That politics thang

I’ve been quiet, mostly, on political issues of late (church politics aside). And on geopolitical issues, too, since they’ve been coopted (by all sides) into the let-me-just-gouge-my-eyes-out-now 2004 Presidential Campaign. I’m aware of that relative quietitude, and it’s been both intentional and reflexive.

Because the field of discussion has gotten so set in concrete, it seems, that any attempt to talk about this stuff, or express an opinion, simply runs full tilt into a blade-barrier of self-defined axioms. George Bush is either the Prince of Darkness (or Dupe Thereof, the jury’s still out), or else the Greatest American Leader since Lincoln cut down a cherry tree to build a log cabin. The War in Iraq is either the Apocalypse a-brewing or else … well, the Apocalypse a-brewing, but a good Apocalypse. The US is either being crushed under the heels of an Orwellian fascism of a like not seen since, well, North Korea, or else is blosseming and being protected under the benign, nurturing watch of the Administration in DC. The GOP are either the Nazis reborn, or else the last, best hope for the Republic. Dick Cheney is either Scrooge McDuck crossed with Dr. Strangelove, or else …

Well, you get the picture. Feh.

These matters have turned into rhetorical ruts, such that if you opine something counter to the axioms the reader carries with him, he blinks at you in flabbergastment, before either unleashing the vitriol through a firehose, or else expressing utter dismay that you could ever possibly believe something so obviously stupid, wrong, contra-factual, and, in case I failed to mention it, stupid. And maybe even evil.

So it’s a lot easier on my blood pressure these days to save my rants for other topics. I’ve not turned off reading about this stuff, but, for a while at least, I’ve pulled back from writing so much about it.

Which, of course, means that, sometime within the next 24 hours, something will happen to change my mind. I hope it’s a good something.