It is but for a season
Nov. 3rd, 2004 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI wasn't going to talk about the US elections. I'm not sufficiently informed about the US situation, and I do very much believe that if the genuine majority of the population want Bush for President and the Republicans in power, then that's democracy. The most a foreigner can do is to act in ways that favour both the democratic process and the sovereignty of another country. (Besides that, with the information I have (and were I an American citizen, I would have made more effort to inform myself properly and not just go by vague impressions), I find myself with few strong reasons to favour Kerry over Bush.)
But then, most of my American friends are Democrats and / or strongly anti-Bush. There are a lot of people I care about who believe (rightly or wrongly) that they are going to be significantly worse off, or even that their lives will be intolerable, under a Bush second term. I very, very much hope this pessimism is unwarranted, but the fact remains that knowing their fears, I'm not well able to remain objective and hold to my purely rational pro-democracy stance. Democracy is an abstract concept; I don't love democracy.
And with these two conflicting tendencies in my mind, this post and the comment on it made me cry. I wasn't expecting to cry over the election result, whichever way it went. I've written some comments today, mostly on completely unrelated or only tangentially related topics, which probably came across as more forceful than appropriate, and if I've offended anyone I apologize. I didn't realize until I started crying how emtionally worked up I was.
In all seriousness, if it's as bad as some of you seem to think, and you decide (or are forced) to leave your country, what resources I have both materially and socially are at your disposal to make it easier to settle here. I'm not saying that the UK is the best possible country in the world, and I'm not claiming to have magic powers to help people who do want to come here. But if - God forbid - you find yourself in that situation, I will do what I can.
But then, most of my American friends are Democrats and / or strongly anti-Bush. There are a lot of people I care about who believe (rightly or wrongly) that they are going to be significantly worse off, or even that their lives will be intolerable, under a Bush second term. I very, very much hope this pessimism is unwarranted, but the fact remains that knowing their fears, I'm not well able to remain objective and hold to my purely rational pro-democracy stance. Democracy is an abstract concept; I don't love democracy.
And with these two conflicting tendencies in my mind, this post and the comment on it made me cry. I wasn't expecting to cry over the election result, whichever way it went. I've written some comments today, mostly on completely unrelated or only tangentially related topics, which probably came across as more forceful than appropriate, and if I've offended anyone I apologize. I didn't realize until I started crying how emtionally worked up I was.
In all seriousness, if it's as bad as some of you seem to think, and you decide (or are forced) to leave your country, what resources I have both materially and socially are at your disposal to make it easier to settle here. I'm not saying that the UK is the best possible country in the world, and I'm not claiming to have magic powers to help people who do want to come here. But if - God forbid - you find yourself in that situation, I will do what I can.
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Re: Let's try this again
Date: 2004-11-04 07:27 pm (UTC)*hug* I was not making assumptions on how you meant that. I just saw a hurt reaction I'd rather not have caused. If you were in a bad mood, I see it as my responsibility to be appropriately careful of that; doing otherwise would seem to suggest passing judgement on your reasons for so being.
And I really, really didn't want to pick a fight with you just because I happened to be in that sort of extremely unproductive emotional state. I didn't particularly want to be unkind to random internet acquaintances either; I think I mostly avoided that, but in either case taking out general undirected nastiness on someone dear to me would be exceptionally stupid. And it might well be that the people I love would understand and the random acquaintances would not care enough about my opinion to be bothered, but it's still better not to follow through such destructive reflexes, I think.
Understood and accepted, love. And thank you for your consideration.
You put me to shame, and I'm really, really sorry I didn't explain myself more clearly.
You have nothing to be ashamed of from my perspective. *hug*
I know. I only wish I were the sort of person to offer you comfort rather than pushing you away because I didn't even trust myself to speak politely, let alone comfortingly.
There's no lack of wisdom or compassion in not trying to force yourself to give comfort when you're not in a space where you can.
Only in the sense that you're one of the people I'm concerned about, because you're upset by the election result, and you might be affected if all the dire predictions come about. I take your point that everybody is affected by what happens in the US, but I really doubt I personally would notice much material difference in my existence
I'd be much happier if I could believe that global recession/depression were not an entirely plausible consequence of another four years of Shrub-Niggurath.