A Few Wishes

I wish conservatives weren’t generally so smug and condescending.  I wish liberals weren’t generally so sanctimonious and self-righteous.

I wish conservatives would realize they don’t corner the market on patriotism.  I wish liberals wouldn’t roll their eyes at people who are proud to fly the flag.

I wish conservatives wouldn’t feel the need to carry a Glock into the grocery store.  I wish liberals would realize that some people just like guns, and that it’s legal to own and use certain kinds of guns, and that it always will and should be—especially when it comes to protection of one’s home and property.  Don’t like guns?  Don’t own one.

I wish liberals would realize lots of people believe in God, and that they’re going to let their beliefs dictate how they vote.  And that that’s okay.  But I wish conservatives would realize that not everybody believes that God should dictate what’s in our constitution, whether it’s gay marriage or abortion.  Don’t like gay marriage?  Don’t marry someone of the same sex.  But don’t “fix” the constitution so that your morals apply to everyone.

I wish there were term limits.  The president has term limits, why not apply limits to other offices?   I used to be against term limits, after all, we have natural term limits in place—they’re called elections.  But if a candidate or party is so powerful that a race is practically guaranteed to be unopposed, something is wrong with the system.  Maybe the limits will encourage the PACs and SuperPACs to spend their money finding and grooming good new candidates instead of spending money on telling everyone how the [insert a party here]’s candidate is really from hell and will ruin everyone’s lives.  Yeah, we’d lose some good public servants because of term limits, but we’ve lost some good presidents due to term limits, too.  Think Reagan or Clinton or maybe Eisenhower wouldn’t have gotten a third term? 

I wish supporters of BOTH parties would stop being offended when the party they don’t support does something they think isn’t right or fair, and then act like their party would NEVER do something like that.

How is ANYTHING that Ann Coulter says NOT considered hate speech?  As far as I’m concerned, she, and the FOXers, along with Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann can go find a remote island somewhere and get stranded there.  And that no news outlets reported on anything that came out of there.

I wish conservatives didn’t want to hoard all the power and money. I wish liberals didn’t want to spread it equally among everyone.

I wish conservatives would realize that you can’t just bomb everyone that disagrees with us, that it makes us seem like a bully on the world stage, and that will just encourage extremist lunatics to try to pick us off in small doses when they can.  I wish liberals would realize it’s okay to bomb the ever-loving shit out of someone if they do something to support/enable someone that’s actively hurting Americans. 

I wish conservatives would realize that if you waterboard someone, they’ll tell you anything to get you to stop, so it doesn’t do much good.  But I wish liberals wouldn’t care, because if one good piece of intelligence prevents some extremist from hijacking the plane my family is on, I’m all for not smashing into the ground at 600 miles per hour instead of going to Disney World.

I wish conservatives wouldn’t assume that liberals were just stupid, and that if they were better informed or more patriotic, they’d be conservatives.  I wish liberals wouldn’t assume that conservatives were just greedy racists, and that if they weren’t rich or wrapped in the flag or the bible, they’d be liberals.

I wish conservatives would realize that global warming is a fact, and that humans likely have something to do with it.  I wish liberals would realize we all don’t want to drive the equivalent of electric golf carts on anywhere but a golf course.

I wish conservatives would realize that for 99% of people, sexual orientation isn’t a choice.  I wish liberals would realize that you’re probably not going to change the minds of people who think homosexuality is gross and/or wrong, and trying to guilt them into changing is stupid and wrong.

I wish I weren't glad that Obama won just so that conservatives could feel the same dread and hate that I felt the night George W. Bush got re-elected. 

I wish partisans would realize that all the good ideas aren’t exclusive to one political party.  I wish people would realize that there’s a time to take a conservative approach to things, and that there’s a time to take a liberal approach to things.  And that those times split right about 50-50. 

I wish people would realize that moderates don’t want compromises that result in nothing.  Moderates want the approach that not one side has all the answers.  And in this country, that seems to be a radical idea.

That's why I consider myself neither a democrat nor a republican, but a Radical Moderate.