David Swindle is the associate editor of PJ Media. He writes and edits articles and blog posts on politics, news, culture, and entertainment. He edits the PJ Lifestyle section and blogs about political culture at PJ Tatler. Contact him at DaveSwindlePJM @ Gmail.com.
He has worked full-time as a writer, editor, blogger, and New Media troublemaker since 2009. He graduated with a degree in English (creative writing emphasis) and political science from Ball State University in 2006. Previously he's also worked as a freelance writer for The Indianapolis Star and the film critic for WTHR.com. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their Siberian Husky puppy Maura.
Thanks, I needed that.
An appropriate statement for the situation. I like I quote I saw from John Wayne when President Johnson defeated Senator Goldwater in 1964 – “I did not vote for him, but he is my President, and I wish him well.” I feel the exact same way. It is easy to be discouraged, but remember very few mistakes are fatal, and the US has come back from much worse.
So long, American. Thanks for everything…
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/11/20121106-233226.html
Ezra Levant writes for many of us here in Canada:
“The unhappy answer – to a conservative, and to someone who loves America for its exceptional dedication to freedom – is that perhaps the United States has changed, and that the miraculous country envisioned by its Founding Fathers and described so beautifully by Alexis de Tocqueville has simply changed.
“It is no longer a nation of rugged individualists, of fiercely independent men and women. It is now a nation that would not be out of place in Europe – a welfare state, a state with the firm hand of government directing its peoples lives. Not great anymore, but good, or good enough.
“How could New Hampshire – motto: Live Free or Die – vote for a president who nationalized two car companies and brought in government-run health care? But it did – or at least that’s how it was looking at 10 p.m. ET.
“Has America reached a tipping point, where there are simply more takers than there are makers – and the party that casts itself so clearly with those on welfare and food stamps and hand-outs can count on the support of its clients to continue to tax and regulate the industrious class? (…)
“A greater worry is that America’s identity will change irrevocably – that it will simply not want to come back from Obama’s big government mentality, that it will prefer the soft mediocrity of regulation and taxation to the bracing risks of freedom.
“Live Free has been replaced by Free Stuff.
“All empires come to an end. Which is a shame, because the American empire – an empire of freedom, not coercion – was the most noble and generous the world had seen. If the rest of the night continues on course, a re-elected President Obama will continue to preside over the decline of the American era. It’s a pity.”
Obama isn’t the cause of us having lost our rugged individualism, he’s merely the symptom. Our problem was hoping to rely on whoever the GOP nominee was to restore it. We have to look within ourselves rather than some figurehead.
Tired, but the battle has just begun.
I NEVER EVER DREAMED that the one of the “things I cannot change” is that my own countrymen chose in favor of America’s CONTINUED destruction by RE electing our obviously anti American and pro Islamist,nanny statist, anti-business,pro-abortion, pro pervert marriage,narcissistic,incompetent FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT!!!And the fact that blacks and Mexicans overwhelmingly voted for him,AGAIN, highlights THEIR bigotry and narrow thinking.
My first reaction was – and still is – not prayer but disgust, anger and a general thirst for payback.
Anger that the nation I was born into has irrevocably changed into something I no longer feel connected to. The government is nothing more than an overbearing bureaucracy seeking to subjugate society by involving itself in every facet of life, not the embodiment of a nation I feel loyalty to.
Disgust that there is a majority of people out there who prefer servitude to the almighty government rather than make their own way – I hope their chains weigh heavily upon their necks.
Anger that me and mine will have to live with the consequences of other peoples decisions now, consequences that will be dire for the entire nation.
Anger at family members who think they’ve done the best thing in the world and are proud of themselves – they are dead to me now.
These idiots took us down with them.
And I have an especially deep sense of anger with Ann Coulter. She made the Romney campaign during the primaries by claiming he was the only one who could beat Obama.
She was demonstrably wrong.
I don’t want to hear another damn thing out of her mouth, and she can shove her books where the sun doesn’t shine. Her opinion means less than nothing to me.
Those who squeal constantly about “moderates” I feel similarly towards.
How’d that moderate Romney work out?
I am not in a position to “Go Galt” – at least not fully. I have to work to support my family and I have to interact with society and keep food on the table.
The only payback I have is to make sure my money – when I have to spend it – goes to people and businesses that share at least some of my views.
If anyone knows of a networking system for conservative/libertarian types to find each other for goods and services they need (auto mechanic work, contractor work, groceries, etc.), please point me in that direction.
Basically, I’m looking for the equivalent of an Angie’s List or a Craigslist for people who voted against Obama.
I feel the need to do a lot of preparation for the economic catastrophe bearing down on us in the coming years, and now feel that the time frame for preparing for that catastrophe just got a hellofalot shorter.
I don’t know of a network like the one you want (I want it too), but you can keep your entertainment dollar out of the pockets of the leftist film, TV, and publishing industries by getting all your pleasure reading and viewing @your public library. You just have to be willing to wait a few months after the release of best-sellers of all media. One copy purchased by a library system probably costs every user of the system less than a penny, and is used dozens of times – NONE OF WHICH increases the profit on the item to its producers. If you’re lucky, your town’s library is part of a larger, usually county-wide consortium that shares collections. Besides, the public library system was an historic public/private sector collaboration back in the day, and is still one of the few tax-supported entities that actually fulfills its mission at a low price (my city’s library receives about half of 1% of the city budget; the public school system gets 55%, and sends the students to the library without them even knowing what an encyclopedia is).
Hey Scott:
In the wee hours of this morning I listened to PJ’s Bill Whittle. I would highly recommend listening to him although it is an hour and a half. He has some great ideas for how we can function in this Brave New World. Sorry for your distress. I’ve turned to God constantly today and trusting in His sovereign care…it’s been a battle most of the day. I so appreciate Dave posting The Serenity Prayer on this day. God Bless, Scott! Hope this video brings some encouragement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s02SypCcYIc
Thank you for the kind words. I don’t think it’s solace I need though, so much as a physical outlet for venting my frustrations at the moment. Kind of the “fight or flight” response one has when stressed – only I’m not wanting to run.
As for faith, I do have faith in my own way – but I also adhere to Benjamin Franklin’s advice that “God helps those who help themselves.”
As such, I’m making my plans now for taking care of me and mine through the next few years. If things go as badly as I am concerned they might, then it’s great to have planned ahead. If things turn out better than I think they will, then it hurts nothing to have been prepared.
Scott,
I also recommend the Whittle link. It is worth remembering that he delivered it as we were all still stunned, still processing the defeat. I saw the last 30 minutes of it, but have not had a chance to watch the preceding part. I saw it here http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-stratosphere-lounge but I presume the other link provided is for the same event.
As for Benjamin Franklin, I would encourage you to consider which faiths are based on reality. Most are merely theories, put forth by brilliant and/or charismatic men. There are two that have real events as their basis.
Oh, and I do plan to go to the link you offered when I have time to actually listen to it all the way through.
My son accepts that now he probably won’t be able to get more part-time working hours, let alone a full-time job; my daughter accepts that just about the best thing going for her is that she’s quite pretty, and might be able to persuade a decent, preferably prosperous man to marry her, as having a real career is now a crapshoot; my husband accepts that the professional career he was fired from four years ago is gone for good, and that, starting a new and much lower-paid one from the first rung, he will probably never be able to be Sabbath-observant again. Me? I have luckily attained the new Beau Ideal of the average American: a decently paying, reasonably safe local government job (which I won’t lose if I keep my Andrew Breitbart-admiring mouth shut). But we also have to accept that the tidy retirement nest egg that we have carefully accumulated through 25 years of marriage will either be reduced to maybe a quarter of its purchasing power by inflation, or worse, be essentially confiscated in order to be “shared with the less fortunate” (y’know, the people who spent every penny they earned and then some, in full confidence that Big Brother was there to help them).
Acceptance is one thing, serenity is another – and faith in the future yet a third.
I have some furniture delivery today and later on will shop for my first HT. (Anthem M700 + Revel F12 + DT CS 8040 + Paradigm sub2 + Totem Mite – looks like a winner).
I feel so disappointed I could claw my skin and muscles off my arms.
Ayn Rand has discussed this prayer in her article “The Metaphysical and the Man-made” a chapter in her book “Philosophy: Who Need it?”
Some very useful lessons in her discussion – about how to achieve philosophical serenity and not despair and resignation
The full text of Reinhold Niebuhr’s prayer:
—–
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the
things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.
—–
And given that Ayn Rand never raised any kids, never had a debilitating illness until the one that killed her, and never cared for anyone with a debilitating illness, her criticisms of those who did, and do, ring hollow at best. Someone with a Down’s child can show you just how wrong Ayn Rand was, on how many levels.
I always include the second half…it is beautiful.
Thank you, Gus! I’ve been involved with Celebrate Recovery for nearly 7 years. I facilitate a support group for parents of substance abusers. My own son, now 32, has been clean from meth addiction for more than 8 years. Praise God! We always recite the entire Serenity Prayer at each Celebrate Recovery meeting. It is ALWAYS relevant and necessary!
I hoping for early onset Alzheimer’s.
It is the only way I can join the blissfully unaware.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those who pissed me off today….
(couldn’t resist, sue me)
How about this one: “Do not go gentle into that good night …”
Because I employ this particular prayer daily, I modified it slightly for brevity while adding one line.
God grant me serenity,
to accept what I can’t change.
Courage, to change what I can.
Wisdom, to know the difference.
And compassion.