A Lesson For Third Party Haters
Once upon a time there was a young man who found himself
attracted to a young woman working in the same company but in a different
department.
It was easy to see why he would be attracted to her. She was beautiful. She had a model’s body, a beautiful voice, a
friendly attitude, and she never looked like she was ever angry or cross with
anyone.
This young man was by no means a slouch, but it was clear to
everyone but him that his affections to her were not reciprocated. Still, she never could come out and reject
him when he asked if they could go out. Instead,
she’d say she didn’t have the time. The
workload is really bad. The pressure is
on to work long hours and weekends. There
was always “something coming up” for her.
One day, instead of saying she couldn’t go out with him, she
asked him to get her a soda at the nearby fast food place. It was a long day, she was a little run down,
so she asked him to get her a soda. He
did so gladly, and she seemed so appreciative of that… even if she said
afterward that still she couldn’t go out with him yet.
Some time later, she then asked him if he could get her some
lunch. Not go out for lunch, mind you,
but that he would get lunch for her. She
started to reach for her purse, but the young man offered to pay for the lunch
himself. Again, she was really
appreciative of that. However, after
delivering lunch, she said things really got bad at her department so she’ll
have to put lunch aside and concentrate on work. But, again, she thanked him for being a “true
gentleman”.
At this point his friends are telling him that she’s just
using him. But he didn’t want to hear
that. He said that she’s opening up to
him. She likes what he’s doing. Soon they’ll be going out. He really believed that. He just had to wait it out.
So this goes on and on.
He’d get her lunches and snacks and drinks at his cost. If she ran short on office supplies, he’d go
out and get her some. Pretty soon, she’s
asking him to get her dry cleaning and run some minor errands for her, which he
eagerly did, because he believed that this was all going to pay off in the end
with them going out and becoming a couple.
After all, he’s already doing things for her like they are already in a
relationship.
But then the truth came out.
While bringing her the package she asked him to get from the
post office, he overhears her boasting to a coworker that she was going on a
weekend trip to the Bahamas… with her longtime boyfriend. And she believed that her boyfriend was going
to pop the question to her.
He didn’t stick around long enough for her to try to explain
it. He finally accepted that, no matter
what he did for her, she would never go out with him. Ever.
The strange part is that she continued to try to call on him
to run errands for her. She missed
having someone bring her lunches and getting her dry cleaning and picking up
her packages. She missed having someone
at her beck and call that would do things for her without ever giving anything
back in return except a smile, and she didn’t understand why he now wouldn’t
want to have anything to do with her.
I happen to know this story all-too-well, because many
elements of this story come from my own miserable attempts at relationships
with different women. And when it comes
to people who bash independent candidates or third parties, this is the story
that goes through my head.
I understand that there are some people who believe strongly
that they should get every vote they can by any means necessary. We are in a hyper-partisan environment right
now, and that makes some people downright nasty to anyone not sharing their
zero-sum extremism.
I used to be that way too.
I used to be a fervent card-carrying member of the GOP. How many of you can actually say that and
have the card to back it up? Sure, the
members of the GOP that got elected didn’t support the things I did. They had a very narrow definition of what
“freedom” meant. (And by that, I mean they really didn’t care for it.) But I had believed them when they said that,
as long as I supported them, they would eventually get around to the things
that I support. I just had to be patient,
I was told.
But then I realized that, much like the women I found myself
attracted to, that same party that claimed to be a “big tent” didn’t really
care about the things I cared about.
They liked “small government” as long as it was getting rid of all the
liberal programs so they can then put in their own programs. They liked “freedom” as long as it was for
the things that they personally liked and that they had the “freedom” to
oppress everything else. All they really
wanted was my blind support, even when they were carrying out things that I
objected to.
So there is a part of me that understands when the
hyper-partisan extremists spew hate and try to guilt-trip third party
supporters like myself. I’ve been
there. But there’s also the side of me
that wants to get in their faces and throw that hate back at them, bile for
bile, until it suffocates them and they drown in it.
Let’s get brutally honest here… just who the hell do you
haters think you are when you go after third party supporters? Where do you get off thinking that any of us owe you or your candidate our
support? Your candidates do not own our votes or our
support. In fact, you and your
candidates do not own anyone’s vote or support! You are not entitled to them. At all.
They are not yours to assume, and they sure as hell are not yours to
claim!
I’ve talked to many people who have supported third parties,
and they pretty much have similar experiences as my own when it comes to the
two dominant and domineering parties in America. They used to buy into the false promises in
exchange for their vote. They used to
believe the zero-sum myth of one candidate or the other. And then they realized, just like I did, that
they were being used.
In other words, all you hate-spewing zero-sum
hyper-partisans, you and your candidates have already let people like me
down. You lost our support. And you have no right whatsoever to demand it
back. None.
So I’ll ask again… just who the hell do you think you are?
And if you’re talking numbers, then why don’t you talk about
the vast majority of voters that don’t even bother to show up at the ballot
box? You know, the ones that you chased
away with your hyper-partisan extremism and negative campaigning to the point
that they don’t even bother to care. Or
would that be asking too much of you?
Are you too much of an extremist to change tactics and actually earn that support instead of
chasing the others away?
I find it insulting that the haters want to guilt-trip the
people whose support they’ve already pissed away. What do you have to offer them other than
fear and loathing? What can you or your
candidate give them in exchange for that support? What, because “the other side is worse”? You’ve played that card too many times for it
to have meaning! In fact, you’ve played
that card so many times that the other side has become worse! That is precisely how we ended up with President
Donald Trump!
The guy that does favors for the woman that he can never
have doesn’t do that because she expects him to. He does it because he thinks it will win her
heart. He does it in the hope that
she’ll give him what he really wants. He
puts up with doing any kind of task for her, no matter how degrading, because
he believes that at some point, he’ll be rewarded for it. But the minute he realizes that he’ll never
have what he’s looking for from her, he stops doing those things for her.
The same holds true for anything else in life. Romance.
Friendships. Business. Politics.
Support is earned when
it is appreciated by those giving it.
Fidelity is earned
when it is rewarded. If you can’t figure
that out, then you have no business whatsoever telling other people how to vote
or who to support.
No comments:
Post a Comment