An unalterable divide.

I see an unalterable divide. I really suggest everyone here go to Democratic Underground (where we are not allowed to post, per their rules) and read what they are saying. Expect a lot of anger, profanity, anti-religous bigotry and hatred. See a lot of mischaracterization of who we are and what we believe.

I see this divide as somewhat permanant. On a personal level people can and do change. In my experience getting people to either become involved in the shooting sports or going to church and over time their politics are going to change. I run a discussion group that is mixed liberals and conservatives and there has been movement to our side, in a few cases dramatic movement.

But this is change at the margins. In general I feel the lines are hardening, not softening. It may even be that there are some pretty big internal population shifts going on. In my own case I left California a decade ago to escape the new, liberal driven anti-gun agenda. More recently I moved from Oregon to southern Washington to remove myself from the absurd tax jurisdiction. This may be happening more and more, "red" people moving to "red" states. (Jeff, I don't think you can reclaim Blue, sorry).

The elected national Republicans are at least subliminally aware of this. Spectors recent comments are reality, he's the only one blunt enough to serve it up. They don't want to be put in the position of fighting tough battles in the culture war. Most of them have no interest in rolling back Socialism in America.

We don't know how much Bush wants to push for this, either. We won, but only by 3%. Pushing back against some leftist programs that are well established could easily result in a 3% shift. Bush has been smart to put together this majority. A great job. But like our majority in the Senate, it is wobbly in the middle.

On the other hand there are many activists out here, and I'd put myself in this category, who are somewhat exhausted of working to deliver power to Republicans and not seeing much of substance come out of it. In fact the Prescription Drug program, another huge entitlement and a big block in the ongoing Socialist conversion of America (and medicine) was delivered by OUR GUYS. That really hurts.

So the Dems have some hard medicine to swallow today, but we may have more to swallow in the next 2 to 4 years as we see Bush struggle to maintain a majority coalition and address the concerns of the base.

The facts are, a lot of these issues are not grey-grey. They are somewhat black and white. And in most cases despite all these Republican gains the Liberal status quo is in force, in law.

Taxes are high, very high for high income earners, and even small cuts are met with demagogury from the left and left-media. Abominations like "earned income tax credit", a direct transfer payment to selected favored working poor is the law of the land. Bush's tax cuts were only passed with a time out provision.

Spending is out of control. Lots of liberal causes are directly funded. We pay to shoot ourselves in the foot. Again demagogury is the order of the day if anything is even proposed to be cut.

The large entitlements are structurally unsound. The Dem plan to fix them is "tax the rich" .. accelerating the transition to a Euro-socialist model. So far the Republican alternatives, again designed to split the difference and not offend, are subject to lies and distortions.

Affirmative action, absurd eco regulations, endangered species laws, activist judges, obviously illegal campaign finance laws, removal of God from the national heritage, the entire New Deal, public universities as Marxist training facilities, the list goes on and on.

All accomplished fact. What many of us want is a 'velvet revolution' that rolls this back. I have little hope in seeing it happen, even after the work and the great victory we have just won.

We are a nation with two radically different visions. Alignment with them is along a continuim, some all the way Red, some hard Blue and most between the two poles. My sense is many are moving away from the center.

Certainly many of my friends are moving towards the Red Pole. Less acceptance of the status quo. Less willingness to put up with NY Times lies. But all this is not, to date, resulting in real changes for the better in my life. Every time I go to the desert there is more closed land, land that is already so empty it is probably less visited today then it was 100 years ago. Taxes keep going up, spending keeps going up.

How this is resolved I do not know. Paul Wyrich suggested conservatives "have lost" and we withdraw from the political process. (He speaks for Christian conservatives in particular) ... that we build alternative institutions. Thats not realistic. Blue Staters will tax us, regulate us and eventually convict us with impunity.

The Free State Project, which has made many mistakes along the way at least poses a great challenge in their motto: "Liberty in our Lifetime". It's a goal I can sign onto with gusto. I'm skeptical I shall live to see even a small part of it achieved.

I will post this to DUpeville when I can, for what good it will do. They've dropped my old lurker account, so I'm frozen out for now.

I'm a Republican-American, but I Love You Anyway

An attempt, possibly in vain, to turn the tide.

I encourage those of good will to turn from this hopeless, bottomless well of defeat and embrace a new paradigm. Because, we need you.

You see, we Republican-Americans are not the stereotypes you have formulated in your minds. When you realize that, you might begin heading back to the surface.

Barack Obama, newly minted Senator from Illinois, realizes that. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and I have gay friends in the red states." I love this line, and the sentiment it represents. Remember it?

Continuing on this theme...

I am a Republican-American, but I drive a hybrid-engine Toyota Prius. Not because I'm green, but because I cannot see a future where our security is mortgaged to the mullahs of Iran. I have listened to you.

I am a Republican-American, but I have been privileged to have gay friends. One is a woman whose smile brightens many a day, and whose courage and strength of spirit compares to that of the Green Berets (and I have known a few of them, too). Another was a man who, knowing that I was "soooo straight," made it a point to make me laugh every time he saw me. The laughter ended when he died of a vicious, wasting disease that he contracted from a man to whom he had dedicated his life, and who had dedicated to him, as well. I try to be worthy of him by supporting those seeking to end that disease and its hold on mankind. I have listened to you.

I am a Republican-American, but I am saddened when those who seem so certain of God's judgment are unwilling to wait for it. If a woman chooses abortion, I believe she has killed a child. But I am sufficiently empathetic to permit God to work His will and lead her back from the Pit. I don't want her jailed. I can wait for Him to judge, and I have listened to you.

But, can you listen to me?

Can you hear this Republican-American when he supports George W. Bush? Are you tolerant enough to listen when I say that Dubya, faced with unprecedented crises and his own doubts, responded to that monstrous attack the only way he could? He didn't nuke anyone, as the evil tyrant you condemn would have, surely. No, he solemnly and resolutely made decisions and issued orders that, to date, have cost the lives of untold thousands. But those decisions have liberated millions, and help secure millions more. We have saved far more than we have destroyed.

Can you hear this Republican-American when he says that Bush's economic policies have provided a stimulant to the economy? That everyone who pays taxes got a tax cut? Or are you so blinded by ideology that you just want to scream "TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH!!!"?

Can you hear this Republican-American when he says that he is certain Bush is not an evil, stupid, wanna-be dictator, but an imperfect man trying to do an impossible job perfectly, because imperfection at this point invites devastation? Or do the voices of your allies yelling "BUSH LIED!!!! KIDS DIED!!!!" drown me out?

Well, if so, here's a bulletin: November 2nd showed you that you live in an echo chamber, and the walls of that chamber are closing in on you. As the walls get closer, the echoes will get louder, and you will be unable to hear me, until it is too late.

Until we are so enfeebled by partisan rancor that we will not notice that there are some moving across the Mexican border into our country that do not speak Spanish, and are not here looking for work. So we will do nothing to help the desperate migrant workers and in our inaction, do nothing to stop those with another, darker purpose.

Until we are so busy yelling at each other that we stop funding research and that evil disease finds new life as an airborne strain. It is ticking and purring away, right now, inside the bodies of millions of the afflicted. Mutating, hundreds of thousands of times, faster than influenza, until it finds a way out. When it does, it will not care if you live in a red state or a blue state. It will waste us both away into God's hands.

Until we are so irrelevant, so pointless, so comic that the rest of the world laughs at our fading skills and addled minds and gains the upper technological hand. When they do, they will economically avenge themselves upon us without regard to who voted for Kerry. Your job will be on the same ash heap as mine.

Until the Islamic fascists, emboldened by our uncertainty and division, achieve their weapon. They will use it without reflection, just as they use young women as slaves and young men as bombs. When they do, the effects of that weapon will surely disregard what paper you read, what web site you log on to, what blog you follow.

We cannot continue hating each other. We cannot continue defeating each other. We cannot, a house divided, stand. We need you, and you need us. Surely, there are soldiers in the Army that are yours, and there are poor, sick people that are ours. We must care for them. We must support them.

I am a Republican-American, but I have listened to you. I am a Republican-American, but I love you anyway. You are Americans, and we need you.

It is possible to turn the tide. If only you can still listen to me.

But can you even hear me?

It is true, there is an unmistakable divide. At first glance, it looks political with left wing liberals on one side and right wing conservatives on the other. However, I think that political divide is symptomatic of an underlying much deeper divide and that is the one that is difficult to cross and that won't heal. On the one side are those who think that their own mind is the measure of all, there is nothing beyond us, and that death is the end. These people don't go to church, except for social reasons and comprise the core of the left. On the other side are those who have some sense or intuition that they are not the measure of all things, that there is something beyond us, greater than us, whence we came, and to which we will return. They may be Christians, Hindus, whatever, and comprise the core of the right. Throughout history, there has been little dialogue from one side of this divide to the other, but a good deal of fighting across it. The most lucid account of the divide itself is contained in seven dialogues called "Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher" written in Providence, RI, in the 1730's by the Irish philosopher Bishop George Berkeley (after whom, ironically, Berkeley University was named). There is nothing in today's newspapers concerning this left-right divide that is not laid there in those dialogues. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will with regard to it.

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