Plain Mean Spirited

Partisanship is not just detrimental to our country, but sometimes it’s just mean-spirited. Lauren Boebert, the Republican representative In Colorado’s third congressional district, rose to prominence when she and her husband established Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado. The grill was known for its servers openly carrying pistols on their hips, a Second Amendment theme of sorts that infuriated the left, especially in increasingly blue-tinged Colorado. Ms. Boebert then parlayed her notoriety into a successful campaign to unseat the incumbent Republican representative in her district. Young and fiery, she had further enraged her detractors by adopting a position diametrically opposed to the “squad” as a staunch supporter of Second Amendment rights. She is widely known for poking the bear when woke activism ascends to heights of absurdity. So what. The left has the increasingly shrill AOC and Omar, and the right has Boebert and Green. Point and counterpoint. Ying and Yang. But recently, the successful Shooters restaurant was forced to close its doors when the real estate owner elected not to renew their lease. Cue The schadenfreude. The liberals are in full celebration mode over Ms. Boebert’s misfortune. Now hold on there. The party of the everyman, the downtrodden, the working class is rejoicing over the closing of a business and the loss of jobs?  Really? Their waitstaff, busboys, cooks, bartenders, hostesses, and dishwashers are now unemployed, and you find this a cause for celebration?  Because you don’t like their politics? And the real estate owner, despite claiming the decision was purely business and not political, is the proud owner of Rifle’s marijuana dispensary. Hmm. Wonder how he votes. So once again, we don our hip boots to wade through the sea of hypocrisy. The party of the people was positively giddy over the loss of jobs when those jobs belonged to conservatives, the loss of business on the supply side, and the suppliers that relied on Shooters for the purchase of food and drink, paper goods, and cleaning supplies. The loss of traffic into town by customers who spent their money at other local businesses. But what do you expect from politicians who never held jobs in the private sector other than a complete lack of understanding as to how the economy works? 

And another thing: the media chiming in to join in the revelry is in poor taste. Remember when Newsweek was considered a reliable news publication? Well, sort of. Their online outlet, as part of the story on the restaurant closing, saw fit to re-post tweets from insignificant internet trolls, to use their own juvenile millennial terminology, positively ecstatic over the business’s demise. Nice. So as California invades Colorado, residents fleeing from progressive policies, they bring their voting biases with them and will now turn Colorado into the same disaster that they left. I believe Agent Smith said it best:  “there is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. It’s a virus.” Brilliant. But I digress. There has to be some level of civility if we intend to remain a republic. It should be evident that we shouldn’t rejoice in the personal misfortune of those on the other side of the aisle, we should not protest in front of the homes of Supreme Court justices, and we should not destroy personal property in the name of protest. Alas, ethics, manners, and civility all seem to be casualties in the post-Covid era. Anything to further a political ideal. It’s just mean-spirited. And it does not bode well for our future.