Yes. That's how Republicans read all this freedom talk in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Whether they want to be in power in a country or a workplace or a home, they cry, "Freedom for me!"

Which is actually the trick we played on them when we got them to sign on to those documents in the first place, because we banked on the hope that this country's inevitable intention was freedom for everybody.

Meanwhile the freedom-for-me people, not knowing their real slogan is "License for me" - because freedom that steals others' freedom is not freedom - continue in power as long as we allow them. Not to blame her, but this guy's singing wife may perhaps be the conservative ditto head, the child as adult who is happy in the trance of being told what to do.

Meanwhile the rest of us, the majority, live with both our freedom and with what freedom is stolen from us, whether politically or at work (I've heard bosses called a tax on workers) or at home.

Thanks.

(More, for free: search "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston" - the preview has the whole book.)

This is not a partisan issue. As a liberal Michal Jackson fan, I will not dodge saying that he was a pedophile. Get real, please. Hitler wasn't convicted of committing atrocities.

It wasn't to share the innocent joys of amusement parks and zoos that Michael built Neverland Ranch but to get in little boys' pants. None of his work will ever be free of this suspicion.

There is something particularly creepy when ulterior motives cloak joy.

We are left with the all-too-human dilemma of feeling two or more very different and powerful ways about a remarkable yet deeply flawed human being.

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(More, for free: search "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston". If the preview, which is the whole book, doesn't show, talk to lulu.)

See, everyone's nuts. It's not just conservative Southern whites. It's liberals too. We flatter ourselves that we've got sanity in our hip pocket.

So when Birthers and Town Hells get going, everyone reacts to the vibe in their own way. I caught a whiff of it the other day, my heart thumping, and thought, "'There's nothing to fear but fear itself.'" And I followed that by thinking, "Obama needs to give America a 'There's nothing to fear but fear itself' speech."

I don't know if it's just Southern conservatives, but conservatives in general have been, to my way of thinking, manifesting their mental illness in terms of an overwhelming lack of comfort ever since the '60s. The '60s drove them nuts, and now it looks to them like the '60s is running the country and they do not yet know how to get comfortable. Do you get how I mean "comfort"? It's deep biochemistry, influencing body, mind, psyche, etc.

Now a flip of the switch and not-rich conservative Southern whites could be ours, just like they were during the Depression. They could hold the same social views they hold now, and did then, but be with us. Their moving this way is how Obama got elected.

So while I agree with both sides of this argument, the point is for us not to go (too) nuts ourselves. We need to stick together, and we need to be able to talk to not-rich conservatives so they see we're not too nuts, and that we're all on the same side.

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(More for free - search "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston" - except that the whole thing was free to read in a Preview that they've disappeared. I'm trying to get it back.)

2nd post - late, but things dawn on me late sometimes.

They're us. I'm a Yankee liberal, living in the South. Southerners are us. Yes, we're Obama, we're Sotomayor, we're John F. Kennedy, but we're also George W. Bush and Bull Conner. As a matter of fact, too many of these posts from Yankee liberals sound like they're from Yankee liberal Bull Conners.

Yes, George W. Bush was the final straw, the unspeakable anti-American American and we naturally enough have built up in us this grand fury at him and all things his, like conservative Southerners. And then this idiot Birther thing comes along, and Town Hells fucking with civilized discourse and a possible real health care solution; against their own best interests, of course, but against ours too. So we're pissed, and now it looks like maybe we've got the power back.

But they're just our crazy drunk cousin. Take a breath. Maybe even some of them'll one day come around, especially if we don't pillory them too bad.

Best we don't use the power like they used the power, and still are using it in the South, and the Supreme Court, etc.

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(More: search "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")