Response To Callimachus’ Left Behind Posts
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, Smart Things Said By Smart PeopleIf you haven’t read them, here are the links to part I, part II and part III.
Now then, Caroline leaves a response to part III that I had to promote because it’s basically what we’re talking about in the first place. And while I don’t think the situation is as dire as she thinks it is, look to this as to why a centrist blog (where both sides can come together and debate, not hate) is so desperately needed.
I can relate to this article so well. It seems these days that the lines have been drawn in the sand, and the prevailing attitude is ‘if you’re not with us, you’re agin’ us’. The idea that each individual should be allowed to draw his or her own conclusions and entertain his/her own ideas has somewhere flown by the wayside. I guess we still have freedom of speech, but it is often putting one’s reputation, sometimes one’s life, in jeopardy if one chooses to exercise it.I worry about this. We seem to be turning into a nation of lemmings. How can there be only two sides to each issue? Why do we have to choose between only two stances? Our people seem to have lost the ability to think for themselves, and simply latch on to whichever doctrine, or propaganda, that most closely echoes one’s choice of ’sides’. If one doesn’t ‘toe the party line’, he finds himself an outcast, at the best. At the worst, he is perceived to be ‘unAmerican’.
In my humble opinion, America is regressing, not progressing. That there have always been issues which tend to divide us is a given, however over these past years we seem, as a nation, to be taking two or more steps backwards for each step forward thus far taken. A person who insists on thinking for himself these days is considered neither fish nor fowl. Anyone who has read history or philosophy knows that this is usually the ‘beginning of the end’ of most societies. Anarchy and chaos soon follow when the majoritiy of the people insist on seeing each and every issue as ‘black or white’.
The writing’s on the wall, people. I hope at least some will slow down to read it, or our once proud nation, once looked- up to by the majority of the free world, will soon self-destruct. All of this screaming and shouting lately is only another form of apathy. Choosing a side, and being vociferous in it’s defense may seem like participation to most, but following the flock is truely the worst sort of apathy indeed. I hope most people see the cliff they’re about to jump over before it’s too late.
Again, thanks again for the comment Caroline. I’m sure a lot feel the same way you do and I hope you find our contributions useful and positive.
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July 23rd, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Bravo, Caroline. If the divisive voices among us now, and their followers, had a regional basis, we’d be fighting another civil war. Interestingly, the fractured and partisan media of the modern age, and the ill-informed partisanship of so many people, are not new things in America; they’re a return to the mid-19th century.
July 23rd, 2005 at 3:44 pm
“Neither fish nor fowl” - outstanding choice of a set expression. We should think like humans, not birds or fish.
Ideally no one would fit neatly into any category. This is the label trap. The shrills on both sides have their checklists of positions you are supposed to hold in order to be orthodox. Orthodox - hah! - we need to anathematize them.
The labels became useless when they became binary. What is a conservative? A Tory or a Whig - an royalist or a free-marketeer?
July 23rd, 2005 at 11:38 pm
Our two-party system, a mostly unintentional side-effect of the system set up in the Constitution, gives a false impression of America as a binary nation. Really, the political parties in any era are coalitions.
Look at what “Democrat” has meant over the years: “African-American + New England establishment,” “Southern segregationist + Northern union worker,” “Western farmer + Evangelical conservative,” “slave-holder + Irish immigrant,” etc.
The coalitions are ad hoc, the common interest often is absent. But politics is war by other means, and if you spend any time committed to an election, you take your wounds, and you make your enemies, and you stock up on grudges to be repaid. Before long, with many people, the important thing becomes not principle, or common weal, or even personal benefit, but making sure those bastards on the other side are ground into dust, with just enough life left in their miserable carcases to feel the depth of their defeat.
July 23rd, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Well said. I know for a fact that there are some who feel this way and they are poisoning the well.
However, I worked with a lot of very positive Democrats in the last election who truly felt our country was simply going in the wrong direction. Those are the type of people who I think can benefit from hearing different voices and understanding what extremism of any stripe breeds.
July 24th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
“However, I worked with a lot of very positive Democrats in the last election who truly felt our country was simply going in the wrong direction. Those are the type of people who I think can benefit from hearing different voices and understanding what extremism of any stripe breeds. ”
Count me as one of them. Actually, I support the WOT unequivocally, but like a lot of us, I have serious problems with the way Bush has been running things.
I’ve never understood this bloodthirsty ideological war. You’d think the ideologues on the right and the Left would realize there are more important things to focus on. There are more than two sides to an issue, and disagreement is not disloyalty.
July 25th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Responding to - and expanding upon - Callimachus’s comment:
The nature of our two-party system is such that, no matter which party’s candidate you may vote for in any given election for any given office, for whatever reasons, you are also invariably, inevitably, voting for any number of other constituencies, activists, special interest groups and ideologues, with some of whom you may strenuously disagree - and even those who may not even be officially affiliated with that party but would plainly prefer it to win over the other.
To put it another way: A vote for John Kerry in last year’s election was a vote for the likes of Michael Moore, International ANSWER and the PC crowd, whether or not you actually voted for Kerry because you share the far-left views of those groups. Likewise, a vote for George W. Bush was a vote for the Christian right and the likes of Dr. James Dobson, whether or not you actually voted for Bush because you favor recasting American society along Christian lines, or are even a practicing Christian yourself.
All this means that in any given election campaign - but especially the presidential campaigns - the two candidates’ respective images are invariably shaped by their respective parties’ political bedfellows. (Which, I might add, probably contributes heavily to the ideological warfare brought up by Rafique above.) I wonder how many other voters in last year’s election made their choice not just on the basis of the candidates themselves, but on which party’s bedfellows they found to be the least offensive?