I have friends who are ready to party in the streets until midnight or cry in abject despair at the elections. I have seen people right poetic declarations about how the world has changed, how this is a great day for the world, etc.
Me? I'm looking for reruns of Family Guy. Yawn.
You know, the thing is: I'm jealous as hell. I get it, I really do. I was reading "the Uptight Seattlite"'s column in this week's Seattle Weekly and the emotion expressed there gave me a lump in my throat:
let us first take a moment to soak in the joy. We've become so accustomed to shame, fear, and anger these past eight years that joy may be an unfamiliar sensation. Do not be alarmed. On the contrary, sink into it like a healing bath after a long, cold day. Let it wash over you, the feeling that your country is a place where you belong after all. The relief that your fellow citizens have turned out to be not bigots crouching in the caves of ignorance, but patriots standing tall in the bright light of reason.
*This* is the way I *want* to feel. I envy those who feel it now. If my preferences in government were ever met, I think the feeling would exceed even this, for after all, democrats waited only *8* years to get one of theirs back into the presidency, they spent the last 4 of those with a congressional majority, and they've always pretty much held 50% of this country. Contrast that to those of us who champion civil society: we've *never* had a president, we've arguably only ever had one congressman (Ron Paul), we regularly poll about half of a percent in elections etc, and there is virtually *no* hope of an advocate of civil society becoming president in this country in my lifetime. Not that I hold "suffering" up as a noble endeavor, but if you'll indulge me for a moment: no democrat (or republican) has suffered like I have.
It's an emotional issue. I envy those who feel like this, and I want it, and its incredibly frustrating to know I'll never get it, and it takes a certain amount of heroic will or stupendous stupidity to somehow keep soldiering on knowing that.
And it sometimes requires some venting:
Like there's a fundamental difference between the Republocrats or the Demopublicans. Have either decreased the size of government? Have either balanced the budget? Have either moved in the direction of respecting individual's decision making over their own desire to run other's lives and make others' decisions for them? Have either advocated *anything* except "give me the power and I will solve all your problems for you?"
I know you Democrats thing that now things are going to "change", but I've got news for you: they aren't going to change in the *slightest*. The two major parties are just factions of the same party. The concept that there is a fundamental difference is an *illusion*. Please enjoy your day in the sun, your day of optimism, because it will come crashing down around you shortly in abject disappointment. Given the democratic majority's complete inaction on Iraq, I have doubts that Obama will do the one decent thing that he could do: end the fucking genocide in Iraq. Get us the fuck out. Stop pissing our money down a shithole. Even if he *does* do that, I expect that that will just be a prelude to sending the troops back out to every bywater that has issues, following the Clintonian fiction that the US military is paid for by the people so that he can try to play humanitarian and savior across the world. Hey, I'm all for humanitarianism, but it's a *private* matter, not one that our government should be attempting to do with a military that the people paid for *to protect them*. It's dishonest and theft.
And the scary thing is that Obama's *strongest* point is probably his approach to foreign affairs. The economic mess we have now? It's going to get far worse under increased socialism (I won't regularly make this kind of defensive statement here - it's my space, and I don't want to waste my time saying boring, obvious things - do not mistake my use of the term "socialism" here for some sort of McCain sympathy. I consider *McCain* to be a socialist for the most part, as both the republicans and democrats have increased the size of the federal government at the expense of individual decision-making. McCain's pathetic campaign attempt to discredit Obama as a "socialist" is purely coincidental to my use of the term).
For those who think that Obama represents Americans "coming together to help each other out": you can't *force* charity. By definition, if it was forced, it's no longer "charity". You can't force someone to do something voluntary; it's a logical contradiction. So while I understand the urge - my own advocacy of "civil society" *is* a humanitarian, "let's treat each other better" advocacy - it is unfortunately doomed from its conceptual start if the urge to be humanitarian is implemented via coercion.
It's the grand paradox of civil society, and one I will return to again and again until I fully understand and learn to harness it: the more you want to control things to be civil society, the more you have to resist the urge to control.
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