Apparently, Jeff Jarvis is proposing a ‘Post Election Peace Pledge‘.
After the election results are in, I promise to:
- Support the President, even if I didn’t vote for him.
- Criticize the President, even if I did vote for him.
- Uphold standards of civilized discourse in blogs and in media while pushing both to be better.
- Unite as a nation, putting country over party, even as we work together to make America better.
Hmm. Working my way backwards, up the list.
“Unite as a nation….” Sounds good. Not sure if it’s possible. Bush, while billing himself as “a uniter, not a divider,” has done so well at tearing this country apart that I fear it’s going to be a long, long time before the wounds really start to heal (and I doubt they’ll have much chance to start healing if Bush stays in office).
“Uphold standards of civilized discourse….” I’ve done my best to do that for a long time now. I may not always agree with everything I read, and the people who come here may not always agree with everything I say, but I’ve done my best to keep things civilized around here. Easy to sign on to this one.
“Criticize the President….” You bet your sweet bippy (and I’d do this were Kerry to win the office, too).
“Support the President….” This is where I have problems. I can certainly recognize and accept the final results of the election, even if I don’t end up liking them. But should Bush win (as looks likely) — support? How can I support someone whose ideology is for all intents and purposes diametrically opposed to my own?
How can I support someone who wants to declare some of my closest friends to be second class citizens merely because they love someone of their own sex? How can I support someone who cares more about lining his pockets and those of his cronies than doing anything to help the millions of poor and homeless in this country? How can I support someone who actually thinks cutting trees down is a viable way to save them from forest fires? How can I support someone willing, even eager, to plunge us into a war that, contrary to the Republican propaganda, was not connected to 9-11, and has cost over 1,000 American lives and as many as 100,000 Iraqi lives?
Answer — I can’t.
Later, Jeff updated his post after people asked him about this “support” issue.
Commenters ask me what I mean by “support.” Right question. I do not mean blind support, love-it-or-leave-it support, with-him-or-against-him support. I mean acknowledging that the president is the president and especially in a time of war, we need to stand together against our enemies — namely, Islamofascist terrorists — and not act, as too many have during this administration (and the one before it) that the enemy is in the White House. No, we’re on the same side.
At this point, I’ll turn the reins over to Shelley, who responds to this far more intelligently and rationally than my first impulse was to do.
That’s a little like the logic of saying to a person, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” Jarvis has framed the question so that it reflects what he considers our most dangerous enemy: Islamofascist terrorists. I can’t agree with his call for support, because I can’t agree with the definition of the enemy.
You see, I consider our worst enemy to be intolerance. Intolerance on the part of some Muslims about other non-Muslim people from the west, true. But also the intolerance demonstrated in this country towards gays, towards women, towards people of color, towards those who don t follow what others deem the One True and Right Way.
When Jarvis says will I pledge to support the President as he combats the enemy, my answer has to be, yes, if we can agree on what is the enemy.
And there’s the rub — if we work on the assumption that Bush will be keeping his hold on the Oval Office, than we’re in a Catch-22, for if the President agreed with me on what the enemy was, than Bush wouldn’t be the President. In many ways, Bush is the enemy, preaching his message of bigotry, hate, intolerance, and America über alles.
I don’t doubt that Jarvis means well with his pledge. But this is one pledge I won’t be signing on to.