Respectfully Disagreed
“Charisa is hoping you’re bracing yourselves for the fool you chose to take over the country.” “Jon- goodbye Bush, thanks for [defiling] America.” On Inauguration Tuesday, America filled its Facebook statuses with shameful, narrow-minded and even racist comments regarding the inauguration of Barack Obama and the retirement of President George W. Bush.
It’s not like we should be surprised. In an environment of freedom, citizens inevitably critique authority with relentless aggression. Perhaps it comes with our origin. Maybe it’s the idea that two centuries ago, a select group of Americans overthrew the established leader because of his tyranny. Of course, the king had problems. Parliament didn’t help either. But, just maybe, our founding fathers inadvertently set a precedent of disrespect for authority by ousting the king from our continent.
Not that they were without cause. Fundamental differences only grew between Great Britain and the colonies. Separation was inevitable. Yet personal attacks on authority figures demeans the country as a whole. By delegitimizing the historical significance of a governing office, citizens demean the country as a whole, regardless of their intentions.
There are times when this is necessary. Yet critiquing a leader through exaggeration and insults help no one.
Especially over the past year, critiques of President George W. Bush often betray the critic to be narrow-minded, arrogant and disrespectful of the nation’s highest office.
That, of course, is a tall charge. I’m not going to say it started with Bush (I’ve made fun at Clinton often enough to know that). In fact, I’m not even convinced that the problem of disrespect for public authority started in America. Yet it’s quite obvious that the problem has propagated beyond the realm of debate into the sphere of prejudice.
Think about it. Democrats flip open the New York Times and gawk at statistics of Bush’s War of Terror compiled by Democrat journalists. Republicans turn on Fox News and are fed opinions by eloquent Republicans. On Inauguration Day, Democrats hailed the end of the Bush Regime and Republicans bemoaned the end of the free world (while buying guns and ammo, of course). And neither side really cared about what the other had to say.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending Bush’s actions. But I do recognize that history alone will judge this president. Today, we are all too caught up in partisan-fueled rhetoric. Our fundamental differences blind us to alternative ideas.
The Republican reaction certainly hasn’t been without fault either. The reaction to Barack Obama’s election shows the increasing tendency of everyone everywhere to exaggerate. Already, I’ve been invited to the “Impeach Obama” Facebook group. Definitive judgments must only be made with the perspective of history. Because of nature of national leadership, it is literally impossible to make informed judgments without access to all the information in the President’s hands.
As President Bush said to Time reporter Nancy Gibbs, “There ought to be a rule where no one writes history about your short term until a generation of those who never voted for you or against you show up.”
There are limits, of course. Should President Obama ever actually unilaterally
decide to set up a caliphate state (and take our guns and bankrupt corporate America), then it is the right and responsibility of the people to abolish the oppressive authority. As it stands, the man has barely entered office.
This, of course, is only the most basic of requirements for a citizen of the United States. Here at Wabash, we are called to an even higher standard. So where citizens must only show respect for the office, gentlemen must show respect for the person.
This doesn’t force us into a realm of political relativism, where our voiced opinions must be contingent on the current leaders. Yet it forces us to debate the issues alone; people are held in the highest regard. So while I personally detest the ideas of mass dependence
on government institutions, I recognize that President Obama is a capable man fairly given the most prominent political role in the free world.
While I disagree with many of his policies, I respect him, both on an individual and political level. The same was true for Bush. And Clinton.
We laugh off small jabs at credibility like they’re nothing. Perhaps we mean nothing by them. Yet our calling as citizens of the United States and as Wabash men must propel our level of discourse beyond disrespectful and classless behavior.
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