Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Obama the Lightning Rod

My sister came in town the other day, and refused to go with me to a Barack Obama rally that was happening in downtown Columbus. This led to an interesting discussion that gave me a slightly better insight to where this rage toward Obama is coming from on the right. It's still incredibly fuzzy, and I wholeheartedly disagree with their position, but at least I kind of have a tiny little bit better underst... oh hell, who am I kidding?

My sister Stephanie's highly paraphrased quote on Obama: he's the most socialist, food stamp making, Israel hating president ever... she basically said she hates the man (which, coming from a Christian is illuminating). When I confronted her with similar comparisons to Clinton, Bush (food stamps, marginal tax rate, etc.), she quickly dived into a different-reality-based reason: the end times are being ushered in faster with him as president, and her facts come from her relationship with God more than anything else... She is especially troubled with Obama's stance that {though we still support them *mostly* unconditionally} Israel needs to work with others in the region and learn to get along with them.

We {me & her} cannot agree even on what the *facts* are, because we are interpreting things from different beginning points. At that point I didn't know where to go. The bubble that Bill Maher talks about, I better understand now... it isn't a conscious plot to lie to others, but these people truly have a different worldview that isn't based on rationality. It is based on a faith that something *other* is better, and more correct, than what we see around us... that *other* thing can be family values, religious experience, societal pressures, etc., that are much more likely to improve {in their mind} if Obama isn't in the White House. He is the lightning rod for their rage about America and what its citizens and society have become {Internet porn watching, food stamp receiving, single parent gay activists}. And untruthfulness, dishonesty, and irrationality {when talking about these things} are common tactics... Because the end {getting Obama out of the White House} will justify the means to them.