ASHLAND, Oregon — Intellectually, I know that bees are
dangerous, busy, determined, single-minded little creatures, but it
is only when one of them regards my soft, pink (in my case) flesh
as an enemy to it and by extension, all the other brother and
sister bees, and plants its painful hot stinger therein that I
understand on a visceral level the stupefying depths of their
dangerous, busy, determined single-mindedness. A parallel can be
drawn to my intellectual and visceral understandings of the loony
left. I submit the following true and cautionary anecdote.
In October of last year my wife and two daughters attended a
George Bush rally in nearby Medford, Oregon. Twelve thousand people
attended, making it the largest single gathering in the history of
southern Oregon. Having provided a few hours of get-out-the-vote
phone calls for the Republican Party, they finagled special tickets
and were lucky to stand ten feet in front of the great man. (Their
only disappointment was being shoved aside a big fellow as they
were about to shake the President’s hand.) My wife swears it was
every bit as exciting as when she watched the Beatles perform in
Kansas City from a distance of 387 feet.
Don’t even think you can begin to imagine the impact seeing
President Bush had on my 11-year-old daughter, Texel (pronounced
Teshel). Standing under the very shadow of the energetic, excited
leader of the free world while 12,000 exuberant supporters shouted
and cheered behind her effected a not-to-be-denied urge to MAKE A
STATEMENT. Specifically, she decided, without even bothering to
discuss it with her parents, to draw her line in the sand of the
local alternative school where she and other homeschoolers
(lockstep liberals for the most part) share a few classes during
the week.
Texel emerged from her bedroom that next morning festooned from
head to toe in Bush for President buttons, bumper stickers, hat,
and a hand-drawn sandwich board sign. She was locked and loaded,
ready for school, with an eager, innocently smiling face that makes
the young Shirley Temple’s wan and pallid by comparison. Yes,
Daddy’s Little Republican Rascal darn near broke my heart. You
should have seen her in tap dance class, her signage flapping
cheerily like the wings of freedom. Priceless.
She wore the stuff of her free speech bravely that day, proudly
taking the worst the lib kids could dish out (and they learned well
from their tolerant liberal parents), remaining as unaffected by
their taunts as George Bush is by Molly Ivins’. Texel had
fun poking President Bush in their noses. What a role
model she’d make for Republican Senators!
Now, a very liberal woman, who is also a family friend, happened
to see my daughter at the school. While she politely refrained from
foaming at the mouth in our presence, she went home and was
compelled to write an article drawing comparisons between my
daughter’s experience with the Bush Rally and hers. Turns out she
had been a protester in a group that found itself in the way of the
presidential motorcade after the event. Local cops wrinkled some
protesters’ clothes and, alas, let go a few rubber pellets in the
left leaning direction. Of course the local ACLU is suing for the
unparalleled trampling of civil rights.
Her article appeared in CommonGround.org, a far left site on the order
of MoveOn.org.
All well and good. Glad to know my Little Republican Rascal
wrinkled the faces of the far left. But here’s the nub. The other
day I learned that in response to her piece in Common Ground, the
author received over 600, count ‘em, six hundred, personal
emails!
Ouch. Let me brag for a moment and say that I’ve written 8 or 10
mighty fine pieces for this publication — mighty fine indeed —
and have received roughly but an equivalent amount of emails and
letters to the editor. My guess is that other contributors to
TAS normally have about the same results.
I’m not the least bothered my friend received 60 times the
response for her one article than I’ve received for all of my ten
(which, again, if I may say so, were top notch pieces, thank you
very much). More power to her.
Not that she needs more power. Hardly! She was well on her way
to individually responding to each and every email she
received when her address book was erased!
Out of compassion I have only one thing to say to the
over-active, obsessive loony left buzzing bees of the socialist
hive: GET A LIFE!!
Don’t liberals have anything else to do? Like, read a good book
or get a good night’s sleep now and then? Or maybe, just stop and
quietly think something through instead of being locked in chronic
knee-jerk reaction? Perhaps the Republican Party can sponsor a mass
market psychological counseling program for hard left Democrats and
cure them of their anal-obsessive (should that be hyphenated or
not? Hmm. I wonder) political behavior.
What is it about conservatives that inspires a lazy fare of
political involvement? Do you think George Washington bothered to
write Thank You Notes to the four or five guys who rowed his boat
across the Potomac so that he could save our country? No way. But
an 11-year-old Little Republican Rascal wears a few Bush-Cheney
signs and 600 (count ‘em, six hundred!!) liberals are up half the
night firing emails sharing their thoughts about it across the
country. Condoleezza Rice is up for the Senate vote for Secretary
of State, and the same 600 are probably firing off emails about
that, too. Bush holds a party or two for his Inauguration, and
they’re all firing emails. Like the Duracell Bunny and Michael
Moore, they just keep going, going, going.
Type, type, type, type, shout, shout, shout, shout, protest,
protest, protest, protest, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, whine, whine,
whine, whine.
Alas, I have learned firsthand that the fringe left is as
tireless as it is tiresome.
