The 2004 American Election and my experience with learning to accept our limitations:):):)...

The election has been on of the most interesting for me:):):)...

I've been following politics for a long time:):):)...and, especially in my young adulthood, with a commitment to understanding and improving the process:):)...

But this election has been one of the most interesting for me:):):)...especially since it occurs during a really important period of education and experience for me as a young adult:):)...

The most important lesson that I've been taking from this election is a greater authentic acceptance of ours' and my limitations:):):)...of the limitations on progress in a culture:)...of my limitations as a leader and responsible member of my society:)...of the limitations on our humanity:):):)...

The election is, of course, to anyone concerned about authentic progress in a society since, in so many ways, it was so clearly quite the referendum on the limitations of progress...

The most important issue of this election, I think most people agree, has been the war...and the commitment to the most learned or the most prejudicial and ignorant perspectives on the war...

The most learned in the field of international policy -- from people with the depth of vision, like Joe Nye, and even with less depth of vision but still important in their contributions to the field of international policy, like Henry Kissinger -- have been critical of this war in ways that the President has partly paid heed, reflecting some general accountability to their concerns, but which he has also reflected far too little curiosity and far too much arrogant assertion of power to warrant having that power...

I've been reading the first book Joe wrote criticizing the war -- a war he supported, up front, but which he has, rightly, become much more critical of -- The Paradox of American Power...Joe is still too committed to the idea that American preeminence in political, economic, and military affairs is in American interests, an idea that I take serious issue with...equity often looks like weakness by every generation that considers it...but, the clear consequence, each generation, is that equity makes us stronger, not weaker...a principle that I think Joe fails to account for in many of his assumptions about international policy...

But, in general, Joe's commitment to soft power -- meaning cultural, economic, and political freedom and democracy and the fruits of that free, democratic culture, including stronger and more authentically democratic and diplomatic engagement -- is a much stronger idea for handling the threats of terrorism and of future engagement with totalitarian regimes like Saddam Husseins Baathist regime...Joe's and my argument is not that war and aggressive action are always unwarranted...Joe's argument is that the current political leadership must pay much more attention to supporting its soft power and to being far less careless in underminding that same power...

Joe is not committed to equity in international relations in the same way I am...he doesn't account well enough, I don't think, for the long term costs that come with strong-arming and bullying our way through difficult diplomatic issues, though he is definitely doing better at accounting for those costs now than he did before this war began...he most recent writing reflects a clear departure from his past work where Joe does not make as clear distinctions in favor of soft power as he has more recently...in response to the failures of this Administration in handling these and similar issues, I think...

But as Martin Luther King argued around issues of race, so too goes for issues of political, economic and other forms of equity...though those who benefit disproportionately from inequitable arrangements, short term, may not be able to see its benefits, societies clearly function better the more attention that is paid to equity...for everyone involved...Martin Luther King argued more than 30 years ago that leaving the legacies of racism behind helped whites as well as African Americans...and more than a quarter century of much more open progress and experimentation around this issue bears out Dr. King's conviction...

More equitable international arrangements will take time to develop...but just as the transition from less equitable imperial arrangements to more equitable democratic arrangements has clearly benefitted the societies it touched, included those former empires, so will the inevitable transition from less equitable democratic arrangements to more equitable democratic arrangements benefit all societies, including those who formerly benefitted disproportionately from those arrangements:)...

Wealth equity in America and in international arrangements similarly will improve economic performance as much as resolve a critical issue of fairness and justice, just as free economic arrangements were clearly more beneficial to the Northern States in the United States than slave-based, less free economic arrangements were to the South...

And supporting freedom to make all kinds of choices -- from whom people want to marry, to what legal or non-legal pharmaceutical and intoxicating experiences people want to engage in, to the purchase of legal and non-legal firearms, to how people want to use money, in their personal lives, in their financial pursuits, in their political engagement -- and open, intelligent, democratic engagment on those same issues, will similarly play a critical role in supporting choices to support our communities more authentically, rather than repressing the very freedom that is so critical to authentic support for our communities...

But in so many ways -- judging a society by its political choices, in all parties and all political activism and attitudes -- we have so far to go to create such community...to support an authentically free and democratic community of responsible and intelligent peoples' and their commitment to authentic self-government, rather than to the more autocratic tendencies of the same society to control, force, and compel that commitment...a clearly futile effort that has frustrated the development of the very commitments that concerned peoples' intend but fail to cultivate when they try to compel their visions of the world...

We all -- liberals, conservatives, radicals, anarchists, libertarians...politically inclined and non-politically inclined people alike -- have a long way to go to cultivate a more authentically free and democratic society...

And this election has been a disppointing but real coming to terms for me of how far we have to go:):):)...

Largely because it has been only within the last couple of years that it's become clearer to me what direction, more precisely, that we are headed and need for the cultivation of our highest and best natures...

And this kind of reflection is EXACTLY the kind of thing that I think is needed to get us there...a commitment to the acceptance of our lowest natures even as we aspire to our highest natures:):):)...

I'm learning to better accept ours' and my limitations in this respect...as we make this neverending journey to an always better future:):):)...

I feel a little uneasy with it, as the moment:):):)...but I'm sure I'll get better at it over time:):):)...all that I can hope and expect for myself and everyone:):):)...

I've been watching Jimmy Stewart's classic, Harvey, as I've been writing this:):):):)...a pretty appropriate movie for just this kind of sentiment, I think:):):)...

May we all learn the appreciation for humanity that Elwood P. Doud has to offer us all:):):)...

I hope everyone is doing well:):):)...have a good day:):):)...

Love,
Ben