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So when we lay down to sleep at night, I suppose we all have different nightmares. In mine I usually have superpowers that don't work quite the way I want them to, or else I have heroic capabilities and shiny swords and kill the monster, only the reward is never quite what I expected it to be. Not that hard to analyze, I suppose: pretty standard stuff for someone smart and capable and not as focused as they could be if they tried.
All my friends are in some kind of catatonic moral shock because of the recent election. I'm not. I don't pretend that the election went the way I personally wanted it to. But despite all my friends nice words about democracy this and democracy that, they don't seem to understand one basic thing: democracy is when we all vote, and then we all suck it down afterward and abide by the majority decision. And sure four years in a country run by people whose opinions you don't agree with can be hard, but that's no excuse for being all mean and snide about it.
Because you know what that is? It's disrespectful to the 50+ percent of people around you who did get what they want. There's no good reason to be all "I can't understand how anyone could vote the way they did!" It gives the impression that you don't respect people with opinions different than yours. Too many of my liberal friends seem to believe that other people vote differently because "they don't know the facts" or "they don't understand the issues" or "they don't see what's really important here!"
One of my pet peeves is those (very well intentioned, really) liberals who get very upset that americans are voting in favor of a moral agenda or a political ideal as opposed to the realities that certain candidates actually push in terms of concrete legislation. My feelings are pretty complex on this, but one thing that's really been bugging me lately is this - that attitude assumes that your economic situation, or your environmental one, is definitely more important than your emotional or spiritual situation.
Leaders aren't just people who make sure there are chickens in your lunchbuckets and non-polluting cars in your ergonomically designed, recycled-materials constructed garages. Leaders are also physical representations of emotions and ideals. Leaders carry certain spiritual burdens for those they lead. And to derogate those factors, to imply that responding to those factors is a case of being misguided or foolish is, I think, cruel.
Better to say to yourself "what am I, or my party, not offering people in the way of dreams, ambitions, spiritual guidance and support?" Because those *are* factors that people evaluate in choosing a leader. And I think sometimes because there are so many different spiritual and emotional factions in the liberal camp, some members of that camp try to evade the whole issue, and focus on "just the facts, please."
The problem with that, as we've seen, is that the facts, even all the facts, aren't the whole picture. All the really great liberal leaders that I can think of off the top of my head have known to appeal strongly to those great emotional and spiritual forces. Dr. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, even presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and J. Kennedy had the stirring emotional speeches going out to the population. If you appeal to reason without considering feelings, you end up with Woodrow Wilson. It's just not a successful career path.
I think we need a nice religious liberal. Someone full of faith and rapture, touched by the kind of religious faith that fills you with love.
Because look at Dr. King's stirring speech. It was the "I Have a Dream" speech. It wasn't the "I Have the Facts" speech. I'm sure that he had a million statistics about the situation of african-americans. But it's the beautiful, uplifting rhetoric that moves people and catches their hearts. Without that willingness to engage in strong emotional speech, you're left with just the facts. You're left with gentleman like Mr. Nader. And Mr. Nader is a wonderful gentleman on many levels and has done a lot for this country in consumer activism. But he doesn't have the emotional qualities most of us look for in a leader.
We keep sending the Scarecrow to the polls, when what we need is the Tin Man. We need someone full of bravery and heart.
All my friends are in some kind of catatonic moral shock because of the recent election. I'm not. I don't pretend that the election went the way I personally wanted it to. But despite all my friends nice words about democracy this and democracy that, they don't seem to understand one basic thing: democracy is when we all vote, and then we all suck it down afterward and abide by the majority decision. And sure four years in a country run by people whose opinions you don't agree with can be hard, but that's no excuse for being all mean and snide about it.
Because you know what that is? It's disrespectful to the 50+ percent of people around you who did get what they want. There's no good reason to be all "I can't understand how anyone could vote the way they did!" It gives the impression that you don't respect people with opinions different than yours. Too many of my liberal friends seem to believe that other people vote differently because "they don't know the facts" or "they don't understand the issues" or "they don't see what's really important here!"
One of my pet peeves is those (very well intentioned, really) liberals who get very upset that americans are voting in favor of a moral agenda or a political ideal as opposed to the realities that certain candidates actually push in terms of concrete legislation. My feelings are pretty complex on this, but one thing that's really been bugging me lately is this - that attitude assumes that your economic situation, or your environmental one, is definitely more important than your emotional or spiritual situation.
Leaders aren't just people who make sure there are chickens in your lunchbuckets and non-polluting cars in your ergonomically designed, recycled-materials constructed garages. Leaders are also physical representations of emotions and ideals. Leaders carry certain spiritual burdens for those they lead. And to derogate those factors, to imply that responding to those factors is a case of being misguided or foolish is, I think, cruel.
Better to say to yourself "what am I, or my party, not offering people in the way of dreams, ambitions, spiritual guidance and support?" Because those *are* factors that people evaluate in choosing a leader. And I think sometimes because there are so many different spiritual and emotional factions in the liberal camp, some members of that camp try to evade the whole issue, and focus on "just the facts, please."
The problem with that, as we've seen, is that the facts, even all the facts, aren't the whole picture. All the really great liberal leaders that I can think of off the top of my head have known to appeal strongly to those great emotional and spiritual forces. Dr. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, even presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and J. Kennedy had the stirring emotional speeches going out to the population. If you appeal to reason without considering feelings, you end up with Woodrow Wilson. It's just not a successful career path.
I think we need a nice religious liberal. Someone full of faith and rapture, touched by the kind of religious faith that fills you with love.
Because look at Dr. King's stirring speech. It was the "I Have a Dream" speech. It wasn't the "I Have the Facts" speech. I'm sure that he had a million statistics about the situation of african-americans. But it's the beautiful, uplifting rhetoric that moves people and catches their hearts. Without that willingness to engage in strong emotional speech, you're left with just the facts. You're left with gentleman like Mr. Nader. And Mr. Nader is a wonderful gentleman on many levels and has done a lot for this country in consumer activism. But he doesn't have the emotional qualities most of us look for in a leader.
We keep sending the Scarecrow to the polls, when what we need is the Tin Man. We need someone full of bravery and heart.
