![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richI'm not sure the definition of "idealism" is doing what's best for everyone; rather, I think it's getting what you want - ideally - and trying to justify it as helping other people for good measure. Reality, on the other hand, is what you have to work with despite what you'd ideally want.
I have lived in reality long enough to know very few people get what they ideally want, because to get what you want or what you feel is best for you invariably shortchanges someone else, whether rightly or wrongly. There is a middle ground between complete selfishness and total sublimation of self, that I happen to feel is the nobler part of reality; however, it still requires compromise of some desires and values.
I've been mentally applying this to politics in this election year. As I read e-mails filling my box urging me to protest George W. Bush or decry John Kerry's liberal policies, I understand these are a result of personal idealism. For the record, I heartily dislike George W. Bush's policies, most of his actions, and a great deal of his personality. For the record, John Kerry is not at the very top of my list for people I believe would make this country's best president; but, for the record, George W. Bush is not even on that list. This is my idealism.
My reality is that even if I'd like better choices to vote for, I have only a few choices at all. My choice, more often than not, is against a particular candidate because of their track record, their attitude, my gauge of how much danger they will drag me, my country, and my pocketbook into. I don't know who my ideal candidate for president is, but I can say with certainty that all our reality should not include George W. Bush in that position any longer.
His expansionist, free-spending attitude is immersing our country in more danger than we faced before he took office. His continued insistence to put his personal religious values front and center of his explanations and justifications of actions divides his own fellow citizens - a surprisingly high number of whom do not share his beliefs and still manage to be good people. His repeated failure to acknowledge any number of mistakes - even those large in scale - does not set a good example for our younger citizens, most of whom have parents trying to instill in them a sense of responsibility and the ability to maturely accept blame for making far smaller mistakes. Nobody wants a chronic apologist for a leader, but on the other hand, I was not aware God had coronated George W. Bush as the Second Coming.
I certainly have my reservations about John Kerry, as I would about any relatively new player on the political scene. But there are things I am willing to give him up front until he proves otherwise. The first of these is the presumption that Teresa Heinz still owns a percentage of her late husband's business - only a percentage - and that she can neither make the company's decisions all on her own, nor has she handed control of said company over to her second husband. (I would not presume a man who marries to give his wife his company before his death; why would I assume any differently about a woman to her husband?) I am also willing to wager that John Kerry will not damage our country or its reputation as much in the next four years as George W. Bush would, or even as much as Bush has damaged both in the last four years. Finally, it is my hope that John Kerry will continue to keep his personal religious faith where it belongs - in his own home and heart - instead of using it to justify his actions in the political arena. A good government of the people needs its own church like a fish needs a bicycle.
For these reasons, I am willing to forego my idealism for at least a better reality than we Americans currently have.
I have lived in reality long enough to know very few people get what they ideally want, because to get what you want or what you feel is best for you invariably shortchanges someone else, whether rightly or wrongly. There is a middle ground between complete selfishness and total sublimation of self, that I happen to feel is the nobler part of reality; however, it still requires compromise of some desires and values.
I've been mentally applying this to politics in this election year. As I read e-mails filling my box urging me to protest George W. Bush or decry John Kerry's liberal policies, I understand these are a result of personal idealism. For the record, I heartily dislike George W. Bush's policies, most of his actions, and a great deal of his personality. For the record, John Kerry is not at the very top of my list for people I believe would make this country's best president; but, for the record, George W. Bush is not even on that list. This is my idealism.
My reality is that even if I'd like better choices to vote for, I have only a few choices at all. My choice, more often than not, is against a particular candidate because of their track record, their attitude, my gauge of how much danger they will drag me, my country, and my pocketbook into. I don't know who my ideal candidate for president is, but I can say with certainty that all our reality should not include George W. Bush in that position any longer.
His expansionist, free-spending attitude is immersing our country in more danger than we faced before he took office. His continued insistence to put his personal religious values front and center of his explanations and justifications of actions divides his own fellow citizens - a surprisingly high number of whom do not share his beliefs and still manage to be good people. His repeated failure to acknowledge any number of mistakes - even those large in scale - does not set a good example for our younger citizens, most of whom have parents trying to instill in them a sense of responsibility and the ability to maturely accept blame for making far smaller mistakes. Nobody wants a chronic apologist for a leader, but on the other hand, I was not aware God had coronated George W. Bush as the Second Coming.
I certainly have my reservations about John Kerry, as I would about any relatively new player on the political scene. But there are things I am willing to give him up front until he proves otherwise. The first of these is the presumption that Teresa Heinz still owns a percentage of her late husband's business - only a percentage - and that she can neither make the company's decisions all on her own, nor has she handed control of said company over to her second husband. (I would not presume a man who marries to give his wife his company before his death; why would I assume any differently about a woman to her husband?) I am also willing to wager that John Kerry will not damage our country or its reputation as much in the next four years as George W. Bush would, or even as much as Bush has damaged both in the last four years. Finally, it is my hope that John Kerry will continue to keep his personal religious faith where it belongs - in his own home and heart - instead of using it to justify his actions in the political arena. A good government of the people needs its own church like a fish needs a bicycle.
For these reasons, I am willing to forego my idealism for at least a better reality than we Americans currently have.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-14 09:42 pm (UTC)We just... don't have these problems. I can't really think of a Prime Minister who endangered us in any way (Although my favourite PM, Trudeau, was arrested canoing to Cuba because they thought he was smuggling weapons... in a canoe).The biggest threat to us in recent years (ie, since the war of 1812) was from Quebecois separatist terrorists back in the 1970's. Our 'Canadian Alliance Party' is roughly equivalent to the Republicans. I remember a lot of us were worried about them coming to power but they didn't stand a chance against the Liberals (who have been in power... since... before I was born :) . Because of the number of parties, I vote knowing full well that the Liberals a) can run the country, and b) are going to be elected. My task is to choose the opposition. Sadly, the party that would make the perfect balance to the Liberals is the New Democratic Party- which has lost most of its candidates to the Liberals for the reason that... they get elected ;) The NDP have their heads on straight on every issue I can think on, but have no idea how to bring about the changes that they very rightly see must be made. The Liberals are good at management. With the NDP there to pester them, in a minority gov't, I'd have my ideal anyway.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 11:06 am (UTC)