Uh Oh..

So, I'm reading a lot more about politics these days than usual. It's kind of a mess.

All my life, I've considered myself a Republican, in the sense that I hate taxes, and Muslim extremists. Yet I find myself at odds with the Republican party on almost every policy decision they've made in the last eight years. And I'm completely against them running the exact same campaign yet again, with the same promises, the same bullshit.

So here we are again, my second opportunity to vote, and I'm thinking of going Democrat. My parents would kill me, I think.

Here are some things I don't think "Republican" on:

- Abortion. I think women should be able to choose. Especially women who are raped. (I'm looking at you Palin)
- Gay Rights. I don't much care for men myself, but what people do in the privacy of their own homes is their own damned business, not mine. I think if people are so worried about "marriage" being ruined, they shouldn't be getting so many fucking divorces.
- Education. "No Child Left Behind" has completely screwed our education system up. Ask any teacher, they'll tell you in theory, it's a good idea, but in practice, it has set us back almost a decade. Schools with low test scores don't get funding. So, I guess the whole "not leaving any children behind" thing went out the window.
- Economy. McCain is running as a "fiscal conservative," but you already know what that means. It means taxes decrease for the rich, and government spending on stupid shit goes through the roof.

The war is weird. I've held differing opinions on it over the years, but I think most everyone can agree it's gone on way too long and we need to stop sinking money into something that won't fix an even greater energy crisis. Even if we did simply invade the country for their oil, it still doesn't solve the problem that oil eventually dries up. What then? What happens when it becomes too expensive to extract it from the ground and we've spent all the money we had developing new oil resources? The Republicans don't want to plan for the eventuality, because it would mean they don't make ungodly amounts of money anymore. Invading the middle east, in my opinion, was to keep the Saudi's from price gouging us. If we control some of the supply out there, we don't have to worry about buying it from them at a higher price.

Anyway, original reasons aside, the war has almost ruined our economy. Though I agree that Muslim Extremists are incredibly dangerous, I also think this overt war was not the best way to go about rooting them out.

Ultimately, they're all a bunch of morons, Obama included. He may be a great speaker, and have wonderful ideas about where to take our country, but he's a politician. Don't think for a second that he wouldn't lie to get himself into office, and don't forget that they all over promise and under deliver.

But, if he can deliver on even two of his hundreds of promises, he'll have done a better job than the old institution.

I'm going to vote this year, because I think it's important, but I don't have faith in the system anymore. I'm so disillusioned with the whole process, because it seems that people are so set in their ways that they would willingly vote blindly for someone who wants Creationism taught in schools. Regardless of your religious beliefs, I think most sane, intelligent people can agree that religion does not belong in school, and connecting a country even closer to Christianity is not what the founding fathers intended. Separation of Church and State exists for a very specific reason, and doing the opposite is not going to help our country grow and develop.

Alright, I'm done with politics for the day. I'll leave you with this though:

The Christian right paints McCain as the great moral leader, and they talk about his experience and time as a POW all the time. McCain divorced his crippled wife in order to date a younger woman when he returned from the war.

The Christian right paints Obama as a "muslim" and other stupid shit, yet he's been with his wife since he married her. He doesn't have a VP whose daughter got pregnant and got an abortion, despite her party's stance on that.

Doesn't have anything to do with their politics, but I know who I'd rather vote into office, and it's not the guy who is saying something different than what he is doing.