Updates for Thursday, November 4th [2004]

DEAR SIRS & MADAMS,

It was not two evenings hence that it was the nation's election night. Things have most certainly changed since my times. The fanfare of the television makes the newspapers seem like the quietest mouse. The Electoral College has changed as well. Instead of electors being elected by each state and voting multiple times, their votes are determined for them by the popular democracy. I was surprised that most of the states seemed informed enough to ever vote for someone not from their state... the election seemed close. I dislike the new system greatly. I somewhat expected that the old system of having the leading candidate become Vice President would still be in place as well, forgetting that the winner is King and the loser is cast away. I somehow see this as breeding the partisanship and division that will do us injustice.

Indeed, my friends, I write to you in regards to the most recent election. Having compiled hundreds of notes, I do believe the election system has it's flaws... the bullied electors merely one of them. The fanfare, and the gang democracy, it is no wonder the politicians are boisterous and irresponsible these days. In my day, we valued a moment's peace, of rational consideration, a quiet election, but even in my days that noble democracy was fading to the democracy of the clamorous and discontent.

It was like a game show or stage act, the battle for this Presidency, very much to a fault. I watched with Daniel and the lecherous James, preferring no victor, with as much a measured indifference as a calculated awareness about me. The talk from the candidate's campaigners was pious and overconfident of the impending victories, but in my household, this confidence faded at the face of a momentary comeuppance, and defeat. Daniel and James both voted for the state's preferred victor, and indeed that victor of the state lost the nation, although James was reluctant to admit so until the middle of the next day. Upon the more bleak hours of the night, he carried on at the injustice of it all, in a blinding hysteria, he proclaimed...

I couldn't help but think his final comments were ironic, in his absentminded optimism in the alternative. It is this hysteria, a misplaced feeling of necessity or feeling of importance, particular to this election that I understand least. These two candidates are very similarly seeking the same Object, and it is most obvious when you look at the hysteria of these voters today, the unbridled Democracy creating a gang of insane hooliganry. I am surprised there are no protests... yet.

Take for instance, the Senator John Kerry. He promotes no clear retraction from the current war, and advocates dangerously entangling alliance to prolongue it further... yet, those most adamant in ending the war seek his guidance. His enemies did succeed in spooking when discussing his egregious spending plans, but I then realized it is nothing more than the current spending trends gone about their natural courses. Then there is the war that isn't, the war on terror... those against the Senator recite his discontent at an old war, Viet-nam, which is indeed a virtue if nothing else and then they make the argument towards his ineffective plans. His plans may be ineffective, and prolong the war, but is that a particular issue when the only other plan is to likewise support a continuation? Kerry is the Devil you don't know, which seems to be the argument, however I fail to see any method that allows it to differ from the Devil we do.

Which brings me to Mr. Bush. From James personally I have heard all manner of hysterical statement. In urban lore he is a Nazi, whose family conspires with the arab raiders for world domination. In others he is a slave to the Jewish people... a puppet of the newly free Israeli state, with secret motives. Immediately, after my research of the events of history, the impression struck me: how much sense does it make, for a Nazi to be a puppet of the Jewish people? Regardless, there is all manner of theory, most of the government's great evil... and I wonder if people believe these theories why they do not violently rise up against the nation's evil. Their confidence in such beliefs must indeed be slim, as is my own, for I do not follow suit. I believe there is levels of dishonesty, but the corruption is too deep seated to believe the partisan instincts for long.

Were there a person who wanted to immediately withdraw from the war, who didn't want to rely on the international alliances and allow ourselves to play host to the world's interest, no sooner than playing host to our own, I might have faith, although if there is one, I have yet to hear of him. I fear too, for such a man, that he will go unnoticed should his day ever come. And instead, while the King of Britain is dead, it appears the man who wins will remain uncontested, as a King were.

It all reminds me, of a friend of mine, who once said, of the Constitution and new Federal government...

"This is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

Perhaps this old man is becoming too weary of his trip here. Amidst this all, Ludwig has visited me and shared more than a revelation. I will be sure to comment forward on it with my next letter.

health & happiness cum caeteris votis

- TH Jefferson