I wrote this on Facebook, but I think I should publicize it to a wider audience. This is my best argument for the election of 2012:

This is an excerpt from an email I wrote to my father after he told me about how awful socialists are. Enjoy.

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I honestly can’t say that I’m terribly upset by Quantitative Easing or that I harbor any fear of inflation. I find fear to be a worthless emotion. Fear and worry do nothing for anyone. It’s a lot like a rocking chair. Yes you shuffle about a lot but you don’t get anywhere. Plus fear is a kind of fog that sits on your mind and suppresses true joy and real happiness. I’m tired of the media telling me that I should be afraid or fear that or this or whatever. I get loads of it when I fly for work and it’s, to put it nicely, utter malarkey. The end isn’t coming, the politicians aren’t going to ruin the world. The globe will continue to spin day after day and people will continue to make a gamely try at it, doing what they always do. The color of the background may change, but life will go on.

As for Willard Romney, as I refuse to use his cutesy pet name, he’s got a lot of problems. He, and others in the Republican party seem to have fallen off the rightmost edge of existence. Even beyond you and your friends. That’s quite something! The GOP killed a paid-for-and-ready-to-go jobs bill for **VETERANS**. Dad, I know you look in the mirror to shave. I know you were in the Marine Corps and I also know that once you are a marine, you are one for life. So, that on some deep private level in your mind should bother you. That your party nailed a perfectly good bill just because they are racist and can’t stand to see a bunch of old white men subservient to a younger black man. I know you aren’t a racist, and I forgive you for being so incredibly conservative, but you have to admit that deep down, your inner Marine has got to smart at least a little to know that a jobs bill that was supposed to benefit vets got shot down for absolutely no good reason. Well, it bothers me. More than that though, is the entire GOP party being so intransigent. They started congress with the single aim of denying progress to our President beyond rational thought. They have killed and voted down every single effort, efforts that are meant to benefit the middle class. Middle class people like you, Theresa, and uh, THE REST OF US. Including me. I can’t say that I have a problem with taxing the rich, not really. I learned a little bit of history a few weeks ago that I will share with you. Trickle-Down Economics, that economic policy that if you cut the taxes on the very rich that everyone benefits because the rich will donate, they’ll start new businesses, and hire people and all of that. It sounds wonderful, but the rich really haven’t done anything they were supposed to do for the rest of us. They, especially Willard Romney, moved their money to Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. So, back to Trickle-Down, it used to be known by another more colorful name. It used to be called Horse and Sparrow Economics. The mental image was that you force fed a horse (the rich) with oats until it started to run oats in it’s droppings, and the droppings were for the Sparrows (the rest of us). I find that to be more accurate a representation of the economic policy of the GOP. Feed the rich until they start dropping food out of their ass for the rest of us to eat. It’s a delightfully filthy image, but that’s how a lot of us in the middle class feel. That the rich get richer and the rest of us could die for all they care – yet we’re doing ALL OF THE WORK. Then I learned that the rich do not create jobs. It is the Middle Class that creates jobs. The Middle Class makes enough money to buy en-masse, which encourages those who want to make money to cater to us and then they hire people to suit that need. The rich will not just create jobs because somehow they feel put-upon to do so! It’s the Middle Class that does the hard work and it’s the Middle Class that creates the need. So, really, when you get down to it, the rich are parasites. It’s diametrically opposite to how conservatives think – that the poor are the parasites. It hasn’t worked out in 200 years, perhaps you have it wrong.

Another thing that I’ve learned is the hot emotional core of old white man anger. There is a problem in your ranks, with the Republican party and it’s been happening for many many years. The GOP has switched in it’s leadership. It used to be run by Yankee power, by the Andrew Carnegies and Rockefellers . Now it’s run by Southern power. It’s got nothing to do with getting rich and leaving a lasting positive legacy behind. That’s a Yankee extract from the Puritan style of thinking. That if you make a lot of money you owe it to leave something behind that benefits everyone else. Compare that with how the GOP is currently structured – especially the Tea Party people, whom you are directly responsible for as a party member. It’s a Southern way. It’s all about fear, loathing, racism and hierarchy. There is a pecking order and that rules over everything else. Where does this come from? Not from the Puritans, but rather from English aristocracy running slavery plantations in Barbados. They brought their structure into the deep south and for at least 150 years the Yankees had power and the Southerners resented it. Now the tables have turned. All the things you remember and treasure about your dear conservatism have been perverted by Southern wretches who refuse to acknowledge your aspirations about what conservatism can do. You want Trickle-Down, or Horse-and-Sparrow to work, and I know it’s precious and dear to you. But it’s not being driven by the men you thought it was. It’s driven by men who are only concerned with the structure of hierarchy and maintaining the status quo. In many ways, the rank and file of the GOP are field slaves to your new Southern masters. The Southern Republican wants it only his way and no other. No room for anything else. And no room for someone as backwards as Andrew Carnegie or a Rockefeller to leave anything but a smoking husk behind.

So the rest of us, pretty much having to land behind the horse and eat whatever seeds might be dropping out of the rear of that animal see nothing but rigid structure and absolutely no progress. There aren’t jobs being made, the recovery is stultified and the men and women who are supposed to make things easier for us all are so racist that they’ve become nearly crystallized in their intransigence. Things aren’t getting better and then we hear about how the rich have $21 Trillion dollars stored overseas and how none of the rich are helping anyone else. There isn’t anymore bird seed for us Sparrows! The rich are sending their droppings off to Switzerland! So, we’re between a rock and a hard place. Nobody wants to help us, the conservatives don’t give a flying rip and the Republicans think we’re just a batch of worthless moochers, the 47% that Willard Romney spoke of. The 47% like YOUR MOTHER for all the time that I knew her when she was still alive, one of those 47%! So, the Middle Class, with nothing from the conservatives at all have to turn to anything else. So the liberals and democrats say that some socialization may help. You chafe at the word socialism yet you feed off of it. It’s a strange relationship, you know. The silent generation and the baby boomers are both entitled and you are reaping the benefits while castigating anyone else who might even show an interest in what you are taking advantage of. Socialism. Like your auto insurance and your homeowners insurance, which is socialized. Your Fire Departments and the public schools that educated… people you love… again, socialism. Medicare that pays for your trips to see the doctor. Socialism. Social Security, which has SOCIAL in it’s !@#$ name! Regular checks… on the backs of the rest of us. And we smile gamely and nod and wish you happiness, and what do we get in return? Sour grapes and angry yammerings about marxism and socialism. My tin ear aches.

So yes, socialism Dad. Wonderful glorious socialism. The poor and middle class are tired of eating horse shit. We are weary of the rich and their excesses and their rudeness and their stupid capering behaviors! They aren’t respectable. The rich are tapeworms that eat everything and leave nothing for anyone else. They contribute nothing but nasty snide comments and thanks to a disgustingly eroded public education system, they use fear to control the great unwashed masses.

And so, we come back to fear. Fear is what’s at the heart of the problem. The majority of Americans are too stupid and too fearful to engage in any rational thought. If they knew what the rich and the conservatives did to the rest of us, while they waddled off fat and happy there would be hell to pay. Thankfully we are an easily cowed lot. Obedient and silent and hard-working.

So, in a way, screw the rich. And frankly my dear, I don’t want to be rich. I want to be happy. Perhaps capitalism isn’t such a grand to-do after all. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe socialism isn’t oh-so-terrible! Maybe if the Sparrows are given fresh bird seed they might be able to fly again. I think that’s worth looking into.

So as a member of the Middle Class, I have no choice but to be deaf to the Republican party. The members of your party did their level best to hurt the rest of us through glorious inaction. We see the GOP’s intransigence and we’ll throw our chips in when it comes time to vote. The question will be simple for us: Select someone who has hurt us all or someone who offers at least a workable claim to want to move forward. Willard Romney or Barack Obama. At least for me, there is no real choice. The GOP are anti-American racist hypocritical ignorant bigots.

An empty chair would be better. Or maybe, a chair with Barack Obama actually sitting in it, leading. DOING SOMETHING. DOING ANYTHING.