On this day in 1864 President Lincoln was elected to his second term. Despite a Civil War, despite a horrendously bloody year, despite bitter opposition from domestic enemies and foreign foes, the President retained his position and his governing coalition. One person wrote that “This result is the proclamation of the American people that they are not defeated.”
In 2006, the American people chose defeat.
This was not unexpected. We are not the people we were in 1864, or 1775, or 1941 or even in 1964. We are an urban, comfortable, lazy people: overeducated, overpaid, underutilized. Why fight for anything? I should think that even if we allow the Middle East to collapse, even if gas is $7 a gallon and Tel Aviv vanishes in nuclear fire our lifestyles will continue mostly unchanged. We’ll still loudly complain about the cost of drugs so we can get cheap stiffies and father children we want to kill in the womb. We’ll bitch and moan about increasing the minimum wage so the poor can afford cable TV increases and continue to fuel their ten-year old SUVs.
You know, important stuff.
We can’t be bothered with things like the decline of Western Civilization, the death of reason and truth or people being decapitated because they don’t believe the word of some 6th century lunatic.
Just remember folks, when faced with a choice between a man with no principles and a man with bad principles always go with the fellow who has any principles at all. It’s all about the devil you know.
Thank you America, for confirming my already rock bottom opinion of the common man’s intelligence. Thanks Pennsylvania, especially, for again confirming your status as the United States’ most corrupt State. My own beloved state continues to be the most corrupt in the nation and my own beloved country continues to scramble hastily for the bottom. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to grow a beard, practice my Arabic and start looking for wives to abuse. Life is peachy.