As noted in a
previous diary, Dad is a nice, thoughtful, intelligent right wingnut. We have been having extended discussions about Iraq and about the presidential election.
I had some helpful and positive feedback re: these discussions from fellow Kossacks, which I much appreciate (both feedback and Kossacks). As promised, here's the next installment in the conversation. VERY short version is posted in comments if you're pressed for reading time.
Cast of characters
dad
sheba (aka the pie queen; what can I say, I bake)
big bro
polarboy (lil bro who went to IA and NH for Dean)
bones (lil bro libertarian)
Here's the next installment of the conversation. VERY short version of conversation posted in comments below.
sheba: Hi again,
I wanted to thank you again, Dad, for being willing to engage in political conversation about issues upon which we seem to differ so much. It's much, much easier to talk with folks about issues we agree upon! But I truly believe that it is through respectful dialogue that we come to deeper knowledge and understanding.
As I reflect on our recent conversations, it occurs to me that I have been doing most of the asking, requesting explanations of your perceptions vis a vis the upcoming election and responding accordingly. I assume you must wonder sometimes about what I am thinking. What questions do you have for me? What do you wonder about my perceptions/opinions?
dad: Unfortunately I seem to have rather a clear idea about what you are thinking. Whether it's the right idea is of course suspect. But I have a ton of respect for you; I know you too well not to. It's frankly very puzzling to me how you three can be so far into the Left positions. They seem to me to be so self-serving and shortsighted. But you are not; so what's going on? Is it really more important where an oil line lies in Alaska than how many people in Africa are dying of AIDS, for example, or how many in Iraq are still suffering because the thugs won't let us help them?
big bro: i've been a "lurker" in this group for too long, and hence have so much saved up to say that i'll never get half of it down before one of my underage charges wakes up, but here goes anyway...
dad, you may have a clear idea what sheba [or polarboy or any of us] is thinking, but i have my doubts. i have read several emails authored by you in the last few months which are part of this group discussion, and i feel that i'm only starting to get a handle on what you think about this kind of stuff and why. this partial understanding of course builds on the many brief but exciting political [&c.] discussions you and i have had over the years [smile here].
i think one thing we need to get beyond, both in these discussions and elsewhere in our lives, is resorting too quickly to shorthand caricatures of other people -- whether they are people in this group or public figures. this can save time and even provide some amusing moments when speaking to folks who share many of your opinions, but it can suggest to people who differ with you that you don't know what you're talking about.
i think this is what sheba was trying to get at in asking you for more specifics behind your disdain for kerry. i think the issue also surfaces in your paragraph below where you puzzle over the seeming incoherence between what you perceive as the "self-serving and shortsighted" nature of "the Left positions" and your contrary belief [or experience?] that your kids are neither of those things.
i frequently find myself similarly puzzled when i have to square my experience of your level-headed and analytical nature with what at times seem to be flawed or even half-baked arguments for your positions.
like you [i hope] i prefer to stick with my assumption that we are all caring and reasonable people, and that with enough pushing, either the flawed argument or my flawed understanding of it will give. of course i think it would be quite a tall order for those of us with widely differing views to hope that we can "convince" each other of the validity of our arguments. but it may not be beyond us to keep the structure of our rhetoric honest and rigorous enough to reveal some of the core assumptions and values upon which our arguments rely, and these in fact may be where the crucial differences reside....
perhaps i should stop here, but i am tempted to draw an example from something which has bothered me throughout many of these discussions: the ease with which one's political opponents can be discovered to be hypocritical or crassly political, and the difficulty in discovering these qualities in one's friends [e.g. members of the current administration]. now i don't find it surprising that i can see the bush regime as hypocritical or a supremely political operation, since i agree with them on so little, but neither do find these characteristics to be the exclusive property of this administration. i can find them in both kerry and clinton, and in lesser-ranking representatives whose voting records i respect a lot more than either of those two.
so when i read an email of yours which calls kerry an opportunist and bush honest, or the partisan diatribe by ann coulter you sent out a while back, i have to wonder -- do you really not see the plank in your own fellow's eye?
i raise this question not to try to score points [if i did, i would spend a lot more time describing that plank to you in great detail] but to suggest that perhaps you and i have core assumptions about the political game that lead us down very different paths. i know for example that my understanding of politics began to crystallize during the watergate proceedings and the unraveling of our involvement in vietnam. both of these had the effect of making me extremely skeptical of things i heard from future presidents, or politicians in general for that matter. i hesitate to speculate on a similar formative experience for you, but would suggest that some of the rhetoric we hear from you of late is reminiscent of that which described the struggle against fascism [or communism, or sometimes both in the same war though from different sides] as the all-consuming task of the civilization.
i would imagine that at least on some level, that kind of language and worldview, and the leaders who espouse it, evoke for you both the dire seriousness of those mid-century conflicts and the national pride they inspired. conversely, when i hear that kind of talk from a political leader, my first thought is that i'm being manipulated.
it's been hard to leave iraq out of this, but i've done so in order to finish this and send it. more later, i hope...
.big bro
p.s. props to all for keeping these discussions going. way to ask for it from three of us at once, pop. way to be the last deaniac standing, polarboy. way to stay human, pie queen. and bones, man of mystery, where are you at? i know you can't make a libertarian do anything he doesn't want to, but how 'bout it...?
dad: Hee, at your last pp. :-)
Yup, I think you've hit it, and I was thinking the same thing at breakfast. You and many of your generation and those around it, especially here, in Oregon and in the east, feel the weirdness of the Vietnam thing, and I confess I understand almost nothing of what happened there and what it did to us, except that coming from the midcentury thing I find and found it sickeningly unpatriotic to do the kind of protesting that happened then, and so anything coming out of that mindset affects me, the midwest and Orange County very badly.
Another thing I thought of: I think gov't needs to balance between helping those who desperately need it and permitting incentive for those who have the mental and/or physical wherewithal to do something useful for themselves, hopefully by doing it for others. Currently I perceive excesses on the side of propping up the lazy, and that frightens me. I see more and more people doing less and less, and that's the definition, to me, of decadence. To me, the decadence decried and at the same time cherished by the Other World is precisely a product of the goals of the Left.
Tied in with this is the notion that people are not inherently good. They will, left to their own devices without benefit of contact with a higher being, scrabble among themselves, kill, steal, and generally make a mess of things. So we can't trust other people with our own welfare, and there need to be checks and balances in government. And there needs to be, hopefully outside gov't but protected from gov't, a set of institutions which provide folks with the knowledge of and contact with God. Others night say it differently, but it needs to be there. Otherwise there is no high morality, no ultimate goal of life, no reason to be good.
I'm not fond of taking cheap shots, or any shots really, at individuals. I'd like to know where they really are at, and I confess I've watched Bush a lot more than Kerry. I know where Bush stands and why he stands there, and I expect him to stay there. I think his basic instincts are pretty much aligned with mine above. Most of what I hear about Kerry is biased, and I regret that, but I have no reliable source to go to about him, and I'm biased against wanting to take the trouble. That's maybe too bad, and I'd be glad of some nice clean info that tells me he can be trusted and where he stands and why.
Thanks for the deep thoughts..
.. Dad