The Conservatives Lose One

Well now that the speech Obama is scheduled to give the students of our nation has been released, “conservatives” have finally, and perhaps for the first time since Obama’s election win, said something good about the President. Many are praising the speech. The same speech they were, just a week ago, calling socialist propaganda, an attempt at indoctrination.

The speech has not been changed what so ever since the baseless accusations started.

Chalk up one for the sane, I say sane and not liberals and Democrats because quite a few conservatives spoke out against the fervor concerning the President’s speech. I say sane and not intelligent because many intelligent people, caught in their Obama bashing, were wrapped up in this bashing as well. Sane.

Just some of the things that were said about this speech were that he is going to indoctrinate the children with socialism. That he will use this chance to speak up for healthcare reform and Cap and Trade. About Nazism and liberal philosophies.

Why would he do that? Well because he is Obama. He is a Democrat, a liberal, a socialist, a fascist, a…fill in the blank.

Ever since I’ve been writing on Allvoices, I’ve been paying particular attention to the conservatives on this site. Mostly because I was in their shoes when Bush was in charge but also because I was a conservative before Bush was elected.

My first chance to vote was during Bush’s first election and though I didn’t vote that year due to my own ignorance on issues, I did support Bush. I had been listening to a lot of news from a local Chicago radio personality and he had won me over. But that wasn’t the only reason, I was also coming from a Pakistani family, who were always told to vote Republican because “they were better for foreign policy issues”, meaning better for Pakistan.

I believed the radio personality when he told me that Gore was for big government and higher taxes. That he would destroy the economy that Reagan helped set up. I was new to politics and didn’t remember too much of Reagan, so I took his word for it. I was told that Gore would trample all over the Constitution. He would? I don’t want that! So obviously I supported Bush.

I was 18, confused about political issues and stances. I didn’t know what a conservative was or a liberal. Got the names of both parties confused all the time. Just didn’t know things.

9/11 happened when I was 19 and then I was thrusted into politics, world issues, religions and history. I was a Muslim in America. Relatives of mine started losing jobs. I had gotten into a physical fight at my university and also just driving to meet friends because some racists decided that I was a terrorist. A couple of Sikhs were murdered. Pakistani businesses had bricks thrown into their glass store fronts. Friends of my cousins, international students, had been arrested by the FBI and deported. My best friends since 5th grade were arrested and kept in jail for three days because their last name was Hussain. Everyone I knew was asking me questions about my religion. Before 9/11 I use to be invisible, after 9/11 I was afraid I’d become one of the “disappeared”. I remember one of my friends that was accused of being a terrorist by the FBI because someone who had been to his house complained to the police that he had a map of the U.S. on his wall.

Bush passed the Patriot Act and I stopped seeing doctors, stopped travelling and stopped going to the library. I was being pulled over almost every other week for “acting suspicious”. It’s pretty much the same as “looking suspicious”. On three different occasions the police officers explained the reason for my being pulled over was because of “the orange alert”. One police officer said he pulled me over because he thought it was suspicious that I was returning a video, Southpark, to Blockbuster after hours.

I saw Bush start a war with Iraq. I saw him start Homeland Security. I heard him call the war on terrorism a crusade. I saw Guantanamo Bay fill up. I saw even more Muslims lose their jobs.

I saw as Bush used 9/11 to trample on the Constitution and I saw the same people that claimed they were ready to die to defend the Constitution, the conservatives, step aside while the FBI eavesdropped on and searched people’s homes and phone calls, laptops and reading habits. As police arrested people that questioned Bush’s policies and judgment and I saw people getting tasered for asking conspiracy theory questions that linked Bush and Kerry.

I saw the woman in Texas get arrested for having a book by Noam Chomsky. I saw the peace group in Seattle get infiltrated by the local sheriff’s department. I saw bearded men get pulled off of planes. I saw that happen again and again and again. I saw when Homeland Security asked people to spy on their own neighbors.

I read about how Democrats and anti-war advocates were ending up on No-Fly lists. I heard my uncle tell me how he gets pulled aside every time he has to fly and how embarrassing it is to tell his co-workers to go ahead without him because this happens all the time.

I have to laugh at the people who now participate in Tea Parties and yell at their government representative about losing their rights. These were the same people that applauded Bush when he trampled all over my rights.

Obama hasn’t had one person arrested for speaking out against him. No gun toting, Hilter calling, fascist screaming, policy denying protestor has been arrested for any of their actions, when just a few years ago a couple wearing a t-shirt with Bush’s name crossed off were arrested for their fashion/political statement when he was President.

So were many others who protested Bush’s wars, tortures and the ever growing numbers of detainees that had not been charged with any crime. Even people protesting his economic policies were arrested. Peace advocates like pastors and rabbis were arrested. When people protested against prisoner abuses, basic human rights and for the Constitution, they were arrested. Protestors were video taped and photographed at protests, lists were developed.

These offenses to the Constitution were all done under Bush’s rule, but where were the Tea Baggers then? They were supporting the President. They were giving him the support to trample on my rights and the rights of every other American that protested against real abuses to the Constitution.

I am happy that I never voted for Bush, that I decided I didn’t know enough to participate in my right to vote. That way I have a somewhat clearer conscience.

Protestors calling themselves “Patriots” now because they are standing up to the President of the United States as he tries to talk to kids about hard work and education are a joke, and a very disrespectful joke at that. Protestors that think healthcare reform is Unconstitutional because they and conservative talk shows say so are a joke.

Calling yourself a patriot doesn’t automatically make you one, calling something Unconstitutional doesn’t make it so. A person doesn’t become a socialist because he is one step to the left of you on the political spectrum. And he doesn’t become a fascist because he wants a public option as a way to insure the uninsured and wants to tell students to work hard.

I used to be a conservative. I believed in gun rights, I sided with pro-lifers, I believed in a smaller government.

And even though I still mostly side with pro-lifers and guns rights advocates, and still believe in small government and in state rights, I no longer call myself a conservative. The conservatives have let me down. They let me down while Bush was in charge and they are letting me down now while Obama is in charge.

When Bush was fighting and ignoring the war in Afghanistan, you were telling him to keep fighting. Keep fighting even if we are there for a long time, now you conservatives want him out. When Bush called for bail out and stimuli most of you applauded his decision, but now you call Obama a socialist. When Bush appointed czars, not one peep. When he ignored habeas corpus, nothing. When he tortured people, causing the deaths of many and the suicides of many others and the insanity of many others still, nothing. When he arrested protestors for looking at him funny, crickets chirping.

But now, when the President wants to encourage students to work hard and set goals and participate in one’s own education, we couldn’t get you to shut up, even though the best move for you probably was to be quiet.

Maybe one day a person like me, a pro-lifer, NRA supporter, state right and small government advocator can be proud to call himself a conservative again, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. At least not while Obama is President.

Because while Barack Hussein Obama is President of the United States of America, the “conservatives” will do anything they can to make him look like something that he is not. They will complain about everything that he does, they will yell and protest like children that had their favorite toy taken away from them for being bad. And they will do it all the way back into office.

Obama isn’t doing anything that he hadn’t said he was going to do when running for the presidency. The only people that he is letting down are the ones that voted for him, and he is doing that to appease the people that didn’t.

The modern conservative acts like their officials are saints. That their members’ crap don’t stink. That they are the true American. And unfortunately for you, you are not the TRUE American, you are just American. Just as ignorant and fallible as any other American. Be cautious in your hatred, be understanding in your judgment, be quiet when you think you may be being used as a corporate pawn. One time or another we all end up being a pawn in their game. Especially ones that don’t think their side is ever wrong.

I used to be a conservative, and deep inside I still am one, I will no longer call myself one until the conservative party starts to act more respectful.