Here’s where I was — struggling with my emotions, mustering some Generalship for my beleaguered FaceBook group, heavy into politics. Back when this blog of mine was political (you can still find a bunch of remnants here and there), back when I was a small cheese in a big way in the FB Tea Party scene, back before I had to take a year off of politics from my inability to write or even think about it. This is where I was a month or two before joining Second Life to find a whole different gang in a whole different context. Good Lord, what a dump.
But here I was on that miserable day, when I was staggered at the fact that the incumbent President had won re-election. I could understand the first time, for a lot of reasons. I can’t really see voting based on race as a good thing, but every person retains the absolute right to vote for whomever they wish, for whatever reason they see fit. And, I figure that were the shoe on the other food, I might very well have seen it the other way.
But re-election meant a widespread acceptance of things that I found unacceptable. We still have not “gotten to the bottom” of Benghazi, and we probably never will. But what happened is obvious. Likewise our precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, and the launch of ISIS. And our failure in Afghanistan. And in the South China Sea. And the list goes on. People voted for it. They got it. The man did the job he was hired to do. So here I was, trying to hold it together. And I realized that perhaps the best thing I could do was help others try to hold it together.
The following is what I posted to my political FB group in 2012, as it became apparent that we had lost. Everything.
Friends and Patriots
Okay, conservatives. Mind your manners. Shut your mouths. Nothing you say on Facebook or anywhere else will do any good or change anything, at least, not for the better.
Talk is nothing. Group is nothing. Education is nothing.
There is only victory or defeat, and we have lost.
IF YOU WOULD MASTER YOUR ENEMY, FIRST MASTER YOURSELF
Accept with poise and self-control the equally worthless words of your co-workers and family. Reflect upon how complete our defeat truly is.
The Constitution is already ignored. It will not survive the next four years. Now how shall we talk our way out of this?
Meanwhile, take care of somebody who needs taking care of right now. We have many wounded, so to speak. Reach out privately to affirm and appreciate those who have given their energy, their time, their money, and in some cases, their livelihoods.
I feel despair, but I resist. I want to lash out, but I refuse. I wish to burn and smash, to delete and quit, but I know that these are unhealthy and unwise reactions to our fortune. So weigh your actions. Measure your words. Limit your audience. Heal yourself. Lift up the needy that they may lift you in your need.
Do not try to change or control that which is too late and too large for your effort. Do not damage yourself in recklessness any further than your well-earned wounds from this desperate battle. We have lost, and we now have internal needs to tend to. Which is just as well, because we are well and truly screwed in our struggle, for the foreseeable future.
Yet that which is not seen, we ignore at our peril, and this is as true of opportunities and threats as it is of Bastiat’s shoemaker. So be quiet and be of good cheer, for we have lost, and our anger can hurt only ourselves and our sacred Constitutional cause.
A SENSE OF HUMOR IS THE LAST EFFECTIVE TOOL IN OUR KIT
When people ask me about it, knowing full-well where I stand and have stood for years, I tell them it’s okay, that I got my brain implant, I’m now picking up the transmission from the White House, and I was wrong. Freedom is for chumps and I’m glad I finally got controlled like the rest of America. I genuinely laugh and then I genuinely make my way out of the conversation. Anybody wants to pick over my guts, they won’t have my help in doing it. I won’t lose my composure without having it kicked out of me, and I don’t see anybody man enough to do the job.
Master yourself, care for your allies. Recover, and return to the fight in good shape.
