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A rant about politics.
Mar. 20th, 2003 05:48 pmSo we've got this group of young turks who are insisting that the Party of Change has lost its way. That, only three thousand years of Continuum time since the war where we took power, we've become as stagnant as what we fought (never mind the fact that 3,000 years isn't *time* to get as stagnant as several billion got us), that the methods we've implemented to try to fight that stagnation aren't working, that we need to smash all hierarchies *entirely* flat (obviously they don't remember the last time everyone in the Continuum had to agree on something-- with a fully flat hierarchy *nothing* would get done), and when I mocked them, as they deserved, they called me a sell-out.
Sellout??!! Look, buddies, I don't remember seeing *you* up against the wall during the war. I don't remember seeing you bleeding and wounded. I *paid* my dues. And what do you want, anarchy? I remember the Continuum in anarchy, though obviously *you* have shorter memories. Maybe you were all hiding during the war.
But, you know... I remember when I'd have agreed with them. Mind you, things are a lot different now-- we don't reflexively insist that things be done the way they always were because that's the way they were always done, we don't completely disenfranchise the youngest of the Q, we actually *listen* to our stupid young turks instead of, oh, kicking them out of the Continuum or even stripping them of their powers. But there was a time when I'd have disagreed with authority simply because it was authority. Now *I* am authority. That... is a scary thought. I think it's going to take a lot more than 3,000 years before I can entirely grasp that.
I'm not some ossified fossil yet, people. Just because I'm still so far the only individual Q to have procreated within the Continuum (well, okay, technically one of the only two Q... but the other one hasn't shown her face around here in 500 years, so who is taking on the greater burden here?), that does not automatically make me some decrepit old elder who thinks the New Age is a newfangled modernism. (Though, is that a misnomer now? We seem to be living in the Even Newer Age, now.) And if *I* say that your idea is stupid, you should take it seriously, dammit, because I'm on your side! *I* don't want to see our progress toward change and growth ruined by falling back into ossification, I've fought for change for the past three billion years, I'm not going to give up on that just because I'm on top of the heap, now. Come on, people, we aren't *humans.* We don't give up our ideals just because we get into power.
But, you know, there's no *reasoning* with these kids. (I say kids. They're mostly my age. *shudder*) They want a greater voice in Continuum politics, and their brilliant idea of how to do this is to remove all ranking within the Convocation so that all Q would be given an exactly equal voice. I brought little q in and asked the Convocation if they thought he was ready for an exactly equal voice, and he treated us all to a lengthy dissertation about neutrinos, which only *he* thinks is novel information and the rest of us have all known for, oh, billennia. Which proved my point. Then they tried to argue an exception for juvenile Q, and Amanda, as I had hoped, went off on them as to how you define a juvenile Q, since she's actually only existed an eyeblink longer than little q but since she was conceived in a mortal form she was close to full adult when we got her, and that totally derailed *that.* For now. But I'm fairly sure they'll be back with a new stupid idea, or perhaps the same stupid idea, soon enough.
Sellout??!! Look, buddies, I don't remember seeing *you* up against the wall during the war. I don't remember seeing you bleeding and wounded. I *paid* my dues. And what do you want, anarchy? I remember the Continuum in anarchy, though obviously *you* have shorter memories. Maybe you were all hiding during the war.
But, you know... I remember when I'd have agreed with them. Mind you, things are a lot different now-- we don't reflexively insist that things be done the way they always were because that's the way they were always done, we don't completely disenfranchise the youngest of the Q, we actually *listen* to our stupid young turks instead of, oh, kicking them out of the Continuum or even stripping them of their powers. But there was a time when I'd have disagreed with authority simply because it was authority. Now *I* am authority. That... is a scary thought. I think it's going to take a lot more than 3,000 years before I can entirely grasp that.
I'm not some ossified fossil yet, people. Just because I'm still so far the only individual Q to have procreated within the Continuum (well, okay, technically one of the only two Q... but the other one hasn't shown her face around here in 500 years, so who is taking on the greater burden here?), that does not automatically make me some decrepit old elder who thinks the New Age is a newfangled modernism. (Though, is that a misnomer now? We seem to be living in the Even Newer Age, now.) And if *I* say that your idea is stupid, you should take it seriously, dammit, because I'm on your side! *I* don't want to see our progress toward change and growth ruined by falling back into ossification, I've fought for change for the past three billion years, I'm not going to give up on that just because I'm on top of the heap, now. Come on, people, we aren't *humans.* We don't give up our ideals just because we get into power.
But, you know, there's no *reasoning* with these kids. (I say kids. They're mostly my age. *shudder*) They want a greater voice in Continuum politics, and their brilliant idea of how to do this is to remove all ranking within the Convocation so that all Q would be given an exactly equal voice. I brought little q in and asked the Convocation if they thought he was ready for an exactly equal voice, and he treated us all to a lengthy dissertation about neutrinos, which only *he* thinks is novel information and the rest of us have all known for, oh, billennia. Which proved my point. Then they tried to argue an exception for juvenile Q, and Amanda, as I had hoped, went off on them as to how you define a juvenile Q, since she's actually only existed an eyeblink longer than little q but since she was conceived in a mortal form she was close to full adult when we got her, and that totally derailed *that.* For now. But I'm fairly sure they'll be back with a new stupid idea, or perhaps the same stupid idea, soon enough.
