Christopher Bell is a television, film and new media productiongraduate.Send comments to: daletter@mail.sdsu.edu
I’m going to attempt to get through this entire column todaywithout using the word “jackass.” Believe me, it’s going to be adifficult task.
It amazes me when people throw the word “liberal” at me, as thoughI’m supposed to take that as an insult. I think it’s hilarious,especially when anyone who has ever read anything I’ve written knowsthat I advocate a complete dissolution of the entire U.S. politicalsystem and the construction of a new system in its place. Evenfirst-year political science classes should be teaching that peoplelike me are usually referred to as “radicals,” not “liberals.” Thedifference is subtle, but distinct.
Then again, when I read the occasional ramblings (and that’s thekindest word I could think of) of Kevin R. Haughn (“Passing throughliberal schools,” Dec. 7, The Daily Aztec), it makes me wonder if thepolitical science department is teaching anyone anything at all.
Let’s carefully examine this latest diatribe. Mr. Haughn railsagainst the public education system for a variety of reasons. He wastaught in health education that gay people exist, and should be leftalone to make their own choices. Perish the thought.
He should have been taught that being gay is an abhoration, eventhough several other species on this planet, including dolphins,regularly practice homosexuality, and that gay people are freaks.Much more in line with conservative thought.
Yes, and while they were at it, they should have been teachingthat the fossil record of three hundred million years is “theory,”because bones aren’t a physical, tangible evidence of geneticprogression in his biology class.
Filling in a bubble to state one’s ethnicity on a standardizedtest is racist, but the tests themselves are peachy keen. We shouldhave been pledging allegiance to the flag instead of being taughtthat one of your rights under that flag is the right not to be forcedto pledge allegiance to it.
Unions are bad because they force equity where there is none, andReagan was a saint, although more people lived under the poverty linein this country during his administration than under any otherpresident in history, including during the Great Depression.
His family taught him that affirmative action was bad, although itprovided millions of people with equitable hiring, and that murderingmurderers is a fine way to solve a problem, and not at allhypocritical.
And, oh my goodness, would you look at that? He was taught thatthe Second Amendment, the conservative rallying point, is thegreatest right “Americans” could possibly have.
Well, isn’t that special? Except that it’s not.
The Second Amendment reads, word for word, “A well-regulatedMilitia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the rightof the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Conservatives often conveniently leave off that first part. Guesswhat, though? We have a well regulated militia. It’s called “TheNational Guard.” By the letter of the law, written in theConstitution, one should have to be enrolled as a member of theNational Guard to own a gun.
But, of course, that means that Mr. Smith down the street can’tpurchase a semi-automatic assault rifle to shoot squirrels in hisback yard, so let’s leave off that cumbersome Constitutionalitything. It’s inconvenient.
This is the problem with 99 percent of conservative arguments.They are arguments of convenience. But that’s not the way the worldworks.
The world is dirty, people suffer and unchecked capitalism breedsinjustice. The world is an inconvenient place, but anything thatreminds the “haves” that there are “have-nots” is deemed “liberal”and swept away in a sea of illogical thought and arguments ofconvenience.
Conservatives can go out, buy their “Hooked on Ebonics” bumperstickers, and ignore the real world problems behind every issue. Youwon’t find many poverty-stricken conservatives, becauseconservativism needs a very high horse to look down from.
The funny part about this is that most conservatives, as KevinHaughn clearly stated himself, honestly believe they are “thinkingfor themselves.”
Well, if thinking for myself means that my mind has been poisonedby fear of everything different from me, be it homosexuals, differentraces or the poor, that I have been taught that everything concernedwith the well-being of the public is bad, and that I have beenbrainwashed to believe that humans have the preordained right todestroy the planet and everything on it to line their pockets with aproduct that conceptually did not exist even 1500 years ago, then byall means, please, let me not “think for myself.”
That’s a brand of enlightenment I can do without.
This column is the opinion of the columnist and not The DailyAztec.
