How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
This is my first post (after two years of membership) and I need help. Most of us have liberal friends and loved ones. Some we engage on political and economic issues, some not. Friendships are preserved (or not) and love remains unconditional. This is just a fact of life. We deal with it.
My challenge is in the opposite direction. I have several close relatives and a friend who have given up all optimism and perhaps even hope itself. They are convinced that if Obama is reelected this will be the last election this country ever has. Based on this assumption, they act accordingly (food hoarding, etc.).
Every e-mail that flies their way detailing the latest perceived government or Obama power grab is taken as gospel. These emails usually start, “This is really scary…did you see what Obama…” You know the type. A kernel of truth is used to create “Seven Days in May” hysteria.
My own beliefs parallel Ricochet’s own Dave Carter and my economic thinking tends towards Café Hayek, John Taylor, Arnold Kling and so on. I believe that James Bowman is an undiscovered star among conservative thinkers. I’m a retired Navy Officer and a graduate of VMI. Not exactly the stuff of the left. Yet if I even suggest that perhaps some critical thinking be applied to whatever the latest internet rumor is, I’m treated at best as a naïve child, and at worst as some kind of traitor.
The rule of no religion or politics with friends and relatives is falling apart, as these folks are more and more consumed with the idea of the end of the country as we know it. One is even nearing physical and mental exhaustion as he prepares for the end. Has anyone here had this experience? How do I get my friends and relatives to become “happy” warriors as Jonah Goldberg would say?
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May '10
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
That is tough. I cannot fully relate, although I do occasionally get emails like that from my parents.
Not knowing where all they get their information from, and recognizing that they could already be doing all this, here's what comes to mind:
Are they open to learning from the more 'intellectual' sites: Ricochet (obviously), Powerline Blog, National Review, WSJ Opinion page and Best of the Web Today.... Also, I'd suggest they check out the Prager University 5 minute videos and the Bill Whittle videos on YouTube. Their reading the more intelligent, well-thought out commentary and information on these sites might give you a springboard to conversations that can bring them away from the ledge.
Part of what they are feeling also might be that they are buying into Obama's inexplicably high poll ratings and personal likeability ratings. That can bring on despair if you don't know how to put some of these polls into context.
Intelligent podcasts and talk radio can also inform and encourage them, while reminding them that they are not alone. That we can win this!
Good luck, and please keep us posted!
Edited on July 26, 2012 at 6:33amJan '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Yes, I've had the experience before. Clinton, second term.
The best step is to start with yourself (as if you didn't already know that). My way of dealing with looming disaster (yes, I indulge it sometimes now myself) is grounded in my conservatism. Namely, a conservative doesn't see government as the whole of life. A second Barack Obama term will be a disaster for the country, but that doesn't mean that my life is destroyed for four years. I still have to get up every day, work hard, treat the people I meet with respect, bring love to my family. That will be my life no matter who wins the presidential election. It's a staple of conservatism, of course, that the reason we want to limit government is because we trust the rest of life so much.
Jun '10
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
I agree with the other posts. Winning this year is very important, and I'll be hugely disappointed if Obama wins a second term.
On the other hand, an Obama win will not be the end of civilization as we know it. I continue to have faith in the resiliency of the American people. Our institutions are certainly weaker than they were fifty years ago, but they're far from dead.
150 years ago (1862) the country was beginning to learn that the Civil War was going to be a long, bloody business. We survived that one.
To the extent you can be the voice of reason in your family, be it. Concerned Citizen has given the same advice I would give. I had a great boss who used to say that there's a big difference between a sense of urgency and a sense of panic. Determination and resolve are far more important right now than irrational overreaction.
As K.C. says, no matter who's in office, it's still our responsibility to get up every day and soldier on.
Dec '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
tabula rasa:
On the other hand, an Obama win will not be the end of civilization as we know it.
If you own a stock portfolio of any significant worth, it most certainly shall be.
The election of Mitt Romney could be a critical factor in stabilizing the skittish nature of the free market; it most likely would restore the single most important ingredient in a successful economy- confidence.
Nov '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Who was right in 1939? I think many wished they would've gotten out while they could. We are not there yet, it seems, but maybe we should ask the intellectuals just to be sure/
Part of soldiering on might be to prepare for the worst as business people are doing right now. We are all waiting, holding on with most of our resources spent and trying to prepare an escape or fix if the elections go the wrong way.
However, while I am of the preparedness mind and even think it's kind of fun, constant doom and gloom is not the answer, either. If the elections go the right way things will improve (at least a holding pattern) but many of us have learned valuable lessons that are hard to really know in times of plenty.
Mar '12
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Runny, it appears that the apocalypse is upon us. Yet one might point one's relatives and friends to googling William Miller. The aforementioned Mr Miller had determined from scripture that Jesus' second coming was imminent and he specified a day in 1843 (you might want to verify that) for that event.
There is a continuing assumption that the second coming is nigh, almost to the exclusion of everything else, including common sense.
The recent varieties include The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, and Harold Camping and Glenn Beck both push a variation of this position.
Nor is secular thought free from this bane. Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb to equally sterile results.
It is also contemporary in literature and film, such as Brave New World, or Blade Runner. We are looking at dystopia all the time.
However, the west defeated slavery.
Nazi Germany is gone.
Tojo's Japan is finished.
The Soviet Union, despite Putin's efforts, is over. That wall is down.
Chinese Communism is working from a new financial model based on capitalism.
If we are even trying to be virtuous, we'll weather this storm too.
Edited on July 26, 2012 at 4:54pmRe: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
This issue has come up a bit in my husband's family. Your comment about being "treated at best as a naïve child, and worst, some kind of traitor" if you are skeptical about the end of the world made me laugh in shared pain.
One of the things I think is important is to, almost, not engage politically. What I try to do is just speak about how many wonderful things there are in this world. How much God has richly blessed us. If you're right-of-center, you're less likely to think in terms of the strength of government or politics and more likely to enjoy the strengths of family, community, etc.
Even conservative news outlets are obsessed with politics and government over the source of true happiness and strength. So I try to balance it out by talking about those things and reminding people who despair that they should not.
While I don't share the religious views of my doomsday acquaintances, if I did, I would discuss this eschatologically. Perhaps you can do that?
Apr '12
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Despair comes from refusing to think in broader historical terms. Up until very recently man was everywhere in poverty and in chains (metaphorically speaking). Our prosperity and freedom, which we have come to see as a birthright, are relatively new conditions in the world, and there are bound to be fits and starts as we fight to preserve it. One such fit was the Great Depression and the war it spawned. Our current moment is another, and though it often seems like the end of the world is nigh, in comparison to those times, it's a mere kerfuffle.
That we have been able to maintain both our freedom and our prosperity this long is a testament to the genius of the Founders, and to the perseverance of those who came before us, who did not give up hope in much darker times.
Apr '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
I occasionally need to talk my wife down off the ledge, and I try to remind her how she is blessed in daily life (health, family, satisfying career). And looking back over recent history, how much of the bad policy has truly effected our daily lives. And to not give a dopey, misguided politician so much power over your thoughts and general happiness. Dennis Prager reminds us that we have an obligation to at least act happy.
Sep '10
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Donald Todd: ...
If we are even trying to be virtuous, we'll weather this storm too.
That's right. This too shall pass.
According to a friend who is more in touch with Left than I am (though not a leftist himself), lefties were all exercised about how the election of 2000 was the end of democracy and the country. And yet, there they were, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in 2008 with their progressive champion of hope and change. Politics can turn on a dime (witness the 2010 congressional election, the 1980 election of Mr. Reagan).
It's not so dire. That doesn't mean you shouldn't struggle. Just don't make yourself crazy.
Jun '12
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
I don't see why you can't have a sense of humor AND stockpile ammo and seeds....
Mar '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
What you should point out to them is the only really disaster that could justify this hording of food in the near future, is another civil war or nuclear war. Ask them if they really believe we are about to have an armed civil war in the next 5 years or a nuclear holocaust?
If they really believe that then would not the most prudent decision be to move to some other fairly free country like Chili or New Zeeland. Because if I thought either was about to happen I would be moving my family to another country.
The problem is they might believe this disaster will not just be the U.S. but the whole world. Historically speaking that is utter nonsense. Ask them to name one time in history were a disaster happened in a short period of time that caused worldwide chaos?
Aug '10
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Many of the comments all echo the seeming imbalance of issues.
If it were 1939, we were looking down the barrels of Axis guns. The world hung in the balance.
Now we are looking at economic hardship. Sounds to me like the boomer paranoia is all about the money hardship. Perfect medicine for the "me" generation. Truly those kinds of concerns are petty when compared to life and death and sending your children off to war. When is the last time that threat was in our minds ?
Does anyone seriously consider a bloody revolution will take place ? And which side has been calling for gun control anyway ? You think they are well-armed ?
There might be opportunistic criminal types in the streets with guns, but they won't stand a chance . Doubtful if the progressive radicals from the faculty lounge can incite any of their slacker loan recipient student bodies to hit the ramparts .
Paranoia is oversold, the press has these people actually believing the occupy junk. You might think about shaming them with some historical perspective.
( and Runnybun, getting into Main Feed on your first post is pretty cool too ! congrats)
Edited on July 26, 2012 at 11:16pmAug '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Remind them that even if Obama takes the presidency, it is unlikely that the Democrats will take the House and Senate, and more likely that Republicans will take both. Likewise, at the state level, the current Republican majority is not likely to be challenged. So tell them to take heart. The presidency is only one leg in our three legged government. If the presidency remains with Obama, he will face at least a part of Congress and the majority of states vehemently opposed to his policies. A bigger issue is the Court, however if we take the Senate, that too is less of a problem.
May '12
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
I have read The Gulag Archipelago, all 3 volumes. I have lived in a hinterhaus flat in East Berlin with 50 year old scars from Russian tanks on the streetside walls (and a shower with no hot water). I spent a half an hour on a U-Bahn platform in East Berlin where the week before skinheads nearly beat an immigrant to death. My mother is a cancer survivor.
I know for a fact that I have led and lead a privileged life, full of blessings. And that there is an election in November, and real choice between a decent man who wants to and can get us back on track and a solypsistic delusional egoist who doesn't know his head from a hole in the ground.
That'll do
May '10
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
To paraphrase, "The [pessimists] will always be with you." If people are bound and determined to see the cloud inside every silver lining, there is no way you're going to persuade them otherwise. They see it that way because they have chosen what indicia they will look at and the analytical screens they will use.
Don't play their game. When they get on a down escalator, be polite but refuse to engage. You won't win them over and they will grind down your positive outlook.
Enjoy people for who they are and what positive things they contribute to your life. Don't worry about the rest of it. Your attitude is your choice.
Mar '12
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
I like what Cornelius has to say about it. Ammo and seed aquisition are wonderful hobbies. When I get down in the dumps (not a reference to scavenging for scrap metal) there is a verse I think of. 1 Thessalonians 5:16 - Be joyful always.It's a command, not a suggestion.
Sep '10
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
flownover:
Doubtful if the progressive radicals from the faculty lounge can incite any of their slacker loan recipient student bodies to hit the ramparts .
Well said. That made me laugh.
Jan '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
Any opportunity for an In-Laws quote ...
That'll be the first signal to panic: atonal music. Some say that sign has already come ...
Mar '11
Re: How Do We Create Happy Warriors?
We just press on, and refuse to give in to despair. At this point, it's what the statists are counting on, and denying them that will in the end deny them the victory they seek.
A guy named Washington once hit a bad patch at a place called McGown's Pass. His troops wilted before the British, and all seemed lost. There was another guy there named Paine who published some lines a few months later.