Decent People

Tomorrow, there is a prediction of a Republican takeover of Congress, fueled by what amounts to an angry mob. I've encountered that anger numerous times in the past several months and quite frankly it's alarming to think that the people coming into office are in part responsible (if that is the correct term) for whipping up that angry mob. My question at this point is, where are the decent people who used to call themselves Republicans?

I am reminded of the roundabout story told to me about my maternal grandfather, Leo Eddy. My mother recalled having guests in for Sunday dinner nearly every week for as far back as she can remember. Now, the guests weren't necessarily in the who's who of Marion County West Virginia, they were more likely the family "up the holler" who were maybe down on their luck and needed at least one decent meal to give them enough courage to try again to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. My grandfather was relatively prosperous at the time (between the onset of the Great Depression and the start of WWII) and as a result of his minor philanthropy was well regarded in his particular pocket of The Mountain State. At one point when I was a teenager, I recall exploring a closet in his home in West Virginia and finding a poster with his name on it, declaring him to be a Republican candidate for the State Legislature. This was at a time when to be a West Virginian, one had to be a Democrat. I was most impressed by the fact that here was a man who not only believed in a decent philosophy, he was living it.

It wasn't just my grandfather who believed and lived a conservative life, there have been scores of other decent people who have gained my respect and admiration for their principals. One such person was Dave Hobson, at one time a Member of Congress representing the northern part of Ross County. I met him while covering a speech he was making at the VA Medical Center of Chillicothe for the local radio station. I had come to expect to see an officious boob with a retinue a mile long make an appearance at our strategically placed 'booth' near the site of the speech. Instead, I was approached by a regular guy dressed in a suit he could have picked up "off the rack" at J.C.Penney. In both our conversation prior to his speech and in the speech itself, he stated that he considered himself to be a servant of those who elected him to office - it was a privelege for him, not a right. He wasn't a career politician, he was this guy who served, then went right back to being just another face in the crowd once he left office.

These days it's way too different. For instance, there was the incident either last week or the week before where a supporter for the Republican candidate for the Senate in Kentucky deliberately stepped on the head of a protester. There was the incident where the official Republican candidate for Senator in Alaska either threatened to handcuff or actually did handcuff members of the press corps. There are at least 2 candidates who have openly alluded to a "Second Amendment solution"... a threat, perhaps, of armed insurrection if they didn't get their way? If guns at political rallys are any indication, we may be in for some rough sledding if the threats are more than idle.

It's not just the candidates who are getting out of hand. People we know and work with are fueled by the insanity which has infiltrated the Republican Party. They listen to the Hannitys, the Limbaughs and the Becks, hanging on every word, allowing those men (and some women) to do their thinking for them and spitting back the vile and the hatred they absorb on a daily basis. These people value the rights given us by the Constitution, while at the same time trying to find ways of supressing others who do not agree with their way of thinking. These people believe in the Ten Commandments, yet make a point of not loving their neighbors, especially if their neighbor has brown skin or doesn't worship in the proper Church. They have fear put into them and are more than happy to spread that fear to anyone else in their vicinity.

The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

I regularly listen to a segment of a radio show here in Dallas called "The Backside of American History", written and performed by Ed Wallace, as part of his Saturday morning automotive showcase. Ed had a couple of shows where he talked about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas back in the 1920s. To a degree it was chilling, in terms of the parallels with today's tea party influenced version of Republican Politics. The threats, the violence, the disdain for the press - all there, then. The most chilling aspect of Ed Wallace's radio essay was his telling of two of the things each new inductee into the Klan recieved; a copy of the Ten Commandments and a copy of the Constitution.

Please understand. I have nothing against being conservative, and I am not against the Church. But I am against using violence, using fear or using misinformation to gain a political end. My only wish is that there would be more Leo Eddys and more Dave Hobsons in the Republican Party than the Glenn Becks and the Sarah Palins which seem to be running the show nowadays.

In the meantime, I guess I'll be a modern-day Diogenes, searching with my lamp for an honest Republican.

Be Seeing You!