Atlus Stepped

Just in case you don’t see it tomorrow morning on your political news aggregater of choice, a Rand Paul supporter stepped on the head of a MoveOn.org member after she was wrestled to the ground by some other friends of Rand. This occurred outside of the Kentucky senate debate Monday night.

Obviously a true libertarian Tea Partier, he has decided that his right to do whatever he wants trumps her right not to have her head stepped on. I’m starting to think that maybe the Tea Party movement isn’t really based on veneration of the Constitution and antipathy to big government, but rather simple selfishness and disdain for the rule of law. That dude is like GI Joe, a “Real American” hero.

Despite what I just said, I don’t think that it is right to cast this as an illustrative case of one faction’s wrongness. I think that we should instead see this as the logical outcome of the politics of villainy as practiced by both sides.

I pine for political discourse where the starting point is the assumption that both sides honestly want what they think is best for the country. That sort of a setup would require politicians to actually do what they thought was best for the country once elected, rather than whatever will be most likely to get them re-elected. Impossible. Could we at least settle for a baseline acceptance that both sides are equally bent instead of assuming that our culturally preferred candidate of choice shits golden Twinkies that smell like flowers and their opponent is evil incarnate?

I need to stop this magical thinking.

Cobra!