Build America
Here at Boring Diatribe, we are great believers in the power of government to transform people's lives for the better. Government at all levels is merely an instrument for collecting and focusing the energies of many onto tasks most readily accomplished collectively, which will otherwise go undone, and which redound to the benefit of the commonweal. There are other constructs for reaching common goals. Corporations represent one such construct, as do as clubs, villages, towns, cities and states.
We will not attempt to spin the election results as anything but what they were: an unambiguous rejection by a little more than half the country of values communicated by the Democratic party from national government . We will not deny the truth. The voters have spoken, and, despite grievious efforts by the victorious party to disenfranchise voters across the nation, we will accept that a large portion of the country does not wish to see what they perceive as the values of Democrats take action through government.
We're also not going to wait two years to try to change their minds. There are causes beyond politics, other spheres in which to exercise influence and to expend energy for noble aims. Find them. A group gathers funds to remove land mines from poor areas of the globe. Contribute. Feed the hungry, defend the accused, write to others and persuade them to do the same. The door of action through government is only one path, and, we suspect, is one that will close for the next four years as the record of the current administration bears its terrible fruit of divisiveness and ruin both here and abroad.
Don't wait. You know the blueprint of America by heart. Pick up whatever tools you can find, and set to work after one last glance backward. Look back over the expanse of human history, and note its wars, its conflagrations, its destruction, its animal savagery, and then look about and take with you this solace:
The builders are winning.
Tomorrow, we'll be back, more Boring than ever.
We will not attempt to spin the election results as anything but what they were: an unambiguous rejection by a little more than half the country of values communicated by the Democratic party from national government . We will not deny the truth. The voters have spoken, and, despite grievious efforts by the victorious party to disenfranchise voters across the nation, we will accept that a large portion of the country does not wish to see what they perceive as the values of Democrats take action through government.
We're also not going to wait two years to try to change their minds. There are causes beyond politics, other spheres in which to exercise influence and to expend energy for noble aims. Find them. A group gathers funds to remove land mines from poor areas of the globe. Contribute. Feed the hungry, defend the accused, write to others and persuade them to do the same. The door of action through government is only one path, and, we suspect, is one that will close for the next four years as the record of the current administration bears its terrible fruit of divisiveness and ruin both here and abroad.
Don't wait. You know the blueprint of America by heart. Pick up whatever tools you can find, and set to work after one last glance backward. Look back over the expanse of human history, and note its wars, its conflagrations, its destruction, its animal savagery, and then look about and take with you this solace:
The builders are winning.
Tomorrow, we'll be back, more Boring than ever.
posted by Antonius at 3:04 PM
1 Comments:
Antonius:
I look forward to the days ahead as you continue to digest the result of this election. Specifically, I'd like to see your take on the obvious gap between north and west coastal and south and mid-America. What kind of country do we have right now?
And I understand your attempt to fire up the liberal base by repeating the distortion (and intended smear) that labeled Kerry the #1 liberal in the Senate. I still have never seen a source for that statistic. The League of Conservation Voters, an organization I trust, places Kerry into the center of the Republican Party (and well below good-sense moderates such as Olympia Snowe of Maine) by ranking him 41st in the Senate in terms of his votes on Environmental issues. The ACLU has Kerry, over the past few years, in the middle of the road among Democrats on their scorecard, when he shows up for vots at all. That whole #1 liberal thing was meant as a smear and to worked, facts to the hindmost.
And one more minor quibble. You say the election was an "unambiguous rejection by a little more than half the country." In reality, as a percentage of the population of all ages and registration status, Bush received roughly 23% of the vote. (Should I count pre-18s and other non-eligibles? I consciously do so for the moment because it makes for an easy calculation and illustrates the point...) For me, this election is another case of an overwhelmingly apathetic electorate ill-served by a creaky, unfair system of elections.
That said, we get what we deserve. It is no coincidence that, for the most part, the states where the public education system grinds out young adults who can neither think not acquire knowledge with any particular skill all voted for the incumbent. But maybe I a wrong and we should all be following Mississippi's path down the path toward enlightenment.
As you can see, what I am really doing is casting about here for some insight. Fundamentally, I am at a loss to explain Tuesday.
bg
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