But It Is Personal…

Nothing Personal

I don’t remember where I first heard it, but one of the first pieces of political advice I remember receiving is the advice not to “take it personally” when we have political disagreements. For a long time, this seemed like sensible advice to me.

I am not, by nature, a political person.  Instead, I am the kind of person who’s happy locked in a closet with a computer, a pot of coffee and a problem to solve.  Let me do my thing and you do yours.  I prefer to keep my opinions to myself.  In fact, I have friends and family who probably still don’t know that I work with the Tenth Amendment Center.  I am simply not comfortable telling people what to think or how to act, no matter how strong my own convictions might be.

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My youthful political opinions were formed by the ’70s and the ’80s.  I barely remember Nixon’s resignation and most of my early childhood memories seem to be from Carter’s presidency.  During that time, I remember frequent worry about my parents’ job security, the misery index, high gas prices, and losing electric power at home due to unaffordable electric bills.  My adolescent memories of the Reagan era don’t include any such difficulties.  These memories of the ’70s and ’80s evolved into my ’90s political opinion, which was basically that Democrats bring hardship and Republicans bring prosperity.  I was content with this set of beliefs until 2004.  I’d habitually vote for the Republican and didn’t think it remarkable that others would routinely vote for Democrats.  After all, everyone has the right to their own opinion, right?

This started to change during the 2004 presidential election.  I was exchanging e-mails with a friend about the election and she asked me why I would vote for President Bush again.  Rather than answer that question, I told her about all the problems that would arise if John Kerry and the Democrats were elected.  Her response jarred me.  She said something like, “That’s funny.  That’s how I think about Republicans”.  The response jolted me because I suddenly had an inkling that she was right.  As we learned after 2006 and 2008, I wasn’t wrong about the problems that the Democrats would bring (The Intolerable Act of 2010, Patriot Act Renewals, TSA abuses, Stimulus, QE-1, QE-2,…), but neither was she wrong about the Republicans (No Child Left Behind, Patriot Act, Medicare Part-D, TARP, …).

The next step in my political evolution was when I read the “Wegman Report”.  As I noted in the opening paragraph, give me a computer, a pot of coffee and a problem to solve and I’ll forget to eat or sleep.  Climate “science” research is heavily loaded with math and computers.  This is right up my alley.  Until the Wegman report, however, I hadn’t paid it much attention.  I’d merely believed what I was spoon-fed by Scientific American and the legacy-media.  When I read the Wegman report, however, I discovered that what they’d been spoon feeding me was suspect, so I began researching it.  What I found from my own research led me to believe that although a mild amount of warming does seem to have happened, the claim that it’s mostly caused by CO2 and likely to be catastrophic in nature is more like mythology then science.  Not only did I learn that “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming” is more dogma than reason, but I also learned that the people pushing the myth were not just wrong, but dishonest.  The only conclusion I can reach is that they are promoting the myth in order to gain power.  With this insight, I became mistrustful of the ostensible altruism that drives much of both parties’ “progressive agenda”.

The final nail in the coffin for my political apathy came some time around 2006, when I spent a week-end reading How Would a Patriot Act, by Glenn Greenwald and The Constitution in Exile, by Judge Napolitano.  Greenwald’s book didn’t do much for me, but Napolitano’s really started the alarm bells ringing.  Until then, I was unfamiliar with Wickard v. Filburn (and Pennsylvania’s own Blattner v. U.S.).  Until then, I was unaware that our federal government had been on a pro-growth diet since it’s very inception.  If allowed to continue without limits, this federal growth can only lead to tyranny and nowhere else.  I realized that in my entire lifetime, there have not been any limits to the leviathan’s growth.

Now, instead of believing that Republicans bring prosperity and Democrats bring hardship, I believe three things.   First, Freedom, individual prosperity and social welfare all thrive together;  Second, so do tyranny,  poverty and misery.  Third, I believe that by the time they find their way to Washington DC, neither Republicans nor Democrats can be trusted to be friends of Liberty.

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And this brings us to why, like it or not, our political differences are personal.   I have a nine year old son.  Surveying the loss of freedom during the course of my own life, I shudder to think of the chains that our apathetic citizenry will allow to be draped across his back over the coming decades.  The TSA is already strip-searching us and groping us in airports and getting ready to do the same in bus stations, train stations and shopping malls.   According to usdebtclock.org, my son’s current share of the national debt is $46,000 and his share of unfunded liabilities is over $370,000!  Washington, DC, is turning our children into indentured servants.  If these things are not personal, then what things are?

It’s personal for another reason, too.  The legacy media and progressive activists love to lecture us about “civility” while at the same time using words like, “tea bagger”, “racist” and “extremist”.  Only a week ago, a friend was telling me about his support for the “moderate” President Obama and how he disdains extremism (by which, he meant people with beliefs like mine).  These words are chosen because they are personal, and because the people who use them know that most of us have been taught not to take it personally.  They know that these words will guilt us into silence because we know that we shouldn’t “take it personally”, and that rather than confront, we will shut up.

So from now on, when I hear words like “tea bagger”, “racist” or “extremist” used against someone merely for dissenting, I will not be silent.  A personal attack merits an indignant response.  When someone endeavors to throw chains on my son’s back, I will do everything in my power to keep them off.  Now, when I think the words to myself, “Don’t take it personally”, they are usually followed, shortly, by the thought “But it is personal”.  I will pay personal attention to the people who endeavor to ensnare my son in the chains of tyranny, poverty and misery.  The Tenth Amendment and I will stand jealous and vigilant on guard against them.

Steve Palmer is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 9th, 2011 at 8:14 pm. It is filed under Articles, Opinion and tagged with Liberty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.