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| Anchoress: Reasons for optimism |
| 2006-11-12 |
| Actually, I’m not optimistic. I’ve been mostly out of it for a couple or three days now, and have almost no idea what is going on in the world, outside of the stuff I’d have known whether I read the news or not (you know, Al Qaeda is rejoicing the Dem win and the Dems are seriously focused on…ummm…not Iraq or terrorism…) So, for all I know, my happy little thoughts born under a days-long febrile situation could be so much mush as of this moment…but I said I’d share ‘em, so I will, and I’ll hope they don’t sound like gibberish. I know many people are depressed, but while I am not happy about the election outcome, I do think it’s unseemly for Christians, at least, to be depressed…our God is not politics or the GOP, right? Remember…things turn on a dime, nothing is static and God has his hand in everything. And remember this: The Evil loves discord - evil HAD to love what has been going on in this country for the past 8 years. While the Dems are going to be holding on to their hate for a while (and the press will more than let them), the more-rational, more moderately-inclined people who may have gotten caught up in the venom of the last couple of years will let go of it and look to see what “solutions” are forthcoming. The Dems have been screaming “work with us, we matter…” now, they have a seat at the table with a president who tried like hell to work with them in the beginning of his run (and got smacked down for it, repeatedly) and who will do what he thinks is best for the nation. Now, they have to put up or shut up, and if they want to be taken seriously, they’re going to have to actually do some work. So will the election take the wind out of their sails of hate? It has to, eventually. And uh-oh, the evil can’t like that. Good always overcomes evil…we just don’t always understand what that looks like while we’re in the thick of things, or recognise it when it comes our way. But the Holy Spirit has a way of working with things that look like disasters, and making them work for the best. Remember when Rudy Giuliani had to bow out of the senate race from the prostate cancer? Everyone mourned, we know only he could beat Hillary and we thought, “what a freaking disaster…” But because he bowed out of that race, he was the mayor of NYC when 9/11 happened…and he was exactly the man that needed to be there. Had he been a senator, the truly goofy and uninspiring Mark Greene would have been mayor and he would have terrified us even more. I am under the weather and can’t express this well. But remember this, too - people tend to forget it. Bush is a man living a creed before he is the president. He is the president of the whole country before he is a republican. He is a republican before he is a conservative. Conservatives, especially, really forgot that this year, when they crucified him for daring to nominate Harriet Miers, for the Dubai deal and immigration. While Bush has always been consistent (he’s always been exactly who he is), suddenly the good things he’d done were not enough, and we had to endure the spectacle of Bush’s cock-sure “pure conservative betters” in the press and some blogs throw him under the bus. Kind of interesting, really. President Bush has always been a center-right man, the left painted him as a far-right nazi, and the far-right said he wasn’t conservative enough. Whether they like to admit it or not, that partly contributed to his general unpopularity, which directly contributed to this loss. Independents and others saw that even Bush’s “own people” didn’t like him, so they didn’t like him, either (and disdain has even longer coattails than admiration). Nobody wants to be with the unpopular kid, so when they left Bush behind, they left any votes they might have hung for the GOP. The bite of the conservative purists did not lose the election…but it did contribute to the whole infection of negativity that surrounded it. Now, the uber-conservative “my way or the highway” types have lots to think about (and no chance to see more “strict constitutionalist judges” make it to the SCOTUS), and maybe a lesson or two to learn (anyone who bloviates that he/she/they have nothing to learn only proves that have much to learn). Once we figure out what the lessons are, some of us will learn them, others won’t. One thing we can be sure of is that the Dems will still need to learn that America does not like “my way or the highwayism…” It goes against our very natures. Maybe we on the right and they on the left can all learn it together. So far, I don’t think the right has learned it…I read something on a blog a few days ago, a conservative writing, “Bush lost this on purpose so he can get his immigration amnesty through!” Riiiiiiggght…that’s exactly what just happened. 2004 was not a “landslide” win, and while the country might be trending center-right, I do think CENTER is the operative word, there. Balance comes from the center, and balance is a good and desirable thing. The country has been in an ugly, ugly place for 8 years, since Clinton’s impeachment. It was not going to get better if the GOP kept winning…the left was only going to get more insane and bitter, the GOP was going to get more arrogant and entrenched and less willing to take chances and risk their seats. This election, in the end, is just a realignment, a correction. But unlike the small corrections that routinely occur in the stock market, this one is going to be a lengthy one, and a very important one - it’s going to be a correction that either pulls us together and makes us a stronger nation, or utterly sinks as we bog down in political payback and recrimination. The Dems are going to be accountable now, that’s going to change things. And don’t forget, half of everything you see is an illusion anyway - a great deal of what we live through daily is like smoke that takes shape only to dissipate into nothingness. Figure out what the important issues are and demand that the “leadership” focus on them, and then keep your eyes on the press, who surely won this last engagement as much as the GOP lost it. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #3 It seems that the American people (or at least the majority of voters) have decided that the WOT is not really interesting to them. It seems that what America is inviting is a second 11/9. It will indeed come, because the Democrats if they take the coming elections will become lax. Refusing to see a threat will not stop it from hitting you between the eyes. too bad that a lot of Americans will have to die again before the american people realize what the Muslims are really into. |
| Posted by: Elder of Zion 2006-11-12 12:42 |
| #2 I would put the President on the religious right. But his views on multi-culturalism put him on the center on that key issue. One of the things that killed my attitude to mosaic v melting pot thinking is the fact that immigrants retain their loyalty to their country of origin. In any Los Angeles soccer game between the US national team and any Latin team, partisan crowds jeer any decision that goes to the US. Frankly, if Hispanics, Somalis and Arabs despise us, it would be better if they hate us from a distance. |
| Posted by: Sneaze Shaiting3550 2006-11-12 10:57 |
| #1 "keep your eyes on the press, who surely won this last engagement as much as the GOP lost it" Methinks she's onto something here. Many of us in the webworld (myself included) saw Rathergate as the end of the hegemony of the MSM. Well, it may have been the end of the beginning, to quote Churchill, but it isn't anywhere near the end. We had best steel ourselves to this reality. Reynolds may ultimately be proven right about our army of Davids, in some not-too-distant future, but for now the hegemony of the MSM on the information stream is only showing cracks, not a wide open dam burst. Let's hope that the cracks keep getting wider. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2006-11-12 09:04 |