(2004-11-03) Hungover

Thoughts for a black morning after a Presidential Election...

You know how dumb the average person? Well, half of them are dumber than that.

When you support the creation of Big Government, you're increasing the risks in every election.

Maybe it's time to look at the Red Vs Blue states, and create the Nine Nations Of North America. Culture War?

I really can't believe that so many state initiatives contra Gay Marriage passed.

Andrew Sullivan calls for Federalism (Federation). States Rights.

• Unfortunately I don't know of a strong model for defining what things should be federal vs state - it smells like people argue for state-level rules when they know they're in the minority, and federal-level if they think they can be the majority.

Tim Bray provides some evaluation of Canada as an alternative.

Jihi agrees with James Howard Kunstler: A Bush victory will have two salutary political results. It will leave Republican conservatism discredited when the administration is overwhelmed by the problems described above. And it will force the Democratic party to either transform itself into a vehicle for meaningful ideas-and-action, or die. I'm not that "optimistic".

• except... I'm thinking about what people have been saying about the Republican Party spending decades building an infrastructure of Think Tank-s, etc. and how that now affects people's Framing of political issues. It should be lots cheaper/faster to do the same thing now...

GarryWills asks Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in Evolution still be called an Enlightened nation? (Enlightenment)

David Brooks counters The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not. (Though my argument with that position is that I don't find Bush's rhetoric or actions truly Conservative.)

Camille Paglia says Democrats have got to go cold turkey on their tedious old rhetoric about the suffering masses in their World of Pain. The Democrats' condescending portraits of African-Americans and the poor are manipulative, patronizing and ultimately self-destructive. The humanistic vision of progressive liberal politics (which I subscribe to) needs to be projected in inspiring, poetic language.

• just before the election she railed against John Kerry's mushiness, the campaign, the Democratic Party, Michael Moore, Jon Stewart (a little)...

Andy Hunt quotes H L Mencken

Matt Taibbi writes They're fighting for a simple path to heaven, while the rest of us are fighting for something a little less exciting: the desire to have a more rational and inoffensive political atmosphere within which to wrestle with the underlying problem of existential despair in a confusing secular world whose only offered paradises are affluence, sexual freedom and Consumer choice... Down south, in those "backward" red states, they vote the way they do because they see this individualistic religion as a creature of the cold, greedy, north, which has chosen to attack the idiocy of the Right-Wing church rather than admit to its own spiritual unhappiness.

Douglas Rushkoff thinks we have to communciate via Myth (Story Telling?)

• but points out the constraints on that approach. Hmm, maybe myths, parables, and fables about people learning, changing their mind, etc.?