FORGET THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS...:

Twilight Struggle: In its closing days, the Bush administration escalates the war on terror. (Eli Lake, 10/28/08, The New Republic)

We have entered a new phase in the war on terror. In July, according to three administration sources, the Bush administration formally gave the military new power to strike terrorist safe havens outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Before then, a military strike in a country like Syria or Pakistan would have required President Bush's personal approval. Now, those kinds of strikes in the region can occur at the discretion of the incoming commander of Central Command (Centcomm), General David Petraeus. One intelligence source described the order as institutionalizing the "Chicago Way," an allusion to Sean Connery's famous soliloquy about bringing a gun to a knife fight.

The new order could pave the way for direct action in Kenya, Mali, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen--all places where the American intelligence believe al Qaeda has a significant presence, but can no longer count on the indigenous security services to act. In the parlance of the Cold War, Petraeus will now have the authority to fight a regional "dirty war." When queried about the order from July, deputy spokesman for the National Security Council Ben Chang offered no comment.

Strikes within Iran could be justified by the order, since senior al Qaeda leaders such as Saif al Adel are believed to have used that country as a base for aiding the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda affiliates in Iraqi Kurdistan. [...]

[W]ith the clock winding down on the administration, it has a greater appetite for racking up victories against al Qaeda--and less worries about any residual political consequences from striking. Roger Cressey, a former deputy to Richard Clarke in the Clinton and Bush administrations, says, "[W]ith the administration in the final weeks, the bar for military operations will be lowered because the downsides for the president are minimal."

The big mystery now is whether the next administration will dismantle this policy or permit Petraeus to follow it to fruition. Obama has said nothing about Sunday's strikes in Syria (a silence that has rightly earned him taunting from the McCain campaign).

...and let the Chairman of the Board explain what W's policy in Syria should be:

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WE WANT THE REVEREND WRIGHT!:

Day 17: IBD/TIPP Tracking Poll (IBD, 10/29/08)

The race tightened again to 3 points Wednesday, a margin IBD/TIPP has shown for six days and to which other polls appear to be migrating. For example, the Rasmussen and Gallup polls, each of which had Obama up 5 points two days ago, now have him at 3.

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SHUT UP, YOU RACIST, HE EXPLAINED:

Rendell spokesman says GOP has `Jim Crow' attitude (The Times Leader, 10/28/08)

The head of the county bureau of elections hasn’t encountered any suspected voter registration fraud, but allegations in other parts of Pennsylvania have sparked a lawsuit and a verbal exchange between a state official and the Republican Party.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party filed a lawsuit to assure the vote count is accurate – a move that Gov. Ed Rendell’s press secretary described as a “Jim Crow attitude.”

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RIGHT BACK TO THE WINNING TEMPLATE:

Win or Lose, Many See Palin as Future of Party (KATE ZERNIKE and MONICA DAVEY, 10/29/08, NY Times)

“She’s dynamite,” said Morton C. Blackwell, who was President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the conservative movement. Mr. Blackwell described vying to get close to Ms. Palin at a fund-raiser in Virginia, lamenting that he could get only within four feet.

“I made a major effort to position myself at this reception,” he said, adding that he is eager to sit down with her after the election to discuss the future. Asked if the weeks of unflattering revelations and damaging interviews had tarnished her among conservatives, he replied, “Not a bit.”

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative group, called it a “top order of business” to determine Ms. Palin’s future role. “Conservatives have been looking for leadership, and she has proven that she can electrify the grass roots like few people have in the last 20 years,” Mr. Bozell said. “No matter what she decides to do, there will be a small mother lode of financial support behind her.”

The presidential campaign has allowed Ms. Palin to develop as a candidate, and to make many useful connections as she travels the country. On the campaign, she has become close to people with extensive experience in Republican politics, including Steve Biegun and Randy Scheunemann, two foreign policy conservatives.

She has received extensive policy tutorials and been briefed on foreign policy almost daily. Aides say she has taken particular interest in Pakistan and Israel and in causes of Islamic extremism, which she has related to the economic despair that plagues parts of Alaska.

People loyal to her say Ms. Palin is well aware of the political job in front of her. One aide said she had “gotten on the offensive,” pushing to include more policy in her speeches. “It’s important for her personally, for how she’s perceived, to ensure that she gets to show her depth.”

In a development that could be telling whether or not she ends up as vice president, she has also been asserting her independence from the McCain campaign. She disagreed publicly with the decision to pull out of Michigan and questioned the use of automated calls and the decision not to bring up Senator Barack Obama’s relationship with his controversial former pastor. She said she would release her medical records after the campaign declared she would not, and has in the past week even wandered over to talk to reporters who travel with her, sending staff members scurrying to cut off conversations.

Ms. Palin’s rallies have drawn many times more supporters than Mr. McCain’s, with people waving eager signs: “Palin Power,” “Iowa is Palin Country,” “Super Sarah,” “You betcha!”

After watching John McCain run the same sort of campaign that Bob Dole did, you can bank on the GOP returning to its winning formula of nominating an Evangelical governor. As it happens, we have three excellent choices for 2012: Jeb, Sarah, and Bobby Jindal.

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PREVIEWING 2012:

The Messiah and the Hockey Mom (Chidanand Rajghatta, 10/29/08, Times of India)

When the man some are jokingly calling the "messiah" arrived shortly after 5 p.m, the place erupted. Although the sound bites were familiar to anyone who'd switched on a TV lately, they cheered his every line with gusto. The passion that coursed through the multi-hued crowd had all the energy of an Indian crowd in the final moments of a Twenty20 game.

Hanging back some twenty paces from the lectern, collegiate Emily Jamison, majoring in social work at the university, listened intently. She wore a white t-shirt that said "NoBama" in red and blue letters, and cut an incongruously sullen figure in the largely rapturous crowd. "He's got no substance. All he says is change, change, change...but he doesn't mean it," she said, after half-an-hour of soaring eloquence had brought the crowd to its feet.

Amy Gwaltney, a second year media major shooting pictures of the event for the college yearbook, didn't think much of the crowd either. There's as much energy in Sarah Palin campaign meetings, she said. She'd just come from one at Roanoke across the state and Palin packed an equally energetic crowd. They wore red, blue, and white gear in three aisles so they could form the word USA.

White, Jamison and Gwaltney defy the pattern in the so-called "real America" -- shorthand for conservative strongholds -- where the young collegiate crowd is typically pro-Obama, while white moms are for Palin. Oh, did we mention that the messiah and the hockey mom are beginning to define this election to the exclusion of the two older white men who are their running mates? Barack Obama and Sarah Palin may face-off directly in 2012 on current form and fortitude of their respective constituencies.

It's likely that only a surprisingly robust President McCain or a belly-hungry Jeb Bush can deny Ms Palin the GOP's nomination in 2012, but the more interesting question is whether Barack Obama can defy the half-century trend of the Democratic Party and follow in Adlai's footsteps if he loses on Tuesday. Al Gore won in 2000 and he couldn't get a second bite at the apple, but the Unicorn Rider might be able to Mau-Mau his way to a second nomination.

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STUBBORNLY CLINGING BELOW 50%:

Undecideds Should Break for McCain (Dick Morris, 10/29/08, Real Clear Politics)

[A]s Obama surged into a more or less permanent lead in October, animated by the financial crisis, he has assumed many of the characteristics of an incumbent. Every voter asks himself one question before he or she casts a ballot: Do I want to vote for Obama? His uniqueness, charisma and assertive program have so dominated the dialogue that the election is now a referendum on Obama.

As Obama has oscillated, moving somewhat above or somewhat below 50 percent in all the October polls, his election likely hangs in the balance. If he falls short of 50 percent in these circumstances, a majority of the voters can be said to have rejected him. Likely a disproportionate number of the undecideds will vote for McCain.

But don't write Obama off. His candidacy strikes such enthusiasm among young and minority voters that there is still a chance that a massive turnout will deliver the race to the Democrats. None of the polling organizations has any experience with -- or model for -- so massive a turnout, especially among voters notorious for staying at home. But the primaries proved that these young and minority voters will not stay home this time, but will vote for Obama. The effect of this increased vote is hard to calculate, but it may be enough to offset the undecideds who will vote for McCain.

But the basic point, one week before Election Day, is that even if Obama clings to a four- or five-point lead over McCain in the polling, the election is not over. The question is not so much how large his lead is over the Republican, but whether or not he is topping 50 percent. As long as the polling leaves him below that mark, he is vulnerable and could well lose.

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INHERIT THE WINDBAGS:

What McCain Defectors See in Obama (Madison Powers, 10/29/08, CQ)

The defectors are a mixed lot, but all represent some brand of recognizably conservative thought. Some like Doug Kmiec, Andrew Sullivan, and Ken Adelman are probably conservatives by anyone’s definition, while others are cut partly from an older mold. They bear some resemblance to the moderate Republicanism of the Rockefeller era, but the issues of their time are not the same.

Also, there are the venerable Republican names of Goldwater, Buckley, and Eisenhower who have signed on to Obama’s cause, and while no single one perhaps meets all litmus tests some true believers might want in a conservative, there is an unmistakable family of conservative ideas represented. These include a commitment to greater fiscal responsibility, a distaste for foreign interventionism, and a principled Burkean resistance to aggressive programs of social experimentation.

Odd, though perhaps revealing, to get that last bit exactly backwards.

If you lay out Senator Obama's positions and those of the past few Republican presidential nominees--from Reagan onwards--you'll find more similarities than differences. Indeed, if all you knew of the Unicorn Rider was what you see in 30 second ads you might think he was a Republican: every single ad here in NH is about how he will cut taxes and John McCain will raise them.

He's hawkish on Afghanistan and Pakistan and never mentions Iraq anymore. Though, as a practical matter, he's--probably correctly--more identified with the isolationism/Realism of an Eisenhower, Nixon or Ford than the democratic crusading impulse of a Reagan or Bush.

He's more of a Reagan or Dole on Social Security than a Clinton or Bush, but John McCain hasn't run on personal accounts either. And whatever he may think privately about things like Welfare Reform, 401ks, HSAs, housing vouchers, NCLB school vouchers, etc., he's very careful not not to attack them.

His economic advisers--Paul Volcker, Warren Buffet, Robert Rubin--are more classically conservative than the modern Supply-Side Right. And Austan Goolsbee trails along behind him assuring people that any protectionist noises he makes are just fodder for the unions and don't reflect his actual views.

In fact, the only real difference is precisely that he's the most extreme supporter of aggressive social experimentation to be nominated for president during this era. On matters of abortion, infanticide, gay "rights," infant stem cells, euthanasia, etc. he is consistently and radically Pro-Death and opposed to Western/Judeo-Christian civilization. Edmund Burke would have no trouble recognizing the Jacobin in at least this aspect of Mr. Obama's politics.

When we consider then what sorts of Republicans are supporting Mr. Obama we would, as Mr. Powers says, expect to find the old Eastern Establishment, secular Darwinist Right. Contrary to Mr. Powers, these issues are pretty much the same and Rockefeller money funded the more openly eugenic experimentation of the early/mid 20th Century. That's not, of course, to say that every "conservative" backing Mr. Obama is doing so because he'd increase abortion and fund it for "the poor," but it is fair to say that they are at least unbothered by the prospect. In fact, even the ostensibly pro-life Doug Kmiec was willing to forgo Communion in order to back Barack Obama.

This is why so many of the converts cite the choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate. The choice drove home the reality that the GOP is and is going to stay the party of the religious. They were hoping for a Joe Lieberman, Colin Powell, Mitt Romney, or Tom Ridge who are indifferent to or supportive of abortion.

Over time this is likely to be a more permanent divide and is certain to impact the Democratic Party more heavily than the Republican. After all, Darwinism is a marginal belief in America while Christianity is central. Eventually one would expect to see the parties divide along more clearly secular vs religious lines and the Democratic hold on entire tribes loosen, a process that will be accelerated by the recognition that intellectual elites support the Democrats in no small part because of "population control."

MORE:
Infanticide candidate for president (Nat Hentoff, Apr. 29, 2008, Sac Bee)

n abortion, Obama is an extremist. He has opposed the Supreme Court decision that finally upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act against that form of infanticide. Most startlingly, for a professed humanist, Obama -- in the Illinois Senate -- also voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. I have reported on several of those cases when, before the abortion was completed, an alive infant was suddenly in the room. It was disposed of as a horrified nurse who was not necessarily pro-life followed the doctors' orders to put the baby in a pail or otherwise get rid of the child.

As a longtime columnist, John Leo has written of this form of fatal discrimination, these "mistakes" during an abortion, once born, cannot be "killed or allowed to die simply because they are unwanted."

Furthermore, as "National Right to Life News" (April issue) included in its account of Obama's actual votes on abortion, he "voted to kill a bill that would have required an abortionist to notify at least one parent before performing an abortion on a minor girl from another state."

These are conspiracies -- and that's the word -- by pro-abortion extremists to transport a minor girl across state lines from where she lives, unbeknownst to her parents. This assumes that a minor fully understands the consequences of that irredeemable act.

As I was researching this presidential candidate's views on the unilateral "choice" that takes another's life, I heard on the radio what Obama said during a Johnstown, Pa., town hall meeting on March 29 as he was discussing the continuing dangers of exposure to HIV/AIDS infections: "When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.

"But if they make a mistake," Obama continued, "I don't want them punished with a baby."

Among my children and grandchildren are two daughters and three granddaughters; and when I hear anyone, including a presidential candidate, equate having a baby as punishment, I realize with particular force the impact that the millions of legal abortions in this country have had on respect for human life.

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NOTHING QUITE LIKE AN AMERICAN RECESSION:

Durable goods rise by largest since June (The Associated Press, October 29, 2008)

Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods posted an unexpectedly strong showing in September -- the largest gain in three months -- on a surge in demand for airplanes and autos, government data showed Wednesday.

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GIVEN THAT THE LEGACY IS COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM AT HOME AND DEMOCRATIZATION ABROAD...:

Brace yourselves - George Bush will soon be free to do just what he wants: The raid on Syria is a dark portent. The current president has three long, unaccountable months to cement his legacy (Jonathan Freedland, 10/29/08, The Guardian)

We are about to enter the twilight zone, that strange black hole in political time and space that appears no more than once every four years. It is known as the period of transition, and it starts a week from today, the time when the United States has not one president but two. One will be the president-elect, the other George Bush, in power for 12 more weeks in which he can do pretty much whatever he likes. Not only will he never again have to face voters, he won't even have to worry about damaging the prospects of his own party and its standard bearer (as if he has not damaged those enough already). From November 5 to January 20, he will exercise the freest, most unaccountable form of power the democratic world has to offer.

How Bush might use it is a question that gained new force at the weekend, when US forces crossed the Iraqi border into Syria to kill Abu Ghadiya, a man they said had been funnelling "foreign fighters" allied to al-Qaida into Iraq. That American move has touched off a round of intense head-scratching around the world, as foreign ministers and analysts ask each other the time-honoured diplomatic query: what did they mean by that? To which they add the post-Nov 4 question: and what does it tell us about how Bush plans to use his final days in the White House?

...there are two groups of people who should be scared about the coming months: Ba'athists and nativists.

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MY HOMEYS:

Being at Home with Our Homelessness: Why we're happier knowing our happiness is inseparable from our misery. (Peter Augustine Lawler, October 27, 2008, Culture 11)

According to Alexis de Tocqueville (writing in the 1830s), the Americans have characteristically never made the error of believing either Locke or Darwin teaches the whole truth. The Americans’ religion, most of all, causes them not to understand themselves as merely self-interested individuals or playthings of some impersonal process. The Americans, semi-consciously, reconcile individual liberty and personal happiness by understanding themselves in different ways at different times. They understand themselves as free individuals insofar as they restlessly work in pursuit of the material conditions of happiness, but they find happiness by using what they’ve acquired as parents, children, friends, citizens, creatures, and as men and women (as opposed to abstracted or sexless individuals). It’s as religious, familial, and political beings, Tocqueville explains, that the Americans are happy. Tocqueville’s fear was that the Americans’ restless pursuit would erode, over time, the Americans’ experience of the real point of that pursuit.

It’s surely true that most Americans experience themselves much more consistently as free individuals today than in Tocqueville’s time. Our pursuits of egalitarian justice and prosperity have been turned enduring friendships into networking alliances, scattered families, and disconnected people from the binding, dutiful experience of being parts of communities. Americans are no longer united by the affirmation of a common religious morality.

The American desire to combine individual liberty with social happiness has tended to seem to become much more self-indulgent. We want all the warmth and emotional security of family without any of its suffocating demands or constraints. We want the benefits of faith and patriotism without really subordinating ourselves to God and country as dutiful creatures or citizens. And so we’re easily suckered by self-help books that say that happiness is compatible with individual autonomy, and that my relations with others won’t suffer when I focus on my own happiness in the right “12 step” way.

We Americans don’t listen to the Freudians who claim that we’re not even supposed to be happy, that we have no choice but to subordinate our personal enjoyment to the reality that we need to live in civilization. The theorist of our Sixties — Herbert Marcuse — told us that Freud used to be right, but not anymore. Technology’s conquest of scarcity means that there’s no long any need for repression, and we’re all free for the art of living the happy or polymorphously erotic life. Our libertarians even tell us that the conquest of scarcity opens us to an unlimited menu of choice concerning individual happiness. More than ever, it seems that anyone who isn’t happy can only blame himself.

But the truth is that we now have an especially hard time choosing what will make us happy. We don’t want to be lonely, but we don’t want love to turn us into suckers. We’re all too aware that it would be dangerous for us to feel to securely happy; my anxiety reminds me that other people are unreliable and nature doesn’t care about me at all. Studies show that people who are somewhat depressed predicted the future better than those who are happy and well adjusted.

We, naturally enough, want the benefits without the burdens of being happy. We expect way too much from far too little from ourselves, and so, in some ways, we’re more lonely and whiny than ever. But that conclusion doesn’t seem completely fair: the downside of freeing ourselves from nature, to some extent, is that each particular life seems more contingent on more on his or hers own than ever. Life is easier or happier because we have more, but it’s tougher or more anxious because each of us is all too aware of the insecurity of what we have. We certainly not self-indulgent in the sense of living carefree in the moment; we’re stuck with being more obsessed with our individual futures than ever. We don’t experience ourselves as living in a time when scarcity has been conquered; we moved, more than ever, by the scarcity of time. [...]

The Christian thinker Pascal criticized the modern pursuit of happiness at its very beginning. We’re really diverting ourselves from what we really know. Modern restlessness — the frenzied conquest of nature — is, Alexis de Tocqueville noticed, best explained by our modern inability to live well with our mortality or to articulate the truth about our misery without God. If we were born only to happy, Solzhenitysn explained, we wouldn’t have been born to die. That doesn’t mean we weren’t born to happy, but we can only be happy by assuming the responsibilities that accompany what we can’t help but know. Darwin and Marx, whatever their differences, both have nothing to say about the distinctive and dignified experiences of the only being open to the truth about his or her own being. We are the only animal, as Tocqueville and Pascal say, who can experience him- or herself as existing contingently and momentary between two abysses.

The modern error, from the perspective of both the premodern philosophers and the Christians, is the belief that we haven’t been given the inner resources to live well with what we know. The being open to the truth couldn’t be either a mind or a body, but a rational, relational, conscious (which means knowing with others), willful, and loving being. The erotic being who wonders, Percy explains, necessarily wanders — or is to some extent alienated from the rest of natural existence. The joys of knowing and loving are inseparable from our alienation. That means there’s a natural explanation for both our singular joy and intractable alienation: We human animals have been given natural, personal capabilities not given to the other animals.

It makes us happier to be able to understand why human happiness is inseparable from human misery in this world. We can see — even from the perspective of happiness — why it’s better to be a dislocated human than a contented chimp. We have every reason to be grateful for who we are, and, contrary to Hobbes and Locke, we should be all about living well with — rather than incessantly negating — what we’ve been given by nature. There’s a natural foundation for personal significance — personal love and freedom — that opens us to the possibility of a personal God.

Human happiness may depend on being “at home with our homelessness.”

When we moved this Summer I had 70 crates of books and, sadly, about 65 remain packed until we can have book shelves built. Within the unpacked crates is my copy of Mr. Lawler's fine book Homeless and At Home in America, which I'd read but not yet reviewed. He's one of our very favorite essayists and if you check the links we've collected you'll see why.

Reading this essay and the one below, by Mitchell Kalpakgian, seems an especially god remedy to the angst and agita of the current election. Someone is going to be sorely disappointed on Tuesday--either you or the guy next to you--and it seems not unlikely to be us religious conservatives.

If this should prove to be the case, it is possible to see why people of faith might feel estranged from a country that has elected the most pro-Death president in its history. Recall how Robert P. George and the First Things symposium declared democracy at an end in 1996, because of the way the Court was ignoring fundamental human liberty in favor of the culture of death. And it will indeed be vitally important for conservatives to gird up their loins and fight an administration and congress that may well seek to reverse the progress we've made out of the abyss over recent years. But, at the same time, we need only look to the derangement of the Left over the last 8 to 14 (to 28?) years in order to see what we must avoid.

While it is an entirely predictable effect of the Rationalist condition that the Left should be discombobulated by the failure of reality to conform to the apparent power of their ideas, just look at all of the good that their breakdown has prevented them from even noticing, nevermind celebrating. Despite the current correction, American and global wealth is at undreamt of high levels. The academic performance of even those students we had the lowest expectations of is improving and the entire nation is dedicated to improving it further. Abortion is down. Homelessness is down. Life expectancies are rising and from record high rates. Almost uniquely within the developed world we have a rising population. We have transformed health care in Africa. We have, either directly or indirectly, contributed to the liberation of or liberalization in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Liberia, Sudan, Libya, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Haiti, Indonesia, Mongolia, India, Georgia, Kosovo, etc., etc., etc....all of this coming within two decades of our having left the Soviet Empire in the dustbin of history. And on and on. But because these things have not been achieved in accord with the vision they have of how they should have been done--and by whom--the Left has alternately moped and raged its way across a decade. One of the most noticeable aspects of what has been a pretty good run for America and the world has been the miserableness of the Left.

It is incumbent on the Right to avoid such a fate. After all, our theology doesn't afford us the "luxury" of imagining that the world must yield to our wants and wishes. When we consider ourselves to be estranged from our lives just because they aren't going exactly as we'd like them to we are, in some sense, denying Creation. And were to snarl and snipe our way through an Obama presidency we would be elevating Caesar above God in ways that ought to shame us.

Even setting aside the fact that Bill Clinton's 90s were themselves a rather good stretch and that we have ample reason to be hopeful that the coming years will be good for America and the world as well, it is a threshhold mistake for us to follow the Left in believing that life can not be good just because we think the political results are bad. Though we can never rest in a society that hasn't yet recognized the truth that Cardinal Egan speaks below, neither can we slip into the slough of despond when we recognize the truth that Mr. Lawler reminds us of:

[T]he other view [of Americanization] is the view of Chesterton, which is: America is a home for the homeless, that the great thing about America is the romance of the citizen – everyone can find a home here. The amazing thing is that all you have to do to become an American is agree with a certain doctrine. So Chesterton compares America to the Catholic church. Any race, gender, whatever, class, background, make no difference, as long as you accept the
doctrine. That’s the Catholic view, and that’s also the American view – race, gender, whatever, don’t make any difference, as long as you accept the doctrine. So there’s something profoundly at-home about Americans because Americans begin with the premise of the irreplaceable, personal significance of every human being.

In other words, America is based on a very corny view of the Declaration of Independence that’s basically consistent with Thomism and all that. So in a certain way what saves America from utter relativism is this doctrine. And so you look at America carefully and the Americans who are most at home are the ones who believe this doctrine is compatible with their religion, and so they’re particularly at home because they’re at home with their homelessness. That is, they’re at home as citizens while recognizing that citizenship doesn’t
capture everything they are. And so it turns out that the best Dads, the best citizens, the people who have the most kids and the most stable family life in America are the ones who take citizenship seriously and who take their religion seriously. So from a certain point of view this book shows that there’s some truth to Heidegger,
some truth to Chesterton, but the view that Christianity is incompatible with patriotism – Christians are always resident aliens and all that – this does seem to be very out-of-touch with the reality of America.

If it is natural for those who don't genuinely believe in American ideals to be easily alienated, it is thoroughly unnatural for we who believe devoutly to succumb to similar despair. What, after all, is an unwelcome election result or an inept politician or even an unfortunate law or two in comparison to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your community, your relationship with God?

I had two people tell me remarkably similar stories this weekend abut being at social events and having people launch into tirades about religion or conservatives or both. One had a friend say: "I'm sure I'm offending you, but...." To which they responded, bewildered: "What? But you don't care?" We can pity the folk who behave (misbehave) in this manner, but we must not react by aping them. The impulse to vent must be subordinated to the values of friendship, citizenship, comity, and, yes, love. Where it is inexplicable to the Bright that anyone could differ with them, it is doctrine to us that people will disagree, even on the most fundamental issues. Where it is unimaginable to them that Reason could have yielded up an erroneous answer, it is obvious to us that Fallen Man is prone to mistake, oneself no less than another. Where they seem to think that spilling enough bile will act as a solvent to disagreements, we know such divisions to be part of the human predicament and the proper response to be an attempt at understanding, not an intellectual bludgeoning.

I've been absurdly fortunate in life and not at all unfortunate in politics. My first vote was cast for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and since then my preference has prevailed more often than not. But in 1992 we were living in Chicago and I walked out of the polling place facing the seemingly dire prospect that, despite my vote, Bill Clinton, Carol Mosely-Braun, and Dan Rostenkowski would be announced as winners later that night. Woe the Republic, eh? Well, last night our eldest asked what the best decade of the 20th Century was. And there's really only one honest response to that question: the 1990s.

A good many of us may feel a tad homeless as we walk out of the polling place on Tuesday, but we'll emerge into the sunlight (or snow here) very much at home. And there's every possibility that we'll be more at home in the months and years to come than those who vote differently. America is rather more resilient than we're prone to imagine in our darkest moments and politics means rather less than we're wont to recognize in the midst of a campaign. Think about what truly matters and be happy. Life is awfully good.

MORE:
The Theology of Pleasure (Mitchell Kalpakgian, October 2008, New Oxford Review)

The experience of the goodness of the natural pleasures of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, as well as the intellectual, spiritual, and emotional pleasures of the soul, reveals God as the Author of inexhaustible joy who created man for happiness in all its fullness, inspiring man to sing with David in Psalm 23, "Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows."

A man wakes in the morning and enjoys the exercise of walking, jogging, or biking, experiencing the beauty of the day, the serenity of dawn. He returns home to refresh his body with a bath or shower and then proceeds to regale himself with the tastes and smells of a hearty breakfast. These preparations of the body provide energy and strength to perform the day's work, whether it is using one's body or mind, skill, or other talents in performing labors of duty or love. In the midst of daily toil, human interaction -- conversation, laughter -- can punctuate the day and lift the spirits. The noon meal offers a different selection of foods to nourish the body and soul, offering the anticipation of a new pleasure, perhaps in the company of congenial friends who add the liveliness of mirth to the relish of the meal. As the afternoon hours follow, the end of the workday awaits with its accompanying rewards: a clear conscience in doing an honest day's labor, relaxation at home, or recreation in the pursuit of a favorite hobby. Looking forward to dinner with the entire family at home offers the best of company, and perhaps one's favorite meal. The pleasure of conversation with a spouse, the enjoyment of playing with children, the delight of hearing one's favorite music, the stimulation of a good book, and maybe the surprise of a friendly letter in the day's mail add to the various joys of the day and provide a sense of the fullness of happiness that is possible on the best of days. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, "No man can live without pleasure," and God, in His infinite goodness, has created a world with plentiful sources of joy and happiness for all people.

In the course of a year, a person may enjoy the varied pleasures of the four seasons -- from skating, skiing, and snowboarding in winter to fishing, swimming, and boating in summer. Each year brings its festive holidays and religious celebrations. Birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, weddings, and baptisms also fill the calendar with commemorative social occasions that rejoice the spirit and keep one in love with life. This multiplicity of pleasures during the various stages of the year illustrates the truth that life always offers some special joy to look forward to.

A life of happiness is not only the enjoyment of the present moment but also the anticipation of some later source of joy that awaits its proper time. The child who revels in play, the young couple who fall in love, the parents who rejoice in the births of their children, the grandparents who behold the happiness of their children's children -- the goodness of life is experienced in the fullness of our time. God in His wisdom prepares His gifts of pleasure according to the seasons of life and according to the stages of man. As Solomon observes, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (Eccl. 3:1). God does not leave man empty-handed as he progresses through life, but always provides occasions of hope in familiar pleasures and newfound joys. [...]

Spiritual pleasures as well accompany intellectual and aesthetic pleasures. The quintessence of spiritual happiness is the enjoyment of peace, the peace that Christ offers when He utters, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you" (Jn. 14:27). As St. Augustine writes in his Confessions, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find peace in you." Thomas à Kempis in The Imitation of Christ also explains the way to true peace: "True peace of heart can be found only by resisting the passions, not by yielding to them," and "True peace dwells only in the heart of the humble." This peace that passes all understanding comes only to he who prepares his heart and soul to receive God: "Christ will come to you, and impart his consolations to you if you prepare a worthy dwelling for him in your heart." Just as the bride adorns and beautifies herself in anticipation of the coming of the bridegroom, the soul too must purify itself and possess a clean and contrite heart to welcome the visitation of the Divine Spouse. The soul as bride prepares itself by controlling the passions, by exerting patience in enduring adversities, and by cultivating humility, recollection, silence, and purity of heart. As Christ speaks to the disciple in à Kempis's spiritual masterpiece, "My peace is with the humble and gentle of heart, and depends on great patience." The soul that retains the virtue of faith believes that God will keep His promises just as the bride awaits her bridegroom; she trusts his word and her heart leaps at the sound of his voice. Christ too always comes if the soul believes and trusts: "Where is your faith? Stand firm, and persevere. Be courageous and patient, and help will come to you in due time. Wait patiently for Me, and I myself will come and heal you."

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