"Free" Speech

While I am not one to advocate the trampling of anyone's First Amendment Rights, I do expect people to understand that some topics are not to be discussed in polite and professional situations. That's why when I saw what had been set as the wallpaper on the computer next to mine at work, I knew something had to be done.

Imagine my shock and dismay when I saw this staring at me only 3 feet away from the spot where I spend the largest portion of my waking hours:

For 8 hours a day, I am in one place diligently (that may be a slight overstatement) working (again, overstatement) and in return I have to look at that offensive piece of numbskull propaganda?!

I printed a copy of the following article from Harper's Magazine and carefully placed it on the desk just below the offending image. Please feel free to read the entire article here, but I will hit the highlights for you.

“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,” another noted, “have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.”

“No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”

So, no, we don't miss you. Not now, not ever. At least, those of us with any sense don't. As for Guy-in-the-Cube-Next-to-Me, he doesn't even have enough sense to keep his misguided and ignorant beliefs to himself, so he probably misses you. At least he thinks he does. But I would contend that his brain is functioning so poorly that he wouldn't even notice if I replaced his current desktop settings with this: