Posted on 11/04/2004 9:46:58 AM PST by youngrepublican1986
I woke up today feeling much better than yesterday, much more at peace with all this. Have I acceded to the calls for "national unity"? Have I tasted of the Kool-Aid and found it sweet?
Hardly.
I simply came to a startling conclusion somewhere last night as I drifted off to sleep. We were told this was an referendum on the President. Wrong. This was a referendum on the American people, and they made their choice. You've all seen, by now, the polling results that show "moral values" as the overwhelming sentiment in the choice for Bush.
So what does that tell me? It tells me that, when you come right down to it, this country is simply not in my corner. And the past generation bears that out.
Let's be brutally honest here: we (liberals, Democrats, whatever) haven't won an election by majority since 1976 and Jimmy Carter. Clinton never had a majority, only a plurality. Frankly, I don't think Carter would have won if he hadn't been running against the spectre of Nixon. So this means that in the past 36 years, we have legitimately carried the majority sentiment one time out of ten. One time out of ten.
That should come as a hard slap. Thiry-six years. One election out of ten.
It's time to wake up and smell the political coffee: WE ARE OUT OF THE MAINSTREAM. The 'Pubs have been telling us this for years and we constantly scoffed and said they were wrong. But it turns out they were right: they weren't trying to job us with political rhetoric, they were trying to help us understand what was happening.
Now, you may steel yourself by saying "Well, we got 50+ million people to vote on our side". But step back from that for a moment. That 50+ million was marshalled in an unprecedented "Get Out The Vote" effort. Millions of doors were knocked on, millions of calls made, millions of dollars spent. A massive effort, a political D-Day as it were - an all or nothing gambit designed to capture the beach and sweep into Washington, putting Conservatives on the run.
And we still got beat, and beat bad. We didn't just see a referendum at the Presidential level this week. We saw it right down to the roots, with the sweeping losses in both parts of Congress, as well as the unanimous adoption of "Defense of Marriage" acts. Put simply, we're not the majority here, not now, not for the past generation or more. Our views are not those of the country - regardless of the yardstick you use. Even those seats we did gain tended toward the moderate end of the Democratic spectrum. And we lost to clear loons like Coburn and Bunning.
How does all this put me a peace? Well, I keep coming back to that "36 years" figure. That's the entire span of my life, plus a few years. This means that for the duration of my existence on this sphere, I have been on the outside looking in, with the tide steadily rising against me.
The mainstream of this country does not support equality for all, secularism, public assistance, environmentalism, etc. Nor do they abhor the things I do. I do not represent this country. It isn't mine, and never was. Perhaps that's a defeatist attitude, but I find it hard to fight for something that firstly isn’t mine to start with and secondly that has no intersection with my personal values.
And that's when peace and acceptance washed over me. There is nothing here for me to fight for because the country I thought I lived in has utterly and completely, at virtually every conceivable turn, rejected my beliefs wholesale.
I would imagine it's the same sense of acceptance a "guest worker" feels. I'm in this country mainly for a job. If I had the wherewithal to go someplace else, I probably would.
I am stranger in this land, and frankly I don't, any longer, hold its tenets close to my heart. I mean here not the tenets of the foundations of this country - The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights - but the tenets of the electorate. Because in the end, the electorate makes, remakes, is remaking, the country in its own image. All countries are portraits of their people. The portrait of America for the past three decades or more has basically looked the same. And I have never been in that portrait.
I am free and at peace now with America, because I am absolved of responsibility for it. As it has shut my voice out, I now can shut it out. Its failures and missteps, its foibles and stupidity, none are now my own.
Now peace, as I cut America out of my heart, as America had already cut me out of its.
Finally they recognize that they are out of the mainstream! What a thought!
America..Love it or LEAVE IT!
I love it and choose to support it.
Finally they recognize that they are out of the mainstream! What a thought!"
Who's "they" in the last sentence? The other side, that is us? Who's speaking? I don't get it. Quotation marks are your friends.
Agreed. This article doesn't pass the sniff test. The writing is too good and the thoughts too well organized. The 'cut america out of my heart' line was a nice touch, though; having just the right blend of patronizing 'look down the nose' condescension and drama-queen overkill to be real.
Time to get on your knees and repent to the Lord that made you and loves you...
LOL...that was my first thought as well.
Poor guy. On one level, he gets it . . . but his reaction is to throw-in-the-towel. Sad.
We shut down the HIGH-flying West Coast Communist Offensive!
How about we have a Freeper bake sale to help this fellow escape? How much for a ticket to Cuba? He'd like it there.
If you're not a liberal by the time you're 20,
you have no heart.
If you're not a conservative by the time you're 30,
you have no brain.
And they wonder why we call them DUmmies?
This is their failing. This is their problem. They simply do not understand the idea of America that people like Ronald Reagan knew so well.
If people like this cannot understand and appreciate this vision of America, I suggest they move to a place where they will be happy, one that speaks to their personal views. Otherwise, don't look for the common American to reach out to them.
bump to for later read
I am sure we can find someone in some third word country who would be thrilled at the notion of switching places with you immediately....
As if this person ever would. Bah! It's conservatives that fight for this country, which is why our military is overwhelmingly for Bush.
Quite simply, modern liberalism, i.e. a government guaranteeing equality of results, is incongruent with the American dream.
Don't matter if they ALL get it . It is too late
They are prisoners of the Pro Abortion--Gun Grabbin--Homosexual Pushing--Tree Worshipping--Anti Religion --Anti Military-- America is The Cause of All the World Ills --wack jobs that are the basis of the VAST majority of their $$$$$$$$$$$
No way they can shake off that Tar Baby and survive financially
And Clinton didn't even run as a liberal or progressive. He signed the biggest welfare reform in history, albeit something jammed down his throat by a Republican Congress. He won the votes he did not as a forthright liberal, but as a liberal passing himself off as a moderate/conservative. So its even worse than the author thinks.
I wonder how long this guy lasted before they terminated his account. I feel sorry for him - sort of.
This guy needs to have pride in his party PRE Jimmy Carter/George McGovern. Go back to the true Democrats like Truman, JFK, FDR, Scoop Jackson and the incredible Zell Miller. These are the true Democrats. The party has been hijacked. The dems should be fighting to get their party back from the extreme left, instead of fighting against the Republicans. That money would be well spent.
I love it that their last connection with America was Jimmy Carter! What an asshole loser he was and is.
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