Hysterical hippies only bring irrationality to politics

It is difficult to describe my feelings when, while rushing to my second morning class, I was accosted by an irate middle-aged woman who forced a flyer into my hand telling me to “Drive Out the Bush Regime! The World Can’t Wait.”

Incredulity, perhaps, is an appropriate word.

While some might claim that someone with conservative political leanings would automatically object to anything anti-Bush, I will simply say that nothing causes me to lose respect for the opposing argument like irrationality and hysteria.

I kept the flyer and later read through the amazing accusations vilifying the Bush administration. For instance, the pamphlet trots out the shop-worn comparison of President George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler. The reasoning behind this claim: Bush is about to remake America in “a fascist way” in the time remaining in his second term. The comparison is only slightly deflated by the fact that unlike evil leaders such as Hitler, Bush has never advocated slaughter nor any type of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity.

The flyer speaks of the government under Bush as waging illegitimate war and turning the democracy of the United States into a theocracy based upon hateful Christian principles. While these people might disagree with the President’s timing in using certain executive powers, it is deeply paranoid to hint that he is changing our form of government or somehow taking on more power than he has a right to under the Constitution.

Bush has made use of powers legally available to him in times of crisis. If some American citizens suspect the motivations for going to war, they have a right to that opinion. However, to intimate that he has done something illegal or is secretly building a theocracy is ludicrous.

The rallying cry in this flyer also carries a vague insult to those who choose more rational means of expressing their disapproval. It suggests that those with any complaints about how the country is being run who do not throng to the streets are sitting in “silence and paralysis.” According to this flyer, the only appropriate response is to have a public display large enough to force Bush to step down. Yet the beauty of American government is that if you disapprove of a leader, you have an opportunity to elect someone with whom you agree the next time.

The thing I find most incredible is the attempt at inciting rage among college students. The flyer accuses Bush of acting in hatred in one sentence and then describes plans for channeling their own brand of hatred and “disgust” to force him out of office. The Web site for this mobilization effort even suggests that students refuse to attend classes on the day in question.

Rice is a university that prides

itself on academic prowess. Students of widely varying political orientations regularly show themselves capable of intelligent debate, both in class and through student-run organizations. Yet we have adult malcontents on campus trying to bring back the public outrage and angry protests of the Vietnam era. They do not seem to realize that the world, political issues and even college students have changed over

30-plus years.

My only hope is that no matter what stances Rice students choose to take on such important matters as the war in Iraq and the federal budget, they will at least accept the responsibility as mature individuals to educate themselves on the issues and not allow such agitators and propaganda to lead them to a mob mentality.

Alison Morgan is a Jones College junior.

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