In McCain's victory speech last night, there was a line that speaks precisely to the difference between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and which clearly betrays the lack of understanding that Republicans and conservatives have for this country which they claim to love so dearly.
It's no more than an eloquent but empty call for a change that promises no more than a holiday from history and a return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in government more than the people.
Of course this is the tired philosophy that the government is somehow separate from us and is an enemy. What I suppose McCain is too busy being too proud of his country to remember is that this country has -
...a government by the people, for the people, of the people...
What Senator McCain forgets is that we ARE the government - the people and the government and the country are all one and the same. Obama - or any progressive, for that matter - isn't asking you to trust the "government" at the expense of your own judgment. They're asking you to exercise that judgment as part of your rights and duties as an American citizen and make sure the government is by you, of you, and for you. They're asking you to participate - to take personal responsibility for this entity which you are a part of. To work and fight for a solution instead of simply blaming others.
It seems that a correctly functioning government that serves its citizens well is inconceivable to Republicans and conservatives, likely because they can't conceive of people exercising genuine care and responsibility, governing and deciding with restraint and forbearance, resisting the universally human urges of greed and hoarding of power for power's sake. They can't conceive of empathetic compassion, of the studied long view, or of another person's point of view.
But because they can't find these qualities within themselves and can't see them in others does not mean they don't exist. And because they see only the bad in themselves and in others doesn't mean what they see is all that's there. So where McCain and Bush and Reagan have seen evil and fearsome bad in a government - and never more so than when they were the government - I instead see my government. I see a government that is by me, of me, and for me. Where they see a government of corrupt elitists because they themselves are nothing more, I see people working towards a greater future.
That's my country and my government.