A few weeks ago, I was going to write a piece demolishing a classic Hollywood Liberal who I’d been conversing with. I was going to take his Big-Government ideas and jam them squarely up his $Xmilllion-per-picture ass. But the more I thought about how I felt about the origin story of this article, the less comfortable I became. I don’t think @ghostpanther is evil and I’d be lying to you if I followed that original path.
Adam McKay, the director of films like “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Stepbrothers” and I have been entrenched in a Twitter-based back and forth for months. An epic battle where only one man can be left standing. It’s like “Highlander.” There can be only one.
Or not.
Adam and I have been involved in what I can only describe as the most respectful and short-phrased debate about what we want our country to be that I’ve ever seen, let alone participated in. We’ve referenced everything from the Teapot Dome scandal to the Roman Empire to the original “Battlestar Galactica.” And that was just today. Since noon.
Adam is a hardcore lefty with wacky-crazy-nutty beliefs about corporate corruption and big-government solutions. He’s demonstrably wrong about practically everything. His ideas are destructive to our Republic. His view of America directly contradicts what the Founders envisioned when they laid out the rules for what this nation would be. And yet I like him. A lot.
See, those of us who consider ourselves to be political animals frequently forget that the people we’re arguing against are also people. And while the recent SCOTUS decision doesn’t do anything close to turning corporations into people, we should remember that those with whom we disagree are not nameless, faceless entities that revel in evil and wish to destroy the world.
@Ghostpanther, as he’s known in the Twitter world, is my favorite kind of liberal. Unapologetic. True to his convictions. Knows that his ideas are contrary to the Constitution. But he studies history and facts and just sees it all differently than I do. He’s a good man with bad ideas.
I have to say something now that might be painful to people who know me personally. But it needs to be said to place this article in context. The thing is, the vast majority of liberals I know are just uninformed, ignorant or stupid. They believe what they believe because they haven’t learned enough, thought through enough, or experienced enough. Or they want people to like them. They see a genuine problem and say “someone should do something” without concern for the results when “someone” turns out to be the monopoly on force we know as government and that it takes money from other people at gunpoint.
This is relevant, because I have almost no respect for those liberals when it comes to their political ideology. Their opinions don’t matter, because they’re not based on an understanding of facts and history in combination with experience. They’re usually based on whatever fucktard “issue” is being covered most at TMZ or “Entertainment Tonight” at the time.
But this Adam McKay guy is different. He’s the kind of liberal I like to hang out with (there are about 4 in my personal life) because he understands that his ideas, if brought to fruition, would result in a different United States of America than we’ve always known. He just doesn’t care, because HIS America is better than OUR America.
He’s wrong, of course. But this is what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to disagree and struggle and rumble until the wee hours. We’re supposed to fight like crazy and win in the Arena of Ideas. We are supposed to be able to yell FUCK YOU! across the room or web and still be able to talk politely about stuff later. We’re supposed to hate the people we love, and I love Adam McKay as a fellow American. But, of course, I hate him. He’s wrong, you know.
But it’s all good. I don’t think that Adam McKay is evil. I presume that while he disagrees with me (he’s wrong), he doesn’t think I’m evil. And while we’ve never met and we’re not friends, I respect Adam McKay for his crazy liberalism and for his willingness to fight for it. This is the arena of ideas, and I hope we keep battling it out like Highlander. A famous, rich, limousine-liberal movie director and a broke-ass, hardly-known, right-wingnut movie director going at it for months on end. What could be better and worse for America?
To follow the best and worst of American political discourse, hit up @ghostpanther and @Wilson_Michael