D#mn Dirty Liberals

Courtesy of Mark Shea, some good thoughts on the recent elections. I didn't vote, I wasn't registered to vote, but I'd imagine I'll be registered by next time.

"Happy now?"

Several readers, who have somehow apparently convinced themselves that I am a liberal devoted to the sacrament of abortion and filled with hatred of Bush, America, conservatives, mother and apple pie, have been asking me this question. Perhaps it's to be expected in the Land Where There Are Only Two Sides to Every Question.

Nonetheless, I'm not pleased to see the GOP take a drubbing, except in the very negative sense that I am pleased to see a drunk finish vomiting in the drunk tank and start to sober up a bit. If I had my druthers, the alleged conservatives in the GOP would not have become drunks in the first place and such interventions would not have been felt necessary by such a preponderance of voters.

As for me: I did what I said I'd do and voted for an utterly quixotic (but not devoted to the culture of death) third party. I should very much have liked not to have to do that. But there it is.

Some folks are already forecasting the Apocalypse. I urge such people to get out more. And as you take the Autumn air, remember the hysteria of the Left two years ago when Bush won. It's true that he's bungled things quite badly in many ways, as the Left feared. But the world is still here, the concentration camps remain unbuilt, and the gassing program has been indefinitely delayed. I submit that everybody take deep cleansing breaths and remember the elections are followed by--other elections. If the idea-free Dems prove themselves to be as idea-free as they appear, then they too will be gone again in a couple of years.

The Left, being largely composed of secularists, generally has no transcendent vision of things. The loss of an election is treated as a world-historical ultimate, with prophecies of apocalyptic doom and a strong tendency to blame the voters as stupid or evil for not seeing the Ultimate Goodness embodied in liberalism. Those who profess the gospel must not follow suit. Politics is provisional, temporary, and deeply not-eternal. A loss is loss, not a sign of the End. So the Right should pick itself up, ask, "what happened?", learn from prudence and not from a mindless ideology, and move on.

There will be other days.