Returning to normal, mostly

[chipotle]

haikujaguar wrote earlier today:

I feel no hatred or anger for the people who disagreed with me. I have no illusions about knowing what motivated their choices. It’s time to move on. I only wish, looking around, that more people felt the same way. It breaks my heart to see people I like painting with so broad a brush. A broad brush might cover a lot of ground, but it destroys the details that transform a piece from mediocrity to sublime beauty.

…which is absolutely true.

But wait! one might say. Given your post earlier today, it’s obvious you have a wee bit of an anger issue there, coyote.

Well, yes, guilty.

But I’m not really angry with people who voted differently, though; I’m angry with the way that my values have been distorted and vilified. I’ve usually tried to treat conservative ideas with respect even when I strenuously disagreed with them, and watching people I once respected demonstrate utter contempt for any idea remotely “liberal” has been more of a shock over the last year than perhaps it should have been.

I drove around for a while, ending up in Pacific Grove, and had lunch at a little grill I wouldn’t recommend. Then I sat in a coffee shop for a while, writing and listening to people talk about the election. (I’d rather not have been listening, frankly, but they got loud.)

I’m still woefully behind where I need to be to keep up with the NaNoWriMo target word count, and letting myself get dangerously behind magazine things, so tomorrow will—I hope—be a day of catchup in both.

Comments

Not-yet-awake-political-rambling

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

Well... A lot of the issues in this election were issues I didn't assign that much importance to. Issues such as governmental secrecy, expanded powers of the Department of Justice, and going to war based on false premises/faulty intelligence didn't seem to weigh in nearly as much as gay marriage--and even on that, very few people seem to know whether they're talking about marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships or what.

Ultimately, I suspect that the election was really an pro-Bush/Anti-Bush election more than an issue election. Few people voted for Kerry because they liked him, they voted against Bush because they couldn't stand him. If you can stand (let alone like) Bush and looked at Kerry on his own merits, I can readily understand why you wouldn't vote for him.