The long hot summer is coming to an end and hopefully the healthcare reform townhall meetings were beneficial and productive. I can say that angry protesters who tried to shout down members of congress actually motivated some of the citizens to defend the besieged officials. In the Georgia congressional delegation, a Democrat and Republican represent the split cities Valdosta, Columbus, Augusta, Albany and Savannah.
A far-right conservative voter in a Blue Dog Democrat district can rant until he is red in the face because that member votes against his wishes without thinking that across town a far-left liberal might feel the same way about being in a Fox-News watching MOC’s district. When Bush 43 won the presidency, reasonable folks acknowledged that the people (or the Supreme Court) had spoken. When Newt Gingrich and the GOP took over congress, most Americans again acknowledged that the people had spoken. Obama gets the White House and the Democrats control congress and some folks lose their minds and begin talks of revolution. Wow, talk about your sore losers; pouting is unbecoming.
When I was a kid, we had a whole basketball court (albeit dirt) in my backyard and all Hades would break loose if we returned from the African Methodist Episcopal Church (I like having “African” in the name of my church) and the fellows were playing hoops. My mother would inform them that they could not play if they did not go to church and they were more than welcome to go with us. Some of those guys are deep in their faith today and wish they started their “walk” before the drama of their young adult years.
When my mother looked out the kitchen window and saw me on the sidelines, she walked on the patio and asked why I wasn’t playing on “my” court. I had to walk over and tell her that I lost the last game and had to wait for “next”—those are the rules of backyard basketball. She did not understand like she did not understand why I (left-handed) could not use my older brother’s perfectly good baseball glove (also, left-handed). To this day, I catch with a left-handed glove and take it off to throw. Come to think about it, daddy should have said something about that since he was a college athlete but he was busy getting that income. (Sidenote: left-handed presidents include Truman, Ford, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton and Obama.)
Back to my point: if you lose fair and square, you can have “next.” You should spend your time on the side studying the skills of the other players—maybe pick a few of them for your team “next” game and go on a winning streak. Some conservatives are studying and I bet they are thinking about getting a few Blue Dogs to switch teams. Others on the conservative sidelines want to go tell their mommas that the guys won’t let them play. In my neighborhood, when your momma said, “my son is suppose to play on “his” court,” the guys were thinking “lady, you son can’t play because he can’t play…literally.”
You can best believe that after everyone went home to watch the A-Team or whatever I was out there drilling and practicing to earn my court respect. Come to think about it: I should have been in the crib on that homework so this would be better written. Don’t sleep on the parallel between adults who “want their country” and their childhood complaints of “I want my court back” or the classic “I will take my ball and go home.”
In my community, we always had someone who was all mouth; he is going to do this and going to do that. The smooth fellows were silently thinking, “Actions speak louder than words.” Mr. Big Mouth would still be flapping his gums after losing all day. Eventually, someone would break down and tell him that he was always on the sidelines because his skills were weak, the fear technique only gets you so far, he came down the middle “weak” and got rejected, and he could not hit from the outside. The same guy was always an elbow-throwing player who would cut your legs from under when you were soaring in the air. That sounds familiar and political.
One more thing: stop yelling at members of congress and the president for doing what the people elected them to do. If you want to yell at or educate anyone, it should be the voters you consider misinformed.
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