Politics...schmolitics

So, it seems the political climate in our country is about to go from boiling hot to mother-of-god-that-burns. I hate election years and I really hate this part of the election year. Facebook is no help either…the sidebar to the right keeps telling me which of my friends is voting for Mitt or Obama or likes Chick-Fil-A or likes things made in America.

And sadly I find myself silently judging those around me for their “likes” and “dislikes.” I’m a reformed conservative who called herself Independent from day one because I refuse to make a choice and align myself with an entire political party—I’m the most judgmental of the political parties unless you count Libertarian (which I won’t since their votes never seem to really make a difference in the race for president).

I find myself agreeing with both sides. I make myself feel good about it by reminding myself that I must be so open-minded to see both sides. Yes, it’s crap, but it makes me feel good about myself and this country is all about making yourself feel good about yourself—especially when you are on Facebook looking at pictures of yourself while talking about yourself and seeing what other people think and say about yourself.

But I realized something today and it made me angry—we are arguing over politics but what we really should be arguing over is money. Of course no one likes to argue over money—except maybe Libertarians and that’s only because they get the luxury to look at an issue rationally since they get to try to prove two parties wrong instead of blaming everything on a liberal or a conservative like normal people do.

I think it is bad that we have politicized things that don’t need to be politicized—abortion, same-sex marriage, education, and healthcare. Why should it matter what political party you are if you think that abortion is always wrong? Does that mean that pro-choice people are also pro-abortion? Does that mean you have to be pro-life to be a Republican? When did they get to put their stamp on pro-life? And who isn’t pro-life? We are all pro-life, aren’t we? No one that I have ever met is pro-death—and I have even met women who were raped that got pregnant.

Why do you have to be liberal to say that Obama care is a good plan? What if you are a Republican and you can’t get health insurance for your disabled child because your job doesn’t offer health benefits and you can’t get a private plan to cover pre-existing conditions and you make too much money to qualify for Medicaid? Then you should say, “My kid can go without because I’m Republican and I refuse to agree with a healthcare plan that covers pre-existing conditions.” That’s stupid. Healthcare is not political, but it’s hard to see that when you are not faced with loss of benefits or disabled children with no health insurance. As a parent who lost my coverage and couldn’t take care of my daughter’s medical needs for a year, I can tell you that Obama Care sounds pretty damn good and it would be nice to hear a Republican agree with me.

And yes, there is same-sex marriage. You already know how I feel about that. Is Dick Cheney less of a dad because he chose to align himself with his political party over his gay daughter? My answer is yes. Politics doesn’t belong in adult love. You know, the kind of adult love that isn’t considered “forcible sex.” Perhaps the Republicans would find it interesting to know that gay sex is the only sex that never results in pregnancy so perhaps homosexuals have no need to be pro-choice because they have no choices to make? Maybe they are all just pro-life? But wait, they can’t be because that would make them conservatives and we all know that if you are gay, you have to be liberal because politics has somehow made its way into consenting adult relationships.

And now on to education—the platform everyone seems to embrace but no one wants to do anything about. I will gladly admit that I mad as hell at Obama for doing NOTHING for education since he has been in office. There was that one week when he addressed getting rid of No Child Left Behind, but then we never heard another thing about it. Why is education a political debate anyway? I’ll tell you why—it’s all about money. And our money is not being spent correctly and we can’t figure out who is more wasteful with the spending because it’s everybody—Democrats and Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for what they have done to this country.

About 10 years ago, I sat at a table with my dad and we talked about politics. I told him that I truly believed we would begin to see a strong 3^rd party emerge and all these democrats and republicans would have to change their tune. They would have to navigate to common ground or else the Independents would take over and win every election. I believed that notion—I thought I understood politics.

And now, here we are at 2012 and we are still a 2-party system with Democrats and Republicans tearing each other apart and polarizing our nation. I don’t like either one at this point. I can’t vote for Mitt because I don’t agree with his stance on social programs, same-sex marriage, abortion, or the economy. I don’t feel great about voting for Obama because he should have done something about education these past 4 years. I love his healthcare plan because it works for me (I understand it doesn’t work for everyone and I respect that), but he should have multi-tasked and done more. But then how could he do more with the Republicans blocking his every move. And they don’t block moves because they are right; they block them because they are polarized. The democrats did the same things to Bush.

So, I’m taking a break from politics for the next 3 months. I’m going to ignore your political signs and rallies and commercials. I’m going to just shake my head and nod and say, “I really don’t follow politics.”

Who am I kidding? I’m not going to do that. I’m going to keep getting mad and saying what I believe is true. We should all do that. We should all be mad at what politics and politicians have done to our country. And we should say what we believe is true whether or not our friends like it, because if we don’t say what we believe, then no one will ever know. Everyone will just continue to believe that hate abortion because you voted for Bush or that you hate gays because you ate a chicken wrap at Chik-Fil-A. They won’t understand that you like Chik-Fil-A because they offered you your first job when no one else would. They won’t understand that you lost a baby before it was born and that you can never agree with abortion. They won’t understand that you couldn’t provide health insurance for your child and so you like Obama Care. They won’t understand anything unless you explain it. Shout it from the rooftops if you have to. But just be honest—stop being political. And I will try to stop being so judgmental because I will understand that I asked you to just be honest with me.

It's about time Mr. President

Something really extraordinary happened today. PresidentObama announced his support for gay marriage in our country. I knew he would eventually do this, but I just figured he would play it safe and wait until he was re-elected.

I’ve written about my politics before, but I will restate it again. I am registered Independent and I have registered as Independent since I first registered to vote. I despise the bi-partisan system we have set up in this country and I really thought we would have a strong 3^rd party system by now. I thought people would get fed up with Democrats and Republicans fighting instead of fixing. But I was wrong.

I thought McCain would form a strong Independent party capable of raising large sums of money after he lost to Bush, but I was wrong. He stayed Republican and he lost.

I thought this whole Tea Party thing would shake things up. But they just got off track and supported the wrong people.

Then there was this whole Occupy Wall Street movement…no offense but it kind of petered out and lost steam. I thought we were angry about this economy? I guess we’re not that angry after all.

So, when I began looking at the 2012 election, I decided to set my sights on the one thing that I wanted to see accomplished in the next 4 years. That one thing has been to see gay marriage legalized. Since Republicans will never go for it, then I had to turn my attention to Obama.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t vote for him last time. I wasn’t sure I trusted him. I was worried about the economy and I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to do enough to keep us from crumbling.

I really hadn’t made up my mind until I went into the voting booth. I had like McCain ever since I read a book in college written by a man who was a POW in Vietnam for 7 years. His story was incredible. He wrote about McCain and what he did for the men in the camp.

McCain was the son of a high-ranking admiral. The Viet Cong wanted to trade McCain for some of their guys, but McCain refused the trade. He went out of his way to make the Viet Cong torture him because he knew they couldn’t kill him—he was too important. I was stunned by that story.

Unfortunately he later came home and left his wife who had stayed behind and supported him and his children. She was disfigured from an auto accident she suffered while he was imprisoned. He left her for a much younger woman and never really paid much attention to his children.

This dichotomy of personalities really bothered me when I thought about voting for him. He was a hero who turned out to do one of the worst things a man can do—leave his wife and children. But ultimately, I felt that the economy would be in better hands with him, so he got my vote. But in the end, I was very okay with Obama winning. I got chills on election night when he walked on stage and gave his speech—I was glad my children were able to remember the election of the first black president. It was an exciting time to be an American.

For the past 4 years, I’ve just been sitting back watching Obama. I don’t feel like he’s done anything amazing but I know he hasn’t done anything disastrous. Our country has evolved pretty much the way I thought it would.

But I decided about a year ago, that I would definitely vote for Obama this time around. I feel like these next 4 years are going to be game changers for this country. I know he is the only person who will help this country move toward legal gay marriage and I also think he was some big plans in his back pocket that he has been holding onto since he got elected. I’m excited to see what he does for this country.

I have raised my children to be open-minded and not judgmental.  They know several gay couples and they love them dearly. They don’t think that there is something wrong with these people—they see them for who they are. They are people in love just like everyone else. They are no less than anyone else and they should have the same rights.

Veronica came home from school several months ago and told me about a lesson they had at school during black history month where they learned about how it used to be illegal for blacks to marry whites. She couldn’t believe that was true. “Why did that happen, Mommy?” she asked. “Sophia’s mom is white and her dad is black and they love each other. How is that wrong?”

I told her that it wasn’t wrong—it was just people who didn’t know any better.”

She said, “Kind of like how some people say it’s wrong to be gay and it’s not legal to get married if you’re gay?”

“Yep,” I said. “It’s exactly like that. Hopefully one day someone will change that.”

She looked at me and said, “I think Barack Obama will change that. He should know what it feels like to be discriminated against. And did you know that his mom was white and his dad was black?”

I just smiled and say, “Yes, I did know that.”

“I wish they would change the laws so that Aunt Mary could move to Georgia and be closer to us, but she can’t after she gets married,” she said. “I just don’t understand why people have to hate. What if they said that people who wear leg braces couldn’t’ get married then I would never get to marry someone and have children.”

And I thought to myself, “There probably are people who feel like you shouldn’t get married and have kids because you are disabled.”

But I told her, “Veronica, all we can do is wait for people to come around and change their minds. I think it will happen one day. I hope it happens soon. We are too smart to not realize how much this division hurts our country.”

You don’t have to agree with me. I understand. Beliefs and faith are hard to change. You can’t just believe that being gay is sinful your whole life and turn it off like a switch—I get that. I used to believe a lot of stuff about life until I hit rock bottom and realized that I was a judgmental fool who was no better than anybody else.

So, for those of you who are against our president right now for what he said today, I have a prayer for you. I pray that something happens to you to make you change your mind about gay marriage. I hope you see a marriage like my last one and realize that heterosexuals are already doing a great job at giving marriage a bad name. I hope you meet a child somewhere that you are awed by and find out he was raised by gay parents. I hope your child has the most amazing year at school and you find out her teacher is gay and you feel bad knowing he can never adopt children because your state won’t allow it.  I pray you quit being so judgmental and take time to answer the question, “what is it about gay marriage that really bothers you?” And if you claim your religion, then I pray for you to find a different one.