[Originally posted on 11/10/2008]
I originally wrote this for an e-mail list of personal friends and acquaintances. I have decided to repost it here.
This election was a difficult one.
I'm continually surprised by the venom elections bring out in people. At work, I had people earnestly confiding in me that they would move to Canada if Obama won. Since these folks are obviously conservatives, given when I know of Canadians, I wonder if they really thought this through. I mean, I wasn't aware that Canada was made up of war-hawk homophobes who hate socialized medicine.
(I had to pause for a moment....I'm mildly amused that the spellchecker in my Thunderbird e-mail client doesn't know about the word "homophobe". Perhaps some programmer at Mozilla is an optimist. Then again, it apparently doesn't know about the word "spellchecker" either, which explains the state of Internet message forums....)
It's interesting that an election can make a moderate Republican known for facing down his own party every so often become in the national psyche a warmongering wingnut who is the very embodiment of evil social conservatives and a virtual genetic clone of the Dictator-in-Chief. Of course, McCain apparently suffered a stroke over the summer, because he decided a totally unknown, less-than-one-term social conservative state governor with a poorly vetted background was somehow a good choice of runningmate, and then decided to go so disgustingly negative in the last month of the campaign as to poison his own well.
It's interesting that an election can make a nearly unknown freshman senator from Chicago known for little else than one speech a leader for the 21st century. He had is own stroke over the summer, but it was a stroke of genius, forgoing the obviously politically expedient, and historically trumping, choice of a woman running mate and instead picking one of the most astute politicians in recent memory, and risking alienating a big chunk of his own party in the process. This writer was duly impressed with his ability and determination to not go totally negative. Not that he didn't tell his share of campaign ad fibs, but better to fudge your opponent's policy stances than some make hay of social connections that even this libertarian can see are tenuous at best.
For the first time since 1988, I did not vote for the Libertarian candidate for president. This was an extremely difficult choice for me. People seem to take personal pleasure in informing me that I'm throwing my vote away, or that I'm really casting a vote for the person they're against. But there was something oddly comforting about my votes. I could warmly snuggle into the down comforter of voting my conscience, or at least, not voting for anyone who would be part of prolonging the country's problems. But instead, I did my due diligence, checking as many facts and counter-facts as I could, examining political rhetoric, attempting to filter said rhetoric through the polarizing sunglasses of election year distortions, and trying, in earnest, to vote for the person I thought would be best for the country in the long term. Should or should not their choices for vice-president be taken into account? What would *really* happen if they were in office? What would *really* happen if they died in office and their running-mates took the office? Who is more likely to do things that coincide with my beliefs? Who is more likely to actually attempt to do what they say? And *what* ARE they really saying?
Of course, I've tried to discuss the pros and cons of both the Democratic and Republican candidates, and no matter who I bring up, I've been the subject of no small amount of abuse by people whose idea of political discourse is a harpy's scream at 120dB. The Internet has become both the best and worst thing to ever happen to American elections. Truths are available at the touch of a button, and so are lies. Truths are declared lies and lies are declared truths and there's absolutely no filter whatsoever, so an earnest, sincere search for information on the candidates becomes a bit like being stuck between two squabbling children shouting "am not!" "are too!".
The answers are only obvious to those who have predetermined the questions, and they are self-appointed. To them, there are no reasonable decisions. You pick their candidate if you want to be Right. If, for some reason, through an honest attempt at sorting through everything, you conclude that the other candidate might in fact be a better choice, then you are (a) a moron, (b) a sheep, (c) either a Socialist or a Racist Hater.
So for those people who are so smugly secure in their choice of presidential candidate, just know that not everyone shared your sense of self-satisfied confidence.
And I will never, ever not vote Libertarian again. It's just been too traumatic. It's safer to just throw my vote away.
This election was a difficult one.
I'm continually surprised by the venom elections bring out in people. At work, I had people earnestly confiding in me that they would move to Canada if Obama won. Since these folks are obviously conservatives, given when I know of Canadians, I wonder if they really thought this through. I mean, I wasn't aware that Canada was made up of war-hawk homophobes who hate socialized medicine.
(I had to pause for a moment....I'm mildly amused that the spellchecker in my Thunderbird e-mail client doesn't know about the word "homophobe". Perhaps some programmer at Mozilla is an optimist. Then again, it apparently doesn't know about the word "spellchecker" either, which explains the state of Internet message forums....)
It's interesting that an election can make a moderate Republican known for facing down his own party every so often become in the national psyche a warmongering wingnut who is the very embodiment of evil social conservatives and a virtual genetic clone of the Dictator-in-Chief. Of course, McCain apparently suffered a stroke over the summer, because he decided a totally unknown, less-than-one-term social conservative state governor with a poorly vetted background was somehow a good choice of runningmate, and then decided to go so disgustingly negative in the last month of the campaign as to poison his own well.
It's interesting that an election can make a nearly unknown freshman senator from Chicago known for little else than one speech a leader for the 21st century. He had is own stroke over the summer, but it was a stroke of genius, forgoing the obviously politically expedient, and historically trumping, choice of a woman running mate and instead picking one of the most astute politicians in recent memory, and risking alienating a big chunk of his own party in the process. This writer was duly impressed with his ability and determination to not go totally negative. Not that he didn't tell his share of campaign ad fibs, but better to fudge your opponent's policy stances than some make hay of social connections that even this libertarian can see are tenuous at best.
For the first time since 1988, I did not vote for the Libertarian candidate for president. This was an extremely difficult choice for me. People seem to take personal pleasure in informing me that I'm throwing my vote away, or that I'm really casting a vote for the person they're against. But there was something oddly comforting about my votes. I could warmly snuggle into the down comforter of voting my conscience, or at least, not voting for anyone who would be part of prolonging the country's problems. But instead, I did my due diligence, checking as many facts and counter-facts as I could, examining political rhetoric, attempting to filter said rhetoric through the polarizing sunglasses of election year distortions, and trying, in earnest, to vote for the person I thought would be best for the country in the long term. Should or should not their choices for vice-president be taken into account? What would *really* happen if they were in office? What would *really* happen if they died in office and their running-mates took the office? Who is more likely to do things that coincide with my beliefs? Who is more likely to actually attempt to do what they say? And *what* ARE they really saying?
Of course, I've tried to discuss the pros and cons of both the Democratic and Republican candidates, and no matter who I bring up, I've been the subject of no small amount of abuse by people whose idea of political discourse is a harpy's scream at 120dB. The Internet has become both the best and worst thing to ever happen to American elections. Truths are available at the touch of a button, and so are lies. Truths are declared lies and lies are declared truths and there's absolutely no filter whatsoever, so an earnest, sincere search for information on the candidates becomes a bit like being stuck between two squabbling children shouting "am not!" "are too!".
The answers are only obvious to those who have predetermined the questions, and they are self-appointed. To them, there are no reasonable decisions. You pick their candidate if you want to be Right. If, for some reason, through an honest attempt at sorting through everything, you conclude that the other candidate might in fact be a better choice, then you are (a) a moron, (b) a sheep, (c) either a Socialist or a Racist Hater.
So for those people who are so smugly secure in their choice of presidential candidate, just know that not everyone shared your sense of self-satisfied confidence.
And I will never, ever not vote Libertarian again. It's just been too traumatic. It's safer to just throw my vote away.
[Originally commented by elgemil on 11/11/2008]
ReplyDeleteI think that honestly there were two major things that soured McCain for me. 4 or 8 years ago I would have seriously considered voting for him, but
1) He started pandering to the looney right well before he selected Sarah Palin, thereby overturning his claim to be a maverick who bucks his Party's line.
2) Not only did he select a supremely unfit VP candidate, but he is quite a lot more likely to die in office and leave us with that VP as our President. As much as I dislike Biden (and I do, party hacks make me want to beat them), I don't think there's nearly as much chance of him being President during Obama's term nor as a follow on candidate (a la Gore).
Beyond those two issues, everything else IMO becomes window dressing. "really" this or "really" that seems fairly subjective in terms of judgement. But it seems obvious that Sarah Palin is cut from the same cloth (if not a bit more extreme) as W, and unless you're happy with where we are right now after 8 years of his leadership, I can't see how you could want any scenario that would even possibly end up with her as the President. I don't believe the crap about McCain being Bush junior (though he sure did seem ready to endorse policies he was against before the campaign....), but between known cancer risk and age it seems that Palin is a lot more relevant to the choice and she IS Bush junior if not Bush squared.
That said, it's all under the bridge. We'll have to see whether Obama can make things better or not. A little over 50% of the popular vote is hardly a mandate nor a landslide, electoral numbers notwithstanding. Interesting times.....
[I commented on 11/11/2008]
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think I voted for McCain?