Mick Wright.net

Mike the Eyeguy, I’m sorry I offended you with my thoughts on the election. That was certainly not my intention. The line from my post you found “personally offensive and patronizing” wasn’t intended to be either:

These are the things I believe are sacred and fear may have been subordinated by a misinformed and short-sighted electorate seeking emotional healing, immediate gratification and hand-outs.

My objective with the post was not to tear anyone down, but rather to explain my own thoughts, perspective and mixed emotions on the election; I wanted to explain why I disagreed with the results, why I thought America chose this option, what I feared was at risk following that choice, and how I intended to respond.

So, let me break down the line above and try to explain how it fits with my objective.

First, “These are the things I believe are sacred.” You left that part out of your quote, but it’s the subject of the sentence, and refers to the preceding paragraph, which explains what I think is great and important and essential about our government — namely, that it recognizes the Creator as the source of our rights and freedoms, and provides the optimal environment or system for securing and protecting them.

Next, “and fear may have been subordinated.” You dropped this part, also, though it contains the important qualifiers “fear” (as in, “I’m afraid was”), and “may have been” (as in, “might have been”). Both were intended to signal a level of uncertainty about my perspective and identify what follows as something closer to conjecture than certainty.

You picked up the quote around here: “by a misinformed…” I explained what I meant by “misinformed” later in the post (see the second to last paragraph), and was referring primarily to the biased media, which deliberately withheld information from the public and consistently skewed coverage in favor of the Democratic ticket. I wasn’t, in other words, criticizing the voters who were the victims of misinformation, but rather the media professionals who cheated all of us.

I probably erred by bundling that broader idea with: “…and short-sighted electorate…” which deals more specifically with the voters whose rationale for supporting the Democrats I find severely lacking. Hence, my use of the word “electorate” was a synecdoche — I adopted a general term to refer to a narrow set of voters, specifically those who were voting for the reasons that I then identify. I was clumsy in switching gears from a wider mass of voters to a more specific group without a clear transition, so in retrospect I can see how that could have offended you.

However, I maintain that many voters indeed were “seeking emotional healing, immediate gratification and hand-outs.”

Again, taking these one at a time:

Emotional Healing: Ive heard from several people who were overcome with emotion upon ushering the first African-American President into office. There’s no doubt that this nation was eager to see that threshold crossed in our lifetime. Even General Powell was brought to tears. There’s just no denying that racial healing was an important factor in the outcome of this election. Maybe not for all people, and perhaps not even for most, but it certainly was a big enough factor for some voters to influence the result. The President-Elect’s race was a central topic of conversation in the media and around water coolers throughout the campaign, and it was the primary reason there was such jubilation across the country and emphasis on the historic significance of his victory.

Beyond race, you also have to acknowledge the primarily-emotional appeal of the candidate’s central themes of “Hope,” “Change” and “Yes, We Can.” These terms and phrases are completely non-specific and explicitly generated to create an emotional bond with certain voters. Simply put, those who were swayed by such messages were letting their hearts and their feelings reign over their minds and their thoughts.

Immediate Gratification: The Democratic platform is distinguished by such planks as immediate withdraw from Iraq (regardless of the situation on the ground and any ramifications that could result), immediate meetings with enemy dictators (without precondition), instant tax rebates to stimulate the economy (an idea also adopted by some factions of the GOP, obviously), an aversion to domestic oil drilling (rejected because it could take up to a decade to see the results supposedly), and immediate action on environmental issues (without much regard to natural climate cycles, or how realistic any man-made solution might actually be). The same holds for many other issues discussed during the campaign.

Hand-outs: The Democrats campaigned on the ideas of higher taxes for those with the largest incomes, tax rebates for those with little or no tax liabilities, generally “spreading the wealth,” free health care and other entitlements, and selective Social Security tax increases untethered from increased corresponding benefits.

There’s a reason for the popularity of the clip on Youtube featuring a the joyous woman celebrating that she no longer has to worry about her mortgage payments or paying for gasoline. The reason is that it’s a very telling look at the mindset of many people who voted for this man. The clip perfectly encapsulates my three points, and it represents many of the people who tipped the election in his favor.

Another anecdote I heard just recently tells a similar story. This woman plainly said she voted for the Democrats because rich people needed to be taxed more so she could be taxed less and get more benefits. That’s not principled, or logical, or long-term thinking.

So, Mike, I know you consider my thoughts to be “the same o’ same o’ partisan pap,” but I made my distaste for the alternative clear, and I could have just as easily picked apart the failures of his campaign (such as not having a coherent economic policy, for starters). Furthermore, I suspect my assumptions are more accurate than you’d like to admit. I’m also curious why you seem to have overlooked the real source of “partisan pap,” which (as illustrated above) goes by such vacuous phrases as “change” and “hope.”

Same “O,” same “O,” you might say.

Like many of you, my prayer is for our new President and elected leaders, that they will seek guidance from God and seek to be like Christ.

I’m happy that some of the disaffected voters from the last few elections will now feel some validation. I’m hopeful that this President can serve as an example of what any American can achieve. I hope it is liberating to those who have harbored a victim mentality — and I use that phrase in a gentle, understanding sense, not an accusatory sense, because I think it could be very empowering for people to realize they can chart their own course in life and aren’t merely at the mercy of outside forces. And I am happy that it could serve as powerful evidence that we’re not a bigoted, racist society, as some have maintained. This is a good country, a fair country, an open and welcoming country, a responsible and caring country, and a land of opportunity.

I think it will be even more historic when we no longer put so much emphasis on race and gender when it comes to electing our leaders — a day when such things are the afterthought when judging candidates, rather than a main justification for supporting or opposing a candidate. We seem to have turned the corner, but I’m concerned that an inordinate amount of importance placed on the history of the “first black this” or the “first female that” may actually slow the path to equal opportunity and equal justice, rather than speed it along. I know conservatives regularly cite Martin Luther King Jr’s emphasis on the “content of our character” rather than the “color of our skin,” but we do so because it’s such an important virtue, and in keeping with King’s central message.

We ought to be proud of our country and our heritage, no matter who is elected. Of course, I am not particularly proud of my country’s decision in this election, even as I wasn’t particularly fond of the alternative. But I cherish our freedoms, our founding documents, our national character, and the battles we’ve fought both individually and collectively, all of which have lifted not only our country but also the world.

All of our progress rests upon the foundation laid 232 years ago, a foundation built upon faith in the Creator, by acknowledgment both of God’s love for us and his will for our lives, by an understanding of the proper role of Government in securing our God-given rights, and by incredible insight into the human condition and the ideal form of government that corresponds to it — representative democracy, divided powers, federalism, constitutional limitations of government power, and enshrined individual freedoms.

These are the things I believe are sacred and fear may have been subordinated by a misinformed and short-sighted electorate seeking emotional healing, immediate gratification and hand-outs. Despite what is now his unique place in history, and despite his excellent personal qualities as a man and as a candidate, I’m afraid we have selected a President who can not honestly swear an oath to protect and defend a Constitution he believes is fundamentally flawed, much less keep that oath.

Among those things at risk is our right to life (due to his radical views on abortion), our right to free speech (because of his support for the Fairness Doctrine), our economic liberty (because of his belief in redistribution), or impartial justice system (because of his intentions of nominating judges that will fixate on gender and race rather than law), our equality (because of his support for policies that benefit or punish citizens based on race or income level), our national defense (because of his disregard for Al Qaida in Iraq and reckless desire to meet with enemy dictators), our health care system (because he plans to socialize it), and our economic security (since he will continue prop up the federal government’s terrible Social Security reverse pyramid scheme).

I intend to lend him my prayers and my good will, but I’m not certain how welcome my good will is to a man who went out of his way to befriend America’s domestic enemies, cultivated bonds with preachers of hate and racism, and benefited personally from corrupt political machines and criminal lobbyists.

I’m deeply troubled that we selected a man with such a thin resume and such little experience leading anything other than his own political campaigns, a man who is highly intelligent but is obviously suffering from seriously difficult family issues and may not be emotionally ready to move beyond himself (as evidenced by the subject of his two books) for the good of the country. We chose a candidate who appears to be either taking pains to hide his true thoughts or is making up everything on the fly, as evidenced by his constantly alternating rhetoric: on debates and campaign funding, on the war and on threats in the Middle East, on Rev. Wright, on FISA, on energy, on trade agreements, as well as on welfare reform, gay marriage and partial birth abortion. Neither option is comforting.

Furthermore, it does not comfort me to note that the media seems to have been in the tank for this man, failing to investigate his past and his record, hiding his gaffes and errors from the public, displaying a clear bias against the opposition, and waging a personal attack on regular citizens who dare to question his policies. The news media is expected to present us with the objective truth, to report everything, to deliver the day’s important events in a timely and fair manner, but they have been intentionally asleep at the wheel. If this situation continues, the federal government will have even fewer checks against its increasing power. This would not portend well for any nation, under any leader or any government.

Still, I recognize it as my Christian duty to give due honor to our elected leaders, pay my taxes, and put myself under the authority of our government (Romans 13). It’s also my charge to pray that our leaders seek the Lord’s guidance, and to love my neighbor as myself, and to love even my enemies (Matthew 5). That’s a tall order for any man, but it’s an order nonetheless; and I will do my best to follow that command in this situation, as in any other. Furthermore, I also recognize that God is at the helm, and he has a purpose in all things, in all people. That’s something no man and no government can change.

UPDATE: here.