We Have Seen the Enemy and They Is Us
Over the next four years, the opposition has got its work cut out. It’s important that those of us now in the minority don’t thereby get cut out of the process. There are enough re-elected moderates on the other side of Congress to ensure that there will be at least some to work with. While Bush claims to reach across the aisle, he’s never done so, and what he claims is consensus is nothing more than giving up, rolling over and playing dead. It’s vital that we don’t give in. We must choose our battles and fight them well, but there will be a lot of them.

The Iraq war is going to continue. Falluja will be levelled, and in the next few days. The insurgency will likely continue despite that, and the touted January elections will be held despite that. Don’t expect the U.S. to leave the country in February, however. These eventualities all would have been just as true with Kerry as they are with Bush. The struggle to defeat international terror, however, well, it’s an open question as to how that will be pursued, let alone how effectively. Military strikes against Iran or North Korea are possible, although the European Union is trying to cut a deal with the former, and the capabilities of the latter are less worrying, if only because they’re not a Middle Eastern nation. Diplomacy is not Bush’s strong suit: he’s demonstrated his preference for the hammer over any other tool. The Democrats can, nevertheless, keep pointing out what other options exist, facilitating a more mature approach to international relations, and they can raise what other needs must be met. We must press the administration on Sudan. It’s already too late to keep this from being another Rwanda, but we can still retrieve the situation in some worthwhile measure. Afghanistan still needs more support, or they may yet devolve again. Those warlords aren’t going away.

The issue of the deficit is over. The government will have to spend many billions yet more than it has or has any hope to have for well beyond the next four years. Under Kerry, again, this would still have been true. But we can fight for every penny we can save, and so we should.

Keep Bush’s hands off the Constitution. We don’t need any stupidity about the flag enshrined there, and – more importantly – the definition of marriage is not an issue requiring Federal intervention; whether to allow all citizens to marry freely is an option that falls within the rights set forth in the Declaration of Independence and meant to be protected by law. Let the States decide, as 11 of them have, and then let it be fought out in the courts. The system can sort itself out, as it has always done.

Social Security is a mess, and it has always been so, whether you thought when it was instituted that FDR was imposing socialism or whether in the last few decades you thought yourself overtaxed. Finding a way to wind down this program is inevitable. Putting more money into the hands of investment banks and stock brokers is unlikely to prove a wise method of accomplishing the existing commitment, even if it would unburden the coming generations. Social Security needs to be returned to the purpose it best serves: protecting the aged and indigent. Clear thinking with a view towards the long future is required, not quick-fix money laundering.

The Supreme Court is about to become a big issue, but however many Justices may need to be appointed, there are many more federal bench openings around the nation already needing appointments and still more to come. Activist judges come with liberal, conservative, and “neo-con” agendas, and some of any of these represent an unacceptable partisanship in a court of law. Bork the ones who need to be, and keep our courts from becoming enablers of bad policy.

Speaking of which, abortion is wrong, as contraception, as pretty much anyone would agree, but that’s a personal belief, and limited to a particular set of circumstances. By making all abortion into late-term abortion, we frighten ourselves into believing some nightmare vision of compulsory infanticide that has no basis in reality. Education and access to birth control are more effective than stigmatizing sex. “Just say no” doesn’t work for sex any more than it does for drugs, and unless you’re going to adopt those babies or support those families, you shouldn’t get to say “no” to anyone but yourself. Raise the level of the discourse, or you’re just one of those creeps outside the clinic screaming yourself red in the face at unfortunate girls and women who have enough trouble without you around, or worse, you’re one of those creeps taking potshots at doctors with a deer rifle. As for stem cell research, this isn’t as linked to the issue of abortion as some would have us believe, and we can improve things here, too, by putting science at the forefront, again instead of morals. Science doesn’t require dead babies, so nobody’s coming after anyone’s pregnant wife. Grow up.

We have “family values,” too. We don’t limit them to our own families, however, and that’s a message that deserves to be spread. I value the needs of your family as much as I value mine. That’s called compassion, it’s called inclusiveness. It doesn’t mean I have to sit on my hands while some murderous fanatic tries to hurt me, but it does mean that I should do what I can to see to it that the roots of such madness are eradicated. If I have the means, then I have the responsibility. You can be selfish if you want, but please stay out of the way of truly decent people while you’re doing it.