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This is not an attack, this is an expression. I feel the expression succeeds in not impugning anyone's character – perhaps way of thinking, but not character.
It is a response that I typed after seeing a discussion that a friend was engaging about the two front running candidates for the presidency of the United States. If you like it, feel free to pass it along if you are so moved. Just attribute it. Here it is:
With this election, moreso than any in the past, I find that I am alarmed at how people allow party lines and panic and fear to "inform" decisions in what I try to assume to be an otherwise intelligent mind, regardless of party affiliation.
The quality of government on the whole is lacking. In the current climate of society and economics and ethics (or the lack thereof) as taught in American society, self regulation obviously does not work. Greed and speculation have caused and will repeatedly lead to the results we are witnessing currently. It happened last century as well, and to smaller degrees before, in between and since. Since our ethics as a system are lacking, then one way to fix things is to put in place intelligent leadership that exercises ethics, yes, even to the end of self-regulation, so as to not abuse the station to which they have been elected.
Such officials would ideally not be beholden to or swayed by:
1) corporate interests
2) the official way that one's party and its devotees are "supposed" to act, feel or vote
3) fear
4) what the other guy is going to do that would threaten some theoretical "master plan"
5) ego
For instance, Obama's "lack of experience" has been decried, most specifically to the point of his only have been a community organizer. Given the climate of the country and the world, what are the country and the world but gigantic communities? You don't shoot your neighbor when his dog craps on your lawn, do you? Such experience involves working with people of different origins and different walks of life instead of drawing lines and arguments about who is anti-Neighborhood and whether or not the even numbers on the other side of the street are living in the "real version" of the Neighborhood.
True: for some people, it may be about Obama making them feel good. How is that any less valid than supporting a candidate because you're afraid of what other countries are going to do to us? How is that any different than being afraid that "They" are going to take all of our money through taxes?
Any change in government is going to require money. Some can be refunneled, but the rest must come from somewhere. We're already insanely in debt and we have a paycheck coming in, so simple economics: are we going to use money from the check to pay for house repairs, or are we going to get shiny rims on our car? Furthermore, what good are taxes if people who make less money pay more percentage-wise than those who make more money? It's not so much about entitlement as it is the idea that everyone pay a fair and equal percentage: no breaks, no special outs. (Let's assume for this exercise that we all work equally hard and ethically for our money.) I don't mind being taxed if my money is used wisely and I can see and enjoy the results of my taxes.
For me, as for others, it's all about what makes sense. And honestly, the Republican line makes little sense. What is called for right now is the same thing that brought this country through the Great Depression: unity, cooperation and a sense of duty and responsibility to contribute to the greater good. Xenophobia and greed do not improve the country as a whole.
THAT is the primary change that people are seeking and of which people are speaking. If a Republican espoused these same ideas Obama has been listing, I would vote for that candidate. As it is I see fear, division, blind-devotion and bullying from that side, spearheaded by two people who I find it hard to trust in word or deed, let alone take seriously.
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