Thanksgiving

I won't be home for Thanksgiving this year, and that's annoying for the following reason (besides the obvious): I had a really good thing to be thankful for this year.

Last year, I was thankful for the Internet. That isn't sarcasm, and it isn't meant to be shallow either. I didn't have something specific in mind when we started talking about our things to be grateful for, but I started on the fact that I was able to stay in touch with friends and family throughout all my travels, and that the Internet was a big part of that.

This year, I am grateful for the fact that the presidential race was not as bloody (metaphorically) as it could have been. Since really becoming aware of politics in college, it has seemed as though the level of discourse in the nation has dropped off, and that the most radical elements of both parties were gaining hold, increasingly creating a rift between groups of citizens (and often doing so over incredibly small issues, things that are beginning to affect smaller and smaller parts of the population, that are taking precedence over much larger issues).

In a time of such divisiveness, it would be easy to unleash the hounds, and really play to the baser human instincts, but this didn't happen. Both candidates fought for what they thought was right, and did so without true viciousness, and I truly feel that the way they both chose to campaign has bettered the country. I had conversation via email with a friend recently regarding the candidates, and I said of McCain, "There are few people in Washington I have as much respect for as John McCain; he has sacrificed more than most people can imagine. I think his true colors have shown lately in his rallies where he has been defending Obama to McCain supporters..."

John McCain had to pause in the middle of a rally, and tell to his own supporters, people (right or wrong) full of anger and fear, that they had no need to be fearful of or angry at Barack Obama.
This was a terrible political move. But it was the correct moral thing to do, and truly was good for our country, and I again reaffirm my respect for McCain's character and leadership. Sadly, his choice will be seen by lesser men both as weakness and as a failed political choice. No one remembers Cincinnatus or Scipio Africanus, but it was men such as these who made Rome great, in their willingness to set aside their own power for the benefit of the nation.

So I am thankful for John McCain and Barack Obama, and the choices they made. It is easy to find politics gone badly wrong. Look to Zimbabwe, or Myanmar, where the "bloody" is not metaphoric. Or try this one out for a change, for myself and others my age: ask your parents about American politics in the 1960s and 70s. They were there, and it was much worse in America then than now. I think of the way I have felt watching our government in action over the last several years, and I think I have only a small inkling of what it was like in the 60s, and none whatsoever of things like Myanmar, and I am thankful.