Stupid Politics

I have often stayed away from politics - for the simple reason that I believe that every person's beliefs are their own.  Politics and religion are dangerous topics, because arguments can ensue, feelings can be hurt and there are generally no winners.  As I said before many times, you cannot win an argument of opinion - this is a fact.  Why is this? For the simple reason that everyone has an opinion, and no matter how much each of us think our opinions are based on facts, they remain still an opinion.  Opinions can never be wrong - therefore arguments over opinions and beliefs are pointless.

With that said, I would like to dive into my own opinion of politics.  I warn all of you - that I am 100% right.  And why is that? Because it is my opinion - and its based on facts as I interpret them - so I cannot be wrong.  If you disagree with me - then goody for you - look at that you have an opinion too!  So if you don't care about politics or if you think your opinion is totally right and everyone who disagrees with you should die a horrible fiery death, then stop reading right now.  This is probably my first and last political post - so feel free to skip it.

I registered to vote in my early 20's.  Politics then was so unimportant to me, that I basically selected a party by closing my eyes and seeing where in the paper my pen landed.  There we go - republican.  Like many young people, I felt that voting was "stupid" and "uncool".  Mainly in all honesty, I lacked the motivation to do any research in politics.  All politicians are corrupt and so it does not matter who we elect to office.  This was a comforting belief.

In my early 30's, with the age of responsibility setting in, I felt a twinge or a need to maybe make sure that I wasn't siding with a party that was voting in Hitler or something.  Mind you - I was a REGISTERED Republican, but I had never actually voted - well because I was holding on to the belief of stupid it all was.  When guilt hit, I did a little bit of research - and by that, I read a 4 line article.  What I got from that, is that Republicans were for governments not interfering with people's lives and Democrats were somehow donkeys.  Yes - I had definitely made the right choice - I didn't want to be a donkey.

So when the whole Clinton fiasco happened, I was first of all proud myself for never having voted, being totally reaffirmed in my belief that politics was stupid (that followed by "why the hell would that chick have sex with that man - ewww!").  After Clinton's 8 years, I paid little attention to the Presidential election - whoever got in there had to be better than Clinton, right? Right.

So then, somewhere along the line, George W. Bush got elected.  My first thought was "I thought a president needed to be capable of at least uttering complete sentences," followed by "he is so ugly I doubt an intern will sleep with him".  All was well in my world.  Then 9/11 happened, and along with the rest of the country, I was saddened, shocked and horrified at the same time.  Like the rest of the country, I looked to the President for comfort, protection or what have you.  Not that he would personally come to my house and chase terrorists away, but that he would be capable of doing something to prevent this stuff from happening again.  I am not sure when I lost faith in GW - but somewhere along the line, I came to the realization that not only would this guy not be able to protect me, but due to his huge arrogance and stupidity (a deadly combo), he would probably lead the terrorists to my door mistaking it for the bathroom or something.  And then people I knew got shipped overseas for war, and then we found no WMD's and he refused to even acknowledge his mistakes, and then and then and then and then and then and then.  No more and then.

So then all the crap started, the war was a big issue, the economy tanking another big issue - so he here we go - presidential elections again and GW is up against John Kerry.  Some twinge of guilt hit me, and I felt that I couldn't bitch about GW if I had not cast my vote or even done research on candidates.  So I did a tiny little bit of research - and in my view, if John Kerry had just a tiny bit more brains than GW, he would be worthy of my vote.  And try as I might - and trust me, I did try - I could not tolerate the man even enough to vote for him.  I really hated GW, but I didn't feel that Kerry was any kind of an alternative.  So GW won, and although I felt a "great 4 more years of pure crap" feeling, I couldn't completely say that I would have felt any better if Kerry had won.  So I quit watching politics - I decided my initial evaluation was correct, it was stupid and not worth my time.

Still being nagged by guilt I decide to at least make sure the party I was registered with was in line with my beliefs - some would argue I should have done this first.  Well, hush - this is my story, dammit!  So I read up on the Republican view of things and was startled.  Yes they believe that government should not mettle in people's lives unless its to tell them who can serve in the military, who can marry who and that you can't have an abortion.  I found an overwhelming number of them believed in some stupidity called "intelligent design" which basically means "I choose to ignore science so I can shove my bible down you kid's throat".  The more I read, the more disgusted I was.  This was the party I was registered to all these years? This is the party that believes in "small government"? Where the hell did these people get their definition of small government - I think to them it must mean don't help people in your country - just sit back and pass judgement on them.

So in about 2007 or early 2008, I can't remember - I went in and changed my party affiliation from Republican to Independent.  I made the mistake one time of sitting on the corner of a political party I knew nothing about - I wasn't about to make that mistake again.  So the election race in 2008 takes off and its Obama and McCain.  Considering the total crap the country was in - I decided to vote- and to vote, I would have to at the very least read a little bit about the candidates.  At first I really disliked Obama - the whole rock star approach for politics was a huge turn off.  I looked at McCain and I didn't see anything completely wrong with him either - so I think you could say I was on the fence.

Then, the VP runners get announced.  I knew nothing about either of them - but the republicans picked a woman and my original thought was "hell yeah!".  Then I started to look at Sarah Palin.   Honestly, I really had nothing against her until she opened her mouth to speak and I thought, "dear lord, we get a chance to put a woman in office maybe and THIS is who we pick?".  Needless to say, this just served to cement my idea that the republicans have no clue what they were doing.  The more she spoke, the worse it got, I mean honestly, I have nothing against cheerleaders and soccer moms, but I really don't think I want one in office.  I looked closer at Obama, and although I wasn't all that sold on him, when election day came, I gave him my vote.  Yes I voted, for the first time EVER - for Obama - and I have no regrets there (insert mandatory eye-rolling of republican party).

So within the first year in office, the whole health care issue comes out.  This is a HUGE issue for me - mainly because I am what the insurance companies call "Uninsurable" and I am a small business owner who is not large enough to qualify for a group plan that can override these things - therefore, I was officially "screwed".  Then the whole republican thing starts bitching about the health care reform about how its going to make us socialists because its going to force us to have health insurance.  I mean its not like we are currently forced to pay for things we don't like, like home owner's insurance, car insurance, property taxes, mortgage insurance... wait..

So yes - the fact that we pay for all kinds of crap that the government forces us to pay for already doesn't make us a socialist country - but all of a sudden the health care reform is magical that by itself, it will make us a bunch of socialists.  To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."  And to make things worse, now we have some new thing called the "Tea Party".   I honestly think that they had a census within the Republican party and they picked the most ignorant people at the bottom of their barrel and said "here you go - you're bringing us down - we're gonna give you your own party".

So now one year into Obama's stint in the white house, and he is getting blamed for all kinds of crap.  Basically we gave GW about 8 years to run the country into the ground and we expect that Obama will wave his magic wand and fix the problem within months of taking office.  So when that doesn't happen, we blame him for everything - the bail outs - although that was mainly done during the GW time, we will pin it on Obama.  We blame him for jobs going overseas even though its been happening for the better part of a decade (and yes we have had enough time for Hollywood to put out a good number of movies on the topic as well). I even heard blame being thrown his way on the oil spill and global warming.  Let me tell you this - if he invented Global Warming, he is much more than just a mere president - if he did that - then I will convert to his religion and sign up for his newsletter.

So yeah - the economy sucks right now.  Is that Obama's fault? No - its a combination of world events and in my humble opinion, the GW years.  So the Tea Party (which is endorsed by Sarah Palin - THAT should tell you something right there) has taken a page from Obama's book and decided that they can be rock stars too.  After all they don't need all that education crap - all they need are bright lights, Sarah Palin and words like "socialist", "american" and "patriot".   They are holding rallies and "grass roots" efforts mainly scaring the crap out of people with their ignorance trying to get them to vote democrats out.  I am not a huge fan of either party at this point, but I DO have a brain and I CAN do math and I do know that you CANNOT CUT TAXES AND REDUCE THE NATIONAL DEFICIT AT THE SAME TIME!! Why do these people believe they can do this? Once again - bottom of the barrel republicans - led by Sarah Palin (who is going to apparently stand on her porch and just look at the deficit with "pit bull" eyes to make it go away).

So now - out of fear and panic, people vote into office people that shouldn't even be allowed in public without a bib or a security escort.  They vote in self-righteous, ignorant people, who want to kill homosexuals, teach kids that Adam and Eve were real and science is wrong, give everyone lots of guns, take women's rights away, and give money to rich people.  All of you unemployed people collecting benefits who voted for "tea party" - what do you think "less government" means? It means no unemployment benefits for you - DUH!! They are apparently going magically give you a job by --- wait for it --- giving huge tax breaks to rich people thinking that these people will then turn around and feel sorry for the US and create jobs here.  Yes, rich companies will say "wow, I can make this product in China for $0.25 but since the US gave me such a huge tax break, I will start making it in the US where it costs me $20 so I can have less money overall".  Yeah if you believe that, I got a bridge in Alaska to sell you - oh wait - Sarah Palin already bought it!

The future of America is not big business - the future of it is in our creativity and ability to stay ahead of the game - back in the 40's and 50's maybe the "game" was manufacturing - but unless you just woke up from a Coma, you are painfully aware that this is no longer our path.  Those jobs that went to India, China, Mexico and wherever else - are GONE.  They are not coming back and I don't care what people promise you - they cannot make them come back.  Companies and rich people are not going to cut their profits in half just to help out our economy.  How the hell do you think those people got rich to begin with? The future of this country is in our smarts.  Guess what - you can't have smarts without EDUCATION - which is part of what people call "big government".  You can't open up new avenues and businesses without sparking that entrepreneurial spirit.  We can't compete in the new intellectual race when we are closing schools and teaching them to read the bible. We can't do it when we judge people by who they love instead of what they know, when we teach people to listen to sound-bytes instead of learning to read - when we teach our kids that its ok to hate anyone that is not like us or believes like us (btw - that is Bin Laden's idea - so STOP STEALING FROM HIM!).  In this day and age, new markets are created not discovered and that won't happen under the watch of this so called "Tea Party".

So all I can say is that this past election has made me sick to my stomach.  Some of the promises of these new people elected made are simply NOT POSSIBLE TO DELIVER! They are playing on people's fears and guess what - it worked.  We are trading our fears for our future - its like we are all sitting under the table in an air-raid drill with our hands over our ears and eyes hoping that if we say "there's no place like home" three times it will all go away.   I am not ready to move my registration from the independent column to the democrat column, but I do know that the republicans are big part of why we are in this mess - and now we are voting in their half-retarded second cousins to finish the job.  Good job America - who needs terrorists when we have the Tea Party?

So with all of that said - I will leave you with my favorite quote of the Presidential Debate in the TV Show the West Wing in Season 7 (which was amazingly written by the way and I highly recommend everyone to watch it).  I think it pretty much sums up how I feel right now about republicans and the new "moral majority":

Santos: It's true, Republicans have tried to turn 'liberal' into a bad word. Well, liberals ended slavery in this country.

Vinick: A Republican president ended slavery.

Santos: Yes, a liberal Republican. What happened to them? They got run out of your party. What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican party, Senator? I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created social security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed every one of those programs. Every one. So when you try to hurl the word 'liberal' at my feet, as if it were dirty, something to run away from, something that I should be ashamed of, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and wear it as a badge of honor.