Sad fathers day lament. -It sux to be you grantcart

[Tucker]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8600341

grantcart  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Jun-20-10 07:13 PM
Original message
I'm Sorry Dad   Updated at 7:16 PM
   
We're riding in a run down part of Spokane, the city which originated Father's Day, and passing in under the railroad tress les and down the street from the library my father sees something and abruptly pulls the car to the side of the curb.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, was as great in our house as a Saturday going on errands with Dad. It was a momentary relief from the ice storm from the Matriarchal regime that held absolute control of operation sterility at home.

The run to the hardware store usually ended up with a run to his office and a couple hours later we were sharing milkshakes at Zip's Drive In.

"Stay in the car" was the command but as my dad went over to the sidewalk my 9 year old brain would have none of it and I was just a few steps behind when he arrived at the body of what we called in those days "bums" and he used his han kerchief to stop the bleeding from his head. I was too young to try and figure out if he had been hit on the head in a fight or fell down because of the alcohol. "Go to the corner, go into the library and tell them to call the police and an ambulance, a man is hurt".

Always kind he was the ultimate compassionate conservative. I would accompany him while he would go to Kiwanis or who ever he could book so that he could run a film about the medical ship Hope that would go around to poor countries and give free medical care.

A decade latter the upheaval of the 60's prevented the normal pattern of rebellion and reconciliation as the battle lines were drawn deep, very deep. My announcement in High School that I was against the Vietnam war and was going to resist any draft was met with laughter. The normal chasm was instead the Grand Canyon like it was for millions of families.

I don't know which embarrassed them more; my being denounced as a communist by the Chairman of the County Republican Party (its amazing how much attention one can get from the floor when you know more about Robert's Rules of Order than the Chair and want to introduce an anti war resolution at a county convention) or the surprisingly strong response that the anti war sermon given during "Youth Sunday" provoked.

Eventually it came to a head. "Better Red than Dead". Now you don't go undefeated in debate for 2 years and not see a polemical lay up like that. Like Gen. Grant's line at Appomattox I extended your front and outflanked your argument. "Since you also believe that my support of universal health care like they have in Canada is also communistic does that mean that you think that by extension that I am now 'red' and deserved to be dead'?

We never really talked much after that. We were polite but we both knew that it was going to take time. You weren't going to support me and I was willing to take your words and turn them into weapons against you, a skill that I had perfected.

You would ask about my campus "activities" and I would tell you what we had scheduled. I was puzzled when one of the Board of Directors, who was your patient, told me that you told him "I don't agree with him but I am proud that he is speaking his conscious".

I dropped by the City club a couple of times to play hand ball and it was clear that you were getting into really good shape. You seemed energized, running, losing weight and taking scuba lessons. It was in November when they called me out of my dorm. In early November, in the freezing water of Puget Sound you went to take your scuba certification test. And in those cold waters your heart was doubly stressed and gave out, which was a great irony because you had the heart of a giant. At the funeral thousands came, and if the folks down at skid row had known it was you there would have been more. You worked at the mission and I know that wasn't the only guy on a street that you stopped to help.

For a long time I considered our relationship and the inevitable reconciliation that would have occurred as one of those uncounted casualties of the Vietnam War.

It wasn't until Glen Beck surfaced that I realized that it wasn't the Vietnam War that had done the damage but the poison that peddlers of fear and political hatred sell. Yes even great guys with the hearts of giants can come under their influence. Before Glenn Beck there as Cleon Skousen. Skousen was a house guest one day. We have all of his books with warm inscriptions. Glenn Beck considers Skousen's epistles of hate and fear as being "divinely inspired" and the most influential force in changing his life.

I know there are a lot of good guys like you who now today are scared and worried and looking for simple equations that have bought into the hate of Beck and his colleagues. When I meet a "teabagger" at a Denny's I try and find a conncection. Yes those debating skills are now being used for a 'higher purpose'. I try to find every opportunity to face down those that peddle Beckian fear and hatred.

I am sorry that it interrupted us. That we never had a chance to live pass the war and reconcile makes me wonder where we would have ended up. I know that you would have approved of working for refugees because I learned that lesson from you when I was nine years old.

In my heart I believe that if you were alive today you also would approve of fighting ceaselessly against the peddlers of political hate like Beck that cost us so much. I like to think that we would be doing it together.

You will never find the happiness you seek.

lunatica  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Jun-20-10 07:41 PM
Response to Original message
7. I'm glad you're saying all this to your father
   
Because if he were alive I believe he would hear you and you would be friends this minute.

His father would bitch slap him like the communist punk that he is.

The Wizard  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Jun-20-10 08:20 PM
Response to Original message
16. Somewhere your Dad is smiling
   
And Beck and his ilk get paid big money to propagandize and turn Americans, even fathers and sons, and siblings against one another. Glenn Beck and Limpaugh are responsible for the actions taken by some unstable crackpots against their fellow citizens.

It's Bushes fault.

TwentyFive  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Jun-20-10 09:31 PM
Response to Original message
21. Thank you!!! I want to tell you....We are ALL victims of the Conservative Hate Machine
   
When you think about all the fear and hate surrounding very important issues...gays, abortion, war, racism, interracial marriage, RELIGION, music, sex, socialism etc....Conservatives are expert at tying these issues to middle aged, middle class people and their inherent FEAR of losing their life's work (namely, their children, assets and job) to some big undefinable bogeyman.

I feel for you, and that unfinished business you have with your dad. Many of us also have the same issues with parents, both living and dead. Conservatives know how to bring these issues to a boilpoint in families. Like you said "uncounted casualties"..there are millions out there. And nobody seems to acknowledge it.

Typical lib DUmmy. How in the hell did the HMIC, obama win? For every DUmmy, there is a whole conservative family who would vote against them?

grantcart. I wish I knew who you were. I would bitch slap you for your father. You really need and deserve it.

[Ballygrl]

I hate when people say in reference to Republicans and Conservatives that we're under someone's influence. They just can't grasp that people have a view different from their own. My Father was a Republican my Mother was a Democrat, I've always as far back as I can remember identified with the Republican Party. When I took Current World Affairs in High School my Teacher was and still is a Liberal, not a Progressive, a Liberal, I disagreed with him back then as did the majority of my class, and that Teacher is still 1 of my favorite Teachers because instead of mocking us or saying we're under someone's influence, he understood and accepted that we had different opinions but those opinions were valid. I wasn't old enough to vote for Reagan the 1st time but Reagan never influenced me, Reagan spoke what I felt and still feel. When I turned 18 I registered as a Republican because they most represented MY beliefs.

It's so freaking condescending to say people are influenced by others, and the only reason they do it is because they're so arrogant in their beliefs that they can't possibly believe someone feels different about the world than they do. All they have to do is look around and see what Progressivism has done, we have 5 generations of people living off the public dole and thinking they deserve my money, we have people who actually think it's a bad thing that the US has been so powerful all these years instead of looking at the good that the power has given us. We've led the entire world in so many ways, from technology to medicine and I have no problem celebrating that, we have continents who have relied on our strengths all these decades to protect them, we're the 1st ones there when a disaster strikes, in a Progressive society most people would be equally miserable.

I make no apologies for agreeing with Republicans on most issues and IMO it's contributed to a better world, and damn right we're #1 and I like being #1!

Idiots!

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I hate when people say in reference to Republicans and Conservatives that we're under someone's influence...

LIB: You conservatives are too easily influenced.

MSB: Yes, we are too easily influenced.

LIB: Whatever you're told to say you just parrot.

MSB: Yes, we just parrot.

LIB: You have no free thoughts of your own.

MSB: Yes, we have no free thoughts of our own.

LIB: And that is why you're not liberals.

MSB: Yes, I am not a rock-licking moron.

[Karin]

TwentyFive comes up with the perfect libtard mantra:

We are ALL victims of the Conservative Hate Machine

  and then lists "music" as one of the issues that tears the right and left apart.  ???   Well, if the DUmmie is referring to gangsta rap, it has a point.  I just happen to think that women and minorities should be treated with more respect. 

[blitzkrieg_17]

LIB: You conservatives are too easily influenced.

MSB: Yes, we are too easily influenced.

LIB: Whatever you're told to say you just parrot.

MSB: Yes, we just parrot.

LIB: You have no free thoughts of your own.

MSB: Yes, we have no free thoughts of our own.

LIB: And that is why you're not liberals.

MSB: Yes, I am not a rock-licking moron.

The Project-o-Meter just broke 100%.

[Wineslob]

Where is this "Conservative Hate Machine"? I have some DUmmies I really need to hate right now.

[Randy]

Where is this "Conservative Hate Machine"?

Best I can tell it's at DU running overtime. 

[Reality vs DU]

Best I can tell it's at DU running overtime. 

[AllosaursRus]

My kids grew up and graduated high school in Spokane. I guarandamnteeya this guy must have had about 2 friends that believed the way he does during the Nam era.

Ya know, if he had actually gone before the county with an anti-war amendment back in those days, more than likely he would have been thrown out on his ear! If not, he would be met on the sidewalk after exiting from spewing hate for his country!

Spokane is extremely conservative! Sure there are some left wingers, but they keep a low profile. Even Democrats in Spokane are more like Zell Miller. Pelosi or Reid would never get elected in Spokane.

Most of these pukes hide, they're too cowardly to show their faces in public. They'd get their asses handed to them. I've seen some of these asshat lefties try standing on a corner with anti Afghan war signs and people actually try and run them over!

I'll lay odds this puke now lives in Seattle with the rest of the communists!

[delilahmused]

Typical DUmmie logic. Dad shows compassion and love for his fellow man every single day of his life, deliberately helping the "least among us" whose lives most would consider a waste. Yet, HE is the one who has been influenced by hate. He walks the walk while you merely pretend with words. Having a moral code and a value system that includes believing able-bodied people should be self-sufficient isn't hate. Oh, and I seriously doubt you outflanked your dad...considering his obvious love of his fellow man, he probably didn't think it was fair to take advantage of someone so obviously mentally challenged. And as for your "better red than dead" nonsense, whining for free stuff isn't the same as embracing communism or its ideals,  (even Canada isn't communist...if you understood the meaning, you'd know that).

Being "red" means you work, whether you want to or not. It means you get whatever wage the powers that be decide to pay you without complaining. You can't apply at company B and hope to make more than at company A because the wages will be the same. There will still be a management class who will always make more than you. There will always be "leaders" in government who are rich, who will live in opulence, who can have parties with Wagu beef when they choose, or play golf every day if that is their pleasure. And they don't even have to pretend to care when a disaster befalls a part of their country. Workers like you are a dime a dozen and they can always get more.

You won't have a free press or be able to speak out about your leaders as you did against President Bush or as you currently do with every conservative who gets a blurb in the news. Your Internet will be monitored (or even nonexistent as it is in much of Cuba). No more DU, or KOS, or Keef, or Rachel...all have preached sedition at one time or another. No more protests against the government or their policies. Military service is mandatory if the government declares it so. No conscientious objection unless you want to spend time in jail (they won't provide televisions and weight rooms for inmates, though). If you make it to another country so you won't be forced to serve, there won't be any forgiveness later so you can come home. Probably wouldn't matter if they did, though, because your family would most likely have been made to pay for your disloyalty.

So when people say "better red than dead" they aren't advocating death to idiots who think they can adopt the "free" parts of communist without the forced stuff and loss of rights. They are saying they'd rather die (fighting for) then lose those divine rights (life, liberty, PURSUIT of happiness) that make all men (and women for those of you who can't understand basic generalizations of words that mean "humanity"...or do I also need to say huwomanity) free. Oh, until you look at your own selves and see the rage and hate, the viciousness you have towards conservatives in general don't try to label MY side.

Cindie

[lastparker]

That post was so disjointed and rambling that I had to give it up.  I take it the dude got no inheritance and it is all Bush's fault.

[Tucker]

That post was so disjointed and rambling that I had to give it up.  I take it the dude got no inheritance and it is all Bush's fault.

His post totally pissed me off. He maligned who his father was and everything that he stood for. His last statement projects a false persona of his father.

In my heart I believe that if you were alive today you also would approve of fighting ceaselessly against the peddlers of political hate like Beck that cost us so much. I like to think that we would be doing it together.

It is because of this that I would relish the opportunity to bitch slap the punk. Believe me when I suspect that his father would.

[Ballygrl]

Typical DUmmie logic. Dad shows compassion and love for his fellow man every single day of his life, deliberately helping the "least among us" whose lives most would consider a waste. Yet, HE is the one who has been influenced by hate. He walks the walk while you merely pretend with words. Having a moral code and a value system that includes believing able-bodied people should be self-sufficient isn't hate. Oh, and I seriously doubt you outflanked your dad...considering his obvious love of his fellow man, he probably didn't think it was fair to take advantage of someone so obviously mentally challenged. And as for your "better red than dead" nonsense, whining for free stuff isn't the same as embracing communism or its ideals,  (even Canada isn't communist...if you understood the meaning, you'd know that).

Being "red" means you work, whether you want to or not. It means you get whatever wage the powers that be decide to pay you without complaining. You can't apply at company B and hope to make more than at company A because the wages will be the same. There will still be a management class who will always make more than you. There will always be "leaders" in government who are rich, who will live in opulence, who can have parties with Wagu beef when they choose, or play golf every day if that is their pleasure. And they don't even have to pretend to care when a disaster befalls a part of their country. Workers like you are a dime a dozen and they can always get more.

You won't have a free press or be able to speak out about your leaders as you did against President Bush or as you currently do with every conservative who gets a blurb in the news. Your Internet will be monitored (or even nonexistent as it is in much of Cuba). No more DU, or KOS, or Keef, or Rachel...all have preached sedition at one time or another. No more protests against the government or their policies. Military service is mandatory if the government declares it so. No conscientious objection unless you want to spend time in jail (they won't provide televisions and weight rooms for inmates, though). If you make it to another country so you won't be forced to serve, there won't be any forgiveness later so you can come home. Probably wouldn't matter if they did, though, because your family would most likely have been made to pay for your disloyalty.

So when people say "better red than dead" they aren't advocating death to idiots who think they can adopt the "free" parts of communist without the forced stuff and loss of rights. They are saying they'd rather die (fighting for) then lose those divine rights (life, liberty, PURSUIT of happiness) that make all men (and women for those of you who can't understand basic generalizations of words that mean "humanity"...or do I also need to say huwomanity) free. Oh, until you look at your own selves and see the rage and hate, the viciousness you have towards conservatives in general don't try to label MY side.

Cindie

Very well said! I really hope that grantcart would read your post and actually GET what you've said, though I somehow doubt he'd get it at all.

[DumbAss Tanker]

You weren't going to support me and I was willing to take your words and turn them into weapons against you, a skill that I had perfected.

Both arrogant and delusional, an ugly combination of flaws.

[AllosaursRus]

Both arrogant and delusional, an ugly combination of flaws.

I* saw that, too!

Perfected??????? More than likely he was pickin' himself up off the floor, so he perfected gettin' up! I know I woulda been if I had ever said anything like that to my Dad!

[dandi]

Eventually it came to a head. "Better Red than Dead". Now you don't go undefeated in debate for 2 years and not see a polemical lay up like that. Like Gen. Grant's line at Appomattox I extended your front and outflanked your argument. "Since you also believe that my support of universal health care like they have in Canada is also communistic does that mean that you think that by extension that I am now 'red' and deserved to be dead'?

Actually the phrase is, "Better Dead Than Red", and no, it doesn't mean that all communists deserve to die. It means that the speaker believes it better to fight to their own death than have communism imposed upon them. One would think that an undefeated, consummate master debater like Mr. cart would know that.

Which brings me to another point - are the philosophies of liberalism, socialism and communism so perfect, so pure and so unassailable that they cannot be breached by argument? Likewise, are the individuals who propound these philosophies so intellectually flawless that their rhetoric is beyond questioning?

I have no problem admitting that in my discussions with liberals over the years they have occasionally brought up points that gave me pause or facts for which I found it necessary to do further research. Yet to hear self-styled "progressives" such as Mr. cart tell it, there is nothing which causes them to have a moment of reflection, to re-think their position or consider a different perspective. Given the imperfect nature of Man, I am immediately suspect of claims of being "undefeated" in debate. The same question may be asked when conservatives are charged with the blanket accusation of being racist if they dislike Barack Obama. Is the man so perfect, his logic so inexorable, that any questioning of him must be driven by base feelings of racism rather than disagreement on issues? According to the denizens of the DU fever swamp, it is.

According to Mr. cart, all conservatives were shambling through life as tabulae rasae until they one day were scanning through radio stations and happened to stop on a channel broadcasting Rush Limbaugh. From that point on they were mesmerized and their theretofore empty minds, minds that had never before thought of politics or morality, were filled with psychotic delusions at the hand of master hypnotist. They couldn't have possibly had formative experiences, observations and education beforehand which led them to their conclusions.

Actually, the converse is true. Conservatives are drawn to commentators like Limbaugh, Beck, et al, precisely because they reflect beliefs that the audience already possessed. The relative scarcity of them in the media, especially prior to the 1990's, are the reason they were able to individually attract such large audiences. They restate these pre-existing beliefs in an entertaining and informative manner and that is their attraction.

As to the accusations of "hate" - it is not hate to believe that dependence is self-perpetuating. It is not hate to be suspicious of large, oppressive government. It is not hate to be wary of placing one's own health in the hands of a faceless, unaccountable bureaucracy. It is not hate to resist turning over one's own income to a bloated, inefficient, politicized government authority for redistribution to strangers because some other stranger thinks they are more deserving of it than you are. It is not hate to want to protect the innocent life of the unborn who have no voice. It is not hate to believe the rule of law must be enforced. It is not hate to bristle at the idea that new forms of discrimination are the remedy for past forms of discrimination. It is not hate to assign individual responsibility. It is not hate to advocate for maximum personal freedom consistent with an orderly and peaceful society.

When ad hominem accusations of hate, intolerance, racism, ignorance, brainwashing and greed are the default position when arguing against the tenets of conservatism, you have already ceded the intellectual high ground. Since these are the stock-in-trade of the vast majority of self-proclaimed "enlightened", "educated" and "informed" members of DU, I can only question whether they are just intellectually lazy, or whether they indeed were ever possessed of any intellect to begin with. 

[Ballygrl]

According to Mr. cart, all conservatives were shambling through life as tabulae rasae until they one day were scanning through radio stations and happened to stop on a channel broadcasting Rush Limbaugh. From that point on they were mesmerized and their theretofore empty minds, minds that had never before thought of politics or morality, were filled with psychotic delusions at the hand of master hypnotist. They couldn't have possibly had formative experiences, observations and education beforehand which led them to their conclusions.

Actually, the converse is true. Conservatives are drawn to commentators like Limbaugh, Beck, et al, precisely because they reflect beliefs that the audience already possessed. The relative scarcity of them in the media, especially prior to the 1990's, are the reason they were able to individually attract such large audiences. They restate these pre-existing beliefs in an entertaining and informative manner and that is their attraction.

Thank You for saying how I feel much better than I did. I 1st starting listening to Rush the 1st day he was broadcast on WABC in NY in 1988, when I heard him my reaction was "he feels the way I do" my opinions on issues were already formed way before I ever heard of Rush.

[AllosaursRus]

does that mean that you think that by extension that I am now 'red' and deserved to be dead'?

Works for me, you un-American POT! ( piece o' trash )

Let's go huntin'!