I Think I Have Cracked the Code

I think I have found the reason that we as Liberals and you as Conservatives are not able to connect. It all comes down to politeness. We Liberals are too damned polite. Well, at least the majority of us, buuut that’s not to say that Conservatives aren’t. Maybe they simply don’t understand what is happening around them. Here, let me explain it with an example.

I was in a casual meeting earlier this morning with some of the users of an application I maintain, when one of the users during a break in the discussion leans over to me and quietly begins telling me a racially biased joke about Mexican illegals. I shrugged it off, and although I made it clear by not laughing that I had not found it funny, I did not verbally express how offensive I had found it.

Situations happen like this everyday, and for the sake of keeping things professional and on task I have always left them unchallenged. But then, something very interesting happened.

There was another break in the business discussion when the same person who had told me the joke earlier, let’s call her the comedian, decided to share her feelings of disgust with the rest of the group regarding the recent Rush Limbaugh arrest. “Y’all, can you believe that nonsense with Rush?”

A woman at the end of the table was the first to respond, “Isn’t it hilarious. I can’t stand that idiot. I love it when a jerk like that gets egg on his face. Serves him right.”

Then the person next to her said, “What a moron.”

Then another responded in agreement and then another, then me. Eventually everyone but the comedian was having a good belly laugh at Rush’s expense.

The comedian, visibly stunned by this, responded. “Y’all he’s not that bad. Are you all that liberal?”

Me, “I don’t think you have to be all that liberal to laugh at that schmuck, but yeah, I’m pretty liberal.”

Then silence. Everyone had shut up. Having realized she was all alone in her assumption that everyone had always thought like her, the comedian no longer had anything to say. The rest of the group, having decided that they had overstepped their professional bounds decided to clam-up. They had to continue to work with this person, after all. I quickly, albeit uncomfortably, returned the discussion back towards the software application.

So, to sum up, maybe, just maybe, Conservatives, you are not in the majority in the way that you think you are. Maybe society isn’t slipping away from your ideals, maybe the rest of society is simply not barking as loud about theirs as you are about yours.