Cross-posted to Random Fate.
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It has been a while since I have posted anything thoughtful or even remotely original. I wish I could say it was entirely due to changes in my life-circumstances, with my new wife, new children, and new priorities, but I cannot attribute my lack of commentary entirely to other priorities. While they are important, these other priorities have not ruled my life exclusively. I did indeed have the choice to write when and if I needed to. I simply have not chosen to because I have been too exhausted, and not solely due to family issues.
I have continued to read other weblogs daily, and although I discover as time passes that more self-described right-wingers are finally recognizing the tendencies of the current administration that I pointed out two years ago, I find no joy in this trend.
Why?
For one, the fact that it has taken literally two years to arrive at the realization that the Bush administration is so incompetent it puts our nation at risk, two years for people whom I regarded as rational despite having differing political views, those such as the Commissar of The Politburo Diktat (now version 2.0, possibly relating to his conversion from a purely partisan viewpoint to one aimed at what is best for the nation, as I have held all along despite being named partisan even though I didn’t follow lockstep with ANY party), and the delay has discouraged me, notwithstanding the conversions at this late date.
Another reason I am losing hope is those who have not recognized that we are on the wrong path. There is a minority, troublingly large, who still support the actions of the administration to the bitter end, those such as the bloggers at Power Line who desperately seek to find some partisan explanation for the lack of action in the Foley/Congressional Page matter that they can lay at the feet of the Democratic Party, despite the abundance of evidence of the implicit approval of the Republican leadership of the Congress. These, the willfully blind, are now completely ignoring the deteriorating situation in Iraq, formerly the apple of their eyes, instead expressing positively orgasmic pleasure in the deaths of supposed “terrorists” who are not attacking the US because we are “defeating them over there,” despite the fact that they were not terrorists BEFORE we occupied “over there…”
So, where does a rational commentator go, especially when their time is compressed and consumed by more immediate matters related to family?
What does a rational commentator do when the allure of non-partisan computer games like the various versions of Starfleet Command appeal far more than any seemingly futile attempt to persuade towards rationality those who have abandoned even a pretence of logical thought?
My answer?
It has certainly not been to attempt a useless exercise in posting to persuade, since it seems that no one even tries to think outside their partisan box any more.
While it may not seem the case to those who read my weblog regularly, I do indeed try to think outside my own preconceptions. In my work I have come to be known as “Jack the project killer” because I tend to recommend the termination of projects I have been put in charge of, even if it seems “career limiting” according to semi-cynical parlance.
Why?
Because I evaluate each program with an eye towards cost versus benefit, with each side of the equation aimed towards the needs of the company and not my personal preferences. My very ruthlessness towards these evaluations has gained me credibility when I either recommend or advise against any project.
I refuse to apply the logic of dreams to attractive concepts, despite the allure of the possibilities that the ideas promote among the dreamers.
There is a balance that needs to be found between the dreamers and those of a more practical bent to make at least part of the dreams reality, and my role to date has been to pull the concepts of the dreamers to something that can indeed be accomplished rather than something that can only be conceived.
Such seems to be my curse, because that which I foresaw two years ago has become a reality today so obvious that even those among the most fervent whom I would label as “right-wingers to the end” have begun to acknowledge that the current nominally right-wing administration and Congressional leadership has not delivered or even really tried to deliver anything close to the “right-wing” agenda.
So, what should I write about?
Those unpersuaded will remain so, those who are becoming disenchanted already have far more reason to be so than I could ever present to them.
I have tried in the past three years of my blogging to provide a non-partisan view that was indeed biased towards my own philosophy, which was not aligned with any party.
For my efforts, I have been labeled many things, whether right-wing, left-wing, liberal, or conservative, all the labels were inadequate to encompass my views, yet despite the arrows hurled by those not capable of conceiving of anything beyond the simple-minded dichotomy of viewpoints that I abandoned three decades ago when I was 12 years old, I have persisted, because I refuse to succumb to the logic of dreams that fulfills wishful thinking and makes absurd arguments plausible.
It must be nice to perceive the world in black-and-white terms, but I cannot do so because I see the “nuances” that were anathema to the Bush administration and its cheerleaders until the most recent intelligence estimate caused them to perceive that presenting the subtleties to be of political advantage. Nuances and subtleties may not satisfy the primal urge for vengeance and visceral fulfillment, but they are necessary conditions to understand how to gain the ultimate victory over our enemies.
Our failure to understand will be our undoing, just as the Romans labeling those they refused to make the effort to understand as “barbarians” set them on the path of decline.
The parallels are obvious to those willing to truly step outside their own canalized methods of thought, but it takes the “hard work” that George W. Bush referred to when he was campaigning for winning a second term as President of the United States.
Perhaps you should consider doing that “hard work” of thinking about the ramifications of our current policies, what could arise if those policies change, and what the long term results could be.
All I ask is that you think for yourself and not follow those who use the logic of dreams.