If Patriotism Is Loving Your Country,Then McCain Is An Abusive Ex-Spouse - Can We Walk Away?

[Median Democrat]

The recent McCain attack ads try to turn this election into a patriotism contest. I also read the recent Rolling Stone article discussing McCain's background and his womanizing history.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

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McCain spent his formative years among the Washington elite. His father — himself deep in the throes of a daddy complex — had secured a political post as the Navy's chief liaison to the Senate, a job his son would later hold, and the McCain home on Southeast 1st Street was a high-powered pit stop in the Washington cocktail circuit. Growing up, McCain attended Episcopal High School, an all-white, all-boys boarding school across the Potomac in Virginia, where tuition today tops $40,000 a year. There, McCain behaved with all the petulance his privilege allowed, earning the nicknames "Punk" and "McNasty." Even his friends seemed to dislike him, with one recalling him as "a mean little fucker."

McCain was not only a lousy student, he had his father's taste for drink and a darkly misogynistic streak. The summer after his sophomore year, cruising with a friend near Arlington, McCain tried to pick up a pair of young women. When they laughed at him, he cursed them so vilely that he was hauled into court on a profanity charge.

McCain's admittance to Annapolis was preordained by his bloodline. But martial discipline did not seem to have much of an impact on his character. By his own account, McCain was a lazy, incurious student; he squeaked by only by prevailing upon his buddies to help him cram for exams. He continued to get sauced and treat girls badly. Before meeting a girlfriend's parents for the first time, McCain got so shitfaced that he literally crashed through the screen door when he showed up in his white midshipman's uniform.

/snip

This immediately brought to mind the image of the Republican party as an abusive husband, and America as a battered spouse that cannot walk away.

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We have spent the last 8 years wedded to the Republican party, and the Republican party has punched us in the face, threw us down a flight of stairs, drowned us during Katrina, got rich at our expense with deregulated financial markets, drew us into the Iraq war, and set us up for the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

However, this election is our chance to break free. We ignored our chance four years ago with John Kerry who promised to treat us with the respect we deserve. However, Bush told us that Kerry and the Democratics simply could not love America as much as they do. Like a scene out of a Streetcar named desire, the GOP screamed at the top of its lungs how patriotic they were, how much they loved America, and how Kerry and the Democratics would never love America or protect us as well as the Republicans would. So, we applied an ice pack to our battered visage, and limped back to the door and let the Republicans back in, and re-elected George Bush. And what did he do? He treated us even worse than he did during the first four years. The GOP continued its infidelity by looking out for the interest of the rich while stealing our tax dollars and buying gifts for the GOP's true love.

Fast forward, and now we are 30 days from the election. We are now considering electing the Democrats to the Presidency, and Obama has been pointing out the numerous ways he would change things and treat America better. He will adopt a more fair tax plan, end the fling in Iraq, regulate the financial industry, and reform healthcare. However, is he patriotic enough? Does he love America? This is what John McCain and Sarah Palin are asking.

Yes, the Republicans have beaten us silly, threw us down a flight of stairs, spit at us, stayed in Iraq, and nearly bankrupted us all in the current credit crisis. Yes, McCain's proposals are even more extreme than Bush's with respect to healthcare and foreign policy, and he is even more clueless than Bush as to the economy. However, McCain and Palin insist that they are more patriotic. They insist that they love us more than Obama and Biden. McCain and Palin tell us that they are more patriotic. Heck, they are Mavericks as they remind us thousands of time! McCain repeatedly reminds us how he bleed for us during the Vietnam war, and how can we be an ungrateful little slut by thinking about voting Democratic? After all he did for us! McCain and Palin insist that they love us even though they do not promise to treat us any differently than Bush. Perhaps we don't deserve better. Perhaps we feel that we still owe John McCain.

It should be a no-brainer that we should leave and end this abusive co-dependent relationship we have the Republicans. However, the Republicans have destroyed our self-esteem. We are scared. Can we stand alone without McCain/Palin as our leader with their promises to project deadly military power to those they say are threatening us? Obama and Biden are telling us what they will do for us. They tell us that patriotism is more than saying that you love your country. Patriotism is about showing that love by doing better by America. However, McCain and Palin say that they are more patriotic, and they will spend the next 30 days emphasizing this point, while Obama and Biden focus on issues like the economy and healthcare.

Will Americans show the strength to even show up at the polls? Once they get there, will they be willing to make a change?