Ungagged!
Originally published at Blind, Not Dumb. You can comment here or there.
A couple of weeks back I was laid off from Blue State Digital.
I have nothing but admiration for them and gratitude for three great years during which I helped re-elect the first African-American president, helped fight for equal marriage, and make the world a better place by doing my usual job pushing bits around. How cool is that?
One upshot of this is that I’m no longer bound by the company’s social media policy. I understand why it exists and even agree with it as far as that goes. When you’re working for the president of the united states, it’s probably not so good if your minions start shooting their mouths off about him.
The good news for me is that now I can say whatever I want
Not that I plan to go off half cocked and unleash raging venom on the world - I’m a huge fan of the Obama administration and believe in a lot of what they stand for.
But nobody’s perfect, and neither is he or his administration. I will write more about this as I collect my thoughts, but just off the top of my head:
- I would love to see his administration take a hard-line stance on decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level.
- I think there’s a tremendous amount of tension in our society right now around spending and fiscal reform. While I am in no way shape or form suggesting that Obama should become a shill for the Tea Party (god forbid!) I think he should take advantage of his second term presidency to make some hard decisions that will make hard liners on both sides cringe but are for the good of the country.
- I think we need to take a long hard look at the war on terror and the erosion of our civil rights that’s been happening in its name. America is one of the greatest nations in the world and I would hate to see us lose such an important facet of our national identity in exchange for perceived safety.
- He has made a big deal about support for equal marriage during this most recent campaign - let’s see him put his money where his mouth is and enact reforms that would allow same-sex couples to travel to other states without fear (This is very tricky with regards to states rights, but I think it’s important to get this right.)
That’s all for now. Pardon the slightly rambling nature of these bullets, I feel like each one could be a post in its own right.