The morning after the election I posted a photo and short note on Facebook. Several people called it a “blog” and I decided to post it here. I don’t do political postings unless they are A) Humorous B) Bipartisan and C) Both. So please don’t start any political whining or debating here. There are plenty of places for that. The point of this stream of consciousness of words is really pretty simple. Nothing has changed. No one’s “voice” was heard. We are still a nation divided squarely down the middle and neither side has been willing the past four years (plus) to concede an inch.
United we stand. That used to mean something. There’s another part to that quote too many of us have forgotten. Divided, we fall. I remember as a child my parents’ and grandparents’ generation held strong to their affiliations, beliefs, platforms, etc. but when a President of the United States was elected, they stood in line behind him, at least in spirit and patriotism.
So many of these same people I see posting about “positive thought” and the outcomes possible from joining hands and driving toward positive goals in normal life, rather than wallowing in misery and the things that haven’t gone our way, when it comes to politics have no issue it seems with wailing in negativism.
Barack Obama was handed a shit sandwich four years ago. Had McCain won, he’d have been handed the exact same shit sandwich. Obama has made inroads, albeit some that were based on policies in which Republicans don’t inherently believe. He’s also made mistakes. Had McCain won four years ago, I believe he would have made some tough advances forward, too, but in ways that many Democrats would not have believed in as a matter of politics. And he would have also made some mistakes.
We as a country did NOT arrive at this place in history because of one man or one party. Economics don’t work that way. And I live in this country and I DO see signs of improvement and I refuse to imply a man who believes in God and takes his family to church is the Devil, just as I refuse to berate a man for practicing a religion that on most days in non-election years my Christian friends would berate as ridiculous and even sacrilegious.
This country was built on the congruity found in our differences, not the other way around. Yet over the past decade or so all I read is how “oh woe is us because this man was elected or this woman was not or this party has control or this one doesn’t”. Sure, this oversimplifies things, but I promise you this is true:
Until, like our forefathers, and like the hard-working, brave generations before us, we join together for the cause of AMERICA and start shouting the positive messages of hope and faith that our country CAN HEAL, the politicians in Washington will continue to represent us as we act: as a nation divided. And we WILL perish. It’s already begun, and it started a long time before the current President was in the White House.
I don’t talk politics. Because I don’t believe in them as a solution. I believe in them as a tool and as an extension of the PEOPLE. And if you wanted a mallet and I wanted a hammer, I don’t give a hoot which tool we ended up with—I want to REBUILD. So instead of sitting around whining because you didn’t get the tool you wanted, pick up something and start trying to make this a better country. Otherwise, this I GUARANTEE:
You are part of the problem.
BRAVO!
As Oprah says “When you know better, you do better.”
Every day motto should be “What are YOU going to do better today”!
Be part of the solution!!
Yes; my only complaint against the Oprah’s of the world is that they have to concede the other direction as well. It’s easy to be a gracious winner, but much more difficult to realize the other side had salient points, too. I honestly believe Obama is the closest thing we’ve had to a genuine mind set on bringing the two sides closer together. Perhaps I’m naive, but someone had better do it soon. Thanks for the comment, Amy!
I find American politics fascinating because it’s so extreme. We don’t take our politics so seriously in Australia (she’ll be right, mate), or maybe we are not so sharply divided. We have a two-party preferred system (which means minor parties exist but never hold the Prime Ministership) but I think from a Republican perspective, we’d all be Democrats. The things that seem so near and dear to Republican hearts, their core beliefs, the absolute basis of their platform – no one campaigns on these things in Australia, because they were decided a long time ago, and we decided ‘No’. Many of the policies Obama wants to introduce are part of accepted Australian life (‘basic’ rights) and in some cases have been for 30 years, so to us, the Republican position seems totally insane, not to mention offensive because it categorises us as communist. I wonder if there’s something in all that which explains the sharp division in America, and I wonder, too, if it’s possible to close the breach.
I also wonder if the division will ever end. I honestly believe a change is in order. Instead we see groups like the Teabaggers making things even worse. I’ll never disparage our American forefathers; I still think they won and constructed the greatest country on earth (apologies to Australia) but that was hundreds of years ago—I don’t think even Jefferson or Franklin would be opposed to a little tweaking every century or so (in the direction of bipartisanship, of course).
Love it!
Thanks, Amber.
I’m not an American, but as an outsider, I can see it makes a lot of sense. No one can work magic, the only magic lies in people, and their will to work together towards a common goal.
Absolutely. We are all human beings first, but suddenly one joins Party A and the other joins Party B and it’s like brother versus brother in the Civil War. It’s ridiculous. 🙂
Well said! As a country in our teen years, we are doing as any teen does – still trying to find who we are with only a foundation to build on.
I try to see both sides, but as a woman, it was HARD. Even in times when the shit slinging wasn’t so bloody tall, I was one of those that sat on the fence – agreeing to parts of both parties. I would love for all of us to compromise, on the way this country is run, the decisions made which affect ALL of us.
I also see the foreign POV – hubby is an immigrant from the UK. He sat through this last election with a puzzled look on his face and questions like, “That is up for debate? That isn’t a law? They want to do what?”
Hi, T.J. Yes, I, too, have ridden the fence most of my life (and my ass hurts). I grew up in a VERY conservative state (Wyoming) and I always leaned that way. Thing is, I never, ever, not once voted strictly along party lines (I remember my first voting experience at 19, in the 80s, and there was this giant lever for each party, to cast your vote for either every Democrat or every Republican on the ticket. I remember at that moment swearing I’d never be so blind as to think of the world in such black and white terms. Since then I have always looked for the best candidate; unfortunately quite often that’s felt like picking the lesser of two evils. 🙂
Well said, Rob – not surprisingly. Even though I’m about as tree-huggingly leftist as it gets (I think Obama is a moderate centrist), everything you say is absolutely true. What I wonder is if it’s really possible when our points of view are so absolute. Both sides have things they are absolutely unwilling to compromise on. I happen to side with one set of those beliefs, but I’m not such an idiot as to think that my utter bewilderment at how the other side could possibly think the way they do is any different than their utter bewilderment that I could think the way I do. I believe that meaningful change is only likely on the level of the personal connection – that is, until you break bread and talk thoughtfully with someone whose beliefs are alien to you, you will see them for their position and not for their humanity. Being willing to understand why someone thinks the way they do, and to try and make room in myself for the experiences they have had that lead them to think that way, even if I don’t and never will agree, is the only way I can see to work together with someone whose beliefs are fundamentally opposed to mine.
Jericha? Jericha Senyak? Nah, couldn’t be. She bellydanced herself into the sunset months ago.
Well, assuming it’s really you, thanks for coming back for a read (and a comment)! 🙂
I think you brought up a great point but then negated it somewhat with your “even if I don’t and never will agree” comment. The moment we become unwilling to listen with the possibility—even just the possibility—that we might learn something from the “other side”, we erase the whole “reach across the isle” possibility. I know you know that, and you’ve never struck me as someone who’s done learning anything and are much more like me in that you just want the truth.
You know, George Carlin, who was a leftist worthy of Marx, said (paraphrased) “only the human being could be so fucking arrogant to believe we hold the fate of an entire planet in our own hands. The Earth is going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas. People complain about plastic and its eternal inability to be broken down; what if the only reason the planet created us was because it woke up one day and decided it wanted plastic?”
I know, it’s humor, but I think it exemplifies a very important self-realization we each desperately need to understand: we are inherently an almost incurably arrogant bunch. Top of the food chain, biggest brains, etc. Much of it is deserved, but too often I see “average” people like you and me and the local fencepost questioning people that have very big brains and have studied these issues (some of them; the non-personal ones) for decades, yet we seem to think because they are on a political ticket suddenly we’re qualified to judge. I don’t have the answer, I only know that we need to keep learning because NONE of us knows all the answers. Not even close. (In a thousand years I promise you they’ll be laughing at things we all thought as maxims that turned out to be as ridiculous as the steadfast belief that the Earth was flat and the Universe revolved around us).
I love people with strong beliefs, and I realize that the more personal issues become, the less they should be in the hands of the government. Period. And therefore they cross a line, I believe. And there are just as many loonies on the left as right. Or maybe not, but they’re there. The very Internet we’re using to proliferate our opinions can be traced back to some pretty conservative scientists doing some pretty dark research for the government (as one tiny, tiny example). Things are too interrelated to dismiss anything outright.
My concern is that we as a country, continent, world, and Universe is that we’re way beyond the return (read: fix) point. I hope desperately that I’m wrong, but I have pretty reliable gut instincts. Good to see/hear from you again. Glad you seem to be doing okay. 😀
I’m sorry I’ve been so off the map! You know, having a job and stuff. But I am here, really, just more ethereal than I used to be.
But careful! “Don’t and never will agree with” isn’t the same as “don’t and never will listen to.” I will, indeed, never agree with certain beliefs because they are inherently in opposition to what makes me tick. The believe that gay people are sinful, for example: I will emphatically never change my intense disagreement. However, I will (and have, and do) listen to people who believe it just as fiercely as I disbelieve it, in the hopes that we can come a little closer to some common ground in doing so.
And I agree wholeheartedly that in the end it’s somewhat irrelevant – eventually the earth is just going to shrug us off like so many small annoying monkeys getting earthquaked out of a tree. And even if that wasn’t true, eventually I’m still going to die. So I’m going to try to be the best person i can while I’m alive, because what the hell else is there? That means having a pretty fervent set of beliefs myself – but it also means keeping an open heart to everyone.
Just real quick (and not because I have some morbid need to have the final word): your example of homosexuality and sin is perfect because to me that falls squarely into the “personal” arena, one out of which the &$@)$@) government should be staying. Worse, the whole gay marriage thing—why is this a political issue? How can one campaign (and legislate) against gay marriage and claim separation of Church and State? The only supposed objection to homosexuality on any kind of formal ground is theistic, so to forbid marriage of two members of the same sex comes on what authority?
Anyway, preaching to the choir, I know, but I just had to pipe in. And this from a raised-in-Wyoming, former Young Republican, member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and one who still believes (although these days much more curmudgeonly) in God. Don’t tell this Wyoming boy he can’t listen or change; he may do it right before your eyes just to spite ya! 😀
Aw, look at us getting along!
Funny that you see it as if we didn’t; I always think of it that, but for once, we did. Ad astra per aspera. 🙂
No, no, I was just admiring how awesome we are.
We are awesome. 🙂