The urge to “figure it out,” and to “turn this thing around,” is almost irresistible after an election loss. And although I did not vote for Mitt Romney (and probably could not have voted for him, though I was spared the agony of deciding in a swing state), I even more surely couldn’t vote for a President who, though I find him pretty affable most of the time, ardently supports abortion, is finally out of the closet as a same-sex marriage supporter (as I was confident he was 4 years ago), and cares not a whit for religious conscience rights that pose the slightest impediment to the headlong rush of the sexual revolution to its next final demands.
Add to Obama’s victory the first popular votes in favor of same-sex marriage, times three or four (depending what counts), and yeah, I’m reflexively feeling that my side lost. And I’m reflexively trying to “figure it out,” and to “turn this thing around.”
I’m also resisting that feeling, which is the real subject du jour. Which means that I’ll be accused of premature surrender by some bitter-enders.
For the first time since 1980, when I first started consciously voting pro-life, I had to relinquish the ease of single-issue voting. For the first time since 1980, in other words, I felt some combination of (1) the Republican not being entirely sincere in his pro-life commitments, (2) the Republican (if he was sincere in his foreign policy preening) being opposed to the nation ever ceasing its wars of choice, (3) that the fiscal policies of both parties were equally destructive and frivolous, (4) that the Democrats had layered on another level of craven and contemptible pandering to self-appointed victims on an important social issue but (5) they had a good man running for Senate and an affable and non-extremist guy running for Governor, (6) that the Republican Senate Candidate was ruthless and unreliable in his own way, and (7) that both parties are deeply into crony capitalism to fuel their campaign machinery.
There’s probably more, but you get the drift. “Nobody’s perfect” doesn’t do justice to the depths of my dissatisfaction.
To some extent, these conflicted feelings reflect changes in me, notably some political epiphanies that began, as I’ve said, with Dubya’s second Inaugural address. To a greater degree, they reflect changes in the major political parties. I cast two “protest votes” for Libertarians, and I don’t regret it.
Young people, it has been noted, are both more pro-life and more favorable to SSM than their elders.
But let’s first start with more pro-life and more apt to casually hook up sexually. While I’m hopeful that my side will win the abortion issue in some sense, we’ll probably not completely like what it looks like when we do, as it will mean, short- to medium-term at least, more births to single moms, most of whom will set out to raise those children. That’s probably better for the national soul than aborting the natural consequence of hookups, but it’s sure to bring problems of its own – starting with more women and children living in poverty. This is how respectfully “straight” marriage is treated today. It’s no wonder amnesiacs doubt the marriage-procreation nexus.
For that and other reasons, I think think we’re past the point of no return on same-sex marriage, and that we’re likely to be in for a very long, dark night where marriage is misunderstood as nothing but a pair (or threesome, or pick a horrible out of the parade) getting together for a while for economic advantage and a nearby, reliable source of orgasms. Children entirely optional, like iPads and other consumer goodies.
Then nature, not I, will somehow turn things around, the mechanism and details of which I can’t imagine, since we’re in unprecedented territory, let alone hope to shape. It probably won’t even happen in my lifetime.
But there are positives. That young people and minorities are perhaps abandoning our bizarre American individualist fetish is both Christianish and politically promising, because the individualist conceit of GOP backers was one of the more distressing themes of this campaign season. I’m alluding here to the distortions and then mockery of the President’s adequately clear, and clearly true, “you didn’t build that.”
If kids and minorities acknowledge mutual dependence, that’s culturally healthy, and I don’t care if brain-dead sound-bite-spewers call me a “European-type socialist” for saying it (zombies say the damnedest things anyway). It’s a starting point for building healthy communities again, and other factors will contribute to that as well. “It is far beyond time for conservative Americans—and Christians in particular—to put aside the distractions of mass politics for the tactile realities involved in building a decent life.”
That, too, is beyond my imagining or ability to shape.
I’m also encouraged that others can see where we are now:
We … we need to remember what we are doing: hoping to prevent or mitigate the damage being done to us, not “taking back” a state apparatus that has long been used to reshape our society in unwholesome ways. We must come to recognize that the federal government, to its very core, has become hostile to our very way of life, not a violent oppressor, but nonetheless our adversary as we seek to raise our children, educating them in our faith, our morals, and our traditions. We must build neighborhoods, parishes and other religious and secular communities in which spiritual, intellectual and fundamentally moral lives are possible.
Bruce Frohnen, How Little We Have Lost (emphasis added).
This sort of sober assessment is what tempts me to continue voting Libertarian, though I’m not libertarian philosophically, as a mitigator to the harm done to me and my religious kind and to resist the kinds of oppressive licensing, patenting, regulations that only big biz can afford to comply with, and sundry other schemes the plutocrats, Monsatons and connivers will cry out for. The world will not end in plague just because neighbor A trades eggs and vegetables for neighbor B’s milk and cheese, or if C cuts D’s hair in exchange for a manicure and pedicure.
I guess this is my effort to figure this out and turn it around: get the government out of the way and let people build sustainable communities and lives within them. It’s pretty close, actually, to my former declaration of conscientious objection to the culture wars.
Culture-building is not quite so noble sounding (or insane) as goals like eradicating tyranny from the world to the last drop of every poor Scotch-Irish kids’ blood, but it’s the best I’ve got at the moment.
I’m not the only one trying to figure it out. Front Porch Republic had themselves a little symposium.
Being ruled for four more years by the son of a Marxist foreigner distresses me less than one might expect. After all, since I seek to preserve my people’s identity, faith, and historical memory, I must accept that the American system itself aims — by hook or by crook — at neutralizing my voice. A Romney victory would not have changed this; indeed, what worries me is that well-meaning folk afflicted by Obama will remain duped by the good cop/bad cop routine of Republican and Democratic elites. For my part I don’t lament the GOP’s failure to vanquish the enemy; the GOP is the enemy ….
(Jerry Salyer)
[C]oming to the end of an election day is very much like standing on the second tee after everyone in the foursome has carded a triple bogey: it’s a fresh start! We’re going to turn this thing around now!
But hackers never turn anything around. They don’t have three birdies in the bag to erase the triple bogey they started with. You can resolve to play serious golf all you want, but if you’re a hacker you’re going to hack your way around to a BIG number at the end, where waits nothing better than a Miller Lite and a soggy wiener.
…
The truth of our political condition is this: we live in damage, and the damage is a million miles around. It is so ubiquitous we can’t even travel outside it.
Or, to put it more bluntly, the country is not so much broke as broken, and no one in power knows how to fix it.
(Jason Peters)
One of the reasons I find James Howard Kunstler so endearing a curmudgeon is that he mixes us great words like “valorize,” “usufruct” and “cultural narcissism” with others like “weird,” “dumb,” “stupid,” and “complete waste of time.”
He also happens to hit the nail on the head occasionally, as from 52:55 to 55:15 in this Strong Towns podcast Show 117 where (to be fair to unsuspecting readers who might turn Kunstler and me both into the Sensitivity Police) he comes out of the closet as a Democrat opponent of his party’s valorizing of gay life, even though he understands why gays would like the usufructs of marriage.
* * * * *
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 