The Kel Word: Red State, Blue State, We Love, You Hate

I get around, geographically speaking. I've lived in all four continental time zones and I've been to 47 of the 48 contiguous states. After this latest trip across the country, only South Dakota eludes me. And yet, I still don't understand why we are so divided as a nation. Red states, blue states, conservatives, liberals, bigots, elitists... it's all so silly; and it's all so dangerous.

The vituperative rhetoric that we have endured throughout our history has so often ended in violence on both small and large scales. And it has largely --- it seems to me --- been one-sided, as evidenced in the murders of civil rights activists, abortion providers, presidents, and minorities, not to mention the numerous global genocides of innocent people. All of these groups have been on the right side of history and on the left side of politics. Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't think of any glaring examples of a progressive-gone-mad.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed for preaching love and equality; Pastor Fred Phelps was not for spewing vitriol and venom. Dr. George Tiller, President John Kennedy, Matthew Shepard, James Byrd, Jr. and so many more were all slain by hateful hands. The body count is too high for a civilized society.

And, why? Where's the sense in all of this? Why do the right-wing leaders continue to feed this rapacious monster of hate?

Professor George Lakoff has posited a theory about the difference between liberals and conservatives that frames things in the most understandable way I've thus far seen. He says that people on the right, when it comes to issues of governance and citizenry, adhere to a “strict father model,” a boot-strap and discipline sort of parenting style to whip their children into shape and then get out of the way. Lefties follow the “nurturant parent model” that is more akin to the mother or father who tries to protect their kids from corrupting influences like social injustice and poverty. Add in the religious fundamentalism that is far more prevalent on the right (and which often leads to zealotry) and you have a recipe for disaster.

What those zealots fail to recognize is that the principles they espouse as being all-American are, in actuality, the principles which our founding fathers (and mothers) came here to escape... religious and political persecution among them. They altogether miss the point of so many truly American ideals such as equality for all, separation of church and state, balance of powers, and freedoms of all kinds.

Other than that whole Native American massacre thing, our founding fathers were pretty smart for old, straight, white guys. If only their contemporary counter-parts could rise to their example.