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November 8, 2004

No Way Out but Through

Joel, on the blog of Methodist Minister Richard Hall, pays me a compliment of dubious desert:

During the past year, the people I have come to admire the very most are the Bush supporters from "blue" states and the Kerry backers from "red" states. It's pretty easy to be for Kerry if you're from California or Bush if you're home is Oklahoma. But I can respect a person such as Justin Katz from Rhode Island for standing up for what he believes in even though his state will vote Republican only during Reagan-type landslides, it seems.

Admirable or foolishly obstinate? I suppose it's a question of who it is that's kicking against the pricks.

Being in the midst of a desperate job search during the weeks surrounding the election has been instructive. I can't look at the gnashing of teeth among Democrats — as addressed in several of Lane Core's Blogworthies this week — and see a clueless foe increasingly out of power. Instead, I get a glimpse of the thoughts that could very well be going through the mind of a potential employer's résumé screener who has just typed my name into Google.

To some of them, a staunch and religious social conservative is probably the equivalent of an intellectual and somewhat polite Klansman. Would you want to work with a Klansman? I think anybody who has responded to my opinions thus is wrong, of course, but I can't blame a person for the conclusion to which he or she comes having made that erroneous conflation. To tackle the cliché: is discretion the better part of valor? What about when the countdown is at three weeks 'til the mortgage payment is due?

Of course, taking an appropriately optimistic view of things, I could declare it a blessing to have my desire to think and write align so neatly with principle. A writer of any sort must get his name out there, and perhaps all the extra incentive, as negative as it may be, keeps one from giving up halfway.

In the meantime, though, there were 161,654 Bush voters in the state...

Posted by Justin Katz at November 8, 2004 8:49 AM
Liberalism vs. Conservatism
Comments

Thanks for the mention. God bless.

Posted by: ELC at November 8, 2004 3:06 PM

That's one of the strangest responses to a compliment I've ever read.

Posted by: Joel Thomas at November 8, 2004 11:51 PM

Sorry, Joel. I realize the post is a bit jumbled, but I don't think that's what you mean.

Look, as you appear to, I privilege the integrity of a view. If we truly believe what we claim to believe, we ought to act on it; we ought express it. What worldview is worth having only on the cheap? But at this time, beginning about a week and a half ago, and extending past the date in a few weeks when my mortgage payment will either get paid or not, I find myself struggling to turn circumstances into hope and integrity into principle rather than folly.

The compliment helped, though, and I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

Posted by: Justin Katz at November 9, 2004 12:02 AM

Justin,

I guess my view is that instead of graciously accepting a compliment from a liberal you turned it into a matter of personal angst in which you are questioning whether liberals will treat you fairly in society and the workplace.

All I know is that next time I will use someone other than you for an example of courage.

Posted by: Joel Thomas at November 9, 2004 1:39 AM

Joel,

Actually, I thought I was questioning myself more than anybody else. That your compliment was unexpected was part of what made it rewarding. Still, sorry as I am to hear a promise that no more will be forthcoming, I'll frankly admit that there is no shortage of people more worthy of note for courage than me.

Just doin' the best I can, a limit that is nowhere more constraining than in the area of emotional response.

Posted by: Justin Katz at November 9, 2004 1:46 AM

Justin,

I think you are multi-talented and I do respect you for deeply held beliefs. I guess your writing style is sometimes just too obscure for me. For instance, my mind translated "dubious desert" into "dubious wasteland." And I guess I thought you were aiming the "clueless foe" in a personal manner.

If I were to meet you in person, I'd probably like you. Blogging interactions have definite limitations.

I still think you have a lot of courage. We all need to udnerstand that we "see but in a mirror dimly" compared to the infinite wisdom and knowlege of God.

Posted by: Joel Thomas at November 9, 2004 10:45 PM

Joel,

No doubt — on every particular. (Except maybe the courage one.)

Posted by: Justin Katz at November 13, 2004 1:35 AM