Max: What Am I

As a long time narcissist, I am always fascinated to learn what people think of me. Back in high school - depending upon whom you ask - I was a drug dealer, a dangerous lunatic, a harmless geek to be taken under the wing of the cool kids, mildly retarded, too smart to be allowed out among the general public, etc.

It seems people are still playing the "What is Max" game, and are still getting it wrong.

Some people think I am a "liberal", other think I am "conservative". Jericho thinks I am a dangerous water-brain, but not in a bad way. Perhaps the clearest indication people think I am a fellow traveler (either on the left or the right) are the email forwards they send me. For instance, I was recently sent a forward, sent by one of my more leftish acquaintances, that crows about how Ronnie Regan, upon meeting his Veep's namesake, stated that the young W was slightly less intelligent than a lobotomized squirrel. Another I received today talked about how Oliver North once warned a Senate committee about the serious danger posed by allowing a little know terrorist named Osama bin Laden. He was, of course, laughed at by the know it all liberals who then controlled the Senate.

I am guessing the latter thinks I am part of the Faux News brigade - liberals are all evil and stupid, conservatives are all good, godly men trying to save the country from the depredations of the left.

Some call me a socialist because I support universal health care. Some call me a libertarian because I don't want the government to force me to pretend I am a good Christian. In fact, I am both and neither.

Yes, I support universal health care. Anyone who glibly dismisses health care - if you like the post office, you'll love government health care - has never been unemployed, uninsured, broke and told that someone they love is in dire need of surgery. Much less two surgeries in as many months.

Yes I oppose government enforcement of any religion. If you want to flagellate yourself because you think your imaginary friend will reward you after you die, that is your problem. I don't care to join in.

So what am I? I call myself a realist. I prefer facts to the brain-dead rantings of any ideologue of any stripe. That is why my reaction to the two forwards mentioned above was not amusement at those stupid (liberals/conservative). Rather, I was mainly disgusted. Why? Because neither of the above incidents happened. There is no record at all of what, if any, opinion Ronnie Rayguns had of GW. And at the time of the supposed Senate hearing, almost everybody considered ObD a hero because he lead the fight to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

If anything, I am tired. I am tired of the drooling fantasies of ideologues and demigogues. I am tired of people waving a book at me (Bible, Koran, The Wealth of Nations, The Communist Manifesto, whatever) expecting me to turn my brain off and join in the blind stupidity.

If anything, I am disgusted. I am disgusted at people who think that yelling and cutting off people's mics make them experts and the rest of us fools. I am disgusted at people who have never read a real book declaring that the founders of our country were all right wing fundies. Thomas Jefferson took greater pride in leading the fight to repeal a law making Christianity the official religion of Virginia than he did in authoring the Declaration of Independence. And I am disgusted at people who think that just because one or more of our (proud slave owning) founders blindly held to some belief that we all should.

So, yeah. That's me.