On voting:
I know this strand kind of died, but something in this morning's chronicle fired me up:
"Although a careful reading of his declarations on Iraq has shown many instances of consistency, an analysis of more than 150 of President Bush's speeches, addresses and press conferences show that his rationale has changed as the circumstances have."
"Many instances of consistency", isn't that kind of like saying "frequent periods of infinitude", or "it's mostly pure". The debate around flip-flopping has this incredibly strange take on the word "consistency", as if it's a virtue one can have by degrees, like "character" or "initiative" (neither of which concepts really have any meaning in the current debate either). Wouldn't it be nice if a person could say, "well, given the evidence presented at the time, I made such and such judgment, now things look a bit differently". Often I am reminded of Emerson:
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds- the territory of petty statesmen and philosophers".
Which is not to say I don't have misgivings about Kerry's position on the war, either currently or when he voted in Congress two years ago. It's a strange feeling to read the words of the candidate you are likely going to vote for and feel very little resonance with them. You want someone to say, "the mere suspicion of possession of weapons is not grounds to go to war. America has never proven itself capable of liberating any other country by a military occupation. Iraq is now a more dangerous and poor nation than it was two years ago." But, short of that, you want someone who might possibly stop awarding contracts to companies profiting from the war, including the private military currently doing "security" over there at three times the cost of the U.S. army. You want someone who is less likely to institute a draft, and will perhaps have some success getting the international community invovled in a positive way, if any such prospect exists.
But given these doubts, there may be some reason to put a smidge of faith in the big K. I was discussing my misgivings about Kerry with a learned friend of mine, and he told me to check out his speech to Congress upon returning from Vietnam. It's a really deep, humanistic article that pulls no punches about the war's effect on the Vietnamese and on the soldiers. Here's a link if you're interested.
http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/JohnKerryTestimony.html
all right, enough out of me for a while.
I know this strand kind of died, but something in this morning's chronicle fired me up:
"Although a careful reading of his declarations on Iraq has shown many instances of consistency, an analysis of more than 150 of President Bush's speeches, addresses and press conferences show that his rationale has changed as the circumstances have."
"Many instances of consistency", isn't that kind of like saying "frequent periods of infinitude", or "it's mostly pure". The debate around flip-flopping has this incredibly strange take on the word "consistency", as if it's a virtue one can have by degrees, like "character" or "initiative" (neither of which concepts really have any meaning in the current debate either). Wouldn't it be nice if a person could say, "well, given the evidence presented at the time, I made such and such judgment, now things look a bit differently". Often I am reminded of Emerson:
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds- the territory of petty statesmen and philosophers".
Which is not to say I don't have misgivings about Kerry's position on the war, either currently or when he voted in Congress two years ago. It's a strange feeling to read the words of the candidate you are likely going to vote for and feel very little resonance with them. You want someone to say, "the mere suspicion of possession of weapons is not grounds to go to war. America has never proven itself capable of liberating any other country by a military occupation. Iraq is now a more dangerous and poor nation than it was two years ago." But, short of that, you want someone who might possibly stop awarding contracts to companies profiting from the war, including the private military currently doing "security" over there at three times the cost of the U.S. army. You want someone who is less likely to institute a draft, and will perhaps have some success getting the international community invovled in a positive way, if any such prospect exists.
But given these doubts, there may be some reason to put a smidge of faith in the big K. I was discussing my misgivings about Kerry with a learned friend of mine, and he told me to check out his speech to Congress upon returning from Vietnam. It's a really deep, humanistic article that pulls no punches about the war's effect on the Vietnamese and on the soldiers. Here's a link if you're interested.
http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/JohnKerryTestimony.html
all right, enough out of me for a while.
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