Steve and I have been close since childhood. We shared a bedroom all the years we lived with our parents. We lived together one year in college. We email multiple times every day. We visit each other as often as possible. However, we are 150 miles apart, have busy lives, and with gas prices at $4/gallon the visits are more rare.
And now there is a new problem - I'm just plain scared to visit him.
Below is the letter I just sent to my brother and his family.
Steve, Mary, and Avery,
I’d love to come down and visit you. It has been too long since I’ve biked the Tennessee back roads. And I’d love to give my nephew a butt kicking in ping pong before he returns to Knoxville. But I’m too scared to make the trip.
You see, I’m a liberal and I see where your people are killing liberals. Contrary to liberal hater, Jim Adkisson, who shoot up the Knoxville Unitarian Church during a children’s program, I think liberals have made this country better. Social Security, food and workplace safety laws, 40 hour workweek and child labor laws, helped build a prosperous middle class. The GI bill gave returning soldiers a chance for home ownership and a college education.
I realize some Southern Whites, including your Mr. Adkisson, still have problems with liberals ending slavery and giving Blacks equal rights. In most places, Blacks can even vote - Florida and Ohio being exceptions.
Nor does Mr. Adkisson appear to approve of liberals giving women the right to vote and granting them basic civil rights. His ex-wife had to take a restraining order out against him due to threats he was going to kill her. Now I don’t know anything about their domestic problems but I cannot imagine hitting Sheila or threatening to kill her when she is wrong and a good pop or swift kick might straighten her out. I don’t understand the conservative mind set that thinks men should control women and settle arguments by hitting and bombing.
While I hold Mr. Adkisson personally responsible for his actions, it appears he was having personal financial problems which can contribute to one’s frustrations. Apparently, he had not only lost his job but Tennessee had also cut off his food stamps (another liberal safety net program). He was driving an SUV so we can understand how $4/gallon gas added to his economic woes. Too bad Republicans blocked liberal legislation these past 27 years to increase auto mileage and alternative energy sources.
Mr. Adkisson was obviously confused about where to direct his anger. Police report finding books by conservative political pundits who make a living bashing liberals and gays - Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity. There was no mention of Ann Coulter who has publicly advocated killing liberals - she claims it was just good clean fun and joking. But in Mr. Adkisson’s defense, it is hard to tell when these folks are serious or just making stuff up. Objective fact check studies of these pundit’s books and TV/radio comments verify their claims are frequently inaccurate.
But then, maybe we should blame the liberals. Liberals pushed universal education that gave Mr. Adkisson the tools to read those books. If he would have just been reading the Constitution, history, science, or even the Bible.
I don’t know a lot about the specifics of the Unitarian Church except the best student to ever take my Religion & Society class was a Unitarian. She went on to get a Ph.D. from one of the top sociology programs (University of Illinois) and now has a job at a better school than mine. I do know that you can trace their history back to the original Pilgrims. And the church is, like Jesus, very liberal.
Like Jesus, Unitarians never demonize homosexuals but treat them as fellow human beings. And like Jesus, they devote time and energy to help the poor and the sick. I cannot image a Unitarian voting against medical care for children, the elderly, or returning injured soldiers.
As I started out saying, I'd really like to come down to visit, bike, and play some pong. You are just barely across the KY/TN border so maybe I can sneak across without being spotted. If I put my bike in the trunk, no one will see it. I don't have any bumper stickers on my car to give me away and I'll leave my tie-dye t-shirt at home.
What do you think? Will I be safe?
Sam