Over the last few months I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to believe something \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the right is dumb.
\nNow before you start sending me hate mail, let me explain.
\nThis isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a personal belief of mine; I believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a belief of the misguided, far-left.
\nOne of my favorite lines from the movie Spaceballs, and I think is rather fitting here is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nMaybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any real comebacks, or maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a genuine belief that if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re part of the right wing conspiracy, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just a dumb, ignorant American.
\nYou haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t experienced the world like they have.
\nSince I began writing my column last year, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve received several letters accusing me of being completely wrong in my religious and political beliefs.
\nNow while I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind you disagreeing with me, I have to laugh and completely ignore any point you might be making when you resort to saying I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just a poor uneducated soul.
\nAm I uneducated just because I have a belief system different than yours?
\nAm I uneducated because I grew up in the church, or because I grew up in public schools, or because I attended a Baptist university?
\nWhat is it that makes me uneducated?
\nWhen I was a kid, there were a few comebacks that were the end-all-to-end-all.
\nWhen the argument got to these points, you knew it was about time to throw down — mainly because both sides had run out of any logical arguments.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well you fight like a girl.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah, well you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stupid.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nThose are fighting words when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a kid.
\nNow I just laugh.
\nTexas Monthly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s headline article this month is entitled, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Texas vs. the world! Yes, they hate us. Should we care?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nIf you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c go pick up a copy or visit texasmonthly.com.
\nIn the article, author Mimi Swartz points out that the same conservative, qualities that the world loved in J.R. Ewing (and still do) are the same qualities they loath in the leader of the today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conservative right, President George W. Bush.
\nThis past spring a television series entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Texas Season\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was broadcast in Great Britain on BBC Competitor, Channel 4.
\nWhile the show largely made fun of Texans, it also made fun of the values many Texans hold true to their heart.
\nAn episode entitled, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Texas Teenage Virgins\u00e2\u20ac\u009d mocked a group of Lubbock teens trying to adhere to Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s faith-based abstinence program.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Having demonstrated that Texans were ugly, sexually repressed and bigoted, all that remained for the producers was violent. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Texas Solution\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 explored crime and punishment during Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gubernatorial years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d wrote Swartz.
\nThe narrator said Texans were big on forgiveness but low on mercy as they examined the death penalty and punishment in Texas.
\nNow as I read this article and thought about how Texas and many members of the political-right are looked upon as uneducated or too conservative — it hit me — I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done the same thing.
\nWhen my viewpoint on an issues tends to agree with the left (yes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it does happen sometimes) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quick to accuse those disagreeing with my viewpoint as being uneducated or living in a bubble their entire life.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what the real world is like,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I say. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll wake up one day and realize that the world isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as perfect or as easy as they think it is.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to call someone names or make fun of their upbringing or belief system.
\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to say someone is ignorant without offering a better suggestion of your own. The hard part is to sit down and discuss the issues face to face.
\nSomeone once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Democracy is simply keeping the conversation going.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nBut I guess we all stoop to the lowest common denominator when we run out of arguments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the last few months I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to believe something \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the right is dumb. Now before you start sending me hate mail, let me explain. This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a personal belief of mine; I believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a belief of the misguided, far-left. One of my favorite lines from the movie Spaceballs, and I think is … Continue reading The Right is Dumb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2090],"tags":[2088,2089,2092],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns-reflections","tag-belton-journal","tag-columns","tag-newspaper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}