I’ve avoided saying too much about the midterm elections, mostly because the results are depressing, infuriating, and mystifying. Also, I don’t think the internet needs one more shrill voice proclaiming how Republicans are going to rape the environment just for the hell of it, burn gay people at the stake, and allow corporate CEOs to legally hunt us for sport.
Still, I have to address one side issue of this grueling election season. Perhaps its just semantics, but I have officially run out of patience. I don’t want to hear one more social conservative bellow, “I want my country back!”
There are 300 million of us living here. This is not your country. Neither is it mine, his, or hers.
It is ours.
As cheesy as it sounds, we have to find a way to live together. And exclaiming (threatening?) that you are going to claim this nation for yourself — and the minority of Americans who happen to align with your political and/or religious beliefs — is not just selfish; it’s foolish.
After all, if you took the country, where would you keep it?
Of course, those insisting that this is “their” country are furious that so many people look different from them, or speak something other than English, or praise some other deity. This was never an issue back in those fabled good old days when everyone was straight, white, and Christian.
But the times are not a-changing. They have a-changed.
And insisting that there is some way to make it all go away, electorally or otherwise, is just a waste of time. So you can stop now — thanks.
