if did not want to
go to Minneapolis …
why get on the train?
Garrison Keillor wrote that Father Emil, the Catholic Priest in Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, would say ” “… If you didn’t want to go to Minneapolis, why did you get on the train?”
This quote was on my mind as I thought about people I know who plan to vote for a certain candidate for President but say, “I don’t agree with or support a lot of what he says or plans to do, but I will vote for him.”
That’s nice.
But if you vote for him, you get him and all that he says, all that he stands for, all that he plans to do and all that will come about if he is elected.
Sure I can say the same thing about voting the other way.
I don’t agree with all that she says, all that she stands for and all that she plans to do, but I will vote for her.
In the main, because she is not him.
You get the whole package.
If you don’t want to go to Minneapolis, don’t get on the train.
As Bret Stephens, New York Times Conservative Columnist says, Voting one way in this election will make me sick. Voting the other way will kill me.
As Mr. Lincoln said in his 1862 Message to Congress:
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.
We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.
No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
We say we are for the Union.
The world will not forget that we say this.
We know how to save the Union.
The world knows we do know how to save it.
We – even we here – hold the power, and bear the responsibility.
Say this again to yourself as you decide to make your choice.
We cannot escape history.
We will be remembered in spite of ourselves.
No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
We hold the power, and bear the responsibility.
Vote one way and you will have to overlook or accept some things you don’t like.
Vote the other way and you will have to overlook or accept some things don’t like.
It is a question of personal integrity only you can answer.
Do the yellow pad test.
Take a yellow pad and draw a line down the middle and write these things down.
One side may compromise your principles.
One side may ask for your soul.
You hold the power, and bear the responsibility.
No Haiku For You 