{"id":491,"date":"2004-11-03T10:40:52","date_gmt":"2004-11-03T14:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/snarl\/2004\/11\/03\/numb\/"},"modified":"2004-11-03T10:40:52","modified_gmt":"2004-11-03T14:40:52","slug":"numb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/2004\/11\/03\/numb\/","title":{"rendered":"Numb"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Wow. How did this happen? I’m so filled with mixed emotions right now that I don’t know what to say…or how to say it.<\/P>
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Similar to the various stages of grieving, my first feelings were anger. I was angry at the whole south and middle of the country for making the electoral map so red. Then irrational thoughts of secession came to mind (based on the maps it would be easy to see which states would become the United States of Red or the United States of Blue).<\/P>
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Then the news this morning reported that although more younger voters than ever registered to vote this year, only 17% of the under 30 (registered!!!) crowd actually bothered to vote in the end. So, my anger has shifted to the younger, newly-registered voters. And it is there that my anger will remain. <\/P>
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I’m just terribly concerened for this country now because exit polls indicate that Bush led the national popular vote as a result of his stance on “moral issues”. No matter what your party affiliation, I just don’t think moral issues should be government mandated (and I find it incredibly ironic that the Republican party – which claims to pride itself on small government – is the entity allowing government to be in more control). It’s up to your parents, your community, your church and, most importnatly, yourself to determine what you find moral. It’s not up to the government to determine. Government’s role is to protect and ensure freedom. And I’m scared, with four more years, that the Bush administration will continue to erode freedom. I mean, the religious-right is growing stronger by the day (as evidenced by yesterday’s election) and their Christian-based, holier-than-thou mentality is using fear and damnation to coerce people into thinking the world will end if people don’t follow their beliefs. This church\/state combination is just too similar to what’s going on in the middle-east for me. It’s turning people away from each other and more strongly dividing this country into “us” (the northeast and coasts) versus “them” (south and heartland). And now I fear I’m guilty of being of that mentality.<\/P>
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I’m reminded of that old poem by John Collins Bossidy, Boston Toast:<\/P>
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So this is good old Boston,
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the home of the bean and the cod,
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where the Lowell’s talk only to the Cabot’s
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and the Cabot’s talk only to God. <\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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Only know, it’s a century later and that mentality has spread nationwide.<\/P>
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 <\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow. How did this happen? I’m so filled with mixed emotions right now that I don’t know what to say…or how to say it. Similar to the various stages of grieving, my first feelings were anger. I was angry at the whole south and middle of the country for making the electoral map so red. Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}