It isn't gloating to look back at some of the recent stupidity of Bush hates. Take Wil Wheaton.
Over the last few days, Wheaton has set some kind of land-speed record for crazy talk. The day before the election, he wrote that "if George W. Bush wins, I will sit down, and I will cry. I will cry for my children, who will most certainly face a military draft, and I will cry for my country, because I believe that America can, and must, do better than George W. Bush."
"A military draft"? Yeah, under Bush 2.0, they'll be drafting young American boys left and right. But The Architect has this new computer chip that's being implanted in children born in safe Democratic districts, see. And this way he can draft predominently Democratic kids for W.'s imperial wars. In fact, he's not even going to draft them--he'll just swoop down and pick them up in his black helicopter.
But young Master Crusher wasn't that worried. "I'm pretty sure that John Kerry will win this election," he blogged.
(In this same post, Wheaton also worried that a second Bush term would mean "Goodbye freedom from religion." Note, that's "freedom from religion," not "freedom of religion.")
Then, this morning, Wheaton posted this gem: "Apparently, my country holds a fundamentally different set of values than I thought we did, and that scares the shit out of me."
This is just a working theory: Anyone who looks at this country and sees more divisions than binding ties is insane. The political differences between a liberal Hollywood actor and a conservative Midwestern businessman are, objectively speaking, very, vey small. Nearly all Americans share a pretty basic set of broad values; our divisions are around the margins of these values. Put another way, Tom DeLay and Barbra Streisand have more political commonalities than they do differences.
Take gay marriage, for example. The political "divide" in America is over whether homosexuals should be given full and complete access to the custom and legal definition of marriage (the Human Rights Campaign's position) or whether they should have some modified version of a civil union that does not have the word "marriage" attached to it (President Bush's position). Both sides agree homosexuals should have equal rights; should not be discriminated upon in the workplace; should be allowed to adopt children; should be able to live with dignity; and should, in general, be embraced by their fellow citizens.
If you want to see what a real "divide" looks like, gaze over at the Middle East, where the question is whether or not homosexuals should be jailed, tortured, and/or murdered. You'll recall that there's a certain faction of belief in the Middle East which is waging a war against America and seeking to impose these values on us.
This is just one example. More abound. The point is that any American who would have been "scared" by either a Bush or Kerry presidency is either crazy, embarrassingly provincial, or just plain stupid.
In America, we have an amazing luxury: Our political opponents are not evil. They are not dangerous. They do not want to kill us. And no matter what, they will abide by the ground rules of democracy, so, if we lose to them on a particular issue or election, we'll have a chance to beat them next time around.
The people of Russia, Afghanistan, and other struggling democracies do not have this luxury. And for people like Wil Wheaton to fail to appreciate our blessing is simply shameful.
12 hours ago
7 comments:
If you want to see what a real "divide" looks like, gaze over at the Middle East, where the question is whether or not homosexuals should be jailed, tortured, and/or murdered.I hope you meant that it the sense that the answers to those questions, thoughout the fundamentalist Islamic world, is "yes, yes and yes."
And, as just one example, gay couples in Florida (who by law cannot adopt) might have something to say about your rather utopic vision of gay rights in America.
If only it were truly as you claim it is...
Wow, " Both sides agree homosexuals ...should be allowed to adopt children..." I guess that means that there are more than two sides on this issue; or, is it what Buffalo Springfield meant by: "Nobody's right when everybody's wrong"? If "both sides" were to actually review the body of social research on the topic (instead of giving in to "feel good" policy), "both sides" would probably conclude that what you are suggesting is less than ideal. Sounds like a slogan for the next campaign to me: "Both sides want what is less than ideal for American orphans (because it keeps us from having to confront some pretty ugly facts)."
I just want to make sure I am clearly understanding your point regarding gay marriage. If I am reading correctly, the entire argument has to do with the word marriage? It's a semantic debate? Our president has campaigned on ammending the constitution so that the United States can stop bickering over a word? The states voted on a word? You think if homosexuals just say "you know what, go ahead, call it 'bubble gum'" then gay couples who have been together for decades can be considered legal family by a hospital? That's genius. The entire midwest thinks they were voting to ensure that homosexual couples aren't recognized as heterosexual couples by the law, do they know this was a matter of word choice?
"Our political opponents are not evil. They are not dangerous. They do not want to kill us. And no matter what, they will abide by the ground rules of democracy, so, if we lose to them on a particular issue or election, we'll have a chance to beat them next time around."
Interesting. After all the reports of shots fired at campaign headquarters, people storming headquarters, tires slashed, and threats issued, can you really claim that they play fairly and don't want to kill us?
Sure, we all know that the vast majority of people who voted for Kerry don't feel this way. The vast majority of Muslims don't go out and kill the infidels either, but we're fighting a war against Islamic Extremists. This is the kind of attitude that led to the war. In a few years, we'll find ourselves firing cruise missles into Michael Moore's offices to be followed by The War on Left Wing Radicals.
I'm a gay man here in California who voted for Bush. California will have Domestic Partner legal status available to gay couples as of Jan 1. DP status is also open to heterosexual couples as long as one of them is over 62. This is to allow straight couples to have partner rights without loosing federal benefits, such as a widow's military pension. Our system works. It was passed by the Legislature, not imposed by the courts. There is really no serious objection to it here, except from TVC and the usual. But the point is, it is what California wanted. DP status is exactly equal to marriage status here, except for the federal stuff over which we have no control. As a gay person, the last thing I want it to have the courts impose gay marriage on all states. Gay people would be hated for a generation. Let the states decide, and let the system evolve. It's how our system works.
For what it's worth, Wheaton is a constitutional scholar compared to the keen insight of techno artist Moby. Check him out at http://www.moby-online.com/index2.html . I got the link to this a couple of days ago and can't stop reading. It's the intellectual equivalent of a 10 car pileup.
Still, given the sheer breadth of, for example, the Ohio Amendment (which bars civil unions and possibly even legal contracts between gay partners, depending on how it gets interpreted by the courts), I think the political divide is a little wider than you think it is.
I think there are a lot of well-meaning Republicans who overlook the less savory elements in their party's coalition, just as many New Deal Democrats were willing to overlook the fact that their electoral majorities were built on segregation. Of course, the Democrats' coalition still includes the Blame America First faction, so maybe it's a wash these days.
The silly part is that all of the recent disputes over gay rights is about them wanting to become Republicans: they want to join the military, get jobs, get married, and have kids.
Of course, even with all of those groups and disputes, your larger point is correct: we still agree on much more than we disagree about.
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