Right wing, left wing - soon you've got the whole chicken...

At lunch today I ventured out of my usual routine of listening to NPR and found Rush Limbaugh's show on AM radio. We're within two weeks of the Presidential election so I was curious as to what Mr. Limbaugh was touting at this critical juncture. Now, I admit, that I know very little of Rush - his brand of talking head isn't all that appealing to me - regardless of content. But after about 15 minutes, I had enough.

I can't tell you how many references to "liberalism" and how he was so appalled at those that venture anywhere past the far right of the political scale. In his show today, he even admitted to not owning a pair of bluejeans because of the liberals that wore them in the 1960's. He also went on to run clips of McCain speaking a rallies and how Obama has some hidden ultra liberal agenda - drawing this conclusion from Obama's alleged connections to extreme left wing political activists.

I guess I'm curious - what is truly a "liberal"? Is that someone who is anywhere to the left of Mr. Limbaugh's position? That would pretty much mean everyone since he's almost solely occupying that far right wing spot. So in that view, Reagan and McCain are liberals - hell Reagan must be a hippy because of his Hollywood background and Christ he even comes from California!

What gets me is that there is obviously a constituency of people who faithfully listen to this blowhard or the station wouldn't pay for the broadcasting rights. Which means, out there among us, there are enough people who actually believe the slogan "Rush is Right" for his show's advertising and revel in Limbaugh's haughtiness. Those that cheer him on in and somehow believe that the real morality in America is carried solely by the extreme right wing believers of America.

And maybe Idaho is just that perfect spot for this type of isolationism of thought. We're predominately white families isolated from almost all other types of influences. Where most of the rural population believes that the City of Boise is the liberal urban spot in the state. Some perspective! That McCain has a near 40% lead in the polls here over Obama says quite a bit about what people think here. And even when the nation's approval rating of Bush hovered under 40%, Idahoans still think that President Bush was doing such a bang-up job and held him around 80% approval rating. Shows a lot about what most people think around here.

And for those who may have a different opinion of what constitutes morality are automatically the enemy at the gates and the ultra right wing conspirators dream up new fantasies of the Democrats somehow brainwashing the masses and letting the people do the unthinkable - that is to actually think for themselves.

I heard a pastor speak once about how morality in America was being transformed into the ugliness of sin. In that his example was the liberal thinkers place such an outrageous thought out there that no one will accept it (the liberals knowingly do this) and then the conservatives and the liberals meet somewhere in the middle. His thought was this method when approached in sequence, eventually gets the people to think that the one time outrageous idea was somehow not all that bad and given enough time, that outrageous idea now became the known reality.

His reference was the degradation of American values and morals, and in some ways I do agree with this - especially for the quality of children and teens television programming - but as a whole, that is how progress is made. It is the evolutionary soul of our human adventure.

If liberals are dreamers who dare to think of a different light on things, then yes, I am one - through and through. Do I think that morality in America is somehow compromised? No. In fact, I believe that we should move away from the isolationist view point that most conservative people seem to hang onto so tightly and learn to work together so that we can protect a reasonable future for our families and children.

That means there are current business opportunities that will have to be heavily regulated and/or eliminated because they trend toward unproductive uses of our resources and/or destroy our air and planet. That means we can tend to the actual people who live in America and not continue to segregate our citizens because they do something different than from the typical religiously backed white perspective. I just don't understand what the religious right is so afraid of. As long as we all have the constitution to fall back on and our bill of rights for the freedom of religion and freedom of speech are protected, what "morality" is being forced upon anyone at anytime?'

And if the far right are such die-hard capitalists, shouldn't they have their own say in what they'd like to consume in entertainment (or otherwise) when they can use their own dollars as their votes? What's the big deal?

But if that purpose of cause comes to force others who may not see it their way into some type of conformity for the purposes of religious morals, then what is the difference between that line of thought at extreme Muslim behaviors? It's intolerance and fascism at it's best and that, my friends, is a quest to squelch freedom. That isn't very American to me.