Ponder this statement:
the whole point of the democratic process is to decide Who Gets To Ram What Down Someone Else's Throat. What the hell do you think you're voting on?
Is that what democracy really means to John T. Kennedy? Not fundamental respect for the inherent worth of each individual; not a love of the principles of decency, honor, and just general leaving-people-the-heck-alone; not a governmental system that allows individuals to determine their own destiny - no, none of these things . . it's deciding Who Gets To Ram What Down Someone Else's Throat.
I feel ill.
Gee, I try to vote for those persons most likely to respect the right of the individual to choose . . anything. My choices are sadly limited, but that's what I strive for. John T. apparently deliberately seeks out whichever candidate will give John T. the most power over other people.
Surely . . surely . . this is not what he really meant to say?
No, I think he does know what he's saying, although perhaps the full implications haven't hit him yet.
I'm starting a webring. Anybody who's willing to try to be courteous can join. You don't even have to succeed, you just have to try.
|
Join | List | Previous | Next | Random | Previous 5 | Next 5 | Skip Previous | Skip Next |
P.S. Several other blogs have posted on the current lack of simple decency, including, but not limited to, Classical Values and e-Claire. For whatever reason, I don't seem to find their actual posts.
P.P.S. John has kindly put a clarification in the comments. Thanks, John, you really had me worried.
Wish this wasn't coming up at the moment, because I'm heading out the door for a couple weeks and it deserves delving into.
I will admit that I'm rubbed raw by the current insanity of the political climate, and may well have absorbed it myself at this point.
My assumption (now, based on his clarification) is that JTK's point is against pure democracy, 3 wolves & a lamb deciding what's for dinner etc. Presumably, then, John's comments are intended to point out the dangers of democracy, not to gleefully embrace them for his own nefarious ends. Whew!! That's much easier to bear. I reject his contention that civility and politics are necessarily exclusive, but that's a post for another day.
My beef, still, is at being called a brownshirt and wanting to change the tone of the political climate. Ignoring doesn't work; I've ignored Al Gore as hard as I could for years and years, yet he just gets loonier each day.
Satire is fun, but the digital brownshirt satire is too easily turned around by people willfully misunderstanding the point.
I guess I could try writing a letter to Al Gore and Terry McAuliffe and asking them to please play nice.
In particular, what I asked of the original author of that post, and did not get, was a suggestion on how to fight such allegations. I am still looking for suggestions.
In general, the political climate has gotten too darned vicious, and people are gonna start killing each other if we don't all tone it down.
No comments:
Post a Comment