Report from the front

A handful of observations after my four-day foray into those Bush-colored bastions (which, despite one previous reader's protestations, included points South of the Mason-Dixon Line as well as the Buckeye State) just a few hundred miles from the "Godless" Northeast:

First, there are a lot of genuinely nice Conservatives out there, including members of my own extended family (yes, it's true). People who want to believe in their President, but don't necessarily think he's on the right course with his global or domestic adventures. People who privately abhor Roe v. Wade, but don't necessarily believe that American women should be legislatively deprived of their right to choose or other reproductive options. People who are devoutly religious, but interpret the message of that faith as one of compassion and acceptance, not as an excuse for marginalization and condemnation.

But there is another breed of Conservative that walks the land which, unfortunately, is overly-represented by the strident voices of the far Right that dominate our current government's thinking and direction. People with Confederate flags mounted proudly on their cars' rear windows, and Club Gitmo T-shirts mounted snugly on their supersized frames. People with bumper stickers reading "Support the NRA - Shoot a Liberal", and front yard signs that shout "AIDS is God's Answer to Gays". People whose menacing demeanor doesn't invite debate, but instead promises an ass-whuppin'. People who unabashedly, repeatedly, and unapologetically fixed withering stares on my long hair and multi-racial family.

And what I want to know is - why are the former in this country not more vigorously critical of the latter?

To me, this dynamic symbolizes the fundamental difference between the philosophies of Liberals and Conservatives in our "post-Gingrich" America. While those of us that lean to the Left have our share of bad apples (see: McGreevy, ex-governor of the Garden State, for example), we have a history of being critical of our own when foul things are afoot, and of striving to make things better even when that means crossing party lines. We'd prefer that the citizens of the world agree with our side of the coin, but we don't want to impose that way of thinking through Constitutional tampering or military bluster. We may disagree with our Conservative brethren, but we don't threaten them with patently false hate-speech like "traitor" and "Satanist" and "aiding the terrorists".

On the flip side, however, even those aforementioned "nice" Republicans seem to have an inexplicable inability to decry the excesses and blunders of their own. They are strangely silent even when evidence is overwhelming, instead drawing tightly into a defensive (or worse, belligerent) crouch, and rejecting even fair criticisms as "unpatriotic". They wear flag pins and genuinely espouse democracy and freedom, yet simultaneously go along with those of their Party stripe who want to legislate morality and allow government intrusion into the most private areas of our lives. They acquiesce to the thinly disguised fascism of Conservative extremists, and in doing so lend their tacit support to policies that threaten their American freedoms as well.

It's this trait that infuriates and baffles me most about the Right-leaning masses that kept Mr. Bush and his minions in power. It wasn't always so. In fact it was Republicans that were largely responsible for investigating and, ultimately, punishing the sins of President Nixon, because... well, because it was the right thing to do for the good of the nation.

But as we've witnessed in this country for too many years now, from Gingrich to Starr to Bush to Frist to DeLay, Conservatives have become a monolith, a collective hive of automatons who blindly follow their leaders for fear of breaking ranks, a group whose real talent seems to be spin and excuse-making instead of honest, objective, common-sense problem solving. Wrong is wrong, and not everything is some fabricated Liberal plot to bring down "the righteous disciples of The Hammer". And that's what I just don't understand.

I know my Conservative relatives don't agree with those fag-hatin', gun-totin', Jefferson Davis-lovin' members of the Grand Ol' Party. But they're not speaking out loudly enough against the obvious mistakes, criminal behavior, and downright dangerous plans of the zealots that have hijacked their Republican mantle. The blatant excesses of our most powerful "leaders" are there for everyone to clearly see, and are a homegrown form of terror against the very essence of what it means to be an American. In their silence, well-meaning Republicans are doing nothing more than harboring these domestic terrorists.

And in the familiar words of their figurehead, George the Younger, that leaves no visible difference between the two.