The Angry Men are once again pleased to welcome a new voice of anger to the fold. In keeping with our belief in the healing power of anger, we present the Angry Virginian in his own words, writing about his recent epiphany:
Once upon a time, I didn’t understand conservatives at all. I mean, what is it that they have against poor people? Why do they like violence so much? Why don’t they care about the future of our planet? They just seemed like a bunch of greedy and hypocritical old men to me.
Then, a funny thing happened that turned my view of conservatives on its head. It wasn’t George Bush’s election – He seemed like a harmless nitwit, and by himself, he didn’t do much to change my view on anything. It wasn’t even the September 11 attacks, as I’m the sort of person who believes that whatever was a good (or bad) idea on September 10 was still just as good (or bad) an idea on September 12. However, the United States’ response to the September 11 attacks, which has been inefficient at best and utterly terrifying at worst, dramatically changed the way I view politics, government, and international affairs.
First and foremost, I learned why so many conservatives don’t like big government. When you realize for the first time that your tax dollars are being spent on things that are stupid and unethical… well, you get mad. You get frustrated. You realize that when the government does something wrong, it does it on such a vast scale and with so much momentum that there is little (if anything) the private sector could do to counteract it. Previous presidents might have been sleazy or inconsistent, but they didn’t waste too much of my country’s time and money doing it. George W. Bush taught me just how wrong the government could go, and he made me wonder if maybe government is inherently bad after all. It’s a possibility that I hadn’t considered – Thank you, George, for pointing that out.
Speaking of evils that I hadn’t believed in before, how about some more government surveillance? I participated in a protest so that I could speak out against the invasion of Iraq – Does that mean I’m on a government watch list now? I mean, I have nothing to hide, but that shouldn’t mean squat. The idea that expressing one’s political views and participating in public debate could be punished by the United States Government is deeply and truly disturbing. All of those gun-toting libertarians who have been fretting about Big Brother don’t seem so paranoid any more.
There’s another area where Bush has made me more conservative. For many years, liberals (myself included) have favored increased federal power, as the states dragged their feet in providing many Americans with fair treatment and essential liberties. However, as the federal government now seems to be more in the business of discrimination and restricting rights than many of the states are, my attitude is shifting. As long as certain powers are reserved to the states (hey, it’s that Bill of Rights again!), then I will always have the option to leave my embarrassingly-red home state for somewhere more civilized and yet stay in the United States.
To sum it all up:
- If my taxes are funding a pointless war, then I want my taxes to be cut.
- If law enforcement is being directed to go after pacifist old-ladies, then maybe I really do to hide from the government and buy a gun.
- If the federal government is going to be so stupid, then maybe some power needs to be given back to the states.
Living under the Bush administration has taught me that these conservative ideas make a lot more sense than I thought.
The 12 Angry Men Blog 
May 29, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Typical liberal. If GWB had really eliminated rights and made you live in fear, you wouldn’t be posting this.
The Republicans, and GWB specifically have made us SAFER, not less free. And before you try and lie and say he didn’t make us safer, let us take a look:
Under Clinton’s watch we had 5, count that FIVE major terrorist attacks against our nation:
* The 1993 World Trade Center bombing
* The Oklahoma City bombing
* The Centennial Olympic Park bombing
* The US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania
* The USS Cole bombing
Under GWB’s watch we’ve had only 1, the 9/11 attacks, after which we as a country have been free from terrorism.
Your government isn’t terrorising you, it is making you SAFE and that is an undisputable FACT. Under a liberal, I have no doubt that many US cities would have suffered fates similar to NYC. Likely Miami would be a smoking crater, downtown LA would be rubble, and Seattle would be in ruin.
Like it or not, you owe your very LIFE to GWB.
May 29, 2007 at 3:01 pm
“Typical liberal. If GWB had really eliminated rights and made you live in fear, you wouldn’t be posting this.”
No – Would you rather that he did?
“Under Clinton’s watch we had 5, count that FIVE major terrorist attacks against our nation… Under GWB’s watch we’ve had only 1, the 9/11 attacks”
Because terrorism is totally something that you can draw statistically significant conclusions about?
By the way, do attacks on US soldiers count, or are they not people like US civilians are?
“Under a liberal, I have no doubt that many US cities would have suffered fates similar to NYC. Likely Miami would be a smoking crater, downtown LA would be rubble, and Seattle would be in ruin.”
That’s fascinating speculation, but that’s all it is: speculation. I could also speculate that under a more liberal government we’d have responded to 9/11 by committing ourselves to energy independence and re-committing ourselves as a nation to helping others around the world, leading to a new global era of peace and prosperity. However, that’s just speculation, and so I wasn’t planning to waste your time with it.
On the other hand, your time doesn’t appear to be very valuable, so maybe I should go on. 😉
“Like it or not, you owe your very LIFE to GWB.”
I hate to break it to you, but even in your unspeakably absurd alternate future scenario, it’s still more likely that I would have been killed in a car accident then by terrorism.
Of course, the point of terrorism isn’t to kill dozens or even thousands of people – It’s to convince hundreds of millions of people that they are in danger of being killed. By making exaggerated statements about the impact of terrorism, you, sir (or madam?), are the ULTIMATE EXAMPLE OF EVERYTHING THAT AL QAEDA WOULD LIKE TO ACCOMPLISH.
Congratulations. Now, please shut up and stop helping terrorism.
May 29, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Under a liberal Administration, 9/11 would have been handled VERY differently. It would have been PREVENTED. President Gore wouldn’t have spent months on vacation, wouldn’t have ignored memos titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US,” and wouldn’t have made attacking Iraq his primary objective. Unlike SOME Presidents in office today, Al Gore has logic and intellect.
Notice that the total deaths under Clinton’s watch were only a fraction of those lives lost in 9/11? A number of lives, incidentally, fewer than have been lost in Iraq military operations since victory was so arrogantly declared. And those numbers totaled are negligible compared to the deaths of Iraqi civillians in that time, which estimates place between 70,000 and 650,000! Nobody who honestly gives a damn about human life can possibly defend Bush’s positions, and nobody who honestly wants lower taxes should enjoy hemhorraging federal money into a black-hole war that has no potential for real victory. America can’t win another country’s civil war, we just kill and be killed for nothing.
Virginian, stay angry. More people NEED to be angry, until things really change.
May 29, 2007 at 7:45 pm
“By the way, do attacks on US soldiers count, or are they not people like US civilians are?”
“Notice that the total deaths under Clinton’s watch were only a fraction of those lives lost in 9/11?”
Well apparently no we in the miliatry do NOT count, aside from being only “a fraction” see the bombings of Khobar towers and the of the USS Cole, are called acts of war. Open aggression against our military forces, plain and simple. We tracked those acts back to Al Queda, and Bin Laden. We knew who did it and where they were, however instead of answering that call in proper fashion with an invasion of those who declared war upon us, we did nothing. Its not until the towers came down and civilians died that suddenly the cries of “we are at war” could be heard. Thanks for letting me know that a foreigner killing me over a conflict with the US does not constitute an act of war, but if he kills a civilian such as yourselves then suddenly all hell breaks loose. Nice double standard.
Afterall only US military died in those attacks and if there is one thing we in the military have learned, its that Bush, Gore, or Clinton, it doesnt matter, because they are all civilians and so couldnt give a goddamn what happens to us.
You use our deaths as statistics to back up your opinions “we are winning the war” or “we are losing the war” I have yet to be convinced by one person on either side that they actually care about the people behind those numbers. They are more interested in if those numbers get more or less people hating Bush. For Shame!
I guess there wasn’t much real rememberance going on over Memorial day was there?
May 30, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Technicality — today (May 30) is Memorial Day. Monday was merely the observance.
March 21, 2009 at 2:33 pm
@ IHateLiberalScum
In England we lived with attacks from the IRA for decades, but life still carried on and we managed to sort the problem out without criminalising our ordinary people.
In the 80’s we lived under the threat of the nuclear “briefcase bomb” but again we didn’t clamp down on the people and again we solved the problem.
Since Sep 11th the British people have been more criminalised and more rights and liberties stripped than in the entire period that the IRA was attacking us, and yet Sep 11th didn’t even happen on our own soil.
Even in the worst days of World War II we did not have laws like have been enacted this decade.
Now these new laws are being swung around against people who are absolutely nothing to do with the problem that was used as the reason to bring them in, the people the laws were supposed to protect.
Staunch old-style Republican, Consitution-loving conservatives are now targets: report that was published a few days ago – a Google search will guide you to it.
You don’t have to be a liberal or a conservative to see that this is what is wrong. It’s about honesty and the difference between “we, the people” and “them, the government”. People of all political persuasions are being tyrannised by an increasingly tyrannical government. The tiny minority have ended up ruining life for the majority, but it’s not even the tiny minority who are doing it any more!
Having the freedom to post a comment on a blog like this is a separate matter from the freedoms that have been removed.
March 21, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Sorry paragraph 6 should read
Staunch old-style Republican, Consitution-loving conservatives are now targets: see the MIAC Report that was published a few days ago – a Google search will guide you to it.