Scapegoat

We’ve all heard it said before at one time or another, “this or that is the new something”. Like, “Pink is the new black” or “60 is the new 40”. You know what I’m saying. Heck, you’ve probably even said it yourself. It’s a simple way of transposing one idea or standard with another to create a new one with a slight twist. I’m going to create one now to suit my own personal style. “47 is the new 18”. I figure this should absolve me of acting like a grownup too often while leaving me free to listen to Lynard Skynard at ear splitting volumes whilst I drive around town.

It’s been said countless times and sometimes the comparisons are agreeable but too often, they just seem silly. Pink is not the new black no matter how you look at it. Would men react so positively to a “little pink dress”? Probably not. Can you imagine police cars being called “pink and whites”? I certainly can’t and it’s ridiculous to think anyone else would find it reasonable. Although I suspect it would probably go over quite well somewhere in California.

As a way to provide perspective to this piece let me state clearly that I watch, read and listen to a lot of news. I gobble up as much as I can partly to be well informed and partly due to my fascination with all things “homo sapiens“. People are the most interesting yet puzzling creatures on the planet and I never tire of learning about them. The world truly is a wondrous place because humans are in it. They never cease to amaze me for their great leaps of intelligence, their unyielding commitment to each other and sadly, the depravity they are able to sink to. That depravity is what grounds me and reminds me all too often that we are, after all, just another species of animal. Capable of choosing our own path, in most cases, and also capable of such destructive evil on both a personal and a global level.

The old maxim used to be “Sex sells.” but over the years it seems that it’s been changed to “Death sells.” The one defining characteristic of being human seems to be our never ending ability to visit horror on our fellow humans. Great leaders throughout history have risen to power riding a tide of human suffering and bathed in blood. Ghengis Khan, Torquemada, Mao, Guevara, Stalin and of course, everyone’s favorite demon in human form - Adolph Hitler.

I hold Hitler to be far worse than almost any other purveyor of human suffering in that he convinced his fellow countrymen, or at least most of them, that an entire religion was the single source for all his country’s, and the world’s, ills. The startling reality was that he did this in modern times when news outlets and cameras were readily available to document his atrocities. The mere word “jewish” became synonymous with suffering even to a people who had known thousands of years of it. Even in recent times, Jews are mocked openly, denigrated by millions of people across the globe and treated as less than human by the vast majority of Muslims. Once again, they are held up as everything that is wrong with the world today.

It’s at this point you’re probably wondering why I broke into a lesson on history that you already knew. I’m going to draw a comparison that some of you might cringe at and still others will decry as paranoia and utter stupidity but I’m going to make it anyway.

“Conservative is the new Jewish.”

There. Let that sink in for a moment. Do you feel that vein in your temple beginning to throb? I’ll bet you’re already thinking of the counter argument but let me state categorically that I in no way intend to downplay the suffering or the brutality visited upon the Jewish people nor do I seek to infer that being conservative means they round you up and send you to the gas chamber. Not yet anyway.

I suppose I could say just as easily;

“Conservative is the new AIDS” or
“Conservative is the new ‘negro’”

“Conservative is the new whatever we don’t like and want to get rid of these days.”

It’s dirty word these days no matter how you say it. Not to those practitioners of conservatism like myself but to practically all the media and the rest of the country we are held up as all that is wrong with the modern life. Our individuals and groups are thought of as stupid, dangerous and less than human. We are openly mocked night after night on radio, TV and movies. Our male leaders are called stupid and our female leaders are held up as objects to be sexually denigrated by respectable journalists, celebrities and leaders in government.

“If we could only shut them up, we’d all be better off.”

Or as Dan Savage, liberal radio host and outspoken gay activist said recently, “I wish they were all f*cking dead.” He also said on Bill Maher’s HBO show, Real Time, that he wanted to have violent “hate sex” with Conservative presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum. And not a single peep from the arbiters of tolerance on the left.

We are cast as a plague on humanity. Not only is it perfectly acceptable to say horrible things about us, it is encouraged by no less than the President Of The United States. According to him, we are “bitterly clinging to our guns and religion” and we are cast as “the enemy” to be punished. He openly mocks and seeks to isolate the only news network where conservatives can go to hear their viewpoints expressed as something other than fantasy and hysteria.

It’s trendy and chic to hate conservatives in the swankier restaurants in New York City. It’s a sign of higher intelligence to think we are just a bunch of gun-toting crazies who want to kill everyone who doesn’t look like us. It’s true enlightenment to be tolerant of every kind of societal depravity known to man but not to conservative opinion. Tolerance these days has come to mean being tolerant to those who hate conservatives.

Imagine for a moment that Rush Limbaugh had wished every Liberal dead. Or that he fantasized about violent hate sex with Nancy Pelosi, scary as that might sound. Rush takes enormous heat by saying things that are one-one thousandth as harsh and Dan Savage gets a free pass because he said it about a conservative. That’s ok. Bill Maher can call Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman “milfs” because he said it about conservatives so it’s ok. Olbermann, Schultz and Matthews can call us “tea baggers” as frequently as possible because it’s only being said about conservatives. It’s ok. Obama can call us “the enemy” and get away with it because he’s talking about conservatives. It’s ok.

At what point does shutting us up become ok? When does it become ok to shut down our media sources and deny us free speech? Are we almost to the point when it’s ok to make us wear something that identifies us as conservative? Like a big red “C” sewn into our clothing maybe?

Atrocity starts with a whisper but always ends with a scream. It starts with one group finally deciding they’ve had enough of some other group. It starts with something simple that’s done for the good of a nation but ends with people being rounded up.

Go now and read some of Goebel’s or Gehring’s speeches and substitute the word “jewish” with the word “conservative” and tell me how you feel afterwards.