Editorial Bear

In America, politics is totally polarised. There are the Democrats and the Republicans and that's about it. It used to be the same in England (Tory vs. Labour) until both got so totally pathetic that people started voting Liberal Democrat.

But in America, you're either one or the other. Or, you're like 56% of the country and don't really give two hoots either way. I was quite shocked to discover than Tina had never voted.

The politically minded label themselves. Republicans are "Conservatives." Democrats are "Liberals." And the conservatives hate the liberals.

In the same way the homophobic tend to be obsessed with gay people, most of the conservatives who rant on the internet tend to be obsessed with the the liberals.

This is the thing that really troubles me about American politics. Less than half of the country are actually politically motivivated - and those that are seem totally unwilling to have their own opinions. You're either Liberal or Conservative - there's no middle ground. There's no room for making up your own mind.

It would be nice if some of the conservatives could look at the liberals and say: "Hey, I don't agree with most of their policies, but maybe a few things that they say are on the right track."

Likewise, it would be nice if some of the liberals looked at the conservatives and said: "Hey, some of what they say makes sense."

For example, free speech.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that the 'liberals' of American politics are deeply uncomfortable with free speech. As in, speech which criticizes things such as religion. By spending so much time arguing that minorities and the oppressed must be protected, they've pretty much stamped out any opinions which aren't politically correct. People don't dare say: "Hey, this Islam religion is kind of out dated and it's not really very nice to women" because that's islamophobic. Likewise the issue of illegal immigration into America has been swept under the carpet because talking about illegal immigrants generally means you're talking about people from Mexico (who make up the vast percentage of them.) And, if you're doing that, you're rascist.

'Liberal' America is very far from that.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, find that their core support comes from the Christian right wing and certain 'unique' groups, some of whom have been known to wear white sheets on their head. And not just on Halloween.

In order to court this core voting group, they have to be willing to let them say what they want to. Which normally results in a bunch of batshit crazy people ranting about white supremacy and how Jesus will wipe California off the face of the earth for promoting homosexuality. (See my above comment about homophobics and their obsessions - then see the news headlines about a certain anti-gay evangelical Christian and his male escort massage pals.)

So despite the fact that convervatives are just that - conservative - it appears that they value free speech much more than the liberal side of America. Because for their very survival, they must court the more extremist groups of people who love to shoot their mouth off.

Just like homophobes obsessed with gay people are often repressing certain unwanted urges of their own, I think the conservatives obsessed with 'liberal bashing' are secretly disgusted with how liberal they are. I mean, they'll let ANYBODY spout their opinion about ANYTHING!

But in doing so, they're protecting the First Amendment far more than the politically correct liberals are.