Ideopathy

Thanks, Trackgrease. I wish life could have been easier for you, but then you wouldn’t be who you are now. At least, you learned how to fight the ideopaths.

Beneath the complexity and idiopathy of every cancer lies a limited number of “mission critical” events that have propelled the tumour cell and its progeny into uncontrolled expansion and invasion.

—Evan & Vousden (2001)

I take today’s quotation from wordsmith.org’s word of the day. Wordsmith defines idiopathy as “A disease of unknown origin or one having no apparent cause.” From this entry, I looked for the word ideopathy, which I found in use but not on any of my favorite dictionary sites. It makes sense to define ideopathy as an idea or political movement that has become pathological. In this case, it fits the description of cancer that Evan and Vousden provide above.

Which leads to my decision not to vote in the Republican primary this year.

The other day, Suna got a recorded call from John McCain. In the recording, he promised to further the Bush administration’s attacks on the Constitution, fairness, and choice. He vowed to continue the war against science. While I realize McCain was probably trying to appeal to his rabid base, his (hopefully) disingenuous rhetoric convinced me that he is now owned by the ideocrats (read ideopaths) of the far right.

Perhaps Cthulu would be the lesser evil. Besides, he is the heir apparent to the Republican nomination. Voting for him in the primary would accomplish nothing.

That leaves Ron Paul, who has as much chance of being the nominee as I do. Voting for him would also be throwing away my primary vote.

So I am back to my usual course—voting in the Democratic primary—and my original dilemma. I still can’t decide which candidate to vote for. Clinton has the baggage that comes with experience. Obama has the vague optimism that speaks of inexperience. I still have a few days to agonize over this decision.

Grateful Monday

So that is what I am grateful for today. I am grateful that I live in a country where I can agonize over such a decision and speak publicly about that agony without fear of repression or reprisal—at least not yet.

And I want to thank Trackgrease for doing his part to help ensure that I have something here to be grateful for. He served four years in the Army and eight years in the National Guard. The operative word here is served. He was not an officer or a decision maker. He simply did what he could to put his nation’s safety and health above his own.

Let us all do what we can this year to protect and serve our democracy. If nothing else, vote. As Edmund Burke said, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Let this be the year we stop doing nothing.

References:

Gerald I. Evan and Karen H. Vousden (17 May 2001). Proliferation: cell cycle and apoptosis. In Cancer. London: Nature. In Wordsmith.org (13 February 2008).

Wordsmith.org (13 February 2008). A.word.a.day—idiopathy. Available: https://wordsmith.org/words/idiopathy.html