...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...

November 07, 2004

i Am Now Your Representative, Thank You

Yesterday, i got a favorable mention from across the Pacific at BigHominid's Hairy Chasms. His election wrap-up post contains some reasoned analysis, most of which i agree with, along with this very funny analogy on a non political subject:

Fuck fucking Blogger. I haven't had much trouble with Blogger, but every now and again it'll seize up at the wrong moment and ruin my day. It's a bit like humping a sheep and having your dick ripped off by a sudden, violent, ovine pelvic spasm. It's always a nuisance to have to stop what you're doing, dig around the sheep's ass, retrieve your dick, sew it back on, and then keep on humping. If anything, you're too pissed off to hump but you feel, bizarrely, that you owe your spectators their money's worth. So you reestablish your rhythm and pray the sheep doesn't rip your dick off a second time.

I'd written a long post earlier today, only to have it sucked into the cosmos's asshole by an 'internal server error,' followed by a personal message from Bill Gates that read, 'Yeah, baby! Whatcha' gonna do about it, huh? Huh? Huh?' What follows is a severely truncated version of what I wrote earlier, pieced together from anguished memory.

Ah yes. i remember the bad old days, when i was still on Glogger. Thanks to Pixy Misa, i haven't had to worry about anything but self-inflicted blog debacles, since i moved to mu.nu. Regarding the sheep analogy though, let me paraphrase a Bill Murray line from Stripes. Kevin, "there's something wrong with you! Something very, very wrong with you! Something seriously wrong with you!." lol.

Anyways, that wasn't the favorable mention i was talking about. Here it is:

It's simplistic to say merely that 'America is conservative,' as if that were the end of the story. What counts as 'conservative' is always in flux. Well over a century ago, everyone in white America knew it was scandalous for women to expose their ankles. Today, a midriff-exposing, thigh-baring little hottie like Annika represents the righties. Old mores crumble and tumble; change is part of life.
Yes! And as your representative, i will bare midriff and thigh so you don't have to!

i took Kevin's quote out of context though, which is unfair to his larger point, which i also agree with:

There's a huge debate going on right now about the extent to which this election was a referendum on 'morality.' I contend that it wasn't: it was, fundamentally, about the war.

. . .

I still maintain that Andrew Sullivan is on to something re: where the country is trending in terms of gay marriage. Conservatives have a point when they say that the present hysteria about impending theocracy is way over the top. But the right shouldn't be too dismissive of the gay lobby: it needs to get ready for what's coming in a few years. . . .

. . . But what the righties need to remember is that Sullivan is correct to see a huge demographic shift going on. . . .

[G]ay marriage will never become mainstream (which also means that gay marriage is no threat to hetero marriage). But tolerance and affirmation of a gay person's right to marry-- and to receive the legal benefits of marriage-- will become mainstream, probably sooner than many think. If the Dems were unable to see certain realities this time around, I submit that the GOP needs to reconcile itself to the inevitable as well, or risk future marginalization... though not for a few years yet, obviously.

i think the liberal media's focus on the "values" factor is merely an attempt to deflect people from the truth about this election. It was a referendum on the Iraq War and the War on Terror, and the side of pacifism and anti-Americanism lost. (Never mind the fact that their candidate was neither pacifist nor genuinely anti-American.) Instead of accepting the reality that they're out of touch, the media has been quick to point the finger at those evil evangelicals.

The truth is, though traditional "values" motivated a lot of Bush voters, the argument that "values" won the election ignores young conservatives like me. i recognize that gay marriage prohibition will likely die a natural death within my lifetime, and i'm more focused on the fact that there's a bunch of people out there who want to kill me. That, more than anything else, was why Bush got my vote.

Posted by annika, Nov. 7, 2004 |
Rubric: annikapunditry



Comments

Don't forget that we also voted against becoming more like the model the decadent European social-ists want us be.

BTW, you're blog's vocabulary filter is insane. I can't post social-ist because it thinks I'm posting cial-is.

Posted by: reagan80 on Nov. 7, 2004

Thanks for the favorable mention in return, Annika. I'd bare some midriff as well, but I have a feeling that no one wants to see a rolling, hairy gut.


Kevin

Posted by: Kevin Kim on Nov. 7, 2004

I agree with you that the Dems are spinning the values meme to effectively hide their 60's and 70's antiwar/antiamerican/pacifism philosophy. I should know, I was a college student in the early to mid 70's.

They don't get the crux of the matter. As you write, "i'm more focused on the fact that there's a bunch of people out there who want to kill me."

As I told my friends, "National security and the war on terrorism trumps everything." Period.

Posted by: joe on Nov. 7, 2004

Shhh! We don't want the libs to figure out that the 'values' trope is a crock, or they might sit down & do some serious soul searching on why they lose elections. We can't have that.

Posted by: jeff on Nov. 7, 2004

Kevin,

My humblest apologies!

I'm banking on the fact the Dem/libs never admit they're wrong, wouldn't you agree?

Posted by: joe on Nov. 7, 2004

reagan80,

Funny! I had the same problem over at Moxie's the other day! You can substitute "collectivist," though. Or just use some asterisks, as though "soci**ist" were an obscenity. Hey, come to think of it . . . ;-)

Posted by: Matt on Nov. 7, 2004

"It's a bit like humping a sheep and having your dick ripped off by a sudden, violent, ovine pelvic spasm".

I hate when that happens.

In this election when I though of morality. I thought of the character of the candidates.

Bush's courage, discipline,and steadfastness won me over.

Posted by: Jake on Nov. 7, 2004

Character counts.

Posted by: shelly on Nov. 8, 2004

I think modern "liberalism" is less about policies and ideas than about social class. Many people choose their political opinions on the same basis they buy clothing, furniture, and cars: to increase their perceived status. The rage at the Bush re-election is largely the rage of the self-defined superior class against those they consider to be inferiors and outsiders.

Posted by: David Foster on Nov. 8, 2004

When the exit voters talked about morals and values, I don't think they were merely talking about sex and sexuality. I think morals and values determines how you feel about the WOT, and how you feel about economic policy, and judicial appointments. I think that big picture is what most voters meant by "morals and values".

Posted by: gcotharn on Nov. 9, 2004