Nance Greggs: The Path of No Resistance [View all]

[babylonsister]

http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2012/06/24/the-path-of-no-resistance/


The Path of No Resistance
By NanceGreggs, on June 24th, 2012



snip//

When one hears the current Republican babble-speak, it seems unbelievable that anyone with a modicum of intelligence, or just plain common sense, wouldn’t dismiss their ramblings out-of-hand: Unionized workers are bleeding the country dry, while CEOs of major corporations collecting multi-million dollar salaries are working hard to earn every penny. Teachers who educate our children are greedy parasites, while bankers and stockbrokers are just doing their best to get by. Firefighters and cops are expendable, while insurance company executives wielding “claim denied” stamps are necessary to protect the common good.

What is being proffered by the Republican Party is not the path of least resistance, but the path of no resistance. Don’t ask the obvious questions, don’t let common sense prevail, don’t attach immoral intent to those making a buck off the misery of others, don’t pay any attention to the fact that the hypocrites expounding the virtues of traditional marriage and family values are often philanderers and dead-beat dads, don’t accept that your duly-elected representative is under investigation for good reason, don’t wonder why the homeless people in your city are veterans who fought for their country, and don’t – under any circumstances – doubt anyone who tells you that you’re a sucker for giving a buck or two to someone who looks like they need a decent meal.

It is a sad day in America when so many are anxious to jump on the no-one-deserves-my-tax-dollars bandwagon, while gleefully cheering the expenditure of those same tax dollars on efforts to purge legitimate voters from the rolls, to deny access to healthcare to their fellow citizens, to promote the exclusion of facts from our children’s textbooks, to ensure that the down-and-out stay down-and-out rather than underwriting every effort to feed them, clothe them, and bring them back into the fold of our society at large.

The path of no resistance does not want for adherents to its self-serving tenets. It only wants for human compassion, a true weighing of what is right as against what is inherently wrong, a sense of self-respect that is inclusive of respecting others, a perspective based on what is in front of your eyes as opposed to what you are being told is obvious, a bit of curiosity as to the facts, a tad of common sense wrapped in common decency, and an uneasy conscience that is not easily salved by those who laud one’s ability to walk past a homeless guy on the street and dismiss his needs as being not only disingenuous, but totally irrelevant.

What we Democrats are up against is not simply a party that opposes our liberal views, but a party that continually encourages our fellow citizens to choose ignorance over intelligent thought, to choose selfishness over the type of charity that all religions preach, to choose mindless political rhetoric over in-your-face facts, to choose the path of no resistance over the straight-and-narrow path – as difficult as that path may be – that leads to one nation, with true liberty and justice for all.