Disclaimer: A Bit of a Political Rant

I find it extremely amusing that I seem to be the most liberal person in my office. Especially since, as those of you who know me already are aware, I am not liberal. I tend to be just to the right of center - I tend to be fiscally conservative, but socially not so much. I don't like mandatory health care, but having been without while I was unemployed and unable to afford COBRA and therefore unable to get my medication for a while, I agree that there needs to be reform. I agree with the concept of the Arizona anti-immigration law, but until the amendments were signed I had a problem with the way it was written.  I don't necessarily believe in abortion, but I don't believe its the government's place to make that decision for anyone. I absolutely could care less whether or not two gay people get legally married, but I don't see a problem with churches not allowing them to do so in their facilities if they're against it - I see a clear and distinct difference between Church marriage and legal marriage (you still have to get the legal paperwork to get married in a church) and I wish the religious right would leave the legal union out of the religious one.

However, there are folks in my office (who I love, by the way) that are straight up tea party types. I'm not a huge tea party fan. I agree with some of their ideas, but not their platform, as shown by the Founder of the Tea Party, Judson Phillips, in a Washington Post Live Chat yesterday. A commenter made the following statement:

Liberals are just as American as you are and you and your movement has no right to question people's patriotism or Americanness just because they disagree with you.

I think his response speaks for itself:

Yes we do. You folks in the left do far worse. Patriotism is not something that cannot be measured. It can be. And you folks on the left, as a general rule are not patriotic. You do not love this country. You are embarrassed by us.

I hate to tell you this, but those of us in fly over country are the real americans.

Does anyone else see the problem with this? The Tea Party movement tries to make people believe that the media is just being mean to them, then their founder posts a statement like this. I'm a proud Military Veteran that comes from a long line of proud Military Veterans, all the way back to and before the Revolutionary War. And you're going to tell me that because I disagree with you I'm not a "Real American"? I call BS. That's almost as good as an earlier response he made saying that moderates have no values. Awesome.

I'm sick to death of the polarization of politics in this country, and I would love nothing more than to see real live political debate make a comeback over the silly, substance-free back and forths. I think many Americans agree with me. With the two party system in our country consisting of two parties moving more and more to the extreme of either side, I'd love to see a viable 3rd party candidate. But until the time comes where that third party candidate can seriously run without just being a splinter from another party and splitting their votes, I just don't see that happening.
In happier news, I'm wearing a pair of pants today that I haven't been able to wear in months. Yay for master plans going my way!