Party of Hyperbole

There are some really stupid bumper stickers out there. Especially since I'm living in Portland, I get to see a lot of them.

My favorite Portlanders are the ones who have 10 different bumper stickers illustrating their insights into the evilness of our President (although apparently "he's not MY president"...er, theirs, I mean). These people tend to have their entire back window largely covered, preventing them, for example, from seeing that they are swerving their Volvo SUV into my lane just in time to cut me off. I tend to wonder, though, if their driving style is a result of their lack of vision or from their inflated aura of self-importance and wisdom...

Or maybe they somehow know that I'm conservative and therefore am not worthy of blocking their path to the next protest...(Some people go bar-hopping. Portlanders go Protest-Hopping).

Anyway, a bit ago I saw another copy of a pretty popular bumpersticker here in Portland that says:

"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

The concept illustrates, at least in my mind, a major problem with the American Left today. And it's something that has plagued them since their creation in the 1960's.

It seems to me that the Left today markets itself as the party taking a stand against the "Outrages" in our world. In the American Liberal framework, the world is faced with imminent doom from (in no particular order): nuclear holocaust, global warming, ozone destruction, rainforest depletion, melting icecaps, flatulating bovines, overfishing, nuclear energy, and overpopulation, just to name a few (though at least the first 8 would solve the last one, right?)

This is not to mention that before we all die from said calamities, we will become corporate media zombies, blithely grinning under our Glass Ceiling while we're lied to by the Inquisitional, racist, puritanical Nazi government, and exploited by Halliburton (the most omnipresent, horizontally monopolizing corporation in world history). This is all of course, as we put our starving, healthcare-less grandparents and their corner store out of business with purchases of plastic Wal-Mart blenders made with the last, struggling breath of a 5 year old Malaysian sweat-shop worker who was imprisoned thanks to Karl Rove's secret deal with an HMO.

[If you don't think this is an accurate portrayal, go here, here, and here]

What's the problem with this platform/worldview, you say? Yes, it does seem rather moderate, doesn't it. If by moderate you mean delusional.

Party of Hyperbole

It seems to me that American Liberals, who have come to dominate a once great Democratic Party, are the Party of Hyperbole.

The reason I think they continually lose elections is because the majority of people simply aren't outraged like Liberals. And it has nothing to do with them not paying attention.

I think most people, by and large, are pretty content with the world they live in. People assume that others are mostly like them: hard working, caring, imperfect individuals, trying to overcome occasional faults -- not the "spawns of Satan trying to poison the world and kill every last person in the name of an extra dollar or two" that Leftist would lead one to believe.

The Left can't gain any traction because, frankly, its exhausting to listen to someone who takes everything to fantastical heights. Is it any wonder that when faced between Chicken Little and a more optimistic figure like President Bush, the American people choose a Bush or a Reagan or a Kennedy, often in overwhelming numbers?

Now I don't mean to say that people don't think that we could or should do some things better in our world. Part of Americanism, it seems to me, is to admit our faults and strive to makes things better.

But most people don't see a burned out lightbulb and assume some perverse corporate plot by GE. Liberals do. As a people, we may recognize an area for improvement, but we don't assume malfeasance. Once again, it seems Liberals do.

That we --the general public -- don't is why we aren't continually outraged; it isn't rational to be "outraged" by every failing done in good faith that occurs in the world.

Even as a conservative who is leery of big government, I don't believe that government programs are an evil trying to crush us. I believe they are created in good faith to try and help. I just think that Government action tends to resemble a surgeon conducting heart surgery with a mallet.

At any rate, as long as Liberals travel down the Michael Moore/Noam Chomsky Highway, I don't think it's likely that they'll win any elections any time soon (or ever) if they present themselves honostly.

Policy-wise, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. Can you name anything that American Liberalism has done? Civil Rights? Nope. That was accomplished by a coalition of northern, mainstream (by today's standards) Democrats and Republicans. Environmentalism? Nope. Nixon, for example, created the EPA, and Bush has enacted some of the strictest air quality standards of any president. So can Liberals claim? Anything? Nothing comes to my mind [Feel free to email if you think of something, and if true I'll gladly post it. And just to preempt, keep in mind that early Liberals like Hubert Humphrey and those like him have very little in common with the modern Liberal movement.]

All that said, the Left's situation is not exactly a good thing, either. The tragedy is that Liberals are dragging the Democratic Party down with them. And America is at its best when it has two strong, competing parties.

It seems all we can hope for is that Liberalism will falter and die before it drags the Democratic Party so low that it can't recover. Until that happens, we'll get more comments from Robert Byrd explaining on the floor of the Senate how Republicans are Nazis, more platitudes about "Halliburton!" at DNC luncheons, more moans of Howard Dean on how he "hates Republicans and everything they stand for," and more 'documentaries' on how Republicans cheer and enable mass murder.

A smart businessman, I do believe, would get into the bumper-sticker making business...