Condi for President 2008.....?

I am catching a quick few minutes between the end of a phone call and the dear gin-wielding apartment downstairs to write a small blog. Every day strikes me so deeply that it's hard not to feel a constant need for reflection, even a chance to re-live an event or a day in order to be able to take it apart and examine it with colder more calculating eyes.

Today was the Conservative Young Call for Action Conference - involving hundreds of young aspiring conservative leaders and a great deal of republican senators and lots and lots of patting each other on backs and rolling in the pleasure of being behind a winner - not to mention "the truth".

Today has also marked the greatest culture shock I have ever faced. And a realisation that if I am going to be a journalist I am going to have to find a way of asking neutral questions and not protraying my newly discovered opinions too blatently. It has made me realise jsut what a sheltered life I lead - our small differences in execution of government or foreign policy are nothing compared to the monumental shift in paradigm I feel I faced today.

The twins from Missouri - who described their faith in God and their coming to know and embrace conservatism in one and the same breath. Once they had read the book of Matthew they knew that socialism was wrong and that Jesus Christ himself was a conservative and the two ideologies must go hand in hand. When they started likening Bush to Moses I very nearly collapsed - and realised that despite my thoughts on America previously - I really have never come into full contact with the religious element of United States politics. The twins - in their identical blue shirts, crisply ironed, and their smart matching shiny shoes - passionately spouted identical iterations of faith in God, Bush and privatised Social Security. The first few times they mentioned Jesus Christ I am sorry to say that I laughed heartily - thinking they were using ironic humour. Atlast, I thought, someone with a British sense of impropriety. But there was no irony in those bright wide identical eyes.

The next lady I spoke to was pinned from head to toe in Condi for 2008 badges/buttons/stickers. Her pitch rose higher and higher as she broke out into an explanantion of the start of her recent campaign - aimed to get Condeleezza Rice into power. It had all occured the day she had realised Hilary was running. (www.AmericansforRice.com)

When asked how he would deal with the divide in America between the blue and the red states the self made, public speaking African American author good naturedly told me that his solution wasn't all that practical and would involve getting rid of all those nasty democrats.

By my fourth interview I realised that I had been completely misinformed in my history books about the idea that the separation of church and state was an important element of the development of government in the US. It has never been so. And apparently it is the evil humanists who are trying to descriminate and hurt the evangelicals by suggesting that state and church be separate. I had always been under the impression that that was to allow freedom of religion.

I find it hard to reflect on all this - and it is a sore subject - a controversial and difficult set of questions emerges -- every system of government is subject to its own belief system. It is a work of ideology, even if this is not explicitly said. It is not neutral. I can understand the desire for a system of beliefs that can stem and gain its authority from a higher source of power than just humans, especially if you distrust human reasoning. But, should any one religion be placed in this space to provide the authority? If looked at from an aethiest perspective, this leaves the state as subject to the reasoning of humans - but with the added oomph to their argument of their own righteousness. For anyone to have that kind of authority seems dangerous and open to abuse. But, is it not also dangerous not to acknowledge the particular history,context and belief system that makes up the reasoning of the present state? What should we base our government's authority on?

Oh dear - I am getting very philisophical and meandering on the whole thing. I guess today just ripped open and challenged all that I believe in. Things I didn't even realise are a fundamental part of my culture and belief system were held in the flames of questioning, and I suddenly can see slightly better why America is the way it is.

When I first applied for this year abroad I chose America as opposed to Canada for a reason - it was because it is a country that the whole world claims to have an opinion about and to understand. Everyone knows a Bushism or two - we've all made the snide American tourist jokes at some point or another, and yet, its reality is far more complex and alien then those steroetypes. I still can't claim to understand the almost cult like love that surrounds Bush - but I see it - in people's eyes at his rallies and written into the fur coats of those pro-life marchers and on the lips of all those young future conservative leaders.
According to one of then there are 60 million evangelicals in the US, only 20 million voted in the election in 2005 - but if the young conservatives and my two shining twins from Missouri have anything to do with it they will be mobilised for 2008. And I for one think I might be a bit scared to be around for that one.