Posted on 11/05/2004 5:50:27 AM PST by SJackson
"Get the virus out of the White House!" a Kerry campaign worker was shouting as I passed him on 93rd and Broadway a few days before the election. "Help beat the psycho-killer!"
"Get the virus out of the White House!" a Kerry campaign worker was shouting as I passed him on 93rd and Broadway a few days before the election. "Help beat the psycho-killer!"
It wasn't his private slogan; I heard the same chant elsewhere in Manhattan, where I happened to be during the last days of the campaign.
I grew up in the US and don't remember anything quite like it. The closest analogies are the Nixon-Humphrey and Nixon-McGovern campaigns of 1968 and 1972, when Democratic strongholds like New York were equally vituperative toward the Republican candidate. But '68 and '72 were essentially one-issue votes; everything was dominated by Vietnam.
In 2004 America is divided into two hostile camps that disagree on just about everything. The electoral results bear this out dramatically. Overall nationwide, it was a close vote. Taken on a state-to-state basis, however, it was close in only a few places. Bush won some states by a huge margin, Kerry others. It was one America voting against another.
To an ex-American visiting from Israel, there is something disconcertingly familiar about this. Extreme political polarization is an old story here; there has been no time when it didn't exist. In America it is new - and to those who care about America's future (which is to say, to everyone on earth, since America's future is in some ways everyone's), it is worrisome.
I don't know what it was like in Bush country. I wasn't in any of it on this visit. But in Kerry country, the president and his supporters weren't just the other political party. They were a frightening and demonized Other who were fellow countrymen only in the technical sense of the term.
The Kerry voters I spoke to assumed as a matter of course that voting for Bush meant you were either a hopelessly warped or a hopelessly misinformed individual, and in either case incapable of rational thought.
The country is split by what seem to be two mutually antagonistic and irreconcilable value systems - one urban, secular, liberal and post-modern, the other rural, religious, conservative and pre-modern. It takes a pinch to remember the not-so-distant days when America's two political parties were commonly referred to as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, mirror images of each other that had to exaggerate minor quarrels in order to create the illusion that there was any difference between them.
And yet, to return to the subject of rational thought, it could be suggested that rather than seeing the Democrats and Republicans of 2004 as representing conflicting value systems that must be accepted in toto one way or another, there is much to be said for picking and choosing from positions on either side.
The sad thing is that these positions have become so locked into a general, across-the-board gestalt that Americans have lost the capacity to consider them on a case-to-case basis.
Thus, if you are a Republican today, you are by definition for the war in Iraq, for American unilateralism in foreign policy, against reliance on the United Nations, against international treaties on environmental issues, against pro-environmental groups in general, for high-income tax cuts, for public support of religious schools and institutions, against gun control, against gay marriage, against legalized abortion. If you're a Democrat, it's just the opposite.
It's a take-it-or-leave-it package, the forces of Good against the forces of Evil.
AND YET what on earth is the logical connection between Iraq and environmentalism, between religious schools and gun control, between gay marriage and abortion? Who says that being for or against one of these things necessarily means being for or against another?
It's certainly possible to believe, for example, that the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq was a correct one whose consequences should continue to be borne for as long as there is any hope of stabilizing that country, while at the same time believing that the refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol was an error.
In general, there is something absurd about the notion that being a political conservative means being an environmental radical. (True environmental radicalism, after all, consists not of trying to conserve as much of the natural environment as possible, but of giving carte blanche to its destruction.)
When George W. Bush speaks of the need for forcefulness in fighting Islamic terror, he is wise; when he pretends that the dangers of global warming don't exist, he is foolish. Why can't one say that?
Why can't one be both for gun control and for a measure of government support for religious institutions? The argument against gun control goes back to an 18th-century Constitution that promised citizens the right to bear muskets, not concealable pistols and submachine guns. The argument against supporting religion originates in the same Constitution, whose signers feared the creation of a European-style established church, not of dozens of equally competing Christian, Jewish, and Islamic denominations.
Super-strict constructionists should logically oppose all gun control and all state support for religion; constitutional evolutionists should be tolerant of both.
And what is the inherent link between gay marriage and abortion? Although Judeo-Christian tradition condemns both, it is certainly possible to separate them, whether by arguing that one condones the taking of life and one doesn't, or by arguing that one subverts accepted notions of sexuality and one doesn't. They're not at all the same issue, even if nearly all Americans treat them as though they were.
But one of the problems with political polarization is that issues cease to be issues and become symbols of political identity. We saw that happen in Israel a long time ago. Tell someone here that you're against the recognition of Reform conversions and for civil marriage, or vice versa, and you'll be looked at as if you had said you're for daylight and against sunshine.
And yet what, really, apart from identifying you as either "religious" or "secular" in people's eyes, do the two positions have to do with each other? By pigeonholing one another, we also pigeonhole our thought processes.
It is sad to see this happening in America, a country known in the past for the pragmatic, anti-ideological nature of its politics. Although Europeans have always sneered at these politics for being dull and conflict-free, they have in fact been a great source of national strength, allowing American voters to make judicious distinctions without having to feel they have deserted to the enemy.
The America of the Bush-Kerry election has become a country of enemies. This is bad for America and bad for the world.
Feel the love. Yeah, you can really work with democrats. Yeah, democrats really have this county's best interests at heart.
Just step back and watch with the rest of America the real face of the Democrat party.....it will help us in 2008.
He indulges in the same totalistic attitude he's criticizing. Being opposed to environmentalism does not mean one wants to "destroy" the environment, of course.
The Kerry voters I spoke to assumed as a matter of course that voting for Bush meant you were either a hopelessly warped or a hopelessly misinformed individual, and in either case incapable of rational thought.
Their rational thought is that truth is relative and use that as their touchstone. Conservatives know there is a right and a wrong and there is an absoulue truch but it takes much effort to find that truth.........we are speaking different languages.
When George W. Bush speaks of the need for forcefulness in fighting Islamic terror, he is wise; when he pretends that the dangers of global warming don't exist, he is foolish. Why can't one say that?
Shades of Tom Friedman.
This is nothing compared to the virtiol in the depression era between the two parties. It's just that today we have the Internet and cable news.
Another jew for gun control, when will they ever learn.
Psycho-killer? Qu'est que c'est?
should be qu'est ce que c'est. Rusty french.
This hits on something I have been observing. It's as if people think that this is the first time this stuff has happened. People have no perspective on history. Our schools are really poor at teaching history and making people understand that there really is nothing new under the sun.
One can say that, but one would be wrong. George W. Bush has not said the "dangers" don't exist. He just hasn't leapt on the Kyoto treaty, nor has he agreed with the baseless pronouncements by leftists that the cause, if it does exist, is man-made and therefore can be fixed via the "solution" offered.
Why can't one say THAT without being called hateful?
The fact is the dems have devolved into a party of hate and do not like to deal with rationality or facts.
True!
Well you were cheated out of a good time! Here, let me fill you in:
We were confident, and we take less zoloft and prozac per captita here. We also didn't agonize all the time, b/c we're going to church once a week. Bush is not our god, just our president; at least once a week we thougt about what God wanted us to think about.
In NYC, you get the church bulletin every morning and its called the NY times ...; that church bulletin is a constant drumbeat of angst, worry, and depression. And people trust it. Why is that?
The country is split by what seem to be two mutually antagonistic and irreconcilable value systems - one urban, secular, liberal and post-modern, the other rural, religious, conservative and pre-modern.
flintlock pistols available in 1776 were entirely as concealable as a submachine gun is today and they were just as much legitimate military weapons. If you told they founding fathers that they surely must not have meant handguns in the 2nd amendment they would have laughed their asses off.... then challenged you to a pistol duel.
It's never been so. Politics has always been nasty, quite a bit nastier in the past in fact. I didn't notice Kerry challenging any of the Swift Vets to a duel, a likely outcome had charges of disloyalty and cowardice been made a couple centuries ago. And the charges would have been made far more forcefully.
A couple of these in the pocket would come in handy. Yes, the picture is a replica.
The Lafayette
A screw barrel flintlock derringer in .41 cal introduced prior to 1640 intended for close range defence shooting. This English origin derringer was made obsolete by the introduction of percussion cap derringers but was common up through mid 19th century.
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