the old man and the sea.

(Joshua Masayoshi Huff)

While ESPN Radio was on a commercial break the other day, I flipped over (inadvertently) to Rush Limbaugh's show. It was the first time I had ever listened to his show over the radio--usually, I've heard clips here or there. ESPN needs to cut it with the commercials, or my brain may fry before Colin Cowherd comes back on.

Unsurprisingly, I found that, opinion-wise, I don't have much in common with the man (Rush, not Colin..though Cowherd is quite different from myself as well). Here he was, talking about the entire reason that the Democratic Party exists is solely to oppose the Republicans--that the Democrats are nothing more than a foil. He went on to say that the Dems just want to bring about the end of capitalism and that they have no real goals beyond the aforementioned points.

I couldn't have been more appalled...or so I thought. He then went on to deride the "drive-by" media. I'm sorry, but the man is a source for conservatives to parrot. If he thinks he isn't part of the soundbyte talking heads for the prozac nation, he's sorely mistaken.

It's ridiculous to say or to even think that Democrats exist just to be thorns in the side of conservatives. No, I don't agree with the conservative agenda, but I don't think they exist simply to argue with me. Their political views come from their rearing, their respective life experiences and their religious backgrounds. That's fine. This country was built upon dissenting opinion. But to think that the opinions are invalid simply because they aren't your own is absolutely ludicrous.

Then, a man from Colorado called in and complained that, very soon, people would have to pay tolls to go to ski resorts in Colorado because gas consumption is down and the state government is hurting for cash. The man then proceeded to say that everyone in Colorado needed to go out and buy SUVs in order to consume more gas.

I wish it was a joke. I wish he was sarcastic. He was dead serious. "If people all go out and get SUVs, then we won't have to pay the tax!"

Yeah, but you'll have massive car payments for massive vehicles and huge credit card bills for gasoline you don't need. It's the economy, stupid. It's also here where libertarianism fails.

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The main point of all of this is to say that while the staff of the JJ Collective have high ideals and morals, we realize things must be done incrementally. Would we like a proactive green presidential candidate who stood for stem-cell research and supported gay marriage? Yes, of course. But we all know that, unfortunately, such a candidate would never make it far in the party primaries--and said candidate would certainly never make it to the General Election.

Not yet, anyway. Because things are not done by miles--they're done in milliseconds and inches. Really--in order to make real progress, we have to do things incrementally-and that's the stance that I know both bsto and I come from.

We aren't moderates because these are our direct leanings--we're moderates because we think this is the way that most things can be done. In order to change the system, you have to play ball from within the system. We're idealistic in theory and moderate and practical in practice. It's all about rationalism here. We didn't get to the moon by attempting to go there first--we had to put up an airplane first, then we had to breach the atmosphere, then we orbited Earth...and then we had a go for it.

These things take time. These things are done in increments. Better living through efficiency.



Sea change comes at a glacial pace.