A lesson from Lady MacBeth

I don't know about anyone else, but one of the first things my mom taught me when I was growing up was to be a good sportsman. If I lost, I was to do so quietly and with dignity. However, based off the fact I'm still hearing about elections, it would seem few others got the same lesson from their parents.

It is one thing to oppose policies. It is one thing to oppose appointments. There are things we can do to manipulate the system of American politics while its wheels are in motion. But to protest the winner of an election after he's been inaugurated is like a child throwing a temper-tantrum a week after losing a game of kickball.

The fact of the matter is this: the election was more than 85 days ago. I'll be the first to admit that my candidate did not come out on top. In fact, I'm about as liberal as they come, but I moved on. So did most of the United States. What is most disappointing is the fact that there seems to be a group that thinks they can rally enough support to thwart the president, when logically this doesn't make sense.

The rest of the world is quick to tell Americans how lazy we are. We are the fattest country, we are the birth place of anything and everything that takes work off us and puts it onto others (fast food, online grocery stores, etc.), and we are relatively apathetic about politics save for a few months every four years or so.

Truthfully, most people have their opinions, but for the majority of the time they are too lazy to vocalize them. The kind of revolts desired by the angst-ridden few would require a mass-movement that included a significant percentage of the nation's population.

Marches of a few hundred men and women, one-day boycotts by a handful of radicals and other such plans of rebellion won't have any major consequences for the president, the economy or the American public.

It can be argued that these are just expressions of free speech, which is promised to us by the First Amendment. First and foremost, discussing the First Amendment with a journalist is like a catholic schoolboy preaching to the Pope. There are simply certain instances where protest accomplishes something, and others where it does not.

People often cite the Civil Rights era as proof that protests get things done. True, but what these individuals don't realize is that protests are now an old tactic. During the 1960s, protests were a new, scary phenomenon which invoked fear in the hearts of their observers. In 2005, protests have become just as large of a fad as poker and POGs. Sweatshops in Indonesia: let's protest. Deforestation: let's protest. The poor indigenous seagulls of Seattle aren't being fed carb-free crackers, thus violating their strict Atkins diet: let's protest.

Let's face it, Americans are completely and totally desensitized by protests, and the large ones that do manage to get attention (WTO) do nothing but hurt their cause.

As Americans, we are left with two options: if we don't like the way politics are working, we can run for office or sit on our laurels. I feel inclined to say the latter will always be the more predominant course of (in) action.

We should all just take a lesson from someone who knew her politics: Lady MacBeth. "What's done is done, and cannot be undone," she said.

You don't have to like it. You don't have to tolerate it. What you do have to do is accept that Dubya is back for four more years, and marches won't do anymore than make people mad you're holding up traffic.