Naderites In The Twilight Zone

I was watching a really good rerun of The Twilight Zone a couple of nights ago. It starts out peacefully enough with a shot of an innocent-looking young woman dressed in white riding a white horse on a trail at the bottom of a hillside. Suddenly, an ominous figure appears at the top of the hill -- a woman dressed in black riding a black horse. The demonic-looking woman in black comes charging down the hill, wildly chasing the young woman and screaming her name. The young woman rides away in terror.

As it turns out, the crazed woman in black is actually the young woman herself, twenty or so years in the future. She has come back in time to warn her younger self not to go through with a decidedly wrong marriage, which will ultimately ruin her life. Since the young woman rode away, she could never hear the warning.

After watching the show, I couldn't help but wondering if those who voted for Nader back in 2000 feel like the woman in this episode of The Twilight Zone. Do you suppose they ever look back regretfully at their younger selves spouting the claim that there was "no difference" between Bush and Gore? Do you think they'd like to go back in time like the woman on the black horse, and warn themselves that if Bush were elected, six years later the principal issues before Congress would be Bush's claim that he has the right to engage in torture, and to establish secret tribunals that have the power to convict and even execute suspected "terrorists" on the basis of undisclosed and incontestable "evidence"?

Of course, time as we know it runs only in one direction. As Rod Serling sagely pointed out at the end of the episode, warnings from the future can never be heeded because they can never be received. That is why we should all be a little more careful what we do with our votes in the here and now.