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New Heh.. a splendid companion for
[link|http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/12/16/DDGAB9A1KT1.DTL| Jon Carroll's] commentary du jour.
JON CARROLL


Thursday, December 16, 2004


We are so very boring. We are so very predictable. George Bush has won a second election almost fair and square, so the mood of the country is against us, and our nattering is just counterproductive and we should get with the program. Nobody cares anymore.

I do notice that a lot of media have taken the hint. Disparaging the Bush administration is so very last year, so very John Kerry. Better to, as they say, give the benefit of the doubt. Better to reassess our priorities. Better to understand that faith and family are important.

It's bewildering. I mean that. Here is an administration that so terribly botched the invasion of another country that this nation is now caught in a deadly quagmire with no anti-quagmire weapons. Soldiers are dying because of Pentagon incompetence. And yet the Pentagon is more powerful now than it was a year ago. The war is getting less attention even as it gets more deadly. Why? Because the media failed to understand that faith and family are important.

I think most people who voted for Bush would agree that he's not very good at being president. Polls show that most people understand that the war has been terribly managed, even as they also think that al Qaeda controlled Iraq. But still, they trust George Bush to get us out of the war that he got us into. Why? Because he understands that faith and family are important.

I am afraid that we have a definition problem. I am afraid that my definition of "faith and family" is no longer the dominant definition. I am afraid that "faith" means "Christian" and "family" means "conformist." I am afraid that "small-town values" is code for a whole bunch of stuff, including prudery, insularity and bigotry.

Note how fashionable anti-Semitism has become. Pat Buchanan and other conservative commentators have made it clear that their attacks on "Hollywood" are really just attacks on Jews, who are once again degrading our Christian culture with their filthy cosmopolitan ways.

I think the failure to distinguish between kinds of Islam comes from willful ignorance. Moderate Muslims trying to prevent the dawn of a new Dark Ages are constantly being undercut by American attitudes. "See, they just want to kill us," say the jihadists, basing their remarks on the fact that we are killing them.

And so we create new enemies. They may not have been against us in 1999, but all that has changed now. It's amazing how touchy people get when they are detained at airports. And when you start bombing a country in order to save it, people are so quick to take it the wrong way. And when you describe the bombing as a "crusade," people get all nervous and excited.

Yes, I know, George Bush apparently did not understand the origin of the word "crusade." He was using it as a sports-page term, like "Auburn is on a crusade to defeat the University of Alabama." I think it would be nice to have a president who did understand the meaning of "crusade" without having to be told, but that is apparently because I do not understand that faith and family are important.

We are being lied to more or less constantly by our government. That's not a secret or anything; indeed, commissions appointed by the government reach that conclusion almost weekly. And yet that's OK, because at least faith and family are being defended.

See, there's the Defense of Marriage Act. Don't you want your marriage defended? Of course, I've never met a gay person who wanted to attack my marriage. And it's exactly that sort of smart-ass remark that proves how little I understand about faith and family. Because, well, there's no "because" in faith. That's why it's faith.

I am going to put my faith in the self-correcting mechanisms built into the Constitution. I am going to wait it out and pray that my friends do not get injured. And I may build a little room in the basement.

[a tad More ...]
New Splendid. Forwarded as appropriate.
bcnu,
Mikem

Eine Leute. Eine Welt. Ein F\ufffdhrer.
(Just trying to be accepted in the New America)
New Love that last bit:
"I am going to put my faith in the self-correcting mechanisms built into the Constitution. I am going to wait it out and pray that my friends do not get injured. And I may build a little room in the basement."

Imric's Tips for Living
  • Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
  • Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
  • Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.


Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
 
 
     Abortion on the rise under Bush admin - (tuberculosis) - (8)
         Heh.. a splendid companion for - (Ashton) - (2)
             Splendid. Forwarded as appropriate. -NT - (mmoffitt)
             Love that last bit: - (imric)
         This was the argument my boss used with Pro-Lifers. - (mmoffitt) - (4)
             I had that argument - (drewk) - (3)
                 OTOH, the music was fantastic. - (jake123)
                 What, those were the PRO-jeebus folks boycotting it? - (CRConrad) - (1)
                     You're thinking of a different movie. - (Another Scott)

I invite this riffraff to my house every year?
75 ms