The Big Election is finally upon us, and we’ll soon say goodbye to all the annoying political ads, mailers, signs, robocalls, and the like, at least for a little while (but Peter Brown really wants to be mayor, so it likely won’t last long).
While the little blog is generally not partisan (we believe the major political parties have ample resources to put out their messages without our help) and doesn’t do endorsements, we are definitely supportive of free markets, free minds, transparent government, and responsible journalism. We are generally conservative in our political outlook, which should not come as a surprise to many.
Needless to say, the results tomorrow are not likely to make very many conservatives all that happy, at the national level or here locally. Especially here locally, since that’s the focus of the little blog. More on that in a moment*, but in light of Tuesday’s likely results, I’d like to post some thoughts from my friend Orrin Judd, who runs what I consider the finest conservative blog going:
If it is natural for those who don’t genuinely believe in American ideals to be easily alienated, it is thoroughly unnatural for we who believe devoutly to succumb to similar despair. What, after all, is an unwelcome election result or an inept politician or even an unfortunate law or two in comparison to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your community, your relationship with God?
I had two people tell me remarkably similar stories this weekend about being at social events and having people launch into tirades about religion or conservatives or both. One had a friend say: “I’m sure I’m offending you, but….” To which they responded, bewildered: “What? But you don’t care?” We can pity the folk who behave (misbehave) in this manner, but we must not react by aping them. The impulse to vent must be subordinated to the values of friendship, citizenship, comity, and, yes, love. Where it is inexplicable to the Bright that anyone could differ with them, it is doctrine to us that people will disagree, even on the most fundamental issues. Where it is unimaginable to them that Reason could have yielded up an erroneous answer, it is obvious to us that Fallen Man is prone to mistake, oneself no less than another. Where they seem to think that spilling enough bile will act as a solvent to disagreements, we know such divisions to be part of the human predicament and the proper response to be an attempt at understanding, not an intellectual bludgeoning.
I’ve been absurdly fortunate in life and not at all unfortunate in politics. My first vote was cast for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and since then my preference has prevailed more often than not. But in 1992 we were living in Chicago and I walked out of the polling place facing the seemingly dire prospect that, despite my vote, Bill Clinton, Carol Mosely-Braun, and Dan Rostenkowski would be announced as winners later that night. Woe the Republic, eh? Well, last night our eldest asked what the best decade of the 20th Century was. And there’s really only one honest response to that question: the 1990s.
A good many of us may feel a tad homeless as we walk out of the polling place on Tuesday, but we’ll emerge into the sunlight (or snow here) very much at home. And there’s every possibility that we’ll be more at home in the months and years to come than those who vote differently. America is rather more resilient than we’re prone to imagine in our darkest moments and politics means rather less than we’re wont to recognize in the midst of a campaign. Think about what truly matters and be happy. Life is awfully good.
With all that, we’re going to throw open the thread for your election thoughts. Most anything related to the election is fair game — national, local, whatever. We’ll just ask that you keep in mind Orrin’s comments and also our general rules that we should try to treat each other courteously, and focus on ideas rather than personalities.
* We haven’t been posting with our usual frequency post-Ike, for all sorts of reasons (hurricane hangover, work, family, hiking, big national election, software problems, etc.), but we’re planning on getting revved back up soon, with new software, maybe some new features, and definitely opinions beyond “[link] [blockquote] We’ll see what happens.“
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