Shock and awe
Nov. 3rd, 2004 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenHe conceeded.
I should leave it there. I really should. I should find a way to cry out my frustration and be finished. To accept, graciously, defeat. I should find a way to reconcile the fact that 10 out of 11 propositions banning gay marriage, including the one in Ohio that Lisa said would never pass because it curtailed the rights of heterosexual couples to have common law marriage rights, have passed. I should, really should, find a way to make peace with this.
But...
How can I? How can I be a human being, how can I love anyone while knowing that there is a group of people actively hated by my country? How can I, whenever it is I settle down, feel justified in enjoying that right when it is denied to others in my own country? How can I marry when I will have friends who will not be able to, for whom marriage may be made illegal?
How can I? How can I accept half the country telling me that it's okay to let hundreds, thousands, millions die of disease so that no stem cells can be grown from a few unborn, unwanted pregnancies, ones that were not murdered for science but that science basically found in the rubble? How can I look at a person with diabetes and say, "Shoot up, and forget ever having a working pancreas"? How can I say to the paralyzed "You deserve to stay immobile forever," and let the dream of letting Superman fly again just die? How can I say to science, "You are less important than the church, and always will be, so get used to it," and still demand great things of it?
How can I? How can I endure spending that will fall on me to recoup when I'm older? How can I, in good conscience, abandon my contributions to the retired and allow myself to have none when I myself retire? How can I look at my tax refund and not cringe knowing that the extra couple of hundred I've gotten for no good reason could have put a better kevlar vest or armor plating on a soldier or his vehicle and kept him alive and the body count down in Iraq?
How can I? How can I face the world, my friends abroad, myself, with this...person supposedly representing me? How can I support a man who finds fault in everyone but himself. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, I say. In this person's past, there are more sins than stones he could lob at the rest of us. How can I think a man who disregards the safety of innocents (his DWIs, the civilian death toll in Iraq, et al) as unimportant and mere impediments to his historical legacy is one worthy of representing me? How can I say his faith is allowed to replace my belief, my conscience, my choice, and my sanity?
It's very quiet here today, and people talk of the election in hushed anger and confusion. I sit and hold back tears, existing in some strange realm with a boss who didn't follow the election, and a neighbor who can't understand why lying over infidelity is a crime but lying about anything else isn't, so long as you're the right color when states are counted up.
What do I do? How do I not be a bad sport about this?
I should leave it there. I really should. I should find a way to cry out my frustration and be finished. To accept, graciously, defeat. I should find a way to reconcile the fact that 10 out of 11 propositions banning gay marriage, including the one in Ohio that Lisa said would never pass because it curtailed the rights of heterosexual couples to have common law marriage rights, have passed. I should, really should, find a way to make peace with this.
But...
How can I? How can I be a human being, how can I love anyone while knowing that there is a group of people actively hated by my country? How can I, whenever it is I settle down, feel justified in enjoying that right when it is denied to others in my own country? How can I marry when I will have friends who will not be able to, for whom marriage may be made illegal?
How can I? How can I accept half the country telling me that it's okay to let hundreds, thousands, millions die of disease so that no stem cells can be grown from a few unborn, unwanted pregnancies, ones that were not murdered for science but that science basically found in the rubble? How can I look at a person with diabetes and say, "Shoot up, and forget ever having a working pancreas"? How can I say to the paralyzed "You deserve to stay immobile forever," and let the dream of letting Superman fly again just die? How can I say to science, "You are less important than the church, and always will be, so get used to it," and still demand great things of it?
How can I? How can I endure spending that will fall on me to recoup when I'm older? How can I, in good conscience, abandon my contributions to the retired and allow myself to have none when I myself retire? How can I look at my tax refund and not cringe knowing that the extra couple of hundred I've gotten for no good reason could have put a better kevlar vest or armor plating on a soldier or his vehicle and kept him alive and the body count down in Iraq?
How can I? How can I face the world, my friends abroad, myself, with this...person supposedly representing me? How can I support a man who finds fault in everyone but himself. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, I say. In this person's past, there are more sins than stones he could lob at the rest of us. How can I think a man who disregards the safety of innocents (his DWIs, the civilian death toll in Iraq, et al) as unimportant and mere impediments to his historical legacy is one worthy of representing me? How can I say his faith is allowed to replace my belief, my conscience, my choice, and my sanity?
It's very quiet here today, and people talk of the election in hushed anger and confusion. I sit and hold back tears, existing in some strange realm with a boss who didn't follow the election, and a neighbor who can't understand why lying over infidelity is a crime but lying about anything else isn't, so long as you're the right color when states are counted up.
What do I do? How do I not be a bad sport about this?
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 02:20 pm (UTC)I personally think we should split the country at this point. But then again... in another 5-10 years a lot more of the boomer generation will be gone and things will get better. The only real problem we have is the younger Reagan-era conservatives who've cropped up recently and all the young, indoctrinated christians in the the midwest bent on legislating "moral values." Religion is now a poison in this country.
The only solution is to keep the public informed and caring on a more national scale of the workings of its own government and of those around the world... which is not going to happen since reality is TV is much more interesting and has hotter people on screen.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 03:28 pm (UTC)Avoid an American civil war, attempt to become a member of the privileged class and keep your head down. Do those three things and the fruits of empire are yours.
Being an empire sure beats being colonised. I think that we know today that there is no appetite for peace.
And besides, America isn't the only empire in the world. Once China takes Nepal in maoist revolution and completes the Sino-Russian pipeline and have all the oil they need. If America can't secure Iraq by then, China's 9% growth, vast internal markets and propensity to favour the Euro could destabilise the American economy. If that happens, China will become emboldened to look at the pacific rim, starting with Taiwan.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 03:27 am (UTC)Heylo, I'm just wondering if this is the same TrinityVixen that wrote some hella good Dawn of the Dead fic. 'Cause I'm wandering the internet looking for DOTD fic and there is none to be had. And it's five-thirty in the damn morning and I need to go to sleep...