A Portrait of America in Two Parts

[rowyn]

"The world is headed for mutiny
When all we want is unity"--Creed, "One"

I've seen a lot of unhappy posts, like this one, about the results of the election.

Some of them have said that they don't understand how anyone could vote for Bush.

I will try to explain why I did.

I grew up in a liberal household; not radically left-wing, but solidly Democrat. I was too young to vote for Mondale, but I voted for Dukakis, and I was probably the only person in America who was surprised when he lost. I voted for Clinton in 1992, and would've voted for him in 1996, had I voted at all that year.

But somewhere between 1996, I suffered a sea-change in political opinion, from liberal to libertarian. In the last presidential election, and for the intervening years, I've voted Libertarian when a Libertarian candidate was available, and abstained when one wasn't. I've voted my libertarian beliefs on issues since then, voting down a light-rail proposal -- even though it ran from my own house to my job -- as well as the latest Arts & Sports Tax.

But November 2 marked my first, and so far only, vote for a Republican candidate.

Even to me, George W. Bush seems like an odd choice to break a streak on.

Why I didn't vote for Mr. Badnarik

1. Missouri was no longer considered a swing state by the day of the election, I think. But it was still fairly close. It was conceivable that voting for one or the other of the two main candidates could make a difference in who carried the state.

2. Badnarik had some whacked-out policies, even for a Libertarian. For example, he wanted to abolish the Federal Reserve. Since the chairman of the Fed is an appointed position, this is something the president actually has a large impact on. Granted, Badnarik wasn't going to wn. But if the Libertarians are going to present themselves as this extreme, then they're never going to stand a chance.

Why I voted for President Bush

Iraq.

It's not that I think President Bush has done a good job in Iraq. In fact, having looked at various different sides, I really don't know what sort of job he's done. It may've been great, it may've been utterly appalling, it all seems to hinge on who you believe, and I don't know who to believe any more.

But all sides agree that, however Iraq is going right now, it is not currently stable. It is not a democracy, its infrastructure is still a mess, it's still overrun by guerillas. America has already made this mess (or at least, butted its nose into this mess, depending on how messed-up you think it was before we got there).

We are there. I want us to do our best -- our absolute best -- to fix the country. To transform it into a free, peaceful, democratic nation. Or as free and peaceful as a democracy gets; a look at my LJ friends list right now isn't terribly peaceful. Can we do this? I don't know. But we've committed billions of dollars and thousands of lives (on all sides) already to trying, and frankly, I don't think we've been at it long enough to judge. It's a dream; a pretty, seductive dream, and perhaps one we should never have aspired to. But we did, and with that said, I want it to have the best possible chance.

I think pretty much everyone can agree that having a free, peaceful, democratic Iraq would be a Good Thing(tm). But there's another reason why I want us to try. Because even failing will be instructive. In four years, few people will argue that the neoconservatives didn't have a fair chance to make their plan work. If Iraq is just as bad then as it is now, those who were against the war can claim they were right. And they'll have a much better case than Vietnam was, because so many argue (with justification) that Vietnam was disastrous because we wouldn't commit enough to it.

In Iraq, we're committing as much as we are ever likely to, short of World War Three. If it's not enough, then maybe, with luck, we'll know not to do it again.

I know that both President Bush and Senator Kerry said that they were committed to Iraq, so for many, wanting success in Iraq didn't mean voting for President Bush.

However, I believe that President Bush is, and would be, considerably more forceful and supportive of the war in Iraq than Senator Kerry would be. It's not just that Senator Kerry has a long history of opposing military actions, or that he's repeatedly condemned the decision to start the war.

It's that Senator Kerry has relatively little political stake in making Iraq work. President Bush's legacy, and all of his political credibility, is bound up in Iraq. He has something to prove, and it's important to him for a variety of reasons. For good or bad, President Bush has also made it clear that he is committed to this; he won't back down, and he won't change his mind, no matter what the polls or popular opinion says.

But a President Kerry, by contrast, could have walked away from Iraq at any time, and few would have blamed him. He didn't have to fix Iraq to be credible. It would've been a nice feather in his cap, certainly. But he wouldn't need it to get re-elected. All he'd need to get re-elected is to make Iraq a non-issue -- either fix it in three years, or get out so that he wouldn't have it hanging over his head in 2008.

There are other reasons why I voted for President Bush. It's true that I'm concerned about his record on civil liberties. But Senator Kerry voted for the Patriot Act, too. When Senator Kerry had the opportunity to talk about civil liberties in the fight against terrorism, he chose to talk about how he'd "hunt down" terrorists instead. When he had the opportunity to support gay marriage, the best he could do was say he didn't favor a constitutional amendment banning it. (Incidentally, if I believed that a constitutional act defining marriage could pass, I would have voted against President Bush. I am counting on this being like his opposition to abortion -- something President Bush uses to rally supporters, but which he is either unable or unwilling to make any significant changes on.)


"We may rise and fall, but in the end,
we meet our fate together."

In the end, the choice I made for President is a curiously minor part of my life. This is the kind of thing more important to me.

I don't know what's going on in Iraq today, and I don't know if Social Security is going to collapse in five years, or if America is sliding down the slope to despotism, or if it's all going to be, somehow, OK, like it always has so far.

But I know that tomorrow, I will love my boyfriend, and I will do my job, and my coworkers will be glad to have me there to do it. I'll run my RPGs and work on my novels, and try to enjoy my life and help the people around me out, now and again, in the hope that they can enjoy theirs.

I am one small person, and my vision isn't good. I understand best the things that happen close to me. So I try to focus on them, and hope that everyone else is doing the same.

May we all succeed.

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting perspective... It's the 'No shuffling off the blame on other people, you fix your problem yourself and we'll see what you make of it' line.

Cynically, I wonder if the Iraq situation won't just be declared unwinnable and shuffled behind the sofa, and if there won't be an attempt to find more 'winnable' issues to talk about in the coming four years. The American public is quick to forget things. So I don't really think that, even though Bush called for the war on Iraq, that he may necessarily feel obligated and honor-bound to follow through on their efforts.

But... Bush can't rerun in four years. So how is he going to be held accountable? The next Republican candidate could very well say, even if Iraq is a failure, "That wasn't my fault! It was a mistake on my predecessor's part, and he got bad intelligence that led him into it."

But, optimistically, I hope you're right and that the current and ongoing administration will do its best to fix its mistakes and build bridges.

For the most part life will continue as normal.

But for some, it cannot or will not, because the government has changed the rules on them.

wordslinger's post on the increasing intrusion of government into the business of research grants is chilling. I hope that it's not the wave of the future, and that it was just an aberration that will be discontinued...

Time will tell.

[batratblue.livejournal.com]

If Iraq gets shuffled off behind the sofa, it will probably get shuffled off behind the sofa the way Afghanistan was...You know, when things started to look good there the press became conspicuously absent, and later tried to use their own absence to suggest that nothing was being done...At least until events to important they could not be ignored (the election) cropped up.

The president doesn't have the power to shuffle wars, occupations, and the rebuilding of nations off behind the sofa. Only the press can do that, by choosing what to report and what to ignore.

Think about how many of the things the press has said this year that have turned out to be deliberate, malicious falsehoods.

[rowyn]

Bush can't rerun in four years. So how is he going to be held accountable?

My reasoning is that President Bush did not pursue this course in Iraq because he thought it would win him re-election. If his primary goal had been reelection, he'd've declared victory after capturing Hussein, and gone home. He didn't then, when it would have been politically expedient. So I don't think he's going to abandon it now, when there's no pressure from the campaign to do so.

I believe that he is pursuing this course because he thinks that it's right, and because he wants a free Iraq, and a foothold for democracy in the Middle East, to be his legacy. He'll consider himself accountable to history.

That doesn't mean he'll succeed! It doesn't even mean that his vision was possible or rational. But I do think it means he will work harder for it than anyone else in his position would.

Anyway ... yeah. I hope I'm right, too. We'll know in another couple of decades, maybe. It seems to take a long time for these things to sort themselves out. :/

[batratblue.livejournal.com]

Well-reasoned and well-written.

May you get all that you hope for.

[rowyn]

Thank you, sir. I'll keep hoping.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I hope to all the gods that you made a good choice.

[rowyn]

Yeah. Me too. Not that we'll ever really know -- even if President Bush does a great job, it's possible Senator Kerry could've done better. And likewise if the president does a terrible job. :/

But at least I'll get to find out (more or less) if I was right to think that President Bush will do his best to make a success out of Iraq, or if he'll cave and pull out. Though even that much is unlikely to be clear. ("We've won! The South Vietamese can take it from here."

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Drop me a line at postvixen@gmail.com if you want to see my comments. I'd really prefer not to expose them to the usual uncharitable nitpicking by certain of the people who read your journal, thanks.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Hello! ];-)

In fact, I thought they were not unreasonable, if it means anything.

===|==============/ Level Head

[rowyn]

Goodness.

I didn't even realize that you'd seen this post already, much less that you'd seen it in the fifteen-minute interval between when Postvixen made her original comments and when she opted to delete them.

[aloyen.livejournal.com]

Well thought out. Wish everyone would only vote after such careful consideration.

[rowyn]

Thank you, Aloyen. *hug*

I hope you're right

[ex-strangess744.livejournal.com]

Your reasoning makes sense, and I know there will probably never be conclusive enough proof to say "ah ha, your premises _were_ wrong"....and certainly your heart is in the right place...the biggest concern is to prevent the largest number of people (the Iraqi population)

But I am a little dispirited, because Bush has made very clear the things he believes should happen in America that profoundly scare Kirzen, I, and many other people you/I know....and while you say "He'll never be able to make these things happen"....some of them are appalling enough, taking any risk in that direction sits badly....

Moreover, in Iraq, I understand some skepticism about reports of how things are going there...but Bush was the one with the poor judgement to go into Iraq in the first place...and to support unwaveringly subordinates who made poor decision after poor decision there. The decision to disband the Iraqi army; the refusal to plan for the occupation (I'm not exagerrating; the CIA presented a paper warning "we should be planning for a lot of problems after the end of field operations" and Bush told them to mind their own damned business; he has a history of disregarding facts if they bother him.), the decision to declare the Geneva convention "Obslete" and thus pave the way for Ahu Graib and the resulting catastrophic loss in American credibility...

Bush and/or his high ministers were all in on these critical decisions, and so far have refused to take responsibility for them; or even to admit they were wrong. And even if they had, their learning curve is too slow; maybe Kerry's ministers would be worse, but I just don't see how we can risk this team not having a clue yet. And their attitude seems to be "if you criticize how we're doing things, you're a bad American" and that tactic alone is despicable enough.

So I'm not convinced that Bush staying there is going to do much good given his crew's track record. I guess I'm saying I think the chance of him pulling this out of the fire is so close to zero, it's not worth risking him somehow getting inventive and managing to bring any of his obvious ideas of "the way things should be in America" to pass...

The system is nearly foolproof, but this man is a very ingenious fool.

I guess we'll see in four years what sort of Supreme Court he gives us for the next 30 years and whether he got any of his fond hopes and dreams or not...

But I respect that you thought this over carefully and had strong values that guided your decision. That's better than the majority of your countrypeople who made frankly ignorant and uninformed decisions over their own votes....

Re: I hope you're right

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

The decision to disband the Iraqi army; ...

Disband the elite forces. There was no intent to disband the regulars and the police; those disbanded themselves in near-real time.

As for the Supreme Court: trust Arlen Specter. He has openly stated that he will quench pro-life justices (as he did before).

Re: I hope you're right

[ex-strangess744.livejournal.com]

I don't seem to recall reading about the US trying to reorganize the bulk of the forces...I mean, given the fact so many people are joining the police just to get out of dirt scraping poverty, if you waved money in the air (albeit with some conditions) it seems to me you'd get any voluntary demobilization turning into a voluntary remobilization...

Re: I hope you're right

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

This is the first item I use to criticize Bush's Iraq planning. It's an example of total refusal to admit gross strategic failure when key assumptions go wrong.

The entire September 2003 exit strategy was based on this. The assumption failure was directly responsible for the removal of the Prince of Darkness (Richard Perle) as Rumsfield's [key] adviser on Iraq strategy...but not a refiguring of the exit deadline for three or four months.

You can't reorganize them if they 100% don't show up for work the day after you take Baghdad. This made both CNN and BBC at the time, although you pretty much had to be glued to Internet news 6 hours/day throughout the day to catch it.

Why they didn't show up is speculation...but Saddam himself found the morale of the regulars pathetic. As for the police, the best speculation I heard is that they feared lynching.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Well, I happen to disagree very strongly with your vote and reasoning, and also think that the choice for president isn't a minor part of anybody's life, as this is a world we're all living in and the president's choices often carry a global impact, such as with environmental concerns. But I'm glad to know that you voted for him because you sincerely believe he will help others, not for a confrontational or selfish reason. I can respect that.

Minor

[rowyn]

I feel like I do more for the environment by walking home from work and not littering than I do in the voting booth, regardless of whom I vote for.

The "big choices" that presidents make are insanely convoluted. For example, I don't know if the Kyoto treaty would do any good for the environment. Quite a few scientists say that its positive impact would be negligible, as the truly bad polluters are developing nations who wouldn't be affected, while the restrictions on first-world countries involve expensive tightening of standards over things that aren't knwon to be harmful. Are those scientists wrong and the ones who support the treaty right? I don't know. Ae the economists who say that it'd be disastrous for the economy wrong? I don't know.

I'm not so good with the "big picture". In all honesty, I don't think that politicians are, either.

But I can look at my own life, and do what seems reasonable and obvious to conserve energy and husband resources. And these are the things that I do every day, that I understand fairly well, where I can tell in multiple different ways that I'm doing the right thing.

I guess that's why they seem more important to me -- my confidence level that I'd Doing Something Good is so much higher when I'm making choices that involve my own time and money, not the nation's.

Re: Minor

[gleef.livejournal.com]

I feel like I do more for the environment by walking home from work and not littering than I do in the voting booth, regardless of whom I vote for.

In this election, you're probably right.

I too, disagree with the choice you made, but I'm pleased that you made it thoughtfully, and I will continue to do my part to try to defend the right to continue to make such choices.

Have you considered getting involved in your local Libertarian party? They're much less likely to pick extreme people if they have a larger percentage of thoughful reasonable people at their party conventions. A strong and respected Libertarian party would make me a much happier person.

Re: Minor

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

That won't mean anything until the state conventions are binding on the national convention.

If the Libertarian state conventions were binding on the Libertarian national convention, the Libertarian presidential candidate would have been Gary Nolan rather than Michael Badnarik. That influenced my decision to remain Independent rather than register as Libertarian.

Observe that the Libertarian candidate for Massachusetts Senator got 10% of the vote this year. While in the national Presidential election, the raw vote count for Libertarians was actually down slightly (but the same to 3 significant digits). I'm willing to bet Gary Nolan would have pulled more of the vote.

[garyamort.livejournal.com]

Well, on the one critical issue, Iraq, I somewhat agree with you. I am of the "you break, you bought it" philosophy - we are in Iraq, we have to see it through or acknowledge that we can't do this sort of thing without an understanding of the culture. I think that Bush's approach has been awful, and that Kerry was the best chance of good conclusion. Egocentrically, of course, I hope to be proven right. Intellectualy I hope to be proven wrong.

I don't think failure in Iraq means we can't do this sort of thing, I just think it means the approach was wrong and the target not properly understood. But I think the scars from failure will linger for generations, and it will be decades before Americans acknowledge that it was the implementation and target that was wrong, not the goal or the method.

On the Gay Marriage amendment, I think it will happen and it will happen soon. I beleive Bush's sincerity when he talks about his religious and moral beliefs. It is the only time when he speaks that I don't think "liar, liar" to everything he is saying. He has enough power now to ram it through Congress by supporting it. And once it is out there, I don't think the opposition to it will be strong enough to stop it from passing. However, the United States has weathered and survived bad amendments in the past(Prohibition and Income Taxes), we will survive this one.

My number one fear of Bush is a "fighting the last war" so it is unreasonable. When he was elected in 2000 I kinda shrugged and said "what harm could he do in 4 years?". My fear is that there will be another war, either with North Korea or Iran. And there will be a Nuclear explosion. I don't think it will be here, I think it will be over there. America won't even take many casualties. But it will cause a major shift in policy towards the "War is Never the Answer".

My number one reason for not voting for Bush is simple, I don't trust him. Period. And I just can't vote for a President who I don't trust(yeah, I think all politicians lie and do things for expediency - but they have the decency to do it behind my back. With Bush though, I feel like he would swear to me the sky is red, while standing outside, on a clear day, with a blue sky in the background, and daring me to contradict him)

[richardf8]

Rowyn,

Thanks for a cogent explanation of your reasoning for your vote. While I disagree with it, I think you put a lot more thought into it than a lot of people who went to the polls.

When I heard news of Kerry's concession, I somehow imagined him chuckling to himself "heh heh heh, Georgie boy gets to keep his bag of dung."

Like you, I hope flowers can be grown from it, but I am very skeptical of Bush's ability to bring that to pass.

And like Garyamort, I voted for Kerry because I don't trust Bush. You can peruse my journal for the reasons if you wish, I won't pollute yours by repeating them here.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems like you got handed a couple of zero choices. That's the American political system for ya (not that the Canadian one is much better). I disagree with your choice, but will respect the reasoning behind.

And now for something completely different...

Bush and Kerry cover Queen

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It is a brave stance you have taken, and I commend you for it. And your thinking is well stated, and I believe that you have demonstrated a hope that reflects much potential good in the future.

It seems not possible for most of us to have a candidate with everything in accord with our own politics. So, we have to rank what is most important, and what is less so, and analyze based on that. In this, you've done quite a nice job.

You have my support, dear friend, independent of your decision.

===|==============/ Level Head