I’ve taken some time off from this airspace to quietly absorb the lava flow of history that is swirling around us. Well, that “work” thing got in the way a little too, but one cannot help but marvel at the sequence of events that are unfolding before us: W's re-election, the Battle of Fallujah, the terrorist Arafat assuming room temperature, Vanderbilt blowing another game in the 4th quarter! OK, that last one is consistent with a twenty year pattern, but you get the point. I started this blog as a way to vent my feelings about the pending election. The name seemed appropriate at the time because I sensed that something was rumbling out here in the red states. All national media to the contrary, I sensed that people were a) behind this President b) willing to fight this war and that they understood that Iraq WAS a crucial piece of the terrorism puzzle and c) they were upset (I wouldn’t go so far as to say “angry”) at the cultural drift exemplified by the Mayor of San Francisco illegally “marrying” homosexual couples. My sense was this election was going to be a referendum on those issues and that W would win in a “blow out.” Perhaps I was overconfident (see Exit Polls) but, on the whole, I turned out to be right.
Because I grew up overseas, I have always felt that I had the perspective of a loving outsider on this nation. Sometimes you have to step back from something you love to truly appreciate it. But one thing has always struck me about our great land and our people…fundamentally we are pretty darn good. There are no pictures in the history books of German, Russian, Vietnamese, Congolese, Indian, French, or Venezuelan troops handing out candy bars to kids. There are plenty of those shots from World War II on of our guys doing that. We don’t invade countries to expand our empire or seize their wealth (see Japan and Germany). We do it for causes. The great misunderstanding that European’s have about our fighting nature extends back to our own War Between the States. Lincoln failed to successfully prosecute a war against the South when the aim was reunification. Yankees were comfortable with the notion that us folks down here should just be left alone. But when the cause became noble, as set forth in the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, the war became winnable. (Although we in the South still argue that fine point!) Without this appreciation of our character, France and the liberal elite in this country, will always view military action with suspicion. Michael Moore’s revolting assertion that the war in Iraq is being fought for Halliburton offended every thinking American and, I think, did more to win the election for W than countless pro-Bush ads run in the swing states. The great red beating heart of America knows this war is noble on two fronts: 1) We are liberating people…it is unclear how successful we will be, but it is a great and noble vision. 2) We are protecting ourselves…we are fighting the away game. (As of yesterday, the Marines were reporting 1,500 dead terrorists in Fallujah. Securing the heartbeat of even one of those monsters is one less box-cutter wielding freak we will have to deal with over here!) That same heart knows that when the job is done, our troops will come home…they probably even accept that a democratic Iraq will one day vote against us in the U.N. Sixty million people turned out on Election Day to reassure George W. Bush that he was right.
Much has been made of the “values” question in the exit polls. It sends a tremor through the nattering classes of New York and LA that a bunch of religious kooks went out there and got W elected. There is some truth to this statement, but the polls were deceiving. The questionnaire had two line separate line items for “Iraq” and “war on terror.” If you combined them, they outpaced “values” significantly. Similarly, combining “taxes,” “healthcare,” and “jobs” into one category…say “economy,” also beat out “values.” But you cannot escape the fact that this is a fundamentally moral nation. We are more religious than any other developed country on earth. So “values” do matter. I suspect that Chief Justice Rehnquist’s cancer announcement brought more than a few dormant voters out who had to think clearly about the implications of John Kerry appointments to the Federal Bench. We are not a nation that “hates” gay people…we just don’t want their lifestyle shoved down our throat. Case in point: Redstater’s Alma Mater, Vanderbilt, made front page coverage of the “Living” section of the “Pravda on the Cumberland,” our local rag today. We can’t seem to win football games, so I guess it’s become the aim of the school to out strange the opponent. To wit, we had a male homosexual qualify to dress in drag and get himself nominated as one of the “Princesses” to the Homecoming Court. I guarantee you, if they polled the student body, the numbers would be 80-20 opposed. It would probably be more like 95-5 opposed, but at that age, there are going to be a certain number that think it’s cool to be liberal because you’re being “open minded,” and there are going to be another certain number that would vote for it because it’s downright funny. Let’s be honest here. The Tennessean treats this story as if it were significant news…it’s not. It’s gross. It’s offensive and it is the type of “in your face” behavior that offends those of us that live where the ground is painted red. This type of permissiveness on the part of the faculty at an otherwise fine institution is indicative of the lack of moral courage on the part of the liberal elite. This is not to say that this disturbed young man is not deserving of our sympathy and care. He is, but so too are the feelings and traditions of the other 6,000 students at the school. It is this type of liberalism as demonstrated in San Francisco and in the courts of Boston that drove a huge wedge into Mr. Kerry’s campaign. The “divided nation” was on the left…they desperately needed the gay constituency to turn out for them, but that same group is very small and offends the rest of the country that just wants to be left alone.
As the dust settles and the declining print media trumpets headlines of “Divided Nation,” the good people out here in every day America are ready to get back to work. We are not divided we are a united country except in the diseased minds of a precious few. It is funny watching them on the talk shows explain how “close” the election really was, or, even better, advance their theories about how the election was rigged by Diebolt voting machines. They remind me of the black knight scene in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail:” “it’s just a flesh wound!” The other image I have, a painful one for a Southerner, is the remnants of Pickett’s Brigade emerging from the smoke on that Pennsylvania battlefield retreating back to the tree line and fading into history. For the Democrats, however, there is no General Lee riding slowly along the line saying, “it’s all my fault.”
*"Wondering Aloud" - great song by Jethro Tull!
