Tell me, that ain't mean-spirited.

Republican politicians. Especially those on the far right. The so-called lunatic fringe. The ones that tend to be religious zealots. I’m nominating them as the most mean-spirited people in the world. Now, I admit, I could be wrong about that. Because a mean-spirit is in the eye of the beholder. And plenty of people accuse me of not seeing straight. Nevertheless, Republicans scare me. Because they seem to be so very mean. Wanting to screw up everything. Destroy the world as we know it. Michele Bachmann. Rick Perry. The current leading Republican contenders for president. They claim to be right. To know everything. And proclaim that everybody else is wrong. And they are so sure of themselves that they’d foist their ways on everybody. For starters, we’d all have to be die-hard fundamentalist Christians. In order to be trusted. And we’d have to pass loyalty tests. Prove that we are true-blue patriots. By their definitions. And black people wouldn’t qualify. Because you’d have to be white-skinned. That, in itself, is a glaring sign of the mean spirit. And they want to sock it to the poor. The downtrodden. And cater to the rich. The very rich. Millionaires and billionaires. Because making unlimited sums of moola is the American way. Poor people are to be detested. Simply because they are poor. And lack gumption to become rich. And powerful. They detest the poor. Because the poor have it too good. They get too many government hand-outs. And what little money they have, they waste it. Because most of ‘em own refrigerators and microwave ovens. And many of ‘em don’t even pay income taxes. Despite having incomes of $22,000 a year to support a family of four. Now tell me, that ain’t mean-spirited. –Jim Broede