posted on Sep, 3 2008 @ 02:44 AM
While reading and posting in the "that is offensive to women" thread, I realized there are quite a few things I'm really tired of hearing about in
the media this election cycle. Here's my top ten, please feel free to add yours, or change my mind on the importance of one of my choices.
1. McCain was a POW. Yes, I get that it was a formative experience for him. I get that it's important to his character. I understand that he maybe
did some things that were heroic then. But that was a long time ago, and he's done a lot of things since then that have a lot more bearing on his
character as a politician and potential president. If anything, I'd count this item as negative, because something that dramatic has to have
psychological effects, such as PTSD and flashbacks, that perhaps could be dangerous in a president.
2. Hillary Clinton. I'm tired of hearing her name. I know she got a lot of support, I know there are people that need to be won over, because
apparently they can't decide to think for themselves now that Hillary's not in the running.. Please media, let her campaign die already.
3. Sarah Palin is female. Yes. We know. Unlike you, the media, we can actually get past this fact and want to know what kind of person she is.
4. Likewise, Obama is black. Again, this we know. We know it's historic and stuff, but the people this fact matters to have already made up their
minds one way or the other. The rest of us don't care about his race, and want to vote based upon actual character and potential.
5. Sarah Palin's impending grandchild. Don't care. Don't care what it says about her abstinence policies, except that she probably feels pretty
dumb right about now, but it's just not important in the grand scheme of VP-ness.
6. The War on Terror. The most overused phrase in the history of the world since 2001. Security policy is about more than taking the last guy's
bizarre ideology and phraseology and running with it. I'd like to vote for cancelling the war on terror and replacing it with the war on idiocy in
government. At least then we'd actually be able to find the bad guys
7. Experience v. none. I think this topic has been done to death, though it's slightly relevant, I think actual positions on issues of importance
clearly far outweighs the nebulous "Well they've done this so they might be better at this completely different job". Nobody has experience of
being president before their first term, and more is not necessarily better.
8. Iraq. The American people don't want to be in Iraq any more and made that quite clear in 2006. The failure of anyone in government to do anything
about it means that this is a dead issue. We can't control what the government does, and clearly they don't want to do what the majority of us want,
so voting on this issue would be a waste of time, likewise, talking about it.
9. Strategy. I don't want to hear about what each candidate is doing and saying in terms of political strategy in order to win the election. I want
to hear what they're going to do after the election is over. Being able to spin things enough to win an election does not automatically qualify you
to be a president. Integrity, intelligence, leadership, education, ideas. Those things are what I want to hear about. Show me how much integrity each
candidate has or does not have, based upon their lives so far. Talk to the candidates and ask them what they think about the things we actually care
about - like energy policy, economy, security, constitutional rights - and don't let them extemporize, force them to tell us their actual beliefs,
thoughts and ideas.
10. God. In a country as diverse as this one, whether or not our leaders go to church or not, believe in god, or some great purple alien in the sky,
does not and should not matter. I'd like to see a leader that is able to make decisions based upon a strong sense of fairness, equality and ethics
that has nothing to do with god. For example, the abortion debates, gay marriage, these things become far simpler when you take god out of the
equation. I can't imagine a god that creates all people, and then doesn't allow them the freedom to love as they are made. Ethically,
constitutionally, the pursuit of happiness should allow homosexuals to marry as freely as heterosexuals. If god and state truly are separate, this
becomes clear. One religious segment should not dominate over all the others in a truly free country.