Here are some of the Democratic politicians I have volunteered for, collecting signatures, holding signs, attending rallies, phone calling, etc: Tip O'Neill, John Joseph Moakley, John Kerry, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Barack Obama, Angus McQuilken (he ran against Scott Brown for Massachusetts State Senator twice)...
I have never volunteered for a Republican candidate.
I want to state unequivocally:
I am not, nor ever have been a Ron Paul supporter.
I wrote a diary last night, then deleted it, because some commenters, who clearly don't know me and didn't read it carefully, threatened to have me banned after 10 of them HRed my tip jar out of existence, alleging that what I wrote was "Paulite" propaganda.
The disrespect of some of the commenters was withering. The f bomb was deployed multiple times. I was accused of being a terrible person, who must hold all of Ron Paul's views: the good, the bad, and the ugly, which is not at all true. I was compared to a monkey banging away at a typewriter, which was kind of funny to envision and preferable to being accused of having bad intentions and sneaking a pro Ron Paul infomericial onto DailyKos.
Q: Why did I write about him then?
A: I read a few articles about him, which made me think about not only how far rightward (heartless) the Democrats have drifted, but how they now unquestioningly support inhumane policies, and I wanted to push us in the leftward (decent) direction.
The articles were written by two men, who were right about the Iraq War being based on falsehoods, back when most people were fooled by yellowcake and mushroom clouds.
1. Marginalizing Ron Paul by Robert Scheer.
2. Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies by Glenn Greenwald.
Then I read David Mizner's, who is one of my favorites here, highly recommended diary,What I've Been Wanting to Say About Ron Paul - Updated.
All of these articles made me think that it's amazing that we don't hear the same arguments against our deplorable foreign policy, the gutting of our Constitution (NDAA), and the shady trillion dollar bailouts to Wall Street fraudsters by the Federal Reserve not only by other Republican politicians, but by Democrats.
I agreed with many of the arguments in all of the above articles, but I, unfortunately failed to preface my diary well enough with my disgust, which I share with the commenters who jumped all over my diary, for the Congressman's views on many other issues to escape the notion that I was applauding the Congressman for all of his views: good, bad, and odious.
For this oversight, I am sorry.
Will the commenters who jumped to the wrong conclusion about my intentions kindly forgive me?
I'll wait and see.
I think it's a shame that people gatekeep discussion here in such a vitriolic manner. I was never bullied in junior high, nor in high school, but now I know how it feels.
I write diaries to help the people in the Middle East, whose homes are shattered and who have lost children due to bombs my country drops on them, which I think is beyond flaky.
I feel for the people held in prisons and tortured or taken out by drones by my government based on the word of random informants, who often lie, and are being held indefinitely, which I think is irrational.
I think it's diabolical to drop cluster bombs and fight off any international attempt to ban them, when kids play with them years later and lose limbs.
I believe it's madness to pass legislation that opens the door for us to be detained indefinitely by the military.
I am here trying in my own insignificant and small way to encourage my country to behave more humanely and stop killing/maiming hundreds of thousands of people who are innocent and do not deserve it.
Now, I have a question:
Q: Why is there a double standard? Why is it okay for politicians to embrace policies that cause so much death, destruction, and misery as long as they have a "nice" persona and seem to be someone with whom you'd like to share a beer?
Please, someone answer me that.