A taxonomy of different living beasts in our world is an important thing to keep up with. Because they are constantly evolving, due to processes of evolution (Stop hitting me with that old family Bible, Reverend Winchuck! It is still legal, for now, to say that word), you have to constantly change and refine your understanding of beasts and their relationships to one another. So here I am trying talk about “Why liberals and conservatives are completely different species!”
When I look at a group of people, a crowd, a… what do you call a flock of people? An idiocy perhaps? They all look the same to me. To tell which species they are, I have to hear them talk. So I selected a couple of notable interviewees to explain what the differences really are.
Bull Blindersly, head of the Bullish for Trump and Trumpkins Committee
The conservative I will use to represent conservatives is Bull Blindersly, who I noticed briefly had a Make America Great Again red hat on until the wind took it off his flat head. I’ll let him tell you the difference in his own words.
“It’s easy to spot a libtard. They have pointy little nerd heads full of stupid ideas based on statistics and encyclopedia facts and other such brainiac junk that clogs up your head. They don’t have the common sense they were born with because they spend all their time reading and thinking and other stuff that just gets in the way. There is a simple solution for everything in life. The economy is healthy and grows if you give tax breaks to rich folks and job creators. They will spend that money they have earned to improve things for everyone. You don’t fix problems by dancing around giving away my hard-earned tax dollars to folks who don’t work hard enough. Those people are just tempted to become blood-sucking parasites for life when you do that. We need to build a wall around Animal Town to keep more of those kinds of people out.”
Phillip “Flip” Moosewinkle. ACLU lawyer and Dal Mation, independent media journalist
I talked to Flip Moosewinkle and his friend Dal Mation because they were protesting in front of city hall with “Not My President!” signs and other signs that indicated they were liberals because everything was spelled and punctuated correctly.
Flip; “I think conservatives talk without thinking first most of the time.”
Dal; “You have to be careful about making blanket statements like that, though. It is not backed up by any studies I can find with Google on my i-phone. And we want to be fair and considerate when making statements about our opponents.”
Flip; “Yes, that’s quite correct. But a shoot-from-the-hip style of discourse is still common among those we argue politics with. They’ll accuse us of trying to take away their rights to own guns and won’t even listen when we try to shift the conversation towards gun safety and responsible ownership. They mostly agree with our positions when it comes right down to it, but they rarely listen to our point of view. They would rather call us names and chant slogans.”
Dal; “True, but you have to admit they do tend to win arguments that way in public forums. Maybe we should try some of their tactics, and try to be more forceful in making our case the way they are.”
Flip; “Do you really want to sink to their level? Then we’d be no better than they are.”
Dal; “But isn’t that the point we are trying to make? Aren’t we all the same and no one is better than anyone else? Aren’t we trying to be fair and loving to all?”
Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is.
Of course, it is at this point in the consideration of the topic that I reach the inevitable conclusion that I am dealing with two different categories of animal here. One side is patently unfair, and the other is marginalized and ineffectual. One side is often predatory, while the other is routinely prey.
What do I do about it? The conservative side has purged themselves of all compromisers, liberal-leaners, and RINO’s (Republican In Name Only, not rhinoceroses). The liberal side never wins. (Yes, I know Obama was president, but look how easily he was erased from the public conversation when his term ended.) There is no place for moderates any more. To be moderate is to be isolated and headed for species extinction. So I am a liberal now, hoping the side that is in power at the moment won’t pass a law against my continued existence. And trying exceptionally hard to fit in with other members of my same species.
Catch a Falling Star 
Why Do You Think That? (Part Two)
In my short, sweet sixty years of life, I have probably seen more than my share of movies. I have seen classic movies, black-and-white movies, cartoon movies, Humphrey Bogart movies, epic movies, science fiction movies, PeeWee Herman movies, Disney movies, Oscar-winning movies, and endless box-office stinkers. But in all of that, one of the most undeniable threads of all is that movies make me cry. In fact they make me cry so often it is a miracle that even a drop of moisture remains in my body. I should be a dried-out husk by now.
I wept horribly during this scene. Did you?
And the thing is, people make fun of you when you cry at movies. Especially cartoon movies like Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. (But I claim I was laughing so hard it brought tears to my eyes. That’s the truth, dear sister. So stop laughing at me.) But I would like to put forth another “Why do you think that?” notion. People who cry while watching a movie are stronger and more powerful than the people who laugh at them for crying. A self-serving thesis if ever there was one.
Movies can make you cry if you have the ability to feel empathy. We all know this. Old Yeller is the story of a dog who endears himself to a prairie farm family, saves Travis’s life at one point, and then gets infected with rabies and has to be put down. Dang! No dry eyes at the end of that one. Because everyone has encountered a dog and loyal dog-love somewhere along the line. And a ten-year-old dog is an old dog. The dogs you knew as a child helped you deal with mortality because invariably, no matter how much you loved them, dogs demonstrate what it means to die. Trixie and Scamper were both hit by cars. Queenie, Grampa’s collie, died of old age. Jiggs the Boston Terrier died of heat stroke one summer. You remember the pain of loss, and the story brings it all back.
Only psychopaths don’t feel empathy to some degree. Think about how you would feel if you were watching Old Yeller and somebody you were watching with started laughing when Travis pulls the trigger on the shotgun. Now, there’s a Stephen King sort of character.
But I think I can defend having lots of empathy as a reason for crying a river of tears during Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. You see, identifying with Quasimodo as the main character, hoping for what he hopes for, feeling like a monster and completely unloved, and fearing what he fears connect you to the story in ways that completely immerses you in the experience. This is basically a monster movie.
But the film puts you inside the head of the malformed man, and you realize that he is not the monster. Righteous Judge Frollo and the people who mistreat Quasimodo for his deformity of outward appearance are the real monsters. If you don’t cry a river of tears because of this story, then you have not learned the essential truth of Quasimodo. When we judge others harshly, we are really judging ourselves. In order to stop being monstrous, and be truly human, you must look inside the ugliness as Esmeralda does to see the heroic beauty inside others. Sometimes the ideas themselves are so powerful they make me weep. That’s when my sister and my wife look at me and shake their heads because tears are shooting out of me like a fountain, raining wetness two or three seats in every direction. But I believe I am a wiser man, a more resolved man, and ultimately a better man because I was not afraid to let a movie make me cry.
The music also helps to tell the story in ways that move my very soul to tears. Notice how the heroine walks the opposite way to the rest of the crowd. As they sing of what they desire, what they ask God to grant, she asks for nothing for herself. She shows empathy in every verse, asking only for help for others. And she alone walks to the light from the stained glass window. She alone is talking to God.
Yes, I am not embarrassed by the fact that movies make me cry. In fact, I should probably be proud that movies and stories and connections to other people, which they bring me, makes me feel it so deeply I cry. Maybe I am a sissy and a wimp. Maybe I deserved to be laughed at all those times for crying during the movie. But, hey, I’ll take the laughter. I am not above it. I am trying to be a humorist after all.
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Filed under cartoon review, commentary, compassion, Disney, humor, insight, inspiration, movie review, music, philosophy, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as empathy, movies that make me cry, Old Yeller, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Toy Story 3