Four More Years
Four years ago I lost the respect for the office of the Presidency. I know now that there never was any respect for the office from the majority of adults but growing up the President is held up almost as an infallible leader. In school you learn all about the Presidents, you might hear something about Congress at some point but the President is the guy. This time around it was different, there was a clear choice put before the nation and unfortunately the nation did not do their job. I guess I just overestimated that people around the country at least cared about the future and their fellow citizen. I guess living in a Blue State gives the illusion that people are generally good.
The networks, at least last night as I refuse to watch them anymore, kept saying how ‘moral values’ determined the election. How moral values and the Republican Party are connected is not apparent to me. I guess my general belief of what defines moral values is that you care about your fellow human being, thats it. That means everyone should have the same rights and be free to make their own decisions based on what they think is right, as long as those choices do not harm anyone else. They should not be forced to follow laws enacted based on the religious beliefs of a radical minority. Eleven states had ballot questions about gay marriage and every single one of them voted that it should be outlawed. Granted in many of these states no one has ever seen a gay person, but still the fact that a law will be made giving a group of people less rights than another group is not only unconstitutional, but its morally wrong. The concept of marriage under the law should be nothing more than it is now, a civil union between two people. In this sense marriage has no religious connotations its strictly in the eyes of the state. A church or religion has every right to not perform or accept a gay marriage in the religious view. Perhaps the word marriage should be defined only as a religious term and civil union be used in the political sense. They are not the same thing and its important to make a distinction. This issue will become a problem across more of the country in the coming years. It will be worse before it gets better. Eventually everyone will get over whatever their fear is and realize that allowing gay marriage does not mean that you must be in a gay marriage. The fear is this sort of religious influence in a debate will bring back the abortion fight, which is just what we need. This time around a few of the Justices will need to be replaced. I’m fairly certain a few of them have been dead for a few years already, they never leave the bench; The Republicans just think that its dedication. Again this is another issue that people seem to have a hard time grasping that if abortion is legal it doesn’t mean you have to have one. On top of that it makes no sense that Republicans would be for an increase in the population since more people means more poor people. There’s nothing Republicans dislike more than poor people, well, except gays.
Its not just the Presidential election that should bother you, some of the people who won across the country should actually scare you to death. Look at the Senate race in Kentucky, Bunning said that his opponent looked like Saddam’s son and then refused to debate in the same room with him and actually read some of his statements off a teleprompter. It was a close race but Bunning still won. For the record I was against the Phillies retiring his number, he doesn’t compare to the big four. In Oklahoma, Coburn won relatively easily. He claims that lesbianism so rampant in the schools that only one girl is allowed to go to the bathroom at a time. He also said that Senators should make more than $133,000 and called the people of Oklahoma City ‘crapheads.’ Those are just some of them. In my Congressional district (PA-6) Gerlach ran ads saying that Murphy sympathized with Al Qaeda. Somehow he squeaked out a victory even though he lost Montgomery County. He’ll lose next time, too bad you have to be 25 to run. I’m sure there are just as many stories from other races. Plus, look at Cheney going to Hawaii and telling them that if Kerry won there would be another Pearl Harbor.
Pennsylvania did do its job, mostly. Kerry won easily, but everyone should have expected that to happen. Hoeffel didn’t lose by nearly as much as the polls were predicting. How anyone who voted for Kerry didn’t vote for Hoeffel makes no sense since Spector’s policies are nearly identical to those of the administration. I still believe Hoeffel never expected to win but that he was trying to get name recognition in order to take on Santorum, who will be much easier to defeat.
So what’s next? I am hopeful that the next four years will be better than the last four. Things can’t get much more screwed up. The conflict in Iraq will have to come to some sort of end, it probably won’t be peaceful, but it will be over. The real effects of the war won’t be felt for years to come when the generation whose homes, families, and country have been destroyed grow up to hate us more than this generation does. There are plenty more threats but another war is out of the question. Congress will not approve anything, they want to keep their jobs. We can’t spent anymore money, we will spend a whole lot more and add to the deficit, but not war sort of numbers. The current active troops are not going to want to go back to war after this war. Recruitment numbers must have dropped dramatically after this war. Then there is the draft. I could only hope that there is an attempt by the administration to reinstitute the draft. Oh would that be fun. I think if it was even suggested Washington, D.C. would be burnt to the ground within the day.
I think the Democratic party is much stronger now. There are now some very powerful men that can lead the way. Howard Dean will likely be the next party chair, which is the perfect position for him. Kerry needs to stay visible to the country and there needs to be more out of Clinton and Gore over the next few years. Who knows which candidate will appear by ‘08 but as long as the ideals of the party can remain in front of the country’s eyes then there will be a Democrat elected in ‘08. We could only hope that the Republicans march out Giuliani as their candidate.