More often than not, columns are of a critical nature. This is for a few good reasons, and I… More often than not, columns are of a critical nature. This is for a few good reasons, and I don’t think that it should be any other way. However, I would like to take this time to do something that is so rarely done with columns these days: I would like to try a writing strategy called “praise.”

Now, I’m not going to use names because I’d hate to make a humble man blush, but I’m sure those worthy of the praise I’m about to dispense will know who they are. First, I would like to praise those who read my column in the April 12 edition of The Pitt News and recognized themselves as whiny liberals. It takes great courage to admit that you’re a whiny bastard, and one person even publicly admitted to this personality trait. Good work to all of those who recognized themselves as whiny.

Before I continue with praise, I would like to clarify my last column’s stance. While the column I wrote could have easily been mistaken as anti-liberal, attention to detail will reveal that the column was not anti-liberal. Included in the column were the words “I agree with some liberal viewpoints” and, if nothing else, the final paragraph makes it quite clear that my problem is not with liberalism, but how some continuously bitch about my country.

While I would love to be stubborn, I find that the right thing to do is to step down from the heinous, almost-conservative stance I took. It’s not because I am spineless, but because I am more educated now.

Recently, ironically through a liberal-bitching column, I have been educated about liberal bitching. I don’t mean the occasional the-United States-could-improve-by-doing-this columns that I approve of in the final paragraph of my last column, but excessive bitching.

I’d like to praise the columnists who write these columns, because it turns out that these columns make the United States better. I must have been in some delirious state when I wrote my April 12 column and actually believed that Pitt News columnists haven’t contributed greatly to our country.

Their whining has done a great deal.

One columnist in particular has singlehandedly changed our military policy in Haiti, among other places, and we have shifted our foreign policy to a humanitarian effort that now gives us the right to claim moral supremacy over other countries. All of that thanks to one columnist!

Not only do I praise the work of such great columnists and their amazing impact on the world, but it makes me regret all the years I haven’t been liberal enough to make the commies think I’m extreme.

Then I could have been educated enough to understand the United States’ flaws. I could have rid myself of every conservative belief simply because, if a conservative says it, it must be wrong. I could have learned to hate Republicans and always vote as a party-line Democrat because, strangely, all the flaws that educated free-thinking columnists find with the United States are policies set forth by Republicans. Instead of thinking about issues, I could immediately take a stance without further thought because I’d know I’m liberal and what I’m supposed to stand for — or whom I’m supposed to stand against.

Most importantly, I wouldn’t settle for something great, because I could make it even better. As a liberal, I could rid the world of war, terrorists and violence. I could feed every hungry person in the world. Nobody would be homeless. There would be no bigotry and no hatred of other races and religions. Everybody would love each other. It would only rain when everybody had an umbrella, and a pretty rainbow would always follow the rain along with a smiling sun. Hopefully, one day I will realize that it is possible for everything in the world to work perfectly, and that the cause of everything bad is those damn Republicans.

Christian Brubaker apologizes for not delivering a single joke about his tiny wang. Waste his time at [email protected].