I used to pride myself on not only being opinionated but on also being outspoken with those opinions. With time and age, however, (and hopefully some wisdom and maturity), I've learned that most people don't give a rat's ass as to what my opinion is on most things, which is fine...'cause I don't always care to hear theirs either. :) That being said, I try to leave my mind open enough to listen to them because I’m a firm believer in the theory that I can only grow if I listen to all sides of the story, get all of the information, and then form my own opinions. And lucky for all of us opinionated a-holes, the Internet allows us the chance to spill our guts to all of those bored enough to read them… :)
With the election being 11 days away and the bombardment of political ads not only starting to stream into our hearts and homes 22 months ago (!!!) but with their frequency increasing (what seems like) 4-fold in the last 2-3 days and the possibility that it will only get worse, I can't help but wonder what happens next and it’s moved me enough to try to work it out on paper. I can't help but wonder what we as (hopefully) informed citizens and voters will do in response to the chaos that is our present-day two-party, allegedly-democratic political system. (It’s difficult for me to believe that our political structure is fully democratic when the electoral college is what determines the winner at the presidential level, rather than the popular vote…) It’s sad – I have so many thoughts on so many political issues (and non-political ones), and I didn’t watch any of the debates. I have no desire to listen to why the other guy sucks and I’d much rather turn to the Internet and read your stance on things on your website since I don’t have to listen to you belittle the other guy. But I digress…
As a young, educated voter, I find myself going back to my days in government (in high school and in college) and try to deduce what the organizers had in mind when they started what have become our two major political parties. I can only imagine that what they were looking for is what we all feel we need right now – change – and I recognize how much of a cliché that one word has become, thanks in part to our current presidential candidates. With the other facts I’ve gathered, I’ve come to think that what we really need is a balance of change and compromise, which is where I also like to think that I’ve alienated the problem – politicians aren’t known for their ability to compromise like good, little adults should. I think we’re missing the mark on what those organizers had in mind. Maybe.
While I hate (I use the word ‘hate’) American mainstream journalism and feel that it’s undeniably biased (both ways, depending on which station you watch/read), I do try to take what I believe to be the truth from it and file the rest away in my mental rolodex for possible future access because unfortunately for me (and maybe you), it’s one of the only resources we have (outside of the Internet) to get facts and make our decisions. You hear that both sides of each election (local and federal alike) suck for this reason and that and that Bill doesn’t deserve the honor of serving his citizens because he clubs baby seals when he’s not leaving every light in his house on and is the sole cause for the global warming crisis, but on the other side of the river is Sylvia and she doesn’t deserve it either because she wants to open up our borders to every immigrant and refugee in the world and grant them amnesty simply because they weren’t born in the U.S while she’s also crusading for an alternative energy source because the oil and gas industry is to blame for all that is evil in the world – even the clubbing of baby seals. With all of that being said, I’ve come to think that that’s the very problem with our system – we have only 2 choices in just about every election. Yeah, we’ve got the independents who are doing their damndest to find the middle ground and a valid compromise (and I whole-heartedly applaud them for it because I think they’re onto something), but let’s be honest – at this point, the independents have about as good of a chance of getting elected as those poor baby seals do of not getting clubbed by that evil Bill guy. Right-wing conservatives be damned, the left-wingers want to change it all to fit the needs of what has unfortunately become the majority (those who feel that they are owed something simply because they woke up this morning on the right side of the dirt) while ignoring the needs of what I like to call the majority-minority (i.e. the middle class who seems to get stuck with the bill at every party, whether that party be for the upper-class or the lower-socioeconomic portion of our population). Left-wing liberals be damned, the right-wingers are going to dig in their boot heels before they’ll open up their minds enough to maybe consider the fact that someone outside of their echelon might need some help. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m about helping people, not enabling them, and at some point, some people have a tendency to wear out their welcome by taking advantage of someone’s generosity. There’s a reason we have the word ‘mooch’ in our vocabulary. But what I am against is punishing the innocent based on the ‘one bad apple spoils the bunch’ approach.
Personally, I couldn’t care less if Joe the Plumber isn’t a licensed plumber and his first name is really Samuel. Sam the plumber still has a point when he wants to know why anyone would be justified in taking more of his hard-earned money and giving it to the lazy-ass down the street simply because Sam makes over $250K a year and the lazy-ass down the street refuses to get up off of his lazy ass and flip burgers at BK because he would rather watch Judge Judy during the day ignoring the fact that his minimum wage job at BK will help him pay his bills and teach his children that with hard work comes the reward of self-fulfillment in the form of being able to pay your own bills and the idea that you are the only one responsible for your own happiness. I don’t think the problem is in the tax structure, though, in the form of who gets taxed more and who gets taxed less. The problem is in where our money goes. Please raise my taxes when you want to ensure that my children are educated the best they can be by happy teachers who make what a professional athlete makes. Please raise my taxes when you want to fix my roadways and when you want to ensure the safety of me and my family through the utilization of happy police officers and firefighters and first responders who make the $250K a year that the president makes – not only through his/her term in office, but for the rest of his/her life. (Which brings me to another question…since the president makes $250K a year, under OB’s tax plan, will the president be taxed more??? Hm…) But I digress. Don’t raise the taxes of those who work(ed) hard to make the money they’re making only to turn around and give that money to people who did nothing to deserve it.
There’s now speculation that BO wasn’t born in the US, thereby negating his eligibility to be president and that his trip to visit his ‘sick grandmother’ is really a birth-certificate-finding trip. Only BO and his family know…but I’m curious to see what happens on this one. And a co-worker brought up a good point – if it turns out that BO was in fact born elsewhere and is eliminated from the race, does Biden become the Demo candidate or does McCain automatically win? I asked if maybe Hillary steps in since she was the next largest candidate in line for the Demo nod.
The war in Iraq… We’ve been hornswaggled. I’ll leave it at that.
Pro-life vs. pro-choice? My body is my body. I don’t need, nor do I want, some fat bastard on Capitol Hill who has 3 mistresses and 4 secret bank accounts in the Caymans telling me that I don’t have the right to make decisions about my medical and/or mental health because to have an abortion is immoral. If you want to use morality as your backbone, practice it – don’t just try to preach for your own job security. But beyond that, my body is not a government or legal issue. Either we follow HIPAA and practice the ideal of confidentiality and my personal information is just that – personal – or we don’t and we become Russia. I do think, though, that if you outlaw abortion, you’re condemning young women who feel they have no other options (which is sad in its own right) to back alleys and coat hangers. I hate to be so crass about it, but please understand that my extreme visualization comes from my passion on this issue.
The bank bailout…utter crap. They’re the ones who got themselves in this mess in the first place. Why should I be responsible (‘cause let’s be honest – we as consumers will end up funding that $770B bill somehow…) for their fiscal stupidity and carelessness? I don’t see the government coming to help pay my credit card bills… I like the guy who said that they need to take the $85B they gave to AIG and divide it up amongst tax-paying citizens over 18. He did the math (and I’ll be honest, I didn’t check it, but…) and it came out to ~$295K per person – after taxes. Still owe on your mortgage? Pay it off and the housing crisis is solved. Outstanding loans that you shouldn’t have been given by WAMU and Wells Fargo? Pay it off and the lending crisis is solved. The sad part is it was suggested by the common man…congress would never go for it.
I’ve also noticed that neither of the candidates is addressing immigration. But I will. :) In a country built on the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of immigrants from Spain, Germany, Italy, and so on and so forth, we can’t lift our collective leg and pee around the border of our country and not expect a dog fight. I’m not saying we open the borders and dump the baby out with the bathwater, but what I am saying is that we are a society in which innovation and advancement are not only encouraged, they’re the basis of a promising future that we all hope for ourselves and our children and their children and so on and so forth. Those advancements and that innovation have come from those we used to consider our enemies (I refer to the black doctor who invented the open-heart surgery procedure whose name totally escapes me at the moment as just one example). I’m not saying that every immigrant jumping the borders into this country will be the one to find the cure for cancer and by no means am I saying that someone looking to come to this country and make a better life for themselves and their family should be allowed to ignore the rules of this country in regards to immigration and citizenship and still be allowed to stay. But I am saying that either we’re a world power and accept the idea that there will be those who want a piece of our economically-sound pie, or, we’re just like everyone else. We can’t have it both ways. If we accept our place in the world, we need to find middle ground on living up to the ideals of the Constitution we like to use and abuse. But, please…in that middle ground, make it a requirement that those who come to this country learn the language. If I plan to move to Russia, you can bet your sweet ass that I’m going to learn Russian.
My point in all of this is that our system needs an overhaul. We need regular people – not politicians – in office and making decisions. Our 2-party system is partially what’s to blame for the status of our political debacle at the moment, as I see it, and we as voters need to find a way to compromise and band together to try to fix it – or at least band together long enough to get our voted officials to change it. Like it or not, we are far too diverse of a country to be so polar-minded in our politics. McCain mentioned on one episode of ‘The View’ (I was watching out of lack of anything else to watch – don’t judge me…) that if elected, he intends to go back to the Constitution for guidance in any tough issues that face him and interpret it word-for-word. Whoopie’s response was, ‘So, should I be worried about becoming a slave?’ or something along those lines. Extreme? Probably. Does she have a point? Absolutely. We can look to the ideals on which this country was built as guidance, but it has to be with the understanding that those words were written 200+ years ago and may need some outside-of-the-box thinking applied to them being that our society has changed in so many ways, those words in their purest form are not enough. Our founding fathers probably hoped for the advancement that we have seen. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have built the country on the ideals they did giving us the opportunities for open-minded and outside-of-the-box thinking that we have. But they couldn’t have foreseen how far and in what ways we would come. Their ideas are simply suggestions on which to base our actions and performance, and I like to think they’d hope that we would recognize them as such and use them to encourage more growth for our own futures.
I’m Gretchen Rau. And I approve this message.
With the election being 11 days away and the bombardment of political ads not only starting to stream into our hearts and homes 22 months ago (!!!) but with their frequency increasing (what seems like) 4-fold in the last 2-3 days and the possibility that it will only get worse, I can't help but wonder what happens next and it’s moved me enough to try to work it out on paper. I can't help but wonder what we as (hopefully) informed citizens and voters will do in response to the chaos that is our present-day two-party, allegedly-democratic political system. (It’s difficult for me to believe that our political structure is fully democratic when the electoral college is what determines the winner at the presidential level, rather than the popular vote…) It’s sad – I have so many thoughts on so many political issues (and non-political ones), and I didn’t watch any of the debates. I have no desire to listen to why the other guy sucks and I’d much rather turn to the Internet and read your stance on things on your website since I don’t have to listen to you belittle the other guy. But I digress…
As a young, educated voter, I find myself going back to my days in government (in high school and in college) and try to deduce what the organizers had in mind when they started what have become our two major political parties. I can only imagine that what they were looking for is what we all feel we need right now – change – and I recognize how much of a cliché that one word has become, thanks in part to our current presidential candidates. With the other facts I’ve gathered, I’ve come to think that what we really need is a balance of change and compromise, which is where I also like to think that I’ve alienated the problem – politicians aren’t known for their ability to compromise like good, little adults should. I think we’re missing the mark on what those organizers had in mind. Maybe.
While I hate (I use the word ‘hate’) American mainstream journalism and feel that it’s undeniably biased (both ways, depending on which station you watch/read), I do try to take what I believe to be the truth from it and file the rest away in my mental rolodex for possible future access because unfortunately for me (and maybe you), it’s one of the only resources we have (outside of the Internet) to get facts and make our decisions. You hear that both sides of each election (local and federal alike) suck for this reason and that and that Bill doesn’t deserve the honor of serving his citizens because he clubs baby seals when he’s not leaving every light in his house on and is the sole cause for the global warming crisis, but on the other side of the river is Sylvia and she doesn’t deserve it either because she wants to open up our borders to every immigrant and refugee in the world and grant them amnesty simply because they weren’t born in the U.S while she’s also crusading for an alternative energy source because the oil and gas industry is to blame for all that is evil in the world – even the clubbing of baby seals. With all of that being said, I’ve come to think that that’s the very problem with our system – we have only 2 choices in just about every election. Yeah, we’ve got the independents who are doing their damndest to find the middle ground and a valid compromise (and I whole-heartedly applaud them for it because I think they’re onto something), but let’s be honest – at this point, the independents have about as good of a chance of getting elected as those poor baby seals do of not getting clubbed by that evil Bill guy. Right-wing conservatives be damned, the left-wingers want to change it all to fit the needs of what has unfortunately become the majority (those who feel that they are owed something simply because they woke up this morning on the right side of the dirt) while ignoring the needs of what I like to call the majority-minority (i.e. the middle class who seems to get stuck with the bill at every party, whether that party be for the upper-class or the lower-socioeconomic portion of our population). Left-wing liberals be damned, the right-wingers are going to dig in their boot heels before they’ll open up their minds enough to maybe consider the fact that someone outside of their echelon might need some help. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m about helping people, not enabling them, and at some point, some people have a tendency to wear out their welcome by taking advantage of someone’s generosity. There’s a reason we have the word ‘mooch’ in our vocabulary. But what I am against is punishing the innocent based on the ‘one bad apple spoils the bunch’ approach.
Personally, I couldn’t care less if Joe the Plumber isn’t a licensed plumber and his first name is really Samuel. Sam the plumber still has a point when he wants to know why anyone would be justified in taking more of his hard-earned money and giving it to the lazy-ass down the street simply because Sam makes over $250K a year and the lazy-ass down the street refuses to get up off of his lazy ass and flip burgers at BK because he would rather watch Judge Judy during the day ignoring the fact that his minimum wage job at BK will help him pay his bills and teach his children that with hard work comes the reward of self-fulfillment in the form of being able to pay your own bills and the idea that you are the only one responsible for your own happiness. I don’t think the problem is in the tax structure, though, in the form of who gets taxed more and who gets taxed less. The problem is in where our money goes. Please raise my taxes when you want to ensure that my children are educated the best they can be by happy teachers who make what a professional athlete makes. Please raise my taxes when you want to fix my roadways and when you want to ensure the safety of me and my family through the utilization of happy police officers and firefighters and first responders who make the $250K a year that the president makes – not only through his/her term in office, but for the rest of his/her life. (Which brings me to another question…since the president makes $250K a year, under OB’s tax plan, will the president be taxed more??? Hm…) But I digress. Don’t raise the taxes of those who work(ed) hard to make the money they’re making only to turn around and give that money to people who did nothing to deserve it.
There’s now speculation that BO wasn’t born in the US, thereby negating his eligibility to be president and that his trip to visit his ‘sick grandmother’ is really a birth-certificate-finding trip. Only BO and his family know…but I’m curious to see what happens on this one. And a co-worker brought up a good point – if it turns out that BO was in fact born elsewhere and is eliminated from the race, does Biden become the Demo candidate or does McCain automatically win? I asked if maybe Hillary steps in since she was the next largest candidate in line for the Demo nod.
The war in Iraq… We’ve been hornswaggled. I’ll leave it at that.
Pro-life vs. pro-choice? My body is my body. I don’t need, nor do I want, some fat bastard on Capitol Hill who has 3 mistresses and 4 secret bank accounts in the Caymans telling me that I don’t have the right to make decisions about my medical and/or mental health because to have an abortion is immoral. If you want to use morality as your backbone, practice it – don’t just try to preach for your own job security. But beyond that, my body is not a government or legal issue. Either we follow HIPAA and practice the ideal of confidentiality and my personal information is just that – personal – or we don’t and we become Russia. I do think, though, that if you outlaw abortion, you’re condemning young women who feel they have no other options (which is sad in its own right) to back alleys and coat hangers. I hate to be so crass about it, but please understand that my extreme visualization comes from my passion on this issue.
The bank bailout…utter crap. They’re the ones who got themselves in this mess in the first place. Why should I be responsible (‘cause let’s be honest – we as consumers will end up funding that $770B bill somehow…) for their fiscal stupidity and carelessness? I don’t see the government coming to help pay my credit card bills… I like the guy who said that they need to take the $85B they gave to AIG and divide it up amongst tax-paying citizens over 18. He did the math (and I’ll be honest, I didn’t check it, but…) and it came out to ~$295K per person – after taxes. Still owe on your mortgage? Pay it off and the housing crisis is solved. Outstanding loans that you shouldn’t have been given by WAMU and Wells Fargo? Pay it off and the lending crisis is solved. The sad part is it was suggested by the common man…congress would never go for it.
I’ve also noticed that neither of the candidates is addressing immigration. But I will. :) In a country built on the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of immigrants from Spain, Germany, Italy, and so on and so forth, we can’t lift our collective leg and pee around the border of our country and not expect a dog fight. I’m not saying we open the borders and dump the baby out with the bathwater, but what I am saying is that we are a society in which innovation and advancement are not only encouraged, they’re the basis of a promising future that we all hope for ourselves and our children and their children and so on and so forth. Those advancements and that innovation have come from those we used to consider our enemies (I refer to the black doctor who invented the open-heart surgery procedure whose name totally escapes me at the moment as just one example). I’m not saying that every immigrant jumping the borders into this country will be the one to find the cure for cancer and by no means am I saying that someone looking to come to this country and make a better life for themselves and their family should be allowed to ignore the rules of this country in regards to immigration and citizenship and still be allowed to stay. But I am saying that either we’re a world power and accept the idea that there will be those who want a piece of our economically-sound pie, or, we’re just like everyone else. We can’t have it both ways. If we accept our place in the world, we need to find middle ground on living up to the ideals of the Constitution we like to use and abuse. But, please…in that middle ground, make it a requirement that those who come to this country learn the language. If I plan to move to Russia, you can bet your sweet ass that I’m going to learn Russian.
My point in all of this is that our system needs an overhaul. We need regular people – not politicians – in office and making decisions. Our 2-party system is partially what’s to blame for the status of our political debacle at the moment, as I see it, and we as voters need to find a way to compromise and band together to try to fix it – or at least band together long enough to get our voted officials to change it. Like it or not, we are far too diverse of a country to be so polar-minded in our politics. McCain mentioned on one episode of ‘The View’ (I was watching out of lack of anything else to watch – don’t judge me…) that if elected, he intends to go back to the Constitution for guidance in any tough issues that face him and interpret it word-for-word. Whoopie’s response was, ‘So, should I be worried about becoming a slave?’ or something along those lines. Extreme? Probably. Does she have a point? Absolutely. We can look to the ideals on which this country was built as guidance, but it has to be with the understanding that those words were written 200+ years ago and may need some outside-of-the-box thinking applied to them being that our society has changed in so many ways, those words in their purest form are not enough. Our founding fathers probably hoped for the advancement that we have seen. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have built the country on the ideals they did giving us the opportunities for open-minded and outside-of-the-box thinking that we have. But they couldn’t have foreseen how far and in what ways we would come. Their ideas are simply suggestions on which to base our actions and performance, and I like to think they’d hope that we would recognize them as such and use them to encourage more growth for our own futures.
I’m Gretchen Rau. And I approve this message.
