While it was never my intention to turn this blog into yet political opinion mouthpiece, nonetheless this is the direction it is going. This election is the major thing on my mind these days. No more whining about grad school. Maybe I’ll throw in a bit about the horselife now and again. By the way, Velveeta didn’t work out. She has really nice ground manners and was fine riding as long as I didn’t ask her to do anything under saddle. If I asked for anything beyond a walk, she’d lay her ears back and toss her head in the air. Yet she would eventually canter and jump all the jumps I pointed her to. Once she got going, however, she was difficult to stop. I’d finish the ride feeling as though I had been in a wrestling match. I don’t have any more immediate prospects but am pursuing two I saw in equine sales publications.
Back to the rant: naturally I did a lot of reading prior to the election but I’m doing even more reading now about what people think went wrong. There’s been a fair amount of opinion pieces that suggested that Kerry was too wooden, not charismatic enough, etc. In other words, apparently he just had the wrong personality. It’s unfortunate if our presidency comes down to personality and not important issues. I refuse to believe that this election was lost because Kerry just isn’t likeable or charismatic or intelligent enough. I’ve not heard or read anything that characterizes Bush as having any of those personality traits, yet he got the popular vote this time.
Before the election I read this article by the editor in American Conservative magazine, which is not my normal read. While this article gave me some hope that sensible Republicans were concerned about real issues, like the economy, the deficit, the way Bush waged war, etc., it was pretty clear that this article was not going to be read by Field and Stream magazine readers, nor possibly by fundamentalist Christians.
I can’t say I was entirely surprised by the election but I felt incredibly let down afterward. There is a fair amount of press about the God/Guns/Gays Republican vote. That worries me because the issues that are a threat to our nation, like the economy, health care, the 1,000 plus American lives (and 100,000 lives of Iraqis) lost in a war that had nothing to do with 9/11, the deficit, the undermining of our pollution laws, backward energy policies, and so on took a back seat to religion and morality.
I’m surprised that so many people think that morality can be legislated. It didn’t work during prohibition, and it’s not working in our so-called War on Drugs. Let natural selection work here — if it’s harming only themselves then let it. If it’s benefiting them, then great. Legislation doesn’t stop people from breaking the law. And please, keep that fundamentalist brand of Christianity to yourselves! I believe that Jesus’ most important teachings were to love others as we love ourselves, even if we don’t approve. It’s not my job as a Christian to approve. It’s my job to love.
While I was driving around today, I caught a snippet of an interview on the radio by someone who claimed he was not "one of those God/Guns/Gays Republicans". I really wish I would’ve heard the interview but unfortunately I was driving to a new eye doctor’s place and was paying more attention to where I was going. Granted that was good, but I really wanted to hear why he thought Bush was still fit to lead our country. I do want to hear both sides, especially the side that is one of those other kind of Republican. I don’t need to hear the God/Guns/Gay argument. Even though I’m a heterosexual, married, Christian, I do not believe that gay marriage is immoral nor a threat to heterosexual marriage. This issue is about loving and accepting people who we may not understand and treating them as equals to ourselves. Wouldn’t Jesus do that?
Here’s another piece I really liked. It makes me believe that compassionate education is the answer for the next election.