What I Want to Write to the Paper

But it's over 300 words, and I refuse to cut it.

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Liberals, conservatives, and moderates. The three grand placeholders. Support one, tolerate another, villainize the rest. This has been the pattern of the letters [to the Leaf-Chronicle] in the past few days. I'm speaking as someone that doesn't fit any of those labels fully, and I know that doesn't mean I can't be criticized either.

I'm addressing the charges that liberals think they know what is best and that liberals are racist.
First, don't many people think they know what is best on both sides of that worn-out aisle? Presidents from Washington to Bush have signed legislation and vetoed it based on them assuming they "know what is best." How could someone propose to stand against homosexual marriage or sexual education unless they assumed that they knew what was best for those couples who choose to make either choice? How could someone possibly stand for surveillance and wiretapping unless they believe they know better what privacy rights are worth than the people who have those rights taken away?

Second, and more controversially, most people are racist. It isn't a white-only problem, but it's as much theirs as anyone else's. Most of us consciously try to not be racist or try to ignore racism with our silence on the subject, but it shows up. That examples of liberal racism come up does not make the ingrained examples of conservative racism go away. Nor does it excuse our day-to-day judgments and assessments based on race. Racial profiling? Done, even though it's a terrible way for a police force to function. Surveillance? Second-generation non-white citizens already have many of their rights against surveillance taken away by the Patriot Act. It's fine because our safety is secured, right? Even if it's at the expense of others' freedoms?

I find it amusing that conservatives like to make that charge, that the Republican party is not racist because they stood up for African-Americans 140 years ago. Truth is, when Reconstruction ended in the South, even though the Republican party held political control of the country, their leadership kept silent on the issue. A blemish on both parties' records then, one that President Truman's integration of the military and President Eisenhower's enforcement of integration into Little Rock's schools sought to correct after over 70 years of injustice. Echoes of such policies remain in socioeconomic data and personal experiences today.

So stop with bashing different groups with this "I caught you!" mentality. Let's stop with those attempts to wittily put down the other group. (I know why you say "Barack Hussein Obama" or "John McCrazy." It's not funny. It's depraved.) Let's discuss important issues with one another, and give more in answer than the token, "Because I/random pundit/God think it's right." I want solutions, not self-infatuation.

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... these letters give me a good heaping of "piss me off" at 8 AM. I've written about that before. But there was this recent rash of "Look here! Liberals!"

I don't consider myself a liberal. Not really. If we were to use that word to describe me, it would be extremely true for social issues. (Either homosexuals should be allowed to marry or government regulation of marriage should cease; abortion should be allowed but not encouraged, and compassion should be given to a woman no matter what choice she makes; sexual education is good for both encouraging abstinence and telling people how to take care of themselves should they have sex both within and outside of marriages; sacrificing a little liberty for a little security is a bad move; regulate immigration, but don't block it; sexism and racism are bad and things should be done about them; education for the win.)

On the other hand, I tend toward conservatism for economic issues. (We should be reducing gov't spending to balance the budget, so slash farm and industry subsidies; free trade agreements are good, with some given for retraining to those that lose their jobs as a result; why are you dropping interest rates and increasing spending with your stimulus package, even though your recommendation to all other nations going through such troubles is to decrease spending, as enforced by the World Bank and the IMF?; we should never enter into a war without a complete plan for how much we're willing to spend on it; reform Medicare and Social Security, and stop waffling on the subject.)

And on yet another hand, I don't know where I fit with some issues. (Foreign policy should be "common sense," that is, diplomatic solutions and not military threats in all cases but genocide and the use of military force; take care of the environment, and be open to suggestions about ways to reduce energy dependency (biofuels aren't necessarily the answer, nor is hydrogen, nor is nuclear, nor is reorganizing ourselves into a less travel-cumbersome nation, even if I like some of those suggestions); don't regulate our internet.)

There's more than that. But I haven't found a candidate that fits these really well. I'm too liberal on the one hand, a shade too conservative on the other. But thinking through the "liberal/conservative" spats makes my head spin. I don't say conservative as a dirty word (though I often sigh afterward). How can they do so with liberal (though I often sigh afterward)? Because I know what they're most fired up about are issues that I happen to disagree with them with. Which means that I'm a dirty word. And I don't want to be a dirty word.

I just want the letters section of the paper to be better than a YouTube comment page, or a facebook group message board. That's all. If people were pulling off the wit that thoughtful people 300 years ago could pull off (Jonathan Swift? Alexander Pope? Aphra Behn?), I would be pleasantly surprised. But there were fops then, there are fops today, and the good wits aren't writing into the Leaf-Chronicle.

And, on a more personal note, I find "John McCrazy" funny as a name, even though I like McCain and don't call him that, and wouldn't do so to discredit him.