Dear friends,
I've never been quite so angry as I was last night. It was nothing personal and I certainly won't hold it against you in the long run. But let me explain some things:
Just because you don't like Bush doesn't mean he's wrong on every move he makes, every person he appoints, every time he takes a breath. You don't have to criticize every little thing he does every day of every fucking month for the last twelve or fourteen months. I know this has been an awful election season, but it's over now. Please, please, please don't make the next four years hell to be around you.
I am not going to moveon.org to sign some stupid petition for a recount. It's 52% vs. 48% and about 3.5 million votes. If you want to take the time to recount them, fine--but leave me out of it and don't judge me for not caring.
You should know that I'm not even a conservative--I have never voted for Bush. I am a moderate and I hate the conservative tripe as much as the liberal bickering. And you should know that I don't particularly like Bush. I am very angry with him for getting us into the war in Iraq because I don't think he should've. And his environmental policies make me want to throw things. I don't give much of a damn about his moral values (perhaps because I haven't got any, or perhaps because they don't really affect me), I can't stand the way he smirks, and I think his tax breaks have been crap.
But look at this from another angle: We've had Sept. 11, America has been brought into the terrorist age, oil has gone up, the healthcare industry is a mess, Enron and Arthur Anderson have collapsed (not to mention the towers and the pentagon and whatever materials burned up there), but we're not in a major depression. Sure the economy kinda sucks--believe me, I've been unemployed for four months--but America is still on its feet. I don't credit all of that to Bush but at least part of it.
You need to understand that I have an uncle in Iraq. And come Christmas Day, I'm going to have a cousin over there, too. And there is nothing harder than being angry at the president who sends them to war and not believing in the war myself, and sometimes having the feeling that I'm being dishonest and unfaithful to them for not supporting their cause. If they were in Afghanistan I could be proud, I could say they're defending America by hunting down the Taliban. But not Iraq. That is doing nothing to defend America, but the fact is--and however misguided we were by going there, and in spite of the ends justifying the means strategy, which I hate--they have taken down a horrible dictator and they are trying to make life better, even if it's not for me.
You don't hear my uncle's calls about the improvements that are being made over there: schools opening, women being able to move about more openly and be heard more readily, water, sewer, and electricity getting back on board--no, you hear about the bombings and the killing. I don't know why the press has that fixation but let me tell you that I know from someone who's fighting over there that it's not all terror. Soldiers from Oregon have been writing home to their newspapers and asking why the newspaper isn't covering the good things that are happening over there--I've seen their letters and heard it confirmed from my uncle.
And so, my friends, however much I hate what the president has gotten us into, I love my uncle over there and I MUST support the work he's doing to make things better. Don't come to my house and denigrate his contributions and say he should leave Iraq now. No one said it would be short or easy over there--even the president said that from the beginning. I can't have my loved ones come home from a half-finished job, and I can't have them die for one, either.
As for the president, I understand your frustration--believe me I do. But enough now. I've written to my senator, written letters to newspaper editors, and even e-mailed the White House with my complaints. What have you done? Signed a petition at moveon.org? Okay. You do your things and I'll do mine. I really like you but I can no longer handle all your liberal whining. My knee-jerk reaction is to defend Bush every time you start in, even though I don't particularly like him--that's how tired I am of your tripe. Let's drop politics and just be friends again because you're obviously not going to change your mind, and I am already conflicted enough.
-A.
[edit: tentatively moved to forums]