Bin just because I don't think the president is George Washington Reincarnate, Sliced Bread and Free Parking all rolled into one. Like the great majority of Americans, I'll knuckle under rather than get the ”Ism” on my back.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. It's class warfare, be sure you pick the right side.....

You're either with the ruling elite or agin' 'em!

[jukes]

2. pawns of the "dominionists"

who seem to be the real backers of the current junta.

yahweh "rewards" the faithful; hence, those w/money must be "right".

an ugly extropolation of social darwinism, used to drive the wheels of elitism. we're squealing in the chute, waiting for the butcher's hammer. soon, an appearance of conforming won't be enough...