November 06, 2004

waxing philosophical

Did you like to hear scary bedtime stories when you were a kid? I did. The scarier the story, the more I liked it, too, even if it gave me nightmares. My great-grandmother told stories about "Red-Eye," some monsterous creature that came in the night and snatched misbehaving little boys out of bed and ATE THEM! She made it clear to me and my brother that Red-Eye was watching and waiting to get US if we didn't do what she said.

We behaved. We didn't want Red-Eye to eat us, and he was just as real as the moon and stars when I was seven years old. Old Red-Eye scared the shit out of me. I BELIEVED that crap.

But I eventually outgrew Red-Eye and other monsters from the scary stories. I became an adult (where I learned to fear wimmen) and I put away those childish fantasies. I came to realize that scary stories are designed to entertain you, but also to make you behave in a certain way. If you do a good enough job of frightening people, they'll do what you say. Fear is a great motivator.

That's what's wrong with the Left today. They see Red-Eye coming to eat them when there IS NO RED-EYE!!! Bejus! Just read some of the liberal editorials and the left-leaning blogs in the election aftermath. RED-EYE WON!!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!

Let's see... okay, the Religious Right is taking over the country. Red-State Rednecks are gonna start lynching Negroes again. Bush will use the Patriot Act to kidnap your children into a life of slavery. GUNS WILL BE EVERYWHERE!!! (not a bad idea, in MY humble opinion.) Abortion will be outlawed, homosexuality will carry a death sentence and BUSH IS GONNA POISON THE ENVIRONMENT!!!! He'll put arsenic in the water, toxins in the air and radiation in our food!!! He's gonna REINSTATE THE DRAFT!!!

Never mind that all those charges are a big, stinking, lying bag of shit. A lot of otherwise sane people actually believe that way. It's a shame that some people never grow up, because there's plenty of REAL things to worry about without going off the deep end about Red-Eye. But you can't convince a leftie of that fact. They are True Believers.

Red-Eye will get you if you don't watch out.