Sunday
This is what I did tonight instead of my part of the Annie Dillard presentation. It's also posted as a note on facebook.
So many of you are aware that I am an active Obama supporter. But like I said in the title, I'm not here to tell you about how great Obama is and how everyone should vote for him. I have my opinions about how government should work, and I'm very much aware that my opinions are different from yours.
Having said that, I feel that it's our civic duty, as participants in a modern western democracy, to vote. And I feel the most important thing to keep in mind when we vote is who is better for our country. Who will direct our focus to the most important issues, who will respond in the most rational, reasoned ways to the crises that appear, who has the foresight to predict the consequences of our actions and the actions of other countries, and who will push our country in the right direction.
The reason I'm writing is because I'm sick of hearing negative campaigning from both sides. After the election, the things that are said from both campaigns aren't going to matter. All that will matter is their positions on the future, and I don't feel that either side actually KNOWS what the opposing candidate will actually do. That's why I feel it's important to listen to each candidate's plans for their presidency, rather than listening to negative and often false advertising.
First off, it's extremely easy to skew how candidates have voted in the past. With so much pork and so much baggage attached to EVERY BILL that passes through Congress, it's impossible to place accountability on anybody because a bill that might move to increase funding for schools could also contain a clause to increase taxes on the people in the lowest tax bracket. This is why there are always different reports as to how many times the candidates voted to raise taxes, and it's probably why Obama chose to vote "present" rather than "Yes" or "No" on the bills in Congress. There's no accountability.
Second, anyone can say ANYTHING on advertising. I'm only going to comment on the ads directed towards Obama because I honestly don't know the validity of the statements that Obama has been putting out about McCain (I don't listen/follow too much to the negative ads directed at McCain). The GOP Trust PAC can say all they want about how Obama thinks "giving driver's licenses to illegals is a good idea" and how he wants to "give social security to illegal aliens." But as a follower of Obama, I have never heard him say these things. As far as I'm concerned, these adds are 100% false.
Third, context. Those of us taking TOK know that context is everything. Of course Obama seems like a psycho when he says that he would be willing to sit down with the leaders of hostile nations. That's because you don't hear any of his explanation in the negative ads about him. If you don't sit down with the leaders of hostile nations, how do you go about stopping the hostility? If there is no understanding between the two parties, how do you avoid dangerous situations? You can't. You can't stop hostile people from being hostile with brute force, by running in and attacking, because guess what? Then they become angry. So once again, while I only know this particular example because I am a supporter of Obama, I am fully aware that both Democrats and Republicans do the same thing in order to scare voters.
In conclusion, I believe that the only thing that we can TRULY rely on is what the candidates have stated that they will do once elected president. VOTE FOR THE CANDIDATE WHO'S BEST FOR THE COUNTRY. Don't be so stupid as to be swayed by negative campaigning, or to listen to the "he-said she-said" game. When you were given the right to vote, they assumed you'd use your brain to do it.
Having said all of that, here's the part where I start interjecting my political views. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ WHY I SUPPORT OBAMA (I won't think any less of you if you don't), DON'T READ BELOW HERE.
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- Let me clear something up for starters. Obama is not a terrorist. Barack was originally a Hebrew name, not an Islamic name. Obama is not an Arab, his father was from Congo while his mother was a white American, he was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, and the only think that experience in a foreign nation serves to do is increase awareness and tolerance. He is not a Muslim, he is a Christian (remember how everyone was talking about Reverend Wright last year and how Obama's been at that CHURCH for 17 years? How COULD he be a Muslim?). Furthermore, what does it MATTER if he's a Muslim??? Muslim does not equate with terrorist. Al Quada is a group of radical Muslims who don't even follow the Qaran as it is followed by the rest of the Muslim world, and they are BY NO MEANS representative of other Muslims. Muslim does not equate with "bad person" or "un-American." He was merely a co-worked with Bill Ayers, and even if they were friends at one point YEARS ago, it does NOT mean that Obama's a domestic terrorist.
- Countries have budgets, just as people have budgets. If the budget isn't balanced, obviously bad things start happening. Relevant for several reasons: The past 8 years, we've been steadily increasing our indebtedness to other countries, particularly China, which has been buying lots of our bonds. And from your understanding of history, maybe you'd remember that all of those times when countries became economically weak they became defenseless against the stronger nations which carve spheres of influence. Guys, just because we're a world power now DOESN'T mean we always have been and always will be. Unless we balance the budget, there is no chance that our country can continue being a world power, and yes, our country's revenues come largely from taxes. Yes, they're undesirable for us as individuals, but we CANNOT function as a country unless some money gets made. And I personally don't feel that the people who should pay the most taxes are the people who make the least amount of money and are struggling to make it by. I feel that the people who should pay are those that are well-off enough financially that they can afford to support the country a little more. This is why I DO support Obama's tax increases for those who make more than $250,000. By the way, the thought that this policy would hurt small business is SENSELESS. If your business has a tax return of more than $250,000, it's NOT a small business. Furthermore, Obama has other plans to aid small businesses. Oh, and for the record, trickle down doesn't work when companies choose to give million dollar bonuses to their CEOs each year rather than pay their hardworking, true American employees more.
- The war in Iraq. Sorry guys, you just CAN'T fight guerilla warfare as if it were any other type of warfare, and that's exactly what we're doing. We CAN'T "win" the war in Iraq because we can't fight against people who are willing to go against human nature and die (and kill others in the process) for their causes unless we sink to their level. It's Vietnam again, and everyone knows how well that went. THERE WERE NO TERRORISTS IN IRAQ UNTIL WE GOT THERE. From what I understand, the terrorism is centered around Al Quada, which is centered in Afghanistan anyway. That's where our efforts should be focused. The longer we spend in the middle east, the angrier they get, and the more terrorists that will appear just like they did when we first went over there. Meanwhile, we're spending billions upon billions of dollars every month, we're wasting human lives (there's been 4,000 or so troops killed, but has anyone bothered to examine how many IRAQIS we've killed? how many troops and civilians have been maimed? how much misery there is there and how much misery we bring back home when our troops come back with war trauma? speaking of which, a good movie is "In the Valley of Elah." very depressing, though). And to put the icing on the cake, this war should never have happened because Saddam Hussein never had weapons of mass destruction, and while he was a truly horrid person, he never attacked us. If we're going to fight all genocide, let's start with Darfur, or let's go into the Balkans, or how about Congo? Why aren't we invading all of these places if our real motives are to stop horrible people from doing horrible things? Honestly, there's too much of it for us to do it alone, and we've isolated ourselves from other countries who used to support us by now BECAUSE of our Iraq policy, or our Georgia policy. Speaking of which, can someone tell me how the Russian invasion of Georgia is any less substantiated than our invasion of Iraq?
- Domestic policy, notably schools. We're supposedly the greatest world power, yet our education system isn't even in the top 10 of schools in the world. We don't have enough funding, and our values are in the wrong places when a pro-football player can make millions of dollars for every game that he plays while the teacher who tutored him on his SATs to get him to graduate high school so that he could play college football won't make that much money in his entire LIFE (Mr. Morone). If we spent as much money on our school system that we did in Iraq these days, we wouldn't need to worry about our position of power in the world; we would have thinkers, inventors, and well-educated citizens to get us through the problems of the 21st century. This is why we need to get out of Iraq. We're sacrificing the educations of our children for a war that never should've begun in Iraq.
- Abortion. Maybe you'll be surprised to find out that I believe abortion is wrong. I feel people should have more personal responsibility than to let something like that happen if they're not ready for a child. Chances are, if you're not ready to take care of a child, you're probably not ready to make the emotional commitment that is sex. And no, I would not get an abortion even in the event that it was an unexpected pregnancy. But I don't feel that it's my decision to make for others. I believe that it's a circumstantial issue. If the mother was raped,or if the parents aren't ready to take care of a child and will neglect the child, or if the child will end up in the foster care system, I would say it's probably better to spare that life because it would create an unhappy existence for more than one person. If you're a Christian and believe that abortion in all cases is wrong, bear in mind that we're not a homogeneous nation; we're not all Christians, we don't all share the same beliefs, morals, and religion. Not everyone believes that God created every life and that an abortion is the murder of a human life, because there are people who don't believe that it's a human life until the mother has given birth. This is why I don't think that we should condemn all abortion givers/recipients as murderers, and I certainly don't believe that they should be outlawed in all cases, which brings me to my next topic...
-Sarah Palin. John McCain is 72 years old. That is very old. The president holds a very stressful position. Old people don't tend to handle stress too well. In the event that John McCain were to pass away, we would be stuck with a woman who has no sense of environmental awareness, no sense of understanding for those who are right-wing Christians, and no sense of a well-rounded education (read: tried to ban the Webster's dictionary, great American classics as Huck Finn, and just about every book that my peers and I have read in our IB curriculum from her public library while she was mayor). Being a governor of a state with one of the smallest populations (not to mention a population that isn't representative of the rest of the nation) in the country, and being a Washington "insider" for a few months does NOT prepare you for the position that is president. I personally try to look at other perspectives than my own. I don't feel that Sarah Palin does this when she says that abortions in all cases should be outlawed, or that there are some "real American" places, which implies that there are "not-real American places."
Any thoughts?
So many of you are aware that I am an active Obama supporter. But like I said in the title, I'm not here to tell you about how great Obama is and how everyone should vote for him. I have my opinions about how government should work, and I'm very much aware that my opinions are different from yours.
Having said that, I feel that it's our civic duty, as participants in a modern western democracy, to vote. And I feel the most important thing to keep in mind when we vote is who is better for our country. Who will direct our focus to the most important issues, who will respond in the most rational, reasoned ways to the crises that appear, who has the foresight to predict the consequences of our actions and the actions of other countries, and who will push our country in the right direction.
The reason I'm writing is because I'm sick of hearing negative campaigning from both sides. After the election, the things that are said from both campaigns aren't going to matter. All that will matter is their positions on the future, and I don't feel that either side actually KNOWS what the opposing candidate will actually do. That's why I feel it's important to listen to each candidate's plans for their presidency, rather than listening to negative and often false advertising.
First off, it's extremely easy to skew how candidates have voted in the past. With so much pork and so much baggage attached to EVERY BILL that passes through Congress, it's impossible to place accountability on anybody because a bill that might move to increase funding for schools could also contain a clause to increase taxes on the people in the lowest tax bracket. This is why there are always different reports as to how many times the candidates voted to raise taxes, and it's probably why Obama chose to vote "present" rather than "Yes" or "No" on the bills in Congress. There's no accountability.
Second, anyone can say ANYTHING on advertising. I'm only going to comment on the ads directed towards Obama because I honestly don't know the validity of the statements that Obama has been putting out about McCain (I don't listen/follow too much to the negative ads directed at McCain). The GOP Trust PAC can say all they want about how Obama thinks "giving driver's licenses to illegals is a good idea" and how he wants to "give social security to illegal aliens." But as a follower of Obama, I have never heard him say these things. As far as I'm concerned, these adds are 100% false.
Third, context. Those of us taking TOK know that context is everything. Of course Obama seems like a psycho when he says that he would be willing to sit down with the leaders of hostile nations. That's because you don't hear any of his explanation in the negative ads about him. If you don't sit down with the leaders of hostile nations, how do you go about stopping the hostility? If there is no understanding between the two parties, how do you avoid dangerous situations? You can't. You can't stop hostile people from being hostile with brute force, by running in and attacking, because guess what? Then they become angry. So once again, while I only know this particular example because I am a supporter of Obama, I am fully aware that both Democrats and Republicans do the same thing in order to scare voters.
In conclusion, I believe that the only thing that we can TRULY rely on is what the candidates have stated that they will do once elected president. VOTE FOR THE CANDIDATE WHO'S BEST FOR THE COUNTRY. Don't be so stupid as to be swayed by negative campaigning, or to listen to the "he-said she-said" game. When you were given the right to vote, they assumed you'd use your brain to do it.
Having said all of that, here's the part where I start interjecting my political views. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ WHY I SUPPORT OBAMA (I won't think any less of you if you don't), DON'T READ BELOW HERE.
--------------------------------------------------------
- Let me clear something up for starters. Obama is not a terrorist. Barack was originally a Hebrew name, not an Islamic name. Obama is not an Arab, his father was from Congo while his mother was a white American, he was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, and the only think that experience in a foreign nation serves to do is increase awareness and tolerance. He is not a Muslim, he is a Christian (remember how everyone was talking about Reverend Wright last year and how Obama's been at that CHURCH for 17 years? How COULD he be a Muslim?). Furthermore, what does it MATTER if he's a Muslim??? Muslim does not equate with terrorist. Al Quada is a group of radical Muslims who don't even follow the Qaran as it is followed by the rest of the Muslim world, and they are BY NO MEANS representative of other Muslims. Muslim does not equate with "bad person" or "un-American." He was merely a co-worked with Bill Ayers, and even if they were friends at one point YEARS ago, it does NOT mean that Obama's a domestic terrorist.
- Countries have budgets, just as people have budgets. If the budget isn't balanced, obviously bad things start happening. Relevant for several reasons: The past 8 years, we've been steadily increasing our indebtedness to other countries, particularly China, which has been buying lots of our bonds. And from your understanding of history, maybe you'd remember that all of those times when countries became economically weak they became defenseless against the stronger nations which carve spheres of influence. Guys, just because we're a world power now DOESN'T mean we always have been and always will be. Unless we balance the budget, there is no chance that our country can continue being a world power, and yes, our country's revenues come largely from taxes. Yes, they're undesirable for us as individuals, but we CANNOT function as a country unless some money gets made. And I personally don't feel that the people who should pay the most taxes are the people who make the least amount of money and are struggling to make it by. I feel that the people who should pay are those that are well-off enough financially that they can afford to support the country a little more. This is why I DO support Obama's tax increases for those who make more than $250,000. By the way, the thought that this policy would hurt small business is SENSELESS. If your business has a tax return of more than $250,000, it's NOT a small business. Furthermore, Obama has other plans to aid small businesses. Oh, and for the record, trickle down doesn't work when companies choose to give million dollar bonuses to their CEOs each year rather than pay their hardworking, true American employees more.
- The war in Iraq. Sorry guys, you just CAN'T fight guerilla warfare as if it were any other type of warfare, and that's exactly what we're doing. We CAN'T "win" the war in Iraq because we can't fight against people who are willing to go against human nature and die (and kill others in the process) for their causes unless we sink to their level. It's Vietnam again, and everyone knows how well that went. THERE WERE NO TERRORISTS IN IRAQ UNTIL WE GOT THERE. From what I understand, the terrorism is centered around Al Quada, which is centered in Afghanistan anyway. That's where our efforts should be focused. The longer we spend in the middle east, the angrier they get, and the more terrorists that will appear just like they did when we first went over there. Meanwhile, we're spending billions upon billions of dollars every month, we're wasting human lives (there's been 4,000 or so troops killed, but has anyone bothered to examine how many IRAQIS we've killed? how many troops and civilians have been maimed? how much misery there is there and how much misery we bring back home when our troops come back with war trauma? speaking of which, a good movie is "In the Valley of Elah." very depressing, though). And to put the icing on the cake, this war should never have happened because Saddam Hussein never had weapons of mass destruction, and while he was a truly horrid person, he never attacked us. If we're going to fight all genocide, let's start with Darfur, or let's go into the Balkans, or how about Congo? Why aren't we invading all of these places if our real motives are to stop horrible people from doing horrible things? Honestly, there's too much of it for us to do it alone, and we've isolated ourselves from other countries who used to support us by now BECAUSE of our Iraq policy, or our Georgia policy. Speaking of which, can someone tell me how the Russian invasion of Georgia is any less substantiated than our invasion of Iraq?
- Domestic policy, notably schools. We're supposedly the greatest world power, yet our education system isn't even in the top 10 of schools in the world. We don't have enough funding, and our values are in the wrong places when a pro-football player can make millions of dollars for every game that he plays while the teacher who tutored him on his SATs to get him to graduate high school so that he could play college football won't make that much money in his entire LIFE (Mr. Morone). If we spent as much money on our school system that we did in Iraq these days, we wouldn't need to worry about our position of power in the world; we would have thinkers, inventors, and well-educated citizens to get us through the problems of the 21st century. This is why we need to get out of Iraq. We're sacrificing the educations of our children for a war that never should've begun in Iraq.
- Abortion. Maybe you'll be surprised to find out that I believe abortion is wrong. I feel people should have more personal responsibility than to let something like that happen if they're not ready for a child. Chances are, if you're not ready to take care of a child, you're probably not ready to make the emotional commitment that is sex. And no, I would not get an abortion even in the event that it was an unexpected pregnancy. But I don't feel that it's my decision to make for others. I believe that it's a circumstantial issue. If the mother was raped,or if the parents aren't ready to take care of a child and will neglect the child, or if the child will end up in the foster care system, I would say it's probably better to spare that life because it would create an unhappy existence for more than one person. If you're a Christian and believe that abortion in all cases is wrong, bear in mind that we're not a homogeneous nation; we're not all Christians, we don't all share the same beliefs, morals, and religion. Not everyone believes that God created every life and that an abortion is the murder of a human life, because there are people who don't believe that it's a human life until the mother has given birth. This is why I don't think that we should condemn all abortion givers/recipients as murderers, and I certainly don't believe that they should be outlawed in all cases, which brings me to my next topic...
-Sarah Palin. John McCain is 72 years old. That is very old. The president holds a very stressful position. Old people don't tend to handle stress too well. In the event that John McCain were to pass away, we would be stuck with a woman who has no sense of environmental awareness, no sense of understanding for those who are right-wing Christians, and no sense of a well-rounded education (read: tried to ban the Webster's dictionary, great American classics as Huck Finn, and just about every book that my peers and I have read in our IB curriculum from her public library while she was mayor). Being a governor of a state with one of the smallest populations (not to mention a population that isn't representative of the rest of the nation) in the country, and being a Washington "insider" for a few months does NOT prepare you for the position that is president. I personally try to look at other perspectives than my own. I don't feel that Sarah Palin does this when she says that abortions in all cases should be outlawed, or that there are some "real American" places, which implies that there are "not-real American places."
Any thoughts?