I WANT A DIVORCE


I am having a bad day. It is my son's 21 birthday and he is away at college in California. I sorta hate it. On the one hand he is the light of my life and I am so very proud, on the other hand I still feel the same way I did about him when he was five. Fiercely protective, unreasonably blinded to his faults, and eternally on his side.

So it makes me realize I really am getting old. And Cranky. Really Cranky. Anyone that knows me, probably knows I am a "left wing, let my liberal anything goes peace flag fly" type of person. I deplore almost everything there is about the nutty people that live over on the right side of this culture. They confuse me with their contradictory values and willingness to ignore anything that is not a part of their own personal truths.

Now I did not just wake up this week and realize I was a liberal and some people are not. But today. on my sons 21st birthday I am realizing that their intolerance is making me, at last, intolerant.

I don't want to turn the other cheek anymore. I don't wish to be polite about prejudice. I now refuse to let anyone think I agree that ignorance is acceptable. I don't expect that we can all get along anymore. I don't want to try and get along with people that are so narrow minded they cannot see the truth even if when it is poking them in the nuts.

I look at the silly candidates the Republicans are presenting for office and laugh. I secretly jumped for joy that the New Jersey Governor Chris Christie decided not to run. This gives me hope that the Republicans cannot possibly win this election.

It did not have to be this way, but the right has pushed me to the point where I wanna push back. I wanna tell them off. I wanna tell them how damaging they are to what used to be a pretty good culture to live in. A culture that appreciated every ones right to their own opinion and allowed everyone the right to think for themselves.

Now it seems if you are not "with them" you are: evil, an enemy of humanity, on a destructive path... it goes on and on.

I have been having some fantasies lately. No ! Not those kind of fantasies... geesh get your mind outta the gutter .  I am talking about fantasies where I don't live in the same country as the crazy, self righteous, right.

One of those fantasies involves the recent discovery of billions of new planets by astronomers. Possibly, one of those planets could be made habitable for humans. Gliese 581-d perhaps. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could just ship all of the right wingers there ? Or conversely, if those of us that still exist on the side of sanity could go there and not let them follow us ?

What would it be like to live in a world without Rush and Pat Robertson and Fox news ? It would be Utopia ! Wouldn't it be grand if every person that lived here was judged only by the content of their character ? How true you are? How loyal you are ? How intelligent you are ? How talented you are ?

My fear is that this won't happen, eventually the cultural divide will  become so great we will have a civil war on our hands. Yeah I know what you are thinking... Lisa has gone to far. That would never happen. I am saying that the vituperative nature of the rhetoric today has nowhere to go. It will  eventually lead to this  if it is not stopped. Look at every revolution in history. It starts with two sides that cannot agree, then they duke it out and one side loses. We are not immune to this.

I am done sitting on the sidelines. I am consciously choosing to become a part of the problem. I will be as ignorant and intolerant as any redneck, NRA, born again,homophobic moron out there. Because this is my country too. I am done watching it disintegrate into a place where only the truly insane have a voice. If I can't have a divorce from these nut jobs, then fine.  Bring it On !