DIAL BACK THE PANIC

I make no secret of my belief that it is your right, nay your responsibility as a citizen, to speak out when you think your elected officials are doing the wrong things. You should feel free to use avenues such as your Facebook status updates to do so. Just one thing I ask of you.

APPLY SOME DAMN COMMON SENSE.

No, President Obama is not going to sign away our sovereignty as a nation to enter into a world government under the guise of a global warming treaty. Even if you imagine that our President is such a radical lunatic nutjob that he'd want to do such a thing, let's all think back to social studies and remember that a treaty has to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate. Then let's take a deep breath. Perhaps we could also consider the mind-blowing impossibility of uniting all countries in the world under one government. That should calm us down regarding that possibility, no?

No, passing any sort of government-sponsored health care plan will not turn us into [name of developing nation with a despotic ruler]. The word "socialist" is being thrown around and terrifying people all over. I found it a little startling when, as a college freshman, I heard it used in the names of political parties in Europe. But...socialism! Totalitarian regimes! Communism! I don't know the difference! See, but there is one. Even if a true socialist health care plan were being seriously considered (it's not), its passage would not turn us into a third-world dictatorship. Democracy and socialism are not opposites. Ask pretty much anybody in Western Europe. Nary a communist dictatorship among them.

Also, don't tell anybody, but we've had socialism in this country for years! The government uses everybody's tax dollars to provide a vital service that, but for government intervention, much of the population wouldn't be able to afford. Do you know what it is? Public schools! And yet, here we are, the world's oldest continually-operating democracy. Retroactive panic on this issue seems silly, no?

(Note: you don't want to get into it with me regarding having to pay for public schools that you don't use unless you want to justify your interest in creating a permanent underclass in this country of people who produce generation after generation of illiterate children due to inability to pay for school and/or homeschool their children due to their own complete lack of education. Whether you use the public schools or not, you benefit from living in a society where everyone has access to basic education. No, really. You do.)

I was, as you know, no fan of the most recent President Bush. I thought he made terrible decisions. But at no point did I think or say that he had a nefarious agenda to bring down America. I was able to disagree with the way he went about it without oh, say, labeling him the anti-Christ (or, as I have also seen, the anti-John the Baptist figure to the coming anti-Christ). I think he was trying, albeit in a way with which I vehemently disagreed, to do what was best. Perhaps we could start from this assumption regarding the current president.

I am not telling you that you have to like President Obama (or that you're unamerican for opposing the president, as was suggested to me during the Bush administration) or that you should support health care reform. I am asking you, when you see that YouTube video informing you of our impending national demise, to remember that there are checks and balances. Try to keep things logical and respectful. Ease off the Hitler references and the caps lock key.

OR ELSE OBAMA'S FASCIST ROBOT FLYING MONKEY MINIONS WILL EAT ALL OF OUR FACES UNTIL WE DIE!!!!!!