Scary Political People

This blog deals with a topic that I usually avoid like the plague – politics. You can count the number of times that I have mentioned the p-word in this blog on one hand. To me, politics is a necessary evil that I would just as soon never hear about. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. You can’t turn on television or the radio without being subjected to an avalanche of political posturing presented by scary political people. And with next year’s Presidential, recall and local elections looming, it’s only going to get worse. There will be a lot more scary political people.

Trust me, these political people are scary. Scary is an adjective that is defined as frightening or causing fear, and these people definitely frighten me. These people cause me fear for a multitude of reasons.

One obvious way is how they vehemently regurgitate their party’s rhetoric, concentrating on one specific issue that is, more often than not, taken out context. After being exposed to these people ad nauseum, they can become more than scary.

Another reason these people are scary is that they expect you to naively accept their mindless reciting of party talking points without even thinking. Just because they blindly believe whatever their party tells them, they arrogantly expect others to do the same. That’s scary.

What’s even scarier is that they become overbearing and pompous when you don’t agree with and march in lockstep with their parties’ ideologies. How dare you think for yourself or have a different opinion. The audacity!

It gets worse when these people go from being self-important and pretentious to being malicious and nasty. I don’t particularly like malicious, mean people. They are much worse than scary people.

I seriously believe these people hurt their political parties more than they help them. When someone is unpleasant and obnoxious, I am inclined to turn that person off and not listen to him or her, no matter what his or her point might be.

In my blog, “Rivalry or Hate?” I wrote that I had come to the realization that it wasn’t the Cub, Cardinal, Bear, Viking and Bull teams that I despise. I said that it was their media and fans that made me cringe when they won and rejoice when they lost.

I feel the same way about political zealots. When their party “wins” I cringe and when they “lose” I rejoice. Zealots, whether they are religious or political, tend to repulse people rather than attract them.

When it comes to religion, I prefer to try to practice rather than to preach. The same goes for politics with me. I am much more comfortable doing both that way.

And heaven forbid that you mix religion and politics. That’s when the political people are at their scariest. Bigotry wrapped in prayer is still bigotry.

I don’t intend on writing another blog concerning politics any time soon. I really didn’t want to write this one, but I like I said before, it is a necessary evil and the current political climate moved me to do so.

Here’s a closing thought for all the scary political people - “You don't have to blow out anybody else's candle to make yours shine brighter.” Quit being so scary. Please.

Until next time…from the booth.