The long, miserable blog I wrote yesterday didn't post. I'm numb to write it again. The latin names of the 200+ plant and animal species I just learned for field biology are buzzing through my head in a meditative string. A bit of self-indlugent academic escapism: Martes americana, Taxus canadensis, Bufo americana, Fraxinus americana, Ursus americanus, Lepus americana, Acer pennsylvanicum, Lontra canadensis, Antilocarpa americana. On second thought, this situation is inescapable. Inescapable and I'm heartbroken.

John Stewart Mill On Liberty is my assigned reading for the evening. It's terribly relevant and is helping greatly with my understanding of where we went so wrong. Right now I'm having a hard time moving past my idea for a secular humanist (not entirely pleased with that label) missionary movement to that great reddness in the middle of the country.

The furthest I've come in understanding is a deep seated problem with our infusion of morality into government and politics. This stems from a breakdown in our education system, where we are not educated about the philosophy upon which our system of government was founded: where we have a government to protect people from “being preyed upon by innumerable vultures," as Mill says, but the government is limited in the extent to which it may interfere with a person's Liberty, capital "L". A government where we are protected from the tyranny of the majority in issues of personal preference for self-regarding behaviour (Who I sleep with, who I choose to spend my life with, what I decide to do with my body.)

And in some ways we have a tyranny of the minority. Fundamentally, my life isn't going to be all that different. My value system might be undermined, ignored, even legistlated against, but you and I will have the necessities of life and will keep on humming. But millions of people around the world are going to be affected by the decisions of an administration that the overwhelming majority of global citizens don't favor.

I've had a headache for the last two days straight, and I never get headaches. A strange tightness around my chest. It's going to be a long four years.

(Note: This is my negative, despairing entry. I'm not yet to the point where I can be excited about a new era of progressive, grassroots citizenry. I'm indelibly optimistic and i'll get there. Mourn, analyze, then Move-On.)