The truth shall set you free.
"Moral Values" was the most recognized voting motive. Are these "values" even moral? The Right will claim ownership of all things moral and denounce everything Left as paganistic and hedonistic. These Christian conservatives, who would give away their inalienable rights if it meant them feeling warm and cozy at night, use hate and ignorance and argue moral superiority.
Jesus Christ, who they pray to apparently, taught tolerance, humility, peace, and love. Today's Evangelicals and those who are now bandwagoning are preaching intolerance, self-righteousness, warfare, and spite. All of this adds up to injustice. The poor are poorer, the rich are richer, and Evangelicals are praising the Lord. They see being homophobic and Pro-Life as being a good Christian. They are incomplete and in turn hypocritical to the utmost degree. Children starve, innocent men, women, and children in Iraq are blown apart and killed everyday by our military and the insurgents using our weapons (103,000 and counting since March 2003), and our Earth is poisoned by the mile.
I read the New Testament. It has many wonderful things in it. Love, peace, tolerance, humility, and reverence. I see none of those things coming from the Christian Right. Jesus was against us judging each other. "He who is without sin may cast the first stone." In other words, if you've sinned... ever, you may not judge others. Poor Jesus, his religious movement is now the antithesis of his vision.
Thanks to the short-sightedness of the Christian Right, we put back into power the greediest, most intolerant, self-righteous, and violent administation in decades. If you're a Christian and want to help the poor, spread peace throughout the world, and comfort the persecuted but voted for George W. Bush, you have failed. I pray for your soul.
Just when you thought the Scopes Monkey Trial was in the past, Cobb County Georgia parents are taking the school board to court because the new science textbooks chosen do not offer Creationism as a viable theory. When religion contradicts and turns back science and progress, you've got the wrong people representing God.
There is no proof of Creationism other than the Bible. And while the evolution theory is just that, a theory, Creationism offers no room for debate or progress. It's a open-and-shut belielf isolated from observation of the actual physical world. Christians promoting ignorance here.
Here we are. Divided an disillusioned. Where did regard for the facts and good will toward our fellow man go? Wherever they went, they're a moot point now. America wants homosexuals to get out. America wants to take over the Middle East. And America wants to ban abortion. Now is the chance. No Democratic majority to whine about, no vast liberal conspiracy to blame. With Republicans in charge of the House, Senate, Oval Office, and the Supreme Court, they have a virtual open net to shoot into.
What shall us liberals do? I don't know for sure. The Democratic Party needs to retool and it needs to find itself. We've lost sight of our ideals. The Right knows what they stand for and aren't afraid to say it. Why should we be? The Democrats need to move left and take middle America with. If we do it right, why shouldn't they? No more being afraid of morality. No more letting Christian fundamentalists define right and wrong. It's wrong to start a war. It's wrong to make the rich richer and the poor poorer... VERY WRONG. And it's wrong to force your morals on others. It's not what America was founded on. Thomas Jefferson didn't believe in the Christian God, yet we let Christian Fundamentalists use "Under God" as proof that they are in the right.
In the end... Don't worry. Don't move to Canada. Don't lose hope. The Right and the Christian Right are playing God by judging the rest of us. That's a dangerous game. We'll have the ball back in our court soon enough. But now Bush has his opportunity to screw it up even more than he has already. I'm feeling pretty confident.
An insightful Op-Ed appeared in the N.Y. Times this morning:
Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 4, 2004
Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health....
I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?
Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him.
(Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.
The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.
"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."
I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.
Jobs lost. Family members killed in Iraq. Displeasure throughout the world. Income gap growing rapidly. More terrorists now than on Sept. 12th. Less secure nuclear weapons depots. If you're a politician and these situations don't serve your best interests, don't worry. All you have to do is come out against gay marriage. Even the most forward thinking homophobe is still a homophobe.
With Florida in Bush's column and Pennsylvania in Kerry's, and the Midwest looking to split, everything we thought would happen has happened... Ohio is the factor. At midnight on the East Coast, Kerry needs a distinct increase of Ohio precincts to favor him.
On another note: Regardless of who wins tonight, nine states have voted successfully to make biggotry a law. Including the oh-so-important Ohio. That's right, gay marriage officially banned in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Ohio and Utah. Congratulations, America! We're now back in 1960.
