We Will Never Change Them

Polls suggest that Americans on the whole like the president. They just don’t like his policies. Why, then, do we really want to win in November? Answer: To send a message; to get Obama to change direction; to change his heart and mind. It’s the same reason we stayed in Iraq as long as we did. It’s the same reason we are in Afghanistan.

We need to accept the fact that there will always be enemies who want to hurt us. The extent to which racism exists within our own country must be acknowledged and dealt with reasonably. Ditto, anti-capitalism; anti-Americanism; poverty; ignorance; liberalism. All these reflect a minority view or condition. In a free society, this will never go away entirely. We are not obliged, however, to elect groups with such fringe concerns to high office and hope they will be satisfied and leave us alone.

They will continue to make noise and that noise (along with our own noise) is protected by our Constitution. The problem is, their noise is amplified by the media. It makes it seem that there are more of them than there are of us. Not true. We (the majority) own the country and it has worked tolerably well for us. No reason to change course now and become socialist, communist, Marxist or Islamic.

We have to accept that we will never change them. Trying to do so, will inevitably enrage them even more. But we need not play second fiddle to them either. We need not read their newspapers, buy their books or watch their films. We need not patronize their pundits. We can marginalize them just as they marginalize us. At the same time, we need not apologize for our own. We need not say ‘over the top’ to something that’s precisely on point.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/