I am conservative on fiscal policy and matters of State. I am a little more liberal on social policy. I want the government to have less of my money, and I could honestly give a shit less if "Adam and Steve" are legally married or not. I think that guiding the country based on religious beliefs is a joke. Organized prayer has no place in public schools... nor does the theory of evolution stated as fact. I don't have a problem with illegal immigrants because they are illegal. I have a problem with illegal immigrants because they don't pay taxes and still draw social security, wellfare, and healthcare for their 4.2 kids per family. If the CIA wants to wire tap the local Tulsa chapter of Al-Qaida to keep me safe, I could care less if they listen to me talk to Brandi about wedding plans. I think that it was essential for the U.S. to enter Iraq for oil. But that oil isn't directly for us (right now we get most of ours from Canada). It is for China and India who are driving the world economy. What do you think would happen to those countries at $100/barrel. They certainly wouldn't be buying Coca-Cola Classic or Abercrombie & Fitch and our stock market wouldn't be over 12k right now. It is laughable that citizens of this country bitch about our fight for oil. Read a book morons, it has more to do with the cost of your Honda than your Honda's expense at the pump. I'm am not happy with the progress overseas, and I'm sad that our servicemen and women are away from their families for a fifth year, but the damn job isn't done yet, and we shouldn't leave yet. I don't have a firm stance on abortion. I think it is sad that it happens, but I'm not sure it should be illegal. I can go for hours, but having said all of that, I am a registered with the GOP. I am a Republican because I believe that defense, taxes, and foreign policies are all more important than social issues and individual rights. If this country wanted to send a message to the White House that they disapproved of the war, they should have sent a fucking postcard. The dems have control of congress for the first time since the Regan years. Rumsfeld is out. What do they think is going to happen? The DNC has no clue what to do in Iraq. They don't want to be there, but they know we can't leave. That is exactly how the RNC feels. There is one pointed difference: the dems will try to get us out of there because that was their platform for the midterms. If they want a chance in '08 they have to follow through. While they are doing that, social security will go up along with the taxes in general. Defense budgets will be cut. Healthcare is going to cost more for everyone under the age of 65 to offset the $4 per month that Gramps is saving on his medicare.
All of these things may happen, and none of them may happen, or somewhere in between. The point is, that a message was sent by the public, but it was delivered by incorrect means. The purpose of this post is to stir healthy political debate. If you agree with my statements, let me know. If you disagree, I would love to hear about it.
These are the rules:
1)No getting mad. These are simply opinions.
2)Disagreements must be well thought out. Use logic... no emotion.
3)If you have an opinion and you think it will be met with hostility on a personal level, feel free to leave your comment annonymously.
4)Be kind. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. We are debating... not fighting.
5)Please respond. This is no fun if there are only one or two opinions are heard.
I look forward to hearing what you guys think!
8 comments:
Ab, as much as it pains me to do so, I have to give it up to you on this post. I really enjoyed it, and I, for the most part, agree with what you have said.
On a similar topic, but somewhat astray from where you were heading, I made a personal decision regarding politics recently. As you may know, I was a registered Democrat from the time I was 18 until I was 23. At that point, based solely on my own personal inner-workings, I switched to the Republican party. That was a decision I was happy with . . . for a while.
Granted, I am a lawyer, so my views on the importance of the Supreme Court may be a little skewed, but I strongly believe it plays an extremely vital role for our country. This is one area, where I completly agree with the Republican viewpoint. The GOP strives to staff the Highest Court in the Land with conservative Justices, but many people don't really know what that means. Many think it means that the Justices are conforming to a specific ideology, and truthfully, that may be the case at times; however, it primarily means that the Justices believe in following the law as written. They believe in leaving it up to the ELECTED officials to write the law, and limiting the job of the Justice to merely interpreting it. I am completely on board with this thought. Liberal Justices often find ways to insert "stuff" into the law that just isn't there, and leading readers of their opinions to say, "where the hell did you get that?"
The point of this little rant is that I was a firm GOP backer, and "W" filled vacant seats with two good, solid conservative Justices on the Supreme Court. This was just what I had hoped for, and I received my wish. However, shortly thereafter, my appreciation for the Republican party waned. Nothing was really different, no major changes had taken place. It was just that they had served the purpose that I felt needed to be served.
I now realize that I have a great deal of disdain for both parties in general. The political environment of this country right now is extremely disappointing to me. The polarization is completely out of control. Each party has views I agree with, and each has views with which I strongly disagree. This has led me to my new found political classification. That’s right, I am now officially a registered INDEPENDENT.
I have never been registered with either of the major political parties. I have always been, and most likely always will be an independent. I refuse to totally buy into either of the party's views, hence my choice for independence.
What has really opened my eyes to the wayward state of a two-party system like we have in the US is living in Utah amongst the most Republican people in the nation. The few liberal thinkers in the state always get crushed with the vast majority of conservative republicans.
You want to know what republicans have done for Utah? Nothing but promote the major religion into a huge business-like power with control over everything "public." Prayer in school? Heck, we have entire classes on the Mormon religion in public schools here. No not other religions, just Mormon. Separation of church and state? What is that? You mean it's NOT ok for the Mormon church to purchase several city blocks in downtown Salt Lake? Here, it's ok.
I could go on for quite a while about all of these issues. Don't get me started on illegal immigrants. I work with quite a few of them so I have some first-hand experience with both sides of the argument.
I need to get BSC in on this debate. He lives for all this political junk. In fact, he just posted on it. Follow the "FLSLC" link from my blog.
I'm glad you could weigh in on the Judicial Branch of government. I think that it is probably THE area of government that goes unchecked by the public. Of course there are high profile cases where precedent is set or reset, but gone are the days of Roe v Wade and Brown v Board. Law will lead the news if it involves Orenthal and dead lovers or Scotty and his dead pregnant wife. Law will lead when it is more entertaining than last week's episode of Survivor or American Idol. Law will not lead if it is important to more than a handfull of family members looking for justice. Law will not lead if the future of the country is up for grabs. There are a lot of thing I don't understand about the judicial system (about 99%) but there are a lot of things that rub me wrong about it and the way the media gives it run. I will save my media rant for another day. For now, I digress...
There are a lot of reasons I wanted W in the Oval Office. You hit the nail on the head though. There is one reason he HAD to be there... actually two reasons, but who knew Justice O'Conor would resign? I imagine that if we spent some time digging, we would figure out some areas that we disagree on. Until then, we will both agree that it was important for a republican to be in office for the purposes of filling Justice seats. We will also agree that both parties have quite a bit of work to do. I would like to register as an Independant, but I will not.
Great post Clint. By the way... do you like Doc or Fonz?
Thanks for posting Lori. I would love for Brandon to weigh in. I'm sure his liberal ass would shake things up a bit!
This response goes to you, Clint, and anyone else who is an Independant. I would love to be there with you guys. However, I think that the Republicans screw up less than the Democrats in areas of policy that have more leverage with me. That said, I think that my vote is better used as a registered Republican so that I can vote in any primary elections that I have a strong opinion on. For example... I like Giuliani and McCain. If they both run for the Republican nomination in 2008, I would like my vote for Giuliani to be counted.
This is a nice diversion from what I should be doing. So I'll jump in. My political experiences have been formed mostly by being a nomad over the last few years.
I only became interested in politics after I got married (i.e. after I was spending several hours a day with an ex policy debater who would be content to watch the news and c-span for the rest of his life). I realized I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about either party, American history, etc. So I got to reading and figured out that my values lined up, not perfectly, but generally with the Democrats. We were in Chicago, but it wasn't like politics were worn on sleeves.
Then we moved back to Oklahoma, to work at Oklahoma Christian U no less, during the Fall 2004 election. By this time I had my dem card, I was out of the political closet and actively campaigning on campus, and each passing day filled me with more righteous indignation at the way I was treated because of my "abberant" voter status. I can tell you stories you wouldn't believe. But then we moved to Boston. I thought we were in the clear until I discovered more frustration, more horror, at my new school arangement. Again, I had teachers and peers who espoused bitterly hateful views of "the other" but now the other was red, not blue. In one year's time I went from geographical and political extremes, and I discovered that what I hated wasn't bound up a party, but in the act of intolerance. This process left me very frustrated and disillusioned about politics and parties in general, and I didn't even vote in the recent election.
To echo other posts - polarization is something we can't afford much longer. I can't. I can't deal with another year like 2004-5. It was figuratively schizo, and very depressing. The whole process caused deep divisions between me and people whom I dearly love, and nothing is worth that. I still care about the same issues and hold similar positions, but what I really want are politicians who see what I see - strengths and weaknesses on both sides. And I want people to be able to talk to each other, so thanks for this Ab.
It has taken me quite a bit of time to think of how I would respond to this post, and honestly, I was given reason to believe that Brandon would make things a little bit more interesting. It's not that I'm not passionate about my views, I am. I just hate being a sycophant, but when it comes to politics, I rarely disagree with Ab.
However, I think that I will spend the balance of my response addressing the issue that pisses me off more than most... the public. Oh, don't get me wrong, politicians suck on the whole, but you expect it from them. After all, they are lawyers! (I'm sure that you are the exception, Clint.) But at the end of the day, they wouldn't be in positions of power if we, collectively, didn't put them there. And that's fine, I have beliefs that will not allow me to go for other types of government, and I think that Plato had it right. The best form of government is: The Republic. But I don't think that he was invisioning the public itself picking the leaders. In fact, the result of his suggestion would have the philosophers as the guardians of the state, since they were the ones most linked with the Ideal. I can get behind this 100%. But this isn't how it is today. Today, we have people like p-diddy and paris hilton telling us to "vote or die." (Personally, I wouldn't mind either one or both of them offing themselves after not voting in 2004.) Are you kidding me? We are supposed to be the keystone of freedom. We are supposed to model to the world the idea that you don't have to oppess the hell out of your people you just have to educate them and they will govern themselves. "Vote or Die?" Instead, we are teaching less and less about honor and valor. We teach about hostile takeovers and how successful you can be with a computer. In and of themselves, these aren't bad things to teach. But we aren't producing the since of nationality that we were in the 30's when every able bodied man willing risked their lives to secure a future for this country. Today, we spawn attention-crazed infants who paw for the nearest microphone only to spew vehement cacophonies of disention without proper respect for personal intellegence or responsibility. (Thank you, Dixie Chicks. Thank you, Sean Penn. Thank you, Kanye West.) And these influences continue to effect the ignorant public on every channel incessantly. They are on the radio, they are on billboards for when we are driving. And they continue to assume that the public will be ever trusting and will be ever open to their influence. They are not wrong.
I have to go to class, apparently this will be in two parts.
Okay... round two. One question first, after rereading my last post I've noticed some errors that I would like to correct, but I can't seem to get on there and manipulate it, any suggestions?
Anyway, I could rant forever about Hollywood and its terrible influence on the nation, but they won't change because I like movies and music, and I refuse to stop taking part in them with my money. Although I wish it weren't, my money is the big green light to these people. When I pay them, they feel the overwhelming need to "get involved." Personally, I just wish that they would get back to the studio, make a movie, buy half the world with the millions that they make at one hell of a difficult job, and shut the fuck up. But alas, they just couldn't live with themselves if they didn't do something. I have two words for them in the case of guilt, "Cocaine, people." Numb those wretched feelings that are causing you to take yourselves seriously. (As if a world where people get married for two months isn't a bad story from the Grimm's.) And the thing is, they want to matter to the world in a menaingful way, but who doesn't roll their eyes a little whenever Bono speaks on millions of starving Africans. He's got like a billion fans, for pete's sake. Buy them a meal, Bono. But don't try to influence politics, because you suck at it.
The one thing that I never hear when someone discusses celebrity influence on the masses, is how one-issued everyone seems to be. Save ANWR. And that's fine I guess, but do some other shit too. The government should not be made up of people that ran on one issue and won because that was the most prevalent issue in that area. Ab touched on this with the war in Iraq, but it seems to me that it's always been that way. If not the war in Iraq, then the economy. If not that, then Abortion. If not that, gay rights... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...(To quote a siamese king.) And I'm not saying that these aren't important. To the contrary, I think that they are very important, but must be regarded together for the greater good. As a public, we vote on one issue, much too often, and maybe there are enough votes being cast now, that it balances out statistically, but that's just not what well educated people should do. And with that, although, there is so much mroe to say... I will take my leave. Stay classy, San Diego!
Ben touched on the fact that "A Republic" is the only true government that can rule by well balanced means. Yes I do agree with this to a point, but what no one has yet mentioned is that we no longer live in a true republic. The idea that is a republic was originally based on Sparta's Oligarchy, which was harsh, but extremely advanced for the time period in which many societies were controlled by dictators bent on ruling the world. Now an oligarchy is pretty much summed up in "ruled by the elite." This evolved into a republic, wherein it wasnt just the rich, or those born into good families that ruled, but the most intelligent as deemed by the great minds of the 18th century. Many people want their voice to be heard so our "republic" has now turned into a democratic republic. This made society happy, but is it logical. Just because those of us discussing opinions in this blog have a thing or two to say doesnt mean joe, the car mechanic knows a goddamn thing about social or economical policy. This includes people that do indeed believe they are informed, but dont have well based ideas or opinions. For instance, the people of Hollywood, California have all the means to know poloticians and polocies, but instead of research they just speak from their asses. Which brings me in a full circle to once again say, why is the country attempting to let the people rule, when the people are dominated by idiots and imbeciles. Together with a completely tainted(Not even just biased) media, this country is not well informed enough to make important decisions, and that is what Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin understood to be true. That is why 230 years ago a nation was created where people didnt vote on policy, and the like, but the intellects did it for them with the peoples best interest in mind. It seemed to work out just fine then, why not now? The answer is that modern day politicians dont try to get ellected for the people, they do it for personal gain. In conclusion, Empires rise and fall, there is no question of whether it will, the only question is when will we let it, and what sacrifices will we make to postpone the inevitable?
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