Well, America, you- at least more than half of you- voted for him, and come January we're stuck with him. I've got a bad feeling about this. I hope you prove me wrong, Obama.
No matter how good or bad of a President Obama will turn out to be, it's hard not to feel the smallest bit warm and fuzzy inside reading about those who have lived through Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement and now the election of the first (partially) black President. I can still appreciate the historic value of this election - I get the strong feeling that 70 years from now, my grand children will ask what I can remember about this momentous event my young self witnessed, and I'll launch into a long, incoherent tirade about liberals and political correctness, ending with the hypothetical grandkids rolling their eyes and saying something about it being time for granny's nap.
And speaking of feeling warm and fuzzy and of momentous events, our first snow of the year is falling here in Iowa today. Well, the first sporadic damp flurries. I don't care. It's water. It's frozen. It's falling. Ranting Kid is happy.
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11 comments:
This election wasn't about antiquated stereotypic views of liberals and political correctness. It was about a broad-based shift from old political rhetoric to the value of thoughtful, intelligent, and yes - educated - approaches to addressing complex issues. The conservative voices shouting that Joe the Plumber's Six-pack views are The Answer to complex issues will fade, but the arrogance of this ignorance will rise again and again. May your skepticism continue. Expose yourself to a little more history, especially about women's issues, and perhaps you'll feel more than a little bit warm and fuzzy about the election process in 2008. Cliche or not: Things you take for granted were hard fought by generations before you. My grandmother, a college graduate of Mills College in the early 1900s, could not vote. In 1960 I did not receive equal pay for equal work at Sears Roebuck. Nor will you automatically receive equal pay even today in 2008. Obama doesn't have to prove anything to you. Making the world the way you want it is up to you.
I am well aware this election shows just how far America has come, and don't think that I take modern-day equality (or near equality) for granted- the system we enjoy in America today is anything but natural and it cost us dearly to achieve. Still, this does not dim the fact that (I believe) Obama is going to try to take us even farther down the wrong track that Bush was working on, or the fact that I dislike most far-left policies, or the fact that some silly politically correct people branded all those against Obama as racists during the campaign.
Yep, I'm with you on wacky extreme views (on all sides), especially when the problems before us are so complex and serious. I don't quite follow your notion that OBama's going to take us further down Bush's wrong track. Please, write a little more.
Bush expanded the government, increased the national debt, and did nothing to solve the immigration mess. Obama certainly seems pro-big government, pro-government spending, and has to date ignored the immigration problem or used to issue to garner support from Latino voters. A broader explanation: both men are no where near as conservative as I would like them to be, and Obama trends left even more than the 'conservative' President Bush did/does.
Well.... I suppose it depends on what those tax dollars are spent on. Bush's war vs investment in infrastructure, jobs, education, health care yada yada. Blowing up a country to shock-and-awe folks into democracy-our-way is definitely the wrong track. Read a little about FDR and emerging from the Great Depression, and you might see that investment (government spending) can actually have positive effects that last (been hiking in a National Park on 75-yr old CCC project trails?). What good is having a few extra dollars in your pocket if toilets don't flush, the bridges collapse, ground water's polluted, and a bunch of hungry people are standing on line for jobs? We aren't totally there, but OBama might have to spend to avoid it. When you have never felt 'need' it all seems like 'want' in others.
PS - meant to add: What are your ideas re immigration?
I agree our infrastructure is worth spending money on, but I'm afraid Obama will invest in things like socialized health care which would hurt us in the long run.
As for immigration: Communities are being forced to pay for the education and health care of illegals who don't even pay taxes. New legal immigrants are having opportunities taken away because corrupt employers are now hiring illegals at slave wages to work in horrible conditions- the legals would have been able to demand fair treatment. This corruption leads to racial stratification in the work force, with illegal Mexican workers at the bottom of the pile. Plus, the sheer number of illegals from Mexico with no loyalty to the U.S. has lead to several ugly cultural clashes in the South, a problem which was dealt with in the old days by slower assimilation of smaller numbers of people.
We can benefit greatly from immigration, but only when it is controlled wisely, and not right now, at a time when our borders really need closing.
Nice summary. What do you think of the idea of enforcing existing laws and fining businesses that employ illegals? Do you think if it becomes 'too expensive' for businesses to break the law things might improve? And to poke at your solution: If illegals aren't crossing at the borders what does closing them actually do?
And the possibility that socialized medicine might be worse in the long run than 46 million people with no health insurance now because.... ?
I definitely think businesses that employ illegals should be punished, and with more severe penalties than fines at that. They are guilty of exploitation, endangering their workers, and undermining their nation, for starters.
To clarify, by 'closing the borders' I mean that we should stop illegal immigrants from entering and living in the country, where ever they are entering from.
As for the health care issue, I balk at the thought of a government monopoly on any system. As is often the case with socialized systems, the overall quality of health care is likely to go down if it is made to be less expensive via government funding. Scratch that... the quality and efficiency of health care has dropped in places with universal health care (e.g. Canada). The plight of those millions with no health insurance is a sad one, and I am not saying that were should reject any attempts to reform the system. However, I wish other solutions would be explored before we go even further off the socialist deep end and give even more power to an already overly powerful government.
You state your views in a way that few reasonable people would argue with. Let's hope the Obama team will do as he suggested - rather than what McCain/Palin characterized him as suggesting, which sounds remarkably like your fear. The Obama ideas, as I understood them, are to end up with a range of options and no change for those who are already happy with their coverage.
As for the future of the GOP: here's the Palin-maligned moderate-Republican elitist David Brooks' view if you care to comment:
www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/opinion/
11brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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