May I "date" myself and quote Gibran? - Democratic Underground

Atticus

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Fri Jan-07-11 11:21 PM
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May I "date" myself and quote Gibran?

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes"---Kahlil Gibran.

As this wise man understood, to have ONLY reason or ONLY passion is to fail at reaching one's destination.

As liberals, we do have the facts on our side, but too many of us assume that mere reason---the cold and logical assessment of reality and the predictable consequences of certain actions---is all that should be necessary to convince a majority of our countrymen to adopt our policies and elect our champions. We seem to assume that merely pointing out the correct course will make the wind blow and that our ship will, somehow, sail across even the stormiest seas to arrive safely at its destination.

The extreme right, now known as "centrists", have no idea what a rudder is and no patience for those who try to explain its utility. But, the right absolutely has passion.

They are pissed---at liberals, gays, non-whites, non-Evangelicals, Democrats, socialists, Muslims---hell, it doesn't really matter! The thing is, they are willing to get excited and wave their arms and pound the table and shower people with spit as they insist that, BY GOD, their view of things is not just correct, it is the only view that decent reasonable Americans who really care about their nation would knowingly entertain or promote. This passion, this fervently-held but intellectually empty and morally bankrupt enthusiasm, has been trumping our reason for several years.

They cannot suddenly find reason, for if they did they would become one of us.

But, we can, and must, find, rekindle, encourage, create---damn it!---ALLOW passion to be a major part of our approach to politics and governance.

Passion is sometimes messy and often can't be graphed, charted or totally managed, but it is contagious and it is persuasive. We need to display as much emotion about how right we are as we do about how wrong they are.

Most of the goals of the other side eventually hurt people---millions of people who want only a shot at that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that was once considered their birthright. Our side, on the other hand, seeks only the implementation of policies that would implement that grand promise.

My politics has, at times, moved me to profanity, violence, civil disobedience and tears of both joy and overwhelming sadness.

I am not always right.

I certainly don't always win.

But, I'm willing to put it all on the table and be thought a fool for my beliefs. To do less in these times is to condone what is happening.