I’ve got a very important question for everyone out there who has said that anyone who doesn’t vote for Obama is an idiot.

What…the hell…are you doing?

Do you not realize that you are potentially hurting your boy’s chances instead of helping them? Are there not perfectly good reasons not to vote for someone that have nothing to do with race, political affiliation, or perceived religion? Perfectly good and, may I add, logical reasons, such as Obama’s political ideologies not aligning with one’s own?

Call me crazy, but I always thought you voted for the person you personally felt would be the best person to run the country for the next four years. In my world, using bullying tactics to try and convince people your way is not only the height of classlessness, it’s not likely to work, either. Then again, I was raised to trust my instincts as much as my head, and also (while I admittedly sometimes fail at this) to not let myself become arrogant and selfish. To me, it seems both arrogant and selfish to label someone as sub-human because they refuse to do any certain thing…and it is also outright hypocritical.

“Hypocritical?” you say. “Certainly not!” Certainly so, I say to you. The truth is, the people who claim themselves intellectually superior for supporting Barack Obama are the same people who condemn Christianity because of the bullying tactics used by some fundamentalists. These Obama supporters claim victimization from the evangelicals, then turn around and victimize anyone who dares to support McCain, Nader, Barr, or anyone whose initials are not BO. And believe me, I am not trying to defend fundamentalists here; I find them just as ridiculous as any thinking person. But yet at the same time, I fail to see how what these zealous supporters of Obama are doing is any different.

As a centrist myself, I was already planning not to support Obama. His policies don’t align with my ideals. It’s that simple. These tactics by the most vocal of Obama’s supporters have only pushed me even further away, especially when coupled by his support for the recent bailout that passed. There is no way in heaven or hell or on Earth that I can ever vote for him, because I refuse to be bullied. I was bullied enough when I was younger, and I will not be pushed around now. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, because I know of at least two other people who cannot stand this hypocrisy. How many more people on the edge could be pushed away because of these scare tactics?

There’s also something else. I have heard it said that if Obama does not win, there will be, for lack of a better phrase, hell to pay. I have heard it said that there will be riots and bloodshed. Is that really what this country needs? Are you, supporters of Obama, really willing to destroy this country even more that it is already being destroyed, all because your boy didn’t win? Are you really willing to let this country devolve into anarchy and destruction, all over an election? Then you are more petty than I thought. But I tend to consider this an idle threat. An empty promise, given by people just as hypocritical as those they claim to oppose. Little do they know that by trying to support Obama in this way, they have made themselves his worst enemies.