Wednesday, November 05, 2008

"What a slap in the face to ignorance and closed-mindedness."

When I was in middle school, I had a teacher who we called Mrs. I. She was my favorite teacher. Mrs. I had three sons who were older than me, one of whose name is Steve. Steve is now in his older 20's and is teaching in that same middle school.

Mrs. I and my mom are still friends, and Mrs. I forwarded my mom this email that Steve wrote this morning about the election:

I am indeed very happy. I think this is more than anything a victory over fear. The fear the Republican party propagates about "liberals" and socialism and terrorism, as well as the idiotic fear that comes from racism. It's exciting, to say the least. What a slap in the face to ignorance and closed-mindedness.

I had a last minute crisis about which candidate I was going to vote for president. I've been a McCain fan for a long time, but the characteristics I liked about him the most seemed to disappear during the election. When he became a presidential candidate and got past the primaries, he became more of a cookie cutter Republican.

So I voted for a Democrat for the first time in my life. Yes, Senator Obama is very young and no, he doesn't have as much experience as we'd like. But maybe those things are good qualities. Lord knows we needed something different, and we got it. We'll see how he turns out as our country's leader.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

President-Elect Obama now!

Anonymous said...

A great day for America. The promise of the American Dream is restored for all Americans, not just the privileged few. Words cannot describe how elated I am.

-- not-bitter-anymore-biglaw-assocaite

Anonymous said...

Whoops. In my fast-typing elation, I misspelled "associate."

-- not-bitter-anymore-biglaw-associate

Guy Fawkes said...

Anon #2-3, you changed your entire world view based on an American presidential election? Perhaps I'm reading too much subtext in those comments, but it's hardly "sub" at all. I mean...seriously? Please tell me you're just caught in the post-election mass euphoria.

By the way...I voted Obama in a traditionally red state. If you don't believe me, I'll send you some images of my absentee ballot and the accompanying packet :P

Guy Fawkes said...

@ Sharon

One has to expect presidential candidates to appeal to their more extreme party base during the main election. It seems counterintuitive because generally more moderate = broader appeal = theoretically, better chance of winning. However, those core constituents aren't really in play as "swing voters" for obvious reasons. What's worse, down there in the all-red Deep South, you aren't going to see the more moderate campaigning where you might get better versions of BOTH candidates than what you see even in national media.

What core constituents WILL do is sit on their asses on the first Tuesday in November. They WILL write-in their own favorite candidate (wonder what the final count on Mike Huckabee votes will be, or Donald Duck for that matter). They will also vote in every single election on their ballots except the presidential election.

My point is this:
I don't like strict partisan voting or the two-party system. Therefore, I dislike cookie-cutter Republican/Democratic candidates as a general matter. Therefore, I disliked most of what we saw out of John McCain after the primaries.

I skipped some logical steps in there, but you see what I mean. McCain's best qualities didn't appeal to hard-line conservatives and the religious right, so he didn't put a lot of those on display in "red" states during the general election. Obama was in a somewhat unique position in this election, but I think the same logic applies to him on a general level. Sucks, eh?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure of the purpose of the excerpt of the email from Steve. He's an idiot. Makes me a little sick that he's teaching kids while suffering from such ignorance and closed mindedness of his own.

It's true, socialism was a technical misnomer tossed around too frequently. Terrorism? Maybe. Racism? Who knows. But that's not why he's a narrow minded fool.

What he doesn't appear to see, or maybe refuses to recognize, is that the Democrats are guilty of equally enraging, corresponding faults. Creating economic fear is for Dem's what terrorism is to Repub's. They're both wrong; but, while national security is clearly within the enumerated powers/purview of the fed gov, government has historically NEVER been an efficient allocator of resourses. But, socialism is an offensive stretch for Obama's proposals, even if unwise.

As if greed applies to executives, but elected officials are immune. It's inherent to human nature. The difference, is that greed isn't synonymous with dishonesty in the same way government is synonymous with inefficiency.

To the extent Repub's are racist, the Dem's cultivate notions of racism on the GOP's behalf because it's politically expedient, effectively devaluing the term when real situations arise.

Steve's probably unable to think for himself. To characterize an entire party as fear mongerors (sp?), while apparently believing the other too divine to engage in such is dubious at best.

Finally, I voted for Obama. I'm a conservative, but there's too much wrong with the GOP. So, all else being (relatively) equal, I voted for a candidate who, at the very least, will give a lot of people a lot of hope they might not otherwise ever realize. Yes, I guess that means I voted on race; but only when all other issues appeared to be "pushes". I wouldn't have done so if I didn't have the strong feeling that many of Obama's idealistic positions will be checked by realities he hasn't faced to date, including the accountability (in terms of legacy) that comes with being perceived as the sole arbiter.

Pav said...

You say McCain moved to the middle? Well Obama has been following the fair winds all along... only Obama is coming from whack-o associations in Chicago's left left left wing, where he pandered to their sentiments. You don't need a WEATHERMAN (Bill Ayers) to know which way the wind blows.

Bob Dylan with more than a touch of irony:
"He likes to think it's a brand new time right now... an age of light. Me, I was born in 1941- that's the year they bombed pearl harbor. Well I been livin' in a world of darkness ever since, but it looks like things are gonna change now"

In a world of darkness, things aint gonna get any brighter in the world just because America elected a black president.

Guy Fawkes said...

@pav

I don't know who you intended to address in that comment, but no one has said anything about McCain moving to the middle anywhere in this thread, including the original post.

If you want to discuss the election on intelligent terms in the context of Sharon's post, I suggest a more reasonable approach to your comments. Feel free to be a jackass though, that's my bread and butter.

H.H. said...

You don't know Pav. He's allowed to do and say whatever he wants!

Anonymous said...

I'm a law professor.

I just read about your blog in the ABA Journal and was interested in a law student who says "I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar."

Unfortunately, as I skimmed through your blog, I saw TWO grammatical errors in just this one post. I don't know if there are other mistakes as well. (By the way, in another post you wrote "alright." Some consider this ...well ...alright. But to avoid offending more traditional readers and writers, "all right" is always universally accepted.

The two errors in this post are:

1) "I had a teacher who we called Mrs. I." Whom is correct.

2) "Mrs. I had three sons who were older than me" Should be: "than I."

Probably I'll be the one who'll be excoriated by your blog readers. (Which is why I've decided to be anonymous.) But those in glass houses....

Anonymous said...

And, of course, I forgot to close the parenthetical about "alright." Talk about glass houses. [grin]