The personal, the political
"The personal is political."
There's a good old slogan from the '60s. I'm not sure just what it was originally intended to signify...probably that one's personal whims and desires are grist for the political mill, worthy of having laws made over them. But if true, it follows (because of the "is of identity" - and don't go Clintonian on me here) that the political is personal, that any political act that affects me negatively is a personal wrong committed by the legislators who voted for the law. They don't get to hide behind "the will of the people" because "the people" don't exist, only individuals who benefit or are harmed by any particular legislative act.
As a culture, we've bought this concept, on both sides of the political spectrum. Whether we feel we're entitled to what we have worked for, or entitled to what others have worked for, any political change is taken personally. And that's not wrong; the ruling class has cloaked itself for too long in passive-voice sentences, euphemisms, and abstract nouns, and it's time to tell them that reality is where government touches the individual personally.
One problem with this is the coarsening of political discourse. If a person cuts me off in traffic, I'm going to apply a vulgar noun to him. And if governors get in my face, I will have vulgar nouns for them too. This is a near-universal problem; consider the "misunderestimation" of George Bush's intelligence. I disagree with him vehemently, but if people who call him an idiot actually believe that, then they are probably less intelligent than Bush, though certainly he's committed foolish acts.
Yet...the alternative to direct political expression has problems as well, primarily a pallid sinking-into-the-mire, a use of undefined and uindefinable terms to avoid reality. We live in dangerous times. We are facing the clash of two opposing philosophies. If those who think they are entitled to the unearned prevail, there will soon be nothing to be entitled to. If those who believe in earning prevail, the others will get with the program, or they will die. Either way, the future is apt to be ugly, and some day we will look with nostalgia on the day when the bloodiest combat was between Ann Coulter and Maureen Dowd. Note that I am not cheering on the coming Ragnarok, not chanting Timothy May's Usenet mantra that "the dieoff will be glorious". It will be no such thing. I didn't ask for front-row tickets to the collapse of Western civilization, and pray that Jesus comes (personally or collectively) before the show, because without a literal deus-ex-machina, this will end in tragedy. All I can do is stand for traditional Western values, even as the runaway horse pulls me off my feet.
Another problem with "the personal as political" is the assumption that any position held is held for the basest of personal reasons. There are doubtless people out there who think that, since I believe that the 2nd Amendment shouldn't become void when you step off the sidewalk at Euclid and Adelbert, I must be a homicidal maniac gun nut. In fact, I never used a firearm until I was 40, I haven't been to the range in at least 3 years, and I have rarely perceived a personal need to carry. Likewise, my position pro-re-legalization of recreational drugs is not held because I like to take drugs. I am not experientially ignorant of many of them; I just have no use for them as an adult. I rarely even have more than a drink or two. A similar situation is the charge made whenever anyone suggests cutting back on compulsory charity: "Why do you hate poor people?" Well, I don't, having been one myself, though since I oppose policies guaranteed to create more of them, it might not be an unreasonable question. Or what of the people who call me a "liberal moonbat" for my support of Ron Paul (!) because he is anti-war, when I support him in spite of that stance?
We've got a patron who comes into Kulas regularly. I never broach politics with him, because it's not what I'm paid for or what he came in for. Besides, he can be relied on to get a socialist rant going without my help, and I don't need to hear it or encourage it. Several weeks ago, as he walked out the door, he asked, "Why is there such hatred of liberal ideas?" If he was talking about classical liberalism, it's because freedom is a scary thing. If (as is more likely), he was talking about Marxism Lite, it's because we've seen what happens when those ideas are carried to their ultimate conclusion. I don't hate the ideal of charity. I hate violence, death, starvation, regimentation, and lack of options. Doesn't he? And he's bright enough to know that I don't hate him, even though he hides in a portable foxhole every second November and shoots at me by proxy. Ultimately, staving off Ragnarok may mean accepting what adults do in the privacy of the voting booth, while having no illusions about what it is...hating the sin, but not the sinner. But it doesn't mean making approving noises about the sin to salve the sinner's feelings.
Oddly enough, Billy Beck in his own individual manner is preaching on the same text today.
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