You’re The Decider
Vote Nov. 7
 
 
 
Visitor BB says:
Subject: You might try...
..not being so partisan. 
Your website struck a positive chord with me until I read what you're about.
I wish you luck, but I will not enable you.
I will be voting November 7- I never miss an election!
 
Choosing means taking a stand. I’m a little confused about how I could strike a positive chord without having someone read what I’m about, but that’s ok. Or, that you know, maybe quitting my well-paid, richly-satisfying job was an indication of how strongly I felt about the situation.
My full response to BB:
 
Hi there,
 
Actually, I'm happy that you participate. If you get five people to participate that aren't currently participating, then that's great. If they don't vote the way I do, so be it. If you never point them at my site, that's fine. But I'd surely appreciate it if you could get five more people engaged in paying attention to politics and governing.
 
I'd love to be less partisan. But I seriously think this country is headed in the wrong direction, and I can't believe that the current administration is desiring to overturn measures that made this country what it is. Namely, habeas corpus. I can't believe that people think that it's a good idea to lock people up, without the right to challenge that imprisonment or label. Many people died in our revolution for those rights.
 
I don't believe that the democrats are right all the time or even most of the time. But I do think that we need to correct course. And that means voting for the opposite of what's in place now.
 
As I said, If you're voting, great. If you don't agree with me, that's fine, but I'd hope you'd accept my annoyance at being called unpatriotic by the current administration. If you don't agree with me, I'd hope you wouldn't think that I'm "against you".
 
And if being partisan means thinking that it's bad governing to:
    -saddle the next generation with $500Billion in debt for the Iraq war
    -ignore global warming
    -invade a country on false pretenses, sapping resources from fighting in Afghanistan
    -offer supply contracts without bidding to campaign donors, who then provide shoddy goods to troops and reconstruction efforts, undermining our victory
    -ignore levee warnings
    -steer medicare recipients to higher-costing HMO plans in new pamphlets
    -close EPA libraries so that scientists can't access environmental reports prior to 1992
    -call your political opponents "weak on terror" when we should be coming together as a country to fight it
    -say it's unpatriotic to question
    -implement hardly any of the 9/11 commission's recommendations, especially wrt port security (my sister's best childhood friend was a flight attendant.)
    -write an earmark into law that makes the value of the land you bought with some friends increase in value by $2M (this should be beneath the speaker of the house)
    -cover up scandals instead of honestly admitting error and moving on
 
Well, I'm sadly partisan. I'd much rather be back working on fun new tech. Maybe we just hear/read different news. I don't know how any sane, rational person can hear the above news, and not have an opinion against it. It's probably why the country is polarized. I don't see the above as partisan, but sad reality.
 
Again, shame that you think we disagree, would hope you don't put me in an "Unamerican" mental category because of it. And, get 5 friends to vote ;-)
 
Best,
KT
 
Oh, and Hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings makes a point for me.
 
It's a week before the election. Things have been ugly, and they're probably going to get uglier. That means that I'm probably going to find myself writing more of the stories I've been writing recently: stories about this or that appalling new ad/statement/whatever coming out of the Republican party. That being the case, I just wanted to say one thing right now, to any rank and file Republicans who might be reading this:
 
None of this is directed at you.
....
One more thing: I tend to view this particular period in our political life as one of those episodes, like the McCarthy era, that we will all look back on as a period in which the country went slightly mad, and did things we wish it had not done. I think it's really, really important to try not to make it any harder than it has to be for us to get over this. And that means: trying to treat one another with the kind of decency and concern and generosity that citizens ought to show one another as a matter of course. This doesn't mean not advocating our positions passionately, but it does mean not doing anything that needlessly contributes to the general level of hatred. It will be hard enough to get past this period as it is.
 
 
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Um, deciding means choosing