All events are linked together in the best of all possible worlds.
— Voltaire
But whether their pleasure will last more than a morning I doubt.
Most liberals I know are Cassandras. Cassandras seem to prevail under our tent and, often, I feel awash in them.
Cassandra, of course, was the fusspot daughter of the king of Troy. Apollo made her a seer in exchange for a toss in the hay. She used that power to warn the Trojans the city would be invaded by Greeks hiding in the belly of a wooden horse. No one listened to her; but, gosh darn it, she was right.
Other liberals I know are Doubting Thomases. There are plenty of them under the tent, too.
Doubting Thomas, you'll recall, was the Apostle who refused to buy into Jesus's resurrection. "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were I will not believe," he told the disciples. But unlike Cassandra, Thomas had to eat crow.
Because I'm a cock-eyed optimist, I prefer liberals who are Pollyannas.
Pollyanna was the character in a 1913 eponymous novel whose father taught her the "glad game." The game demands that, so you'll never be disappointed, you "find something about everything to be glad about." When you shower in saccharinity, the novel preaches, you're never disappointed.
Speaking for myself, I'm a Pangloss.
Pangloss was the talkative tutor in Voltaire's 1759 novel Candide. He is a baseless, feelgood optimist and follower of the Enlightenment philosopher Leibniz, who insisted we live in "the best of all possible worlds."
While crepehanging liberals lament the future of America—cursed as it was by the shameless slaver, germ-spreader and colonizer Christopher Columbus—I'm content like James Brown to say: I feel good.
America's an okay place.
NOTE: Writer Robert Brault said it right: "You can look at optimism and pessimism as two different outfits in your closet, and you decide each morning which one you're going to wear."
