I remember a conversation I had once with someone who was not yet a mother. I don’t remember the particular context, but I do remember her telling me that when she had children, she couldn’t be a stay-at-home-mom because she didn’t know how to knit. I found the assumption that those two things automatically go together rather amusing.
When it comes to knitting or natural parenting or Oprah or many of the other things that I enjoy, it seems that everyone is a die-hard liberal. I’ll be reading something interesting and all of a sudden there will be this gratuitous comment about politics – my house won’t sell as long as we have a Republican in the White House…I discovered the reason why I couldn’t stop eating was because I was stressed out about evil things the Republicans were doing…on ER, the lesbian couple had a discussion about how they didn’t want their daughter to think of Condoleeza Rice as a role model (never mind that she’s black and she’s a woman) but to think of someone like Madeline Albright instead…or other general rants. In fact, the other night, I googled “knitting” and “Republican” and after viewing 50 pages of results, the only things I found were liberals griping about Republican or newpaper announcements about when and where the knitters were meeting as well as similar information about Republicans. Oh my! The political portion of my favorite parenting board is so liberal anyone making the slightest possibly conservative comment immediately gets “beaten up” by others on the board, including the moderators who are supposedly keeping things “fair” and “nice.”
It seems everywhere I go there is liberalism in my face. Except NASCAR races. Other than NASCAR, it seems that I have all the wrong hobbies because all of the other people with that same hobby are clearly liberal Democrats, and I am the only Republican.
It’s painful sometimes. I get tired of having to listen to incidental liberalism, and I get tired of feeling all alone. Are there any other Republican’s out there? Knitting Republicans? Natural parenting Republicans? People-who-watch-Oprah Republicans?
So I’ve decided to bring politics to my blog. Not because I think that I know everything. No. Because I want other people to know that you can do all of the things I love and be a Republican. Just like you don’t have to be a knitter to be a stay-at-home-mom.
What I like about Democrats is that they have big hearts. They want to help people who are less fortunate – people earning minimum wage, suffering in poverty, dying in Darfur. They want to be good stewards of the environment so they eat organic food, drive hybrid cars, and talk about being good to our planet.
Where I differ with them is how to solve the problems they talk so much about.
Take Katrina. I completely agree that the government did a horrible job helping the victims of that hurricane. But to me, that is why we need less government, not more. The government’s hands are tied by red tape – namely, rules written to make sure things were done correctly. The the government is not the most effective way to help people in situations like Katrina. We don’t need higher taxes in order to help those people more – instead, people should give their money to reputable organizations such as the Red Cross who have proved their effectiveness in helping people and not squandering the money they’ve been given.
Or Darfur. I truly feel for the people who are dying in Darfur. But what was Saddam doing to the Kerds? How many mass graves with women and children have they found? Isn’t that kind of thing what they finally hung him for [after we took him out of power so he couldn’t do it anymore]?
Did Saddam have weapons of mass destruction? The government buildings we bombed were empty shells, and if he knew to move important government operations, he certainly could have moved weapons of mass destruction too if he had them. Just because we didn’t find them doesn’t mean he didn’t have them. We may never know.
But if we need to go in and save Darfur, are the Kerds any less important? Couldn’t saving them be justification for going into Iraq since we don’t have proof of weapons of mass destruction?
And if we did go in to save Darfur…Democrats don’t seem to understand the realities of exercising military might. If you send people into a place where other people are shooting each other, it doesn’t matter if they are “peacekeepers.” There is a chance that they might get shot or even killed. The Democrats are so upset about all the American’s getting killed in Iraq. Try and convince me that if we went in to save Darfur, when the first American got shot or killed, there wouldn’t been the same hand-wringing and hyperventilating on the part of the Democrats about how we need to get out of Darfur just as they’re doing about getting out of Iraq.
When I was a kid, I remember we went to the Dells which is up near the Great Lakes. They had these wagons drawn by horses that you could ride in and tour the scenery. I was so excited about getting to ride in the wagon behind the horses just like they did in the olden days.
But when we got in the wagon, to my dismay, I discovered that horses stunk. They pooped while they stood there as we got in, and they pooped while they walked around pulling the wagon. All I smelled was horse poop the entire time. I was so disappointed!
That’s how I think Democrats think about war and military intervention. They have all these noble ideas about how we’re going to help people and save their lives, but they forget about the realities of intervening when somebody is using their power to do bad things. Let’s face it – war stinks! But war gets us things that we enjoy…like our freedom. Our country would not exist as it is today had there not been a few battles fought including the deaths of many soldiers.
One more gripe…right after the midterm elections when the Democrats took over Congress, I ventured over to the political portion of the parenting board I enjoy just because I thought it would be fun to see the Democrats celebrate after they were so devastated after George W. Bush won his second term. I mean, let them have their turn to celebrate.
They had this thread going about how nobody had challenged any of the elections when the Democrats won as had been done when the Democrats lost…as though the only way the Democrats could possibly lose is if the Republicans cheated. Gracious!
Apparently those snarky Democrats don’t watch sports very much. Take a football game, for instance. Both teams are very qualified, and both teams do their best to win. But ultimately one team wins and one team loses. Sometimes the Republicans win, and sometimes they lose. Same for the Democrats. And sometimes the ref’s make bad calls – sometimes those calls are in your favor, other times you can blame losing the game solely on those bad calls. Bad calls are a fact of life, even though we do as much as possible to avoid them.
That thread and how the people were acting on it seemed so typical of how so many liberals act. Like I said above, it’s everywhere I go except for NASCAR. And I get so sick and tired of that kind of nonsense.
Democrats are entitled to their opinions. And I enjoy hearing Juan Williams perspective on the Roundtable on Fox News. I just wish they wouldn’t be so obnoxious about it – putting it in places where people aren’t look for it as though everyone agrees with them. Apparently the reason why Republicans seem so scarce is because they aren’t outspoken about what they think. Which is why I’m writing this post.
You can be a Republican and be a knitter, be a crunchy parent, and watch Oprah. And no, not everyone else out there is a liberal democrat. Just like not all stay-at-home-moms knit. Seriously.
