Having A Fit

CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter

November 11, 2004
Veteran's Day

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Dear Friend,

The election is over. The result was clear, the turnout impressive,
and the liberal reaction comically over-blown.

From the mainstream media to pundits to campaign strategists --
everyone is talking about a possible realignment in American
politics. "Where did all those conservative voters come from?" they
seem to be asking. "Were there no wrasslin' shows to watch Tuesday?
Were there no 1978 Chevy Novas to take apart in the front yard?"

They just don't get it.

Don't misunderstand me, I have genuine respect for the more stable
minds on the Left, and have honest sympathy for some of my
Kerry-voting friends who manage to disagree with President Bush's
policies without falling prey to Michael Moore's conspiracy theories.
These are people with whom conservatives can have frank yet
charitable discussions, and who will remain friends even in
disagreement.

And then there are the others...

Take Wendy Smith, for example. Described as a "writer and human
rights activist," she wrote a guest column in the November 8 edition
of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Apparently, when she woke up on
the morning of November 3 and switched on NPR, she had a bit of an
epiphany:

"Contrary to my predictions, we had had a relatively fair election
and the American people (or something over half of them) had
democratically voted for an extremist Christian regime."

This did not sit well with Ms. Smith.

What followed was an orgy of cruelty-free violence... she sent her
PBS tote bag -- packed with Jimmy Carter's last three autobiographies
-- sailing across the room, knocking over empty Merlot bottles and
crashing into her treasured stack of Peter, Paul & Mary albums...

Alright, I just made that last part up. But she was none too pleased
with the election. Where had John Kerry gone wrong, she wondered?
After all, hadn't he tried repeatedly to appeal to the slack-jaws of
middle America?

"For months, Kerry has been conspicuously going to church all over
the country and shooting ducks and geese like crazy in between -- all
in an effort to convince the people in the red states that he 'gets
them.'"

But in the end, it didn't work. And it's all God's fault.

"Half the people in this country," she writes, "believe in a god who
forbids stem cell research but seems to have forgotten his own First
Commandment."

Not Wendy Smith, though. She comes from the other half of America,
where a humanistic morality is the rule of the day. But she also
recognizes that her intellectual kin are in the minority. For this
reason, "we had better take a good hard look at what is happening in
the Christian extremist America, dissect it and try to understand it
from the inside out.... I say it because we had better get a grip on
what we are facing, in order to figure out how to save our country
(and the poor, suffering rest of the world) from the crusade on which
America is now embarked."

Oh Wendy, relax.

What Ms. Smith fails to see is that in her blanket dismissal of
American Christians, she has pretty much guaranteed that she'll never
understand them "from the inside out." After all, understanding
requires empathy, and empathy is a thing the secular Left appears to
lack.

Didn't they learn anything from the election? Liberal contempt for
mainstream, religious America was one of the factors that drove the
faithful to the polls in record numbers. Big mistake... and one they
seem destined to repeat.

All the best,

Brian


P.S. All of us here at Crisis want to extend our thanks to every
American veteran. Your service to this nation and to the cause of
freedom in the world is unparalleled. May we live up to your
sacrifice.



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