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I was raised by wolves

My pal Ray and I were talking just the other day. He had called to say that the CEO of his company had sent an email that was praising the election of Barack Obama. Then he related a tale of how in the middle of a bit of dentistry, the dental assistant had offered a bit of anti-Bush diatribe.

In the middle of having dentistry - let's pop in a little jab at President Bush. Sure, what could be wrong with that.

I've seen this phenomenon as well. I find that there are some people who just naturally assume that "everyone hates Bush" and therefore no knock is too low, no time is the wrong time for politics.

Jay Nordlinger writes a great piece in NR on the subject today.

As I said, this sort of thing has happened to me as well. This might surprise some of you, but I don't talk politics in public, I certainly don't talk about it at work. I never have, and I never will. I often find myself having to respond to it, and when it occurs, I usually say something like "well I was raised by wolves so you'll excuse me if I abide by the rule that says you dont talk about sex, religion or politics at work. You should respect my diversity in this matter. The real reason I don't talk about those things is something called "common courtesy" which as of late is in short supply. You should never talk about those three things for no other reason that it is simply rude. Talking about any one of those things in a public venue can potentially become an incendiary subject.

So obviously that means I'm depressed and upset about President Obama. Oh, sorry thrillseekers, I'm not. The funniest thing about this election to me is how the left envisaged that we on the right would become as moonbat crazy against President Obama as they did against Bush. It didn't happen and in my opinion, it wont happen. There will be things we like and dislike about President Obama, but I don't think we will hate him. Our negative reaction to Obama wont define who we are.

I'll come back to this later, but to illustrate my point let me relate this story. I was at the office after the inaugural when one of my liberal collegues came by to tell me how happy they were with the election and in a slip of the tongue he said "Im so proud to be an American". He was expecting anger from me but I just said "feels good doesn't it? That sudden pulse of patriotism. Welcome to the side of the angels my friend!"

He stopped dead cold. He was genuinely feeling good and he was feeling genuinely patriotic and these were entirely new feelings for him. I told him it was ok, it was a good thing to love your country but that idea just seemed to make him woozy. For the first time since I've known him, he was forced to recognize something that he had not believed possible.

That he and I, were actually on the same side. That thought doesn't bother me at all, but it bothers the hell out of some people.

Posted @ January 26, 2009 08:01 AM | Current Affairs

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