The hypocrisy of politics…

In was a cold winter’s night, November 2nd as I was preparing to go to the gym. I happened to check my email to see that Rand Paul was early announced the winner for the Kentucky Senate seat. Having friends who were working the campaign, and having been to his initial fundraiser in Washington, DC, I grew kinds of excited. Granted Rand seems to have more neo conservative beliefs that his father from statements I have read of his, or briefs I have saw on the news, but he still is a lot closer to someone I can bring myself to support than any of the establishment talking heads from either of our nations false dichotomy of political choices.

I elected to go grab a beer at a local bar instead of going to the gym to celebrate. There was a local watering hole, which was basically a dive bar, which was just down the road. The bartender on Tuesday nights was a political science graduate student. She was pretty cute, and the first night we met there we had spent 3 hours arguing politics, so I thought this would be a good place to go have a beer and possibly get into some good intellectual conversation.

When I arrived at the bar they had all TV’s on the News Channels watching election results, the first TV I saw showed Rand giving his victory speech, and I excited got lost in the moment and said, “That’s my boy”, as my bartender friend asked if I came to watch the election with them. I then quickly came to realize all of her classmates who were obviously “Democratic” in nature were poking fun at Rand’s victory. In giving the speech Rand said something about the Tea Party marching on or something of that nature, and lots of hisses and off comments in mocking “rural accents” ensued. Now granted, I had been pretty well turned off by the Tea Party concept as of late, as the Glen Beck’s and Bill O’Reily’s of the media had took this original noble concept of limiting government control and manipulation of our lives and our wallets, and manipulated it into a GOP machine through fear mongering and hate inspiration. So originally I wasn’t to insulted, but couldn’t resist picking a little fight to get my blood pumping.

I spoke out above the crowd which was about 3 girls and 4 guys deep of their click of Democratic supporters. I challenged them to explain to me what it was exactly that they did not like about the tea party, expressing that I did have my own qualms with what it’s become, but wanted to hear from this group, who obviously through their expressions, were very adamantly opposed to this group or concept that is the “Tea Party”. The room quickly quieted down, as this group had realized that their collectivist group think was being challenged, and they were now being asked to actually explain their beliefs rather that just toss out classical political rhetoric about “damn the right”, “go team left”. The room went silent for a bit, and I spoke out again “come on now, I want to understand your frustrations”. One guy said “well I’m a democrat so I just don’t like anything conservative.” This took me back mentally to how angry I got at the election booth as the gentlemen tried to explain to me my option for voting straight party democrat or republican, and how angry I was that this was not only an option, but one they focus a lot of time explaining to the voting public. So by this time my blood was pumping more with anger and disappointment as I began to see I wasn’t going to get any intelligent conversation here, and that I was getting answers like these from what is likely the “future of my states government”.

Finally the quite guy next to me, who seemed to be adamantly watching and not participating in their conversations began to speak up and engage me in conversation. In a fairly articulate and intelligent voice he said to me, “the issue I take is that they want to revert to the constitution of original, and ignore all the steps we have made since which have ended slavery, and given blacks and women the right to vote.” I said “surely that is not what you think, as that has nothing to do with anything that I have heard of the Tea Party Message”. He said they want to revert back to states rights and began ranting on about something without giving me a chance to speak. I quickly stopped him and said, “slow down their Bowinkle. We are going to have an actual conversation here, not a political rant. And just to educate you on how conversations work, I speak, then you speak, and we both listen to each other’s points and respond accordingly.” He chuckled, and then seemed to lighten the mood and engage in actual conversation. I explained to him that just wanting to focus on more decentralized government control, doesn’t mean ignoring other amendments to the constitution, and that the main message that I have heard, or at least hope to hear from this new “constitutional conversation resurrection”, was that we needed to force congress to honor and follow due process of the constitution when passing laws, and not just run rampid ignoring that when they pass laws. I then went into in the example of the Arizona immigration law. I said I whole heartedly, disagree with that law, and believe it does violate constitutional principles of unwarranted searches and seizures, and that I stand adamantly against any law that requires people to carry papers. But that I however do support Arizona’s right to pass laws dealing with problems they are facing, and think that the federal government should challenges the law through due process and deem it unconstitutional due to the principles previously stated. And that by ignoring those due processes and checks and balances we further slip down the slippery slope to tyranny that we seem to want to grease up the sleds for the ride down.

We somehow drifted from that conversation to talking about 3rd parties, where he did agree the favoritism showed to the two major parties is a vast whole in the system, and even through in some conversation about Ron Paul in the debates. It didn’t seem to fit quite into where the conversation was, but just seemed to be a shortcut to where it was going, so I played along. Our conversation carried on for a bit, and it seemed that he was more with me then he was against, but just afraid to admit it to the group of collectivist mind thought that he had to deal with daily, so he quickly found an excuse to have to leave the bar.

I then overheard the bartender downstream, complaining about al l the negative adds that she received against democrats in the mail, and said that they should be considered slander. I couldn’t resist my chance to stick my nose back in and said, “and you think that is only done by the right?”. One of the girls said “well someone starts it and the other has to return, it’s the way the system works unfortunately, people just respond to negative ads”. They then got on a kick talking about how campaign funding needed to be limited. And the guy next to me (he must not have left quite yet) said something about it going against the 2nd amendment where she said yeah, I know there are those “free speech people”. Off goes the thermostat as Buddy has just gotten extremely heated. So before jumping into the “Free Speech people” argument, which would have likely got me livid, as how the hell can anyone say those “Free speech people”, is this not a perfect example of why we should be honoring our constitution?

But I digressed instead to “well why is it that people are willing to spend so much money on campaigns, and lobbying?” They shook their heads unsure of how to come back. I said “its Return on Investment, they wouldn’t do so if they weren’t going to get favors that could justify the money spent.” They then seemed to follow and say “that is why we need to limit the money they can spend on campaigning”. And I said “No, the real question you should be asking is why do our politicians have the power to grant those favors? That power sure wasn’t written in that constitution, do you think maybe reverting back to following the constitution might be a good idea?”
They obviously were getting tired of me crashing their group think party and started to ignore me worst than they were before. I asked the bartender to close my tab. And could overhear in the distance the remainder of the folks at the bar reverting back to their “rural accent mocking”. With lines like “I’m an Ameri’can’”.

As I paid my tab and prepared to leave, I felt sad inside realizing that they had no idea that the stereotypes and accents they were mocking were exactly what the rest of the countries elitist mindset lumped them right along into as West Virginian’s.
Crashing this democrat party sure put a damper on my night, and left me with yet more of a sick taste in mouth for the current state of politics in this country.

I am sure if I would have found a right wing bar down the street it would have turned out just the same with opposing fear mongering and hate inspired antics, blaming everything on the other side. I can only hold on to the few glimmers of hope that I saw from Rand Paul being his father’s son, to the kid next to me, who sure seemed to want to be against the establishment, but was just afraid to, that there might actually be real seeds of change starting to turn in this country. But between now and then, I am stuck here with the rest of you, dealing with the hypocrisy of our political system.