Monday, June 28, 2004
So.
I know I’ve more or less stopped posting, and it really isn’t an intentional thing. It’s just that I can’t take politics anymore, and pretty much everything in life is political on one level or another, so I’m not left with much to talk about.
I can’t take politics anymore because the last of the attempts at honesty have gone out of the thing, and we’re down to side A trying to brainwash side B into believing that Side B has already been brainwashed by the evil leaders of side B, with--and this is the part that’s wearing me out--absolutely no reference to reality. (For those who will surely think to themselves that it is in fact side B doing the brainwashing...well, that’s part of what I mean by ‘no reference to reality.’
Facts have become irrelevant to an increasingly large group of people, and it frightens me.
The blogosphere, of course, has featured folks from side A acting beyond wacky for quite some time, and I dismissed their behavior, thinking that of course those who were motivated enough to actually blog about such matters were probably prone to a rhetorical flourish here and there, and I ignored it. It has, however, since spread to people close to me whom I would have thought would be immune to it. I have a very good friend who I can’t even bear to talk to anymore because of her conviction that a certain overweight filmmaker is more credible than the President of the United States. No amount of information, regardless of source (I quoted Clinton at her without making a dent), can sway her conviction that George W. Bush is the embodiment of evil.
This so-called friend actually asked me not to vote.
Bejus.
You know, I hate to sound melodramatic, but the way I figure it we’re more or less engaged in a struggle for the future of Western Civilization here. We take one path and live happily ever after, we take the other and we get to play Dark Ages again. I tend to think that in the long run we’ll head the right way, but the thought of taking any detours just exhausts me. I don’t exactly fear a Kerry presidency, I just get terribly tired even thinking about it. For that matter, I don’t even fear the folks like my friend (though the collectivism at the heart of her politics is what will destroy us if anything will). I really do believe that we’re the good guys, and that we’ll get ourselves straightened out and the values we’ve traditionally held dear will triumph in the end. It’s just a matter of time and carnage.
You see, that’s the bit that makes me tired. I don’t really believe that John Kerry would actually allow this country to be destroyed on his watch. I really don’t. I think that what he would ultimately have to do during his term in office wouldn’t look that much different in the end from what Bush would have to do. What I am convinced of, however, is that he would only do those things when forced to by events, and I would far rather be proactive than reactive (though what we are doing now is reactive in the sense that 9/11 made many things apparent that weren’t so apparent before).
I am exhausted by the thought that it may take one or more additional attacks at at least a 9/11 level of devastation before we get serious all over again about putting a stop to it. I fear that it may take losing a city. I think that our best chance of avoiding that is to continue on the path we’ve started, and I don’t think interrupting that progress is in our best interests.
And despite the support from the little corner of the blogosphere I hang out in, I’m starting to be a bit nervous about whether we’re going to pull off the interstate here and take the two-lane scenic route. It may be more attractive, but sometimes you really can’t afford to kick back and take it easy. Sometimes you’ve got to just get the miles behind you.
There are an awful lot of people who have fallen back into that 9/10 mindset. I can’t really blame them. I’d rather be there myself. I’m well aware that I’m lucky to have experienced the bit of history that I did, that we lived in an amazing time there for a little while between the end of the Cold War and September 11, 2001, when the threat of large-scale nuclear disaster had lifted and a body could feel 100% safe from the terrors of war simply by the grace of being on American soil. That’s the feeling I want to have again, dammit. That’s a feeling I want my daughter to someday know.
The problem at the moment seems to be that it is such an attractive feeling that folks are going right on ahead with it now, at a time when it is unfounded and therefore dangerous. Unfortunately, this danger is multiplied many-fold by the fact that the natural allies of those who do not believe that there is a continuing threat are those who believe that there is, but that it can only be mitigated through self-flagellation--by changing who we are as a people--which is the very thing that we are fighting to prevent. The first attitude is regrettable. The second is not only dangerous, but nauseating in its failure to recognize its own irony: it would, if successful, eliminate its own right to exist. If you walk down that path far enough, you find a Dark Age.
I don’t, as I’ve said, believe that we’ll get to that point, but the natural alliance between those who see no danger and those who misidentify it is something I find worrisome. It has seemed lately that what used to be a mere fringe on the left has become more of a decorative border, and soon I fear that it it will become most of the garment. A year ago, the friend I mentioned above thought that same-sex marriage would be a very good thing, and that the War was also a very good thing, that such things went hand in hand as freedom and freedom secured. Eight months ago, she decided that same-sex marriage was more important than the War, and changed her party affiliation. Now she is convinced that George W. Bush is a greater threat to freedom than the folks who are intent on killing us.
I’m abusing my poor friend here to make the point, but I think by now we’ve probably all seen it happen. The far left seems to be acting like the red sock that somehow makes its way into a load of whites. (Some would argue that the same thing is happening on the right, but that, once again, is part of what I mean by ‘no reference to reality.’
I hate to belabor the point, but There.Is.A.War.On., whether we choose to acknowledge that or not. I’d personally rather acknowledge it, deal with it, and, quite frankly, get it the hell over with. It isn’t going to go away if we ignore it: it will simply take longer and quite possibly cost more lives. I don’t like it, either, but there it is. Somehow, sitting around arguing about whether I’m required to pay Michael Moore before I’m allowed to criticize his film seems a little goofy at this point, since the bigger problem of whether we’ll have a film industry to distribute his work in, say, 10 years is one that is yet unsolved.
Here’s to hoping any detour we take isn’t too long.