Anti-Climacus

WHAT NEXT? Well, I voted for Bush (for multiple Republicans, no less) and, despite everything I had been led to believe by years of familial indoctrination, I neither suffered a heart attack nor was instantly struck by lightning. I take this to be a good thing.

I voted for Bush mostly because I trust his instincts on the important questions much more than I trust Kerry's. I know there's a serious argument to be made that he's botched the execution thereof, and I certainly don't want to mitigate the seriousness of that critique. But execution is something that, it's pretty clear to me, can be learned or improved on over time; instinct is much harder to replicate if you don't have it naturally. But this is a bit of an aside.

Obviously, come tomorrow, it'll be time for something new. But what? I have a real fear that a Kerry administration will ignore the various human rights issues and pro-democracy movements around the world in favor of regaining favor in Paris and Berlin. I have a real fear that the situation on the ground in Iraq will sap Bush's will to continue the project of global democratization, and the project will be left half-done.

I'm also a little worried that the very real left-right connections that have been made over the last few years with respect to human rights, democracy and opposition to terrorism might erode once again in the face of partisan differences. So I propose the following: those of us who think about these things should, in the next couple of days, evaluate world priorities and look at our theoretical justifications and desired practical applications and attempt to keep a slightly more regular and systematized dialogue on these issues, do a quick little 'what next?' post, and engage each other on those various ideas.

Whaddaya think? Joe? Norm? Jeff Jarvis? Michele? Oliver Kamm? Bill Wallo? SIAW? Harry's Place-ers? OxBloggers?
(I'm not intending to exclude anybody from this list; these just happen to be people I read frequently who talk a lot about human rights, democracy and terrorism. Feel free to post 'what next?' ideas in the comments, etc)