OPINIONS -- TWO PASSIONATE VIEWS

OPINIONS – TWO PASSIONATE VIEWS

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© November 17, 2008

“The same enthusiasm that dignifies a butterfly or a medal to the virtuoso and the antiquary may convert controversy into the idealistic, and present to the deluded imagination of the theological knight-errant, a barber’s basin as Mambrino’s helmet. The real value of any doctrine can only be determined by its influence on the conduct of man, with respect to himself, to his fellow creatures, or to God.”

James Gates Percival (1795 – 1856), American geologist

REFERENCE: A missive was written titled “To you two champions in the service of others,” which dealt with compliments to Dr. Donald & Sally Farr for their services to Memories, an electronic network that keeps folks of many generations in touch with their roots. The past election has stretched patience as well as passions to the breaking point. This was alluded to in this missive.

A response from my friend E was a spirited expression of this. I followed his missive with “Let Me Introduce You To Yourself – The Will to Power & the Bankruptcy of Despair” in which reference was made to E’s views.

The missive introduced many readers to themselves with the most interesting of responses. Although the responses that followed were addressed to me, I am presenting them as a quasi-exchange.

A WRITER WRITES:

Jim,

Fascinating - I really enjoyed reading that! I'm impressed by your serenity in this one. I think your friend... well, I'll be kind and leave it at this:

While myself a highly partisan Obama supporter, almost as much as I am a Bush-basher, I have nevertheless enjoyed sitting back at times to observe how we Americans are taking this political transition.

I was one of quite a number of folks upset - indeed, scandalized - at the first Bush 43 victory in 2000, and downright horrified and incredulous in 2004. Except for a few remarks about moving to Canada by some of these friends, those of us who voted Democratic pretty much took our lumps, waited for our turn, and carped from the sidelines - fun sport when it's so clear you were right.

I don't recall, in the past 8 years (and even with the shenanigans of the 2000 Supreme Court meddling), many examples of the vitriol that your friend and quite a number of other McCain supporters have been displaying.

To put it another way, we saw earlier elections as dismaying but (at least somewhat) fair. You win some elections, you lose others. I hear a number of the opposition acting as if it is the end of the world - or at least of our country, and of capitalism and Democracy - that their man did not win. It's unsettling and odd to me. I want to shake them by the shoulders and shout, "GROW UP!"

Seriously, imagine if one party, either one, had a perpetual hegemony. Would E want to live in that America?

While we felt of W and of McCain that they were not good candidates or good for the country, and while many of us probably feel that they are actually bad men whose tenure would harm our country (as Bush's has), as a group we did not think of them as enemies of our state and all it stands for. Yet I've picked up that quite a number of those on the right, like your friend E, think that Obama will actually bring harm to our country.

I remember quite well demonizing Carter in this way. I have always said with a second Carter term, we would have been learning Russian in school - at least, those of the intelligentsia our Russian masters didn't kill off.

Young, I thought this was humorous hyperbole, all the better because it was steeped in what I saw as truth, that Carter was exactly the appeaser the Russians most wanted. Now, as I think of my own mentality, that Liberals are anti-American, Conservatives odious but somehow wiser in matters of finance and national defense, I can see where E and his friends get their vitriol. And I renounce my own as not only foolish, but dangerous in the vein of yelling fire in a crowded theatre: not that I actually believed it, but that I was feeding the paranoia of the small-minded and easily manipulated around me.

Further, I don't understand how anyone of even modest intelligence can believe that Obama is a socialist, or anything like it - except insofar as you and I and all Americans are, in enjoying our Social Security et. al.

Obama has said he will lower taxes on the middle class a little, and raise taxes on those making over $250,000 by just 3%. Now, first off, who making that kind of money doesn't have an accountant good enough to help shield them from the full brunt of the tax law?

Second, three percent is class warfare? I should sell my CDs and buy a gun to protect my fortune and my family? Come now! And is universal healthcare socialism? Or is it a basic human right that the most affluent country on this earth has the moral obligation to ensure? If "fair" means "Socialist," then I accept my new label with pride.

Yes, I used to be a Regan Republican - and I was a Bush 41 Republican too, until the day he called off Operation Desert Storm, leaving Saddam in power. I wandered around as an Independent for years, until Bush 43 came along and I thought, "Any party leadership cynical enough to foist this idiot on their own voters and the country the claim to support has got to be stopped!"
T

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

T

First of all, quadrennial madness as I call it has never changed in my lifetime other than becoming more absurd, and yes, more expensive. We are gluttons for this type of punishment and I don’t see it ending any time soon. Yet, your gravitation to the way you think has a certain gravitas. I respect that.

Regarding my own self, I find, as I get older I get less religious instead of more so, and more liberal rather than conservative as many of my generation seem to become. BB says it is because I like to be contrary, but I choose to think it is because I see life less tragic and more comedic. To think life has any other purpose than to live it I called “toys of the mind” in THE WORKER, ALONE! (1995). I think going on two decades later I believe this even truer.

Your comments after post-election exhaustion were to take my friend E at his word when his message is in the blank space between, or what is not said but implied. You will see that as you read his most recent missive to me.

One of the ironies is that my friend E is a far better writer than I am, and yet he does not write other than for his work. If he wrote books, I'd read every one of them cover-to-cover, and probably over-and-over again. He is that good. There is fire and imagery in his language that burns away the fog to see things clearly. He is most vivid when he is most angry. Here he is not angry, but elucidating.

THIS IS WHAT HE WROTE TO ME AFTER I RESPONDED TO HIS MISSIVE

Jim,
Thank you for your, as always, deeply considered response. I think our assessment of President-elect Obama the man, matches very closely. Your analogy of lancing a boil is also accurate.

We live in a time where political disagreement immediately relegates us to one of two trash bins:

(1) If you disagree with the left, then you're a racist hate monger and probably a homophobe.

(2) If you disagree with the right, then you're a godless, anti-American loony tune.

I agree and disagree with both sides depending on the issue and so maintain residences in both bins.

I have the deepest respect for the strength of your mind, and how you wield it. I look to you both as an intellectual mentor, and as The Baptist, creating a forum for valuable intellectual dialogue.

As such, it's important to me personally that you not misunderstand where my passion comes from and where it's directed. Toward that end, I beg your indulgence while I pontificate on three points.

(1) I suppose I should be thankful that we transition power without tanks, but this past election process brought me down in what it revealed about ourselves.

All the candidates took aggressive license with the truth. Politicians do that, but this class seemed totally unrepentant when confronted with the truth. "I misspoke."

Misspoke hell, you outright lied. When one of the candidates did speak the truth -- e.g., Joe Biden's comment about a new president being tested -- the other spun it up and shoved it down our throats.

Both sides threw every dirt clod and dog turd they could get their hands on at the other.

The bias of the media toward the candidates they liked was blatant, but what angered me more was the arrogance and condescension they showed toward candidates of opposing viewpoints, on both sides.

This has been building for a while; the past two presidents have both been subjected to shameful disrespect.

Technology has given our media a position of tremendous power. I hope they take their dropping ratings and revenues as a message that they need to step up and shoulder the responsibility that goes with that power.

In a way, politicians are a mirror telling us what we, in the aggregate, want to hear. One would think that the daily act of shaving would toughen me to confronting ugliness, but this election process raised the bar. Do I expect too much, or are we really this low rent?

(2) It's my observation that pure capitalism and pure socialism produce the same result, a small elite and widespread poverty.

We've done a good job in this country of riding the middle and avoiding the deep ditches on both sides.

This election has taken the balance out of our system.

The door is now open to go as far to the left as they want. Not saying the right ditch is any better.

There's a common sense in this country that what happens in other countries cannot happen here because hey, we're Americans.

My view is that if it happened in Germany, it CAN happen here.

I fear the ditches and I'd like to see the pendulum keep swinging in small arcs around the middle, and not stop to stop, potentially going high order with the resultant destruction of our Republic.

(3) As much as I question his preparedness for the job and fear where the politics might lead, I would fight to protect Obama.

When I look at he and his family, I see the Kennedys and that brings up tremendous angst from the past.

I actually met Bobby Kennedy about ten days before he was shot. What I felt from that has not diminished in the decades passed, but it pales compared to what this country will experience if something happens to Obama.

There is so much hope and euphoria invested in this guy, especially from the minorities that the depth of despair will be immeasurable. My spies in Washington tell me the government is tripling the normal level of security around this presidency.

That's encouraging. It's the 21st Century and we will have idiots running around the woods in bed sheets. That's not encouraging.

Of all of my fears, this dwarfs the others. I find myself in the interesting position of praying for safety of someone in politics -- what little we actually know of them -- I oppose.

Thanks Jim for everything.
E


FINAL WORD

It was our own Thomas Jefferson who said, “Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” We have such freedom and it is comforting to present it here.