Small Comfort: Living in a 'Blue' county in a 'Blue' state


There's a lot of angry disaffected people out there. There's talk about moving to Canada, the usual paranoid conspiracy theories, etc.

Get over it people.

Progressives often accuse conservatives of an 'American Superiority Complex', of not caring what our actions or policies do to the rest of the world. They call us 'Elitist Liberals' who look down upon the simple values of the common man.

Guess what? The legions of the 'Common Man' whupped our collective asses the other night.

I take small comfort in living in a 'blue' county in a 'blue' state: Muskegon, Michigan.

Of course, that doesn't stop the local 'common man' from taking his cue from George II and walking about like he owns the place. Case in point: I was waiting in line at Burger King in Norton Shores Wednesday evening. I'm working very hard at my Buddhist practice; patience, compassion, nonviolence. The gentleman in line in front of me was definitely testing me, intentionally or otherwise.

He was engaged in conversation with a lovely young cashier. She too was working on her patience practice, although she seemed to agree with his positions on abortion, gun control and the war in Iraq.

Remember now, I'm in line in a fast food restaurant.

Imagine broaching those three divisive subjects with a complete stranger in the time it should take to order a burger and fries... As you can guess, I was there a while.

I was doing OK at first, thinking, "he's older, seems lonely... who am I to interrupt his conversation?"

Then things got ugly and difficult. It's hard to be compassionate to someone when they're saying things like: "That motherfucker Kerry! He flopped back and forth on that whole Iraq war" or "yeah, Kerry wanted more abortions and less guns", or words to that effect. Talk about a sore winner. Sheesh.

I was good though. Kept my mouth shut, maintained my patience and let him go on long enough to embarrass himself. I thought about engaging him, but decided that he was like many of the George II voters -- reasoning with him would be effort wasted.

Besides, I was hungry.

;)

Posted: Thu - November 4, 2004 at 11:44 PM          

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