I’m about three-quarters of the way through Joseph J. Ellis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Founding Brothers, and it occurred to me this morning that the political and ideological divide between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson is one that, as a country, we’re still struggling to overcome. For those of you that may have forgotten your American history, Adams was a Federalist, and as such, he believed that the country needed a strong, central government because he was convinced that the republican values that precipitated the revolution would likely lead to a dissolution of the newly formed, and highly volatile, United States. Jefferson, on the other hand, was a Democratic-Republican, and he firmly believed in self-government, which, consequently, meant that he viewed a strong, centralized government as tantamount to tyranny.

Ellis describes the two thus:

They were an incongruous pair, but everyone seemed to argue that history had made them into a pair. The incongruities lept out for all to see: Adams, the short, stout, candid-to-a-fault New Englander; Jefferson, the tall, slender, elegantly elusive Virginian; Adams, the highly combustible, ever combative, mile-a-minute talker, whose favorite form of conversation was an argument; Jefferson, the always cool and self-contained enigma, show regarded debate and argument as violations of the natural harmonies he heard inside his own head…[t]hey were the odd couple of the American Revolution. (163)

To some degree, the United States is still haunted by the ghosts of Adams’s and Jefferson’s political disagreements. A direct comparison of the Federalists to the Democrats and the Democratic-Republicans to present day Republicans would, of course, be ludicrous. For one thing, the political ideologies of Adams and Jefferson were inextricably entwined with the Revolution. As often as Americans whinge and bitch about politics, Adams and Jefferson actually lived through political turmoil. For another, Jefferson hated religion, and this is not something that has remained unnoticed among current Republicans. Ellis claims that “like Voltaire, Jefferson longed for the day when the last king would be strangled with the entrails of the last priest” (139). While Adams wasn’t as venomous towards religion, his father was a minister and he considered himself a Unitarian, he most certainly held beliefs that current reading would view as deistic. Their deistic beliefs alone make a direct comparison with modern-day politics futile.

But I think I can easily provide an analogy of the political divide between Adams and Jefferson while simultaneously providing one that will help us understand the schism between political parties today:

“The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” by Aesop.

Now you must know that a town mouse once upon a time went on a visit to his cousin in the country. He was rough and ready, this cousin, but he loved his town friend and made him heartily welcome. Beans and bacon, cheese and bread, were all he had to offer, but he offered them freely. The town mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said, “I cannot understand, cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country; come you with me and I will show you how to live. When you have been in town a week you will wonder how you could ever have stood a country life.” No sooner said than done: The two mice set off for the town and arrived at the town mouse’s residence late at night.

“You will want some refreshment after our long journey,” said the polite town mouse, and took his friend into the grand dining room. There they found the remains of a fine feast, and soon the two mice were eating up jellies and cakes and all that was nice. Suddenly they heard growling and barking.

“What is that?” said the country mouse.

“It is only the dogs of the house,” answered the other.

“Only,” said the country mouse, “I do not like that music at my dinner!” Just at that moment the door flew open; in came two huge mastiffs; and the two mice had to scamper down and run off.

“Good-bye, cousin,” said the country mouse.

“What! Going so soon?” said the other.

“Yes,” he replied. “Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.”

Okay, I’m sure most of you have heard this fable before. And while I don’t necessarily agree with the moral it’s supposed to impart, it does capture the animosity between present day Democrats and Republicans and Adams and Jefferson. Jefferson made no apologies about being a Francophile, and he certainly did his fair share of traveling and living abroad, but he would immediately retire to his farm at Monticello at the drop of a hat, and in his heart he felt as if he was a simple, gentlemanly Virginian farmer. Of course, he wasn’t. He was much more than that, but what’s important here is not reality but self-identification. Jefferson viewed himself as a simple country mouse. Adams, on the other hand, was born and lived near Boston and educated at Harvard. He spent a good part of his life living in the hustle-bustle of cities like Boston, Philadelphia, London, and New York. Unlike Jefferson, Adams didn’t long a particular place or location to engage in silent contemplation. Adams did long for the company of his wife Abigail, but he seemed happiest in crowded cities where he could argue and discuss whatever was on his mind. He was the quintessential town mouse.

Many republicans still view the world through country mouse eyes. To a country mouse, self-government makes sense. You know all your mousey neighbors and they all know you. There’s no need for a strong government to help enforce laws because all the mice know each other. Taxes don’t make sense because the little country mouse village has no need for a government, much less an adequately-funded government. Unions don’t make sense to a country mouse because you know your boss. If there’s a problem, just go talk to the head mouse in charge. You know him, he knows you, and you probably know each other’s families. Obviously you can come to some agreement if you talk it out.

But to a town mouse, the country mouse’s view of the world is untenable. There’s so much going on in the town that self-government would never work. There are out-of-control mastiffs–someone has to do something about that. There’s great food and drink, but the company that makes jelly is based in another country, and the mice that work in the local factory aren’t getting a fair shake. Long hours, no benefits, and abusive bosses. The mousey employees had complained to their bosses, but they didn’t have any real power (rumors were the plant was owned by a group of felines from overseas). The mice thought about looking for other work, but the cake factory was the same. So they had to form a union so that their grievances were heard.

It’s no secret that urban voters traditionally vote democrat and rural voters vote republican. And if you’ve lived in both places it’s not hard to see why. When you live in the country you tend to feel, similarly to Jefferson and the country mouse, that you can take care of yourself. Since you aren’t forced to contend with many different kinds of people that hold many differing views on society, you feel disconnected from the rest of the world, and the need of a strong government seems tyrannical. But when you live in the town, like Adams and the town mouse, you realize that self-government simply isn’t enough. There are far too many out of control dogs running around for people to deal with. And beyond that, there are so many conflicting views, such as politics and religion, that without a strong government to continually pursue a common goal, the citizenry would be dissolute and combative.

In my experience, which is obviously anecdotal, people who live in the country oftentimes have a distorted view of city life. They view it as much more violent than it actually is, and they tend to view foreigners much more suspiciously. They also view most poverty as the result of laziness, which of course, it most definitely is not. They also have frighteningly skewed outlooks on unions, and they see any taxes as an imposition bordering on tyranny.

Of course, Aesop’s fable is fairly pro-country mouse, but like Adams, I think that dogmatic adherence to either of the philosophies of Jeffersonian self-government or Hamiltonian Federalism is pure folly, and the only way for the country to flourish is to find a way to continue to combine those two seemingly antagonistic philosophies.

Besides, beans and bacon can get boring as hell. I’d risk a fight with a bull mastiff for a shot at some jellies and cake now and then. I feel like Adams would support me on this.

Post Script: For more of my thoughts on country life, click here.

Post-Post Script: I’ll make a formal announcement at the end of the week, but I want to restart the reading group. Anniina suggested the sequel to Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood. I want to give those people that haven’t read Oryx and Crake the time to read it. Again, I’ll post details later this week.

I try to remain a calm and reasonable person. I really do.

I try not to call people “fuckwits” or “idiotic shitheads.” Well, at least not to their faces. It’s hard sometimes, but I try to keep my mouth shut.

For one thing, I have ulcers, so getting all worked up isn’t really that good for my health. I also have jaw problems, so getting all annoyed and grinding my teeth isn’t that smart, either. For another, most of the time there’s not a lot I can do about things that piss me off, so I spin my wheels for nothing.

But then I read something like the 2004 poll by Gallup that demonstrates that nearly a full third of American’s don’t understand the theory of evolution and that 45% of Americans are Creationists, and I have to find a piece of leather to bite down on so I don’t shatter my TMJ like the T-1000 at the end of T2. What’s that? You say you disagree with the methodology used by Gallup in that poll? You claim their wording of the questions pushes people to choose science over religion, which is intellectually dishonest? Fine. Fair enough, although the polls conducted by Pew really aren’t any more encouraging.

No matter what poll you read, it goes without saying that the level of misinformation and ignorance about evolution and the distrust in science in our country is sad, pathetic, and, ultimately, enraging.

And I really don’t understand the distrust part because science is pretty damn exciting. Take this article, for instance. A group of paleontologists are on the verge of not only definitely proving that the dinosaur Sinosauropteryx had feathers, but revealing the colors of the feathers as well. That’s pretty damn sweet. We’ll not only have one of the first fossilized examples of how and when the divergence between dinosaurs and birds began, but we’ll know if Sinosauropteryx had beautiful plumage, too! Bonus.

Of course, 45% of Americans believe that God created the Earth in its present form about 6,500 years ago, so they think this kind of discovery is simply another example of the scientific community have a laugh.

Don’t worry…this post isn’t about “proving” evolution. It’s already been proven above and beyond any reasonable doubt by folks much, much smarter than me. Evolution is so foundational to things like chemistry, biology, archeology, physics, germ theory, embryology, and so on, that they would simply fall apart without it. The question “do you believe in evolution” is a false dichotomy because belief infers a certain amount of uncertainty of existence. Either you understand evolution or you don’t–much like understanding the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity or the theory of thermodynamics. Evolution exists and has occurred, and consequently, it’s still occurring, and it damn sure doesn’t need your or my approval.

No, this post is about the idiotic shitheads and fuckwits who refuse to even attempt to understand evolution because of some religious belief. And yes, I’m mainly attacking Christians here–not because I dislike Christains but mostly because I understand Christianity. In the U.K. the fuckwits and idiotic shitheads are mostly Muslim. I’d attack the Muslims too, but I simply haven’t found the time to learn Arabic so that I can read their holy book. I’m not so invested in being disgusted with a group of people that I’m willing to learn another language to demonstrate my disgust. I got video games to play, people.

First off, to the people who think the world is only 6,500 years old: Would you all mind moving somewhere else? Preferably an island closed off and out of reach from any other landmass? And one the rest of can monitor closely but without your knowledge? (I’m into ironic imprisonment)

Or if you don’t want to move, how about trying to understand your holy book a little bit better? You might start with the historicity surrounding Genesis. Any grade school student with half a brain can see that God creates the world twice at the beginning of the book. He does so first in seven days and then he does it again all in one go. Sounds like poor story-telling, doesn’t it? Wanna know why there are two creations? It’s because Genesis is a hodgepodge of at least three independently written books that early Jews combined into its current for sometime around 500 B.C. There are two accounts of creation in the book, and each account has a separate author. Talk to any Jewish person and they’ll tell you that Genesis is an extended metaphor of creation not to be taken literally.

They’ve had a lot more time with the book, so you fundamentalists might wanna listen.

So you have a choice: Choose to believe in an account of human history that is based on an old Jewish mixtape, or have a listen to peer-reviewed scientists ranging from physicists to chemists.

Personally, I’m going with the good folks that brought us pasteurization, the heliocentric theory of our universe, the vaccine for polio, the light bulb, streaming internet pornography, the theory of genetics, and the MRI machine. If you want to go with the people that brought you Jonah and the whale and Angels raping humans then go right ahead, but keep your ridiculous fucking beliefs out of our schools and politics.

So who’re you voting for?

Umm, Obama.

So you’re a Democrat.

Uh, no.

Well, you’re voting for Obama.

Technically, I already voted. And yes, I did vote for Obama. But I don’t consider myself a Democrat.

Well you voted for one.

Yeah, but that doesn’t make me one.

Well, if you didn’t vote for McCain then you’re a liberal.

What? That doesn’t make any sense.

Sorry, that’s just the way things work.

Yeah, but I’m not a party-line kinda guy. I find blind party affiliation intellectually lazy.

Well, the world is much easier to understand if you simply act according to your role within said world. You voted Democrat; hence, you’re a Democrat. Get with the program.

Well, there are some Republican policies I agree with, and there are some Democrat policies I agree with. It’s just that I think Obama is a much better choice for the country than McCain, which is why I voted for him. In 2012, the Republicans might have a stronger candidate than the Democrat candidate, which will mean I would vote Republican.

<sigh> One more time: you vote Democrat, you’re a Democrat. You vote Republican, you’re a Republican.

But that’s just fucking stupid.

No, that’s the way of the world. Live with it.

<sigh> Fine…I’m a duh…deemmm…demmmmooo…..Look, I can’t simply force myself into a slot in which I don’t fit.

Oh, I get it now. Sure. We get this all the time. That just means you’re supposed to vote Nader, and we throw your vote into that trash can in the corner. Isn’t representative democracy fun?

Last night, the GOP presented its new star, Sarah Palin, to the world at the RNC. She delivered her speech with zeal and confidence, and I’m quite sure the McCain folks feel pretty damn good about her performance. I’m also pretty sure that after watching Palin, the “always-vote-Jesus” crowd might actually do something unthinkable come this November–vote McCain.

Tonight Barack Obama clinched the nomination to become the democratic candidate for President of the United States.To be quite frank, I thought Barack was a little bit mean.

On Thursday, President Bush made some comments about our foreign policy in a foreign nation. You’d think a folksy kinda guy like Bush would know that family don’t talk about family outside’a family. Anyway, the media is all in a tither because of something the president said. Here’s an excerpt:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

I have five to say about this, and I’ll simply take them one by one.

1. Did the President just break Godwin’s Law? I think he did…on international television, no less. Breaking Godwin’s Law, or argumentum ad Hitlerum, was originally developed for internet-arguments, and it states, “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” It basically means that the person who brings up Hitler has lost the argument because they can’t think of anything intelligent to say, so they simply call or compare the other person to Hitler or Nazis. It’s like the ad hominem fallacy, only dumber.

2. The senator that Bush is referring to is William Edgar Borah, and he did famously lament, “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” But lament is all he did. And he did so after Hitler had invaded Poland.

3. Bush needs a fucking dictionary.

Okay, for all my readers out there that have yet to take a sixth grade vocabulary test, let me define some words for you. Negotiation: “mutual discussion and arrangement of the terms of a transaction or agreement: the negotiation of a treaty.” Dialogue: “an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue, esp. a political or religious issue, with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement.” And here’s the last word–Appeasement: calming, reconciling, acquiring peace by way of concessions or gifts (the verb ‘to pay’ also goes back to the Latin ‘pax’ = peace).

Some people have claimed that Bush, in using the term “appeasement,” is referencing Neville Chamberlain with his remarks in Israel. Chamberlain famously, and tragically, allowed Hitler to annex Austria and potions of Munich, in hopes that doing so would appease the dictator. Chamberlain didn’t just talk to the Fuhrer–he gave him a country and a half! Not exactly the same thing as talking. Also, I seriously doubt Bush knows who Chamberlain is. His speech writer might, but I have my doubts about Bush.

4. First the Bush administration claimed that the president was referencing Obama and his foreign policy. Now they’re saying that no, the president was only making a generalized statement about the importance of remaining tough towards terrorists. Please. Enough with that shit. If you’re going to attack someone then man up and go ahead and attack them. Don’t have your namby-pamby press secretary go in and try and smooth over your idiotic and half-assed attempts at nuanced bitch-slapping.

5. The president, John McCain, and pretty much the whole GOP have made a big deal over the fact that a spokesman for Hamas, Ahmed Yousef, has declared that Obama is the militant organization’s pick for President of the United States. Consequently, the Republicans are making the argument that terrorists now support and endorse Barack Obama. If you happen to be in public, and you actually hear someone make this argument, I want you to go up to them and spit right in their mouth. If you get a chance, try to urinate on their foot, too.

Look, I’m sure the Klu Klux Klan would rather John McCain be president than Obama. Does that mean that John McCain would be the KKK president? No. It just means that crazy people can pick candidates, too.

Judging by the speed with which the Obama campaign responded to Bush’s comments, I have a feeling that Obama and his staffers are gearing up to combat the GOP’s sophistic rhetoric head on. I do hope Bush continues to stump for John McCain. There’s no surer way for the GOP to lose in November.

I’ve been trying to think of something intelligent or insightful to say about today’s primaries in NC and IN, but I got nothin’. I’m so sick of this stupid thing that I can’t even muster the energy to stump for Obama or snipe at Hillary. I was even going to make a joke about playing Six Degrees of Barack Obama, but I just don’t have will to do so.

Apparently the voting lines are enormous. Judging from this YouTube video, the voters will be on their feet for quite some time. I have my fingers crossed we’ll see someone drop out tomorrow, but I ain’t holding my breath.

It’s ten past eleven at night. I’m sitting in my recliner with the computer in my lap watching “Good Eats” (the Spinach Salad episode). Ellie’s sleeping soundly under her favorite down blanket on the couch. In a few minutes I’ll probably make myself a Nutella-sandwich and wash it down with a big glass of cold milk.

By all accounts I should feel pretty content.

But I don’t. I’m simultaneously anxious and depressed, and no matter how much Excedrin I take, my damn head just will not stop throbbing.

Since this blog isn’t a cyber-substitute for therapy, I shan’t elaborate further, but I will say that before I tuned in to A.B. I made the idiotically tragic mistake of watching some election coverage. Answer me this: Is Sean Hannity serious? Surely his show is a parody of some sort. And what the fuck is up with Larry King? I’m not sure he’s even paying attention to his guests anymore. Rosario Dawson was on his show tonight promoting her organization, “Voto Latino,” and while she was talking Larry abruptly and inexplicably cut to a promo. I think Larry forgot he was talking to someone. And if Paul Begala’s smile gets any wider the sides of his mouth will touch his freakin’ earlobes.

Leigh and I plan on voting tomorrow. Part of me is excited to participate in a primary where Texas, and my individual vote, actually matters.

But the Gen-Xer in me just knows that the system will never allow a candidate who actually cares about the American people to get into office. My generationally imbued-cynicism keeps whispering in my ear, “Forget hope…Forget change…Expect the same…Expect the same…”