I would love to nod and say, "Yeah, you might be right", except for the experience I had just this evening.
I went down to KFC for fewd-like-substances and stood in line, doing the people-watching thing, when I began to pick up on bits and pieces of the conversation of the two guys in front of me. It included such witty repertoire as, "Can you believe those protesters just standing around outside?" "Yeah, no kidding. They actually think freedom is free." (That's a direct quote, BTW.)
If you had caught me about 9 months ago and said, "We have to fix this by doing X", I would've been all for it. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I realized that, no, things are going exactly the way that a large group of people want them to.
You might disagree with the principles, but the fact is, there is a really big population in this country -- whether it's a majority or not is a matter of extreme debate -- that believes that the President needs more executive power, that torture is OK if it gets you the information you need, that the Iraqi rebellion needs to be crushed at any cost, and that our next stop must be Iran and North Korea oughtta be right after that.
You can't fix that. I'm the eternal optimist, the "You can fix anything guy", and on this one I'm saying, you can't fix that. At least, not in the near future.
The GOP machine has fed the little piece of evil in millions of Americans, and it's way harder to restore a sense of societal morality than it is to feed a little bit of evil.
So that brings us back to your response. Apathy isn't what's keeping the GOP in power; the GOP -- and the lack of a strong alternative -- is what's keeping the GOP in power. And, don't kid yourself, the Democrats' collective sole goal is power, too. They're just a lot more incompetent in their attempts to get it.
Where you say we don't have the luxury of finding a third way, I say that we have the responsibility of finding a third way.
Big GOP losses wouldn't give the party any incentive to rejoin reality. Right now, at this very moment, there are stories of corruption and scandal at every level of national government. Y'know what? They can handle it. They've developed that ability. IOW, they don't see the same reality that you or I do; there's nothing for them to re-join.
See, here's the thing. If the Democratic party were really putting a strong, popular candidate forward, then I would back them, despite their recent history. But, because of the candidates they're putting forward, if, by some long shot, they win in 2008 -- and I do think it's a long shot -- then all the "Freedom's Not Free" people are going to see that as a retaliation against their beloved party, it'll give their beloved party the ability to decry that they were toppled by a giant liberal media conspiracy, and they'll come back even stronger the next time around.
I don't want a brief respite now at the cost of worsening conditions down the road, and I don't want to give a cookie to a weak party. I think a message has to be sent to the Democratic party that, dammit, if they want the offices, they've gotta work for it, and that means getting together a team of politicians that people actually want to vote for. That's the only way we can take the wind out of the GOP's sails, long term.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
I went down to KFC for fewd-like-substances and stood in line, doing the people-watching thing, when I began to pick up on bits and pieces of the conversation of the two guys in front of me. It included such witty repertoire as, "Can you believe those protesters just standing around outside?" "Yeah, no kidding. They actually think freedom is free." (That's a direct quote, BTW.)
If you had caught me about 9 months ago and said, "We have to fix this by doing X", I would've been all for it. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I realized that, no, things are going exactly the way that a large group of people want them to.
You might disagree with the principles, but the fact is, there is a really big population in this country -- whether it's a majority or not is a matter of extreme debate -- that believes that the President needs more executive power, that torture is OK if it gets you the information you need, that the Iraqi rebellion needs to be crushed at any cost, and that our next stop must be Iran and North Korea oughtta be right after that.
You can't fix that. I'm the eternal optimist, the "You can fix anything guy", and on this one I'm saying, you can't fix that. At least, not in the near future.
The GOP machine has fed the little piece of evil in millions of Americans, and it's way harder to restore a sense of societal morality than it is to feed a little bit of evil.
So that brings us back to your response. Apathy isn't what's keeping the GOP in power; the GOP -- and the lack of a strong alternative -- is what's keeping the GOP in power. And, don't kid yourself, the Democrats' collective sole goal is power, too. They're just a lot more incompetent in their attempts to get it.
Where you say we don't have the luxury of finding a third way, I say that we have the responsibility of finding a third way.
Big GOP losses wouldn't give the party any incentive to rejoin reality. Right now, at this very moment, there are stories of corruption and scandal at every level of national government. Y'know what? They can handle it. They've developed that ability. IOW, they don't see the same reality that you or I do; there's nothing for them to re-join.
See, here's the thing. If the Democratic party were really putting a strong, popular candidate forward, then I would back them, despite their recent history. But, because of the candidates they're putting forward, if, by some long shot, they win in 2008 -- and I do think it's a long shot -- then all the "Freedom's Not Free" people are going to see that as a retaliation against their beloved party, it'll give their beloved party the ability to decry that they were toppled by a giant liberal media conspiracy, and they'll come back even stronger the next time around.
I don't want a brief respite now at the cost of worsening conditions down the road, and I don't want to give a cookie to a weak party. I think a message has to be sent to the Democratic party that, dammit, if they want the offices, they've gotta work for it, and that means getting together a team of politicians that people actually want to vote for. That's the only way we can take the wind out of the GOP's sails, long term.