Sore Loser Syndrome

Bush Effigy in San Fran

For the last eight years, Republicans and Conservatives alike have been telling anyone that would listen that the left was a bunch of sore losers, not for protesting the Bush Presidency, but how they went about it. The burning effigy of President Bush, the comparisons to Hitler, the hateful blogs, etc, etc. Furthermore, it was applauded by leaders on the left as artistic expression and freedom of speech, it was lauded. As a moderate conservative, I always found the hate that liberals displayed to be distasteful and just ignorant, I also thought that if they would just  be civil, like most conservatives act, maybe we could all just get along.

Then our new President was elected. I think a lot of conservatives we’re willing to give the new President a chance, his acceptance speech in Grant Park was fantastic, he challenged his base and said we all must sacrifice, he said his administration would be different, transparent, and bi-partisan. Within three months he was 0-3 with those statements. He spent one week talking about bi-partisan support and quickly gave up and he failed to honor his five day waiting period to sign any bill. He was on a short leash with conservatives, right or wrong, that’s the reality of it and as the poll numbers show, he lost what support he did have quickly. In this time the Tea Party protest started, due to the passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA of 2009). The protest drew a small collection of folks, they were business owners and entrepreneurs, they saw their business going under and yet we were bailing out others, they were frustrated. They were protesting the involvement of government, and how the new administration was going about dealing with the collapse of our economy and the perceived handouts that some corporations were getting. Lets restate that. Conservatives were protesting handouts to corporations.

This is Ignorant

All of the above facts are good, protest is ok, and peaceful protest is respectable, but acting like a sore loser is not. That’s where I completely disagree with the few making conservatives look,well, liberal in their tactics. Furthermore, the statement of “beating them at their own game” is ignorant! Since when do you want your children see you screaming like a twelve year old that didn’t get their way? How does that further my cause? I don’t like the direction that our Congress and President are taking, but we elected them, and conservatives are half to blame for letting our Senators/Representatives/President run around spending lavishly for the better part of the past eight years. And don’t bother me with the congress  being controlled by Democrats for the past four, because I’ll call your BS. We should have been writing in and telling our elected officials to stop with the spending, but we chose not to. Sometime between the budget balancing Republicans of the Clinton era and the beginning of the Bush years those officials decided to scrap being fiscally conservative and start spending liberally.

So let’s stop being sore losers and calling our President names like school children, it advances nothing and only further divides our country. For every 100 respectable protesters, it only takes the one idiot to ruin it. When you see that man or woman, politely ask them to tone it down and the power of the pack can shame a man into submission. If they have signs that seem racist, take them down. Images that portray or reference skin color, imagery, or have any kind of racial undertones are UNACCEPTABLE. If you’re motivation is race driven, you have no right being at a rally dealing with economics, you clearly only communicate on a very basic level, thus economics and policy are way over your head.  We are conservatives, we hold ourselves to a higher level of civility and respectability than others (some of us do at least).

We also need to be talking to our leaders and having them tone down the rhetoric and supporting civil discourse, not interrupting it. No one should be patting our buddy from South Carolina on the back, that was embarrassing.  Having a little class will make your voice louder, it may not get you on TV, but you know who those folks are, and they only want ratings. They don’t want solutions, they want more division, it drives ratings.

Cut the crying about media too, it’s bias, if you really want to watch the news (an antiquated way of getting news these days) go and watch Fox, it’s 100% conservative and stay the hell away from MSNBC, CNN, etc. All you’re going to do is piss yourself off. Get over it, they are not going to change until there is no money in being biased. Yelling down CNN reporters may be good comedy for conservative blogs, but it’s just another example of childish stupidity. I bet you chastised the DNC when they wouldn’t do a debate on Fox during the election, but now we go and scream at them, yea, that always works.

Cut the sore loser act, and lets go get back some seats in the midterm elections, and lets start acting like adults and expecting that out of our elected officials. Those on our side of the isle and theirs too.