I'm not afraid to admit it--I've been in a `blog funk.' My last diary, on September 27th, was less a diary and more of a desperate cry for help. So what have I been doing? Well, on October 1st, after 5 years with American Express Financial Advisors, I left and started working for an independent office of Raymond James. In the process, I opened my practice to new clients for the first time in about 2 years (so if you know anyone in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arizona, or Alabama in need of quality financial advice, have them shoot me an email...</shameless plug>).
Then there's the book. Between August and November I think I was `finished' with the book about 5 different times. Every time I thought I was done, my publisher would ask for me to provide another reference, or add some new material, or review some changes to the chapters. But all that work has finally paid off. About 2 weeks ago I got the galley copy of my book. It's kind of cool and kind of freaky at the same time. Here's this book, and wherever I turn I'm like "hey...I wrote that...wait a minute, I wrote ALL of this!"
Which brings me to the next odd development in this whole saga--the book tour. Yes, you read that correctly. In May and June of this year I will be going on a book tour. It'll start in my hometown of Memphis on May 2nd, and then it's off to Nashville on the 4th. Davis Kidd will be hosting, and I couldn't be happier. Carter did his book signing there, and I'm happy to follow in his footsteps (a thought which would positively gag my former dittohead self). The only other date that's sort of set in stone is Cleveland, OH on the 11th (Hello Cleveland...ROCK AND ROLL!). Beyond that the tour will be coming to NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, D.C., Louisville, Chicago, Atlanta, and other cities. I'll post the dates as they are booked. My publisher tells me I'm more popular in the Red states than in the Blue states. That's fine by me. The Red states need me more anyway!
While all of this is great (if a bit self-aggrandizing), it's not really adding anything to the political landscape. I couldn't really think of anything that I could write about current affairs or breaking news that would be any different from what the folks here at Dkos were already saying. I started consciously worrying about writing those diaries that just sort of vanish from view with, like, 2 comments and one of them is my tip jar. Yes, it's true, I had become a mojo whore. And since I didn't have time to write the next Great American blog that everyone would be talking about, I just quit writing. So my New Year's resolution is to just write, instead of worrying about who I was writing for, and whether or not anyone would read it.
Which brings me to the title of this blog, and the inspiration which moved me to write today. Yesterday my dad calls and swears blind that I never told him I had a book deal. He found out when he overheard my mom telling all the family in New Jersey about my book tour coming to NYC. So he calls me up all hurt that I never told him about my book. So I try to remind him of the day that I told him and mom about it, but he says he was sure he would've remembered it if I had. Seeing that this conversation is going nowhere, I try to minimize the damage done by saying "well, you're probably not going to like it anyway. It's about how I became a Democrat."
And thus began the unavoidable political conversation. See, dad's still a dittohead, and he still believes as Gospel everything he hears from Rush and sees on Fox News. I, of course, used to, but don't anymore. But that didn't matter as he and I started going back and forth like I was a lifelong liberal. This has happened before--namely every time we talk politics. But this time I recognized it, and tried some new tactics. So after trying at first to convince dad that there's no such thing as the liberal media, or that Iraq didn't have WMDs or ties to Al-Qaeda, I backed off. He's not ready for that yet.
There are two approaches that I've wanted to try. The first involved getting dad to admit that Bush really hasn't been a very good President. This was surprisingly easy. Dad's willing to cop to the fact that Iraq was a mistake. No, that's not right. He doesn't think Iraq was a mistake. He thinks Bush made mistakes in Iraq. He's willing to accept that Bush has made some terrible appointments, like `Browney.' And he now knows and accepts that Bush's tax cuts haven't led to more federal revenue. That was a bit tougher to hammer home, and it led to an interesting exchange.
See, dad laments how divided the country has become, which is understandable since Fox News and Rush are his only sources of information. I told him that I agreed, and that I was sick of how lazy journalists had become. Journalism today, I explained, consists of reporting that Democrat A says this and Republican B says that, and completely ignores the fact that there's an objective reality that's closer to either point A or point B. That's when dad asked in interesting question.
"How do you know that there's such a thing as `objective reality'?"
That question tells you everything you need to know about how far we have to go, and where we need to focus our efforts. See, back when I was a dittohead I felt like there was an objective reality that favored Republicans, but that the liberal media wouldn't report on it. Many dittoheads may still believe this today, but where this gets more dangerous is where people start to believe that there isn't an objective reality anymore. That the universe consists of only `Redfacts' and `Bluefacts.' `Redfacts' say that Iraq has WMDs hidden in the desert, or in Syria, and that Saddam and Osama were Best Friends Forever. `Bluefacts,' say dittoheads, claim that Iraq never ever had WMDs and that Saddam's first words out of the spider hole were "O-whata bin Who, now?"
I don't know if this exchange had dad reeling a bit, or if he just wanted to change the subject, but either way he moved on to why he voted Republican. Republicans were the Christian candidates, to which I responded "Republicans don't have a monopoly on Christianity." "They're more Christian then Democrats," dad retorted a bit sardonically. Obviously he and I disagreed. I offered to support my position by saying that I was pretty sure how Jesus would feel about torture and the death penalty, and that I didn't think he was a fan. Dad replied that the War on Terror was different, and that the only way to win was to kill, maim, or torture whoever we had to to get the information we needed. "Arabs only respect one thing--strength. And we just have to kick the shit out of them, and torture them, and do whatever we have to do to get them to give up."
"Is that what Jesus would do?" I asked.
"Jesus would lose the war on terror," he replied.
Hence the title of this diary. Republicans are more Christian, but Jesus would lose the War on Terror. I was tempted to respond using that line from Major League ("Are you saying Jesus Christ couldn't hit a fastball!?), but I was a little dumbfounded by the statement. It was a very unpleasant look at the twisted, ugly innards of the soul of the Republican party. Suddenly I knew what it must be like to be Ann Coulter's gynecologist. All I could think to say was "Um...wow." I guess that makes Bush even more courageous! He's able to do what Christ can not.
In those two simple statements, I recognized two `big ticket' items that we should focus on when dealing with dittoheads. Instead of fighting over whether or not there's a liberal media, we need to focus on getting them to first admit that there's an objective reality, and that reality doesn't particularly favor them at the moment. We also need to address the fallacy that if we "out hate" Al-Qaeda then we win.
I'm only covering the more contentious elements of our discussion, but ultimately the conversation between my dad and I ended on a positive note. The dirty little secret that no one wants to acknowledge is that at the end of the day, rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans all want the same results. We just disagree on what tactics we should use to get there. Right now the objective reality is that the Republican way isn't working. The more we can make this the focus of the discussion, the better we'll all be.
Happy New Year to all! Here's to many happy (election) returns in 2006!