Liberals fear church pews

The just-finished presidential election has exposed a great American lie: That elections are healthy exercises in democracy that bind us together and make the nation stronger.

According to the civics books and pundits, you’d think that by now, a week after the election, we’d all be singing Kum-by-yah, hugging each other and waving a collective clenched fist in the faces of nations who reject our common values of freedom, capitalism, unaffordable health care and the inalienable right to have access to Internet porn sites, even in grade school libraries.

But it isn’t so. Instead of being unified, we’re sharply divided and at each other’s throats. Each side is convinced that the other is leading the nation to certain and total ruin.

Democrats and liberals are suicidal because their guy lost. They’re horrified that there will be no East Coast billionaire in the White House to shout to the poor, oppressed and unfed, “I too know the pangs of hunger, and that’s why I hire chefs who serve dinner on time!”

Hollywood types like Robert Redford are thinking of fleeing to Ireland and Canada because they’re convinced that President Bush is a madman who will bomb Iran, North Korea and Seattle. They fear deeply that the president is set to order a secret army of conservative brown-shirts out to lynch minorities, spray the national parks with Agent Orange and torch every Starbucks in the nation.

Some liberals fear that Bush has strange powers that will magically put them in the most terrifying situation of all: a church pew.

Republicans and conservatives are equally depressed. Even though their guy won, they’re furious that John Kerry got even one vote. They’re outraged that we haven’t yet passed a constitutional amendment that bans elections, declares their views to be law and mandates that every male child be named Reverend Bob.

They fume that the poor and oppressed don’t appreciate that there’s a Texas millionaire with inherited wealth in the White House who is deeply offended by their dependency on government and unwillingness to work to find their own wealthy relatives.

Republicans can’t understand why Bush hasn’t yet ordered the invasion of places that they believe pose the greatest threat to freedom and the American way of life — California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts and other “Blue” states.

People on both sides still spend their days locked indoors surfing Internet political sites, reading articles that make their blood vessels pop and condemning their opponents as lunatics or traitors.

This isn’t healthy behavior and it has got to stop. Fuming at political and social adversaries is something that one should get out of the house to do.
So for those political junkies around the nation who still can’t let go of the election and who need to seethe and berate in a healthy environment, here are some places you can go to:

-- The National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Forget the Louvre. This is the greatest museum on the planet. It has replicas of almost every type of atom and hydrogen bomb ever built. It has Fat Man and Little Boy — the nukes incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki — big bombs, little bombs, a hydrogen bomb the size of a railroad boxcar, bombs the size of suitcases, bombs, bombs and more bombs! Here you can see replicas of nuclear-tipped missiles, movies of airplanes dropping bombs and of bombs blowing up. This is a bomb lover’s paradise.

It’s a great place that traces the history of America’s, and thus the planet’s, nuclear age, which is arguably the most dangerous and thrilling period in human history.

The museum is great for liberals because it gives them a chance to fume over the fact that we won World War II by nuking Japan and that there are nuclear weapons in the world. Here they can satisfy their smug, self-righteous anger over nukes by imagining the world being vaporized by conservative presidents like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. There is nothing like visualizing six billion deaths to prove that you’re right.

Conservatives will love the museum because it makes them feel secure in knowing that we do have nukes and that we can vaporize enemies in China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, France, Germany, Spain, Cuba, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lichtenstein, Beacon Hill, San Francisco and Berkeley any time we want.

-- Any national forest or national park. To many people, these places, with their forests, meadows, rivers, mountains and wildlife are tranquil places that offer respite from the problems, stress and stupidity of everyday life. Hike through a forest on a spring, summer, fall or winter afternoon and you instantly feel refreshed and energized and ready to take a club to the boss’ head or leave the overweight, squawking, nagging spouse for someone who actually fits into a medium sized pair of underwear.

National parks and forests are perfect places for liberals and conservatives to continue fighting out the election and the nation’s cultural wars. There, liberals can celebrate, tie themselves in mental knots and give themselves psychic bruises all at once.

They can celebrate that they have helped save wild patches of planet earth and thwarted urban sprawl in its unrelenting march across the landscape. But they can also fret that dastardly conservatives are plotting to seize every last spec of public land, chop down all the trees and replace each one with an oil rig.

And to really work themselves into a vein-popping frenzy, liberals can imagine conservatives driving giant, gas-guzzling Ford Expeditions down paved highways recently bulldozed through the wilderness.

Conservatives can vent that by preserving the parks and forests, selfish, elitist environmentalists are preventing them from achieving the cherished American dream of paving over every last blade of grass with asphalt.

But conservatives can comfort themselves in knowing that at some point in the future, progress and capitalism will win out and all national parks and forests will be parking lots for Super Wal-Mart Supersupersupercenters.

And so, political addicts, while you are fretting, just remember what Mark Twain said about opinions:

“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.”

Believe it.