Posts Tagged ‘obama’

I know, I know, I’ve probably said this before…but it’s been a belief of mine that you should vote with your heart and your head, not with the identification on your voter registration card. That’s the major reason why I’m a registered independent voter in the state of Oklahoma. I believe that I have the right to vote for whoever the hell I want, regardless of political affiliation. Which is why, in this upcoming Presidential election, I plan on voting for someone other than the two main candidates.

You may ask, “Why bother? No third-party candidate is going to win, not this year, and not ever!” And I’ll be honest with you…for a time, I did believe that this year was ripe for a third-party candidate to break through and steal the election away from the Big Two. Well, maybe if Ron Paul was running, it would have happened, but unfortunately, we are left with a choice that is no choice. It is almost assured that one of the Big Two candidates will win this election, and current polls project that person to be the Democratic candidate Barack Obama. So with such an apparently hopeless situation, why would someone like me ever want to waste their vote on a third-party candidate?

The answer is simple: I believe that the Republicans and Democrats do not have the best interests of the American people at heart. I believe that there are no Donkeys or Elephants anymore, but there sure are a lot of jackasses. I believe in the innermost parts of my being that neither John McCain nor Barack Obama are the best men to lead this country. Most importantly, I believe that it won’t matter which one of the two wins, because we are still in quite the pickle.

But this is not purely a gut-instinct decision for me. I’ve battled this back and forth just over the last month, and what I have seen from both of the mainstream candidates has given my head cause to fall in line with my heart. McCain and Obama both supported the bailout, which I opposed if for no other reason than accountability, and both sides have in different ways shown a disdain for not only their opponent but for anyone who isn’t voting their way. McCain and Palin have been drifting more neo-con-ward, making themselves look stupid (especially with Palin getting busted for abuse of power in Troopergate), showing hypocrisy by swearing to take the high road while their ads blast Obama’s alleged terrorist ties. And then there are the hyperliberals, bowing down before Obama’s golden idol and denigrating anyone who doesn’t support their boy as sub-human. I cannot support either of these two sides because I know they are two sides of the same coin, and that coin is self-interest. I cannot truly believe that either the Republicans or Democrats really care about anything other than their own power and their own money.

The late Frank Herbert’s twist on a classic axiom reigns true now more than ever: “Power attracts the corruptible, and absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible.” The Republicans and Democrats both have been attracted to power, and all have proven themselves corruptible. They are running because they want control of the country for their party, not because they want to make the United States a better country than it was when they took office. The independent parties, however, have actual, solid stances and are wanting to really do things to shake this country up, and yet they are largely ignored by the media and the general populace. I bet you that you can’t name three of all the independent candidates and their parties; I myself can only name three parties and two candidates at most. Why? Because you never hear about them. The Big Two don’t want you to know about them, so they blitz the media with all their crap so the smaller voices don’t get heard. That’s not republican or democratic (not capitalized since I’m referencing the forms of government and not the parties), that’s oligarchical. It’s also beyond disgraceful.

If there is anyone out there still undecided, or maybe who have decided not to vote at all, I urge you to reconsider. This is the perfect opportunity to make a stand. So go out there and research Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, and all the other third-party candidates. Find one that aligns with your political ideals and vote for them on November 4th. Forget about McCain and Obama; we know enough about them already. So what if the indie candidates have an infinitesimal chance of winning? It is time to make a statement. Tell the Big Two to kiss off. Tell the government that there are still people in the country who care about the good of the nation as a whole. Tell our representatives in Washington that we will not stand for this suppression of our freedom of choice. It’s time to use your heart and your head. Vote smart, not stupid.

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.

Whether or not Obama supporters on the individual level believe it personally, there is a perception that Obama is going to save us all. I’ve heard it on talk radio and I’ve seen it on the internet; people are bowing down before the Altar of Obama, praying that their knight in shining armor will come and save them.

Pardon my skepticism here, but perception can be a dangerous thing. Especially when it’s a flawed perception.

I am personally no more ready to accept Obama as my personal President and savior than I am to hand over the keys to a senior citizen. It seems a little outrageous to assume that one man will turn the world upside-down in one night and wipe away everything that is wrong in this country. Heck, it took Jesus three days, plus another 50 before his disciples even decided to go spread his teachings. And that’s even if you believe he was no more than a good teacher.

The thing is, the cult-like aura around Obama surpasses even Ron Paul’s following in scope and fervor, and Ron Paul was considered the candidate for our future when he was running. Just as I couldn’t escape Ron Paul back a year ago, today, you can’t escape the Obama love.

The Obama crowd even has its radicals, hyperliberals with enough fervor to make the most hardcore Christian fundamentalists blink. These people, while not speaking for the majority of Obama supporters, are the most vocal, even going so far as to curse out and condemn those who deny their beloved candidate his rightful place as President. If you think I’m exaggerating, go look around the Internet. You’ll find them.

The thing is, these blowhards are only denying the truth: it doesn’t matter who wins this election. The problems that this country is facing, economically, socially, and environmentally, are complex problems that demand complex solutions. No one is willing to admit that, say, the economic system has gotten so messed up that we can predict the weather more easily than we can predict what’s going to happen on Wall Street. And I say this coming from a state in the Union where thunderstorms can and do pop up with little or no warning, and the best meteorologists in the country can’t see it coming. Our complex problems are going to require solutions that take a while. Anyone who claims to be able to fix things in less than five or ten years is lying to you.

It is this very Messianic perception of Obama that makes me not want to vote for him. The thing is, as Ozzy Osbourne says, “I don’t need another savior.” We can’t afford to wait around for a knight in shining armor to come and save us, because it’s never going to happen. Obama can win, and nothing will change. We will still have to face the problems we are facing unless we start to do something about it now. I don’t know about you, but I would rather do something and have a infinitesimal chance at survival than die waiting for the savior that will never come. By God and the Founding Fathers, if this country’s heading headlong towards the end, I want to go down fighting. That is where my hope lies, not in some idealized figure whom, whether you like it or not, is just as much a politician as the other guy.