Divisions, Healing, Picking Up & Going On

My flist is full of political posts. Not surprising, right?

I'd told Dena (and possibly even M'ris, but I forget) that I wasn't going to post anything political.

I take it back. I have some things I want to say, and as I'm post-call, no tact left to say them with.

(You can skip the rest of this if you're not interested. But if you read on, and it offends you enough to defriend me, then don't say I didn't warn you.)


Point the First:

Pick yourselves up and dust yourselves off. Slop the pigs, as Bear would say. Run the kid(s) to daycare. Buy groceries, clip coupons. Do the things you normally do, because the world did not end. Let me repeat that: THE WORLD DID NOT END.

Am I disappointed? Yes.

But! While entropy may eventually win, every single one of us can keep trying to make the nation we live in a place we're proud to be citizens of. We can stave off the heat death of the universe by a few more milliseconds if we try. Hell, even a femtosecond's worth of effort is worth it.

I've seen a lot of talk, and I'm not pointing fingers, about moving to other nations. I agree that that's tempting, okay? But if you're going to do it, DO IT. If not, stick around and help make the USA a place you can be proud to live in, inch by painful inch.

Point the Second:

The nation is divided. Deeply so. And I see why, and I even sympathize somewhat with people that are saying that this is a scary time to live in the USA. Yes, it is, and things are looking bleak for tolerance, kindness, and wise economic and environmental policies.

But this is the best time to live according to your ideals and beliefs -- while treating the other side with tolerance, kindness, and as much of an open mind as you can manage.

Nobody ever convinced an atheist to become an evangelical Christian by being abrasive, thumping Bibles (or shoving them up bodily orifices), acting superior, or just plain being rude. Likewise, no foaming at the mouth Republican (I'm not talking about all of them, but we've all seen some of these individuals running around) spouting mindless propaganda will ever convince a Democrat that he or she should switch parties.

You can flip that around, too: it applies at least as much to certain Democrats as it does to certain Republicans. That sort of behavior won't convince anyone of anything. Neither will treating this as a war that's ongoing, with those who disagree with you as The Enemy.

Treat other human beings with respect and kindness, whether or not they think you are a commie pinko towelhead liberal crazy lesbo/fag/poodleshagger. Or a right-wing, iron-assed, brain-dead, homophobic, heel-clicking member of the Republican Gestapo.

You may open their minds up to the possibilities, if you perservere.

That's what happened to me.

Point the Third:

A quote from Rabbi Hillel. "The work is not upon us to complete, yet neither are we free to desist from it."



There is no point the fourth. I am done, and I will be trying to live up to my own big talk for the next four years.