When I Grew Tired of the Lying


When I Grew Tired of the Lying

I did not vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but I certainly did in 2012. It wasn't because I suddenly found him to be a truly inspiring figure. Or that it was one magical speech that just took me over. It was for a much simpler reason: I've grown so tired of right-wing lies that there was no other recourse.

I have watched the Republican Party descend in a manner that I've never seen before, not even during Clinton's tenure, when I learned the phrase "the hunting of the president." There is something deeply wrong with this party. It's not political expediency any more to be opposed to the president's agenda: there's something pathological going on here that for the first time in my life has gotten me extremely worried.

I don't believe I've ever seen a time where my country is so ungovernable. It's way beyond typical infighting and obstructing this, that and the other thing. Elected officials are refusing to govern. They're all too busy running from fundraiser to fundraiser complaining about how shitty the president is. How horrible health care for those who don't have it is destroying the country. Because you see, it comes down to this: you can call yourself a conservative and dislike a Democrat being in the White House, but after a while, I'm tired of being told things that I know are not true. After a while, I want answers and solutions to all the things you are saying the president is wrong about.

Let me illustrate it: healthcare. You can tell me it's the worst thing in the world. That it will drive up costs of everything. That it will cost jobs. And I'll say "amen!" Except, I also want proof. I'm no longer going to take any GOP operative's word for it. When you tell me that costs have gone up, I want a number. I want specifics. And asking for that doesn't turn me into a liberal. But that seems to be the hook: tell us all that reforming healthcare is the greatest threat to Western civilization, but don't offer any real proof and more importantly, don't ask for it. Doing so makes you a RINO. Insufficienty conservative. And it looks like it's a winning strategy, because individual people who know better, and would never take a "trust me" pledge from any politician are keeping their mouths shut due to that.

I'm tired of hearing now shitty healthcare is: where's the killer alternative? You see, I am not of the "trust me" variety, confident that GOP leaders can come up with a better widget that will trump Obamacare because of its sheer brilliance. Right-wingers are instead saying, "Repeal first, then we'll come up with an idea." Well, no. I want an answer now. I want something that I can point to and say, "Here it is!" Yet that's not what we're getting. It's just a lot of huffing and puffing and deliberately ignoring those Republican ideas *already in* the current law they all now claim sucks.

I'm tired of hearing how the president won't "meet with us" to create a jobs bill. Well, Congressmen, you are the people in the legislative branch, not the president. Why aren't you creating a jobs bill that makes him look utterly foolish and force his hand? But that's not what I'm getting. I'm hearing a lot of bitching and pouting from GOP politicos that they *can't* do anything because Obama sucks. That businesses need even more tax breaks to create those jobs, and you what? That's another lie that I'm tired of hearing. We had over seven years of tax breaks under George W. Bush and no appreciable job growth. This is a fact. And yet I still have to hear the lie that tax breaks create jobs. I'm tired of that lie. But that's all I'm hearing from Republicans, and like I said, I can only stand so much hearing this that I now want the proof to back it up.

I'm tired of hearing about "out of control government spending" when I know for a fact that the deficit has gone down to pre-2008 levels.

I'm tired of hearing about this administration is doing nothing about horrible, horrible illegal immigrants but has deported more people than the previous one.

I'm tired of hearing how people really love their junk insurance policies all of the sudden and want to protect their insurers from treating them fairly.

I'm tired of a do-nothing Congress that seems to revel in getting paid to do nothing, but insisting we're all better off this way or America will be destroyed.

But most of all, **I want the proof of what conservatives are saying and I want to see their better mousetrap.**

I'm sure hell will be freezing over about now as well.