I never blog about world events or politics on here because the one time I did it I got death threats. It was a fun time for me, having my family, my home, my life, hell even my dog get threatened by the audience of another blogger who is apparently anti-death threat. Still, it convinced me further that my stance of keeping my blog politics-free was the way to go.
And yet I feel a bit trapped. This site is where I come to figure things out, to record them, to bash a bit. If I don’t address some things on my site, does it mean that the blog owns me?
I am not silent on politics. In our home we have lively discussions (and when I say lively, I mean lively, not heated. We agree on everything but one area, and so when we discuss current events it tends to be on the line of “And another thing – ” to “Yeah, I totally agree!” I object to Gordon Brown and his national ID cards. I object to getting screened 100,000 times before getting on an airplane. I object to a system of only privatized health care.
But I’ve been following the U.S. presidential elections at a bit of a distance. I’ll vote, I always vote, but I know what that means – a mail-in vote doesn’t get counted until after the election, and if a state has a large margin between the majority party and minority party, then mail-in votes get ignored. So since I’m mailing in my vote to a state that is about as Republican as they come, my vote will wind up in the shredder.
I love feeling like I have a voice.
I was having a discussion with my stepmom on Saturday. She and I watched Obama’s address at the Democratic National Convention (I’d recorded it) and talked about it. I come from a long line of Republicans – my parents, my grandparents, all of my aunts and uncles. I think there’s a large attribute to military families being Republicans, I think of the Republicans as being very regimented much like military life. And this isn’t an insult – I grew up in the military and agree that control has its place. Me, I’m the rogue, I’m a lifelong democrat. I’m not pushy about it, I’m not rabid, I can’t not be friends with someone who supports another view (even the Tories!) I don’t really feel the need to get into debates on it, it’s just how I vote and the views I support.
But here’s the thing – I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the current candidates in the U.S. election since the nomination of Sarah Palin. I’ve been reading because for the first time in as long as I can recall, I’m actually uncomfortable about the current situation. McCain doesn’t bother me, he simply supports a few issues I don’t, but it’s not like I expect to be 100% with all candidates or anything. Before he was elected I used to say that should George W. Bush ever become president I’d leave the country (and I met him twice, actually.) Now I wonder if McCain and Palin get elected if I’ll ever go back.
Hear me out here, for just a moment.
There’s been all kinds of talk about Sarah Palin being the grandma of her son, who was born in April. I don’t know if that’s true or not, I don’t even think it’s relevant or something that the media should speculate on and I detest mud-slinging campaigns with a passion. She’s a woman and a mother and she had the baby knowing he had Down’s, she made that choice. But it’s a choice she wants to take away from women, which I have a problem with. Kids are expensive. Kids are time-consuming, draining, hard on relationships and limit your lifestyle, all in both good and bad ways. Take away the right for people to do something about it – even in cases of rape and incest – and you impact people’s lives more severely than if you just took their household income and cut it in half. And I know this is where people will chime that the teen mothers, the unweds, the people not in a position to have children should “just adopt”. Those words are not words I recognize. There is no “just adopt” either in adopting a child or in giving yours away.
I have a problem with a woman who would decide that polar bears, who are indeed on the list as a threatened species on the Endangered Species Act, would campaign to have them removed on the list (I know, bears seem to be the least of the issue opposed to corruption). Sure, hate the aggressive white beast that’s not easy to live with. But one thing’s important here – they are endangered and removal of one species has severe impacts on the surrounding animal habitat. But that doesn’t seem to worry her, seeing as she has wolves culled in order to have a larger moose population to lure in more hunters. Moose, wolves, and polar bears all have their issues (the moose issue being that the animals are perfectly designed to, when hit by a car, have their giant heads come hurling through your windshield) but don’t fuck up the ecosystem. There are consequences.
It’s completely churlish but I have a problem with a woman who’d choose such whimsical names for her children. That’s right. I have a problem with it. Did you choose “Trig” for “Trigger”, part of your pro-gun stance? Was “Track” for track and field, or track marks, or did you mistake it for Tuck Everlasting? Mostly, I have a problem with Bristol. Like a little nip of the sherry then, do we? Or did you name it for the rough portside town over here, the one that’s guaranteed for a rowdy night out on a Friday? I can’t decide what’s worse – Palin in office or a First Lady named Cindy. Will the Secretary of Defense be named Dan-O? Shall we expect a Secretary of Agriculture named Candie?
I have a problem with a woman who would outright campaign to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a long-debated controversy. No, I don’t have an answer to the energy crisis. Yes, I pay a lot for gas. No, I don’t think ethanol is the way of the future. What I do know is if Palin wants to plunder her own State what’s she going to do if she gets her hands on the nation?
My biggest problem with Palin is something I actually partly admire her for. She has a reputation for busting down doors to get things done, and I like that in a person. But she also has a reputation for changing her mind at will, and for removing whole cabinets of administration if they don’t agree with her. People who are not “team players” with her get sacked. There are 305 million people in America, not all of them are going to agree with Palin. Her former brother-in-law was allegedly nearly run out of a job she claims by her staff, though they did that without her knowledge (according to her). Shouldn’t a leader know what’s going on in their ranks? Can you really run a government with one hand and not know what the other hand is doing? Because in the business world that kind of behavior means you’re either a weak manager or a liar, neither of which are attributes I want my leader to have. This is something she’s under an official investigation for – is that government material?
Above all, a vice president needs to be a diplomat. The president is the head honcho, yes, but McCain’s not exactly the picture of health, and should the vice president be called into office there are some examples to be set. Firing people because they don’t agree with you is not how policy is made, it’s not how interests get protected. This is where the yokels would jump in and say “We’re America, we don’t have to answer to anybody!” Well yes, actually you do. Is it no wonder that when the U.S. economy tanks the wave hits the rest of the world, too? Did you know that we really don’t get any other election information from other countries here, except for in-depth reporting on American politics? There are a lot of people who have represented America and not seemed to have the first clue about what happens outside of those shores. Palin, it would seem based on some of her less-wordly comments, makes them all look like National Geographic editors in comparison.
So I have a problem with this candidate. Not like anyone asked my opinion, not like anyone (apart from the people who’ll leave scathing comments or send me death threat emails, so I’m glad I can’t get into my email account just now) cares what I think. I have a vote and my vote is thrown away.
But yours isn’t.
-H.
PS-disagreement is fine, but let’s play nice in the comments. And I’d be mighty appreciative if I didn’t get death threats again, m’kay?